In a vast hall, hundreds of steps had gathered outside its doors—some drumming the floor nervously, others unable to hold still and shifting in place, while others stood rooted to the spot.
The hall doors burst open, and three pairs of heavy footsteps entered—heavy not from the men themselves, but from the man they were carrying. Every other sound stopped, and the hall held its silence for a moment until a scarlet drop fell from the man's leg and struck the floor.
That man was the lord of everyone in the room—the baron of the territory. He had marched at the head of his army to war against the neighboring baron, who had declared a territorial war against them.
He had left with his back straight, smiling and joking with his knights, his armor gleaming, and his sword sharp; now he returned with his armor filthy, covered in dents and cut marks across every surface. His face was twisted in pain, lips pressed tightly together; no trace of his smile, and the corners of his eyes red.
In the hall, the silence was broken by the rhythmic tap of small drops striking the cold floor, falling from the baron's leg. Below his knee, his entire leg was gone, with a cloth tied tightly a few inches from the wound, stemming the massive blood loss.
"Quickly!" the steward shouted at the soldiers. "The doctor is already waiting in his chamber! Take the baron there!"
The soldiers ran with the baron in their arms. They nearly collided with a young man frozen in the middle of the hallway. There was no time to waste; the baron had received only basic medical attention at the camp, which had barely slowed the blood loss, but his wounds were far too grave, and he needed more treatment.
One soldier stayed behind, at the young man's side; he was one of the baron's knights and had personally seen to it that the baron made it back to the manor. Now he found himself at a loss for how to approach and comfort the young man before him. He reached out slowly toward the boy's shoulder when, all at once, the boy spun around and looked at him.
The boy looked at the soldier, on the verge of tears, the corners of his eyes reddening; he mustered enough strength to ask, "Why? Why is my father like this?!"
Knight Marlleo looked at the young boy before him. He had never seen him like this. He took a few seconds to gather the will to answer.
"It's… quite difficult to tell. Even to me it feels impossible," he sighed, helpless. "We won many battles, one after another, driving them back to their main village with nowhere left to run—but who could have known what tricks Baron Grojo had waiting for us? We started losing. We fell back again and again, and in this last battle we lost nearly a quarter of our company and our lord as well," he said at the end, defeated. But then a tremendous rage rose in him, and he clenched his teeth hard, his temple creasing deeply, his hands closing tight. "Those filthy bastards managed to bring in one of the Marquis of Chrysalis' theurges."
Marlleo's words entered Licerio and swirled through his head, impossible to process. The air left him. A theurge. Devastating enemies for any army without one of their own, where the finest spear is no more than a dead branch before them.
The mere mention of a theurge was an omen of defeat; all they could do was hope for a miracle. Just thinking about that enemy made Licerio's legs and hands tremble, his heart pounding furiously.
Licerio was pulled from his thoughts and brought back to himself when a hand settled on his shoulder—Marleo's hand. He had knelt, bringing himself close to Licerio's height, his eyes fixed on him.
"Young master, we have failed, and in this last battle a quarter of the company has been put out of action, and the morale of our troops falls lower with every passing moment. With the baron's fall, all of them are broken, and the look in their eyes holds no will or confidence at all. We need the young master to be our commander and raise the army's spirit."
The hall, which had managed to recover some of its previous movement and noise, went completely silent again; these people knew nothing of battles and wars, and hearing the state their troops were in struck them without mercy.
Licerio, for his part, stared in disbelief at the knight beside him. This knight was one of the men closest to both him and his father—it was possible his father had shared certain secrets with him.
His attention was caught entirely by the look in the knight's eyes. His legs and hands trembled, no longer for the same reason as before, and his mind fought to make him run, to flee somewhere safe. But against that, something rose inside him—a furious rage. He squeezed his hands shut, the trembling that had held them went still, and he drew a deep breath; the look in his eyes changed, and he nodded. When he raised his gaze, he was no longer searching for comfort but for the flames of war.
"I will take command of the army. Knight Marlleo, I will ask you to have my horse prepared. We leave in twenty minutes."
With that, Licerio turned and went down the side hallway to his room to get ready.
When he entered, he went to a corner of his room where a suit of armor had been kept ready; his father had always told him that a man must always be prepared to go to war for his bloodline and had commissioned armor for him when he turned fifteen. He had never thought he would truly have to use it so soon, and even less without his father at his side.
After putting the armor on, he was ready to go, but he stopped when he passed in front of a rough mirror in his room, looking at his face and the figure inside the armor.
One of his hands moved to the mirror, touching the face reflected at him—a face that still felt like a stranger's even after seventeen years. His lips were trembling, his eyes unsteady and marked by the tracks of tears, but behind it all lay a burning gaze, a resolute gaze. His mind was still somewhat in turmoil as he tried to process everything; yet now he could only focus on one thing: fighting a war.
He took his hand from the mirror, and his reflection faded behind him as he left his room and made his way to the manor's entrance.
There Marlleo and the other two soldiers who had brought his father back were waiting. When they saw Licerio entering the hall, they moved toward him and knelt before him.
"Rise. Let's not waste any more time."
The three soldiers rose and cleared the way for Licerio; with a steady stride, Licerio left the manor. Outside, the steward and other servants stood with the horses already prepared.
The steward kept his face composed, but his eyelids were half-lowered, trying to hide the sorrow in his eyes as he looked at the figure of Licerio. He opened his mouth—no words came. He closed it. Then he closed his eyes. He opened them slowly, seeming to fight with himself just to manage it. After a long struggle, he parted his lips, and what came out was not what he had truly wanted to say.
"Please take care of yourself, young master."
Licerio and the three knights left the village on horseback, heading north toward a vast plain that stretched for miles.
The boundary between territories had been drawn along the natural divide made by a river cutting through the plain. Baron Grojo's troops had crossed it in a cowardly advance, and by the time Baron Bareo arrived, they were already on the other side.
That did not stop him. He ordered a swift charge. His men had lived through the demands of war more times than could be counted, and their force was something the enemy troops simply could not hold—they drove them back toward the river, where the enemy wept in fear and fled in panic, crossing back and turning their backs on their pursuers.
After that, Baron Bareo pressed on, taking two victories in a row against an army that was already broken, its morale gone, ready to flee at the sight of their shadows alone.
Licerio listened as the knight recounted his father's campaign. He could not deny the excitement and pride rising in him as he imagined his father's courage—but he was unable to hold onto those feelings; the memory of his father's current state gnawed at him, a sharp pain that made his heart beat with something close to grief.
Licerio's brow tightened and his gaze sharpened in pace with the change in Marlleo's voice and expression, watching him press his lips hard together and clench dirt in his fist.
"The lord led the campaign all the way to the main enemy village, ready to lay siege to it quickly. He decided we would rest for a day, raising our spirits to their peak and recovering our full strength. The next day we had the army ready to attack—but ultimately we couldn't," said the knight with anger and a trace of helplessness.
The knight could not find words, and his mouth stayed open without sound. The rage and humiliation had cut off every passage to his voice, and he closed his mouth, dropped his gaze to the ground, and glanced sidelong at Licerio.
"Why not?! Keep going!" he ordered. "What happened?!"
Pressed by Licerio, Marlleo had no choice but to fight through his reluctance and continue, knowing this would bring more pain to the young man before him—and there was nothing he could do to prevent it.