Interlude: Warriors from Afar
Southern Shore was a province on the kingdom's eastern coast. Thanks to its flourishing trade with the East and every manner of fishery, it was regarded as a rather wealthy fief.
Within Southern Shore, the stretch of land facing the sea was known as Cote Suitan — in the province's old tongue, "the Warm Coast."
True to its name, Cote Suitan remained cozy beyond measure even in an October autumn, and so the dozen-odd travelers making their way along the highway had all dressed lightly.
Among that mixed lot of every rank and origin, a boy in his late teens with green eyes and jet-black hair was grumbling under his breath.
"The stench alone is enough to choke on."
He had pulled the hem of his cloak up to pinch his nose shut, but that lasted only a moment before he flung the cloak loose in irritation.
"And it's hot for no reason at all, and the wind sticks to your skin. What a hellhole."
His elder sister, walking beside him, gave a wry smile.
"Ethan, quit grumbling and try enjoying the trip. When are we ever going to see this part of the country again?"
"Enjoying it's fine for a day or two — we've been walking for three days already."
"It's only three days. They say we'll reach Radenki by tonight, so hang in there a little longer."
Even Siren's coaxing left Ethan looking thoroughly disgruntled.
"If we'd taken a ship like I said, we'd have been there ages ago. But no — you had to be stubborn, sis, and now look at the trouble we're in."
"Don't you remember what Sir Ariad told us? He warned us pirates have been running rampant nearby, and to be careful."
"And we couldn't take a ship over a few lousy pirates? Does that even make sense?"
At that, the druid Zanavas, trailing behind the siblings, let out a laugh.
"'A few lousy pirates'? My, aren't we confident. Let me guess — next to trolls or the Anupad army, pirates are nothing?"
"…I never said that."
"Oh? Didn't you?"
When Ethan thrust out his lips in a sulk, Zanavas reached over and ruffled the boy's hair into a mess. Ethan scrunched up his face with a sour little noise and swatted at the man's arm.
The mage siblings of House Rao and the young druid had left Longville together with Phoenix's company. Thanks to Phoenix's introduction, they had been able to travel in the company of Ulkar's knights, and the road to Southern Shore had proven safe and swift.
Siren's party had parted ways with the knights three days ago, at the fork where the road split north from east. Rangvolt and Sir Ariad, along with the cavalry attending the two knights, had made for Overlock, the seat of Southern Shore; Siren's own journey continued east, toward the port city of Radenki.
As for the pirates — Siren had made a show of concern, but in truth she had not been worried in the least. They were walking a highway busy with countless travelers, and the group that had, one way or another, fallen in with them included no fewer than five mercenaries. Besides, Siren and her brother had grown quite accustomed to combat after what happened in Longville, and Zanavas was a man more than capable of guarding his own skin. Surely mere rabble would never put their lives in danger.
That assumption shattered the moment they came face to face with pirates blocking the highway.
"Ambush!"
"Look out!"
With those roars from the mercenaries, a band of pirates rose from the roadside.
"Kill them—!"
"Leave the wenches alive!"
Even at a glance, the pirates numbered well over several dozen.
Siren couldn't help but gape — at the unfamiliar tongue she had never heard before, at their strange faces, their ragged dress, and the enormous blades they carried.
"Wh-what are they doing here—"
"Eastern pirates! Run!"
At that scream of a cry, the travelers scattered in an instant. The merchants from Ridburn turned and bolted back the way they had come, only to be seized by pirates that had appeared out of nowhere; the mercenaries who tried to flee over the hill to the left were caught before they'd climbed even half the slope and butchered horribly.
"Siren! Ethan! This way!"
Zanavas led the party toward the sea.
Fleeing toward the water to escape pirates looked, at first glance, like the height of stupidity. But the rugged rocks peculiar to the eastern coast bought the party a brief reprieve from the pursuit.
"Rise!"
As Siren hurled her clay figurine and chanted, a golem crusted with clamshells and barnacles heaved itself up from the rocks. While it held the pirates at bay, the party scrambled away in headlong flight. The boulders, warped into whatever shapes the sea pleased, were all soaked through with water, and Siren and Ethan slipped and went down again and again.
Their flight carried them only a short way before they pulled up short, chests heaving.
"Haah… hah…"
"…Hah. Well. This is bad."
At the sight spread out before him, Zanavas could not hold back a groan.
Perhaps it was because relentless waves had hammered at their backs for ages beyond counting — the great rock they stood upon had bared its flesh in stacked, layered strata. Trapped on the coastal cliff with nowhere left to go, Siren's party could only stare down at the deep blue sea.
