Chương 236: Chapter 233

For your failure in exterminating the keelish menace, you are punished. The Sunkindred Bastion on the Thufir must fall. You have 12 days. Use whatever avenues are available to you, including the High Speakers still at Fort di'Thnufir. You Speak with my authority, so long as you Speak to destroy the cows.

-Missive from the Gran Verat to High Colonel Mualtir di'Thnufir.

The land above the clouds spread open before us, fertile and beautiful. There were no tall trees or any other massive flora, but there was dense foliage in bushes, tall grasses, and strange, twisted trees that grew no higher than maybe 10 feet tall. The trees had been colonized by dense clusters of vibrant red berries, and their thick trunks and dense leafage painted the horizon in various hues I'd never witnessed so openly. Upon trial, the berries weren't to my taste, but the few hatchlings that had tagged along quickly picked an entire tree clean, one volunteering herself to clamber up the branches and pluck the tree clean, tossing the berries down to their original Alpha.

More than the immediate appearance of sprawling, deciduous greenery, there was no shortage of life up here. Birds sang from every branch, in the distance milled a gargantuan flock of goats, and no matter where you looked, there was teeming life, the smell of green life filling my nostrils. It was like the jungles we'd come from, but less densely packed with greenery limiting your sight, so everything was immediately visible. And, again, it felt like home.

This area above the limited reach of clumsy predators was obviously a paradise to prey. At least, until the swarm arrived. Since this picturesque plateau lacked the treacherous footing we struggled with more than the goats did, we didn't need to plan beyond "chase the goats down and kill them."

In a perverse way, the hunt felt like playing tag. We snuck up close enough to guarantee that we would kill at least a few, then burst from hiding just as our prey began to demonstrate nervousness at our presence. After that, our bloody game of chase began.

The pack I'd brought up was plenty intelligent enough to know how best to maximize the hunt–all of us rushed as quickly as we could through the herd, hobbling and crippling with sharp blows to the legs, eviscerating bowels, and dealing quick death blows to whatever came within reach. Behind us, the panicked and agonized bleating of our prey didn't slow us or cause pity, and instead, we used it to push ourselves even further, faster, more vicious and deadly. Through it all, though I wanted to exult in my successes and the violence of my attacks, the feeling was tainted by Nievtala's previous violation of my mind.

She didn't return.

We continued our pursuit of our prey for several minutes, chasing them to the edges of their little paradise, to where the foliage grew even thicker and bordered on another precipitous, rocky slope that led to the summit of the mountains. There, we gathered back together and began returning to the scene of our hunt, finishing off and gathering the corpses of any goats we encountered en route.

As we walked, one of the hatchlings turned to me, beaming. "Did you see me? I took down seven before they could even begin to escape."

Before I could respond, another, the large male, jumped in, "Then you're slow. I got more than ten… I stopped counting after that." I was so surprised by how well they could speak that I didn't keep them from continuing their arguments.

"That's only because I couldn't just cook them all, because if we weren't going to eat them, then I could have burned them all down to dust."

"That doesn't matter. This is a hunt, not a mindless piling of bodies, and you still don't know how to use magic, even if you've talked to Solia about it before."

"Then, then, why would you keep track of your kills?"

"Because I knew you would and I wanted to put you in your place."

I was rolling my eyes and about to finish their arguing when a shiver ran down my spine. Glancing around, I saw nothing, and while the air was cool, it wasn't the chill that had me confused. I looked forward, and, still seeing nothing, consciously realized what my subconscious was uneasy about–there were no sounds of mountain goat suffering in front of us. It wasn't that I was looking forward to witnessing suffering, but instead that I was positive that there should still be living mountain goats trying to somehow escape death at our hands before our return.

That is, if there weren't any outside interference.

I whistled low, and the pack immediately went silent around me as I peered through the branches and stretched [Tremorsense] to the utmost of my ability. Even with nerves beginning to color my reactions, I couldn't help but let a fierce grin cross my face, appreciating the discipline of my team, even the uninitiated young that fell in step next to their seniors. I gestured to be on the lookout and to gather together as we approached the more open clearing where the goats had been grazing.

The silence was beyond unnerving, the previously vibrant, noisy, and life-filled area had gone completely silent. I could still see the heat signatures of birds in the trees, but they sat, unmoving, paralyzed with what could only be abject terror and self-preservation. Noting all that was happening, my swarm also continued to step as carefully as I had been already. It was just after we all slowed ourselves that we saw the first sign of whatever it was that had finished off the goats.

A huge paw print that had crushed the entire skull of a goat, its horns and all smashed unforgivingly upon and into the ground. Dug deep into the surrounding earth was the print itself–whatever this thing was, its paws were larger than the entire head of a 200 pound goat. On top of that, it was at least relatively stealthy when it wanted to, since the print that had flattened the skull of the goat was the only one to be seen, even in the fertile, soft soil that surrounded us.

Moving forward, it became more and more apparent that the creature that had come through here, whatever it was, was simply putting any surviving goat out of their misery. Every blow that had been dealt was decisive and permanent. No strikes to incapacitate, only to slay. The primary execution method had been through the crushing of skulls, and no bites were taken from the flesh, no unnecessary or tortuous wounds that hadn't been inflicted by the pack. It almost seemed to have been mercy killings, and we left the corpses behind as we approached the scene of our initial attack. Foire was the first to see the creature, and he immediately began to signal to me where it was. With his guidance and [Tremorsense], I could finally pick out the monster.

There, hunched over a goat's corpse, was a behemoth of a beast. I'd only heard of them by name from the Moonchildren, and had never had the opportunity to see one. Even without hearing as much from someone else, it was obvious that this was a predator, and a creature whose strength was to be respected just by looking at it. The furry beast was massive, its head reaching up to 14 feet tall as it stood on its back feet. The creature watched our approach and fell to all six feet, making it stand shorter, about five feet tall with its six limbs on the ground, but it perked its head up high and watched our pack somberly as we approached. The face of the creature was like a more bestial Moonchild's: Long snout, protruding canines, wet nose, and ursine ears, but the face still carried a hauntingly human shadow to it.

Around me, the pack bristled and prepared for battle.

It was uncanny and uncomfortable, but as the Nanuk looked at us, seemingly lamenting the loss of the goats, it roared angrily in challenge.