The Duke confidently trampled a path along the snow-covered trail. He was dressed in a military uniform, its top few buttons currently undone, black insulated riding boots, and a black fur cloak that fluttered behind his back, keeping company with the bastard sword in its scabbard hanging from his belt. Behind him, his men walked with shorter steps, wrapping themselves tighter in their fur cloaks to shield themselves from the biting, cold wind. Behind them followed several dogs harnessed to sleds, pulling the luggage.
"Damn, it's cold," came the bass voice of the lad Adrian, who, together with his friend Leon, walked a little further behind. They had set out from the capital together after the Royal Ball of Crow, and now the pair of young men walked not far from him, conversing among themselves.
"He could be by a warm sea right now," replied Baron Starr in a quiet voice. Throughout the entire journey, he had been gloomy and sullen, but so far the Duke paid it no attention—until they arrived in the city of Storm, his service had not yet begun, so it was not his concern how the young man reacted to his exile.
"Oh, come on, Leon, this is the spirit of adventure! When else would you have visited the Duchy of Storm and seen the magnificent Mountains of Death, visible even from here?! And look at all this snow!" the aristocrat continued to rejoice like a child seeing snow for the first time.
"I always hoped never to see it," the young man muttered just as quietly in response to his friend's reaction.
"Oh, come on, buddy, you're too pessimistic!" Adrian slapped his friend on the back. "Just imagine what awaits us—beautiful women with that wonderful narrow eye shape! And considering the harsh conditions they live in, underneath those clothes, they're not mares but real tigresses."
"So you came all this way to have fun in bed with the local ladies?" Baron Starr exhaled wearily. "And here I thought it was because we're friends."
"I won't deny that fact," Adrian smirked.
"That you're here for the ladies?" Leon parried his friend's sarcastic comment.
"That too," the youth continued to smirk.
Ryo merely chuckled to himself, listening to this small exchange but not intervening. The capital of the duchy was indeed located closer to the mountains, where even in this late autumn season, everything was already covered in snow. Even from here, one could see the snow-capped peaks of the Mountains of Death, so named because no one had ever crossed them—or if they had, they never returned. Even so, these gleaming peaks gladdened the man's eye. Of course, such a large amount of snow and frost created certain inconveniences for daily life, but it protected the duchy from both external and internal enemies. As Leon's reaction showed, not all pampered nobles could survive such harsh conditions. Ordinary horses couldn't always manage the snowdrifts, let alone massive carriages—unlike the sled dogs, which could comfortably transport people throughout most of the duchy. The Duke himself loved the native expanses of his vast land. If one went further towards the Wild Lands, which lay beyond the Ancestors' Wall—or the Northern Wall, as people from other regions of the country called it, which encircled the entire northern border of the duchy and the kingdom itself—surprisingly, it became warmer, not colder. Although these lands were much further north, it simply made them different, as Ryo saw it. And guarding the border against the wild barbarians who dwelt beyond was much simpler.
The Duke of Storm's face wrinkled slightly as he remembered those terrible creatures, whom it was difficult even to call human. Many of them had obvious defects compared to ordinary people: a third eye, a third arm, or conversely, missing body parts, or some arms or legs much larger or smaller than the others. Perhaps one could negotiate with them, but these barbarians didn't even speak the human language used across the entire continent; they muttered something unintelligible. But even that wasn't their main problem.
Cruelty and cannibalism.
They were utterly merciless toward the kingdom's inhabitants and often used them as snacks, as had been learned from the small rescue operations occasionally organized. But these rarely succeeded in bringing anyone back, so such forays became fewer and fewer with each passing time. The Row Margraviate, part of his duchy, established by Arthur I himself, was that line of defense that kept these creatures away from the duchy's inhabitants. Essentially, the entire margraviate was a military base, subordinate to the Duke of Storm—one of the conditions that the then-King of Storm had concluded with Arthur I: assistance in defending the border. And he had kept his word. But now, a hundred years later, things were somewhat worse than before. Fewer nobles came to serve; more barbarians attacked the walls. Yes, muskets made defense easier, but these creatures had somehow learned to bypass the walls and penetrate directly into villages outside the margraviate. The Margrave of Row was extremely displeased with this, as was the Duke of Storm himself. Before departing for the capital for the Royal Ball of Crow, Lord Xun had sought an audience with Ryo, and the man understood its importance, but he also knew he could not fail to appear at this "most important" royal event of the year, to maintain the status of his duchy, to continue pressuring the King of Crow and his entourage with the implicit message: "Look, I'm here instead of guarding the border." The man thought that Lord Idivig understood all this, but his status as Duke placed upon Ryo not only the war with the barbarians but also the governance of the entire duchy. His absence from the ball could damage the kingdom's image, not from the King's perspective, but from that of other nobles—especially that vile old woman Katerina. If Nikolai was young but already experienced and ruthless, as the ball had shown, Zakery was his antipode, an old fox. As far as Ryo remembered, they were even some very distant relatives on the Wood side, with one of the girls married into the Celestial family. But that hardly mattered nowadays. None of them irritated him even remotely as much as Katerina. For almost his entire life, this old woman had been the Duchess of Blood, and...
