High Orc (1)
"Am I looking at a ghost?"
A figure wearing the shadow of a man—or of a wolf—turned its gaze toward him.
"Answer me."
Narinhoon Ibatar.
He bared his teeth in a feral grin.
Just a presence inside a dream?
The odds favored it. By any rational measure, Narinhoon could not possibly be alive.
Hadn't he been burned to ash by fire? And that was hardly all. A blade had been driven into a body little better than a walking corpse, and what remained had been thrown to the wolves for feed.
Could anyone have survived that? No. It should be impossible. If he truly believed otherwise, he might as well call himself a man harboring delusions.
"Answer me, Narinhoon."
And yet, even as he thought it, he demanded an answer—because this apparition seemed all too ready to deny death as if it were nothing at all.
Vesta drew his blade and advanced toward Narinhoon.
"That's right. You'd be curious, wouldn't you?"
"...!"
It was not the orc tongue. It was the language of men.
"You— you can speak."
"I took up my studies a bit late in life. Nothing impressive."
For a man claiming as much, his pronunciation was remarkably fluid. To Vesta, a speaker of many tongues, it carried the polish of professional instruction.
Who on earth taught an orc to speak like a human?
Training an orc—an orc with no foundation in language and a mouth shaped nothing like a man's—was no ordinary feat. Whoever it was had to be a master of rare caliber. Had another linguistic genius, someone like his own teacher, appeared on the steppe?
Slowly, deliberately, Narinhoon answered, lacing every word with his own will.
"Rest easy. I haven't come crawling back as some haunting spirit to cling to you."
Not a ghost, then. Alive, he claimed.
He actually survived? How in the world did he treat those burns, how did he draw the blade from his flesh?
"You're no ordinary orc."
It was the girl. She stood growling at Narinhoon, low and warning.
"The shamans' bloodline ran dry long ago. How do you manifest in a dream?"
"The Princess, is it? So you carry a spirit beast about with you."
"Speak!"
Narinhoon answered while looking not at the Princess, but at Vesta.
"You must be wondering. How I survived—and by what means I've set all this in motion."
"......"
Deep within the layered darkness, Narinhoon's eyes glittered—like those of a beast that relished the night hunt.
"Just as you wield spirits while wearing a human body, I too have acquired a few curious gifts. Thanks to the wolves I've taken into my flesh."
"Taken wolves into your flesh?"
"...I'll explain it."
As the girl laid out the situation for Vesta, she could not hide her shock.
"A true werewolf—one with no hound's blood mixed in. The kind who ruled the steppe before the elves ever did."
"'Taken into your flesh' means what, exactly?"
"It means they chose him."
"So I've heard."
Narinhoon did not deny the girl's words.
"A thing that has not once been bestowed since the shamans vanished?"
Narinhoon confirmed it. Vesta turned to the girl.
"If he was chosen, what changes?"
The Princess supplied the explanation to Vesta's bewilderment.
"It means he's become something close to a pure spirit-being."
"...And here I thought I'd killed him. So he crawled out of death carrying a prize. Wonderful."
Vesta's eyes sharpened as he flung the bitter judgment at him. Narinhoon chuckled.
"I suppose one could put it that way."
"If you kept your life, you should have lived quietly. Why have you appeared before me again?"
Vesta made no effort to conceal the contempt on his face.
"Did you crawl back in disgrace just to brag about it?"
"It has indeed been a shameful and wretched existence."
"Were you so terrified of dying that you kicked your way out of the grave I dug for you?"
The orc was an instinctive beast—and a opportunistic one besides. Narinhoon, being an orc, would naturally have acted exactly as Vesta described.
So why, knowing that, do I feel disappointed?
"On that matter, allow me to express my gratitude. It was a rather fine grave."
"Then you should have died in it."
"That would not have been bad either."
Even beneath that voice, scraping down like a drawn blade, not a tremor of emotion showed.
"I asked you why you've come to find me, didn't I?"
"...I did."
"How would you feel if I told you I've come to collect on the death you dealt me?"
"Go to hell."
Narinhoon burst into a great, delighted roar of laughter.
"That's it! That's exactly how you'd answer!"
The muscles of an orc's face cannot compose expressions the way a human's can. Their laughter registers only as something grotesque and sinister.
Narinhoon's laughter was no exception.
"Before we debate my defeat and my death, I ought first to congratulate you on your victory. I've come to deliver that reward. Bestiarii."
The words came out of nowhere.
"And what exactly do you have to give?"
"An opportunity. A chance to set everything right—and a chance to save your world."
It was an answer Vesta could not parse.
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"I am at Ainuwail as we speak."
"...!"
Narinhoon had been close by all along.
"What are you after? Don't tell me the orcs dwelling on the plateau are also your handi—"
"Listen carefully. Before long, more than a hundred thousand centaurs will die."
A brief silence fell over Narinhoon's declaration.
"Nonsense. No one could do such a thing."
"Are you certain of that?"
Vesta leveled his blade as he spoke.
"Then explain."
"You already know the answer. There is exactly one being capable of it. Does such a being not exist in this world?"
Narinhoon lifted his head. When Vesta followed his gaze upward—
Kuuuuuuuuuum—
"A... dragon?"
A dragon was sweeping over the mountain ridge, its vast wings beating the air.
"A being that size could topple our most powerful rivals, don't you think?"
Yes. A dragon could manage it. It could erase the centaurs from the face of the earth—assuming they obeyed an orc's word.
Impossible.
There was no room for doubt. A dragon was not an animal a person could tame. Untouchable, and impossible to command.
