* * *

The early-spring forest was unusually rich with fresh scents, perhaps because the previous winter's snow had melted. The smell of earth, of wood, of new shoots, and of every other living thing. Even the morning sunlight seemed as though it might have a fragrance.

But there was another smell that did not belong among them: the smoke and scorched odor of burning firewood.

Somewhere in the hunting grounds of Winslow, the estate ruled by Earl Æthelred, stood a shack that looked ready to collapse.

Neither rangers nor forest keepers used it. It was truly ancient, seemingly dating back to before the War of Founding. The only reason it still stood was the constant effort to repair it, however crudely.

Childhood imagination tends to take root in things adults never spare a glance. Perhaps the shack was still alive because it had sheltered generation after generation of children.

The scorched smell came from beside the shack. By the time Valeri, Harald, and Gidwin arrived, five or six children had already built a fire and were preparing rabbits, squirrels, and the like, skinning and gutting them.

Two looked about the same age as Valeri's group. The rest were little children, perhaps ten years old or younger.

"Oh! It's the chief."

A child wearing an ill-fitting helmet acquired from who knew where pointed toward them.

Everyone turned at once. They looked at Harald first, but as their eyes moved to Valeri, their faces filled with surprise.

"What? He actually came?"

"Wow..."

A few of them lived in the castle, including Valeri, Harald, and Gidwin, but the other children lived outside it. Those children were seeing Valeri for the first time, and his handsome face had left them spellbound.

The child in the helmet came scurrying over and pressed close to Valeri, looking up at him. Eyes wide beneath the helmet, the child murmured,

"An angel. An angel..."

"I told you, didn't I, Hakon? He's incredibly handsome."

With a satisfied smile, Harald patted Hakon's head. The helmet tipped sideways, leaving Hakon flailing for a moment because he could no longer see.

Harald walked over and settled naturally onto a large tree stump. It looked like a perfectly good seat, yet no one else had been sitting there. Among the children, it apparently served as something like a throne reserved for Harald alone.

Meanwhile, everyone's eyes remained fixed on Valeri. Such attention ought to have been uncomfortable, but he seemed entirely oblivious as he sat down on a relatively flat rock.

"You've heard plenty about him, but some of you haven't met him before, right? This is Wid. Wid, these are my friends. Starting here, there's Roke, Guido, Tommy..."

Harald introduced them one by one. Each averted his eyes when Valeri's gaze settled on him.

The child in the helmet came last.

"And that's Hakon."

As though he had been waiting for his turn, Hakon suddenly launched into something rather unrelated.

"Do you know what this helmet is? It's the famous Helm of Terror. The one Sigurd the Dragonslayer wore. Well? Amazing, right?"

Sigurd the Dragonslayer was none other than House Vǫlsungr's most famous ancestor, a legendary hero revered by all Nords. He was Valeri's great-grandfather.

His grandfather was Sigmund the Avenger, his father Helgi Berserkbane, and he himself was Valeri the Heartless.

The trouble was that Valeri had seen the real Helm of Terror before returning to the past. Unfortunately, what Hakon wore did not even qualify as an imitation.

Still, helmets were difficult to make and therefore expensive. Not just anyone could own one. Even among soldiers who fought in actual battles, countless men had no helmet.

Viewed that way, it was something worth boasting about, even if it was not a legendary artifact.

"He just found it in the woods. Ignore him. If you humor him, he'll never stop bragging."

Gidwin quietly filled Valeri in, but Valeri saw things a little differently.

"Still, someone wore it, even if we don't know their name. If he found it here, its owner must have died here. That would rule out the War of Beasts. Perhaps it was during the War of Founding? With that much history behind it, it might be worth boasting about."

The War of Beasts was the succession war fought when the current king was still a prince, some thirty years ago.

It was famous for pitting the first generation of warriors, who had distinguished themselves in the War of Founding—or the War of Conquest, as it was also called—against the young warriors of a new era. Put simply, it was a struggle between princes backed by the first-generation warriors and princes backed by the younger ones.

