Howl of the Black Wolf
The resolute atmosphere shattered in an instant. She had wanted to die with dignity if it came to that, but the crude werewolf would not even allow her that much. There was no time left to complain, though. The sergeant spoke with quiet confidence.
"Just give the order, and I'll secure the escape route."
Gennady repeated himself in the same calm tone.
"I'll secure it. Cover me from behind for five seconds at a time."
In the dark pit of the trench their eyes met again. Ashlyn said nothing, simply holding the man's gaze. There was no deceit in those eyes, no empty bluster—only the peculiar composure of someone who had passed through countless moments exactly like this one. Without realizing it, Ashlyn ground her molars against the inside of her mouth, already split open and tasting of blood.
Meeting the sergeant's unnervingly steady look, she felt her own heart settle, strangely, as though his calm had infected her. Then a mad thought rose inside her.
We might actually survive this.
Possibility hardened, almost at once, into baseless conviction.
No—we will survive.
We survive.
We will survive this hell. Without fail.
Having fully steeled herself, Ashlyn nodded.
"All right. Fine."
She slowly raised her hand. With trembling fingertips she caught the collar of Gennady's uniform where he still lay over her. Then, teeth clenched, she gave the order.
"We're withdrawing. Rally point is Etal Pass, southwest of here."
"Yes, Platoon Leader."
The words had barely left her mouth before the sergeant pushed himself up and stretched out an arm toward the sprawled Ashlyn. When her shaking hand closed on his, a powerful grip hauled her upright as easily as yanking a radish from the earth.
On unsteady legs she muttered toward Gennady,
"Don't think I'm going to let this slide. Once we get back to headquarters from here, I will see you court-martialed for assaulting a superior officer."
It was a threat that carried no threat at all. For the first time a hint of a smile touched the sergeant's mouth, which had been set hard until then—an almost shy smile.
"…Yes."
He understood exactly what she meant by those words.
It meant: let's survive this together. Ashlyn gave the command once more.
"Go. I'll cover you from behind."
Gennady took one last look at her. He held her in that dense, lingering gaze as if he meant to carve her into the very center of his pupils—then finally turned his back.
And not long after, Ashlyn would witness a sight she could scarcely believe.
A massive black wolf howling at the ash-gray sky.
That savage cry tore No Man's Land to shreds.
In the very distant past, far to the north, there lived a wicked dragon.
The savage dragon had no friends. Magical beasts and Wildmen lived around him, but they could never be called friends—slaves, perhaps. Compared to a noble dragon they were all lowly creatures.
And humans? That was not even worth a laugh. Humans were useless even as slaves. They possessed neither the fecundity of magical beasts nor the strength of Wildmen. A few of them could work magic, true, but next to a dragon's magic it was little more than a child's game.
In short, to the dragon humans were less useful than slaves—mere insects. And those insects irritated him, which was the problem.
Irritating.
For that reason alone the dragon set his slaves upon the humans. He drove them from fertile land, stripped them of what they owned, tormented them again and again, drinking their cries of pain like sweet wine.
The humans begged, resisted, even surrendered—yet before the savage dragon every effort was meaningless. Resist and they were killed; surrender and they were worked until death itself would have been kinder.
When at last they could endure no more, two nations rose in defiance: Istar in the west and the kingdom of Barbaros in the east. Though the two differed in politics, language, and culture, they shared one vital trait—both were ruled by mages. They joined forces to bring down the dragon and gathered like-minded nations into the Morning Star Alliance. Thus began the war that would decide the fate of humankind against the wicked dragon—the war later ages would call the Great Twilight War.
Istaria, capital of the Istar Republic.
The grand ballroom of Wintercrown Manor.
There a splendid party was underway—or more precisely, a party so lavish it threatened to blind the eye.
What caught the gaze first was the magical chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Formed of thousands of drifting spirits, it shifted endlessly—now the shape of the Istar flag, now a dragon—delighting everyone who looked up.
