High Elf

"Ugh. No need to bleed this one out."

Uushun clicked her tongue. The wild-dog man she'd been tasked with dressing was in a truly wretched state.

"Well, we'd have had to drain it anyway. Isn't this less work for us?"

It was true that the elves of the steppe treated blood as a resource. That did not mean they regarded the draining of it as some kind of sin.

"Still feels like a waste, though."

More a muttered why throw away something that good? than a genuine complaint. The orcs took the principle to far more extreme lengths, but the elves, when the need arose, bled a carcass properly enough.

"Looks like the blood's already soaked all the way through."

To Uushun's eye, the meat would be spoiled before they even got it home. A prairie elf's iron stomach could probably still choke it down—though there was a fair chance of gagging over dinner.

"Nasty business. Wolf meat's already got no flavor to speak of."

"How do you mean to dress it, then?"

Asmur's question earned a perfectly casual answer.

"Can't even hang this one upside down."

"So we skin it first?"

"Yeah. Peel it, cut it into pieces, and haul those."

With so few hands, even a prize kill became a chore once the fighting was over.

"Hurry it up. You'll draw eagles and wolves."

"Then we just take extra hides."

While the elven women put their heads together over the problem, Vesta was speaking with the Khan.

"That was quite the skill you showed."

At the Khan's praise, Vesta ran a hand through his curls. No matter how often he heard it from her, he never quite got used to it.

"You made the kill, so the byproducts are yours as well. They'll skin it and deliver the hide to you."

Elves who skin hides. A bloodthirsty sort of fairy folk. They'd never make it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠into a storybook.

Vesta nodded and watched the elves at their gory work.

"Hey—everybody clear out. I'm flipping it."

Uushun rolled up her sleeves. Asmur clicked her tongue.

"You could just tie a rope and have a horse roll it over."

"Too much trouble. I'll just flip it real quick."

Uushun set both palms against the wild-dog man's flank.

"This much is nothing."

"What a brute. A real brute."

She turned it over as if it weighed nothing. The blood-soaked belly hide came into view.

"Ah?"

Uushun's face twisted. She sniffed.

"Ah. We're screwed."

"It burst?"

"Yep. Split wide open."

She clucked her tongue and went to the Khan.

"It appears the guts have ruptured."

"Ah. That would explain it."

Vesta had caught a strange smell while fighting the thing as well—a peculiar stink the copper of blood couldn't quite hide. The bowels must already have been spilling their contents. The goat's horn had likely punched through the viscera.

"A pity. We can't eat it like that."

"Yes. If we did, I suspect it would taste of shit."

In a true fight for survival, perhaps. As ingredients, it was finished.

"Nothing to be done. At least see that the hide is properly taken."

"Yes. I'll start at once."

Uushun returned to her place.

"Even if you hadn't stepped in, it wouldn't have lived much longer."

"...Yes."

No wonder it had stayed behind while its comrades died around it, never running. It had already been dying then.

"Don't misunderstand me. I am not saying it was meaningless."

The Khan laid a hand on Vesta's shoulder.

"Did you not give it a funeral, in your own fashion?"

"...I did."

In the Empire, a warrior's death by arrow was often treated as a disgrace—a death fit for beasts, they said. Among rough men, the joke ran something like this:

Vesta had never gone quite that far in his own thinking.

"A warrior's honors, then?"

"Yes. That's how I saw it."

"I see."

The Khan did not understand Imperial custom. The gulf in thought was simply too wide.

"It's a strange culture to us. But."

She only nodded, as if she meant to accept the difference as it was. The hand that had been brushing his shoulder moved to the side of Vesta's face, near his ear.

"You went first and performed the funeral. I would like to add something of my own."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean to ask your leave for one thing. This land may be mine—but everything that came from that creature, down to the last drop of blood, is yours."

She looked him full in the face.

"Yes. Please do."

The Khan nodded. She stepped a little away from Vesta and lifted her face to the sky.

"—"

Vesta still had no idea what she was doing when the shadow fell.

A vast shadow. A majestic one.

"......!"

