“I tore my sleeves off to patch you up. You didn’t notice?”
“Uh, no, of course I noticed. I’m fine.” Lawrence made sure to give a reassuring smile; Holo said nothing. When they continued walking, though, she led the way.
“Just a bit farther. We’ll take this passage, then turn right . . .” she began, taking Lawrence’s hand — but then stopped short. He could tell why.
More footsteps behind them.
“Hurry, hurry,” said Holo hoarsely Lawrence quickened his pace, feeling near the end of his strength.
Although their pursuers were getting closer, they were still some distance off. As long as they could climb to the surface, Lawrence imagined they would be able to convince the citizenry to help them, given his condition.
The Medio Company probably wouldn’t want a scene in front of so many witnesses.
As long as she took the opportunity to contact the Milone Company, Holo’s escape would be enough. The top priority now was to meet with the Milone people again and restrategize.
Lawrence mulled this over as he heaved his body forward, though it seemed to grow heavier by the second. At length, just as Holo said, he saw light ahead.
The light shone from the upper right down to the left. The footsteps behind them grew closer, but it looked as if they were going to make it.
Holo pulled harder on Lawrence’s arm to hurry him forward; he tried his best to keep up.
At the end of the path, they turned right.
“It goes to the surface — just a little farther!”
Vitality had returned to Holo’s voice, and Lawrence pressed forward, encouraged.
The prey had escaped the hunter by the slimmest of margins.
Of that much Lawrence was certain.
That is, until he heard Holo’s voice on the verge of tears.
“N-no . . .” she said.
Lawrence looked up.
Even when he looked down, the light stung his eyes, which had adjusted to total darkness. It took him a few moments to focus, but once he did, he understood the reason for Holo’s dismay.
Perhaps it was left over from when these tunnels supplied water. There was an unused well there with light stabbing down through a round opening in the ceiling.
But the hole in the ceiling was too high. Lawrence stretched and could just barely touch the ceiling, but the well opening was even higher than that.
Without a rope or a ladder, it was simply impossible for the two of them to escape.
Lawrence and Holo fell silent, despairing like loan sharks looking down the long path to heaven.
Then, as if to confirm that they were well and truly cornered, the source of the footsteps behind them rounded the corner.
“Found them!” a voice cried, at which point the pair finally looked back.
Holo looked up at Lawrence, who drew his dagger with his good right hand, and with a movement so slow it was as if he were underwater, blocked the path between her and their pursuers.
“Back up.”
Lawrence planned to advance, but his legs had no more strength left in them. He was rooted to the spot, unable to take another step.
“You can’t — you’re through!” said Holo.
“Hardly. I can still move,” Lawrence managed in a nonchalant tone. Turning to look at her over his shoulder would’ve been impossible, though.
“Fool, you don’t need my ears to know that’s a lie,” snapped Holo. Lawrence ignored her and fixed his gaze straight ahead.
He saw five Medio men at a glance. Each wielded a knife or staff, and more footsteps signaled reinforcements on the way.
Despite their overwhelming advantage, the five men did not converge, choosing instead to stop at the corner and scrutinize the pair.
Lawrence imagined they were waiting for backup, though five men were more than sufficient to take both him and his companion. Lawrence was obviously in no shape for a fight, and Holo was just a girl.
But the men held fast, and at length more arrived. The first five looked back, then stepped aside.
“Ah —” Holo made a sound as a figure rounded the corner. Lawrence, too, nearly spoke.
The man rounding the corner was none other than Yarei.
“I wondered, given the description we got,” he said. “But to think it really was you, Lawrence.”
Unlike the residents who lived within the city walls, or the dusty, sweaty merchants that traveled between them, Yarei wore the colors of the sun and the earth and looked almost sad as he spoke.
“I’m just as surprised,” said Lawrence. “Most of Pasloe thinks only of sickle or hoe at the mention of metal — to think they’d be involved in such a grand silver scheme.”
“There are few who understand this transaction,” said Yarei, as if it wasn’t his village at all, which was understandable given his attire. The depth of his connection with the Medio Company was self-evident in its color and texture.
A humble farmer would never be able to afford such finery. “Let’s catch up later, shall we? We’ve no time for it now.”
“Come now, Yarei — I came all the way to your village and still wasn’t able to see you.”
“Ah, but you met someone else, didn’t you?” Yarei glanced past Lawrence to Holo behind him. “I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but she really is right out of the fairy tales. The wolf-spirit incarnate, responsible for harvests great and poor.”
Lawrence felt Holo flinch but didn’t turn to look at her.
“Hand her over,” Yarei demanded. “We’ll give her to the Church and put the old ways to rest forever!” He took a step forward.
“Lawrence, if we have her, we can destroy the Milone Company. Then once we’ve abolished the wheat tariff, the wheat of our vil-lage will be hugely profitable, and we who sell it rich men. Noth-ing is so profitable as an untaxed commodity.”
Yarei was two paces from them when Holo grabbed Lawrences shirt. Despite his dizziness, he could feel her hands trembling.
