Down to the Last Strand
"Graaah!"
Lina lunged at me, her yellow eyes shining with a slick gleam even through the dark. Agony drove into my shoulder, and I lost consciousness.
It was the second blackout.
Boots struck the earth in a heavy, even tread. Men in splendid armor passed in flawless order, and every villager working nearby turned to stare.
"That's the Imperial Knights, isn't it?"
"Again? They were here yesterday too."
"I know. Something must have really happened."
Splendid armor, and backs held ramrod straight. They were the Imperial Knights, respected by everyone in the empire.
When the knights filed into the little-traveled forest, the people who lived along its edge began to murmur.
"What on earth is going on?"
"Something happened in the woods, that's for sure. They've been keeping everyone out since yesterday."
Knights swarming that forest and holding it shut from last night until noon today — it was suspicious in the extreme.
"So what's it about?"
"How should I know? Common folk like us can't begin to guess what our betters intend…… And that forest. It's always been so gloomy I hated the sight of it."
The woods they eyed with such distaste were bright and lovely by day, but once the sun went down they were said to seethe with beasts and things of ill omen, and people had always given them a wide berth.
"Oh — more of them. That white hair…… Duke Pancrazio?"
Those who caught the stark, blazing white among the Imperial Knights coming on behind started in surprise.
"Heavens. Even Duke Pancrazio is here?"
Duke Pancrazio was famous throughout the empire — for his looks, and for being the princess's betrothed. More than anything, though, he was known for never showing his face at a single public affair, so simply seeing him was a wonder.
"That expression is no joke."
"For His Grace himself to come…… it must be serious."
The villagers whispered that if something had gone wrong in the forest, it had gone badly wrong.
But unlike the murmuring all around them, only silence lay between the knights and Alpheus. For a long while they walked on without a word.
When they had gone quite deep into the woods, the knight at the front caught sight of the others already gathered and stopped.
"This is the place."
A knight who had arrived earlier bowed respectfully to Duke Pancrazio.
"Greetings, Your Grace."
Alpheus gave him a slight nod and looked around.
"You've had a hard time of it."
The knights who had come ahead of him were spread through the trees, searching for traces of the vanished carriage. Alpheus swept his gaze slowly over them, then dropped his eyes to the ground — and frowned at the wheel ruts scored starkly into the earth.
"Judging by the tracks, it started here?"
"Yes. These are the traces of the carriage Her Highness was riding. They break off clean, just ahead."
Where the carriage's trail ended, the road itself had ended.
Hardly different from a cliff. From the tracks, they saw something, startled, turned — and went over. Did they fall because they saw the zombies?
Alpheus stared at the marks a moment longer, then slowly lifted his head and surveyed the surroundings.
"So. How far have you searched?"
"We are still combing for traces. Just now we brought mages and attempted a tracking spell, but it will not take at all. So Her Highness's body has yet to……"
Mid-sentence, the knight shuddered under the killing intent pouring over him. Alpheus was glaring as if he might kill him on the spot.
D-did I say something I shouldn't have?
For an ordinary knight, simply bearing the killing intent of a man as overwhelmingly skilled as Alpheus was ordeal enough. His body shook like an aspen in the wind.
"Your Grace, please calm yourself."
Levin, attending at his side, caught hold of him.
"More aid is coming from the palace soon, so we will find her. Please — draw back that killing intent."
At Levin's words, Alpheus's killing intent eased a fraction. Levin let out a sigh of relief, then turned to the knight.
"Sir Knight."
"Y-yes?"
"We have yet to find so much as a proper trace, let alone Her Highness's body. And yet you are already calling it her corpse."
"Th-that is—"
"To say such a thing before His Grace, her fiancé, who is worried for her, is a grave discourtesy. Mind yourself."
Only then did the knight bow his head, his face gone white.
"I— I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"
"……Enough."
Alpheus frowned, waved a hand, and dismissed him. Then he regarded Levin — who had spoken in his defense — with cool eyes, and clicked his tongue.
"Spare me the nonsense. Since when did I say I was worried?"
"Well, of course you were. Her Highness is Your Grace's—"
Alpheus cut him off as if he had been waiting for it.
Levin blinked.
No personal feelings — and the man had finished preparing to leave for the forest before the sun was properly up?
He looked at Alpheus, still incapable of honesty, and let out a long, heavy sigh.
"Of course you don't, Your Grace."
"……In any case. To the point."
