Sortie (1)

Ingrid soon grew weary and lay down.

Alicia fell asleep beside the bed.

Late at night, Reichardt came to the room and gazed for a long time at the two sleeping figures.

He set a chair by Alicia’s side and, like her, dozed off leaning against the bed.

In the dark night, Ingrid half-awoke and smiled at Alicia and Reichardt sleeping side by side.

“My babies.”

Her wrinkled hand gently stroked Alicia’s cheek, mussed Reichardt’s hair, and then she fell asleep again.

From the next day, Ingrid began leaving her room again.

She took walks with Reichardt and loaded Alicia down with paintings, books, scores, and all manner of curiosities.

The three often dined together.

Sometimes Ingrid sent Reichardt and Alicia away so she could spend time with those who had long stayed by her side.

Saying the day was near to summon apprentice priests from the Great Temple, she herself pressed gold coins into their hands as parting gifts.

Though her words were sad, the cheer in her manner left the girls receiving the coins unable to laugh or cry.

The days flowed by gently.

On the seventeenth day in Orie,

Reichardt and Alicia coordinated the date of their return.

They had left Tessen unattended too long.

In passing, Alicia twice invited Ingrid to come to Tessen with them.

Ingrid refused as if she had not understood.

They intended to ask her once more at afternoon tea.

After her walk, Ingrid returned and lay down for a nap.

It would soon be time to call her for tea.

While they were thinking her nap seemed longer than usual—

“Ingrid…!”

Camille’s cry rang through the house.

Alicia and Reichardt went straight to Ingrid’s room.

They knew without speaking.

Ingrid, nestled in Camille’s arms, had passed as though she were sleeping.

Camille held the slender body and wept aloud.

The priests of the Great Temple shook all over and burst into tears.

The mansion filled with the sound of weeping.

Alicia shed silent tears.

Reichardt drew Alicia into his arms to comfort her and, at the same time, issued swift orders.

There would be no separate funeral for the Viscountess of Loire.

With Ingrid’s consent in life, the Great Temple was to claim her body when she passed.

The Temple’s summons came swift and absolute.

As soon as Ingrid breathed her last, preparations were made for the journey to the Temple.

Camille and the Temple’s priests stayed with Ingrid to the very end as she went to the Great Temple.

In place of a funeral, Reichardt and Alicia saw the party off toward the Temple.

Alicia had scarcely any time to feel grief; the Temple’s brisk removal of Ingrid left her stunned.

When she moved to go with them, they stopped her.

At times without warning, Alicia would suddenly cry, or could not stop crying for hours, and Reichardt held her in his arms and soothed her.

She burrowed into him as he comforted her and sobbed harder.

Sometimes she thumped him with her fists for helping the Temple carry out its order so quickly.

If she cried harder, Reichardt redoubled his efforts to console her.

If she thumped him, he let her strike him and then comforted her again.

To Alicia, Ingrid felt like another version of her own fate.

Reichardt understood that feeling.

But crying for hours was dangerous, so he coaxed Alicia to drink water as she wept.

When she refused meals, he soothed her into nibbling at least a cookie.

“It’s time to return to Tessen.”

Reichardt announced their departure from Orie in a steady voice.

“Rei… why… aren’t you even crying…?”

Alicia forced down her rising grief and spoke.

He alone did not weep there.

He must have been the one who most wanted to.

“I made a promise with Ingrid. I wouldn’t cry because of her. Shall we go?”

Reichardt spoke with a face that looked as if he might weep.

“Yes.”

Alicia wiped the tears tracking down her cheeks and answered.

A letter arrived in Tessen.

It reported that the Brennel viscount’s manor had burned, following on the heels of their Aengkeo Orchard.

The Brennel manor had burned to the ground, leaving only the foundations.

The viscount of Brennel, the viscountess, their three daughters, and their son—all who had been at the manor—failed to escape the blaze and lost their lives.

Many workers who had been staying in the manor were also injured or killed.

Most of the dead were close attendants of the viscount and viscountess.

Among the Brennel family, the only survivor was Anne Brennel.

By misfortune turned fortune, she had left briefly to fetch Aengkeo saplings.

Ordinarily Alicia would have left Tessen for Baden.

Instead, she sent a letter.

Beyond the Tessen border.

At the far west.

Summer rain fell on Mount Kaip.

It continued for six days without rest.

The playful name “summer rain” did not suit it.

On an evening of rain that had fallen all day, the western command guarding Tessen’s frontier recorded that the rainy season had begun.

On the third day, when the rain fell so hard one could not see ahead, the mountain folk who gathered resources from Mount Kaip admitted it was the monsoon.

On the fifth day, when the rain still did not stop, they worried, but wished only that the monsoon would end.

After days of rain, it thinned a little on the sixth day.

It seemed the rainy season might be ending.

The slope where Mount Kaip began came into hazy view.

Before the mountain path stood a middle-aged man and a girl riding a mountain goat.

“Come on, let’s go.”

The man urged the goat forward into Mount Kaip.

The girl stroked the goat’s damp poll to soothe it.

