“So you’re here on behalf of Shirobanegawa?”

The four of them trailed closely behind the cloaked man and his entourage of two people. They had left the thick darkness of the forest behind them, and now all that their eyes beheld were the rolling, snow-covered hills that the Sahlbaridis called home.

“Yes, Sir,” Soleiman said, urging Strapi forward slightly. “We’d show you the contract but, uh…”

He turned to look at Qingxi, who was currently resting with her hands wrapped about Rumi’s hips on their other steed.

“It burnt up with the rest of our wagon,” she said, sitting upright. “I’m sorry. But I couldn’t save it.”

“Mmm,” the man hummed, his gaze yet transfixed on the hill ahead of them. His heavy cloak rippled in the crisp wind, flapping against the beautifully crafted musket stowed within a leather sheath on his back. He turned back momentarily, letting a singular tired eye scan the four fellows.

“Alright.”

“Wait,” Rumi whispered, turning to three others. “How are we going to make the report now?”

“We could always just use another notebook,” Soleiman replied, shrugging. His nonchalant expression very quickly collapsed and widened in horrific realisation, as if a sickened light had been cast upon his face.

“The books!” he whispered to himself, palming himself in the head.

“And what exactly did they want you to do out here?” the man asked.

“They wanted us to pick up the slack for the Shrines on the fringe,” Pallas said, letting her brother deal with the traumatic realisation that the treasure troves of knowledge he had been entrusted with by the librarian had been reduced to ash. “We were told to check on the populations of beasts and come back with a report.”

“And they got a rag-tag team made of…” he turned around, his shoulder pushing back the cloak to reveal the cut-up and raggedy piece of leather he wore as a chestpiece.

“A Solean,”

Rumi awkwardly averted her gaze.

“A Chitite,”

Qingxi nodded solemnly.

“A Saracen,”

Soleiman stared blankly back at him.

“And a Minervan to do it?”

Pallas met his cold gaze with hers, the weight on her eyelids and the bags under her eyes doing little to stop her from staring his scepticism into the ground.

“Well,” she responded. “If you’re going to send a team of people into uncharted territory even your fellows refuse to head into, wouldn’t you prefer not to risk your own mens’ lives?”

The man opened his mouth as if to say something, though he promptly closed it in silent acknowledgement, turning back to the sight that emerged from beyond the hill’s crest.

“Good point.”

Soleiman subtly raised a clench fist, offering it to his sister.

She bumped it with her own, watching as he nodded in approval before turning back to face the view before them.

Upon the hill’s crest was a wide, flat plateau, enclosed on all sides by a series of wooden spikes that jutted from the soft earth and presented their sharpened edges as in a challenge the might of the great outdoors. Beyond those defences huddled a group of tents, interspersed by crackling fires, tanning racks and wash basins. Each of these stations were manned primarily by women, all wrapped in several layers of fabric to protect them from the bite of the frozen wind.

“Come on,” the man said, sliding out of his saddle. “You two, take care of the horses. You four, follow me.”

The two men who had followed him nodded, similarly dismounting before taking the reins of their horses in their hands.

“We’re leaving our horses out here?” Pallas asked.

“Of course not,” he responded, brows furrowing slightly at the ridiculousness of the question. “They’ll take them to the barn out over there,” he said, gesturing to a particularly large rectangular tent pitched at the very far end of the encampment. “They’ll be with the rest of the remaining farm animals for the meanwhile.”

He waited by the main gate, throwing his cloak about himself as the four of them got off their mounts.

Soleiman slipped off first, offering his left hand to Pallas. She held it, resting her other hand on Strapi’s back as she slowly lowered herself onto the ground.

“Do you still feel lightheaded?” Soleiman asked, turning to help Rumi support Qingxi on her way down.

“Just a little.”

Just before they headed on into the encampment, they caught sight of a forest of sails off on the side of the camp opposite the barn, each mast standing tall above the tents– their slackened sails flapping in the wind.

“Do you mind elaborating on what Shirobanegawa told you?” the man asked, leading them through the gate.

“They told us there’d been a complete lack of beast sightings in Houzen’s fringe regions,” Soleiman said. “Out here in the North, more specifically.”

They walked past a small clearing in the tents, watching as two women– one far older than the other– toiled over a pot of boiling water. They passed through the low hanging mists of water vapour, the heavenly aroma of meat and vegetables very briefly gracing their nostrils.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“But,” Soleiman continued, taking a moment to let the divine smell sink in. “They also told us that they thought it was because of the fringe Shrines-”

“Underreporting?” the man asked.

“Yeah,” Soleiman responded. “Not doing their job, basically.”

They continued walking, slipping past tent after tent, the gusts of snowy wind that blew through the area causing each and every one of them to ripple in synchrony– producing a low rumbling that permeated the entire encampment.

“And what did Ezomatsu tell you?” the man asked, nodding to a lady as she peered out of a tent to greet them.

“They, uh…” Soleiman started, nodding at the lady as he passed her.

“They told us that there would be no fiends on the way to the forest’s edge,” Qingxi said.

The man turned back to look at her, thoroughly unimpressed as he raised his eyebrows.

