Those Who Stand at the Edge (10)
He crossed the wasteland together with the girl.
"Everything burned."
The land lay white and dead. He crouched and dragged a fingertip across the ground.
"But if the roots still remain..."
The steppe was a harsh place. Every spring, sandstorms swept in from the desert, and every winter, the great cold froze the world a blinding white. Each time, the grass's new shoots died. But even when the shoots perished, the tenacious roots of the wild grasses survived, and when summer came around again, they flourished once more. No matter how much the cold stole the sprouts and the livestock through the long winter, so long as roots and seeds remained, life could begin again. That was what it meant to live on the steppe.
This land is dead.
But this ground was another matter entirely. The death had sunk deep, and the seeds and roots were gone. Nothing would ever grow here again. And without grass, life could not be rebuilt.
"...There's no way bugs could have done this."
This was not the work of insects. The girl nodded at Vesta's reasonable conclusion.
"I told you, didn't I? The troublemakers are all tangled up with one another. Incidents are like wildfire—they leap from place to place, and before you know it, they've burned down the whole world."
AWOOOOOOO—
"Wolves?"
There was no mistaking it—the howl of wolves. They had gathered in the wasteland and were crying out together.
It was not a good omen. These were cunning, vicious creatures. Wolves had been Vesta's first enemy, and sometimes they had taken the shape of orcs to plague him.
"Let's go."
He led the girl to the place where the wolves had gathered to howl.
"Blue wolves."
There were an enormous number of them, their blue-tinged fur striking to the eye. They were gaunt, as though they had gone hungry for a long time, but their teeth were still sharp.
So even in a land laid waste, the wolves endured. Well, why not? These had always been creatures that climbed up and down the rocky hills for nothing more than the sake of survival, with no destination and no purpose.
They've lived in the wilderness all along—that's why.
Even without the girl explaining, he could tell. These were not simply wolves with blue fur.
"Orcs."
Yes. Orcs. Those who called themselves the blue wolves had taken the wolves' shape and appeared in Vesta's dream.
Every one of the wolves wore a grotesque collar around its neck. So many ears hung from those collars that if one could gather a number of people equal to the count of those ears, one might well rebuild several entire tribes.
"Feral dogs living off a mountain of corpses."
Vesta frowned as he condemned the orcs. Several blue wolves could be seen tearing apart the carcass of a centaur. He strode straight up to them and swung his sword.
"Grk."
The wolf's neck left the blade in a spray of red. The rest, startled out of their wits, scrambled away in every direction.
The girl came over and offered him comfort.
"Don't waste your emotions on this, Baatar. It's only natural for dogs and crows to gather at a corpse. And besides—none of it ever actually happened, did it?"
"I know. I know, but..."
Just as a frustrated look crossed Vesta's face—
GRRRRRRR—
The blue wolves began to snarl, baring their teeth. A few of them suddenly swelled in size, rising up onto their hind legs until they stood tall.
It was the stance werewolves took when fighting humans.
Orolbai told me about this.
Just as Orolbai had once described, they rose one after another.
"Are they reacting to me?"
Even as he asked, he readied himself for battle.
This fight will be a bad one.
His opponents were mutant wolves nearly as large as horses, and there were as many of them as there were bugs in a swarm. Vesta might have been a legendary Bestiarii, but even he could not cut down that many enemies.
In that case, there's only one option—make the enemy give up on me.
Cut down a few dozen, and they would retreat on their own. Wolves were that kind of beast.
"They aren't reacting to you."
The girl denied Vesta's question. It wasn't him they were baring their teeth at, she said.
"Look at their faces. Go on—do those look like the faces of warriors preparing for battle?"
At her words, Vesta studied the wolves' expressions.
Fear?
They did not seem enraged by the death of their kin. They seemed to be trembling in terror. And that terror was not directed at him.
The wind picked up.
NEIIIIGH—
The cry of a horse. Vesta turned, and in the distance he saw a woman riding toward him at full gallop, with several more horses running alongside her.
A woman with eyes of molten gold.
"Ashtien."
The wolves' fear belonged to her. The moment Ashtien nocked an arrow to her bowstring, the wolves' agitation reached its peak. No wolf thought of fighting Ashtien—just as no pack of dogs, however numerous, would ever lunge at a lion.
