“HAHA!  WE DID IT!” shouted Actaeon as soon as he woke up on the way back to the Deathbringers’ tower.  The personal defeat he suffered at Leon’s hands blunted his celebration somewhat, but in the end, he couldn’t help but get swept up in the jubilant mood of the victorious Deathbringers.  The entire unit, including those who were incapacitated during the assault and those who were hesitant to join, watched with pride as the Snow Lions’ banner was placed at the base of their banner shrine.

“Now then!  We can celebrate our victory, but be wary of a Snow Lion counter-attack!  Cato, Licinius!  You two go and secure the door!” shouted Linus as the unit started to party.  The two second-tier nobles he called out quickly went to make sure their doors were closed and locked.  It wouldn’t prevent anyone from entering forever, but the Deathbringers wouldn’t be caught off guard as the Snow Lions had just been.

As the lower-tiered trainees got to partying, Actaeon quickly went up to the third-tier common room and fetched many of the drinks and snacks that the unit leaders had been furnished with, bringing them back down to share with everyone.  He and Linus then practically led the entire unit in their celebrations. 

Gaius almost joined them, but he needed a moment to savor his victory, so he quietly slipped back outside.  He was followed only a few seconds later by Tiberias.

“Not sticking around?” Gaius asked his fellow third-tier noble as the latter closed the door behind him.

“I’m afraid not,” Tiberias replied, giving Gaius a wide smile.

“You’re more than welcome to stay, you more than did your part in fulfilling our alliance,” Gaius offered.

“The invitation is appreciated, but I don’t want to give off the wrong impression, here,” Tiberias politely declined.  “This alliance was temporary, a mere passing fancy.  Now that its purpose has been fulfilled, I wish to take my leave.”

Gaius cocked his eyebrow at his fellow noble.  “You never did tell us why you wanted to humiliate the barbarian.  Care to share now?”

“No,” Tiberias firmly replied, and he began to walk out into the woods, looking completely at ease and not at all worried about running into a Snow Lion counter-attack as he made his way back to his own unit.

Gaius didn’t say anything more; he liked Tiberias well enough, and had been more than willing to accept his offer of alliance, but the mild concern he felt at not knowing why Tiberias had offered to ally with them was growing.

But he could only sigh and comfort himself with the knowledge that he’d finally achieved some manner of victory over the barbarian.  Tiberias wasn’t a problem—or at least, not one that he needed to deal with.  It was clear enough that he had some kind of issue with the Snow Lions, and if he didn’t want to say what that issue was, Gaius wasn’t going to be so uncouth as to pry.

Besides, this wasn’t the time to start turning on those who were friendly to him; this was a time to celebrate the reclamation of his honor.  With that banner in his possession, he could hold his head high once again, knowing that he’d brought himself glory and honor, and thus brought his family glory and honor.  Even better, it was an honor shared among other nobles, strengthening bonds and fostering connections with him.

With this, he felt like he could start to put these past few weeks of humiliation behind him, and finally start to focus on what mattered: his future.  He could stop focusing on Leon, and finally turn his attention back to this he truly needed to impress: his father, first; Valeria, second; Prince Octavius, third.  His second-eldest brother had told him that the squireship to the Prince was effectively in the bag, but he still needed to distinguish himself so as to not humiliate his patron.

And that meant he had to prepare for the inevitable Snow Lion counter-attack.  It would come eventually, but when it did, he would prove himself once again, winning greater honor and glory for himself.  He thought about Leon coming here to try to take back the banner, and he smiled.

It wasn’t a smile of contempt or condescension, but rather the smile of a man who was looking forward to the future.  Leon would be the forge within which he’d be tempered, and once this cycle was over, and his unit held the most banners, then everything would be right with the world.

With one last sigh of contentment, Gaius made his way back inside, making sure to close and lock the doors behind him.

---

The mood at the Snow Lions’ tower was decidedly more subdued than the party over at the Deathbringers’ tower.  In fact, it was as depressing as anyone might expect it to be.  The few Snow Lions who managed to remain standing did their best moving through the various rooms collecting everyone who had fallen and laying them out in the first-tier common room, but there was only so much room and there were many fallen.

