The Enemy of My Enemy
The attackers faltered at the sight of their comrade, dead without so much as lifting a hand. She was the strongest of the tiger beastkin—blood of the noble Frost line, chosen by a Divine Beast, a beastkin who wielded a formidable Authority. They had only ever heard the reputation. Facing her was another matter entirely, and the pressure rolling off her crushed them flat.
"Scared?"
Sabrina let the attacker with the snapped neck drop as if he weighed nothing, and snorted at the ones who could barely draw breath.
"I'd love to get a look at whoever keeps sending trash like you."
"If we wipe them all out, maybe they'll show themselves then?"
At Jake's words, Sabrina nodded, well pleased.
"I like that. Which means every last one of you has to die, doesn't it?"
Not that she had the slightest intention of letting them live either way.
The fight began.
The attackers had not come to assassinate the Caliphs. They had come to take Bariya. So even if it meant sacrificing their own, a few of them tried to close in on the carriage.
"Where do you think you're going? I already feel sick enough letting a ten-year-old see something this ugly."
The moment anyone so much as edged toward the carriage, Shirca had them by the skull—when had he even gotten there?
"Aaaagh!"
Skin tore under Shirca's sharp claws, and the attacker screamed.
Shirca turned his back to the carriage, and Jake quietly shifted to block the window where Bariya sat.
Crunch!
A savage sound rang out in the same instant, and another attacker died.
"Mister, I can't see. Move over a little."
Bariya tapped the window.
"This is definitely not for young audiences. Wouldn't it be better not to watch, young lady?"
Jake shifted only halfway aside.
Bariya knocked harder.
"They came to drag me off. If I don't watch, who will?"
More than anything, she wanted to learn how to fight. She was sick of only ever running.
"Then let's make a promise. When we get back to the manor, you have to read a happy fairy tale."
Jake wiggled his pinky.
That much is nothing.
"Fine. Promise."
Bariya nodded and pressed her own pinky to the glass. Only then could she watch the fight with nothing in the way.
Incredible.
The Caliph knights and the attackers all had swords in hand, but Sabrina and Shirca fought bare-handed—and still the two of them dwarfed everyone else on the field.
Clang!
"Whoa."
Shirca had just snapped a blade with his bare fist.
What did I just see?
"Mister, can tiger beastkin break swords with their fists?"
"Ordinarily, no."
"Then Shirca isn't ordinary?"
"The blood of a chieftain house is special, no matter the beastkin. They don't rule their people for nothing."
So can anyone of chieftain blood pull off a trick like that?
If you think about it, I'm of chieftain blood too.
Darius Mariner—the biological father she didn't even want to call Father. He was the eldest son of the Mariner family, the hyena chieftain house. She hated Mariner blood, but it still ran in her. When she grew up, would she be able to break a sword with her fist?
"Of course, in the young master's case, the lady's blood took more strongly. He looks exactly like her, right down to his face."
As Jake said, silver-haired, blue-eyed Shirca resembled Sabrina far more than he did Baden.
But what does inheriting Sabrina's blood have to do with anything?
Bariya tilted her head, then turned her gaze to Sabrina instead.
Every time the woman moved, attackers screamed, and every time her fingertips so much as brushed them, enemies burst with blood. Bariya could see the movements. She could not begin to understand how any of it was possible.
One thing was certain.
I want to be like that too.
Beautiful and strong—a beastkin who could tear a hyena apart with one hand. Bariya did not take her eyes off Sabrina until every last attacker had fallen.
"Is this the end?"
Sabrina, still gripping the last enemy by the collar, looked around. The attackers all lay on the ground, and the two Caliph knights who had fought beside her were panting hard.
"Are you hurt?"
"I took a cut to the arm. Derek was slashed in the side and the leg. Nothing deep, though."
"So they had a little skill after all."
The two knights were Caliph elites. The wounds weren't life-threatening, but the attackers had still managed to cut them. Stronger than the last batch, then. Not that they could compare to Sabrina or Shirca.
"The rest are dealt with."
Shirca, who had vanished, stepped out of the dark grass. He had gone after the attackers lying in ambush, and a hyena beastkin hung from each of his hands.
"I thought we might get some information out of them, so I grabbed two."
He clicked his tongue and tossed one down.
