Cesare drove his horse without hesitation. Cesare’s black steed moved close next to Ariadne’s horse.

“Take your foot out of the stirrup!”

Cesare leaned forward and embraced Ariadne.

Ariadne quickly shook off the stirrup caught on her instep, but her stirrup was ladylike, wide and low, so it wasn’t easy to get her foot out. After a struggle, she succeeded in removing her right foot, but her left foot was still stuck in the stirrup.

While Ariadne struggled to remove her foot, the man’s strong arms supported her weight and lifted her up. Ariadne was transferred from her brown horse to Cesare’s black steed.

However, her left foot was still caught in the stirrup. As Cesare’s horse galloped forward, widening the gap with Ariadne’s horse, she almost slipped out of Cesare’s arms due to her foot being stuck in the original stirrup.

Cesare paused his horse and embraced Ariadne tightly once again.

“……!”

Just as Cesare predicted, Ariadne’s horse tripped on a rock and stumbled heavily, then fell to the ground starting with its right hindquarters. The moment one of its legs collapsed, the remaining three quickly followed.

Because Ariadne’s left foot was caught in the stirrup, as her horse fell, both she and Cesare, who was holding her, tilted heavily to the left.

“We’ll both fall at this rate!”

Cesare decided to jump off the horse. He removed his foot from the stirrup, let go of the reins he was holding, and kicked the horse’s side to send it forward.

And as the horse started moving, he jumped off with Ariadne in his arms, falling onto his back and rolling heavily on the ground.

“Phew……!”

As they jumped into the air, the angle between the stirrup and her foot changed, and Ariadne’s foot came out of the collapsing horse’s stirrup. Cesare, holding Ariadne in his arms, was able to safely land on the ground after rolling twice.

Thud!

“Ugh……”

The noise of Ariadne’s horse falling, and Cesare, with Ariadne in his arms, hitting the dirt floor, echoed loudly in the small clearing in the forest.

After enough time had passed for the dust to settle, Ariadne slowly opened her eyes in Cesare’s arms. As soon as she confirmed that she was uninjured, she crawled out of his arms.

Standing on the stable ground made her tearfully happy. She then asked about the wellbeing of the man who had protected her with his body as he lay on the ground.

“Are you okay?”

In contrast, Cesare was still lying on the floor of the forest clearing. A moment of silence passed.

“Did he die?!”

Ariadne was startled. She was fumbling around, wondering whether she should place a feather under his nose to check if he was breathing. There was still an arrow with a feather attached to it stuck in Ariadne’s horse’s hindquarters. Could she use that feather……?

Then a tenor voice echoed.

“Hey, it felt good to hold a beauty, but you left so soon.”

At least Cesare, who could still speak, was alive. Ariadne let out a sigh of relief that he wasn’t dead.

“Are you hurt anywhere?”

In response to her question, Cesare’s answer was a groan.

“My arm hurts. I want to keep lying here.”

As Ariadne looked down at Cesare incredulously, he met her gaze and smiled cheekily with his deep, watery eyes.

“Since my arms are open anyway, why not come into them?”

He laid with his arm open in a pillowlike position. Ariadne sharply rebuked him without flinching.

“Stop talking nonsense and get up. If you keep that up, I’ll kick that arm of yours.”

Ariadne approached Cesare and tried to pull him up by grabbing his outstretched hand. However, startled by Cesare’s loud groan of pain, she let go of his hand.

“Ouch! I told you it really hurts.”

Indeed, upon closer inspection, his left hand, donned in deer skin gloves, was swelling up. Unlike the right hand, which had a bit of freedom in its gloved confinement, the left glove was stretched taut.

“We need to get this off quickly.”

“Help me take it off.”

Normally, such a comment would have warranted a swift kick to the back of his head, but his hand was swelling up so quickly that it needed immediate attention.

Ariadne carefully removed his green deerskin glove, making sure not to touch his arm any more than necessary.

Ariadne gently pressed on his sleeve, then asked,

“Where does it hurt the most?”

“A little higher, ouch! There!”

It appeared that Cesare had broken his forearm, specifically the area below his elbow, when he fell off his horse. Whether it was the radius, closer to the thumb, or the ulna, closer to the pinky, that had broken, Ariadne couldn’t tell with her medical knowledge.

“We need to get back quickly. We need to apply a splint or something.”

Ariadne looked around. Cesare’s horse was obediently grazing at the edge of the clearing, but her own horse was sprawled on the ground, gasping heavily.

Its right hind leg was twisted in an unnatural direction due to a fall on the rocks, the broken bone showing through the skin. An arrow was still deeply embedded in the horse’s flank.

“Give me a knife.”