It took an hour or so for everyone to wake up, and for those who had left earlier to come stumbling back, including Henry, Charles, Alain, and a livid Alphonsus.

“This is all your fault, you fucking barbarian!” was the first thing the third-tier noble shouted upon his return to the tower, his wrathful gaze immediately locking onto Leon.

Leon was about to respond, but Castor beat him to it.  “This isn’t his fault, Alphonsus.  It was the Deathbringers who made the decision, they are the ones to blame.”

“If he hadn’t angered Lord Tullius then this—"

“Quiet!”  Castor’s outburst immediately shut the complaining Alphonsus up.  The former glanced around at the rest of the Snow Lions.  Some held their heads in their hands, others nervously paced or sat slumped in a chair.  Most were staring at their third-tier mages, watching Alphonsus very publicly castigate Leon.  However, regardless of what they were doing, all of them had the same defeated look about them.

Castor glared at Alphonsus, then looked over at Leon.  “Let’s take this upstairs.”

Castor, Alphonsus, and Leon all slowly made their way back up to the third-tier common room to discuss what to do now, with Alphonsus barely containing himself the entire way—though not before organizing the second-tier trainees to take over in their absence, and to make sure that everything was being secured and cleaned up.

As soon as the door to their common closed, Alphonsus instantly tried to shout at Leon again, but Castor silenced him with a glare.

“Al, this isn’t the time to start blaming anyone.  Besides, the ultimate decision to attack us came from the Deathbringers, so turn your vitriol to them if you truly need to vent that much.  However, our time would be better served figuring out how to deal with this, especially with the loss of our banner…”

Alphonsus glared at Leon again, which the latter ignored, but he didn’t start shouting again.  Instead, he said, “Well, obviously we need to go and get out banner back and avenge this humiliating defeat!”

“That would be… difficult…” muttered Leon.

“And what would you know, barbarian?!” Alphonsus couldn’t help but blurt out.  Castor gave him an exasperated look, reminding the other noble to hold his tongue.

“What’re you thinking?” Castor asked Leon.

“They’ll undoubtedly prepare for a counter-attack, and we wouldn’t catch them in separate groups like they did us.  Not to mention Tiberias might still be around.  We’d be fighting a losing battle.”

“We should still try!  Without our banner, we have nothing but shame and dishonor!” Alphonsus argued.

“I’m not saying we shouldn’t get it back, just that we shouldn’t go gallivanting off right now without any preparations,” Leon responded.  “Besides, I’d say we have honor and… pride aplenty without that bolt of cloth.”

“And I don’t suppose you have any preparations in mind?” Alphonsus asked sarcastically with a derisive look on his face, Leon’s last comment flying right over his furious head.

“Al!  Let’s try and be respectful!  Leon is our comrade, a fellow third-tier mage!” shouted Castor, both having gotten fed up with Alphonsus’ attitude and caring about the banner far less than Alphonsus did.

“He’s a barbarian!” Alphonsus shouted back.

Just as Castor was about to continue arguing with Alphonsus, Leon spoke up, completely ignoring their heated exchange. 

“I actually do have an idea…”

---

The counter-attack that the nobles in the Deathbringers expected the Snow Lions to mount didn’t come.  However, as all the Deathbringers stayed in their tower the entire day celebrating their victory, and the Snow Lions for obvious reasons didn’t go anywhere else that day, none of the other units heard what had happened until dinnertime.  Less than five minutes after the Deathbringers’ arrival, though, the entire training battalion had heard the news.

Many of the nobles laughed somewhat good-naturedly at Castor and Alphonsus’ expense; this was just all a big game for them, after all.  The first-tier commoners were decidedly less good-natured about it, though, laughing and telling jokes about how terrible the Snow Lions were at fighting, among other far more vicious and demeaning insults.

Everyone waited for the Snow Lions to arrive, to see how defeated they appeared and to size them up.  Many of the nobles in the other units were even contemplating attacking the Snow Lions just as the Deathbringers had, but only to test their own trainees against the unit that now seemed weak and easily bullied.

Those waiting for them would be disappointed, though, when enough time passed for it to be obvious that the Snow Lions weren’t going to show up.  The areas they usually sat in remained empty for the entire meal.

