They called out to Vron on the right and Rindt on the left. Spurred on, the troop of white horses rode at once to the floating bridge. Among them, the mage Gayus alone, dressed in a black hooded cloak and black horse, looks like black ink dropped into milk.
The torches on both sides of the bridge guaranteed a modicum of safety. Count Rickard, anxiously clutching his saddle jar, watches the damsel in distress.
Amneris and sixty SS men crossed the bridge without delay while being watched over by the absent troops. The Red Knights lingered on the shore and waited for the arrival of their commander with horse gloves.
And they set out for the wilderness of Nosferus without a moment's rest.
Nosferus-- it's the legendary No Man's Land.
At this time, the territory of the demons and barbarians in the so-called frontier, or in the deep forest where only rocks and deserts are left in the wilderness, or in the deep forest where only strange creatures are wandering and humans cannot survive, is far more extensive and threatening than the territory of human knowledge and civilization, the Central Plains. In terms of breadth and threat, it far surpassed the Central Plains, the territory of human knowledge and civilization.
The people clung to the frontier and to the few fertile lands bounded by the two seas of Lent and Corsair, and built their civilization by fighting over these few lands. They clung to the few fertile lands surrounded by the two seas of Lent and Corsair, and built their civilization by fighting each other for the little land they had. There were the verdant Middle Plains, and then the endless steppes around the Ross River, the southeastern limit of the frontier and Middle Plains, where the Kes River flows into the Lent Sea after a few thousand tad. In the snowy north, the ice and snow clans of Quinsland, Vanheim, and Tarruan took root. To the people of the Middle Plains, the world was still a very unknown place.
Because of the color of the stones, the transportation network between the countries located in the Middle Plains has been opened and the trade between the countries has been active.
However, this red road, which would later become a ray of human wisdom penetrating far into the frontier, at that time only connected the countries of the Central Plains with their major cities at most. The so-called frontier regions between the frontier and the middle plain are still left in the hands of the settlers and face civilization with their deep and wild nature intact.
But--
Even that frontier region is but a peaceful fertile field in the face of the real frontier threat across the Kes.
It was in such a place that the chase team consisting of three companies of Red Knights and two platoons of White Knights led by Amneris, the Lady of Mongol, had set foot. A no-man's land where the only inhabitants are the barbarians of Nosferus and unborn demons.
They turned to the eastward, behind the crossing where the lights of Fort Alvon were shining like old guardians on the opposite bank. This is the direction from which the last of the fugitives were seen heading in the evening.
There is no road-like path in Nosferus. It is simply a barren wasteland of huge gray rocks, with a few mosses nestled between them. The darkness is so deep and dense that it does not even reveal what kind of horrible monster is hiding there.
Amneris's men held up torches and walked in five lines without a sound. The lighting of the torches might have alerted the fugitives to their pursuers, but to walk through the dreaded No Man's Land at night without a light was like death. The knights constantly checked on each other, and when the torches of their allies were about to go out, they would light the next one from their own torches.
As they went, five hundred torches swept away the darkness and created a little temporary safety. Here, even the darkness seems to cling more tightly than on the farther bank of the Kes, which should not be far away. It is as if the darkness itself has taken on an impure life of its own and become a dense and vicious jelly-like creature of blackness.
In the dense darkness, I could clearly sense that some unknown small creatures were lurking as if they were assimilated into it. As if they were only an arbitrary part of that sticky jelly, they seemed to hide in front of five hundred torches, even to hide their breath, but their unvoiced murmurs, their panic, their indignation, and their shaking that threatened were transmitted. There is nothing that is filled with a murmur and the life of impurity as much as the silence of the night of Nosferus.
Amneris was walking in the midst of a line of horsemen, guarded by five hundred knights. But even above her hooded head a great winged thing whirled past with a strange voice, moaning like a woman sobbing, and when a torch was held out to it, it scurried away from the circle of light, a strange thing with many short legs, neither leech nor frog. It was a strange thing with many short legs, neither leech nor frog.
Amneris did not move his face at the sight of these strange inhabitants of Nosferus. He simply pulled down the large, loose-fitting hood that he wore over the lowered cheeks of his helmet, hid his green eyes in the shadows as if he were lost in his own thoughts, and walked on. The knights, of course, do not utter a single word.
It should have been nearly sunrise by now, but darkness crawled over the ground forever, and there was a faint, strange odor in the air. It was a smell that could not be compared to anything else, but it was an irritating smell that would never leave his nostrils. It seemed to irritate the mage Gayus more than anyone else, and he pulled his hood down deeper and deeper, and with the edge of his cloak over his mouth and nose, he continued to murmur secretly in an unheard voice as he rode his donkey.
