Goblin Slayer - Volume 14 - Chapter 3

Chapter 3 - The Faraway Princess

“Ah, I heard of you from my husbondi; he was þverted in greeting you by a sudden visit from his family.”

“Husbondi”? And “þverted”? Priestess was completely at a loss as to what these things meant. From the way the beautiful woman was scratching her cheek, Priestess surmised that she was embarrassed. It seemed this was the húsfreya, the housewife, of the man who ruled this area. Her tone seemed to prove that the battle they’d just observed was nothing to get upset over.

Maybe it happens all the time…

Priestess couldn’t hide her hesitation as she worked her way over the hardened ground. And not because of how strange the town, which might have passed for a giant farm, looked. Nor because of the scattered limbs, bloodstains, corpses, and wounded men everywhere. It was because everyone was just cheerfully cleaning up, as if it was a delightful festival and not a major battle that had just occurred.

The words that the húsfreya had spoken unsettled her, too. Myths held that the Trade God, who is the wind, had created words, and the god of knowledge had created writing. These had been, the myths said, a shared language among all in the Four-Cornered World.

Meaning language has existed ever since then. Be it elvish, dwarven, or the speech of northerners like these. Despite being born and raised on the frontier, Priestess was familiar with a smattering of dialects and could understand them. But she’d never heard such a distended form of the common tongue—perhaps the desert people had been more blessed by the Trade God than she’d realized.

The people were whispering:

“Foreigners…”

“Behold their leader—an unpleasant-looking lad is he…”

“Don’t be foolish. Be a warrior strong of heart; it matters not how he looks.”

“That sword—it’s old but of the dvergr. A fine piece of work.”

“From the high mountain they climbed down, of that there’s no mistake.”

“They come of the same homeland as the goði.”

“Sooth!”

“Think the young lass there be a gyðja?”

“A mannish lass, nothing like ours, is she?”

Priestess was further discomfited by the warriors’ unfamiliar language and their unrestrained stares. The “lass” who had just been called “mannish”—that is, Priestess—snapped “Hey!” and the warriors all pointedly averted their eyes.

It seemed that they were the subject of some friendly teasing, but Priestess could barely follow what was being said. Including what was being said to her party. Maybe the northerners found her strange because she was a follower of a foreign cult—or maybe they looked down upon her for being a willowy-looking woman.

The warriors in their teardrop-shaped helmets looked like dwarves who had simply been stretched to human height, their girth remaining unchanged. They were well-muscled and strong, bearded, looking altogether like boulders that had come to life. Priestess was surprised only that none of them had horns on their helmets. Illustrated stories about the northern barbarians always depicted them that way…

“A dragon!”

“A lizardman, that be.”

“A terrifying countenance has he!”

“Behold the freya there. Gods, is she an álfr?”

“Hoh, there’s an álfr!”

“She’s lovely as a celestial maiden…”

“Beautiful indeed. Merely to look at her is to be taken by gooseflesh…”

The warriors—to say nothing of the townspeople cleaning up the charred parts of their home—naturally took an interest in another member of Priestess’s party.

“Ah, I believe I feel the chill abating…”

“Oh, act decent. They’re watching us.”

Lizard Priest plodded heavily along—while beside him, the high elf was practically dancing. She looked this way and that, her gorgeous hair blowing in the breeze, truly a stunning sight.

What was more striking still was that the princess of this land suffered nothing in the comparison. “My apologies. They’re younglings.”

“Well, they probably don’t see many like me. The high elves are pretty much a thing of the past up here, right?”

Those of High Elf Archer’s kindred who remained in these lands either kept clear of human dwellings or else had disappeared seamlessly into human society. Meanwhile, the elf in question was drinking in the attention. Priestess, feeling a touch of jealousy, hid in the elf’s shadow to keep herself out of sight. She’d always thought her friend was beautiful—an otherworldly beauty.

“Looks like they don’t pay much attention to dwarves, though,” High Elf Archer said.

“Well, that’d be because we’ve provided weapons around here, ourselves.” The dwarf, walking quite easily along the dirt path, looked as much at home as if he was in his own town. He might be considered the most grown-up of the party members, in the sense that he had the widest experience of the world. Priestess thought maybe he’d even been up to the north before, but he merely laughed. “Goodness, no. But we worship the same deity of iron. Humans and dwarves are cousins… Well, perhaps second cousins.”

“Ah, the smithy god.” Priestess nodded. One of the deities she’d learned about as a cleric. She didn’t know much about him, though. Only that he was ancient, and terrible, and an enigma…

As for Goblin Slayer…

Wondering what he was up to, she let her gaze wander in search of the cheap-looking metal helmet. She found him standing directly behind the húsfreya; from the moment introductions had been made, it seemed he had been understood to be the leader of the party. He walked along at his usual bold stride, giving no indication that he noticed the whispering…

Huh?

Priestess involuntarily cocked her head, surprised. The tattered tassel that hung from Goblin Slayer’s helmet was shaking more than usual. Or rather, the helmet itself seemed to be turning this way and that. He was taking it all in: the burned houses, the buildings that were still standing, and the towering hall toward which they were headed. He was being vigilant, Priestess suspected, feeling herself stiffen.

“…I thought it was simply rubble, but it seems I was mistaken,” he said.

“Are such things of interest to you?” the húsfreya asked. A beatific smile added itself to the already radiant beauty of her face, and her rosy lips formed the musical sounds of her words. “’Tis but peat. Nothing to warrant your surprise.”

“I see,” Goblin Slayer said and nodded as if this answer truly satisfied him. “Peat.” Then he could be heard to mutter inside his helmet: “Hearing of it and seeing it are such different things.” Priestess blinked to realize that while his voice was soft, it was neither mechanical nor nonchalant.

“What about that, then?” Goblin Slayer asked, pointing to a silhouette that rose on the far side of town. In the direction of the port, if Priestess remembered correctly. Whatever it was, it was massive, vaulting up into the air, too small to be a wooden strong tower and yet too slender to be a watchtower. In Priestess’s eyes, it looked like nothing more than a giant arm.

“Ah, most interesting, is it not? It is a heavy lifting device we call a crane.” The húsfreya smiled broadly and clapped her hands, as pleased as if Goblin Slayer had been impressed by her own self. “To help load cargo on the boats, it is—my husbondi tells me they have quite the same thing in the capital.” According to him, she explained, even the largest of objects could be lifted without the need for so much as a harness—it was very easy.

As she spoke, the húsfreya touched the keys that dangled at her hip, moving her hands and even her whole body up and down so that despite her accent, even Priestess grasped that the thing at the port was a device for lifting cargo.

“Wow,” she breathed to herself as she imagined the great wooden arm hoisting a load of cargo. The image seemed unreal to her, and she couldn’t let go of the thought that magic must be involved somehow. Then again, for the life of her, she just couldn’t follow exactly what the húsfreya was saying, so maybe there was something she was missing…

“I see,” Goblin Slayer said, then repeated the words under his breath along with a nod: “I see. Extremely interesting. In that case—”

Priestess steeled herself, clutched her sounding staff, and piped up: “Um, uh, Goblin Slayer, sir…?”

“What is it?”

“Are you…curious about it?”

“Yes.” The helmet bobbed up and down, distinctly and immediately. “Very curious.” Priestess had never heard him speak in this tone before; she almost wasn’t sure how to respond to it.

The húsfreya, meanwhile, smiled as compassionately as a goddess and said, “If your curiosity is so great, perhaps you’d like to go and see it later?”

“Absolutely.” Goblin Slayer’s response was as decisive as ever. Priestess was left blinking. “However, we must first offer our greetings.”

Happily, Priestess’s confusion was soon relieved—or perhaps one should say, the need for it disappeared. The húsfreya and then Goblin Slayer stopped before the great gate of the hall.

“This is the portal of my husbondi’s skáli, his longhouse.”

So on the other side of this gate…

On the other side resided the man who oversaw this territory. Priestess swallowed.

The húsfreya seemed to perceive her nervousness; her eyes glinted with playful mischief. “Adventurers, we bid you welcome.”

Priestess felt herself tense up again.

§

“Pardon us, husbondi. I have brought the honored adventurers.”

“Hoh! Have you indeed, my wife? Excellent, excellent.”

“’Twere nothing.”

“My thanks. Now, come here and warm yourself at the hearth. ’Tis cold, and for a young freya to let herself freeze is bad for the health.”

