Chapter 1069: In the Name of the Aerial Knight
Inside Neverwinter’s pilot training school, the voices of the instructor never stopped.
“Hurry up! Keep your balance!”
“Your legs are shakier than a newborn’s!”
“Stay straight — watch where you’re heading!”
“Where are you going? Should I line up braziers to keep you on the plank?”
“Not there, not on the footbridge — fall off it and you’re licking the boards clean yourself!”
“Next!”
“Good!”
Good flinched at his own name. He drew a breath, sat down in the spinning chair, and found himself looking up at Eagle Face.
The instructor had a face like weathered flint — narrow, severe, the expression of a man who had decided long ago that disappointment was simply the ambient temperature of the world. It was rumored he had commanded the garrison in the Northern Region before returning to Neverwinter, that he had taken the internal military assessment and passed into the reserve Aerial Knights, that he had subsequently volunteered his vacations to train new recruits. A man strict with others and stricter still with himself.
Good could not hold eye contact with him for more than three seconds.
His friends Finkin and Hinds crowded close on either side, wearing the faces of mourners at a wake.
The chair began to spin.
This was the session every trainee dreaded. The footbridge — five meters long, as wide as a palm — stood in front of the chair, and the task was to cross it steadily after thirty seconds of rotation. Upon release from the chair, the world was a smear of shifting color and the floor seemed to tilt in every direction at once. Eagle Face trained ten at a time; the trainee with the worst result got punished — washroom cleaning, yard weeding, or, on Eagle Face’s particular days, an entire weekend in the spinning chair as a lesson in commitment.
Good had experienced the last once. He had been sick at dinner.
He was not going to experience it again.
“Stop!”
The chair halted. Good pushed himself upright and stepped to the footbridge.
“Move! Don’t dawdle!”
He raised his head. He had found something in the past ten days — not grace exactly, but a workaround. If he watched his feet, he fell. The trick was to look ahead and let his body remember the motion of walking without consulting his eyes. He had practiced it until it felt like a kind of controlled faith: trust that the planks are there.
His foot touched solid ground on the other side.
The crowd behind him broke apart.
“He didn’t miss a step—”
“Is he the first one?”
“Has anyone else done it?”
He turned around. Eagle Face’s face had not rearranged itself into warmth, but there was something at the edge of it — a fractional easing, a reluctant acknowledgment. “Well done. You aren’t entirely hopeless.”
He paused.
“However.” The tone reset. “You are the only person in this group to pass. Which means this is the worst cohort to have come through these doors. Princess Tilly said Aerial Knights should be one in a million. If you’d rather spend your life as an errand boy, continue as you are. Five-minute rest. Then we go again — same order as last time.”
The room produced a sound somewhere between a groan and a surrender.
“Hey.” Finkin sidled over, eyes bright. “How did you do that?”
“Walk like you normally walk, when you’re not dizzy.”
“How?” Hinds joined them. “You’re saying live the lie in your head?”
The three of them had come through the initial assessment together, been placed in the same training group, and by the second week were treating each other like brothers — which meant Finkin and Hinds felt entitled to ask questions and Good felt entitled to be unhelpful about the answers.
“Just try what I said. We need a pass, not a perfect score.” Good tapped the top of Hinds’ head. “This method probably won’t work for anyone too clever. So it should work for you two.”
“Get over yourself,” Finkin said, irritated. “You succeeded once. Stop making it a philosophy.”
“I’ll do it five more times if you like. Bet on it. If I cross the bridge five times without falling, you do my laundry this week.”
“Including—”
“Yes, including.”
“Um…”
“Hey,” Hinds cut in. “Are we actually going to become Aerial Knights? That’s what I keep thinking about.”
The question collapsed the other argument instantly.
It was the question no one had found an answer to. The training — footbridge walking, the rotating wheel, wind direction lectures — looked more like circus preparation than military instruction. Princess Tilly was supposed to have taught them herself; instead she had trained senior First Army officers who had then trained the recruits. Nobody had explained why. The promised aircraft had not been seen. They had a bag of books, one of which was apparently titled Aircraft Operation Manual, but none of them could read well enough yet to know what it said.
