Editing Tales of Leo Attiel:Volume3 Chapter4 (section)

===Part 4===


Like that, Kuon was able to officially join Datta’s subordinates and to obtain the surname ‘Wei’.

Later, there was dancing around a bonfire and the priestess Mist, who headed the ceremony, threw animal bones into the flames then, after carefully scrutinising the fissures that had appeared, she made a curious prediction:

“One day, Kuon Wei will bring forth more gold that the mountains can hold.”

This was taken as meaning that Kuon would become a warrior without equal in the mountains.

“That’s something to look forward to, isn’t it Datta?”

The pillar of the ‘Wei’, that his friends were trying to draw into conversation, was usually a man of so few words that he almost seemed gloomy, but, this one time, he beamed with delight.

“He’s still just a half-size, but one day, he’ll definitely be skilled enough to even be able to compete for the position of Raga,” he squeezed Kuon’s shoulders.

At some point, the children of Kuon’s age started to gaze at him with envy. Nonetheless, half of the blood flowing through his veins was that of an outsider so, naturally, there was bound to be some who were not amused by this situation.

Chief among them was Diu Wei, Datta’s son.

Although Diu also possessed outstanding skill for his age, and the adults had applauded him for the excellent results he had achieved in one battle after another, he did not stand out given that Kuon, who was younger, had performed every bit as well as he had.

And now he too was already an adult. Publicly, he did not ill-treat Kuon, but because of that, hatred and impatience smouldered all the more strongly within his young heart. During hunts, he had already been told off by his father for giving Kuon one absurd order after another.

“I’m the patriarch of the Wei, not you. Don’t just go about giving orders any way you like” – that was the only meaning behind the rebuke but, this being Diu, he took it as implying much more. He was probably even afraid that – ''my father might be planning to leave the ‘Wei’ family to Kuon.''

About two years after Kuon had been accepted as an adult, invaders came to the mountains again. This time, it was a group of former mercenaries.

In Allion, where battles were never-ending, they had fought for a side that unsuccessfully opposed the king. They had fled after laying utter waste to several villages to create a distraction. Several platoons had banded together, and the men now numbered about five hundred.

In the mountains, there was a little under eight hundred men capable of fighting on the front lines. If you added in the women who fought with guns or bows and arrows, as well as the more elderly people who provided logistical support, then that number doubled.

Naturally, the Wei Unit was among those who were sent out to intercept the invaders.

As former mercenaries, these were well-used to fighting, and the mountain people did not have sufficient numbers to overwhelm them. Thus the fighting dragged on for three or four days.

The Wei Unit suffered damage because of it, and several of the seniors whom Kuon admired for being brave warriors were killed. Even so, they had an overwhelming advantage in term of terrain, and no matter how many of their companions were taken down, they continued to attack the enemy with undaunted daring.

Faced with that kind of opponent, and once they realised that they would not be able to easily seize the mountains, the former mercenaries abruptly started to withdraw. With the enemy pulling back, Diu, as Datta’s oldest son, organised a troop to give chase and deliver follow-up attacks on them. Its members were the Wei Unit’s elite, Kuon among them.

Datta was at the camp set up halfway up the mountain slope, and when he heard about this, he had a bad feeling about it; he chased after Diu’s troop on horseback, without taking a single soldier with him.

His instincts proved correct.

Diu had the warriors disperse to give chase to the would-be invaders, but he deliberately lied to Kuon about where they would join up again, with the result that Kuon found himself isolated right in the middle of their enemies.

All alone, he fought against the enemy troop. He cut down one, then two of their soldiers, but, because of his small frame, Kuon was forced to constantly be moving around and, in a situation where attackers were coming at him from all sides, his breath was soon ragged.

Who knew how many opponents he fought. Just as he was joining swords with yet another one, his legs were knocked out from beneath him and he fell backwards. The enemy figures vanished as he found himself looking up at the sky. Within it was the blazing sun and a few strands of clouds.

''Ah!''

In that moment, death was so close to Kuon that he could almost feel its breath against his ear. It was as though his consciousness, which had been wholly focussed on fighting, was about to leave his flesh and soar into that sky.

He experienced a strange sense of elation, a lot like he had at the coming-of-age ceremony. Perhaps it was the sensation of things coming together: life and death, the individual and the group.

“Kuon, get up. Get up!”

In that very instant, he heard Datta’s voice.

“It’s too soon for you to offer your blood to God!”

At the last possible moment, Datta came charging in on horseback, driving off the enemy soldiers who were swarming around Kuon.

Awareness returned to Kuon, and he quickly sprang to his feet. Datta rode his horse up to him while parrying the enemy’s spears.

“Get on, Kuon!”

Obeying his order, the boy nimbly leaped up behind Datta, and the horse broke away at a gallop.

Their enemies hurled spears at them, but Kuon quickly cut them down. When he looked at Datta’s broad back, it was shaking. Neither of them spoke. But then, neither had ever been talkative. Kuon had hardly ever seen him talking affectionately even with Diu, his own son. And yet, it was Datta who broke the silence.

