With a “Hah!” he sent the howling whirlwind—it could easily be called a tornado at this point—rushing straight forward, where it encircled the enormous rock. It shattered instantaneously with a thunderous roar, but amazingly, none of the pieces came flying out of the whirlwind.
“Wow!” the others cheered.
The boy gently lowered his club, and the tornado gradually died down, leaving a mound of pebbles that used to be the boulder in its place.
“Well done, Howzer,” called one of the onlookers, a man in the prime of his life with a splendid physique. He sounded satisfied.
The boy who had been called Howzer turned around, looking proud of himself. “Thank you, Captain Dreyfus!”
“Your control is very good. You used to just strike out at random, but it seems you’ve matured. Griamore, take note.” Dreyfus directed this last remark at his son, who stood diagonally behind him.
The dark-haired boy, who looked like his father, hunched his large body over. “I-I’m sorry, Da—I mean, Captain.”
“Well, but Griamore’s progress recently has been remarkable as well,” Holy Knight Dale gently cut in. Dale was one of the coaches for today’s training.
Dreyfus, however, shook his head. “But he’s been inconsistent since he was a kid. If a knight can’t keep up a stable stream of defense magic, it can prove fatal. You should be working him harder than that. And Gilthunder, this goes for you too.”
“Yes, sir.” Gilthunder, who stood next to Griamore, lowered his eyes and bowed his head.
“You haven’t been progressing as fast as we expected lately. Your swordsmanship is weak. If my brother could see you now, he’d be disappointed.”
“Understood, sir. I’ll work hard so as not to disgrace my father’s name.”
“You’re too hard on your relatives, Captain Dreyfus,” another one of today’s coaches, Nicholas, cut in with a laugh. He was a giant who towered over even Dreyfus. “Your son and your nephew have both been doing fine work. This group you saw today is made up of by far the sharpest and strongest of all the Holy Knight apprentices. All they need is some real combat experience, and in one or two years they’ll be plenty skilled enough to be called proper Holy Knights.”
“Aye.” Dreyfus nodded. “They’re certainly promising. I’m counting on you to train them well.”
Dale and Nicholas gave their captain a sharp salute, then turned back to their young charges. “All right, break up into pairs again. Since the captain will continue to observe us, be on your best performance, everyone.”
“Yes, sir!” The Holy Knights-in-training formed into the same pairs as before and spread out across the training ground.
“Hold up, Howzer,” Dreyfus called to the boy who had just demonstrated the impeccable wind magic.
Howzer had been about to run off with Gustaf, his training partner for the day, but he froze mid-step, surprised. “Yes, sir! What’s up, Captain?”
Dreyfus strolled over to Howzer and apprised the club the boy was holding. “You’re still using that?”
“Yes…?”
Most of the Holy Knight apprentices came from families who held knight status, but Howzer, odd one out, was a commoner. The big difference between commoners and knights was that knights were allowed to carry swords in public, while commoners were not. Since Howzer hadn’t been officially recognized as a knight yet, he usually used a club or blunt sword during training, too. In contrast Gustaf, though he was the same age as Howzer and stood next to him on the same training ground, was the eldest son of a knight family and had always owned his own real sword.
“That club is no longer adequate for drawing out your magical potential. I hereby authorize you to carry swords. I expect you to come back tomorrow with a real sword to practice with.”
“F-For real?”
“Mm-hm.” Dreyfus nodded magnanimously. “As a Holy Knight, your weapon is an extension of your body. Each weapon is different, and some will be more suited than others to your magical abilities, talents, and physical build. Think carefully about what will best bring out your strength.”
“Y-Yes, sir! Thank you, sir! Wahoo!” Howzer literally jumped for joy, waving his club high up in the air.
2
“Mom! Mom! Gimme the key to the storeroom!”
Howzer was shouting the moment he ran into the shop.
The shop in question was the blacksmith’s on the western edge of the capital—Howzer’s house.
