Reunion (1)
"Ushun."
Still crouched low, Vesta swept the hair back from Ushun's face.
"There's nothing to worry about."
And then—
FWOOOOOOOOM—!
A colossal wall of heat engulfed the mountain ridge.
—!
Blinding light and unbearable heat swallowed the two of them whole. Their eyes snapped shut by pure instinct. Jaws clamped, breath held.
Vesta knew it in his gut—he could not breathe in. His lungs and airways would cook from the inside out.
Before the power of a dragon, a human was helpless. Even the simple act of breathing was denied.
There's nothing to worry about.
All he could feel was the presence of Ushun, held tight in his arms. That was enough to calm him. He wished for it, desperately.
Let her be safe.
More than his own life, he wished for the safety of this brave guardian. That was all he asked.
She'll be fine. She's Tamugai Ushun, after all.
Wasn't she the Iron Woman?
Ushun would be fine—and so would Bia. The two of them were the toughest women the steppe had ever raised.
The flames did not linger long. The mountain was bare rock, with nothing to feed on.
Had it been a trail choked with grass and trees, the blaze would have spread into an inferno, consuming Vesta and Ushun alike. However they might have dodged the fire itself, they would never have survived the choking smoke.
Vesta broke into a rough cough. The air was hot enough to strangle him, though not quite hot enough to cook his lungs. He pounded weakly on Ushun's back.
"Ushun."
No answer came. Don't tell me—
"Ushun!"
"Still breathing."
A voice heavy with exhaustion.
"Are you all right?"
"Breathing's fine, so I'm fine."
Ushun pushed herself upright, blinking as she looked him over.
"You're in one piece. Good—your face didn't get scorched."
"Worry about your own body. Let me take a look."
Vesta examined her from head to toe.
"How is it?"
"Huh? You've got bruises all over your face."
The swelling was alarming. Had a boulder come flying at her?
"Oh. That wasn't the dragon. I had... a bit of an incident on the way here."
"Any injuries besides your face? Your hair's a little singed at the back, but that's it."
"What? Seriously?"
"You'll be wearing it short for a while."
Ushun scratched at her head and let out a long sigh.
"What about under the armor? How bad is it?"
The armor must have heated up badly. She could have burned herself.
"I'm fine. I had padding on underneath."
"Thank goodness. Now we just need to find Bia."
"She'll be all right."
"I know she will."
He swept his watering eyes across the ridge.
"...Unbelievable."
Only moments ago, a cold wind had swept across this very ground.
"It doesn't make sense."
A vast shimmer of heat rose into the sky. This was a stretch of land wide enough to wage a battle on—yet a single living creature had burned it bare. It had rewritten the environment itself.
Where's Narman?
He was nowhere to be seen. But he wouldn't have been caught in the firestorm. Vesta was almost certain—Narman was not a man who died like that.
Find Bia first. Then meet with Ashtien and settle things. Narman comes after.
He had no intention of letting the man go. Left alive, there was no telling what he would do next.
I'm only putting it off. That's all.
His first priority was stopping the dragon. And the steppe—the tribes, the people. Keeping Ashtien safe.
Vesta glared across the shimmering heat haze.
"See you soon, Narman."
It wouldn't take long. If he could help it, he would face the man again today. Fight him again. End it for good.
Narman. You won't walk away from this, will you?
Of course not. I know you. We drew each other's blood on this mountain.
The gladiator had stepped into the ring, and the wolf had caught the scent of a bestiarius's blood.
And so, beneath the sacred law of the arena—
We settle this on this mountain.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
"You two saved my life."
"It was mostly Ushun's doing, not mine."
"Oh, come off it."
It was sheer fortune that the fire hadn't spread further.
"You got out of the way pretty cleanly yourself."
Gansinbae, too, had come through without a scratch.
The stallion gave a series of proud snorts.
"A clever horse, aren't you."
Ushun offered the compliment through her grotesquely swollen face.
"So what exactly happened to your face?"
"Ah. Some lunatic picked a fight with me on the way over. Nothing worth mentioning."
"Nothing worth mentioning, she says."
She was an absolute wreck.
What kind of monster could beat Ushun's face into that state? Had she run into a pack of club-swinging orcs?
"Did you meet a bear or something?"
Ushun waved her hand in disgust.
"A bear would've been a mercy. I met a man worse than any bear. Theo? Something like that."
"Theo?"
"Said he used to be a gladiator. You might know him, Vesta."
"Theo Baranthios?"
"Oh. That does sound like the name."
An unexpected name out of Ushun's mouth.
