The Funeral of Two Wolves
Had he been defeated?
He had lost an arm and his weapon in the same breath, so yes—defeat was the only word for it. He knew, with a primal certainty, that it was over.
Born as something the world looked upon with unease, grown strong through his own solitary will, and proud of a life lived in endless challenge—the life of one orc was drawing to its close.
Everything I had was insufficient.
Karakh had underestimated Vesta. One might even call it arrogance—a blind faith in his own strength and his own lucky stars.
My life, and everything born of my life... fell short of that boy's life.
It had been a misjudgment. The belief that a human life could never be tougher than an orc's. The certainty that human lives were fragile, worthless things. He had pronounced judgment too soon.
And so he had slighted Vesta's life, and failed to foresee the ferocious blade that life had forged.
If only. If only Karakh had made different choices. If only he had been given another chance.
If he had focused, as Narinhoon counseled, on seeing Vesta's true nature. If he had acknowledged Vesta's swordsmanship and insisted on a mounted duel instead.
If he had cast aside every shred of pride and brought his army. If he had struck from ambush. If he had laid traps and hunted like a predator.
Perhaps everything would have been different.
Perhaps his life would have flowed down a slightly different course.
That is to say—if Karakh had been born a little earlier. If he had fought not as a fifteen-year-old whelp, but as the seasoned warrior he would become in a few more years. If he had lived to see his given talent bloom in full.
And above all—if there had been someone to tell him of his bloodline and his origin. If, armed with that knowledge, he had awakened and honed the shamanic powers of the orc shamans from an early age.
So much would have been different.
Karakh was a man born to a great destiny, unlike any other. It had been in his hands from the very beginning; all he had ever needed was to become aware of it.
There had been countless "ifs." The fifteen-year-old orc could have made better choices than these.
And even if the fire kindled from all those ifs had still fallen short of Vesta—
He could have fought a far more desperate and glorious battle. He might have called it a worthy defeat, the way Narinhoon had redefined himself in his own struggle against Vesta.
He would not have felt such crushing, overwhelming helplessness.
If not me, then who will open the age of the Wolf Kings?
Who else would bring kingship and a nation to the orcs?
Karakh felt helplessness, and with it a bitter, gnawing regret. But he did not wish for a second chance.
Had the world not already stolen from him more lives than he could count? He knew its rules far too well to harbor empty hope.
The victor. The one who holds the blade. They alone decide everything.
At last, Vesta raised his sword high.
"Karakh. I never looked down on you. Our paths to kingship were simply different."
It was hardly an adequate consolation, but he would end this swiftly and cleanly all the same.
"......"
Karakh did not answer. He did not even attempt a counterattack.
Vesta's blade descended toward Karakh—
Heeeeiing—!
"...!"
It was Gansinbae's cry. Not a death knell—it felt like a warning. Vesta kicked off the ground and stepped back a pace.
Grrunk—!
The wolf-man. The beast had barreled straight through Gansinbae's guard.
This creature... he knew he would fall to my blade, and still he threw his body forward.
He had chosen to hurl himself into the path of death.
Vesta did not panic. With cold composure, he swung his sword, and it carved deep into the wolf's flank.
There was a soft, yielding resistance. He had unmistakably raked through innards.
A mortal wound.
The counterattack would come now. Vesta meant to evade the wolf-man's dying lunge, then deliver the final blow.
But the creature did not come for Vesta. It sank its teeth into the back of Karakh's neck.
He understood at once. It meant to flee with Karakh.
It would throw away its own life... to save its brother?
It hardly seemed like a beast at all. Vesta planted his foot wide and swept his blade upward.
Thwack. The wolf-man's hind ankle was severed. At the same moment, the deep gash along its flank tore open, and blood came pouring out.
These were not wounds a body could keep moving through.
Yet the creature did not stop. It ran, Karakh clamped in its jaws. It ran.
If this goes on, I'll lose them.
Vesta whistled for Gansinbae.
Phweeee—
He swung up into the saddle in one swift motion.
They're already too far.
The creature was little more than a blur. With no other choice, Vesta drew his bow and pulled the string taut, his aim trembling violently.
Thwang—
He loosed the arrow somehow, but he felt no telltale jolt of a hit. Grimacing, Vesta drove Gansinbae onward.
