Tales of Leo Attiel ~Portrait of the Headless Prince~

Volume 3, Chapter 4: Child of the Land

Part 1

Having returned to Guinbar, Leo immediately sent out scouts. This wasn’t only because he was wary of Darren being in pursuit, but also because he wanted them to investigate the terrain around Olt Rose.

Their defeat stemmed from a lack of information. Just a single piece more might have allowed them to predict how Lance’s troops would move.

After that, the other problem had been the number of soldiers. After meeting with Savan Roux, the castle lord, Leo had informed him that, “Darren is scheming to capture Guinbar,” and had ordered him to hire a great many more troops. This was, of course, to defend Guinbar, but also so as to add part of them to his own attack corps.

In other words, Leo had not yet given up.

As long as his information and troops were complete, he would probably have ridden his horse the very next day after his defeat, to raise his sword a second time, while the walls of Olt Rose and their surroundings were filled with the stench of gunpowder smoke.

Leo chaffed with impatience.

‘Speed’ is crucial.

He had already thought so when they went to capture Olt Rose, but the meaning was not limited to tactics on the battlefield: it also concerned his strategy for what to do after having subjugated Darren.

Darren plotted Lord Leo’s assassination, and was immediately cut down at Leo’s own hands – He wanted that to become a reality. With just that, he would be able to speed up the plan to unite Atall as one.

He could not afford to have trouble simply because of one man like Darren.

“We need airships,” Leo asserted to Percy and the others. “There’s nothing better to investigate the layout of a battlefield. They would be useful for messengers too. Is there any way to get five or six... no, even just three would be enough.”

However –

While they were still only halfway through the preparations for the second attack, envoys came from Tiwana, sent by the sovereign-prince. He demanded that both Darren and Leo explain the situation to him.

“Your Highness, you are requested to leave at once for Tiwana,” said the envoy.

“My life was targeted,” Leo answered however, “I will not stay in the same place as Darren.”

Thus, he refused to go to the capital

A second messenger soon came to see him, but Leo again turned him down. Once the prince was wedded to Florrie, he would have the duty of being a 'bridge-builder' with Allion. Leo's assessment was that since the sovereign-prince was aware of the importance of this, he would yield if his son remained firm.

But Leo's actions at Conscon Temple seemed to have worried his father more than Leo had anticipated. When yet a third envoy arrived, the message he carried was:

“If Second Prince Leo refuses the summons a third time, I will have a notice proclaimed that he is to be chased down and dragged before me.”

In front of the messenger, Leo's expression remained calm, but he was inwardly surprised. If he had received that letter when he was alone, he might even have started trembling uncontrollably.

First, there were the “summons” to explain himself before the sovereign-prince. They had been sent out as an official document, and were synonymous to declaring that, “you are simply a retainer, not a member of the princely house”.

And needless to say, the “proclamation that he is to be dragged before me” was essentially an order to “capture a fugitive criminal”.

Did something happen to Father? Leo wondered, completely blind to his own faults.

Once the messenger had left the room, Leo kicked the wall as hard as he could.

I knew 'speed' was important.

If he could have captured Olt Rose, he could have branded Darren a 'criminal', and then the situation would never have turned out like this. But it was too late for regrets.

“What will you do?”

In response to Percy's question, Leo’s expression looked like he was about to burst into laughter at any moment.

“What can I do except go? I want to unite the country, so I can't be the one to divide it.” His eyes were filled with anger and self-mockery. Yet even so – “I swear by all that is holy that we did nothing wrong. I'll explain that in person to Father.”

He did not seem to be in despair. Percy understood that, and nodded carefully in response.

“I understand. Then we too...”

“No. The only guard I'm taking is Kuon. Percy, there's something I want you lot to do for me.”

After a short discussion, Leo prepared what he needed for the journey.

Some ten days later, Leo was gazing the northern meadows as he arrived at Tiwana, the capital city, which almost seemed to be binding together patches of countryside. Before he even had time to wash off the dirt from travelling, he and Darren were summoned together before the sovereign-prince.

It was already evening by then.

Father must be absolutely furious – thought Leo. He remembered how, after he had wilfully gone to meet with the king of Allion, his father had called him to his personal chambers to yell at him.

Leo steeled himself for having angry roars flung at him as soon as he appeared, but the sovereign-prince's expression, as he sat on the throne, was stern, and his gaze was equally cold, whether he turned it towards his son or towards Darren.

Apart from a few Royal Guards, there was no one in the audience chamber, and no other retainers present. Given how things stood, he probably wanted to bring things to an end as discretely as possible.

“Let's hear what both of you have to say about the reasons for this ruckus,” at Magrid's words, Leo was the first to speak.

“It was because Darren turned his blade against me,” he explained.

After telling about how he had been targeted by a surprise attack to the holiday resort area, and how about how he had just barely managed to overcome it, he went on to talk about how they had captured and interrogated several soldiers, who had confessed that Darren was the mastermind.

“That's impossible,” Darren Actica vociferously interrupted.

“What's impossible?” Leo shot Darren a sidelong glare. “We arrested several soldiers, and I can have them brought here.”

“Even if the soldiers were fooled into believing that I was the mastermind, it is nothing but a trap set by someone who wishes for my downfall. Something similar happened not so long ago. Sir Savan called me to his castle on the grounds that the leader of the marauders who were causing havoc at Guinbar's quarry apparently looked like my son. Your Highness Leo, wasn't that misunderstanding supposed to have already been cleared up?”

Darren deliberately crossed that dangerous bridge. In bringing up that past quarrel, he was playing the card that “Lord Leo has already suspected me unfairly before this.”

Leo had captured Darren's son, Togo, but he had deliberately presented him as a 'stranger' with the intention of subsequently blocking any of Darren's manoeuvres by keeping Togo under guard at Guinbar Castle. The prince had wanted, if at all possible, to draw Darren's faction to his side, but the way he had dealt with things back then had provoked a bitter enmity.

While Leo stuttered, Darren instead continued speaking.

“Your Majesty, there must be some nefarious actor at work who wishes to drive a wedge between House Actica and the princely House. His Highness Leo, who is known for the heroic way that he saved the temple, is honest and upright. It is for that very reason, however, that his emotions are easily provoked, and I fear that His Highness might have been duped by vile rumours spread by that nefarious agent.”

How dare he... Leo felt like punching Darren in the face.

Standing there, next to him, was the man who had unmistakably targeted his life. Yet Darren didn't breathe so much as a hint of that fact as he calmly proclaimed his innocence to the sovereign-prince. Was this what was called a devil in human skin?

Or maybe humans, who are supposed to be fashioned in God's image, are actually closer in nature to the devil? Unbidden fury filled his heart.

Leo was unable to smash through the play that Darren was acting out. In which case, what he needed were the words and attitude capable of swaying the sovereign-prince's heart and influencing the judgement he would hand down, but this discussion was something that Darren himself had originally asked for, and the sovereign-prince was increasingly inclined to view his son as dangerous. The odds had been stacked against Leo from the start.

While Leo could not say half of what he was thinking, the sovereign-prince raised a hand and stopped the two of them.

“Fine, I understand what both of you are saying,” his decision was more or less exactly what Leo had been expecting. “At the moment, I do not have enough information. Until I have had it investigated, neither of you is to start a fight with the other. Whatever the circumstances may be, I fully intend to punish whoever made the first move.”

Leo had no choice but to obey, while Darren had no reason not to.

Leo did not even stay three days in Tiwana. During that short time, Florrie had asked to see him, but Leo refused on the grounds that “my health isn't great.”

Please be sure to make things up to Miss Florrie – it wasn't that he had forgotten Percy's repeated reminders, but right now, and even if it was Florrie, he did not think that he would be able to talk normally to anyone.

His tactics had been aimed at strengthening the central power by forcing the vassal-lords to submit, even through sheer strength if necessary. Yet he had tripped over the very first stumbling block. Leo was furious over his own incompetence.

He could not deny that he had been careless on every single point. Yet simultaneously, and for the first time, he felt irritated by his father, the sovereign-prince – Father doesn't understand anything!

The ruling House has to strengthen its central power – at least as it is right now, with the vassal-lords not even falling in line with its policies, we won't be able to compete against Allion and Dytiann. Even though everything I've done is for Atall's sake, why doesn't he understand?

When he and Darren had been presenting their excuses, his father's attitude had been strange: it had been that of a ruler, coldly and emotionlessly staring down at those far beneath him. Whenever Leo recalled that gaze, he could not help but feel chilled to the core.

He requested several times to have a meeting alone with his father, but was turned down each time.

Stark Barsley, who was in Tiwana at the same time, came to see Leo. It was impossible for Stark to feel anything but flabbergasted at Leo's actions, but outwardly at least, he simply gave advice like an elder.

