I Will Be the Greatest Knight

Irene had walked quite a distance away from the small cabin they occupied. She was slower than usual, but unmistakably had taken one direction.

Her footprints disappeared in the top layer of snow due to the snowstorm that had rolled in. Her journey was erased from the world as she went forth blindly. Not only was the snow blowing horizontally, but it was also practically pitch-black.

Eventually, the knight settled onto her knees in the middle of a field. The earth started to shake. If she was coherent, she would recognize the familiar feeling of a wyrm nearby now that she was where the snow was much deeper.

Despite this, Irene hadn’t been alone.

Sammy urgently followed her. He occasionally stood in front of her to block her path forward, understanding instinctively that further away from shelter meant danger. He had been hiding against the wall with Froid.

He neighed and stomped, but Irene would push past him, and he wasn’t so disobedient as to stop her using force.

When she went to her knees, the horse kicked and whinnied in objection. His head was shaking, and he galloped around. His master’s movements didn’t make sense.

Only when the wyrm appeared did the horse begin to gallop away. He was loyal, but he was still an animal with a degree of self-preservation inside of him.

His escape was for naught.

As the snow began to shake and a wyrm rose from deep underneath, revealed to Sammy was not one but two wyrms. Where the first wyrm had been sliced by Arthur’s thick blade before was a stump. Grown from what was left of its tail was a new juvenile wyrm, a bit smaller, but nonetheless terrifying.

The smaller one’s head curved. It struck at the galloping horse.

It only sank its teeth into the outer layer of flesh and managed to pull a hole out of Sammy’s rump, but it wasn’t enough to be poisoned or eaten. The horse escaped, leaving behind drips of blood that would undoubtedly be erased by the storm.

Sammy made it halfway back to the cabin, finding that Froid had broken out as well.

It was then that Henry stumbled out of the cabin. He rushed towards the horses, horrified to see that Irene wasn’t with them, and they were both neighing at one another. Their heads were back in alarm, communicating that something made them afraid.

+++

There were moments when Henry was first a knight—no, even all the way back to when he was first an apprentice—where he would do something strenuous that his body wasn’t used to. He would push himself to his limit and wake up the next morning feeling as if his body was made of lead.

Each movement was met with heaviness and pain. The act of building muscles and stamina was not for the faint of heart, but at one point, he was so desperate to become a knight. He convinced himself the pain of becoming something would be worth it.

As he woke up that morning, the familiar heaviness of overworking himself was felt by every fiber of his being.

But it was concerning to him because he hadn’t participated in something outside the usual for him. In fact, the day before had been the most sedentary they had been in weeks.

Was Irene feeling like this?

The Commander outstretched his arm only to feel that the bed where his wife was supposed to be was cold. In fact, the bed wasn’t the only thing cold. The entire room, as the blankets and furs fell from his arm, was frigid. The fire hadn’t been attended to all night long.

He slept strangely deeply for how awful he was feeling, enough that the fire had a chance to burn out completely.

His heart was pounding as alarm rose within him. He brought himself up and took in his surroundings. There was no Irene anywhere. No warmth anywhere either.

He lifted a hand to his head as fogginess left him. Normalcy was starting to return.

"Irene." His voice was quiet at first, but then he found his ability to yell. "Irene!"

He stood up; a rush caused dizziness to strike him.

Knowing he had to be reasonable and couldn’t rush out into the snow without any protection, he began to pull on all of his gear. The more he moved, the clearer he felt.

But it didn’t matter. His only priority was his wife.

Realizing the door wasn’t stuck the way it was when they went out the first time the previous morning, he knew that she had gone out there.

He pleaded for her to be okay. The failure of a husband, the supposed protector, not waking to his wife leaving their bed was horrifying to him.

The Commander made it outside, stumbling slightly as he didn’t pay attention to the step downward. His dark eyes were scanning his surroundings for Irene.

His heart ached when he saw that where the horses once were was empty. The wall that had been around them was toppled, but it looked like they broke out rather than a magical beast breaking in.

He left the makeshift stable with a sense of dread welling up inside of him.

It was a grey day, but the sun had certainly risen beyond the thick clouds. Thick snowflakes paired with gusts of wind made visibility even worse.

Henry cursed as he rushed forward, and he unsheathed his sword. All he could think about were the deep marks in the snow from the day before. They disappeared far off on the horizon. His best guess was that she went that way.

This magic she had described to him was more terrifying than he expected. He had thought that he would be able to protect her from it. Even if she was affected, he surely should have been able to keep her there.

A small taste of relief was afforded to Henry when he saw the outline of horses appearing ahead of him as he rushed forth. At least they were both alive.

The knight let out a sharp whistle to get their attention, and he noticed their temperaments were fearful. It surely had to be the monster for the horses to respond like that.

"Froid!" he called.

When the horse was close enough, he grabbed the horse’s reins and jumped onto its back. Froid wasn’t wearing his saddle, but Henry was deft enough with a horse to know how to ride it without stirrups and a saddle.

"Sammy! Go!" Henry ordered.

The horse began to run forward, but it stopped just as quickly and began shaking its head and hopping in disagreement. It was then that Henry realized the horse was injured.

As he got closer and calmed the horse by grabbing its reins too, he saw two obvious marks of fangs that had torn flesh.

Whether Sammy followed or not wasn’t important. He knew the direction in which the horse didn’t want to go, and that was enough for him.

Henry squeezed his knees tightly, and his sword remained unsheathed. He didn’t know what to prepare for. He would rather die than face the future if Irene turned out to be no longer with them. All he could think about was how much he yearned for the wife he had now. How even before he met her, he so desperately wanted to be loved the way she had loved him.

It was only because he was a knight so much longer than he was a husband that he was able to press forward and not break down. Rushing forward to danger was nothing to him, especially if there was a chance there was someone to save ahead.

To his horror, he ripped at Froid’s reins when he saw his wife crouching in the snow. There was a hill around her that grew and disappeared. Occasionally revealed was the white, scaly body of a wyrm as it swarmed around her.

"Irene!"

Henry jumped off of Froid and smacked the horse’s leg so it would go further away and out of danger.

More than anything, the Commander was shocked to see the wyrm’s head rise out of the snow and appear just next to Irene’s.

Irene looked towards Henry but didn’t seem to really see him the way she normally did.

She took her bow and arrow off her back and pulled the string tight as she pointed it at Henry.

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