Goblin Slayer, Vol. 14

“Ah, I heard of you from my
husbondi
; he was
þverted
in greeting you by a sudden visit from his family.”

“Husbondi”? And “þverted”? Priestess was completely at a loss as to what these things meant. From the way the beautiful woman was scratching her cheek, Priestess surmised that she was embarrassed. It seemed this was the
húsfreya
, the housewife, of the man who ruled this area. Her tone seemed to prove that the battle they’d just observed was nothing to get upset over.

Maybe it happens all the time…

Priestess couldn’t hide her hesitation as she worked her way over the hardened ground. And not because of how strange the town, which might have passed for a giant farm, looked. Nor because of the scattered limbs, bloodstains, corpses, and wounded men everywhere. It was because everyone was just cheerfully cleaning up, as if it was a delightful festival and not a major battle that had just occurred.

The words that the
húsfreya
had spoken unsettled her, too. Myths held that the Trade God, who is the wind, had created words, and the god of knowledge had created writing. These had been, the myths said, a shared language among all in the Four-Cornered World.

Meaning language has existed ever since then.
Be it elvish, dwarven, or the
speech of northerners like these. Despite being born and raised on the frontier, Priestess was familiar with a smattering of dialects and could understand them. But she’d never heard such a distended form of the common tongue—perhaps the desert people had been more blessed by the Trade God than she’d realized.

The people were whispering:

“Foreigners…”

“Behold their leader—an unpleasant-looking lad is he…”

“Don’t be foolish. Be a warrior strong of heart; it matters not how he looks.”

“That sword—it’s old but of the
dvergr
. A fine piece of work.”

“From the high mountain they climbed down, of that there’s no mistake.”

“They come of the same homeland as the
goði
.”

“Sooth!”

“Think the young lass there be a
gyðja
?”

“A mannish lass, nothing like ours, is she?”

Priestess was further discomfited by the warriors’ unfamiliar language and their unrestrained stares. The
“lass”
who had just been called
“mannish”
—that is, Priestess—snapped “Hey!” and the warriors all pointedly averted their eyes.

It seemed that they were the subject of some friendly teasing, but Priestess could barely follow what was being said. Including what was being said to her party. Maybe the northerners found her strange because she was a follower of a foreign cult—or maybe they looked down upon her for being a willowy-looking woman.

The warriors in their teardrop-shaped helmets looked like dwarves who had simply been stretched to human height, their girth remaining unchanged. They were well-muscled and strong, bearded, looking altogether like boulders that had come to life. Priestess was surprised only that none of them had horns on their helmets. Illustrated stories about the northern barbarians always depicted them that way…

“A dragon!”

“A lizardman, that be.”

“A terrifying countenance has he!”

“Behold the
freya
there. Gods, is she an
álfr
?”

“Hoh, there’s an
álfr
!”

“She’s lovely as a celestial maiden…”

“Beautiful indeed. Merely to look at her is to be taken by gooseflesh…”

The warriors—to say nothing of the townspeople cleaning up the charred parts of their home—naturally took an interest in another member of Priestess’s party.

“Ah, I believe I feel the chill abating…”

“Oh, act decent. They’re watching us.”

Lizard Priest plodded heavily along—while beside him, the high elf was practically dancing. She looked this way and that, her gorgeous hair blowing in the breeze, truly a stunning sight.

What was more striking still was that the princess of this land suffered nothing in the comparison. “My apologies. They’re younglings.”

“Well, they probably don’t see many like me. The high elves are pretty much a thing of the past up here, right?”

Those of High Elf Archer’s kindred who remained in these lands either kept clear of human dwellings or else had disappeared seamlessly into human society. Meanwhile, the elf in question was drinking in the attention. Priestess, feeling a touch of jealousy, hid in the elf’s shadow to keep herself out of sight. She’d always thought her friend was beautiful—an otherworldly beauty.

“Looks like they don’t pay much attention to dwarves, though,” High Elf Archer said.

“Well, that’d be because we’ve provided weapons around here, ourselves.” The dwarf, walking quite easily along the dirt path, looked as much at home as if he was in his own town. He might be considered the most grown-up of the party members, in the sense that he had the widest experience of the world. Priestess thought maybe he’d even been up to the north before, but he merely laughed. “Goodness, no. But we worship the same deity of iron. Humans and dwarves are cousins… Well, perhaps second cousins.”

“Ah, the smithy god.” Priestess nodded. One of the deities she’d learned about as a cleric. She didn’t know much about him, though. Only that he was ancient, and terrible, and an enigma…

As for Goblin Slayer…

Wondering what he was up to, she let her gaze wander in search of the cheap-looking metal helmet. She found him standing directly behind the
húsfreya
; from the moment introductions had been made, it seemed he had been understood to be the leader of the party. He walked along at his usual bold stride, giving no indication that he noticed the whispering…

Huh?

