Chapter Ninety-Five: The Damned Task

The Odin host withdrew without warning.

In the space of scarcely a single day, the black mass of the camp outside the garrison had gone emptily silent. The clamor of men and horses that had once filled it, the arrogant roars and howls that never ceased through the night, the vast bonfires that could have set even darkness alight, were all gone.

Standing atop the watchtower and watching the Odin army depart in formation, column after column, the last contingent of Odin warriors even went so far as to leap down from their horses and reindeer, plant themselves on the open plain, and pull down their trousers to piss toward the garrison while shouting and howling in insolent triumph.

To the Byzantine soldiers behind the palisade, such sights were a deep humiliation.

But however bitter the shame, they could only face the truth: they had lost this war.

To meet the Odin invasion, the Byzantine Empire had fielded five regular legions, already one third of its standing strength.

Yet the Ninth Legion had been utterly shattered by Hastings’ brilliant flanking strike, and its only fate could be to return home and rebuild. The most illustrious of the Imperial iron legions, the Thirteenth Corps, had also lost more than half of the main strength of two of its banners. One banner bearer, Sossia, had fallen in battle; another banner bearer had been gravely wounded, the silver-haired strongman Butler.

No matter how one looked at it, by the measure of losses, the Byzantines had been beaten into the ground.

What stung most was that the Tenth Corps had never even had the chance to display its formidable fighting power. First lured north by Corcran’s force, then forced to rush back when their home base was raided, their strength was squandered on the road back and forth. The soldiers had not spent their stamina fighting the enemy, but on repeated forced marches...

Yet regardless of the losses, the war’s essential objective for the Byzantine Empire had been achieved: the enemy had been held beyond the borders.

In the end, the Odin people had never truly set foot on Byzantine soil. The war had begun on the Wildfire Plain, and it had ended on the Wildfire Plain.

Still, the initiative had been in Odin hands. They had not pursued their advantage further. Not because they could not, but because apparently... they simply had no such intention.

To have swallowed the strength of two and a half Byzantine legions was already enough for the Odin host to return home in glory, singing triumphal songs.

One unexpected episode was this: contrary to Xia’s earlier guess, Hastings had never occupied Wildfire Town at all.

From beginning to end, the Odin commander had not sent so much as a single squad to Wildfire Town. It seemed that from the very start, he had never intended to drive the Thirteenth Corps to the brink. Or rather, from the outset, he had never planned to fight the Thirteenth Corps to the death.

When Xia heard this, he was silent for a moment, then laughed and cursed under his breath, showing not the slightest discouragement.

After all, he was Hastings, the fiercest of Odin men. What was Xia? Just a lowly soldier. Failing to understand his purpose was hardly strange.

The Odin host had retreated for three days. Over those three days, large numbers of scouts were sent out, and after a careful search it was confirmed that the Odin people had indeed withdrawn.

This news left General Adrik dark of face, but it made the fat man Ruler let out a long sigh of relief.

While Adrik was still seething in anger over the humiliation of defeat, the fat man had already cheerfully ordered his men to pack up and prepare to go home.

As for Xia, this was the end of his first war in life. Though neither side had been his homeland, this war had still left a heavy mark on the coarse fellow’s path through life. In this war, he had gained his first friend, and lost his first friend.

Because of his courage and outstanding performance in battle, Adrik had already promoted Xia to cavalry captain, the highest rank among the lower officers in the Byzantine imperial system. According to the organization of Byzantine cavalry units, ten men formed a squad, five squads a troop, ten troops a battalion, five battalions a banner, and five banners a corps.

As a cavalry captain, Xia was now a junior officer capable of leading fifty cavalrymen. In truth, for most imperial soldiers of common birth, this promotion was the limit of what life could ever allow them to reach.

No one objected to the appointment. Xia’s performance on the battlefield had been plain for all to see, whether it was the awe-inspiring courage he showed while defending the garrison, or the fierce blow he had landed on Hastings. All of it had earned the admiration of the entire Thirteenth Corps. Especially when he had led two hundred miscellaneous cavalry out of the city and charged into the enemy ranks to cover the rear guard, the fearless courage he displayed had won everyone over.