His mother looked up from where she was wiping down the negotiating table in the middle of the room. “Excuse me, young man?” she admonished. “Don’t I even get a ‘hello’?”
But Howzer just galloped over to her, paying no heed to her tone. “Mom, guess what? I was acknowledged by Captain Dreyfus! He said I’m allowed to carry a sword!”
“What? Really?!” His mother’s eyes opened wide in surprise. “So you…you’re really going to be a Holy Knight? It’s really possible?”
“ ’Course it is!” Howzer puffed out his chest. “Being allowed to carry a sword means I’m already on the same level as a knight! I’ve still got to prove my strength in real combat before I become a Holy Knight, but I mean, that’s only a matter of time now!”
“Well, I’ll say!” his mother enthused, looking him over as if seeing him anew. “My little boy who used to do nothing but fight every day and never did any chores—I thought you were headed straight down the path to becoming the town outcast. But now you’re going to be a Holy Knight!”
“Mom, I get it already! Can I just have the key?”
“The key?” Coming back to herself, his mother reached into the front pocket of her apron and pulled out her ring of keys.
Impatient, Howzer grabbed it right out of her hands. “I’m gonna pick out one of Pops’ swords!”
He ran through the shop room in a flash and rushed out through the wooden back gate into the courtyard.
His father Raizer’s workshop stood on the far side of the yard. One half of the building, facing the canal that ran along the right side of the yard, was the workroom with the furnace. As always, Howzer could hear the systematic banging of a hammer through the wide-open doors.
But rather than the workroom, Hozwer headed straight for the door on the left of the building. He inserted the key in the lock hanging from the latch and opened the door with bated breath.
Inside was the storeroom where Howzer’s father kept the weapons he’d forged. Most of them already had buyers and were just being held temporarily, but some were not.
“Hmm, where is it…” Howzer walked around the storeroom and started rummaging through the shelves.
He was looking for a longsword that his father had forged a few years ago. It had seemed to be his father’s pride and joy: Howzer remembered how when he finished the sword, Raizer uncharacteristically called Howzer and his mother outside to show them how well it had come out.
But it had yet to attract a buyer, and it should still have been tucked away somewhere.
“Crap!”
While Howzer was searching the shelves and wooden crates with a bit too much gusto, he accidentally knocked over several spears leaning against the wall. He started returning them to their places, but one of them felt a little strange when he picked it up. He stared at the shaft.
What the…Like it’s stuck to my hand…
He opened his palm to check if there was something coating the shaft. But there wasn’t.
Just my imagination?
He put the spear back against the wall with the rest of them, then started searching the shelves again.
“Here it is!”
He finally found the longsword he was looking for and pulled the blade from its black leather sheath. Even in the dim light of the storeroom, it shone brightly, as if light were coming from the blade itself.
“Wow, so cool!” He gripped the hilt with both hands and gazed at the blade, transfixed.
Longswords were practically a symbol of the knights. They were his fathe
r’s specialty when it came to weapons, and what was more, Howzer’s idolized Captain Dreyfus was famous for wielding them.
“What are you doing, Howzer?”
Howzer jumped at the sudden sound of his father’s voice behind him.
He turned to find his father, drenched in sweat from working.
“Pops…”
He almost tried to hide the sword behind him, like he used to when he was caught misbehaving as a kid, but then he remembered himself. Of course, there was no need to be secretive anymore.
“Pops, Captain Dreyfus gave me permission to start carrying swords today. So let me have this sword. All this time, I’ve—”
“That’s not the right weapon for you,” his father muttered.
That ticked Howzer off. “What does that mean?! Are you saying I’m not worthy of it?”
“I don’t care if you use it.” His father’s face, half obscured by a thick beard, was also being backlit by the sun coming in through the doorway in which he stood, and Howzer couldn’t read his expression. His hair, the same golden brown as Howzer’s, was shiny with sweat.
“What?”
