14
“That will help. You won’t die now. Probably.”
“Yeah, than— Hngh!” He was trying to thank her when he was hit in his freshly cloth-wrapped wound and cried out in pain.
The first aid she’d given was, well, not terribly confidence-inspiring, and each time she’d touched the wound, tears had sprung to his eyes. The irony was that it might have helped keep him alive—it kept him awake at a moment when falling unconscious meant likely death.
In any case, the man—Al—finally looked at his nurse and said, “Maybe it’s a little late to be sayin’ this, but you don’t embarrass easily, do you? Gotta admit, I never thought I’d ever be lucky enough to see a gorgeous gal like you just show up in front of me in her birthday suit.”
“—? Did I do something strange?” asked the brown-skinned girl currently scratching her cheek and cocking her head at Al (all while buck naked). There wasn’t an ounce of unnecessary flesh on her gorgeous form, but she seemed totally oblivious to any sense of shame about her state of undress.
Al guessed the girl was about twelve or thirteen years old, an age when he would have expected her to be getting sensitive about such things. “Guess it all depends on where you were born and how you were raised. Me, I like a dynamite body—you know, babababoom! Lucky thing, too. Looks like both our lives were saved today.”
“It’s you whose life was saved. Me…just normal. I think?”
“Hey, you’re the one askin’ the question. But anyway, here I am seein’ a silver-haired girl when I’m about to die… Any chance I’m in hell?” Al suddenly shivered, and not because it was cold. He smiled pathetically.
The girl, Arakiya (that was what she’d called herself when he asked her name while she was working on him), touched her hair. It was sopping wet, water dripping water. She narrowed her crimson eyes and said, “My silver hair… Is it strange? It’s pretty. That’s what the princess always said.”
“Aw, no, no. Just talking to myself. It’s my own problem. Nothing to do with you, kid—I’ve just got some bad memories about silver hair. It reminds me that I’m a useless piece of trash.”
“—?” Arakiya simply cocked her head again at Al’s self-directed tirade; she didn’t understand. Al’s smile only grew more bitter; he couldn’t believe he was unloading on this young lady right after she’d saved his life.
He heaved a very long sigh, as if he might be able to breathe out the knot in his chest. But of course he couldn’t. “It’s…Ya know. There was someone important to me, and I wasn’t able to help them when it mattered most.”
“Oh… I understand that. I’m the same. I couldn’t help the princess.” Arakiya’s head drooped, and her fingers brushed her left eye. She’d fretted at the bandage on it while she was tending to Al. Her right eye appeared to be a bright red, but he suspected that under that covering, her left eye had lost its light. That one blind eye seemed to be the key to the memory of her regrets.
“Yeesh. Guess I can’t say anything right,” Al said. He felt bad for the girl; he shouldn’t have brought up what he had. It was sick, a middle-aged guy getting a youngster with her whole life ahead of her wrapped up in his own feeling of powerlessness.
He’d spent enough worthless, empty time on that island to think this sort of self-reproach was appropriate.
“Hey, I’m sorry. I’m just talking funny talk now. Guess it wouldn’t be very nice to ask you to forget I said anything, but maybe you could ignore it. There must be something you’re here to do, right? Otherwise, you wouldn’t be out in a dangerous lake like this.”
“Mm-hmm. The island… It’s been taken over, right?”
“Seems like. I didn’t really see what happened myself.” Al felt bad not being able to speak with more authority, but he hadn’t exactly been able to slow down and take it all in. All he knew was he’d suddenly found himself in a fight to the death with the most powerful woman on the sword-slave island. The truth of it was, he considered it nothing short of a miracle that he hadn’t sustained a fatal injury—and even that had been a near thing. He’d come within an inch of his life for that miracle.
“And while I was busy finding out if I was gonna buy the farm, Ubirk and the Hornet took over the place with everyone who bought into their spiel, huh? …And what’s your part in all this, young lady?”
“The drawbridge. I will lower it. Because without that, the soldiers cannot get to the island.”
“That ain’t gonna be easy.”
“Hmm,” Arakiya said, annoyed at how quickly Al poked a hole in her plan when he heard what she was after. It was an adorable reaction, very much expected of a girl her age, but unfortunately for her, what Al said was true. She would not find it easy to do.
As long as the drawbridge between the island and the mainland was up, the troops from the capital wouldn’t be able to assault Ginonhive. In other words, that drawbridge was the lifeline of the sword slaves currently occupying the island, and they would know it. Which meant only one thing: “The strongest card they have in their hand is going to be played there. And the strongest card on this island is a monster named the Hornet. We call her the Empress of the sword slaves.”
“The Empress…of the sword slaves? Is she strong?”
“Remember how you found me mostly dead? She did that to me,” Al said, pointing to himself.
“—? Does that mean she’s strong?” Arakiya’s question was not really answered. Al’s prowess was likely a matter of debate in her eyes. He only had one arm, he’d been clinging to life when she found him, and Arakiya herself was probably no slouch in a fight. He couldn’t blame her if she didn’t think much of him. But there was no question about the Hornet’s strength. There was no one on the island who could stand against her, and even the strongest warriors in the empire might have their hands full in a straight fight. Even Arakiya, who appeared to be stronger than Al, was likely no exception.
“Might be a different story if you put it off a while, grow up strong and healthy first. You got a few years to kill before you need that drawbridge down?”
“No… I have things I must do.” Arakiya shook her head and gave the obvious answer.
“Figures.” Al smiled ruefully but got to his feet, supporting himself against the wall. He still felt a little light-headed from blood loss, but he thought he could move if he focused on it.
Arakiya watched him stand, then blinked her large eyes. “What are you going to do?”
“What’ve I got to do? You need to get to that island, right, young lady? You’ll need someone who knows their way around the place if you want to get that drawbridge down. That’s why you helped me—right?”
“…Oh!”
“Don’t tell me you forgot! …Ooh. Yelling makes a guy’s head spin…” Al smiled at Arakiya, realizing she was the type to get lost in whatever she was doing at that moment.
Here was the reality: Going back to an island bristling with enemies was suicidal no matter how many lives he had. But going with Arakiya? That was another story.
His life might hardly be worth a grain of sand, but he owed it to her. “And ain’t no one gonna accuse me of being ungrateful. I’ll guide you around that island. But…”
“Mn. That will help. Fighting… That is my job.”
He stopped short of saying that when the enemy showed up, he was going to run away with his tail between his legs. If Arakiya, who actually had a tail, was so determined, Al could hardly go around whining.
With their minds made up, Al squeezed out of the crevice among the rocks and looked at the accursed island, the home of the sword slaves, where a bunch of spectators were being held hostage, and a bunch of people who were either very brave or very stupid had declared war against the empire…
Al tilted his head from side to side to get the water out of his ears. “All right, so we know we’re going. But how do we get there?” he said, frowning. He was confronted with the same thing that made it necessary to lower the drawbridge in the first place: the lake that surrounded the island, chock-full of demon beasts. The lake they had to cross if they wanted to make it to land.
That was the first hurdle. The first thing between him and repaying his savior.
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