The Great Battle (3)
"Mr. Ahak. Were you, by any chance, someone remarkable?"
"Drop the 'by any chance,' if you would. I've been remarkable from the very beginning."
"Have you, now?"
"If it weren't for me, you'd both be under interrogation by now."
Honestly, Ahak had fully accounted for the possibility of being detained. A man and a woman traveling with a werewolf in tow — to any observer, they would have looked suspicious beyond words.
And yet all my worrying turned out to be for nothing.
The elves had not only provided them with a place to rest, they had brought breakfast as well. They had even given Spotty an enormous piece of fresh meat to sink his teeth into.
The nomads were said to place great importance on hospitality, but this went too far by any measure.
"I know. It's all thanks to you, Mr. Ahak."
Rhea was hardly blind to the fact that every bit of this treatment had sprung from Ahak's reputation. She might have been naive to the ways of the world, but she was not without perception.
"Tell me about your disciple."
"He's a rotten piece of work."
"And yet he's the husband of the Elf Queen?"
Ahak claimed he had no idea how such a thing had come to pass, draining his cup again and again as he spoke.
"Ooh, so this is what properly brewed airag tastes like."
He rounded his eyes in wonder at the flavor.
"Forget the drink. What kind of man is he?"
"Well, now. Why are you so curious about another woman's husband?"
"Oh, come now. There you go again with your barbed remarks."
Ahak shot her a look of open displeasure. But he could not withstand the bright, sparkling intensity of Rhea's gaze, and began a stammering explanation.
"Well, he's a decently handsome little whelp, I suppose. Looks-wise, you might take him for a bastard prince."
"Wow."
A romance between a human boy handsome as a prince and a beautiful elf queen — it was the kind of story that stirred a young girl's heart.
"From what I hear, he was a gladiator who made a name for himself in the capital. Fought brilliantly, they say. And it wasn't as though he lacked for brains, either. Though with a master as remarkable as his, I suppose that was only natural."
And just like that, by the end of it, the story had become about Ahak himself.
"He sounds extraordinary just from the telling. The Fairy Queen's husband really isn't a position just anyone can hold, is it?"
"An extraordinary rotten piece of work, that's what he is."
Ahak sneered, his face contorted with resentment.
"The only reason that wretch ever even crossed paths with the Fairy Queen was because of my help in the first place."
"Really?"
"Of course."
And it was true — at least, if you looked only at the outcome.
He didn't want to go, so I dragged him there against his will. Which is how he got captured by an elf slaver in the first place. Yes. However you look at it, he owes it all to me.
Not a shred of guilt troubled his conscience. It was shamelessness beyond all bounds. Had Vesta been standing beside him, he would surely have delivered a knuckle-rub to his skull with all his might.
Knowing nothing of the full circumstances, Rhea could only part her lips in a small gasp of admiration.
And so the conversation flowed on.
"The chieftain, was it? When that woman comes back, what do you plan to talk to her about?"
The chieftain — she must mean that small human woman. She had ushered the two of them inside, then promptly excused herself.
[I will return to you as soon as the council concludes.]
She had said something about attending a council, he recalled. That would mean Ahak had come down from the mountain at precisely the hour the council had broken off.
"...I have something urgent to convey. I don't know whether you will believe me."
That was what he intended to say. That they must come down from the mountain at once. If possible, he wanted to beg the Khan to order an evacuation.
It may all mean nothing.
Who would trust the words of an aging human scholar? Especially when the words in question were something like — Ainuwail might burn?
And yet even if he could not persuade a single soul, someone had to speak.
That was the price of living as a man of knowledge.
"I see."
Rhea could not have imagined the burden Ahak carried, not even in her wildest conjecture.
It'll be about elves anyway, I expect.
Nothing of real importance, surely. And even if it were important, it would have nothing to do with her. So she had concluded, and so she let the matter rest.
"You said your disciple was a gladiator?"
"That's right. A rather famous one, by all accounts."
"The boy gladiator... I feel like I've heard of him."
So he really was famous, then.
Look at her however one pleased, Rhea seemed the last person alive to have any connection with an arena. Picturing her seated in the stands, she could not have looked more out of place.
And yet this same Rhea was reacting as if the name meant something to her. Which must mean Vesta truly had been a gladiator of some renown.
"I don't know much about gladiators, but he certainly did fight well."
The moment a sword was in his hand, he became a different man entirely. That blunt, unremarkable face would turn as fierce and murderous as a wild beast's.
"The strongest person I've ever known is Narinhoon. How does he compare?"
"Compare in what way, may I ask?"
"How did he measure up against Narinhoon?"
What a thoroughly pointless question. Ahak's face twisted into a scowl.
"What an absurd thing to—"
Hummm—
Ripples spread across the surface of his cup. A vibration too faint to matter. And yet, for reasons he could not name, a chill crawled up his spine.
Kyiing—
Spotty crouched low. The beast was not watching the ground before them. He was looking up. At the sky, that is.
Why?
"Oh my. What's gotten into him?"
