Authors: Hasekura Isuna
Norah was absorbed in her own work, ringing the bell on her staff and directing Enek, rounding up the sleeping sheep and bringing them closer to the campfire, and then tapping the sleeping Liebert on the shoulder. Finally, she threw several more pieces of firewood onto the campfire.
Norah’s movements were practiced and calm, and her awkward manner around other people reminded Lawrence of his own clumsiness when dealing with people outside of business.
Liebert finally awoke and, sensing the tense atmosphere, followed Norah’s and Holo’s gazes, searching for wolves.
He retreated, hand clutching his chest—no doubt feeling for the six hundred
lumione
note that was concealed there—as he got behind Enek, whose tail fur was standing on end as he bared his fangs.
The camp’s defense arrangements settled, the only sounds that remained were the uneasy baas of the sheep, Enek’s ragged breathing, and the crackling of the campfire.
There was no sound from the ebony woods. The moon was out, and there was no wind. Naturally being a mere merchant, Lawrence could hardly sense any presences in the forest.
But Norah, Enek, and Holo were utterly motionless as they looked into the woods.
For all he could tell, they might have been staring at catfish swimming in a black pond.
Strangely, he could not hear so much as a hint of a wolf’s howl. Lawrence had been attacked by wolves many times in his travels, and such attacks always came with howls. And yet none were audible.
He wondered if there really were any.
Time crawled by with agonizing slowness.
There was no baying. The only reason Lawrence could keep his guard up was Holo—he trusted her implicitly, and she was still the very picture of seriousness.
Liebert, seeing Norah and Holo as mere girls, was another matter entirely.
The color returned to his previously frightened, pale face, and he began to cast his gaze here and there doubtfully.
There was movement the instant he opened his mouth.
Norah held her staff in the crook of her right arm and with her left hand took hold of the horn affixed to her side. Holo saw the gesture and was unamused—perhaps because wolves and hunting horns were ever in conflict.
Just as wolves howled and bears scratched themselves on trees, shepherds announced their presence with the blow of a horn. No animal could reproduce that long, drawn-out note, which unmistakably betrayed the presence of a shepherd.
The note rang out in the night and was swallowed by the forest. If there were indeed wolves nearby, they now knew that a skilled shepherd was among them.
But still, no howling rang out. The group’s opponents maintained absolute silence.
“...Did we chase them off?” asked Liebert uncertainly.
“I’m not sure...At the very least, they seem to have backed away"
Liebert knitted his brow at Norah’s vague answer, but seeing Enek stop baring his teeth and set about the work of rounding up the sheep, he accepted that the immediate danger had passed.
Perhaps he had decided that animals understood other animals.
“The wolves in this area are always like this. I hardly ever hear them howl, and they do not seem to attack—they just watch...
The young employee of the Remelio Company paled at Norah's words, as though she had been talking about corpses returning to life and rising from their graves. Liebert was more timid than he looked.
“’Tis a bit strange they don’t even howl,” murmured Holo, still looking into the forest. Liebert gave her a skeptical look—this town girl who wasn’t even a shepherd, what did she know of wolves?
It wasn’t that Liebert had an especially bad disposition—many townspeople were like this, but their assumptions still grated on Holo’s nerves.
“It could be aught besides wolves. For example, the spirit of a traveler who died here.”
Liebert’s face went sheet white. The wisewolf had exposed his cowardice.
“Still-”
Holo tugged at Lawrence’s sleeve once she had finished teasing the poor lamb. Her voice was low, so Lawrence leaned down to put his ear level with her.
“I was half-serious. I have a bad feeling.”
This journey was no ordinary one. They had to make it safely to and from Lamtra. If the group failed, whether they ran or met their fate, Lawrence’s life as a merchant would be over.
He gave Holo a baleful look as if to say, “Don’t try to frighten me with your foolish stories,” but she just vaguely surveyed the forest.
Apparently she wasn’t joking.
“Hmm, we seem to be out of firewood,” said Norah brightly, perhaps to dispel the still-tense atmosphere. Lawrence agreed, and Holo finally averted her gaze from the forest and nodded. Liebert nodded as well, probably mostly out of a sense of obligation.
“I’ll just go gather some more then, shall I?” said Norah, perhaps confident in her night vision.
Lawrence felt bad leaving it just to her. “I’ll come as well.”
Holo chimed in. “As shall I.”
Not knowing the first thing about starting a campfire, Liebert had not raised a finger to tend it, but now he must have felt entirely ill at ease.
“I-I'll help, too!” he said, clearing his throat, afraid of being left all alone.
Holo smiled unpleasantly at him.
They walked into the forest to gather firewood, and Lawrence wondered if the bestial aura he felt was just his imagination.
