Unworthy, A King's

"What happened to Friedman?"

"…He died a martyr."

"…I see. So I'm hell-bound after all."

Hasim Kudo Lemuse.

Lemuse Kingdom's third prince had set out from the capital the previous day, and was now almost upon the Demon Lord party.

What Hasim was leading was the entire current military of Lemuse.

What he could see around him was cavalry, only cavalry. Infantry was running far behind, well off the back of the column.

It couldn't be helped.

He had no time.

He had to push the horses and reach the Demon Lord party as fast as horseflesh allowed.

"Damn it! If that idiot pig hadn't pulled one last spite—!"

At present, Hasim was reigning over Lemuse as its provisional king.

Provisional in name only — the coronation had simply not yet been held. In every meaningful sense he was King.

The coup had succeeded.

He had, at last, dragged his father off the throne, and risen to that seat by the consensus of the people.

The internal mechanics of the coup itself had not been the hard part.

What had cost Hasim the most care and attention was getting the Three Kingdoms onside.

Almost everything had gone to plan — except for one thing.

A counterattack he had not seen coming.

A counterattack even Hasim — who had foreseen everything — had not been able to predict.

And it had eaten into his time from a direction he had never expected.

"Killing the horses—! If he could be that imbecilic, he should have just lived in a garbage heap and called it his palace from the start! What in the world makes a man arrive at that?!"

The King of Lemuse, as if to ensure things would not go Hasim's way, had used his last few subordinates to slaughter the worn-out horses in the city barracks, and then, by every means within his reach, had gone after horses across the country.

Where the idea had come from, with what tenacity it had been carried out — Hasim couldn't begin to guess.

Even madman was too soft a word.

"A pestilence! That man is a plague on the world!"

Hasim, predictably, had been incandescent.

He had cut off both his father's arms without a word.

Stamped his face into the floor. Threw down every curse he could put a tongue to.

It had still not been enough — but it was around then that the report arrived.

Mūzeg cavalry has been sighted, riding from the north.

That, and:

The Demon Lord party has emerged from the west.

Hasim had of course had Mūzeg's deployment under observation; with relay error and other delays, however, the full picture had remained smoke. The Demon Lord party's progress had been the same.

The two reports nailed both down at the same instant.

A force charging across the wilderness north-west of Lemuse, throwing up a cloud of dust.

And from the west, a Demon Lord party riding across the field, arriving much faster than he had projected.

Hasim's head snapped through the geometry, working back from the report timings.

He took the rough advance speeds of both forces, ran the gap-and-time math against the older reports —

And he tensed.

For the first time in this campaign, he tensed.

— Too close to Lemuse.

Which meant: too far from the Three Kingdoms.

The battlefield he had been quietly dreading was about to be the battlefield he got.

On top of that, the dead-horse problem meant he might not be able to field the high-mobility force he needed. Already outmatched in raw strength, and now reduced further.

Holding his head in both hands wasn't going to fix that.

He had wind-birds dispatched at once, sending dispatches to the Three Kingdoms.

Even if your forces are not in order, send reinforcements immediately.

The actual document, of course, did not show any such urgency on its surface. The promise to Crisca had to be considered.

Once Mūzeg and the Demon Lord forces were on the same field, the Four Kings' summit got, after a fashion, the empirical ground it had needed to back his bluff. But depending on how the day fell, delicate handling was going to be in his future.

Anxieties for later, though. Save the Demon Lord first, or none of it mattered.

That was the priority.

Whatever came after, he'd manage.

He told himself so, and prayed, with whatever was left, that the Three Kings were already long out of their gates and riding hard.

After that, Hasim got himself moving.

Every fighter he could muster was summoned. Even retired veterans were called back.

Most of them came on his name alone — but the apology in his chest was hard to bear.

Young men, men of the royal blood, men whose duty was to protect the country, were calling back the men of old age who had carried Lemuse on their backs all those years, and asking them once more to stand at the front of a battle line.

Unworthy.

Unworthy of any other word.

Even so, Hasim hardened himself, and brought them with him.

And —

---

"I let them die. 'Better than seeing the young die,' they said, laughing — but they themselves still had so much future—"

Receiving Aisha's report on horseback, Hasim's voice carried something dark in it.

It was, perhaps, the first downcast look Hasim had let show since he began planning the coup.

Hasim had, on the elders' recommendation, sent a dozen-some of the older soldiers ahead.

He couldn't push out himself.

