The Earthbreaker troop moved up into the badlands, clinking and talking as loudly as they could. They had even forced a large wagon up through the marshes, raising a road where they couldn’t find solid ground.

They wore no uniforms, and they carried no weapons. They looked for all the world like a band of refugees headed toward this peaceful city Lu Gun’s informant had told him about.

“You’re sure they’ll come,” Lu Gun asked the rat-face man beside him. The man had overlong limbs and boney fingers that were halfway to claws. Lu Gun’s men had assumed he was suffering from some Farwilds disease, and maybe they were right in some sense. But whatever this man had, it wasn’t catching. And he had done far more good for the Earth Kingdom Colonies at Lu Gun’s side, than rotting away in a stone cell beneath New Republic City.

“Yes, master,” said the informant, “They don’t have a choice. They come or they starve.”

Lu Gun nodded and the rat-faced informant slunk off.

“We camp here tonight!” announced Lu Gun.

The Earthbreakers around him nodded, grim-faced.

Within the hour, there was only a single campfire remaining and every soldier appeared to be fast asleep. Furtive footsteps echoed through the dusty earth all around them, as Lu Gun slumped against the wagon wheel.

Another moment more.

An Earthbreaker scream was cut off as one enterprising creature ran in ahead of the others. Some of the Earthbreakers shifted at that, but that could have been perceived as a turning in their sleep.

He could feel his men’s hearts hammering in their chests, but they didn’t break discipline. Lu Gun almost smiled. He had selected his men well for this mission.

Another Earthbreaker was taken, and he “awoke” long enough to fight his attacker. None of these savage creatures would have noticed that his desperate movements were an attempt at Earthbending. To them, he would have just been thrashing for his life as his blood washed the badlands.

The pack grew emboldened and rushed in on all sides. Only then did Lu Gun leap up from his feigned slumber, “Now!”

“Hoo-ugh!” The Earthbreakers leapt to their feet and stomped in unison as they had practiced. A trench appeared all around the encampment, dozens of lanky creatures screeching as the earth beneath their feet fell away. Some had been more aggressive or timid, and had avoided the pit. A few rocks or spars of earth launched those remaining in among their brethren. Some tried to climb free and were met with more stone. In moments, they were screeching and tearing at each other, like so many wild animals, caught in a trap.

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But they’re not wild animals, Lu Gun knew. Not if what the rat-faced informant had told him was true.

Lu Gun lifted himself on a pedestal of earth so he could see and be seen down in the pits that teemed with feral creatures.

“Boneshifters!” Lu Gun thundered over the animal cries, “You have come for meat and so I have brought you meat.”

At a gesture his soldiers unloaded the wagon and threw choice hunks of game down into the pits. The animal sounds intensified briefly, but changed pitch as they now fought for food rather than escape.

Shining green earthstones illuminated the area, giving Lu Gun his first good look at the creatures. They were as diverse and myriad as the beasts that had inspired them. There were wolf faces and cat faces, bear and boar, a few had even sought something more reptilian or avian. But there was one thing consistent about all the strange elongated or malformed shapes within the pits: they all bore the foundations of something human.

Scraps of clothing signified the ones more recently turned, or perhaps the ones that still held to some humanity.

“Who among you can speak for the pack?”

No response from the creatures below. But some faces – some even with scraps of meat dangling from their chins – looked up interestedly.

“Who among you is your alpha?”

Several of the creatures backed away from one in particular. It looked more ursine than human at this point, but it still wore the shreds of a tunic, and it certainly had the largest, choicest of the cuts in its pit.

It stared up at Lu Gun in challenge.

Lu Gun sent a shaft of metal through its bestial face.

Those nearby immediately set upon its hunk of meat, and some of the smaller ones began tearing into the flesh of their former leader itself.

“You!” said Lu Gun pointing out one with a portion that was nearly equal to the alpha’s. The vaguely feline form flinched at the gesture, unsure if whatever sorcery had killed its former leader was now being directed toward it.

Lu Gun smiled. This one he could work with.

“Will any among your pack challenge you?”

It looked side to side, and everywhere its feline eyes fell, its pack-mates flinched back.

“Good,” said Lu Gun, “Now, I have a task for you.”

The creature cocked its head at that.

“Serve me and you will be well-fed.”

The creature’s eyes gleamed.

Oh, this one he could certainly work with.