A long shadow stretches from horizon to horizon.
From the vantage point of the high watchtower, this fact is felt even more acutely. Because the wider field of vision allows for a more realistic assessment of the enemy’s scale.
Moreover, as a superhuman, he can count their numbers with faultless precision.
“Brother, we need to retreat.”
“That’s a ridiculous notion.”
Einar chuckled as if he had heard a genuinely funny joke while looking at the faces of his younger siblings.
“Do you think that if I flee, they will halt their advance?”
“This is a dead-end…! Harald Skarsson never swore allegiance to you in the first place!”
Here, in Findvald’s land, Harald Skarsson is the count guarding the western border. However, unlike Tylesse’s border baron, the concept of ‘border’ in Drovian culture carries a much more somber meaning.
Further west lies the Demon Realm, a treacherous land where survival is hard to guarantee, let alone seizing it for plunder. The nearest large city is at least a fortnight’s journey from this land — a stronghold at the heart of an empty plain.
A borderland of borderlands. It symbolizes the profound danger that the whole of Drovian would face if it falls, yet it comes with no accompanying honor.
The lord of this area was left with only two choices: to be annihilated in silence by demons or to age and die quietly without war. Both are tragic ends with no warrior-like honor, thus this region was allocated only to the yarls who had not sworn loyalty to the king.
Fight to death to prove loyalty… or run away and die as a traitor.
All the prosperous lands desired by others had gone to the loyalists. After the Drovian Civil War, other nations believed that this country was being maintained by Einar’s authority, but Einar was a man aware of his limited lifespan.
Someday, when he died, the kingdom would inevitably crumble. How utterly vain is that?
He sent his talented daughter abroad. Upon returning after forming ties with dignitaries of various nations, she could help them become self-sufficient, even if it meant borrowing the authority of another nation.
When he learned that a younger brother he had thought was dead was alive, he willingly sent out his most cherished daughter, for that boy’s power could sustain this country.
He needed to persuade the many yarls who harbored dissatisfaction with his reign but didn’t dare challenge him to silence, offering the promise of a better land, resources, and safety.
Einar called himself a berserker, but he belonged to the most cunning class in Drovian history. So cunning that he realized it was more effective to disguise himself as a simple-minded berserker for his survival.
And so now, at this moment, he looks at his younger brothers.
Huscal. The sworn brothers of hiking, bonded purely by loyalty and respect, not through some untrustworthy covenant like the ‘mutual god of war relationship’ of civilized nations. Genuine brothers woven together by fate.
Each of them was also a superhuman, capable of recognizing the army before their eyes. They were men who had fought through many battlefields, thus they could foresee how horrific the coming war would be.
That is why they mention retreat. They are not foolish young warriors fighting to die but rather the Huscal of Drovian fighting for the honor of victory.
“Brother. If you die, can this country endure even for a day? You must think coldly and calmly.”
“Helgi, you fool. If I flee, will this country hold on for a week? Does it really make a difference if I die overnight or a week later?”
If it were a small border dispute, losing just this land would not be a significant loss, for they could retake it with other lords from north and south.
But if it reaches the scale of a ‘great war’… that’s a different matter.
The existence of other territories in the north and south means that their route of advance can extend to any direction within. If they cannot hold back the enemy from this plain jutting out the furthest west, then their march will spread towards the entire nation.
Thus, there is no choice but to be here. They must hold this position.
“But not everyone must die here.”
Einar said, looking at the Huscal.
“Just one week. If we can hold for that long, the other yarls who have received the call to arms will come to our aid. If we can protect this fortress for that week, if we can keep their gazes fixed here, we can hold them off.”
A call to arms had been issued to all the yarls. A request for support had already been sent throughout the United Kingdom.
If they could just stall for time, it was certain the place would not fall under their control.
But they must endure that week with merely four thousand warriors, and out of that number, only about five hundred were ‘usable’. That included all the Huscal.
In other words, the moment they decide to endure, eight out of ten will die here.
“Now, brothers. Those who will take responsibility for what comes next, raise your hands.”
-….
No one raised their hand. The Huscal looked up at their king with solemn eyes.
“Or how about this? My daughter and family, how many will raise their hands to leave now and dedicate their lives to protecting my family?”
-….
Normally, these would be the very men clamoring to offer their services, yet now they only quietly gazed at their king, none daring to speak.
This was, after all, a gentler way of expressing the command to ‘run away and survive’.
The Huscal here were all seasoned warriors, not so foolish as to misunderstand such words.
“Alright then. Those who wish to live, raise your hands.”
-….
Einar chuckled as he said it.
“Indeed, brothers. What makes a warrior is not how one lives, but how one faces death. You fools, do you want to die so badly?”
“That’s not something for you to say, brother.”
“Better to die fighting than to wither away.”
Only then did the Huscal erupt into laughter, adding their comments one by one. Einar nodded vigorously.
“Yes, let’s go die. With so many ancestors looking down upon us from the heavens, if we die in our beds, they would surely be embarrassed to fall to the ground!”
All religions in civilized kingdoms share the same roots, yet Drovian has a stronger hue of indigenous religion.
In their culture, warriors who die fighting valiantly become stars in the night sky after their death.
