It was true that they didn’t have much more food left, but he was sure they’d reach the sea before they ran out of food. The sea was apparently full of fish, so all they had to do was catch some and eat them. And if they could do that, why not just live there?
He wasn’t sure if Aryes had ever seen a fish. Surely not. He’d have to explain to her, then—explain that they were animals that could swim underwater without drowning.
He let slip a soft laugh at the thought of it. It was very quiet.
Klass then tried to chase such things from his head and go back to sleep, whereupon he heard the faintest hint of a new sound.
Thup, thup, thup went the quiet sound.
It might have been Aryes’s heartbeat.
Klass thought it mysterious that he could hear it so clearly, despite the swell of her chest—but then he realized something strange.
He could hear the sound from his other ear—his right ear, which was pressed to the ground.
Thup, thup, thup went the sound.
“What could it be?” he murmured to himself.
Immediately he reached back to grasp the stick he was using as a walking staff.
“Wo—”
Wolf, he was about to shout, but he swallowed the word, raising his head and looking around.
Ba-bump, ba-bump roared a pulse in his ears. It was the sound of his own heart.
The beating of his heart seemed to force breath audibly from his mouth.
He swallowed hard and looked to the right. Then to the left.
The moon was in the sky, and visibility was good.
But he could see no sign of a wolf.
“Aryes, Aryes.”
His palms were sweaty, and his throat was dry.
He shook Aryes’s shoulder and looked around but could see nothing.
But whatever it was out there seemed to have noticed the change in Klass. He felt the change in the mood.
Anyone that slept in a barn knew—whether they wanted to know or not—that wolves were special.
Those golden eyes shining in the dark of night.
Though Aryes had finally awoken, her focus had yet to fall on him, and she was so seemingly helpless it made him want to fool her.
Klass pulled his staff close and looked out again over the land.
Wolves rarely attacked humans, or so Klass believed. Three times before they’d jumped over his head with a chicken in their jaws, but he couldn’t help wondering if that was because there’d been chickens to eat.
There it was again, the sound—thup, thup, thup, thup—seemingly louder than it was before.
He was sure of it—they were watching him, sharpening their fangs.
What should I do? he asked himself silently over and over again. He wasn’t considering taking Aryes and trying to run away, mostly because the moment he moved he was sure they would attack.
What should I do?
Aryes finally seemed to come completely awake and looked at Klass uncertainly.
It chilled him like cold water over his head, and he tried to put his finger to his lips.
“What’s wrong?” asked Aryes, sitting up, just as they heard an indescribably beautiful howl.
“Wh-wha—?” Aryes looked frantically around, utterly bewildered.
In his gut, Klass felt like he wanted to cry, wanted to rage, but managed somehow to endure the stabbing feeling and jumped to his feet, looking ahead, and then he saw it.
He saw in a moment that the many shadows that fluttered atop the moonlit hills melted into the dark of night at the reverberation of the howl.
An instant later, his eyes met the golden irises of another’s.
“Hurry—hurry, we have to go!” Trembling, his hand shook as he grabbed the burlap sack and took the hand of a bewildered Aryes.
And even then, he was frozen, unable to stand.
The wolves had stopped trying to hide their footfalls, which now sounded like a gust of wind blowing through the forest.
He was too scared to stop his teeth from chattering, but he mustered up enough courage to hold his staff at the ready.
He pushed Aryes behind him, terrified but brandishing his staff like a spear.
The wolves dove into a pool of darkness as they descended the hill, and then they charged back out of the depths.
Transfixed by their golden irises, he felt with strange clarity the sensation of his own mouth splitting in a wolflike smile.
Fear was forcing him to bare his teeth.
But the wolves, of course, were not flinching from their charge—
“—Huh?”
Suddenly, the lead wolf jumped sideways.
It was so jarring that for a moment, Klass wondered if someone had shot an arrow at it.
The wolves passed Klass and Aryes, hitting the ground and wheeling back around. They were so close that he could see every one of the hairs on their raised hackles.
But their gaze was not on Klass and Aryes, their intended prey—it was on something farther off, and they crouched low. Fangs bared, they growled, their forepaws poised to jump.
They could’ve pounced at any time, but they seemed less like they were hunting prey and more like they were turning to face an enemy.
Had they been shaken by Klass’s courage?
Unrelated to such thoughts, the wolves were watching a single point, and then an instant later, they jumped and scattered.
It took a moment for Klass to realize that they had all run away.
They had fled farther and faster than they’d arrived.
The overwhelming sense of danger was entirely gone, without leaving so much as the feeling of having been saved.
Klass, stunned, watched the wolves retreat, and for a moment he didn’t think about anything at all.
The only reason he looked back at Aryes was that she’d touched his back.
“Wh-what happened?” She was trembling slightly.
“There were wolves…That was a close one,” he said, hands still tight around his staff. He had no intention of teasing Aryes for her shaking but still hadn’t realized that he was shaking himself.
