A Village at the Foot of the Mountain
It had been two days since they left Evian behind.
Their original route had been simple enough: leave Evian, pass through the forest to the north, cross the Lucassia Mountain Range, then loop around the Marea Republic and press straight on until they cleared the Insturia Mountains. Within a day, however, they were forced to revise the plan.
Alec wore steel greaves, and Kayak was a lizardman to begin with — his thick, scaled hide shrugged off everything short of serious abuse.
Yona was not so lucky.
The freight road, packed down enough for a single wagon to rattle along, had clearly never been laid out with a walking human in mind. Its untended surface was strewn with gravel and loose stones that jabbed relentlessly at the soles of Yona's leather shoes, and every step up that road was pure misery. And so the route was amended: instead of the direct way, they would pass through the Marea Republic, cut through the Duchy of Insturia, and cross the Insturia Mountains by a path that was, if nothing else, somewhat gentler underfoot.
"Let's take a break."
They were cresting a hill, the sun just past its zenith, when Kayak suggested resting — and no sooner had the words left his mouth than Yona dropped onto the bare ground with a thud. Then, unprompted by anyone, she kicked off her shoes and tossed them aside.
"Ugh. Doesn't that hurt?"
Alec reached out and turned Yona's soles this way and that, inspecting them. They were riddled with gravel-inflicted marks, the worst spots raw and reddened where blood had begun to seep through.
"What does it look like?"
Yona grimaced and uncapped the water flask. She took one swallow, held a second in her mouth, and splashed it out over her own feet. Sploosh.
"Why can't healers heal themselves, I swear…" There was real feeling behind Yona's grumbling. And who could blame her? Priests could self-heal. Healers couldn't. In just about every way that mattered, healers got the short end of the stick.
"Hey, move your hand. It'll never heal like that."
Alec had scrounged up a handful of weeds from somewhere. Ignoring Kayak, who was watching the whole spectacle with evident amusement, Alec turned the little bundle over in his hands.
"What are you doing?"
"I told you, my father was an herbalist. Yeah, this is the one."
Before Yona could object, Alec popped the weeds into his own mouth and began chewing them to a pulp. After a good long while of gnawing, the greenery had been reduced to a soggy wad, soaked through with bluish-green juice — and without a moment's hesitation, Alec smeared the mess across the sole of Yona's foot with an obscene squelching sound.
"Hey, is that even poisonous?"
"Poison, my foot. You think I watched my father treat wounds once or twice?"
"You could've just had it healed by a healer."
"…There were no healers in my village who worked for free."
Healers might not be treated as proper clergy, but they could still mend wounds, and so a few in each village would open small clinics and make their living that way. Of course, it depended on the healer — those skilled at channeling holy power did quite well for themselves, while the rest struggled to scrape together a meal. Evian was so saturated with healers running treatment houses that Yona had never even bothered to consider opening one.
"Oh, that's Agbanu grass. Good find, Alec."
"Herbalist's son, I told you."
"Put plenty on, Yona, and the wounds will close up nicely. Like it or not, Alec's the only one looking after you."
Yona didn't bother answering that. Her lips puffed out into a pout, but she kept her mouth shut regardless.
"All right, let's move. We need to reach the village before dark."
Kayak rose from where he'd been sitting, and Yona pulled her shoes back on.
"Want a piggyback?"
"Not necessary. Just put your head down. Let me buff you."
Alec grinned and knelt, lowering his head, and Yona gave his bald crown an affectionate pat. It was a soothing feeling. Once the warmth of holy power sank in, her feet were numb but walkable.
Still, a sharp twinge shot up from her soles with every step.
Adventuring had put her through plenty of dirty, dangerous work, but roads this punishing were rare. The Insturia Mountains were treacherous enough that the Lucassia Range tended to get underestimated by comparison — yet the Lucassia Range was plenty rugged in its own right, and even its fringes were nothing to sneeze at. Traversing that kind of terrain in nothing but leather shoes was no joke.
"There it is. See it?"
Kayak stopped and pointed a finger toward the distant mountainside. Along the base of the peaks, standing shoulder to shoulder like old friends, a cluster of log cabins nestled together, each one sending a thin ribbon of smoke curling up from its chimney.
Smoke rising against the setting sun, and rows of timber houses. The village — thirty buildings or so — sat quietly ensconced in an air of profound serenity.
"Let's lodge there tonight. And it looks like…"
Kayak lowered his axes to the ground with a thud and looked Yona over. Sweat-soaked and disheveled, with stringy hair plastered to her pretty face, she looked utterly wretched.
"Yona doesn't look like she can walk much further either. If you'd known we had a long road ahead, you should've built up your stamina."
Yona dropped her gaze, avoiding Kayak's look. On the subject of stamina, she had no rebuttal to offer.
"…Sorry."
"Ah, come on. That's what I'm here for. Why the long face? Let's get going — we can rest once we're there."
Alec cut in with an awkward smile, and Kayak broke into a rueful grin of his own.
"True enough. Stamina builds as you walk, anyway. No harm done — time is the one thing we've got plenty of. Unlike you humans."