Ryo suddenly stopped, raising his right hand clenched into a fist. Everyone behind him gradually halted, and the young men followed suit, looking around in surprise. When they tried to ask the person nearest to them what was happening, he merely raised a finger to his lips, requesting silence.
The Duke of Storm himself, at that moment, bent down to the ground and cleared a small patch of snow, then pressed his ear to the earth, beginning to listen to the beating of his native land.
And it answered him.
As if guiding him on what to hear, the man caught the sounds of footsteps with his hearing—quite far from them, but from the manner of their gait, how they trampled the snow of his native land, Ryo immediately understood who it was.
Barbarians.
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And relatively not far from the capital. Yes, there weren't many of them; judging by the footsteps, about seven. But that didn't change the fact that these creatures had already crept so close to the duchy's capital. And while the Duke himself had been in the kingdom's capital, he had received no letters from the Margrave of Row. This made the man frown and quickly decide to eliminate the intruders. After all, this was his land, and he could not allow trespassers to continue walking upon it.
Gesturing the direction from which he had heard the footsteps, the man immediately headed that way. He saw the youths following him as well, while the rest of his guard split in two: the first group stayed to guard the sleds with provisions, belongings, and those who had difficulty moving through the snow; the second group, shouldering their muskets, followed the Duke. Of course, it was unlikely anyone would attack them now—all these people believed in their ruler and completely trusted his instincts. But Ryo had always taught them to prepare for the worst, so certain things and orders were already ingrained in them to the level of automatic response, like this division, even though the Duke himself had not uttered a single word. Still, the man was somewhat amazed by the courage of the two lads who boldly rushed forward. He himself drew his sword from its scabbard and, at a brisk pace—almost a run—moved towards his enemies, though not at his full running speed, so that his people could keep up with him.
After about five minutes of such active, fast walking, Ryo began to hear the creatures' conversations in their barbaric language. While all the others ran, trying to keep up with the Duke, the man felt that he hadn't even broken a sweat, and that with each step upon his native land, it gave him strength and cried out for him to destroy the invaders.
After another couple of minutes, he saw the vile barbarians. As he had heard, there were seven of them, every one a freak the Duke didn't even want to remember—clothed in what appeared to be human skin, armed with stolen weapons. They evoked only righteous anger in him, which Ryo decided to unleash upon them immediately. He lunged forward and almost instantly reached the largest among them, whom he presumed to be the leader. With one precise swing of his sword, he severed his neck, sending the head flying. At that moment, time seemed to freeze around him.
The man saw the remaining six creatures shouting something in their language and scattering in different directions to escape the one who had apparently slain their chieftain. But Ryo merely twirled his sword in his hand, flicking off the blood, which began to drift slowly through the air, like the head that had not yet touched the ground, continuing its slow descent. The Duke exhaled—he couldn't kill these creatures all at once, even though he knew he could dispatch them in the blink of an eye. He knew that two curious pairs of eyes were already watching him, as well as the approaching guardsmen, so he couldn't simply display the full extent of his power. And so he decided to move at the same speed as these creatures, only slightly faster, to outpace their slow strikes—though the Duke wasn't sure they could harm him at all. At that moment, Ryo felt like an actor in a theater, except he had little desire to play this role, pitying the vile barbarians; on the contrary, he wanted to dispatch these creatures as quickly as possible. He dispatched one fairly quickly, again severing its head, then immediately turned to another. The remaining four had already turned and begun to flee, but the man could already see bullets flying slowly towards these creatures. From here, he could calculate their trajectory and understood that one would miss, another would fall wounded, and the remaining two would be less fortunate—the small, leaden pellets of death would reach them.
