‘Trespassers!’ the creature called. ‘Turn back or be attacked.’ Eyeing the speaker, Dominic thought fast about the approach he wanted to take here, then connected to the mind of the kesh to send his message.
‘We wish to investigate this forest,’ he said, deciding to take a relatively soft beginning. There would be time to show his teeth later if necessary.
The kesh stared at him, a surprisingly shrewd look in its eyes.
‘You wish to challenge the centre guardians for control?’ His mental speech was also surprisingly clear – it was better even than Sekhmet’s. Did that mean this creature was a higher level than she was, or that these creatures were more predisposed to speech? Mental or otherwise.
‘Perhaps,’ Dominic answered guardedly after a moment of weighing up whether to admit it. ‘However, I wish to see how powerful they are first. And to decide whether it is worth my time.’ They didn’t need to know that he indeed had full intentions of challenging the sonic wolves.
The kesh eyed him in silence for a few moments. The other kesh around it stared down at the group almost unblinkingly, the continual regard irritating the lionesses. They started growling and Dominic had to send a calming thought to them.
‘Offer tribute and I will let you through,’ the kesh said finally.
‘Tribute?’ Dominic asked, a bit incredulously.
‘A hundred Prey Points per head allowed through,’ the kesh announced gleefully.
‘A hundred?!’ spluttered Dominic incredulously. ‘That’s daylight robbery!’ Not to mention that he actually didn’t have the points as it was, having so recently levelled up.
‘Offer it or not; your choice,’ the kesh told him with a sense of a shrug.
‘And what’s stopping us from just walking in?’ challenged Dominic, incensed by the monkey-like creature’s greed.
The kesh barked, its voice deep and carrying. Within a few moments there was a rustle in the leaves above and the number of kesh more than doubled. The new ones were all carrying stones, and these appeared to have actually been worked a bit to make them sharper and more damaging.
‘You will not make it far,’ replied the lead kesh simply, its eyes gleaming with malice. ‘So, will you take the offer? Or will you retreat?’
‘A hundred is unreasonable!’ protested Dominic. ‘I’ll give you one Prey Point, and under protest at that,’
‘What are you doing?’ asked Leo, horrified. Since he didn’t try to use their telepathy, the kesh shouldn’t have heard it. ‘Why are you giving into its demands?’
‘I’m not,’ replied Dominic, equally directing it solely to Leo. ‘I’m trying to get its measure.’
‘One Prey Point?’ scoffed the kesh, hopefully unaware of their internal conversation. ‘You insult us. We are the guardians of this forest, keeping the foot of the Great Tree free from trespassers. Only those who pay us tribute and will not threaten our food are allowed within.’
‘So you allowed the, uh, ‘centre guardians’ through?’ Dominic asked, deceptively idly. The kesh paused for a moment.
‘The centre guardians are an exception,’ it replied slowly. ‘We have a mutual non-interference agreement. They do not hunt us; we do not drive them out and graciously accept control over the forest alone.’ Meaning, Dominic interpreted, that the kesh were unable to drive the sonic wolves out and take control over the whole forest. Why the wolves weren’t doing the same to the kesh, he didn’t know.
‘In fact,’ continued the kesh, ‘If we could agree on a similar pact and set it in stone now, then we could offer you entry at a much lower price: perhaps only sixty Prey Points per head,’ it said, sounding as if the thought was only just now occurring to it. However, from the way it watched him avidly, Dominic somehow doubted it.
Frankly, the former-human was rather disturbed by how much these arboreal aliens reminded him of snake-oil salesmen. He felt vaguely dirty from just coming into contact with them.
‘We could even offer to act as guards for you, keeping out undesirables – for a price,’ the kesh added. Clearly it hadn’t heard the advice about making an offer and then shutting up.
‘How can we even ‘pay’ you tribute?’ Dominic asked, giving himself time to think. ‘Or pay you for services. I can’t take out my Prey Points to give them to you.’ At least he didn’t think he could. He hadn’t tried, though. If he could…that had other implications.
‘An Ability,’ the kesh answered, almost off-handedly. ‘It will not be a problem. Now, will we make an agreement?’ Dominic’s attention had sharpened when he’d mentioned it being an Ability. That was good to know. But he was curious to see just how much the kesh wanted this ‘agreement’.
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‘If I agree to an agreement, I won’t go above five Prey Points per pers- per head to go through: we need our points to level up so we can beat the sonic wolves,’ he argued. The kesh eyed him for another long moment.
‘If we can come to an agreement for a regular tribute to be paid to our clan in case of victory, then I could drop it to ten points per head. No lower, my clan also need to increase in strength to keep ourselves safe.’
He didn’t say ‘to feed my family’, at least, Dominic decided with a hint of humour. Far, far too like some shady merchant.
‘Ten Prey Points are certainly more acceptable than a hundred,’ Dominic agreed, noting the anticipatory glint in the kesh’s eyes. ‘However, I must confer with my pride,’ he finished, watching with a hint of glee at how the anticipation was replaced by disappointment.
