by Kumo Kagyu
“Um… You said you left home because you wanted to see what was beyond the forest, right?”
“Uh-huh.” High Elf Archer stretched out her arms and legs, relaxing. Priestess shifted how she was sitting. “We say, ‘You’re alive until you die,’ but if all you ever know is the woods, what’s the point?”
“I can’t even imagine living for thousands of years.”
“It’s not such a big deal. It’s like being a huge, old tree. You’re just…there.”
It wasn’t a bad thing in and of itself. High Elf Archer traced a circle in the air with her pointer finger. Priestess naturally followed the movement with her eyes. Even the smallest of elf gestures was polished and refined.
“So,” Priestess said, sliding down in the water to hide the embarrassment of how taken she was with the movement. “You left because…you got bored? I mean, I hear that happens a lot…”
“You’re half-right.” She paused. “It’s true, I felt there was something I had to do.”
She related how she would hunt overpopulated animals and return them to the earth, pick fruit where there was too much, to wet her throat, and generally keep her eyes fixed on the cycles of nature.
It’s enough to make your head spin. There’s always work to do. And the forest never stops growing. But you know what?
Here, she winked and smiled mischievously. “One time, I saw a leaf being carried along by a river. And I wondered, where does it go? And then I couldn’t stop wondering.” She laughed.
She had rushed back to her home and got her bow, and then she was off among the trees, quick as a deer, chasing that leaf. When she next looked around, she realized she had left the woods. She jumped from rock to rock across the stream bed, following the leaf.
“And…what did you find?”
“Nothing interesting, I can tell you that,” she said, squinting her eyes like a contented cat. “A dike. One the humans had built. It was the first time I had ever seen one—I thought it was pretty interesting.” The leaf, carried along by the stream, had gotten caught in the dike.
It was hardly as though she had received some revelation. High Elf Archer smiled faintly. Then she opened her lips ever so slightly and whistled. She was humming a song in her clear voice.
What is it that waits at the end of the river?
What is it that blooms where the birds do fly?
If the womb of the wind is beyond the horizon
Then where does the rainbow come down from the sky?
Far must we walk to discover the answers
But fair are the things on the way that we find
Priestess blinked, eliciting a satisfied “Heh!” from High Elf Archer.
It was said there was no race so elegant as the elves.
High Elf Archer glanced at Priestess’s chest and produced a sigh.
“You still get to keep developing… Lucky you.”
“Er… Wha?!” Priestess could only produce a series of strange noises, and her face went completely red. “Wh-what are you talking about?! And all of a sudden like that!”
“We’re talking about time. The passage of time. That’s what the song was about, and that’s what my comment was about.”
She snickered. It sounded like a bell ringing in her throat. As she laughed, she reached out and ran a hand through Priestess’s soaked hair.
“I mean… Me, I still have some time, but…”
“Just some?” Priestess looked down, not resisting the hand in her hair.
Yeah, High Elf Archer nodded. “Humans… They get old and die after just a hundred years or so, right?”
“Uh-huh…”
“I wonder why everyone can’t live for a long time. Maybe it’s something that would make sense to me if I were human.”
“…If you were born as a human, you’d just wish you were as beautiful as an elf,” Priestess murmured. She didn’t regret who she was, but there was always the fascination of if, the unanswered wish.
That day, for example. She had fought side by side with Goblin Slayer; he had watched her back. What if she could have fought more? What if she were more accomplished in miracles or spells? Would she have been more help to him?
She had once promised that if he was in trouble, she would help him. Had she done that today? At this rate…
If we left him to his own devices, he’d spend his whole life like that.
She felt as though a reckoning was coming, one that couldn’t be avoided.
“…”
“And if you’d been born an elf, I bet you’d wish you were human.” High Elf Archer punctuated her remark by giving Priestess’s head a little hug before letting her go. Priestess thought she could just catch the scent of the forest filling her nose.
Surely she was imagining it. This place was supposed to be home only to earth and water and fire.
But… What if she wasn’t imagining it?
The elves must be connected to the forest even when they leave it behind…
“You’re probably right,” Priestess said and let out a breath. She felt as though something deep in her heart, something stagnant and stiff, had begun to give way.
“Should we think about getting out?” she asked. “We don’t have much time to just hang around.”
“True.” High Elf Archer stood abruptly. “The world just refuses to play nice, doesn’t it?”
§
“The situation doesn’t look good,” Goblin Slayer said. He was standing in front of a crackling fire in the village tavern. The second floor was an inn, which was typical of such places.
The warmth of the fire filled the log building, shadows from the trophies on the wall dancing in the firelight. The adventurers, back from their respective relaxations, sat around a large table with cups filled to the brim with mead.
The medicine woman and her sister, along with nearly everyone else in the village, had urged their rescuers to lodge in their respective homes, but Goblin Slayer had refused.
“We will all pay for a place at the inn. Divided, we can’t respond quickly to whatever may happen.”
Priestess was slightly mystified by the rush of relief she felt when he said that.
Now the villagers surrounded the adventurers at some remove. They were half-expectant and half-curious. Some also eyed the party’s women with undue interest. Priestess shifted uncomfortably under their leering gazes.
