Tail
Tail
"Belus Alpen?"
Ereta's voice. As her breath tickled the nape of his neck, Aslan's lips moved in something close to a sigh.
Did she really need to press herself against him like this? The thought crossed his mind, but the woman showed no sign of sharing it.
If anything, she seemed intent on making up for two lost days — she'd draped her legs across his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck.
Aslan had no escape route from this aggressive physical offensive.
After all, he himself had agreed, however reluctantly, that she could do this sometimes.
Consent freely given. He'd just nodded and tried to look elsewhere.
When he nodded without any visible reaction, the woman — still bearing stark traces of her injuries — rubbed her cheek against his chest.
"Belus Alpen is going to play the most important role in this ceasefire. Truth is, if we can just secure Belus Alpen's cooperation, we could end this civil war."
Ereta let out a soft hum. She wasn't particularly interested. As long as she could stay with Aslan, as long as she could watch how he moved, nothing else seemed to matter to her.
"I think we'd be better off taking more time to recover before moving."
That dissenting opinion wasn't Ereta's.
The tone was cold, clearly mimicking someone else's manner — nothing like Ereta's easy, languid speech.
It came from the diminutive elf girl.
"Everyone's combat capability has dropped significantly. If we get ambushed, we'll be in serious danger."
Aslan glanced at Fay, who had adopted his own manner of speaking. She gazed back with a cool expression and swept her eyes across the gathering.
Angie, wrapped in bandages. Ereta, still bandaged around the head from wounds not yet healed. Tiyamal, rolling his shoulder over and over, as if something was wrong with his arm.
The companions who had endured two days without Aslan were still walking wounded, and Fay belonged to that same company.
The elf girl, bandages wrapped around her abdomen beneath her dress, wanted to move only after they'd recovered more — wanted to prepare for any possible ambush. That was what she meant to argue.
But before the argument could leave her lips, Tiyamal laughed low and said, "That won't happen, creepy little runt."
Creepy little runt. Fay didn't react to the near-slur. The elf girl, so sparse with emotion, accepted the insult without a flicker of expression and simply asked, "Why?"
Tiyamal folded his arms and lifted his chin. Pure arrogance radiated from the gesture.
"Because the mountains and gorges and hills surrounding Belus Alpen belong entirely to us. Even those fierce Sons of the Mountain don't dare look down on us. Even the Kallus Empire doesn't stretch its hand toward us. Our Dragon-kin warriors, on our own land, are as strong as an army of a million!"
"Ugh, you're so loud!"
A self-assured proclamation, delivered at a volume that made Angie, sitting right beside him, clap her hands over her ears and take a swing at him.
A few glances from around the campsite flicked toward the party, then withdrew.
To an outsider, the claim would have sounded like empty boasting. Ereta's unimpressed face and Fay's still-frosty expression made that clear enough.
But Angie, who had little love for Dragon-kin in general and Tiyamal in particular, stayed quiet — and that silence told the truth. The boast was, in part, factual.
While Angie swatted at the air and a startled Tiyamal recoiled, Aslan spoke. "It's true, to an extent. In a defensive war, Belus Alpen can overwhelm most nations, and the Dragon-kin warriors really are formidable."
"Indeed! Belus Alpen is strong! So the journey there will be safe—"
"Ah, I said quiet! Lower your voice!"
Angie swatted at him again. Tiyamal flinched, dodged, and ended up rolling on the ground.
Even watching the red-scaled Dragon-kin make a fool of himself on the dirt, Aslan's expression didn't shift. "Tiyamal's right. The route will be safe."
The Tail District's poor were substantial in number — their population alone would rival most slums — yet in all of Belus Alpen's history, there had never been a single incident of a slum uprising or similar unrest.
That fact alone offered a glimpse of Belus Alpen's military strength. And since that strength was concentrated entirely within Belus Alpen and its immediate territory, security in the region was exceptionally good.
Fay listened to the explanation, arms folded, her foot tapping as she thought. She'd never been to Belus Alpen. The fact that her injuries had diminished her combat capacity clearly bothered her — her expression was openly displeased.
"Trust me and follow."
Aslan gave Fay a faint smile. She met his gaze, saw the smile, and nodded — as if to say she had no choice.
Ereta needed no convincing, so that just left Angie.
Angie, who was anything but happy about the prospect of going to Belus Alpen.
The girl stopped her scuffle with Tiyamal and looked at Aslan.
"...Do we really have to go this far?"
It was a fair question. This civil war wasn't Aslan's war.
She seemed to realize how it sounded the moment she said it, and hurried to add, "I mean — it's not that I don't trust you. I do trust your judgment, Aslan. I just... do we really have to be the ones to do it?"
No matter how you looked at it, the real reason was that she didn't want to go to Belus Alpen. But she did her best to hide it as she watched for Aslan's reaction.
Aslan saw the worry on her face — as if she was bracing to be scolded — and smiled faintly.
"You're right. We don't strictly have to. The Empire could send an official envoy and resolve this through proper channels.
"Then..."
"But me stepping in will be the fastest and surest way. And more than that..."
More than that? The girl tilted her head, puzzled. Aslan kept smiling.
"I can do it."
She didn't seem to understand — her head tilted the other way — but Aslan had already decided.
Aslan was not the kind of man to pass a task within his own reach to others.
*
Belus Alpen lay north of Count Sholukund's territory, northwest of Baramunz.
The route there more or less retraced the path they'd already traveled, branching off in a different direction.
They crossed the mountains through the mine tunnels that cut through the Honor Tribe's territory — the same mountains where they'd once fought Gobil in a duel over mutual honor. Then they passed through the Crown Tribe's vast plains.
After changing guides, mounts, and equipment, the party followed the Silence Tribe's gorges and picked their way across the Hill Tribe's hills.
