Sevha glanced at what the knights had brought: just liquor and bandages. He glanced at the broken Bretol.
He poured the liquor over Bretol’s wounds and wrapped the broken parts in bandages.
The treatnt was a trifle, over in an instant.
As the pathetic effort ended, all the knights had the sa thought.
It’s useless.
Sevha, too, had thought so from the mont he saw Bretol.
He said what needed to be said.
“Leave your last will, Bretol.” A cold declaration.
Bretol began to thrash.
“Aaaaaaaaargh!”
Like a child.
A child who had lost his parent’s hand in a strange place.
“I—I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die! Save ! Save !”
Bretol begged, tears of blood streaming down his face as he twisted his broken body.
But Eshu and the knights knew any words would be aningless, so they offered no comfort.
“Why are you just standing there! Please, save !”
The more he struggled, the deeper the wounds, the greater the pain.
Unable to bear the agony any longer, Bretol scread at Sevha, spittle and bloody tears running from his lips.
“This is your fault! If you hadn’t co, this never would have happened to !”
It was a curse. This ti, a curse Sevha could understand.
But Sevha said nothing, only watched Bretol steadily.
“Why are you just standing there! Aren’t you sorry? If you’re sorry, then save ! Save , you son of a bitch!”
Eshu wished Bretol would stop this display, so unworthy of a knight.
He approached Bretol’s side and spoke.
“Bretol. Do not forget yourself, even at the end. We are knights. We have sworn to follow the Marquis’s will.”
Words that might once have cald Bretol.
But the Bretol of then and the Bretol of now were different n.
“To hell with that damn oath! The Marquis’s will? What will is there in a senile old man?”
As Bretol began to curse the Marquis, Eshu was struck speechless.
A silence fell over them all, and Bretol’s curses filled it without restraint.
“Why do I have to die? I did everything I was told!”
It seed Bretol’s curses would not stop until he was dead.
“I did everything for those dogs, the le Blancs! So why do I have to die like this?”
Bretol’s tirade, born from the terror of death, showed no sign of stopping.
“You die! Die! All of you, just die...!”
But it did stop.
“Bretol.”
It just took a few simple words from Sevha.
“You did very well.”
It was sudden. Gentle, as if soothing a child.
Bretol’s curses died in his throat. He stared blankly, as if asking what Sevha ant.
Sevha t Bretol’s gaze without flinching and spoke again.
“What? You think I’m lying? Co now, would I lie to you in a situation like this?”
Sevha muttered, “I suppose it can’t be helped.”
He rubbed his face several tis and sighed.
When he lowered his hands, the others saw it—sorrow.
Pure sorrow. An emotion Eshu, Bretol, and the knights had never seen on his face before.
Sevha repeated himself.
“You did very well, Bretol.”
“I’m dying a dog’s death because of you, and you say that? Are you mocking ?”
Bretol tried to resu his curses. Sevha brushed the hair from his forehead as if to calm him.
“A dog’s death? Why a dog’s death?”
Sevha smiled. “You know how it is. Parents, or those who are like parents, always tell us: ‘Don’t do anything foolish, just stay healthy.’”
Sevha thought of his brother, who had been like a parent to him, and his smile widened.
“But we can’t just stay still. Why? It’s obvious. Because we want to be of so small help to the people who worry so much about us.”
Sevha t Bretol’s eyes.
The man had quieted and was now only watching him.
“So we do sothing foolish. We do things that are clumsy, stupid, things no one asked us to do. It was the sa for you, wasn’t it?”
Sevha gently covered Bretol’s gaze, pooled with bloody tears.
“You ended up like this for the old man’s sake, for my sake, didn’t you? Because I know that, there is only one thing I can say to you.”
Sevha said the words he had wanted to hear from his brother, the words Bretol needed to hear now.
“You did very well.”
When he took his hand away, Bretol was crying.
He was shedding not tears of blood, but clear tears.
“Did I really do well? When I go to the Hall of Judgnt, will they praise ?”
“Of course.”
“And beyond the Hall, when I see my parents, will they praise ?”
“Naturally.”
“Really? Truly?”
To the childish plea, Sevha smiled gently.
“If the Master of Judgnt or your parents don’t praise you, tell them this.”
Sevha stroked Bretol’s neck as he finished his sentence.
“Tell them, ‘I shall return now to do sothing worthy of praise.’”
The jest had Bretol burst into laughter, clear tears rolling down his cheeks.
“Yes, I’ll do just that… My Lord.”
And then.
Snap.
Sevha broke Bretol’s neck.
The man went still. Tears on his face and a smile on his lips.
The knights watched them in silence.
Sevha closed Bretol’s eyes and rose to his feet. He looked out from the watchtower terrace.
mbers of the Tusk Tribe were gathered in droves in the castle courtyard below.
They were arranging beaten, oil-soaked prisoners into a bizarre pattern.
“It looks like they’re preparing for a ritual. We should use that to plan our escape.”
When Sevha spoke of escape as if nothing had happened, no one replied.
A mont of silence passed before Eshu asked, “Was it a lie?”
Sevha did not ask what was a lie.
He answered coldly, “Isn’t it better to soothe a whining whelp with a lie than to be driven mad by his screaming?”
Eshu studied his face for a long mont before replying.
“I see now that the mask you wear is not forged of steel.”
Sevha stared blankly at the window.
The face reflected in the glass was still filled with sorrow.
“Ah... old mories really do get to you,” he muttered to himself. “It’s been a while.”
Sevha rubbed his face and sighed.
“A burning castle, screaming people, a dying boy… it’s all so grim. So grim that I can’t even maintain this thick facade.”
Sevha grumbled and then slumped down beside Bretol’s corpse.