“For now, you need to stay quiet. You cannot expect our sovereign to tolerate fights within our borders. And all the less so when one of the parties involved is his own kin. If His Majesty appears to be dealing with you so strictly, it is only to protect your House. Give it time, and His Majesty will be willing to listen to you.”

Leo, however, paid him no heed. In the end, angry, irritated and faintly uneasy, he returned to Guinbar three days after arriving in Tiwana.

Those at the head of Atall who gathered around the sovereign-prince only had an even worse impression of Leo because of it.

His Highness does not understand His Majesty's heart, and will apparently only rely on Savan, who is loyal whom he knows to be loyal to him.

One of these days, he might come up with some other excuse and break into our territories.

Darren, on the other hand, was gaining momentum He had lost his eldest son in a series of incidents, and his second son had been gravely wounded, but now he saw a chance to shift the blame, and started spreading all sorts of insinuations.

“It seems the prince bears a grudge against me for not having contributed to establishing his Personal Guards.”

Or else –

“It's doubtful whether that attack on the resort area even happened. Isn't it possible that he used marauders that he had to hand to try and stage his own little play?”

“As a faithful vassal to our ruling House, I stopped at merely sending the prince packing. However, while I am a tolerant man, if this happens again, then if the prince gets hit, it might not just be from a stray bullet. Let's hope he's learned his lesson.”

His words were vehement, but Leo, having returned to Guinbar, wasn't sitting idle either.

The Personal Guards had, for the time being, been garrisoned in Guinbar, but there was the risk that the sovereign-prince might soon declare that “until my judgement has been handed down, Leo is not to move any soldiers,” and then use that as a pretext for dissolving the unit. Before that could happen, Leo had his guards transferred beyond the sovereign-prince's reach – to Conscon Temple, which had a good relationship with.

The prince had already given Percy the order to take the Personal Guards away while he himself was in Tiwana. Since there needed to be at least some kind of official excuse for it, the explanation given was that they were going to perform large-scale joint drills. With Camus' help, the temple's bishop had written a letter to that effect to the sovereign-prince, and Savan would be shouldering the cost of having them stationed in one single place.

This was what Leo had been talking when, just before leaving Guinbar, he had said that there was something he wanted Percy and the others to do. Thanks to that, he had for now avoided having his troops confiscated, but it was no more than a temporary measure, and it did not change the fact that his military strength had been moved far from him.

Which meant that he would not be able to mobilise them quickly.

It was at around about that time that the target of the rumours actively being spread by Darren's side slowly shifted from Leo to Savan.

“From the time there was that banquet to welcome Hayden, Savan has blamed me for the attacks on his quarry.”

“That story didn't have a word of truth in it. Now that I think about it, it was from that time onwards that Lord Leo started getting closer to Savan. Could it be that Savan was planning from the start to trick the kind-hearted prince?”

“In that case, when the prince led his onslaught against our Dharam, Savan might have been the one pulling the strings from behind...”

Darren used people to circulate similar stories in Tiwana and in other castle towns. To Leo's mind, his goal was not only to criticise and checkmate the prince, but also to lay the groundwork for an attack on Guinbar. In the near future, he would definitely come up with some reason or another, then march on Savan's territory.

In a way, Darren's existence was emblematic of the vassal-lords. He had been pivotal to ousting the previous sovereign-prince, and he took great pride in his power, which all but allowed him to stand on the same level as the ruling House. If he captured Guinbar, then not only would his momentum increase, but Leo's ideal of “strengthening the central authority” would vanish completely, like a heap of sand in a child's sandpit kicked away by adults.

Stark had talked about “giving it time”, but if he just stood by with his arms folded, the situation would only head in a worse and worse direction.

What do I do? Leo's impatience grew with every passing day.

Percy and Camus were both at the temple, so he did not have any advisors close by. He only had Kuon by his side to act as his guard. Currently, there was also Sarah, whom Camus had sent over “in case of communications with the temple,” but neither of those two were suited to complex talks about politics.

It had already been two months since he and Darren had stood before the sovereign-prince.

During that time, Savan had recruited a great many mercenaries, and had issued orders to the various keeps and fortresses within his domains. The principal keep lords and fortress commanders had gathered at Guinbar Castle, and in all, they managed to scrounge up two thousand soldiers. As was to be expected in a region that guarded the border, it was easier to find fighters here than in other areas. Their equipment, however, was old, and besides not having any airships, they only had a few guns and cannons.

Moreover, it proved impossible to keep that many men stationed at Guinbar Castle. Darren was gradually starting to bare his fangs.

He fell back on his old trick of using marauders to start skirmishes. Throughout all the villages in the area, groups of bandits, thieves and penniless mercenaries suddenly appeared, setting the houses on fire. They killed the men who resisted, kidnapped the women, and stole the crops and livestock.

The keep lords and commanders who had arrived in Guinbar Castle were forced to hurriedly go back to where they had come from and deal with the attackers. The castle's defences continued to be chipped away, and Leo's impatience turned into anger and irritation.

One day, unable to bear simply staying still, Leo dressed up as one of the people to go down to the castle town and take a look at the assembled mercenaries. In terms of numbers, there were quite a few of them but, just as had been the case at the temple, recruiting soldiers far and wide made it easy for the enemy to slip spies in among them.

How many of them can I actually use?

Among the soldiers were some who had been labourers, working on the church's construction until just the other day. Was it because they had decided that they far preferred wielding a spear to cutting and carrying stone, or was it perhaps because the church might be destroyed if the town was attacked, and so they had chosen to take a stance to defend their work?

That church was where Leo and Florrie were supposed to one day hold their wedding ceremony.

If Guinbar is set alight, I'll lose my authority. Relations with Allion and the temple will become uneasy.

It happened on the way back...

All of a sudden, among the people who were coming and going along the night-time streets, two men who were entangled together, came tumbling into view just in front of Leo. A fight had broken out between ruffians who had come to work as mercenaries in the tavern which doubled as their inn.

To the startled Leo, it felt for a second as though Darren's assassins had come to target his life. The story about how Darren's oldest son, Togo, had been killed with a single strike to his back flashed through the prince's mind.

Kuon was with him, acting as his guard, but since they were pretending to be part of the populace, neither of them carried a sword. Kuon quickly stepped in front of the prince.

“You taking that bastard's side!?” One of the brawlers misunderstood his action and thrust Kuon aside.

The boy dodged his arm and delivered a kick to the man's stomach.

The assailant was knocked backwards but the blow must have been a shallow one, since he immediately got back on his feet. He unsheathed the sword at his waist with a cutting motion.

Although he had intended for it to be a threat, Kuon instead drew right up to his opponent. While the man panicked in his confusion, a fist struck him in the throat, and the sword was snatched from his hand.

“Kill him,” Leo ordered.

“Hiii,” the man shrieked, and sank to his knees.

Just in the instant when Kuon stepped up towards him –

“Wait,” Leo cried, changing his mind.

He was too late, however, and the blade whistled through the air.

Leo gasped and the flash of steel halted. The tip of the blade quivered right before the man's eyes. These promptly rolled until only the whites could be seen, and he fell in a dead faint. The people who had been coming and going along the street, as well as those who had come out from the tavern, broke out in chatter. Leo and Kuon hurriedly continued on their way back.

“Kuon,” after a while, the prince called out to his bodyguard, who was scanning their surroundings in every direction. “What is it?”

The prince stared intently at the boy. Leo had held a sword; stopping a blade which had gathered momentum required a corresponding amount of strength and leg power. Yet Kuon had halted that sword without staggering even by a single step.

“You never actually intended to kill him, did you?”

“Sorta...”

“Hm?”

“I sort of thought that you wouldn't want to go through with it, Prince.”

“I wouldn't want to go through with it? Atall's Lord Leo isn't that soft-hearted. You saw how I cut away at Darren's soldiers, didn't you?”

“...”

“I told you to kill him. A soldier obeys orders.”

“But...”

“Enough,” Leo started to walk even faster. He realised himself that his nerves were on edge. Having a retainer ignore his orders out of concern for him was no good, so part of the reason for his irritation was anger at himself.

After taking a few more steps, however, he stopped. Sarah was in front of the castle's drawbridge. She was, as usual, dressed in her novice's robes.

When Leo waved his hand, Sarah looked relieved and came up to them. Kuon wrinkled his nose.

“Why're you here?”

“Because the two of you disappeared from the castle. I came rushing out because I was worried that something might have had happened.”

Everything about her speech and demeanour revealed that Sarah must have received a high level of education, yet whenever she was speaking to Kuon, her tone became oddly common.

“I'm with the prince.”

“Then that's even more reason for concern,” she stuck out her tongue, which irritated Kuon.

“My skills are trustworthy.”

