The Summer's End (Part 4)
The man who called himself King of the Wolves had sensed Karakh noticing his surroundings. The looks aimed at him were unmistakably displeased.
“Everyone’s got such narrow minds. What’s the point of an orc reaching Ainuwail? It’s not like we can’t reach places humans can’t.”
He spoke with a hint of complaint, yet his grin was wide and unrestrained. The carefree way he laughed felt purely orc-like.
His laughter seemed almost unsettling, but the words he uttered were not wrong. In fact, Ashtien and the clan heads had never blocked the orcs’ presence.
There was no real reason to do so.
The Black Wolf King led his pack as he swept past Vesta. For a fleeting moment, their eyes met.
“Human.”
Vesta did not avert his gaze from the wolf’s cold yellow eyes. It was a dangerous thing to do. Beasts would take such defiance as a challenge, and orcs were no different. Karakh’s teeth glinted slightly.
“Tsk.”
Lost in thought that the display was pointless, he turned his head away at once.
So that’s the king of the orcs.
Vesta watched the retreating back of Karakh and thought. He did not know what Karakh had accomplished or how he had claimed the throne.
I have no right to judge him.
Vesta felt nothing special from Karakh. Not the “perfection” Ashtien carried, nor the “recklessness” Attila possessed.
Karakh felt like a typical orc—excellent, certainly, but no more than any other. Unlike, say, the endless hunger and fierce indifference Vesta had sensed in Narinhoon Ibahtar, or the raw danger that had clung to him.
If only Narinhoon had claimed kingship, perhaps I could have understood him.
But that would never happen. Even if he survived, the scars left by his body would have led him straight to ruin as a gladiator.
*
Even as the endless bright energy of the steppe held sway, an unsettling undercurrent had begun to drift across the vast plains.
Thanks to the newly arrived neighbors.
The orcs’ culture was utterly unlike the main clans of the prairie. Clustered in small groups, they sat shoulder to shoulder devouring raw meat.
Twice—thud, thud—the sounds echoed like fresh kills, in truth more like tearing apart a freshly slaughtered beast whole. The highest-ranking orc ripped the flesh clinging to the bones with his teeth, then distributed the strips to the wolf-men.
For the centaurs, who avoided meat entirely, the sight was alien beyond comprehension—utterly horrifying.
“...Spilling blood right here on this land.”
“That stench is everywhere! My head is pounding!”
“And that howling. Those aren’t people—they’re pure beasts!”
Even the elves found the scene distasteful. The prairie elves ate meat as well, but they never tore into it raw like this.
“Not civilized at all. Those orcs.”
Elves prepared and consumed their meat with the utmost care, never letting a drop of blood touch their lips. It was the height of respect for the ancient customs that had shaped them.
So the orcs’ behavior could never be welcomed.
Yet the orcs seemed to delight in the shock they caused.
Just look at that horse-ass face.
Krkhk. Must be starving—toss us a bone.
The orcs tossed the gnawed bones aside and roared in orcish, mocking them mercilessly.
Those who spoke centaur tongue joined in, twisting Karakh’s name into ridicule.
“So that’s what happens when you underestimate one orc—one of your sons died because of it.”
“Idiot. If he’d been born in the Wilderness, he’d have been nothing but horse-meat by now.”
“...You lot.”
“Ah, you meant to speak in our tongue, did you?”
“But what’s the point of saying a dead man is dead?”
“......”
The centaurs had never been a patient race. Before long, their tolerance snapped. Warriors stepped forward.
Keng—
They seized a wild wolf-man, set him loose on the open plain, then drove the herd toward him like a predator’s hunt.
Krung—!
The wolf-man had no choice but to flee as the centaurs herded him toward the center. He twisted and dodged, but the warriors closed in.
What are you doing?
The centaur warriors, having driven the wolf-man into a corner, struck with their hooves.
Kwack—!
They stomped him flat, then kicked and rolled him across the gravel until he was nothing but a broken heap on the ground.
Kwak—!
And finally, one brutal stomp crushed his skull.
“Why are you doing this? It’s just a game we play.”