The terrain was wretched—the horse could not run freely. No doubt the creature knew that too, and had chosen the roughest path on purpose.
"Damn it."
They reached a steep downhill slope, a rocky grade where stones jutted out at every angle. On ground like this, a wolf would run faster and more surely than any horse.
Pursuit had become pointless.
"...Stop!"
Heeeing.
There was nothing left but to wait until dawn broke, then follow the trail of blood.
I have no time to wait.
He had to stop Narinhoon.
That mattered more than finishing off one gravely wounded orc warrior.
Vesta spoke with grudging admiration.
"...They say orcs are a stubborn, unkillable breed."
The saying had never rung more true.
Having abandoned the chase, Vesta returned to where they had fought.
"Baatar."
Via, too, seemed to have finished her own battle.
"I wounded mine badly, but it got away in the end. How did you fare, Via?"
She would not have captured her quarry outright. To be precise, she had likely never intended to.
To take an archer, one had to walk straight into the place where he hid—his lair itself.
A dangerous thing to do.
There was no telling what dangers lurked within that hidden place.
Via had done her part simply by fixing the archer's attention upon her.
Via held out something that looked like pale, grizzled-white hair.
Orc fur, she said.
"It was an old orc. Cautious, and sharp-sensed."
A veteran warrior. There had been a few in the arena as well—all of them opponents you could never afford to relax against. Some old gladiators had even achieved the remarkable feat of never being killed at all, dying instead of "natural causes."
"I believe this orc may be the one who killed Kairan's successor."
She meant the orc who had loosed an arrow into the successor's throat.
"That tracks. I couldn't make out its face at the time, but it didn't feel young. Its movements were far too practiced."
So there are orcs of exceptional caliber beyond Karakh and Narinhoon.
"What would you have us do?"
"I'd like to run them down and finish this, but there's no time."
Via agreed.
"Orcs and wolf-men see well in the dark. A night pursuit would take considerable effort, and even then there'd be no guarantee of results."
She was right. He had to let it go.
"Then we move."
It left a bitter taste in his mouth.
As it tumbled and slid down the broken slope, the wolf-man's movements grew sluggish.
Death was near now—near enough that no amount of will could turn it aside. Even a mere beast could sense that much.
Krrrr—
Too much blood had been lost. More than half its innards had likely spilled out as well. The loss had made its body lighter, in a way, but honestly speaking, the fact that it still drew breath at all bordered on miracle.
It could run no farther.
Gently, carefully, it unclenched its jaw. The wolf-man laid its leader—its companion of so many long years—down upon the ground.
Karakh's body slumped limply to the earth. He looked up at the wolf-man.
"You should have run."
Why would a beast defy the very instinct of survival for something as needless as feeling?
But he could not scold it any longer. He could feel his own strength failing.
The creature laid its head against him. Spent beyond bearing, perhaps it simply wanted to lean on him.
"...Just like ten years ago."
It would have been early spring. He had found the creature in a rocky den and raised it like an elder brother would.
When it was small and young, it used to come lean against him exactly like this.
Karakh rested his hand on its head. He stroked its skull, its nape. The wolf had no hands with which to do the same—and so it licked, a little, the blood crusted on Karakh's face.
And that was all. It shuddered once, then collapsed in a heap, and never rose again.
Karakh's face contorted.
I have to check his condition.
He had to rise. He had to see to his brother's wounds.
Out of sheer habit, he reached out with his right arm.
"Kgh."
The arm that had been cut away. He had almost caught himself on the raw stump, nearly driving it into the dirt. Something about it was so absurd that laughter welled up out of him.
He pushed himself upright with his left hand alone. This sensation of raising oneself with a single arm—it felt like something he would never, ever grow used to.
"...You suffered for me."
There was no need to examine the wounds. Nearly all the blood inside the body had drained away, like the meat humans ate. Meat with every last drop of blood pressed out of it.
"If there is a next life for us—don't let yourself be caught by me then."
Karakh recited the funeral rites for his brother.
Perhaps it was because he spoke the words of passage with a body that could no longer press its palms together—but it felt as though he were chanting not only his brother's rites, but his own alongside them.
And when the last of the rites had been spoken,
Karakh tore into his brother's body and devoured it. With one hand, slowly, and with the utmost devotion.
That was the funeral of the two wolves.