Priestess involuntarily cocked her head, surprised. The tattered tassel that hung from Goblin Slayer’s helmet was shaking more than usual. Or rather, the helmet itself seemed to be turning this way and that. He was taking it all in: the burned houses, the buildings that were still standing, and the towering hall toward which they were headed. He was being vigilant, Priestess suspected, feeling herself stiffen.

“…I thought it was simply rubble, but it seems I was mistaken,” he said.

“Are such things of interest to you?” the
húsfreya
asked. A beatific smile added itself to the already radiant beauty of her face, and her rosy lips formed the musical sounds of her words. “’Tis but peat. Nothing to warrant your surprise.”

“I see,” Goblin Slayer said and nodded as if this answer truly satisfied him. “Peat.” Then he could be heard to mutter inside his helmet: “Hearing of it and seeing it are such different things.” Priestess blinked to realize that while his voice was soft, it was neither mechanical nor nonchalant.

“What about that, then?” Goblin Slayer asked, pointing to a silhouette that rose on the far side of town. In the direction of the port, if Priestess remembered correctly. Whatever it was, it was massive, vaulting up into the air, too small to be a wooden strong tower and yet too slender to be a watchtower. In Priestess’s eyes, it looked like nothing more than a giant arm.

“Ah, most interesting, is it not? It is a heavy lifting device we call a crane.” The
húsfreya
smiled broadly and clapped her hands, as pleased as if Goblin Slayer had been impressed by her own self. “To help load cargo on the boats, it is—my
husbondi
tells me they have quite the same thing in the capital.” According to him, she explained, even the largest of objects could be lifted without the need for so much as a harness—it was very easy.

As she spoke, the
húsfreya
touched the keys that dangled at her hip, moving her hands and even her whole body up and down so that despite her accent, even Priestess grasped that the thing at the port was a device for lifting cargo.

“Wow,” she breathed to herself as she imagined the great wooden arm hoisting a load of cargo. The image seemed unreal to her, and she couldn’t let go of the thought that magic must be involved somehow. Then again, for the life of her, she just couldn’t follow exactly what the
húsfreya
was saying, so maybe there was something she was missing…

“I see,” Goblin Slayer said, then repeated the words under his breath along with a nod: “I see. Extremely interesting. In that case—”

Priestess steeled herself, clutched her sounding staff, and piped up: “Um, uh, Goblin Slayer, sir…?”

“What is it?”

“Are you…curious about it?”

“Yes.” The helmet bobbed up and down, distinctly and immediately. “Very curious.” Priestess had never heard him speak in this tone before; she almost wasn’t sure how to respond to it.

The
húsfreya
, meanwhile, smiled as compassionately as a goddess and said, “If your curiosity is so great, perhaps you’d like to go and see it later?”

“Absolutely.” Goblin Slayer’s response was as decisive as ever. Priestess was left blinking. “However, we must first offer our greetings.”

Happily, Priestess’s confusion was soon relieved—or perhaps one should say, the need for it disappeared. The
húsfreya
and then Goblin Slayer stopped before the great gate of the hall.

“This is the portal of my
husbondi
’s
skáli
, his longhouse.”

So on the other side of this gate…

On the other side resided the man who oversaw this territory. Priestess swallowed.

The
húsfreya
seemed to perceive her nervousness; her eyes glinted with playful mischief. “Adventurers, we bid you welcome.”

Priestess felt herself tense up again.

§

“Pardon us,
husbondi
. I have brought the honored adventurers.”

“Hoh! Have you indeed, my wife? Excellent, excellent.”

“’Twere nothing.”

“My thanks. Now, come here and warm yourself at the hearth. ’Tis cold, and for a young
freya
to let herself freeze is bad for the health.”

“But of course…” The
húsfreya
bowed her head and blushed, mumbling a few words of protest at her demonstrative husband. The way she let her fingers brush the keys at her hip, though, suggested she felt comforted.
Apparently, this husband and wife get along very well…I think
, Priestess mused. Even inside the gloomy building, she was still tense, her breath coming in short gasps.

So this was the king of the northern barbarians. Or no, maybe their governor? Or chieftain? Maybe that would be the most appropriate term…

“I’ve been told to stay away or the roughnecks might get me… They’d just go on about gettin’ robbed.”

In Priestess’s mind, he appeared as a great, rough man with a beard, huge and terrifying. Surely the king, at least, would wear a horned helmet. And armor, no doubt…

Almost before her hazy imagination could take the form of one of the terrible kings of old, there were brusque footsteps. It was Goblin Slayer, marching forward without a trace of fear.

“Oh—oh!” Everyone else followed him, with Priestess catching up a beat later.