In those days, warriors often fought draped in the hides of wolves, tigers, bears, and other animals. From a distance, they had looked like beasts fighting one another, hence the name.

Most of that war had consisted of major battles rather than scattered local skirmishes, and their locations were fairly well known. That was the basis for Valeri's deduction.

Winslow had not been one of the major battlefields.

"..."

Everyone stared blankly at Valeri, looking as though they either failed to understand or wondered what he was talking about. In fact, they really had not understood.

Harald, however, was different. He spoke with a satisfied smile.

"That's Wid for you. I thought you'd be someone I could talk to about this. Did you know there weren't any noble titles in the old days? Chieftains called jarls or earls ruled the land. Titles like duke and earl only came into being under His Majesty, the current king."

"To be precise, the first king intended to introduce them, but he died before he could. The current king carried it out. Chieftains maintained their own military forces and held authority in their own right, without royal interference, whereas a noble title requires the king's recognition. The first generation must have felt their rights were being taken away. They may even have felt betrayed."

"Then was it really necessary? Creating those titles?"

"That depends on your point of view."

"What's your point of view, Wid?"

"What's yours?"

In truth, their conversation could have been considered somewhat disrespectful to the crown. They were discussing the current king's greatest policy, one of his crowning achievements.

That was why Valeri had turned Harald's question back on him instead of giving the answer he wanted. Harald wore the same smile as before.

"What on earth are you two talking about?"

Gidwin looked as bewildered as the other children.

The gulf in their education was so vast that the others could not follow this discussion of history, much less its significance.

"So is this the Helm of Terror or not?"

"Just shut up, you. Let's cook the meat. Some of the kids have to leave early."

Gidwin brought things back on track in response to Hakon's off-topic question. The children began threading the prepared meat onto branches and roasting it.

Gidwin liberally scattered the powdered herbs he had brought over the meat. They were not particularly expensive seasonings, merely herbs gathered nearby to remove the gamy smell and other unpleasant odors. He sprinkled on plenty of salt as well.

An appetizing aroma soon rose from the fire, and the children chattered excitedly about childish things.

Before long, whether the meat was cooked through or not, everyone took a skewer and began tearing into it. They pulled off legs to share with their neighbors and passed around lukewarm ale acquired from somewhere or other.

A feast of meat and drink first thing in the morning. It made for a rather fine birthday celebration.

As their spirits rose, the conversation grew more heated. Some of it, however, sounded rather dangerous.

"... So this little fucker who wasn't worth shit got smart with me, and I beat him half to death."

"Cut the bullshit."

"It's not bullshit. Look, I took this after I beat the shit out of him. Spoils of war, you could say."

The boy named Tommy brought something out from behind a fallen tree. Astonishingly, it was a Viking-style sword.

The chatter abruptly died at the sight of the unexpected weapon.

"Is that real?"

Someone broke the brief silence.

Tommy drew the sword for them. It was indeed a real blade, its keen edge gleaming coldly. The lively atmosphere seemed to turn ice-cold in an instant.

"Who did you beat up?" Gidwin asked him.

"Dunno. Why would I care about his name? Probably one of Rekton's lot."

Rekton's gang were thugs from a nearby city. Whether they had ties to the thieves' guild was unknown.

Every city in the world had a thieves' guild. Their size and capabilities varied, but getting entangled with one was something best avoided regardless.

Fortunately or unfortunately, this was not the city where Valeri had belonged to the guild before his return.

"Keep that up and you'll get yourself fucking killed."

Gidwin's expression hardened as he delivered the warning.

"Killed? Me? I could take those guys on my own even if they all came at me together. Now that I've got a sword, I could just kill them. You don't like them either, do you, Gidwin?"

He did not seem to understand what he was being told.

Valeri merely watched, unmoved, until Harald leaned toward him and whispered,

"Tommy's one of the squires. He's been training for years, and he's far too confident."

Confident? Arrogant, more like. Valeri knew about Tommy. He was an Astrian from a commoner family.