“I won’t ask you not to blame my son,” he was speaking fast, entirely unlike his usual self. “There’s no doubt that he’s in the wrong, but he’s far, far more childish than you. The only reliable thing about him is his skill. One day, he and you will make the ‘Wei’ even stronger and more outstanding.”

Kuon didn’t make any reply. He was entirely focussed on the enemies chasing behind them.

At long last, their shouts faded into the distance. It happened at the same moment that the horse’s pace changed to a trot; Datta’s back, which had been like a bulky wall, gave a great heave, then he fell from the horse.

He had taken a fatal wound to the chest when he rushed into the enemy soldiers to save Kuon.



– As Leo and Sarah watched, holding their breath, Kuon – clumsily, bit-by-bit – piled his words one on top of the other.

“…And then what happened?”

Kuon voice was almost a mutter as he answered,

“Did I tie Datta’s body to the horse and go back to the village? Or did I leave Datta and the horse where they were? I can’t remember. But I remember Diu, screaming and crying with his face bright red, ‘It’s your fault’, ‘You killed my father’. And also, ‘You led him into a trap’. Well, I wasn’t a pureblood after all, so pretty much everyone believed what Diu said.”

''What the hell!'' Sarah was about to say something, her expression furious, but she just managed to hold herself back when Leo gave her a warning glance.

“And after that?”

In exchange, Leo prompted Kuon to continue in a serene tone of voice. Kuon blinked, as though he had just woken up.

“After that… After that? Right, after that, I came here.” Kuon pointed to the table. “I’d become a traitor to the mountain. It’s like I said earlier. Betrayers can appear even in the mountain god Tei Tahra’s sanctuary because evil spirits enter from the forehead. And that why betrayers are… how can I put this… right, in order to ‘purify’ them, betrayers are burned at the stake. Like what happened to Gosro during the coming-of-age ceremony. But I really didn’t want to be burned alive, so, as a betrayer, I left the mountains.”

“…”

For a short while, silence filled the room.

Kuon looked at Leo and Sarah in turn, a bewildered expression on his face. He couldn’t understand the meaning of that silence and it looked like he was mistakenly worrying that he might have done something wrong.

“I learned a lot; that was really useful. Thank you.”

After saying that, Leo let a while pass by before getting up from his chair.

“The bill has already been paid. I’ll head back to the castle first.”

“I’m you guard. Me too, I’ll…”

“The castle isn’t far. I’m not a child, so I’ll be fine by myself. More importantly, I’ve had you speaking for so long that you barely had anything to eat. I’m fine, I had plenty.”

Leo spoke in the same tone that he might use for a child, then left the private room. The sound of his footsteps disappeared from earshot.

“I wonder if the prince wasn’t hoping to be able to rely on the strength of the ‘mountain people’,” said Sarah, nibbling on cheese from the tray.

“What do you mean by rely on them?” Kuon drew the tray a little towards himself, worried that everything on it might get eaten. Although Sarah saw him do it, she didn’t get angry or make fun of him like she normally would.

“Darren might lead his troops any day now, the Personal Guards have been left at the temple, and the prince doesn’t have any soldiers he can make use of at the moment. So he was interested in the ‘mountain people’ that you’d spoken of before and, if possible, maybe he was thinking of asking for their help with you as an intermediary.”

“Don’t be stupid. That’s impossible.”

‘Right, it’s impossible. The prince also thought so after hearing your story. That’s why he didn’t say anything.”

“…”

Kuon remained silent and another short while passed.

“Gah!”

Kuon started at the sound of a voice. Sarah had apparently just tried the alcohol that the prince had been drinking, and had spat it out on the table.

“What is this? It’s disgusting! God grants us tongues to savour flavours, but those guys who can chug this down looking like it’s absolutely delicious must have had them pulled out!”

“Your brother does the same.”

“My big brother?”

“Once, when we were in a bar in Tiwana, he quarrelled with a whole lot of people. It was probably because he’d stolen Percy’s drink.”

“An act unworthy of a monk.”

Sarah crossed herself, teary-eyed and looking truly indignant. Kuon shook his head in astonished exasperation. He finally had a chance to score a verbal victory over Sarah, who was always attacking him. Just as he was trying to think of the right words to make fun of her, Sarah spoke first.

“You get it, right? …No, since this is you, you probably won’t get it unless you’re told.”

“What’re you talking about? You want to threaten me about keeping it a secret?”

“The prince was sorry when he heard your story. He’d asked you too much. Don’t forget that care for you. If it had been any other noble, even if they had to threaten you to do it, they’d have ordered you to link up with the mountain people, you know.”

Her almond-shaped eyes were faintly red. Maybe it was because she was already drunk, or perhaps it was because she was self-conscious about also having said ‘too much’.

Kuon shut his mouth tight again.



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