No wonder the longhouse—the
skáli
—was so gloomy. There was
not a single window to speak of in the structure, which was built up from piled peat. There was something that arguably amounted to a skylight up in the triangular roof, but…

Is that some kind of…leather?

A thin, semitranslucent animal skin was stretched across the opening.

It wasn’t true, though, that there was no light at all inside. Priestess gradually registered that the floor was dirt and that there was a fire glittering in the large central hearth. That would explain the warmth she felt. Meanwhile, long benches ran along the walls on either side of the hearth. They looked somewhat like oblong chests; maybe they concealed storage space.

I’ve seen plenty like them back on the frontier…

Priestess smiled a little, relieved to see something familiar here in this foreign land. She could easily picture people sitting on these benches, eating dinner together around the fire.

“This way, if you would be so kind.”

Priestess found herself with plenty of time to observe the interior of the longhouse as the
húsfreya
guided them along. For Goblin Slayer, though his steps were decisive, was also looking this way and that. It gave Priestess every opportunity to drink in the details of the unusual building.

“…It’s like being inside a ship,” High Elf Archer whispered to her.

“You’re right,” Priestess whispered back. “Except the roof would be the bottom…”

At length, they found themselves at the very center of the bench, where one seat, raised above the others, was positioned directly before the hearth. It was wide and deep, such that it looked like even Lizard Priest could have rested comfortably on it.

The party looked at one another, then sat in a row with Goblin Slayer at their center. They sat with a fur blanket over their knees, and when they looked up, they saw two pillars flanking the high seat. Much thicker and more imposing than any of the other pillars, they were carved with images of the gods in stunning, fluid likenesses. One
of the pillars depicted a fearsome-looking one-eyed, one-legged deity Priestess took to be the smithy god, but the other…

Is that…a goddess?

It was an unfamiliar deity, neither the Earth Mother nor the Valkyrie, yet one who combined martial prowess with compassion.

“Wife.”

“Yes?”

The
húsfreya
bowed her head at this summons from the hearth and shuffled closer. Much later, Priestess would learn that this was the
stofa
, the living room, and the chieftain was seated upon the
öndvegi
, the high seat. Even at that moment, however, she understood the meaning of the seating arrangement.

We’re facing the throne, in essence.

She gazed warily at the seat on the far side of the gloom and the fire and the haze of smoke. There was a tapestry depicting the brave deeds of ancient warriors. A powerful man standing upon mountains of corpses and rivers of blood as he sought to steal the robe of the Ice God’s Daughter, who ate warriors’ souls.

This brave young man, who no doubt would go on one day to be king, subdued the terrible monsters with his bare hands, could be seen breaking their arms. It even showed the dark elf ranger, the man’s friend and companion, the fearsome user of a two-sword style whose presence could be just glimpsed in the old stories.

Below this tapestry of this song of ice and fire a huge man sat, as if he embodied the stories themselves. He wore tall fur boots and sheepskin trousers. Lengthy mail of black metal. A pelt around his shoulders. And the buckle on his belt was made of bronze. What’s more…

“Ah, welcome, welcome, my adventuring friends. It must be rather colder here than you’re used to in the south, eh?” he offered. The young man had a face like a brave gray wolf, and as friendly as his smile was, it still looked like he was baring his fangs.

“Oh…,” Priestess said.

He spoke the common tongue. With no accent at all. And he didn’t
even have a beard, nor were there any horns on the helmet beside him. As he sat there, his left hand resting on the hilt of a sword buried in the earth, he looked less like a chieftain of the northern barbarians and more like…

“Are you a knight?” Goblin Slayer asked, decisive as ever.

“Was once,” the young chieftain answered amiably. “I was blessed with great deeds and better fortune. Last year, when these lands were added to the kingdom… Well, I was added as a son to this family by marriage.”

“And we, too, by my
husbondi
, were blessed by the loving mother of darkness,” said the
húsfreya
, who waited beside the chief. She smiled—Priestess thought she might have blushed, too—and acknowledged him with a nod.

Yes, she had heard of something like that before they set out. Something about a land where adventurers were not yet established. That was why the quest had been largely about observation—but even so, one thing made Priestess absolutely goggle.

“The loving mother of darkness—you don’t mean the sadistic god, do you…?!” She wouldn’t go so far as to call this god evil. But it was unquestionably a deity aligned with Chaos. A deity of Chaos worshipped by the dark elves, who venerated pain and hurting people. A name to curse by.

The
húsfreya
looked at Priestess, perplexed, and Priestess realized that the woman wasn’t that much older than she was. But while she didn’t seem to understand the source of Priestess’s shock, the chieftain laughed merrily.

“Ha-ha-ha! I labored under the same misimpression at first. But in a land as harsh as this one, she’s a beneficent deity.”

“Sooth. Is it not said that the Valkyrie herself once served the loving mother of darkness?”

“Wh-what?”

