The Hunter of Hawk and Wolf-Chapter 24 : Chapter 24

Sevha stepped onto a low cliff.
Sunlight caught on his boots, melting the snowflakes that clung to the leather. Droplets formed and fell to a sunlit patch of snowless ground below.
Drip.
Sunlit ground beneath his feet. Realizing what it meant, Sevha collapsed onto the cliff’s edge.
“We’re here!” he roared.
His cry of relief echoed across the plain stretching out before them.
Behind him, Teresse and Legra sank to the ground, gasping for breath.
Teresse remarked, “If I’d known it would take this long, I would have risked the underground village…”
“I thought I was going to die…” Legra muttered with a whine.
Teresse pulled him into a crushing hug as if he were an endearing baby.
“S-Stop it! You witch! Shri, do something!”
As Legra struggled, his face flushing, the fledgling hawk nestled in his arms let out a soft squeak.
The sight put Sevha at ease, and a small, rare smile touched his lips before his thoughts turned back to their journey.
Well, we’re all still alive, somehow.
It had taken Sevha’s party a month to descend the Frost Mountains.
It took longer than the ascent, since they had avoided the underground village and had to hunt for food along the way.
“Get off me!” Legra shoved Teresse away and scrambled over to Sevha for refuge.
“Lord Sevha,” he asked, “we’ve finally made it, right?”
“Nope. We’ve just reached the starting point.”
Sevha turned his gaze toward the mountainside, where a fortress was nestled into the rock. It used a sheer cliff face as one of its walls, with a massive iron gate set into it, much like Beak Fortress.
He spoke its name.
“That’s the Iron Shield Fortress of the Blanc Territory, the opposite entrance to the Great Underground Road. We’ve only just reached the border.”
Teresse came to Sevha’s side and gazed at the fortress. “No people… no undead, either.”
“Seems like Blanc managed to drive out the undead and seal the gate.”
“A guess?”
“A guess. I haven’t heard any news from Blanc since the Great Underground Road was closed.”
The County of Anse and the Blanc Territory were adjacent on the map, but with the Frost Mountains standing between them, the sealing of the Great Underground Road had made them neighbors who could no longer reach each other.
“Magus. Where to now?”
“To the capital of Blanc.”
“And where is that?”
“Never been here before?”
“I might have as a child, but I don’t remember. You?”
“Never. But since I’m a magus, I can divine the way.”
Teresse let out a theatrical groan, then jabbed her index finger toward the plain.
“That way!”
Sevha had no faith in her divination, but he figured it was better to go somewhere than nowhere. He started walking in the direction she had pointed.
Teresse and Legra followed, and she spoke as they walked.
“Hunter. How much do you know about the Knight Kingdom and the Blanc Territory?”
“Only that it was my mother’s home.”
“Then I suppose I should explain a few things.”
Teresse began her lecture.
“The Knight Kingdom Jershu. A nation that worships Jestika, the Goddess of Knights and Justice.”
“Jestika is Diaka’s twin, isn’t she?”
“Correct. The Master of the Hall of Just Judgment. And just like the goddess they worship, Jershu was a rigid, stubborn nation… but that changed with the current king.”
“Changed?”
“Mhm. Very much so.”
Teresse didn’t elaborate, instead changing the subject.
“In any case, the Marquisate of Blanc is one of the four great knightly houses that founded Jershu. They were once a powerful family.”
“Why ‘were’?”
“From what I hear—what I
know
, they were weakened after the Great Underground Road was sealed.”
Sevha could guess the reason for their decline.
Unlike Anse, Blanc relied solely on the Great Underground Road. Guess it’s inevitable they’d weaken after it was sealed.
He organized his thoughts and asked, “Who is the current Marquis of Blanc?”
“Your maternal grandfather.”
“Lord Sevha,” Legra asked, “do you think the Marquis of Blanc will accept you?”
