Winter (3)
Black Wind took Urgo’s two-pronged sword in hand and set out on the winter hunt.
The People of the Summit did not hibernate, so if they wanted to eat and live they had to keep hunting even through the cold months. Winter, no matter how rich the Summit’s nature, still brought plant growth to a halt. To enjoy nature’s bounty again the following year, they had to restrain themselves from eating fruit and the like during this season. For people who had never known true hunger, winter was a hard stretch to endure.
It was especially hard for Black Wind, who had gotten his girlfriend pregnant almost as soon as they started dating and become a husband overnight. A pregnant wife needed plenty of good food, and winter made that difficult. So he hunted more aggressively and more zealously than usual.
From thick upper-branch to thick upper-branch he moved—silent and agile in a way that belied his bulk—searching for game. Around him were the young warriors and adult warriors who had come out to hunt with him. They spread across a wide area, calling to one another with cries as they searched, and the moment prey was found they all closed in.
Using the vine-lassos Chester had taught them to make, they flung the loops around the creature’s neck and held fast. The young warriors gripping the vines clung hard to the trees and lashed the lines tight; the game, snared from every direction, thrashed in distress.
Of course, binding it was not enough. These were upper-level beasts. Even the weaker ones among them had the strength to rip a tree or two clean out of the ground, roots and all. As the snared creature struggled, the trees shook; earth and roots heaved and screamed together.
While the prey fought to break free, the People of the Summit settled into comfortable positions and began hurling the stones they had prepared with all their might.
Before, they would have chased the game at a run, flinging rocks wildly. Many would have missed, and even the hits would have lacked real force. Now it was different. Once the vine-lassos had the creature pinned and the well-aimed stones had battered it into submission, Black Wind leapt onto its back and brought the two-pronged sword down into its neck.
The weapon was an awkward, excessive weight for an ordinary man to swing, but for the People of the Summit it was just right—though the motion looked less like a sword stroke and more like an axe blow.
“Uwoooooh!”
Black Wind roared as the blood fountaining from the kill’s neck sprayed across him, and the others danced around him in celebration of a successful hunt.
After the wind died down and it seemed the snow had not piled too deep, Chester and Monia went out to check the water channel. That morning, when they tried to use it, the flow had felt off and strange; they decided they could not leave it alone.
Inspecting the channel, they found a tree midway along its length that the wind had nearly uprooted and left leaning. The channel itself had twisted slightly sideways with the tree’s tilt, so Chester set to work with the tools he had brought, trying to set the tree upright again.
“If we stand it straight and lash it to the trees around it with rope, it should hold against the wind.”
He first tied a rope around the leaning tree, then went to a nearby one. Planting his feet firmly against the trunk, he shoved with his legs and yanked the rope hard, leaning his whole body back. He pulled with such force that he was nearly plastered vertical against the tree. Monia went to the opposite side of the leaning trunk and shoved with everything she had.
“Eeeiiigh!”
“Hup…!”
Together they pushed and pulled the tree in one direction. Chester released one hand, quickly shortened his grip on the rope, and hauled even harder. Monia, realizing simple pushing was not enough, turned her back to the trunk, pressed her spine flat against it, and drove with all her strength. Her feet skidded in the snow, wasting effort.
“Nngh!”
She dug her feet more solidly into the ground and pushed again. Slowly the leaning tree began to rise back toward true.
“Yaaah!”
“Guaaah!”
They wrung every last bit of strength out of themselves until the tree stood straight, then hurriedly packed and tamped the earth around its base. Next they ran ropes from the trunk in every direction, lashing it to the surrounding trees for reinforcement.
“Good. That should do it.”
“I’m glad the tree itself didn’t break.”
“Yeah.”
They checked the other trees as well, reinforcing anything that might cause trouble later. They cleared the snow and fallen leaves that had piled up at the channel’s intake, then headed home.
“Ugh, cold, cold.”
Back inside, they hurriedly lit a fire with the lighter and thawed out.
“Hss. Moving around outside really takes it out of you.”
Even when the wind was not howling, the cold alone was brutal. Bodies clenched tight, shivering to generate heat just to endure it—simply standing still was hard labor.
“Mmm.”
The moment they got home Monia went limp and clung to Chester. He stroked her hair as she sprawled across his lap in front of the fire like a cat, rolling lazily and smiling a drowsy smile.