Adrik held Xia in exceptionally high regard. The promotion to cavalry captain did not send Xia down into an ordinary combat unit, but instead... into the guard battalion.

Given the special status of the guard battalion, each guard cavalryman could have one personal attendant. That meant Xia’s fifty guard cavalry would come with fifty attendants as well. And most of those attendants possessed at least some cavalry combat ability, so the actual number of men under Xia’s command reached one hundred. His combat strength had effectively doubled out of nowhere.

Of course, if every attendant were like Dodoro, then not only would the strength fail to double, it might well be cut in half simply from having to carry around a pack of useless loafers.

As the commander of a corps, Adrik’s personal guard was organized as a battalion, and the highest rank in the guard battalion was captain of the guard. What puzzled Xia, however, was that ever since he had come to the Thirteenth Corps, the position of captain of the guard under Adrik had always seemed to be vacant.

In the past, the bald man Kevin had acted in the role of captain of the guard and performed those duties. But Kevin himself had only been a cavalry captain.

Xia quietly asked around among the others in the guard battalion, only to find that they all avoided the subject. Only after he pressed the matter several times would one of them force a bitter smile and tell him in a low voice that this was a taboo topic within the guard battalion, one that General Adrik had specifically forbidden anyone from discussing.

Then a name Xia had heard several times before came again to his ears:

Vea.

That, it was said, had been the former captain of the guard. But where this man now was, and what he was doing, Xia did not know.

Once, after drinking too much, Sharba carelessly mentioned a few words: apparently that Vea was a formidable man, the only one in the entire Thirteenth Corps who had ever dared slam the table and glare at General Adrik.

In the Thirteenth Corps, someone dared to slam the table and glare at General Adrik while shouting? Xia found that hard to believe. As far as he knew, everyone in the Thirteenth Corps, from top to bottom, obeyed Adrik’s orders almost unconditionally. His prestige in the army was beyond all measure.

To put it plainly, if there were a huge fire pit ahead and Adrik pointed at it and said, "Jump!" then all ten thousand officers and soldiers of the Thirteenth Corps would leap forward without hesitation. Even if they had to use their flesh and blood, they would fill that pit level.

Even Sossia, whom everyone regarded as General Adrik’s successor, treated Adrik with the utmost respect. Yet a mere captain of the guard had supposedly dared to hurl abuse at the general?

After several days of rest in the garrison, during which General Adrik met with Xia several times, Xia’s contribution in this campaign was formally acknowledged. The general made it clear that Xia’s merits would be recorded in the military report, and as for rewards, those would have to wait for the higher command’s final decision.

There was, however, one point: the merit of dueling Hastings on the battlefield and wounding him could not be credited to Xia. After all, on paper, the one who had fought Hastings in single combat at the time was "Sir Bonfret, First Rank of the Empire."

Xia had no interest in that merit and very readily accepted what seemed, on the surface, to be an unfair decision.

To put it in the coarse fellow’s own words: accepting that credit was the same as putting a target on his back for Hastings. What merit was that? It was nothing more than a monstrous black锅, a burden that would kill whoever carried it.

Still, Adrik promptly agreed to several of Xia’s other requests, including transferring Sharba and Kato into Xia’s cavalry troop. Sharba had originally held the position of deputy cavalry captain, and the big, brave fellow was a perfect fit as Xia’s assistant. As for Kato... his arrival made the fifty cavalrymen under Xia’s command overjoyed. Everyone knew that with the army’s smuggler coming aboard, it would naturally be much easier for Xia’s troop to get hold of all sorts of contraband in the future.

Xia’s other request was to transfer a man named Souleater into his command as a second attendant. Though Xia was only a lowly cavalry captain and having two attendants was somewhat too conspicuous, as well as contrary to military custom, Adrik still approved it without hesitation.

