MHHC Chapter 152

Ambush

Adelheid splashed warm water over her face and neck, washing the grime loose first, then lathered herself carefully from head to toe, working the soap into every corner of skin that the road had claimed.

The bathwater was too scarce to allow proper soaking, so she rationed it with care, dividing what remained until even her hair had been washed clean.

Whether it was the water's work, or simply the body's stubborn insistence on feeling human again—her mind, which had been pummeled near to mush through the long night, felt, if not restored, at least rinsed.

She rummaged through her pack and changed into fresh clothes.

The garments that reeked of horse dung she cleaned with a quick pass of magic, then folded neatly and tucked back into the bag.

"Your Highness. Are you ready?"

"Yes. I'm coming out now."

She swung her cloak over her shoulders, made a careful sweep to ensure nothing had been left behind, and stepped out of the tent.

Following behind Donovan, she hurried toward the center of camp, where soldiers swarmed thick beneath the banners of the noble houses and the imperial standard—a churning sea of bodies and weapons and horses beneath a sky still bruised with early morning cold.

She had barely pressed herself into the thick of it when the horn sounded, calling the departure.

"This way."

Donovan lifted her pack from her shoulder and secured it firmly to his horse. Then he caught her by the waist and lifted her up onto Hazel's back in one practiced motion.

He waited until Adelheid had settled into something workable, then swung himself onto his own horse with swift economy.

"There are a few things I need to tell you."

He drew his horse close beside hers and dropped his voice beneath the surrounding noise.

"I looked into what you told me yesterday, and it does appear to be reliable. There seems to be a passage leading to the Watchtower. The scouts have corroborated it independently."

"That was exactly what was weighing on my mind."

"The problem is that the Watchtower is so vast—without knowing the precise location, we could find ourselves in danger along with everyone else. You said you can sense His Grace's presence, so that part should be manageable, but…" He paused. "That is manageable, isn't it?"

Adelheid nodded, her face pale.

"I have more hope than I did before."

"How very reassuring…"

He muttered this in a tone that conveyed not the faintest hint of reassurance, and shoved the hair off his forehead with a rough hand. He turned to survey the assembled forces with the expression of a man who has placed a bet he does not entirely trust, then continued.

"First—I spoke with the commanding officer. The objective of this engagement is to clear the monster settlements centered on the central ruins. Fortunately, part of the route overlaps with ours. We'll move with this force and break away once the fighting begins."

"Understood."

Adelheid nodded.

Donovan opened his mouth as though to add something more, then closed it again as the noise around them climbed past the threshold of usefulness. The dust was rising in thick curtains now—too dense even for lip-reading.

Adelheid looked around for any additional companions Donovan might have brought, but no one caught her eye.

It seemed he had failed to recruit anyone. She could not blame them. Who would willingly go where they were going?

'From a certain perspective, it's not much different from walking into death on purpose…'

She caught the thought before it could deepen and dragged it back. This kind of thinking was no use to her—no use to anyone.

This was the moment that required courage more than any before it. She swallowed against a dry throat and tightened both hands around Hazel's reins.

The mare had clearly understood at once that her rider was no seasoned horsewoman.

Hazel snorted—a sound of pointed displeasure—and Adelheid, already wound tight, felt her body stiffen further with every breath the horse expelled beneath her.

She leaned forward and drew her arms gently around Hazel's neck, pressing close to whisper into the warm coarse mane.

"I'm sorry. I'm terribly clumsy, aren't I… I'll learn as quickly as I can—so that you can run properly."

Hazel lowered her head with a gentleness that seemed, improbably, like understanding.

Donovan, who had been watching sidelong with the restrained patience of a man waiting for precisely the right moment, decided it had come.

"Don't grip too hard with your thighs. And don't lean so far forward. You're holding yourself too rigidly—you need to practice releasing and engaging with the movement. No, not like that—"

Adelheid shifted and adjusted on Hazel's back, following his instructions as best she could.

What to do with her back, what to do with her thighs—a full torrent of correction came pouring out, and then Donovan nodded with something approaching satisfaction and offered his final piece of advice.

"You must hold that position throughout. And you must not let go of the reins. Not for a single moment."

Adelheid, duly alarmed, gripped the leather with both hands.

She remained frozen like that for some time. At last, the rear unit where they had positioned themselves began, inch by inch, to move forward.

Adelheid guided Hazel at a careful walk and followed.

At first, simply staying on was its own ordeal. But as the tension bled gradually from her muscles, she found herself adapting to the rhythm with surprising speed.

"Take these."

Donovan brought his horse alongside hers and extended a strip of dried meat and a water canteen.

At the sight of food, hunger struck her with a force she hadn't expected. She tore off small pieces and worked through them steadily, quieting the hollow complaint of her stomach.

She was nearly through the palm-sized strip when the central ruins came into view.

Vast rubble. Columns toppled at every angle, foundation stones half-swallowed by the earth, the whole vast wreckage lying against the grey morning sky like the skeleton of something that had once been enormous and alive. Adelheid found, with a quality that bordered on unsettling, that she could conjure with terrible vividness the time when those ruins had still stood whole.

