Chapter 19: Champion (2)
Chapter 19: Champion (2)
Homi followed skillfully on a hunting horse supplied by the city. Since Karas and Kresi both traveled without squires, she had no rival to measure herself against.
Whizz!
"Damn!"
Kresi's light crossbow bolt missed the fleeing deer.
He carried a lever-type reloading tool, but he kept his horse moving without reloading.
His horsemanship was not good enough to release the reins while galloping through rough forest like this. Stopping to reload and falling behind would have been humiliating.
Thwack!
Karas's arrow struck the deer in the hindquarters.
"My luck isn't with me."
He had originally aimed for a vital spot, but as the deer leaped to avoid a tree root, its hindquarters took the hit instead.
Wild animals had strong vitality, and if the wound wasn't fatal, they could survive for a remarkably long time even with an arrow lodged in them.
Moreover, the deer was moments away from escaping down a cliffside path that the knights could not pursue.
"My apologies, but I'll take this one."
Thwock!
The arrow loosed by Barun the centaur pierced through the deer's chest.
Crash!
The deer collapsed limply, trembling and shuddering.
"As expected of a centaur."
"A shame. It would have made a fine first kill."
Kresi and Karas slowed their horses.
Just as charging at the vanguard in battle or being the first to strike down an enemy commander was a great honor, in a hunt, the one who made the first kill received the acclaim.
While the others reined their horses to a walk, Barun instead increased his speed.
"Feeling good about claiming the first kill?"
"No. I'm only following our custom. Whew! It makes things easier when you match my pace, Sir."
With Eugene following along leisurely and without greed, it was easy for Panis to ride alongside him.
'It's not like I was being particularly considerate.'
Eugene simply found the sight of Panis—the human roly-poly on horseback, belly bouncing wildly—more entertaining than the hunt.
"Centaurs enjoy the hunt, but we dislike causing needless pain. I cut in just now because if left alone, it would have died slowly as its wound worsened. It was an act of mercy."
"I had heard that centaurs were exceedingly belligerent on the battlefield. You are unexpectedly gentlemanly."
"Ha ha! You really know how to put things nicely, Sir. When I'm hosting knights, I usually hear insults about being a barbarian instead."
Perhaps because Barun was a cherished subordinate, the look in Panis's eyes as he watched him was warm.
When Barun reached the deer, he drew a dagger, ended its suffering, and recited a prayer passed down through his tribe—a blessing wishing the quarry's soul a peaceful departure.
As the beaters retrieved the deer, Barun approached and bowed his head.
"I apologize once more for cutting into the honored knights' hunt."
"Think nothing of it. We would have lost the beast if not for you anyway."
"I have heard that you spent a long time at a monastery."
"Ah, you must have thought I would be displeased by what seems like a superstitious act."
"Yes."
The knight standing before Barun was the man whom Panis had repeatedly impressed upon him to treat with absolute respect.
"Barun is capable and considerate. We work well together on city business."
Panis clapped him on the shoulder.
Most centaurs were raiders steeped in violence and savagery. One like Barun, who could read the room and interact smoothly with settled society, was rare.
"I was raised at the monastery, but I was brought up not as a priest, but as a knight. I am not the least bit offended, so cherish your tradition."
"Thank you!"
Others did not look kindly upon the centaurs' ways.
The priests would try to lecture them, saying that only humans possessed souls, and asking why they bothered the gods with prayers meant for mere beasts.
Knights, meanwhile, thought it foolish to dismount and go to such trouble for a mere beast. To them, a suffering quarry was simply a prop for displaying their own prowess.
"We centaurs believe that if we do not grant mercy after a hunt, we will someday die in equal agony."
"Well, it's just a superstition, of course."
Panis quickly added a word. Even if the knight seemed magnanimous, the more generous he was, the wiser it was to exercise caution.
"Even if it is a superstition, it is a superstition that makes the world a more beautiful place. Something like that ought to spread widely, I'd say."
"...!"
Barun's eyes widened at the completely unexpected answer.
"Could you teach me too? The quickest way to grant each kind of quarry a peaceful end must differ. When my own time comes, I'd like to die without suffering as well."
"Do you mean that in earnest?"
"I don't jest about matters of life, even if the subject is a beast."
"I spoke out of turn."
The hunting done by Eugene and Homi was fundamentally based on laying poisoned bait traps laced with compound medicines.
Hunting based on weapons likely required other techniques. While he was at it, he also wanted to hear about other such know-how.
"I shall teach you with all sincerity and devotion."
Barun thumped his broad, muscular chest and spoke with pride.
"And while you're at it, teach me the prayer you were reciting as well."
"Pardon?"
Barun stared blankly at the knight who kept saying things he had never expected.
"If I'm going to do it, I may as well learn it properly. I'll probably meet other centaurs someday, and knowing your custom should make it easier to get along with them."
"Ha ha ha!"
Ultimately, Barun forgot even Panis's admonitions and let out a great laugh.