Vesta sneered.
"You've caught delirium since I last saw you. Why would a dragon ever follow an orc? A creature that flies the sky and breathes fire—you think it would pledge loyalty to you?"
"You're right. No one has ever drawn loyalty from a dragon. But what about drawing its fury?"
Vesta's expression hardened in an instant.
"Here at Ainuwail, on the confined plateau plain, more than half of all the steppe centaurs have gathered. Now—what do you suppose happens if the dragon's fury crashes down upon them?"
"What are you planning to do?"
"Let me tell you an interesting story."
He pressed on with his explanation through the stiffened air.
"A dragon came to Ainuwail last summer—and instead of returning home, she stayed in a cave. She curled up and endured the winter. For a creature that hates the cold, that was no easy decision."
Cold sweat broke across his skin.
"Tell me, Bestiarii. Why would that dragon choose to remain in a cave rather than return to her homeland?"
My head is spinning. It feels like the sickness is rising from my gut.
The question had not been asked expecting an answer. Narinhoon grinned and carried on.
"She spent the whole year on this land—in this bitter, cursed cold of the northern highlands. It was no rational choice. Something bound her here, something she could not leave behind."
He understood. And at the same time, he wanted desperately to deny the instinct telling him so.
"She laid her egg at Ainuwail."
He wanted, in that moment, to tear Narinhoon limb from limb.
"She could not abandon it, and she could not carry it across the continent. So the dragon could not leave the steppe. The egg hatched in the depths of winter, and the mother wrapped her hatchling in her embrace and endured the cold together with it."
It was a moving story. Or it would have been, had it ended there.
"No one alive can slay a dragon. But the hatchling is another matter entirely—and more so still if it's a year-old infant that cannot yet fly."
"You mean to kill the child."
"Yes. I intend to crush it. Thoroughly."
Narinhoon admitted it without a flicker of shame.
"Bestiarii. Do you know how savage last winter was? Hundreds of orcs froze to death. And the northern winters here are worse still."
Now imagine it.
"This is a mother who endured that brutal cold to shield her own child. What do you think she will do if she loses the hatchling she cherished so dearly?"
If the rest of the world is spared, so be it. But this place—this place will be left nothing but ash.
Then it happened. The world convulsed, and the dreamscape gave way to the darkness of a cave.
"......"
He turned around, but the girl was gone. Narinhoon spoke.
"Come. Let's go."
A searing heat washed over him. Narinhoon grinned and walked straight ahead.
Gritting his teeth, Vesta followed.
"If this was your plan from the start, why station the orcs on the plateau?"
Even if they meant to withdraw in time, wasn't the risk far too great?
"The one who leads them has taken on a crucial role. It's a simple matter."
"Their purpose is to draw the eyes."
"Blood must spill where the dragon's gaze falls—and it must fall on orcs. Better they take the shape of public enemies, no? Hardly something to avoid."
"Bastards. All of you."
Vesta's face twisted.
"The dragon's fury could burn the very steppe your kind is so desperate to steal—and chase the flames all the way to your homeland in the Wasteland..."
If the steppe were rendered worthless, there would be no reason to pour such effort into seizing it at all.
"It doesn't matter."
"What...?"
"We are not a people who live upon the land. However hot the fire burns, it cannot consume the rock hollows carved into the Wasteland—just as no wildfire has ever burned out the countless chambers of an anthill."
Narinhoon continued his explanation, calm and level.
"And if the dragon's fury still has not spent itself after Ainuwail burns to the ground—then next, the world of the elves turns to ash. And we will be left holding the ashes."
"And what in the world would you do with ashes?"
"We would carve out one vast fire-field. Go a little hungry until the grass returns—we're used to that much."
A dynasty of wolves would rise upon the ashes, Narinhoon said.
"The mountain orcs discovered it—a plan dreamt up by a pack of madmen. Well? Doesn't it sound almost plausible?"
With that, Narinhoon came to a stop.
"Behold. This powerless little creature—the hatchling of the dragon that burns the sky."
Just as Narinhoon said, the thing looked utterly helpless.
Kracch!
Narinhoon brought his heel down on the hatchling's long neck.
Krrrrr—
The dragon thrashed feebly.
"I should have killed you back then."
"Don't berate yourself. Even without you, this plan would have been carried out. The orcs found this dragon's nest in the autumn of last year. Back then, I was nothing at all."
That, too, he said, was a truth he had learned only after the fact.
"If anything, it was because you failed to finish me that I was granted one final chance."
Vesta's brow furrowed.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Me. I am the one who will break this hatchling's neck, Bestiarii."
It was a role that could not be entrusted to just anyone—that was why Narinhoon had been chosen.
Bitter as it was to admit, among all the orcs, there was no one better suited.
"All you have to do is stop me."
"What?"
"If you stop me, this tragedy never comes to pass. Because I will have failed in my role. Isn't that right?"
After a moment of silence, Vesta asked, his voice measured and cold.
"Then tell me—why did you reveal all of this to me?"
Vesta could not read Narinhoon's mind at all.
"Because I had no wish to hunt you from a position of advantage. That is no way to face a victor."
The cold sweat had soaked his back through completely.
"Let us fight for fate itself, Bestiarii. If you fall, Ainuwail burns."
Ah—and Narinhoon grinned.
"Have no fear. Even if you lose to me, I will spare your life."
Then wouldn't their score be even? Narinhoon said so.
"And then we fight again—upon the ashes of the world."
Vesta twisted the neck of the dragon within Narinhoon's dream.
And it met its end as easily as any mere animal—far, far too easily.