“But of course…” The húsfreya bowed her head and blushed, mumbling a few words of protest at her demonstrative husband. The way she let her fingers brush the keys at her hip, though, suggested she felt comforted. Apparently, this husband and wife get along very well…I think, Priestess mused. Even inside the gloomy building, she was still tense, her breath coming in short gasps.

So this was the king of the northern barbarians. Or no, maybe their governor? Or chieftain? Maybe that would be the most appropriate term…

“I’ve been told to stay away or the roughnecks might get me… They’d just go on about gettin’ robbed.”

In Priestess’s mind, he appeared as a great, rough man with a beard, huge and terrifying. Surely the king, at least, would wear a horned helmet. And armor, no doubt…

Almost before her hazy imagination could take the form of one of the terrible kings of old, there were brusque footsteps. It was Goblin Slayer, marching forward without a trace of fear.

“Oh—oh!” Everyone else followed him, with Priestess catching up a beat later.

No wonder the longhouse—the skáli—was so gloomy. There was not a single window to speak of in the structure, which was built up from piled peat. There was something that arguably amounted to a skylight up in the triangular roof, but…

Is that some kind of…leather?

A thin, semitranslucent animal skin was stretched across the opening.

It wasn’t true, though, that there was no light at all inside. Priestess gradually registered that the floor was dirt and that there was a fire glittering in the large central hearth. That would explain the warmth she felt. Meanwhile, long benches ran along the walls on either side of the hearth. They looked somewhat like oblong chests; maybe they concealed storage space.

I’ve seen plenty like them back on the frontier…

Priestess smiled a little, relieved to see something familiar here in this foreign land. She could easily picture people sitting on these benches, eating dinner together around the fire.

“This way, if you would be so kind.”

Priestess found herself with plenty of time to observe the interior of the longhouse as the húsfreya guided them along. For Goblin Slayer, though his steps were decisive, was also looking this way and that. It gave Priestess every opportunity to drink in the details of the unusual building.

“…It’s like being inside a ship,” High Elf Archer whispered to her.

“You’re right,” Priestess whispered back. “Except the roof would be the bottom…”

At length, they found themselves at the very center of the bench, where one seat, raised above the others, was positioned directly before the hearth. It was wide and deep, such that it looked like even Lizard Priest could have rested comfortably on it.

The party looked at one another, then sat in a row with Goblin Slayer at their center. They sat with a fur blanket over their knees, and when they looked up, they saw two pillars flanking the high seat. Much thicker and more imposing than any of the other pillars, they were carved with images of the gods in stunning, fluid likenesses. One of the pillars depicted a fearsome-looking one-eyed, one-legged deity Priestess took to be the smithy god, but the other…

Is that…a goddess?

It was an unfamiliar deity, neither the Earth Mother nor the Valkyrie, yet one who combined martial prowess with compassion.

“Wife.”

“Yes?”

The húsfreya bowed her head at this summons from the hearth and shuffled closer. Much later, Priestess would learn that this was the stofa, the living room, and the chieftain was seated upon the öndvegi, the high seat. Even at that moment, however, she understood the meaning of the seating arrangement.

We’re facing the throne, in essence.

She gazed warily at the seat on the far side of the gloom and the fire and the haze of smoke. There was a tapestry depicting the brave deeds of ancient warriors. A powerful man standing upon mountains of corpses and rivers of blood as he sought to steal the robe of the Ice God’s Daughter, who ate warriors’ souls.

This brave young man, who no doubt would go on one day to be king, subdued the terrible monsters with his bare hands, could be seen breaking their arms. It even showed the dark elf ranger, the man’s friend and companion, the fearsome user of a two-sword style whose presence could be just glimpsed in the old stories.

Below this tapestry of this song of ice and fire a huge man sat, as if he embodied the stories themselves. He wore tall fur boots and sheepskin trousers. Lengthy mail of black metal. A pelt around his shoulders. And the buckle on his belt was made of bronze. What’s more…

“Ah, welcome, welcome, my adventuring friends. It must be rather colder here than you’re used to in the south, eh?” he offered. The young man had a face like a brave gray wolf, and as friendly as his smile was, it still looked like he was baring his fangs.

“Oh…,” Priestess said.

He spoke the common tongue. With no accent at all. And he didn’t even have a beard, nor were there any horns on the helmet beside him. As he sat there, his left hand resting on the hilt of a sword buried in the earth, he looked less like a chieftain of the northern barbarians and more like…

“Are you a knight?” Goblin Slayer asked, decisive as ever.

“Was once,” the young chieftain answered amiably. “I was blessed with great deeds and better fortune. Last year, when these lands were added to the kingdom… Well, I was added as a son to this family by marriage.”

“And we, too, by my husbondi, were blessed by the loving mother of darkness,” said the húsfreya, who waited beside the chief. She smiled—Priestess thought she might have blushed, too—and acknowledged him with a nod.

Yes, she had heard of something like that before they set out. Something about a land where adventurers were not yet established. That was why the quest had been largely about observation—but even so, one thing made Priestess absolutely goggle.

“The loving mother of darkness—you don’t mean the sadistic god, do you…?!” She wouldn’t go so far as to call this god evil. But it was unquestionably a deity aligned with Chaos. A deity of Chaos worshipped by the dark elves, who venerated pain and hurting people. A name to curse by.

The húsfreya looked at Priestess, perplexed, and Priestess realized that the woman wasn’t that much older than she was. But while she didn’t seem to understand the source of Priestess’s shock, the chieftain laughed merrily.

“Ha-ha-ha! I labored under the same misimpression at first. But in a land as harsh as this one, she’s a beneficent deity.”

“Sooth. Is it not said that the Valkyrie herself once served the loving mother of darkness?”

“Wh-what?”

Priestess blinked, not hiding her amazement. She’d thought that myth had to do with the smithy god. First the tranquility in the face of murder committed in the name of…taking wives or some such, and now this… Priestess felt dizzy, her head spinning as if she’d had some less-than-high-quality alcohol.

She seemed to recall that the runners had a saying: Don’t let the culture shock kill you.

“My own father was a friend of the chieftain here—the last one, I mean—and so when there was word that demons had appeared in this land, I came to help.” He’d meant to go straight home after that. “But it was not to be!” he said with a laugh. “Even the strongest warrior may be overcome by love. And ahhh, love captured me completely!”

“Gracious, husbondi…!”

Yes, indeed; they got along very well. The húsfreya tugged on her husband’s sleeve and glanced shyly at the ground.

“You do not mind us looking around?” asked Goblin Slayer. “It seems you have much going on.”

“You mean the brúðrav, the bride-taking? Oh, that happens all the time. Surprised me at first, too.”

Was that what the chief figured Goblin Slayer meant by “much going on”?

“Anyhow, we were the ones who asked His Majesty to send a survey. Not that winter is quite over yet.” The chieftain grinned and reached out with his right hand for a stick with which to stir the fire, but the húsfreya stopped him and attended the flames instead. There was crackling and sparking, and the chieftain whispered something to the húsfreya, who nodded.

Then he said, “I admit, one thing we weren’t told was that there would be a lizardman. Before anything else, you must warm yourself.”

“Ahhh, for that, I am most grateful…!” Lizard Priest with his down cloak leaned almost hungrily toward the hearth. High Elf Archer, beside him, smiled hopelessly and made room. Closer to the fire would certainly be more comfortable for him.

“We have no inns around here, but we’ve prepared a house for you to sleep in. Please, use it as you like.”

“And what might we do about, ahem, victuals?” Dwarf Shaman inquired.

The young man grinned. “There’s nowhere in the world the radiance of the god of wine doesn’t illuminate, and no land that’s ignorant of drekka.”

“This drekka you speak of,” Dwarf Shaman said, stroking his beard. “Would it be the name of a wine?”

“It means to drink alcohol. And to drink alcohol means to have a feast!”

The chieftain sounded so calm about it that it took Priestess a moment to understand what he was saying. She blinked: a feast. A feast. The word went around and around in her head.

When you have guests, of course you have a feast. That was all well and good. And yet…

“W-wasn’t there just a battle…?”

She almost jumped out of her spot on the high seat, but the húsfreya stopped her with a wave of her hand. “Fear not, fear not. A drekka is good fortune after a battle.”

