by Yusuke Kishi
It was pointless to tell us about this now, but hearing him talk seemed to help us stay focused.
“The Army Ant colony was over eighteen thousand strong, and praised as having the largest army. They excelled at siege warfare, and on this occasion had surrounded the Giant Hornets and set up camp. Near the end stage of the battle, the Army Ant general, Quikur, dispatched all but the queen’s bodyguards.”
Judging by his interest in wars, Squealer undoubtedly spent a lot of time reading historical records. He spoke animatedly.
“The Army Ant colony was stationed only a few kilometers away from the Giant Hornets. They could only move aboveground at this distance, and since their army was so big, the front line was already halfway there before the rear troops even left camp. Quikur decided to wait at the foot of the mountain for the rest of the soldiers to catch up. He assumed that the smaller Giant Hornet troops were hiding underground and dismissed the possibility of being attacked from the cliff that we locals call Greenwall. General Kiroumaru led his elite team secretly up the mountain and plotted an ambush. The enemy was right below the cliff that everyone assumed was too steep to climb. However, General Kiroumaru saw a gecko climbing across the bare rock, and said what would later become a famous quote, ‘Geckos have four legs, we also have four legs. If a gecko can climb this mountain, there is no reason we cannot.'”
It was so absurd that I assumed Squealer was joking. But later, when I looked up the records of the queerat wars and learned that he had been telling the truth, I was speechless with shock.
“Through this, General Kiroumaru suddenly came into the spotlight. The first name the gods gave him was Kidoumaru, not with the characters 奇道丸, but 詭道丸,”9 Squealer explained the two characters carefully.
“I get it. In short, it means that there’s nowhere to run when Kiroumaru is chasing you, right?” I hid my question behind a joke.
“Yes. If General Kiroumaru has seriously decided to pursue you, there’s probably nothing you can do about it.”
A short silence followed.
After seeing Kiroumaru order the devastation of the Ground Spiders, it was obvious that he was a fearsome strategist. If he caught up with us, we wouldn’t stand a chance.
Everything depended on when Kiroumaru would start coming after us. There was a time gap from when the Ethics Committee sent their order to dispose of us by bat to the time the pursuers set out. If we were lucky, we could get to the canoes by that time. The only problem was that Kiroumaru might autonomously decide to come after us before the Committee’s reply arrived if he found out we had run away.
It was possible he was chasing after us this very instant.
We unconsciously sped up. But there was a limit to how quickly we could go since the rocks by the river were slippery and dangerous.
Thirty minutes later, as we hurried along, dripping in sweat, Squealer came to a halt.
“What is it?”
Squealer put his hand to his lips and made a ‘shh’ sound. This strange gesture was seen even in ancient books, its meaning transcending time and place so that it was still understandable now. But I was surprised that it could even transcend species.
“Do you hear that?” Squealer asked quietly.
I listened carefully.
I heard it. A bird’s cry. Although it was the middle of the night, it called as it wheeled through the sky.
Kyokyokyokyokyokyokyokyo…
It sounded more like a giant insect than a bird, and the sound filled me with unease. Following Squealer’s example, we stood still as rocks. The strange bird flew along the river’s path, circling above us over and over.
Satoru was the first to speak. “So what? It’s just a bird.”
“In the middle of the night though?”
“Maybe it’s a nightjar. They’re nocturnal like owls.”
Was it really that simple?
“But why is it intentionally coming lower and lower?”
As expected, Satoru had no idea how nightjars behaved. He thought for a moment.
“Even though it’s called a nightjar, it’s probably not a predatory bird like owls and eats insects. It’s catching insects by the river.”
Squealer, who had been silent until now, cleared his throat. “…this could be just a wild nightjar. But I strongly believe that it isn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“General Kiroumaru tends to use birds as scouts. I’ve heard he uses nightjars because they have good night vision.”
I was surprised. Now that I looked at it, the bird did seem like it was looking for something.
“Really? It’s kind of hard to believe,” Satoru said suspiciously. “How would a bird report that it had found something?”
“I’m not clear on the details either. But honeybees are able to transmit information about where flower are, so I’m sure it can be done with the right training.”
If Squealer’s theory was right, then Kiroumaru might be nearby already.
We hurried forward under a heavy silence.
Kiroumaru was probably close by, tracking us noiselessly. The reason he hadn’t attacked could be because the Committee’s response hadn’t arrived yet, or that he wasn’t yet aware that Satoru couldn’t use his cantus anymore.
Or, he might simply be waiting for a better place to carry out his attack…
The more I thought about it, the more I felt the pressure of an unseen enemy.
But just as there is no unending night, all hardship must also come to an end. As we continued walking east, the sky began to lighten.
“Dawn…!” Satoru suppressed a shout.
“Kasumiga Bay will be visible soon after we cross that,” Squealer said, pointing to a large snaking river about two hundred meters ahead.
So maybe that really was a wild bird earlier. Just another part of our delusion that Kiroumaru was coming after us.
I felt relief for an instant.
“What…is that?” Satoru had noticed something.
We stopped in terror.
