31 Emergency

Despite all the preparations that had been made to face winter, the weather still came as a shock.

Being close to the ocean, Hydrogia was a place where the snow didn't stick around for long, but the mountains in the distance were completely covered in a white blanket.

The cold weather always reminded Henry of his childhood and how he enjoyed staying indoors with his parents. Since his dad was in the fields, once the ground started to freeze, there was nothing more he could do and he would come inside for the winter.

His father and mother read to him and were willing to play along with his ridiculous childhood games: those were some of Henry's favorite memories.

However, he knew the days of staying warm during winter were long gone as he brushed one of the horses in the stable. There was too damn much to do as an apprentice to even entertain the idea of relaxing by a fireplace.

Each time he visited the horses, they seemed more restless than the last. They weren't able to go running as much as normal because of the unpredictable weather and freezing mornings.

If they got too cold and made sudden movements, there was a risk of pulling a muscle and then they would have to be put in an even smaller pen to heal.

"There, there," he said to Coal who seemed to be taking the winter the hardest.

The horse was younger than Axe and full of energy more than he could handle. Henry figured he could probably take Coal out more by himself, but he felt guilty taking out just one horse and not the other.

Seeing that the horse's food had been taken care of and their coats were shiny from being brushed, Henry decided he should go get his meal.

Henry's stomach was growling despite having eaten breakfast a couple of hours before. With all the work he was doing, he felt like a bottomless pit when it came to food.

Even though the knights from Chemois had been in Hydrogia for an entire month, it was still strange to see the new faces on the knights' land or in the dining hall.

There was an obvious divide between knights sitting only with their fellow knights and it made for an uncomfortable experience. When he was told that the relationship between Hydrogia and Chemois was stained, it felt like a huge understatement.

After eating quickly to avoid the awkwardness in the dining hall, he and Trenton were about to bid each other s good day and return to their usual tasks, but they saw a horse galloping through the opening of the fortress with no rider on its back.

The horse was light brown and the saddle on its back was falling to the side. It wasn't until it was close to them that they saw blood splatter all over both of its sides.

The markings between its eyes were recognizable to Henry and he gasped.

"That is Sir Roland's horse."

The horse jumped up and whinnied urgently at the two men.

"I don't have a good feeling about this," Sir Trenton said. "We should take her to the second in command."

It took a few minutes but they were able to calm down the horse enough to grab her reins.

After they found Sir Williamson, he told them that Sir Roland was acting as a messenger between the front lines and Hydrogia because he had sustained an injury in battle. He could swing a sword well enough to fight off a couple of monsters on the trip back, but if there were too many it could be another story.

The men were ordered to saddle up their horses and follow the trail toward the north. They had to leave Sir Roland's horse behind because she was being skittish and wouldn't calm down with a stranger on her back.

Due to the cold, they put wool over their horses for protection from the cold and in case they ended up facing monsters.

There were only a few hours before they would have to return or risk sleeping in the dangerous forest outside of Hydrogia's walls. They made sure to get supplies just in case.

Despite the armor and layers they wore, Henry's eyes felt like they were going to freeze as they rode forward at impressive speeds. Having to work in the cold was one thing, but the wind whipping at his face made his eyes water and felt like torture.

Since the horses hadn't been able to burn off energy in quite some time, they were willing to run for nearly two hours before needing a break. Trenton had originally picked the horses because the breeds were known for their endurance.

They walked to a stream deep within a dense forest and Henry had to stomp on the ice for their horses to be able to drink.

As the men tipped back their waterskins and then refilled them in the crystal clear water, Henry snapped up when he heard a yell coming from the eastern part of the forest.

They exchanged glances and Henry looked toward Trenton, asking what they were supposed to do.

"That wasn't far enough away to need the horses," Trenton said. "Let's tie them here and leave our supplies so we'll be lighter on foot."

Henry silently did as he was instructed and soon followed behind Trenton with his sword unsheathed.

During the scouting missions outside of the wall, he had been taught how to search for monsters even if they were trying to camouflage themselves. In the three times Henry participated in that, they had only faced monsters once.

Goblins were the easiest monster to face and Henry hoped that's all that it would be, but he knew there was no choice if it was something larger.

Moving as silently as they possibly could, they heard another yell and loud, hollow thumping. Henry's eyebrows lowered, but Trenton's determined expression never changed.

As they moved towards the thumping, they broke out of the trees and into a clearing where a giant beast with greyish skin was beating a blunt tool against a tree. Based on the base of the tree where there was a hole, they could assume the tree was hollow and someone was hiding inside of it.

The groan of the beast caused Trenton to whisper, "Ogre."

Ogres didn't have good eyesight or hearing, but they did have a strong sense of smell. They backed into the line of trees again and started moving towards the left and around the edge of the clearing, making sure to go slow so the ogre wouldn't see what they were doing.

Trenton had no choice but to take the lead. With his already unsheathed sword, he raised it and ran forward, the sharp metal meeting the shoulder of the arm that wielded the club.

It seemed it was going to go in their favor as the sword easily sliced through the muscle and bone of the beast, however, the limb was still stuck on by a strip of skin. As the ogre yelled in pain, he reached up with his other arm and ripped his arm off the rest of the way.

The arm cut off had a tight grip on the blunt weapon and the ogre threw the arm at Trenton, knocking his weapon out of his hands and causing him to fly backward onto his back.

Black blood poured from the ogre's arm and Henry realized it was now his time to act.

The ogre started moving slowly toward Trenton and Henry knew that it was his job to protect his knight no matter the cost.

He had to take a deep breath and remember his training.

As he ran forward, he saw the spot he wanted to stab his sword.

Ogres wore armor built from whatever they had lying around. In this case, the ogre wore what seemed to be strips of a barrel and the top and bottom of the barrel over his unbelievably large chest. As the still intact arm moved backward and forwards with each step, Henry saw the soft part of his armpit and knew there would be no better opportunity than now.

Ogres were slow and he was fast.

The ogre made it to Trenton and raised his arm with full intention to bash the knight's head in with his four-fingered fist.

With its arm raised, Henry was able to stab his sharp onyx blade into the soft flesh of the beast's armpit.