Aryes cocked her head slightly. “Wo…wolves?”
She sneezed charmingly. Aryes didn’t know what a wolf was. That meant her shivering had to be out of nothing more than the chill.
Klass looked at the staff he’d brandished as a spear, his lip curling. Disappointed, he dropped it.
“Wolves. They were about to attack us just now, weren’t they? They attack people, and they attack livestock.”
“Oh, my. Are they…men?”
Klass wondered if she was making fun of him.
But then he remembered the words of the mansion’s stable master, who’d been old enough to be his father. “Yeah. Men are wolves.”
At those words, finally Aryes’s face evidenced some fear, and she drew a quick breath, looking around.
“It’s all right. They’ve all gone off some—”
But he didn’t finish his sentence.
Since in the space of a moment, his face had been pressed into Aryes’s soft chest, and he couldn’t so much as breathe.
“Ngh…guh…”
“Do not worry! I will…er, no, ah—God will protect us. There is nothing to fear!” she said, hugging him tightly. Klass was now more scared of her than the wolves.
What if right here, he was to tell her the truth, that he was a boy? What would she do?
Even Klass knew that it was wrong to lie and to deceive people.
But when he moved his head slightly and caught his breath, Aryes’s scent filled his nostrils.
The scent was more than enough to erase the memory of terror about the attack, though their lives had only just been saved.
He decided to stay quiet on the matter for a bit longer.
“Still, I wonder what scared them off.”
He had definitely gotten the sense that the wolves had been startled.
What could possibly scare off an entire pack of wolves?
He gla
nced in the direction they’d been looking, but all he could see was the grassy landscape and the pools of darkness, and he felt nothing particularly ominous or monstrous about it.
Still in Aryes’s arms, he could not, of course, answer the question for certain, but his nervousness was long gone. Evidently with the skin warmth that followed a cold sweat, sleepiness came soon after. He yawned hugely.
Aryes loosened her embrace when Klass squirmed a bit, and though it pained him to do so, he finally forced the words out.
“I think we’re safe now. Let’s sleep. There are still hours before morning.”
Aryes finally nodded at those words.
It was then that the uncertainty disappeared from her face.
The next day started with the early-rising Aryes waking him.
For a moment he flashed back to the previous night, but there were no wolves to be seen, with only their footprints left in the plains as proof that the night’s events hadn’t been a dream.
The morning played out much as it had before.
The only parts that were different was the worry that came with their dwindling food and water supplies—that and Aryes’s complexion having improved a bit and that she said her feet hurt.
Aryes’s problem could be solved by taking a short break, but the water issue troubled Klass greatly. He’d heard from travelers that passed through the lord’s estate that one could go a week on an empty stomach but that three days without water would kill a man.
“You don’t happen to know where a river is, do you?” he asked Aryes, just in case.
The plains seemed to continue on forever, the narrow road through them likewise. It was now the fifth day since they’d left the house, so they had to have traveled a considerable distance. He’d heard one could circumnavigate the world in two months.
While some part of him still couldn’t help but make light of Aryes’s naiveté since she’d apparently lived within walls her entire life, even Klass himself had never realized the world was so very large.
It made him unreasonably angry, and he walked faster.
Midday passed and evening came, and despite the breaks for Aryes’s sake and the slowness of their pace, they’d climbed their twelfth hill of the day, the most so far.
And all that met his eye was grass, trees, and hill after hill after hill.
When he looked back, he saw Aryes behind him, whose interest in insects and flowers had been replaced by the exhaustion of the long trek. She had stopped a ways down the hill, and showed no sign of walking any farther.
For his part, Klass could easily keep walking, and the fact that they’d failed to reach another town yet because of their slow pace frustrated him.
Aryes could walk farther, he was quite sure. Just as he sighed and was about to call out to her, she squatted down right where she stood.
Just a bit of water. The unseen next town. The sea at the end of the road, whether it was there or not. And the unimaginably wide world.
Such words floated up in his mind, stirring up his irritation. Up until the previous day the travel had been relaxed, but today all he could feel was that they were moving too slowly.
It made him want to click his tongue in frustration, and he didn’t bother hiding it.
As usual, she didn’t move.
“…Ugh.”
He was so angry that he didn’t want to bother raising his voice and for a moment even considered leaving here there.
It was just one road, so even she shouldn’t get lost.
Just as he was thinking about how nice that would be, there was a strange sound.
“…?”
He looked at Aryes, who had one hand on the ground.
And then—
“A-Aryes!”
She moved, and just as Klass thought she might get up, she vomited onto the ground.
It was so unexpected that he couldn’t move. Aryes didn’t so much as look up before collapsing onto her side.
Klass tossed his bag aside and ran to her.
“Aryes! Aryes!”
He was more stunned than worried.
Rushing to her side and picking her up in his arms, he pulled her hood back and called her name.
Aryes slumped, unmoving, and past her open mouth, he saw her slack tongue and couldn’t help but think of a dying sheep.
