Nick could hear the beast hordes coming well before he saw them. A chorus of piercing wails, thick with panic and bewilderment, sent shivers running up his spine. Not because the sound was disturbingly eerie, although it most definitely was. Rather, the sheer volume of shrieks and shouts revealed that far more beasts were heading Nick’s way than he had expected.
In that black moment, as the guttural cacophony rose to fill his ears, he knew that he was in trouble; that his plans were insufficient for the scale of the challenge to come. Not that he had any choice other than to press on and pray that he could manufacture a miracle and survive the battle that would begin at any moment.
The bestial cries grew louder by the heartbeat. Soon, Nick could pick out the distinct voices of individual komos and lemurs reverberating across the valley. The clamor of claws and paws scrambled madly as they raced across the forest floor, stampeding for the presumed safety of the highlands and racing the rising tide before they were devoured by the surge of dark water that was engulfing the Searing Isle.
Over the last five minutes, the air had grown thick with beast-churned dust, coating the inside of his throat. A turgid, electric tension rode the breeze, like a storm on the cusp of breaking over his head. He gripped the hilt of his sword, waiting for the first wave of beasts to start streaming into the elevated valley. The horde that would follow in their wake.
Nick forced himself to remain calm; to breathe; to think; to tune out the adrenaline coursing in his veins. He needed to suppress the realization that the first make-or-break moment would arrive within seconds, when the battle for the highlands began. He knew that the next few minutes would establish the flow of events to follow. Unless matters proceeded according to his plans, he rated his odds of living through the day as falling somewhere between slim and none.
Turning his mind to his most pressing concern, he needed the lemur tribe to survive if he was to have any hope of making it up to the top of the mountain. Controlling the emerging situation would be easy if this were all just a game.
Nick had played so many tactical simulations over the years that he could handle a skirmish of this scale in his sleep. Unfortunately, this was no game. Or perhaps, in a sense, it was. But in this game, Taltos and the System were the players, and Nick was a bottom-tier NPC at best. An extra in the grand story of the multiverse. He had no way to control the actions of individual lemurs, let alone on such a granular level. He couldn’t even communicate with the friendly primates beyond directing their attention.
But he had been observing the beasts on the island for weeks now. Modeling their behavior, then testing his predictions against the choices they made. Thus, he knew that the lemurs were smart enough to grasp basic tactics without needing his guidance. He should be able to lead the tribe toward making decisions that were in their best interest if the dynamics were readily apparent. At least in theory.
By now, Nick’s nervous pacing had worn a groove into the hillside—a trail across the terrain where he had laid the groundwork for enduring a prolonged battle, fortifying the wide swath of defensible high ground that he had identified during his initial survey of the region.
He was deeply worried that all his preparations would come to nothing. He hadn’t expected the churning cloud of dust, which had grown so thick that he could no longer see the hill on the other side of the valley. He didn’t have time to change his plans, but his tactic wouldn’t work as matters stood. Nick needed the lemurs to see him if he was to have any chance of influencing their behavior.
Just as he was deciding that he was well and truly fucked, the wind picked up and cleared the air over the valley, granting Nick a clear view of the terrain below. Just in time to watch a trio of komos and a pair of lemurs leap over the ridgeline. The first beasts to complete the climb to the highlands, at least in this valley. He watched them like a hawk, since their initial interaction would reveal critical information. Information that would help him decide which approach to take when the others of their kind arrived.
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There was a tense moment when both groups of beasts noticed each other. They seemed poised between attacking and withdrawing to recover from their exhaustion, their confusion as to what was happening clear in their posture.
Nick let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding when the beasts moved apart, heading to opposite sides of the valley floor. As he had hoped, for now, the creatures were too shaken up by the dramatic changes occurring across the island to battle one another. He knew that the uneasy truce would not last for long; that the time to act had arrived.
“Lemur bros. I’m up here. Look at me!” He had to yell for a good thirty seconds before one of the lemurs noticed his antics and glanced up at him. Nick made sweeping gestures in his direction, trying to indicate that the lemurs should head over to where he stood on the hillside. But the furry primate clearly had no idea what he wanted and started to look away once more.
Just as he was growing desperate, inspiration struck. Nick set down his sword, then raised up a spear in one hand and a fat berry in the other, waving them over the piles of resources that he had deposited on the hillside over the last two days. Mounds of spears and freshly foraged fruit, as well as the towering pile of rocks he had placed beside them.
The presence of weapons and food was a message that the lemur could understand. It reacted immediately, now that it knew what he was trying to say. It grabbed its mate by the hand, tugging to get its attention while pointing up at him. Giving the komos a wide berth, both lemurs scampered up the rise to join him, chittering in what he interpreted as gratitude as they armed themselves with a pair of spears from the pile.
Nick let out a sigh of relief, nibbling on the berry to top off his reserves. This was only the beginning of the first stage of his plan, but it had been a critical moment. The next step would be easier to pull off, although he was not even remotely looking forward to the struggle to survive that would follow.
During this brief exchange, dozens of komos and lemurs had come streaming into the valley. Defying his expectations, only beasts were emerging onto the highlands. Nick didn’t spot a single animal among them, although he didn’t have time to ponder the significance of their absence. As he had hoped, the newly arrived lemurs took one look at their tribemates standing on the hillside, now equipped with Nick’s spears, before heading for his location without needing to be prompted.
For the next ten minutes, everything went according to plan. He was able to gather and arm another twenty-seven members of the lemur tribe. A force sufficient to defend the hillside against the few scattered komos that were advancing on their position. Five seconds after the last lemur scampered up to his side, his troubles began.
Nick had just spent a nerve-wracking minute wondering if he had severely miscalculated before the trio of spiders that had entered the valley darted up the adjacent hillside. The deadly beasts had moved on after stopping to evaluate his position for far longer than he was comfortable with. Even without being pressured by the giant arachnids, there was a problem.
By now, nearly a hundred komos had scampered into the basin below, along with another score of lemurs. The lizards were layered so thickly across the valley floor that the newly arrived lemurs were having trouble darting past. Four primates fell to the komos’ jaws as they fought their way through the press of scaled bodies to join their brethren on the hillside.
While every lemur’s life mattered, these losses were within Nick’s expectations. The real problem was that the ratio of komos to lemurs that he had predicted was way off the mark. If the numbers so far were representative, there had to be at least twice as many lizards living on the island as he had estimated. There were so many komos that the tribe could no longer break through as they completed the ascent to the highlands. The lemurs gathered below had broken into two main groups, while the komos claimed the rest of the region, a solid wall of lizards barring access to the hillside.
The situation only grew worse as the valley filled up, since the predatory reptiles tended to spread out unless they were hunting as a pride. As matters stood, the rest of the tribe would be slaughtered instead of joining the group by Nick’s side. A force far too small to face the army of komos milling below his boots.