What Happens
Casca, Chapter 3
Following her rescue, Casca managed to make a life for herself as a mercenary. The fledgling Band of the Hawk continued to grow as it won victories on the battlefield, the men inspired by their heroic commander who retained a boyish innocence in spite of his achievements. But, as Casca would soon realize, his life was much darker beneath the surface.
The Hawks had found employment with a wealthy lord whose taste for young boys was an open secret. One night Casca spotted a (shirtless) Griffith on a nearby balcony, and saw the nobleman take him inside. The next morning she found him down at the river, tormented by what he had done but insisting he needed the money, and satiating a nobleman’s deviant lusts was better than earning it by fighting more battles; that would only cost them more troops, and the fact that so many already died helping him achieve his dream is tormenting him enough. It was then that Casca, awed by the strength of his conviction, vowed to give everything she had for him.
Prepared for Death, Chapters 1-3
Guts spots some mercenaries nearby discussing the reward Sir Adon put on their heads. They try to slip away after nightfall but are soon surrounded by a hundred mercenaries, led by the grudge-driven Sir Adon. Guts and Casca manage to fight off the first wave and even Sir Adon’s younger brother Samson, a giant of a man with triply-thick armour and a ball-and-chain that can crush a normal man in one blow, is no match for Guts. He orders Casca to leave, insisting he’ll buy her time, and the mercenaries desperately try, without success, to take him down.
As Casca flees a few of the mercenaries break off to pursue her. She is able to fight them off at first but is still weak. Before they can truly harm (or rape) her Judeau arrives with a rescue party.
Survival
Casca and co. return to the scene of the fight, where they find and exhausted Guts sitting against a tree, surrounded by the bodies of almost a hundred men.
After being taken back to camp the Hawks’ physician says Guts will live, but his injuries make any further fighting during this campaign out of the question. Later, Judeau gives Casca what he claims is magical dust he got from an elf in a travelling entertainers troupe he used to work for, saying it will quickly heal Guts’s wounds.
Campfire of Dreams
Casca sees Guts sitting on a nearby hilltop, and a few awkward moments follow as she applies the dust. Guts insists he didn’t fight those hundred men for Casca’s sake, but he did realize how much worthier she was giving her all for Griffith. As impressive as killing a hundred men is, there was no higher purpose behind it, whereas Griffith has something he can believe in and strive for, even if it takes everything he has. And even though the other Hawks all have dreams of their own, they have come to see Griffith’s as a way to achieve them, feeding his own with theirs, and to Guts that’s truly remarkable.
However, he also realized something else, and it’s that he doesn’t need Griffith the way the others do. His aspirations are simple, and as long as he has his sword he can always find another war to fight. He says he’ll stick things out until the end of the campaign, but Casca seems upset that he might leave the Hawks.
The Battle for Doldrey, Chapters 1-4
Captured by Chuder at the start of the hundred-year-war, the mighty fortress of Doldrey has served as a focal point of its war effort and resisted all of Midland’s attempts to reclaim it. It has a cliff-face at its back, a river in front and a windswept plain between, massive, thick walls, and is guarded by Chuder’s most elite knight corps, the Holy Purple Rhino Knights It is thought to be impregnable.
With Chuder undergoing a succession crisis, the Midland generals are convinced now is the time to try and retake Doldrey again, but they are stumped as to how. One jokingly suggests Griffith should try, which doesn’t go as planned when he offers to do so, and says he needs only the Band of the Hawk.
In the Hawks’ camp, Guts is undaunted by the enormity of the task, saying that if Griffith volunteered for it he must have a plan. Casca, however, asks him if he remembers the nobleman she mentioned earlier, the one who molested Griffith. His name is Gennon, and he has since become the supreme commander of Chuder’s northern war front. Guess where his headquarters is…
At Doldrey, Griffith leads almost half of the outnumbered Hawks, mostly Guts’s Raiders, in an isolated charge and promptly retreats again. General Boscogn of the Holy Purple Rhino Knights is surprised by such strategy, but realizes it’s too poor for even the most mediocre commander and is convinced Griffith must be planning something. Gennon, however, who ordered Griffith captured alive but is convinced Boscogn will make little attempt to try, sorties with his bodyguard and orders everyone to charge the Hawks, promising a reward for taking Griffith unharmed. Boscogn reluctantly complies and soon finds himself in a duel with Guts and the two sides engage around them.