“I don’t care if you use it. If something like that is good enough. Do what you like.” His father turned indifferently and ambled away. “Your mother says dinner’s ready,” he announced as an afterthought, his voice already far away.
3
“Darn it, why won’t it work?” Howzer gritted his teeth and glared at the boulder in front of him.
It was the next day. He’d appeared at the training ground, coveted longsword triumphantly in hand, and called his peers over, bragging about how he was going to pulverize a boulder twice as big as the day before, but…
“What the heck?” However many times he tried, he couldn’t get the hang of it.
Then again, there was no mistaking that the amount of magic he could release was much higher than what he’d been able to muster with the club. For some reason, though, it felt like it was all leaking out through both edges of the longsword.
As a result, although the whirlwind Howzer conjured was several times larger than yesterday, it was hopelessly scattered. His friends had to run about for cover, and the whole scene had turned into a huge mess.
“Ugh! Why?!”
“Just cut it out, Howzer!”
The training ground was enveloped in thick dust that the tornado stirred up, and stones of all sizes were raining down on their heads. Griamore unleashed his magic wall to shield some of the apprentices; a sphere of light expanded out from where he stood and repelled the wind and rocks.
“Shut it. I’m trying again!”
“Doing it again won’t change anything, Howzer,” Gilthunder said calmly.
Howzer turned to him with an annoyed look on his face. “What does that mean, Gil?”
“It might be the problem.” Gilthunder pointed at the longsword in Howzer’s hand. “Maybe it’s not a good fit for you.”
“…!”
That’s not the right weapon for you.
Gilthunder’s voice seemed to echo what his father had said yesterday.
Howzer burst out before he could stop, glaring at Gilthunder. “Are you saying I’m not fit to be a knight? Is that it?”
Gilthunder shook his head. “That’s not what I mean. It’s just…”
A beautiful longsword rested in Gilthunder’s hand. It was one that Howzer’s father had forged.
Howzer looked at Griamore, who stood across the training ground. The longsword that hung from his waist had been passed down to him from his father, Dreyfus.
Bitter aggravation rose up from deep inside Howzer. “Whatever,” he spat. “I’m going home!”
“Howzer!”
Gilthunder and the others all called out his name. But Howzer ignored them, sprinting from the training ground without even looking back.
4
The long stretch of bars and restaurants called Drunkard’s Way was even more lively than usual in anticipation of the Summer Solstice Festival next week.
Liones royal banners and summer solstice flower wreaths hung from eaves; food carts and stalls lined the usually bare roadside, and foot traffic was dense. Although the persistent summer sun was still high in the sky, the bells signaling the hour had just struck eight o’clock in the evening. It was already time for dinner.
“Looks crowded in there,” Howzer muttered with a sigh. Too upset to go home, he had been wandering aimlessly around the castle town, but now his usual haunt, the Black Cat’s Yawn, appeared to be full.
“Oh, is that Howzer?” the tavern’s proprietress called out to him as he was peeking through the entrance to check if there were any open tables.
“There aren’t any tables, are there, ma’am?”
“Hmm, we are pretty full today. Would you mind a shared table?” She pointed toward the outdoor seating area. Indeed, Howzer could see a girl his age sitting alone at one of the two-person tables.
The girl looked over at them and piped up.
“Oh, Howzer! It’s been such a long time.”
“What’s this now—you two know each other? Well then, go sit down!” Laughing, the proprietress pushed Howzer over to the table and then disappeared back inside the tavern.
“Er…who are you again?” Howzer sat down reluctantly, scrutinizing the girl’s face. Her frizzy red hair was pulled back in two short braids. He was sure he’d seen her somewhere before…
“You can’t tell? I’m Grace, from the medicine shop.”
“Oh, the one on the corner of Birch Street!”
Now he remembered. She was the second daughter of the family that ran the big medicine shop near his house. She was a year older than him. They had played together sometimes when they were very little, but they hadn’t spoken at all in the years since, and Howzer had completely forgotten about her.
