Chapter One Hundred Sixty-Nine: ‘Think not, worry not...’

Durendia awoke to the sound of the one-horned man’s voice.

“--yeah. He’s certainly a strong candidate. But who would he match with? I would be most concerned about--ah. You are awake. How are you feeling, cedo?”

Her little head pulsed. Not with pain, exactly, but a close approximation of it. She wanted to move, to get up, but she was still so dizzy and exhausted that she ended up just shifting in place a bit before giving up. It was pretty cozy right where she was, anyway.

Then she realized why.

The big gray dog had wrapped himself around her. His tail alone was enough of a blanket that she didn’t feel cold, despite being able to see her breath.

Germal crouched over her and felt her forehead. “Cedo, can you hear me?”

“Y-yes,” she finally managed to say.

“Good. That’s very good.”

She had never heard such a soothing voice. Not even from her own mother.

Her mother...

Durendia’s eyes widened and her face went pale. The memories. The images. The carnage. It was all rushing back to her, and she didn’t know what to do about it. She didn’t know what was real and what was imaginary.

So much blood. And the stench. She couldn’t get it out of her head. Or her nostrils. She could still smell it. Everything was--

“Shh,” came Germal’s voice again, which seemed to soften her entire world, somehow. “It’s okay, cedo. You’re okay.”

And she was.

As simply as that.

She felt... normal. She felt like herself again.

In fact, what had she just been worrying about? She couldn’t remember.

“I know,” said Germal. “I’m being careful.”

She didn’t know what that meant. Was he talking to her? She couldn’t tell.

She felt Koh’s giant nose next to her ear and heard it sniffing. Then he licked her cheek, and she couldn’t help giggling at the tickling sensation. He smelled like tobacco, but she didn’t mind it so much.

Germal removed his hand from her head and stood up.

She was still confused beyond all reckoning, though. She asked the first thing that popped into her head. “Who are you?”

He regarded her with a smile. “I’m your uncle. And don’t you worry. I’m going to take good care of you from now on.”

She believed him wholeheartedly. “Why do you have a horn on your head?”

He laughed mildly. “Someone gave it to me. Why? Do you like it?”

She shrugged.

“Hmm. It doesn’t frighten you, does it?”

She shook her head.

“Good. That’s very good.”

Comfortable as she was, she still wanted to stand now. Her whole body felt stiff as she wriggled her way out from the wall of canine around her and tried to find her footing. She stumbled forward.

Germal caught her. “Careful now, cedo.”

She looked around. “Where are we?”

“A little town called Orobell. Have you heard of it?”

Durendia paused to think. The name sounded familiar, somehow, but that was the extent of it. She shook her head. “What happened to this place?”

“Some very bad people came and destroyed it,” said Germal.

The smoldering ruin had dozens of columns of smoke, all illuminated in the moonlight and bending in the wind.

“Why did they do that?” she asked.

“It’s a game they play.”

That piqued her curiosity even more. “A game?” She liked games.

“Oh, indeed. They try to destroy all of each others’ things.”

She didn’t much like the sound of that game, though. “That sounds scary...”

“It can be. They take it very seriously. Perhaps because they play for such high stakes.” He patted her head. “But there’s nothing to worry about, cedo. There are other games we can play.”

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Koh came up beside her, dragging a heavy cloth in his mouth. He nudged it against her, obviously wanting her to take it.

She was beginning to shiver, so she did so. She scratched behind his ears for him while she tried to warm up again.

A speck of white fell across her vision, and she looked up at the sky another time to discover that it was beginning to snow. It made her smile. She’d always liked the snow.

“Master Germal, sir!” The distant voice grew quickly closer as a man she didn’t recognize ran up to the three of them. “We may have found a lead on the attackers!”

“Oh?” said Germal. “Do tell me more.”

“Ah, well, there appears to be a trail through the forest, but we’re not entirely sure yet, sir. I would’ve reported this to the Knife directly, but I don’t want to trouble him if it turns out we were wrong. He might, um... well...”