“Your arm is, yes. But that's only if things are straightforward. If I was an assassin, I could think of a hundred ways to get you away from the prince. I could run after pretending to make a first attempt on his life, and lure you away; or else I could shout out 'over there, there's an enemy general you can kill to earn glory'; or I could win you over with the luscious skin and flesh of a sexy and scantily clad woman... ah, but that might be kind of a pain. Or even more simply, I'd just have someone jeer at you and say 'Kuon's an idiot, a fool, a stupid-face,' and you would immediately abandon the prince's side to go chase after that person.”

Leo's eyes opened wide. Sarah's tone and attitude were exactly the same as if she had said, 'Alright, my lad. Come at me from any angle.” Yet what was surprising was that she herself wasn't trying to provoke Kuon. What brought Leo to that realisation was that she got angry as Kuon became irate from her deliberately taunting him.

Even now, Kuon was yelling, “What's that, bratty girl?”

“Even if you call me a 'bratty girl', you're still younger than me, Kuon. Monkey boy, stray dog,” she barred her teeth and fought back.

Leo cleared his throat and Sarah put a hand in front of her mouth, her expression saying 'Oops'.

After a moment, Leo indicated one of the high-restaurants that could be found in the quiet side streets.

“Let's stop by there,” he suggested to the other two.

From the staircase, the first and second floors were no different from those of other restaurants in the area, but the third floor was a series of private rooms for the use of honoured customers, and Leo entered one of them. The three of them sat at the fairly large table there.

Leo drank a mouthful of ale flavoured with ginger. It was certainly not high-quality alcohol, but right now, he wanted the stimulus.

“What’s going on?” Sarah asked Kuon in a low voice.

It was rare to see Leo drink, and it was equally unusual for him to eat out or to invite any of them to share a meal with him.

“Nothing. It’s nothing you need to know about,” replied Kuon, which was tacit admittance that there is something going on.

Sarah frowned, bristling.

“What’s that? Do you think that while I was away at the temple, you got closer to the prince than anyone? My, what a great and distinguished gentleman you’ve become.”

She had spoken in a low voice but, since their surroundings were quiet, Leo had also been able to catch what she said. Kuon looked irritated but, just then – “Ah!” Sarah suddenly exclaimed so loudly that both he and Leo were startled.

“What is it now?”

“You... Have you grown a bit taller? You definitely have. Are you going to just impertinently overtake me? Here, turn around.”

“Shut up. And stop touching me.”

Leo laughed at the exchange between the two of them, which remained the same as ever and which was continuing on from earlier. Thinking about it, these two had been like that ever since he first met them. Back when they had been fleeing through the mountains in the dead of night, not knowing when Allion’s army might find them, Kuon and Sarah had been bickering incessantly, like two small birds pecking at each other, and Percy had to keep telling them off.

Then there was also the time when the battles at Conscon Temple were over, and Leo had invited the two of them, along with Percy and Camus, to eat with him and Florrie, his fiancée, since she had been saying for some time that she really wanted to thank them. She had not seen them since they had met in Allion.

The conversation had flowed pleasantly. In front of Leo and Florrie, Sarah had adopted a meek and modest attitude.

“I need to apologise to you all. Back then, I had completely lost my calm, and far from thanking you, I even...” Florrie had started.

Kuon who, after fidgeting about uncomfortably for a bit, had been stuffing food into his mouth at a startling rate, piped up:

“Yeah, I was really surprised when you turned a sword towards us, Lady. You looked like you were stronger than any of Allion’s soldiers.”

It was rare for him to make a joke like that, and Florrie hunched her shoulders as though she wanted to disappear from sight. Sarah had furiously berated Kuon.

“Do you want me to sew that mouth shut for you right now? All you’ve got is a nasty tongue and no manners,” she shouted.

“Those two are like that every time they see each other. They must have a really bad affinity.”

Leo said, while Sarah had still been going on at Kuon, but for some reason, Florrie had smiled slightly.

“Hmm. Who knows?” She answered, tilting her head.

Leo had realised something at that point. Namely: that women were a mystery.

He drank another sip of ale. It felt like it had been a long time since he had thought about Florrie like that.

Having gotten worked up, Sarah seemed about to drag Kuon up from his chair and force him to stand, when her eyes met Leo’s and she sat back down, her face red.

“I beg your pardon, Your Highness. I was causing a fuss.”

“It’s fine. More importantly... I’m the one who needs to beg your pardon,” Leo said, looking at Kuon.

“Eh?” Not surprisingly, the boy looked surprised.

“Despite your achievements, I haven’t been able to give you a reward.”

“Ah, no... that’s...”

“If only I’d done a bit better. Around about now, the Personal Guards would be double the number and you might be a company commander with five platoons under you, Kuon. Actually, no – since you’re familiar with every weapon and every way of fighting, it might be better to put you in charge of a troop of mercenaries who’ve come from all over.”

“That would be nice. But it’s story for much later, when Kuon is twice the height that he is now, right?” Sarah joked. “With Kuon’s current size, the mercenaries would just make fun of him.”

Kuon gave her sidelong look, but he didn’t protest. Perhaps he was mindful of the prince, but t it was also that he had never been good at dealing with being the topic of conversation.

“I’m fine as is. As long as I can eat every day, that’s plenty.”

He tried to quickly bring the topic to a close, but Sarah wasn’t going to let him escape so easily.

“What a strange fellow you are. All you would do every day was look irritated and say, ‘I want to earn glory, I want to earn glory’. And big brother would always say, ‘You’re still immature. You need to patiently hone your skills. Those who rush out to meet tomorrow before anyone else are the ones who will lose their lives without ever seeing that tomorrow’.”

Sarah lifted her eyebrows with her fingers and spoke in a deep voice, imitating her brother. As was to be expected from a sibling, it was surprisingly like him and Leo almost laughed. This time, however, he stopped himself.

Sarah was still going on,

“Even though you never seem to listen to what anyone says, starting with my brother, have you given up now? And in the first place, why were you in such a hurry to earn glory? Is it for money, or because you want to go up in life? Do you need social standing because you’ve promised to marry a high-class young lady?”

Kuon looked towards Leo with a completely fed up expression. Normally, this was where Percy or Camus would bring a stop to things, but, just this one time, Leo was not going to let Kuon off either.

“I’m interested too.”

“P-Prince...”

“I don’t know how you feel about it, but for me – who doesn’t have many allies – you are a trustworthy retainer, and also an irreplaceable companion, and even a friend. I would be troubled if you were to think ‘I really can’t earn glory as long as I’m around that prince’ and leave; or if you got too impatient and ‘died without seeing tomorrow’. If you have circumstances or reasons, then I very much want to hear about them. Of course, I can’t tell you that I’ll arrange for a new war tomorrow, but I might be able to help you in other areas.”

“...”

For a moment, Kuon opened his eyes wide with surprise as he stared fixedly at Lord Leo. He then almost immediately turned them away, unable to bear Leo’s equally unwavering – and far more enthusiastic – gaze. In the end, however, he gave an answer.

“There’s nothing.... amazing about my circumstances... my Lord,” Kuon said heavily. “There’s just that one prediction about me – maybe if it comes true, everyone will be surprised... but that’s all.”

“Who was it who made a prediction?”

“Old Granny Mist. A priestess to the god of the mountain, Tei Tahra.”

Sarah was about to interrupt, but Leo sent her a glance over Kuon’s head to stop her. Let me handle this, it said. He then adopted a deliberately nonchalant tone.

“A priestess? I’ve heard that in the religions of the mountain lands and other remote areas, priestesses aren’t just women priests, but that they can hear the voices of the gods, and that their role is to convey the divine will to the people of this world.”

When he mentioned that knowledge that he gleaned from books, Kuon agreed in a subdued voice.

“They are like that... my lord.”

“Then, what is the prediction about you”

As Leo asked his questions one-by-one, Kuon returned answers, bit-by-bit. It was as that point that Sarah noticed: Leo was using their conversation as a starting point to learn about the place of Kuon’s birth. The boy had occasionally let drop fragments of information, but he had never seemed to want to follow them up by confiding everything about his past.

Which was why Leo was pretending to make casual conversation, repeatedly asking questions one after another in a deliberately dispassionate voice, and at a relaxed pace, so as to not put Kuon on his guard. And Kuon was carried along by that pace, like someone rowing a small boat away from the shore and who, while enjoying the slow, rocking motion of the waves, didn’t realise that they were drifting away from the coast. And so, unusually for Kuon, he continued to tell his tale.

He was by no means a good talker, and he tended to confuse his listeners with the way he unconcernedly brought up names and knowledge about the mountains that they were unfamiliar with. Nevertheless, Leo listened without getting impatient. Even if there was information that he wanted, he never tried to jump straight to the answer he was looking for, and always advanced methodically, step-by-step.

