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Volume 6, Epilogue

The fight in front of Eimen’s tower was coming to an end. One after another, the black-clad swordsmen tumbled down onto the blood-spattered road. In the end, even as they were run through by swords, they didn’t utter a single word.

As Shique, Gilliam and the other mercenaries were catching their breath and setting down their bloodstained weapons, they heard the rough clattering of horses’ hooves coming up to them.

The Blue Dragon Nilgif was astride his steed. Following behind him were soldiers from Kadyne’s cavalry.

“Shit,” Gilliam hefted his axe onto his shoulder.

Who was an enemy, who was an ally – in the circumstances it wasn’t clear and for a moment, the mercenaries and Nilgif’s group glared at each other. Then,

“Brother!” Nilgif cried out as his bloodlust instantly fell and a joyful look came over his face.

“Orba!” At the same moment, Shique also turned to face the same direction.

Orba and Moldorf emerged from the tower entrance, each carrying one of the princesses. Taúlia’s princess Esmena and Kadyne’s princess Lima both had their eyes closed and were sleeping in the warriors’ arms. Perhaps as an after-effect of the sorcery, now that the thread of tension had been cut, the two of them had collapsed.

“Brother,” Nilgif shouted in a rush. “Brother, you did it?”

“Well,” the Red Dragon Moldorf’s face couldn’t be called either exhausted or content as he glanced towards Orba. He was wearing his mask. Moldorf had not questioned him as to why. “You should ask this man.”

Nilgif’s expression turned bewildered at his brother’s strange way of speaking. Despite being urged to do so, Orba didn’t seem about to open his mouth and handed the princess over to one of the men of his group.

Before long, a series of soldiers from every country came racing to Eimen. There were people from Fugrum and soldiers from Lakekish. And with them were warriors from Helio whom they had been fighting against just moments ago.

“Orba,” called out Bisham, the company commander who had gathered together the detached force from Helio and who had also hurried over. “Garda... Don’t tell me you did it?”

“Wait until Lord Ax gets here.”

“What?”

“Wait until Lord Ax Bazgan gets here. Until then, I’m not answering, no matter who’s asking or what the questions are.”

From a moment, everyone gathered there dumbfounded at Orba’s calm words.

“What kind of stupidity is this!”

A man who seemed to be a commander from Lakekish thundered in a voice that was more like a roar. As proof that he had fought valiantly on the battlefield, his armour was dyed a deep crimson. The ones he had slaughtered had of course been soldiers of the western alliance. Yet even so, he now stood shoulder to shoulder with soldiers from Helio, one of the allied forces, and his lance was lowered, all because there was the hope that Garda might be dead.

But if that weren’t the case, if, even after having been chased this far Garda had still been able to escape, in order to protect their families, they might very well attack the Helian soldiers standing next to them. Perhaps because their own fates were constantly changing, they no longer knew what to expect this time either.

“Answer! Or is it that you’re Garda’s messenger? What happened to the bastard?”

“I said I wouldn’t answer.”

“You won’t talk,” the commander snorted and turned to his nearby subordinates. “We’re going in the tower. To check with our own eyes.”

Aye responded several soldiers and they were about to rush into the tower when at the same moment, Orba did something that nobody would have imagined.

“Men!” He called as he unsheathed his sword.

At that command, the mercenaries all drew their swords simultaneously and arrayed themselves in front of the tower. Disconcerted, the soldiers who had been about to enter it halted their steps.

“Wha-, What are you planning?”

“No one is to enter,” Orba said impassively. “No one other than us is qualified to do so.”

“What do you mean by qualified?” Increasingly unable to understand Orba’s intentions, Bisham raised a perplexed voice.

By that time, the soldiers from Fugrum had also drawn their swords.

“So you’re saying that the man who kills you would qualify? Then we’ll do as you wish!” They threatened but Orba laughed contemptuously.

“We’ve taken possession of this tower. Without an order from our lord, Ax Bazgan, we cannot vacate it.”

