Chapter 44: Assassination at the Banquet

Günter von Klugen.

The Rose Knight who had served Baron Constance, the former owner of Rosengarden and lord of Rosenheim. Five years ago, he’d participated in the battle against France’s invasion, but Baron Constance died in combat and Klugen went missing. Recently, I’d found him hiding in Rosengarden at Bertheim’s request.

After a fierce fight, I’d repelled him by coordinating with my subordinates, but he was skilled enough that I couldn’t guarantee victory in a one-on-one rematch, so I’d passed the information to Bertheim and backed off. But I couldn’t help being stunned that he’d appeared to assassinate the crown prince. Revenge against the Altringen royal family?

His identity shouldn’t have been known, so how had he gotten into the banquet hall?

Through the sewers? Possible, but the stench would cling to you, and you’d get filthy—making it impossible to maintain a presentable appearance. Then brazenly through the main entrance? Security had been so tight that even I, with clear credentials, couldn’t have entered without Bertheim vouching that I was his companion.

Why hadn’t Bertheim spotted Klugen in the banquet hall? I only knew his disheveled appearance from Rosengarden, so I didn’t know what Klugen normally looked like. But there was no reason Bertheim, who’d married his own maid to the man, wouldn’t recognize him.

Had he simply not noticed? That sharp-eyed old man? I couldn’t shake my suspicions, but what I needed now was speed. Klugen had revealed himself because he’d judged that now, when vigilance was lax, was the optimal moment. While Vermeer and Eisenach shielded the crown prince, the guard encircled him.

The plan was likely for the guard to buy time while evacuating the crown prince to safety. Count Mainhof furiously summoned his soldiers, and retainers of the nobles waiting outside the mansion rushed in to protect their masters. But closer to the crown prince than any of them was Klugen.

"Franz! You must escape, now!"

"Wait, evacuate Hilda first!"

"Your Highness takes priority!"

The moment Vermeer and Eisenach dragged the crown prince toward safety, Klugen’s sword flashed like lightning. The guardsman in front fell to Klugen’s sliding cut. Klugen roughly shoved past after deflecting the descending sword, and the next guardsman who rushed in fell with his head cleaved open.

The encirclement was broken through in an instant, and Eisenach, who’d been pulling the crown prince along, entrusted him to Vermeer and engaged Klugen. Eisenach tried to bear down with binding pressure, but Klugen suddenly released his force to collapse Eisenach’s balance, then pulled back and struck.

Krumphau’s reverse cut: a technique of withdrawing to draw the opponent forward while attacking the head with the leading edge swung in reverse. Eisenach barely dodged the blow to his head, but his shoulder was slashed and he went down. Klugen trampled past Eisenach and shook off the tenaciously clinging guardsmen.

Clang!

"Streit’s son?"

The moment Klugen rushed at Vermeer, I stepped in and caught his sword on mine. When we locked blades face-to-face, I sensed Klugen’s weight shifting forward. The instant he tried to cut my left shoulder with his back edge while pressing in, I stepped out with my right foot and escaped to the side.

Clang! Clang!

My front edge and Klugen’s back edge collided in the bind. We traded sliding cuts and winding rotation attacks, each reading the other’s strikes, clashing on nearly equal footing. It was definitely different from before—I wasn’t tracking trajectories with my eyes but feeling them first.

But in real combat, unlike sparring, there was no room to breathe.

Slash!

"Ugh!"

Damn it, he’d cut my right forearm. Fortunately the wound wasn’t deep, so I could endure. Klugen briefly tried to shake me off and close in on the crown prince, but I cut off his path a step ahead, stubbornly blocking his advance. I just had to hold on until the crown prince escaped.

"Leo, I’m fine, so join in and stop that assassin!"

"What are you saying! Getting you out of here takes priority!"

The crown prince told Vermeer to help me, but Vermeer’s top priority was the crown prince’s safety—a sound judgment—and evacuating with the crown prince as quickly as possible was the best way to help me. When I tried to press forward in the bind, Klugen seized my crossguard so I couldn’t move, then drove his elbow into my face.

Thud!

Crash!

While I was staggered from the elbow, Klugen drew a dagger from his waist and hurled it at the crown prince. By sheer luck, Court Count Mainhof’s soldiers formed a wall of shields around the crown prince and deflected the dagger. In that opening, I regained my footing, clashed swords with Klugen, locked into a bind, then struck with my back edge.

"Archers, to positions! The rest, surround him!"

"Kill that assassin! Kill him!"

Count Mainhof’s command, closer to a shriek than an order, echoed through the banquet hall as soldiers surrounded me and the assassin. With Vermeer protecting the crown prince and completing the evacuation, Klugen’s assassination attempt had ultimately failed. If I hadn’t intervened in time, the crown prince could have been in real danger.

"The assassination has failed. Surrender!"

"..."

Even in failure, Klugen showed no sign of agitation—rather, he was eerily calm, as if he’d known from the start it would end this way. I raised my grip to forehead height, leveling my sword tip horizontally at my opponent’s eye level. Klugen assumed the Alber stance, lowering his sword tip.

A stance that left the upper body open to bait the opponent into overconfidence, then killed with a counterattack the instant they struck. So rather than closing in to attack, I opted to thrust from a distance. Just as I stepped forward, several surrounding soldiers suddenly charged Klugen. Seeing the lowered sword, they must have mistaken it for surrender.