Sarah was anything but patient, but although it was sometimes so irritating that she was almost shaking, she too gradually got an understanding of the full picture.

Part 2

Kuon was born and raised south of the Kesmai Plains, at the foot of what was known, in the principality, as the Fangs Mountain Range. The settlement that existed there naturally had its own distinctive beliefs and culture, separated as it was from the outside by rugged peaks.

It was also for that same reason that neighbouring countries did not send armies against it. Less prudent powers, however, had time and time again attempted to invade. Criminals chased out from their own countries, bandits, as well as nobles or generals who had fallen into ruin had all tried to break into those isolated lands and turn them into their new stronghold.

And each time, the young men from the village picked up their weapons and fought back.

While the overland route was almost inaccessible, they had built a port in the bay, and through this, they had some – very limited – contact with the outside, which meant that they held a large number of weapons, including swords and guns.

Most of those who lived by the mountain remained there for their entire life. They naturally had the advantage of terrain and they were subject to none, so their sense of independence was unusually strong compared to people from other lands. They banded together with terrifying solidarity whenever anyone from the outside threatened their families, their livelihood in the mountains, or tried to defile the sanctuary to Tei Tahra, the mountain god.

Kuon was born a member of those ‘mountain people’. However, as he himself had once said, he was not a ‘pureblood’ from the mountains.

At one time, a mercenary from ‘outside’ had strayed into the tribe’s bay.

The man had apparently been on the losing side of a naval battle, and had drifted for many days in a small boat, until he had washed up in their gulf by chance. The tribe’s punishment for entering their land without permission was death, but because the man was so haggard and emaciated, and because the tribe head wanted information about the war that had taken place on the southern sea – there was, after all, the fear that trouble might come to them – he was allowed to recuperate in the village for a while.

A few months later, the man had recovered and, perhaps fearing that he would killed by these barbaric savages, he fled the mountain under cover of darkness.

Yet by that time, one of the women of the tribe was carrying his child.

That child was Kuon.

They were a people who had built a world for themselves and, for a very long time, no foreign blood had entered it. Mother and child were, of course, treated harshly. They were entirely forbidden from taking part in the village ceremonies, and were never invited to other houses.

Whenever Kuon wandered around, playing by himself, if other children of the same age caught sight of him, they would jeer at him –

“Look, it’s Kuon.”

“Only half his blood is human. He was born when an evil spirit impregnated his mother.”

Their tribe believed that a person’s forehead was the doorway to their soul. And since good and evil spirits were constantly feuding in the mountains, the people feared that the evil spirits would enter someone’s forehead and control their body like a soul would, turning them into ‘betrayers’ who harmed the tribe. Because of that, members of the tribe marked their foreheads with a protective charm. On each and every one of them, the shamans who served as priests tattooed a red, oval-shaped bead surrounded by an intricate pattern.

If the tattoo was given to a young child, however, it was said that, “it will hinder the influence of the good spirits, and will stunt the child’s growth,” so the tattoo was permitted only to those who had come of age and who had their own families.

Still, the balance between good and evil spirits varied considerably according to time and season. Once a year, Tei Tahra’s protection weakened, and evil spirits were said to proliferate within the mountains; it was only during that time that children were allowed to wear charms. Early in the morning, their father would lift them onto his lap and paint the protective pattern on their forehead with red dyes.

Only Kuon’s forehead remained bare at those times. Women were forbidden from drawing the amulets against evil spirits. He had no father, and he and his mother were estranged from her relatives, so there was no one to draw the charm for him.

And so, the children taunted him more than ever.

“If you touch him, evil spirits will come for you!” They said as they hurled stones at him.

Kuon had been hot-tempered ever since very young, and he threw stones back. While they were running away, screaming with excitement, he caught them and deliberately struck them on their hated foreheads. He was, of course, at an overwhelming numerical disadvantage. Even more importantly, he did not have a single friend. The other children quickly surrounded him, punching and kicking him to their heart’s content. Kuon was covered in injuries, but if any of the others had even a single scratch, their parents would kick up a fuss.

They went to Kuon’s mother, protesting loudly.

“Drive out that loathsome beast!”

“Tie it up to a pillar of the house!”

Kuon heard their angry roars time and time again.

His mother, who had broken a tribal taboo, had lost her right to her own home. Even when illness forced her to stay in bed, none of her relatives came to see her. Unable to bear hearing his mother crying out from a fever-induced nightmare, Kuon ran out of the house in the pouring rain, and left the village at the foot of the mountain.

He had gone to beg for help from the shamans. Usually, they lived in isolated retreats in the mountains, far from other people, and he had heard that they were knowledgeable about illnesses and medicine. But a child’s feet could not travel very far. He walked for an entire day and night but, in the end, he did not find any of the shamans, and could only return to the village, drenched through from the rain. When his mother’s older brother saw Kuon in that state, maybe he felt some compassion after all, because he secretly brought them medicinal plants, and concocted a remedy that he had once learned from a shaman.

Kuon’s mother had always been in frail health and, when he was eight, she died of a chest illness. For a while, the tribe argued over what to do with him. None of his mother’s relatives wanted to take him in.

In the end, a man called Datta Wei took charge of Kuon, giving as his reason that “my house needs an extra pair of hands.”

Datta Wei.

He had a surname, which meant that he was a warrior.

Datta had about two hundred subordinates, all of whom also bore the name ‘Wei’. His wife, on the other hand, could not take that name, and neither could his own children unless they officially joined the unit once they were adults.

The same, of course, held true for Kuon. Even though he received food and a place to sleep, his position was close to being a servant, and his circumstances had certainly not improved.

The adults still despised him, especially the women who looked down on his mother for her ‘wanton’ behaviour. The children from the same age-group as him also continued to bully him. Datta’s son, Diu, was particularly violent about it. He was three years older than Kuon, and was always going around saying,

“Don’t speak to me like we’re equal, you fucking ‘unwanted spawn’. I’ll definitely became a man of the ‘Wei’, but you won’t. If you go to the battlefield, it’ll just be to die as a shield for me or my father. Now doesn’t that sound nice?”

Without a word of warning, he would knock him down as soon as he saw him. He stole Kuon’s share of food, then kicked him in his growling stomach. Diu was outstandingly good at hiding his behaviour from his parents and from the comrades-in-arms of the ‘Wei’, while Kuon got pushed around as the lowest-ranking member of the household. On top of doing a servant’s work inside the house, he was always sent out to accompany the hunters.

– If asked whether he felt nothing but unhappiness at his circumstances back then, Kuon would have to say that he couldn’t really remember.

Of course, he resented Diu. The other boy was older and larger than him and, because there were adults around, Kuon couldn’t fight back like he used to.

Naturally, he felt depressed. But at the same time, to Kuon in those days, the mountain life that existed thanks to the blessings from Tei Tahra was the only world he knew.

The world outside...

His imagination ran rampant about it. Whenever he heard the adults who worked in trade at the port talk about the surrounding countries, he always told himself –

One day, I’ll leave the mountains and go to other lands too.

That wish grew especially strong right after his mother’s death. Surely there, the children his age wouldn’t throw stones at him, and the adult women wouldn’t gaze at him in contempt for no reason.

As he got older, that simple, innocent yearning turned into slightly more realistic plans, as he thought about whether to run away one night through the mountains, or whether to steal a boat from the harbour and row himself into the open sea.

Yet at the same time, Kuon had a tremendous fear of breaking the mountains rules, which also came from the fact that he was not a pureblood. His existence was one that the mountain rejected and, if he failed to follow along with its god and its people, even if only by a little, he was terrified that he might be eliminated. His young heart never stopped trembling from that one fear.

In particular, there was the coming-of-age ceremony, which was performed once a year. This was the time that Kuon feared the most. As a minor who could not take part in it, he had no way of knowing anything about the ceremony itself, but when the time for it drew close, a ‘betrayer’ would inevitably appear within the community.

During that period, the priesthood spoke as one, saying that:

“The mountain’s energy is changing. The good and righteous are starting to go into hiding, and the evil spirits are starting to swarm.”

The mountain god, Tei Tahra’s, divine protection was at its weakest at those times. During that period, hunting was restricted, fishing was completely banned, and it was forbidden from leaving the house once the sun had set. This was also the period during which fathers drew the protective charms on their children’s foreheads.

Moreover, it was said that, “those with evil thoughts are easily possessed. Those who do not believe in Tei Tahra’s divine protection, those who disagree with the decisions of the tribe head, and those who use their cunning to deceive others – all of them have wicked hearts which can be drawn in by evil.”

Because of that, Kuon was made fun of even more than usual at those times.

“The only thing you can do, Kuon, is to stay and tremble inside the house. You’re not a pureblood, and you don’t have the charm either, so there’s no way Lord Tei Tahra will grant you His protection. You’ll get possessed as soon as you breathe the air outside.”

