Chapter 188: Deep Beneath the Sea — 13
I thought she would make straight for the nearest shore. Instead Polaris headed dead for the sea, then abruptly cut left.
I laid the kingdom's map out in my mind. From where we stood, the sea lay to the west, and a left turn off that heading put us south. Berne City sat a little to the southeast of here, so by direction alone, we were not bound for it.
I was curious why she had chosen this way, but I didn't ask. I simply followed. Going to Berne City on my own would have meant nothing anyway.
A wet crack.
The beast that had been charging us — something like a reptile crossed with a tiger — took a stone full in the head, and the head flew off. Only after I watched Polaris snatch a rock from the ground and hurl it the way you'd throw a baseball did I realize a wild animal had been coming at all.
Mm. I know that, unlike in so many stories, beasts that scream while they hunt are rare. Even so, this one was truly silent. Until Polaris threw the stone, I hadn't known it was there.
"Belle."
What would come of simply following her like this? The thought was still turning when Polaris called my name, hesitating in a peculiar way.
"Yes?"
"Belle, aren't you scared? Of all this?"
Mm. I looked at the girl, about my own height. A child, to anyone's eyes. However strong she might be, years still stood between her and adulthood. That girl had just watched people being murdered, and on top of that had learned that some group was moving to kill her. It would have been no surprise if terror broke her — if she wept and could do nothing at all.
Polaris seemed to need someone who had been thrown into the same situation, someone to share the feeling with. But she had chosen the wrong person.
"No. I'm not scared."
I wanted her, if I could manage it, not to panic before we reached somewhere safe, so I chose words that pressed a little harder. I thought someone as steadfast as Polaris would swallow her own fear.
"All right. Stay close."
Oh? Strange. Why did relief cross her face? She turned and walked on, and I could no longer see her expression.
Same height, same age, and yet she handled me oddly, the way one handles a small child. Did she think I was one? If she wanted to keep that misconception, she was welcome to it. Thinking for herself and moving for my sake — how convenient. Let her drop her guard like this, and it would be easier later, when I chose something else.
I walked on after Polaris as she struck down the wild beasts that appeared now and then. At some point the trees were gone, and a wide grassland opened before us. We had come through the forest. And far beyond the grass, ruined Berne City showed itself.
Polaris seemed intent on going that way. We had not walked far before a long line cut across the grassland — wheel tracks, not long made. They looked like the marks of the vehicle that had attacked the airship earlier. So the vehicle had passed through here.
Polaris stood before the tracks, glancing back and forth between Berne City and the direction the vehicle had taken. Then, instead of heading for the city, she began to walk along them.
"We're not going to Berne City?"
I had to ask. The city was right there, and she was going somewhere else.
"We can't. A place like that is trouble if no one's there, and trouble if someone is. As far as I know, there's a small village nearby. That's where we're headed. If our luck holds, we can take a ship from there back to the capital."
Mm. Of course. For Polaris, finding Victoria was no longer a problem she had to solve. What mattered was getting out of this place alive. And if I thought of Victoria, aboard a ship even now, following wherever Polaris went was the surer way to meet her.
"Let's go."
"All right."
When I said we should go, she looked at me once, with a subtle expression, and started along the wheel tracks.
But if we followed these tracks, wouldn't we run into the people from the airship? Wasn't that more dangerous, if anything? A small doubt stirred, but I followed Polaris. There was no need to ask that far. If the threat was human, I could deal with it. And if it came to a fight and Polaris was badly hurt, I might even be able to make a harvester of her.
Hehe. I walked the road behind her, thinking of a pleasant future.
After a long walk, we reached a place where a village came into view, set where a river meets the sea. The village itself was quite small. The last time we had taken a ship toward Berne City, this was the port we had called at just before the city.
"Hold on a moment."
"What is it?"