“Aryes!”
It wasn’t concern that replaced his surprise—it was terror.
Aryes was going to die.
Wanting to cry, he shook her shoulders. He slapped her face. But there was no reaction.
A wave of fear rose up within him—now Klass was the one who felt nauseated.
Immediately thereafter, Aryes vomited again.
Thank goodness, Klass thought. She’s not dead.
His relief lasted but a moment, though, as with nothing more to expel, she curled into a ball and moaned in pain.
Klass rubbed the tears from his eyes, took the handkerchief from his side, and wiped Aryes’s mouth with it.
After that, he didn’t know what else to do.
The words healing herbs occurred to him, but he seriously doubted the grass that surrounded them would have any effect at all.
Aryes’s pained breathing was getting quieter and quieter. It made him imagine her life as a flickering flame, and the thought brought tears anew.
He wondered if she hadn’t been tired but ill.
If he’d known, he would have taken more breaks from walking.
The excuses and regrets swirled around in his heart, but no words save Aryes’s name came from his mouth.
And yet he did call her name, shaking her slack shoulders.
“Ugh…what…what should I do…?”
He could not bring himself to say what he was thinking: Somebody help me.
No one would help him in a place like this.
And if someone did come, it would probably be the useless God that Aryes was always praying to.
Yet in the bottom of his heart, he wished deeply for someone—even that bogus deity—to come and save them.
“Oh, God…”
And when he heard it, he thought it was the voice of God: “Whatever happened here?”
He looked up, totally shocked to hear another voice, but he couldn’t make out its source through his teary eyes.
He rubbed them and looked again.
There was no one there.
“What…?”
Tears began to well up again.
“What happened here, boy?”
Behind him.
Klass looked back, and indeed, someone was standing there, backlit by the sun.
“Ill, is she?”
The clear voice didn’t seem to match its tone. Since the figure was backlit and Klass was still sitting, he couldn’t ascertain its height or face.
But pathetically, the simple fact that someone other than him was now present caused tears to overflow anew.
“I-I-I don’t know…Sh-she just fell over, and…”
“Hmm,” the shadowy figure murmured, lightly whirling around to regard Klass from in front of him.
It was a woman.
She peered at Aryes’s profile. “Hmph, this looks like—” Klass unconsciously straightened.
The woman continued.
“’Tis simple exhaustion,” she proclaimed anticlimactically.
“…Huh?”
“Look at how hard her legs are,” said the woman, reaching out to put her hand on the prone Aryes’s calf.
“B-b-but—”
“She asked many times for a rest, did she not?” added the woman flatly. “And worse, she hasn’t been eating properly. ’Tis no surprise she fell.”
Now that it had been said, it seemed like the most obvious thing in the world.
But as soon as he realized it, something strange occurred to him.
“How did you know that?”
“Curses. Slip of the tongue.” She deliberately put her hand to her mouth and looked the other way.
The
re was no mistaking it: She must have been watching them from somewhere.
But Klass had gotten a good view of their surroundings every time they’d crested a hill.
There was nowhere for anyone to hide.
So where had she been watching from?
“In truth, I’d planned not to say anything to you. But this was simply too pathetic.” The woman patted Aryes’s side and shot Klass an accusing look.
A hot feeling stabbed through his chest. “N-no, I always tried to—”
“Tried to think about her? Hmph. You knew perfectly well that her body and yours are quite different.”
He flinched at the words.
It wasn’t just that he was at a loss for something to say—he was stunned.
“Heh. I’ve been watching you since last night. You know well and truly that she and you are not alike,” she said, her expression shifting to a sticky smile.
Klass could feel his face becoming hotter and hotter.
He’d been watched.
“I suppose that’s what they mean when they say, ‘The luck to be born a man.’ Still”—the woman stood with her hands on her hips, lips curling into a fang-baring smile—“you had the pluck to stand your ground before the wolves. That much is praise-worthy.”
“Wha…ah!”
“Hmph. Not a very discerning lad, are you?” sneered the woman past her fangs, looking down at the boy.
No, it wasn’t just that.
He’d just that moment realized something.
It had been so strange that he simply hadn’t seen it until that moment.
The woman that stood before him wore a cloak around her shoulders and a sash tied around her waist, with fine fur-lined trousers. Her hair was chestnut brown, but atop her head there was something strange.
“If you’re just noticing these, you must not have noticed this!”
Her cloak swished dramatically.
“Ah…ah…!”
“’Tis fine fur, indeed, no?”
The puff of fur swished audibly.
The grandly furred wolf tail swayed, and the beast ears atop her head flicked.
In that moment, the memory of the wolves’ actions the previous night flashed through his head.
“C-could it be—”
“Could it be?”
The woman’s gaze pierced him, as though testing him.
“Last night, the one who saved us, that was…”
A breath of wind caused both the hem of the woman’s cloak and the tip of her tail to flutter.