Yona forced a laugh and put one foot in front of the other. Kayak wasn't wrong. She had known the road to the Community was long, and she had done nothing about her endurance — that fault was hers and hers alone.
Two days in, and Yona had already come to a bitter realization: out here, she was nothing but a burden to Kayak and Alec both.
"Something feels off about this place."
Entering the village outskirts, Kayak sniffed the air and glanced around. In his memory, this had been a prosperous settlement — the men mostly skilled hunters, selling their pelts for a comfortable living.
That was not the mood now.
A wooden palisade ringing the village, which had only come into view as they drew near, bristling with sharpened wooden stakes driven in a neat row along its top. And inside — an oppressive stillness, a total absence of any liveliness.
Thirty-odd households was no small village, yet at this hour there was hardly a soul to be seen moving about. Wasn't this precisely the time of day when darkness was only beginning to settle? Shouldn't at least two or three hunters be back from the hunt by now, carousing loudly in a tavern?
Not even that. Before any of it, there wasn't a building in sight that could pass for a tavern.
"That you, Kayak?"
A green-skinned orc with long jutting tusks poked his head out from behind a window. They had been wandering the village for a good while by then.
"It is Kayak!"
"James, is that you?"
The moment the orc laid eyes on him, he threw open his door and clasped Kayak's hand in both of his own.
"You didn't come by for so long I figured you'd up and died on me."
"With you still breathing? Not likely. So — life treating you well?"
"Well enough, well enough. Those behind you — your party?"
Only then did the orc named James turn to look at Alec and Yona, who stood uncertainly behind Kayak. There was not a trace of hostility in his eyes — just pure warmth and curiosity.
Yona found she didn't mind that look at all.
"Alec," said Alec.
"I'm Yona," said Yona.
"Friends traveling with me."
"Good, good. Come in, come in. You haven't eaten yet, have you?"
The log house they entered under James's warm welcome was neat and well kept. An orc woman who must have been his wife, and seven children lined up in a row, all staring at their unfamiliar visitors.
"My, Kayak. It's been ages."
"Ah, sister-in-law! It really has been too long."
"Sister-in-law, my foot. You scoundrel, call me sister."
"Sister my ass."
Kayak, James, and James's wife Miralen were clearly old acquaintances, and the greetings quickly turned into a cheerful, easygoing exchange. Meanwhile, the children, having no idea who these strangers were, huddled half-hidden behind their mother, watching warily.
"The third one there — Klag — that's the boy you saw last time. He's seven this year. Above him is Ralph, and above him, Ederon. They all met you when they were barely out of swaddling clothes, so I doubt they remember a thing."
True to James's booming laugh — Pwahahaha! — the orc children seemed to have no recollection of Kayak whatsoever. Even with their own father introducing them by name, they shuffled their feet and stole glances at one another.
Then, all of a sudden, the smallest of the orcs bolted across the room and flung her arms around Yona's leg, clinging with all her might.
Yona, whose injured foot was promptly stomped on by the little one, very nearly screamed. Of all the places to step — directly onto the wounded sole. For an instant, tears welled up in her eyes.
Still, what fault was it of a child's?
Cold sweat beading down her back, Yona scooped the girl up into her arms anyway.
"You're… Mr. James, right? Your child's awfully healthy. I'm Yona — I travel with Mr. Kayak. We're companions."
"Welcome to you. And that would be…"
When James's wife looked toward Alec, he bowed his head politely in greeting.
"Now, come in and sit. We were just about to eat ourselves — let's have dinner together and talk. I must say, your timing is a godsend."
Dinner was a modest affair. Smoked meat, clearly made in advance, sliced into neat portions. A few rounds of coarse, homemade rye bread with an extremely rough grain. And milk, faintly gamey — perhaps drawn fresh that very morning.
A thoroughly ordinary commoner's evening meal. Nothing about it called for ceremony.
Yona picked up a piece of rye bread and split it down the middle with a dull knife. Prying the bread open along the cut, she wedged in thin slices of the smoked meat, then spread on a jam that was, frankly, little more than fruit simmered down with hardly any sugar at all — and that, at least, made it edible.
"Khk—!"
Coarse-grained rye bread demands to be chewed thoroughly, but Yona, chewing as carelessly as always, choked loudly and went into a coughing fit.
"Whoa, whoa — milk. Drink some milk."
Only after gulping down the cup Alec held to her lips did her breathing finally ease.
"You two suit each other nicely. Married, by any chance?"
A teasing question from Miralen.
"N-no! Not at all! Absolutely not!"
"Oh my. I see."
Perhaps because she was an orc, Miralen had no prominent tusks — but the characteristic rough-hewn features of her kind remained as she flashed them a grin.
"Anyway, Kayak. You've come at just the right time."
"Something's wrong in the village, isn't there?"
Kayak, who had pushed his bread aside and was eating only the meat and jam, nodded as though he'd been expecting it all along.
"That meat doesn't taste the way it used to. Yes — what's happened?"
James set down his fork. As though even his appetite had fled entirely, he let out a long, long sigh.
"The beasts have gone mad. Completely mad."