Yet there were no further incidents, and the night passed quietly.
When Lamtra finally came into view, Lawrence breathed a sigh of genuine relief.
With the deep forest to their right and the rugged hills to the left, their passage had felt akin to going down an endless back alley,
But his sigh of relief did not come from reaching the end of that alley. He had experienced far worse trails many times in the past. No, the relief came from the fact that the strange gaze he had felt upon him the previous night was gone.
Lawrence knew it wasn’t simply his imagination since Holo and Norah had been continuously on guard as well. There was definitely something within the forest that separated Ruvinhei gen and Lamtra—something that even knight brigades feared.
Even so, they had made the trip out successfully, so the return trip should also be possible. Lawrence was still uneasy about it, but Norah was with them, and she had made the trek many times and never been attacked once. Relying on her shepherding skills—as well as Holo—would see them through somehow.
Then all they had to do was bring in the gold.
Lawrence was deep in thought as he watched Liebert head into town to make the purchase—there was no point in the lot of them filing into Lamtra.
“I hope everything goes well,” said Norah, no doubt referring to Liebert’s task.
So far, everything they did was perfectly legitimate, so there was little to worry about, but pointing that out seemed excessive.
“Indeed,” replied Lawrence.
There was a reason he used his best merchant smile when he said this.
Norah was simply making small talk.
But in Lawrence’s heart, misgiving mingled with regret.
He worried that Norah didn’t truly understand the consequences that awaited them were they to fail. The shepherdess before him was the one who would be in the most danger when they moved the gold.
The gold would be hidden in the stomachs of her sheep when they passed the checkpoints. If one of the sheep should happen to cough up any of that gold, the shepherd responsible would face immediate punishment.
In contrast to that, if Liebert and Lawrence were to keep silent, they might be able make it through the checkpoint.
There was a huge difference in their risks. He wondered if Norah understood that.
Lawrence looked on as Norah tended to her flock as at any other time, petting Enek when he returned to her side after performing this or that task.
The merchant felt he needed to ascertain Norah’s awareness of her peril.
It simply did not seem as though she grasped the difference between what could happen to her compared to what the people around her might face.
If so, taking advantage of her ignorance was not far from fraud. Lawrence considered this and concluded that his conscience was most definitely somewhere near the pit of his stomach.
Were Norah to learn that she would be made to take the fall if caught, she might refuse to cooperate, turning a cold shoulder to them. That had to be avoided. Thus, Lawrence kept silent.
“Now that I think of it...,” Norah piped up, jolting Lawrence out of his reverie.
However, when he lifted his head, he saw that she was not speaking to him.
Norah looked at Holo, who had plucked a single stalk of tall grass and was now wandering about aimlessly.
“Miss...Holo, I mean...” Norah hesitated after saying Holo’s name, perhaps needing to muster up more courage to speak.
Lawrence had noticed Norah trying to engage her female companion several times, but Holo’s curtness made her hesitate.
In his mind, he encouraged her, but he was genuinely surprised at the words that next came out of her mouth.
“Do...Do you know a lot about wolves?”
Lawrence was shocked for a moment, but Holo—ever the canny Wisewolf—did not alter her expression a bit. She finally tilted her head curiously at Norah.
“Um, I mean...I just, last night you noticed the wolves so quickly, so I...”
She trailed off there, perhaps because she wondered if Holo also had experience as a shepherd. Were that the case, it would be like one white crow finding another—one rare shepherdess meeting another would make for lively conversation.
If so, Holo’s unapproachable attitude left few opportunities to speak up.
“What? I simply noticed them, that’s all.”
“Oh, I see...”
“I mean, the men are generally useless, after all,” said Holo with a mischievous smile, glancing at Lawrence, who gave a small shrug in reply. “Don’t you think?” she finished.
“Um, I, I don’t...”
“Hmph. So you think you can count on that?” prodded Holo, pointing sharply. Norah followed where Holo indicated—
—only to meet Lawrence’s eyes.
In that moment, Norah looked genuinely awkward as she averted her eyes. Holo asked her again, and Norah glanced apologetically at Lawrence as she whispered something to Holo, who had drawn near the shepherdess.
Given the cheeky wolf’s smile, it had to be that kind of answer.
Lawrence watched and realized the conversation was about to turn farcical.
He waved his hand back and forth as if to admit defeat, while Holo and Nora laughed.
“In the first place, ’tis not strange to ask if someone like me, traveling alone with a man, knows a lot about wolves!”
Going by looks alone, Norah appeared to be the older of the two girls, but as soon as Holo spoke, she took the upper hand. She put one hand on her hip and held up the index finger of the other looking for all the world like a theologian giving a lecture.