With the same swift motion of his sword, the Duke dispatched the barbarian before him, sending its head on a slow flight as well, continuing to do everything at the same, for him, slow pace, understanding that he was now moving much faster than an ordinary person. Even destroying one creature after another, he felt no regret, only a growing rage in his heart that he had to restrain with this performance. He picked up a weapon resembling an axe and carefully threw it, watching as it slowly spun towards the fleeing barbarian until the axe blade embedded itself in its crown. Then he continued walking with a smooth step until he stood before the last creature, which he intended to execute, raising his sword.
"Stop!" he heard Adrian's cry as he slowly ran towards him. "You want to kill this child?!"
The Duke lowered his sword in surprise, then looked at the youth in bewilderment. Afterward, Ryo turned his gaze to the creature directly before him and now examined it carefully. It did indeed resemble a child, wrapped in some kind of cloak, apparently fur, covered in human skin. Tears streamed from its eyes, its crotch was wet, and its face showed clear fear of him. Its hands, each with seven fingers, also trembled with terror, clutching a small leather object resembling a toy, and its gaze seemed to beg for mercy.
And after this, the Duke, without any regret, severed its head.
"Do you pity the animals you eat?" the man asked, wiping the blood from his sword, not even looking in their direction, feeling time returning to its normal rhythm for him. "Neither would these barbarians pity you. To them, you are merely a tasty piece of meat they would gladly consume for dinner."
"But, Your Grace," Adrian began to speak, still amazed by the Duke's skill and harshness. Ryo saw it in his eyes: simultaneously fear—but not the animal fear the barbarian had experienced, but the fear before a man who understands what he is doing—and respect.
"If I hadn't killed it, this creature could have devoured someone's relative among the local soldiers, if it hadn't already gorged itself on the flesh of local inhabitants. Do you think they cultivate fields? No. Do they try to negotiate with us? Also no. To them, we are merely livestock they hunt, like wild, ferocious animals. And what do we do with such animals? That's right. We kill them," said the Duke of Storm, not allowing the lad to interject a word.
"But, Your Grace," the simple-hearted and too-honest Adrian tried again.
"Until you have arrived at the duchy's capital, I permit you this dispute with a military commander. But afterward, you will be deprived of such luxury, even if you are nobles. Quite the opposite, especially because you are nobles. Your goal is to protect the kingdom, your home, and your family. If the commander says shoot—you do not hesitate, you shoot. If the commander says jump off a cliff. What? That's right. You do not hesitate. You jump. The moment a soldier begins to wonder whether he needs to carry out the commander's order—he ceases to be a soldier, because at the crucial moment, his finger will tremble, and he won't have time to pull the trigger, and his comrade, fighting shoulder to shoulder with him, will die before the one who shot him. Therefore, you must have no doubts in the commander's words; otherwise, you are not an army, but merely a disorganized bunch of barbarians trying to construct a semblance of power structure. If the commander is mistaken, that is his mistake, not yours. And the most important thing that must be drilled into your young heads is that the price of a commander's mistake is not only his life but the lives of all his soldiers. Because of this, soldiers must believe in those who lead them, and the commander must believe in his subordinates; otherwise, this symbiosis will never work," Ryo again interrupted the youth with his lengthy speech. He observed how, unlike Adrian, Leon stood and absorbed all the information like a sponge, which involuntarily brought an internal smile to Ryo, realizing that he might make a good military officer.
Concluding his speech, the man headed back towards the sleds, ignoring the youths left behind him, issuing orders to his guardsmen to check from which direction these barbarians had come. His foot struck something resembling a bag that the barbarians had carried, and from it fell something like a diary, but the Duke ignored it and moved on, not even noticing Leon picking it up.
On the way back, Ryo rejoiced at walking upon his native land, which with each step filled him with unparalleled power. It was a strange feeling to weaken far from his homeland and feel like an ordinary man, but then there was no need to play this whole farce so that no one could guess the true strength of the Duke—let them be myths about how the kings, and now Dukes of Storm, were all strong. But what truly caught his attention was a female voice he had occasionally heard before but whose owner he had never seen, quietly whispering:
"Do not be afraid, Leon. This will only benefit you. The Duke of Storm will make a real man of you, tempering your spirit as an aristocrat of this kingdom."
