I Will Be the Greatest Knight
Chapter 65: The Trail Leads To...

Chapter 65: The Trail Leads To...

What Irene deemed to be tracks headed towards the Duke’s Tower stopped abruptly and she miserably stood there, realizing the trail had gone cold. All that was between her and the grass and snow much closer to the old castle was mud.

Since the snow was actively melting, there was nothing more to be gleaned from the situation. Unless, of course, there were somehow tracks of mud going into the castle.

"The trail’s gone dead," Irene uttered, knowing there was someone behind her.

She turned to see Sir Gunnar standing there with his eyebrows lowered as he took in the situation that had befallen them.

"It doesn’t make any sense," he muttered in disbelief. "Perhaps we’re all reading into this too much. None of the knights would allow someone to come inside the tower if they were covered in anything close to the scent of what we witnessed in the forest."

Sir Sven had since caught up and he added his own theories.

"Considering there are tracks going and not coming, yet the wagon continues onward despite that, we can only assume that multiple people are involved in this," the knight realized. "Shall we continue following the wagon in the other direction?"

Sir Gunnar ran a gloved hand through his hair in frustration, but he managed to rein it in and nodded.

"We will go for as long as what’s reasonable," he persisted, despite his irritation.

He patted Irene’s shoulder, willing her to follow along and she realized her duties weren’t finished for the day. However, it was better than being stuck in the library as they had been many times that winter. Perhaps it would even allow the mages to branch out a bit seeing that no one was occupying their favorite place in the entire castle.

They all went back to their horses.

Irene pulled herself onto her horse and she stroked his thick mane before squeezing her knees and requesting they go forth.

Before she could pick up speed, she noticed Leif giving her a significant expression but when she caught him staring, he turned his head quickly and pursued the trail as well.

There was something that had been bothering her about Leif. After she was injured, he seemed to have distanced himself little by little. Not only that, but he didn’t visit her once when she was stuck in bed.

At one point, she believed he might be her very best friend in the knighthood because he was younger and could understand what she was going through, but something had shifted and he seemed further away. They still had a few fun moments together but they were becoming fewer and further between.

The girl decided that perhaps she had been relying on him a little too much for happiness when she was freshly an apprentice. The darkness of winter and the loneliness of spending most of her time in her room if she wasn’t assigned a duty was getting heavier and heavier.

It was time to ’man up’, so to speak.

Irene lifted her head a bit higher and fixed her posture as the horses began moving faster. She had to pull her chin in towards her chest because when the wind around them whipped around, it became colder than when they were stagnant and closer to the Duke’s Tower.

It seemed the knights wanted to close ground more quickly because, from what they could tell, the wheel tracks were never-ending.

There were another couple of hours of riding where the tracks would drift or disappear altogether. The group would have to go off in all directions, but someone would eventually find it and they would resume the path forward once again.

However, long past when they were supposed to have eaten their midday meal, the apprentices were all feeling hungry and ready to give up as their stomachs growled. If one thing the knighthood did for them, it was ensure they had plenty of food to eat at all times.

None were willing to complain about their lack of food so they continued forward dutifully following the knights who led them.

Soon enough, it seemed that the future was chosen for them because Sir Gunnar stuck out one of his arms and shouted "Woah!" for all the apprentices to stop their horses.

Those whose thoughts had been drifting were obvious when a few horses stopped short and stood on two feet momentarily because of the surprise of being stopped so suddenly.

The hill they were going over led towards lower lands and into a more forested area of the valley. Not only that, but the stream that normally went through for the was completely overflowing with the snow melt from that day. Even though the snow hadn’t completely melted, it showed just how much one warm day could do to make travel nearly impossible in the valley at lower points.

It was only a hint of what they would go through in the coming month when the valley truly flooded and the lower plains would be almost completely covered. It would be more like Chemois Island rather than a region.

Irene was just beside Sir Gunnar’s left side and she heard him mutter a "dammit" under his breath and her eyes scanned the area ahead of them for more tire tracks.

The need to pacify was strong as the girl slipped off her horse and hurriedly looked for the trail.

"We can find it again!" she insisted.

Sir Gunnar had dismounted his horse as well but he didn’t move an inch unlike Irene and, eventually, the other apprentices who were determined to prove themselves as well.

However, the knight merely stood there, stroking his horse’s mane and wearing a pensive expression for a few moments.

"Don’t bother," the knight announced. "The journey for the day ends here. We have to accept where the trail ends and attend to what’s closer to the lands we are sworn to protect. I will request the mages take a look at what we found in the forest. Otherwise, the direction in which the carriage was headed wasn’t towards the township but rather the lower hills leading to the floodplains. By the time they reach that point with a wagon, they will be washed away by snowmelt and the problem will cease to exist."

There was a bit of hopelessness in his voice that each person listening could feel a piece of.

"Return to your prior duties," the knight ordered.

There was nothing more than that, at least that’s what the knights wanted them to believe.