Chapter 1390: Face to face(3)

The morning sun beat down hot upon his neck, though the air biting at his face remained bitterly cold.

Winter was almost over.

The realization washed over Vilon like the blooming of a flower that had thorns. An entire season had slipped through his fingers, months spent slogging along churned, muddy roads, gazing upon the broken ruin of a once-prosperous land, burned and gutted to its conqueror’s liking. And yet, that very conqueror now acted as its shepherd, redirecting grain and timber to rebuild the kingdom he had shattered.

He had planned to just pass through, and yet it seemed the Gods had a different direction for his life to go.

Back when Vilon had first set out, his greatest worries had been a full belly and whether the army of the Valorous Bull would accept a hedge knight into its ranks. How strange that those worries, which had once loomed like impenetrable mountains, now felt like tiny, distant hills.

He had witnessed the deep misery of the smallfolk and the cold cruelty of the parasites who fed off their lingering vitality. He had faced monsters in human skin, men who had cast off their own humanity. and in striking them down, Vilon had rendered grand service to a cause he had once fought in , wearing a foreign cloak and riding beneath a banner that held no blood-claim to this soil.

Vilon reined Chestnut to a halt, the cold wind nipping at the freshly stitched wound in his flank. He reflected on the path he had trodden, the blood he had spilled, and the scar across his ribs.

He came to a conclusion.

He would do it all again.

Indeed, he would not hesitate for a single heartbeat. For amid the blood and the mud, he had finally found his purpose and his happiness.

He nudged Chestnut forward, entering the thick, chaotic vein of the main camp.

The world around him was a swirling, deafening vortex of motion. Iron tires groaned under the weight of supply wagons as draft oxen slipped in the dirt, their drivers screaming curses that were drowned out by the rhythmic, thunderous beating of iron breastplates being hammered flat at the armorer’s forge.

Cohorts of foot-soldiers surged past his stirrups like a dark river, their iron-shod boots throwing up clods of grey mud, while mounted couriers wove recklessly through the narrow lanes, scattering squires and pack mules in their wake. Smoke from a thousand hearth fires hung thick and greasy in the canopy above, stinging his eyes and burning his throat with the stench of wet timber and rendered fat.

With every heavy step Chestnut took through the mud, a white-hot spike tore through his side. The knight hunched over his pommel, his teeth grinding together so hard his jaw ached, one hand clutching tightly to his bandaged ribs as his eyes darted through the swirling dust and smoke.

"Where is the medic?" he rasped, pulling his horse alongside a passing legionnaire carrying a bundle of ash spears. "Which way to the white tents?"

The soldier didn’t even turn his head, shoving past Chestnut’s shoulder with a grunt to keep pace with his marching column. ℴ

Vilon tried again, calling out to a fat clerk clutching an armful of parchment scrolls. "Excuse me! Where are the medical bays?"

The clerk merely veered around the stallion’s hooves, his eyes glued to his ledgers, completely deaf to the knight’s question. Vilon should have reached down and snagged the man by his shoulder, but the simple act of breathing sent jagged spikes of heat through his flank. Bending over was out of the question.

Realizing no one in this rushing iron machine had a second to spare for a bleeding stranger, Vilon lapsed into silence. He let the leather reins hang loose in his numb fingers, relying entirely on his own hazy, strained vision to cut through the swirling sea of dust, woodsmoke, and black-and-white canvas.

He lost track of the turns he took. The simple task of staying upright in the saddle was rapidly consuming the last of his strength. The deafening roar of the encampment, the clatter of iron, the barking of subcenturios, the sharp neighs of warhorses, began to blend into a strange, muffled hum, like water rushing into his ears.

Gradually, the press of body heat and iron thinned.

Where there had been a thick sea of mud, iron-shod boots, and dragging cloaks, patches of green began to peer through the muck. The heavy, suffocating blanket of grey woodsmoke cleared, lifting until it was nothing more than thin, pale ribbons drifting upward against the cold blue sky.

"A white tent..." Vilon slurred, his tongue heavy, breathing through his mouth in ragged, shallow gasps. "I have to find... the white tent..."

Grass. There was cold, clean grass beneath Chestnut’s hooves now.

Search for the white tent.

Vilon forced his chin up. The world tilted violently on its axis, the horizon swirling in dizzying, sickening circles. His knees gave out as he slid sideways from the saddle. He would have slammed face-first into the turf had his fingers not caught the cold leather of Chestnut’s stirrup-strap, his body swaying like a dead branch in the gale before he managed to drag himself upright against his horse’s flank.

Through the blur of cold sweat stinging his eyes, he saw it.

A tent stood in the quiet clearing directly ahead. It was white... yet as his focus wavered and swam, the stark fabric seemed to gleam with something more. Filigree. Threading of... gold?

Yes. Intricate, glittering gold caught the pale sunlight, winding across the canvas like shimmering serpents.

It’s still a white tent, his fevered mind reasoned, holding tight to the single thread of logic left to him. White tent.

He let go of Chestnut’s side, leaving the stallion to crop lazily at the sweet, wild grass. Every step forward was an agony that made the world turn black at the edges. His ribs didn’t just throb now; they felt as though a hot iron poker were being twisted between them.For a moment he just wished to curl and cry, but he was so close.

The winter wind began to howl, rising from the treeline in a sudden, icy gust. The tall grass swayed to the wind’s dark tune, and to Vilon’s addled ears, the rustling leaves seemed to whisper.

False knight... the breeze hissed softly, weaving through the cold air. False knight...

It was a mournful, agonizing tune. Vilon gritted his teeth, pressing his arm tightly against his bleeding side, desperately trying to close his mind to the sound.

White tent. Just reach the white tent.