Priestess blinked, not hiding her amazement. She’d thought that myth had to do with the smithy god. First the tranquility in the face of murder committed in the name of…taking wives or some such, and
now this… Priestess felt dizzy, her head spinning as if she’d had some less-than-high-quality alcohol.

She seemed to recall that the runners had a saying:
Don’t let the culture shock kill you.

“My own father was a friend of the chieftain here—the last one, I mean—and so when there was word that demons had appeared in this land, I came to help.” He’d meant to go straight home after that. “But it was not to be!” he said with a laugh. “Even the strongest warrior may be overcome by love. And ahhh, love captured me completely!”

“Gracious,
husbondi
…!”

Yes, indeed; they got along very well. The
húsfreya
tugged on her husband’s sleeve and glanced shyly at the ground.

“You do not mind us looking around?” asked Goblin Slayer. “It seems you have much going on.”

“You mean the
brúðrav
, the bride-taking? Oh, that happens all the time. Surprised me at first, too.”

Was that what the chief figured Goblin Slayer meant by
“much going on”
?

“Anyhow, we were the ones who asked His Majesty to send a survey. Not that winter is quite over yet.” The chieftain grinned and reached out with his right hand for a stick with which to stir the fire, but the
húsfreya
stopped him and attended the flames instead. There was crackling and sparking, and the chieftain whispered something to the
húsfreya
, who nodded.

Then he said, “I admit, one thing we weren’t told was that there would be a lizardman. Before anything else, you must warm yourself.”

“Ahhh, for that, I am most grateful…!” Lizard Priest with his down cloak leaned almost hungrily toward the hearth. High Elf Archer, beside him, smiled hopelessly and made room. Closer to the fire would certainly be more comfortable for him.

“We have no inns around here, but we’ve prepared a house for you to sleep in. Please, use it as you like.”

“And what might we do about,
ahem
, victuals?” Dwarf Shaman inquired.

The young man grinned. “There’s nowhere in the world the radiance of the god of wine doesn’t illuminate, and no land that’s ignorant of
drekka
.”

“This
drekka
you speak of,” Dwarf Shaman said, stroking his beard. “Would it be the name of a wine?”

“It means to drink alcohol. And to drink alcohol means to have a feast!”

The chieftain sounded so calm about it that it took Priestess a moment to understand what he was saying. She blinked: a feast. A feast. The word went around and around in her head.

When you have guests, of course you have a feast. That was all well and good. And yet…

“W-wasn’t there just a battle…?”

She almost jumped out of her spot on the high seat, but the
húsfreya
stopped her with a wave of her hand. “Fear not, fear not. A
drekka
is good fortune after a battle.”

“Anyway, that’s what they say around these parts.” There was a mischievous glint in the chieftain’s eye: If this was enough to shock them, they wouldn’t last long here! “I guarantee the others are doing the same. The messenger who went to demand the return of the kidnapped women is probably falling down drunk by now.”

“’Nother words, they’ve been bought,” Dwarf Shaman observed.

“Whaaa…?” Priestess moaned, but Dwarf Shaman just grinned and refused to take the hint.

The chieftain gave a dramatic sigh and shook his head. “And if the ladies have been kidnapped and the messenger bought off, there’s nothing for it but to have the biggest wedding
drekka
we can throw.”

It’s…j-j-just…a different culture
, Priestess thought, feeling herself grow faint. Beside her, the cheap-looking helmet bobbed up and down. In spite of herself, she looked at him beseechingly. People treated him as if he were some kind of freak, but in fact he was quite sensible—even if his battle strategies could be a little out there.

He said: “That’s profoundly interesting.”

Priestess exclaimed the name of the Earth Mother in her heart.

§

“What? We’re going sightseeing? We’re not taking a rest?”

The introductions were over and the banquet was still in preparation, and they were at the house they had been given. High Elf Archer, who had claimed the second closest bench to the hearth as her bed, was twitching her ears.

The place was smaller than the chieftain’s
skáli
but still clearly well-appointed. That much was obvious from the quality of the pelts laid out on the benches.

“I think I’ll go see the place,” Goblin Slayer (who had indeed looked very interested on the way over) said with a nod of his helmet. He sounded quite calm. He’d already deposited their belongings in a room with a dirt floor at the back of the house that looked like it was probably for storing provisions.

Priestess thought back, wondering when their last proper rest had been.
Not since we were in that cave before we went into the underground city…

“Boo,” High Elf Archer said, stretching out indolently on the bench; Priestess didn’t really blame her. The elf had already thrown down her belongings, tossed aside her cloak, and was barefoot, having stripped off her boots and socks. She was well and truly ready to relax, and maybe that was that.

“I-if you don’t mind, I could come with you…!” Priestess offered eagerly; she had only just set down her things. In any case, this was a quest, it was a job, and it was an adventure. She wanted to get a good look at the town. And it would have been untrue to say she didn’t feel some curiosity.

