North x Northwest

Lil asked back, a hint of relief in her voice after having examined his limbs, which were at the very least still moving.

“Was it that painful? How high was I?”

Ed crumpled his face and fumed, it was an expression Lil had never seen before.

“Are you kidding me?! If you had fallen there as it was, you could’ve considered yourself lucky if you only fractured your entire body…”

“…Was it that high?”

Ed merely blinked, perhaps finding it pointless to keep bickering about that now. Lil naturally followed his gaze and saw the white scar on the tree that had just lost its branch.

‘It… looks approximately three stories high…’

As Lil looked back at Ed, she had a clear look of pity on her face. It was now for Ed the first time to see her that way.

“So, who’s the child now?”

“…”

Lil was speechless.

‘No matter how much I tried to slow myself down by grabbing onto the few branches next to me, the height was still considerably higher than I thought…’

Ed, leaning on one arm, laughed. But when pain hit him somewhere in his body, his laughter turned into dry coughs and groans.

Lil examined his body again.

‘Despite being covered in a dark red liquid, probably a mixture of both mud and blood, he appears unharmed. He doesn’t look like someone who just snatched someone midair and bore the impact…’

Lil clung to the base of the tree when her mood turned cautious again.

‘From the looks of it, Alain and Jericho have already sorted out the situation. All there’s left is that one guy coming towards us, but I didn’t see where he went..!’

Feeling a shiver going down her spine, Lil quickly checked behind her, but there was no one there either. At that moment, the sound of a horn blowing sporadically from a corner rang out and resonated throughout their surroundings.

‘He never intended to approach us, rather he went into hiding somewhere out of mine and Alain’s sight… He wasn’t a soldier in the first place, and with all his colleagues dead, a cry for help was his only choice.’

The sound of the horn being blown with all its might was formidable. It was so loud that it could probably be heard throughout the entire forest. Fortunately, Jericho eventually found him behind a tree and took care of him.

As the echo remained for a long time, Lil pondered.

‘If another group of cavalry comes, we have no chance of winning. We ran out of bullets, Ed is stretched out, complaining he can’t move at all and, Alain and Jericho engaged in hand-to-hand combat, so they must be exhausted by now.’

When worry and anxiety made Lil’s mind blurry, she shook her head and forced herself to concentrate. She thought about the simplest and quickest exit strategy.

‘We have the weapons of the fallen men rolling around on the ground, and three or four horses are wandering around, grazing the grass. We have to give up on fighting and get as far away from this place as possible. And this time, we need to run all the way to the East.’

Lil supported Ed’s torso as he sat up. Her mind was impatient and anxious enough that she almost yanked his arm, but seeing his unbandaged arm in its terrible shape, Lil deemed it too delicate to be pulled recklessly. She was then handed the bandage, which Ed had removed, and wrapped it tightly around his shoulder and left upper arm. His face contorted to the fullest as he suppressed his groans every time the fabric was pulled tight.

“Get up slowly.”

Supporting his back, Lil stood awkwardly next to Ed, who lifted his body. Alain and Jericho came running and appeared clearly out of breath just as she had predicted.

Lil simply ordered.

“Let’s grab one each so that we can get out of here quickly.”

Jericho went next to Ed and supported him. Unlike before, Ed now leaned almost his entire body on Jericho. In the meantime, Lil quickly brought the reins of two horses.

“Can you climb? Jericho, help him out.”

There was no time to waste, so Lil picked up a few more rifles from the fallen men around them and after seeing Ed successfully climb a horse, she climbed into the saddle of another one herself. Because she was at the rear, she could only see Ed’s back, but when she scrutinised him further, it seemed like he couldn’t move his left arm at all.

‘If it’s a fracture, it will become difficult for him to withstand riding at high speeds. Maybe we should ride together…’

However, Jericho and Ed already took off, following Alain, who had moved first. Lil twisted the reins and squinted at Ed.

‘Although he seems stable when holding the reins with one arm, I can’t help but feel nervous.’

Soon they were running through the forest at full speed. Perhaps because it was an unused and narrow road, tree branches came rushing in and clawed at their bodies.

Eventually, Lil’s ears, accustomed to the sound of the hooves of four horses, heard other noises that caused the hairs on her spine to instinctively stand on end. Without the need to look back, she sensed countless hooves roaring closer. At first, it came from their front, but then similar sounds from their rear followed suit. Lil hastily kicked the stirrup. Her horse caught up with her companions as she aimed to take the lead.

