章 235: Chapter 232

I rolled my neck, satisfaction then neutrality slowly replacing the unnatural pleasure that Nievtala's had forced on me. In the end, the wolfstags and I indulged in four successful hunts, with each one being more streamlined and effective than the last, eventually adjusting it to have two more wolfstags hiding alongside me to lame and hobble as many of the goats as possible, instead of just me throwing them down the face of the mountains. There were no issues with any of the hunts themselves, but two of my accompanying beasts had managed to slightly injure their ankles trying to clamber up the steep slopes, so we ended up going back to the swarm slightly earlier than I'd wanted to, carting the bodies as best as we could as we went.

Though the hunt had been abundantly successful, I'd failed to find the peace of mind I'd sought. Instead, I'd found Nievtala, and though I'd always welcomed her presence before, now it felt like a violation. She'd made me glory in the bloodshed in a way that I might have already, but she'd taken from me the opportunity to choose.

Do not fret, child. You are my voice, and I glory with you.

"That's not the point!" I couldn't hold back my rage. "I trust you, and you've saved my people a dozen times over already and for that I am wholly grateful. But I am a person, I can be your voice, but I am also Ashlani! I deserve to feel my own emotions, if they be glory, pleasure, rage, grief, or emptiness! I can't be myself and still be your plaything."

You are a child. You know nothing and decide to rage at the approval of a divine being. Cease your petulance and embrace your role.

"No!" I struggled to speak as the words shook my being and rattled my soul. For the first time in quite a while, Nievtala's presence hurt me. Her rage and disapproval fought to flatten me against the ground, but I held strong. "You. Do. Not. Own. Me." I paused, gasping as the pressure of her attention lessened on me. "You don't want a broken mouthpiece. I can be your greatest disciple, or a broken puppet. Make your choice."

Slowly, her presence faded, leaving behind the faintest sense of regret or loneliness. I finally looked at the wolfstags surrounding me, their whimpers becoming audible to me as my mind returned to a bare semblance of normality. With a groan of effort, I stood tall and looked up at the heavens. "Thank you. For your help and guidance." She didn't say anything more and I returned to bringing the prey back to the swarm.

With a groan, I loaded myself up with several of the corpses and finally took in what they looked like. They had long, straight white fur, black horns, and thick shoulders and hindquarters. The goats as a whole were surprisingly large, considering how little vegetation was visible from below, but I'd seen vast swathes of greenery even higher up the mountains that we'd traversed, hidden behind the stony outcroppings that populated the entire range. I couldn't help but wonder why the goats would come down from their much safer grazing grounds to this relatively desolate and less protected location, but I figured I'd count myself grateful and move on with the meat to feed my swarm.

When I returned, I saw that the rest of the swarm had been busy, slowly moving onward while collecting the kills from the various hunting parties. Took was out with a three to one population of gummies to fangs, and the team seemed to be doing well–they'd brought back just about as many goats as my team had. Trai and the new spawnlings were off doing some creative endeavor headed by the possibly wise leadership of the enthusiastic khatif child.

Without anything to do about it, I shrugged and continued dragging the exorbitant amount of meat back to the swarm when I realized, quite belatedly, I had found some level of separation from the stresses of thinking about Sybil and my relationship. After a goddess showed her willingness to wash away my own feelings and thoughts, it didn't seem quite so stressful.

I dropped my food off in the middle of the swarm and ate my fill after cutting the hide from the meat. With a grin, I tossed the hides to the side, hopeful about sleeping on bedding once more before throwing myself into directing the swarm, using [True Dominance] to subdue keelish that had continuously been strong-willed and resistant to Sybil and Shemira's "ministrations", organizing food distribution, and whatever else to occupy my mind.

Fortunately or not, Farahlia was one of the most stubborn and least influenced by Sybil's magic, which was concerning for everyone and off-putting for Sybil. I wasn't sure if it was because of the type of magic that Sybil used or if it was just that Farahlia was particularly stubborn, but whatever the case was, we kept on our toes. The fortunate part of it was, however, that Farahlia was absolutely under the influence of my [True Dominance]. My word was law to her, no matter when or where, she submitted to me. Which was also annoying.

It did do the trick on continuing to distract me from the troubling thoughts of what exactly was happening to me, and before too long, the swarm resumed travel back to the east.

…

Our method for traveling changed after parting from the Moonchildren's cadre. Instead of having some range ahead, hunting, while the rest followed the instructions and directions of the Moonchildren, instead we sent the majority of the swarm out to hunt and do whatever it was that they wanted, under the condition that they brought some of their hunt back to the camp before true night fell. The camp moved forward about 20 miles a day, and Sybil and the "supporting staff", as I thought of them, made the core of the camp. On the second day, we skirted around a large salt lake, which we decided to call Mumhal, and I didn't participate in the hunt this time, consciously making the decision to not hunt anything that wasn't noteworthy for the last of my hunts for my [Quest].

There were smaller flightless birds with large, almost axelike beaks on the shores of the lake, and when threatened they either rushed forward with their heads chopping, or fled to the surface of the lake, where they began swimming away. In the first case, the members of the swarm who had been give our primitive poleaxes all those long weeks ago were entrusted with new, better manufactured copies of the same weapon. Then, when the birds approached, the keelish simply chopped the heads off of the axebeaks before they could get close enough to pose a threat. If they fled to the waters, then we sent in the Sibilant Guard, as I called them (much to Sybil's distaste). In the water, the axebeaks couldn't muster the leverage necessary to strike true and deep enough to damage the Wave Wolfstags, so they would harry them enough to strike a killing blow and drag the corpses back to the shore.

The third day, we left the lake behind us, and the goats that had been commonly seen below the rocky bluffs that hid the vegetation were nowhere to be seen. Additionally, we'd only seen the axebeaks around Mumhal, so there weren't any of those to hunt. So, after nearly a full day's travel without any good prey seen from anywhere we'd looked, we finally turned our eyes to the peaks.

I gathered a group of the most agile and strongest of the swarm, making sure to include Took, Foire, Silf, Joral, Ytte, and some others. We took most of the fourth day to ascend past the shelf of sheer and crumbly rock, when our group finally crossed over into the hidden land, we were amazed by what we found.