What If You Lose?
Lanlam, who had kept silent all this time like a person with no mouth, suddenly tossed out the question. The man’s face showed open interest as he continued.
“If you lose?”
“If I lose…”
“I’ll dedicate today’s Glass Rose to you. No matter which of those two wins, the champion will be me anyway.”
The man watched the horses returning to their starting positions.
Whether it was confidence backed by solid grounds or mere empty boasting, his attitude alone was that of a true champion. His impression wasn’t one of frivolous lightness, so the possibility that he might actually pull it off began to feel strangely plausible.
If that’s the case, then this is a bet where I have nothing to lose, Lanlam thought.
Being able to go on a date with the man from Loudhill regardless of the match’s outcome seemed like it would make for a wonderful experience.
I might even get to confirm whether the rumor about it being big and sturdy is true.
The trumpet blast rescued Lanlam from her lewd imagination. The match was approaching its second clash. The horses pawed the ground, their gleaming lance tips rushing toward each other at terrifying speed. Zylas thrust his arm forward a fraction faster than Caironeia. Sharp screams erupted from the spectators.
The accident happened in the blink of an eye. Zylas’s lance had pierced neither Caironeia’s shield nor his armor, but the neck of the mountain horse.
There was no time to determine whether it had been a mistake or intentional. Stabbed by the steel tip, the enraged mountain horse reared up violently, kicking its front hooves high. The startled beast broke free of its lane and began thrashing wildly. A full-scale rampage had begun.
The smile vanished from Kanne’s face as if it had never existed. The man, who moments ago had been cracking silly jokes, turned deadly serious and sprinted forward. He wasn’t the only one. Knights came pouring out of the tent.
“Cairo!”
The knights ran, shouting Caironeia’s name. The young knight who had been desperately clinging to the reins finally lost his grip and fell. By some miracle he managed to roll his body clear of the hooves.
Freed of its rider, the horse grew even more frantic, tearing across the courtyard in front of Salt Castle. Some people scrambled to get out of its way while others raced to catch it. The onlookers buzzed with confusion and fear.
When the horse tried to leap over the wooden barrier, the crowd screamed and scattered in panic. Even the supposedly safe spectator seats were now under threat. People near the fence stumbled backward. Some fell. Others were trampled. In an instant the entire area descended into pandemonium. The frenzy of a single horse had plunged hundreds of people into chaos.
A frightened horse had to be allowed to calm down on its own. By the time the mountain horse finally planted all four hooves on the ground again, several people had already been cruelly crushed—whether by iron-shod hooves or frantic human feet.
One knight who had been kicked in the back by the horse’s hind legs during its worst frenzy had fainted. From a distance it was impossible to tell if he was dead or alive. He was soon carried away on a makeshift stretcher, while the more seriously injured were hauled off on the backs of the security guards.
Lanlam, who had avoided harm only because her seat was in a poor location, watched the scene with bated breath. Only when the mountain horse’s reins were finally seized did she let out a sigh of relief and press a hand to her chest.
The disturbance had been brought under control, but the jousting arena was now completely devastated. Once the situation had settled somewhat, the organizers called an emergency meeting. At its center, naturally, were the lord of Salt Castle, the Pig Princess, and her younger brother, the Crown Prince.
“What did they say?”
After a brief twenty-minute deliberation, the knights of the Iron Horse Knights swarmed the man who had returned. His name was Louis, an older man with a brown beard just beginning to show streaks of gray.
“First, Caironeia is forced to forfeit. The injury to his leg makes it impossible for him to continue the match.”
Regretful sighs rose from every corner of the tent. Even Louis, who delivered the news, looked unhappy. Caironeia himself—the one who had the most right to feel bitter—sat in silence with a poultice on his leg, his face twisted in frustration.
“Then what about that damn Guarding Knight? Was he disqualified?”
Someone said it was the only outcome that would satisfy them. But Louis shook his head with a grave expression. The knights broke into a chorus of condemnation and rage.
“That’s ridiculous. How can they allow that?”
“He clearly did it on purpose. It was intentional, no question about it. Right, Cairo?”
Unlike the relatively calm older knights, the hot-blooded young ones could not contain their anger. They added fuel to the collective outrage and even began pleading directly with Duke Farrow.
“Commander, can’t you go say something to them yourself?”
Before Nyx could respond, Louis spoke again. He still had more to say.
“There is one more piece of disappointing news for our knights…”
Louis trailed off, looking uncomfortable. The man in armor gave a slight nod as if to say, Go on. After a long, pained hesitation, Louis finally delivered the blow.
“Our mountain horses are barred from competing for the remainder of the tournament…”
“What?”
“Excuse me?”
This was far more shocking than the news that Zylas had not lost his chance to advance. To the Iron Horse Knights, whose mighty mountain horses were both their symbol and their pride, it felt like an unbearably unfair ruling.
“What are we supposed to do without our own horses?”
“The lord of Salt Castle offered to lend us his spare mounts.”
“Spare mounts? Are they even warhorses?”
“Why should we have to give up our own horses in the first place?”
To a knight, a warhorse was like an extension of his own body. More important than sword or shield was a mount that moved as naturally as his own limbs. Even in a simple footrace, wearing someone else’s shoes made one feel awkward and unable to perform at full strength. Losing the familiar height and speed of their own horses would inevitably put them at a disadvantage.
“It’s practically cheating.”
“What do you mean, cheating? What that Zylas bastard did was the real cheat.”
“To be honest, thrusting upward from below is genuinely difficult. Regular horses are smaller than ours.”
As the Iron Horse Knights grumbled and debated the organizers’ decision, Louis cut in as if he had been waiting for exactly that point.
“That was precisely the Guarding Knight’s argument. He claimed that if it had been an ordinary horse, the rider would have been positioned at that height, and an accident like this would never have occurred.”
“Ha! Listen to him run his mouth.”
The knights, now forced to ride unfamiliar horses in an uncertain competition, growled with dissatisfaction. Being treated this way after traveling so far wounded their pride.
“Will you stop your whining? If word of you lot complaining gets out, people will laugh and say the Iron Horse Knights are nothing but a bunch of crybabies.”
An older, more mature knight who was not participating in the matches scolded them. But the younger knights did not meekly accept the rebuke; if anything, their resentment only grew.
At that moment, Nyx Farrow, who had been listening in silence, finally spoke.
“Don’t scold the lads, Louis.”
The tournament results themselves did not matter much, but he could not stand by and watch the pride of those who trusted and followed him be tarnished.
“This is my fault. They’re making a show of it to get at me.”
The man’s voice, already sullen, sounded even colder inside his steel helm.
“I refused their request to send them usable breeding stallions again this time.”
He rose from his seat and took a step into the sunlight. In the distance, he could see the Pig Princess and the Pig Prince—the royal siblings of the Jeroli Kingdom—seated in the VIP stands.
Ever since they were children, those two had wanted many things and demanded many things. What the Crown Prince desired most from him these days was Loudhill’s mountain horses.
The mountain horses, which could not be found anywhere else in Bigland, had been the symbol of the Farrow family for generations. They were also the essential war asset required to maintain the Iron Horse Knights, said to be the strongest army in Bigland. In other words, they were a precious military resource. It was only natural that they would be reluctant to hand over something that set their territory apart from all others. Every time someone subtly requested a trade for their horses, Nyx had turned them down. Just as his father had done, and his grandfather before him, and his grandfather’s grandfather before that.
The royal family was no exception.