Sevha couldn’t answer. The man was his grandfather, but he was also a stranger whose face he had never seen.
As Sevha remained silent, Teresse answered for him.
“We don’t know how the Marquis will react, so we should head to the capital of Blanc first and gather information.”
Their course decided, the party walked on. By dusk, they had arrived at the edge of a forest.
Teresse said, “Let’s rest in this forest for the night. Not that I’m tired, of course.”
Sevha didn’t react to her transparent lie.
Expecting a sarcastic retort, she looked at him in surprise. He was staring into the woods with a dry, incredulous laugh.
Teresse asked, “What is it? Is there something wrong with this forest?”
“Forest? You call this a forest?”
“Then what is it?”
“You can see the sky, there are hardly any beasts or monsters, you can run without tripping, and you probably won’t die from eating the wrong berry. This isn’t a forest… it’s a pasture!” Sevha declared.
Legra nodded in agreement.
Teresse gave Sevha a pitying look. “Either your forests are strange, or you are. In any case, I’ll leave finding a place to rest to you, all right?”
Sevha nodded and led the way into the trees.
Having spent his entire life in the Labyrinth Forest, the woods of Blanc were like a well-tended orchard to him. He easily followed the sound of water.
But as he neared its source, he stopped dead.
Something’s there.
Sevha looked back at Teresse and Legra and pressed a finger to his lips. The three of them quickly hid behind a tree and peered out.
Beyond them was a spring. The water rippled, as if something was moving within it.
They held their breath, waiting.
Splash!
Someone emerged, completely naked, their long brown hair fanning out like a water nymph’s.
To be more precise, a naked, rather fetching man in his thirties emerged from the spring like a water nymph.
As the trio grimaced at the unwelcome sight, the man began to step out of the water.
Just as his lower half was about to be exposed, Shri let out an urgent cry.
Squeak! Squeak!
The man heard the sound and turned his head toward them.
In that instant, Sevha kicked a pebble from the ground. It struck the man’s forehead with a sharp
thwack
, and he tumbled back into the spring.
“L-Lord Sevha! Why did you just do that?”
“He attacked first.”
“What?”
“He attacked my eyes!”
“Ah… w-well, I suppose he did. But he looks unconscious. What should we do? He’ll drown if we leave him like that.”
Sevha and the others approached the spring, where he glanced at the clothes and accessories lying on the ground.
These are… the vestments of a priest of Lusha and a sun necklace.
Guessing the man’s identity, Sevha let out a heavy sigh.
“Legra. Help me.”
***
Night had fallen.
Sevha’s party sat around a crackling campfire they had built by the spring. Beside them, the man, now dressed in his vestments, lay unconscious with a bruise on his forehead.
A short while later, his eyes fluttered open. He pushed himself up and studied the group for a few moments.
Then, showing no surprise or accusation, he smiled warmly.
“I give thanks to Lusha for this meeting that has left a bruise upon my forehead.”
The vestments, the sun necklace, the mention of Lusha.
Sevha grew certain. “A priest of Lusha, then.”
Lusha was the God of Light and Order, chief among the deities. More than half the continent’s humans followed him. His priests belonged to the Papal See, and Sevha, being their enemy, tensed.
“Yes. My name is Fernoka. And you people are?”
Sevha exchanged a look with Teresse.
She answered for him. “Seha, Tena, and Legra. We’re adventurers.”
“Thank you for your kind answer. May I ask, then, why you attacked me?”
“Because you were about to show us something we shouldn’t see,” Sevha answered seriously.
Fernoka wagged his index finger. “You should not refer to the bodies given to us by the gods as something one shouldn’t see.”
“If our bodies were worth looking at, the gods wouldn’t have given us clothes.”
“There seems to be a misunderstanding. To explain the theological meaning of gods, humans, and clothing would take half a day. Do you have the time?”
“We don’t—”
Before Sevha could refuse, Fernoka began his explanation.
