Chapter 17: The Herald of War

I dodge below the swing of the squire as he tries to cut me two. In a moment I’m behind him and sweep his legs out from under him. With his body thrown forward in the swing, it barely takes any effort to knock his legs out from under him. He goes crashing into the ground but I hear footsteps behind me. I turn to see another squire approach and as he sees my mask his eyes widen and he takes a step back.

I feel the click of my pistol as the slide falls back into firing position, the recharge complete. Without looking I point it at the downed squire and fire, shattering him in motes of light. The loud roar of the pistol makes the other squire flinch.

“You know you can’t actually die here right?” I ask dryly.

“Erm…” the squire mumbled out.

I sigh as I raise my gun and blow him into motes of light. As the world returned to normal, I looked down at the squire who was trembling on the ground clutching at his chest.

“You really need to find your nerve boy. If you can't even fight in total safety I have no idea what you’re going to do in a real fight.” I say coldly to the squire on the ground.

“If you want to point a blade at my throat, your hands better not shake, because mine won’t…” I say as I holster my gun.

The squire bit his lips as he stood up his head down in shame.

“At least this one had the guts to attack me.” I say as I turn around to see the other squire get to his feet.

“The Rift’s can appear today or so the mages say. If the Rift’s are terrible as I think they are, then you need to find your courage fast. When they start running out of knights they’ll start sending squires. Believe me, I know…” I say as I turn back to face that squire.

“I’m sorry…” the squire said softly.

I walk forward and grab the squire by the lapels. Until his face was just an inch from my mask, I growled and I saw the red glow of my mask’s mouth reflect off his sweaty face.

“Apologies don’t work on me, if it doesn’t work on me, do you think it’ll work on fucking demons?” I hiss into his face.

“No…” the squire stuttered. I shove him back into the dirt in response.

“It’s the end times boy, I suggest you grow a spine before…” I begin, but then I hear the running. I turn to see a soldier wearing leather armor come springing into the arena.

The Rift has appeared…

The man shouted as soon as he got close enough. So it’s here already? It looks like the Rift don't like waiting. It’s been three days since the day when the Rift’s could potentially appear. The thing is not that the Rift has appeared today, it’s that the Rift has appeared and been found. What’s more a message has been dispatched to the capital. Which meant two things, the first is that it’s probably somewhere quite exposed making it easy to spot, the second was that it’s quite close to the capital.

“Where is it?” I hear Davis say as he approaches the messenger.

“The Northern Vale, just across the Velirian River. It’s in the middle of the Hilled Plains, it appeared right on top of the Arian Village. The village is lost and the forces of Northdor, Port Jura and Weston are already moving in to hold the demons back.” the messenger said.

“Then we must hurry Sir Davis.” I say as I approach followed by the rest of my party.

“Indeed, Sergeant Onaga. It will take us two days to reach Northedor and likely another day after that to reach the forward command post that is no doubt being set up at this moment.” Davis said.

“Two days? How fast did you get here?” I ask the messenger.

“I rode a day and night from Northedor my lord. The faster I reached here the more lives could be saved. My horse gave out a kilometer from the capital I ran the rest of the way.” the messenger said.

“Hmm good man, can we make the same time?” I ask Davis.

“Unlikely, you will be going by carriage, we cannot afford for all of you to be worn out by the long journey. I expect Viscount Liddel who rules Northedor City will wish to see you as well when you arrive at the city.” Davis said.

“I have no interest in playing house while soldiers die in the dirt. We can meet him after we seal that Rift.” I reply curtly.

“Katsuro, slighting a viscount is no small matter. It wouldn’t be wise to ignore him. We should push through the night and rest a day in the city. Most likely the viscount will offer us his hospitality. That way we would get a good rest while not slighting a noble. If we ride through the night we should be able to reach the city in a day and half, we can rest then. So the time spent would be the same.” Charlotte said as she placed a hand on my arm.

“Fine, then we leave immediately. We’ll push through the night and rest in the city.” I say distastefully. I wasn’t upset at Charlotte, it was just that the idea of those in power still demanding face while the end of the world is happening makes my stomach turn.

“Davis can the carriage be ready in an hour?” I ask Davis.

“Yes, but the rest of the knights will take at least a few hours to organise and send.” Davis said.

“They can catch up, we’ll go ahead first. We’ll have to meet that viscount anyway they can use that to make up lost time.” I reply curtly.

“Very well Sergeant Onaga. I will send word to the carriage, I will have someone collect you from the room when it is ready.” Davis said.

“Good, alright everyone get back to the room pack whatever shit you need and be ready. I don’t want any delays, an hour might as well be a year on the battlefield and I don’t want anyone dying because we dragged our feet.” I say in the same tone I use when I’m commanding my squad. The rest nodded and we headed off to our rooms.

