Two Burdens Too Many
Between Milvian, who placed absolute trust in his comrades, and Zama, who simply shrugged his shoulders, Nyx found himself sinking into troubled thought. This was no simple matter. He had meant to slip away unseen, yet he had already saddled himself with two troublesome burdens. If he made a scene now and drew more attention, his original purpose would vanish like smoke.
Nyx wanted to leave in silence. That was the goal he desired most.
She had said she didn’t know how to ride.
He muttered the fact he had already confirmed to himself, then glanced around as though searching for another solution.
Couldn’t they at least take a smaller horse?
What? You’re really bringing her?
Damn it, she’ll fall behind once we cross the mountains.
Three Mountain Horses seemed exactly right. Adding some ordinary flatland horse to the group would clearly make it impossible to maintain proper speed.
“Milvian, can you manage with one extra rider?”
At the question, the young knight’s normally composed face crumpled. He currently regarded Tichite as little more than a lying schemer; no matter how deeply he revered his lord, he could hardly welcome the command.
Nyx caught the aversion flickering in Milvian’s eyes and the outright rejection on Tichite’s stiffened face. Yet handing her over to Zama was out of the question. The boy could barely look after himself.
Nyx felt a trickle of sweat slide down his spine and let out a low groan.
“…Come here. Ride with me.”
The man beckoned her closer. Then, just as he had done once before, he slid his hand beneath Tichite’s arm. Before the hard steel gauntlet could fully settle, she instinctively lifted her arm a fraction. A large hand slipped through the gap between her body and elbow, lifting her clean off the ground. The watching retainers were struck speechless by the sight. It did not look like the first time.
Nyx Farrow was touching a grown woman. And he was doing it with the gentle care one might show a ten-year-old squire.
“Hold here. Or you may grip the mane. Yes, like that…”
“Are you truly taking her?”
The Duke gave no answer to Zama’s question. Mounting the Mountain Horse was simple enough for him—he simply stepped into the stirrup and swung up—but placing another person atop the saddle was no easy task.
“Go fetch extra provisions, Milvian. And be careful not to wake anyone.”
“You wish me to prepare a full extra share, my lord?”
“You heard correctly. Yes. Now swing your right leg over…”
Nyx answered without so much as glancing at Milvian. His voice shifted from irresistibly authoritative to impossibly gentle, then back again, each command delivered with a different kind of pressure.
“…Understood.”
Though clearly reluctant, the knight turned and left the stable to carry out the order.
Tichite continued struggling to mount with the Duke’s help. She clung to the mane and the front of the saddle, but her narrow, floor-length skirt made lifting her leg nearly impossible.
“The skirt…”
The woman muttered. If her hands were free she might have tried hiking it up, but both were occupied with holding on.
“Skirt?”
Nyx echoed in confusion. After a moment he set her back down on the ground.
A skirt is quite an inconvenient garment.
He had never once considered how such clothing could hinder movement or cause discomfort.
The outfit looked strangely fascinating and intricate, stirring an urge to study it longer, yet he forced that curiosity aside.
“Change into something easier to ride in. Do you have trousers? Zama, lend her some of yours.”
When Tichite shook her head, Nyx crooked a finger at the boy.
“Why me…?”
“Would you rather she wear mine?”
Nyx’s trousers, to be blunt, looked large enough to swallow Tichite whole in a single leg.
Zama wrinkled his nose, then began digging through his pack while grumbling that he barely had spares himself. Hearing the complaint, Tichite felt a pang of guilt.
She hurried to the carriage to change, then quickly gathered her things and emerged. The fear that the knights might leave without her lent speed to her hands.
The slender youth’s trousers were still far too large for her, though not quite as enormous as a grown man’s would have been. She had to cinch the waist cord tightly to keep them up. She also borrowed a matching tunic.
Nyx ran his gaze over Tichite—now dressed head to toe like a boy—with an odd expression. Then, adopting a more neutral demeanor than before, he helped her mount the horse.
The loose male clothing concealed every soft curve she possessed. Focusing on that fact, Nyx silently repeated to himself that he was not pressed close to an adorable young woman, only a scrawny boy who had not yet reached puberty.
Somehow the mental trick eased the churning in his stomach. Besides, encased in armor as he was, he could scarcely feel anything through the steel.
Riding proved every bit as difficult as she had feared. Even though all control and guidance belonged to someone else, simply staying balanced atop the bouncing beast left her whole body aching with strain and exhaustion.
The Iron Horse had driven them without rest through the night. Tichite could only marvel—almost resentfully—at how the men could ride from dusk till dawn without proper sleep. They even seemed to find their way effortlessly through the darkness.
Her backside throbbed. Her eyelids kept drooping. She shook her head again and again to fight off sleep, but the drowsiness refused to retreat.
Each time her body listed, the Duke’s solid arm caught her. He paid close attention to the woman’s shoulders as she repeatedly drifted off, swayed, and startled awake.
The owl calls grew thinner as pale blue dawn crept across the sky. After passing through a valley laced with cool morning air and reaching a slender stream, the Duke finally spoke.
“We’ll rest here.”
Only Tichite seemed barely able to stay upright. When she dismounted, the man lifted her down by the hips, lowering her to the ground as though she were a child.
“All of you, drink. We’ll eat lightly and move on at once.”
The Duke addressed the two young men. The person most crushed by the short-rest announcement was Tichite. Forgetting the trousers were not hers, she collapsed against a tree trunk.
She watched dully as the man led the horse by the reins toward the water’s edge. Only now did she realize they had stopped more for the horses’ sake than their own.
With his gauntlets removed, the way his fingers gently stroked through the mane looked remarkably tender.
As Tichite stared at him in a daze, Zama walked over.
“Hey, girl. Eat this.”
He thrust the food at her in a surly tone. It resembled a dark, twisted branch, but when she took it, the strip proved surprisingly pliable. She could bend it between her fingers.
“It’s horsemeat jerky. Don’t even think about refusing. There’s nothing else.”
Then, as if to prove his point, Zama pulled something entirely different from his bag.
Bread. Coarse, black bread.
“Commander, this is for you.”
The boy grinned as he offered the loaf to the Duke. To Tichite it looked no better than the jerky—perhaps worse. Such rough fare seemed far beneath a nobleman’s taste, so she found herself puzzled.
The Duke accepted the bread with one hand and rested the other on Zama’s shoulder in what looked like an approving gesture. As he returned with his arm still draped around the boy, he caught sight of Tichite and stopped short. In his eyes she was clutching the blackened, dried strip of horsemeat.
In a voice heavy with hesitation, the Duke asked, “Isn’t there anything else? Instead of the dried meat…”
Tichite, assuming he meant to share his bread with her, was already preparing a polite refusal.
“This is all we carry for journeys like these. You know that, my lord,” Milvian answered with a sullen look, having grasped the true intent behind the question. Nyx’s expression remained doubtful, as though someone might think they had handed her raw meat still dripping blood.
“…Don’t girls avoid eating things like that?”
The sight of her slender hand gripping the shriveled piece of meat made her look like a baby bird clutching a large grasshopper.