Because Souleater had once been Kevin the bald man’s attendant. After Kevin’s death in battle, Souleater should originally have been discharged and sent home, or transferred into the support battalion to serve as a craftsman, groom, or some other such worker. But Xia specifically asked for this man to be placed under him.

Souleater had come from a family of stable hands, knew a little simple blacksmithing, and was a dull but powerful fellow. He could ride a horse, had considerable strength, and had even picked up a bit of the cavalry combat skills taught in the army. Unfortunately, he was born with somewhat sluggish reflexes, and whether speaking or acting, he was always half a beat slower than others. That was why he had remained stuck at the rank of attendant, unable to rise any further.

By "slower reflexes" one meant this: if everyone were listening to a joke, and when the joke ended all the others burst out laughing, Souleater would sit there expressionless, calm and unreadable. Then, after half a day had passed and the others had already moved on to some other topic, he would suddenly throw his head back and laugh. Likewise... if you punched him, he would stare at you blankly, unmoving, and only half an hour later would he suddenly cry out in pain.

The important reason Xia wanted him under his command was that Souleater had been Kevin’s fellow townsman.

Souleater’s arrival gave Dodoro a little burst of excitement. The noble mage happily believed that he could finally escape his vile life of drudgery. This new fellow looked simple-minded enough. With his own clever head, how could he not make a fool of him?

But very soon, the mage discovered that he was the one who had become a tragedy...

Souleater worked honestly and diligently. For the same task, he could clean a horse until it shone spotless, and whether it was shoeing horses or repairing armor and weapons, he could handle it all, doing it quickly and well.

As the saying goes, one need not fear ignorance of quality; one only fears comparison.

When Dodoro had been under Xia’s command, he had been a bit slow, a bit rough, a bit lazy, and a bit too fond of food, but Xia had still found him passable enough. Yet once Souleater arrived and the two were compared, the mage looked exceptionally useless... In the end, the poor Dodoro was cursed to the heavens every day by the coarse fellow for his low efficiency at work.

On the third day, Souleater took the initiative to seek out Dodoro and made him a proposal:

"Give me a third of your pay, and I’ll deliberately work a little slower in the future."

Dodoro was consumed with grief and indignation! He wanted to report him, but after thinking it over carefully, and comparing that man’s honest, simple, and rustic face with his own sly, foxy, and sleazy appearance... even using his heel to think, he knew who others would believe!

In bitter frustration, he surrendered one third of his wages, and the mage raised his face to the sky in despair.

"Damn it! Who the hell is the fool here?!"

After several days of rest, the newly appointed cavalry captain Xia Leiming was summoned to General Adrik’s great tent and given a mission: deliver a detailed military report to the war zone headquarters.

At the same time, because of his active performance in battle, Xia would receive an Imperial Eagle Medal. Once he returned to the war zone headquarters, he would be personally decorated by the theater commander and would also receive a generous reward.

It was a fine assignment: no danger, and both honor and profit to be gained.

But in addition to this mission, there was also a small side task.

Xia would lead his troop of fifty guard cavalry south with him, escorting a certain noble lord back home along the way. As long as they delivered him safely to the war zone headquarters, the task would be complete.

And this precious person being escorted was...

the Empire’s newly risen hero, the man who had dueled the Odin war god Hastings on the battlefield and, by his own strength, inflicted him with heavy wounds: the noble Imperial Lord Bonfret...

When Xia heard this order, he was utterly stunned.

He stared hard at General Adrik and, from the other man’s serious expression, confirmed that the general was not joking.

But... have me escort that pretty little sellout, Bonfret?

Are you kidding me? Who in the Thirteenth Corps doesn’t know that I and that pretty boy have a bone-deep grudge?!

After hesitating for a long while, Xia wore a bitter expression and asked with a forced smile, "Um... General, may I be so bold as to ask whether you... well, whether you..."

"Spit it out if you’ve got something to say!" Adrik laughed and cursed him.

"Well... are you sure you’re not secretly hinting that I should take the chance to get rid of that old bastard?"