His vision narrowed until the world consisted of nothing more than the shimmering gold patterns stitched across the white fabric.

Just a few steps more. He was almost within arm’s reach of the flap.

A strange, detached thought crossed his mind.

How small it is.

Saron had boisterously swore that the chirurgeon’s bay was always the largest pavilion in any legion’s camp, a massive structure capable of holding dozens of bleeding men. Yet this tent was tiny. It could host no more than ten, and even then, they would be jammed shoulder-to-shoulder as in a shield-wall.

Vilon reached out a trembling, pink-scarred hand to pull back the canvas when the sharp, low cadence of voices drifted out from within.

"—more concerned if the blood were from yours, no doubt!"

The voice was venomous, dripping with resentment. A narrow gap hung between the overlapping tent flaps, and Vilon peered through the split, wincing as the slight movement sent a fiery spasm across his side and back. The angry words belonged to a man with a square, hard-jawed face, his thick, wavy black hair falling loosely over his forehead.

The second man had his back turned to the entrance. For a fleeting second, Vilon’s fevered mind mistook him for a noblewoman on account of the long, shimmering blond hair cascading down his neck. But his shoulders were far too wide, his posture far too formidable, and his voice, when he spoke, was a deep, gravelly rumble that resonated through the fabric of the pavilion.

"We grieve your losses, and we share your pain,you know that well" the blond man said, his tone measured, almost weary. "Be it by fire or under the shadow of the mountain or the head of wolf, the iron we wear carries the exact same weight."

"Then what in the five hells is your problem?" the square-faced warrior spat back.

"Our problem," the blond man corrected softly, emphasizing the word, "is that too many in the high command fear your grief is clouding your steel. Words have reached of the hamlet."

The square-faced chief barked out a harsh, humorless laugh. "So it is righteous service when the King’s own hounds rape, burn, and butcher their way across Oizen, but a crime when I cut down enemies of his?"

"You had no proof they were enemies!" the blond warrior’s voice sharpened, losing its calm facade. "For all you know, you put a hundred innocent to the sword and burned their homes to ash simply because you suspected them of harboring eyes! One band of brigands managed to slip through your perimeter, that does not mean the peasants opened the gate for them. Luck bears no eyes."

"I knew it!" He roared, stepping into the light, his knuckles white against his belt. "There was no other path those rats could have taken to evade my outriders! That village was the only settlement within sight of our watches. They were traitors, every last one of them! What is the crime in putting traitors to the edge of an axe? They chose their side and made their bed!"

"We swore a solemn oath to the lords of these lands that their villages would be left unmolested," the blond commander reminded him coldly. "The King’s peace—"

"We swore it for the innocent! Those pigs were hardly so!And what care have we of simpering fools?We are the legions, there is no man in these lands who would dare bar our way.Much less for criminals. To be against us , is to stand against the king. "

"You could not possibly know that!"

"I could, and I did!I am the Warden and I decide what is." He sneered, leaning in close to the other man’s face. "And if you think your high-born ramblings will stay my hand, I name you a grand fool! A band of those bastards slipped past my lines and lived to draw breath another day, that is all that matters! They had help! For all I know, those were the very same monsters who butchered my kin at the Western Camp that were let go, who strung my warriors up by their own red guts! And those villagers held the door for them!"

"Then swear it!" the blond man demanded, taking a heavy step forward, his voice thundering inside the small pavilion. "Swear under the eyes of the five gods and by the King’s own crown that you knew for a absolute fact they were guilty! Swear they spied for the Vulture! Swear to me you aren’t simply butchering sheep to quench your own lust of blood!"

"It does not matter!" He barked, turning violently away. "It was the King—"

The man froze mid-sentence.

A sudden, fierce gust of wind roared through the clearing outside, whipping the unsecured canvas flaps wide open and framing Vilon’s battered, staggering silhouette against the bright daylight.

The man’s dark eyes locked onto him, widening in instant, furious disbelief.

"You!" he shouted, his voice echoing like a war-horn inside the tent. "Who in the five hells are you? And by what right do you stand there eavesdropping on us? What manner is this? Show yourself!"

A cold spike of terror cut straight through Vilon’s fever.

The haze in his mind shattered, replaced by the terrifying realization of where he actually was. The gold filigree on the white canvas... the heavy silence of the clearing... the two heavily armored commanders standing inside.

This was no chirurgeon’s tent.

These were lords of war, and he had just been caught lingering at their threshold like a thief in the night.

Vilon stumbled forward, wobbling past the threshold. He opened his mouth to offer an explanation, to plead his foolish mistake, but his tongue felt like a dried stone. No words came.

You fool, his mind screamed at him. Say something! They are waiting for you to speak!

"Well? What are you?" The man demanded, taking a predatory step forward, his calloused hand drifting instinctively down to rest on the pommel of his longsword, tucked behind a thick bronze belt. "A spy?"

A spy? No. Gods, no.

"No... s-my lord..." Vilon wheezed, his voice a pathetic rasp. "I... I..."

Was the man a lord? Should he kneel? He hadn’t knelt when Basil gifted him Chestnut, but perhaps this host demanded it. Yes... yes, he had to kneel.

Vilon tried to drop gracefully to his knees, but the moment his legs bent, his bruised ribs screamed in violent protest. Pain exploded across his side like a shattered lance, white streaks of dancing threads swirled on the side of his vision.

He tried to clutch his burning flank to keep from collapsing, but the sudden shift threw him completely off balance.

The world went wild and dizzy as he screamed.

One second, he was staring up into furious, dark eyes, terror clutching at his heart, and the next, his vision plunged downward, the room spinning as his face rushed toward the polished leather of both men’s boots.

Before he even felt his body strike the grass, the light went out, and then Vilon saw nothing at all.