“HAHA!  We beat them so badly they don’t even want to show their faces!  What cowards!” Actaeon shouted at one point.  Many of the nobles agreed, laughing along with the Deathbringers.

But there were a few that didn’t agree, and Valeria was one of them.  Leon didn’t come across as a coward to her, and she had fought against him enough times to be certain in her belief.

Alcander and Marcus were two more who didn’t think the Snow Lions were cowardly.  Castor and Alphonsus had never really stood out from the other third-tier mages, but to become a third-tier mage at such a young age suggested a boldness and fearlessness to Marcus that precluded cowardice.  Additionally, his own analysis of Leon from watching him duel Valeria brought him to the same conclusion she had reached.

Alcander’s certainty came more from a gut feeling.  He would never be able to explain it if anyone asked, but he didn’t think any less of the Snow Lions for not appearing.  In fact, he turned to Marcus and whispered, “I think we should attack the Snow Lions as well; I never did get that duel with Leon that I wanted…”

Marcus smiled and shook his head.  “Not yet, my friend.  You’ll get that duel, but we have four third-tier trainees in our unit.  Attacking another unit in such a weak position compared to us wouldn’t seem very sporting, would it?”

“Why would you care if something is sporting, Young Lord of House Aeneas?” Alcander asked, putting enough emphasis on Marcus’ title to remind the other noble about his family’s reputation.  House Aeneas was famous for their many effective if questionably honorable tactics they employed to repel the frequent raids by the giants in the Border Mountains to the east, so for Marcus to bring up sportsmanship struck Alcander as a little ironic.

“We’re at the Knight Academy competing with our fellow nobles of the Bull Kingdom.  What’s wrong with reserving a little honor in this case?”  Marcus smiled at Alcander so unnaturally that the latter knew to drop the matter right then, which he did, turning back to eating his food in silence.

The Snow Lions didn’t grace the dining hall with their presence for the entire night.  Few questioned it, though, seeing it as a natural response to such a humiliating defeat.

---

The Snow Lions didn’t turn up to breakfast on Sunday, either.  This put the triumphant Deathbringers in an even better mood.  They were in such a great mood, in fact, that their Senior Instructor had to reprimand them for getting too rowdy before dismissing them for the day.

Several of the third-tier nobles from the other units who doubted the cowardice of the Snow Lions were even starting to be convinced, leaving very few who held the Snow Lions in any esteem.

Marcus and Alcander were two of those few.  The Snow Lions’ continued absence only piqued their curiosity rather than drawing their scorn and derision.  Alcander even convinced Marcus to accompany him to the Snow Lions’ tower, ostensibly to challenge Leon to the duel Alcander desired, but they really just wanted to see what was going on.

When they arrived at the tower, Alcander approached the door and thundered, “Leon!  I’m challenging you to a duel!  Get out here and fight me!”

The huge noble had nothing but silence respond to his bold challenge.  There were no flashes from the windows that might indicate the presence of people, no one shouted back, there wasn’t even an aura in the air.  It didn’t even seem like anyone was in there…

“Hang on, something’s off here…”  Marcus began walking up to the door.

“You don’t want to wait for the traditional three challenges before knocking?” asked Alcander in mild surprise.

“… I don’t think waiting will change anything…” Marcus muttered, barely loud enough for Alcander to hear him without straining.

Marcus expected the door to be locked and tightly sealed given the previous day’s events, but it swung open with barely a single touch, leaving the third-tier noble standing in the doorway looking a little confused for a moment.

Alcander walked up behind him, staring into the empty entryway in front of them.

“Want to go see what’s up?” Marcus asked him.

“Sure,” he responded while readying his training ax with an enormous smile on his face.

‘I’m getting that duel, one way or another…’ he thought to himself.

The two nobles wasted no more time and burst into the first-tier common room.  They didn’t quite know what to expect, but the empty room that greeted them certainly wasn’t it.

“Huh…” grunted Alcander in bewilderment.  “Where the hells are they?”

Marcus didn’t respond verbally, instead quickly checking the rest of the floor.  The bedrooms were locked up tight, but it was easy enough for the two third-tier mages to tell they were just as empty as the common room.

