The Golden Age, Chapters 2-6
Donovan rapes Guts, claiming he paid Gambino for the privilege, but the next morning the latter seems unaware of what happen and Guts convinces himself Donovan lied. Later, Gambino’s men ambush a retreating enemy column and Guts kills Donovan in the confusion. In another battle, a cannon ball costs Gambino a leg, and his status as leader.
Two years later, the other mercenaries have lost their respect for Gambino and he responds by lashing out at Guts. One night, he enters Guts’s tent and tries to kill him, blaming him for Shisu’s death and the loss of his status. He also reveals that Donovan did pay him, and he gladly accepted because of his hatred for Guts. Horrified, Guts kills Gambino.
During the fight a lamp is knocked over and causes a fire, which brings some of the other mercenaries rushing into the tent to find Guts kneeling over Gambino’s body. They try to stop Guts, but he manages to fight them off and escape. During the pursuit he is shot through the shoulder by a crossbow bolt and left for dead when he falls into a ravine. He isn’t, however, and despite of thoughts of how much easier giving up and dying would have been he fights off a pack of wolves and is found unconscious the next morning by another group of mercenaries, who take him with them as good luck.
Four years later, after a castle gate is breached the rush into the courtyard is stopped by a heavily-armoured man named Bazuso, the enemy general’s pleas to knightly honour and the chance for fame falling on deaf ears among the mercenaries under his command. Then, one young soldier steps up and agrees to fight Bazuso after negotiating his reward with the general. Bazuso taunts this “greenhorn” and the paltry reward he’s about to die for, but against the odds the young soldier, none other than Guts, kills him.
Feverish from his wound, Guts has a nightmare about Gambino and the conflicting emotions over his death, which ends with the sensation of a woman lying next to him. He awakens to find himself in the soldiers’ camp. Casca seems angry with him about something, and he learns that his earlier sensation wasn’t a dream. Griffith had ordered her to sleep with him to keep up his body temperature, calling it a woman’s duty, although Casca has largely been forced to abandon her femininity to become a soldier. Guts then learns that these soldiers are the Band of the Hawk, one of the most feared mercenary companies around, even though most aren’t much older than he is. Griffith then explains that he was impressed by Guts’s skill and daring during his fight with Bazuso and spared his life earlier because he wants him – to join the Hawks, that is (OK, that too, but still…). Guts refuses but wants to make up for his earlier defeat and challenges Griffith to a duel, agreeing to join if he loses. Griffith’s skill proves to surpass even Guts’s, and the fight seems to have been decided when he even manages to jump on top of Guts’s sword and hold him at sabre-point.
Although Guts briefly turns the tables, Griffith still manages to win and declares that Guts is now one of the Hawks, to the surprise of the rest and the anger of more than a few. Several, including Corkus, who was behind the initial attack on Guts, plan to kill him, but Casca intervenes and talks them out of it. Guts, who heard the whole thing, thanks her for what she’s done for him, but she insists she’s only following Griffith’s orders.
An unspecified time later, the Hawks launch a raid on an enemy camp. Guts is impressed by the speed and skill shown in the attack and with Griffith’s tactical prowess, but he’s been assigned as the rear-guard (just him), and the enemy cavalry is now in pursuit.
Commentary
I’m not sure what’s as badass (or highly improbable) as picking up and using an oversized sword with your teeth (effectively, no less), but jumping onto the edge of a sword and staying there probably qualifies. This, of course, is the highlight of our (re)introduction to Griffith, here a young, handsome, charismatic mercenary commander with peerless swordsmanship skills, a gift for strategy and plenty of homoerotic subtext. Well, as Donovan said, “[it] happens all the time in armies”, but you can’t really blame Guts for being wary after his last experience. But unless you’re homophobic, there’s really nothing negative about Griffith so far. In a series where we’ve seen little but evil supernatural forces and despicable, cruel, or helpless examples of humanity, there’s now a white knight, skilled at what he does and respected by his followers. In other words, a fairly typical fantasy hero. It makes you wonder how such a person could become what we saw only a few chapters ago. About the only real issue is his orders to Casca regarding Guts. Like just about every woman in a male-dominated profession during a pre-industrial society (and many post, unfortunately), she’s had to suppress anything that might mark her as a woman, and Griffith must have known something like that would be humiliating and invite ridicule, both of which it does. What probably makes it worse for her is that she’s obviously good at what she does. She’s able to stand up to Guts in a fight; the Hawks recognize her as second only to Griffith (until now), and since she was able to assess Guts’s skill she’s also a good judge of talent. So now she hates Guts’s, well, guts, and only did it because she was following orders, and because Guts would kick Corkus and co.’s asses if they tried to fight him, even wounded, and doesn’t give a crap if he gets himself killed. Yeah, we can all see where that’s going…
Then there’s the rest of the Band of the Hawk, although we haven’t seen enough of them yet to learn much. Except that Corkus is a prick. Sure, there may be reasons not to trust Guts, but you were attacking him unprovoked. There’s also young Rickert, and the Hawks must be a much more welcoming environment (for a mercenary band) than Gambino’s company given his optimistic outlook. We all know how well that type of person has fared so far in this series. We also have Judeau, who loves a good prank, but as that one sentry can attest (from the afterlife), he’s damn good with those throwing knives, and Pippin, the Strong Silent Black Guy.
Unfortunately for Guts, it’s now clear he wasn’t just a decent person who had the worst in him brought out by exceptional circumstances. He was raised that way. His entire life has been spent in a culture where the weak and the maimed are left behind, the powerful take advantage of the weak, and qualities like empathy and compassion are often liabilities. In other words, it mirrors what we’ve seen in previous chapters, only on a purely human scale. Since there wasn’t much in his time with Gambino that would seem to allow for the more humane qualities he briefly shows, he didn’t get it from there. As for where he did, given how much nicer the Band of the Hawk seems so far (for mercenaries, anyway), they’re the leading candidate.
What’s also mirrored is his propensity for taking risks. His fight with Bazuso is a human version of the ones we’ve seen previously, with a much stronger, and physically larger opponent, and odds that seemingly aren’t in his favour. As Griffith puts it, he’s “gambling with [his] life.” Why? His nightmare provides the answer. For all that Gambino treated him like dirt, he was all Guts had, and both his loss and betrayal have deprived Guts of that. At least his older self has revenge to motivate himself; here he has nothing. He feels he has nothing to live for and constantly throws himself into danger in the hope of ending it all. But in spite of it, he always manages to survive and keep on going. I don’t think he really wants to die, but he’s been around violence and danger for so long he knows nothing else, and it’s the only thing that makes him feel alive. Say what you will about him, but being able to persevere when it seems so much easier to give up is an admirable quality. 
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