“Taken possession...” The words floated through the minds of each of the soldiers there. They were aggravated by this vague situation in which they didn’t know whether or not the war had ended. It wouldn’t be surprising if the killing started up again yet Orba’s words, along with his composure in front of so many people fanned the flames of hope that had been lit in the Zerdians’ hearts.

Filled with the contradictory feelings of irritation and expectation, they gazed at the masked swordsman who had taken up position in front of the tower and at the mercenaries who accompanied him. Their forceful expressions, that were entirely those of soldiers who had accomplished some incomparable feat, made an impression on the men gathered there.

The commander from Lakekish loudly clicked his tongue. “Aye, nothing will come of it if we quarrel at this point. Let Lord Ax come here. We’ll go bring him.”

After that, regardless of where their birthplace was, regardless of if they were from Lakekish, Eimen or Helio, a number of soldiers went back along the road they had come. For a while, a strained silence blew through the streets of Eimen along with the sand-laden wind.

Using his sword in place of cane/staff, both hands resting on the hilt, he stood as still as a guardsman in front of the tower.

As he remained like that, a crowd of soldiers entered Eimen. The faint commotion from where those who had left a while earlier were explaining the situation mixed with the snorts of horses and the howls of dragons who were greedily devouring corpses in the distance. For some reason, those sounds seemed to make the masked swordsman who stood as still as a statue stand out all the more.

Soon, the sound of a great many horses’ hooves approached.

“Oh!”

A stir ran through the soldiers as they recognised the figure of Ax Bazgan in the lead, and they almost seemed to be racing against each other to open up a path for him. Here again there was no thought of allies or enemies. Everyone had been impatiently awaiting his arrival. Bisham’s expression turned surprised.

So it’s like this?

Having of course heard the story as he was on his way there, Ax Bazgan leapt from his horse and briskly walked up towards Orba.

Orba and Ax looked at each other. Then Orba placed his sword to the ground and knelt with supple movements. The mercenaries arrayed behind him did likewise. Ax stopped in front of Orba.

“Let’s hear it,” he said. “Where is Garda. What happened in there?”

“Garda is in the tower’s underground.” The Zerdians fell completely silent so as not to miss a single word Orba spoke. He continued, “The Heavens bestowed fortune in war to Lord Ax and also to us. I took his head with this sword.”

For a moment, it was like the Nâga, the bird of misfortune that was said, since the days of the Magic Dynasty, to steal people’s voices, had swooped down.

The crowd erupted.

“Well done!” Ax clapped Orba on the shoulder.

As though to make up for the previous silence, Eimen, which for so long had been like a deserted and abandoned city, was filled with shouts of joy. They were so loud that it seemed like those voices would race around the western lands and tell the people of their victory faster than any messenger on horseback or by airship could.

Commanders from countries such as Lakekish and Fugrum, countries which had been attacked relatively early on, had been summoned to Zer Illias and had met with Garda face-to-face. With Ax’s permission, they entered inside and when they confirmed that they had found Garda’s corpse, the exhilaration could no longer be contained.

There were those who laughed, those who cried, those who embraced one another in their joy and among them, those who fell to their knees in a stupor. There was no longer any such thing as an allied or an enemy country. Without caring who the others were, the Zerdians flew into each other’s arms, slapped each other’s shoulders, rubbed their bearded faces together then roared out loud cheers.

“Boy!” Amidst the madness, Moldorf drew up to Orba, his brother following behind him. “No, I heard from my little brother. It seems that you are called Orba. Orba, we won’t be able to rest easy until we’ve seen our families so we will be going now to Zer Illias. Let us meet again afterwards.”

“Any time as long as it’s not on horseback with a spear in hand.”

“Ha ha,” Moldorf laughed cheerfully then suddenly brought his face closer. He whispered in a voice that no one else could hear, “I’ll forget what Taúlia’s princess said to you. Although I’m sure the details are fascinating.”

“Well,” Orba “Maybe the princess saw an illusion under the effects of the magic. I wouldn’t know.”

