Her braid swayed, quite apart from the wind. It was her own movement that set it swinging. In a world of gray, she alone shone a rich brown, brimming with vibrant life. In other words, she drew the axe at her waist with a lightness that made the motion look like a dance.

Then she brought it straight down. Encrid's gaze followed the axe.

'Not a moment's hesitation.'

It was not quite intense killing intent, but her determination to split at least some part of him was plain. Beyond the axe descending as though to chop firewood, the gleam in her eyes traced a long line. The axe cut through the air toward its goal: splitting Rem's skull. It all happened as words like "husband" and "fuck" reached their ears.

There was not even half a breath to spare, but of course Rem reacted. The axe in his hand rose to greet his wife's.

CLANG! SCREECH.

Luagarne's and Dunbachel's eyes darted about. The clash of the axe blades had changed their trajectories, and their gazes naturally chased the exchange. Encrid watched with comparatively steady eyes. He could see every detail.

The two axes caught against each other and sprang apart, thanks to a deft twist of Rem's wrist.

"Hmph!" His wife snorted.

She hauled the rebounding axe back with the strength of her arm. Leather cords were wound tightly around the middle of her forearm, and as her muscles swelled, the cords seemed to sink into the flesh. Her axe swept parallel to the ground, aiming for Rem's jaw.

"Ayul."

Rem twisted lightly aside as he spoke. The woman he called Ayul answered with her axe.

She thrust it straight forward, blade first. Rem caught it against his bare palm and pushed it aside.

That was Audin's move. Encrid recognized it at once. The technique Rem had just demonstrated was a variation of body deflection, performed with his bare hand.

Encrid might be able to defeat Rem, but he could not instantly reproduce something he had seen like that. It was a difference in talent. It required both a grasp of the knack and a body capable of reproducing it exactly. Of course, Encrid could now knock a blade aside barehanded, but could he improvise it as Rem just had? That would be difficult. Rem's hand had moved not through conscious thought, but within the realm of instinct.

That did not stir any particular emotion in Encrid. He had no grand reflections on it. He had simply taken note because the knack behind that gesture was unusual. It seemed worth practicing later: a deflecting motion that was part parry, part strike.

"I've chosen my mate. I swear on my axe I haven't given my affections to anyone else," Rem said calmly.

With her axe missing its mark, Ayul returned it to her waist very slowly.

"Fine. We'll let that pass for now."

"A stinking Beastman, a Frog, and the other one's a man," Rem added.

He was answering the question of whether he had taken up with some other woman. That much was clear from the context. It sounded very much like an excuse, but it was true.

"If you need someone to vouch for him, I will," Encrid interjected.

Such was the power of friendship. It was repayment for all the times Rem had risked his life fighting for him. He had mustered his determination to offer a word in support.

"I don't know who you are, but stay out of this, will you? Unless you'd like another ornament in your skull?"

Encrid decided to respect her wishes. Dunbachel had been about to say Rem was not her type, but shut her mouth. The woman before them did not look like someone who made idle threats.

Luagarne watched with interest.

'A female Rem.'

That was how she saw her.

Dunbachel reached a similar conclusion.

'Two axe-wielding brutes.'

Encrid was no different.

'She's a female Rem.'

The female Rem, Ayul, rested a hand on her axe and stared at Rem. A heavy, quiet killing intent gathered in her eyes.

"You and I will talk alone later."

Rem's expression grew a little gloomier.

"All right."

Some things in life were unavoidable. A husband who had left home, for instance, owed the wife who had waited for him an explanation.

Once Ayul finished venting her anger with her axe, the other westerners watching came over. They did not seem to have felt the slightest danger. Presumably that was because they knew Rem too.

One man approached with patterns drawn on his face in what looked like dye. Sharp thorns seemed to have been painted on his cheeks.

"Well, now. This would make a Grime weep."

He looked utterly astonished.

A Grime was a divine beast that lived in the form of a shadow, a creature from somewhere in western mythology.

Encrid studied the man. Observation was a habit.

'Take in and understand everything, in all things.'

It was a habit he had acquired when he first picked up a sword and began learning.

His gaze swept over the man. His skin was dark, but that seemed to be a tan; its natural color was probably more reddish. A little red skin showed where his sleeve met the back of his hand.

He had prominent cheekbones and narrow eyes, but did not look sly. If anything, he looked gentle. On the whole, he would have to be called good-looking. He had quite a handsome face. The same was true of Ayul. She was a beauty.

From behind him came the occasional sound of Luagarne puffing out her cheeks. Frogs liked attractive human faces. It was probably an expression of satisfaction.

These looks seemed to be characteristic of the local people. Rem, by contrast, looked more like a continental. Why? Because his origins were different. Merely by seeing a few westerners, Encrid had uncovered a secret about Rem's birth. It was a guess, but probably correct, considering how Rem alone looked different among people with broadly similar features.

"Hey. Been a while, hasn't it?"

Rem slipped his axe into the sheath at his waist and raised a hand.

"I nearly forgot to keep count of how many sweet hailfalls we've had."

"Six."

Ayul supplied the number from behind them. The man nodded.

"Yes, it's been a long time. What in the world have you been doing?"

"Traveling at first, then soldiering, and fighting lately. Now I've come back to fetch something."

There were plenty of words Encrid did not understand, but he pieced together the gist.

"What's he saying?"

Unable to understand, Dunbachel tilted her head. Luagarne, who knew the western dialect, seemed to follow.

"Well, there's really only one thing to say at a time like this. Welcome back, Rem," one man said.

"I thought you'd dropped dead somewhere. You managed to make it back alive."

Ayul bestowed her blessing on the returned Rem.

