High Orc (3)
"You gathered every race of the steppe into one place, and you thought nothing would go wrong?"
There was a strange certainty in the words. They couldn't be dismissed as idle chatter. Vesta wanted to shake off the unease settling in his chest, but with no way of knowing what was happening outside, that proved difficult.
"I need to get out of this dream."
He tightened his grip on the sword. He needed flame — and not just any flame, but fire powerful enough to bring down Narinhoon Ibaatar.
He could feel the sword crying out. Now, at this moment, it could breathe fire. Vesta was certain of it.
It's responding.
Did the blade remember Narinhoon Ibaatar? Did it still acknowledge the beast that had first awakened it as a worthy rival?
If so, all the better. He would swing it.
"If I cut you down, I'll wake up. Won't I?"
"Then try it and see."
Without answering, Vesta stepped forward. The sword glowed a deep crimson.
Swish—
"Ngh."
The scorching air trailing the blade made Narinhoon's burns throb and ache.
—Is this fear? A trembling born of fear?
Impossible. This was ecstasy. This was rapture. This was the moment he had longed for above all others.
The hot air burst with a sharp crack. Sparks leapt from empty space — heat so fierce it made his scarred, burn-mottled muscles contract.
It made him feel, vividly, that he was alive.
Vesta did not stop. He swung the blade again.
A red arc of impossible cleanliness cut the air. A beautiful, powerful line.
"Bestiarii!"
Fwoooosh.
Flame erupted, tearing through the dreamscape Narinhoon had conjured — shredding the power of the wolf he wielded—
"Baatar!"
Through the gap the flames had carved, the Princess — wearing the form of a young girl — came leaping out. The instant Narinhoon sensed her intervention, he swung his blade in a wild, brutal arc.
"Fall back—!"
A violent storm swept everything away as Narinhoon flung out his hand and roared.
"It has already begun! Nothing can stop it now!"
The plan had been exposed, and every piece on the board had fallen into place. Narinhoon would not stop.
When the storm finally subsided, Vesta no longer existed within the dream.
The cave landscape Narinhoon had conjured burned away to nothing, leaving only the lake, stark and deserted.
Vesta had awoken from the dream.
"So you're coming, then."
—Coming to kill me, warrior?
"Yes. Come at me."
Let them fight — wagering victory and defeat, their very races, the steppe and the wasteland alike. He was ready.
In the face of the battle between the two of them, even the great Queen of the Elves — even the dragon that burned the very sky — would be nothing more than spectators.
"Narinhoon."
It was just as Narinhoon was sensing the prelude to battle that it happened.
Someone called his name. Narinhoon had never invited anyone else into his dream.
Which meant an uninvited guest had forced the door open and walked in.
"Karakh. So you were here."
Narinhoon existed within the illusion; Karakh stood before the lake in the waking world. And yet each perceived the other.
Through the shaman's power he himself had never known he possessed, Karakh pierced through the illusion and saw Narinhoon existing within it.
"Narinhoon. You bastard."
A voice that seethed and bubbled. A face contorted with fury. Every emotion he felt was laid bare.
"Remarkable. So the shaman's blood has awakened."
"Shut your mouth, you traitor to your own people."
He could not contain his rage. Through the shaman's spiritual sight, he had been listening in on the entire exchange between Narinhoon and Vesta.
"What have you done?"
He had learned that Narinhoon had revealed the details of the operation to the Khan's consort. An immense fury and sense of betrayal hammered through every inch of Karakh's body, and he hurled his accusations at Narinhoon like stones.
"Traitor! You put the fate of our entire race on your personal scales — and you still call yourself a leader?!"
He looked ready to tear Narinhoon's throat out with his teeth then and there.
"A traitor, am I. Yes. I suppose that's how it looks through your eyes."
Unlike Karakh, who vomited out his emotions in torrents, Narinhoon's expression remained flat and unmoved.
"You — a warrior like you — why would you...!"
Perhaps it was the rain he'd endured for too long. Or perhaps it was the sheer desperation in his heart. Either way, his voice cracked and split.
Karakh had regarded Narinhoon as a rival. But at the same time, he had trusted him deeply.
He had believed Narinhoon would see the plan through to the end, that he would fulfill the orcs' deepest wish. And that someday, the two of them would clash for the throne itself. Karakh had acknowledged Narinhoon — truly.
If not himself, then Narinhoon was the one who deserved to be king.
Perhaps he had even believed it that far.
Not anymore.