"Shh."
"Pardon?"
"Quiet."
Ahak focused on the sounds around them. The tongue of the centaurs. The tongue of the elves. The tongue of the satyrs. And then—
Ahak rose to his feet.
"Run."
"Mr. Ahak, what's wrong?"
Ahak seized Rhea by the shoulders and shouted.
"We have to run! Now!"
"M-Mr. Ahak?"
"No, no. We'd be safer under elven protection here, so—"
"What on earth are you talking about?"
----!
"What... what is that sound?"
A voice brimming with fury. It was coming. No — it was already close.
She flung open the tent flap and stepped out.
Ahak raised his head. And not only him. The orcs, the centaurs, the satyrs and the beastfolk alike — perhaps even the orcs lurking among the rocky crags.
Every creature that had lived its whole life believing itself the predator — every one of them now prey — looked up at the sky.
[A dragon.]
Someone said it. Ahak felt as though a hundred languages were converging into one sound. No translation was needed. They all meant the same thing.
A flying dragon. A synonym for annihilation — so Ahak thought.
The unrealistically massive winged beast writhed its body in midair, as if surging up from the deep.
—!
The sky turned red. He raised a hand, and his skin prickled with heat. With a scholar's mind, he gauged the distance between himself and that light. Far. Far too far — and yet the heat was reaching him across even that distance. It was a source of heat beyond all reason.
The breath the dragon vomited into the empty air burned away the clouds above the highland.
[What is the meaning of this!]
An elf woman in magnificent regalia flung aside the tent flap, eyes gone wide as she spoke in the elvish tongue.
She said something to the chieftain standing at the entrance.
[Tamugai Ushun!]
[Yes, Khan.]
[Mount a courier horse. Find Vesta and Via, and tell them to return.]
[I depart at once, my lady.]
The Khan caught the woman by the arm as she turned to go.
[I entrust this to you.]
[Fear nothing. I am a daughter of the Tamugai.]
The chieftain smiled with supreme confidence.
[The Khan knows well that ours is the clan that commands the lightning.]
The woman called Ushun swung herself onto her horse. It looked a beast of fine strength. The instant she was mounted she drove the horse at full gallop, ascending the mountain trail.
Everyone was reacting to the dragon's appearance.
And in the midst of it all, Ahak stood frozen, utterly at a loss.
"Spotty. Get up. We're going back."
It was Rhea's voice. What on earth was she saying?
Ahak turned to look at her.
"Where do you think you're going?"
"Back. We have to go back."
"That's madness."
Ahak gripped her by the shoulders.
"Can't you see what's happening?"
"There are slaves held captive in the orc settlement. If things go wrong, someone has to be there to free them."
Ahak's brow furrowed deep.
"And that's your reason for refusing to seek asylum?"
"Yes."
Rhea squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again.
"Actually... no. That isn't a lie, but there's another reason too."
She looked at Ahak with an unflinching, level gaze.
"...When that enormous man appeared. He shielded us, at the risk of his own life."
Ahak waved a hand, his expression sour.
"You're mistaken. He did it to save his own hide. I'm not the sort of man who concerns himself with others."
"The result was the same, either way. So I won't hide it from you."
"Damn it all. Think whatever you like."
"Mr. Ahak. Have you ever heard of confession? Or of penance?"
Ahak was no scholar of theology. But when one devoted a life to studying particular peoples and races, one inevitably came to know their cultures and faiths as well.
"You mean the doctrine of the heathen faith, don't you? The one where sins are forgiven through confession."
The believers of that faith, too, held a belief in the world after death. Those who had done good would ascend to paradise, while sinners would fall into a hell of fire — or so it was said.
For them to be saved, their sins had to be forgiven — and for that, they needed the confession and penance Rhea had named.
"I'm not a priest, so I cannot hear a confession. But penance... a conversion of the heart, that I can—"
Ahak could not follow where she was going.
"I'm afraid I don't—"
"I intend to receive his penance."
"From whom, exactly?"
Here, on the steppe, who among them was versed in the doctrine of that foreign faith? In such a land, who would ever confess a wrongdoing? Who would ever beg forgiveness?
It couldn't be.
"From the King of the Blue Riders."
Narinhoon Ibaatar, in other words.
"Impossible."
The man shed blood without a flicker of hesitation. King of the savages. A beast who named himself beast. A herald of war. A man who stood towering atop heaps of severed heads.
Did it seem plausible that such a man would ever bow his head to anyone?
"He begs forgiveness from no one."
Ahak knew this well enough — and Rhea knew it better. She had watched Narinhoon longer than Ahak ever had, and far more closely.
"Rhea. You..."
She only gazed back at him like a missionary bearing some sublime conviction. Those gentle eyes were stubborn now with a strength they had never shown before.
"I only just understood it. The reason I came to this land."
I will receive his penance. That must be why I came to the wasteland.
Rhea bowed her head once to Ahak, in a small, formal inclination. Then she turned and walked away.
Ahak did not reach out to stop her.