The stars are the pointed tips of spears piercing the night. Their ancestors claim that even in death, they continue to bravely battle against the darkness.
They fight against the dark evil that rules the night sky, beyond the glory of the Lord’s daylight.
Shooting stars are the deaths of ancestors who feel ashamed of their descendants. So should they not fight without regret and stand proud before the spirits of their ancestors?
Einar reached out and shouted.
“Gelmir! Bring me my axe. Vigmund! Sound the trumpet! Stor, open the city gates!!”
“Yes, brother!”
“Asrad, ensure the ones in the castle keep don’t wet themselves. I’ll forgive the ones who are scared, but I won’t tolerate any cowardly retreaters!”
“Yes, brother!”
“Let’s go, to become stars, you fools!”
“Yes!! Brother!!”
The Huscal and Einar set out for the frontline. The warriors gathered in the castle all converged within it, and only Einar, accompanied by a small number of Huscal, charged toward the enemy lines.
There was one skirmish. While just five Huscal fell, hundreds of demons were crushed. Einar, who personally decapitated their commanding officer, returned with a smile.
The warriors of Findvald praised their king, greatly boosting their morale.
The next day, the real fighting began. The gathered demons in the castle showed no end to their numbers, pouring in relentlessly through night and day.
Out of the remaining 300 Huscal, around 50 were killed or suffered injuries that rendered them unable to fight.
After five days, demon corpses piled up beneath the castle keep. There was no time to burn the bodies before more demons charged in.
A week later, the king climbed the watchtower to encourage his weary soldiers. Every morning and every night, he ascended at every moment when there was no battle.
He took his time scanning the distant northern and southern horizons.
He remained silent until he caught sight of his allies’ banners. When the enemy’s offensive resumed, he would descend to the castle keep to continue the slaughter.
“Blood-soaked and mountain-high, Einar.”
At the end of the week of battle, the demons began to whisper the king’s name.
“The bleeding one, Einar.”
Amidst the mountains of corpses of his kin and the blood of his people flowing like a sea, he gazed down at their faces while the sun rose behind him.
“The one who brings down mountains, Einar…!!”
On the eighth day, something peculiar happened among the demons who had charged without fear. There were conspicuously fewer demons approaching the walls where Einar stood.
It was only natural.
As the old saying goes in Drovian, “If you receive the poison of blood, you can die. But if you receive Einar’s axe, you cannot live.”
Demons are not fearsome dolls lacking emotion. They are fundamentally intelligent beings, just with a different culture.
Those heading toward certain death are nothing but hopeful suicides. There is no honor for those who die here. There are far too many to proclaim one by one as having died honorably.
“The one who vanquished Tumor of the Mountain, slaughtered the pest Pernicius, and killed the Demon King! Einar!!”
On the ninth day.
Half of Findvald’s warriors had died. A miraculous tally, achieved solely by one man’s strength.
The Hero Party was an execution unit, a special operations group created to assassinate high-value targets. But even such a Hero Party needed the strength to face a ‘legion’.
That was Einar. A mythical warrior deemed unassailable by anything save for ‘time’.
Wherever he goes, corpses pile up like mountains, and wherever he steps, blood flows like the sea, hence the blood-soaked mountain.
The axe swung lowers the mountains, and the scars remain in the north for more than a decade, hence the moniker ‘the Mountain Cutter’.
He comes splattered with blood, charges with a grin, and only ceases when he has doused the gore with even more blood, thus called ‘the Bleeding One’.
By the sole strength and authority of one man, he crushed countless ambitious figures and established a nation—a Drovian that had never been united in hundreds of years, the first to become a ‘Kingdom.’
The Berserker King stood on the castle keep, overlooking the demons. Just the mere gaze he cast sent shivers through the demons, causing their lines to start to fracture.
“I’m getting sleepy… If I die like this, I won’t go to a good place, you useless insects!! Come, aren’t the Seven Dragon Lords around? What, did they scurry off to relieve themselves or something?!”
Einar bellowed at the restless demons below.
Ten days. Now surpassing the week as originally promised.
Still, no reinforcements had arrived from the south, or the north, or even from the distant eastern foreign lands.
Among his surviving brothers, none were unscathed. He wasn’t sure how much longer they could endure.
Still, he succeeded in keeping the demons bound. They dared not turn their backs on Einar for another destination.
So now, he was essentially the lone bulwark holding this front.
“I’m really getting sleepy…”
He brushed aside the accumulated fatigue and injuries, dismissing them merely as ‘lack of sleep’, and he picked up his axe once more.
“Brother.”
“Wulfric. You’re still alive.”
“Yes, brother.”
The Huscal knelt down as he spoke.
“Ascend the watchtower.”
The watchtower? At this moment when the enemy’s offensive is beginning anew?
Einar tilted his head and climbed the watchtower. Only after briefly shielding himself from the glaring eastern sunlight could he see beyond the horizon.
Banners were lined up.
Skaldholm, Bloodvar, Barnahame, Haskarppor, Midraven…
“Those sluggish creatures.”
Einar grinned and dropped his axe.
“How long has it been since I called for you, and now you finally crawl in?”