“Don’t worry, if that happens, I’ll exterminate you along with the evil spirit!”

Kuon pretended not to be the slightest bit scared of their threats, but inwardly, his anxiety grew exponentially: for all that the people of the community usually faithfully observed the taboos, during this time of the year, there were always some who became possessed by evil.

Once a year, a single trail of smoke would rise in the evening sky.

“Look, look!”

“The great shamans are casting the protective spells against evil!”

Pointing at it, the villagers would start clamouring.

These spells were cast because this was the one day when Tei Tahra’s protection was all but lost and, before long, a member of the tribe would inevitably vanish.

There was never any exception.

One of the men from the village would definitely disappear. Sometimes it was an old man of over sixty, sometimes it was a child who had yet to undergo his coming-of-age ceremony. That man was called into the mountains which were overrun by evil spirits, and it was said that one night, he would stagger aimlessly into the wilderness, responding to those summonses.

The family grieved for him, but there was nothing they could do. Once someone became possessed by evil, they were no more than ‘a betrayer who will harm Divine Tei Tahra and the tribe.’ It was said that not even the shamans could exorcise them.

Kuon had never seen anyone who was possessed by evil spirits, but it was for that very reason that a strange terror enveloped his heart. “This year, you're the one who's going to go missing” – whenever they pointed at him and said that, he couldn't help but shiver uneasily.

He wondered where those who were possessed by evil went to. What were they looking for, there, beyond the protection from God and the mountain? He wondered if maybe, before going to sleep, he should ask someone to bind his hands and feet. So that he wouldn't be able to stagger out into the night.

I don't have a wicked heart. I hate Diu and that bastard Tubai, but I've never thought of killing them. Lord God Tei Tahra, I'm not a pureblood, but I'm part of your people. Please protect me. Please don't let me be carried off outside.

Up until the moment when he fell asleep, he would desperately pray in silence, while drawing the protective charm with his fingers again and again. It seemed to work, because Kuon never became a 'betrayer'.

Or at least, not until he came of age.

Among the children of the same age group as Kuon, there was a girl called Aqua.

She was a year older than him. Since very young, she had joined in with the boys, and loved playing with slingshots, duelling with sticks, or any kind of rough game. Ostracised by the boys his age, Kuon sometimes became a target for them to throw stones at, and Aqua also took part in that.

When she was eight or nine years old, she was thin, swarthy-skinned, and when she laughed, she seemed to be missing several teeth. Since he didn't have much to do with the other children his age, for a long time, Kuon didn't even realise that Aqua was a girl.

He was nine by the time he noticed it. By then, he had already been with the Wei household for a year.

That day, he had gone hunting with his seniors from the Wei. Although having said that, Kuon's role was, at best, to carry bags, drive the prey to the hunters by shouting, and generally just run around; he had not yet received a gun or a bow. When they were heading back, a bird suddenly flew out from the undergrowth, and one of the hunting dogs belonging to the Wei household followed after it and disappeared off the path.

Having been ordered to “Look for it and bring it back,” Kuon waded alone into the bushes, calling its name.

Stepping out onto the path on the other side of it, he found Aqua, equally alone, coming down from the mountain. She was holding a small bow in her hand. Her eyes were brimming with tears but, when she saw Kuon, she glared sharply at him.

“What are you looking at?”

“I'm not looking at anything. I'm searching for a dog. I've got nothing to do with you.”

“A dog? Hmph, well you are basically being kept by the Wei. So the pet dogs get along well.”

Kuon didn't offer a retort and continued with his search, but Aqua came with him.

“Why are you following me?”

“I'm not following you. I'm looking for prey. Don't lump it with a kid's chores.”

It wasn't rare for women in the mountains to have guns or bows. Quite the opposite: be it for self-defence or to be ready for when invaders broke into the mountains, women were generally encouraged to be familiar with weapons. And in practice, whenever there were trespassers seeking to harm the mountains, women joined the armed units to go and greet them at gunpoint.

Unlike fighting, however, only men were allowed to go hunting. The mountain god Tei Tahra had only bestowed unto men the right to track the birds and beasts that came under his jurisdiction, and, although they could go fishing, no woman was ever permitted to hunt.

Aqua was not happy about it. She was sure that, whether it was at using a bow or at advancing along the mountain paths, she would do much better than any boy her age, so she was constantly pestering the hunters of the 'Holo' and her father, the head warrior, to “let me go hunting too”. Since her father had always firmly refused, that day, she stealthily tailed the hunters. She believed that she could earn recognition if she managed to bring down at least one bird or animal but, in the end, the adults had found her and, after giving her a harsh scolding, they had sent her away.

Which was when she met Kuon.

The bow she held in her hand seemed to be something she had made herself. Perhaps she thought that Kuon had realised it, given that it was considerably smaller than the ones used by adults.

“This bow is much stronger than it looks,” Aqua said proudly, even though she hadn't been asked anything. “The guys who can only bring down beasts with huge weapons are the ones who are really idiots. They don't have any dedication.”

Maintaining a reasonable distance between one another, the two of them continued to search the mountain, but neither of them obtained any results.

The sun had already started to set, and night was the time when Tei Tahra transferred his protection from the humans to the beasts. Unless there was a compelling reason to make an exception, hunting at night was forbidden.

Kuon turned to head back to the village, but Aqua berated him for it.

“Coward. Your unit gave you a mission but you're abandoning it halfway – how are you even a man? This is why you're just a halfwit.”

Kuon was completely fed up by then.

“Shut up. The guy who was sniffling because the adults got angry has nothing to say. You're the one who's not being a man. You want me to try Lord Tei Tahra's 'thousand arrows of courage on you?”

Shouting loudly, he took a step towards her, and Aqua's shoulders suddenly jerked in surprise before her expression quickly turned to fright.

Up until then, Aqua had joined in with the boys when they insulted Kuon, and thrown stones or sticks at him from afar. When he had angrily chased after them, everyone would run away laughing, or would gang up to attack him. It was all part of playing.

But judging from Aqua's expression, she had just realised that now, she was all alone. She closed her mouth shut, hunched her shoulders, and shrank away from him.

Kuon was bewildered by her reaction.

At that moment, the bushes in front of them started to rustle, startling both of them. Something was making its way through the tall grass and would soon be in sight.

In the distance, they could hear the voices of adults calling their names to one another. This was probably the prey they were chasing after.

Kuon was ready to leave at once, but Aqua's expression turned from fear to delight as she readied her bow.

“What're you doing? Run away!”

“If you want to run away, do it by yourself. The first kill I'll bring down has come to find me all by itself!”

Just then, scattering blades of grass in its wake, a grey-brown wild boar appeared.

It was huge. It was so massive that it looked like it could keep running even if Kuon and Aqua both clung to the mane along its back. What drew the eye more than anything were the tusks that curved higher than its snout.

Aqua shot an arrow, but she her timing had been far too hasty. She had been too impatient. She immediately nocked another arrow to her bow but, this time, she was too slow. Lowering its head, the boar charged.

Kuon could picture how Aqua would be flung into the air, and he rushed forward. While he ran, he picked up rocks that were rolling at his feet, and hurled them at the boar.

Aqua fell backwards. Just as she was about to be trampled underfoot, the second stone that Kuon had thrown struck the boar. It almost hit it in the eye.

The boar backed off noisily.

Just then, adults armed with spears and guns arrived, and the boar, with a high-pitched cry, changed its course and fled. The adults were surprised to find Kuon and Aqua there. They raced after the beast without a moment's delay, but as they were doing so, and because the children had gotten in the way of the hunt, they told them something that was sure to scare more than anything:

“We'll have the shamans punish you after this.”

The shamans, who lived in mountain hermitages away from human settlements, were said to transform children who bothered adults into beasts who prowled the mountains.

“You alright?” Kuon reached out to touch Aqua's shoulder as she started to get up, but his hand was shaken off.

“I couldn't bring it down,” said Aqua, hanging her head. Her voice was shaking, maybe because of how frustrated she felt. The next moment, she lifted her face and screamed,

“It's your fault! If you hadn't interfered, I'd have killed it. Then they wouldn't have gotten mad. I'd have been accepted. I don't want to go to the shamans. I don't want to be turned into a beast or a frog. If someone's going, you go by yourself!”

She was crying as she shouted. She flung herself face downwards against the ground and wept loudly. She seemed to be at a complete loss. So was Kuon: he had intended to go home by himself, but he couldn't leave Aqua behind while she was crying. And that was because he had only just realised that she was a girl.

He stayed rooted in the same spot.