The water town, the elf village, the snowy mountain, the sea, the ruined dwarven fortress, the desert country, and this faraway land.

If I hadn’t become an adventurer, I would never have seen any of them my whole life.

And so, she felt, it wouldn’t be right to let this moment get away. The sense that it would be a waste flickered like a little flame in her heart. Not to say she wouldn’t have liked to toss everything aside and just lounge on the bench like her elder friend…

“Urrrgh…” The elf’s battle with lethargy was obviously growing more intense. She grumbled, groaned, flipped over on the bench, then looked at them while she lay on her stomach.

More specifically, she gazed at Goblin Slayer with upturned eyes; he was silently checking over his equipment and getting his gear ready. She knew perfectly well that within a few seconds, his preparations would be over.

Priestess, too, was inspecting the modicum of equipment she had with her, as had become her habit.

The words that came next were a short question: “Are you coming or not?”

“…Okay, I’m coming.” High Elf Archer, finally victorious over her own sloth, pulled herself up to a sitting position with all the eagerness of a cat waking up in the morning. She reached for her belongings as though nothing could have been more annoying, considered whether to take out a change of socks, then finally pulled on the ones she had been wearing earlier. As she slid her long, pale legs into her boots, she could be heard mumbling, “Never know if you’ll get another chance.”

“An elf? Probably will,” Dwarf Shaman remarked. He was tending the fire in the hearth and showed no sign of abandoning his chosen duty.

“You don’t know the half of it.” High Elf Archer sniffed. “I could blink and you’d all be gone!”

“Ah yes, all things are impermanent.” Lizard Priest, in the seat closest to the fire that High Elf Archer had left open for him, nodded his long head. He must have finally been able to relax a little now that they were settled indoors, but the way he curled up reminded Priestess of nothing so much as…

…a dragon.

A drowsy dragon, like the one she’d actually seen in the desert—no doubt it would look something like this.

“Are we sure about this?” Priestess asked as High Elf Archer rubbed her face and pulled on her overwear. Their two party members sitting by the fire gave no indication of moving, and she was somewhat hesitant to leave them there.

“Gotta have someone look after the luggage, eh?” Dwarf Shaman said, grinning widely enough to show his teeth. “Besides,” he added, producing a small knife from the pile of belongings, “we’ve got to make some preparations of our own for this
‘drekka.’
And Scaly…”

“Yes, I would rather prefer to warm my blood by the fire.”

“There yeh have it.”

He was right. Priestess smiled with a touch of disappointment but also a touch of relief. This was an unfamiliar land. It wasn’t that they didn’t trust the people here, but as experienced travelers, they knew the need for someone to keep an eye on their possessions. And it was heartening to know that there would be someone there with their companion who was feeling unwell.

“You sure you’re all right?” Maybe High Elf Archer was having the same thoughts, for she gave Lizard Priest a look that was only somewhat teasing.

“Ha. If the likes of this were enough to cause us to go extinct, my bloodline would have died out long ago.”

“Yeah, but we were deep enough underground for molten rock. You weren’t exactly fighting the cold.”

“Hrmmm…” Lizard Priest had nothing to say to that; High Elf Archer laughed aloud.

“All right, see you later, then—at this banquet, I guess?”

“If yeh actually get back by then, I’ll take it the town’s welcome was none too warm.”

“Mm,” said Goblin Slayer, who had been preparing silently until that moment. “Shall we go, then?”

“Suit yourselves! Don’t mind us—go enjoy the sights.”

Mm.
The metal helmet nodded in response to Dwarf Shaman’s careless wave. They opened the door and went out, Priestess somewhat frantically and High Elf Archer happily, tugging a cap down onto her head as she went.

Oh! The sun is already—

So that was why it was so dark inside, Priestess realized. And for the first time, she discovered that the night sky was blue. Perhaps it was
the sea in front of her. Maybe it was because the stars had changed places in the sky. She looked up at the heavens, where the twin moons danced along with the stars, her breath fogging. It was pleasant, placing her hands near her mouth to be warmed by her breath.

“…Gosh, it’s so cold,” Priestess said.

“You’re not kidding,” High Elf Archer replied, tugging her hat down over her ears and shivering. She’d had the hat since last winter, and apparently, it had somehow avoided being buried in her room in the intervening year. Priestess remarked that it looked good on her, to which High Elf Archer replied, “Thanks!” and winked, then burst out laughing.

Banter aside, it really is cold…

At extreme temperatures, she had heard, it could become impossible to distinguish the sensation of cold from actual pain; it could even be suffocating. Priestess was amazed that Goblin Slayer could calmly take in the scenery. She was starting to think that leaving her mail on had been a mistake, whatever arguments one might make in its favor. She treasured the outfit, but in the northern lands, it felt very heavy and very, very cold.