“Who knows?” Finkin said, after a pause. “At least the food is good. Meat every day, double portions on weekends.”
“I think Her Highness wouldn’t lie to us,” Good said, more slowly. “She made us a promise in front of everyone. And there’s that manual — once we can read it, maybe it explains what all of this is leading toward.”
“You’re remarkably optimistic,” Finkin said.
“If I weren’t, I wouldn’t have survived the trip here.”
“Line up!” Eagle Face’s voice cut across the room. “Same order as last time. We begin again!”
Collective sounds of resignation.
Then the training room door opened.
A uniformed man entered, leaned close to Eagle Face’s ear, and spoke. Eagle Face listened, nodded, and turned to survey the room. His eyes moved from face to face with the slow deliberateness of a man deciding something.
“Good news. The rest of today’s training is cancelled.”
Finkin and Hinds exhaled.
“Not here, though.”
The exhale stopped.
Good had already seen it — the smile that had crossed Eagle Face’s face. Not warmth. Something more precise: the particular satisfaction of a man who is about to reveal that all the complaining was premature.
“I know what you say about these sessions when I’m not listening. I didn’t explain because I judged your skulls insufficiently thick to hold the explanation.” He paused. “Today, you’re going to see what an Aerial Knight actually means. With your own eyes.”
Nobody spoke.
“Follow me.” He looked them over one last time. “And do not wet yourselves when you see it.”
Chapter 1069: In the Name of the Aerial Knight Translator: TransN Editor: TransN
Inside the pilot training school in Neverwinter.
“Hurry up! Hurry up! Keep your balance!”
“Your legs are even shakier than a baby’s!”
“Keep straight. Watch where you’re heading!”
“Hey, where are you going? Do I really have put some braziers on either side of the walkway to make you all be more careful!”
“Not here, not on the plank, otherwise I’ll have to make you lick your vomit off it!”
“Next, Good!”
“Here!” Good shuddered when he heard his name being called. He took a deep breath and seated himself in a swivel chair.
The stern face of Eagle Face, the instructor, came into his sight.
Good could not even stand having mere eye contact with him. It was rumored Eagle Face had once been the commander of the garrison in the Northern Region before he had returned to Neverwinter. He had immediately taken the internal military assessment and became a member of the reserve Aerial Knights. This meant that Eagle Face had not only participated in the war against the church but had also sacrificed his vacations for the new trainees.
In other words, he was strict to both others and himself.
Good felt very uncomfortable under his penetrating stare.
As soon as he sat down, his two friends, Finkin and Hinds grouped up.
Good saw them cast him a sorrowful look.
The next moment, the chair started to spin rapidly.
This was the most painful training session for the reserve pilots. There was a plank five meters long, as wide as a palm, in front of the chair, which Eagle Face called a “footbridge”. All the trainees had to walk the “footbridge” as steadily as possible after spinning in the chair for half a minute.
Due to the loss of balance, the whole world became a swirl of color after he slid off the chair. He could barely stand still, let alone crossing the “footbridge”. Eagle Face would usually train ten people at a time, and the person who got the lowest grade would be subject to punishment such as “cleaning the washroom” and “weeding the yard”. Sometimes, he would pick a weekend and have the poor guy sit in the spinning chair for a whole day as a way of disciplining.
Unfortunately, Good had once been that unlucky person.
As a result, he had ended up throwing up in his dormitory at dinner time.
He did not want to experience this for a second time.
“Stop!”
The chair immediately stopped as Eagle Face announced the magic word. Good struggled to get off the chair.
“Hurry up! Don’t dawdle. Walk!”
Good raised his head with his teeth clenched. He stepped on the plank shakily and started to walk toward the other end of the “footbridge”. After more than ten days of practice, he had found a little trick to succeed in the task. He noticed that he would be more likely to lose his balance if he
constantly watched his steps. The best way to cross the “footbridge” was to look ahead and use his body’s memory to control his strides.