Sure enough less than an hour later we heard a knock on the door and we set off to the carriage. The carriages were waiting for us at the door of the palace and when I saw it my nose curled into snarl. Both were gaudy things, with gold ornaments and a large banner jutting out the top. If we stripped the carriage of all that useless crap we could reduce the weight and go faster.

“Katsuro… try and bear with it…” I hear as Charlotte puts her hand on my arm.

“At least it looks nice, although it could lose some of that gold, probably just slow us down.” Jacob said.

“Let us go then.” Ivan said as he began trudging towards the carriage pickaxe in hand wearing full armor.

“Come on…” Charlotte said as she pulled forward and we boarded the carriage.

On the inside I saw the interior was even more gaudy than the exterior. Plush red velvet cushions on the seats, gold livery on the walls and is that… a wine bottle holder... Yes, yes it was judging by the wine bottle stuck in the hole.

I sigh as I take a seat and find myself seated next to Charlotte with Jacob and Ivan seated across from us. The four girls were seated in the other carriage. Apparently the Heroes got the nicer carriage because of course we do…

“I know you’re frustrated but try and bear with it… ok?” Charlotte said as she took my hand and gave it a small squeeze.

“Yeah… right.” I say as I let out a heavy sigh.

The ride out was a rather quiet affair with a few of the citizens pointing at the carriages and cheering. This is for the best, the last thing I want to be bogged down in a bloody parade. Parades can wait until after we win, if we win…

Even after we left the city the carriage was still dead silent I looked around and saw both Ivan and Jacob were blank faced. Ivan had his head down as he ran his thumb over the head of his warpick over and over again. Jacob was biting his lip as he gazed out the window, his fingers rapping on the window sill.

As for Charlotte I could feel her hand gripping mine tightly. I turned to her and she looked up at me when she sensed my gaze. When she looked up at me I noticed her face was paler than usual, I gave her the best strong smile I could manage and she returned one weakly. I interlaced my fingers with hers and I felt her shift closer to me as she pressed her shoulder against mine. It looks like they have pre battle jitters, even the best soldiers get a little nervous before a fight. Well it is the leader’s job to maintain morale...

“You ok?” I ask softly.

“Yeah, just… a little nervous.” Charlotte said.

“It’s normal, the goblins were well real but… that was like a small skirmish. This will be a full blown battlefield.” I say softly.

“Yeah, that makes me feel better…” Charlotte muttered sarcastically as she averted her gaze.

“Would you even believe me if I told you everything would be fine?” I ask.

“No I suppose not…” Charlotte said softly.

“Don’t worry I’ve seen girls younger than you pick up rifles and fight. They weren’t nearly as brave as you and they managed. Besides every set of heroes so far has done it, I’m sure we can win if we play it smart.” I say as I give her hand another squeeze.

“You should have just said that from the start.” Charlotte said cracking a smile.

“Well in my experience it’s a good idea to put your soldiers down first and then give them hope. It prepares them for the worst while giving them strength to fight.” I say with a smirk.

“Well aren’t you experienced.” Charlotte said with a giggle.

“And if it doesn't work out?” I hear Jacob ask from the side, instantly sombering the mood.

“Then we improvise, fighting impossible odds is kind of my specialty.” I say with a shrug.

“Your speciality?” Ivan asked.

“Well I destroyed a main battle tank with a smoke grenade and a couple of frag grenades.” I say.

“What really?” Jacob asked.

“Yeah, the tank, we called it a Varsuk, it was firing at us from down the street. The damn thing had a pair of coaxial machine guns on the front and remote controlled gimballed one on the top. It was a nightmare to fight, an anti-tank rocket from the front wouldn't do a damn thing. The only way to kill it would be for us to hit from above with an AT launcher where the armor’s thin.

Unfortunately for us one of the replacements panicked and tried to shoot it from the front with the only AT launcher we had. The rocket just blew up on the front armor barely denting it. He ended up getting hosed down by the machine guns for his trouble.

Anyway, we were pinned and out of options. So I decided I wasn’t going to sit here and wait to die. My men were all terrified, most of them didn’t even dare to get their heads off the ground. They were young kids most of them arrived just a few weeks before. They got like six weeks of training and most barely knew how to hold a gun when they arrived. Well I knew asking them to charge the tank with me would just be getting them killed so I decided to do it myself.

I scrounged up whatever grenades I could find from the my men and I stuffed them into a bag. Then I took off to the side and ran into one of the buildings. I moved from building to building occasionally dealing with some enemy infantry. Eventually I ended up in the building right next to the tank.

