The column of exhausted men on tired horses marched through the morning. Hooves struck stone without rhythm. Leather creaked. Somewhere behind Stephan, a man coughed wetly into his visor and tried to muffle it.
Stephan rode with his shoulders stooped, reins slack in his hands. The morning air was cool, but his armor felt suffocating. And the metal was the least of the things pressing on him.
“You can’t save them all, Sir,” Marshal Harrington said beside him, his voice as steady as ever. “Losing two people on a mission such as this isn’t bad.”
Not bad? The words hit Stephan between the ribs, seeking his heart.
The marshal rode as if returning from a routine inspection. Like those deaths hadn’t touched him. He sat straight. No tightness in his jaw. To him, the skirmish had been a calculated move, with acceptable losses for a larger strategic success. A pair of Knights traded for a princess and the heir’s future.
To him, it was a fair exchange.
But Stephan didn’t think like that. Couldn’t. He stared at the road ahead with a singular thought on his mind.
I healed two horses.
The knight shot in the throat was possibly beyond his ability; he had arrived too late. But the other one…
Stephan wrung himself dry. Squeezing every bit of spirit he could, shrinking the wound before healing tapered out. It bought her an extra minute of dying, but it wasn’t enough to save her life. She had drawn her last breath right in front of him, staring into his eyes, silently begging.
“It’s more useful as sausages.”
The marshal’s words rang in his head. Stephan closed his visor and let the tears flow.
He let a woman die instead of letting the castle get armfuls of meat.
A part of him knew he wasn’t to blame. He hadn’t expected the ambush, nor the ensuing massacre. And the worst thing was - he got a level for healing her. Even though she died in his hands, he still got a level for trying and felt the thrill.
“Sir!” Marshal Harrington’s bark snapped Stephan out of his torpor.
They were passing beneath Cliffort’s gates. The city had awakened. Cheers rolled down from the walls and the houses.
Stephan barely heard them.
“Your first losses hurt,” the Marshal murmured, low enough that the noise swallowed the words for everyone else. “You get used to them.”
I don’t want to get used to people dying.
“But right now,” Marshal Harrington continued as if reading Stephan’s mind, “we need to hold our heads high. We are heroes and we are returning triumphant.”
“I made a mistake, Lord Marshal,” Stephan said quietly, “and it cost a good woman her life.”
“That,” the Marshal replied slowly, “is the price of experience. And everyone pays it.”
The words were not cruel. Just true.
“If everything always works out the way you expect it, you’re just setting yourself up for an even greater debacle later down the line. Better to err and learn when the stakes are individuals instead of squadrons or cities.”
The smell of bread wafted over as they passed a bakery. Its mundaneness made Stephan’s head turn while the marshal continued discussing the grave topic.
“Yes, a person’s death hurts you emotionally more than losing a distant frontier town to fiends. But we are soldiers, Sir. Our job is to fight, and while we try not to, ultimately some have to fall in the line of duty.”
Stephan’s jaw tightened, bread forgotten.
“Why don’t you have Healers or Priests with you?” he asked one of the questions stewing in his gut ever since the attack. Had either been present, they might have saved the two knights. One for certain.
“Same reason as I don’t approve of bringing you along, Sir. You are an asset that shouldn’t be risked on the battlefield. And neither am I, for that matter. But here we are, you saved one man’s life and treated a lot of wounded. Meanwhile, I stood on the front line, destroying the enemy and saving a life or two by being there and cutting the battle short.”
The marshal drew a breath and countered Stephan’s argument before he could make it. “Our actions may seem like a win and tactically sound decisions, but they were as strategically sound as gambling on dice and calling it a good investment after a lucky roll.”
Stephan’s grip tightened on the reins as they moved through cheering crowds.
“Are you saying I shouldn’t fight?”
“Not at all, Sir,” the marshal spoke up, fighting to be heard over the crowd. “You are War made flesh on a battlefield against fiends and undead, even at your low level. And at the late Lord Danso’s level you will be able to walk up to a dragon and wrestle it barehanded. I honestly don’t know what could have killed him, and I’m hoping to find out soon.”
A flicker of something, grief perhaps, passed through his eyes.
He turned around to glance at the princess.
She had thrown back her hood, revealing a plump young woman with dark bags under her eyes and leftover dirt on her face. Her attempts to wash it off quickly had failed. At least she had gotten her hair under control, but overall she wasn’t much to look at in her travel clothes.
She looked surprisingly girly and surprisingly fragile for royalty. Stephan wondered whether anyone could recognize her, or at least guess her identity.
“I still don’t know what killed him,” the marshal said finally. “I don’t know what in this world could have killed him.”
“Do you mind if I’m there when you talk to her?” Stephan asked.
“Not at all, Sir. You can and should ask all the questions you have, especially about how things happened and how they came to this. My instructions mention those questions specifically.”
Stephan nodded. Apparently, the late Lord Danso the Wise was helping him from beyond the grave.
I will need to do that for my successor.
They reached the castle courtyard. Stable boys ran around, grabbing horses or helping important people. One surprised Stephan as he dashed straight for his horse.
“Thank you,” Stephan dismounted. He thought he was tired before, but once on his feet, the exhaustion hit truly. The ground seemed to tilt like it did in Nightmare Hollow.
“I’ll rest a bit,” he muttered. “Then we can interrogate the princess.”
