Chapter 86: The woman of the Wilderness
Zahira gazed into the distance, toward the snow-covered peaks of Sasingya. Rays of light lingered faintly along the white ridgeline. A landscape that seed to hold the weight of long ages. That sa light seeped into her eyes as well.
She stared in silence for a long while before her lips quietly parted.
"I…… Grew up in the desert."
Calix simply watched. Zahira's eyes were deeper than usual, fixed on sothing far, far away.
"The tribe I was born and raised in was large. They survived in a land where water was scarce by trading, and they were full of people skilled with the sword and with numbers. The
of those days—grew up in a place like that."
"……."
"Then one day, a conflict broke out between tribes. We challenged for the position of Great Chief and were defeated. The fall of the family happened in an instant. The adults were all killed, the boys were taken away by the victorious tribe. And the girls were scattered in every direction. To survive, even child marriage was sothing we had to consider."
A bitterness clings to the end of her words.
The spirited girl had tasted the bitterness of life for the very first ti.
"What good would it do to resent anyone. I wept as I went to my husband's ho. The place was truly small. Without even an oasis, filled with nothing but shepherds. The swordsmanship and refinent I had learned in childhood were of no use whatsoever. Because every morning before dawn I milked goats, dried fruit, and learned how to weave patterns into rugs."
A faint smile passes over her face.
"But……. Cutting fruit instead of people wasn't so bad."
Again, a bright smile finds its way to her.
"My husband was nine years older than . He was ordinary and spoke little, but he was a good man. A child ca quickly. My…… Little star. Perhaps because it had descended into the middle of the desert—when that child smiled, even the sandstorms would quiet. And so people, and animals, grew bit by bit. We weren't wealthy, but there was joy in being together."
Then suddenly, the story stopped. The hands gripping the reins tightened, and a deep silence settled around her. Only the faint sound of a swallowed breath could be heard.
"……Happiness didn't last long. While I was out fetching water, raiders ca crashing in. My husband was dead—with our child held in his arms."
Calix could not bring himself to offer comfort.
He simply stayed quiet and listened.
"Thanks to that, I picked up a sword again after a long ti. I killed the bandits, and kept killing. I had thought my edge would have dulled after so long without a blade—but it hadn't. Profound fury had taken hold of the sword in place of a mother who had lost her child."
"……."
"Anyone who saw
then would have all thought the sa thing. My, that woman must be out of her mind. The
of that day…… Was not the shape of a human being."
Zahira laughed bitterly. She smiled, and yet it was clearly closer to weeping.
She closed her eyes and steadied her breath—if only for a mont.
Then she turned her head and t his gaze.
"So I was grateful."
"……To ?"
"That's right. That infant, I an. The newborn you saved."
Her low, steady voice trembled finely at the very end.
"So it was possible for soone to save them……. Sothing like that crossed my mind. It was achingly painful, and yet strangely comforting. Even though the
of the past had been too late."
"……."
"Anyway, that's what I'm grateful for. I had been trying to forget and move on all this ti, but now it seems I've been able to accept it to so degree."
Silence descended.
Even Calix could not bring himself to say anything carelessly. It felt as though any word spoken too hastily would be a mistake. And so, after much deliberation, he managed to offer just one.
"……Is that when you t the Mountain Rabbits?"
"Yeah, that's right."
Zahira nodded. But the story that followed contained sothing rather unexpected.
"Though it wasn't on a battlefield that we t. Actually, we crossed paths that very day. After I'd cut down all the raiders, I still didn't stop. I kept driving the blade into the corpses, again and again. Until the blood ran cold and the bones lay bare, I just kept…… Doing that."
Her shoulders trembled. It looked not like anger, nor sorrow, but a kind of hollowness.
"That's when he arrived. The bearded one."
"The bearded one aning……. Basim?"
"That's right. Who else would I call that?"
***
That very day.
The moonlight of the desert concealed the bloodstains. The blood that had fallen onto the sand spread like crumbling dust, and the night air swallowed every sight in hushed silence.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Zahira was driving her blade in ceaselessly with blood-soaked hands. She carved through flesh that had turned pale blue, burying the blade again and again into necks that had long since gone cold.
