It was two days before that Guin crossed the Dog Head Mountain by the old wolf king's guidance and finally collided with the Lagon tribe beyond the Salt Valley and became their prisoner.
At the time when Guin was struck head-on and knocked unconscious by the strange sandstorm that was to carry him to Mount Gutou, the Mongol army was also blocked by the sandstorm and forced to make an unscheduled stop there.
The center of the storm was farther to the east, so what struck them was only a ripple, so to speak, not the same storm that sent Guin into the air.
But even that was enough to trouble the Mongol army. The Mongol Expeditionary Force hurriedly set up tents for the princesses there as soon as they could choose a place, and the soldiers huddled close together and spread out horse-drawn blankets on their heads to withstand the strong wind, the rain and the sprinkling of sand.
"What a place."
It is a fact that here and there, murmurs of secret curses and complaints were whispered into the mouths of those who had gathered together.
"Why should my Mongol take possession of the realm of these cursed monsters, even after going through all this?"
"No. That's treason against your superiors."
"Or treason. Listen to the devilish roar of the wind. Listen to the sand raining down on your leather rags. This is no place for a man. I'm so sick of it."
"I don't think I'd like it either. But we Mongol soldiers have to give our lives for him."
"I'm ready to fight and die for Mongol, no matter what it takes. No one will ever call me a coward. But to be buried in a sandstorm or preyed upon by those nasty bloodsucking monsters... that would be a dog's death. That's not good enough. Not even the brave men of Mongol."
"Indeed. Poor Captain Regan, such a young, brave, and good man, to die with all his blood sucked out of his body by an Ido."
"Can we go back to Alvon Castle and tell Earl Rickard that Little Earl Regan was eaten by the Id and died in battle?"
"Oh, no, no, no. Such a cursed land should be burned by the fires of Dole and disappear from the face of the earth. Along with Shem and the Leopard-headed monster."
"Look, you're thinking it too-- oh, listen. What a nasty sound, coming on the wind. What is that?"
"It's probably the howling of desert wolves."
"Oh, no, no, no."
The storm raged for three days, and when it finally passed, the sky was already dark.
During the sandstorm, some Mongol soldiers and horse disappeared into the sand with screams after being attacked by gluttonous bitsuigeaters, sand leeches, giant anteaters, and the like, which emerged from the sand in a flash. Their comrades reached out to rescue them, but there was nothing they could do in the midst of this sandstorm, for if they turned their heads, they would be blinded by the sand. Once there was a great uproar. For, breaking through the very ground in the midst of which they had formed a camp that could not be called a camp, there suddenly came out a pale and weird tentacle of a giant anteater, and at the same time the sand in the vicinity crumbled into a ladder and engulfed four or five Mongol soldiers.
The soldiers went into a frenzy and cut off its tentacles. The desert, swirling with sandstorms and as dark as twilight in the middle of the day, was a living hell in which those creatures, who looked like monsters, roamed selfishly.
It was a more depressing and more formidable foe than the raids of the Shemites. When the storm passed and the cold, starry night sky appeared, the people forgot their fears of a Semitic attack and breathed a sigh of relief.
It was already night. They had not, as they usually did at night, first cleared the ground around them to make sure that there were no nests of such strange and harmful creatures, and so they did not necessarily think that they were completely safe just because the sandstorm had passed. But even so, the mere fact that the deafening wisp of sand had passed away made them feel that they were more than halfway to safety.
The rations were distributed and the sentinels changed. All through the storm, the commanders had been holding military discussions in the tent of the lady, but finally the tent's banner was raised quickly by the hand of a peasant, and the captains came out of it and returned to their respective units.
"What happened to the war council, captain?"
As soon as Count Mars returned to the ranks of the Blue Knights of the Two Reed, accompanied by his second-in-command Garance, the SS and the captains of the various companies came by. Among them was Er of Argon.
"Hm."
Count Mars looked around at them.
"Make sure your knights take more rations than usual, rest as much as possible from time to time, and clean their weapons. Tomorrow, we go."
What do you mean, "finally"?
"I will no longer allow the Semites to do as they wish. Up until now, we have dared to be on the receiving end of Shem's frequent surprise attacks, and have not pursued them forcibly, lest we fall prey to Shem's trickery and end up following in the footsteps of Regan's troops. So, here we go."
Garance has taken over for the Count.
"Therefore, it has just been decided by the council of war that tomorrow morning, at sunrise, this battle will be settled. Tomorrow, no matter when Shem makes a surprise attack, we will intercept it, catch up with them wherever they try to retreat, find out where they are nesting, and exterminate all the monkeys. Rejoice, my friends! Tomorrow we'll be hunting monkeys."
