What’s he going to say? Crusch fixed her eyes on him.
“What I’m worried about is what happens after the evacuation.” Crusch didn’t seem to grasp his meaning, so he spoke matter-of-factly. “Even if we’re able to move from this place we’re so used to, do you really think we’ll manage to have the same lifestyle somewhere else?”
“No…I mean, it would be difficult.”
Leaving this place and creating a new habitat would require a fight for survival—they would have to win in that ecosystem’s struggle for existence. The lizardmen weren’t champions of the lake or anything, and acquiring the marsh had taken years and years. There was no way their race could build a habitat in an unfamiliar place just like that.
“There’s also a real possibility that we won’t be able to gather enough food.”
Not understanding what he was getting at, she responded in a prickly, confused voice. “Yeah.”
“So what would happen if all five tribes in this area tried to evacuate?”
“Then…” She didn’t know what to say—because she had finally figured out what Zaryusu meant.
Even though the lake was vast, an evacuation spot that one tribe chose was bound to look good to the others as well. What would they do if a fishing rivalry broke out when they were already fighting a new struggle for existence? That could get ugly. It could end up like the war.
“But you can’t mean… Fighting when we’re not sure we can win isn’t any…”
“No, it’s not. I’m counting on reducing the number of mouths across all tribes.”
“That’s your reason?!”
That was why he wanted to form an army and fight, even if they lost—just to decrease the population of lizardmen. The idea that those besides the warriors, hunters, and priests fighting for their survival could die was extreme, but she could understand it. No, having them die might even be the correct choice in the long run.
If there were fewer mouths to feed, they could get away with less food. Then they might have a chance at cohabitating.
Crusch desperately searched for a way to refute the argument. “You’re saying that even though we don’t know how dangerous the new spot might be, we should go in with smaller numbers?”
“Listen to me. Even if we take over the area no problem, then what? If the fish supply runs low, the five tribes will just have to kill one another!”
“But we might be able to catch lots of fish!”
“And if we can’t?”
His cold retort left her lost for words.
Zaryusu was basing his actions on the next-to-worst-case scenario. Crusch was making mostly hopeful observations. If they operated based on her ideas and something bad happened, it would be a disaster, but it wouldn’t be if they went with Zaryusu’s plan.
And if the number of adult lizardmen decreased as a result of their defeat, at least they would have died honorable deaths.
“If you refuse, we’ll have to fight you first.”
His dark voice gave Crusch chills.
He’d announced he wasn’t going to let Red Eye be the only tribe to maintain its population and move to a new location. That was a valid decision, and she understood it completely. It was the only way to avoid the danger of weakened tribes being destroyed by Red Eye and the numbers they had preserved. It was only natural that one entrusted with their tribe’s survival would think in that way. She would probably do the same thing if she were in his position.
“I think the chances of killing one another in the new land will be lower if we form an alliance, even if we lose.”
Crusch didn’t understand him and let a genuine expression of puzzlement appear on her face.
Zaryusu explained in another way. “We’ll have deeper friendship ties. Instead of different tribes, we’ll feel like comrades who fought together.”
“I see.” She rolled the words around in her mouth.
So if tribes spilled blood together, things would be less likely to devolve into a fatal fight, even if the food situation was bad? But she wondered, based on her experience, if that was really true.
As Crusch delved into her own thoughts, facing slightly downward in silence, Zaryusu asked in a voice that troubled her, “By the way, how did your tribe make it through that time?”
It was like she’d been stabbed with a needle. Her head jerked up in spite of herself. When she looked at him, she saw he was surprised. Oh, so he really doesn’t know.
They hadn’t been together long, but Crusch had already gotten the hang of Zaryusu’s personality. She instinctively understood that he wasn’t asking as a threat.
She narrowed her eyes and looked at him intently, like she was trying to bore a hole into his head. She knew the baffled Zaryusu had no idea why he was getting such a stare, but she couldn’t stop.
“Do I have to answer?”
Crusch’s voice was full of loathing. The change was so dramatic it nearly felt like he was talking to a different person.
But Zaryusu couldn’t back down. Maybe her answer would save them all.
“I want to know. Was it the power of your priests? Or some other way? Maybe it can save u—” Having said that much, he faltered.
If there was a way to save them, Crusch wouldn’t look so pained.
Perhaps she was able to read what Zaryusu was thinking just then. She snorted and scoffed at the whole thing, herself included. “That’s right. There’s no way to save anyone at all.” She paused and smiled an exhausted smile. “We were cannibals. We ate our own dead.”
Zaryusu was shocked speechless. Killing the weak—decreasing the number of mouths to feed—was not taboo, but cannibalism was unclean, the most taboo of taboos.
Why did she tell me that? Why would she tell a secret she should have carried to her grave to a stranger from another tribe—a visitor? Does she not mean to let me go alive? …No, that can’t be right. I don’t get that feeling from her.
Crusch wasn’t sure why she’d said it, either. She knew plenty well how much lizardmen from other tribes would scorn them. So why…?