Strictly speaking, the king of a country being out on the field at all was already exceptional.

But every hand counted now, and impulse counted too, and Hasim could not bring himself to sit still.

So he moved across the wilderness with a thick guard around him.

Holding the unfamiliar formation of Lemusan troops together as best they could, they had pushed forward as fast as they were able.

Through it, the older soldiers had come up with a laugh.

"Off to scout, Your Highness. — Forgive me. Your Majesty, now."

Hasim had tried, at first, to stop them.

Aisha's people were already scouting.

The old men shook their heads.

"Your Majesty. Lady Aisha's agents can't run a fighting reconnaissance if the moment turns. And being unable to act when it turns can cost a life."

Said straight, with steady eyes — and Hasim could only nod.

They had not all seen pitched war, but as soldiers they were the better men.

More than that, they were not going to back down.

"Your Majesty — use the time to teach the young men what tactics you can. There's almost none of it left, but it's still better than nothing. — Your Majesty is excellent. Both political war and the real kind on one man's shoulders is a heavy load, but I believe you can carry it through."

That was the last thing they had said before kicking their horses forward.

Hasim could only watch their backs go, silent.

---

"Did Friedman and the others mean to die from the start, do you think."

"No, Hasim-sama. They were not the kind of men who throw their lives away. They could not have lived this long if they were."

"…Yes. — You're strong, Aisha."

That was the moment he had learned of the men's deaths.

Aisha's agents had returned with the forward report.

That, in itself, was proof the battlefield was close.

Hasim tried to bring his focus back into line — but his body had, in another sense, tightened.

"Hasim-sama…, your hand."

Beside him, Aisha — wrapped in spy-black like her subordinates — had noticed the change in him.

Hasim was holding the reins in his left. His right was free, and clenched into a fist.

And from inside that fist — blood was seeping out.

Aisha brought her horse alongside, took his right hand in hers, and unfolded the fingers one at a time.

The hand he had been gripping with that brutal strength had nails buried into the palm. The skin was wet with blood.

"I —"

Hasim looked at Aisha's face.

There was no one else near them.

Reluctantly anticipating that the agents' report would not be good, he had moved the royal guard a small distance to the rear so the rank and file would not catch the news on their faces.

The clean-headed half of him made calls like that without hesitation. He could split feeling and reason at will.

And in this moment, that part of himself was — for once — unpleasant to him.

Belated, perhaps.

Belated, but he saw, in this moment, that he was a cold man.

In a confused age he did not intend to preach a single absolute morality.

But measured against most ethical standards, he was, undoubtedly, a ruthless man.

That too, he thought.

In any case — given the situation, a low voice would carry only to Aisha.

Just for a beat —

"—"

The whining nearly came out.

He caught himself almost doing it.

He stopped just short.

He didn't say it, and he couldn't say it.

Because the self-observing part of him reached even into the impulsive part — that was why he couldn't.

Aisha would have caught it. She would have held it. He was sure of that.

But should he be doing that now.

More than that — was he in any position to whine.

"Hasim-sama…?"

"— It's nothing."

He didn't know.

But for now, at least, it wasn't needed.

After a few moments, he was sure of that much.

He hadn't even departed yet.

If they didn't push past the last battle of this prelude, Lemuse would never get to raise its first cry as a proper country in this world again.

The whining, the mourning — those came after.

The whining he probably wouldn't be able to share with anyone, either —

— You decided this. You.

Hasim looked forward.

And there at last, in the depths of the field, he saw them: a bare twenty or so figures, facing many times their number in black armour.

The black armour, the colour of a great power. And at the front of those facing them, in clean contrast — white.

Mūzeg's colour. The same colour as Lemuse.

A banner. Hair that called the 〈White Emperor〉 to mind.

The picture stirred, in him, a historical line he could not quite put into words.

The standoff of black and white was the symbol of an event that had once happened — a great event.

And now, into that scene, he was about to ride in, with the white banner on his back.

— We are both arrogant.

The words formed quietly in his head.

— But you and yours, and I — we aim at different places.

And so I —

---

— will deny that arrogance.

---

Hasim took the thought in his chest, lashed a sharp blade to it, and hurled it at the black banner.

And to one man whose face had risen in his mind, he spoke a last few words.

"What is it you're aiming for, over there. Now, after all the years since that day — am I finally going to hear your answer? — Brad."

The words were small. They were lost at once in the clatter of hooves.