"There they are!"
"Surround them!"
At the bald brute's roars, the pirates closed in around Siren's party. The ones slinking out from among the rocks had swelled to sixty, seventy strong before anyone noticed.
Zanavas leveled his spear and planted himself in front of the two mages, and Siren and Ethan at once began to chant.
Seeing the mages at work, the pirates came lunging in. No — they tried to.
Clang — clash—
A heavy metallic ring, rolling out at the most exquisite of moments, caught the pirates by the ankles. Pirates and Siren's party alike turned toward the commotion.
Clank. Thud.
A figure showed itself behind the pirates. The pirates scowled as they twisted around to look at the figure none of them had seen approach.
There was something uncanny about its presence.
The figure wore a drab cloak, but even at a glance solid armor showed beneath it. With the hood drawn deep, the only things visible between the cloak's folds were a pair of sword hilts jutting up over the shoulders, steel gauntlets, greaves, and sabatons.
…He's enormous.
Ethan studied the figure, rune shards clutched tight in both hands.
The largest human being the boy had ever laid eyes on was the 'Red Bear,' Utekwai. The second was the 'Blood-Soaked Swordsman,' Phoenix. The figure now standing behind the pirates was as tall as Phoenix and just as broad through the shoulders.
The figure stopped dead. Not a muscle moved. And yet Ethan could feel it — the figure was sweeping its gaze over everything around them.
Among the pirates backing away from the cloaked figure, the bald brute went scarlet and opened his mouth. But before he could bellow a word, the figure spoke first.
"Hey, druid."
The druid Zanavas started, eyes going wide as saucers. The figure that had appeared from nowhere was speaking a tongue he had never expected to hear here — and the voice was a woman's…
"Are you deaf?"
At the note of irritation in that voice, Zanavas swallowed drily and opened his mouth.
"…Who might you be?"
"Oh. So you do speak the tongue of the steppes."
Dozens of pirates had them ringed about, but her voice was the very picture of composure.
"Following that scent here was worth the walk."
"…The scent, you say?"
"Eh, never mind that. I've a few questions for you."
At the woman's placid tone, Zanavas glanced around and echoed:
"…You want to ask them now? In the middle of this?"
"What about the middle of this?"
While Zanavas was still swallowing his disbelief, the bald brute lost what little patience he had and let out a bellow.
"Kill them—!"
At his command, the Eastern pirates raised their weapons and hurled themselves at the figure.
"Tch."
The tall woman clicked her tongue as though the whole affair were a bother. Then she drew two longswords from her hips and took one in each hand.
The pair of long blades were as alike as twins. Only one thing about them differed — the color of their edges.
The pirates charged the woman holding the black sword and the white —
and a storm of steel broke over them.
Clank. Shing.
The woman had come to a stop right in front of them, and still Siren's party could not so much as twitch.
Zanavas moved only his eyes, tracing back the red footprints the woman had left behind her. Of the pirates who had numbered over seventy, more than half had been shredded into lumps of meat within a few breaths. The remaining half had scattered in every direction like insects. The woman did not bother to chase them.
"Hey, druid."
Her twin swords resembled each other more than ever now — both blades had turned the same shade of red.
"…Y-yes?"
"You smell familiar."
The hood that had hidden the woman's face had been thrown back in the brief fight.
Thanks to that, her auburn hair hanging loose like a mane, the X-shaped scar etched into her brow, the sharp arch of her eyebrows, and her keen eyes were all laid bare. She was a woman who gave off a rough, wild air from every inch of her.
"The scent of family."
"…Family, you say?"
"Mm."
The woman, still sniffing at the air, broke into a grin and added:
"My brother-in-law's scent. I'm sure of it."
Color bloomed at last on Zanavas's face, which had stood frozen blank.
"Don't tell me — this brother-in-law of yours, could he be—"
"Karamek."
"Ute— …pardon?"
"Akanku Karamek."
"K-Karamek, did you say?"
Zanavas's face drained white. The woman watched him for a long moment, then smiled wide.
"So he really is dead, then?"
"…That is…"
"I had a feeling. He kept turning up in my dreams, bawling his eyes out."
The smile deepened by degrees — the kind of smile that pulls the lips back to bare the canines.
"Who? Who killed Karamek?"
Under a stare like a beast's, Zanavas clamped his trembling jaw shut.
It was around the time the mage siblings and the young druid met the warrior of unknown identity.
Some distance to the northeast, a fateful meeting of an entirely different sort was underway.
