Those Who Stand at the Edge (11) — Finale
The sun had begun to sink while they chased the wolf. It was not yet night, but it was already too dark to call evening.
The hour of the dog and the wolf had arrived. That was what dusk was called in the tongue of the steppe.
The time when the farthest things began to be painted pitch-black first. The light came from behind, blinding, until objects could no longer be told apart.
The same was true of dogs and wolves. With only their dark silhouettes remaining, few could distinguish between the two with the naked eye.
More than one man had walked up believing he was approaching his own dog, only to be torn apart by a wolf's ambush.
That was why this hour was called the time of the dog and the wolf.
Vesta was crossing that impossibly ambiguous hour alongside a blue wolf.
He's fast.
Gansinbae, despite being a fine steed, had failed to close the gap with a mere wolf. That was certainly no ordinary wolf.
It's like I'm looking at a spirit body.
"Vesta!"
He turned his gaze and found the Princess. She had shed her girl's form and revealed her true self, six legs driving against the earth without making a sound.
She cried out in an urgent voice.
"We have to go back and check the future! There's no time to spare!"
Should he obey her, even now? No. He should not.
He ordered Gansinbae to keep running.
"Vesta!"
"I can't explain it with words. Right now, I just have to follow that wolf. I just feel it!"
It would look like pointless stubbornness, no doubt. But it was an intuition far too sharp to ignore.
That intuition had saved Vesta's life more times than he could count. It was perhaps the most keenly honed sense he possessed.
He trusted it more than an uncertain future.
"Trust me. Wherever that wolf stops, something is waiting."
The girl asked, sounding frustrated.
"And what exactly is waiting there?"
"I don't know. But it's waiting for me. It's calling me!"
Something is there, that's all? It was an answer far too thin to believe and follow. And yet the girl did not argue any further.
"Fine. Let's go."
She had decided to put her faith in Vesta.
"This way!"
He followed her guidance. A soft rush of wind, and his body lifted slightly. He had never felt lighter in his life.
We're riding the wind.
The broad plains of the steppe streamed past like an arrow's flight, and soon a mountain path appeared.
"Can we make it over the mountain?"
A long, contemptuous snort from Gansinbae — why even ask?
Gansinbae charged up the mountain trail without a trace of fear.
"...We're crossing over."
"What did you say?"
"Something's wrong. This isn't your dream anymore. We've slipped out of it. By all rights, we should have woken up by now."
The girl narrowed her beast's eyes. But contrary to her words, the dreamscape continued on without end.
"Why is this happening?"
Vesta answered straight away.
"Because we haven't woken up — so all we can do is keep going!"
Wind and rain began to lash down in sheets. And that rain stirred his memory. The rain, the shape of the mountain path — both were familiar to his eyes.
"This place... it's Ainuwail."
Where Vesta's present stood. The northern reaches of the Steppe. They had returned to Ainuwail, the land where even tears were said to freeze.
"We're closing in on the wolf, Vesta!"
"Good. Can you catch up?"
The distance shrank. Before long, the creature came to a halt, and Vesta — who had been wary of the wolf all along — hauled hard on Gansinbae's reins as well.
A ringing whinny tore through the air.
"You've done well. This looks like as far as we go."
He brought Gansinbae to a stop and looked around.
It was the place Ahor had shown him.
A famous wonder where the ground lay blanketed in pure white salt. This was where the Salt Lake of Ainuwail rested.
Its waters, swollen by the rain, reflected the sky's scenery with crystalline clarity. Like a mirror, the lake gave back the heavens in perfect detail — so much so that at first glance, sky and earth could not be told apart.
The night sky was a deep bluish black, while the sun, more than half sunk below the horizon, burned blood-red.
"That's..."
A single shape of unknowable identity stood at the very center of the lake, and in the dying light it looked for all the world like a beast's eye, suddenly opened, with a black pupil settled at its heart.
That vast, blood-colored eye smoldered as though it meant to swallow Vesta whole.
A great splash —
The wolf pushed its body into the lake.
It moved forward, and then dissolved into the lakebed itself.
The hour of the dog and the wolf. And someone standing at its very center. The dissolved wolf took root, becoming that someone's long, stretched shadow.
Now it looked like the shadow of a man, and now like the shadow of a wolf. There was no telling them apart.
