My expectations soared. I didn’t know what a blood-debt was, but that it was serious enough to give pause to this group of elite High Speakers was enough to set my mind to racing. As the humans seemed to contemplate how to answer the Bloodpriestess’s question, I motioned for the rest of the swarm to follow my lead and begin to flee through the surrounding woods. If we could get enough space between us while our pursuers were tied down in whatever this political maneuvering was with this Bloodpriestess’s party, maybe we could escape, even if they came to some accord.

“Thinking and communicating creatures should well know when to flee and when to STOP and LISTEN.” The Bloodpriestess’s words cracked violently on those two words and I nearly involuntarily stopped mid step before turning back to look at her. Our eyes met, and I immediately looked down, my focus instead on her mouth, neck, chest, anything else that would allow me to keep control of my mind. Her face was not smiling, but actually baring her teeth and the teeth were much like most humans, but for the inch-long jutting canines that must have nearly reached out of her mouth even if her lips were closed.

“Good, Saharliard you have proven yourselves with this. How have you wronged the warlocks of the One?”

“Our swarm was attacked multiple times by a village of the… warlocks.” I spoke slowly, deliberately. Though my fangs and stiff lips garbled the speech, I fought to speak clearly. “When they made their greatest attempt to exterminate us, we overwhelmed the assault with superior tactics and numbers. We wiped them out to the last, just as they would have done to us if we were the weaker party.” I’d tried to speak as reasonably as possible, but there was a bit of involuntary acid in my last words. Hundreds of keelish unknown to me were slain in that battle, and now, just a couple moons later, my swarm numbered less than thirty. “Now, they have slaughtered over one thousand of us.” I couldn’t stop baring my teeth threateningly at the humans as they looked at us.

“And the truth begins to reveal itself. You see–”

“These vermin have no rights! They’re murderers! They–!”

The Bloodpriestess was interrupted by the single human child in the squad of High Speakers, her voice quaking with impotent rage. All around her, her companions went to shush her, but right as they did so, the Bloodpriestess made her approach.

She seamlessly changed from her threatening upright stance to rushing forward in a smooth, quadrupedal stance before again standing bolt upright again a threateningly close distance from the humans. “You have no authority to speak, whelp. Do so again and I will demand payment from your betters.”

The long, dangerous fingers that the Bloodpriestess had almost casually threatened the Speaker squad with were now nearly within arm’s reach of the humans. The youth, previously too enraged to care about the possible threat posed by the Bloodpriestess, was now mere moments away from death or dismemberment and stumbled away, her body language obviously freaking out even through the beralt’s hood. The Windspeaker stepped forward and pulled his hood and mask away from his face, exposing a sweaty face, his nostrils leaking blood. His eyes, though, were calm and angry.

“Careful, butcher. Lay your hand on one of mine and you won’t live to regret it.” The man threatened, a miniature gale beginning to form in his hand as an arrow flew from his quiver and began to float threateningly in the tornado. After another second, lightning began to scar the wood black as the Earthspeaker rolled his shoulders and renewed the armor covering his body while creating a huge maul in his clasped right fist.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“I’d love to offer your lifeblood to the Bloodsoaked Mother Narsha’at and test myself against you… but I offer a question first: If one of the ‘High Speakers’ of your people was to lead a war band across the Samutelia and spill the blood of this Bloodpriestess Ana… How long do you think it would be before all the peoples of the Wilds decide that they have become sick of your attempted plays at superiority? Even before that, is your arrogance so great that you dare presume you could escape the rest of my people here on our banks? No, they would happily offer your lifeblood to the Mother and march across this river and begin to taint your rivers with the entrails of every one of your gods-forsaken people. And all that is only if you could manage to kill me in the first place.” Bloodpriestess Ana shivered in what could only have been borderline orgasmic excitement at the prospect while she looked deeper and deeper into the Windspeaker’s eyes.

For a moment, I thought the captain would be captivated just as I had been, and initially, he began to sag in place as his face went slack. Behind him, the Earthspeaker reached out and flicked the Windspeaker’s head, and the unmasked man quickly wrenched his eyes away before discarding any semblance of courtesy.

“Attempt to sooth-sight me again and I will flay the flesh from your bones, you maggot-eating monkey.”

“Oh, but did I merely attempt to? Did I see your home in Viertaal? And your post at the fortress on the Thnufir? Could I have seen your sister, the pride of your family?”

The Windspeaker’s face drained of all blood, rage and fear stark in his posture as he hurried to recover his face with the beralt’s hood and mask. The humans, already nervous and twitchy, began to truly prepare themselves for battle as Ana stood absolutely still, gauging them. Finally, she scoffed and with her right middle finger, she punched a small hole in her own palm before raising it to her mouth and lapping up the blood like a wolfstag. “You do not deserve my fifth finger’s sickle nor my maternal hand’s blood. Leave our shores since you are too coward to enter the blood-debt and too craven to fight for your honor. We have no hospitality for weaklings too mewling and fearful to lay their own lives on the line for their self-appointed vengeance. Flee back to your warlock castles, tell your mothers that you have yet to wean yourselves from their milk, and return to your soft lives of killing the powerless. We. Don’t. Fear. You.”

The girl in the combat unit began to tremble and was about to scream something in response when the Earthspeaker quickly reached out and forcibly muffled any complaints she had. Ana chuckled and made a shooing motion with both hands as she relaxed into a crouch and turned away.

“... We are not able to make diplomatic decisions at this time. We will return when that diplomatic power is given to us.” The commander’s face was hidden beneath his beralt, but I could hear the grinding of teeth as he was forced to acquiesce to the Bloodpriestess’s demands.

“So your people always say. But,” the manic bearing of her pointed teeth returned, “they have yet to spend even a single night on this side of the Samutelia.”

“But they reside all around the Shakran.”

The people all around us in the forest bristled at the captain’s final words. Ana blinked, then slightly twitched her head in what should have been a sort of respectful acknowledgement of the point the man had made. He made the same gesture in return, and the humans began their retreat into the river.

Once the humans had finally retreated to an unthreatening distance and we keelish began to celebrate amongst ourselves, Bloodpriestess Ana turned to me, her eyes cold and distant.

“So, talking keelish spawn. What are we to do with you, now that I’ve had my fun?”