“Wise of you,” said Germal, chortling. “Allow me to guess. You previously worked under Dunhouser?”

“I--yes. That I did, sir. How...?”

“The fact that you are worried about bursts of violent outrage from your superior is rather telling, I’m afraid. But I don’t think you need to worry about such things with Jercash. From my understanding, he’s not one given to crushing his subordinates.”

The man looked surprised. “O-oh... uh... really, sir? But, ah, didn’t he just take out Horace a little while ago?”

“Oh, indeed he did. But I believe it was Horace who started that, not Jercash.”

“What? Why would anyone ever--? You’d have to be an idiot to attack the Knife first! But then again, I guess Horace was kind of stupid...”

“Who knows what came over him?” said Germal.

“Ah. Anyway, sir. I apologize for getting sidetracked. There was another reason why I came to you for help, actually. I’ve heard that you were in the 11th Ranging Division, which would make you an expert tracker, no?”

“Well, not so much me as him.” Germal motioned toward Koh.

The man’s eyes went hesitantly to the giant dog.

“While, yes, I was technically a Ranger, too,” said Germal, “it was really Koh who did all the heavy lifting. I mostly just provided operational support for him.”

“I... see.” The man seemed like he was trying to suck his own lips into his face as he deliberated on his next words. “Then, ah... w-would it be too much to ask for his help here?”

“Oh, I’m sure he’d love to. Right, Koh?”

Koh snorted strongly enough to kick up a cloud of dust in front of him.

“Don’t be a surly bore,” said Germal. “The man is asking nicely for your help.”

Koh glanced between the two men, then at Durendia, then back at Germal.

“Of course, we’ll take her with us,” said Germal.

Koh stood up.

Germal looked back at the unnamed man. “Lead the way.”

“Oh, thank you so much, Master Koh.”

The dog returned a calm, low woof, and they all began walking.

Germal and the stranger kept talking, but Durendia wasn’t really paying attention anymore. They were mentioning a lot of names and places that she didn’t recognize, and she soon found herself much more interested in the snow. It was picking up. She wondered if there would be enough to build a snowman soon. Or a snowdog, maybe. It would be fun to make a second Koh, she thought.

When they arrived at their apparent destination, her attention returned to the situation at hand.

The enormous hole in the forest was difficult to miss. Felled and splintered trees littered the path forward, so Germal helped Durendia onto Koh’s back in order to protect her feet. It was fun. Koh moved so smoothly over the rough terrain that she had no trouble keeping her balance. She remembered trying to ride a horse once before and finding it not nearly this easy.

“Here’s where we ran into trouble, Master Koh.”

The sundered pathway split into several narrower ones. Some of them even looked blocked by more fallen trees ahead, but it was difficult to tell with only the moon and a few flashlights in the darkness.

“Some of our men have gone ahead, but from what we can tell so far, it’s all a mess. We suspect there was some sort of battle in this particular area.”

Koh lifted his nose and sniffed audibly.

“That is probably a safe bet,” said Germal. “Some of these trees aren’t just knocked down but also pitch black as well. That would suggest fire or lightning, which matches what happened to the town. And the direction that they fell also suggests that the fight was moving away from Orobell. Good work, soldier.”

“Th-thank you, sir.”

Koh ambled forward, not choosing from any of the branching paths and instead simply going straight ahead into the line of trees that were still standing. It grew pitch dark under the canopy of leaves overhead, and Durendia could hear the others following behind.

She’d always been scared of the dark, but she wasn’t now. The flashlights helped, but it was mainly because Koh was here. She felt like the bravest little girl in the whole world with him around. Maybe that wasn’t how bravery worked, but it was what she felt--along with a tinge of anticipation, wondering where Koh was leading everyone.

In time, they reached another clearing, and the moonlight returned. A new set of branching pathways lay before them, and this time, Koh chose the leftmost one.

Snow was everywhere now, filling her vision so much that it was getting difficult to see ahead.

As they continued on, Germal approached her from the side. “Do you know the story of Hada, cedo?”

She shook her head.

“The God of Storms? The God of Wrath? You’ve never heard of him?”

