The second village massacre was even easier than the first.
This was true from a technical standpoint, as the 94 gnoll allies he’d picked up evened the odds significantly. He had them wear scraps of colored cloth on their arms so as to help distinguish friend and foe, then he had them sneak into the camp and massacre the enemy gnolls in their beds.
It was also true from an emotional standpoint. No burning flesh. No repetitive killing. He had his gnoll minions do the dirty work, and then a couple days later, like magic, his army almost doubled in size.
However, that didn’t mean his fighting power doubled. Already at 186 gnolls the seams were beginning to show.
“We should be twelve twelves,” said Teddy. “This is too many. We cannot grow more.”
“What happens when we grow past twelve twelves?” The instinctive definition of a tribe seemed to be about 144 gnolls.
“It becomes two tribes stuffed into the skin of one, like two souls stuffed into a body. The tribe will tear itself apart with infighting.”
“What if we separate the group into multiple tribes?” suggested Krystyna. “No infighting.”
“But then there is outfighting.”
“I’ve seen Katani’s city,” said Jerome. ”It’s peaceful, but there were far more than 144 gnolls in there. There’s got to be a way.” Somehow the king had twisted the tribal nature of gnolls and made them form a larger and more complex organism.
Teddy shrugged. “We do not need to know his secrets. We are going to free everyone from his ty… what’s the word you used?”
“Tyranny,” said Krystyna.
“Yes. We’re going to free everyone from his oppressive tyranny. Then all humans and gnolls can live in perfect freedom.”
Krystyna had been indoctrinating Teddy with her freedom shit again. If the World Government was so oppressive, like she claimed, why did it give everyone free rations and Netflix? Oh well; as long as his gnolls attacked when he said to attack then he’d take down the King, free the humans, and finally complete his Quest.
They were distracted by gnollish howling. Jerome ran to find out what was happening and found nine gnolls engaged in a vicious brawl.
“Break it up!” he yelled, to no effect.
He stepped into the middle of the brawl and punched out one of the gnolls. When that didn’t work he punched out a second.
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The remaining gnolls turned to look at him. Six of them; the final one was dead from a spear wound. So they’d had their first killing.
“What is the meaning of this?” he demanded.
The six gnolls left standing separated into two clearly defined teams, four on one side and two on the other.
“They were taking our practice spears,” said one.
“We needed them more than you. Our spear skill was lower, so we need the practice more.”
“Our spear skill is higher, so we’re more important!”
“It won’t even matter, since you’ll die first in battle… just like your friend here.”
“Stop!” said Jerome. “We’re all in the same tribe. We can —”
“Are we? If they steal spears from us, to keep us from improving, they’re more like an enemy.”
Jerome groaned. “Who killed the guy?”
The two allied gnolls pointed to one of the other four, who proudly nodded, clearly unaware that he’d done anything wrong.
Jerome walked up and snapped his neck.
“You’re guilty of murder, asshole. You don’t kill tribe, even if they’re mean to you. If you have a problem, work it out. If you can’t work it out, come to me. Understand?”
The five remaining gnolls nodded to Jerome, while stealing glances at the gnolls on the other side.
“Good. Tell the others. I want the whole camp to know what murder is, and to know that it’s wrong.”
Two hours later the first dispute was brought to him, and he handled it with as much wisdom and impartiality as he could.
Four hours later he’d gotten five different disputes.
Six hours later he realized he’d made a horrible mistake.
“We have to attack the city soon,” he told Krystyna. “They’re going to drive me crazy.”
“Too many gnolls,” said Teddy.
After the assault on the city they’d still have too many gnolls — that was the downside of them never truly dying — but at least then he’d have other humans to help, and he’d have one less thing to worry about.
He decided to limit dispute resolution to an hour per day, so that he could create battle plans and see to the running of the camp. What that meant, in practice, was that the gnolls got impatient and starting fighting again… but now the losers of those fights (the ones who survived) were mad at Jerome.
He began to fear what would happen if a gnoll decided that he wasn’t tribe. If all of them decided en masse, and it was him and Krystyna against two hundred gnolls in open battle, then the gnolls might not win — with his transformations, Jerome could survive a lot of low-level assaults — but they might be able to kill Krystyna, which was just as bad as them winning. But if they defected in secret, and it was a high-level gnoll, he could wake up with a spear in his throat and all the transformations in the world couldn’t help him.
As a stopgap move he asked Krystyna to become judge. She didn’t want to do it, but it was between her and him, and, well… he didn’t want to do it either. None of the gnolls were an option either — Teddy was the most experienced among them, and he was literally born last week.
After the first day of being judge she came to bed exhausted. For the first time since they’d been together, she refused sex.
“We’re assaulting the city soon,” she said. “The sooner the better.”