After about five minutes, Aqua stopped crying and slowly stood up. She threw away the bow that she had been holding the whole time and started to walk back towards the village. Kuon let her put a short distance between them, then started after her. As soon as he did so, Aqua looked back. He expected her to tell him not to follow her, but instead -

“What are you doing? Pick up the bow.”

“Didn't you just throw it away?”

“I'll give it to you. Something like that suits a child like you better.”

That was all she said before briskly walking forward.

Kuon couldn't remember if he picked up the bow or not.

Yet after that, Aqua didn't join the boys to play anymore. She didn't insult him or throw stones at him.

It wasn't because she had become meeker, though – she started to join the 'Holo' men in diligently training at archery.

A woman came of age when she turned twelve. That was three years sooner than the men. Usually, within the next two or three years, they would marry a similarly adult man and start to bear children. In a very small number of cases, the priests would find that a girl had an aptitude for becoming a priestess during the coming-of-age ceremony, and she would then begin her training. There was no right of refusal. It was a very great honour for a family to produce a priestess, so even though the training and religious learning were said to be harsh, there was no way for anyone to reject the call to serve near Tei Tahra, the mountain god.

Yet it wasn’t that there was no way at all to be allowed to go hunting or to be given a warrior’s surname. It was just that it meant giving up on being a woman.

Since girls were encouraged to handle guns and bows, there were sometimes, albeit rarely, women who demonstrated talent in using them that was equal to a man’s. “Perhaps God made a mistake when assigning them their sex.” In those cases, and as long as the person themselves wished it, they could be assigned to the afore-mentioned duties.

Upon choosing that path, however, one was no longer a woman. Naturally, they were forbidden from getting married or giving birth. If one of those people who ‘were born women but who are not women’ were to form a relationship with a man, then both of them would be banished from the community.

Aqua had apparently set her sights on walking a man’s path.

Yet contrary to her fervent desire, after a year or two passed and she had undergone her coming-of-age ceremony, in appearance at least, she gradually started to look more and more like a girl. “She really has become a beauty” – Kuon could remember how even Datta, the head of the Wei, had said so.

More and more men asked for her hand in marriage. One of them was Diu, who reached adulthood three years before Kuon. Yet Aqua refused them all. In order to be able to convince the priests and priestesses that she had a man’s talent, she continued to single-mindedly train with gun and bow.

Part 3

When Datta’s son, Diu, came of age, he officially entered the Wei, just as he himself had declared he would.

At the around the same period, Kuon received a bow for hunting, and his skill with it slowly became famous throughout the community. He had no fear of beasts. His arrows never missed the mark. He was fleet of foot when it came to giving chase...

Every time he accomplished another feat at hunting, the way that people looked at him, starting with his comrades in the Wei, began to change, and, at long last, his interactions with his surroundings also started to shift.

Perhaps he could be called lucky since, at around about that same time, intruders came to the mountains.

Upon being defeated by Allion, a certain powerful clan had braved the danger of crossing the Kesmai Plains to the southeast and of pushing into the ‘Fangs’ in search of new land. Although they had been driven back once, it seemed that had been no more than an advance party and the second time, when they were again spotted by the lookouts, they were marching in such great numbers that all the ground that should have been within sight was covered in the colour of their armour.

The mountain people needed as many fighters as possible. Accordingly, and although it was unusual, Kuon was incorporated into the unit before having his coming-of-age ceremony. He donned the leather armour that the unit had snatched away during the previous battle, hung a sturdy sword at his waist, and rushed onto the scene of actual combat.

Although it felt like his feet were going to be swept away from under him, and his mind was almost blank from fear, but all that disappeared the moment he charged at the enemy.

Every day, the seniors in the Wei put him through intensive training in how to use weapons. Having learned to hunt was also very useful when it came to fighting.

Kuon took down five enemies.

On the one hand, the tribe practiced exclusivism but, given the harsh environment that they lived in, it also applied meritocracy to an important degree. Kuon’s military achievements were so highly evaluated that they were greeted with cheers.

A year later, he took part in his second battle, which was also highly unusual and, as a result, Kuon officially joined the group of adults a year earlier than he normally would have.

“He is already on par with adults.”

“The mountain god wanted Kuon’s lifeblood a year early,” the priests all agreed.

Saying that ‘the mountain god wants his lifeblood’ was the same as talking about his death but, at the same time, it also meant that ‘the mountain god loves him’.

Kuon took part in the coming-of-age ceremony with the boys who were one year older than him. As I mentioned earlier, this took place in the period when Tei Tahra’s protection was all but lost. That year as well, three days before the ceremony, smoke was seen to rise from halfway up the mountain to ward off evil.

The next day, a man disappeared. He was an elderly fisherman who had also been a blacksmith, by the name of Gosro. When Kuon heard about it, he was stunned.

Previously, he had never had any interaction with the men who vanished, but now that Kuon had been allowed to take part in hunting and fighting with the adults, he had gradually developed more of a relationship with his surroundings. Gosro was an acquaintance of his.

Once, when Gosro had told him, “my son prefers hunting, so I’m short a pair of hands,” Kuon had ridden in his boat and helped haul up the nets.

Gosro was nearing sixty, but his legs were still strong, and it was instead Kuon’s which were shaky on the unfamiliar boat. While Gosro repeatedly hurled rebukes at him, Kuon had desperately pulled up the nets.

When they had finally got back to shore, he slumped down in exhaustion.

“I’ll make you a sword,” said Gosro. “You’re small. You’ll need a sword that suits your build.”

The next time Kuon had gone into combat, the sword at his waist had been forged by Gosro.

It hadn’t even been three months since then.

But why him?

Rather than grief, what Kuon felt the most strongly was confusion. Gosro was a heavy drinker, he could be rough, and he was a merciless commander on board a ship; Kuon had even heard that he had kicked his own son from the boat when he wouldn’t listen to him. But at the same time, he loved his family, he never forgot to pray to Tei Tahra, and was generally very well-liked.

How could a man like that be possessed by evil spirits? Kuon found it hard to believe.

Be that as it may, the day of the ceremony arrived. Kuon had eagerly been counting down the days to it. At long last he, the ‘unwanted spawn’, the one ‘who’s blood is only half human’, the ‘beast’, would join the lines of those whom Tei Tahra would recognise as adults.

This should have been the most splendid day of all for him.

Although it was called a ceremony, the first part of the proceedings was unspeakably dull.

Early in the morning, he was shut away in a hut with the children who were a year older than him, and made to listen to long, tedious legends about Tei Tahra and the mountain people.

Afterwards, they went to the sea. Not only was it forbidden to go fishing on the day of the ceremony, but other people were also prohibited from going near the shores. There, they were daubed in multicoloured dyes by priestesses young and old who had purified themselves beforehand. The symbols that were drawn on them meant that they would have appearances befitting of warriors when they went before Tei Tahra. The boys pointed and laughed at what each other looked like.

It was the first time that Kuon had ever had the protective charm applied to his forehead. While the priestesses’ fingers skittering over his body felt ticklish and embarrassing, at the same time, he held an immense sense of pride.

From then until sunset, they sat around an open fire, passing around jars filled with alcohol and stuffing their cheeks with meat from beasts which had been consecrated for the occasion. More and more adults came to join them. While offering each of them their congratulations, they too drank, ate meat, and sang songs.

What the... thought Kuon. Children who were not yet adults could not go to the ceremony. They were forbidden even from watching, and so were locked up at home from early morning onwards on those days. Because of that, the children’s imagination ran wild about what might be happening. Rumours flew about how “the priestesses dance naked,” or “they hold sword duels” but, now that he himself had reached the stage where he could attend, it wasn’t so different from the banquets that were held whenever the hunters brought back a large catch.

That, however, only lasted until sundown.

The adults left one after another, until only the boys taking part in the ceremony were left around the fire. The festive atmosphere changed completely, and in a silence as still as death, a new group of people appeared. These were the priestesses who officiated at the ceremony, several shamans, priests, the soldiers who were guarding them and, lastly, the strongest man in the tribe – the warrior Raga.

He wore a mask.

Raga was the name of a hero from the mountain legends. He was one of the ‘Five Honoured Ones’ who first praised Tei Tahra’s name, and in reward for the courage with which he had defended His shrines, the mountain god had granted him eternal life.

The myths told that –

“Even though life completes a full cycle every hundred years, Raga will be reborn again and again. No matter where or when, his sword skill will surpass anything within heaven and earth, and he will be entirely removed from the laws of death that he should have been bound by.”

Naturally, the ‘Raga’ before them now was not the hero from the legends. In imitation of how Raga neither aged nor died, every generation, the warrior who demonstrated that he was the very strongest would obtain the name and position of ‘Raga’. More specifically, during a festival which was held every four years, when Tei Tahra descended from the mountains, a tournament to decide a single winner was held between those of the men who asserted that “I am worthy of inheriting the name and soul of Raga.”