“Anyway, that’s what they say around these parts.” There was a mischievous glint in the chieftain’s eye: If this was enough to shock them, they wouldn’t last long here! “I guarantee the others are doing the same. The messenger who went to demand the return of the kidnapped women is probably falling down drunk by now.”

“’Nother words, they’ve been bought,” Dwarf Shaman observed.

“Whaaa…?” Priestess moaned, but Dwarf Shaman just grinned and refused to take the hint.

The chieftain gave a dramatic sigh and shook his head. “And if the ladies have been kidnapped and the messenger bought off, there’s nothing for it but to have the biggest wedding drekka we can throw.”

It’s…j-j-just…a different culture, Priestess thought, feeling herself grow faint. Beside her, the cheap-looking helmet bobbed up and down. In spite of herself, she looked at him beseechingly. People treated him as if he were some kind of freak, but in fact he was quite sensible—even if his battle strategies could be a little out there.

He said: “That’s profoundly interesting.”

Priestess exclaimed the name of the Earth Mother in her heart.

§

“What? We’re going sightseeing? We’re not taking a rest?”

The introductions were over and the banquet was still in preparation, and they were at the house they had been given. High Elf Archer, who had claimed the second closest bench to the hearth as her bed, was twitching her ears.

The place was smaller than the chieftain’s skáli but still clearly well-appointed. That much was obvious from the quality of the pelts laid out on the benches.

“I think I’ll go see the place,” Goblin Slayer (who had indeed looked very interested on the way over) said with a nod of his helmet. He sounded quite calm. He’d already deposited their belongings in a room with a dirt floor at the back of the house that looked like it was probably for storing provisions.

Priestess thought back, wondering when their last proper rest had been. Not since we were in that cave before we went into the underground city…

“Boo,” High Elf Archer said, stretching out indolently on the bench; Priestess didn’t really blame her. The elf had already thrown down her belongings, tossed aside her cloak, and was barefoot, having stripped off her boots and socks. She was well and truly ready to relax, and maybe that was that.

“I-if you don’t mind, I could come with you…!” Priestess offered eagerly; she had only just set down her things. In any case, this was a quest, it was a job, and it was an adventure. She wanted to get a good look at the town. And it would have been untrue to say she didn’t feel some curiosity.

The water town, the elf village, the snowy mountain, the sea, the ruined dwarven fortress, the desert country, and this faraway land.

If I hadn’t become an adventurer, I would never have seen any of them my whole life.

And so, she felt, it wouldn’t be right to let this moment get away. The sense that it would be a waste flickered like a little flame in her heart. Not to say she wouldn’t have liked to toss everything aside and just lounge on the bench like her elder friend…

“Urrrgh…” The elf’s battle with lethargy was obviously growing more intense. She grumbled, groaned, flipped over on the bench, then looked at them while she lay on her stomach.

More specifically, she gazed at Goblin Slayer with upturned eyes; he was silently checking over his equipment and getting his gear ready. She knew perfectly well that within a few seconds, his preparations would be over.

Priestess, too, was inspecting the modicum of equipment she had with her, as had become her habit.

The words that came next were a short question: “Are you coming or not?”

“…Okay, I’m coming.” High Elf Archer, finally victorious over her own sloth, pulled herself up to a sitting position with all the eagerness of a cat waking up in the morning. She reached for her belongings as though nothing could have been more annoying, considered whether to take out a change of socks, then finally pulled on the ones she had been wearing earlier. As she slid her long, pale legs into her boots, she could be heard mumbling, “Never know if you’ll get another chance.”

“An elf? Probably will,” Dwarf Shaman remarked. He was tending the fire in the hearth and showed no sign of abandoning his chosen duty.

“You don’t know the half of it.” High Elf Archer sniffed. “I could blink and you’d all be gone!”

“Ah yes, all things are impermanent.” Lizard Priest, in the seat closest to the fire that High Elf Archer had left open for him, nodded his long head. He must have finally been able to relax a little now that they were settled indoors, but the way he curled up reminded Priestess of nothing so much as…

…a dragon.

A drowsy dragon, like the one she’d actually seen in the desert—no doubt it would look something like this.

“Are we sure about this?” Priestess asked as High Elf Archer rubbed her face and pulled on her overwear. Their two party members sitting by the fire gave no indication of moving, and she was somewhat hesitant to leave them there.

“Gotta have someone look after the luggage, eh?” Dwarf Shaman said, grinning widely enough to show his teeth. “Besides,” he added, producing a small knife from the pile of belongings, “we’ve got to make some preparations of our own for this ‘drekka.’ And Scaly…”

“Yes, I would rather prefer to warm my blood by the fire.”

“There yeh have it.”

He was right. Priestess smiled with a touch of disappointment but also a touch of relief. This was an unfamiliar land. It wasn’t that they didn’t trust the people here, but as experienced travelers, they knew the need for someone to keep an eye on their possessions. And it was heartening to know that there would be someone there with their companion who was feeling unwell.

“You sure you’re all right?” Maybe High Elf Archer was having the same thoughts, for she gave Lizard Priest a look that was only somewhat teasing.

“Ha. If the likes of this were enough to cause us to go extinct, my bloodline would have died out long ago.”

“Yeah, but we were deep enough underground for molten rock. You weren’t exactly fighting the cold.”

“Hrmmm…” Lizard Priest had nothing to say to that; High Elf Archer laughed aloud.

“All right, see you later, then—at this banquet, I guess?”

“If yeh actually get back by then, I’ll take it the town’s welcome was none too warm.”

“Mm,” said Goblin Slayer, who had been preparing silently until that moment. “Shall we go, then?”

“Suit yourselves! Don’t mind us—go enjoy the sights.”

Mm. The metal helmet nodded in response to Dwarf Shaman’s careless wave. They opened the door and went out, Priestess somewhat frantically and High Elf Archer happily, tugging a cap down onto her head as she went.

Oh! The sun is already—

So that was why it was so dark inside, Priestess realized. And for the first time, she discovered that the night sky was blue. Perhaps it was the sea in front of her. Maybe it was because the stars had changed places in the sky. She looked up at the heavens, where the twin moons danced along with the stars, her breath fogging. It was pleasant, placing her hands near her mouth to be warmed by her breath.

“…Gosh, it’s so cold,” Priestess said.

“You’re not kidding,” High Elf Archer replied, tugging her hat down over her ears and shivering. She’d had the hat since last winter, and apparently, it had somehow avoided being buried in her room in the intervening year. Priestess remarked that it looked good on her, to which High Elf Archer replied, “Thanks!” and winked, then burst out laughing.

Banter aside, it really is cold…

At extreme temperatures, she had heard, it could become impossible to distinguish the sensation of cold from actual pain; it could even be suffocating. Priestess was amazed that Goblin Slayer could calmly take in the scenery. She was starting to think that leaving her mail on had been a mistake, whatever arguments one might make in its favor. She treasured the outfit, but in the northern lands, it felt very heavy and very, very cold.

I’ll have to make sure I do some maintenance later or the freezing might take a toll.

Even metal could become brittle in a frozen land—hence why the smithy god was venerated here, or so she’d heard some long time ago. Priestess had learned a little about metal because it was considered to be a blessing of the Earth Mother as well—after all, it came from the ground.

Truly, the secrets of iron ran deep. It would be presumptuous of her to think she knew anything, having heard only a smattering. Maybe she could ask Goblin Slayer how to take care of her equipment. Or perhaps…

That princess and her lord were both wearing mail…

That was when a voice like a lute inquired: “Goodness, but is anything the matter?”

It was the húsfreya herself.

§

The gorgeous gold-and-pale woman stood smiling in the snow, under the dark night sky. If she had looked like the Valkyrie before, now she could have been taken for the Earth Mother incarnate. She was no longer wearing an outfit that looked suited for battle; instead, she had changed into a high-quality fur dress and apron. It showed a good deal of her cleavage, which, no longer restrained by the mail, curved gracefully, as pale as the rest of her.

The elaborately embroidered shawl, however, blunted any sense of the erotic, and she didn’t look cold, either. Her dress and the rest of her outfit was likewise embroidered—it must have taken a very long time. She still had the bundle of keys at her hip, and—wouldn’t you know it!—the dull black metal was carefully worked with delicate designs, as befitted a place that venerated the smithy god. With her lovely golden hair held back by a scarf, she didn’t look quite like a noble from the capital, but still…

…She’s very pretty, Priestess thought, letting out a foggy sigh in spite of herself. The woman was nothing like she would have imagined from talk of northern “barbarians.”