“Talk, Sir,” the marshal corrected gently. “We shall converse pleasantly with the princess. Do you wish to be there when I confirm her identity, or can I do it without you?”
Stephan barely processed the question. Two steps later, he shrugged.
“As you wish.”
“In that case, I will wait for you, Sir. My instructions say to expose you to any knowledge and topics you aren’t averse to.”
Stephan nodded, his world fogging up. He realized then he must have dozed off at least once or twice on the way back, but he failed to notice because he was sitting.
Lord Marshal said something else, but Stephan just went to his barracks and passed out in his bed.
The sun still flooded the barracks from the tall, narrow windows when Stephan awoke. He scanned the room and found it suspiciously empty. He moved to rub his eyes and clanked. His fingers tingled as he clenched his hand into a fist before turning, needles shooting through his entire body.
Clarity returned to him, and he realized he had made a fatal mistake. He had slept fully armored in plate.
Captain Anita had preached about the subject, ‘No matter how tired or how dangerous the situation, never sleep in anything heavier than a mail shirt. Padded gambesons are fine, but everything else…’
Stephan lived the lesson.
He rolled onto his stomach, feeling like a tortoise, and pushed himself upright with a groan. He shambled out of the barracks, each step loosening the stiffness in his back and legs.
“Sir,” a guard saluted. “Lord Marshal is expecting you in his study.”
Stephan returned the salute, ignoring the flare of pain in his shoulder. He made for the keep, then realized how many steps he had to climb to reach the study. Gritting his teeth and suppressing a groan, Stephan started climbing the stairs.
Each uneven step caught the edge of his boot. His knees trembled. His hips burned. By the time he reached the top, sweat clung to his skin beneath the gambeson.
He wasn’t much for cursing, but the drunken mason that had done the shoddy work on the tower got a handful of regards, as did his entire lineage.
Finally, standing before the door, he straightened and knocked.
“Come in, Sir,” Marshal Harrington called from inside.
The door opened more easily than he expected. The growth he had experienced since the last time he visited the marshal’s study made itself known.
Marshal Harrington was waiting within, immaculate in fresh clothes. He shamelessly looked as if he had neither missed a night of sleep nor experienced any discomfort. Not a hint of fatigue. Certainly no stiffness from sleeping fully armored.
“You should consider removing your armor before sleep, Sir,” he said without a hint of mirth. “If you soak in warm water and do the simple stretches our instructors have taught you, you should recover within an hour. It’s generally considered unwise to sleep in heavy armor unless there’s an emergency. I would advise you against sleeping in mail too, despite the fact we call it light armor.”
Stephan nodded. He tried to remove his gauntlet, but he was all thumbs.
“Here, Sir, let me help you.”
The Marshal stepped forward and worked the straps loose with careful, almost reverent precision. The weight fell away piece by piece. Each removed plate felt like a blessing, like shedding a layer of stone.
Air touched the sweat-soaked gambeson, and Stephan breathed deeper.
“How did you know I was in front of the door?” he asked.
“A simple system of mirrors impossible to spot from the outside, but the image is quite clear from here. Also stepping on steps nine through thirteen from the door warns me of someone coming.”
“You designed that?” Stephan was starting to think Lord Marshal was omniscient, but the man shook his head.
“No, Sir. Lord Danso had upgraded an existing system before my time. Also, most of what I know comes from the two books he had written specifically for the Strategist whenever he had the time. I was hoping to teach you the same lessons, and with your identity revealed, you should spend as much time as you can in my private library.”
“I will.” Stephan nodded. That was a good suggestion.
“How’s the princess?”
“As promised, I waited for you. She won’t mind waiting for another hour until you get yourself in order.”
Stephan nodded once more, and as Marshal Harrington removed the last piece of armor, Stephan felt reborn.
“A lesser man would’ve handled this much worse than you did, Sir, but I would still advise you to doff your armor before you sleep. Right.” The marshal stood and looked Stephan in the eye. “You didn’t seem to hear me earlier, but you have a suite in the keep set aside for you. Sir Paladin shouldn’t sleep in the barracks.”
Stephan almost said he didn’t mind, but understood the logic and the wrong message he was sending.
“Thank you. I’ll stretch now, then we can see the princess.”
[Level 15 reached
Skill acquired: Smite II
+1 Agility, +1 Charisma, +1 Composure, +0 Dexterity, +1 Endurance, +1 Intelligence, +1 Luck, +1 Perception, +1 Presence, +1 Strength, +1 Toughness, +1 Vitality, +1 Willpower, +1 Wisdom]
[Smite II - Holy flames persist on your target. They deal no damage, but interfere with the target’s movement.]
[Stephan Cobblerson, Paladin level 15
Class skills: In Living Memory XVI, Blessing of Healing II, Blessing of Arms II, Smite II, Blessing of Protection I, Inspiring Aura I, Blessing of Conviction I, Blessing of Intuition I, Blessing of Health I, Bane of Darkness I, Mercy I, Chivalry I, Holy Magic I
Attributes: Agility: 22, Charisma: 22, Composure: 25, Dexterity: 20, Endurance: 24, Intelligence: 19, Luck: 22, Perception: 21, Presence: 23, Strength: 24, Toughness: 24, Vitality: 25, Willpower: 24, Wisdom: 23]