They fought with a single sword in hand, and because of how dangerous that fight was, it was not at all rare for them to kill each other. Yet nobody who killed another during that struggle or who fought until their own death was ever praised for it. Dropping their sword once their limbs were wounded, and recognising that they had lost was the correct attitude for a warrior to take pride in. That meant in turn that there was nothing more splendid than to win by giving a brilliant demonstration of the difference in ability without inflicting any fatal wounds.

Every time that festival was held, some twenty or thirty men met at the ceremonial grounds, sword in hand, and fought amidst that solemn, even stern, atmosphere. The last man standing was the winner, and he received blessings from the priestesses and the shamans, a ritual was held through which Raga’s soul was said to enter his body and, for the following four years, he abandoned his own name and became worthy of calling himself ‘Raga’. In imitation of the half-human, half-beast figure which God had given the warrior, he was given a beastlike mask to wear.

During those four years, ‘Raga’ held a special position within the tribe. He lived in a residence close to where the priestesses dwelt and, since the villagers brought him food every day, he was released from routine tasks such as hunting or fishing. When battles occurred, he was always given the chance to stand at the vanguard; for warriors, that was an unequalled honour.

On the other hand, since ‘Raga’ was the living symbol of warriors within the community, he did not take part in politics. He was required to remain silent during the frequent talks that the head of the tribe held with the village’s adult men. He could not give his support to anyone, nor could he ever oppose a decision made by the head.

Conversely, if there was someone else who was dissatisfied with anything the tribe head had decided, and if he reached the point where he believed that – Talking is useless. I need to prove I’m right through strength – then that person was obliged to fight a duel with Raga.

Those who fought Raga one-on-one had no alternative but to win. It was believed that the mountain god Tei Tahra granted victory to the one who was in the right. A man who was reluctant to go through with it, and who instead tried to change the situation by force – perhaps by recruiting like-minded companions and rebelling against the head – would never earn the respect of the tribe. Instead, as ‘a coward who ran away from a fight with Raga,’ he would become an object of contempt to men and women alike.

Accordingly, anyone who wanted to change any of the community’s policies had no choice but to face Raga in single combat. Yet that fight occurred under horrifyingly unfair conditions. The challenger was always placed under a harsh handicap, and it was the village head who had the right to choose what that handicap would be. For example, whereas Raga would be armed with his weapon of choice, the challenger might be forced to fight barehanded, or his dominant arm might be tied back with ropes, or there was even one ancient precedent in which a man was said to have been made to fight blindfolded.

Fighting against the strongest warrior in the community while being placed under that kind of handicap – needless to say, there was not a single person who was capable of winning. Nor had there ever been a single case of anyone overturning the head’s policy through strength.

There was no possibility of branding Raga a ‘coward’ or ‘unfair’. The decisions of the tribe head brought the entire community together, and they were made according to the advice from the priestesses, who could hear the voice of Tei Tahra. As such, there should not be any call to overturn them, and Raga had to win, in part so as to demonstrate the god’s infallibility.

So if one intended to claim instead that, “the priestesses have misheard Tei Tahra’s voice, and the head is taking a path that goes against God’s intentions,” and since Tei Tahra granted victory to the one in the right, then no matter what handicap they were placed under, they should be able to defeat Raga and prove that they were correct.

This then was Raga, who arrived in front of Kuon and the other boys.

Since the residence he lived in was near to the priestesses’ community, he was almost never seen. Even in combat, Kuon had only ever glimpsed him from afar while the warrior was commanding the troops.

While Raga watched, the soldiers guarding the priestesses came up to the boys, and each of them took the sword that was hanging from their waist and pierced the ground with them right in front of the boys.

Don’t tell me there’s going to be duels? Kuon wondered if they were going to be told to prove their courage in front of Raga by fighting to the death with their fellows, but then again, he had never heard of anyone dying during the coming-of-age ceremony.

The boys exchanged doubtful glances.

“Soon, the betrayer will be executed,” Mist, the oldest of the priestess announced in a voice as raspy as if it was rubbing against a tree branch.

The priestess then explained again what everyone living in the community knew: that at this period, somebody would inevitably be possessed by evil spirits and would become a betrayer who would harm the mountain.

“When this time arrives, we give the soldiers, Raga included, the order to capture the betrayer. As you known, once someone is possessed by evil spirits, then even with Tei Tahra’s protection, we cannot expel the spirits from his body. The only way to save that person is to extinguish the spirits. The person’s life must be taken, after which, we cover their corpse in sacred ashes and purify it within the flames. You will undertake this ritual. Do not make a single mistake in any of the proceedings. Once you have purified the evil energy with your own hands, you will receive the path that will lead you to Tei Tahra after your death and, at the same time, you will be born in the true sense in these mountains.”

Kuon and the others were made to take hold of the swords. The open fire was extinguished, and only the pine torches held by the soldiers illuminated their surroundings with their red flames.

Thereupon, the ‘betrayer’ was dragged out.

That year, it was Gosro. Kuon had thought that he might perhaps have run away, but it seemed he had already been captured by Raga and the others.

At first, however, Kuon could not recognise the face which was supposed to be familiar to him. That was how much Rosgo had changed.

He was naked and tied up with ropes. Was it for some kind of magic spell that he was completely covered in white powder?

His entire body had been dyed pure white, and the only colour came from his red and bloodshot eyes. Yet they made him look even more like a demon which roamed the world of night.

His mouth remained gaping open, and drool overflowed from it as he growled like a beast. He sometimes scratched the ground with his toenails. Perhaps because he already done it so often, those nails were cracked and oozing blood. Most disgusting of all was how the ‘arrow’ that the mountain god Tei Tahra bestowed only to men was standing at the ready.

Gosro’s goggling eyes restlessly moved around and, when he noticed the boys standing in front of him, he gave a shrill shriek of laughter. Again and again, he jumped where he was, bending then straightening his back as he laughed.

The boys screamed.

Gosro was about to charge right at them. The soldiers who were holding the rope gave it a strong pull. By repeatedly striking him in his flanks and legs with the butts of their spears, they finally managed to stop his charge, but even though was now covered in blood, his shrill laughter continued to echo.

This was no longer Gosro. His sternness when he had scolded Kuon on the boat, and his kindness when he later forged a sword for him, had all vanished completely along with his power of reason.

So this was how atrocious possession by evil spirits really was? It brought you down to the level of a beast?

“Do it,” ordered Priestess Mist.

“Do it!” Raga shouted.

“Do it!” the soldiers raised their spears threateningly.

One of the boys made up his mind and pierced Gosro deeply with his sword. A howl like a beast’s rose to the heavens. Another one did the same. Then another, until only Kuon was left.

Gosro was already dead. Yet even though he was dead, Kuon still had to jab his corpse with the sword. He was in tears as felt the sensation of tearing through Gosro’s flesh and organs. He stopped when he reached his breastbone, but an adult soldier pressed down on his shoulder from behind.

“Do it.”

He pushed the blade in further. Although he didn’t realise it himself, Kuon had apparently been screaming.

Afterwards, they all carried the corpse on their shoulders towards a different ceremonial ground where they tied it to a stake and, while the priestesses and shamans chanted the words of some kind of spell, they set fire to the kindling. As the flames flared into life, they crept up the stake and enveloped Gosro’s corpse. Kuon watched as the fire washed over the old fisherman's blood and blistered his skin.

“You did well. With this, Gosro and the mountain have been saved.”

Having finished reciting spells, Mist whispered as she stood behind them all.

“And with this, you have all of you safely reached adulthood.”

Kuon continued to breathe heavily for a long time.

The fire engulfed Gosro’s face. As his flesh burned, it gave off an unpleasant smell, yet in that moment, a strange sense of relief filled Kuon’s chest: with his eyes closed as though he were sleeping, Gosro’s face had once more looked like it always used to.

We did it. We saved him.

When that thought sprang up in his mind, he felt elated.

Part 4

Like that, Kuon was able to officially join Datta’s subordinates and to obtain the surname ‘Wei’.

Later, there was dancing around a bonfire and the priestess Mist, who headed the ceremony, threw animal bones into the flames then, after carefully scrutinising the fissures that had appeared, she made a curious prediction:

“One day, Kuon Wei will bring forth more gold that the mountains can hold.”

This was taken as meaning that Kuon would become a warrior without equal in the mountains.

“That’s something to look forward to, isn’t it Datta?”

The pillar of the ‘Wei’, that his friends were trying to draw into conversation, was usually a man of so few words that he almost seemed gloomy, but, this one time, he beamed with delight.

“He’s still just a half-size, but one day, he’ll definitely be skilled enough to even be able to compete for the position of Raga,” he squeezed Kuon’s shoulders.