Qingxi rolled her eyes in turn.

“I know right,” she said.

They passed by another clearing, occupied only by a few racks of drying clothes.

In the corner of her eye, Rumi saw as a young boy and his even younger sister watched on from between the tents, their eyes transfixed on her golden hair and on the woollen Chitite ears of her chullo.

She smiled at them, waving tenderly as she did so.

The little girl squealed in happiness, scurrying off into the depths of the tents, her brother giving Rumi a smile in return before running after her.

“On behalf of my tribe, though,” the man said as they left the clearing and entered into another street of tents. “I must thank you.”

“For… fighting those birds?” Qingxi asked.

The man nodded.

“Miss, I don’t know how you two did it, but you did a damn good job thinning them out.”

“Thank you,” she and Pallas said.

Qingxi bowed slightly as he turned back to look at her.

When he turned away, she patted her left hand against the sheath of her blade.

“When we first ran into them,” the man continued. “They were able to fight off five of us at once. So it’s one hell of a feat that the two of you were able to survive, let alone win, all on your own.”

“But you were the one who landed the killing blow on the crow, no?” Qingxi said. “I don’t think we would’ve been able to take it down without at least a good bit more trouble.”

“Only because you lured it out,” he said, stopping at a tent. “The crafty bugger must’ve gotten ahead of itself thinking you two would’ve been easy prey.”

He slid a hand into the doorway, pulling apart the tent flaps.

“Come on in,” he said.

The four of them made their way into the well-sized tent, large enough for them to not feel uncomfortable within. Its interior was well-furnished with desks and shelves, each one boasting some form of gentle lighting or incense, be it stout little candles made from harvested beeswax or ceramic goblets that held smouldering sticks of oil-soaked wood chips.

“You’re back early,” a woman said.

She sat at a large dining table set in the middle of the tent, peering up at them through her reading glasses as she set her book down.

“You can thank them for that,” he responded, gesturing to the four fellows now awkwardly standing behind him as he took off his coat. “Oh, and the birds are dead now too.”

The woman’s mouth opened ever so slightly.

“I take it the others aren’t back yet?” the man asked.

“No,” the woman responded, shaking herself from the momentary stupor. “They’re still out on the hunt.”

She eyed the group up and down, still a little unsure of what to make of the ensemble cast of exotic foreigners.

“Uhm…” she struggled. “Would you like some tea?”

The woman poured the amber elixir into the man’s cup, its vapours rising from the stream to greet his nose with a wave of comforting warmth.

“Thank you, darling,” he said.

Rumi blew on the tea slightly, clouds of mist billowing out with each cautious puff she blew. Then, assured enough of its temperature– or perhaps no longer patience enough to blow any longer– she took a sip.

She jolted slightly, her eyes darting to the woman to check that she hadn’t seen her reaction.

“Rumi?” Soleiman asked quietly, he himself just about to sip from his cup.

“I didn’t think it would be so minty,” she responded.

On her other side, Qingxi took a long draught of tea, sighing afterwards with a slight smile on her face.

“Exquisite.”

“Is there anything you would like to ask?” the man said, placing his cup back onto its coaster. “Anything you need, perhaps?”

The four fellows briefly exchanged glances.

“Well,” Soleiman eventually said. “Is there anything else we could help you and your tribe with?”

The man stared blankly back at him, eventually shaking himself out of his stupor to take another sip of tea.

“You just helped us,” he said, setting the cup back down. “And you want to help us again?”

“I mean,” Soleiman said, himself not having taken a single sip of the tea. “We figured helping you guys might help us get the information we need to fill in our report. Might as well kill two birds with one stone.”

The man nodded, picking his cup back up and cradling it with his hands.

“At present,” he said, pausing to take a sip. “There’s not much you can do. The birds were really the only problem we had. In fact they’re the only reason we’re stuck here at all.”

“What did they do?” Pallas asked.

“Ambushed us,” he responded. “Well, actually, we knew there would be something here that we would have to deal with when we moved into this area. We just didn’t think it would be so powerful.”

He and Qingxi took synchronised draughts of the tea, the sound of slurping filling the tent as the other three fellows eyed each other awkwardly.

It seemed Pallas wasn’t too partial on the tea either.

“They killed our livestock,” the man suddenly continued, setting the empty cup back down. “They torched our supplies and forced us to make camp to try and forage for food.”

He looked to his side, watching as his wife happily hummed to herself while she prepared the next kettle’s worth of tea.

“With them dead now, though,” he said. “We should be able to get what we need. And soon enough, we should be able to leave.”

The sound of humming filled the air.

“Mmm,” Soleiman responded, trying to break the silence with some sort of a response.

“That being said…” the man continued. “You wanted information, right?”

“Yes, Sir,” Soleiman said.

“Then you might want to come along with us,” he responded, sliding his seat back out before abruptly freezing when his wife’s killer glare landed on him. He lifted the chair, lifting it off of the carpet below before setting it back down a little further away.

“We’re on the way to rendezvous with a friend,” he said, now standing tall. “And she’s probably the most well-versed with handling beasts in this half of the North.”