Only then did the man with the thorn markings turn toward Encrid.

"Are you traveling with Rem?"

He asked from three steps in front of him. A subtle wariness showed.

"I'm debating whether I'd be better off admitting it or pretending I don't know him. Could I put off answering?"

The man laughed at Encrid's reply. Apparently it was his sort of joke.

"You're an amusing fellow. I'm Juol."

"Encrid. I'm from Border Guard."

"Encrid? That's a long name, and hard to pronounce."

The language spread by the Empire was spoken across the continent, but subtle differences in accent were extremely common. Juol's speech was one example. That was what he meant about the name being long and difficult to pronounce, and dialects arose for similar reasons.

"Is it?"

Encrid thought little of it.

Rem cut in with a question.

"What happened to that settlement out there? It's been attacked. We ran into Giants on the way, too."

It was hardly something he had only just remembered. The reunion had simply kept him from asking until now.

"It's a long story. Let's head into Great Wing first. Ayul?"

Despite Juol's words, Ayul continued staring expressionlessly at Rem. The remaining westerners merely looked on. Watching them, Encrid roughly worked out their relationships.

'The female Rem makes the decisions. Juol would be something like a squad leader?'

He was more or less right. They had come out to release the cattle and sheep into the pasture and keep watch over the surroundings, and Ayul was the best fighter among them.

"All right."

Rem had returned. Ayul was both happy and angry. Whatever else she felt, his return at this particular moment was certainly welcome. Surely it was the sky god's help.

"We're going to the chieftain of Great Wing."

The other two westerners began whistling as they herded the sheep and cattle. Watching them tap the ground with long poles to line the animals up and set them walking, Encrid thought even the Shepherds of the Wastes could learn a thing or two.

When he casually voiced that impression, Luagarne puffed out her cheeks and laughed.

"Croak. The Shepherds of the Wastes don't tend that sort of sheep. You'll understand if you see them someday. Or ask Pell when we get back."

"I'll do that, if he's alive."

Encrid nodded. The condition "if he's alive" might have sounded odd, but neither Luagarne nor Dunbachel gave it a second thought. Instead, one of the westerners listening on the left tilted his head. He wondered whether he had heard correctly. If alive? Who? A continental joke? Some dialect expression? Of course, it was neither.

As they walked, Rem came alongside him and whispered too quietly for Ayul up ahead to hear.

"Ugh. I nearly died back there, Captain."

"Wouldn't it have been better to let her hit you once?" Encrid whispered back.

Taking the hit might have been the better choice.

"I would have, if she'd held back a little."

Encrid agreed with that too. She had swung her axe hard enough to take an arm off.

"Rem? Are you really Rem? The one who left home all those years ago?"

The westerner beside them had been studying him closely.

"Yeah, that's me."

"Was it because you were cursed with wanderlust?"

"Who told you that?"

"Ayul did."

"And who are you?"

"I'm Ire."

His cheeks were hollow, but his eyes shone, and a controlled diet and repeated labor had made his body hard as quartz. The way he walked, tapping the ground with his long pole, marked him as someone who knew how to fight. He showed no eagerness for combat, but the signs of training were unmistakable.

Encrid's eye had grown so keen that he could gauge someone's ability at a glance. This was another area where he surpassed Rem and Ragna. Perhaps it was the difference between someone who had climbed a mountain on foot, examining every detail from the very bottom, and someone who had leaped straight up it. For that reason, Encrid judged Ire's ability most accurately.

'Take him to Border Guard and he'd be treated as a highest-grade soldier.'

He could not say how a real encounter would go, but the man's ability was at least that good. You never knew about a real fight until you actually fought. Encrid's view on that was the same now, as a proto knight, as it had been when he was a low-grade soldier. Anything could happen in a fight to the death.

Judged in those terms, the female Rem was far more capable. She looked to be at least somewhere around the level of a squire.

Rem answered the young man. No, the boy.

"It wasn't anything like that."

Explaining what had happened back then would take a long time, and it was not something to tell a kid who knew nothing about it.

"Hmph!"

Ayul snorted up ahead. She would not have heard their whispers, but she must have heard all of this conversation. The female Rem had sharp ears.

As they continued, patches of grass appeared here and there, along with groups of westerners tending livestock. They all looked up when they noticed the party. Such obvious outsiders could hardly go unnoticed. Some of those glances recognized Rem.

An acrid smell reached them as they walked. It was not pleasant. Encrid glanced aside and saw Dunbachel's nose twitching. If he could smell it, she must have caught it first.

"What does it smell like to you?"

"Like several kinds of herbs being burned together."

Rem lifted his head, apparently catching the same smell. Gray smoke rose in the distance.

"Something really has happened," he said.

"You'll see when we get there," Ayul replied curtly.

She still seemed angry. Would that anger ever subside? Encrid kept walking as he wondered.

A gentle rise blocked their path. Beyond it lay a broad clearing.

"It's been a while since we had outsiders. Welcome, stranger who has crossed the boundary," Juol said.

Tents crowded the clearing, some round, others angular. There were so many that counting them alone would take quite a while. The people were just as numerous. This was a vast settlement of many hundreds or more. In short, a city of the West.

["In continental terms, the city's name would be Elder Bear? Something like that. We have a myth that says we're all descended from a bear goddess who became human."]

Rem had told him that before they arrived.

There was also a myth of a bear that killed a snake larger than a city, and another about a host of animals gathering in a cave and turning into people. He had said there was even a story that the first human born of a bear was the ancestor of the western peoples, adding that each tribe here had its own inherited myths.

The western city Rem had described spread out before Encrid's eyes.