Basil craved solitude, but he was the heir to a principality; privacy was a luxury his station simply could not afford.Especially at wartime.

Instead, he settled for a ride across the open country, flanked by two of his father’s sworn men.

He looked toward the east, where thick ribbons of black smoke coiled upward, clawing at the belly of the grey clouds. In the shifting wind, the sky looked like a great, dark beast with a thousand paws, reaching down to reclaim the earth as one with the sky.

Five days had passed since the Battle of the Ford. Five days in which Alpheo’s soldiers had reveled in the grim, sweet harvest of looting all belongings from the dead.

But duty is a shadow that always follows pleasure.

Now that the fallen had been stripped of their steel and their secrets, they were being gathered into common pyres. His father had no desire to let pestilence finish what the Oizenians had started; so he ordered to burn the masses, save only the lords and the heraldic knights, whose bodies would be embalmed and bartered back to their grieving kin.

Thousands had perished.

It was a victory so vast, a slaughter so total, that Basil felt he could not truly grasp the scope of it. Thousands of stories, each snapped shut like a book closed mid-sentence. He wondered why the death of a single man in a medical tent felt more ominous, more crushing, than the thousands he didn’t know.

He hadn’t known that soldier, the man had only offered him a sip of sour vinegar-water when Basil was red with the shame of being discovered. It was a small, clumsy kindness meant to bridge a gap of awkwardness. Perhaps that was why?Because it made him sound more human?

But now the man was gone. What use was there in mourning a ghost he barely knew?

And yet he could not shake his head from him.

They rode over a carpet of lush green grass, still heavy with the dew of the morning’s rain. The earth beneath the horses’ hooves was slick and treacherous, turning to a dark, clotted mud that sprayed the horses’ hocks.

Along the path, stubborn wildflowers, pinks and pale yellows whose stems Basil would have liked to eat , poked their heads through the trampled turf, blooming some thousands of meters away from the very spots where blood had pooled days before.

Ahead, a lone tree stood against the emerald expanse, its branches skeletal and defiant except for a few leaves of yellow that stubbornly remain attached to the branches.

"Your Grace, perhaps we have ridden quite far from the camp," Ser Dandweel remarked, his voice a low rumble that surprised them all.

He had another brother Ser Narry, who however had not the honor of the white Cloak.

He was made Ser and given a manor and some village in the Yarzat Strip after the battle, having cloaked himself in the honor of having captured the heir to the lordship of Sevaviorari, one of the Oizenian city that sprung near the capital.

His father had somehow seemed happy to hear that.Yes it was a good haul for a ransom, but somehow Basil thought there was some other reason for that mirth.

Still a feat it was, one that you would no doubt hear two or three times whenever you asked him how he had slept the previous night.

Ser Narry was a loud man, quick to anger, quick to action and quick to forgive. Ser Dandweel was not. He was taciturn, spoke very little and only when needed. He was also well acquainted with the hammer instead of the sword, which Narry favored.There was word about extending to him a position in the prince’s guard too,but if Ser Dandweel’s opinion was of matter it was a very far-fetched opinion.

"Should we not turn back?" Dandweel pressed.

"I would favor riding a bit further," Basil replied, squinting toward the horizon. "The sun is still high."

"We have been on this field for nearly a week, Your Grace," Dandweel continued, his eyes scanning the expanse. "Scavengers from the surrounding villages and bandits from the hills are bound to come. They follow the scent of iron and rot."

"And they are bound to leave as soon as they see our colors," Basil countered, his voice steady. Not that they would find much in that battle, the bodies were being burnt as they rode, all they could get were the broken shields and battered knife not worth half a bronzii. "A rat doesn’t leap onto the table while the master is still eating; it waits for the man to go to sleep. And we are still very much awake, Ser."

He spurred his horse forward toward the lone tree, for no other reason that he would have liked to watch that lone piece of wood sprouting where none would, perhaps there were even birds there.

He saw no bird perched on the tree, but instead he saw a man down on his knees.

Basil’s emerald eyes instead locked ont that distant figure, curiosity sparking in a way that usually meant trouble for his tutors. The silhouette was hunched, rhythmic, and seemingly engaged in a wrestling match with a mountain of copper-colored fur.

"Your Grace..." Dandweel’s warning was low and gravelly, but Basil had already given his horse a sharp nudge. He wasn’t about to turn back now; the mystery ahead was far more interesting than a lecture on logistics.

As they drew closer, the strange scene came into focus.

"Is he... is he trying to move a destrier by himself?" Dandweel muttered.

"And it doesn’t seem like he is very good at it" Basil noted.

"A queer thing to bury a horse," Ser Lorry added. Basil did not know much about him, this was the first time they had exchange word. "He could have sold it’’

’’How did he manage to bring it there?’’ Basil wondered aloud.

’’Propably paid for a cart to haul the carcass here?’’ he shrugged’’ Some men have more coin than sense. I’d say Your Grace would be better off drifting away from such a character. Madness can be catching."

