Shadow Oath

Chapter 24: The Guards

King Fried Gallant was genuinely taken aback when the “Shadow of Terrdin” vanished into the bushes.

He disappeared entirely from the midst of the four guards surrounding him.

Captain Clave and the other three guards raised their swords high, only to look around in confusion.

They said nothing.

Royal Guards typically didn’t speak much, and this wasn’t the time for words.

There was no need to let the enemy know they were startled. However, their frantic glances and the way they nodded towards each other hinted at their inner turmoil.

“Where did he go?”

“Did you see him?”

“He didn’t come this way. What about your side?”

“Nothing here either.”

“Check the ground carefully.”

“It’s deeper in the bushes.”

“He might have fled.”

“I’ll guard the horses. He might try to ride off.”

“We must protect His Majesty.”

“No, he wouldn’t head that way. His Majesty isn’t visible from here. He wouldn’t have noticed him.”

Fried, like the guards, scanned the surrounding undergrowth anxiously.

“We miscalculated. I thought this place would be silent, but it turned out to be a hiding spot for him.”

Still, there wasn’t a more suitable location to deal with him nearby. To go further would have been inconvenient in many ways—difficult to lure him, tedious to return after finishing the task.

Fried had no particular intention of assisting the guards, but he observed the bushes around him.

He planned to shout if he saw any suspicious movement. Yet, apart from the natural sway of the grass in the light breeze, he noticed nothing.

The moonlight was bright, but it couldn’t illuminate the dense underbrush.

“I underestimated him.”

The king began to blame himself for the oversight but stopped.

“No, Clave chose this place. Clave also suggested dealing with him here.”

From the moment Fried had assigned the task of killing Terrdin to him, he had established a principle: if he accepted, proceed; if he refused, execute him.

He had refused.

Rather, it seemed he didn’t fully understand the order.

In that case, he should have been executed as initially planned. However, Fried couldn’t execute the Shadow of Terrdin solely by his own authority.

A justification was necessary, and Clave had devised the method.

“Summon him here. Let’s test whether he really has the skills to assassinate Mantum. He doesn’t seem capable of such feats to me. We can’t entrust him with the mission just based on Count Badio’s word.”

Clave always acted as though he was intelligent, but he wasn’t truly sharp.

Fried didn’t care whether the slave had really killed Mantum or possessed such skills.

What mattered was that he was someone Terrdin cherished.

The plan was to test him moderately, stop at a reasonable point, and then assign him the task. However, Clave genuinely tried to kill him.

“This is going to be a headache to clean up.”

As Fried contemplated this, the slave disappeared, only to re-emerge from the bushes and knock one of the guards to the ground.

The guard, Rahison, had been about to guard the horses.

He was a knight famed as a swordsmanship instructor in the provinces and had secured his position as a royal guard by achieving the second-highest score in the royal knight exam.

Rahison screamed and writhed, trying to shake off the black figure clinging to his back.

Though the details were unclear due to the distance, it seemed the attacker had targeted the gap between his helmet and armor.

If this had been a simple test, that strike would have been fatal. However, Clave had ordered the guards to wear chainmail beneath their plate armor, which saved Rahison’s life.

But the slave must have anticipated that. He clung to Rahison, pulling him down.

With the combined weight of the heavy armor and the man himself, Rahison couldn’t keep his balance and fell backward.

The fall wasn’t ordinary; the assailant bent Rahison’s arm at an unnatural angle, causing him to scream louder than when he had been stabbed.

Even then, Rahison continued to wave his sword wildly. However, the Shadow easily snatched the weapon and threw it aside.

It seemed Rahison had been gripping the sword instinctively rather than properly.

Rahison’s movements slowed until his arm fell limp. Whether he had fainted or died was unclear from here.

By the time Rahison screamed, the other three guards were already rushing toward him.

When Rahison fell, the remaining three managed to surround the attacker.

Their strategy appeared to ensure the Shadow couldn’t escape, even if Rahison perished.

Yet the slave made an unexpected move.

Instead of fleeing or hiding in the bushes as he had earlier, he lunged directly at Clave, who was the first to approach, and stabbed him with a sword.

Clave, who had raised his sword high to strike, hurriedly redirected it to block the attack. However, blocking a thrust in the dark was difficult.

The slave’s blade struck Clave’s helmet.

Although the helmet blocked the strike, Clave screamed and stumbled backward, clutching the left side of his face with his hand—specifically covering his helmet with his left hand.

He quickly got up and started swinging his sword wildly in every direction.

The Shadow darted past Clave.

The other two guards, Pyley and Wallace, immediately gave chase.

Wallace was known for his speed, capable of outrunning most adult men even in full armor. His swiftness and precision with a sword were recognized even by Clave. However, against this slave, he couldn’t utilize any of his supposed superior skills.

The same applied to Clave and Rahison.

Here, the four royal guards could do nothing.

The Shadow rendered them powerless.

From Clave’s helmet, black liquid dripped steadily. It appeared the blade had pierced through the interior of the helmet.

Although it likely didn’t fully penetrate due to the width of the blade, it seemed the tip had either reached his eye or at least torn the area around it.

The slave had lived up to his words to the king from the previous day. His request for a proper weapon had been ignored, but his point was valid.

Had he possessed a sufficiently long and narrow blade, two of the guards would already be dead.

“If this had been broad daylight in an open area, one guard would have sufficed. Clave, Rahison, Pyley, or Wallace—any one of them could have toyed with and killed this slave. Yet they chose this place to test him and provoke a fight.”

Once more, the slave disappeared.

Pyley and Wallace, afraid of suffering the same fate as the others, stuck close together, carefully cutting through the bushes. Clave, breathing heavily in pain and fury, stabbed his sword into the undergrowth with irritated bursts of energy.