‘If we’re going to be surrounded from all sides, I have no choice but to attack head-on.’

“I’ll break through!”

Lil held the rifle she carried on her back. Fortunately, the fog was clearing, and their visibility improved. Sunlight suddenly penetrated the dreary and damp land.

‘I have five or six bullets to fire, and our opponents are also rushing towards us. I can handle them easily as long as I spot the targets first.’

Lil was confident that she wouldn’t miss any of her long-distance shots.

As clear shadows emerged through the fog, Lil looped the reins around her wrist and grabbed the barrel of her gun. The moment she placed her index finger on the trigger, the sound of a flute, thinner than that of a horn, rang sharply.

There was a certain beat and flow to it.

‘It’s just like Ed’s rhythm!’

Stopping herself from firing, Lil lowered her gun and muttered.

“…Linhardt?..”

She couldn’t think of anyone else who could exchange secret signals with Ed. She was about to turn her head around, when the sound of the same beat passed by her ears already. Lil had no clue how Ed was able to raise the horn and blow it, but as if in response, someone shouted from somewhere not too far away.

The sound of hooves ahead of them stopped in perfect harmony.

Anticipating salvation, Lil’s heart began to beat like crazy and she rode her horse forward without taking a moment to catch her breath. The fog, which was now as dense as wet cotton, quickly cleared away. When she broke through the front line, she found horses with empty saddles lined up in a relatively large clearing.

An army took aim at them in order to fire a volley*. Linhardt, who was in the very centre, shouted over his rifle.

“Get down!”

Lil immediately leaned over her saddle.

“Fire!”

Bullets passed sharply over the top of her head. When Lil sensed the coal smoke exploding ahead, screams rose from behind them.

“Load!”

When the first line went into reload, the musketeers in the second row came out to the front of the line.

“Fire!”

Lil passed through the troops amidst gunfire. Only when she reached the rear did she pull on the reins and unconsciously looked back the way she had come from. The party behind them were frantically running and stirring up the forest due to the imperial army’s steady attacks. The more bullets were fired, the more their enemy’s horses ran wild, and the more riders fell off of them. Amid the ear-splitting gunfire and smoke, Ed, Alain, and Jericho arrived next to her.

Lil shouted as she hastily looked around her.

“Levi!”

The path to this part of the empire’s territory must’ve been a rough road, but Lil didn’t doubt that Levi would come.

‘Ed was mortally wounded, and Levi is the only competent doctor around, so she would’ve gone along, no matter who was against it.’

Once the gunfire’s noise ceased for reload, she shouted again.

“Levi!”

A familiar face appeared in Lil’s constantly changing field of view.

“Shail?”

“I’m relieved you’re safe, my lady.”

Shail, who was approaching Lil, stirred his horse out of the way as if to clear a path. Right behind him was Levi, who moved as soon as she spotted Lil.

She then asked, scanning Lil thoroughly.

“Where are you hurt?”

Lil shook her head quickly.

“Edgar, not me…”

“…Huh? Doctor?!…”

“…Oh! He’s going to fall!…”

At the sound of Alain and Jericho’s voices, Levi reflexively looked behind Lil. Her face hardened in shock and she ran straight to Ed. Without hesitation, Lil jumped to the ground and followed Levi, whereas Shail, who was still on his horse, supported Ed’s body, which had begun to fall sideways. Jericho stood quickly next to the horse and helped take Ed’s foot out of the stirrups.

Lil gritted her teeth to suppress a scream.

Ed, now exposed under a bright and clear sky, was in an extremely cruel shape. His body, closely resembling that of a corpse, was soaked in dark red as if he had been drowned in blood. Not only the newly wrapped bandages, but his whole shirt had turned black. His thigh wound had been bleeding so severely that even the horse he was riding was now covered in blood…

– – – – –

Footnote:

Volley: Volley fire, as a military tactic, is (in its simplest form) the concept of having soldiers shoot in the same direction en masse. In practice, it often consists of having a line of soldiers all discharge their weapons simultaneously at the enemy forces on command, known as “firing a volley”, followed by more lines of soldiers repeating the same manoeuvre in turns. …The volley fire, specifically the musketry volley technique (also known as the countermarch), requires lines of soldiers to step to the front, fire on command and then march back into a column to reload, while the next row repeats the same process. [WIKI]