His father was an undertaker. A well-built child from an early age, Tommy had caught Earl Æthelred's eye during a patrol of the estate and been made a squire.

Valeri did not know his exact age, but in size he was only a little smaller than Gidwin. The trouble was that, whether from an inferiority complex or a desire to get ahead, he grew more obnoxious with age.

When he encountered Valeri in the castle, he would sometimes make deliberately insulting remarks, not addressing him directly but speaking loudly enough to be heard. Things like how a whore's son stank. It was worse when there were women nearby.

Still, they hardly ever crossed paths, so simply ignoring him had been enough to keep him from being much of a nuisance.

"Don't you all get restless? I wish a war would hurry up and break out. You can stay and guard the young master, Gidwin. I'll be out in front earning glory. Like this. And this!"

Tommy rose and began swinging the sword. At first, he seemed to be swinging at the campfire, but then he started making dangerous sweeps that might or might not have been aimed at the children around him.

As the sharp blade flashed before their eyes, several children leaned away and braced themselves defensively.

Just as it seemed someone ought to stop him, Tommy suddenly struck the helmet on Hakon's head.

CLANG!

"Eek!"

Startled, Hakon darted away. His helmet slipped sideways in the process, blocking his vision, and he fell.

"Hey!" Gidwin shouted, his eyes widening in anger.

"Hahaha! I'm joking. It's just a joke."

Despite calling it a joke, Tommy showed no intention of stopping. Perhaps he had begun to enjoy tormenting Hakon; he struck exaggerated poses and swung his sword at the child.

Frantically dodging, Hakon unwittingly fled toward Valeri. A gleam appeared in Tommy's eyes. Valeri could read his malicious intent plainly.

The sword swept diagonally toward Valeri. There was no intent to kill behind it, but it was dangerous nonetheless.

Then something suddenly flashed past Tommy's eyes, and the hand holding his sword felt empty.

He swayed slightly, then felt a dizzying sensation at his throat. By the time he gathered his wits, the sword's point was aimed at his neck.

Through his confusion, he caught sight of Valeri's icy gaze. For an instant, Tommy could not even think to look away. He simply froze, like prey before a predator.

With his body rigid, he shifted his eyes. His own hands were empty, and the sword was in Valeri's hand. It was as though he had been bewitched by a ghost or struck by magic, and a deep terror swept over him.

Gidwin and Harald, who had been hurrying over to intervene, stopped awkwardly in shock.

Holding the blade close to Tommy's throat, Valeri watched him steadily and spoke in a low voice.

"Shut your fucking mouth and listen carefully, Tommy."

The chill emanating from Valeri was so intense that spring seemed to have ended in an instant, giving way to the depths of winter.

"I know now that killing something like you won't make me feel any better. So I won't kill you. But watching your insolence is an ordeal in itself."

He was not even frowning, merely glaring a little, yet his fierce gaze seemed capable of piercing the boy like a finely honed spearhead.

"I've seen enough. Stop it. Do you understand? Nod if you do."

As though he had been waiting for those words, Tommy nodded so hard he seemed to be trembling.

Valeri immediately tossed the sword upward with a spin. He caught it by the blade and offered Tommy the hilt.

To the others, it looked extraordinarily dangerous. After threatening Tommy, he was returning his sword—and holding it by the blade, no less.

"Don't disappoint me."

Yet Valeri seemed indifferent to which of them faced the point and which the hilt.

Indeed, those words bore down on Tommy more heavily than any cruel or vulgar threat could have.

Trembling, Tommy accepted the hilt. Then, as though all his strength had drained away, he let the sword hang at his side and bowed his head helplessly.

With the matter settled, Valeri turned to Harald.

"Thanks for celebrating my birthday. I'll be going."

He took off his coat and returned it to Gidwin, who was still standing awkwardly nearby. Then he set off alone, his footsteps rustling as he began to leave the forest.

Harald and the other boys could only stare blankly at Valeri's retreating back.

Silence settled over them, lingering for a long while.