The company commanders and platoon commanders shouted with joy.
Without needing to be told to tell everyone what they had just been told, they returned to their respective units with a lively gait. Immediately, there were shouts of joy everywhere.
The Mongol soldiers had been completely corrupted by the passive fighting that had been going on for a long time. All the troops of the expeditionary force of Mongol suddenly stood up and began to move briskly, as if a sleeping lion began to shake and stretch its body, and they were eagerly waiting for the dawn.
Here and there, you can hear the roar of horses, the clash of swords, the sound of talking, and the sound of loud laughter. The army of Mongol finally began to be filled with vitality.
Elle was pacing around Count Mars, seemingly unable to leave, when she caught the Count's eye and walked over to him, calling out to him in a friendly manner.
"Congratulations, Captain."
Strangely enough, Count Mars did not seem to be very happy, despite the fact that his advice had been accepted by the military council. However, when he saw Elle's charming dark eyes twinkling, he could not help smiling.
"El, you're a funny one. The war hasn't even started yet. What are you celebrating?"
"Oh, because this general attack was proposed by the captain, wasn't it? It was unanimously approved, and Her Highness was so moved by it that she decided to spearhead it, so you should be congratulated."
"That's the one thing that worries me, though."
Elle's youthful manner always soothed Count Mars' heart. If it had been a younger commander, he would have been repulsed by his brazenness, but for Count Mars, his brash and cocky manner reminded him of his eldest son in Torus' manor, whom he had not seen for many years.
Count Mars looked for Garance with his eyes. But the loyal lieutenant had disappeared into thin air to instruct the Count to prepare for battle.
"Concerned? What's that?"
"This sandstorm. I was originally going to advise you to take a counter-offensive position right away. If we don't, it will affect the morale of our troops. We must be prepared to launch a counter-offensive immediately, no matter when the next attack by the Semites might come - rather, we must strike out boldly from our side and, no matter what, bring the war to our pace, not theirs, We must bring the war to our pace, not theirs. But then there was that storm, and just when we thought it was finally over, it was already night, and we would have to spend another night in camp. It will be the next morning before we can attack, and once again, time will have passed."
"In the meantime, Shem won't disappear, and we've only got five or six more zangs until the first morning."
"Shem is not going away. But if I were Shem and I knew how to play the game of war, I would not come by surprise all day tomorrow, in fact, I would not show myself at all and let the Mongols who were so eager to counterattack here at once be disappointed. Yes, that's what he'll do. The most painful thing in a war is to wait patiently while morale is high, to wait without being able to make a move. As soon as morning comes, the scouts will set out in all directions to seek out Shem's main force, but what does not bother me is the bad timing, the bad timing of the sandstorm coming just as we are about to make our move, El."
"But it wasn't a sandstorm caused by Shem, so it must be just a coincidence, Captain."
"Elle, look, you need to remember this."
Count Malus began to teach him a lesson.
"The most important thing in a fight is, of course, to understand the outcome of the fight, but even more important is to feel the air and smell it. The warriors are living creatures. It is also a fickle creature. Any one factor can change it into something else at once. A little thing is all it takes. Weather, chance-- no, rather, such things can be greater than all man-made things. A warlord who does not know that the grass lives and breathes is only a wise general, not a general, even if he respects all the books of El and Alexandros.
"I'll remember that."
Elle said thoughtfully.
"But you're overthinking this, Captain. If there were such a thing as the heavens siding with Shem, Shem would have rushed in during the current storm, and without that, the morale of my army is higher than ever. By the end of the day tomorrow, everything will be settled and my army will be the masters of Nosferus."
"Well, if that's the case..."
Count Mars suddenly became distant, as if he had lost sight of the fact that the man beside him was El of Argon and not Viscount Marius.
"I'm getting old, too."
He said, gazing into the blackness and stillness of the desert, where there were no shadows of the Semites creeping in.
"Such thoughts have never crossed my mind before, not even in the midst of the most difficult wars, but since I set out on this expedition to Nosferus they have never ceased to haunt me. I wonder if I shall ever again see the keep of the castle of Turid with its white shadows on the blue water, or the golden palace of the Golden Scorpion in the far-off land of Torus, or the black lion banner of Gora and the golden scorpion banner of Mongol fluttering atop the towers of the Five Kings. I wondered if I would ever see them again, and if I would ever see my son Marius again, who had gone to Torus to serve in the army at the age of sixteen - if all went well, he would be twenty this year, having completed his compulsory military service and the SS service at the palace. I'm sure he'll be given a company commander's flag like Asturias and Little Regan,...."
Count Mars's voice trailed off and disappeared.