The skeletons stirred again upon hearing these words.
“Final?”
“He will not be the final.”
“Not as long as we are here.”
“Yes.”
“Look at us. Our spirit remains strong as ever.”
“As long as we remain standing, the Iron Country has not yet fallen.”
“Yes. It has not fallen.”
“It has not fallen.”
Al looked around, not responding to the voices being raised from every direction. “This is a spectacular defensive barrier, well constructed. You must have been mending it and improving it continually for some time.” His face expressed complex emotions that couldn’t be put into simple words. I wondered what he was thinking right now about this sight he’d encountered in the homeland he’d never before visited.
“Sure is.”
“We exhausted all our technical capabilities.”
“We will never allow the demons entrance through the West Gate.”
“The Iron Country will never fall.”
“Yes. It will never fall.”
Voice after voice denied ruin.
“I understand. I understand.” Al accepted those voices. And then, he screamed, “But even so, the Iron Country has fallen!” It was a pained, heartrending scream. “You warriors all died! Our monarch Aurvangr perished!
Lothdor withered pitifully, and the Iron Country became the Rust Mountains, infested by demons and a dragon!”
Ghelreis, Menel, Reystov — none of them said a word.
“That… cannot… be.”
“It will not fall.”
“The Iron Country will not fall.”
“It will never fall.”
But now, some of the skeletons had started to make quiet groans.
“You know it is true! As brave warriors and dwarves, do not avert your eyes!” Al’s voice beat the truth against them, again and again. And before I knew it, the skeleton’s voices had also begun to wither. Their faces no longer had any expressions, but I felt as if I could see them filling with despair.
“But still…” Al drew a deep breath and shouted even louder. “But still, you warriors!” The halberd that had once belonged to Ewen the Immense struck stone once again. It had a crisp sound, the kind that called a person to attention and made them stand up straight. “My grandfather Aurvangr did strike back at the foul-dragon and stole away one of its eyes! It is a hero’s accomplishment, praised even by the gods!” Al’s natural voice echoed around the Rock Hall.
“And I… I, Vindalfr, have rushed here with heroes of this modern age to carry on his great feat!”
His back was no longer curved.
“All you warriors! The Iron Country has fallen! It has fallen without doubt!
But may our creator Blaze and the god of the flame Gracefeel hear my words on their holy thrones—”
The skeletons’ drooping heads began to rise.
“I swear to you here! That on the names of the good gods and the countless spirits of our ancestors, I will take back the Iron Country and its former prosperity!”
They were powerful words, words of zeal that lit a fire inside the heart. There was no timid hunched-over dwarf standing there anymore. Instead—
“The fire of the furnace still burns! The flames shall spread from your divine torch and purge the rust, and the mountains of rust shall be mountains of iron once again!”
A lord stood before us.
The skeletons moaned. But the tone was different from before.
And then Al walked up to each of them in turn. He held their hands, smiled at them with a face on the brink of tears, and spoke to them. “So… please… enough.
Rest now. You have all done well.” Each time, another of the skeletons returned to ash.
For a while, the Rock Hall was filled with the sounds of axes, shields, and armor clattering to the stone floor.
After the final corpse had crumbled to the floor, Al turned around. His expression made him look like a completely different person. Maybe all the things he’d experienced up until now had changed him, or maybe it was that one instant. Perhaps it was both. People tend to have aspects that rarely change, but sometimes, a person can change into something unrecognizable in a single moment.
“Well said. Well said, young master.” Ghelreis’s voice was full of emotion.
“Let us purge the demons and accomplish this without fail. Young master, this bag of bones will protect you even if it costs him his life.”
“Please don’t let it cost you your life,” Al said with a wry smile. “There are still many things I need you to teach me. About these mountains, and about battle.”
As Al said this without a hint of tension, Menel clapped him on the shoulder.
“The revival of a country. Brother, what a pain-in-the-ass oath you made for yourself. You didn’t need to get so serious about it. That was dumb.”
Al shook his head. “No, it wasn’t so dumb.”
“Oh?”
“Unlike the oaths that you two made, Menel, Sir Will, mine has an end. So who’s the dumb one?” he said mischievously.
“You got me.” Menel laughed.
Reystov nodded, completely cool as always. “To fulfill that oath, first we need to win. And survive.”
“Right!” Al nodded, then looked back at me. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Sir
Will. Shall we go? I await your instructions.”
Hearing how humbly he prompted me, I couldn’t help but laugh a little. “No more ‘Sir.’”
“Huh?”
“Having royalty as my squire would be a little too much, don’t you think?”
There were appearances and authority and things like that to think about. If
Al was going to set his mind on taking back his country and becoming its ruler, I couldn’t always have him bowing his head to me. So I decided to tell him that now was a good point to end our relationship as knight and squire, master and disciple.
Al suddenly got all flustered. “What?! B-But, um, Sir Will!”
“Look, I said no more ‘Sir.’ The determination you just showed and that oath, you meant them, didn’t you?”
“Of course!” His answer was instant. He strode up to me and looked directly up at me. “I will not break my oath to the gods and my ancestors.” Then his tone became even stronger. “But Sir Will, you will still always be Sir Will to me. You are my one and only master, and I respect you.”
His imploring eyes took the wind out of my sails. In his hand, he was gripping the handle of Blood’s dagger, which I had gifted him.
“Is that so…”
“Of course it’s so. Just because I call myself a ruler doesn’t change my feelings of respect.” Al’s determination looked firm.
“I guess we’ll have to keep it, then.”
“Yes.”
“Oh, and Al?” I smiled and patted him on the shoulder. “You did well. I’m proud of you. And they must have been happy, too.”
“Thank you!” Al nodded, smiling brightly. Then, as if he had suddenly realized something, mixed feelings showed in his expression. “I wonder if I should be a little bit grateful to the god of undeath, too.”
As someone serving the god of the flame, it was a little hard for me to agree with that. But still, there was no doubt that the reason the warriors had been able to pass on happily was because of Stagnate’s blessing. The only problem was that it was also due to Stagnate’s blessing that they had gotten so lost and spent the last two hundred years suffering from their obsession. I could only make the same kind of complicated expression myself.
“J-Just a little is probably okay,” I said to him.
He laughed nervously and offered a small prayer to the god of undeath as well. I got the feeling that my god was making an incredibly sour face, but I apologized in my mind, asking for her understanding. “Right then,” I said, after a breath.