Having driven off the wolves, Ashtien reined her horse to a halt.
Then she turned her gaze and looked Vesta dead in the eye.
Well.
"A human. Can you understand my speech? What were you doing out here, all alone, in a place as dangerous as this?"
Truthfully, he was startled. Had she seen through the illusion? He glanced back at the girl in his surprise, and found her nodding with an expression of keen interest.
"Strictly speaking, that woman counts as a high-ranking spirit too. Nothing strange about it."
"And not recognizing me?"
"Hmm. I'd guess it's a timeline where she never met you."
"How convenient."
"Human?"
Ashtien narrowed her eyes, demanding an answer. This was not a situation where he could answer as casually as usual. For the first time in a long while, Vesta addressed Ashtien with his utmost courtesy.
"It is an honor, Khan of the Wilderness."
"Hm? Your elvish is quite fluent."
"I had a good teacher..."
That was the polite way of putting it. In truth, it would have been difficult to give the man good marks—as a person, or as a teacher.
"I see. You learned well under a good master. No doubt it's that education that let you know who I am."
Ashtien dismounted.
"So. What were you doing here, in a land where nothing remains but wolves and ash?"
"I, ah—doing some traveling."
"Traveling? In a place like this?"
Even to Vesta's own ears, the answer was absurd. He must have looked like an enormously suspicious brat.
"This is dangerous country. I drove the wolves off, but only for a moment. When the sun goes down, they'll show themselves again."
"I see."
Encounter a wolf pack that size in the middle of the night, and not even bones would remain.
"You have the look of a traveler with a story behind him, and I'd like to hear it. Why not return to the tribe with me?"
An invitation, here?
He was honestly flustered. Vesta rolled his eyes and shot a glance at the girl, who was yawning without a care in the world.
"That would be difficult at the moment."
Much as he was glad to see her, he could hardly afford to waste time on the wrong things.
He was still fishing for an excuse to refuse Ashtien's invitation when something massive suddenly surged up from the rocky hillside.
A giant wolf. And a blue one, at that.
Its appearance was sorry to behold. So many wounds marked its body that it looked like a walking corpse. But that, at the same time, meant it had survived long enough to become one.
The wolf watched Vesta and Ashtien for a moment, then vanished over the hill.
A fierce impulse seized him. Not logic, not deduction—something closer to pure instinct, boundless and undeniable.
"...I have to follow it."
"You have to follow it?"
"Ashtien. I'll be borrowing one of your horses."
"What did you say?"
Vesta declared it out of nowhere, then picked out a single horse from the ones Ashtien had brought with her.
A dark blue-black coat—
"Well, well. Seeing you like this, you're a welcome sight."
It was Gansinbae. Glad beyond words, Vesta grinned and stroked the horse's neck.
"You—what do you think you're doing...?"
Ashtien looked genuinely dumbfounded. It was not an expression one saw on her often. And no wonder—the idea of a human brat stealing and riding the Khan's own horse had surely never crossed her mind.
"Not 'you.' The name is Vesta Baatar."
"What?"
"My name. Vesta Baatar."
Having said his piece, Vesta broke into a bright smile.
"I'll be back, so don't worry. Ashtien."
"To throw around the Khan's name so carelessly—"
Leaving Ashtien behind, her words failing her and dying in a murmur, Vesta took the reins in hand. He handled the Khan's own trained steed as if it were his own, and shot off at a dead gallop.
"What in the—"
Should she put an arrow through that insolent horse thief? Speaking the Khan's name so freely, and stealing her horse on top of it—no one would fault her for executing him on the spot.
He turned his back on me. Does he take me lightly? He recognized that I am the Khan of the Wilderness—did he not know what my archery can do?
Her arrows never missed. Yes—if she willed it, she could put one through him right now.
She had the justification. She had every reason. And yet Ashtien never raised that justification.
Why?
She could not answer that herself.
The boy waved as he dwindled into the distance. Ashtien stared blankly after his retreating back—and then, suddenly—
"What is this?"
Her chest felt tight, and she had to press a hand against it and calm herself.
She did not yet know that feeling's name.