Her mouth chattered away as if she no longer had control over it. “Back then— When the other tribes started the war, we didn’t have enough food, either, and things were bad. The reason we didn’t fight in the war was that our tribe has a lot of priests and not many warriors. Thanks to the priests, we could make lots of food with magic.” She went on unceasingly as if possessed. “But the amount of food they could make was still insignificant compared to the number of tribe members. All we could do was face death and slowly tread the path to our extinction. But one day, the chief brought food—bright-red meat.”
Maybe I wanted someone to listen…to hear the story of my crime…
She ground her teeth together.
The male before her was quietly listening. If he felt disgust, it didn’t show on his face. Crusch was thankful for that.
“What kind of meat was it? Everyone pretty much knew. At the time, we had strict laws, and any family who broke them was kicked out of the village. Our chief brought meat just after some people had been banished. We just shut our eyes and ate it—to survive. But we couldn’t go on like that. At one point, all the built-up discontent exploded into a revolt.” She closed her eyes and remembered their chief. “We ate it… We knew, and we ate it, so we were just as guilty. Honestly, when I think of it now, it’s so strange.”
After a moment of silence, she looked squarely at Zaryusu. It surprised her to find a sensation of happiness inside, seeing no disgust in his quiet eyes. Why would I feel that way? She had a vague idea of the answer.
“…Please look at me. Every now and then in Red Eye, someone like me is born. They always have something they excel at—for me it was priestly powers. For that reason, our authority is second only to the chief. Then I went and led the revolution and revolted against him. The village split in two and fought, but my side won because we had more people.”
“And then because your population decreased, the food
was enough to go around?”
“Yes… In the end, we survived. When we revolted, the chief wouldn’t surrender—he died having sustained countless wounds. And when I dealt the fatal blow, he smiled at me.” Crusch strung her words together painfully. They were like pus that had gradually gathered in her heart since the day she killed their chief.
To Zaryusu, she was finally able to spit out these things she’d never be able to say to the tribe—the ones who’d believed in her and fought against the chief. That was why she couldn’t stop; her words were like water flowing from high to low ground.
“It wasn’t the kind of smile you’d flash at someone who was killing you. There was no hatred, or envy, or hostility, or cursing, or anything. It was a truly lovely smile! Maybe the chief was right all along? I keep thinking that! With the death of our chief, the one who was the root of all our evil, the tribe came together again. And not only that, we even reduced our own number enough to solve the food issue!”
That was all she could take.
The dam broke with all the strength she had expended struggling to bear the burden of her crime as acting chief. She gulped back the muddy surge. With her thoughts in tatters, she couldn’t get them into words.
Weeping “kuu-kuu”—there weren’t many tears due to her biological structure, but the emotions were the same—she broke down.
Her body was so small.
When living in nature, weakness was as good as a crime. Of course, children were protected, but strength was a priority for adult male and female lizardmen equally. From that standpoint, she must have been humiliated. It couldn’t be good for the leader of the tribe to show weakness to a member of another tribe, someone she wasn’t even close to.
But the sentiments in Zaryusu’s heart weren’t anything like that. Maybe it was partly because she was a beautiful female. But more than that, she was a warrior, a wounded warrior who gasped, struggled, and still went forward. She’d shown only a glimpse of weakness.
If she was standing up and trying to go forward, she was no weakling.
Zaryusu approached and gently put his arms around her. “We aren’t all-powerful or all-knowing. All we can do is decide how to act as we go. I might have done the same thing in your position. I’m not trying to cheer you up. Are there any correct answers in this world? We just keep going forward, full of pain and regret, with scars on the bottoms of our feet. All you can do is go forward—that’s what I think.”
They could feel each other’s body heat and hear the beating of their hearts faintly. The two pulses gradually matched rhythms and created the illusion they were one.
It was a strange feeling.
Zaryusu felt a warmth he had never experienced in all his life as a lizardman. It wasn’t because he was holding another lizardman. Is it because I’m holding this female, Crusch Lulu?
A little time went by, and then Crusch lifted herself off Zaryusu’s chest.
As her body heat withdrew, Zaryusu felt it was unfortunate. Of course, he was too embarrassed to say so.
“I’ve made an unsightly impression… Do you hate me?”
“What’s unsightly? You struggle down your path, get hurt along the way, but continue on. Do I look like such a fool that I’d think that unsightly? …You’re beautiful.”
“!!!” Her white tail writhed, striking the floor several times. “…Yikes.”
Incapable of asking what she meant by that lone word, Zaryusu asked a different question. “More importantly, does Red Eye farm fish?”
“Farm?”
“Yeah. Raise fish for yourselves to eat.”
“We don’t do anything like that. Fish are a blessing from nature.”
As far as Zaryusu knew, no lizardman tribes had fish-farming technology. The very idea of increasing the amount of food they had with their own hands was foreign to them.
“That seems to be the way priests—druids—think, but could you change your mind? So that you can grow fish to eat? The priests in my tribe accepted it.”
Crusch bobbed her head yes.
