Spice & Wolf I (30 page)

“
The wheat…
”

The growl suited the great body, and Lawrence cringed to hear it.

He knew it was Holo, but he couldn’t help himself. If she looked straight at him, he didn’t know if he’d be able to stay composed.

The wolf demanded his awe.

“
The wheat—bring it to me
,” repeated Holo. Lawrence nodded and held out the pouch of wheat in his hand.

Just then, Lawrence felt a heavy pressure, and his body recoiled from it.

When he saw Holo’s lip curl over her fanged jaw, he realized he’d made a terrible mistake.

“
That is your answer. Now, the wheat—
”

Although he knew that Holo intended to take the wheat and leave, her words, as if by some strange magic, compelled his arm to reach out and hand it over.

But he lacked the strength to support the arm or even to hold the pouch.

First the pouch fell from his limp hand to the ground, then his arm collapsed against him.

He wouldn’t be able to pick it up again.

Lawrence looked at the pouch in despair.

“
I thank you for taking care of me
,” said Holo as she approached, deftly picking up the small bag in her massive jaws.

Those amber eyes never once glanced at Lawrence as she backed up one, two, three steps, then turned dexterously in the small tunnel and began to walk away.

The white-tipped tail that was Holo’s pride and joy caught his eye. It was magnificent as it waved sadly and receded down the passage.

Lawrence shouted. His voice was so weak it could barely be considered a shout, but he sounded with all his remaining strength.

“W-wait!”

Holo kept walking.

Lawrence despised himself for recoiling at her approach earlier. How many times had she said that she hated when people regarded her with fear.

But his body had reacted instinctively. Humans couldn’t help that they feared the unknown, and so he had cowered before Holo.

Still, Lawrence thought. Still, he called out her name.

“Holo!” shouted his hoarse voice.

It was useless, he realized—and just then, Holo stopped.

This was his chance. If he couldn’t change her mind here, he would never see her again.

But what to say? Scenarios flitted in and out of his mind.

He couldn’t convincingly claim he wasn’t afraid of her. Her form still terrified him. But he wanted to stop her. He couldn’t find the words to express the conflict he felt.

His mind worked frantically. No doubt Holo would’ve mocked him for being inarticulate as he tried to put together the words that would bring her back.

“How...how much do you think the clothes you destroyed cost?” was what he finally came up with. “I don’t care if you’re a god or not...I’ll see you pay me back! You earned but seventy silver pieces—that’s not nearly enough!”

He yelled at her, trying to sound angry—no, he was genuinely half-angry.

He knew that begging her not to go would be pointless. As he was still terrified of her form, he could only conjure this single reason to prevent her going.

The grudge a merchant will bear over money is deeper than a valley, and a merchant collecting a debt is more persistent than the moon in the night sky.

Lawrence put as much venom into his words as he could to convey that. He was not telling her that he didn’t want her to leave. He was telling her that leaving would be pointless.

“How many years do you think it took me...to save up that much money? I’ll follow you...I’ll follow you all the way back to the northlands, if I have to!”

Lawrence’s voice echoed through the underground tunnels for a while before finally fading.

Holo stood there awhile, then flicked her large tail.

Was she going to turn around?

Lawrence’s strength finally failed him, and he collapsed to the ground even as his chest filled with a nervous impatience.

Holo began walking again.

Her paws pattered softly against the floor of the passage:
tupp, tupp
.

Lawrence felt his vision grow dim.

I’m not crying
, the merchant told himself as his consciousness sank into eternity.

Epilogue

Lawrence stood in utter darkness. Where he was and what he was doing there he did not know.

Darkness hung in every direction, but strangely, he could see his own body.

He wondered where he was.

As he pondered it, he caught a flash of something out of the corner of his eye.

He turned to face it reflexively, but there was nothing. He rubbed his eyes, thinking it had been his imagination, when again the shape flitted across the corner of his vision.

Was it a flame?