Alpheus, who had been glaring at him, turned and fixed his eyes on the knight.
"Report."
"Yes. In the stomachs of the zombies from which part of Sir Cedric's body was recovered, there were no traces of the other knights."
"Then we proceed on the assumption that the others — Her Highness among them — are still alive……"
As he spoke, Alpheus's eyes suddenly narrowed, as if he had found something, and he slowly bent down.
It was not only carriage tracks on the ground.
"Blood?"
Half-hidden by dirt, but blood all the same — already dried hard.
At the sight of it, Alpheus clenched his hand without meaning to, seized by the ominous thought that had clung to him since yesterday. The omen passed quickly. What remained was a feeling he did not recognize, and his brow drew tight.
What is this restlessness?
What had he been so anxious about, that he had insisted on coming here from first light? His office was heaped with work still waiting, unfinished matters in abundance, and even if he came in person, it was not as if he could drive the investigation forward in any great way.
Why did I mean to come myself?
If the aim was finding the princess, simply lending the ducal house's people would have served him far better.
Then what did I walk all the way into this forest to confirm?
Lost in thought, he stood silent for a while, then slowly shifted his gaze to the knights moving briskly in their search for the princess.
Why am I not glad?
He had often thought he would be better off if she — Isabel — were simply gone. He hated the Emperor who pressed him, and the nobles who tried to check him merely because he was to marry the princess grated on his nerves. From the moment she had rolled into his life, nothing had rolled right again. To him she was nothing but an endless nuisance.
Isn't this freedom?
If she were dead, she would never come calling at his house again, and he could live as he pleased, free of the Emperor's pressure. It was everything he had always wanted, everything he had dreamed of — and yet now that the dream had arrived, joy was nowhere in it. He only felt sick.
What in the world is this feeling?
The mere imagining of what might have become of Isabel set his stomach lurching, dry heaves rising again and again. Last night, knowing full well he could not enter the forest until morning, he had still picked up his sword and set it down, over and over, for no reason he could name.
Isabel.
For a moment he stared at the trees of the hushed forest.
Have you truly vanished?
The sight of her coming to his office yesterday rose before him, sharp and clear.
A dry creak.
The instant he remembered, strength gathered in his hand of its own accord.
"Your Grace?"
The knights' eyes went wide at the ugly sound coming from Alpheus's hand. He paid them no mind and pressed on with the thought.
If I cannot tell what this feeling is, I need only go to her and ask.
He turned and regarded the knights with a cold face.
Alpheus's presence shifted all at once.
His tone toward the knights was as level as ever, but the heat inside it was not something a man could ignore. They faltered before a temperature like a fire just taking light.
You are the one who made this feeling, Isabel. So you must know.
Alpheus followed the wheel tracks with his eyes and lifted his head.
So I will find you, and I will ask. Where in the world this damned unease comes from.
"Gluk. Graaah—"
Who is that.
"Urk……"
Who keeps making all this noise.
"Grrrr……"
Loud.
But the moans, almost like sobbing, showed no sign of stopping. They went on and on — a strange sound, neither human nor quite a beast's.
In the end I lost to the noise and opened my eyes.
Opened my eyes?
Truth be told, I wasn't even sure what an eye was. All sorts of words were tumbled together in my head, and they would not fit.
What is this?
I tried to move my body and could not stir at all. I thrashed, and something stretched out long.
A hand?
This something did seem as if it might be a hand. I stared at it blankly for a long while, then slowly looked around at the sounds nearby.
The things bound in shackles had been speaking for some time.
From their mouths the word human came again and again. I waved cheerfully at the ones pressed right up beside me, forever trying to push forward.
I was ignored completely.
Being ignored was embarrassing, so I resolved to get out of this place at once and put strength into my body.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
Something broke, and what looked like five thin twigs appeared before my eyes. I put strength into the twigs, and they wriggled.
The twigs are fingers.
The satisfaction of having settled a definition lasted only a moment. My body was unbearably cramped. I was not free, as if something had me tied, and I shook myself, trying to get loose.
Rip. Rip.
When I shook, the things dangling all over my body broke apart. Once I understood that, I tried harder and kept on shaking, until my body came entirely free.
Even then, they went on steadily looking for humans.
Don't they ever get tired?
Curiosity stirred in me all at once. I sat down in front of them and stared up, blank as anything. Bound as they were, they could not move properly, and only kept shifting inside the same small circle.