‘Very well,’ the kesh agreed with a hint of annoyance. ‘However, do not take long or the favourable price will increase. And the centre guardians grow stronger by the day – wait too long and risk failure.’
‘I hear you,’ Dominic answered neutrally, then turned to leave the forest, indicating the lionesses should follow him. They did, though with more than a bit of confusion.
‘What happened?’ asked Anuke through the pride chat, the other two lionesses chiming in with feelings of agreement. ‘We are not attacking? We are retreating?’
‘We’re regrouping,’ Dominic corrected. ‘More specifically, we’re going to let the rest of the pride catch up with us. While we wait, we’ll do some hunting to collect some Prey Points.’
‘You’re not considering the monkey’s bargain, are you?’ asked Leo to Dominic alone, horrified.
‘I’m considering it,’ Dominic replied carefully, ‘But I don't think we should take it. Not in the long term, anyway.’
‘I should think not!’ the lion said firmly. ‘Bowing to the demands of a load of primates? Even if they’re alien ones, I wouldn’t be able to show my face to the females. But then why appear to do so?’ he asked with more curiosity.
‘Because there’s nothing more difficult to defeat than a smart enemy,’ Dominic answered as they padded between the trees. He added his thoughts to the pride chat: he didn’t expect the lionesses to understand, but thought that they deserved a bit of explanation. ‘A smart enemy who knows that we’re the enemy will make preparations against us. A smart enemy who doesn’t know we’re the enemy will probably still make some preparations, but they will have more vulnerabilities than one who is completely defensive.
‘Right now, that kesh is waiting to hear what we decide. It’s hoping to gain from us, either in the short term with Prey Points, or the long term with this ‘agreement’. That means that it won’t send offensive attacks, or attack us as soon as we walk near one of the trees under its control. Which means that we may have an opportunity in the future.’
‘But you don’t think that the long-term agreement is a good idea, right?’ the lion checked with Dominic. ‘Because the day that we need a bunch of monkeys to protect our territory is the day we should be chased out of the pride.’
‘I don’t think we should go that far,’ advised Dominic. ‘Things are different now than they used to be and if our territory gets too big, we may not be able to protect it all personally. However, in this case, I agree with you.’
‘Though I think you should always agree with me,’ commented the lion a little arrogantly before continuing and sounding confused instead, ‘in this case…why are you?’
‘I don’t trust them’ Dominic replied, ignoring the rest of Leo’s comment.
‘I agree with you on that,’ the lion commented. ‘But why don’t you trust them? They’re close enough to monkeys that they could probably be your relatives. I know you don’t always see yourself as a lion,’ he commented shrewdly, then ruined it with his next words, ‘though why you wouldn’t pounce upon the opportunity to change to become the superior species, I don’t know. Anyway, wouldn’t you trust your relatives?’
‘It depends on the relative,’ replied Dominic dryly. ‘And that’s my point – as you well know, Mr chase-away-any-other-male-lions-because-they-might-steal-my-females. There are a whole lot of humans who I wouldn’t trust as far as I could throw them – pre-System. And these guys reminded me far too much of those.’
‘Oh?’ the lion asked, intrigued despite himself and pointedly ignoring Dominic’s aspersion. ‘Go on.’
‘They were too eager for one thing. The kesh was willing to drop from a hundred Prey Points to ten as long as its demands were met. Whatever ‘agreement’ they currently have with the sonic wolves, I doubt it’s as they depicted. Which means they were attempting to trick us into some bargain which would probably be weighted against us. Not to mention its attempt to pressure me into making a quick decision at the end. How it picked up the techniques of a sleezy salesman, I don’t know. Though,’ he continued thoughtfully, ‘maybe that last bit was honest….
‘Anyway, I wouldn’t even want the bargain: why would I want creatures on my doorstep which control my perimeter and will clearly make me pay through the nose for any service I want from them? Not to mention being clearly willing to conspire with my enemies for the right price. No, those are allies I really don’t want.’
‘Then we will attack them? Drive them out of our territory?’ the lion asked, a sense of disquiet having come from his direction at the thought of the kesh controlling the perimeter and letting in enemies unannounced.
‘The complication is that they’re smart, and that their domain is high up in the tree-tops,’ Dominic sighed. ‘It will be hard to root them out completely when they can just hide higher than even our most agile lions can reach. Not to mention that they’re clearly starting to develop the creation of tools. That actually is something we could do with – but on our terms; not theirs.’
‘So what are you thinking?’ Leo asked, sounding a little frustrated. The former-human sympathised – he knew that the lion would much rather have an enemy in front of him to kill than needing to think about the kind of twisty situations that always seemed to happen when full sapience came into the picture.
‘I’m thinking that we need to speak to Sekhmet and make a plan,’ Dominic replied grimly.