Eshu watched him, thinking.
Sevha was a liar. To be a liar is to be different from what you appear to be.
Sevha was not the cold man, the hunter of steel, he pretended to be.
“Lying is always difficult.”
Sevha propped his chin on his hand and let out a hollow laugh, like a man feigning ignorance after a careless mistake.
“If it is so difficult, why do you lie?”
Sevha looked at his own sad, pathetic face in the window, then looked past it, to a place far away.
Was it because he had co so far from Anse? Far enough to look back at the person he used to be?
For the first ti in a long while—or perhaps for the very first ti—Sevha thought about why he had beco such a liar.
“It was for my brother. Of course, he never wanted to live like this. That’s why I hid my hardships, why I beca more and more of a liar. Yes, that must be it. That’s why I am the way I am.”
He had not lived the easy life his brother wanted, but a harsh one for his brother’s sake.
A youth who had never once lived for himself, but only for others.
That was Sevha.
As soone who had sought to live for the Marquis, Eshu recognized this truth.
Here before is a man who lived for others, who lived the very life I desired.
He asked, “Do you... regret it?”
A sudden flash of mories.
Edgar, smiling. Marina, pouting. The people who had woven the fabric of his happy days.
He turned his head, as if looking toward Edgar, and smiled as brightly as the people in his mories.
“Are you a fool? If I were going to regret it, I would have lived a good life, just as my brother wished.”
Eshu then recalled what Sevha had said.
“So I decided to beco the worthless younger brother who does what his brother never asked him to.”
Eshu understood the aning of those words.
And because he understood, he recalled the Marquis’s words.
“In the end, you are still my children.”
Eshu finally understood the aning of those words, too.
“I swore an oath to follow the Marquis’s will.”
“Why are you saying that again?”
“The Marquis must have been disappointed. We did not act of our own will for him or Blanc. We rely pledged to obey our father’s will.”
At Eshu’s reflection, the knights all wore bitter expressions, as if they could not deny it.
“Yes, you are right. We were not knights. We were rely children following our father’s will.”
“So?” Sevha asked.
Eshu approached him. “There is a way to use those n in the courtyard to escape.”
Eshu explained his plan, and Sevha’s eyes widened in shock.
“Are you mad?”
Eshu dropped to one knee before him. “My Lord.”
It was not the title of young master.
Understanding its aning, Sevha let his surprise fade, his expression turning serious.
“As I said, I have never received a knightly investiture. I have never been a true knight. So now, if I may, the investiture.”
As Eshu held out his sword in offering, the other knights looked at one another, then dropped to one knee. And like Eshu, they held out their swords.
“My Lord Marquis, you do what you must do. We will do what we must do for you.”
“And what will you do for ?”
“You said it yourself, did you not? That I was just a whelp who was good at making excuses. So I swear.”
Eshu looked directly at Sevha and spoke clearly.
“I will make the excuse for you.”
Sevha looked into Eshu’s eyes, then took the proffered sword.
“Eshu.”
“Yes, My Lord.”
“Do you want to hear what my grandfather said to all of you?”
“No. Whatever he may have said, it is enough for to do what I must, for his sake and for yours, as I see fit.”
Sevha closed his eyes tightly for a mont.
He touched the sword to both of Eshu’s shoulders, returned it to him.
“Go, Sir Knight. Make my excuse.”
***
The Courtyard of Garde Castle
The captive commoners and knights of Garde, beaten and soaked in oil, lay collapsed across the yard.
The Tusk Tribe watched the spectacle from the periter.
After a mont, a shaman stood in the center, waving a staff and chanting.
“O Princess. Sll the blood. Hear the screams. The Wolf cos for you.”
The ritual was for the Moon-chasing Wolf, and for the Moon Princess.
A ritual to announce that the wolf was coming for her.
The shaman put down the staff and picked up a knife.
“O Princess, feel the pain wrought by the Wolf’s charge and don your red robes!”
But before the shaman’s chant could end.
Thwok!
An arrow pierced the shaman’s head.
The Tusk Tribe, engrossed in the ritual, stared blankly in the direction the arrow had co from.
Creeeak…
The watchtower door was opening. Soone was coming out.
It was Eshu and the knights, clad in armor, ard with shields and maces.
Eshu walked toward the prisoners, bellowing, “People of Garde, vassals of Blanc, hear !”
The half-dead prisoners looked toward him.
In their eyes, the yearning for salvation welled up like tears of blood.
Eshu saw their yearning, and ignored it.
“Regrettably, our lord, Dan le Blanc, cannot save you!”
He did not just ignore it. He trampled it.
“Instead, our lord, Dan le Blanc, will commit a sin against you!”
What Eshu offered was not salvation, but an excuse.
A knight’s excuse for a lord who would make none.
“But do not curse our lord! For I know his sorrow! I know his powerlessness to save you, and I know the sin that will soon be committed!”
Eshu howled, “If you should curse him, then I, Eshu, Knight of Dan le Blanc, shall bear those curses in his stead!”
Just after Eshu made his vow, a light flashed from the top of the watchtower.
A fire arrow whistled past his shoulder and struck ho—burying itself in the stomach of a captive commoner.
Soaked in oil, the man went up in flas.
Burning alive, he scread.
He scread to know why.
His cries turned to curses as he charged at Eshu.
And Eshu…
“Forgive your lord. If you cannot, then curse .”
He crushed the man’s skull with his mace and kicked the body aside.
The burning corpse fell upon another prisoner, and the flas spread.
Another scream, another curse.
Through the chaos, a second fire arrow flew and struck another prisoner.
The fire spread, catching and crawling across the ground.
Even dying flas rose once more.
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