“Put your foot in the stirrup here.”
Sisou demonstrated for Anya personally. He placed his foot in the D-shaped stirrup and mounted the saddle in one smooth motion.
“Just spread your legs and mount it in one go like this.”
Easier said than done. Anya awkwardly placed his leather boot in the stirrup. Though nervous, his previous training hadn’t been in vain, as he managed to tense his abdominal muscles and sit on the saddle with relative ease. Anya’s face immediately brightened.
“Now, hold the reins and shall we start with a simple walk?”
When Sisou gently squeezed Tion’s sides with his calves, the horse began walking with a rhythmic clip-clop in 4-beat tempo. Anya tried to mimic his movements exactly. However, Mil was preoccupied with lowering his head and licking the snow on the ground. Anya unconsciously grew impatient. When he spurred the horse a bit harder, Mil startled and jumped up. Anya sprawled across the horse’s back, dangling precariously and struggling desperately not to fall off.
“Your Highness! You must straighten your upper body and maintain your balance with your calf and thigh muscles. Trust me.”
Sisou urgently dismounted from Tion and rushed toward Anya and Mil. He raised both hands, making shushing sounds to calm Mil. Anya tried to straighten his upper body while tensing his calf and thigh muscles as Sisou instructed. But fear of falling forced him to hunch over again.
“If you grip the reins too tightly, Mil will struggle even more from the discomfort.”
True to his words, Mil shook his head in apparent distress as Anya clung to the short reins. Alarmed by the small animal’s painful struggle, Anya hastily let go. The rebound sent his body tumbling backward. His vision turned upside down as he crashed to the ground. Just then, as luck would have it, Evernight and Riario were turning the corner and walking toward them. Anya’s back spasmed in pain.
“Your Highness, are you alright! Oh, Commander, hello!”
Sisou rushed to Anya, but didn’t miss the opportunity to greet Evernight whom he’d noticed. Too embarrassed, Anya remained lying on the ground, unable to get up. He seemed to have twisted his back.
“Would you like to try standing up?”
Despite Sisou’s kind inquiry, the boy covered his face with his hands. His flushed neck was visible through the loosened robe that had shifted during the fall.
“Are you alright?”
Riario approached, his robe fluttering as he walked. He immediately began chanting a spell and placed his hand near Anya’s waist. A purple light rippled beneath his palm.
“My magical attribute isn’t healing, so I can only provide very simple pain relief.”
True to his words, the sharp pain that had shot through Anya’s waist gradually subsided.
“Th-thank you.”
His voice was as tiny as an ant’s. The boy felt like he wanted to find a mouse hole to hide in.
“C-Commander! You’re just leaving?”
Sisou called out urgently. At the word “Commander,” Anya unconsciously turned his head sideways. He could feel the cold ground against his cheek.
Evernight was over there. But he was entering the main castle without even glancing at the somewhat noisy situation here. The cold winter midday sunlight shattered above his head. The man’s face, squinting slightly, looked utterly bored.
“Don’t worry about it. He wouldn’t care even if I were being torn apart by monsters right before his eyes.”
Sisou made a joke, but Anya felt depressed. Why did he always appear so indecisive and naive in front of Evernight? Already young for his age, Evernight probably viewed Anya as nothing more than a high-maintenance brat.
First with Rips Mohan, and now this… While Anya didn’t particularly like Evernight, he still wanted to earn his recognition as a member of Tildyen. In a way, it was a strange kind of stubbornness that even he couldn’t explain.
* * *
Fortunately, his back was only momentarily twisted from the shock and not seriously injured. Thanks to Riario and Sabelli’s magic, Anya quickly recovered and was now living a daily routine quite different from when he first arrived at Tildyen.
Anya woke in the dark dawn before daybreak, just like the servants here. The boy deliberately washed his face with slightly lukewarm water, then dressed in clothing that both protected against the cold while allowing ease of movement. Eventually, once he started swinging his sword, Tildyen’s bleak coldness would quickly be forgotten. Then, with the sword Evernight had given him—or rather, practically discarded to him—secured at his waist, he left his bedroom.
Anya, a novice swordsman who hadn’t yet acquired a proper waist holder, nodded greetings to the servants who were lighting wall lamps or drawing back thick curtains, the somewhat loosely hanging sword dangling at his side.
“Good morning, Master.”