The Theo I know?
The Colosseum's greatest battle maniac. A blood-soaked madman. The strongest human in the Empire. God's mistake. To fighters everywhere, the man was revered as the demigod at the end of the earth.
In a word: the most dangerous man in the Empire.
"You went a full round with that man?"
"I did. Absolute lunatic."
If her opponent had been Theo, injury wasn't even a question worth asking. He was the genuine article—a true madman. Surviving at all was something to be grateful for.
This was the freak who beat lions and bears to death with his bare hands.
"Who won?"
It wasn't a question to ask in front of a wounded woman, and Vesta wasn't the type to ask it, either.
But this is a different case entirely.
Ushun against Theo. As far as Vesta was concerned, it was a match that could barely happen even in dreams. It would have been stranger not to be curious.
"Why on earth would you ask me that."
For once, she dodged the question.
"I see."
"Hey? I never said anything. Why do you sound like you already know?"
"Well, you know..."
Would the winner react this indifferently? No—she'd have been grinning ear to ear, barking out a booming laugh. The result was plain enough.
Vesta quietly looked away from her gaze.
"It was a draw. A draw."
"I see."
"Ugh, I don't buy it."
The informal speech slipped out of her naturally now.
"Come to think of it, it wasn't even a draw. I took one round off him. If it'd been an official match, I'd have won."
Uncharacteristically, she was rambling.
"Ushun."
"What!"
"Why are your hands so burned?"
At Vesta's words, she stuffed both fists behind her back.
"Let me say this loud and clear—I did NOT use spirit magic because I was losing."
"I never said anything."
"I did it to save you, all right? I didn't have time, so I finished it fast and hauled myself back here."
"Understood."
"I mean it!"
"I said I understand."
Ushun grumbled on, scowling.
"What happened to Theo?"
"Still alive, probably. The bastard was laughing after taking a lightning bolt to the face? Honestly. Like a lunatic."
Somehow, she sounded a little wistful about it.
"Damn it. That leaves a bad taste. If I'm going to lose, I want to lose spectacularly. That's my style."
"Losing means dying."
"Not scared."
Had it not been for the emergency, she wouldn't have avoided the duel either. She and Theo were cut from the same cloth—born fighters, through and through.
"Next time I see him, I'll smash his face in."
"If you two end up fighting again, invite me along. I want to watch."
"Ha. Then pay for a seat."
"I will. That's worth the price of admission."
Vesta wasn't much of a fight spectator, but a duel between Ushun and Theo was another matter entirely. That match would be worth watching even if he had to be dragged there in chains.
The steppe's greatest champion against the Empire's strongest fighter.
Who wouldn't be curious? Every gladiator in existence—every citizen of the Empire, and the Emperor himself—would be clamoring to see it ringside.
It was, quite literally, a match that might come along once in a thousand years.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
"Status report?"
"No contact yet."
"It's sizing us up. I see."
Vesta passed the elves and entered the tribe's camp. Before long, he found Ahor and Ashtien, both scanning the sky.
"Baatar!"
Ashtien's eyes went wide as she hurried toward him.
"You're unharmed?"
"Yes."
Her hand traced down the side of his face. She seemed to have a mountain of things to say, but she swallowed every one of them instead of letting them out.
"The dragon breathed fire toward the ridge. Do you know how worried I was that it had caught you?"
Truly, an uncanny intuition.
"I have much I want to say to you—but I see the situation leaves no room for it."
"Are the people being evacuated?"
"They are. But it's slow going."
She explained that the dragon seemed to have memorized the mountain trails.
"Every time a crowd passes through a pass, it deliberately swoops low. The people are frozen with terror. They can't move fast enough."
"...It's intelligent."
Not a mere beast. It might well possess a mind as sharp as a human's.
"We cannot stop the evacuation. If the fire reaches us here, everyone dies."
She said she was coaxing the terrified survivors down the mountain, barely managing it.
"We have to draw the dragon's eye. Pin it down, keep it occupied."
Before long, dragon and elves would each set their plans in motion.
"Get some rest. There isn't much any of us can do at the moment anyway."
Ashtien clapped a hand on Vesta's shoulder.
"Ah—and it might be a good time to speak with your teacher."
"...What are you talking about?"
"I have no context for it either. I never heard the full story."
She said that a man claiming to be Vesta's teacher had come looking for him.
"Go and see him. A reunion between master and disciple—I won't stand in the way of it."
Ashtien turned her head to the side. Vesta followed her gaze—and there he was.
"You scruffy little land-dwarf."
A familiar face stood waiting.