There on the sandy banks of the river, as if expecting our arrival, were a line of silhouettes.
Chapter 8
We stopped abruptly. Fear and confusion washed over me in a wave.
There were three silhouettes. Looking in this direction.
False hope had gone to my head. Statistically speaking, there was only ever a fleeting, one in million chance of escape. But hope is like a flame–more prayer than logical thought, stronger than fear–that drives us to action.
Satoru and I looked at each other simultaneously, and nodded.
Slowly, we walked forward. Any path we could take would bring us closer to escape. This particular path would be to expose our weakness–the fact we couldn’t use our cantus. Right now, all that mattered was to see who our enemy was.
As these thoughts ran through my head, I took one step, and another.
Looking at the black shadows, the desire to run away flared inside me once again, and my knees shook. Was I walking into the jaws of destruction?
No, it can’t be. That, those shadows…I definitely recognize them. I’m positive. I kept telling myself this. But they stood without moving and I couldn’t make out their identities.
A little closer and I would be able to tell. Just then, golden light spilled over the mountain ridge, blinding me with its rays.
The three figures were swallowed by the light.
I froze. But then.
“Saki! Satoru!”
I heard a shout. A voice I instantly recognized that I’d been longing to hear. Shun. Satoru dashed forward.
“Shun! Maria! Mamoru!”
I ran forward in a daze. Stumbling toward the light.
The five of us hugged and clapped each other on the shoulders, laughing and crying deliriously like idiots. In that instant, all the pain we had experienced, and all the suffering that was to come seemed a universe away. We reveled in the miracle that we were all unharmed and reunited.
I
wished time could stop at that moment.
If time had frozen then, our group of five wouldn’t have lost so many members…
“So, anyway, let’s get to the canoes!” Shun was the first to get a hold of himself. “We can take our time to tell our stories then.”
His words made me swallow the mountain of questions I was just about to ask.
Maria was startled by something behind me.
“What’s over there?”
I patted her gently on the arm. “Oh, that’s Squealer. He showed us the way here.”
“Honored to meet you. I’m Squealer, from the Robber Fly colony.”
The three were astonished at his fluent speech.
“The Robber Flies lost many of their soldiers while fighting the Ground Spiders and were one of the forces behind the Ground Spider’s defeat,” Satoru explained.
They looked surprised.
“The Ground Spiders are gone? Really?” Mamoru asked, his eyes wide.
“Yeah. The Giant Hornet army came and wiped them out. But we’ll talk about this later. There’s no time. Right now, we need to get to the canoes as soon as possible.”
“W-wait.”
Even Shun appeared to be having trouble wrapping his head around the situation. “If the Ground Spiders are gone, then isn’t there no need to run anymore?”
“No. I’ll explain later,” I urged them forward.
“Then what in the world are we running from?” Maria asked, glancing at Squealer as he lead the way forward.
“The Giant Hornet colony. From General Kiroumaru,” Satoru answered.
“Huh? B-but, the Giant Hornets are loyal to humans, aren’t they?” Mamoru asked with a dubious expression on his face.
“That’s why they’re dangerous,” Satoru said, then fell silent abruptly.
Squealer was within earshot. We needed to be careful not to let slip exactly why we were going to be eliminated.
“I’ll explain everything later. Just trust me.”
The three of them looked skeptical, but nodded wordlessly. We had unwavering trust in each other. This was the first time I found that fact so reassuring.
Soon, we rounded a bend in the river. As Squealer had said, our field of view widened considerably. Just a little farther, the valley would end in a flat plain. And another kilometer after that, we might be able to see the lake of Kasumiga Bay, its water glittering in the sunlight.
Our spirits rose considerably, but it was too early for that. Ahead, Squealer suddenly stopped and cocked his head, listening carefully. We soon realized why.
From the valley behind us came a strange birdcall.
Kyokyokyokyokyokyokyokyo…
The nightjar.
My earlier assumption was proven correct. That was no wild bird. It was a spy sent by Kiroumaru to follow us.
“Run!” Satoru shouted.
Although there’s no point in criticism after the fact, I still wonder whether the decision Satoru made at that moment was the correct one. Kasumiga Bay was still quite a distance away, and even if we got there we would need additional time to find the canoes we had hidden among the reeds. Plus, running away would make us look guilty (thus giving our pursuers even more reason to come after us), and it may as well be an announcement to the world that we couldn’t use our cantus.
But since we had already started running, there was no time to stop and discuss this. We fled down the valley to the plains, running until I thought my lungs would burst.
“Wait, a minute. I can’t, run anymore!”
Embarrassingly, I was the first to stop. I was never a distance runner to begin with, and after all things I had gone through in the previous days, I was completely exhausted. Five humans and one queerat stopped, panting wildly.
“Just a bit more. I kind of remember this area. The shore should be behind those trees,” Shun pointed to a grove two or three hundred meters ahead.
“Let’s keep moving. Even if you can’t run, just keep walking,” Satoru said, taking my backpack from me.
I started forward, leading the way.
“What was that thing that sounded like a bird cry?” Maria asked.
“A nightjar. Spying for the Giant Hornet colony.”