Only a little farther and we would have been in the village, but Polaris stopped us. I looked at her, wondering what was wrong, and she pointed to one side of the village. A massive vehicle sat there — four wheels to a side, eight in all. Above it rose a long gun barrel, wavering like a heat haze. Even before the village had come into sight, we had heard this weapon fire several times. So it had not been standing there from the start. This was the vehicle used to attack the airship. The people who had been chasing us were probably aboard.
I asked Polaris.
"They're the enemy. What are we going to do?"
It meant an unknown number of enemies were hidden somewhere in that village. The vehicle might have come alone, of course, but the place might also be in use as a forward base. Polaris didn't answer. I edged closer and found her brooding, her face grave.
"If we go in— no. If it were only me, maybe, but what if Belle ends up in danger? Better to stay out here. No. Then if someone finds us, we won't have any excuse."
Right beside her, I could hear the muttering. The gains and losses of going in. The gains and losses of staying out. She set both on the scale and weighed them hard, and in the end Polaris chose.
"We're going in. I need to find out who attacked a royal airship."
A fierce look flickered across her face and was gone. Perhaps she was thinking of revenge. Whatever came of it would be interesting to me, so I nodded and did as she wanted.
And we stepped into the village.
The place reeked of the fish-stink peculiar to a port town. Surprisingly, a great many people were coming and going, and a startling number of them were not from a port town at all. Soon I understood why. Most of the people here had had business in Berne City to begin with — they were holding pickets and protesting, demanding to be let in.
Ahead of the crowd, people who looked like soldiers had occupied a stretch of ground, ringing one building in barbed wire. A banner hung from it.
No entry until the riot in Berne City has been put down.
Some shouted that they had a crucial deal and had to reach a company in Berne City. Others shouted that their families lived there and had to be brought out. The place was as chaotic as a market floor.
But that same disorder would make it hard for anyone to recognize us as survivors who had escaped the airship. Two noble-born girls who didn't belong would stand out in an empty harbor with nothing in it. Here, where nobles, the wealthy, and ordinary people were all tangled together, demanding to be let into Berne City, we disappeared into the crowd. If this was the last port, then everyone bound for Berne City would come through here.
While I was taking in our surroundings, Polaris planted herself behind the shouting people, her face drawn tight with tension, and whispered to me.
"We're going to stand here a good while. We have to give the impression we came from outside, not off the airship. By afternoon some of them will give up and head home. We'll mix in with them and go back to the capital."
Not a bad plan. Even if someone had gone aboard the airship, tracing who had been inside would be difficult. And because it was a direct royal airship, learning that would mean contacting the royal house, not anything like an airline. Searching some other way for passengers who might have escaped would be hard as well. On the way here we had heard, from far off, the same sound as when they fired on the airship, so there was a chance the ship had already been destroyed.
When I nodded, Polaris slowly let the strength drain from her body. At the end of that slackened arm, her fingers were trembling, faintly.
Yes. She must have been frightened. She had nearly been killed, out of nowhere. It still wasn't over, and there was no one she could rely on. However gifted a girl she was, few people would be all right in a situation like this. Even I knew Victoria's case was a very unusual one. If Victoria was someone resolved to finish what she had to do no matter what happened, then Polaris was someone who, hard as things were, forced herself to seem all right and kept going because I was here.
Someone full of kindness would have taken Polaris's hand. I didn't. I waited, instead, for time to pass.
The protesters kept growing in number, and at what looked like a regional headquarters the soldiers increased to match. I watched Polaris standing there with a worn-out face, then shifted my point of view elsewhere.
Victoria would arrive soon. Right now, through the eyes of Victoria aboard the ship, this village was already in sight.
Bwaaaaaahn. The ship's horn sounded, and in the same instant a smile opened across Polaris's face like a flower coming into bloom — a face brimming with the hope that she could go home now.
But how long would that last? Victoria would be determined to enter Berne City. What would happen when the two of them met? Victoria, set on Berne City, and Polaris, set on returning to the capital. Would I take one side, or would they part? I would know when they met.
I pretended not to notice the unrest gathering over the protest, and stayed at the side of Polaris as she murmured that they would be able to go home soon.