Only a skeleton force remains in Doldrey, and everyone is so confident of their victory they haven’t even closed the gate, which gives Casca the opening she needs to rush in with a small unit of Hawks. They run into Sir Adon, who fled the fight with Guts and has been left behind in disgrace with the Blue Whale Knights by order of General Boscogn. Unfortunately for him, Casca’s in top form this time, and he soon finds himself pleading pathetically for his life, only to reveal it was (mostly) a ruse when he whips out a hidden crossbow and shots Casca with a bolt he claims is poisoned.
Commentary
I’m no strategist, but seriously, who goes out to meet the enemy and leaves the freakin’ gate open? I know Griffith was counting on Gennon doing something reckless because of his lust for him, but that’s one hell of an Idiot Ball being carried by the defenders. If anything, you’d think the guards would have closed it again as a matter of course.
Sure, the Blue Whale Knights were left to guard the fortress, but Sir Adon’s a textbook example of why men like the King of Midland prefer men like Griffith over most noble-born officers. Don’t tell me he did, as he claims, suspect something like that would happen and deliberately left the gate open so he’d have something to do during the battle.
Well, one thing’s for sure, Griffith is good at reading people and using them to his advantage. Then again, he had to learn that early on, when he realized the consequences of getting others involved in your ambitions. Gennon was unpleasant, but he was a quicker means to an end, and Griffith was trying to harden himself to the losses he’ll endure and the unpleasant choices he’ll face if he keeps going. He may have started out with good intentions, saying “if there’s something I can do for the sake of the dead…[it’s] to win” and keep going to ensure their deaths wouldn’t be in vain, but even then he admitted to not feeling “at all responsible for [those] who’ve lost their lives under my command.”
There is the fact that he’s trying to command a band of mercenaries at such a young age, but it’s one thing to accept that your choices will be difficult, or even that others may be killed for them and another to surrender to them completely, but that’s exactly what Griffith has done. It’s a chilling look at what the Guts from “The Guardians of Desire” is at risk of becoming, but since he lacks Griffith’s subtlety, the results wouldn’t be pretty.
But just because his resume consists of “killed people, then killed some more” doesn’t mean he can’t think for himself. While he may not have any formal education, he’s still intelligent enough to interpret Griffith’s views for what they are. But in spite of that, he’d come to view Griffith as a friend and ally, and alongside Zodd’s prophecy he now has reasons to be doubt that. More than anything, that’s probably why he wants to leave the Hawks.
Unfortunately, it’s also hard for him to share what he knows with the others. He knows the Hawks all have dreams, no matter how realistic they may be, and he can appreciate and respect Griffith’s ability to bring them all together as extensions of his own. But he can’t take that away from them by telling the truth about Griffith since it means so much to them, to which the fact that there’s little proof besides his word against Griffith’s is probably secondary.
He also lied to Casca. Sure, he did have unfinished business with Sir Adon, but it’s clear there’s more than that. He still admires Griffith’s ambition, regardless of what he thinks about him, and he can much the same about Casca’s willingness to give herself completely to something greater. It’s more than he can do, a fact he’s capable of recognizing, and he’s willing to risk himself if it means those capable of better things than he is can live on to carry them out. While he hasn’t had the same cares as Griffith, he has had just as much of a difficult life, and one unlikely to teach empathy and compassion at that, the fact that he’s still able to think beyond himself and care about others shows that on the whole he’s turned out a better person than Griffith did.
Casca, meanwhile, is becoming much better defined. Griffith gave her something she could believe in, which is why she always seems to resent Guts and the way he makes Griffith act out of character. Well, that and the other reason, but now it looks like she may be divided on that issue. She and Guts have had a few moments before, when she bandaged his arrow wound last volume and now when she applied the elf dust, and it’s probably not a coincidence Judeau gave it to her – playing matchmaker are we? But it’s the fact that she looks upset when he says – not outright, but it’s still obvious – that he’s leaving the Hawks. She did repeat that she didn’t care whether he lived or died back in the cave, but if that’s the case why does she care what he does, period?
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