I Will Be the Greatest Knight-Chapter 44: New Skill Unlocked

"I would like a fair warning the next time," Leif responded weakly, his heart pounding away in his chest.

"If I told you, I would have lost the deer in the first place!" Irene exclaimed.

The girl quickly climbed down the wall, jumping off of the rope ladder when she was six feet from the ground. She then sprinted to where the small deer had fallen. It was a small buck with tiny antlers, but it was her first deer and she was still proud.

The aim was nearly perfect, but she still pulled out a hunting knife and severed its neck artery as she had done for smaller animals in the past hunts. She didn't want it to suffer in the small chance it survived having its lung punctured and heart stabbed. The bow she shot was hard to pull but it was a fast and firm shot.

She heard a horse's hoofbeats approaching and she quickly straightened out to face whoever approached.

A grin appeared on her face when she saw Sir Gunnar arriving, suddenly interested as to why the girl discharged an arrow without fire. He was hyperaware of his surroundings and, since the sun was rising and it meant that it was nearly time to switch duties, he was already getting closer to the wall.

"Will you be staying awake later than usual to skin this animal?" he asked.

That was something Irene hadn't considered.

She nervously scratched her head as she looked up at the knight.

"I suppose I wasn't planning ahead," she admitted. "I've never had to do it before."

The knight smirked faintly and shook his head.

"I'm always surprised to hear that Sir Arthur's children are quite pampered, though I suppose the spoils of battle and clearing out monster caves must give someone an easy living."

She was spoiled and she was small. Those were always the two things people used whenever they were trying to get under her skin. Only when she was sword fighting did the words bother her. When her heart was calm and she was able to think clearly, she could laugh off each comment similar to that.

She was also learning that a knight or apprentice's ability to be mean to one another was coming from a place of fondness. Being able to dish it as well as she could take it was something she was getting better at.

Meanwhile, Leif was on top of the wall, gathering his things. He dumped what was left of his waterskin over the slowly dying fire to ensure it was completely out. After, he climbed down the ladder, jumping off about halfway down just as Irene had done before.

Irene glanced at the other apprentice. He looked at her expectantly as well, wondering what her response would be.

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"I will ask someone in the kitchen to help me," she persisted, deciding to be a solver of her own problems.

The knight sighed.

"I will teach you," he said. "There isn't much to do until it bleeds out, anyway."

From that point, the knight helped Irene tie the deer so it could be dragged behind the horse until they made it to the tower.

There they mounted their horses and left their posts. When they arrived at the stables, the first shift of stablehands was ready to let their horses rest for the day. The loyal animals stayed up all night as they watched their owners work or galloped along with them.

After that, Gunnar helped Irene tie the deer to a tree branch and told her to bleed the animal out into a large wooden bucket while she ate breakfast.

Admittedly, the warm blood she had on her hands already was enough to make her lose her appetite, but once she requested a maid bring her a cloth and a small basin to clean up with, she felt much better.

By the time she was finished eating, Gunnar was already at the tree, taking it upon himself to begin gutting the animal.

As she approached, he began to speak.

"Hunting deer tends to be better in late autumn," he explained to the apprentice. "Normally there's at least a bit of snow on the ground and you can clean out all this stuff with snow. For now, we'll just have to use some water."

The girl nodded dutifully, listening to the knight as he handed her various things to discard or pointed at pieces for her to do herself.

The innards were placed in the same wooden bucket the deer had been bled into.

"Normally we could make sausages or something with the blood, but we'll soon cull more deer in the coming months," he mused. "Better to get blood far away from here or we'll attract dire wolves once more."

"Understood," she responded.

It had been a few weeks, but the entire order was still shaken from such an unprecedented goblin attack. Those higher in rank were still putting their heads together to prepare for the winter.

Gunnar stood up straight after cleaning off his hands and he unsheathed a small multipurpose hunting blade that he wore next to his sword. He grabbed the sharp knife and offered the handle to the girl.

"Slice it's ankles," Gunnar directed.

Irene gingerly took the blade from the man's hands and, even though the thought of having to skin such a large animal felt bad, she reminded herself of her grandmother's prayer and was able to press on.

Gunnar told her when she had cut enough and he started to peel the skin down on one leg, showing her what to do before she was able to do the other one.

"Keep going," he instructed. "Use the knife when it becomes too difficult.

Irene wordlessly pulled the skin a bit harder and was shocked at how easy it was coming off of the deer's meat. Sure enough, there were places that hung on a bit tighter and she was able to slide the knife in and continue the ease of the skinning.

She didn't know whether to be repulsed or amazed. Both of her parent's responses to the situation she was in were likely coexisting inside of her at that moment.

The thought of sending her mother a letter ate at her every so often. Again, she decided against it.

Since the deer's head was hardly hanging on by a thread, Gunnar sliced it off the rest of the way and allowed it to drop into the grass.

"You'll treat the front legs as you did the back legs," he reminded her from where he squatted over the head. "Cut just above the hooves—you already know how much."

Unsure of how much time had passed, when Irene turned with the skin in her hands and a proud expression on her face, the expression waned and became confused.

Sir Gunnar stood in front of her with two antlers in his hands.

"I heard you say this was your first deer hunt," he said. "You ought to keep a prize to remember it by. Soak these in water so the soft parts are easy to remove then dry them in the curing shed for two days. The maids will tell you where it is. As for the skin, the squires need to learn how to tan hide more than you do."

The girl grinned and did just as the knight told her to.

After a couple of days when the antlers were properly dried and not rotted, Irene was able to place them on one of the shelves in her room and she looked at them fondly.

They represented a time when apprenticeship seemed so easy despite what she had been through so far.

Winters were far different from what she could have ever imagined.