I didn’t care to try to understand what outraged words the High Speakers were screaming, instead shouting commands of my own.

“It’s time to move, you fangless worms! If you hesitate, you’re dead! Move, move, move!”

Most of the swarm immediately followed my command, and faces still stained with the blood of our prey, we rushed to flee across the river. As broad as it was, I couldn’t say how long it would take to ford it, and we were less than a minute from first contact. Were we not mere moments away from agonizing death, I’d have admired the schools of fish and clear waters, but reality demanded I focus entirely on the here and now. In the forest behind us, the beginning crackles of Called lightning echoed and threatened before they were overwhelmed by a strange ululating roar. It was so low that I initially thought it was something from my [Tremorsense], but as it built in volume, the bestial cry began to shake my mind.

I made a mental note of the sheer power of the roar in order to apply it to my [Crippling Cry], but it was not the time for magical experimentation. Instead I followed the path that many keelish had already established through the barricade against whatever it was that lived on the other side of the river. It took me a moment to realize that there were a dozen of the keelish that followed me only far enough to crouch on the far side of the walls.

“You can’t stop them! Keep running!” I shouted, but I followed my own command and began to run into the river’s waters. They had slowly lagged behind over the past days, forging themselves and their wills as best as they could under the constant revitalization of [Fanatic’s Fortitude] and the immediate threat of death. In most I could see panic that was as tightly controlled as they could muster, but the fear and imminent death meant nothing to them as, somehow, I could feel their total acceptance. This pack of older keelish whose names I didn’t know and had resolved to learn when there was time to waste breath on mundane conversation looked at each other, nodded, then deliberately bowed their heads low as they looked at me.

“Victory by fang and blood, Alpha. Lead the swarm to survival.” One said, her voice steady and her eyes fierce and somehow tender. “We’ll slow them as best as we can. I hope that you…” her voice caught before she mastered herself. “Nevermind this old lizard’s hopes. Live well, my Alpha, my king.”

This pack of twelve old and experienced members of the swarm grinned as they stopped and prepared for their deaths. I couldn’t say anything more and continued my flight forward, sparing a glance back every twenty steps or so. I was only able to look that much as my [Tremorsense], honed over weeks of stumbling through dark nights with no light, guided my every step to sure stone and soft silt. Between two of my glances, the groans of magically shifted stones filled the air. I couldn’t help myself and looked back to witness the latest keelish deaths.

Keelish screams of agony filled my ears as the wall the brave pack had hidden behind crashed over them like a curling wave. The stone was quickly dyed scarlet as my people’s blood burst out from between the stones and the humans’ mount continued approaching. The seven humans were riding a truly massive beast. I’d never heard of anything so imposing and obviously powerful, but the monstrous tortoise didn’t care about my instinctual respect for its power. Instead, there was a coughing explosion of flame that accompanied the constant crash of the craggy stone on stone that the tortoise apparently controlled. I could begin to hear the humans talking to each other, but the riot of their mount’s magic and steps drowned out the specifics.

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The twelve keelish made no sound again just a few seconds after first contact. Now, there were just two hundred and eighty six of us.

“Make sure that the Alpha is in the front! If nobody else escapes, make sure that he does!” Sybil’s voice tore me away from watching the bloody scene as she shouted commands at Joral and the wolfstags. Her voice was raspy and husky after receiving that wound from the albatross, but still the swarm hung on her every word.

“Yes, Beta!” Joral responded, and then he, with a growl and some inscrutable gestures of his hands, commanded the Wave Wolfstags to bolster me. I immediately felt the effect, the water giving way with every step, the current no longer fighting to pull me further downstream. Initially, I’d been pleased to have the assistance of anything that could magically manipulate the water we were in. Then, I’d begun praying out loud as I again looked behind us. “Please let there be no Waterspeaker. No Waterspeakers. Please Nievtala. No Waterspeakers.”

It was in vain.

The same moment that the tortoise hesitantly stepped into the river, one of its passengers hopped down and the waters rose up to welcome their descent.

“SCATTER! RUN FASTER!” I screamed, but we were all already doing our best to escape. The water, previously flowing regularly downstream, began to pull at our ankles, then knees and hips. I didn’t know where all this additional liquid was coming from, but the Waterspeaker’s commands were forcing the river to bring us back to him. In a Waterspeaker’s domain like this, we wouldn’t begin to be able to escape. Behind me, a keelish stumbled and fell, his head smashing into a submerged stone. When he rose from the water, blood flowed freely from his snout, and that was when the waters around us began to thrash with a new excitement.

The schools of fish surrounding us went into a sudden frenzy as soon as there was blood in the water, and keelish began to fall, starting around the keelish who’d tripped and begun the bloodshed. His legs were nearly instantly shredded by dozens of flashing jaws, and with a cry of agony, he succumbed to the sudden ambush. As the blood was carried through the water to the Speakers, the fish there, a mere two hundred feet away, began to swarm the massive tortoise. It groaned, the pain obvious as it caused stone to flow up its legs and brought itself to a stop. The rest of the humans jumped down and into a wide area of dry land that the Waterspeaker Spoke into being.

“Nievtala, Administrator! Any help! Please!” I shouted into the heavens as my mind raced, hoping beyond hope to stumble across some strange strategy that could allow us to survive this impossible situation. For once, there was absolutely no response from the [System]. What little apparent divinity I seemed to be in contact with had abandoned me as well. I was about to break down into hopeless sobs when my hopeless thoughts were interrupted.

“I guess it’s my time to answer a prayer, Ashy boy.” Rulac’s cocksure face flashed past me as he stopped resisting the unnatural current and began to walk with it.

“No, I… I!” I couldn’t muster any real words as, under Rulac’s example, hundreds of keelish began to march forward.

“Nah. You’ve got your people, your ‘elites’. I was just kinda there. I really shoulda died with Redael, so I’m just late. As usual.” He scoffed before looking at Took. “Sorry I couldn’t get you gravid with my eggs, leggy. Maybe next time.” He grinned wide, rolled his shoulders, and raised his voice, “Wisterl, you’re with me, right?”

Her laughter was high, proud, and genuinely excited as she strode forward. “We better kill at least a few of ‘em. Otherwise. I’ll drill you til you bleed.” She bumped her hip into Rulac’s as hundreds of keelish sprinted to their deaths.

“VICTORY!” they cried, knowing it was a lie. “VICTORY BY FANG AND BLOOD!”

I refused to turn to watch their deaths, instead resuming a probably hopeless flight through the waters towards the far shore.