Midaisle was the name given to the rocky isles off the eastern coast of the Kingdom of Millanol, and to the castle that stood upon them — the nesting place of House Alphard, the Marquis line hailed as the Guardian of the East.
A colossal castle-fortress strung across four islets, Midaisle was famed as impregnable. Befitting that fame, breaching its towering walls, angled into the points of a star, and its watchtowers inscribed with spells was difficult to the point of impossibility.
And to this Midaisle came a most unfamiliar visitor.
The visitor was a solidly built man wearing a hat woven of reeds. He was dressed in loose brown robes, with a length of red hemp cloth draped across his broad shoulders — a worn outfit, but kept remarkably clean.
Chime.
With every step the man took, a clear metallic ringing followed — the nine rings hung from his long bronze staff knocking against one another as he walked.
Chime.
That clear ringing, not unlike a bell, drifted all the way into Midaisle's inmost depths.
The heavily armed guards gave the strangely dressed foreigner only a passing glance before fixing their eyes forward again — for their superior, an officer of the guard, was walking ahead of the man in the role of escort.
The man with the reed hat pulled low followed the officer into a great and sumptuous reception room, where he took a slow turn about a chamber in which not the faintest sign of life could be felt.
"You've come. I've been waiting."
At the voice, come from out of nowhere, the man's gaze went to a chair at the far end of the room. Seated there was a white-haired man of striking beauty.
"Come and sit here."
The man known as the Zen Master regarded the white-haired beauty for a moment, then crossed the room and seated himself opposite. Then he spoke.
"Amitabha. Your Eastern tongue is remarkably fluent."
"Many of my concubines are girls from the East. I owe the fluency to them."
Though the beautiful man produced speech, his lips never stirred, nor did his throat move; he did not even blink. He was not a man at all, but an exquisitely made wax doll.
The man from abroad fell silent for a moment, then addressed the doll.
"To hold a conversation with a puppet — I cross a sea and am granted novel experiences at once."
"Forgive the discourtesy. Ever since my father was murdered, the elders of my house have fussed and fretted so terribly that I could hardly do otherwise."
There was something deeply uncanny about the beautiful wax doll chattering on without moving so much as a hair.
"Unless I stage some crude little puppet show like this, I can't so much as hold a conversation with an outsider. It's enough to drive a man mad."
The man from abroad held his tongue for a moment, then dipped his head slightly.
"My condolences on your father. How heavy your grief must be."
"Ah, I thank you. Though paying respects to the departed before introducing yourself is a rather peculiar etiquette, I must say."
The man from abroad gave a low hum. Then he leaned his staff against the table inlaid with mother-of-pearl, took off his reed hat, and set it on his knee.
A freshly shaved scalp; six ordination brands stamped into his brow; bold, heavy features; and a coarse beard. The middle-aged monk pressed his palms together with hands calloused at every knuckle.
"This humble monk is called Iljin. To behold the renowned Marquis Assen is a joy without measure."
Marquis Assen — ruler of the Crescent Archipelago, master of the Eastern Sea with five admirals under his command, and a curse-weaver of dreadful power — answered the monk's bow with a few short words.
"Good. A pleasure."
The entrance of an aged servant cut the conversation short. He set a teacup before the wax doll and another before the monk from the East, then withdrew from the room.
Iljin caught the fragrance rising from his cup, and his brows stirred.
"…Tea from Yonam, if I'm not mistaken."
"I can't speak for the East, but here it is a dear thing — worth a gold coin a sip."
"Rare things are no less dear back home in Hye."
"Is that so?"
"They are."
Iljin raised the cup, took a single sip, and let his eyes fall shut. By the time they opened again, his face had softened into warmth.
He would gladly have savored the tea at his leisure, but the Marquis was not a patient man.
"I did petition the King of Hye for aid, but I never imagined the Jemu Sect would send a warrior monk."
"…Her Majesty the Queen paid me a visit in person and asked that I lend my hand."
"Hm. Is that so?"
The wax doll's voice rang through the reception room, so vast and ornate and yet so bare and silent.
"But tell me — even with a queen begging in person, would a monk of the Jinja generation, one who once headed the Enforcement Hall no less, really journey half a world away? Alone, at that?"
"…Amitabha. Your ears are sharper than most."
Iljin set his cup down with a soft laugh.
"But a 'venerable master'? That is far too kind. I am nothing more than a begging monk."
The Marquis, studying Iljin through the doll's eyes, scoffed inwardly. Even Marquis Assen, with his deep interest in the East, had never laid eyes on a staff hung with nine rings. For a monk carrying such a treasure to call himself a mere beggar was absurd.