Maria looked like she doubted what I said.
“It’s true. They have good night vision so they’re used for night reconnaissance.”
She seemed to accept Squealer’s explanation. I thought it was kind of terrible of her to believe that ugly creature over her best friend.
“But it’s already bright out,” Mamoru looked up at the sky.
Under our feet, blue dayflowers were starting to bloom, still wet with the morning dew.
“They use different birds during the day, right?” Satoru asked Squealer.
The woods were starting to come alive with various birdcalls.
“Correct. I’ve heard they use crows during the day because they’re more intelligent.”
As if to interrupt us, a crow cawed loudly.
“Where did it come from?” Satoru looked around wildly.
“There! On that tree.”
Maria had the best vision out of all of us. A hundred meters ahead was an ominous black shape perched on a withered tree.
“Are you sure? Is the crow really watching us?” Shun whispered doubtfully.
Upon closer inspection, the crow didn’t seem to be paying particular attention to us.
“Anyway, let’s just hurry. If we can get to the canoes before Kiroumaru shows up, we’ll be okay.”
Satoru hurried to walk next to me.
Traveling through a grove of oak and chestnut trees, we heard the faint sound of splashing water. The breeze changed directions and we smelled the unique odor of the lake coming from the east. We rushed recklessly onward.
Finally we arrived on the shores of Kasumiga Lake. A sea of reeds rustled gently on the water’s edge.
“Here!” Shun pointed at the area where the canoes were hidden and dashed forward.
We made to follow, but at that moment, a large shadow cut across the sky.
I looked up and saw a crow. Was it the one from before? It soared lazily four or five meters above us and landed on a pine branch. It looked over and crowed provocatively. It didn’t seem to know how scary people could be.
It was a shame I couldn’t use my cantus. I wanted to chuck a rock at its head. We waded through the reeds ankle-deep in the mud, looking for the canoes.
They were nowhere to be seen. I was pretty sure this was the right place. After searching fruitlessly for five minutes, I started getting impatient. The crow was still sitting on the tree, watching our every move and letting out ear-grating caws.
“Weird. It couldn’t possibly have been washed away…”
Even Shun was starting to doubt himself. Then, help came from the most unexpected person.
“Found it!”
Mamoru’s voice had never sounded so promising to me before. We extracted ourselves from the mud and ran in the direction of that jubilant voice.
The canoes appeared to have pulled free of their moorings and been blown around by the wind. If it hadn’t been for the anchors sunk into the mud, they might have drifted away altogether.
We promptly raised anchor. As when we arrived, Satoru and I were in Sakuramasu 2. Maria and Mamoru were in Hakuren 4 and Shun was in Kamuruchi 7.
“Well, then. I will be departing,” Squealer stood on the shore to watch us leave.
“Thank you. We couldn’t have come this far without you,” I thanked him sincerely.
At least, my feelings at that moment were real.
“I wish you a safe journey.”
Squealer stood respectfully as the canoes moved slowly away from the banks.
“Let’s go,” Satoru said.
I turned around and put my paddle in the water.
This time, no one could use their cantus, so we had no choice but to manually row our way across the bay.
We started rowing clumsily. Once we re
ached the Tone River we could just ride the current downstream. But to get there we had to rely on our own strength.
Unfortunately, we made the mistake of overworking ourselves early on. There was still quite a distance to go, but we were all exhausted. My arms were painfully sore and my palms were blistered. It wasn’t yet noon, but we were already burned from the unrelenting sun. The water I splashed on my face to cool myself evaporated within five minutes.
“Heeey, let’s stop a bit,” Shun called, looking worriedly back at us.
Although he was rowing by himself, he was still a lot faster than the rest of us.
“I’m doing fine,” Satoru yelled back.
“We have a long head start. We should take a break while we can.”
Even though I was impatient to get out of here, it was true that we hadn’t had a good rest since yesterday. We decided to take Shun’s advice and take a break.
By a stroke of luck, the clouds came out and drifted across the sun so we could look up a the blue sky as we lay back to nap on the canoe.
The rhythm of the waves lulled me half to sleep. But after narrowly escaping from the jaws of death part of me was still too wound up for me to fall asleep completely.
What were we going to do from now on?
We had learned the forbidden truths. If Satoru’s theory was right, we were now targets for “removal”. Was there any way to escape this fate?
I felt something slipping down my chest under my shirt. Reflexively, I held it down with my right hand.
I pulled it out and stared at it. It was a charm on a purple string. “Protection against karma demons” was embroidered in a complicated design on the front. This past spring, everyone from Sage academy had gone to visit the shrine and received a protective charm.
The teacher had told us never to open the charm, but it’s human nature to want to do things the more you’re told not to do them. Out of all the students who had been given a charm I was the quickest to submit to curiosity. I waited impatiently until I was alone, then opened the charm.
The charm wasn’t sewn shut, but simply tied with string so I could easily take out its contents. Inside was a folded piece of white paper and a glass disc. Written on the paper in black in were strange words that looked more like pictures than writing. It gave me a creepy feeling so I quickly folded it again. I looked at the glass disc for a long time.