The húsfreya saw Priestess’s expression and gave her a gentle smile, then held up some pieces of cloth. “I’ve brought blankets. Our lands must seem cold to you.”

“Oh! Thank you…!”

“We can’t have you sneezing,” the húsfreya remarked. Priestess gratefully took the proffered blankets. They were woven wool, each of them a riot of color that had obviously taken a great deal of time and care to create.

And what matters is, they look really warm!

Priestess hugged the fluffy things, suddenly looking forward to going to bed that night. She thanked the húsfreya again and went right back through the door to offer blankets to the other two inside.

“Certainly!” Lizard Priest exclaimed, laughing and slapping the ground with his tail; Priestess closed the door again behind herself.

“I was observing the country at night,” Goblin Slayer said, and Priestess suddenly stopped in her tracks. “The country of darkness and night.” He was standing in the middle of the path, looking up at the sky as snow fell, piling on his helmet, though it didn’t seem to bother him. He looked like a child gazing at the stars, like a child who would never tire of counting the countless gleaming spots in the sky. “Dark forests, leaden clouds, black rivers, a lonely wind, and endless mountains.” Finally, he moved his head, turning to look at the húsfreya. “I was told that in this land, there were only the wind, and clouds, and dreams; hunts and battles; silence and shadows… But it seems there is more.”

“It seems you are a poet, good sir. Like one of our skalds.”

“The words are not mine,” he replied to the chuckling húsfreya, taciturn as ever. He shook his head. Priestess, however, had never heard the unusual lines he’d just spoken.

“It’s a very old song,” High Elf Archer said, though it was hard to read her tone.

“Is that right?” Priestess asked; it was all she could manage. Why? Was it the foreign land, the snow, or the night? What was it that had sometimes left her feeling disconnected since they had begun this journey?

“I was hoping to go down to the port before the feast. If it’s not too much trouble.”

“Goodness, now? Yes, and I shall accompany you.”

“Sorry about this,” High Elf Archer said from under her hat, but she was grinning. “Nothing like making a princess be our tour guide.”

“I’m not bothered at all. You’ve taken the trouble to be here.” Then they set off down the snowy path, with the húsfreya at their head.

Puffs of black smoke could still be seen here and there around the village, and many people remained occupied repairing ruined houses or stone walls. But each time anyone saw the húsfreya, they would stop what they were doing and bow. She would smile and bow politely back, and the locals would return to their work, albeit usually with a suspicious glance at the people following her.

“They really respect you,” Priestess said.

“I was the only child of my father left after his passing. Though I was hardly in the cradle.” The húsfreya looked at the villagers with something like embarrassment. “Our konungr, our king,” she began but quickly corrected herself. “Our goði is really just a bondi, a freeman. He isn’t so special or important.”

“Still, can’t blame anyone for wondering what’s up when the daughter of someone important is showing strangers around. They think maybe she shouldn’t be. I understand,” High Elf Archer said, sounding surprisingly friendly. Then the high elf kicked the snow on the road, almost deliberately, and said, “Hey, what do people think of adventurers around here? That’s one thing I want to figure out.”

“Well…” The húsfreya smiled uncomfortably. “In this place, they are regarded as pirates and thieves.”

“In other words, as rogues…?” Priestess asked, tapping one of her cold-benumbed fingers against her lips. Then she nodded, her breath fogging as she made a sound of acknowledgment. She thought she saw what the issue was. Probably. Even if it was somewhat difficult for her to understand it in her bones.

The Adventurers Guild itself had originally arisen essentially as a way of assuring people that the state would keep an eye on the ne’er-do-wells running around. In other words, with no Guild, “adventurer” wasn’t a job—adventurers were just a ragtag bunch of uncouth villains.

Thus, even in the land of Priestess’s birth, an air of mistrust clung thickly to adventurers. She could almost take it for granted that she could rely on the Guild for everything, and she was happy that way. That was how adventurers should be. But while the Guild had a reasonably long history in her own land, here, such a thing as an Adventurers Guild didn’t even exist. Adventurers were nothing more than ruffians, curs, and villains.

“Sooth,” the húsfreya said earnestly, although—perhaps in deference to her present company—with some hesitation. “Long ago, there was once a great fool who stole a golden vessel from a burial place.”

“Did a dragon appear?” Goblin Slayer asked immediately. His helmet turned so he was looking straight at the woman.

Argh, again. Priestess sighed to find that even these slight movements of his still caught her attention. He was different from his usual self somehow. She couldn’t say exactly how, though, and that bothered her.

“Indeed, and a terrible one. They say the whole land became a sea of fire.”

The húsfreya continued to speak of the old story as if this history was of no consequence—indeed, it wasn’t. Priestess took a deep breath of cold air, hoping to sweep away the nebulous dark thing within her.

“Dragons are very scary,” she said.

“You speak as though you’ve seen one with your own eyes.”

“I have.” Priestess giggled at the way the húsfreya’s eyes went wide; it was adorable. Then the woman puffed out her chest like a proud child about to share a secret and said, “But it was so frightening that I ran away as fast as I could!”

§

When Priestess thought about it, she realized this might be the first proper port she’d ever seen in her life, although to her it looked much like a ship’s landing built on the banks of a lake. A wharf jutted out from the shore into the water, with several boats moored to it. The resemblance between these ships and the gondolas she’d seen in the water town reinforced the impression that it was all familiar.

But the size!

“Wow… Wow…”

The first proper ship Priestess ever saw in her life was like a gondola big enough to hold a hundred people. (Granted, that was just her impression; maybe a few dozen was the limit…) Several oars extended from each gunwale, and a great mast dominated the center of the ship. It was all enough to make a young woman stop and stare.

But that wasn’t all: There were barbarian warriors aboard, shouting and rowing the ship out into the blizzard-tossed sea. It was like something out of a child’s dream. “Incredible,” Priestess mumbled again.

“Mm,” Goblin Slayer said from under his helmet, where he stood beside her staring intently at the boat. “Indeed.”

“Does it truly impress you that much?” the húsfreya asked, standing on the wharf and watching them with something like amusement.

The night was already cold, and being by the water only made it colder, and yet…

Simply to have been able to see this…, Priestess thought. That alone made it worth having come here.

The ships were black shapes floating upon the ink-dark surface of the water. The prows were carved in the likeness of dragon heads, making them look like nests of sea monsters. Priestess breathed on her numb fingers and said, “Yes, it really does!” and smiled. “There is one thing that’s a little upsetting, though…”

“Yeah,” agreed High Elf Archer, who was holding her cap down on her head, mindful of her ears. “If only there hadn’t just been a battle.”

Yes, that was it. Most of the ships were intact, but several of them were riddled with arrows or showed signs of having been scorched by fire. If there was a silver lining, it was that nothing appeared to have sunk during the fighting, but it was obvious that the battle had only just ended. It was one thing to see a warrior with a scar from an old injury—but these wounds were fresh.

“Um, earlier, you said your family had shown up,” Priestess began. Even though she still felt almost dizzy with culture shock, she picked up a piece of wood lying about. The damage she could see in it was recent but a bit too old to have been inflicted today. She felt a gaze on her from behind the metal helmet and nodded.

Goblin Slayer said, “Goblins?”

“Do you mean orcs?” the húsfreya asked in surprise, but then she laughed and waved her hands: No, no. “Orcs are but stupid little crybabies.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“The family comes every year, but this year rather earlier and more often than usual.”

“Ah, so that’s it.” High Elf Archer nodded; if she hadn’t been holding her hat down on her head, her ears would probably have twitched. “I have to admit, I was kind of wondering about that injury of his. To his right arm.”

“Gracious. You noticed?” The húsfreya scratched her cheek, but Priestess made a sound of surprise. “He was hurt?” she asked, turning to High Elf Archer even as the salty wind caught her hair in its chill grasp.

“Eh, he smelled like blood. And he kept his right arm covered with his cloak. And you didn’t see him in the battle, did you?” The high elf added indifferently that she’d kept quiet about it because it wasn’t good to point out a king’s injury.

Was High Elf Archer just that observant, or did her sharp high elf senses help her discern the situation? Priestess wasn’t sure; she knew only that she had failed to notice an injured person, and that was unacceptable.

