Chapter 45.2: The Southern Beastmen Tribes - Special Circumstances
Personal System Calendar: Year 00012, Day 1-14, Month IX: The Imperium
Imperial Calendar: Year 6857, 1st to 14th day of the 9th Month
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The Great Chieftain
By the following day, a decision had been made.
A great commotion came out of the huge wooden walls as the beastfolk emerged together in a procession of bodies and noise, their bulk filling the gate and spilling into the open ground beyond. At their head walked Great Chieftain Midoka Kotoko-ko, brother of Great Chief Madok Koktoko, the very man whose children had first crossed paths with August Finn on a road far from here, years ago. Midoka was built the way old mountains are built — wide, patient, and worn into something that did not move unless it chose to. He walked with the unhurried certainty of a man who had never needed to rush toward anything in his life, because most things had the good sense to come to him.
They moved toward where August was waiting, and when Midoka stopped, he looked at the human before him for a long moment before he spoke.
"Human. No. The Great Warrior August Finn of Maya Village."
He paused there, as if the two names were different weights he was setting down side by side.
"First, I would like to thank you greatly for what you have done for my two children when they went out into the human world. Second, I would like to thank you for allowing my brother's people, and another chieftain besides the Kotoko tribe, a place inside your village where they could hold onto their own identities and culture. That is truly something extraordinary in this time and age. I apologize also for the behavior we showed you last night. It was not disrespect toward you personally, but I understand the Elder's adamant stance, and because of it, we showed you great dishonor and discourtesy as a guest. Please understand. We mean no harm in truth. We have experienced many problems in the long past when we allowed humans into our chiefdoms. They returned our friendship with poison and death instead." He let that settle before continuing. "But for you, we will allow this special circumstance. I have heard from my daughter and son what you wish to say here. And because of that, we will allow you to speak in the great council later. For now, we should welcome you properly as our guest. Come, great warrior. Come, one we know as the Blurred Devil."
With that, August made a slight bow as a sign of his respect and thanked them for allowing him inside. Truthfully, he had not minded waiting outside at all. This was not an official village business. This was an internal matter of Talon One, and he was here as its commander, not as a representative of Maya Village as a whole. That said, if you wanted to be technical about it — and some people always did — Talon One was and had always been Maya Village's premier specialized force, which made the distinction largely academic.
"I will accept your invitation, Chief. And don't worry about last night. I would have done the same if I were in your position. Besides, this is not an official village diplomacy. This is my personal business."
With that, August was permitted inside the beastfolk chiefdom.
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Inside the Walls
They welcomed him with a small feast. There was food, there was music and dancing, there were introductions made through food and drink in the way that beastfolk handled these things — which was to say, directly and without the drawn-out ceremony that human courts tended to favor. August appreciated it. He had never had much patience for a drawn-out ceremony himself anyway.
But even as the celebration unfolded around him, he could feel something in the air that had nothing to do with hospitality. A tension hidden under the surface of things. The kind that had nothing to do with the guest sitting among them and has everything to do with something else entirely. They were hiding it well enough that a less attentive man would have missed it completely. But August was not that man, he was a man who had honed his senses in the Great Forest of Lonelywood.
Something was wrong here, and last night's closed assembly had not been only about him.
They continued to talk about various things — life in their settlements, the hunting seasons, the changes the years had brought to both their peoples. It was comfortable enough conversation on its own terms. But the weight underneath it did not lift.
When the welcoming portion of the gathering gave way to the specific matter August had traveled here to discuss, it was Great Chieftain Midoka who opened it himself.
"Well then, Warrior Finn. For what pleasure do we owe you this visit to our chiefdom, at this time of the year?"
August had noticed the wording but let it pass for now. He had come here to say something, and he would say it before anything else.
"Chief Midoka, as you may or may not know, Princess Mee-rka and I swore a blood pact to come to one another's aid a few years back. Since then, during one of my village's activities a few months ago, Princess Mee-rka had decided to join one of our recruitment efforts and was included in a new selection for a specialized elite force of warriors whether they are from the village or not it didn't matter. She was of course selected due to her prowess and skill, and she was willing to commit to it, and the blood oath between us held weight in both our decisions."
He kept his voice even and his pace deliberate. These things deserved proper explanation.
"However, Talon One — the team I command — is currently composed of people whose lives have become intertwined in ways that limit what we can do as a full unit. With children being born and other personal matters that require our immediate presence rather than deployments that may take us far away from home. As commander, I sat down with my members and we came to an agreement: rather than operate at reduced capacity indefinitely, we would bring on a replacement team to stand in while the old members sorted their lives out. The original team would return when ready, and the new group could be developed into its own capable unit from there."
He paused. "This brings the story back to your daughter. Princess Mee-rka joined the selection process and was chosen. She is currently listed as a temporary member precisely because of the conversation I am having with you now. I did not want to make a unilateral decision as her commander without first understanding how things work within your Chiefdom. Whether Mee-rka holds an heir's position. Whether her commitment to a role outside your lands would create problems I have not foreseen. She did not share the specifics of succession with me, and that is why I am here rather than simply sending a worded letter." He met the chief's eyes directly. "If now is not a good time, I will wait for your reply. But I did not think this was the kind of thing worth postponing without reason."
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The Chieftain's Answer
Chief Midoka and those around him exchanged looks. Something passed between them — a shared conclusion reached without words, the kind of communication that only came from long familiarity.
The Chieftain nodded.
"Warrior Finn, I thank you for being so thoughtful. Not many humans would have bothered to consider my daughter's position before making decisions about it." He folded his hands in his lap. "You have deduced correctly that there is indeed a process that governs who becomes the next heir of these lands. And it is not a matter of blood relation to me or to my next of kin. The process is this: a trial held in combat. One beastman must stand atop all others. Whoever remains standing at the end becomes the heir apparent, and in time, the next Great Chieftain of the Southern Beastman Tribes."
