Chapter 24: Civil War Era - The End of an Old Era
The soaring morale, akin to piercing the heavens, following the beheading of the Blue Knight, came to an abrupt halt. The shock of seeing the person who cut off the Duke’s head explode in a burst of flames right before everyone’s eyes shattered the uplifted spirits.
The army, carrying the banners of the Duke of Brittany and Count Mirbo, charged upon hearing the Young Duke’s shout. They roared and dashed towards the rear of the royal army.
“Charge, charge!”
With Gaston’s shout, knights and cavalrymen surged forward. As cannons spat fire, hurling steel bullets from the rear, the royal army, caught off guard by this ambush, descended into chaos.
“What, what’s this? From the rear? Weren’t they our allies?”
The royal army’s belief that the approaching forces under the Duke of Brittany and Count Mirbo’s flags were reinforcements turned disastrous.
Amidst the demoralization caused by the Blue Knight’s monstrous bravery, the arrival of enemy reinforcements was a heavy blow. The measure taken to reassure the troops proved costly.
“The Duke of Brittany has betrayed us!”
“What did you say?”
Before the king and his vassals could react, the supposed allies were mistaken for traitors attacking from the rear, and this misconception spread rapidly through the ranks.
Even the sergeants, who tried to control the situation, fell one by one to the arrows of the Young Duke, further destabilizing the already wavering royal army.
“The Young Duke has come to our aid! Attack!”
“Long live Lafayette!”
“Charge! For the Blue Knight’s revenge!”
On the other hand, the arrival of the Young Duke, who sniped the commander of the guard who killed the Blue Knight and led reinforcements, injected new vigor into Lafayette’s forces, previously despairing at the Blue Knight’s death.
“In honor of Count Anjou’s command, I’ve come to repay the debt owed to Lafayette’s Young Duke!
From now on, the forces of Count Anjou will support Lafayette’s army!”
With the arrival of Count Anjou’s forces, the royal army lost all semblance of strategy and coherence.
“How can this be, what in the world is happening? My knights, my commander of the guard, my army...!”
King Louis murmured in utter disbelief. With the commander, who was his guard knight decimated, the royal army was irretrievably plunged into chaos.
“Your Majesty, Your Majesty! The enemy forces will soon reach us! You must flee!”
“Flee, you say?”
After the long civil war, King Louis held a glorious coronation in Lumière. Confidently leading an army of 20,000 and countless knights, he was certain of victory as he set off to battle.
Although he was disturbed and feared the Blue Knight, he believed capturing the knight would secure his victory. The king could neither imagine nor understand how, even after the Blue Knight’s death, he was being driven towards defeat.
“Have we, lost?”
“I regret to inform you, Your Majesty, this battle has already gone awry.”
King Louis, with a wavering gaze, looked down at the corpses of his knights, fallen in the wake where the Blue Knight had passed.
And amidst utter chaos and pandemonium, he saw his army crumbling as it faced attacks from both sides.
“We retreat to Lumière.”
The once-imposing force of 20,000 soldiers and hundreds of knights. He intuitively realized he would never again lead such a force.
Uttering words of despair, King Louis numbly turned his eyes to see the enemy soldiers now rushing in, discarding the banners of the Duke of Brittany and Count Mirbo and instead bearing the flag of Lafayette.
The emblem of Lafayette, a lion’s cursed visage, roaring, was etched in the king’s eyes.
“If only, if only it weren’t for Lafayette, those damned ones, I would have...!”
“Bring the king to safety! Hurry!”
The king’s banner narrowly escaped being encircled, fleeing the battlefield just in time.
However, the majority of his troops were left behind. Witnessing this scene, the remaining will to resist among the royal army dissipated completely.
***
The setting sun cast a blood-red hue over the battlefield, now cooled from the day’s ferocious fighting.
Countless soldiers of the royal army had lost their lives, and many were captured.
Our casualties were just as extensive.
I slowly rode my horse across the battlefield.
In the carnage, where the bodies of numerous soldiers lay piled, a path was clear – the very path the Duke had taken in his frenzied charge, leaving a trail free of bodies as they fled from him.
Reaching the hilltop encampment, following this path through the battlefield littered with hundreds of bodies, I dismounted, facing the rows of fallen knights.
I walked slowly along the bloody trail, stepping over dismembered and decapitated corpses, a testament to the brutal conflict.
The weapons hurled and embedded by the Duke in bodies along the way painted a vivid picture of the battle I had not witnessed – a testament to his fighting style and ferocity.
Following this path, I ascended the hill and finally reached a suit of armor, now stained in blood, losing its original color.
There lay the Duke’s body, headless, gazing up at the sky.
Quietly observing, a familiar-faced knight hurried towards me.
This was the knight who had guided me to the Duke’s camp before my return, now with a blood-soaked bandage covering one eye.
He was severely injured, holding in his hand a familiar helmet with a severed head.
Treating it as a precious treasure, the knight knelt before me, extending it towards me.
“I apologize, my lord. I failed to protect the Duke until the end.”
I quietly accepted the helmet from him and spoke.
“Your name?”
“...Daniel Martain, my lord.”
His face was filled with genuine remorse.
I defeated the Duke of Brittany and rushed here as soon as possible. I hadn’t known the Duke’s battleground was at such a disadvantage until I arrived.
Had I been just a bit later, or had the Duke not fought so fiercely.