They looped wide along Baramunz's unofficial borders, and in three weeks reached Plague Valley on Baramunz's northwestern frontier.
The journey went quickly, thanks to Baramunz's well-maintained roads and the cooperation they received within the kingdom.
They'd arrived faster than the month originally anticipated, and a sense of ease settled over the party.
The day they reached Plague Valley, they agreed to rest thoroughly and then depart for Belus Alpen. Camp preparations began at once.
"Aslan, I brought the firewood."
"Good. Thanks."
Ereta chopped wood and let it tumble in a cascade. Tiyamal hunted mountain game with precise shots. Aslan stacked the firewood Ereta had brought and built a campfire.
He arranged the fire with practiced hands, then ringed it with stones so the wind blowing across the valley wouldn't snuff it out.
A drizzle of oil over the wood to help the ignition spell catch. The preparations were done.
The oil-soaked wood gleamed, waiting for the spark. Aslan extended a finger — then stopped.
His Luck hadn't triggered. But there had been a presence. A presence that belonged to none of his companions.
He curled back his finger he'd been about to use for the ignition spell and turned his eyes, unhurried.
Tiyamal was already there. The Dragon-kin had shed his upper garment and was drawing his bowstring, an arrow concealed behind his body so it wouldn't catch the light.
Tiyamal's yellow pupils met Aslan's teal eyes. Two masters, tempered by countless battles, recognized the same intent in a single glance.
The moment Tiyamal nodded, Aslan's hand swept across his cloak — then lashed out.
Shiiik — thunk.
An ambush reversed. The motion looked almost like a single gesture. Whoever was hiding behind the tree flinched.
The brass feather-dagger quivered, buried in the wood precisely beside the figure's head. A man stepped out from the tree's shadow.
He was ragged, unmistakably so. But as Aslan took in the man's gear, his brow furrowed.
A spear in hand, an axe at his belt. Quilted armor layered under chainmail.
And his eyes blazed with open hostility. His identity was obvious.
For a common bandit, the man was alarmingly well-equipped.
A deserter, most likely — or a mercenary turned brigand. Aslan finished the calculation and brought his hand back toward his cloak for another dagger. Tiyamal grumbled and leveled his bow.
"What kind of worthless husk of a warrior chief lets bandits run loose right outside Belus Alpen? I swear, I'll just—"
The steel bowstring had been drawn taut. The arrow in his hand rotated into its seat. An ambush shot, born of careful thought. The moment that shot was about to be aimed at the man, the man — who had been radiating hostility at Aslan — saw Tiyamal and flinched.
The shock wasn't the alarm of someone seeing a Dragon-kin archer for the first time. It wasn't the cold dread of anticipating a massive arrow about to fly.
It was simple, unguarded surprise.
Tiyamal, being a Dragon-kin, could tell the reaction was wrong. But the bowstring was already loosing.
At this rate, the man would be split in half. In that sliver of an instant, Tiyamal twisted the bow and threw off his aim.
The arrow left the steel string and tore through the air in an angled trajectory, straight toward a massive tree.
KWA-BOOOOM!
Crrrrack... CRASH!
The tree came down with a sound like an explosion. The man flinched — and then wet himself. The noise brought the rest of the party running from every corner of the camp.
"What was that? What happened!"
Angie was the fastest. She'd been hauling the huge animal Tiyamal had caught and came sprinting over, then—
"Huh?"
She stopped dead, staring at the man frozen rigid beside the fallen tree, piss still soaking his trousers. Her eyes went wide, her mouth dropped open.
"Angie?"
The surprise wasn't hers alone. The man saw Angie, spoke her name, and recoiled.
No one had called Angie by name, yet the man had said it.
And this was the vicinity of Belus Alpen.
That meant only one thing. Aslan's frown deepened as he asked, "What is someone from the Tail District doing out here? Armed like that?"
The man was one of the Tail District's poor. If Angie knew his face, there was no other possibility.
And for a slum-dweller from the Tail District to be heavily armed near Belus Alpen — that led to only one conclusion.
Rebellion.
Aslan kept his hand ready to throw another dagger and pressed for an answer. The man, still reeking of his own piss, shuddered slightly, then looked behind him.
Following his gaze, a group of figures pushed through the dense thicket and emerged.
Every one of them was solidly armed.
Spears, axes, shields, swords — some even carried crossbows. There was almost nothing left about them that resembled slum-dwellers.
Tiyamal's expression twisted at the sight. Aslan clicked his tongue. A full-scale Tail District uprising, the fall of Belus Alpen — as those grim possibilities ran through his mind, someone pushed through the chaotic crowd and stepped forward.
"What's going on? I told you to hold the ambush position. The patrol schedule still—"
A Dragon-kin.
Scale armor that seemed to hide red scales beneath it, a physique not as massive as Tiyamal's but still towering over most humans, a shield and a blunt weapon gripped in his hands.
The hand holding the shield had only three fingers left.
Aslan saw the gaping hole punched through that Warrior Monk's shield — and only then recognized who he was looking at.
"...Harod?"
At the sound of his name, Harod's eyes widened as he looked from Aslan to Tiyamal.
Yes, they'd said they could return to Belus Alpen. But this quickly? Aslan was parting his lips — surprised and glad — to speak.
"Brother Tiyamal...?"
Aslan stopped. Turned his head.
Tiyamal, a Dragon-kin whose every emotion played across his face, was wearing an expression of pure disbelief — a look even Aslan could read.
"Little brother?"
Aslan turned his head back toward Harod. The younger Dragon-kin's face had twisted into something strange.
"Brother... why are you coming out of there...?"
Above the valley where a chill wind blew, the two Dragon-kin brothers stared at each other with mutual bewilderment.
