Episode 122
Ezekiel took off his outer coat and draped it over Rizan’s shoulders. He felt sorry that it was torn and filthy with blood, but it would still be a little better at keeping out the cold than Rizan’s thin nightclothes. Her bare feet in nothing but slippers looked so cold that he tried to give her his shoes as well, but Rizan refused. He recalled the difference between the size of his feet and hers, and reluctantly accepted it. In the trackless mountains, walking in shoes that did not fit, flopping uselessly around the feet, was an easy way to twist an ankle.
Should he take comfort in the fact that at least it was not the dead of winter?
He loaded powder and bullets into the two rifles, slung them over himself, and took Rizan’s hand. From all the tension and fear she had endured, her hand was as cold as ice. After pressing and kneading her fingertips, he took a pair of gloves from his pocket and put them on her hands. They were the gloves she had knitted for him herself.
“I’m only lending these to you. They’re my favorite gloves.”
He spoke as though making a joke, but for some reason, Rizan’s heart ached. What were these common woolen gloves worth, that he had never even worn them and had instead kept them tucked away in the inner pocket over his heart like treasure?
There was no sign at all that the gloves had ever been used.
A burning pain rose from the shoulder where the bullet had struck. Levian, his brow deeply contorted, stood leaning on his rifle like a cane as he kept his subordinates in check. Everyone had been thrown into utter panic by the sudden attack, but among them, the one most beside himself was Akenaus. Watching Akenaus repeatedly touch the eye he had lost, Levian clicked his tongue.
“Well now, if we handle this properly, it may become an opportunity. Our archenemy has appeared on his own two feet, hasn’t he? Alone, at that.”
In the blink of an eye, Ezekiel had killed three men, wounded Levian, even seized a rifle, and fled with the hostage.
At that moment, Levian was certain.
Ezekiel Valdemaera had come alone.
If the royal army Astrie was so proud of had surrounded their group of barely ten men, then this time they truly would have been annihilated completely. Ezekiel was a commander who used decoy tactics well in battle, but there was no reason for him to volunteer himself as bait against spies of whom only a few had barely survived the trap. To begin with, when the difference in firepower was so great, what need was there for strategy?
But Ezekiel had entered alone, hastily dealt with only the soldiers around the woman, then extracted the hostage and fled. Anyone could see it was a precarious attempt relying on the good fortune of darkness and surprise. The fact that a man capable of mobilizing an army had taken an unnecessary risk meant he had no reinforcements to call upon. Whatever circumstances had led to that.
Levian looked over the faces of his subordinates. On their side, even excluding himself, who had been shot, there were seven able-bodied soldiers, while the other side had only one. He even had a troublesome woman dangling from his tail. Moreover, they had returned fire, so unless his body was made of iron, there was a high chance he had been wounded. With odds like these, was it not worth a try?
“Good. While we’re at it, let’s take the corpse of a war hero back home as a souvenir.”
In the mountains, once one strayed from the path, the scenery quickly became unfamiliar.
Rizan stepped carefully and looked up at the sky. She had found the position of the North Star, but even so, it only gave her a rough sense of direction and was not much help in finding a path.
In truth, when it came to the mountain itself, it would be all right to wander for five hours or ten until they found a way. The truly important problem was Daviss’s spies. If they pursued them, and if this time they encountered each other with the other side also prepared to fight, Ezekiel, who would have to fight one against many, would be at a far greater disadvantage.
Ezekiel did not let anything show to her, but from the way he loaded both rifles, watched every direction, and walked while suppressing his presence as much as possible, it was clear he was bracing for the worst. The rescue was not the end, but the beginning.
From now on, they had to be careful of every sign—footsteps, voices, even breathing. So the two of them decided on a signal in advance. If they needed to stop for a moment while walking, Ezekiel would squeeze her hand hard and then let go.
Ezekiel led the way in silence. Rizan followed very quietly as well. Her steps, as light as her weight, barely left any trace, so Ezekiel did not give her any separate warning.
When there was a large tree trunk nearby, they hid behind it for a moment to secure their field of vision before moving. If it had been summer, they could have climbed a tree and hidden among the leafy branches, but now all the leaves had fallen, leaving gaps through which everything could be seen.