The tide of the battle might have been irreversible, even with my reinforcements, leading to defeat.
I gazed at the Duke’s severed head in my hand and slowly lifted the helmet’s visor.
The Duke’s face was smiling.
Seeing this, I slowly closed my eyes.
Was this man, who had died a futile death from the plague before my return, satisfied with his end?
“...Since the former Duke has fallen in battle, from now on, you shall be known as Duke Lafayette.”
The voice of the baron who had served the Duke reached my ears, and I opened my eyes again.
“We plan to embalm the former Duke’s body to transport it back to the dukedom...”
Suddenly, I thought that he might have wanted to be buried on this battlefield.
Yet, my response was different.
“Yes, proceed with that.”
“Then, the former Duke’s armor...”
Even though the head was severed, the armor symbolized the Blue Knight and held immense value.
At the same time, the fact that I, who was the young Duke of Lafayette, wearing his armor would mean that I am inheriting the mantle of the Blue Knight as Duke Lafayette.
I turned my head, looking down at the piles of corpses along the path he had taken.
The Duke’s incredible valor, cutting through an army of ten thousand and toppling hundreds of knights in his charge, must have deeply impressed many.
Take Daniel Martain, for example.
Before my return, I didn’t even know the name of this man who, despite being a knight and suffering critical injuries, lamented the Duke’s death more than he felt relief at surviving this brutal battle.
Yet, for the Duke’s self-satisfying fight, those who charged with him turned into countless corpses.
Duke Lafayette ‘The Blue Knight’ Hubert de Lafayette. The final battle of the kingdom’s greatest knight will become a legend.
In that legend, the deaths of those who blindly charged after him will merely be forgotten as a necessary sacrifice for the hero’s myth.
“...The armor shall be buried with the previous Duke.”
“As you command, Your Grace.”
I closed the helmet’s cover and handed it to the Baron for preservation, then turned my gaze toward the stronghold of the King’s army.
There, the vassals and soldiers of Lafayette, lined up, knelt down in unison as they turned their eyes toward me.
Before my return, when the Blue Knight died trivially of plague and I became the Duke of Lafayette, I was utterly unprepared.
Knowing the truth about the Toulouse Count’s family and nurturing only rebellious feelings against my father, I had to continue the civil war started by the Duke without proper education as a lord. Afterward, I simply fought against the revolutionaries, leading these people just to survive.
“Those who stand under the banner of Lafayette.”
Neither I nor they knew what we were fighting for.
“I have no doubt that the battle here today will be remembered no matter how much time passes, and its legend will be eternal. In this battle, the Blue Knight fell. No one can deny that it was an honorable death befitting a great knight.”
Back then, I had no leisure to consider the value of the sacrifices piling up under my command.
“However, before praising the greatness of the previous Duke, I would like to express my respect and gratitude to you and those who fell on this battlefield. It was indeed your blood and sacrifice that led us to victory today.”
I had never once considered why the revolutionaries hated and loathed us so much, nor how we could avoid fighting them.
I fought only to survive, focusing only on what was before me, and thus, I died meaninglessly.
Not just me, but most of those who followed me as well.
“Today, you fought under the great flag of Lafayette, and with this, an era of Lafayette came to an end.”
For what did these people desperately fight and sacrifice themselves today? For the glory of Lafayette? Or for loyalty to the dead prince?
Did they know that? In their dying moments on this battlefield, did these victims consider it an honor to have participated in the Duke’s legendary fight, dying proudly?
I simply cannot, in good conscience, praise the numerous sacrifices made for the achievement of a single individual.
“Now begins a new era of Lafayette. My comrades.”
Acknowledged, Blue Knight Hubert de Lafayette, the greatest knight of Francia.
As a knight, I cannot surpass you.
Nor do I need to.
If there is a God who sent me back, it surely wasn’t for such a purpose.
“I will not lead you to the battlefield just to elevate my own honor. The honor of Lafayette belongs to all of you under this flag! As long as you follow me, I will ensure that no one doubts your worth!”
I looked around at those who held loyalty passed down from the previous Count of Toulouse.
I etched in my memory the faces of those who, simply because their lord and leading knight commanded it, charged into hopeless battles and shed their blood without any hope of reward.
I walked slowly and took the flag, bearing the emblem of Lafayette, from the standard-bearer.
These are the people who I should have been responsible for, yet failed to be, and now I impose upon them the weight of a second life.
“Now, I, Lafayette, will carry the flag for you! Follow me! And you shall become the honor of Lafayette!”
“I swear allegiance to Duke Lafayette!” they all shouted in unison, bowing their heads to me, their voices covering the plains. I turned my back on the corpse of the Duke.
The Kingdom of Francia, the era of the old hero, the Blue Knight, has ended.
The King’s army, having lost most of its knights and forces, crumbled, signaling the end of an old era.
The crisis of the revolution, which was already on the brink of eruption, will become uncontrollable and plunge the entire Francia into chaos the moment the kingdom realizes its loss of power.
Before my return, I was merely swept away by this tide, unknowing. By the time I regained my senses, not only I and my people but also most of Francia had been consumed by the madness of the rampant revolution.
But this time, I am determined not to let these people be sacrificed along with the old era.
We will not be mere bystanders to the revolution; rather, we will be the leaders who sweep away the old era along with them.
This corrupt and degenerate kingdom must fall. Before its stench drives everyone mad.
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