“I see you around at the castle sometimes,” Grace said. “You used to just be a bossy kid but seem to be doing well for yourself these days.”
The proprietress herself came by, and Howzer ordered his favorite, roasted chicken thigh. Turning back to Grace, he asked, “At the castle? Are you working there now?”
“Yeah, since this spring. I wait on Princess Margaret.”
“Huh. Is Her Highness well?”
Howzer had asked the question casually, but Grace’s face clouded over.
“Yes…But, well—Howzer, you’ve been training at the castle for a while now, right?”
“Hm? Yeah, for about…five years? Maybe a little more.” He counted the years on his fingers.
“Is it true that Princess Margaret used to be more cheerful?”
“Uh, maybe? I dunno that much about the princesses. I bet Gilthunder would, though.”
“Oh?! Howzer, are you friends with Lord Gilthunder?” Grace leaned forward suddenly, and Howzer was startled by her sudden interest.
“Um, yeah. Kinda.”
“Gilthunder also used to be a more cheerful person, right?”
“Huh?” Howzer had no idea why Grace was asking, but he thought over the question anyway. “Now that you mention it, I guess so.”
“Do you know what happened?”
“What happened? Well, duh,” said Howzer, slightly taken aback. “Who wouldn’t react that way to something like that happening to his father? And with the Seven Deadly Sins being the ones behind it—that’s not something you just bounce back from.”
“Did Lord Gilthunder have some connection with the Seven Deadly Sins?”
Howzer grimaced at Grace’s persistent interrogation. “When Gilthunder was a little kid, Meliodas, the leader of the Seven Deadly Sins, used to teach him swordsmanship sometimes. After his own teacher went and killed his father, well, it’s no wonder he’s lost a little faith in people.”
Gilthunder never seemed to want to talk about it, and Howzer himself had always been a bit wary of the famed strongest order of Holy Knights, so the topic rarely came up.
“And I mean, he’s always been an overly
serious guy. I’m sure he’s just focused on becoming a Holy Knight right now. Maybe so he can avenge his father.”
As he was speaking, Howzer thought back to the scene he’d made at the training ground earlier and started to regret his own behavior. He felt embarrassed about having taken his anger out on Gilthunder, who hadn’t done anything to deserve it.
“I’m not particularly worried. He’s not the sort of guy who messes up,” Howzer insisted with some passion.
But Grace just said, “I see,” and lowered her eyes, apparently lost in thought.
The proprietress returned with a plate of roasted chicken. “Here you go,” she said, setting the plate down on the table.
“Yummm, looks delicious!” Relieved by the change of topic, Howzer reached for his chow.
But then—
A small black shape sprang to life atop the adjacent low brick wall separating the seating area from the garden.
“Huh?!”
A big black cat suddenly leapt down onto the table. It tried to snatch the chicken from Howzer’s plate.
“Hold it, you bastard!” Howzer reached out quick as lightning and lifted the cat up by the scruff of its neck. “You have some nerve trying to swipe my dinner.”
The cat kicked its limbs around wildly, but could do nothing to break free suspended in Howzer’s solid grasp.
—Nice catch, lad!
—That stray cat is infamous around here.
The other patrons cheered raucously.
The proprietress smiled. “Well, well, looks like our stray cat’s finally been caught.”
“Has it been causing you trouble? What should I do with it?” Howzer held the cat out to her.
“Ma’am, let’s off that rascal.” A drunk had stumbled over from one of the indoor seats. “That cat’s stolen from me way too many times, and I’m pissed. Give it here, boy.”
The man’s arrogant attitude rubbed Howzer the wrong way. “Hold on. I’m the one who caught it, and this is this lady’s tavern. It’s none of your business what we do with the cat.”
“…d’you say?” the man slurred, growing angry.
The other diners all started chiming in.
—Yeah, kill the rascal!
—No, leave the poor cat alone.
The Seven Deadly Sins Page 3