I continue to send these letters, though I know you are no longer here and your mother can’t bear to read them. Perhaps, sending them is a way for me to feel that you will still be waiting at the docks whenever I return.

Your sister remains among the Veratocracy, and I doubt that I, or anyone else for that matter, can convince her to leave. What little communication we get from her is disjointed, off-putting, and more and more difficult to stomach. Something has happened to her, we suspect, but none of our people are able to infiltrate Viertaal. Their screening process continues to grow more stringent and–

You wouldn’t have cared about any of this. I suppose this serves more to be a journal than some sort of a letter I would have sent you, but I do find solace in thinking you would receive this and try your best to understand my foolish prattlings. Your presence is missed on the island. Your brusque words and hardheaded attitude were surprisingly endearing, in retrospect. Many mention it whenever your name is remembered, how you knew what you wanted and always sought it.

There is news from the northern scouts, and I hesitate to think of what it may mean. Even so, it is the Marshal’s duty to coordinate all our scouting efforts. Perhaps I’ll see you soon.

-Letter from Marshal Inuksuk, son of Ilnak, to Atka, son of Ahnah

Days passed with little notable happening each day. Solia’s hunt was obviously a disappointment to her but without sustaining any major injuries or deaths, I didn’t consider it too much of a failure. Even so, she’d avoided directly looking me in the eye when she’d reported on the hunt. Two corpses for each keelish that left on the hunt were brought back to the swarm, most of them dispatched by ripping the head off or stabbing through the eyes. Three of the ten hunters, though, needed ministration by one of Vefir’s healers, and Solia had expected to be able to at least double the results of her hunt.

It turned out, though, that the ants were much more resistant to burning than my sonic magic. They held themselves back from the flames, but none were incinerated or instantly killed by Solia’s waves of flames. Thus, after she’d allowed quite a bit more than twenty out of the hole, she was unable to turn the tides as quickly as she’d expected.

“I was wrong. I should have listened.” Solia explained, her voice willing to take the blame while still avoiding direct eye contact. “Everything I’ve fought before lost all sense of reason when they came face to face with fire. I… thought that the ants would too.”

“I’m pretty sure they’re just too stupid to realize exactly how dangerous the flames are.” I answered. “It’s frequently easier to break and frighten an intelligent foe than a stupid one.”

“Yes, Alpha.”

I waved a hand to dismiss her, and though she’d seemed to be grateful not to have been publicly humiliated or physically assaulted, Solia continued to think and possibly sulk for another two days. It was interesting to me to see how much more jockeying for position, title, and influence occurred now that an end was in sight. In a land that seemed to be simple enough to call our own, the keelish who’d chafed under another’s command found the bravery to challenge their Alphas.

Stolen story; please report.

As I was well aware of due to the [System], the more a keelish progressed as an Alpha, the more the gulf would extend between the Alpha and the comparatively weaker members of their pack. With so much time and so many events since I’d instated leaders over others, there was only a single challenger who found success in seizing the position of Alpha. Her name was Hrash, and I tacitly agreed to her position by never commenting on her presence when I issued commands to the Alphas of the swarm or objecting to her methods. Hrash’s success remained the sole success, though it rallied a half dozen more of the foolhardy to throw themselves painfully against the immovable walls that were their superiors. The other Alphas, seeing that one of their own had been pulled down from their position, fought harder and more brutally to maintain their leadership than before.

While I watched the ever more infrequent conflicts, I was, again, struck by a shadow of the feeling of reverence from Speaking the Words of Power. The Fourth Phrase, “We are the throne to which the wise submit” forced a certain thought into my mind. There would be a throne to which the wise don’t submit, a leader who didn’t deserve the position. The Words of Power were an aspiration as well as a command to the Keel, to exemplify the words as well as disregard those unworthy or unable to live them.

Days passed and I made sure to partake in at least one hunt a day. Part of my reasoning was simply because I enjoyed the hunt itself, but I also felt drawn to explore these mountains and these lands, to familiarize myself with these forests and these rivers. The hunts didn’t reveal any more ant colonies, though Foire stated that he smelled their distinctive scent every so often. Instead, I killed a white-hooved deer, a long-furred elk, and, most interestingly, a stoneskin. The deer was merely a scaled deer without the scales, nearly luminescent hooves, and hint of bloodthirst while the elk was a larger, more heavily furred deer. It retained some measure of the scaled deer’s aggression, though it still remained a prey animal.

The stoneskin was most interesting, given how it protected itself. Dulgar, the subterranean creatures with a type of armored skin found in the Martanimis, were soft compared to the stoneskin. When I first saw a stoneskin, the little rodent-like thing seemed more like a rocky outcropping on a boulder than a creature. Its craggy skin looked just like the gray stone it perched on, and it held remarkably still while I approached. Then, as I dragged my claws across it, they skittered off its tough skin without cutting anything. Before long, though, I attacked it with a [Murderous Melody], and it quickly succumbed its life.

Even while dead, the creature remained lodged to the stone, and only after several minutes of scratching, pulling, and cutting could I finally yank it free with a cracking of the stone. Its strange head was shaped like a barbed broadhead arrowhead with spines it could flex out to lodge in a hole in the rock. From how many holes were scattered across the face of the giant boulder, I supposed this kind of rock was a frequent stoneskin shelter. The stoneskin sported only two arms without any legs, its long torso or body seeming to be something it dragged behind itself. When I finally took a bite, I found the stoneskin to largely be inedible, and what little meat remained on the foot long body was tough, stringy, and unpleasant.

When I was back from the hunt, I found myself locked in conversation with Sybil about different ways to police, control, and guide my people as we left this stage of life, something I’d never had to consider before. Plans formed and I hoped they would be enough as we walked through the valley behind the Shandise.

In these mountains, we found the first true obstacle to our settling of this land.