Chapter 148

The Bloodsoaked Mother Narsha'at,

She leads her daughters

The Cindered Father Huldtar,

He leads his sons

They lead our people, no other.

Though once they dared to try

To unite while in the skies,

The moon and suns

Were not the ones

To suffer.

The tyranny of the tower–

–remains of a prophecy from the Blackened Sanctuary.

"Ashlani."

Sybil's voice pulled me from my stomping pacings. I whirled to look at her, and she met my gaze evenly. With a forceful turn, I cut off the snarl that immediately bubbled up my throat at her confrontation. 

"What?" I couldn't keep the growl from my tone as I resumed my pacing. After days of no sign of the humans, I had long felt my frustration continue to build until it had arrived at a boiling head. There weren't even any casualties among the scouts to let us know where the Nievtala-forgotten creatures could be, and my failure loomed over me. I looked more and more like a fool to all these lesser creatures with every day that passed, and these keelish that should have been worshipping me were instead–

With a deliberate shake of my head, I forced myself to stop thinking about it. I had felt where that course of thought led, and it was far from productive. 

"Ashlani, we have received news from the scouts. Are you ready for my report?"

I forced myself to stop pacing and rested my eyes on Sybil. "Yes." I fought to keep myself from grinding my teeth, and then, an inexplicable calm settled over me. I stood tall, looked at Sybil, and with a measured dip of my head, bid her to continue. As Sybil began to speak, I began to understand that this calm came from [Imperial Bearing] and it was forcing me to better comport myself before my subordinate. Initially, I was disgusted by the [Skill] changing my mood and my attitude, but as I saw Sybil react positively to my change, I reluctantly accepted the influence.

"The initial scouting packs today numbered fifty three. From them, we have received no reports of sighting traces of humans or the humans themselves. We have given enough time to now be sure that the amount of scouting packs that returned today number only forty nine." At this, I settled down onto my haunches, listening to the first real news we had finally received. Sybil continued, "There are no communications received or survivors found of those packs. There has been no success in locating the position of their defeats, though we have not sent any large number of keelish to find it. The packs that have disappeared were those led by Creel, Friish, Shaal, and Qalt. They were scouting in the northernmost quadrant, and had not reported anything of note in their two days of scouting."

Sybil paused, taking in my reaction. While I had settled back onto my heels to listen to what she was saying, I started scratching at the base of my jaw with my claws. Careful to ensure I didn't cut myself, I itched at the tender skin there while I thought over what this news meant for us. It definitely was the humans, and most of the packs that had sustained losses since the initial human presence was detected had been located there in the north. But what had changed in the last day? Since sunset the day before, what had the humans learned or seen that brought them to change their approach so drastically?

I continued to think over it for a moment, before realizing what I was doing, and who I was with. "Sybil," when I spoke, Sybil didn't change at all, as if she had been expecting me to begin to speak to her. Instead, she simply bowed her head in acknowledgement as I continued, "Has anything changed, or is there anything that the humans will have found that should have changed their approach?"

Immediately, Sybil clicked her teeth together, "No, not as far as we know. We could push north into them and see if we can force them into combat."

My initial reaction was to do as much, but another flash of insight kept me from immediately agreeing. Instead, I thought for a moment. Back when I was a human, I'd been taught that noteworthy keelish were, in order of increasing danger, increased size, increased intelligence, and magical capabilities. While I had never come across any keelish of increased intelligence or magical capabilities, I knew how I would have directed my tribe to hunt a supposedly "smart" swarm of keelish–just the same as any other keelish. After all, an "intelligent" keelish was still going to be a stupid, ravenous beast. A grin began to spread across my face. If they were thinking we couldn't work as a military, it would be only too easy to exploit that.

"We will send some of the weaker packs to do that, but only enough to get the humans to engage en masse. Maybe two hundred? No, four hundred, to ensure that they feel the pressure. Then, the rest of us can flank the humans, and smash them between our two forces." A part of me understood that this was only the most basic battle tactic, to flank the enemy, but I could imagine how unexpected this would be to my previous tribe, and we had exterminated the keelish regularly. Keelish were only beasts, after all, beasts didn't plan around an intelligent force, like the wolfstags hadn't planned for us. If both sides had plans, though, the side that knew the other's approach would prove to be the victor. 

If the slain Farrah was to be believed, these people, the "Veratocracy", had engaged in purging the keelish even more consistently and widely than the tribes had ever been capable of, so there was a good chance that most of those we would be facing hadn't ever hunted a keelish in the first place. They would think of us as even less of a threat than the Nievetsali tribe had considered the keelish, since they had a long history of stomping us into the dust. After all, their ancestors had wiped us nearly to extinction, so how dangerous could the keelish be?

And that arrogance would prove to be the reason for their loss.

Immediately, I turned to Sybil. She read my body language and fell in step next to me as I began to stride out of my personal space. "Gather all the Alphas to me. I'll give them their instructions before they go to rest. Then, I'll prepare my pack to be the first into the hunt. After all," I let my grin fully spread over my face, and was surprised to see Sybil's face crack into a mirroring, bloodthirsty smile "We have innocent blood shed to repay."