It's the scent of a maggot. It's the scent of a terrestrial Nosferus. Ominous. Ominous. That's no help. The princess is ruled by a star. And the stars are such that I've never seen them arranged like this before... and they have so many different elements in them that I can't tell whether it's a bad omen or a good omen or neither. The only thing I can say is that these stars have come together to form a terribly complicated and tangled pattern, and that pattern has not even begun to be drawn yet. Now, what kind of astrologer can read such an intricate array of stars as if they were his own heart - a wise man and seer named Locandorus who lives in the West, or, as they say Agrippa, the great sorcerer, who is said to have lived for 20,000 years, and Gratian, the "Dark Priest". Compared to those three, I know no more than a newborn goose chick. even a mage with more training and mastery would need thousands of years to understand this planet. I can think of no one else but these three who are the highest priests of magic.
I don't know. Gracchus is the master of the dark arts and the supreme priest of the demon god Dole. You can't do that!
And what about Agrippa, one of the greatest mages of all time, living from an unimaginable past, who is now more than a legend, and whose whereabouts, true power, and even whether he still exists, would require an arduous adventure, as narrated in a long poem by a kithara player. In order to find out where he is, what his true power is, and even whether he is still real or not, we will have to go through an extremely difficult adventure that is itself told in a long poem by a kittara player.
If I had to ask, it would be Locandorus the Seer, but even Locandorus, the wise man of the steppe and astrologer of the White Magic, is said to hide himself away in the mountains and watch the stars, rarely appearing in public. In any case, it is a difficult thing - a difficult thing, though it is understandable that Yarn, who holds the spinning wheel of fate in his hands, does not intend to make the patterns of the fabric so easy for mortals to read.
In any case, this chart is beyond my grasp. All I can do is to see if the princess is on the right path. And with the scent of the magistrate lingering in the air, there's no telling how many of our 500 warriors will return to Torus or Alvon unharmed. (Do it, do it, do it!)
"Gayus!"
Suddenly, the lord's sharp, whip-like voice snapped the old mage out of his reverie.
"What are you talking to yourself about?
"is."
Gayus pulled down his hood even more and nodded. Amneris, too, made no attempt to repeat the question, but, as if awakened at last, removed his hood from its deep covering, raised his face, and surveyed the scene from his horse.
The night darkness that had soaked the area was finally fading away. The edges of the mountains to the east were dyed a deep orange, and the air was stripped of its blackness like a thin sheet of paper, and instead was clothed in a bleak transparency of white and gray.
"All right, turn off the light."
After a moment's pause, Amneris gave the order. Five hundred torches were blown out at once.
"Your Highness, with all due respect, are you certain that we are heading in the right direction in our pursuit?"
Platoon leader Lint moves his horse lightly closer and whispers. Amneris waved his hand,
"The Ouija board in Gayus' hand did indeed point in this direction, eastward toward Canaan. And night will soon fall. Let's climb the nearby cliffs and let our scouts survey the land in every direction. Then we'll advance again. I don't want to split the army in two at Nosferus."
"I understand."
"Have each company commander turn over his horse and check whether there are any fallen soldiers in his unit."
"Yes, sir."
Baron de Lint gave his white horse a light whip and broke ranks. Soon a message was sent out, and at last, after a long night of gloomy marching, the party was alive and moving again.
No one has fallen. Satisfied, Amneris saw a rocky mountain appearing on his left and sent out a message to halt all troops.
"We will rest here for the rest of the day. You may dismount, take rations and take a nap in shifts. But be sure that half of you are awake, do not pack your gear, and do not leave your horses in a position where you can ride them immediately."
When he had made the signal, Amneris ordered Vron and Lint, the two platoon leaders, and Gayus and the samurai to follow him, and drove the horse to the rocky mountain he had spotted.
The great white horse, carrying the duchess, seemed glad to be able to ride lightly after its long and solemn march through the night, and raised its legs in the air as it rode up the rocky mountain. At its slightly flattened summit, Amneris halted the horse, and with the reins still in his hands, looked out over the expanse below to Nosferus.
Then, without remembering, he let out a small sigh. A sea of white and gray, rock and sand, as far as the eye could see, that resembled a wave head and even undulated like the sea, but nothing but the vague miasma and the shimmering of the air there resembled the sea. Even though it is not yet that time of day, there is an uneasy shimmering flame at the edge of the mountains, and the wilderness is slowly dawning, but nowhere can you find the chirping of birds or the life that makes the morning so peaceful.
The desolate, unsettling scene turns a fierce red for a moment, and the sun appears, strangely limpid compared to the color of the river beyond. It is the dawn of No Man's Land.
White angel hair on the wind clings to the lady standing on the back of the horse and the knights watching over her, and then quickly melts away.
Suddenly, Amneris narrowed his eyes.
Her lips faintly fluttered, then suddenly tightened. She raised her hand and silently pointed in that direction.
A line of smoke shimmering from behind the rocks.
Amneris nodded. Give the horse a whip and run straight down the mountain. The knights followed. Their prey has been found.
"We're off!"
The lady's sharp voice pierced the area.