Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe [350]
“They’re resting.”
“Good.” Wataru wanted nothing more than to leave this place, and then he remembered he had a good reason. “I’m going to go take a look around before we bring the survivors to the cave. There might be some more who lived out there. I’d hate to leave them behind.”
Meena shook her head. “There’s no one.”
“How can you be sure?”
“How far would you go? It’s too dangerous to go back to the city.”
“I’ll be careful…”
Before he had finished speaking, a large shadow loomed from behind Meena. It was Kee Keema. His face was frozen. He was damp, cold, and exhausted. The lizard-like skin around his eyes was drawn tight with grief.
That’s right. It had always been Kutz’s passion that kept us going. There were so few like her, with that indomitable energy. There would never be anyone to take her place.
And yet…
“Going on patrol? I’ll come too,” Kee Keema offered.
Good ears. Wataru sighed. “I was thinking of going back by the city gates. There might be some people there who couldn’t walk with the others this far.”
“You’re right,” Kee Keema said, reaching for the axe on his back and pulling it out of its harness. He looked at Meena. “We are Highlanders. Even if we’re in the north now, we still have a duty to Vision.”
Meena looked down at the ground.
“Kutz would have it no other way,” he continued. “She would want us to look for stragglers. That’s why I…”
Tears were welling in the corners of Meena’s eyes. Kee Keema put a large hand on her shoulder. “What will you do? You can stay here and keep watch, if you like.”
“No. I’m coming with you,” Meena replied, lifting her chin. The movement sent tears trickling down her cheeks. They sparkled in the moonlight.
“Good, then let’s keep sharp. Things seem quiet for now, but those demonkin fly, after all. Never know where they might be spying from. We’ll keep to the shadows wherever we can. Keep your heads low.”
“You stand out the most of all of us, Kee Keema.”
“I know, I know.”
At least the crescent moon was on their side. When they wanted to look around, it lit their surroundings, and when they hid in the shrubs and thickets, it wrapped itself in clouds and the night grew dark. I’m your ally, it seemed to say, and though I be too far away to help much, I will do what I can.
The broken wall of the city looked like a giant tsunami frozen in stone. The line of its shattered ramparts curved like a wave, a strange by-product of the destruction. As they crawled closer, straining to see in the dark, it almost looked as though it had been designed that way—some mad artistic project of the late emperor.
“I can’t see the mirror,” Meena muttered, narrowing her eyes. “It should be up in the sky where the Crystal Palace stood.”
She was correct. They should’ve been able to see it in the moonlight—unless the moon itself declined to light such an evil thing.
“It’s probably just too dark to see.”
The stench of death drifted from the burnt shell of the city. The fires had died completely down and the night air was cool. But the area still reeked. How many corpses lay buried under that mountain of brick and stone?
All by himself, and all at once, Mitsuru had taken an uncountable number of lives. He had known it would happen too, yet he never once wavered from his course. He never even tried to think of a different way.
Wataru’s feet brushed through the dry grass. “I was knocked out so I never saw it,” he said suddenly. Kee Keema’s and Meena’s feet stopped.
“Saw what?”
“What the people from the city were talking about. They said that just before the Mirror of Eternal Shadow appeared, a single column of light rose into the sky from the central spire of the Crystal Palace. They said it was like a pillar. And they could see a figure in it, rising upward.”
Meena turned her back on him, looking toward the forest. They had come quite far. Tufts of grass and low-lying shrubs swayed in the night wind.
“Did you—did you two see it?” Wataru began walking forward again, his eyes scanning the darkness around them.
“We saw it,” Kee Keema answered at last.
“Yeah?”
“It looked