He doesn't feel the cold anymore.
He flexes his toes, wriggles them, shuffles his feet. The snow crunches under his weight.
His arm is sore, and there is a red welt stretched across the skin. His shirt had been ripped; what a pity, it was new.
His shoes had long been reduced to shreds, which explains why he was standing barefoot in the snow. Though he had to take a moment to sort out the reasoning in his head.
His breath makes little bubbles of warmer air, uncurling like smoke from his lips as if he were a fire-breathing dragon.
The snow is white with spots of red. An odd-looking mutated leopard.
He turns his head.
Looks down.
His fingers have stiffened over the hilts of his swords, and his jaw, too, tightened.
Too heavy.
But still.
He dredges up the effort to wipe them clean, sheath his swords.
His eyes are blurred, but he stumbles over a body.
Oh. Right.
He should be elated, should be proud, having achieved his dream.
He is.
But for once, he is glad for the lack of a sense of direction. Lost out here in the middle of the snow plains, it is easy to disappear.
He looks down at the body once more. Tries to focus on forming the thought in his head, make it clear and solid, make it hard and unyielding and fact.
I am now the Greatest Swordsman in the World.
He smiles. The snow crunches underfoot.
He raises his head, lifts his arms to embrace the bubble that swells up in front of him.
Time to pay the price for his Captain's life.