I Will Be the Greatest Knight
Chapter 63: Unexplained

Chapter 63: Unexplained

The snow wasn’t gone but it was the warmest day they had so far.

That morning, the apprentices woke up to a promising day with a blue sky and snow on the ground revealing patches of yellow grass or mud. When they went to the practice yard, they saw Sir Gunnar bringing out a bit of gravel with a wooden wheelbarrow to make the area less muddy so that practice wouldn’t have to be delayed.

However, the apprentices didn’t mind getting muddy. All of them were eager to have fun outside while the sun shone.

A few overconfident ones like Felix came out without as much as a cloak on, certain they would warm up enough that they wouldn’t need it after a while. Indoor duties had resumed for them, after all.

Even though they practiced as usual, Gunnar had a bit of a surprise for all of them, inviting each apprentice to stay outside for longer that day and practice places they believed they lacked. However, he didn’t give Irene a choice when he approached her with her horse and said she knew what she ought to work on. He even asked Felix to wrap a post with hay so that she wouldn’t go through arrowheads by damaging the ones Samson had dropped off before winter fell over them.

It had been nearly an hour of practice on the back of Sorrel and Irene was breaking a true sweat for the first time in a few months. It felt good but she was also extremely frustrated, finding her progress not to be satisfactory to her expectations of herself.

"Ah!" Irene shouted as she nearly fell off of Sorrel.

Instead of falling off the horse herself, the girl tossed her arrow and bow in opposite directions so she could use her hands to stabilize herself on top of the horse.

"I fear your balance is worse than I was expecting," Felix observed from where he had been tying a new straw practice dummy to a post. "Your promising career as an acrobat for His Majesty is all for nothing."

The girl glared at him.

"What are you on about now?" she snapped, but then she noticed her tone and decided to lighten up. "I’m afraid there isn’t room in His Majesty’s court with a jester as big as you are already there."

The older apprentice merely laughed and shook his head as he finished tying the bottom half of the dummy onto the post.

"I did all this beautiful work and you’re not going to hit it, not even one time," he taunted with a sigh.

The girl stopped Sorrel entirely and slipped off her saddle. She then went to where she tossed the bow and the arrow and walked up to the practice dummy. They were crafted by a rucksack full of hay and tied to a post. They were tied at the top and bottom as well as another towards the top, making it look somewhat like a head and body with a very round stomach.

"I couldn’t possibly hit something that looks so much like you," Irene defended herself, turning to Felix. "Same color hair. Same body as well."

The older apprentice narrowed his eyes at Irene and he grabbed his sword’s handle, daring her to say something else.

Felix joking and Felix wielding a sword were practically two different people and she wasn’t going to stay and sword fight with someone she knew outskilled her so far. She quickly took off to her horse. With only one foot in the stirrups, she elbowed the horse to imitate one of her knees.

"GO!" she yelled.

Only when she was far into the field did she look back and see Felix shaking his head and chuckling lightly.

Leif appeared with a wooden sword in his hands and he looked incredulously between Felix and Irene.

"What on Earth are you two shouting about?" he yelled. "I thought there were more wolves."

"You’re the only one shouting," Felix retorted. "And what are you going to do with a wooden sword?"

Leif threw down his sword and unsheathed the silver arming sword he normally used.

"Better?"

Before Felix could respond, their heads turned as they saw someone else arriving.

From the other end of the Duke’s property, Gunnar came on horseback from where he was looking over the treeline. He had been checking on the goblin activity since signs of snow melting often meant goblins waking up even if it was premature.

"Has any of you seen Sir Sven?" he asked, his voice telling the apprentices that he wasn’t there to joke around.

"Not in a while, sir," Irene answered first since she was closest. "Is there something the matter?"

"Stay on your horse," Gunnar ordered. "Felix, Leif, get horses as well with Sven and come to the tree line. Quickly."

Since Sir Gunnar was trusting them with something—and even if it was simply because they were the first apprentices he saw—Irene dutifully nodded and got onto her horse appropriately so she could follow the knight back to the forest where he had just come from.

Irene’s green eyes scanned what she could of the forest’s edge. It wasn’t until Sir Gunnar stopped that she focused on anything at all.

Two indents were going into the forest that seemed to originate from much further down in the valley. Where the ground was disturbed was muddy and uneven, as if whoever had to go through there was having a rough time with it.

"Are those wheel tracks?" she asked.

"I wonder what sort of business someone has going into the Duke’s forest. Everyone knows that this is the land of His Grace," Gunnar mused for a moment. "It isn’t likely he gave anyone permission and I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a monster with the intelligence to pull a wagon dragged by a horse."

Considering there were horse hoof prints, that seemed plenty logical.

When the knight realized Irene was looking at him, he shrugged it off.

"Perhaps I seem a bit paranoid, but someone going into a forest teeming with monsters is looking for trouble," he explained.

"Understood, sir," she responded.

Soon enough, Felix, Leif, and Sven appeared on horseback and, when they saw the wheel tracks, they were just as in disbelief as Gunnar.

"I don’t suppose you think this is the work of a monster," Felix realized.

"We won’t know until we go into the forest a little ways and get to the bottom of this," Gunnar explained.

"The rest of the apprentices are going on with duties as usual," Sven said.

"Then I suppose you three are unlucky for being the ones furthest out in the practice yard."

His greyish eyes swept over the apprentices he then angled his head towards the forest, indicating that’s where he wanted them to go. With no further instruction, he squeezed his knees so that his horse would move forward.