The townspeople (“bondi”—was that what the húsfreya had called them?) had looked so calm that Priestess had simply left them.

But really…

Really she should already be among the people, caring for wounds and helping to rebuild.

The húsfreya noticed her worried expression. “Don’t worry about my husbondi; he’s quite fine.” She smiled. “It’s an injury to the bone of his right arm. He’ll soon be better with some rest.”

“The bone…”

But that was terrible. Even with proper treatment, there was no telling if it would knit correctly. And worse for a warrior, even if it did heal properly, one couldn’t be sure it would move like it used to. Very few were lucky enough to have a cleric with miracles present at the moment they were injured. Injuries like this were one of the main reasons that many adventurers, soldiers, and mercenaries finally retired. And all of this was even more crucial in these cold climes for a man who led a martial people as their chief.

“Do you not have a cleric who’s been granted miracles?” Priestess asked, eyeing the bandage wrapped around the húsfreya’s head. It was clear that the eye beneath had been damaged; scar tissue was visibly peeking out from under the wrapping.

“This was an offering to the sadistic god,” the húsfreya said with a smile, sounding as if it was completely unremarkable. Then she shook her head sadly. “A gyðja we have, but my husbondi in his pride will not listen to her.”

“And miracles are valuable,” High Elf Archer said knowingly. “In battle, you probably prioritize the soldiers over the king.”

“I know such an injury isn’t fatal, but…,” Priestess began, but then she wasn’t sure how to finish. The húsfreya stared silently out to sea with an inscrutable expression. She was probably more worried about her husband than anyone, but she refused to say anything forward. Priestess was still inexperienced, still didn’t know the subtleties of this place. Maybe her friends in the capital—Female Merchant and King’s Sister—would have known what to do, but…

“…I’m sorry,” she said after a long moment.

“It’s all right. Worried as I am, it’s simply that my dear husbondi is the stubborn type.”

“I see.” Goblin Slayer broke brusquely into the melancholy conversation. He had already taken a walk around the wharf at his bold stride; he now asked with interest, “And is this the ‘crane’ you mentioned?” He was staring intently at the wooden watchtower constructed along the shore.

It was a great, looming shadow, even darker than the night sky and sea between which it towered. Priestess had, after all, been wrong to imagine it as a gigantic arm. She realized now that it was more like a dragon’s long neck.

“It’s like an elephant’s nose, huh?” High Elf Archer said quietly.

“An elephant?” Priestess didn’t really understand, but the elf waved away her confusion.

The tower was rigged with a series of ropes that were evidently what enabled it to lift cargo up and down. Priestess’s admiring exclamation took on physical form as white fog, and High Elf Archer remarked, “Humans think of even stranger things than dwarves!”

“Normally, if something was too heavy to lift, you’d have to give up, or at least call for help,” Priestess commented.

“And giving up is no way to survive in this land of snow,” the húsfreya said. A cutting gust of snowy wind came through, and she smiled as if it were a pleasant autumn breeze.

Cultural practices were shaped by the land and the people who lived there. Surely there was no single aspect of culture that every single person in the Four-Cornered World had in common. The lives these people led every day in this place must have been beyond Priestess’s imagination.

And that’s why…

Her amazement wasn’t because their culture was so strange but because it was so ordinary.

“And is this the control mechanism for the crane?”

“Sooth.”

Priestess’s busy mind was, of course, of no consequence to Goblin Slayer, who was interested in the device itself. The ropes hanging from the crane were attached to some kind of large mechanism on the wharf. It looked a bit like a stone step and a bit like the large wooden training poles set up on the practice grounds. Several thick wooden rods radiated out from the center, and from the circular shape worn in the ground around the device, those rods were probably pushed to turn the device.

“So you have slaves turn the thing?” High Elf Archer asked.

“Yes, þrælls.”

“And that rolls up the ropes, which lifts the cargo…”

There must also have been some way to change which way the crane was facing. When repairing a ship, with hands all around, the crane must turn in every possible direction. Now, at night, they were the only ones at the port, but Priestess found herself thinking once more how astonishing everything here was.

She and others from the southern reaches regarded the people here as rustic and uncivilized. But nothing she had seen in this town made it seem like the home of barbarians.

“Hmm…” Heedless of the cold and the dark (for the night was dark despite the stars), Goblin Slayer walked over to the device. “May I try pushing it?”

“You may, but…it won’t be easy by yourself.”

“I suppose not.” Goblin Slayer nodded, then put a hand to one of the large poles and pushed as hard as he could. The machine didn’t budge, of course. The man in the grimy equipment planted his feet and shoved, but it never so much as quivered. After a while, with white fog drifting from between the slats of his visor, he could be seen to relax. “It is indeed futile.”

“Well, yeah,” High Elf Archer said and laughed out loud. “You’d have to be awful strong to move this thing all alone.”

“Yes.” The helmet bobbed up and down, scattering the snow that had fallen on it. The wind caught the flakes, carrying them off into the night. “Only a true hero could work this thing by themselves.”

Priestess didn’t understand why, but he sounded downright…happy about it.

§

“All right. For starters, take this.”

“Is this…a horn?” Priestess asked, taking it from Dwarf Shaman and looking at it with interest. It would be time for the feast soon, so they’d returned to their lodgings and were about to head to the skáli. Priestess, High Elf Archer, and Goblin Slayer were each given what at first appeared to be hunting horns.

“But there’s nowhere to blow into it,” Goblin Slayer noted, turning it around in his hands. “So is it a cup?”

“Mm! And you’ll be needing to leave your sword here…”

“That much I know,” Goblin Slayer said with a nod. The ancient dwarven blade was missing from his hip. Instead, it leaned against one of the benches, catching the glow of the hearth fire in its dull, dark metal. Despite having come from some ancient ruins, it showed no sign of chipping or rust.

However, Dwarf Shaman said, “It’s just a sword. Not a single enchantment on the thing. Well-made, true enough, but perfectly ordinary.” While Priestess, Goblin Slayer, and High Elf Archer had been out looking around, he must have spent the time inspecting the weapon. “Disappointed, Beard-cutter?”

“No,” came the response with a shake of the helmeted head. “My teacher… My master’s blade was likewise undistinguished. It’s enough for me.”

“Figures,” said Dwarf Shaman, a smile crossing his bearded face. He’d clearly expected something like this. “You should bring a dagger of some sort, though. That’s practically etiquette.”

“Mm.” Goblin Slayer nodded again; he, and indeed Dwarf Shaman as well, both had shortswords fixed by their bodies. Speaking of matters of etiquette, the helmet and armor should probably have come off—but that was hardly an argument worth having now. Although it didn’t stop High Elf Archer from giving him a dubious look.

“Just asking,” she said, “but this isn’t going to be one of those things where you pour a drink the wrong way and suddenly it’s swords out and blood everywhere…is it?”

“With elves, maybe, but most people don’t consider it polite to find fault with such trivial details.”

“Elves don’t do that, either!” High Elf Archer protested with a frown. An obsidian dagger dangled at her hip. “Think you can move?” she asked.

“Mm, indeed. I’m much warmer now, and there’s a fine fire at the longhouse,” said Lizard Priest, who was leaning on the archer. He had no dagger but had his claws and tail and fangs.

What should I do?

Priestess looked around in a bit of a tizzy but finally settled on simply holding her sounding staff—tightly.

“If everyone is ready, then let’s go,” Goblin Slayer urged.

“Oh, r-right…!” She scurried ahead, through the door—she had almost lost count how many times this was today—and outside.

I’ve barely seen the room we’re staying in, she thought as she and the others retraced the path they’d taken not long before. It would take more than a couple of trips to learn the roads, and the whole town seemed changed under the darkness of night. She could almost have believed that if they lost the path, they would never find their way back again.

The light glowing in the skáli’s skylight was uncommonly heartening; when they reached it, Priestess felt like she could breathe again.

“…I wonder if we’ll be okay getting back,” she said.

High Elf Archer looked at her with curiosity, her ears flicking with the chill. “I think so. It’s only just over there.”

Oh, that’s right…

She was prone to forgetting that she and Goblin Slayer were the only members of this party who didn’t see well in the dark. Priestess, feeling a bit embarrassed, could hardly bring herself to look at High Elf Archer, but her archer friend was frowning. Then she smiled, sort of, squinting as if she was looking at something bright, and her ears twitched again.