Moldorf didn’t answer and thumped him on the shoulder just like Ax had done a while earlier then left with his brother and men in tow.

Meanwhile, Ax was reunited with his daughter who had been left in the care of Orba’s unit. When he had learned that Esmena had been kidnapped, he had in a sense been more astounded than when the enemy had hidden behind a sandstorm and attacked by surprise.

Voices extolling the praises of Ax Bazgan resounded throughout Eimen.

Orba heard them as he was returning the sword to his waist. The one who had defeated Garda was not a masked mercenary. The one who had brought the west together to fight the sorcerer was Ax Bazgan. His name would go down in history.

Tauran has no king.

Orba had thought about it repeatedly and had keenly been made to realise that Tauran needed a king.

Tauran had no king – until now.

Orba would never have imagined that the day would come when he would want the existence of a ruler.

What kind of existences should kings and nobles be for the people? The faces of Mephius’ emperor, Garbera’s prince and Ende’s young lord floated in his mind, followed by the figures of Ax and Marilène. However, feeling utterly stupid for accidentally losing himself in those thoughts, Orba wiped away some sand from his mask with his fingers and muttered with a feeling of despair.

“But who knows what comes after this.”

He looked at the crowd that was rejoicing to the point of frenzy.

Will there be another struggle for supremacy or will they choose a different path? Who knows what is going to come after this.

“Why the glum look!”

Orba staggered. Gilliam’s hand had suddenly clapped him on the back. As Orba was coughing violently, his entire unit gathered around him.

At the same time, in Zer Illias.

Before the altar where Reizus had once proclaimed himself Garda where two figures. The dignified and elderly Zafar and the sorceress Tahī, the suppleness of whose body was obvious simply from her standing upright.

“I see. So ‘Garda’ was defeated?” The rumbling, echoing voice did not belong to either of them.

The two sorcerers were kneeling before the altar, on top of which had been placed a crystal that resembled a humanoid dragon skull.

“That was earlier than expected.”

“Yes,” Zafar hung his head. “Our deepest apologies. If we had been allowed greater participation, we could have collected more ether from the humans of Tauran.”

“It’s fine,” the disembodied voice spoke again. “You would not want other sorcerers to notice that you were recklessly making free use of power. It was I who ordered you to devote yourselves entirely to the preparations.”

“Aye.”

“In any event, we have finished laying the groundwork in the west according to plan. That is enough.”

“What would you have us do about Zer Illias?” Tahī parted her plump, full lips and asked. “There are still the humans here that we captured from the western lands. Should we cut off all of their heads and gather the ether from them?”

“No need. Soldiers will soon be hastening there. They will have but a short time to savour the taste of victory. It would be boorish to spoil it for them, so leave be.”

“Aye.”

“Zafar, once the soldiers have left, return to the temple. Set a barrier so that other sorcerers cannot approach.”

“Yes.”

“And me?”

“Tahī, you have a role to play in Barbaroi[1]. Until then, do as you please.”

As though they were in a completely different land from Tauran which was celebrating victory, there in Zer Illias which was wrapped in the silence of antiquity and which retained traces of its prosperity, the enigmatic dialogue continued.

After they had exchanged words a while longer,

“The army will soon make a move. They will subjugate them in less than half a month. Shall we say that we’ll see each other again after that?”

“Aye. I look forward to it.”

“Until the day we meet again in Mephius.”

The two of them were still there but one presence had certainly ceased to come from within the temple.

When a full day had passed and by the time the soldiers of the various countries were arriving in haste, only the hostages were to be found. The sorcerers had vanished without a trace.

The western disturbance was settled and everyone believed that, for now at least, the officers and soldiers would be able to remove their armour and the people would be able to live peacefully once more.

But.

Not ten days after Garda had been defeated in Eimen, appalling news flew around the countries of Tauran.

In the east, Mephius had deployed an army of over ten thousand and had crossed the border with Taúlia.

References and Translation Notes

1. ↑ The barbarian village Stan talks about in volume 5. The name has been changed to Barbaroi. See the added note for vol.5 for why