“Mmm. The worst part is not being able to wash properly.”
“We don’t want to catch colds, after all.”
“That’s not something I want to hear from the man who trains naked every morning.”
“Hahaha.”
Chester had no good answer, so he laughed it off. Monia gave him a dissatisfied look, then asked,
“Aren’t you cold?”
“Maybe I’m just used to it. At the butler academy, if a kid messed up they used to make him stand outside naked in winter as punishment.”
The instant she heard that, Monia’s eyes sparked with fury. She sat bolt upright and shouted,
“What?! That’s torture! You can’t do that!”
“I never got that punishment myself.”
“Huh? Then you’re not used to it.”
What came next far exceeded anything Monia had imagined.
“My father and I got used to the winter cold by rubbing ourselves down with cold water naked and scrubbing our bodies with snow.”
“Hiiiek.”
It was this cold even fully dressed—and they just dumped snow and water all over bare skin?
“Do you want to die?!”
“You don’t die from that much. Not if you take the proper measures.”
“Ah… but washing the body does sound nice.”
“Want to try?”
“Hmmmm.”
Monia fell into deep thought. If she had been alone on this island she would never have fretted so much over her appearance. It was not that she was naturally dirty; simply living here while still caring about grooming was exhausting. But keeping clean helped prevent illness—and more than that, she did not want to be a filthy woman in front of the man she loved.
“I want to try!”
“Great. Tomorrow, then.”
“Today we snowball fight!”
“All right, all right.”
A little later Chester and Monia went outside and enjoyed a snowball fight.
“Okay, you pack the snow like this, and then—like this!”
Thwack!
“…That would hurt if it hit you.”
Monia gulped as she watched the snowball Chester threw streak out at a speed she could barely see and smash against a tree, exploding into powder.
“It’s just snow. It shouldn’t hurt, right?”
“It looks like it would hurt!”
“Fine, I’ll throw gently. Here.”
Before long the yard was a mix of Chester’s limp, half-hearted snowballs and Monia’s sharp, whistling ones.
Then, the moment Monia dodged sideways from an incoming snowball, the thing curved as if on a string and smacked her square.
“Kya?! The snowball curved sideways!”
Once it looked like only she was getting hit, the shameless Chester started adding breaking pitches and toying with her.
“Hey, go easy on me!”
“Hahahaha.”
“Hey!”
When Chester kept teasing her, Monia pouted, packed a snowball as hard as she could, and hurled it at him.
The snowball cut through the sky.
A lump of iron cut through the sky.
Driven by the force of gunpowder, the iron shot high into the air, then arced in a gentle curve and slammed into the wall of the royal castle.
KWAANG!
The iron smashed against the stone of the castle wall; dust that had settled on the masonry shook loose under the impact and billowed into a noisy cloud. One after another, more iron shot—cannonballs—flew through the sky and hammered the castle.
“Still not finished dealing with them? I sent the Royal Knights.”
“My apologies! As ordered, the Royal Knights remaining in the capital sortied, but the revolutionary army is moving simultaneously from every direction, and…”
“So the Royal Knights’ lines of movement got tangled.”
“Yes. Revolutionary forces appearing through the secret passages inside the castle, the appearance of siege weapons such as cannons—major targets kept presenting themselves one after another and threw the Royal Knights into confusion.”
In the office, listening to the report, Jordy checked the pieces being placed across the map of the castle spread before him.
Dull gray pieces marking the revolutionary army.
Pieces of pure gold representing the kingdom’s forces—especially the Royal Knights.
Every time a new report came in, the pieces moved, showing him the state of the capital.
“….”
Jordy’s gaze settled on the castle itself. On it sat a small crown-shaped piece representing Jordy, a small flower-shaped piece representing Tiara, one Royal Knight piece, and several revolutionary pieces.
“Is Tiara safe?”
“Yes. We assigned one Royal Knight as her escort and evacuated her first.”
“Is that so?”
While Jordy spoke with his escort knight, one of the butlers working in the office watched him quietly.
After the butler finished the document sorting he had been ordered to do and left his post, somehow—as if they had known exactly when—a portion of the revolutionary forces appeared in front of Tiara as she was being evacuated from the capital.