The guests' attire was no less dazzling. Most were mages, each wearing magic that symbolized their house. A young lady of the Anfante family, famed for flame magic, wore a dress of flickering blue fire; Count Elexias, renowned for lightning, wore a cloak that crackled with sparks. The ballroom itself felt like a cage packed with birds of paradise. Add the cheerful chatter of the invited mages and the music of the chamber ensemble, and the whole affair was the very picture of opulence.
"I hear the election of the Rune Magic Society's new president is running late again."
"They run late on everything. Changing a single bylaw takes them ten years—how long do you think a presidential election will take?"
"Count Elexias has developed a new lightning-attribute spell. He's demonstrating it at the assembly hall next week; I thought I might go."
"Willem Kingdom is refusing to pay any more of the alliance contribution, apparently."
"After who bled for them in the Twilight War? The sheer nerve!"
Ashlyn Wintercrown leaned against the railing of the second-floor indoor balcony and looked down on that glossy scene.
A golden age.
Glossy interiors, glossy people. In years to come, she thought, people would look back on this time and call it the golden age of the Istar Republic. A faint smile touched the corner of her mouth.
Her own dress set her clearly apart from every other guest. A plain navy dress uniform of a Republic officer, utterly free of magical embellishment—almost too modest for the room. Yet she looked more elegant than anyone present, thanks to a beauty and poise that were hers alone: finely carved features, coldly luminous blue eyes, a posture that never wavered by so much as a hair. Chin lifted slightly as she surveyed the ballroom at her leisure, she looked every inch the eldest daughter of Duke Wintercrown and the family's prospective heir.
Prospective heir.
…It was not yet a settled fact.
Only "not yet."
Ashlyn's calm gaze drifted toward the head table in the main hall below. There sat her parents, the Duke and Duchess of Wintercrown, conversing with guests. The Duke, as always, was steering the company this way and that with an easy smile. The Duchess, by contrast, looked as if she had bitten into something bitter—clutching the skirts of her funereal black gown, sitting motionless while she chewed her lip.
Seeing that naked anxiety, Ashlyn twisted her mouth and murmured,
"She looks thoroughly unsettled."
Janet Wintercrown, Duchess of Wintercrown—Ashlyn's stepmother. Ashlyn knew perfectly well why the woman was so restless tonight.
This was no ordinary ball. It was a celebration of Ashlyn's commission as an officer in the Magic Army. And true to that purpose, most of the talk among the guests centered on her.
"An officer in the Magic Army—reminds one of the late Duke Wintercrown. He was a Magic Army officer himself, wasn't he?"
"He was, and a famous one. Left a deep mark on the Army's history and retired with honor. A pity his son never followed in those footsteps—but now the daughter is taking that road instead. Fine to see."
"And she chose Paros for her first posting? Not the selfish sort of youth we see these days. A remarkable young woman."
"Duke Wintercrown is a lucky man. A son who's a magic prodigy and a daughter as upright as that."
"Three generations of excellence—from the late Duke right down to the present heirs."
"Heirs? In the end Ashlyn will—"
"Watch your tongue. If the Duchess heard that there'd be hell to pay."
Listening to the conversation, Ashlyn could almost understand the Duchess's agitation. Janet wanted her own son, Arthur, to become the next head of House Wintercrown; watching every eye and every scrap of attention fix on Ashlyn alone could hardly sit well.
Still… I didn't expect her to show her dislike so openly.
On paper, after all, they were mother and daughter. Ashlyn's gaze, still faintly bitter, moved next to the far left edge of the head table.
There a thin man sat hunched over. Thick, high-prescription glasses sat on his nose; his face was buried in a book. He stood out as much as Ashlyn did—only in the opposite direction. Hair sticking up every which way as though a cow had licked it, expensive clothes crumpled without mercy, and a gloomy barrier he had thrown up as some sort of "magical effect." He looked nothing like a guest at a ball, and so no one stood near him; people only cast sidelong glances from a safe distance.
If he lifted his head and took off the glasses he would have cut a reasonably handsome figure, but he seemed utterly indifferent to how he appeared. That gloomy young man was Ashlyn's dear half-brother, Arthur Wintercrown.