Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 50

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 50.
Breaking Through the Trap, Into the Storm (20)
It was a cliff. In the end, one of my pursuers couldn’t overcome the momentum and tumbled over the edge.
“I’ll kill that bastard!”
The horse behind me barely managed to stop at the cliff’s edge. While Boris’s mount grew weary and lost speed, the enraged pursuer’s horse bore down like a tempest.
Before us lay the Scrub Forest. As I desperately tried to change direction once more, my relentless pursuer charged straight through.
My horse plunged into the Scrub Forest. The dense brush offered no concealment, but it served perfectly to obstruct our path.
The time had come to let go. I slowed the horse’s pace, gripped Winterer tightly, and leaped free, rolling across the ground. The horse stumbled forward several more steps before collapsing to a halt.
“I’ll tear you to shreds!”
I heard the grinding of teeth. The figure dismounting and drawing a longsword, advancing with heavy strides, felt as menacing as the monster from that lake.
But here, there was no older brother to protect Boris.
I drew Winterer as well.
“….”
I resolved not to tremble. Though I could never match that seasoned warrior, I too had spent the winter honing and polishing my blade with all my strength.
The living grow ever stronger. I would survive and become stronger still. I would not shame the name of the sword my brother left me—even if I fell….
No, I will never fall!
“Haaaah!”
Throughout the past winter, my only true opponent had been Walnut. Fighting him dozens, hundreds of times over had naturally stripped away any habit of holding back for fear of injury.
I imagined my current opponent was Walnut. I resolved to fight as I had then.
Clang!
But the moment our blades met for the first time, I felt a searing pain shoot through my wrist, and the overwhelming difference in strength became devastatingly clear.
The blades separated and I barely retreated, but my opponent pressed forward relentlessly without hesitation.
Walnut had sought to teach Boris, but to this man I was an enemy—worse, a child barely worth more than a mouse. There was no reason to hold back.
Yet the sword in the boy’s grip caught the Knight’s eye.
From dawn into morning, each time the reddening sunlight touched Winterer’s blade, a brilliant luminescence danced across its surface.
The boy wielded the sword with surprising lightness. Though this was because Boris was exerting all his strength, to the Knight’s uninformed eye, it gave the impression of a blade lighter than it appeared.
A bastard sword is difficult to wield properly before one reaches twenty, even with consistent training. An iron blade would have considerable weight, but what was the nature of a sword so impossibly light?
The Count had not mentioned Winterer’s existence to his subordinates.
After the blades clashed a second time, I nimbly sidestepped to the left and thrust my blade forward. The Knight, distracted by examining the boy’s sword, failed to notice and found his elbow pierced.
The boy’s fundamentals were surprisingly solid for one to underestimate.
“Insolent whelp!”
So it was no mere ornament after all. The Knight wore thick leather guards on his elbows, yet the boy’s blade had sliced through them effortlessly, drawing real blood.
Blood trickled down, soaking his wrist.
“I’ll grant your wish and kill you!”
My opponent’s blade accelerated. He pressed down with overwhelming force and seized my hand with his chain-mailed grip, simultaneously attempting to drive his knee into my abdomen.
But my legs, hardened by the sudden running I had undertaken, allowed me to swiftly deflect his knee strike with a diagonal kick to his inner thigh.
Staggering, my opponent retreated and immediately launched into a sweeping cut. I dodged one slash across my shoulder, then pivoted to evade another—and suddenly realized my opponent had no intention of killing me.
The Count meant to take me alive.
To obtain the Snowguard and complete the Winterbottom Kit, no doubt. If I died, no one would remain to reveal the Snowguard’s location.
Still, severing an arm or a leg would pose no problem. The Knight grew cautious, surprised that Boris continued to parry his strikes in succession, and adopted a more measured offense.
When they clashed again, Winterer emitted a strange sound, a deep resonant hum that reverberated through the air.
Boris froze in shock. That sound—wasn’t it similar to what happened during a Frozen Break? But he didn’t have the Snowguard breastplate on him.
The enemy seemed equally startled. After taking a step back into a defensive stance, they suddenly changed their mind and pivoted sharply in a new direction.
As they spun half a circle away, Boris turned his body as well. The blade came flying from an unexpected angle.
A sickening crunch.
The sword raked across Boris’s ribs. Without armor to protect him, blood erupted immediately. A pain that felt like his waist was splitting apart consumed his entire body.
I had never suffered such a grievous wound before. Perhaps that shock was why I lost my composure. The moment my focus wavered, the enemy brought their sword-wielding hand down with crushing force.
Just as the blade was about to slip from my grip, I barely caught it with my other hand. I could not afford to lose my sword.
But it was futile. The enemy struck my face with the flat of the blade, and I drove my sword into the ground to keep from falling.
The enemy approached and seized my throat with one hand, choking me.
“You’ve held out well for a boy, but now it ends.”
The enemy kicked away the sword I had planted on the ground and threw me to the earth. Stepping on my hand with a dirt-caked boot, they wrenched Winterer free from my grip.
“Hmm…”
Greed flickered in their eyes. The blade was remarkably sharp and astonishingly light. It was beautiful, too.
The Knight examined the blade with their eyes while mercilessly kicking at the boy’s chest and head.
“So you fled with a sword like this—your master must have ordered me to bring you back. What an ungrateful wretch, not knowing your place.”
The Knight drove Winterer deep into the dirt, then grabbed Boris by the collar and hauled him to his feet.