I’ll have to make sure I do some maintenance later or the freezing might take a toll.

Even metal could become brittle in a frozen land—hence why the smithy god was venerated here, or so she’d heard some long time ago. Priestess had learned a little about metal because it was considered to be a blessing of the Earth Mother as well—after all, it came from the ground.

Truly, the secrets of iron ran deep. It would be presumptuous of her to think she knew anything, having heard only a smattering. Maybe she could ask Goblin Slayer how to take care of her equipment. Or perhaps…

That princess and her lord were both wearing mail…

That was when a voice like a lute inquired: “Goodness, but is anything the matter?”

It was the
húsfreya
herself.

§

The gorgeous gold-and-pale woman stood smiling in the snow, under the dark night sky. If she had looked like the Valkyrie before, now she could have been taken for the Earth Mother incarnate. She was no longer wearing an outfit that looked suited for battle; instead, she had changed into a high-quality fur dress and apron. It showed a good deal of her cleavage, which, no longer restrained by the mail, curved gracefully, as pale as the rest of her.

The elaborately embroidered shawl, however, blunted any sense of the erotic, and she didn’t look cold, either. Her dress and the rest of her outfit was likewise embroidered—it must have taken a very long time. She still had the bundle of keys at her hip, and—wouldn’t you know it!—the dull black metal was carefully worked with delicate designs, as befitted a place that venerated the smithy god. With her lovely golden hair held back by a scarf, she didn’t look quite like a noble from the capital, but still…

…She’s very pretty
, Priestess thought, letting out a foggy sigh in spite of herself. The woman was nothing like she would have imagined from talk of northern
“barbarians.”

The
húsfreya
saw Priestess’s expression and gave her a gentle smile, then held up some pieces of cloth. “I’ve brought blankets. Our lands must seem cold to you.”

“Oh! Thank you…!”

“We can’t have you sneezing,” the
húsfreya
remarked. Priestess gratefully took the proffered blankets. They were woven wool, each of them a riot of color that had obviously taken a great deal of time and care to create.

And what matters is, they look really warm!

Priestess hugged the fluffy things, suddenly looking forward to going to bed that night. She thanked the
húsfreya
again and went right back through the door to offer blankets to the other two inside.

“Certainly!” Lizard Priest exclaimed, laughing and slapping the ground with his tail; Priestess closed the door again behind herself.

“I was observing the country at night,” Goblin Slayer said, and Priestess suddenly stopped in her tracks. “The country of darkness and night.” He was standing in the middle of the path, looking up at the sky as snow fell, piling on his helmet, though it didn’t seem to bother him. He looked like a child gazing at the stars, like a child who would never tire of counting the countless gleaming spots in the sky. “Dark forests, leaden clouds, black rivers, a lonely wind, and endless mountains.” Finally, he moved his head, turning to look at the
húsfreya
. “I was told that in this land, there were only the wind, and clouds, and dreams; hunts and battles; silence and shadows… But it seems there is more.”

“It seems you are a poet, good sir. Like one of our
skalds
.”

“The words are not mine,” he replied to the chuckling
húsfreya
, taciturn as ever. He shook his head. Priestess, however, had never heard the unusual lines he’d just spoken.

“It’s a very old song,” High Elf Archer said, though it was hard to read her tone.

“Is that right?” Priestess asked; it was all she could manage.
Why?
Was it the foreign land, the snow, or the night? What was it that had sometimes left her feeling disconnected since they had begun this journey?

“I was hoping to go down to the port before the feast. If it’s not too much trouble.”

“Goodness, now? Yes, and I shall accompany you.”

“Sorry about this,” High Elf Archer said from under her hat, but she was grinning. “Nothing like making a princess be our tour guide.”

“I’m not bothered at all. You’ve taken the trouble to be here.” Then they set off down the snowy path, with the
húsfreya
at their head.

Puffs of black smoke could still be seen here and there around the village, and many people remained occupied repairing ruined houses or stone walls. But each time anyone saw the
húsfreya
, they would stop what they were doing and bow. She would smile and bow politely back, and the locals would return to their work, albeit usually with a suspicious glance at the people following her.

“They really respect you,” Priestess said.

“I was the only child of my father left after his passing. Though I was hardly in the cradle.” The
húsfreya
looked at the villagers with something like embarrassment. “Our
konungr
, our king,” she began but quickly corrected herself. “Our
goði
is really just a
bondi
, a freeman. He isn’t so special or important.”

“Still, can’t blame anyone for wondering what’s up when the daughter of someone important is showing strangers around. They think maybe she shouldn’t be. I understand,” High Elf Archer said, sounding surprisingly friendly. Then the high elf kicked the snow on the road, almost deliberately, and said, “Hey, what do people think of adventurers around here? That’s one thing I want to figure out.”