Basil barely heard the last part. The pull of the enigmatic scene was stronger than any cautionary word. He spurred his steed forward, the wet grass squelching under hooves, until he reined in a few dozen paces away.

The man before them was a wreck.

That was what came to mind first.

He must have been a knight from his equipment and the horse, but he looked less like a knight and more like a mud-golem. His surcoat if there was one was unrecognizable, plastered with dark, clotted earth, and his face was a vivid, angry red from exertion. His eyes were puffy, as if he had just come away from crying.

He did not look that much as a warrior, but instead more as a child that could not understand why life wasn’t as magical as he hoped.

Behind the horse’s heavy carcass lay a long, smeared path of churned-up mud, the evidence of a grueling, inch-by-inch struggle. And there, just a few meters to the man’s left, sat the burial pit: deep, clean, and utterly empty.

The knight didn’t even look up at first. He stood with his back to them, shoulders heaving in ragged gasps, his hands still gripping the horse’s front legs as if he could simply wish the laws of gravity away. The lone tree stood over him like a silent judge, its branches creaking in the wind, while the scent of crushed wildflowers and wet clay hung heavy in the air.

It was only when Ser Dandweel’s horse let out a snort that the man seemed to snap out of his daze. He looked up at them through a haze of exhaustion, his eyes half-closed and rimmed with red. He didn’t look suspicious, he looked like a man who had been wrestling with a mountain and had finally accepted that the mountain was winning.

He swayed on his feet, his gaze drifting from the polished steel of the two knights to the boy sitting atop the fine palfrey. It wasn’t every day a child appeared on a battlefield flanked by two of the Prince’s finest.

He takes me for a lordling, Basil thought, shifting in his saddle. He isn’t far off the mark.

The man offered a shaky bow, his hand drifting away from the hild of his sword. "Sers."

"Have you no name to offer, or has the mud filled your mouth as well as your boots?" Ser Lorry asked

"My apologies..." the man wheezed, wiping a grimy hand across his tunic. "I was... elsewhere. My name is Vilon. I have the honor to be a knight"

"Did you fight in the battle?"

Basil regretted the words the moment they left his lips, a stupid question.

Vilon’s eyes settled on Basil.Probably taking him for a fool.

"I did, my lord. I fought behind the horns of the Bull. Followed the Lord’s standard until my arm turned to lead. I lost the way when I struggled to wrench my sword free from an Oizenian’s shoulder; by the time the blade came loose, the trumpets were a league away and the screaming had overtaken the song. My sword was red enough by the end of it. Lucky to be standing, I suppose. It was a hell-thing, that field.Worthier men that me died."

He looked back at the copper carcass, his voice trailing off into a hollow silence.

"And now you’ve turned fool, it seems," Ser Lorry snorted, gesturing to the grave. "Why would any sane man—"

A sharp, icy glare from Basil cut the knight off mid-sentence.

"How did it die?" Basil asked, his voice softening as he looked at the massive destrier. "The Prince fielded no horse at the Ford. No cavalry charged those lines."

Vilon’s gaze dropped to the matted copper fur. He reached out, his fingers trembling as they brushed the horse’s flank as if checking if it would heave from breathing. "He wasn’t part of the charge. He was... old. Older than I am, I think. Sickness, or perhaps just a heart that had carried too many burdens for too many years. He stayed upright until the sun went down, and then he just... stopped."

Ser Lorry let out a sharp snort through his nose. The idea of a war-horse dying of a common cough in the middle of the greatest slaughter of the age was,no doubt to him, the height of absurdity.

Vilon’s eyes snapped up, flashing with a sudden, dangerous fire. The exhaustion was still there, but beneath it was the raw pride of a man who had just lost his last friend and was being mocked for it.

Basil didn’t wait for the knight to speak. He swung his boot out, delivering a muffled thwack against Ser Lorry’s armored thigh.

"Quiet, Lorry," Basil commanded. ’’If you can’t bother your manner, you can ride back home at your own leisure.’’

Basil had inherited many things from his father, the mind, an interest for reading , but he had also taken Alpheo’s quiet, stubborn love for animals.

Vilon watched the exchange.

"It’s a long walk to that hole, Ser " Basil noted, looking at the meters of mud between the carcass and the grave. He turned to his guards, his voice brook no argument. "Dandweel, Lorry, dismount. We are going to help the Ser finish his noble work."

"Your Grace?" Lorry sputtered, rubbing his thigh. "We are...you! We don’t dig—"

"Aye, we don’t," Basil agreed. ’’Luckily we don’t need to. Can’t you see the hole ?Now come down from that horse or fuck off to camp.’’

As he said so he flung down from his own steed, his smalls stature barely reaching Ser Vilon’s shoulder. He gave one pitiful look at the dead’ animal before bringing his silk sleeve to his elbow.