"There's no need to be startled."

Even the Khan's unhurried voice could not settle him at once.

She raised a single finger. The creature descended until it hung near that fingertip and received her greeting.

The wind of its wings struck like a storm.

An eagle of impossible size.

"Aquila...?"

Aquila. Otherwise called a black eagle—or a golden eagle. The shape was similar enough. Whether it truly counted as an "eagle" was another matter.

The size, of course.

Vesta had seen a wyvern with his own eyes, and even that had not been larger than the bird before him.

"An old friend of mine."

To call a sacred beast that could take wyverns as its staple diet a friend.

"Come. Take that ill-fated thing away."

She spoke, and stretched out a single finger.

A great wind rose.

Aquila flew to where the wild-dog man had fallen. The elves did not bar its way; they simply stepped aside. They must have understood the Khan's words.

Its enormous talons closed on the corpse.

And in a single beat, it was gone into the sky.

The Khan spoke.

It was a rite that left a body on the plain for birds to take. Most such offerings, he had heard, went to the vultures and harpies that swarmed the steppe. For a sacred beast of this magnitude to appear for a sky burial was almost unheard of. Perhaps it was a funeral reserved for high elves like the Khan herself.

"This should be enough that he won't feel slighted."

Having sent Aquila on its way, the Khan turned back to Vesta.

"Thank you for the consideration."

"If you are satisfied, that is enough."

Uushun bellowed it, spreading the stripped skin wide.

"Clean work. Uushun has done well."

"Khan."

"Yes. Speak."

"Compared to the things hanging in your chamber, it may look like nothing much—"

"Surely you don't mean—"

"I'd like to give it to you as a gift. Please take it as a token of thanks."

He had not expected her to refuse.

But this—

"Is that so."

He had not expected her to look so pleased. Not at all.

"It's true. Set beside my collection, it is hardly a remarkable piece."

The Khan answered with a smile.

"But it has meaning, because it is the first gift you have ever given me."

"I'm glad it pleases you."

"Thank you, Vesta."

She spoke with him a little longer, then left. He could see the women fussing and fluttering at whatever she said to them. He was curious, but not curious enough to walk over and spoil the mood.

"Lord Vesta."

The one who called him was Ahor.

"You were curious about that eagle, I take it."

"It still doesn't feel real."

"It is certainly not a being just anyone is permitted to see."

"What was that enormous thing? No—it wasn't only the size."

Even if some grotesquely overgrown vulture the size of a house existed somewhere in the world, he doubted it could have carried itself with that kind of presence. It had been a creature possessed of a dignity and a mystery that bordered on fear.

"I've seen a wyvern with my own eyes, but leaving size aside, the feeling itself was completely different."

"Compared to her, a wyvern is nothing but ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a large flying beast. A delicacy, perhaps."

"A wyvern as a delicacy..."

"Are you familiar with elven Spirit Arts?"

"They're famous. I don't know how they're actually done."

"An elf can command spirits because the body contains a vessel in which a spirit may be held."

The vessel of life Orolbai spoke of, then.

"There are creatures born that way from the first breath—elves among them. Things that stand upon the threshold. We call such beings spirit-bodies."

Spirit-body: the flesh of a spirit.

"The eagle you saw ranks among the exceptional even of those. A High Spirit, one might say."

"Then it's a divine beast—the kind you only meet in fairy tales?"

"At that height, they are said to possess wisdom greater than a scholar's, magic more potent than a poet's, and a sovereignty heavier even than a king's."

"The Khan called that spirit-body a friend."

"Her own station is in no way inferior. She is the true and rightful sovereign of the elves."

Ahor was not wrong.

It was obvious, and yet it struck him anew. The woman who had brought Vesta to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the steppe was, in the most literal sense, the monarch who led the elves.

Human dynasties did not run in a single bloodline; they broke, and were remade. Among the prairie elves, only one lineage could ever become Khan.

Ergior. Called also the Golden Clan.

Those who had inherited the blood through which gold itself was said to flow—Golden Blood.

In the days of the steppe campaigns, the Empire had had a name for them.