“Is something…the matter?” Priestess asked.

“Nah. You’ll see in a second.”

“—?”

Priestess had no idea what she meant, but Dwarf Shaman seemed to get it, for he stroked his beard knowingly.

Then, without the slightest sign of hesitation, Goblin Slayer pounded on the door.

“Please do come in,” said someone inside. It was the voice of the goði, but there was another voice, too, almost drowning him out. When they pushed open the thick wooden door, they quickly discovered what it was.

Thereupon the hero discovered his mortal foe, the cursèd one, standing upon the altar.

But how could he have known that no blade, no blade at all, could touch the great ruler who had offered up the twin-headed serpent?

This inhumane villain, with a spell, he rendered moot the sword of the Four-Cornered World’s victory.

The great ruler spoke:

’Twas I who lit the fire of hatred within you.

’Twas I who honed your bravery.

Will you kill the one you call your second father?

Rage rushed to the warrior’s head, and he drew his faithful sword:

The keen-edged steel he’d found in the barrow, once companion to the kings of old.

But Evil only mocked him:

That sword, which has smashed armor and cloven helms, will not touch my neck

so long as my spell is not unwoven, I need not even roll the dice.

I have unlocked the secrets of steel.

But take heart!

For the warrior trusted not in his sword,

nor was his strength in the secret of steel,

but the smithy god had given him an unquenchable fire of courage.

And how was the great ruler to know?

How could he guess that the gods at the table of the heavens

were rolling their dice to define the outcome of battle

knowing that otherwise, this warrior would never pray again?

The awful ruler howled and writhed in pain

the likes of which he hadn’t known before:

The warrior’s blade struck true against his sworn foe.

Black steel smashed through bone, singing out in victory, and thus the warrior decapitated the villain.

Now, give ear to me,

to the legend of this great king

whose deed a thousand years from now shall still be told.

He came forth from the land of shadows and dark night in far-most north. A slave he was, and a warrior, and a pirate, and a mercenary, and a general and a king who conquered many thrones.

O King!

By your honored name, all fall before your blade.

O King, we pray for blessings upon you.

“Wow…”

It was one of the sagas. An ancient, all but forgotten song she had never heard. A tremendous tale that took a fellow with no place to lay his head all the way to one of the apogees of the Four-Cornered World. There was no instrument providing a melody, only a human voice recounting the brave deeds of a hero.

The benches lining either side of the hearth in the long building were crowded with men who bore fresh scars of battle and sang lustily along. Naturally, some kind of big game—it looked like perhaps a wild boar—was roasting on the hearth, dripping with grease. Nor was that the only main course; there was also a stew of onions, fragrant herbs, and fish like herring and cod. Then there was a table covered with apples, walnuts, and berries, as well as some kind of flat, glutinous bread. It was really, truly like being smack in the middle of a foreign banquet.

“Hoh, well come, well come. Please be seated.” On the center high seat was the goði, the húsfreya attending at his right hand, who grinned widely and motioned them over. Priestess realized that the one open seat was directly across from the chieftain. Meaning…it must be for them.

“That’s where we sat earlier,” High Elf Archer whispered.

“ ”

Goblin Slayer offered no response to High Elf Archer’s observation. He simply stood where he was and watched the men sing. “Hey, are you listening to me?” High Elf Archer said.

“…It must be the seat of honor,” Goblin Slayer said at length, his helmet finally moving. “We are guests of the king.” And then, without the slightest hesitation, he strode boldly through the crowd.

Even the northerners were understandably taken aback by this man who would wear full armor even to a feast. They looked at one another, whispered, and stared… Ultimately, however, they seemed to conclude that, shrug, he was a foreigner.

Things were calming down as Priestess rushed after him, and as for Dwarf Shaman, the crowd seemed used to the likes of him. Lizard Priest crouched slightly to make himself smaller, murmuring, “Pardon,” as he went by. High Elf Archer slid lithely among the throng.

And then Priestess suddenly found herself standing beside Goblin Slayer at the high seat. “Th-thank you for…having us…?”

“But of course.”

Their spot made them effectively guests of honor at the banquet.

I’m not used to this…! How, Priestess wondered, could her companions seem so self-assured? It was a mystery to her.

“Now, my good guest…,” the goði said.

“Er, yes…!” Priestess squeaked, not having expected him to speak to her. She quickly focused back on the present moment.

The chieftain was still keeping his right arm covered with his cloak, but he looked eminently relaxed. Thinking of the húsfreya’s kindness earlier, Priestess thought perhaps she should say something; she opened her mouth to speak—but then closed it again when she saw the woman gently shake her head.

“Have you your cup?” the chieftain inquired.

“My cup? …Oh!” Priestess looked down at the drinking horn she’d recently received, which she now carried along with her sounding staff. “Y-yes, I do…!”

“For you see, in this land, it’s the custom for everyone to carry their own drinking cup. Good, good.” The man with the wolflike face smiled as if he found the entire scene pleasant. “Very well. Someone, bring the guests wine… Er…”

“Would you, as my husbondi says, be so kind?” The húsfreya leaned toward her husband, picking up smoothly where he left off and giving the instructions. Even Priestess, just across from them, hadn’t realized that the goði had been lost for the right words in the local language. “We have mead, bjórr, and skyr. Which would you like?”

“Er, uh, well…”

Before she could get any further, several horns of alcohol were thrust out in front of her. They were offered by one of the burly northerners; perhaps Priestess had met him that afternoon, but she wasn’t sure. She held her drinking horn and fought the confusion, but meanwhile, Goblin Slayer grunted, “Hmm. Once long ago, I heard you had cider here.”

“Ah, epli wine. Yes, give me your cup.”

“Mm.”

Goblin Slayer held out his drinking horn, and it was filled from a wine jug with a copious amount of alcoholic cider. Priestess reflected on how the horn came to a point at the bottom. It meant one wouldn’t be able to set down one’s drink until the entire thing had been drained.

“What’ll you be having, then, young lady?”

“Er, um…”

Priestess, having realized this fact about the cup, was thinking as fast as she could. She’d never been too concerned about whether she was a strong drinker, but in a moment like this, she didn’t want to do anything to cause offense. Their quest here wasn’t just to observe but to help build friendship.

“Uh, well… What’s skyr?”

“It’s the milk of the goat.”

“I’ll have that, then, please,” Priestess said quickly.

“Hoh,” the northerner replied, his angular face softening. His craggy aspect, along with his long, braided beard, made him look a bit like a dwarf. Priestess found a thick white liquid being poured into her cup, and she couldn’t help smiling, too.

“Hrm…,” was the sound that escaped Lizard Priest as he looked on from beside them. He moved his hand on his long neck, waiting for the jar of wine to come around to him.

“Here, mead for you.”

“Hmm, hmm, hmm…!” Lizard Priest’s eyes rolled in his head as the mead was poured into his drinking horn quite without regard to what he wished for. “Ahem, no, I—”

“Hoh, didn’t realize you couldn’t stomach our wine.” The words cut through the lively chatter of the banquet. Pouring the drink for Lizard Priest was a warrior with a bandage around part of his face. There were dark traces of blood as well, and he showed not the slightest sign of fear despite being confronted with Lizard Priest’s terrible visage. Those around them seemed to give the man a wide berth.

He appeared neither hesitant nor worried but looked as if he wouldn’t bat an eye if a sword was to be drawn right there at the feast. Lizard Priest, perhaps instinctively, responded by gladly opening his jaws to bare his fangs…

“Here, gimme that.” Faster than anyone could move, faster than the goði or the húsfreya or Priestess, the delicate hand of a high elf snatched the drinking horn away. The elf princess, not remotely intimidated by human theatrics, took a good sniff of the stuff, then smiled. “Ah, lovely. You’ve used excellent honey in this. I love this kind of thing.”

“Er… Hrm…” The wind went out of the bandaged northerner’s sails, whether from hesitation or embarrassment, and he sputtered senselessly. “I’m most embarrassed to offer such a pitiful drink to a princess of the álfr…”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll take this from him. Give him the— What was it? Skyr? Some of that.”

“As you say, milady.” The northerner bowed his head, then held out the jar of goat’s milk to Lizard Priest, filling his horn.

“Ah, many thanks…,” the lizardman said.