She shook her head again.

“Would you like me to tell his tale?” said Germal. “I think you might enjoy it.”

She nodded.

The one-horned man smiled that smile that made her feel safe. “Well, it all began long ago. Before even humanity as we know it existed. Hada was born deep beneath the earth, but he hated it there, because he loved the sky. Even before he had ever seen it, he knew that he loved it. He believed that it was his destiny to be one with the sky, and so he became desperate to reach the surface. He searched every day for a means of getting there.

“Eventually, he encountered someone named Ettol, who said that he knew the way to the surface and would show him--on one condition. Ettol didn’t want anyone else to know the way, so he said that Hada had to seal himself and all of his power into a bottle, and then Ettol would carry Hada to the surface. Hada, eager to achieve his destiny at any cost, agreed to this demand, and sealed himself away.

“And indeed, Ettol did exactly as he had promised to do. He carried Hada through a secret passage to the surface. However, once they were there, Ettol did not unseal the bottle. He placed Hada on a rock and left him there. Hada was wroth. He was closer to his goal than ever before and yet powerless to take that final step.

“So passed many, many years until someone discovered Hada there. The poor man who released him was consumed in Hada’s fury, as was much of humanity, for Hada brought forth storms unlike any the world had ever seen. Hada quickly grew to hate mankind, as he was jealous of them. They had been living on the surface for so many years before him that they had already claimed much of it for themselves. So he tried to wipe humanity out in its entirety.

“But with the aid of other gods, they resisted him, which of course served only to make him angrier. And that is why the world still has terrible storms even to this day. It is a lingering effect of Hada’s never-ending bitterness and hatred towards humanity.”

Durendia frowned. “I didn’t like that story at all.”

“No?” said Germal. “My apologies then, cedo.”

The group stopped when they came upon another wide clearing. This one was fully enclosed, however. There were no more branching paths to pursue, and Koh had stopped as well.

There was, however, someone lying there. They were not moving.

Durendia was uncomfortable again. Still not frightened exactly, but very unhappy nonetheless. She had a dreadful feeling that it was a dead person. Something in the way the body was positioned. Very unnaturally contorted.

Koh started toward it. Durendia didn’t want to get any closer, but she didn’t know how to say so. Perhaps the dog guessed as much, because he stopped again and let Germal and the others examine it.

They took their time.

Durendia tried to just think about the snow, but she couldn’t help staring. Unpleasant as it made her feel, she couldn’t fully stifle her curiosity.

“I recognize this man,” someone eventually said. “Isn’t this Akio, the Spear of Kavia?”

“Wow, yeah, I think you’re right. Heh. So I guess someone axed Akio, eh?”

“Ha. Nice.”

“This is pretty impressive work. I heard this guy was a real pain in the ass, over in Hoss.”

“He was one of the Kane’s strongest lackeys, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah. Guess that confirms that this town really was important to Kane, eh?”

“Most likely.”

“Who the hell took this guy out, though? We don’t have anyone strong enough around here, do we?”

Germal stepped into the two men’s conversation. “The body is still mostly intact, including the head, which would suggest that the killer got to his reaper first. Perhaps all this destruction we’ve seen here in the forest was the killer struggling against Akio’s mindless corpse.”

“Ah, that’d make sense. Still pretty impressive, though, don’t you think? Catching a famous guy like this off guard?”

“Eh, maybe he had one of our ‘invisi-bros’ with him.”

“Maybe. But I don’t know, man. After Ivan cocked everything up in Sair, the whole Vanguard probably knows that we can be invisible now. And this guy was high up on the food chain, right? So he should’ve already had some countermeasures ready for that sort of thing.”

“You’re giving the Vannies too much credit, dude. They’re not that smart.”

Germal interjected again. “Perhaps this really was the work of Hada,” he laughed. “And if not, then perhaps it will be.”

“...Sir, what the hell are you talking about?”

“Oh, nothing. Let’s get this body to Jercash, shall we? I’m sure he’d like to see it.”

“Yes, sir.”