At some point, the children of Kuon’s age started to gaze at him with envy. Nonetheless, half of the blood flowing through his veins was that of an outsider so, naturally, there was bound to be some who were not amused by this situation.

Chief among them was Diu Wei, Datta’s son.

Although Diu also possessed outstanding skill for his age, and the adults had applauded him for the excellent results he had achieved in one battle after another, he did not stand out given that Kuon, who was younger, had performed every bit as well as he had.

And now he too was already an adult. Publicly, he did not ill-treat Kuon, but because of that, hatred and impatience smouldered all the more strongly within his young heart. During hunts, he had already been told off by his father for giving Kuon one absurd order after another.

“I’m the patriarch of the Wei, not you. Don’t just go about giving orders any way you like” – that was the only meaning behind the rebuke but, this being Diu, he took it as implying much more. He was probably even afraid that – my father might be planning to leave the ‘Wei’ family to Kuon.

About two years after Kuon had been accepted as an adult, invaders came to the mountains again. This time, it was a group of former mercenaries.

In Allion, where battles were never-ending, they had fought for a side that unsuccessfully opposed the king. They had fled after laying utter waste to several villages to create a distraction. Several platoons had banded together, and the men now numbered about five hundred.

In the mountains, there was a little under eight hundred men capable of fighting on the front lines. If you added in the women who fought with guns or bows and arrows, as well as the more elderly people who provided logistical support, then that number doubled.

Naturally, the Wei Unit was among those who were sent out to intercept the invaders.

As former mercenaries, these were well-used to fighting, and the mountain people did not have sufficient numbers to overwhelm them. Thus the fighting dragged on for three or four days.

The Wei Unit suffered damage because of it, and several of the seniors whom Kuon admired for being brave warriors were killed. Even so, they had an overwhelming advantage in term of terrain, and no matter how many of their companions were taken down, they continued to attack the enemy with undaunted daring.

Faced with that kind of opponent, and once they realised that they would not be able to easily seize the mountains, the former mercenaries abruptly started to withdraw. With the enemy pulling back, Diu, as Datta’s oldest son, organised a troop to give chase and deliver follow-up attacks on them. Its members were the Wei Unit’s elite, Kuon among them.

Datta was at the camp set up halfway up the mountain slope, and when he heard about this, he had a bad feeling about it; he chased after Diu’s troop on horseback, without taking a single soldier with him.

His instincts proved correct.

Diu had the warriors disperse to give chase to the would-be invaders, but he deliberately lied to Kuon about where they would join up again, with the result that Kuon found himself isolated right in the middle of their enemies.

All alone, he fought against the enemy troop. He cut down one, then two of their soldiers, but, because of his small frame, Kuon was forced to constantly be moving around and, in a situation where attackers were coming at him from all sides, his breath was soon ragged.

Who knew how many opponents he fought. Just as he was joining swords with yet another one, his legs were knocked out from beneath him and he fell backwards. The enemy figures vanished as he found himself looking up at the sky. Within it was the blazing sun and a few strands of clouds.

Ah!

In that moment, death was so close to Kuon that he could almost feel its breath against his ear. It was as though his consciousness, which had been wholly focussed on fighting, was about to leave his flesh and soar into that sky.

He experienced a strange sense of elation, a lot like he had at the coming-of-age ceremony. Perhaps it was the sensation of things coming together: life and death, the individual and the group.

“Kuon, get up. Get up!”

In that very instant, he heard Datta’s voice.

“It’s too soon for you to offer your blood to God!”

At the last possible moment, Datta came charging in on horseback, driving off the enemy soldiers who were swarming around Kuon.

Awareness returned to Kuon, and he quickly sprang to his feet. Datta rode his horse up to him while parrying the enemy’s spears.

“Get on, Kuon!”

Obeying his order, the boy nimbly leaped up behind Datta, and the horse broke away at a gallop.

Their enemies hurled spears at them, but Kuon quickly cut them down. When he looked at Datta’s broad back, it was shaking. Neither of them spoke. But then, neither had ever been talkative. Kuon had hardly ever seen him talking affectionately even with Diu, his own son. And yet, it was Datta who broke the silence.

“I won’t ask you not to blame my son,” he was speaking fast, entirely unlike his usual self. “There’s no doubt that he’s in the wrong, but he’s far, far more childish than you. The only reliable thing about him is his skill. One day, he and you will make the ‘Wei’ even stronger and more outstanding.”

Kuon didn’t make any reply. He was entirely focussed on the enemies chasing behind them.

At long last, their shouts faded into the distance. It happened at the same moment that the horse’s pace changed to a trot; Datta’s back, which had been like a bulky wall, gave a great heave, then he fell from the horse.

He had taken a fatal wound to the chest when he rushed into the enemy soldiers to save Kuon.

– As Leo and Sarah watched, holding their breath, Kuon – clumsily, bit-by-bit – piled his words one on top of the other.

“...And then what happened?”

Kuon voice was almost a mutter as he answered,

“Did I tie Datta’s body to the horse and go back to the village? Or did I leave Datta and the horse where they were? I can’t remember. But I remember Diu, screaming and crying with his face bright red, ‘It’s your fault’, ‘You killed my father’. And also, ‘You led him into a trap’. Well, I wasn’t a pureblood after all, so pretty much everyone believed what Diu said.”

What the hell! Sarah was about to say something, her expression furious, but she just managed to hold herself back when Leo gave her a warning glance.

“And after that?”

In exchange, Leo prompted Kuon to continue in a serene tone of voice. Kuon blinked, as though he had just woken up.

“After that... After that? Right, after that, I came here.” Kuon pointed to the table. “I’d become a traitor to the mountain. It’s like I said earlier. Betrayers can appear even in the mountain god Tei Tahra’s sanctuary because evil spirits enter from the forehead. And that why betrayers are... how can I put this... right, in order to ‘purify’ them, betrayers are burned at the stake. Like what happened to Gosro during the coming-of-age ceremony. But I really didn’t want to be burned alive, so, as a betrayer, I left the mountains.”

“...”

For a short while, silence filled the room.

Kuon looked at Leo and Sarah in turn, a bewildered expression on his face. He couldn’t understand the meaning of that silence and it looked like he was mistakenly worrying that he might have done something wrong.

“I learned a lot; that was really useful. Thank you.”

After saying that, Leo let a while pass by before getting up from his chair.

“The bill has already been paid. I’ll head back to the castle first.”

“I’m you guard. Me too, I’ll...”

“The castle isn’t far. I’m not a child, so I’ll be fine by myself. More importantly, I’ve had you speaking for so long that you barely had anything to eat. I’m fine, I had plenty.”

Leo spoke in the same tone that he might use for a child, then left the private room. The sound of his footsteps disappeared from earshot.

“I wonder if the prince wasn’t hoping to be able to rely on the strength of the ‘mountain people’,” said Sarah, nibbling on cheese from the tray.

“What do you mean by rely on them?” Kuon drew the tray a little towards himself, worried that everything on it might get eaten. Although Sarah saw him do it, she didn’t get angry or make fun of him like she normally would.

“Darren might lead his troops any day now, the Personal Guards have been left at the temple, and the prince doesn’t have any soldiers he can make use of at the moment. So he was interested in the ‘mountain people’ that you’d spoken of before and, if possible, maybe he was thinking of asking for their help with you as an intermediary.”

“Don’t be stupid. That’s impossible.”

‘Right, it’s impossible. The prince also thought so after hearing your story. That’s why he didn’t say anything.”

“...”

Kuon remained silent and another short while passed.

“Gah!”

Kuon started at the sound of a voice. Sarah had apparently just tried the alcohol that the prince had been drinking, and had spat it out on the table.

“What is this? It’s disgusting! God grants us tongues to savour flavours, but those guys who can chug this down looking like it’s absolutely delicious must have had them pulled out!”

“Your brother does the same.”

“My big brother?”

“Once, when we were in a bar in Tiwana, he quarrelled with a whole lot of people. It was probably because he’d stolen Percy’s drink.”

“An act unworthy of a monk.”

Sarah crossed herself, teary-eyed and looking truly indignant. Kuon shook his head in astonished exasperation. He finally had a chance to score a verbal victory over Sarah, who was always attacking him. Just as he was trying to think of the right words to make fun of her, Sarah spoke first.

“You get it, right? ...No, since this is you, you probably won’t get it unless you’re told.”

“What’re you talking about? You want to threaten me about keeping it a secret?”

“The prince was sorry when he heard your story. He’d asked you too much. Don’t forget that care for you. If it had been any other noble, even if they had to threaten you to do it, they’d have ordered you to link up with the mountain people, you know.”

Her almond-shaped eyes were faintly red. Maybe it was because she was already drunk, or perhaps it was because she was self-conscious about also having said ‘too much’.

Kuon shut his mouth tight again.