They checked the rest of the tower, or at least, whatever wasn’t locked.  This basically meant just the second-tier common room, but it was enough to confirm that the tower was completely deserted.

When they returned to the first floor, they were quite taken aback when they found two people poking around in the first-tier common room.  Marcus reached for his sword while Alcander did likewise with his ax, but they froze when they saw who these two people were: Asiya and Valeria.

These two ladies had come to the tower for the same reason Marcus and Alcander had, to try and figure out what was going on the with the Snow Lions.  When they heard footsteps coming down the stairs, they had also reacted in the same way, by drawing their weapons.  Asiya’s saber and Valeria’s glaive were pointing directly at Marcus and Alcander, and when the two men slowly let go of their weapons, the ladies did likewise.

After a moment of silence, Marcus said, “The tower’s empty.  We just checked…”

“Huh…” answered Asiya.

A long awkward silence followed with the four staring each other down.  Eventually, Valeria and Asiya glanced at each other, slightly nodded, then walked back out the door without another word.  Marcus and Alcander waited a few minutes for them to leave, then looked at each other and shrugged, fighting the urge to break out into laughter at almost getting such a different fight than the one they’d come for.  They, too, made to leave the tower.

They hadn’t learned much coming here, but they at least knew that the Snow Lions weren’t the cowards the Deathbringers claimed them to be.  If they were, the tower wouldn’t be empty; rather it would be full of Snow Lions too scared to leave.

But that still left the question of just where the Snow Lions were hanging in the air.  Marcus could only guess that this was some kind of plan devised by Leon.  Castor was too orthodox in his thinking to abandon the tower even after such a humiliating defeat, and Alphonsus too prideful; this had to be the work of Leon.  But the reason for abandoning their strongpoint could only be that they intended to live somewhere else, somewhere perhaps more defensible.

Someone no one else knew about…

Marcus smiled, despite the disappointment in not achieving what he and Alcander had set out for this morning.  He was greatly looking forward to seeing the Snow Lions again, and gauging their response for himself…

---

Dinner came and went with still no sign of the Snow Lions.  The Deathbringers were still in celebratory moods, especially without their rival unit present, but a day in the capital had been enough for them to get the rowdiness out of their systems and keep things quiet and civil during the meal.

That quiet civility didn’t carry over to when they returned to their tower where they continued the party they had started the day before.

It wasn’t until Monday that the other units began to suspect that something was truly wrong with the Snow Lions, something more substantial than simple cowardice, as the unit didn’t appear for morning training, which was the start of their Field Medicine Course.

None of the knights or Instructors present seemed to care about the Snow Lions’ absence, proceeding with the first lesson in making sure the trainees knew how to use their medical gear.  For several hours, the trainees’ heads were filled with nothing but bandages, tourniquets, and healing spells.  This would be enough to stop bleeding and keep a fellow knight, man-at-arms, or soldier alive if they were wounded, should a proper healer not be around to do the job.

The third-tier trainees were largely excluded from this training, though.  As with Basic Combat, it was rightly assumed that they already knew far more than the Instructors could teach them in only the one week they had.  Because of this, the Instructors wanted them to help teach their fellow trainees, but there was still little for them to do during Monday’s First Aid class.

Naturally, this led the third-tier nobles to separate themselves from the group of a thousand or so trainees and talk amongst themselves.  At first, they only spoke about what they had done over the past weekend, what they planned to do over the upcoming weekend, and jokingly threatened each other’s units with the seizure of their banners now that the Deathbringers had essentially kicked off the start of that competition.

However, all the myriad conversations between the third-tier nobles eventually turned to the Snow Lions.  It had been long enough that it was difficult to simply write it off as mere cowardice, as their Senior Instructor would’ve dragged them here to the class regardless of their own personal feelings or how ashamed they might be at the loss of their banner.  Fueling the mystery, the empty tower found by Marcus, Alcander, Valeria, and Asiya became known to the rest of the nobles.

Of course, none of the other nobles could do anything more than speculate on the Snow Lions’ whereabouts.  A few of them asked their Senior Instructors if they knew anything, but they found no answers with them.

