47. Hijra in the Nightmare

Author: Kiki
Raw: https://novel18.syosetu.com/n2498fn/50/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

They used a bolt-hole of the Discard District and left the town.
The smell of the corpse-mountain still clung in the back of the nose.
Remembering it was enough to make her want to be sick, but Lily could not afford to show a weak part.
Sara, weaker still, was right beside her.
She was now the last of the royal blood.
Protecting her to the end was the first charge laid on the captain of the knights.
Even if there was no one left to give the order, Lily, who had had that fate pressed on her since childhood, could only obey it blindly.
For the country?
No—to fulfill the reason she existed.

◇◇◇

 

On the highway they passed carriages now and then.
The people in them always stopped in surprise at the sight of Lily and Sara, and stared with their eyes wide.
Convenient. Lily did not have to hail them herself.
She approached the people of the carriage and warned them.

“You would do better not to go to the royal capital.”

Of course they asked what had happened.
Ought she to tell them the capital had been occupied? Lily hesitated.
If she used the authority of the knight-captain, they would likely avoid the capital even without a reason.
And if the truth spread, the kingdom would fall at once into chaos.
And yet—ought not human lives to come first?
To keep from producing more victims, she resolved to tell them everything.

“There are no humans left there. Monsters walk about as they please.”

The master of the carriage was always astonished, and then offered to take the two of them as far as the nearest town. Lily refused.
Carriage or on foot, she did not believe they could outrun a vampire’s body.
And given who they were, Lily and Sara might themselves be targets.
She did not wish to involve the people any more than she must.

The highway went on.
The next town lay beyond a plain and then a forest.
They would have to walk that far.
Lily had worried for Sara’s stamina, but the girl had more backbone than expected; that day she followed without a single complaint.
Lily regulated the pace, of course, but the nearest town was still a considerable distance.
She may no longer be the child I have taken her for—Lily felt Sara’s growth.

By the time the sun slanted they had arrived.
Fortunately, the vampires’ hand did not yet seem to have reached this far.
They had left in haste, however; they had no money, and in their present clothes they stood out badly.
They pawned dress and armor, made coin, and changed into plain garments.
With that money they bought preserved food, waterskins, a map, and the rest of what a journey required, and took a room at an inn.
Even so, the woman at the desk seemed to have recognized, from their faces, the knight-captain and the princess, and was visibly unsettled.
Lily felt the need for further disguise, and impressed upon her that she was to say nothing.

Sara had been holding herself taut, perhaps. The moment they entered the room she collapsed onto the bed and groaned, “Uuugh—”
It was an unguarded look she showed to no one but Lily. A smile escaped before Lily could stop it.
One of the few gentling moments in this flight.

“You have done well, Your Highness.”
“I am truly tired. But this is only the beginning.”
“Our destination is Gravard. A week should see us there.”
“Gravard … that is near the border. Will you rely on the officers there?”

The army moved on a chain of command separate from the knightly order.
They were not on especially good terms with knights, whose conduct tended toward the self-willed.
Sara, as princess, seemed to be worrying over that as well.
This was no time to be particular about allies. The order was in ruins. They had no choice but to rely on the army.

“Yes. Gather the forces of that place and retaking the capital is not impossible.”
“… I think it would exact a great many lives.”
“Even so, we cannot leave those monsters to do as they please.”

Sara did not seem eager.
She had only just seen a literal mountain of corpses in the capital; she was in a tender state regarding human death.
Lily sat beside her and stroked her head as if combing her hair.
“Nnh …” Sara’s eyes narrowed, pleased.

“It feels as if it has been a long time since you stroked my hair like this.”
“Has it?”
“Lily has been so busy of late.”

It was true. Camilla; the summoning of people from another world; the mass death of soldiers—there had been no shortage of incidents.
She could only admit that her time with Sara had grown thin.

“So … in truth, I am a little glad.”

Sara said it into the bed, too quietly for Lily to hear.
It had been her true feeling, no doubt, even before the capital fell to vampires.

“Your Highness. Did you say something?”
“Only talking to myself.”
“I … see …”

Lily did not press.
The sense of a wall between them made Sara feel selfish, and her spirits sank all the same.

 

◇◇◇

 

Night is a vampire’s hour.
Whether that applied to creatures who walked about in daylight was another matter; it was better to be on guard.
Lily did not sleep that night. She kept watch throughout.
She closed her eyes and strained for the faintest sound.
What she heard was only Sara’s quiet breathing in sleep.
In the end, as if to betray Lily’s unease, nothing happened. The sun rose, and morning came.

She tidied herself at the washstand, then left the room and went down to the first floor for breakfast.
It was not grand enough to be called a restaurant, but last night’s supper had been rather good.
That flavor, with meals included in the lodging fee, was the inn’s charm.
The armor and the dress had brought a fair sum, but there was no telling how long the journey would last. Thrift was wisdom.
For the two of them, an inn where cheap food tasted good was a blessing.

They sat and waited for breakfast to be brought.
A little tiredness still showed in Sara’s face across the table.
Their hunted circumstances, an unfamiliar journey, a bed that was not her own.
It was no wonder she had not slept deeply.

“Your Highness. Are you well?”
“… In truth, I slept poorly last night, so I was thinking the whole time.”
“Of what?”
“This is meant to be a journey in secret, is it not? Then you ought to call me by my name, not ‘Your Highness.’”