In the mountains, a downhill slope is not necessarily the way down, and an uphill slope is not necessarily the way up. That was why it was most important to choose a direction well and keep moving.
They were checking the position of the North Star from time to time as they stepped softly onward. Then, all at once, she felt pressure as his hand firmly squeezed hers and released it. The first thing Rizan did was cover her mouth with her other hand. She was afraid that even the slightest sign of drawing in a breath might hinder him.
With no suitable place to hide, Ezekiel and Rizan crouched behind a tree that was not particularly large.
A moment later, men holding rifles came down in a line, pushing their way through the mountain path.
Please, don’t come this way.
Rizan prayed inwardly.
For them to pass by without noticing the two of them would be the safest solution for now.
However, the spies descending obliquely along the mountain were unmistakably aiming straight for the direction where Rizan and Ezekiel were hiding.
In the darkness, Rizan met Ezekiel’s eyes.
Ezekiel’s decision was swift. He immediately had Rizan lie flat on the ground, then crawled away from her on his belly. After skillfully suppressing the sound and putting some distance between himself and Rizan, Ezekiel deliberately let his presence slip.
The moment the sand rustled and scattered unnaturally, the spies snapped their heads around. At the same time, Ezekiel dashed out at once and opened fire. The rifle burst with flame in succession.
His shots were accurate. The two spies closest to him fell one after another.
“There!”
Bang, bang, bang—the gunshots burst out one after another, and Rizan covered her ears. She simply could not bring herself to watch the fight.
If her location were discovered for no reason, it would be a terrible setback for Ezekiel as well, who had deliberately revealed himself in order to hide her. Whenever rough shouts occasionally pierced through her blocked hearing, she held her breath altogether.
The commotion gradually moved farther away. Ezekiel must have lured them off into the distance. Even so, Rizan kept her head buried and could not move an inch.
She prayed, and prayed, and prayed.
That he would please be safe.
That this moment would pass as quickly as possible.
Every minute, every second felt as long as an eternity.
She did not know how much time had passed. Rizan had simply squeezed her eyes shut and lain there like the dead for a long while, until she came to her senses at the warm heat covering her back.
“It’s me. Don’t be startled.”
It was a familiar build, a familiar warmth.
Only then did the breath she had been holding pour out all at once.
She had never felt such relief. All of a sudden, she felt as though she might cry.
“For the moment, we’re all right. They think I ran that way.”
After shooting two of them dead, Ezekiel had led the remaining spies this way and that. Fortunately, a place appeared where a cluster of trees blocked their field of vision, and he succeeded in deceiving their ears by throwing a stone in the opposite direction. The spies hurriedly ran after the false sign of movement.
But it was only a stopgap measure. They would never go far. They would quickly realize they had been fooled, return to this place where they had found the two people’s traces, and search the area again.
Leaving aside Akenaus, a civilian not worth counting, the number of spies had been reduced to six, but Ezekiel’s body was no longer unscathed either.
Now was the time to make a decision.
“There’s no need to be afraid at all. Rizan, you will get out of this mountain no matter what.”
Rizan flinched and lifted her head.
She sensed something strange in Ezekiel’s tone. The man who had said “we” earlier was now saying “you.”
She smelled blood, thicker than before.
“Hide here just ten more minutes. If you don’t have a watch and can’t tell the time, count to six hundred, not too quickly. After that, go down in that direction. Never look back.”
Why was he talking as though he would not be going with her?
For an instant, a chilling question came to her.
Surely not.
“Instead, making a plan was easy. All I had to do was become the bait.”
Was he trying to use himself as bait to lure the spies away?
While he struggled alone and fought a battle against the Daviss spies, he was telling her to run in the opposite direction without looking back?
He was going to do something that dangerous…?
“War is dangerous at every moment by nature.”
Ezekiel had said that then, too.
“In battle, there are only two kinds of plans. Good plans and bad plans. And a good plan is one that succeeds.”
This man’s “good plan” was a plan in which she survived.
No, it was a plan in which only she survived.