“Lawrence, our village still remembers that you bought wheat from us when we were suffering under heavy taxation. It would be no trouble to give you purchasing priority now. And were friends, nay? Surely as a merchant you can figure gain and loss.”
Yarei’s words sank slowly into Lawrence’s consciousness. Selling untaxed wheat would be like plucking gold from the stalks. If he took Yarei up on his offer, his fortunes would surely rise. When he’d saved enough, he could open a shop in Pazzio — and with those wheat options as his weapon, he’d continue to expand his business.
Yarei promised the fulfillment of his dreams.
“Oh, I can figure gain and loss all right,” said Lawrence.
“Ho, Lawrence!” said Yarei brightly, his arms wide in welcome. Holo tightened her grip on Lawrence’s shirt.
Lawrence used the last of his strength to turn back to Holo, who looked up at him.
Her amber eyes saddened as she looked at him; she soon closed them.
Lawrence slowly turned back around.
“However, a merchant must always honor his contracts,” he said.
“Lawrence?” asked Yarei suspiciously.
Lawrence continued. “As fate would have it, this strange girl I’ve picked up wishes to return to the northlands. I have a contract to accompany her there. Breaking that contract is something I can not do, Yarei.” “You —” a shocked Holo began as Lawrence stared down Yarei.
Yarei shook his head in disbelief, sighing deeply, then looked at Lawrence. “In that case, I have no choice but to fulfill my contract.”
He raised his right hand, and the gathered Medio henchmen, whod only watched until that point, took aggressive stances.
“I’m sorry our friendship was a short one, Lawrence.”
“A traveling merchant is always saying good-bye,” replied Lawrence.
“You can kill the man. Bring the girl alive.” Yarei’s voice was cold now, like a different person entirely. The Medio lackeys advanced.
Lawrence held
the dagger fast in his right hand, but he was still unable to take a step either forward or back.
If he could somehow buy them just a bit more time, the Milone Company might yet come to their rescue. He clung to that hope as he waved the dagger about clumsily.
In that moment, Holo flung her arms around him.
“H-Holo, what are you —”
Her slender arms held him fast, then forced him to the ground.
He wondered where she’d gotten this sudden strength, but then realized it was probably because he had no power left to resist.
Holo couldn’t actually support his weight, so Lawrence half-fell backward, landing on his rear. The impact dislodged the knife from his hand.
Lawrence reached for the dagger and tried to get up, but he couldn’t manage it. Unable to support even his outstreched arm, he fell forward.
“Holo . . . the dagger . . .” “That’s enough.”
“Holo?”
She gave no response save putting her hand to Lawrences out stretched arm.
“This may hurt a bit. Please bear it.”
“What —”
Lawrence failed to utter another word before Holo undid the bandage on his left arm and sniffed at the exposed wound.
Suddenly his memory returned. He recalled their conversation when they first met, when he made her prove she was truly a wolf.
He remembered her nonchalant reply.
To assume her wolf form, she needed either a bit of wheat or . . .
. . . Fresh blood.
“What are you doing! Hurry, take them!” Yarei shouted, and the Medio henchmen — whose advance had been stalled by Holo’s strange actions — regained their senses and began to close in.
Holo closed her eyes, bared her fangs, and sank them into Law rence’s wound.
“Sh-she’s drinking his blood!”
Holo opened her eyes slightly at the shout and glanced at Lawrence.
He couldn’t have conjectured as to his own expression, but Holo seemed to smile sadly at him.
After all, only a demon would drink blood.
“Don’t fall back! She’s only a possessed girl! Get her!” Yarei’s exhortations were no use; the men were frozen in their tracks.
Holo slowly pulled her mouth back from Lawrence’s arm; her transformation had already begun.
“I’ll always . . .” she began as her long hair began to stir, trans-forming into animal fur. Her arms, visible through her torn sleeves, took the form of wolf paws.
“I’ll always remember that you chose me.”
She cleaned the blood from the corner of her mouth with her bright red tongue rather than her hand, an image that lingered with Lawrence.
“Lawrence —” she said, standing and facing him. She had a small, sad smile on her face as she spoke her final words.
“Please don’t look at me.”
Her body grew up and out rapidly to the sound of tearing fabric, brown fur nearly exploding through it. Her wheat pouch fell to the ground among the tatters of clothing.
Lawrence automatically reached out for the wheat in which Holo lived. When he looked back up, a massive wolf stood before him.
Its paws were tipped with scythelike claws, and its teeth were so large that the shape of each fang was clearly visible. It looked capable of eating a man in a single bite.
The wolf was so massive that the very air around it felt heavy and hot — as if one might melt by mere proximity. In spite of that, its eyes were cool and calculating.
There was no escape.
Every man in the tunnel came to the same conclusion at once.
“Aaaaauuggh!” The single cry was the trigger. Most of the assailants dropped their weapons and ran. Two men hurled their weapons at the wolf, mostly out of terror.
The beast moved its muzzle adroitly, picking up each iron weapon in turn and crushing it between massive jaws.
This was a god.
In the northlands, the word “god” was used to describe anything beyond a humans ability to engage.
Lawrence had never understood that definition until now — and now he understood it all too well.