The sand floor had long since been stained red. The killing intent had evaporated, and all that remained was hatred that could never be resolved.
Then, from beyond a sand dune, an unfamiliar shadow strode forward with large, unhurried steps. Footfalls that seed fused to the ground. The figure was small in stature but radiated a compressed intensity.
"Human woman."
A rough and unfamiliar voice cut through the air.
"Stop that aningless act. Well, I suppose it can't be helped—being human and all."
The voice ca from behind Zahira. Only then did she turn her head to look at the other.
There stood a small figure. Skin burned dark, thick brows and a salt-and-pepper beard, clad in deep crimson armor and iron boots—a dwarf.
Even seeing a race for the very first ti, there are things one can tell at a glance. His eyes held a mountain range within them, and his upright posture was the sa. He stood as solid as if he had beco one with the earth itself.
The young woman shot him a gaze brimming with killing intent, yet did not rush at him recklessly. He was an opponent that would be difficult to defeat even if she poured everything into it.
But the other paid this no mind at all, speaking on in a composed tone.
"So then, how long will you keep wounding yourself? Stabbing a corpse won't bring the dead back."
His words were cold. They ca across as cutting, even excessively so—and rciless.
"……Shut up."
Zahira ground her back teeth and spat the words out.
But the dwarf paid it no heed.
"No, I won't. Why would I follow a human's orders. If you want to speak, then speak. If you want to get angry, raise your voice. If you're sad, then cry."
"I said shut up……!"
With a scream mixed into the cry, the blade slices through the air and cos flying.
Clang!
He moved far faster. He caught the blade between the heads of his axe and twisted, sending Zahira crashing into the sandy floor in an instant.
An arm harder than steel pressed down on the woman's neck.
"Ugh……."
In the instant of complete suppression, his gaze t Royce's where she stood at a distance.
Kill, or spare?
An unspoken question.
But the conversation was not yet over.
"If you've lost a parent, you would wail. If you've lost a husband, you would grieve. If you've lost a child……. You would lose even the light in your eyes. And yet, woman, you are none of those things. You are simply gnawing at your own flesh and hollowing out your soul."
"……."
"Your family died for you. Wouldn't it be better to think of it that way?"
The fierce struggling continued, but overcoming the raw strength particular to a dwarf was beyond her.
"How dare you…… I'll kill you! You……. I swear I will……!"
"Huh-huh-huh, seems you're just dripping with nothing but rage. Does it hurt? Do my words feel like a vile insult to you?"
"What would you know——!"
Only then, Basim said calmly——
And yet firmly.
"I wept."
"……!"
"I cast off the hollow facade of dignity, and wept for three days and three nights, forgetting to eat and drink. When the tears would not co, I broke everything within reach and bled. And instead of my hamr, I clutched my own heart, praying that death would find
at any mont."
The end of his words is crushed. Pressed and pressed again, it ca out the other side mangled.
"But in the end……. I could not."
Zahira's struggling subsides. In the tone that carried an unbearable pain, she could tell it was no lie. He too had lost a child.
"I rose again, in the end. I looked into the roots of my heart and stopped wounding myself. The grief and sense of loss? It doesn't matter how you express it. All of those wounds were simply proof of what had co before."
"Proof……?"
"Yes. Perfect proof that I had truly been happy."
The dwarf's voice ca slowly, then lodged itself in the center of her chest.
"It was undeniably an unfair exchange. For I had given everything I had as a father. I raised, put to sleep, and cared for a creature that could not even move its body as it willed. And still it was not equal. That existence itself threw the scales of life out of balance. No matter what I gave, it always returned sothing greater."
"……."
"The little one reached its tiny hand toward a forge where sparks flew, and smiled at the steady rhythm of hamr strikes. I rember. I have not forgotten. How could I ever forget. The fact that sothing so wretched, so terrible, so utterly unimaginable ca to pass……. It must have been precisely because of that."
He is a master craftsman, and a courageous warrior.
And so, in this mont.
He could lay bare his own emotions more purely than anyone.
"Because I loved. Because it was precious. Because I was happy. The fact that it had vanished from my life forever—was sothing I could never bring myself to accept."