“Then I’ll teach you how to farm. It’s important to give them the right food. You can use fruit that druids make with magic. They grow quite well when you give them those.”
“You really don’t mind sharing your technology with us?”
“Of course not. Hiding it won’t help anyone, and it’s more important to save the tribes.”
Crusch bowed low with her tail pointed up and thanked him. “I’m grateful.”
“You don’t really…have to thank me. In exchange, I need to ask you again…”
The emotion drained out of Crusch’s face.
That deeply calmed Zaryusu.
It was a question he couldn’t avoid.
He held his breath, and at the same time, Crusch inhaled.
Then he asked.
“What is Red Eye’s plan for the imminent war?”
“…We decided yesterday to evacuate.”
“Then I’ll ask the acting chief, Crusch Lulu. Do you still think you’ll do that?”
She couldn’t answer.
Her reply would decide the fate of her tribe. It was only natural to hesitate.
But Zaryusu could do nothing besides put on a troubled smile. “…It’s your decision. The reason your chief smiled at you in the end must have been because he was entrusting the tribe’s future to you. Now’s the time to carry out that mission. I’ve said everything I can say. All that’s left is for you to decide.”
Crusch’s eyes rolled, casting her gaze around the room. She wasn’t trying to escape or looking for help. She was just trying to arrive at the correct answer within herself.
No matter what her conclusion, Zaryusu would accept it.
“As the acting chief, let me ask you. How many are you going to allow to evacuate?”
“We’re planning to have each tribe evacuate ten warriors, twenty hunters, three priests, seventy males, a hundred females, and a few children.”
“…And the others?”
“Depending on the circumstances, we may just have them die.”
Crusch said nothing and merely looked up into empty space. Then she murmured, “I see.”
“So I want to know your decision, Acting Chief Crusch Lulu.”
Crusch considered all kinds of plans.
Killing Zaryusu was one option, of course. Personally, she didn’t want to do that, but as acting chief, she felt differently. I could kill him, and then the whole village could escape. She rejected that idea. It was a very dangerous gamble. In the first place, they didn’t even have any proof that he had come alone.
So how about promising him to fight and then running away? This could also be problematic. They ran the risk of his changing plans and opponents to cull the population by fighting with the Red Eye. His real goal was decreasing the number of mouths to feed. In that case, it didn’t matter who they fought.
In the end, if she said she wouldn’t form an alliance, he’d probably take that answer home and come back with an army to destroy the Red Eye.
However, maybe Zaryusu hadn’t noticed, but there was one hole in his plan. Even so, if they didn’t go with him, they wouldn’t be able to avoid the food problem.
Crusch smiled knowingly. There had been no way out of this conversation from the beginning—from the point she’d heard what he’d had to say, from the time the Green Claw tribe started their plan to form an alliance.
There was only one way for the Red Eye to survive: Join the alliance and fight with them. Zaryusu surely knew that, too.
So the reason he was waiting for her answer must have been because he wanted to make sure the commanding lizardman was worth allying with. And that they would commit. But if those words came out of her mouth, many lives would be lost. And—
“Let me say one thing. We’re not fighting to die—we’re fighting to win. I may have said some things that made you anxious, but if we beat the enemy, we’ll be laughing about it later. So please don’t misunderstand that
point.”
Crusch nodded that she understood.
He is a really nice male, she thought as she gave her decision. “We of the Red Eye tribe will cooperate with you, so our chief’s smile won’t be meaningless and so as many Red Eye members as possible can survive.” She bowed deeply and stretched her tail straight up.
“I thank you.” He slowly bowed and lifted his tail; his actions said more than words could express.
Early in the morning…
Zaryusu stood in front of Rororo and gazed at the gate of the Red Eye village. He yawned a huge “kuwa” in spite of himself. He had participated as an observer in the Red Eye’s meeting until late the previous night, so he was a bit tired, but there wasn’t much time left. He had to get to another tribe today.
Fighting back sleep unsuccessfully, he yawned again, even bigger than before. He had the feeling that he would be able to sleep on Rororo even if his balance wasn’t that great.
He gazed at the rising sun—it seemed almost yellow—and then looked back to the gate and started. Something strange was coming out of it.
It was a clump of grass.
Weeds were growing here and there out of a tunic sewn with many loose strips of fabric and strings. If one laid it sideways in the marsh, from a distance it would have looked like a patch of grass.
Ah, I’ve seen a monster like this somewhere before. Zaryusu remembered something he’d seen on his travels. Behind him Rororo let out a low warning call.
Of course, he knew who it was. There was no mistaking her with her white tail peeking out a bit.
He watched the tail sway cheerfully and calmed Rororo down as the clump of grass came over to him.
“Morning!”
“Yeah, good morning… It seems you had no trouble getting the tribe on board?” He looked at the Red Eye dwellings. The village was in a frenzy first thing in the morning, and lizardmen ran busily to and fro.
Crusch stood next to him, facing the same direction, and answered, “Yes, no trouble. We should be ready to leave for the Razor Tail tribe today, and the evacuees should be ready soon, too.”
The Lizardman Heroes Page 6