“Well…” The
húsfreya
smiled uncomfortably. “In this place, they are regarded as pirates and thieves.”

“In other words, as rogues…?” Priestess asked, tapping one of her cold-benumbed fingers against her lips. Then she nodded, her breath fogging as she made a sound of acknowledgment. She thought she saw what the issue was. Probably. Even if it was somewhat difficult for her to understand it in her bones.

The Adventurers Guild itself had originally arisen essentially as a way of assuring people that the state would keep an eye on the ne’er-do-wells running around. In other words, with no Guild, “adventurer” wasn’t a job—adventurers were just a ragtag bunch of uncouth villains.

Thus, even in the land of Priestess’s birth, an air of mistrust clung thickly to adventurers. She could almost take it for granted that she could rely on the Guild for everything, and she was happy that way. That was how adventurers should be. But while the Guild had a reasonably long history in her own land, here, such a thing as an Adventurers Guild didn’t even exist. Adventurers were nothing more than ruffians, curs, and villains.

“Sooth,” the
húsfreya
said earnestly, although—perhaps in deference to her present company—with some hesitation. “Long ago, there was once a great fool who stole a golden vessel from a burial place.”

“Did a dragon appear?” Goblin Slayer asked immediately. His helmet turned so he was looking straight at the woman.

Argh, again.
Priestess sighed to find that even these slight movements of his still caught her attention. He was different from his usual self somehow. She couldn’t say exactly how, though, and that bothered her.

“Indeed, and a terrible one. They say the whole land became a sea of fire.”

The
húsfreya
continued to speak of the old story as if this history was of no consequence—indeed, it wasn’t. Priestess took a deep breath of cold air, hoping to sweep away the nebulous dark thing within her.

“Dragons are very scary,” she said.

“You speak as though you’ve seen one with your own eyes.”

“I have.” Priestess giggled at the way the
húsfreya
’s eyes went wide; it was adorable. Then the woman puffed out her chest like a proud child about to share a secret and said, “But it was so frightening that I ran away as fast as I could!”

§

When Priestess thought about it, she realized this might be the first proper port she’d ever seen in her life, although to her it looked much like a ship’s landing built on the banks of a lake. A wharf jutted out from the shore into the water, with several boats moored to it. The resemblance between these ships and the gondolas she’d seen in the water town reinforced the impression that it was all familiar.

But the size!

“Wow…
Wow…
”

The first proper ship Priestess ever saw in her life was like a gondola big enough to hold a hundred people. (Granted, that was just her impression; maybe a few dozen was the limit…) Several oars extended from each gunwale, and a great mast dominated the center of the ship. It was all enough to make a young woman stop and stare.

But that wasn’t all: There were barbarian warriors aboard, shouting and rowing the ship out into the blizzard-tossed sea. It was like something out of a child’s dream. “Incredible,” Priestess mumbled again.

“Mm,” Goblin Slayer said from under his helmet, where he stood beside her staring intently at the boat. “Indeed.”

“Does it truly impress you that much?” the
húsfreya
asked, standing on the wharf and watching them with something like amusement.

The night was already cold, and being by the water only made it colder, and yet…

Simply to have been able to see this…
, Priestess thought. That alone made it worth having come here.

The ships were black shapes floating upon the ink-dark surface of the water. The prows were carved in the likeness of dragon heads, making them look like nests of sea monsters. Priestess breathed on her numb fingers and said, “Yes, it really does!” and smiled. “There is one thing that’s a little upsetting, though…”

“Yeah,” agreed High Elf Archer, who was holding her cap down on her head, mindful of her ears. “If only there hadn’t just been a battle.”

Yes, that was it. Most of the ships were intact, but several of them were riddled with arrows or showed signs of having been scorched by fire. If there was a silver lining, it was that nothing appeared to have sunk during the fighting, but it was obvious that the battle had only just ended. It was one thing to see a warrior with a scar from an old injury—but these wounds were fresh.

“Um, earlier, you said your family had shown up,” Priestess began. Even though she still felt almost dizzy with culture shock, she picked up a piece of wood lying about. The damage she could see in it was recent but a bit too old to have been inflicted today. She felt a gaze on her from behind the metal helmet and nodded.

Goblin Slayer said, “Goblins?”

“Do you mean orcs?” the
húsfreya
asked in surprise, but then she laughed and waved her hands:
No, no.
“Orcs are but stupid little crybabies.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“The family comes every year, but this year rather earlier and more often than usual.”

“Ah, so that’s it.” High Elf Archer nodded; if she hadn’t been
holding her hat down on her head, her ears would probably have twitched. “I have to admit, I was kind of wondering about that injury of his. To his right arm.”