Lily sagged.
To think a thing so trivial had been the cause of her poor sleep.
It was a fair point, though.
The reasoning was a little forced, but she had no particular grounds to refuse.

“Then—Lady Sara.”

Sara’s face lit for an instant, then darkened; she pursed her lips.
What was she dissatisfied with now?

“If you put ‘Lady’ on it, people will think I am someone of high station.”
“That is true, but to use your name quite bare …”
“It is an emergency. There should be no difficulty.”
“Haa … very well.”

Sara had a stubborn streak. Once she was like this, makeshift persuasion would not move her.
Lily would have to accept the condition, if only to ease her, tired as she was.
She resisted it—but this, too, was to keep the royal blood from dying out.

“Sara. Will that do?”
“Y-yes! It is perfect!”

Lily did not know what about it was perfect, but if it pleased her, well enough.
Watching Sara in her excitement, Lily found herself smiling, and the fatigue that had piled up in her seemed to blow away.

They were still speaking in that manner when the innkeeper brought breakfast.
He was not the woman from the desk last night. Had she been only an employee, or was this man her husband?
His face was poor in expression, and he had no warmth.
Not what one would call a capable host.
The service was so baldly indifferent that Lily frowned, a little, hoping not to be noticed.
She checked herself at once.
She had grown too used to the first-rate maids of the royal castle. That must be it. She told herself so.
And yet—the food he had brought was humble in the extreme: bread, scrambled eggs.
It was not even particularly well made.
Worse, the glasses set out were empty.
She looked around. There was no bottle of water or anything of the kind.

“Is something still coming?”
“I would think so.”

The innkeeper disappeared into the back and came out of the kitchen almost at once.
Seeing him, Lily was relieved for a moment—so he had not forgotten—and then, looking at what he held, she changed her mind.
A wide blade, dull silver, with a peculiar weight of presence.
It was well honed; the shine might have been taken for new.
In other words—what is called a chopper, a cleaver.
The sort of thing used to cut meat through the bone. Not, at any rate, something one used to pour a drink.
She wondered if he meant to put on a performance of splitting a wine bottle—but the other hand held nothing.
Lily set her hand on the sword at her hip and watched what he would do.
He stopped beside their table, laid his own hand down as if upon a cutting board, and—

A thud.

He brought the cleaver down without hesitation.
The blade fell with the force of a guillotine, met almost no resistance from flesh or bone, and stuck in the table.
The hand from the wrist forward was severed. A great quantity of blood ran from the cut.

“Wha—”
“Hih—?!”

Lily was struck dumb. Sara’s voice tightened with terror.
The innkeeper moved the blood-soaked stump as if to show it to them, and began to pour the blood into a glass.
This, apparently, was meant to be the drink.
The drink server, in short, was the man himself.
Sara was wholly swallowed by an act so far from common sense that she could not move.
Lily was quicker.

“Sara, we go!”
“Lily?!”

She took Sara’s hand and burst from the inn.
The innkeeper showed no interest in them at all. He only went on pouring blood into the glass, and stared with dead eyes at what overflowed and fouled the table.

 

◇◇◇

 

Thanks to Madis’s advice at the point of death.
Vampires regarded a man’s life as a toy, or something like it.
This, too, was likely one of their demonstrations.
This town had already fallen into their hands.
Or they had moved in secret during the night.
To take a town without a sound was ordinarily impossible. Vampires, it seemed, could do it.
There was no other way to make the facts fit.
She had trusted her own senses too far—Lily regretted it.
She had believed herself better than ordinary people at detecting presence. That degree of skill was not enough to stand against vampires.
And the moment she left the inn and saw the town’s ruin, she regretted her choice still more fiercely.

“Impossible—in a single night—”
“W-what … is this …?”

Lily caught Sara’s head at once and covered her eyes.
It was a sight far too strong for someone still so young.

In the streetlamps that had lit the town at night, men’s freshly severed heads hung in place of lamps.
The wooden arrows that pointed the way to the principal buildings had been replaced by men’s arms.
Legs were stuck at random into the flowerbeds. What remained of the bodies had been built into a meaningless object in the fountain of the central square.

Two women who had once been human passed in front of Lily and Sara, where they held each other, walking hand in hand.
One of them spoke to Lily.

“Aren’t you going to paradise?”
“…”
“Paradise. You don’t know? They say it’s in the royal capital. Everyone can live happily there, they said.”
“And that is why you did this?”
“Mm. We’d already decided to throw it away, so we wanted to do as we liked at the end. Make a racket, play, and then all go live in paradise. It’s strange. I don’t understand why anyone would look away from a happiness you can take if you only reach for it.”

With that they went toward the capital.

“Paradise, is it … Don’t be absurd. As if paradise could exist beyond a blasphemy against life like this!”

Lily’s cry rang through the dead town, and came to nothing.
She stood with Sara still in her arms, stroked her head as if to soothe her, and made for the way out.
Where to go, what to do—looking at a landscape like hell, she understood nothing.
What was clear was only this: the place Lily sought did not lie where the vampires were leading.

“Lily, where are we going?”
“I don’t know. But … there must be somewhere their hands cannot reach. I will arrive there, and I will take this country back from them. I swear it!”

It was bluster.
She could not do it.
And yet—if she stopped, her heart seemed likely to break, so she could only put on courage.
The journey whose end she could not see had only just begun.