Chapter 37: The Expedition
The night was black as ink, but the Aindra domain's training paddock blazed like noon.
Hundreds of torches had been set into iron frames around the perimeter of the ground, their orange-red light swaying in the night wind, pulling every shadow long and short and long again. The quiet crackling of burning oil mingled with the low rumble of horses breathing, rolling out across the open space.
A hundred cavalry stood in formation.
They sat their horses with straight backs and eyes forward. Each wore light plate armor made in the domain's own workshop — electroplated mithril, the individual plates catching a dull silver-grey sheen in the torchlight, many of them still bearing the faint marks of blades that had found their targets. The scars and dents of soldiers who had earned them.
At each rider's hip hung a straight-bladed longsword, three feet of steel. Fastened to the saddle beside it were a small round shield and a short spear. The scabbards and the rims of the shields were engraved with the Aindra family crest: an upright black sword.
Lucian stood on the raised platform at the front of the paddock.
He wasn't wearing his usual clothes tonight. In their place was a full set of mithril armor, fitted to his measurements. The design was clean and spare — no decoration beyond the family crest pressed into the center of the breastplate. The plates followed the line of his body and threw back a cold, still light in the torchglow.
His helmet was tucked under his left arm. His golden hair stirred slightly in the night wind.
He let his gaze move across the formation.
This was the cavalry unit he had built himself, piece by piece, over years.
The full count stood at nearly three hundred. Tonight he had chosen a hundred.
Every one of them had been selected personally from the domain's young men — mostly farmers' sons, blacksmiths' apprentices, the children of hunters. A few years ago, when they had first picked up a weapon, most of them could barely keep their seat on a horse.
Now —
His gaze moved from the first rank to the last.
They sat steady. The reins in their hands were held with quiet confidence. Their eyes, when they found his, carried no fear — only something solid, something earned. Trust, of the kind that doesn't ask questions.
He had seen that look before.
He had seen it in the eyes of farmers kneeling at the edge of their fields, praying to gods. He had seen it in the Theocracy's streets, in the eyes of believers looking up at the vaulted domes of the temples.
And now these young men were looking at him with it.
Just like Siel had, once.
These people in this world are hopelessly simple, aren't they. Feed them properly and they'll hand you their trust just like that...
Lucian drew a slow breath and pushed down the faint unease stirring underneath.
He stepped to the edge of the platform.
Wind came up from the valley, carrying the chill of early autumn and the smell of cut wheat stubble from the fields beyond. The torchlight moved across his face, throwing those features into sharp relief — bright on one side, shadow on the other.
"Everyone."
His voice wasn't raised, but it reached every corner of the paddock clearly.
"Mount."
His voice stayed level.
"Move out."
All one hundred cavalry mounted in the same moment. The motion was uniform. The sound of armor and weapons meeting rose into a single low resonant note.
They put their left hands behind their backs. Their right fists struck hard over their hearts.
"Shinzou wo Sasageyo."
One hundred voices joined as one and rang out across the night sky.
Lucian watched this, and the corner of his mouth twitched.
That gesture. And that chuunibyou line.
When he had been putting the cavalry unit together — running his own setup, answerable to no one — he had on impulse pulled a moment from deep in his memory of two lives ago and transplanted it here. Later, Lakyus had seen it and completely lost her composure over it, tracking him down specifically to get a full breakdown of the form so she could bring it back to Blue Roses for the team to practice. Thinking back on that now, Lucian felt a very specific kind of social death settle over him.
The torchlight fell away behind them. Hoofbeats rose like muffled thunder.
A hundred and one horses moved through the domain's streets, their hooves ringing off the stone paving in a clear, even rhythm. The houses on either side had lights in their windows — low and warm — and here and there a curious child had pressed up against a sill to look out.
Passing through the town gate, Lucian looked back once.
The domain's lights spread behind him like a small piece of sky that had fallen to earth. The forge glow of the blacksmith shop that never went cold. The oven light of the bakery, burning through the night. The candle in the schoolhouse where someone was still at their books.
Behind every light, someone was living well.
Lucian turned back and looked forward.
There was nothing to see in the dark. Only the road under the horses' hooves extending into the blackness, toward a place he had calculated a thousand times over.
When hoofbeats came up from behind, Lucian didn't turn.
"Lord Lucian! Lord Lucian!"
Touch Me's voice in the night wind carried something urgent in it.
The boy came galloping up from the back of the formation on a chestnut pony, riding hard. He was in his silver armor, and at his hip hung the orichalcum short sword Lucian had given him. His golden hair had been blown wild by the speed of the ride, and his face still carried the flush of it.
Lucian pulled his reins. His horse snorted and shifted in place, stepping twice.
"What are you doing here?"
Touch Me pulled up in front of him, chest heaving — but his back was held perfectly straight.
"Lord Lucian, please take me with you!"
The boy's voice was clear, carrying far out into the night.
Lucian looked at that still-unformed face. Those blue eyes were lit up in the darkness, full of anticipation and a stubbornness that was very close to resolve.
"Go back," Lucian said.
"My lord —"
"This isn't your battlefield."
Lucian's tone was calm. It left no opening.
Touch Me pressed his lips together. He didn't move and didn't speak again, only sat his horse and held Lucian's gaze, stubborn and steady.
Just then a loose, easy voice cut in from the formation.
"Kid. This is grown-up work."
The speaker was Germann. He sat his horse with his head tilted, looking Touch Me over with the particular grin of an old soldier finding entertainment at a new recruit's expense.
"Come back when you've grown up a bit, haha—"
"Germann."
Lucian's voice wasn't raised. The big man's laughter cut off as though someone had grabbed it by the throat.
Germann looked at Lucian without thinking. In the moonlight, the young lord's face carried no expression at all.
But those eyes sent a chill straight down Germann's back.
He shut his mouth at once, lowered his head, and said nothing more.
Lucian turned back to Touch Me.
The boy's eyes were a little red at the rims. His lips were pressed tighter than before.
Lucian was quiet for a moment.
Then he swung down from the saddle.
He walked to where Touch Me sat and looked up at the boy on horseback. Moonlight fell from above and cast both their shadows onto the ground, blending them together at the edges.
"Touch Me."
"Here."
The boy's voice had gone slightly rough, but it held.
Lucian reached up and tapped Touch Me once on the head with two fingers.
"Next time."
Touch Me's lips trembled slightly.
In those blue eyes, something moved in the moonlight.
"Understood, my lord."
He dismounted and stood at attention, back perfectly straight.
"Lord Lucian —"
His voice had settled.
"Please come back safely."
Lucian looked at him and gave a single nod.
Then he remounted.
"Move out."
The hoofbeats started up again.
This time, Touch Me did not follow.