So I knew that the only way I was going to destroy that tank was if one of them popped a hatch. Once they did that, I had a chance to throw my bag of grenades down the hatch. So the main problem was that I needed them to open the door to their mobile cannon armed bunker.”

I said as the three of them listened with rapt attention.

“So how did you get them to open the hatch? Isn’t the whole point of a tank that you stay inside where it’s safe?” Jacob asked.

“Well you see, that tank has cameras on the outside for the crew to see out of. I also had this thing known as a disruptor smoke grenade. The disrupter smoke grenade messed with thermal sights so tanks with infrared couldn’t just shoot through the smoke. The other thing was that I told Shuji to stop shooting the moment I popped the smoke grenade.

So what I did was I waited for one of my platoon to shoot at the tank. Then I would snipe out one of the cameras, I did this so that the tank crew had no idea I was right next to them. Once I took care of the camera’s I threw the smoke grenade out in front of the tank. Not too near, I made sure it was a decent distance away, so now with their cameras down and their view obstructed. I reasoned that the tank now had two options. They could retreat from a bunch of light infantry that were basically a bunch of child soldiers or the tank commander can pop the hatch to help direct the tank.

Usually they didn’t need to pop the hatch there were slits built into the hatch to allow the commander to look around. But all the debris and the smoke made it so that it would be almost impossible to navigate through the streets just using that hatch.

Sure enough the hatch opened and the tank commander popped his head out to have a look around. I put a bullet through his head and he dropped right back into the tank. I could hear the tank crew shouting and trying to clamber up to close the hatch. Well I was already climbing up the side of the tank by the time the tank commander had fallen back into the tank. I sprayed a burst from my rifle and killed the other guy that was trying to reach up and close the tank. Then I threw my satchel of grenades into the tank. I had rigged the whole bag with some thin rope so that I could pull the pins on the whole lot of them at once just by pulling on the rope.

So threw that in and ran for it, a few seconds later there was a bang from inside the tank. I turned to see the tank had a jet of fire shooting out of the open hatch from all the ammunition cooking off in the tank. The damn thing went up like a roman candle.

I ended up getting a medal for that when we got back to base. Hell of a day, the superiors almost didn’t believe me when I told them I took out a tank with a sack of grenades.” I say as I look at the other three who were looking at me eyes wide.

“So yeah, I mean the Cardinals said the first Rift had demons that could be beaten by the average guy so I think we’ll manage. I mean they can’t be worse than that Varsuk.” I said with a smirk.

“I don’t think I have to punch through over 100mm of depleted uranium composite armor with a reactive armor shell. I’ve seen those things get hit by a dozen AT rockets and stay combat effective. I suspect the demons won’t be as hard to kill and I doubt the demon’s have machine guns. So I’m sure we’ll manage.” I say with a laugh.

At those words I felt the tension relax somewhat and I felt Charlotte squeeze my hand again.

“You're quite good at this you know.” Charlotte said.

“Yeah, thanks Katsuro. Good thing we fought those goblins beforehand. At least know what to expect…” Jacob said as he took in a deep breath to calm himself.

“But goblins are just common monsters, they don’t summon heroes for goblins.” Ivan said.

“Considering we were under leveled when we fought those Goblins and we still managed to pull through thanks to Katsuro’s planning, I’m sure we’ll figure it out. A group with a capable leader is much more effective than a group without one.” Charlotte said.

“Regardless, we have a job to do. If we do fail it will not be for lack of effort.” Ivan said grimly.

“We’ll be fine, there’s a lot of tactics we can use. Traps, ambushes, mobile warfare, long range bombardment, I’ll start thinking of a plan once I get a handle on the situation.” I reply.

The rest of the trip progressed rather calmly with us chatting now and then. During the first night when the driver wanted to stop, I told him to keep going. He argued at first but a few threats later we were on our way. I felt a little bad considering we got to sleep in the cushy carriage while he had to drive the carriage. But this was war, a world ending demon invasion no less, sacrifices have to be made. If you can’t fight the demons the least you can do is lose a night of sleep, fucking pansy…

That night I tried to get some sleep with Charlotte’s head on my left shoulder, I could tell the rest aren't sleeping well. They probably weren’t used to sleeping upright, well you would get used to this kind of thing after a while.

I once fell asleep on my feet, I was on guard duty and I managed to fall asleep while I leaned against a wall. If you lean your body against a wall and put your legs out straight at about a thirty degree angle you can actually lock one of your knees as your body relaxes. Meaning you can actually fall asleep on your feet, your thigh will give you hell though when you wake up…

I didn't usually sleep well when I was back in Sapporo, more like a bunch of naps rather than a full night's sleep. I could feel that old tension coming back as I felt the carriage trundle along. This was it the first Rift, I have to get them through it. I’m sick of losing people I’m supposed to protect… I am sure I’ll lose a few along the way, that is afterall the nature of war…

The insanity of war oftens holds few things sacred, the dead don’t get buried, human rights are thrown out the window and the rules of war lie shredded in pieces in the dirt as the endless march of war tramples it underneath.