I guess it’s a small blessing there’s no one who looks like any real trouble…
“Do you think…they don’t want us here?” she asked, looking at the food on the table.
Boiled potatoes, regular potatoes, potatoes, potatoes… Everything on offer was potatoes. Priestess, of course, by no means expected to live in luxury. She was used to humble fare. And yes, it was winter; there was snow on the ground and it would be necessary to conserve provisions. But still—nothing but potatoes?
“Nah,” Dwarf Shaman said with a shake of his head. “From what I heard, the last adventurers to come through bought up all the supplies.”
“Everything?”
“Said they needed it to slay goblins, if you can believe that.” Dwarf Shaman rested his chin on his hands.
“Ha-haa! I suppose…” Lizard Priest’s tail swished along the ground as if to say that it wasn’t theirs to judge. “It’s said one must draw out goblins before one can slay them. A little bit of coercion, you see. Perhaps they really did need those supplies…?”
Hmm. Priestess put a finger to her lips in thought, her hair flowing in a wave as she tilted her head quizzically. It was clear who to go to with a question like this.
“Was it necessary?”
“It depends on the time, and the place, and the circumstances,” their goblin-slaying specialist replied flatly. “Now and again, you’ll encounter wandering tribes with no nest. Pursuit can take considerable time.”
“But time’s something we don’t have, right?” High Elf Archer said, lapping happily at the mead. Her cheeks were already a faint red; the bath
might have had something to do with it, but it was chiefly the alcohol. “We don’t know what’s in the nest, and we don’t know how many of them there are. Plus, there’s the possibility that the other adventurers are still alive.”
“We’re only lucky that the villagers weren’t taken away. Who knows if we could have helped them in time?”
Goblin Slayer nodded, then unrolled a sheet of lambskin paper on the table. “We can’t wait until the sickness from the arrows becomes fatal, but they may be somewhat weakened by now.” On the paper was a simple map of the route from the village to the mountain; he had asked the local hunter to draw it. Some scribbled notes appeared to have been added by Goblin Slayer himself. “According to the trapper, this is the most likely place for a goblin nest.”
“Yeah, but…” High Elf Archer ran a finger over the map, measuring the distance between the village and the cave. “If no villagers were kidnapped, why didn’t we go in right away?”
“I believe I know what the previous adventurers were planning.” The room’s collective gaze fixed on Goblin Slayer. He took a fried potato and put it in his mouth. His helmet moved slightly, emanating the sounds of chewing and swallowing. “The medicine woman told me that the party bought wood along with their other supplies.”
“Wood?” Dwarf Shaman asked. “But they could just—no, wait, don’t tell me, I’ll get it.” He took a swig of mead, ignoring the look the elf gave him as he brushed several droplets off his beard.
The wise old dwarf grunted to himself, and a moment later he snapped his fingers and said, “Ah! I know now! It’s not firewood, so it isn’t about filling the nest with smoke. They were preparing for something. And they brought food. Meaning…”
“Yes,” Goblin Slayer said as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “They meant to starve them out.”
There was an audible crack from the fire. For a time, no one talked. Lizard Priest picked up a poker and jabbed listlessly at the firewood. There was another noise as the wood split in two, sparks flying.
“But then, the foe is many and they were few,” he said.
“That tactic has its uses,” Goblin Slayer said dispassionately. “But not when you are attempting to exterminate a large number of enemies on their own land.”
Priestess pictured the scene, her body going stiff. The terror of facing down starving goblins for days on end.
I don’t think I could bear it.
Then Priestess thought of the villagers. How they had asked for adventurers to stop the goblins stealing food from them, and this party had decided on a tactic that used the whole town’s provisions.
“We cannot prepare even one sword, one potion, or one meal’s worth of food on our own.” Glug. Goblin Slayer took a drink of his mead without even having to remove his helmet. “And adventurers without supplies will be dead by nightfall.”
“Orcbolg, maybe you could think about something else for once.”
“I’m trying.”
Glug, glug. More mead.
His four companions watched this with the faintest of smiles on their faces. They knew this party would never have been formed if this man were not exactly the way he was.
“And milord Goblin Slayer,” said Lizard Priest, who was used to the role of military adviser by now. “What strategy do you have in mind?”
“None to speak of.” He sounded uncharacteristically relaxed.
They had no idea how the nest was laid out or how many enemies were there. Not knowing if the other adventurers were still alive, they couldn’t simply destroy the nest outright. And if the goblins had attacked once, they would surely come a second and a third time.
Thus, there was only one possible strategy.
“We blitz them.”
The adventurers left the village at dawn. They had wanted to reach the nest as soon as possible, but night belonged to the goblins. True, the “white darkness” reigned both day and night here, but there was no reason to hand an advantage to their opponents. There was no objection to leaving town at the moment when the scales between safety and danger were most evenly balanced.
No objections as such anyway…
“Ooooh… It’s so c-c-c-cold…!” High Elf Archer whined, her long ears trembling as they walked among the snowdrifts. She was accustomed to life on her feet, but her first time on a snowy mountain was still something of a surprise.