“Gracious. You noticed?” The
húsfreya
scratched her cheek, but Priestess made a sound of surprise. “He was hurt?” she asked, turning to High Elf Archer even as the salty wind caught her hair in its chill grasp.

“Eh, he smelled like blood. And he kept his right arm covered with his cloak. And you didn’t see him in the battle, did you?” The high elf added indifferently that she’d kept quiet about it because it wasn’t good to point out a king’s injury.

Was High Elf Archer just that observant, or did her sharp high elf senses help her discern the situation? Priestess wasn’t sure; she knew only that she had failed to notice an injured person, and that was unacceptable.

The townspeople (
“bondi”
—was that what the
húsfreya
had called them?) had looked so calm that Priestess had simply left them.

But really…

Really she should already be among the people, caring for wounds and helping to rebuild.

The
húsfreya
noticed her worried expression. “Don’t worry about my
husbondi
; he’s quite fine.” She smiled. “It’s an injury to the bone of his right arm. He’ll soon be better with some rest.”

“The bone…”

But that was terrible. Even with proper treatment, there was no telling if it would knit correctly. And worse for a warrior, even if it did heal properly, one couldn’t be sure it would move like it used to. Very few were lucky enough to have a cleric with miracles present at the moment they were injured. Injuries like this were one of the main reasons that many adventurers, soldiers, and mercenaries finally retired. And all of this was even more crucial in these cold climes for a man who led a martial people as their chief.

“Do you not have a cleric who’s been granted miracles?” Priestess asked, eyeing the bandage wrapped around the
húsfreya
’s head. It was
clear that the eye beneath had been damaged; scar tissue was visibly peeking out from under the wrapping.

“This was an offering to the sadistic god,” the
húsfreya
said with a smile, sounding as if it was completely unremarkable. Then she shook her head sadly. “A
gyðja
we have, but my
husbondi
in his pride will not listen to her.”

“And miracles are valuable,” High Elf Archer said knowingly. “In battle, you probably prioritize the soldiers over the king.”

“I know such an injury isn’t fatal, but…,” Priestess began, but then she wasn’t sure how to finish. The
húsfreya
stared silently out to sea with an inscrutable expression. She was probably more worried about her husband than anyone, but she refused to say anything forward. Priestess was still inexperienced, still didn’t know the subtleties of this place. Maybe her friends in the capital—Female Merchant and King’s Sister—would have known what to do, but…

“…I’m sorry,” she said after a long moment.

“It’s all right. Worried as I am, it’s simply that my dear
husbondi
is the stubborn type.”

“I see.” Goblin Slayer broke brusquely into the melancholy conversation. He had already taken a walk around the wharf at his bold stride; he now asked with interest, “And is this the
‘crane’
you mentioned?” He was staring intently at the wooden watchtower constructed along the shore.

It was a great, looming shadow, even darker than the night sky and sea between which it towered. Priestess had, after all, been wrong to imagine it as a gigantic arm. She realized now that it was more like a dragon’s long neck.

“It’s like an elephant’s nose, huh?” High Elf Archer said quietly.

“An elephant?” Priestess didn’t really understand, but the elf waved away her confusion.

The tower was rigged with a series of ropes that were evidently what enabled it to lift cargo up and down. Priestess’s admiring exclamation took on physical form as white fog, and High Elf Archer remarked, “Humans think of even stranger things than dwarves!”

“Normally, if something was too heavy to lift, you’d have to give up, or at least call for help,” Priestess commented.

“And giving up is no way to survive in this land of snow,” the
húsfreya
said. A cutting gust of snowy wind came through, and she smiled as if it were a pleasant autumn breeze.

Cultural practices were shaped by the land and the people who lived there. Surely there was no single aspect of culture that every single person in the Four-Cornered World had in common. The lives these people led every day in this place must have been beyond Priestess’s imagination.

And that’s why…

Her amazement wasn’t because their culture was so
strange
but because it was so ordinary.

“And is this the control mechanism for the crane?”

“Sooth.”

Priestess’s busy mind was, of course, of no consequence to Goblin Slayer, who was interested in the device itself. The ropes hanging from the crane were attached to some kind of large mechanism on the wharf. It looked a bit like a stone step and a bit like the large wooden training poles set up on the practice grounds. Several thick wooden rods radiated out from the center, and from the circular shape worn in the ground around the device, those rods were probably pushed to turn the device.

“So you have slaves turn the thing?” High Elf Archer asked.

“Yes,
þrælls
.”

“And that rolls up the ropes, which lifts the cargo…”

There must also have been some way to change which way the crane was facing. When repairing a ship, with hands all around, the crane must turn in every possible direction. Now, at night, they were the only ones at the port, but Priestess found herself thinking once more how astonishing everything here was.

She and others from the southern reaches regarded the people here as rustic and uncivilized. But nothing she had seen in this town made it seem like the home of barbarians.