A Knight Who Eternally Regresses

Long after Enkrid had left, Torres heard a terrifying roar echo from the forest.

“Shouldn’t we send reinforcements?” asked a clueless soldier.

Hyo-un, a northern warrior with a strong sense of pride, replied on Torres’s behalf.

“Reinforcements? Those four monsters could probably burn an entire domain to the ground.”

For someone like Hyo-un to say such a thing carried weight. Even Torres couldn’t disagree.

“They’ll come back on their own,” Torres concluded.

Who should be worried about whom?

Torres instructed his soldiers to gather the centaur tendons and salvageable monster hides, burning the rest of the corpses.@@novelbin@@

How many have we lost?

Dozens had died in the earlier battles, and Torres himself had barely survived the first skirmish. Zimmer had come close to dying as well.

The situation had been dire.

At one point, Torres had seriously considered retreating and even voiced his concerns.

“Lord—no, Captain. If we stay here, we’re doomed. Locking the gates will only delay the inevitable.”

There were towers but no moats. When the centaurs approached and started battering the walls with massive clubs made from uprooted trees, how long could they realistically hold out?

What if reinforcements never arrived?

“So, if we abandon the walls, what’s your solution?” the lord had asked in return.

There wasn’t one. Outside the walls, the centaurs would be even more dangerous. They were relentless predators, faster than any human could escape.

Trapped from all sides.

The only option had been to request reinforcements and pray.

The centaur colony, particularly its leader, was terrifying.

Its guttural cries could make even seasoned soldiers falter.

Some men had wet themselves.