Fried could no longer hold back and shouted.

“Stop!”

But the guards, consumed by anger, kept swinging their swords.

They looked like ten-year-old boys swinging a sturdy wooden stick to cut grass randomly.

“Did I not tell you to stop?”

Fried shouted again, and only then did the sword strikes cease.

Clave groaned in a voice that sounded like a scream.

The king didn’t bother to tell him to be quiet about that.

“Shadow of Terrdin, come before me.”

Fried shouted towards some part of the bushes in the distance.

The slave emerged quietly from a bush about five steps away from the king.

Fried had been staring somewhere around the guards, so when the slave appeared from the knee-high bushes illuminated by the moonlight, it was like seeing a ghost.

Fried let out a low groan involuntarily and stepped back.

When the slave noticed the king’s fear, he immediately lowered himself to the ground, placing both hands on the dirt in submission.

A proper knight might kneel on one knee, but this man prostrated himself completely.

It was a humiliatingly low posture.

“You called for me?”

The king remained silent for a moment.

“He must have noticed that I was tense and afraid. That’s not good.”

Fried found it absurd that he had to try so hard to assert his authority over a slave.

Wallace and Clave approached, while Pyley was helping Rahison to his feet.

Fortunately, Rahison wasn’t dead.

How embarrassing would it have been if a royal guard had died to a mere slave?

Clave stood right behind the slave.

Even though the slave was now entirely vulnerable, he didn’t lift his bowed head.

“This man is too dangerous. He’s definitely capable of assassinating Mantum. If he decides to, killing Terrdin would be no trouble for him.”

Fried could have had him executed right then and there.

“If he can kill Terrdin, he can kill me too!”

Clave raised his sword and gestured to the king.

The tip of his blade aimed directly at the back of the slave’s neck.

Blood, black as ink, was smeared on Clave’s helmet.

It wasn’t clear if the blood was from his eye or if the helmet itself was bleeding.

The moonlight didn’t reveal the inside of the helmet, but it was likely that one of Clave’s eyes couldn’t even open.

“Can he even aim properly with that injured eye? Acting all high and mighty…”

Fried shook his head at Clave.

Clave lowered his sword, looking openly disappointed.

Killing him would be a waste.

The slave’s submissive posture, even with a sword aimed at his back, particularly pleased the king.

“You will never be free from slavery.”

The slave didn’t respond and stayed prostrated.

“Lift your head.”

The slave obeyed.

His expression wasn’t defiant or rebellious.

It was a naive face, as if he didn’t understand what was being said.

“Stand and kneel instead. Lying down like that is uncomfortable.”

The slave obeyed.

His expression remained unchanged.

He was perfect to be used.

The king leaned toward the slave’s face.

“If I tell Baron Selkon to take you back using your name, can Illiam stop it?”

The king asked.

“I don’t know.”

The slave’s expression was as consistent as it had been the first time they met.

He wasn’t pretending to be ignorant; he truly didn’t know.

That’s what slaves were like.

“He cannot. On the battlefield, Illiam might hold authority, but in peacetime, he’s no more than a petty rural lord.

Can he stop Baron Selkon, who wields influence even in the royal court, from taking you by force?

What if he sues?

I’m the one who would rule on that case. Whose side do you think I would take?”

“I don’t know.”

“I can. Only I can. I could give you even more than that.”

“I’m sorry, Your Majesty, but what is it that you can do?”

“If I issue an order by royal decree, that would be the end of it. But to make your choice easier, I will grant you a suitable reward. If you wish, I can bestow a title upon you. Baron Selkon will lose a slave, but if I compensate him appropriately, he will relinquish you. Do you understand? You, a mere slave, could become a noble with land of your own.”

“I don’t quite understand. Do I need to do something?”

‘Is he truly so dense that he can’t grasp the context of this conversation? In that case, I’ll have to give him explicit orders.’

Ordinarily, Fried would never speak so plainly, preferring metaphors and implications, but now he had no choice.

“Kill General Illiam Terrdin.”

The Shadow of Terrdin seemed too shocked to respond.

As expected, Fried pressed harder.

“Do it discreetly, without leaving any trace that it was you. But if you fail to carry out this royal order and report this to Terrdin instead, your life is forfeit. Even if you flee, there will be no place for you in this land.”

At Fried’s gesture, Clave and the other three guards surrounded the slave.

At the same time, they raised their swords.

No matter how well the slave could hide, this situation left him no escape.

Rahison, who had just regained his senses, staggered but seemed ready to hack the slave apart at the king’s command.

“A knight with land and a title, or a criminal who disobeyed the king’s order. Which will you choose?”

It was an easy decision.

But the slave didn’t answer.

Fried didn’t force a response.

Even if he made him answer now, it wouldn’t be sincere.

And sincerity wasn’t necessary.

Fried nodded to the guards.

The three obeyed immediately, but Clave didn’t.

The king had to glare harshly at him to make him leave.

Clave reluctantly stepped back.

Fried turned and began walking away, escorted by three guards.

Before leaving, Clave had to get in one last word to the slave.

“If you can’t do it, say so now. I’ll cut your throat painlessly.”

The slave said nothing.

To an outsider who hadn’t seen the earlier events, it might have looked like the kingdom’s most heavily armored knight was bullying an unarmed young man.

Clave seethed with barely concealed rage as he returned to their camp, even snapping at the king.

“You should have finished him. He won’t obey.”

“Who here doesn’t obey?”

Fried thought it but kept his face stern.

“That remains to be seen,” he said gravely.

“He will surely report this to General Terrdin.”

Clave’s remark made it clear the other guards likely shared the same thought.

Fried allowed them to think that way.

Thoughts are contagious.

When others eventually learned of this secret mission, they, too, would believe the same.

“Either way, I win. Whether he kills General Terrdin or fails.”