Tears Frozen in the Land (4)
"We'll have to call the other two."
Ashtien took up her bow again.
"You mean to use a whistling arrow?"
"I do."
From the rendezvous, Ashtien loosed a signal shaft into the sky.
Piiiiii—
Before long, two figures came winding down the mountain path. Vesta waved, and Uushun and Ahor smirked.
Together with the two who had joined them, they started down the foothills.
"The snow leopard took an arrow and went tumbling across the stone. While it was still gasping, I moved in to finish it, and then…"
"You yourself, sir?"
What caught their interest, surprisingly, was not Ashtien's archery. They were far more curious about how Vesta had delivered the killing blow.
Well. Of course it would be familiar to them.
They knew Ashtien's skill well enough to take it as a given.
"Yes. I drew my blade and closed in. But the snow leopard reacted… strangely."
"Strangely, sir?"
It had looked as if the beast were trembling.
"It looked like it was shaking."
"Is that so unusual?" Ahor asked, not quite following. "Its life was hanging by a thread. Trembling with terror would seem the natural response."
A reasonable answer. Vesta did not agree.
"It was a little different."
He was no hunter by trade, but his experience rivaled any huntsman's. When it came to standing face-to-face with a predator, he would yield to no one. He could have called himself an expert and no one would have argued.
And to Vesta's eye, that creature had been looking straight at him. A beast that size, wary of a tiny human. Perhaps even afraid.
Beasts had always looked down on Vesta, and he had used that contempt to inflict fatal wounds.
This time that strategy didn't work. It was as if it had seen something inside me.
"I wouldn't know, sir."
He turned to Uushun. Her turn to answer.
"I wouldn't know either. Beasts have always trembled in front of me, so."
Uushun's answer was mildly horrifying.
"In my opinion," Ashtien said, resolving Vesta's question, "you mentioned receiving the Princess's blessing before, did you not? That is likely the reason."
"Ah."
The Princess's blessing.
When he had gone hunting juvenile werewolves with Uushun, Vesta had encountered a white beast with six legs.
I offered it a marmot, and it circled around me before vanishing.
Uushun had said the white beast had bestowed its blessing. Later he learned it was an auspicious creature called the Princess. The Beast Princess — offspring of Ekharkhide, the so-called King of Beasts.
That happened, didn't it.
He had known the blessing frightened animals, but he had not expected it to work on a massive predator. Honestly, he had half forgotten about it.
Not that I've had much occasion to see it work.
The odd sheep rolling onto its back, now and then?
"What exactly does this blessing do?"
"It is said to grant the power of the beasts, and to lead a warrior down a harsh path of fate."
"You received a blessing too, didn't you, Ashtien?"
"Well. I did encounter Ekharkhide, but…"
She let the sentence trail off. The Ekharkhide she meant was not an immature specimen, but the sole King of Beasts of the steppe.
While Vesta waited for her answer, Ahor stepped in to explain.
"The King of Beasts blesses only the Great Khan."
That was news to him. Vesta looked from Ahor to Ashtien in astonishment.
"What?"
If a being that blessed only the Great Khan had appeared before Ashtien, then surely…
"Enough. That is as far as we go on my account."
"I beg your pardon. I overstepped."
Ahor bowed her head deeply. Ashtien shook her head with a bitter smile.
"Overstepped? As if you would ever think such a thing."
Uushun jumped in to break the awkwardness.
"That's why you're always so sharp about everything. You're consistently ranked among the bosses nobody wants to pull night watch with."
"Oh? That is rather interesting. Where do I sit on that ranking?"
Ashtien asked playfully, without a trace of malice.
"Uh…"
Uushun's eyes went round and she froze. It was so rare for her to be at a loss for words that the mood shifted at once.
Vesta watched Uushun squirm with the idle amusement of a man watching a fire on the far bank of a river.
"Tsk. Slow to answer."
"Th-that's…"
Ahor was visibly fighting back a laugh. So was Vesta.
"You're not first…"
"Haha. An unsatisfying answer, but I shall let it pass."
Uushun, having wrung her brain for that, shrank into herself. But there was another of Uushun's superiors present.
"And the opposite ranking? The boss you'd actually want to pull night watch with?"
"Obviously me."
"Don't make me laugh."
"What's with that reaction?"
Ahor bristled, but it was a ranking with a certain logic to it.
"Ah — Lord Vesta was in the running as well."
"Me? That's unexpected."
He had not imagined his name would come up.
"Perhaps thanks to what you showed in the desert? Everyone was quite moved, I hear. Despite your youth, they found you reassuring."
"They thought well of me, then. Well, things lined up at the time. I had the capacity to help."
"There were also comments that you were… handsome… ahem."
Ahor jabbed Uushun in the ribs. Uushun took the hint and shut her mouth.
"Haha, is that so?"
Vesta's shoulders rose with pride. Ashtien regarded the sight with considerable suspicion.
"Hmm."
"……"
Vesta closed his mouth.
"No, well. Pride is one thing. But are you not enjoying this a little too much? It is not as if you would actually be pulling night watch with other elves. I trust that is not something you want."
He had no good answer.
Why did you have to bring that up, Uushun?
He shot her a faintly accusing look. Uushun dipped her head slightly.
Sorry.
But you're the one who got happy hearing about yourself.
"……"
They descended the mountain in silence.
Even after hunting the snow leopard, the journey went on.
For days and days.
There's far, and then there's this.
He thought of crossing the Wilderness with his Master. It had not been as hard as that, but the fatigue was considerable.
"We are almost there."
Whenever Vesta asked, that was all Ashtien would say. He had no idea how almost her "almost" actually was.
This time, though, they really did seem close. A procession of centaurs was climbing the mountain path toward them.
It was quite a spectacle.
Numbers like that could wipe a few villages off the map overnight.
The claim that they came from across the entire steppe appeared to be true. These were not even the people of the Wilderness under Ashtien's rule.
Ashtien revealed herself in all her commanding presence, and a stir ran through the centaur ranks.
Ashtien, of course, seemed entirely unbothered. She advanced as if it were nothing.
"The Great Khan's Arrow."
"Ohh. The finest hunter on the steppe."
The centaurs who beheld Ashtien bowed their heads. This was not the submission of orcs yielding to force.
They were acknowledging her authority.
Centaurs bowing their heads. Imperial folk would faint on the spot.
The centaurs Vesta knew would not bow even to the Emperor of the Empire.
"What? You mean to march the centaurs in the triumph?"
The arena's centaurs had once been conscripted for the Emperor's triumphal procession. They were ordered to bow their heads before him.
It had been a shameful business. The Emperor's intent was transparent — so naked it was almost embarrassing. He had wanted, by that gesture if by nothing else, to erase the humiliating defeat the Empire had once been forced to swallow.
"Bow to the Emperor, you say?"
What the Empire had failed to grasp was how stiff a centaur's neck could be. They refused the command.
"Did you not call us livestock? And having said as much, you would have us bow when your Emperor passes? What a farce."
"Watch your mouth, beast."
"Do you teach pigs to speak? Or does the Emperor of the Empire truly believe he can drill manners into cattle?"
"…Are you asking to be disposed of?"
"Who knows. Being livestock, I can't quite make out what you're saying. I'm hungry — bring me food. I'll eat it like the animal I am."
That was the kind of people the centaurs were.
Attila had said it once: if the Imperial Emperor was an emperor of many nations, the Great Khan was an emperor of many races. That was why the two stood as equals.
Now he thought he understood exactly what those words had meant.
He was still turning the thought over when they arrived.
Dragon's Valley.
The land of salt.
Ainuwail.