Jingle-jingle.

With every step, the tied bell at the goat’s neck tinkled.

The goat took a few steps as if to enter the mountain—then turned its head.

“What’s wrong with it? Is it the rain?”

Though it was still raining, the drops were fine.

This much rain was no trouble for a mountain goat.

“I think it’s scared because it can’t see ahead.”

The girl read the animal’s mind and spoke to her father.

Her small hand kept wiping the rain from the goat’s head.

“Is it the fog? We have to go into the mountain today and bring something back. Let’s go in just a little. All right?”

Mount Kaip was the only source of resources where the drylands began.

After days of rain, life in the mountain village had grown quickly difficult.

The villagers often traded with armed men from Tessen.

Tessen did not buy only goods.

They bought information related to Mount Kaip as well.

The Empire and Tessen both hungered to seize the lands around the mountain.

Their desire did not remain mere hope.

When dealing with the mountain folk, Tessen’s soldiers already managed them as if they were imperial subjects, and even protected them a little.

Facing the vast Empire, the eight villages around Mount Kaip had so far managed their lives well.

Their own markets, the western command post of Tessen, merchants traveling between the desert’s free cities, clans, and nomads roaming the steppe— ironically, thanks to trade with the many who went to and from Tessen, the mountain villages lived comparatively well.

The villagers took turns scouting the mountain.

If they could not bring back food, they at least gauged the situation to use in trade with Tessen.

At the man’s repeated urging, the goat bounded into Mount Kaip— but after only a few steps, it stopped.

Rumble-rumble.

Where there should have been a path, a cliff had opened.

The ground beneath the goat’s hooves crumbled a little.

Where the road had been lay a chaos of stones and broken trees.

“F—Father…!”

The rocky road of Mount Kaip had completely collapsed.

Every man-made trail had been severed.

“Wh-what is that…!”

Atop Mount Kaip, a black castle had risen.

Even at a glance, it exuded a baleful air.

That lone place looked especially dark and dull.

An unpleasant shadow seemed to drift around it.

“Father, there…”

The girl seated in front pointed beyond the cliff.

“Grrr…”

Beyond the gap, a pitch-black beast crouched.

Its threatening sound seemed to rumble up from underground.

It was like nothing they had ever seen or heard.

As big as a house.

Its hide was not fur but a black, rocklike skin.

The glimpse of black teeth within its open maw heightened the grotesquerie.

The break in the road left a wide gap between the cliffs.

“Good Lord.”

Without hesitation, the man wheeled the goat around.

Sensing danger, the animal bolted, leaping again and again.

The man handed the reins to the girl and, turning back, gripped the wooden short-spear he had prepared.

“Grrr…”

Incredibly, the massive beast cleared the gulf in a single bound.

The man hurled his spear at once and snatched back the reins.

He had not expected the throw to land; fleeing took priority.

“This can’t be happening…!”

The goat cut the wind down the mountain path.

As he descended Mount Kaip, the man steered for the Tessen border.

Bringing that monster toward the village would mean total slaughter.

“Yip!”

The pitch-black shadow drew nearer moment by moment behind the racing goat.

Even seeing it, the man could scarcely believe it.

Just the monster’s appearance felt like the end of the world.

Tessen, far west.

There was not a single peaceful day at the border checkpoint.

“Rain—again.”

Pol, on watch duty, grimaced.

He shot a glance up at the sky, his face full of weary disgust.

“When does the rainy season end?”

His mate Edric grumbled, looking up as well.

From the gloomy sky, a fine rain fell without end.

Life in Tessen was harsh.

For a border sentinel, no season was kind.

In spring, vicious sandstorms blew in every other day.

Last spring brought fifteen straight days of sandstorms.

It felt like hell itself.

Because Tessen sat at the Empire’s far west and far north, summer was cool and the weather better.

But there was rarely any bright, summery clearness in Tessen.

It wasn’t hot, but summer squalls raged here the same as anywhere in the Empire.

When rain came up from the desert, the monsoon lingered for days on end.

After the clammy damp of the monsoon, one almost longed for sandstorms.

Even abundant autumn was no easier.

The climate then was best for crossing the border, so the checkpoint saw ant-like lines of travelers day after day.

After being pestered by that infernal procession, a man kept his face screwed up all day.

And in some years, if luck was bad, winter seemed to begin in September.

The first snow fell at the end of September, and snow kept coming until April of the next year.

Winter in Tessen was brutal.

No other word would do.

“Still better than snow.”

Sam, who had been checking the sandbagged wall, gave a sour grin.

Pol and Edric’s faces scrunched at once.

“Don’t jinx it.”

They flinched and rubbed their ears as if wiping away his words.

Last winter brought no snow.

The weather had been strangely fair.

At western command, a superstition spread that the weather was good because the grand duchess was in Tessen.

Did that make any sense? Old men and their superstitions…

Then spring came, and as if to dump all the snow that hadn’t fallen in winter in one go, spring snow fell like madness.

By coincidence, it was when Her Grace the grand duchess, who had been at the Tessen keep, had departed for the imperial capital.