“Cheeky man. You should have told us sooner what you needed.” The barbarian slapped Lizard Priest’s hand, but it was unmistakably a gesture of affection. All the danger had drained from the air long ago, from the moment High Elf Archer had reached out her hand. Priestess, who had frozen when the trouble loomed, was able to relax. She glanced in the direction of the húsfreya, who looked like she had been feeling much the same way; their eyes met, and they shared a giggle.

“Color me jealous. A young lady of the álfr!”

“Indeed, indeed. A bride young for as long as she lives!”

“…What?” Priestess, listening to the easy banter of the men, blinked in confusion. Of course, she didn’t quite understand what they were saying. Not exactly, and yet…

She looked over and saw the man handing off his drink to a young woman, much like Lizard Priest just had. So that charge of danger in the air a moment ago had also been just a normal thing—as she could tell from the way it disappeared as quickly as it had come. It was considered polite to drink wine, but if one was unable, a woman could help one, it seemed. Which implied that relations between men and women permitted such things here.

“Oh. Uh…” Priestess, feeling a flush rise to her cheeks even though she wasn’t drinking alcohol, found herself tugging on her elder friend’s sleeve. “Are… Are you sure this is all right?!”

“Hmm?” The high elf, smiling placidly at the aroma of the honey, swayed gently. “Is what all right?” she asked, indifferent.

Some words communicated whether one understood them or not. Red-faced, Priestess let her eyes wander. Lizard Priest paid her no mind, apparently savoring the thought of when he would get to enjoy the contents of his drinking horn. And Goblin Slayer, she couldn’t count on him. She looked beseechingly at Dwarf Shaman, but he waved back at her as if to say, Don’t be a boor.

He finds this funny—I’m sure of it, Priestess thought. She gave him a glare but then sighed in the knowledge that it was unlikely to have much effect on him. Finally, she looked up at the ceiling high above them, mumbled the name of the Earth Mother, and then turned back to High Elf Archer with a smile. “Never mind—it’s nothing.”

“No?” Her elder friend gave her a curious look, but then her eyes sparkled and she said, “Ooh, it’s starting!”

Right. The thing to do now…

The thing to do now was to set aside unnecessary concerns and focus on enjoying the feast to which they had so kindly been invited.

Once the goði was certain that the drinks had made their way to all the guests, he rose (with one good sway) and stood across from Priestess. This was the moment when any king or noble Priestess knew would have given a long speech. But this was a new land. And the goði said only, “To fellows and friends!” At his right hand stood the húsfreya; with his left, he lifted his drinking horn. There was a roar of approval from his subjects, who began adding their own toasts.

“To long days and pleasant nights!”

“To the trials and tribulations and great deeds granted us by the Night Mother!”

“To peace!”

Priestess joined in with a cry of, “T-to peace!”

Then there was a great clatter of the draining of drinking horns, and the drekka got underway.

§

There was nothing of particular note to record about the feast—and yet, countless things about the feast should be recorded.

It was quite lively; one could say that much.

The first problem Priestess had was how to eat the food. There were only plates on the table; she didn’t see any utensils. Just as she was wondering whether they were supposed to eat with their hands, everyone around her pulled out their daggers and began spearing food with them— Ah.

Never leave home without it: She had the small knife from the Adventurer’s Toolkit, which served nicely at this moment.

When she tried them, she discovered that not just the flatbread but the roast boar and the fish, too, were all more robust than she had imagined and very delicious. Even if the smell of the soup, loaded as it was with onions and herbs, did take her somewhat aback. (The northerners made their living as traders, so they were said to have herbs both medicinal and fragrant from all over the world.)

Priestess was by now familiar with how dwarves drank wine, but the northerners, for their part, were duly impressed. There were exclamations and cheers as Dwarf Shaman was served horns full of alcohol, only to drink them down as if they were water, one after the next.

Lizard Priest, caught up in the excitement, opened his great jaws and sang a song of battle passed down from his forefathers. It spoke of a black-scaled hero who defeated a giant, killed a dragon, and took to wife a woman poet with a cursed sword. Priestess remembered this story being told with a dance in the desert country, and she’d heard a similar tale in High Elf Archer’s village as well.

But the story, as they say, changes with the teller. The birdfolk dancer had portrayed it as a poignant romance, told from the perspective of the poet. In Lizard Priest’s jaws, it was a war song of the victory of a ferocious lizardman who walked the world with his great metal staff in hand. He charged toward every monster he saw, intent on doing deeds worthy of the songs of his lady love. It had a certain purity, like a dragon’s breath, and perhaps that made it a romance in its own way.

Whatever the case, it must certainly have been a strange and unusual story to the northerners. Just as their story of their own hero had been unfamiliar to Priestess.

Perhaps it was only natural when one of the men called out to Goblin Slayer, “Say, haven’t you got any stories of your own heroics?”

“I’ve done no heroics,” he replied, gulping down cider, and then, before Priestess could interject, he nodded. “I’ve hunted goblins, though.”

“Orcs, you mean? Numbers they have, but no guts.”

“Filthy, rotten cheaters, they are.”

“I agree.” The helmeted head nodded up and down.

“And fighting them with this many people is no picnic, either.”

“Absolutely.” Another nod.

“So how many have you killed?”

“…” Goblin Slayer fell silent and stared into the distance. He seemed to be thinking very seriously. “I have, on occasion, taken on perhaps a hundred of them at once.”

The northerners dissolved into gales of laughter. They meant no harm by it; it was a joyous sound.

Huh, I’ve never heard that story, Priestess thought. Maybe she would have a chance to ask sometime. She wondered if he would tell her. Perhaps she should ask now. As she thought, she brought the drinking horn to her lips, sipping delicately at the contents. The skyr had a sour, unusual taste, but she thought it probably qualified as pleasant. She almost thought she could understand why Lizard Priest might beat his tail on the ground and cry, “Sweet nectar!”

Her thoughts were interrupted by the goði, in high spirits, who said, “Do you know what they say of my wife in the capital?”

Priestess, realizing she had missed her chance, looked around and discovered the northerners all looked vaguely amused. Their expressions seemed to say, Here we go again.

“They call her the One-Eyed Bear! Can you believe it?”

“Er, oh…”

The chieftain brought his fist down on the table, drinking horn and all; Priestess could only nod along. She’d heard people in the cold reaches liked strong wine—but the goði’s face was red, and his eyes were watery. “They can only say that because they’ve never been here!”

Maybe it was the way of this land that nobody spoke against him for acting as if he were one of them.

“She may have been trapped up here in the north, but my bride is the sweetest in the Four-Cornered World…!”

Ah. It’s just that they like him personally…

Even Priestess felt a flush rise in her cheeks at the chieftain’s unabashed declaration of love.

“Ha-ha-ha! Our goði! Even he can’t steal honey from this wife, though!”

This drew a surprised look from High Elf Archer, whose face was red for a completely different reason from Priestess’s. How many horns of mead was she on anyway? She certainly seemed to be enjoying it, given how she was constantly sipping at her drink.

“Just so! During the Dwelling, the goði fought a demon like a giant bee.”

“Dwelling?” Priestess asked.

“’Tis when a man lives at his bride’s house before the bruðsvelja, the wedding.”

“So he wrestles with the thing and plucks the creature’s leg off!”

The chieftain smiled ruefully as his companions told the tale with relish, but he shrugged easily. “My opponent had no sword. If I brought my weapon, it would have made things too easy.”

“Huh! That’s really something!” High Elf Archer said, laughing uproariously. (How much of the story did she actually understand?)

Then again, maybe it really is an incredible story…? Priestess, perplexed by a variety of words she didn’t recognize, nonetheless drained her drinking horn. She set it on the table and rose from her seat, saying, “Please pardon me a moment.” She was a little worried about the húsfreya, who had left her place before all the storytelling had started…

§

“Phew…!” Priestess let out a breath as she departed the skáli, putting the hubbub of the banquet behind her, released from the press of people. The cold wind that gusted outside was a tremendous relief, overheated as she felt simply from having so many people in one place.

I see…

She thought maybe she understood what it was like to drink wine. She went walking along over the crunching snow, feeling that things were somehow cheerful and bright despite the night darkness. Was it the stars or perhaps the twin moons? In any case, it turned out not to be too hard to find the húsfreya: All the footprints, presumably of people coming to the banquet, led up to the longhouse, but just one set went away.

Don’t have to be a ranger to follow this trail.