The servants paused their work and immediately folded their hands neatly, bowing at the waist to Anya. After the honor duel, they no longer mocked him as before, yet a bleak distance still existed, keeping them from becoming close.
Exiting the main castle led to an arched corridor connecting to the inner courtyard. A biting wind blew. He stood in a scene he couldn’t have imagined before. After the honor duel, everyone expected the master to spend lazy days gloating, but Anya continued visiting the training grounds every day without fail. Everyone had grown accustomed to it now. They merely watched silently from a distance. Thankfully, there was no one harassing him like Rips Mohan had. No one openly challenged him to a duel either.
The bluish training ground was, as expected, empty. Since morning training usually began right after sunrise, Anya could enjoy his solitary time in peaceful quiet without worrying about others’ eyes, before the trainees crowded in. Soon, a soft voice counting numbers echoed through the empty training grounds.
“Hello. Is the wine to your liking?”
Bell, the young maid from the wooden dining hall, was popular. She was exceptionally kind and had a pretty smile. Her kindness extended to Anya without prejudice. While preparing for the duel with Rips Mohan, Anya had been too preoccupied to receive Bell’s warm kindness, but now he had developed some composure.
“Y-yes. Th-thank you.”
Bell prepared diluted wine especially for Anya, who had a low tolerance. Anya didn’t know how to react to her small consideration, but after learning that she was kind to other knights as well, he decided to feel more at ease.
Anya always ate alone in the corner, in a dark spot away from the sunlight. Meanwhile, in the wooden dining hall, an argument had been ongoing among the lower-ranking knights since Rips Mohan’s death.
“No matter if it’s his partner, for the Commander to interfere in an honor duel was excessive.”
Someone agreed.
“If the Commander hadn’t killed Rips Mohan then, the outcome might have been reversed. Didn’t we all see him grasp his spear at the end?”
“Listen, man. Do you realize you’re able to eat here with your head still attached only thanks to that Commander?”
At those words, everyone fell silent. Most of them were vagabonds or men who had been begging and living on the streets without proper homes even in the North. Some had fled after committing crimes and ended up in the North. Even when Evernight received the Emperor’s command and crossed the Wall between life and death, they merely spent their days lazily without a thought.
Finally, after the first battle ended, Evernight returned to Northmouthst, the northernmost village, and made them a proposal.
‘I don’t care about status or honor. Those who want to somehow carve out a life from the gutter, follow me.’
At first, everyone sneered at the young man who spouted such words so casually while covered in blood. The war had no foreseeable end, and despite being an imperial command, Emperor Luksus didn’t particularly monitor the battle situation closely.
When the imperial command first came down, everyone trembled with fear, thinking they should abandon this place and go south to beg for their lives. Those who had committed crimes and came here thought it better to return home even at the risk of being caught by the guards. But once Evernight stepped up as commander and the battle began in earnest, the Emperor lost interest like a child bored with a toy. So everyone resumed living as before, saying it was only those spirited young men who initially followed Evernight who got screwed. Half of them died in the first battle, after all.
‘Look here, Commander. We don’t want to die. If we die beyond the Wall, we can’t even retrieve our bodies—what reason do we have to follow you?’
‘It’s all forced conscription anyway…!’
‘Be quiet, Sisou.’
Beside the Commander stood a slender-looking young man whose condition was equally terrible. Soaked all over as if he’d rolled somewhere, with armor cracked in places. Evernight blocked the young man and played with a dagger in his hand. It looked like a kind of fidgeting, as if a child playing with a toy.
‘If I die, another commander will come anyway.’
He smiled. Smiling while covered in blood made him look just like a monster.
‘The new commander will drag you forcibly to the Wall as meat shields. Even if you somehow return alive, nothing will fall to you.’
Evernight’s words were entirely correct. The commander position could be replaced at any time, and Tildyen’s history proved it precisely. Commanders who came to Tildyen were invariably ruthless, arrogant, and extremely authoritarian, so they would likely throw vagabonds and criminals like them straight to the Wall as meat shields. If they resisted going to the Wall, they would kindly be sentenced to beheading.
‘If you follow me to the Wall, I’ll guarantee your status after the war ends.’
Everyone unconsciously gaped. With status, they could acquire homes. They could start families. No matter how much wealth one had, those below commoner status had neither freedom of residence nor freedom to marry.
‘You’ll all die sooner or later anyway.’
At those words, everyone began exchanging glances.