Drip. Drip.
The dry sand darkened. Drops fell to the ground. Not blood. These were the tears of a mother who had lost her child.
One after another, the dwarf Basim cried out with pride in his voice.
It was a shout of reproach toward the woman, and a declaration toward the world.
"But that is precisely why I had to live! I absolutely could not die! If the story ends here, how could I face my child? I must never be the kind of fool who gave up and followed them into death!"
Zahira, in the end, wept aloud.
Uncovered even by the sandstorm, she howled in a voice like sothing being scraped out. As the killing intent vanished, the root within her heart was finally laid bare.
It was love.
After pouring it all out for a long while more, she finally lifted her head. There was no strength left in her body to move. And yet there was exactly one thing she absolutely had to ask.
"……Then what do you live for."
The answer that ca back was short and simple.
"I don't know."
"……?"
"I'm still looking. It's not showing itself easily. Perhaps it's because my standards have grown higher than before. I've co to know precisely where the very peak of happiness lies."
The mont his words ended, the dwarf Basim let out a hearty laugh.
"Ha-ha-ha, good! Good eyes you've got! A baffling answer, isn't it? You damn fool. From now on—whether you die or live, do as you please!"
She will live.
He was certain of it.
***
Zahira finished the long story and closed her eyes for a mont. Then before long, she turned her head and looked at Calix.
He wore a peculiar expression. He had been deeply moved, yet at the sa ti held a faint question.
"Hard to believe?"
Calix couldn't answer right away and gave an awkward smile.
"Yes, well……."
Thinking of Basim as he usually was, it was simply impossible to picture. The man who grumbled at the drop of a hat, pushed Volga around, and chose nothing but cutting words—had been carrying a wound like that.
Zahira smiled softly, as though she already knew what he was thinking.
"He just speaks roughly, but he's a good dwarf. Though his temper is certainly foul."
Right after that, silence settled in for a mont.
The horses' hooves were pressing through the snow as they pressed forward, and a cold wind brushed past Calix's hair. He stroked the warhorse's neck and thought.
I'm the only one who hasn't spoken.
Royce's past, Gregor's story, and the tale he had just heard from Zahira. Only Gregor had sworn a formal oath as a Mountain Rabbit, yet without realizing it, he had co to know the pain of three people. The arc of each pain was different, but the way they carried their wounds and lived on was alike.
He too had days he had walked through.
The Niboria Empire, an illegitimate child of the Ashapel Marquis family. His mother had been a quiet but unyielding woman. A formidable figure bound up entirely in the resolve to protect her one child.
However, because she was of Niborian birth—a nation that was an enemy of Astria—he had not been able to bring himself to speak of it until now. Fearing that information about his origins might leak, he had been unable to trust the Mountain Rabbits, and had been afraid.
But—
It doesn't matter anymore.
They had once been rcenaries, but by today they had beco sothing far more solid. A trust had ford—to lean on one another's backs and face hardships together.
Without weighing a single thing, they trust and act. Calix had taken risks for the Mountain Rabbits, and Vice-captain Marik had answered by staking his own life in return.
Calling it simply camaraderie felt sohow insufficient.
And so he defines it as 'family'.
"I……."
With that resolve, his lips part.
Had a commotion not broken out in the front column, he surely would have brought out his own story.
"What is it?"
"Why did you stop?"
While those at the rear murmured among themselves, Hadiya, standing at the head of the column, stared directly at Basim. She had raised one eyebrow slightly—sothing was clearly off.
"So where do we go from here?"
"……."
Silence.
The dwarf Basim said nothing, brow furrowed. He simply stroked his thick beard—swish, swish.
At that, Hadiya let out a sigh and asked again.
"No, you said you knew everything. You said finding the way wouldn't be a problem."
"……The mountains have changed quite a bit."
"Pardon?"
"Sothing's off. That boulder shouldn't be there. And there should be an old dead tree on the opposite side, shouldn't there? But there isn't. I can't see it."
"Are you saying by any chance……."
"That's right. The path—"
Basim squeezed his eyes shut and answered.
"We've lost the path."
The Mountain Rabbits also squeezed their eyes shut.
Right.
That was Basim.
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