Chapter 107. The Siege of La Spezia (3)
By the time the sun began setting on the third day, most of the orc warriors who had advanced to the front were exhausted.
They looked no different from beggars.
After spending days falling, rolling across the ground, and being crushed beneath one another, their bodies were covered in dirt, mud, and feces.
Many had even lost their axes and were fighting barehanded.
Warrior Captain Saru watched the battle from the rear.
Standing beside him was Tokage, the warrior captain who had served under Saru back when Saru himself had been Great Chief.
Tokage sighed.
"Ah, Lord Saru, we cannot continue like this. Advance the formation and deploy the reserve, and our Green Plains Orcs!"
"Heh heh heh. Simple fool."
Saru grinned.
"You don't understand that this is our opportunity."
"Opportunity...?"
"I will become Great Chief again and lead the orcs."
Saru looked toward the battlefield.
"You only need to watch."
Overall troop deployment was Saru's responsibility.
Until now, he had maintained the front line primarily with the Black Iron Orcs and Brown Mountain Orcs.
But this time, he slowly began withdrawing the Green Plains Orcs.
The battle was already such a chaotic mess that few orcs noticed some units moving backward.
Even those who noticed had no time to complain in the middle of combat.
Tokage stared at him in disbelief.
"Lord Saru! If we pull back our Green Plains Orcs now, the line will collapse and the Great Chief will be endangered!"
"I know."
"...You know?"
"That's why I'm doing it."
Tokage's eyes widened.
"Are you truly going to betray the Great Chief and take his position?"
Saru grabbed him by the collar.
"Take?"
His voice became low.
"That position was mine to begin with."
He released Tokage.
"I'm merely taking it back. Watch carefully and learn what a true Great Chief looks like."
Saru picked up his mace, a weapon thick enough to resemble a telephone pole, and walked toward the battlefield.
* * *
Suji had no idea how many knights he had killed.
Whenever he killed one, another appeared.
Whenever he broke through the surrounding circle, another line formed.
His enormous axe had shattered long ago.
He had picked up spears, longswords, and anything else he could find from the ground.
Those weapons had also bent or broken.
His left arm barely moved.
Both wings had been torn apart.
His left eye was swollen, and everything he saw through it was stained red.
The aura that once seemed endless was almost depleted.
Is this where I die?
Was this the glorious death of a warrior?
No.
Suji didn't want to die.
He didn't want his life to end in this place.
Run!
He suddenly leaped backward.
"The Great Chief is fleeing!"
"Don't let him escape!"
The human knights chased him.
Spears flew.
Several struck his body.
Longswords cut through his flesh.
Before, the enormous gap in strength had allowed him to ignore most such attacks.
Now, even blocking a spear was difficult.
Suji kept running.
He looked around.
The orc formation had retreated far into the distance.
We lost?
God... why?
He ran with everything he had.
His skin tore.
Wounds burst open.
Blood poured down his body.
He didn't care.
He wanted to live.
He shook off the knights clinging to him and finally reached the edge of the formation.
Then he heard a familiar voice.
"Great Chief! I'll help you!"
Suji looked up.
"Saru!"
For the first time since the battle began, relief appeared on his face.
"Saru! Save me!"
He was no longer thinking about fighting.
He simply wanted to escape.
Saru stepped forward.
"Of course, Great Chief."
He raised his enormous mace.
Saru had barely fought during the entire battle.
His stamina and mana were almost untouched.
Aura gathered densely around the weapon.
The blue glow alone was enough to stop the human knights pursuing Suji.
They instinctively kept their distance.
Suji smiled.
I'm safe.
Saru swung.
Not at the humans.
At Suji.
BOOOOM!
The mace struck the Great Chief's head.
The battered body collapsed.
Saru struck again.
And again.
By the time he stopped, Suji's body barely retained its original shape.
The nearby human knights quietly stepped backward.
Saru was another monster.
Saru raised his weapon.
"From this moment on!"
His voice thundered across the battlefield.
"I am the Great Chief!"
Then he looked at his mace.
The weapon, thick as a telephone pole, had bent from the final blows.
"Tch."
He threw it aside.
Then he looked toward the human left wing.
The human formation had stopped advancing.
The orcs were already fleeing like the tide receding from a beach.
In the distance, Eric Marcel raised a hand and waved.
A greeting.
Saru grinned.
We both kept our promises.
A human had kept a promise made to an orc.
No wonder the gods had blessed him.
Saru made a quiet decision.
I should never fight that human.
If he did, he might end up with his head smashed apart like Suji.
* * *
"The goat-headed bastard is dead."
Martin narrowed his eyes.
"He was betrayed by that tall orc."
"Looks like it."
Martin looked at me suspiciously.
"My lord."
"What?"
"That wouldn't happen to have anything to do with the secret conversation you had with that orc during scouting, would it?"
"Secret."
I smiled.
"I'm not telling you."
"...Fine."
Martin shrugged as though it didn't matter much.
I called Hans.
"Hans."
"Yes, Commander!"
"Move the entire left wing one step backward."
"Backward?"
"Yes."
Hans hesitated for only a moment before relaying the order.
"All forces! One step back!"
BOOM!
The human left wing retreated exactly one step.
That tiny movement completely changed the orc formation.
The pressure disappeared.
Orc warriors who had spent days packed together suddenly found open space in front of them.
They regained their senses.
And then they ran.
"Retreat!"
"Run!"
"The Great Chief is dead!"
The entire orc line collapsed.
Saru's awful deployment made an organized retreat nearly impossible.