They slammed the limp boy repeatedly against a tree trunk. It was strikingly similar to how those men had beaten Boris when he first met the Count.
Eventually, the Knight shoved Boris back to the ground and glanced at Winterer.
“Tsk…”
The Knight was clearly beginning to deliberate. It was a coveted blade. In over a decade of swordplay, I had never seen a weapon this fine.
When I had just driven it into the ground, hadn’t it penetrated with remarkable ease?
Yet betraying a master I had served for so long over a mere sword felt wrong. Still, if I could conceal what happened, I could keep the blade and play innocent with the Count.
Then the memory surfaced—that cunning wretch’s scheme that had sent my comrade tumbling from the Cliff to his death.
Yes, I should push that wretch and his horse off the Cliff as well. Even if someone found the blade beside the corpse of the fallen, it would hardly be unusual. I would simply pretend I never saw the boy.
The dead Knight and the boy would appear to have engaged in a fierce chase, neither noticing the Cliff until both plummeted to their deaths.
Since meeting that fellow Knight just now had been mere chance, another would eventually come to scout this path. The Count had posted a proper bounty, after all.
So then…
I lay there watching the enemy’s face shift and change moment by moment. I could roughly guess what they were thinking.
But there was nothing I could do.
“Get up.”
The enemy gestured with their chin, holding Winterer in one hand and their own sword in the other.
I slowly pushed myself to my feet. The wounds covering my defeated body throbbed with intensified pain.
“Come here. Quickly now.”
The Knight called to Boris’s horse, which had not fled. Then they pulled a rope from their saddle.
They wrapped the rope around Boris’s neck several times and tied it, then gripped the other end firmly in their hand.
“Mount the horse.”
I had no choice but to obey. I climbed onto the horse.
Until that moment, I believed the Knight had decided to bring me to the Count.
If I tried to kick the horse’s belly to escape, they would only need to pull the rope to strangle me or drag me along the ground. With no way out, my chest filled with mounting dread.
In that moment, Boris realized that one of his hands had touched the lunch pouch hanging from Langie’s saddle.
A hard object protruded slightly from the mouth of the pouch that hung downward, and it was solid enough to grip without any additional movement.
The Knight sheathed his sword with a satisfied expression, then found the scabbard for Winterer and secured it to his own saddle. Then he mounted his horse.
“You know how to ride a horse, don’t you?”
The Knight positioned Boris ahead and began moving slowly toward the Cliff.
Once they were close enough, he planned to release the rope while striking Boris’s horse with his whip. The horse would fall on its own.
Boris only realized this plan when he had already reached the edge of the Cliff.
Feeling a chill run down my spine, I turned to look back.
“How… how is this…?”
It was already too late to turn back. Instead of answering, the Knight showed a bloodthirsty smile.
“Farewell.”
There was no time to think. The moment the Knight released the reins and raised his whip, I pushed off the horse’s back with the strength of my legs alone and rolled as far away as I could.
At the same time, my throat constricted violently, and I nearly lost consciousness.
“Ugh!”
The Knight still hadn’t released the rope wound around his hand.
When the rope suddenly pulled taut, he too lost his balance momentarily and fell beneath his horse. It was the consequence of releasing the reins while holding the rope in one hand and the whip in the other.
The Knight hurried to collect himself and tried to stand, but the thought of the Cliff nearby made him stumble involuntarily. The sight of his comrade falling just moments before weighed heavily on him.
Boris had struck his face hard against the ground, but the desperate thought that he might die made me scramble to my feet.
At the same time, I drew the short blade I had pulled from the lunch pouch just before falling and cut through the rope around my neck. I forgot the pain in my side. The moment he regained his senses and drew his sword, everything would change.
There was only one chance. If I hesitated, I would die!
I gripped the short blade with all my strength. Running in one fluid motion, I drove the blade deep into the Knight’s back.
“Argh!”
What had I done?
Watching the blood spread across his entire garment, I stood stunned as if struck on the back of the head.
The wound was where the neck met the back, and dark red blood poured out like a torrent. In that desperate moment, the sensation of stabbing something inhuman transformed in an instant into the vivid reality of murder.
My entire body trembled. Until the moment I drove the blade in, my only thought had been that I would die if I didn’t attack. But now…
“Ugh…”
The wound was deep, but the enemy was not yet dead. He turned his body and tried to seize my throat. But I was in shock from what I had done, half-dazed and unresponsive.
Without thinking, my hand extended forward. Had I been gripping the short blade too tightly?
Squelch!
The sharp blade pierced through the enemy’s neck. In that instant, a fierce spray of blood—different from what had merely soaked into his clothes—erupted and painted my face crimson.
I met the gaze of widely dilated pupils. The eyes of the dying, perhaps fixed upon a past flowing like a lantern show of one’s life.
No—they were the eyes of the one I had killed.
“Uh… ah… uh…”
The enemy collapsed with an unintelligible sound. Blood soaked the dirt floor and pooled. It was an ebb tide that could never be gathered again, never to return.
As I trembled, the corpse too shuddered intermittently several times. Eventually, the death throes ceased completely.
But I could not stop.
“Ah, ha, uh… hah, hah…”
I could not breathe properly. The short blade, gripped so tightly, still would not leave my hand. My hands, my face, my chest—all were drenched in blood. From my hair, from my eyelashes, blood dripped steadily.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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