Gaius couldn’t help but wonder; if he knew anything at all about Leon, it was that the barbarian wasn’t the sort to give up and simply accept something like this.  There was more at play, and not knowing what that thing was had him more than a little anxious.

Tiberias, on the other hand, seemed quite relaxed about the entire affair; the disappearance of the Snow Lions didn’t concern him in the slightest.  But Gaius vowed to keep an eye on him.  The nobleman made it seem like his sense of whimsy was largely responsible for the short alliance between himself and the Deathbringers, but Gaius still thought it a little more complex than that, and he didn’t want to get dragged into it if it grew more serious than some Academy-level raids and a few street brawls.

When afternoon classes started, no one expected the Snow Lions to show up, not at this point.  Whatever was going on with them was clearly either sanctioned by the Academy, or the higher-ups simply didn’t think it to be their business.

For his part, Gaius was more than a little excited, in stark contrast to the quiet creeping dread and anxiety he’d been feeling every time he thought about it, and the reason was simple: without Leon around, the seat next to Valeria in their enchanting class was open!

He had to force himself not to hurry over when lunch was over.  He didn’t want to beat her over there and thus appear too eager.  He wanted her to take her seat, first…

When he reached the class, he could barely contain himself, and he practically skipped into the room, only to be met with a relatively unpleasant surprise: Leon, sitting in the back, and Valeria right next to him.

---

Leon straightened up and paid a little more attention to the room when he felt the tell-tale chill of killing intent.  It wasn’t too powerful, but it was still more than enough to startle him out of his quiet moment he and Valeria were sharing.

When he looked up, he saw Gaius standing at the front of the room, a look of abject shock on his face that was slowly turning into one of eminent displeasure.  The nobleman’s bright blue eyes were locked upon him.

Leon controlled himself.  It would’ve been the easiest thing to smile at Gaius, as if to rub it in that he wasn’t going to get what he obviously wanted, but he didn’t do so.  He felt it would cut deeper to simply disregard him, so he ripped his gaze away from Gaius before it could linger too long.

Hardly an adequate retaliation for stealing the Snow Lions’ banner, but it was all he could do right now, and it felt a least a little cathartic.

“So,” Valeria whispered, her smooth, confident tones easily capturing Leon’s attention, “where have all of your people been these couple of days?”

Leon glanced at her from the corner of his eyes, her question succeeding in bringing out a slight smile from him where Gaius’ appearance failed.  And yet, she hardly seemed that engaged in the topic, being more concerned with quietly drawing a few practice runes on a sheet of spell paper than gauging his response.  Her expression was stoic and as stony as if it had been carved from marble.

He was surprised she’d ask, they hardly ever spoke more than a few words to each other; their relationship was mostly defined by their duels, and little else.  Still, he wasn’t going to let that trick him into giving away the position of his unit.  “Away,” he said.

Valeria quickly stole a glance at him with her eyes narrowed in displeasure.  “’Away’?” she asked, clearly wanting more details.

“Away,” he repeated.

She turned her head back to her paper with quiet and only a mildly indignant “Hmph!” and neither spoke again during the rest of the class.

---

There were similar expressions of shock throughout the campus when the Snow Lions arrived, though only about a dozen of them had accompanied Leon to their afternoon classes—and none of them were commoners.  The most extreme reactions came from the classes where both Snow Lions and Deathbringers were enrolled, where a couple fights were almost started from glares alone.

But everyone controlled themselves with the Academy’s Instructors present.  Fighting wasn’t allowed in the classrooms, after all.  And besides, nearly everyone involved was noble and had their reputations to consider, so the Snow Lions carried themselves with as much grace and dignity as they could muster in the face of the Deathbringers.

On the inside, most of them wanted nothing more than to tear into the Deathbringers in revenge, but Castor and Leon had made it abundantly clear how they ought to behave while they were far away from the majority of the unit who were spending the first few hours after lunch meditating in their camp.

The surprises continued that day, as once the afternoon classes were over and it was time for the trainees to eat dinner, the Snow Lions were absent again.  A few curious souls, including Valeria and Alcander, investigated their tower that night and found that it was just as empty as it was the last time they had checked in with the Snow Lions.

The unit had disappeared again!

---

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