But that was precisely what I wanted.
It was also what Saru and I had agreed upon.
Show people a gap when they're desperate enough, and they'll run through it on their own.
I'd seen similar things in my previous life.
I looked at Saru again.
The former Warrior Captain, now Great Chief Saru, stood like an old tree amid the sea of fleeing orcs.
I raised my hand one last time.
He did the same.
* * *
Two days later.
The orcs returned north along the path they had used to reach La Spezia.
The human forces did not pursue them.
Too many high-ranking knights had died or been seriously injured fighting the former Great Chief.
No one wanted to chase Saru and the surviving elite warriors into difficult terrain.
A commanders' meeting was held after the battlefield had been cleaned up.
There were noticeably fewer nobles than before.
Many high-ranking knights from the right wing had died.
The losses were especially severe among nobles from the Balkans, the islands, Britannia, and the northern snowfields.
Commander-in-Chief Andrea looked around.
"According to the information gathered so far, the orcs are now led by the warrior who killed their former Great Chief."
I raised a hand.
"His name is Saru."
Everyone looked at me.
"The new Great Chief is Saru. He used to be Great Chief of the Green Plains Orcs."
Andrea blinked.
"How do you know that?"
Everyone who had participated in our scouting expedition remained silent.
Even Gottfried.
Not bad.
I appreciated their discretion.
"I've received the blessing of Artemis. I can communicate with orcs."
"Oh."
Andrea nodded as though that explained everything.
"Once again, Count Marcel shows just how greatly the gods love him."
Please stop saying things that make me sound suspicious.
Andrea continued.
"Count Marcel's contribution to this victory was considerable. Not only did he hold the left wing, he advanced at the decisive moment and disrupted the enemy formation."
Gottfried suddenly raised his hand.
"I recommend Count Marcel as the foremost contributor to this battle."
What the hell is wrong with this attention seeker?
I'd only bought him a few drinks.
Several nobles from the right wing immediately agreed.
"I support the recommendation."
"So do I."
"The Great Chief was isolated because the left wing advanced. Without that, our losses would have been far worse."
It was only half the story.
But technically, none of it was false.
I had advanced the left wing.
And it had helped isolate Suji.
Of course, Saru's betrayal had been equally important.
Andrea nodded.
"I will report Count Marcel as the foremost contributor to His Holiness Pope Giovanni."
Then he smiled at me.
"Count, you may wait comfortably for the result."
Comfortably, my ass.
Pope Giovanni knew I had warned the Sun God Church about the orcs in advance.
And he had ignored the warning.
As long as I kept my mouth shut, he had every reason to reward me generously.
Looks like I'm about to become a war hero.
* * *
Great Chief Saru remained inside Liguria's lord's castle.
Tokage watched the Green Plains Orcs pile stones into the broken walls.
He couldn't understand the Great Chief's intentions.
"Lord Saru."
"What?"
"Why aren't we returning to the Great Forest?"
Saru pointed toward the damaged walls.
"Fill that hole properly. And deepen the moat."
Tokage frowned.
"Are we going to use this castle as a battlefield?"
"Why not?"
"This is human land."
"So?"
Saru bit into a large piece of roasted meat.
"The land here is fertile. There's plenty of game. Why should we go back?"
Liguria's wealth had come mostly from its port and the shipbuilding industry operated by the Genoa Mage Tower.
Humans rarely needed to touch the wild forests.
The surrounding environment remained almost completely untouched.
And because local knights had regularly culled dangerous predators, prey animals were abundant.
For the orcs, it was an excellent hunting ground.
Tokage still looked worried.
"The humans will eventually come to retake the castle."
"Then we'll decide when they come."
"Decide what?"
"Whether to fight or leave."
"Based on what?"
Saru smiled.
"Based on who comes."
If Eric Marcel participated in the recapture expedition, Saru intended to abandon the castle and return to the Great Forest without hesitation.
He had no intention of fighting that human.
* * *
Le Capital.
Court Count Chatillon stared at the letter from the Sun God Pope with a stiff expression.
Eric Marcel had been selected as the foremost contributor to the Battle of La Spezia.
Pope Giovanni himself intended to praise and reward him.
The Pope even wrote that he hoped to maintain a long friendship with Count Marcel.
This was no longer simply a matter of Eric becoming a war hero.
The Pope had personally taken notice of him.
Most nobles in northern Franche were devoted followers of the Sun God.
Even the royal family followed Helios.
Naturally, the Pope's influence was greater than that of a thirteen-year-old king.
If Chatillon moved rashly against Eric now, he could earn the Pope's anger and the hostility of the entire northern nobility.
Chatillon's chest felt tight.
He went to complain to his master, Tower Master Gaston.
"What kind of disaster is this? The Pope noticed him. Now it'll be difficult to touch him."
"Heh heh heh. I knew this would happen. You were making such a fuss as though you'd already swallowed the entire south."
"Ugh. Isn't there some way around it?"
"The Pope is seventy. Won't he die soon?"
Hearing that from Gaston, who was also in his seventies, was ridiculous.
Especially since the old man was still healthy enough to chase after liberated married women.
"When exactly is 'soon'? And Cardinal Maximilian of Aachen is considered one of the strongest candidates for the next Pope. Apparently he's very close to Count Marcel."
"Then there's no way."
Gaston shrugged.
"Just leave him alone."
"Ugh. I shouldn't have helped him."
"You barely helped him at all. Stop taking credit."
Chatillon sighed.
He sat there dejectedly, thinking again and again about how he could somehow swallow Eric Marcel whole.