A rope tied all the members of the party together. Scaling the snowy peak would not be easy. The fluffy white snow carpeting the ground was deep and cold, and if anyone was unlucky, their foot might find a place where there was nothing but loosely packed snow. There were spots with sharp fallen rocks, where a careless stumble could cost one’s life.
“Erm… Hrgh. Hmm. This is quite…”
“Are you okay…?”
“Oh… But of course…”
Lizard Priest, who came from the South, became even slower as he grew colder. He nodded at Priestess, who was looking at him with worry, and curled up his tail. Dwarf Shaman grabbed his hand.
“Hang in there a bit longer. I’m using Tail Wind to keep the blizzard off us. It could be worse.”
“Hmm. And I’m grateful.” Lizard Priest nodded. “Milord Goblin Slayer, how does it look ahead?”
“No problems.”
“That’s reassuring.”
Goblin Slayer was walking just a bit ahead of his four companions. He looked down the ridge of the mountain, comparing their position to the map in his hand.
“We’re almost there.”
Be that as it may, the scene before them was an uninspiring one. A dark hole marred the white landscape of the mountain. Waste was piled to one side of the entrance. It was certainly the sort of place that monsters would call home.
They were all thankful for Dwarf Shaman’s Tail Wind spell, which enlisted the help of wind sprites to hold the blizzard at bay. Still—
“We need to get warm,” the dwarf said. “Heeey, Beard-cutter! All right if I start a fire?”
“Please.”
“On it.”
With skill befitting a dwarf, he pulled out some dry branches and struck a flint.
“Where did you find those?” Priestess asked.
“Under the snow, and then a little farther down. You’d do well to remember that.”
They sheltered in a small cave they dug out of the snow so the goblins wouldn’t see their fire. The sky, heavy with clouds, was still slightly dark; the sun was weak and far away.
“Sunset is near. When our bodies have loosened up, we’ll go in.” Goblin Slayer loosened the straps on his armor and set down his bag.
Priestess looked at him in surprise; she had never known him to remove his armor like this before. “Are you sure it’s okay to be doing that?”
“If I don’t spend at least a few minutes this way, my body will never relax.”
He took off his gauntlets, squeezing his rough but untanned hands mechanically.
“You should rub your arms and legs,” he said. “If they’re poisoned by ice sprites, they may rot and fall off.”
“Eep!” High Elf Archer yelped. She knew as much about sprites as any of them, and maybe that made the thought even worse for her. With a frown, she began to work her fingers along her limbs.
“Your feet, too. Don’t forget.”
“Er, right!” Priestess took off her boots and socks and began rubbing her pale, slim toes. Her socks surprised her; they were soaked through and quite heavy. Perhaps it was a mixture of sweat and snowmelt.
I should’ve brought a second pair…
“How are you doing?” Goblin Slayer asked, looking at Lizard Priest. The monk’s scaly face was as difficult to read as Goblin Slayer’s but for an altogether different reason. Still, it was clear enough that he was practically frozen stiff from the cold.
Lizard Priest picked a bit of ice off his scales. “M-mm. Well, we’ve arrived anyway. Who knew there were such chilly places in the world?”
“There are others even colde
r than this.”
“Incredible!”
He could well believe the rumors that his forebears had been annihilated by a deep freeze.
Quietly snickering at the lizard, Dwarf Shaman reached nimbly into his bag and pulled out a jar of fire wine and cups for the whole party. He began to pour.
“Here, here’s some wine, drink up. It’ll warm your innards.”
“Wonderful. Mm, you know just the thing, master spell caster.”
“Oh, stop it, you’re embarrassing me. Here, some for you.”
“Th-thank you,” said Priestess.
“Thanks.” High Elf Archer.
“I appreciate it.” Goblin Slayer.
They each began to sip at their drinks. They were only seeking a bit of warmth; it would have been counterproductive to get drunk.
Without warning and for no perceptible reason, High Elf Archer brought the conversation around to Lizard Priest. “Hey, didn’t you tell us that your goal was to raise your rank and become a dragon?”
The lizard’s huge body was curled up as close to the fire as he could get, and the bag of provisions was in his hand. Perhaps he was hungry, or perhaps he just wanted a little taste of the cheese he was now taking out.
Lizard Priest didn’t attempt to hide what he was doing but nodded importantly.
“Indeed; even so.”
“A dragon who loves cheese, huh?” She took another sip from the cup in her hands and giggled.
“Better for the world than a wyrm that wants treasure or sacrifices of maidens,” Dwarf Shaman said.
“At least he wouldn’t have to worry about anyone trying to slay him. Can I have a piece of that?”
“Indeed you may.”
They were within spitting distance of a goblin nest, still freezing despite their fire, but High Elf Archer was feeling a little bit warmer and in good spirits. She used an obsidian dagger to slice off a piece of the cheese Lizard Priest offered her, then tossed it into her mouth.
The food from that farm was delicious, as ever. Her ears twitched happily.
“Tell me the truth. Do girls really taste that good to dragons? Or is it some sort of ritual or something?”