No — the distinction is meaningless.
Because it was both.
Vesta dismounted and drew his sword.
"Am I looking at a ghost?"
The being bearing the shadow of a man — or of a wolf — turned its gaze toward him.
"Answer me."
Narinhoon Ibatar.
He bared his teeth in a savage smile.
Karakh pressed on through the rain.
"You haven't forgotten your role, have you?"
"Old thing."
"Keep your role firmly in mind, black one."
He recalled the old wolf's mockery and sneering.
"My role..."
When he had heard the Silver Wolf's terms, Karakh had felt a crushing humiliation. The impulse to sink his teeth into the old wolf's throat and tear it out had risen in him then and there.
The reason he had refrained was not fear of the Silver Wolf's strength.
Nor was it fear of the man who stood behind him — Narinhoon Ibatar.
"As if that could be."
Narinhoon was Karakh's prey. A hunter might hold reverence for his quarry, but he must never be devoured by fear.
For if he could not master his fear, he could never stand before it.
It was the right choice, sparing the old wretch.
A king does not act rashly.
The greater cause of the orc race had to come before personal impulse and emotion. At least, that was what Karakh believed.
Karakh had accepted the Silver Wolf's offer after hearing his plan. Though Karakh lent his strength, the Silver Wolf had played the larger part in devising and setting the plan in motion.
The old wolf had been, for all intents and purposes, the strategist of this scheme. Killing one's own strategist before the operation had even properly begun — it was a blunder so absurd that not even a bitter laugh would come.
That alone was why Karakh had swallowed his humiliation. There would have been no living with the consequences.
The plan must be seen through.
Above all else, the cause of the orcs came first.
The orcs will flourish.
Yes. According to the plan, the orcs would prosper. They would become the strongest of all bloodlines.
When that day came — when that day finally came — he would be free to cast down his rivals without a care. He would bring the Silver Wolf to his knees, and Narinhoon Ibatar with him.
I will found a dynasty of orcs. And I will do it with these hands.
And that dynasty would be raised not by a blue wolf, but by a black one.
All will look upon the Black Wolf King.
Orcs were a race that claimed the blue wolf as their own. But naturally, not every orc was born with blue fur.
Some were born brown; rarely, some came into the world with white coats.
And some, like Karakh, were born black wolves.
The most despised color of all.
He did not know where the contempt had begun. Only that black-furred ones had been branded thieves. Ill omens. Even mongrels tainted with the blood of feral dogs.
"When the snows fall, you're as good as dead. How will you hide that black pelt?"
He had already lived through thirteen winters.
"Mongrel. The same color as the dogs the elves keep."
He had torn the jaws from the mouths of those who said such things, with his own hands.
"Cursed things."
Yes. That much at least had been true. Every one of his enemies had felt an ominous aura clinging to him.
The wolf is stronger in the night than in the day. Our fur, which belongs to the night and the darkness, is the very symbol of that power.
It was a color no ordinary beast could possess. So he had believed, and with that belief he had carved out his life.
Soon.
Before long, a world would dawn where black wolves were no longer despised. They would be acknowledged as the strongest of all bloodlines.
Yes. To put it another way — like the elves. The way those treacherous long-ears served Ergior as the golden clan.
Wandering without destination, he felt his emotions settle. It was as though the rain had washed his anger away.
He stopped before the lake.
"So the rain made this lake."
Rainwater must have flooded the Salt Lake. When the storm clouds withdrew and the sun rose again, a magnificent sight would be born here.
He was picturing that scenery, thinking of returning to his tribe — when a strange movement caught his eye.
"...What is that?"
He narrowed his eyes and stared straight ahead. Pale, whitish shapes were moving across the surface of the lake.
"A mirage?"
They did not seem like objects that existed in reality. Was his vision deceiving him?
Puzzled, Karakh drew closer to the phantoms.
"Karakh. Remember this."
A woman held the young Karakh in her arms.
"Just because we were born with black fur does not mean we are lesser beings."
Grieve not your cruel fate. Nor shall I ever pity you.
That is how wolves live. My child...
"Karakh. We carry the blood of great shamans within us."
They had been called shamans. Sorcerers. Priests.
In other words,
they were the chieftains of chieftains among the wolves.
They had been known, from of old, as the High Orcs.