This became a custom that spread among the centaurs. Everyone understood it was nothing more than a disguised warning.
That any orc could be turned into this at any moment.
Just as the orcs cared nothing for the centaurs’ food taboos, the centaurs knew nothing of the symbolic power held by the wolf-men.
The rift between the two races had grown so deep that the air around Ainuwail felt as brittle as ice about to shatter.
In the midst of this suffocating tension, laughter rang out. Their only shared trait was one: they loved the thrill of a good fight.
Lycaon and his subordinates reveled in it.
*
The overheated mood and rising emotions demanded the right kind of provocation.
Lycaon was the man who could provide it.
“Why are all these people gathered here?”
A centaur asked. The masked clown behind Lycaon’s face grinned.
“Duel. Centaur versus human.”
“A duel? With humans?”
“Between humans and centaurs.”
“What’s the fun in that? The human isn’t even a Baatar.”
The centaur sounded bored. Lycaon supplied the missing detail.
“Empire humans.”
“Empire humans? Hmph.”
Most centaurs hated the Empire. Their persecution of centaurs was legendary.
Few had witnessed it firsthand, yet hatred was easily inherited and passed on.
“So the centaurs are fighting Empire humans.”
“Isn’t it practically a public execution?”
They were emotional, impulsive creatures.
Easy prey for Lycaon.
*
—Kwaaah!
“An unpleasant sight.”
Tei frowned. As the heir of a proud house, he was a refined intellectual who had no time for such spectacles.
“But the headwork was decent. They used wooden swords, much like the Centaur Festival.”
Vesta nodded.
Wooden swords are just a safety curtain. Nothing more than a flimsy excuse to claim they’re holding a proper duel instead of a slaughter.
Of course Vesta had once participated with wooden weapons. But the circumstances were different.
The warriors who fought in the Festival were all masters, perfectly capable of defending themselves.
These others were not.
“...They’re only dying.”
Without proper skill, the wooden swords were meaningless. Especially against centaurs. One hoof strike would shatter bones beyond repair, sever limbs clean through.
—Ah! Aaaah! Kkik. Kkugghuk.
Terrible results followed. The centaur warriors toyed with the Empire humans like toys, turning them into gruesome spectacles.
Their style of provoking the crowd is exactly like a gladiator’s. Lycaon must have taught them.
Proficient guidance had made the spectacle intensely stimulating. The already hazy reason caused by the orcs’ rage had been further clouded. Every spectator had surely savored the raw, scorching thrill.
No doubt about it, Lycaon’s arena was thriving.
“This time at Ainuwail, the aftertaste is bitter.”
Tei seemed to dismiss it as a passing fad. Vesta’s thoughts ran deeper.
What are you thinking, Lycaon?
Vesta alone knew the man’s true nature.
Beneath that blank, meaningless smile of the clown lay a terrifying fire.
*
“I already stopped it.”
Ashtien set her teacup down with a displeased expression.
“I sent Uushun to deliver my message. She said she understood while prostrating herself.”
“...Indeed.”
“Uushun said she found the performance grotesque and it deeply offended her.”
Lycaon was that kind of person. He could shift from one face to another, and his skill at portraying a clown had no equal. He seemed to feel no shame no matter what he wore.
“Did you watch the fights?”
“Yes.”
Vesta had confirmed the centaurs’ hatred.
“Their anger is ancient.”
Long before the Empire’s walls were raised, centaurs had lived near the border. They roamed the prairie and the Wilderness, sharing the land with Empire envoys.
They were the monsters of Empire myth. The root of the centaur legend.
Now not a single one remains.
Just as Empire envoys had gone extinct.
They had died in the arena.
Died in the labor camps.
Died in the zoos.
Some had escaped. Some had carried the truth back to the prairie.
That they had been called monsters in the Empire.
That they would be killed.
Attila, was this the reason you came to hate the Empire and wish to become a monster yourself?
Only now did the realization hit him. The gap between Empire and centaur was wider than he had ever imagined.
When the day of judgment came, they would make no distinction between orcs and Empire humans.