He let that land before continuing.
"My daughter and son hold a title because they are my children. But they do not hold the rank of Chieftain's Heir. The seat does not simply pass because of their birth right here. It is won with skill, prowess, strength, bravery and leadership. If Mee-rka decides to compete for that seat one day, she will have to be strong enough to stand against every man and candidate put forward by the tribe's clans. She has the capability. That is not in question. But the trial will only be called when the current Chieftain is no longer fit to serve as the leader and guardian of his people." A slight pause. "I am still the strongest here, Warrior Finn. That position is not under immediate negotiation."
There was dry humor in it. August acknowledged it with a slight incline of his head.
"Then for now," Midoka continued, "my daughter's situation in your team does not carry the complications you were concerned about. She is free to make her own commitments, and I will respect her decision. If she has chosen this, then she chose it with open eyes. That is enough for me."
August held the reply for a moment, then nodded. "That is enough for me as well."
A brief silence. Then the Chieftain's posture shifted, just slightly, into something more serious than what had come before.
"The other thing you mentioned. It seems we could not fool a great warrior such as yourself into thinking nothing was wrong. So I will tell you about it directly." He looked at August for a moment before continuing. "It concerns a recent conflict with neighboring groups. Have you heard of the Great Oruks (Great Orcs - Demi-Humans)? "
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The Berdeng Oruks
August of course had heard of them. But he had not seen one yet.
What he knew: The Oruks in general were demi-humans of the very angry variety. They bore the blood of the Warthog God Line somewhere in their ancestry, which was visible enough in the structure of their faces — heavy, tusked, resembling the boar-god's profile more than any human equivalent. They were carnivores of the enthusiastic sort. Cannibalism was not beyond them. They possessed an appetite for violence that was not situational or strategic but essentially constant, which made them among the most persistently destructive of all the known demi-human species. They have a leader amongst their raiding Warband called the Warlord who is the brains and brawns of their activities. The Warlord is also responsible for the expansion of their domains which due to their nature was always going to be expanding even if they would have to fight their neighbors for it.
They came in earthen tones — gray, green, brown, and orange. A red Oruk was the most dangerous of them, treated even by other Oruks with the kind of wariness that any sensible creature directs toward something that could kill it.
"I have heard of them, Chief. I have not encountered one yet."
"Then I will tell you what is happening here." Midoka's voice carried none of the evasion from earlier. "We are in open conflict with the Berdeng Oruks (the Green Oruks) who have decided that the land we stand on is a piece of land that they want to expand to. They have been pushing at our borders for some time. They also appear to have dealings with certain human warbands, which is part of why we were on edge about receiving a human visitor last night. The two things came close together in our awareness, and we are not accustomed to separating them cleanly anymore."
August sat with that for a moment. It explained the atmosphere he had read when he arrived. It explained the closed meeting. It explained the edge under the hospitality.
"I see. So that is the weight in the air here."
"Yes."
August glanced to where Mee-rka was sitting, somewhere in the middle distance, eating with the kind of focused contentment that suggested she was either completely unaware of what the adults were discussing or, more likely, had decided that not acknowledging it was the better option. He had seen that particular approach from her before.
"Then I imagine her skills would be more useful to you right now, on top of everything else."
"While that is true, Warrior Finn, I will leave that to my daughter to decide. She knows her own mind." Midoka looked at her as well, and something crossed his expression that was quieter than the rest of the conversation. A father looking at a daughter across a room where the subject under discussion was whether she stayed or left. "She always has."
They both watched her eat in peaceful oblivion for a moment.
There was more to the situation than what was being put forward. August could feel the shape of it without needing to name it. A chief at war with neighbors who were gaining allies among human warbands, a daughter who was one of the tribe's best fighters, and a father who had just agreed to let her commit herself to something that would take her away from all of it. That was not a small thing, whatever he had said about it calmly.
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The Drums
Then the war drums started to resonate from the towers.
They came from another gate, from the far side of the chiefdom's walls, and they did not beat in any pattern that meant ritual or ceremony. They beat the way drums beat when something had arrived that wasn't expected and wasn't welcome.
The shout of attack followed seconds later.
The entire gathering moved. There was no delay, no consultation, no waiting for someone to explain what was happening. These were people who had been living with conflict on their borders long enough that their bodies had learned what the drums meant before their minds caught up with it. Most of the assembled beastfolk were already moving toward the far wall before the shouting had settled into coherent language.
August was already calling for Finnester.
The eagle was overhead within seconds — he had been circling at altitude, as was his habit during August's meetings, watching the approaches with the patient attention of a creature whose vision could parse what was happening on the ground below in detail that no human eye could match. August reached out through their synchronized bond, the mental link that had become as natural as looking in a direction, and sent Finnester toward the disturbance.
*Get me eyes on the gate. Tell me what we are dealing with.*
Finnester banked and dropped altitude without ceremony.
August rose from his seat and moved toward the wall as well, his hand settling near his weapon with the quiet readiness of someone who had responded to this kind of alarm more times than he cared to count. Around him, the celebration had become something else entirely. The feast was gone. The chiefdom was now at war.
Whatever was coming through that gate — whether it was the Berdeng Oruks pressing an early raid, a human warband running a probe, or something else entirely — was about to find out exactly what kind of guest the chiefdom currently had August Finn or simply known to them as the Blurred Devil was something else entirely specially when the drums of war started beating.
Finnester's vision came through the link in fragments of altitude and light. August processed what he saw and began adjusting his position accordingly.
It was going to be a very different kind of conversation than the one they had just finished.