The memories of her past life that she had lived through in dreams grew stranger and sharper with every step that brought her closer—as though the stones themselves remembered, and were reaching toward her through the cold air.

"Something's wrong."

She had been about to ask what Donovan meant when she felt it herself.

Despite this many soldiers converging on the area, there was not a single monster in sight.

They had come across traces of where the creatures had been—trampled earth, the faint ammonia-stench of monstrous passage—but the things themselves were absent. Utterly.

The longer this lasted, the tighter the tension stretched across the plain, thin as wire, invisible but unmistakable.

"We need to break away here."

Adelheid, who had been scanning left and right with her own mounting unease, snapped back to attention at Donovan's voice.

She had just begun to ease back on the reins and steer toward the side when it happened.

"Underground!"

The shout broke like a thunderclap, and then the earth on both sides erupted skyward as though struck by cannonfire—BOOM—BOOM——columns of soil and stone fountaining into the cold air.

Monsters burst from the ground and used their long arms to haul soldiers from their mounts, clawing and striking at legs, pulling riders down into the churned earth.

"Ambush! Ambush! The enemy was hiding underground!"

"Fall back! Their numbers aren't large!"

"Reform the line and attack!"

A monster launched itself onto the horse beside her, and Hazel—seized by raw terror—erupted into a frenzy of bucking and thrashing beneath her.

Adelheid threw her arms around Hazel's neck and felt the terror climb up through her own chest in answer, animal and immediate, stripping thought from her entirely.

That was when Donovan's whip cracked against Hazel's flank.

"Ride full speed to the western ruins! The ground may collapse—you need to get to the ruins now!"

His voice fell on her through the chaos like a thunderbolt, cutting through everything else.

Adelheid seized the reins and hurtled after him in a blind panic. It was less riding than clinging desperately to the back of a horse that was already running where she needed to go.

"Head down!"

She ducked on pure reflex, and Donovan's dagger flew past her with all his force, driving itself through the face of the monster that had been lunging directly for her.

Warm fluid sprayed across her skin, and the horror of it was so immediate, so visceral, that she barely recognized the sound that tore out of her own throat. She pressed her face against Hazel's neck and held on with everything she had.

"Keep riding! Get as far away as you can!"

Donovan kicked away the monster clawing at his own horse as he shouted, his voice steady even as chaos boiled around them.

Each time a creature came at them, his blade met it with precise, economical violence—a soldier's efficiency, nothing wasted.

Adelheid drove Hazel toward the nearest ruin without thought or calculation. There was no room in her for either.

As Donovan had judged, the farther they drew from the main force, the thinner the monsters became. They maintained their pace and rode hard toward the western ruins.

Unlike the central ruins, where the buildings had retained something of their shapes, here the enormous columns had driven themselves into the earth at every angle—like the masts of a sunken ship thrust up through the seabed, the stone bones of something vast and drowned.

When Donovan pulled his horse to a stop, the clever Hazel slowed of her own accord and came to rest beside him.

"Are you all right?"

Adelheid lacked the strength to open her mouth and only managed a nod. Was this motion sickness? Her head throbbed deeply, and something in her stomach felt badly wrong.

She gripped Donovan's hand and climbed down from the saddle. It was only after he pressed the canteen into her hands and she moistened her lips that her mind began, sluggishly, to return to her.

"We just barely made it."

He murmured it with a sideways glance back the way they had come, as though he could not quite believe it himself.

He took the canteen back and drank a single mouthful, then asked:

"Do you still have the note you showed me yesterday?"

"Yes. Right here."

Adelheid reached inside her clothing and produced it. Donovan moved back and forth through the ruins, comparing what was written against the positions of the fallen columns, his eyes moving between parchment and stone. Then he returned.

"As I thought—the coordinates use the direction of the shadows. We'll need to wait until the sun has fully risen. But before that."

"Please, go ahead."

"First—we need to be absolutely clear about our purpose: we are here to search. We are not a rescue unit." His voice was cold and precise, the voice of a man drawing a line he will not permit to be crossed. "If we discover the location of the Ansgar knights and His Grace, our role ends there. We return to the main force immediately and relay their position so that a proper rescue operation can be mounted. That is the entirety of what we are here to do."

He watched her face and pressed the point again.

"If you do not agree to this, I cannot take you inside."

Adelheid bit down on her lower lip.

Donovan's words were not merely reasonable. They were irrefutably correct. If Valentin and the Ansgar knights were in serious danger, the two of them joining the situation could not change anything on its own—not through any action they might take, with their combined strength amounting to what it was.

She nodded, her face drawn and colorless.

"I understand."

At her agreement, something in Donovan's expression eased—just barely, like a lock yielding a single tumbler's worth of give.

They shared what remained of the dried meat between them and waited for the sun to finish rising.

At last, a shaft of light broke through the cold northern air and spilled across the ancient stone, gilding the fallen columns in pale gold.

"That way, then."