I Will Be the Greatest Knight

The enemy.

There was the foggy recognition of a threat in front of Irene. It had felt like she was drowning for some time, but she still managed to breathe, move, and react even if it took great effort.

It was like someone else was speaking thoughts into her head, but she couldn’t resist it, as if it was her own free will that was piloting her.

Her true self was lost in this fog somewhere, so she allowed this urge that seemed even bigger than herself to move her as she pulled her bow off of her shoulder and slid an arrow against the notch in the wood and tightened the string.

This target was moving too much.

Irene tried to stand up, but something was attached to her ankle and keeping her in place. She was forced to crouch to face an enemy. How inconvenient this was for her.

Even though her hair blew in her face with each gust of wind and snow, she felt like she could still see the target. They were pinned in place and not too far away.

"Irene!"

There was the piercing sound of her name from someone’s lips that seemed to get some sort of reaction from her deep down. It was a faint sense of recognition. Someone important to her.

She assumed the enemy was threatening them and pulled the string even tighter as she aimed.

But then they started begging.

"Irene! It’s me. Please!"

She couldn’t see Henry lower himself to his knees with his hands up as he pleaded for his life from the woman he loved. He thought that perhaps making himself less threatening would help her see that he wasn’t the target. The true target was right next to her, seemingly controlling her.

Irene grimaced, and she clenched her jaw as she released the arrow.

Just as the tight string sprang out of her grasp, another voice took over her thoughts, causing her to double over. The bow fell from her hands, and her elbows and face were in the snow as she grasped her head.

Master’s Mate. Stop. Hurting. Master hurting.

This voice was a woman’s. One she had never heard before.

"Irene," Henry pleaded.

Despite the fact that there was now an arrow hanging out of Henry’s waist and his own blood dripping into the snow, he crawled forward with his sword in his hand.

The last utterance of her name was enough for something to snap in Irene, and she lifted her head from the snow. She gasped for air as if she had truly been suffocating and witnessed the sight of a wyrm gaining on Henry. It was the wyrm that was once beside her.

"Henry!" Irene sobbed.

With her cry of her husband’s name, more clarity sank in, and she scrambled to pick up her bow again. This time, she pointed it at the correct target after pulling out another arrow. She shot a lot faster. The target was much bigger than before.

When one arrow sank in, Irene tried to stand again.

This time, she realized the true reason for her inability to stand. The other, smaller wyrm that was mostly buried in snow had its fangs sunk deeply into her left calf, just above her boot. Her blood mixed with the venom that the beast produced dripped into the snow. The wyrm was unmoving despite her trying to shake it off.

Two wyrms? She realized only then that they were dealing with two.

However, her highest priority was Henry. If the only way she could fend off a monster was by shooting arrows, then so be it.

There were at least two dozen arrows in her quiver. She would shoot every last one if it was enough to save him.

She shot off arrow after arrow, and then suddenly the grip on her leg was no longer.

There was a rush of wind all around that was so warm and so surprising; the snow around her melted, and the wyrm that had once held onto her was crushed under the claws of a dragon landing. She sank down a few feet as the snow turned to water.

Sylaron’s fire breath was quite effective against the wyrm. Fire would always win against ice.

It gave Irene a moment to climb out of the hole she had sunk into, and she rushed forward. With the other wyrm’s attention on Henry, despite the arrows hanging out of it that she had shot, it gave her time to brandish her sword.

With every step, her ankle ached, but it wasn’t stopping her, especially not when the wyrm in front of her turned and revealed to her the softer, darker part of its belly and the magical orb that contained all of its mana.

She dove, raising her sword as she did and thrust it downward, deep into the wyrm’s underside. It was already thrashing from the barrage of arrows she had shot at it, but she managed to pin it into the snow for a moment.

Realizing one of her hands was bare, she lost grip on her sword as it was wet and slippery with the dark blood from the monster. With one arm hugging the beast, she used the other to tear out the mana stone. She had to use an arrow that had missed the monster before and was left in the snow. Its sharp tip was scalpel-like, helping her finally get the magical orb disconnected.

The wyrm’s attention had turned to her, but before it could strike her again, the front of its body fell against the ground.

Its life force remained in Irene’s grasp as the knight took in deep breaths and tried to pull herself together as she came down from the thrill of battle.

Worries didn’t subside for long.

She gasped her husband’s name. He wasn’t safe just because one wyrm was gone. There was still another one to worry about.

As she pushed off of the ground and jumped over the wyrm that was obscuring her view of the others, she stopped dead in her tracks to see Sylaron holding down the other wyrm as her husband carved out the magical orb.

By that point, Sylaron’s fire breath was no longer working. The dragon moved slower than when she first dove down into the cold, Sunstoian North.

The moment the smaller wyrm was taken care of and its movement ceased, Henry pushed the dragon.

"Go!" he shouted. "You have to go, or you’re going to die here! Can’t you see it? Your fire is burning out. It’s too cold!"

Protect you. Tired. Sad. Protect you.

Irene’s eyes widened. She didn’t know how she was hearing Sylaron.

"Please! Go!" Irene cried. "We can’t lose you here!"

Despite her scaled, expressionless face, the dragon seemed shocked that the red-haired knight was yelling at her. She finally spread her wings and took to the sky.

It was obvious she was moving slower than normal.

"Please survive," Irene pleaded.

I survive. You survive. That was all the dragon left them with before she disappeared through the snow and beyond the clouds. They lost sight of her quickly due to low visibility.

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