He turned again to face it and this time managed a good view of the shape.

It was a chestnut-brown something, waving.

He stared at it, finally realizing that it was no flame.

It was fur. It was a long clump of brown fur that waved.

And it was tipped with a white tuft.

Lawrence’s eyes widened and his breath caught. He sprinted toward it.

That tail—that white tuft—!

It was Holo. There was no mistaking Holo’s tail.

It grew smaller as it waved, and Lawrence called out for it as he ran with all his might.

But no sound issued from his mouth, and the distance to Holo’s tail never diminished.

His feet seemed to grow heavier, which frustrated him. He gritted his teeth and, even as he realized the futility of it, stretched out his right hand.

Holo’s tail abruptly disappeared.

At that moment, Lawrence blinked and looked up at an unfamiliar ceiling.

“Ugh—”

He sat up with a start and pain immediately shot through his left arm. For a moment he was confused, but the pain brought his memories back in a rush.

The Medio Company pursuing him. His arm being stabbed. Being cornered.

And Holo leaving him.

Remembering her tail waving forlornly as she receded, Lawrence sighed.

Trapped in a body that could sit up only with effort, he wondered if there was anything else he could have said to her.

The question loomed in his mind, dwarfing the more immediate issue of where he was.

“Ah, so you’re awake, are you?”

Lawrence turned to face the unexpected voice, and saw Marheit in the doorway.

“How are your injuries?” Marheit walked toward Lawrence, documents in hand, and opened the window beside the merchant’s bed.

“Better...thanks to you.”

A pleasant breeze blew in through the window, carrying sounds of hustle and bustle from which Lawrence inferred that he was in a room at the Milone Company.

Which meant they had come to his rescue after all.

“I must apologize for putting you in such danger through our ineptitude.”

“No, no, my companion was the cause of all this originally.”

Marheit nodded at Lawrence’s words and paused, seeming to choose his next statement carefully.

“Fortunately you were never discovered by the Church, and the disturbance happened underground. If the Church had seen your companions true form, well...it’s quite possible the entire company would’ve been burned as heretics.”

“You saw her true form?” Lawrence asked, stunned.

“Indeed. The people we sent to rescue you returned with a report that there was a giant wolf that said it wouldn’t hand you over until I came personally.”

There was no reason for Marheit to lie. Which meant that after Lawrence lost consciousness, Holo returned to him.

“What of Holo, then? Where is she?”

“She’s gone on to the marketplace. She was quite impatient and said she needed traveling clothes,” said Marheit lightly, not knowing the circumstances—but Lawrence guessed that Holo planned to set off on her own.

She was probably on her way to the northland even now.

The thought left a hole in Lawrence’s heart but perversely also helped him feel that he could now make a clean break.

The days they had spent together had been nothing more than a strange coincidence.

Lawrence forced himself to consider it thus, bringing himself back to the mindset of a merchant.

Aside from Holo, there was another important implication in Marheit s words.

“You said Holo went to the marketplace. Does that mean negotiations with the Medio Company went well?”

“Yes. Our messenger returned from the Trenni castle this morning, concluding negotiations with the king. We’ve obtained the considerations that the Medio Company so desperately wanted, and they seem to have acknowledged their defeat. Everything has gone very smoothly,” said Marheit, pride filling his voice.

“I see. That’s good to hear....So Eve slept for a full day then, have I?”

“Hm? Oh, yes, yes you have. Would you care for some lunch? I was just in the kitchen, and I doubt they’ve turned off the stoves yet, so you could have something hot.”

“No, that’s quite all right. Could I perhaps hear the final results of our negotiation?”

“Yes, of course.”

Lawrence found it slightly odd that someone from the south wasn’t forcing food on him. Perhaps if he’d been from this area, Marheit would’ve been more insistent.

“The amount of silver we collected came to 307,212 pieces. The king plans to significantly cut the silver content of these coins, so he agreed to pay an amount equivalent to 350,000 pieces.”