Examining the monk seated across from him with wary eyes, the Marquis made the doll speak.
"…To tell you the truth, we find ourselves in a rather stifling situation."
"Stifling, you say?"
"The assassin who killed my father. There is scarcely a clue to be had."
A sigh flowed from the wax doll's lips.
"Five months have passed since the murder, and all we've turned up is a black mask that washed ashore nearby. That it was the work of a Swordless Society assassin is mere suspicion — we haven't a shred of proof."
"At this point I half wonder if my father's own hand didn't turn the assassin to dust — or if he simply sank like a stone, trying to swim away across the sea."
The Marquis clicked his tongue in frustration.
"If my heart had its way, I would muster every soldier I own this instant and grind Yun into the mud… but one cannot start a war on suspicion alone. The Swordless Society leeches off the Yun royal house often enough, but they are not, properly speaking, its vassals."
Iljin breathed a sigh of genuine admiration.
"I never dreamed I would find anyone on the Western continent so well versed in the affairs of the Five Kingdoms. Most impressive."
At admiration so plainly free of flattery, the Marquis's mood improved considerably.
"Hm, well — for a lord of the frontier, that much is elementary. In any case, you are to remain here at Midaisle and look into the murder—"
"…Marquis?"
"One moment — wait just a moment."
The voice issuing from the wax doll stopped dead.
His bewildered expression lasted only an instant; divining that something must have come up, Iljin lifted his cup again with unhurried ease.
He had been savoring the tea's fragrance for some while when the wax doll spoke once more.
"Well now. What exquisite timing."
"I have just received a letter."
As Iljin set down his cup, the Marquis went on.
"Right after my father was murdered, I gave a commission to a band of bounty hunters called the 'Black Wolves' — an outfit of rather good repute."
"A commission, you say?"
"That this murder looked to be the work of a Swordless Society assassin, and that I wanted it investigated thoroughly. I asked them to take the assassin alive as well, if they could manage it."
A rustling came from the wax doll; the Marquis, it seemed, was turning some papers over in his hands.
"Honestly, I hadn't expected much — but it appears they've delivered results."
Iljin's gaze sharpened, and the Marquis went on, his voice quickening.
"They came across a woman of the East. Runs without a sound, wields a dagger superbly, moves so lightly she treads upon empty air as though it were solid ground."
"A God-Returned, then."
"God-Returned?"
Iljin quietly knitted his brows.
"…The Swordless Society gathers up the children cast out in the culling and puts them through merciless training."
"'Culling'? And what is that?"
"A wicked custom of Yun. Poor farm families abandon their newborns in the mountains or the woods. It is mostly the girls who suffer it — the ones judged of little use in the fields."
"Hoo."
"The people of Yun call it 'returning them to the gods.' That is why the Swordless Society names the elite assassins it raises the God-Returned."
"An interesting tale."
The Marquis murmured it with evident interest — then lowered his voice.
"Stories are stories. I must avenge my father."
"Where did these bounty hunters see the God-Returned?"
"A tiny barony far off in the midlands. The woman left with her party before October came, or so I'm told."
"She has a party?"
"She does. And that party is precisely the problem…"
The Marquis hesitated a moment, then pressed on.
"Among them is a knight whose name has been rising of late. By the gossip-mongers' reckoning, he rivals Sir Kalliora — the finest knight in the kingdom — or may even surpass him."
"And who might that be?"
"Phoenix. A knight sworn into service by Prince Ulkar — a man with a good ten nicknames to his name."
"Phoenix."
"And at his side stand the 'Red Bear' and the 'Witch of Fire' besides — with a Swordless Society assassin folded into their ranks as well. A party dreadful with danger, I'd say."
The Marquis spoke as if shuddering, but Iljin showed no particular reaction. He set the reed hat from hisknee back upon his head, gripped his staff, and rose from his chair.
"Assign me a guide."
"Just give me a little while. The situation all around us has turned ugly of late, so mustering a fighting force will take time—"
"I have no need of a fighting force." Beneath the lifted brim of his hat, his eyes flashed.
"A guide alone will do."
The wax doll fell silent for a moment, then answered with a note of amusement threading its voice.
"So be it. I'll lend you a sturdy horse besides."
"Amitabha. My thanks, Your Excellency."
Iljin pressed his palms together in a deep bow, then turned away without the slightest backward glance.
Before the wax doll, left sitting there all alone, the rare tea brought across the sea went slowly, quietly cold.