And so, Eugene and Barun became friends on the very day they met.
Barun was surprised to learn that Eugene knew far more about the forest than he had expected.
"You know how to track signs, too. And you know far more than I do about powdered herbs."
"I was taught by a witch."
"You are quite the joker as well!"
Barun laughed along with Eugene's easy manner, never imagining that he was telling the truth.
"Your fundamentals are so solid that I believe I can instruct you on the rest in short order."
Barun gave him a crash course in handy hunting tricks that were useful to know.
"I have already enjoyed the honor of the first kill, so I shall serve you with all my heart. I will certainly drive the finest quarry into your path."
Between Barun teaching Eugene hunting techniques and Eugene answering his questions about medicinal herbs, the two quickly grew close.
But Eugene was different from the arrogant invited knights he had dealt with up until now.
-Out of my way! Where does a barbarian wretch get off trying to go ahead of a knight!
-Sir Knight, that's not it, I was trying to guide you...
-Shut up! If you're going to guide me, dismount and do it as befits your station.
-...
For a centaur, however, 'dismounting' meant dropping to his knees and crawling.
Whether the knight understood that or not, the demand itself was a profound insult to a centaur.
-Ugh, what is this disgusting stench?!
-Wash yourself once in a while, you barbarian!
Body odor was a regular topic of abuse. Even though he bathed daily while working with Panis, having the body of a horse made it unavoidable.
"I apologize. Our bodies give off a smell when we move about."
Even Barun was insecure about this, so he apologized to Eugene in advance.
"Your upper body only smells pleasant, though? It seems you bathe more often than most ordinary folk."
As he'd thought, this knight was extraordinary.
"The smell from a horse's body can't be helped, now can it? Most of the glands are apocrine."
"Pardon? Ah, apo... what did you say, sir?"
"Something like that. It does not bother me in the slightest, so feel free to ride up ahead."
Eugene glossed over it. The fact was that most of a horse's sweat glands were apocrine glands, which made them smell as strongly as a human's armpit.
He couldn't even begin to fathom how to explain that to a medieval man.
"If those who call themselves knights give you grief over such a thing, they ought to be ashamed. Do they imagine the horses they ride smell like perfume?"
"Sir Knight, every word you speak astonishes me."
That was enough for Eugene. Reassured, Barun stopped running off to one side because of his smell and moved up ahead.
Twang!
The beaters shot arrows in front of the fleeing roe deer to turn it precisely back toward the knights. It was a skill only Barun possessed.
Thwack!
"That's it! Well done!"
But that one was taken by Karas. His arrow pierced its throat this time.
"My apologies. This is my first time hunting in a group, so my reactions are slow."
"Of course, Sir."
Barun laughed.
Eugene had been trying to preserve his fellow knights' dignity, since it seemed like he was getting all the attention, but the perceptive centaur had already noticed.
"Sir Kresi! Magnificent!"
"Thank you, Chief Magistrate."
Once Kresi brought down a pheasant and saved face, the hunt reached full swing. The timing was perfect for a large quarry to provide a grand finale.
Watching Barun's back, Eugene recalled a conversation from long ago with Goffrey.
-Once you've spent enough time on battlefields, you'll meet all kinds of beastkin. Centaurs are one of the peoples you need to watch out for.
- Aren't they born cavalry? Surely they must be fearsome warriors.
Perfect horsemanship, muscular bodies, and their belligerent nature. Of course they were dangerous.
- But no need to be too scared of them. Inexperienced soldiers are apt to be cowed the first time they face them, but when you get to know them, they're surprisingly clumsy fellows. I cut down quite a few on the battlefield myself.
Even if they hadn't reached the level of Rui Amor or the Ancient Kingdom, many groups had once shaken the world in their own right—even if they couldn't unify the whole continent, they had trampled and plundered many kingdoms.
Yet the centaurs, for all their fearsome image, had never left a great footprint on history. The reason for that became clear as Eugene hunted alongside them.
"A boar! A big one, Sir Eugene!"
"I see it. I must have some kind of fate with boars."
Barun grew excited at the sight of such splendid, hard-to-find quarry. It was perfect to drive toward Eugene, the only one who had yet to make a kill.
Barun drew his bow, aiming away from the vitals so the shot would only slow the boar down.
Grruunk—!
But the beast, a veteran survivor that had lived to this size in the wild, had one last trick hidden away.
Passing beside a great tree, it seized the moment its body was obscured and wheeled sharply. In a blink, it had reversed its course and was charging the opposite way from Barun.
"Damn!"
Barun hastily turned his bow, but it halted at about ninety degrees and would move no further.
"Leave it to me."
From horseback, Eugene twisted his waist a full one hundred and eighty degrees and aimed his great crossbow with one hand.
Whizz!
Squeeeeeal!
The bolt lodged deep in the center of the boar's back, severing its spine and bringing it down. Eugene wheeled his horse in pursuit and then fired once more.
