WDWAE 03

 Chapter 03

After the soldiers left, the tribe was thrown into an uproar. From urgent declarations that they must relocate immediately to curses flying about asking where in the world there was a mad emperor who would all but drag away a chieftain by force.

In the midst of that chaos, Arsak kept her silence.

“There’s a rumor that Erich Klotz of Catula has a temper like fire. If things go wrong, there’s a chance he’ll lead his soldiers and attack.”

Someone said with a frightened expression. At that, Tiriya, who had been standing beside Arsak, flared up and shouted.

“So you’re saying we should send the chieftain to the Imperial Palace?”

“Who said that? That’s not it—it’s that the tribe isn’t safe!”

“Even if he asked her to be empress she’d refuse, and now empress candidate? Does that even make sense? There’s a limit to shamelessness!”

“Tiriya, there’s no need to get so angry. Allied nations usually use marriage to…….”

“This isn’t a marriage! It’s telling her to come and play the part of a maid! Don’t pretend otherwise, Alin! It can’t possibly be a fair competition! And allied—who’s allied with whom!”

“Enough, all of you.”

Arsak said. Tiriya, who had been shouting, and the men who had been murmuring all fell silent.

The flame of the oil-soaked wick flickered. Arsak let out a long sigh, fingered the leather comb case, and slowly opened her mouth.

“I don’t know what the Emperor intends by trying to take me, but he has his pride—he won’t come a second time after being refused. Don’t worry.”

“Arsak, this isn’t something to take so lightly…….”

“I am the chieftain, Alin. Refrain from carelessly calling me by name in front of everyone. No matter how much you’re my childhood friend, you must keep to your place.”

Alin shut her mouth sullenly. Arsak set down the comb case she had been holding and, with a tired expression, pressed and kneaded her own shoulders.

“It’s late. Don’t worry too much—everyone go back. And starting tomorrow, let’s prepare to move. We’ve already grazed most of the grass around here anyway.”

At Arsak’s words, the people who had been glancing at each other one by one left her tent. Arsak, left alone, stared silently into the dim tent and clenched her molars hard.

Her words that he wouldn’t come a second time were, in truth, little more than her own wishful thinking.

Whatever the Emperor was scheming, Arsak sensed instinctively that she was essential to it. Otherwise, there was no reason he would pass over so many noblewomen and seek out the daughter of a frontier nomadic chieftain.

When she was still young, her father—the chieftain at the time—and the previous Emperor of Catula had been close friends.

When her father, then young, had just ascended to the position of chieftain, a civil war broke out in Catula over the throne.

At that time, the Emperor of Catula had requested help from the young chieftain of the Torqal to quell the rebellion, and the Torqal—still flourishing in power in those days—had gladly honored their loyalty.

But decades later, when an epidemic swept through the grasslands and people were dying, the Torqal chieftain asked the Empire for help to save his people, yet received no answer from the Emperor.

People and livestock died in droves, and the foul stench of burning corpses piled up day after day left the entire tribe utterly exhausted.

‘Arsak, now we… we may have been wrong.’

‘Don’t say that, Father. The plague will pass. No plague lasts forever.’

The chieftain and the chieftain’s young daughter fortunately survived. As Arsak had said, the plague did not last forever. But winter descended right after, and the barren period of endless hunger was long and arduous.

From around the age of twelve, Arsak had to encourage the tribespeople in place of her father, who was nothing but an empty shell. She led relocations to find places with grass to feed the livestock, cared for those suffering from aftereffects, and took the lead in everything from hunting to repairing tents.

And through it all, she alone ground her teeth daily with enmity toward the Empire and the Emperor.

“Alin.”

When Arsak poked her head out of the tent, Alin, who had been tending a campfire, approached with hurried steps.

“Tell everyone to prepare to move at dawn tomorrow.”

“I’ll do that. …Are you really all right?”

“I’m fine. Sleep well.”

Arsak closed the entrance and went back inside the tent. She lay down to sleep with the lamp still lit, but it seemed unlikely she would find easy rest.

—

Her body was heavy as if pinned under a boulder. Arsak let out a low groan, tossing and turning before starting awake with a gasp. The smell of stale oil rose from the wick that had not fully burned through the night.

Frowning, Arsak blew out the flame and, lifting the tent flap, stepped outside. Dawn had not yet broken, and a hazy fog lay settled over the wide land.

Arsak went to the stables to check on the horses and swept the scattered hay on the ground to one side to clean up.

Despite being chieftain, she still did most of the work herself, and perhaps because of that, no one in the tribe was intimidated by her.