“The first creatures of this land began to wear clothing when…”
His speech flowed like a river, so eloquent that one could listen for an hour or two without tiring.
The problem was that he spoke not for one or two hours, but for three, then four.
“And thus, Diaka and Jestika brought forth the concepts of relative and absolute justice into the world…”
By the time Fernoka’s tale had strayed far from its original topic into territory unknown, Legra and Shri were asleep. Teresse was dozing. Sevha was thinking.
To kill, or not to kill?
But killing a man for being too talkative seemed excessive. Exercising his patience, he studied the endlessly talking priest.
He’s weak.
From his build and his movements, it was easy to tell Fernoka had no combat skill.
And yet…
The longer Sevha looked at Fernoka’s slitted eyes and his unwavering smile, the more unsettling he seemed.
It’s like looking at a will-o’-wisp in the dark.
Just as Sevha had this thought, Teresse finally slumped to the ground, fast asleep.
At that, Fernoka at last stopped talking.
“It has been a long time since I’ve met another person. I seem to have done all the talking.”
“Talking that much, I’d have guessed you’d been caught by the Papal See’s Inquisition and locked in their prison for thirty years.”
“What a dreadful thing to say. In any case, where are you all headed?”
Sevha, knowing he was no good with words, glanced at Teresse. She was already dead to the world.
Left with no choice, he did his best to lie.
“We’re on our way to the capital of Blanc, looking for work.”
“Rasseu, the Shield of the Lake! A beautiful place. There is much work to be found there these days, so you should have no trouble.”
Fernoka spoke again before Sevha could ask what he meant by ‘much work.’
“The problem is that you are not an adventurer, but a Hunter of Anse.”
In a blur of motion, Sevha’s hand shot out, seizing Fernoka by the throat and slamming him to the ground.
The noise startled Teresse and Legra awake.
The man being choked, however, said calmly, “Calm yourself, Hunter of Anse.”
“How did you know?”
“If you wish to hide your identity, you should first change your clothes. What you are wearing now is the garb of an Anse Hunter, is it not?”
Only then did Sevha realize he was still wearing the clothes of Legra’s father.
I made a stupid mistake. So… I’ll kill him.
The intent to murder flared in Sevha’s eyes, yet Fernoka’s smile never wavered.
“Had I intended to you to the Papal See, I would not have revealed that I knew your identity.”
“Then why reveal it?”
“As for that…”
Just as Fernoka was about to answer, a sound reached Sevha’s ears.
Clomp, clomp, clomp…
Footsteps.
Three of them. Bipedal. Heavier than a human’s tread. Monsters… no, another race.
He analyzed the sounds in an instant and turned on Fernoka. “Are you traveling with other races?”
“‘Other races,’ not ‘non-humans’… A fine choice of words.”
“Stop deflecting and answer me.”
“No. As you know, the Papal See does not recognize other races.”
“Then what are those footsteps?”
“You can hear something? A Hunter of Anse has keen ears, just as the rumors say.”
Fernoka furrowed his brow in thought, then replied, “Perhaps the Tusk Tribe? I heard the Blanc Territory has been having trouble with them crossing into its lands recently.”
“The Tusk Tribe?”
Just then, the footsteps grew closer.
Sevha immediately released Fernoka.
He warned Teresse and Legra, “Don’t provoke them. We don’t need any pointless trouble.”
Then he vanished into the trees like the wind.
Teresse asked Fernoka, “What is the Tusk Tribe?”
“You don’t know of them? You must be from the Empire. The Tusk Tribe is…”
Just as Fernoka was about to explain, three figures emerged from the nearby undergrowth. They were not human.
They had tusks so large they jutted from their mouths. Their faces were a cross between man and swine. Their frames were so immense that their leather armor and weapons looked small.
Teresse breathed their name.
“Orcs?”
The three grotesque creatures snarled, their mouths opening wide.
Fernoka scratched his cheek. “It seems you’ve provoked them already.”