He thrust half a beat faster, killing the charging soldier with a stab to the neck, then shattered the next soldier’s diagonally descending blade with a back-edge Krumphau and rotated his sword to cut the man’s throat. Before I could even intervene, soldiers were cut down by Klugen’s counterattack. The remaining soldiers advanced with shields to the front, pressing forward.

The shield formation’s advance was like a solid castle wall. As Klugen’s attention scattered toward the soldiers, I drove in with a thrust without hesitation. Klugen shifted to the Pflug stance, letting my blade slide off while trying to spear my neck with his sword tip.

Screech!

At that moment, I raised my grip and redirected the blade so the tip went above my head instead of into my neck. Then, crossing both arms in a rotating motion, I struck at Klugen’s temple with my back edge. Klugen deflected it with the flat of his blade and stepped out with his right foot. And in that instant, I read that his next attack would be Scheitelhau.

"...!"

Clang clang!

Was this Fühlen in real combat? I lashed out with Zwerchhau while simultaneously thrusting in against Klugen’s sword as he tried to finish me by quickly transitioning to Scheitelhau aimed at my skull. Klugen caught my charge with a bind to block it.

Then, retreating with a cat-walk, he slashed at my wrist. I calmly caught it on the crossguard, keeping my wrist intact. I then rammed my body into his, trying to hook Klugen’s leg and take him down, but Klugen deftly shifted his feet and instead hooked my leg, trying to sweep me off balance.

Thud!

A hard blow to the solar plexus. But the instant after taking the hit, I used the recoil to drive my forehead into Klugen’s nose. Seeing blood burst from his nose, it felt like payback for what he’d done to me last time. After learning Fühlen, I was no longer helplessly overwhelmed by Klugen’s offense.

Cut shallowly here and there, the expensive four-silver-coin banquet clothes had been reduced to tatters, but I was reading one out of every three attacks. The surrounding soldiers, watching the breathtaking ferocity of our duel, dared not step in. Then Mainhof suddenly burst out shouting.

"What are you standing around gawking at! Shoot him with arrows! That damned bastard who ruined my banquet!"

"Stop, Count! If an arrow goes wide, it could hit Sir Streit!"

If Hilda hadn’t stopped Mainhof, I could have ended up a pincushion alongside Klugen. A court count ordering archers to shoot while a knight was risking his life in close combat? Had he lost his mind? Though Hilda had protested and blocked the order, Mainhof seemed to have been consumed by rage.

"Get out of the way!"

"Kyaa!"

"Shoot!"

Mainhof shoved Hilda aside and gave the order to fire.

Thud! Crash!

At that moment, Klugen kicked me in the abdomen.

Knocked back, I lost my balance and tumbled across the floor. Several arrows embedded themselves where I’d been standing. Those bastards had actually fired! Klugen snatched up a dead soldier’s shield, held it before him, and charged straight at the archers as they nocked fresh arrows.

They loosed their arrows, but every one was caught by the shield.

"B-block him! Block him!"

At Mainhof’s scream from behind the archers, infantrymen scrambled to intercept Klugen. When Klugen smashed through the infantry holding formation with a shield ram, the line collapsed instantly. He swung his longsword into the archers. When archers who could neither block nor fight back were cut down, blood spraying, Mainhof stumbled backward.

Infantry and archers threw themselves desperately in front of their master, but Klugen tore through all of them and caught up to the fleeing Mainhof. Retainer knights guarding Mainhof charged in. Meanwhile, I retrieved my sword from the floor. That monstrous bastard—smashing through shield-bearing infantry and slaughtering archers.

Klugen killed the retainer knights as though his own life meant nothing and finally caught the fleeing Mainhof. Trembling, Mainhof felt the cold metal pierce his chest and clutched at Klugen as if pleading for an answer. Klugen’s body was a wreck as well; several arrows jutted from his back.

"Why... why! On a day like this! Why!" Mainhof gasped.

"If you must blame someone, blame the royal family."

"Gurgle! Wrong... ful!"

Having murdered Mainhof, Klugen was run through from behind by a screaming infantryman’s spear but immediately killed the man. Soldiers whose eyes were wild with fury at seeing their master slain threw themselves at him, heedless of their own lives. Klugen clashed with the soldiers even as he suffered wound after wound. Soldiers fell, blood spraying.

I helped the fallen Hilda to her feet.

"Brave Fräulein, can you stand?"

"Sir Streit, are you all right?"

"I’m still in one piece."

"Y-you have so many wounds!"

"For a knight, these are just scratches."

I joked and smiled to reassure Hilda.

My forearm was cut, blood was seeping from wounds here and there, and the expensive four-silver-coin clothes were fit for the rubbish heap, but having met Hilda, I didn’t regret a thing. Hilda tore a strip from the hem of her dress and wrapped my cut forearm like a bandage. I quietly watched her work. It might have been a romantic moment, but the backdrop was a chorus of screams.

Before that crazed Rose Knight slaughtered every last soldier, I needed to step back in. Just then, my soldiers arrived. Taking in the corpses strewn across the banquet hall, every one of them was struck speechless by the carnage—this had been a place where noble men and women were searching for matches just moments before.