In the harsh environment where food and livelihood were not guaranteed, the people of the Torqal were bound together very strongly around their chieftain, Arsak.

Stroking the back of a horse that had woken and yawning, Arsak was rolling her stiff neck this way and that when she suddenly stopped moving.

Inside the stable bathed in bluish dawn, along with the occasional uneasy snorts of the horses, a resonance like metal striking the ground was slowly drawing closer from afar.

“Arsak!”

Arsak ran out of the stable and caught Tiriya, who had burst out of her tent. People awakened by the ominous, unfamiliar noise also emerged one by one from their tents in their sleepwear.

What was billowing like smoke from the distance was certainly not fog.

Arsak, breathing hard, fixed her eyes on the flag fluttering in the air and spoke in a low voice.

“Take all the children to the back of the village. Mothers with their own children will take all the children and evacuate first, and everyone else—bring out your bows and horses. Now.”

The tribespeople moved with precision. Cries, low screams, and curses filled the air.

Arsak rushed into her own tent, donned her leather armor by herself, took down her bow and quiver, and slung them over her shoulder.

She fastened two sharpened swords at her waist, bit down on a leather strap and pulled it tight, and finally coiled and tied up her hair before mounting her horse. The horses were baring their teeth and snorting and whinnying incessantly.

“How did they bring soldiers here so fast?”

“They must be border troops. Damn it, they never paid us any attention all this time, and now suddenly this……!”

“There’s no time to stand around talking! Hurry and bring out the horses!”

As Arsak shouted, the people who had been milling about scattered to the stables. As the sun began to rise along the long-stretched horizon, a dazzling golden light came crawling over the grasslands.

The Empire’s soldiers—so many that no end could be seen—were walking toward them with the sunlight at their backs.

Arsak bit her lip and spurred her horse forward to the front line.

“Chieftain, this is impossible. Once the sun rises higher, they’ll have a much greater advantage.”

“Don’t you think I know that? Somehow…….”

“Arsak! I’ve evacuated all the children!”

Tiriya shouted as she galloped over on horseback. Tiriya, carrying her bow as long as her own height diagonally across her back, glared toward the soldiers with a face as furious as Arsak’s. She was a victim of the epidemic ten years ago, having lost both her parents and her only younger sister.

“How dare they, here of all places. I won’t let them get away with this.”

Tiriya said. When Arsak, gripping the reins, began to gallop, the others also spurred their horses after her.

The sound of hooves striking the ground was not many, but Theodor, who knew that mounted archery was the Torqal’s specialty, halted the soldiers’ march with a tense expression.

Meanwhile, the sun rose a little higher. The sunlight surging above the soldiers’ heads struck directly into the Torqal’s field of vision.

Arsak, having warned that no one should act until her command, rode forward alone a little further ahead. Her eyes met Theodor’s directly—he was mounted on an armored horse, looking toward her.

“What is this rude behavior? Is Erich of Catula a coward who launches surprise attacks and wages war without even a declaration?”

“Mind your words, Chieftain of the Torqal. We do not want an unnecessary war. If the chieftain accepts His Majesty the Emperor’s demand, the matter will be resolved without any harm.”

“Does the Empire not have enough usable women? Enough that it must look beyond its borders to find a bride?”

“The more women with the qualities to become empress, the better.”

Theodor said. Arsak looked with anxious eyes at the sun that still lingered in the same place. They could not stand in confrontation like this for hours on end.

“And if I hold out to the end?”

Arsak said. A briefly troubled light crossed Theodor’s expression. But it did not become hope for her.

“I must obey His Majesty the Emperor’s command.”

“Then tell me what that command is. Don’t just parrot ‘His Majesty the Emperor’ like a bird.”

“If you do not comply with the demand, all of the Torqal except Arsak will die.”

A grinding sound rose from her clenched teeth. Arsak bit down with all her strength on her whitened lips, fighting the urge to shoot an arrow through Theodor’s head right then and there.

Even if Arsak chose a fight with no chance of victory, the tribespeople would undoubtedly all follow her.

Even if they had lived far removed from the life of galloping across battlefields as in olden days, nomads considered it honorable to choose death rather than be captured as prisoners.

‘But I cannot do that.’

Arsak thought. Unlike their ancestors, this situation was completely different from war for land, livestock, and the tribe’s prosperity.

If she simply complied with the Emperor’s demand—if she only pretended to comply on the surface, whatever her true feelings—the tribe would be safe. At the very least, she could buy time to relocate.

And she was the chieftain responsible for the tribe’s survival. Not a general commanding them to fight until they were drenched in blood and dead.