If it had been any other member of the swarm, I might have refused to go down, or been snide in my response, but with Rulac here, I immediately understood the severity of whatever was the reason for my summons. As I stepped forward, I looked to Sybil and clacked my teeth in denial. Her frills flared in acknowledgement of my command, and then I was walking down the cramped tunnel towards the deepest depths of the den.
As we descended, I realized that once I finally ascended to becoming the Swarm’s Alpha, I definitely wouldn’t do what Redael had. The longer I lived under the ground, the longer I hid like a rodent, the more it grated on me. We would need to make our escape soon, but once we arrived at Nievtra, I could make sure that my home was established under the open skies. I turned to Rulac, whose strides were long and purposeful, nearly a run, but only barely too controlled to be called as such.
“What happened, Rulac?” I lengthened my steps enough to keep myself next to Rulac as we continued our path down.
“S’not my place to say, Ashy. It’s bad.” Rulac didn’t even look at me, and I could read the tightly constrained fear in his body language. The first time I’d seen anything like fear in any of the adult keelish, and it was Rulac. The most gregarious and seemingly unflappable of the keelish was afraid.
“Rulac. Tell me.” I spoke with a strange mix of [Innervating Address] and [Debilitating Diatribe], and I could see the influence of my magic begin to wash over him. Rulac’s body relaxed slightly, the rigid set to his spine melted into a tense, but much more self-contained nervousness, and he nodded to himself, seemingly to give some measure of confidence.
“We’ve seen the things that are hunting us. Not well, but enough. Redael has the rest of the information, I’m not sure what else, but he’s talking to all the Alphas. We’ll be one of the last to get there, so hurry.” Then, the tension returning to Rulac’s shoulders, he began to jog towards our destination.
With what Rulac had said, I knew that I wasn’t going to get anything else out of him before we got there, if I could get anything at all out of him in this state. Without another word, I jogged alongside him, keeping my head ducked low so that I wouldn’t hit it on any of the low ceilings, until we arrived at the deepest part of the den. There, a place I’d only ever seen Redael and maybe a couple others with the exception of the singular time that my pack had accompanied me down to be addressed by Redael. In my mind, it had become a sort of… nearly sacred location. One where Redael himself lived, and any others there were mere interlopers.
There were no fewer than fifty keelish crammed into the relatively tight space. Due to my impressive (for a keelish, at least) height, I could look over the rest of the nervous keelish as they shifted and tried to get a good look at Redael. He stood still in front of the rest of us, and Rulac quickly pushed through the rest of the Alphas until he stood beside Redael.
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Among these keelish that I knew to be Alphas of their own packs and broods, Rulac seemed to be the only Alpha. He stood head and shoulders above most of them, and nearly as tall as I now was, at a halfway between six and seven feet. The rest were forced to look up at him, with their comparatively diminutive sizes ranging from four to five feet tall. A part of me realized the irony of discounting these keelish Alphas, as they stood twice as tall as what the typical keelish would. As a human, I would have panicked seeing this group, even discounting Rulac, Redael, and myself. Even so, before Rulac, they were fodder, and wholly unremarkable.
Then, there was Redael. Though he was obviously quite a bit smaller than Rulac, his stance exuded confidence and power, and with his body language and presence, he seemed to be taller than all the rest of us. Even so, I looked continuously at him, and didn’t shy away when his eyes met mine. Different from any time before, though, he looked at me appreciatively and nodded before beginning to speak.
“We’ve found what’s been hunting us.” He directly began speaking, not deigning to give anything other than the information he wished to. “They’re large, about as tall as either Rulac or myself. They’re pack hunters, like us, but they can use magic, like the thunderfangs that some of you know. They have some sort of tool that allows their weak hands to function as fangs. Here is an example.” At that, Rulac turned around and grabbed a spear that I hadn’t noticed. He held it aloft as Redael continued speaking, “Before you all leave, you’ll come see the body we have of one. They are able to hide from our eyes, so watch for something that is moving but doesn’t seem alive.” Redael gestured to a lump in the corner, something I was relatively sure was a human’s body.
“You all need to find these creatures, wherever they are in our jungle. We don’t know how many of them there are, but Crea’s pack was wiped out, except for one, by only six of these things.” That announcement sent a wave of whispers and panicked glances through the body of the Alphas here. I didn’t know who Crea was, but obviously, they had been formidable. “The last member of the pack left alive hunted the last of these creatures and came back to the den to let us know that they were around. We brought back the body, and here you are. I’ll be giving you assignments of where to go and what to do, because the swarm needs to find these beasts and HUNT THEM TO THE LAST!” Redael’s voice suddenly surged with the final declaration, and all around me, the Alphas of the swarm shrieked their support to the current swarm Alpha.
A grin cracked my face, since I’d just been given the perfect opportunity to challenge him in front of all the rulers of the swarm. Once he gave an assignment to me, I could throw it back in his face and challenge him right then. If he fought back, then I would gain control after killing him, but if he did nothing, I would weaken his position. Either way, I would build myself up in the eyes of the swarm or outright assume control.
“I will remain close to the den, and will guide the swarm in response to any sightings of the new creatures. Our strongest member of the swarm will serve as the commander of all keelish in the hunt for them. Ashlani, make yourself known.”
Nievtala guide me… that was not a part of my plan.