"You have no right to wear the crown."
He could not entrust the future of the orcs to Narinhoon Ibaatar.
"All this, ruined over a single human?"
"Foolish. You cling to the outer shell of things."
"You dare lecture me on foolishness — you, a traitor who sold out his own race?!"
Karakh drew his sword in a rough, violent motion. A young warrior's blade — a blade that cut deep, and had taken the lives of countless enemies.
And yet Vesta could feel nothing special beyond that.
"The operation has begun. Go command the wolves."
"Narinhoon!"
"Think whatever you like of me. I have no intention of justifying myself, nor of being understood. But I will tell you one thing."
—If that boy cannot be brought down, the plan fails regardless.
"Bul-l-shit! What could that boy possibly be!"
Did he not know?
"The wind of the steppe does not bless a mere fool."
A human who proves his valor before the centaurs. A human who stands beside the Fairy Queen. A human chosen by the Beast Princess. Did Karakh truly believe another such man could simply appear?
As far as Narinhoon knew, no such human had ever existed — not once in all of history.
"The wind of the steppe is already blowing in his favor."
"Even granting that — there were a thousand ways to kill the boy. He could have been shot down with an arrow. An army could have been summoned to crush him."
"Ah. So your proposal is to summon an army to assassinate the Khan's consort?"
Narinhoon sneered, as if he could hardly believe the words were meant seriously.
If the consort died to an ambush — and worse, died at the hands of an army — then from that moment on, it would no longer end as a private contest between Narinhoon and Vesta.
"Enough! I will set your mistakes right myself. I will cut the breath from that boy's throat with my own hands, carve off his ears, and tear them to pieces before your very eyes."
A declaration that he would steal the hunt from the hunter. It was an insult bordering on a curse.
Yet Narinhoon's face did not so much as twitch. If anything, he chuckled — a low, dry sound.
His answer was simple.
"If you can."
Plip. Plip. Blood dripped from the tip of a blade.
"Oh, dear."
Blood now lined the feast tables where free liquor had once flowed freely. Satyrs lay sprawled across the ground, gasping for breath.
"You bastards... aren't you... afraid of the Khan's... retribution...?"
"You should have known your place, then."
It had all happened in the span of a breath.
One satyr lost his mind — one who had been drinking especially heavily. When one stepped forward, two and three followed. Then several of them tangled together, and the chaos ignited. A satyr's great sharp horn tore open an orc's cheek, and the biting smell of blood hung in the air.
The orcs had been drinking too. With their eyes rolled white, they showed no mercy in their blows.
Screams. And between them, brief bursts of cheering. Blades flashed, and bodies fell. The line of no return had been crossed.
The cornered satyrs, fighting for their lives, raised their weapons, and the orcs drove through the herd of goats like wolves.
And now—
When there was nothing left to cut, they stopped. The orcs stood atop a mountain of corpses.
"We are... members of the Alliance. You... urgh... are enemies from without."
An orc warrior snorted. Hiring another race's hands even for your revenge?
"Outsourcing your vengeance to another species. A revenge that flimsy isn't very frightening."
A satyr muttered through swollen, half-closed eyes.
"Blood... will flow... for this."
"Yes. I imagine it will."
And so it would. Blood had always been the price paid for blood.
He knew what they had done. If they had stopped at making an example of things—
—the situation would have been far better.
But what beast, having smelled blood, does not lose itself to the frenzy?
The orc warrior looked around. Corpses and pools of blood, nothing more.
"We're done for."
Every race of the steppe had fled. Only orcs and humans remained at the scene.
—Not a single woman screaming.
The women seemed to be from the wasteland. They were not cowering in terror. Rather, they looked almost bored, casually wiping the blood from their bodies without a second thought.
And the human merchant commanding them was much the same.
—He doesn't seem bothered in the slightest.
The orc warrior called out to Orion, who stood motionless in the distance.
"Merchant."
"Yes?"
"Could you part with a bit more liquor?"
Before Orion could even ask why, the orc explained himself.
"Looks to me like the fighting is going to drag on a while longer."
Well, in that case. Orion nodded readily.
"Take as much as you like."
"The liquor's still free, is it?"
"Of course."
Thinking of the blood the orcs would scatter across this land — and, at the same time, of the blood the orcs themselves would shed — Orion could afford to give away all the liquor they wanted.
Precious as drink might be, it was never worth as much as blood.
"Did you scatter the wine knowing this would happen?"
Orion gave no answer. He only chuckled, low and dry.