"One died on the way. This one's still alive, at least."
"I kept one myself. Interrogate both, and we can cross-check."
Sabrina hurled the attacker she had by the collar onto the ground.
"Guh... kkh..."
His spine was already broken. He couldn't so much as move on his own.
"Can I get out now?"
Once things seemed more or less settled, Bariya asked Jake.
"Yes. Ah—but blood might get on your shoes, so I'll carry you."
Bariya was about to say she was fine when she glanced down at her feet. They were new shoes. Shirca had bought them, insisting that new clothes needed shoes to match.
If I get blood on them the very first day, he'll be sad, won't he?
In the end she let Jake lift her down from the carriage.
"Little one, were you scared?"
At Shirca's question, Bariya shook her head.
"It was cool, actually."
"Yeah? I looked cool fighting?"
Shirca broke into a wide grin.
Bariya shook her head again.
"I only watched my lady. And you went off into the woods halfway through."
At the news that she hadn't even seen him, Shirca drooped.
"Why am I 'my lady'?"
From a distance, where she had been making certain the attackers were truly dead, Sabrina's face twisted hard.
"Everyone told me to call you my lady."
"You're not employed by the Caliphs. What's this 'my lady' business?"
Bariya faltered. Baden was the lord of the house. Shirca was Shirca. But if she didn't call Sabrina my lady, what was she supposed to call her?
"Just call me Lady Sabrina."
The moment she permitted her own name, Shirca and Jake looked horrified. In the whole of the Caliph household, was there anyone besides her husband, Baden, who addressed Sabrina by name?
"Yes, Lady Sabrina."
Bariya, who had no idea, said it as if it were nothing at all. Only then did Sabrina's face ease.
Mother likes the little one more than I thought.
Honestly, it was a little astonishing. Sabrina taking a liking to anyone was exceedingly rare, and yet she had opened her heart like this to a child she had known for barely a week.
Come to think of it, it isn't only Mother.
He himself, Father Baden, everyone in the Caliph household doted on Bariya. It went well beyond ordinary kindness toward a child. He hadn't noticed, never having thought about it, but looking back, it was strange.
"Heh... heheh!"
Just then the hyena beastkin in Shirca's grip burst out laughing. Shirca looked down at him.
"You don't even... heh... know what that thing is... and look at you, fussing over it. Heheh... koff!"
Blood dripped from his mouth as he glared at Bariya. Pitch-black eyes flashed between the folds of his dark hood.
"Born in the gutter... and not a scrap of gratitude. Feels good, does it... kuh... throwing yourself on the enemy of us hyenas?"
"Mister, take me to him."
At Bariya's demand, Jake glanced at Shirca. When Shirca nodded, he approached carefully, the child still in his arms. And the moment they were close enough—
"You've got a mouth, and you're just running it. The one who suffered to bring me into this world is my mom. Who do you think you are, spouting nonsense at me?"
Bariya yanked off the attacker's hood, seized his hair in both hands, and ripped.
"Aaaagh!"
He screamed at the raw tearing of his scalp, but Bariya showed no mercy.
"Never heard that the enemy of your enemy is your friend? Hyenas are my enemies, so obviously the tigers who are the hyenas' enemies are on my side!"
"Y-you damned—!"
"The ones who are damned are you, not me! You walnut-brained idiots!"
Ripping out a whole clump of hair wasn't enough to vent her fury. Like a cat batting with its front paws, she pounded his head with her fists—thud, thud, thud.
"This young lady's temper is really something else."
Watching from inches away, Jake could only click his tongue. Even so, he shifted his hold so she could hit the man more comfortably. A bad temper, he was starting to think, wasn't such a bad thing.
"Keh... khehk!"
Then, perhaps from taking too many blows to the head, the man began to let out a grotesque laugh. Sensing something wrong, Shirca stopped watching with satisfaction and moved to get Bariya clear—
"Sabrina Caliph."
The man rolled his eyes toward Sabrina, far off.
"If you don't want to lose your son again... send this thing back to the Mariners. The antidote... is there."
The instant the words ended, poison erupted from the attacker's entire body.
"Shirca!"
With a scream that seemed to tear the air, a pitch-black poison mist swallowed Shirca, Jake, and Bariya whole.