Snowy Evening...

Returned to Wyndham, Griffith stuns his followers by proving he survived, and the reunion is warm; once the moment has passed, Guts drifts away from it. Days later the Queen is buried, her death and the failed strike on Griffith blamed on Tudor killers or on some faction bent on wrecking the peace between the two realms.

A month on, deep in a snowbound night, Guts gathers his things, leaving behind the armor and the shattered sword from his days leading the raiders, and sets out from the city. Casca, gazing at the falling snow from her window, spots him, dresses hurriedly, and catches him at the edge of Wyndham. She asks if he truly means to quit the band, but her appeals to their new friendship fail to move him; he has long understood that he cannot chase his own goal while buried beneath the weight of Griffith's ambitions.

Judeau and Corkus stumble onto the pair, and Judeau coaxes Guts back for a talk while Casca hurries off to fetch Griffith, betting he alone can change Guts' mind. At a tavern, as Corkus courts the serving girl, Guts tells Judeau his choice was fixed even before the Doldrey campaign. Corkus rails at him for discarding his comrades, rank, and reason to exist, and Guts agrees that being defined solely by the band is the very trouble. Recalling Griffith's fountain-side remark to Charlotte, that a man without a dream of his own has no place beside him, Guts decides he wants to stand level with Griffith rather than gaze up at him from the ranks.

Griffith reveals to the band that he is alive. The Queen is buried amid rumors of assassination. Guts packs up and leaves Wyndham by night, refusing Casca's plea to stay. Casca runs to alert Griffith. In the tavern, Guts confirms his departure and his wish to meet Griffith as an equal.

This twenty-four-page Golden Age Arc chapter, "Snowy Evening...," ran in Young Animal issue seven on 25 March 1994. Gambino appears only within a remembered flashback.