Thwack!
The bolt punched through its skull, granting the beast a swift rest.
"Monstrous strength. You can reload and fire a crossbow like that as if you were tossing daggers."
Karas was forced to reconsider just what kind of strength had hurled him across the tavern. He was lucky nothing had broken.
The boar looked far heavier than the deer they had taken first. They were unlikely to find better quarry than this.
"Remarkable, Sir Eugene. You read its path perfectly. And aimed precisely at the spine."
"As expected of the successor to the Knight of Prophecy! That beast could run all it liked and still never escape you."
Kresi voiced his admiration while Panis made an even bigger fuss.
'It wasn't exactly that I predicted its movement. I just sighted dead on and fired.'
He found it awkward to say anything, so he simply kept his mouth shut.
Eugene dismounted and offered a prayer for the slain boar. It was his first time doing so, and he couldn't quite capture the centaur's peculiar cadence, but he recited the words whole.
"I am sorry. I was unable to assist you properly."
At the sight of Eugene praying with such gravity, Barun made his apology with even deeper formality.
"Nobody is hurt, and the quarry is taken. That's enough."
Eugene rose to his feet and comforted Barun.
Being literally one with the horse was not an advantage in every respect. Centaurs could not perform a Parthian shot. A human rider could leave movement to the horse and freely twist his upper body, but when a centaur twisted his torso, his legs turned with it.
A human rider could also look behind while the horse watched the path ahead. A centaur trying to run while looking backward was effectively moving blind; one bad stone underfoot could cause a serious accident.
"Sir Karas, a fresh horse has been prepared."
"Thank you."
Karas switched to the horse the beater handed him.
The way Karas pushed off against his tack and shifted sideways while still mounted showed remarkable agility.
Kresi and Panis both looked ready for a break. Hunting meant moving through the forest all day, and it consumed a great deal of stamina.
"Hah... hah..."
Above all, it was plainly visible that Barun was exhausted.
"Are you all right?"
"Just... give me a moment. Hoo... I just need to catch my breath."
Staying alert and maintaining a combat posture consumed far more stamina than one might think.
For human cavalry, fighting was the man's job and movement the horse's. With the division of labor neatly drawn, a centaur had to shoulder all the fatigue by himself. He couldn't even switch to a spare horse, so endurance was his weakness.
-Every so often, a charismatic Great Chieftain appears and gathers centaurs into a large horde. They may win a few major victories, but eventually they always fall apart.
Goffrey acknowledged the centaurs' strength and fighting spirit, but he had never considered them a truly formidable army.
It was for the same reason that they had been driven from their homeland's rich pastures to wander. They had been defeated in competition with human nomadic peoples.
"Let's end it here. Everyone's taken at least one."
For Barun's sake, Eugene steered the hunt toward a close. No one present was going to object once he said it was time to stop.
The pheasants and roe deer were awarded to the mercenaries who had served as beaters, while the deer was cooked for the knights' supper.
"Sir Eugene took this himself?"
With Eugene's permission, the boar was displayed before the grand council. Everyone marveled at the size of a beast big enough to send a hunting dog flying into the stars with one charge.
"Indeed! The crafty beast hid behind a tree and doubled back the other way, but it could not fool the senses of a great knight. Even Barun lost it, yet Sir Eugene dropped it with a single shot!"
Panis recited lines that had been rehearsed many times over.
"Now I can finally relax. I might actually sleep soundly tonight."
The members of the Council let out sighs of relief.
To have struck a vital point in a single shot meant his reflexes, his senses, and his horsemanship were also exceptional. A knight's hunt revealed the full measure of the man.
Mercenaries picked up weapons simply to survive the hardships of the world, killing when circumstances demanded it. Knights were different.
A knight was a human weapon tempered in blood and iron from childhood, trained for a lifetime in the art of killing.
Swordsmanship, horsemanship, tactics, and hunting were taught as an integrated whole. Excellence in one naturally carried over into the others.
"This should be enough to quell any further grumbling."
The Executor looked at Panis.
"The Hall War is soon upon us. See to it that the knights are treated so that they can rest well and be in peak condition for the remaining days."
"Leave it to me. Is this not my area of expertise?"
"Wine in moderation, however. It would not do to dull the champions' senses."
"I shall see them into perfect physical condition, on my own responsibility. My own life rides on this as well."
"Let us suspend the Council for a time, then. There is nothing more to be done here in any case."
Win or lose, the Council would convene again once the Hall War was over. All they could do was hope to face one another with smiles when that day came.
The Executor raised his glass of wine, and everyone raised their own.
"To our city, free in the past, the present, and the future!"
He led off the toast and drank.
"To freedom!"
"To Bonyard!"
"Blessings upon the foundations of the Ancient Kingdom!"
Each shouted his own rallying cry as he drank, then flung his glass to the floor.
Crash!
Hoping that the bright, ringing shatter of breaking glass would drive out the last fear lingering in their hearts.