There was nothing anyone could do to this wolf. Nothing at all.
“Guh —”
“Wha —”
The two that threw their weapons made strangled exclamations that were barely worthy of the term.
The wolf swatted them aside with a massive paw, then ran forward, seeming almost to slide over the ground.
“None of you will leave here alive!” a low, bestial voice echoed. The sounds of claw striking iron mingled with the cries of the felled as Lawrence frantically tried to right himself.
But the massacre ended in an instant.
The wolf paused, and the voice of perhaps the last man left alive was audible.
“G-gods are always like that. .. always . . . unfair ...” It was Yarei s voice.
There was no response but the sound of the colossal wolf opening its jaws. Lawrence cried out.
“Holo, no!”
There was a snap, surely those same jaws closing.
The image of Yarei’s torso in Holo’s fangs came unbidden to Lawrence’s mind. It was unthinkable that Yarei could escape. He was a bird with no chance to avoid the hound’s attack.
But after a few moments of silence, Holo turned around in the narrow passageway, and her teeth were not smeared with the blood Lawrence expected.
Instead, an unconscious Yarei dangled helplessly from her fangs.
“Holo . . .” Lawrence murmured her name in relief, but Holo merely dropped Yarei to the ground and did not look at him.
A low voice sounded.
“The wheat..
The growl suited the great body, and Lawrence cringed to hear it.
He knew it was Holo, but he couldn’t help himself. If she looked straight at him, he didn’t know if he’d be able to stay composed.
The wolf demanded his awe.
“The wheat — bring it to me,” repeated Holo. Lawrence nodded and held out the pouch of wheat in his hand.
Just then, Lawrence felt a heavy pressure, and his body recoiled from it.
When he saw Holo’s lip curl over her fanged jaw, he realized he’d made a terrible mistake.
“That is your answer. Now, the wheat —”
Although he knew that Holo intended to take the wheat and leave, her words, as if by some strange magic, compelled his arm to reach out and hand it over.
But he lacked the strength to support the arm or even to hold the pouch.
First the pouch fell from his limp hand to the ground, then his arm collapsed against him.
He wouldn’t be able to pick it up again.
Lawrence looked at the pouch in despair.
“I thank you for taking care of me,” said Holo as she approached, deftly picking up the small bag in her massive jaws.
Those amber eyes never once glanced at Lawrence as she backed up one, two, three steps, then turned dextrously in the small tunnel and began to walk away.
The white-tipped tail that was Holo’s pride and joy caught his eye. It was magnificent as it waved sadly and receded down the passage.
Lawrence shouted. His voice was so weak it could barely be considered a shout, but he sounded with all his remaining strength.
“W-wait!”
Holo kept walking.
Lawrence despised himself for recoiling at her approach earlier. How many times had she said that she hated when people regarded her with fear.
But his body had reacted instinctively. Humans couldn’t help that they feared the unknown, and so he had cowered before Holo.
Still, Lawrence thought. Still, he called out her name.
“Holo!” shouted his hoarse voice.
It was useless, he realized — and just then, Holo stopped.
This was his chance. If he couldn’t change her mind here, he would never see her again.
But what to say? Scenarios flitted in and out of his mind.
He couldn’t convincingly claim he wasn’t afraid of her. Her form still terrified him. But he wanted to stop her. He couldn’t find the words to express the conflict he felt.
His mind worked frantically. No doubt Holo would’ve mocked him for being inarticulate as he tried to put together the words that would bring her back.
“How . . . how much do you think the clothes you destroyed cost?” was what he finally came up with. “I don’t care if you’re a god or not . . . I’ll see you pay me back! You earned but seventy silver pieces — that’s not nearly enough!”
He yelled at her, trying to sound angry — no, he was genuinely half-angry.
He knew that begging her not to go would be pointless. As he was still terrified of her form, he could only conjure this single reason to prevent her going.
The grudge a merchant will bear over money is deeper than a valley, and a merchant collecting a debt is more persistent than the moon in the night sky.
Lawrence put as much venom into his words as he could to convey that. He was not telling her that he didn’t want her to leave. He was telling her that leaving would be pointless.
“How many years do you think it took me . . . to save up that much money? I’ll follow you . . . I’ll follow you all the way back to the northlands, if I have to!”
Lawrence’s voice echoed through the underground tunnels for a while before finally fading.
Holo stood there awhile, then flicked her large tail.
Was she going to turn around?
Lawrences strength finally failed him, and he collapsed to the ground even as his chest filled with a nervous impatience.
Holo began walking again.
Her paws pattered softly against the floor of the passage: tupp, tupp.
Lawrence felt his vision grow dim.
I’m not crying, the merchant told himself as his consciousness sank into eternity.
Lawrence stood in utter darkness. Where he was and what he was doing there he did not know.
Darkness hung in every direction, but strangely, he could see his own body.
He wondered where he was.
As he pondered it, he caught a flash of something out of the corner of his eye.
He turned to face it reflexively, but there was nothing. He rubbed his eyes, thinking it had been his imagination, when again the shape flitted across the corner of his vision.
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