In fact, his feet touched the solid ground before he realized it.
“That’s, that’s amazing…”
“He didn’t miss a single step!”
“He’s the first person who did it, isn’t he?”
The crowd behind him broke into a loud buzz.
He turned around and looked at Eagle Face. There was a rare smile on his gaunt grim face. “Well done. It seems that you aren’t completely hopeless.”
“But” he paused for a second and his tone instantly dropped, “there has been only one person who passed the test up to this date, which means this group is the worst of them all. Princess Tilly said the Aerial Knights should be one in a million. If you don’t want to be an errand boy for the rest of your life, put yourself together and train harder. Take a five-minute break and we’ll start again!”
Everybody wailed at the announcement.
“Hey, how did you do that?” Finkin asked Good while winking.
“Just walk the way you normally do like when you aren’t dizzy.”
“Really? How?” Hinds rejoined. “Are you saying to live the lie in your head?”
Both Finkin and Hinds had passed the initial assessment and joined the reserve together with Good. As the three were in the same training group, they had soon become very close friends.
“Just do what I said. We just need a pass.” Good tapped Hind’s head. “This method probably doesn’t work for the smart ones, but I think it should work for you guys.”
“Get over yourself,” Finkin retorted with a little irritation. “You just succeeded once. Stop bragging.”
“Do you want to make a bet? I bet I’ll walk over the bridge for another three… no, five times!”
“If you do, I’ll do all your laundry this week!”
“Including my underpants?”
“Um…”
“Hey, you guys stop arguing,” Hinds cut in. “What I really care about is— can we really become an Aerial Knight after this training program?”
Good and Finkin instantly fell silent. In fact, this was the very problem that bothered all the trainees. All the training they had received so far, including walking the footbridge, passing the rotating wheel, and learning wind directions, were more like an acrobatic show than proper military training. Furthermore, Princess Tilly was supposed to teach them in person, but in the end, she had simply taught some senior officers from the First Army and asked those officers to teach them.
The training was pretty intense. They had to go through physical training during the daytime and learn to read and write at night. Although Princess Tilly had made her promise to all of them, they still doubted the credibility of her words.
However, nobody dared raise the question to the sulky, unapproachable instructor.
“Who knows?” Finkin said with a shrug, after a short silence. “At least, the food here is good. We have meat every day, with an extra meal on weekends as well.”
“I think… Her Highness is not likely to lie to us,” Good said thoughtfully. “Didn’t we get a bag of books? My sister told me one of them is called something like “Aircraft Operation Manual”, which was drafted by Her
Highness herself. Once we learn how to read and write, we would probably know the reason for these trainings.”
“You are pretty optimistic, aren’t you?” Finkin beamed at him.
“If I thought negatively, I probably wouldn’t have survived the trip here.”
“Alright, time’s up!” Just then, Eagle Face’s voice rose abruptly above the murmurs of the crowd. “Line up here. We’re going to do it again in the same order in which we did last time!”
“OK…” responded everybody weakly.
But something unexpected happened.
The door of the training room was flung open and a uniformed man strode in. He whispered something in Eagle Face’s ear.
Eagle Face nodded. After administering a salute, he wheeled around and swept over the trainees with a cold glance.
“Good news for all of you. The subsequent training is cancelled. You can continue to take your break now.”
Finkin and Hinds heaved a sigh of relief, but Good did not. He clearly saw a calculating smile break across Eagle Face’s shrewd face. It was a smile which contained a little bit of sarcasm, jesting, and even… gloating.
“Not here though.” As Good had expected, Eagle Face went on at once, “I know what you’re complaining about in private. I didn’t bother explaining to you because I know your thick skulls wouldn’t understand a thing. You’re indeed lucky. Now, there’s a chance for you to see what an Aerial Knight truly means with your own eyes.”
The true meaning of… an Aerial Knight?
Good’s heart was pumping insubordinately.
“Follow me.” Eagle Face surveyed them slowly and said, “I hope you don’t wet your pants when you see it.”