There was always this conundrum I battled with back in my old world. Caring for others made it so that you would fight at your best, A soldier who fights for something greater than himself would always be more effective than one who only cares about his own self interest. However, losing those you cared about also had a way of breaking you down. The people around give you strength you never knew you had but losing them can also cut deeper than anything you ever thought could.

I felt Charlotte shift on my left and she pressed closer to me. She hugged my left arm and snuggled closer. Her head dipped and her golden hair fell forward over her face. She shifted her face and furrowed her brows as if the hair was irritating her. I reached over and gently brushed the hair over her left ear. Charlotte smiled in her sleep as she held onto my arm a little tighter. I smiled as I gently took my hand away from her ear and her lips curled slightly into a pout.

I leaned my head against hers and I saw her lips curl into a small smile again. I could feel her soft hair on my cheek and I breathed in the scent of her hair. It smelt like flowers on a summer’s day… slowly I felt my eyelids begin to close and I felt myself drift off into sleep…

I’m standing in the ruins of some blasted apartment building. Our company had just run into a minefield but our orders were to push beyond it. There was no way we could get any engineers to clear it. There were just not enough of them left, both in terms of men and equipment.

“We have to get across that stretch of street.” Shuji muttered as he gazed down at the map on the table.

“They booby-trapped the entire area with proximity mines, every street, every alley we lost six people trying to find an alternate route. There is no way we can check under every piece of rubble.” I say grimly as I gaze down at the map.

“If we push ahead we’ll lose maybe half the platoon, then we won’t have the men to carry out the assault.” I sayy as I look over to see Sato standing over this building’s previous occupants.

This building used to be a forward position for the Russians. We managed to take eight of them prisoner but we would probably just kill them later. We don’t have the resources to take care of them, better to just remove the problem.

“We have to move forward, if we don’t take that junction, units on our left and right won’t be able to push ahead.” Shuji said bitterly as he slammed his fist into the table.

“Then we use men to get across…” I say still looking at the prisoners.

“We can’t just march our men over a minefield.” Shuji said through gritted teeth.

“Who said anything about our men?” I say calmly as I turn around to look at Shuji.

Shuji looks up and I turn my head in the direction of the prisoners.

“Damn Katsu that’s good, these pigs made that mess let them clean it up.” Takai said from the side.

“Better… them than us…” Noriko stammered.

Shuji didn’t reply at first, he just looked at me as he slowly lowered his head.

“Takai with me.” I say coldly as I turn around and begin walking towards prisoners.

“Everyone on their feet, we’re moving out. Naomi with me, I need you to translate.” I say as the rest of the platoon readied themselves.

We marched the group of them out and stopped right in front of where the minefield supposedly began. Everyone pointed their guns at them and the Russians turned around looking at us wide eyed. They knew what we wanted them to do...

Pozhaluysta, my umrem…

One of the Russians said tearfully, his eyes wide in terror.

“Please, we’ll die…” Naomi said softly.

I raise my rifle and shoot that Russian in the head. His head was blown open his brains splattering onto the Russians behind him. They screamed and covered their heads in terror, weeping as the man crumpled onto the ground.

“IF YOU DON'T GO I’LL KILL YOU!” I roar at the Russians.

Yesli ty ne poydesh', ya tebya ub'yu...

Naomi said again, her shaking voice carrying over the Russians.

I nod at the rest of my men and they walked forward guns raised and bayonets fixed as they began herding them towards the minefield.

“Katsuro please don’t do this…” Naomi said softly. Her black eyes shimmering behind her raven black hair as she looked up at me.

“I’m not marching you over that minefield,” I reply as I turn back towards the Russians.

ANYONE WHO TRIES TO STOP OR RUN, WILL BE SHOT!

Lyuboy, kto ostanovitsya ili pobezhit, budet zastrelen...

Once Naomi finished I raised my rifle and fired a few shots into the air right over the Russian’s heads. They ducked and yelped as the bullets whizzed over their heads.

YOU HEAR THAT IVAN?

YOU HEAR THAT?

DAWAI

DAWAI

DAWAI

I scream at the Russians who are now in tears. As my men shoved them forward and they began to walk out into the minefield.

“Marching formation behind me!” I heard Shuji shout as he walked forward once the Russians were a few meters ahead of us.

I turned back to Naomi, her blue sapphire eyes now wet with tears, her golden blonde hair matted with grime as it hung on both sides of her face.

I was right...

This war will bring out the worst in us…