Even she could do it. Priestess could tell whether the distinct prints belonged to a goblin or not.

She was behind the longhouse, on the edge of the village, but not so far away that the light and the chattering voices didn’t carry to her. The húsfreya, surrounded by the twinkling, dancing snowflakes, turned when she heard Priestess’s footsteps, her one good eye squinting as she smiled. “Gracious, heading to bed already?”

“No.” Priestess smiled back, shaking her head. “Just getting some air.” Priestess stood beside her and exhaled again, white fog drifting from her mouth. “Thank you so much for today. I can’t believe there’s boar and everything, even though you just had a battle…”

“A drekka is always like this! And how can we fail to show hospitality to our visitors?”

She added that even if one’s mortal enemy came to one’s home, if they came as a traveler, then it was only generous to welcome them in. She really did sound as if she considered it perfectly natural.

“That’s amazing,” Priestess said, unable to come up with anything more articulate or incisive. And so long as you took your foe into your home, they would know they were also your guest, even if they were your enemy. Two sworn foes, not forgiving each other but testing the limits of each other’s magnanimity… It was astonishing.

While Priestess was still busy looking impressed, the húsfreya shook her head as if she could see it all. “I suppose that my husbondi has begun his usual diatribe?”

“Ah—ah-ha-ha…”

“The fool,” the húsfreya murmured; Priestess pretended not to hear her. Nor to notice that her face was red.

What should she say? She knew what she wanted to say, but she couldn’t quite put it into words.

But… Well.

In fact, what she wanted to say could be summed up quite simply.

“…He’s a wonderful husband, isn’t he?”

“Mm…” The húsfreya nodded but didn’t say anything more, not immediately. Her hand brushed the bundle of keys at her hip. The girlish gesture made Priestess wonder if in fact the húsfreya was not much older than she was. “With this face, not a one would have blamed him had he broken off the engagement in disgust.”

“I think it’s lovely.”

“Then you don’t speak the truth.”

“I mean it!” Priestess giggled, her laughter likewise fogging in the air. “In the water town… Well, in a big city near where I live, there’s a bishop like you.” Her eyes. Priestess motioned at her face, then said firmly to the húsfreya, “But she’s a wonderful person… And I think you must be wonderful, too.”

“………Is that the case?”

“Yes. Yes, it is.”

“Is it indeed…?” The húsfreya let out a long breath. The white fog mingled with that of Priestess’s exhalation, and they danced off into the sky together. “…The Four-Cornered World,” the húsfreya said after another moment. “Is it not a very large place?”

“Yes… It’s vast.”

It really is.

Priestess had thought that this was the edge of the world. That if she went beyond the mountains looming in the distance, a place she had never been, that that would be as far away as it was possible to go.

But of course, it was no such thing. The people who lived here interacted with people who lived even farther north. The encounters between these people were brutal in a way that Priestess couldn’t imagine. Beyond the eastern desert, too, there must yet have been a great deal of the world. And there was even more she had never seen past the forest to the south. For that matter, though she lived on the western frontier, she didn’t know what might lie even farther to the west.

Worlds, people, everything: How many tales there were of vanished peoples and forgotten realms. Just as Priestess hadn’t known that story of the hero.

It was impossible to say, It must be like this, to assign a definitive value to something. It simply wasn’t possible for anyone. And this revealed that whatever was in question must be something infinitely valuable.

Huh… I see, Priestess thought, finally comprehending the true nature of the dark mist that had seemed to cloud her heart. She realized it had been there since before they’d left on this journey, since the time of the dungeon exploration contest. She simply hadn’t grasped it.

For him, for Goblin Slayer, to show an expression like that—to show any emotion at all. To Priestess, he was an object of respect, perfect, decisive; he had trod the path ahead of her and was complete. He hardly ever showed anger. He was impeccably calm and collected, or so she had imagined him.

But that was wrong.

He had wanted to come to this land for reasons Priestess didn’t know. He’d had a boyish dream of the place, a wish in his heart. He’d had hopes for the journey and was enjoying himself.

Ah! What a thing this was. There was more to the slayer of goblins than slaying goblins!

“Hee… Hee-hee-hee!”

“Is everything all right?”

“Yes… Everything’s fine.” Priestess wiped at the tears that had formed at the corners of her eyes as she laughed, the night breeze catching her golden hair. “I was just thinking, there are so many things I don’t know. I can’t forget to keep learning.”

“Very true… Ah, say!” the húsfreya called abruptly.

“What is it?” Priestess asked, turning toward her.

The other woman’s skin, paler than the snow, was flushed rose-red, and she was grinning with unmistakable mischief. “The rrr…rrrain…” She took a deep breath. “The rain, I explained, stays—” She cleared her throat. “The rain, I explained, stays mainly in the plain!”

“Wow…!” Priestess clapped her hands.

It was a little stumbling and spotty, somewhat juvenile and not terribly proficient—ah, but still.

“You said it…! And so perfectly!”

“I did it…!” The húsfreya was so cute the way she proudly clenched her fist that Priestess had taken her hand before she knew what she was doing. It was small and scarred, rough and angular…

It’s a wonderful hand, she thought, clasping it; the húsfreya looked away shyly. “Ahem. I am not yet anywhere near it,” she said. “You’ll not mention it to my husbondi, will you?”

“You’ve been practicing?!”

“My husbondi, he has his heart set on taking me to the capital,” she said, adding that she could hardly have him become a laughingstock. It was clear she felt the exact same way as the chieftain—and the exact opposite way. Priestess was sure the young northern ruler thought of the húsfreya as his fair lady.

“I really do think you’re wonderful. I mean, both you and your husband.”

“Mn…”

Then the húsfreya invited Priestess to the bath. It was “washing day,” she said, and it was the custom to bathe, even if it was immediately after a battle.

The bathstúva was a steam bath, a familiar arrangement: Water was poured over a stone statue of the Deity of the Basin that was heated on the hearth. What was unusual was the bubbling water that they used to clean themselves, which elicited a little shriek of surprise from Priestess.

The húsfreya giggled at her, but she herself regarded Priestess’s mail with open curiosity. Then again, she’d brought her obviously important bundle of keys into the bath with her, so she was hardly in a position to judge. Priestess had observed that all the women at the banquet had had keys at their hips, and she was starting to understand what they meant.

On the húsfreya’s bare skin, illuminated by the faint but uncanny light, there was an almost translucent pattern. It ran from the eye usually covered by a bandage, extending toward her heart as well as down one arm. It was a white tree.

Yes, that was it: It looked like a great tree spreading its branches. It hardly seemed to be the work of human hands. Without quite meaning to, Priestess found herself studying it, and the húsfreya showed her the scar as if revealing something deeply important.

“A blessing from the gods, this is,” she said. A holy scar of the sadistic god, bestowed in her youth. The heavenly fire had scorched her body, scarring her and taking her eye. It must have involved a pain Priestess could barely imagine. Yet, at the same time…

It’s what enabled her to meet the kindest of people.

Be it Fate or be it Chance, the gods in heaven rolled their dice and wove their stories. It was up to people’s free will how to walk their paths. If the man the húsfreya had met hadn’t been willing to be together with her, she wouldn’t be here in this place at this moment. Just as Priestess wouldn’t be, if the man she had met hadn’t decided to save a rookie in a goblin nest.

Truly, truly, the Four-Cornered World burst with things even the gods couldn’t imagine.

“I know that it is because of the pain in our lives that the joys are precious,” the húsfreya said.

“Is that…the teaching of the sadistic goddess?”

“Sooth.”

No doubt it was Priestess’s status as an outsider that allowed her to think this land wonderful. They had held a feast for her. Everyone she met was kind to her, or at least accepting. The culture here demanded the welcome of travelers, so that food was prepared for them, lodging was given to them, and they were surrounded by warmth.

And yet—and so—actually living here would be something else again. Here in this beshadowed country where it was cold and frozen, and the sea was rough, and there was battle, and the days were dark. How hard must one struggle to earn one’s daily bread amid the falling snow and hard ground and cruel waves? The people were as rough as the landscape, blood was a daily sight, and battle was something to be joined at a moment’s notice.

But still…

Still, she thought it was a good place. She thought these were wonderful people. She absolutely, sincerely believed it.

“Behold.”

“Oh…!”

The húsfreya pointed outside the window of the bath at the night sky beyond. Rainbow lights glittered in the sky like a canopy.