N17, Evolved Minions

“Fgholough,” Tone ordered me and the other tamer guided us through the walled grounds, into the hallway that contained the fierce rats’ pens.

There a big crowd of tamers and common ratmen were looking at a particular cell with anxious expressions. It was the bigger commotion I had seen since arriving at the village. As we approached the noisy group opened a path for us. Then a tamer began discussing something with Tone, but I didn’t pay them any attention, I was focused on what was inside the cell.

A dog was staring at me. Its shape was like any other I had seen until now, but its short fur was dark gray. I stared back at the animal. It kept looking at me with a menacing attitude, the way it behaved remembered me of someone. I decided to try something I hadn’t done since evolving.

“Grrr, groarr!” The growl resounded in the hallway, it felt quite different but I hoped the tone resembled my old command enough.

‘Pay attention! I know it’s you!’

I stretched my front legs and puffed my chest in what I hoped was a majestic pose of dominance, waiting for the reaction of the gray dog.

After seeing my actions the animal seemed a bit more relaxed and took familiar waiting posture. A hint of resistance could still be seen in the depths of its eyes.

‘I knew it! You are Number Two! No wonder the ratmen came looking for me, I’m sure you have been misbehaving these last few days. But why are they so nervous?’

I barked looking at Tone and pointed my snout at the bone door bindings, signaling him to open the cell.

Tone hesitated and he and the other tamers started discussing again. I heard some of them argue that it was dangerous and that ‘Dagr doghs’ were uncontrollable. The bickering continued for a while until a particular tamer shut everyone up and gave the order to open the cell.

I kept my position in front of the pen as a ratman undid the bindings. I was a bit nervous too, Number Two had always been the most defiant of my subordinates and this new evolution was unknown to me. I wondered if there were any differences with my own under that dark fur.

Once the door was open I didn’t take my eyes off Number Two. My other subordinates weren’t here and I didn’t want him to notice my lack of confidence so I decided to settle things quickly. With my head held up I walked decisively towards him and used my front paw to force him to lay down.

‘If he jumps at me now it’s going to be troublesome.’

Number two resisted the push of my paw and I applied more strength to it. All of it while keeping a serious and unimpressed expression.

‘C’mon, remember! I’m the leader! I been in charge of you since the moment you were born.’

After some moments of tension Number Two gave up and lay down on the ground.

Relieved I positioned myself at his side at took a look outside the cell. All the ratmen were watching us with dumbfounded expressions. It took them a little to remember what would happen next and when they did all but one quickly stepped out of sight. The tamer in charge of Number Two was as stiff as a board and his expression clearly showed he didn’t want to be there, he hesitantly took a generous piece of meat out of his pouch.

‘Hmph! When I evolved into a dog my morsels were a lot smaller. It’s obvious they don’t take me seriously enough.’

I couldn’t let this affront continue, later I would make it clear to Tone that I deserved more food. I had seen some ratmen preserving meat using salt, I was definitely asking for a piece. The tamer threw the chunk in front of the cell, but Number Two didn’t react. He just stared at the tall ratmen.

I exited the cell, acting with dignity, but secretly hoping Number Two wouldn’t decide to jump at me from behind. Once outside I roared at him “Groarr! Grrr groarr!” The sound of my call rumbled inside the cave, I was sure all the inhabitants of the village had heard it.

‘There goes me keeping a low profile as a dog. But it doesn’t matter, now that I have to put airs in front of Number Two I would have to forget about it anyway.’

Maybe I should change my strategy, I had been too passive since I was captured. I would try to communicate with Tone, if he was cooperative I might be able to reunite with the rest of my followers before Number One and Number Three evolved.

While thinking if I should try a different approach to gather my gang Number Two got out of the cell. I pushed the piece of meat towards him and he devoured it in one bite. Behind me I could hear the nervous tamer gulping down.

The normal ratmen watching all this develop from the side wore surprised expressions while some of the other tamers seemed wary of us. Ignoring them I signaled my subordinate to follow me and we headed towards the walled grounds with the depressed tamer in tow. It seemed like I would have to watch over the pair for the next few days.

‘Poor guy, I hope Number Two doesn’t chew him too hard.’

…

Another few days had passed since my first hunting expedition with the ratmen and Number Two’s evolution. I had participated in more outings since then and thanks to them I had a vague understanding of the ratmen’s village position inside the caves.

I didn’t really knew where the cardinal directions were, but for the sake of making a mental map I had decided that the corridors where I awakened were in the south and the main caves extended north from there. Given that assumption this settlement was about three hours north of the corridors, between two of the main path branches that kept on splitting indefinitely.

The village itself was a big cavern with a vague oval shape, if I were to draw it on a map it would be more wide than high. Most of it was occupied by the flat area with sparse tents where the common ratmen, the tamers and their dogs lived. They seemed to be the ones with the lowest status in the village despite being the ones gathering most of the food and materials.

Surrounding this big plain area, in the southern wall of the cavern, were two of the fortified entrances to the village, while a third one situated in the eastern wall. This last entrance was also the preferred one by the ratmen when going out to hunt.

To the north lay the walled grounds where the fierce rats were trained, and behind it, in the northern wall, the hallway and the rat pens.

Also alongside the northern wall, to the west of the walled grounds, there was another enclosed space that I hadn’t entered yet. Going by the amount of hides the ratmen carried in and out of it and the foul odor that came from inside I could guess it was a tannery.

In the west part of the cave, before the slope, was the area where the tall ratmen artisans processed the materials that the tamers brought from the hunts as well as the hides that had already been tanned. These artisans seemed to have a higher status than the tamers as all of them lived in the westernmost part of the village that was on the slope.

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The sloped part of the village itself had three well differentiated levels. Each of them was partially surrounded by stone walls, like some kind of hill fortress. The tents there were a lot bigger and numerous than those on the flat area. On its first two levels lived the artisans and a few of the most experienced tamers alongside their dogs. There were also quite a bit of common ratmen that were used as servants and attendants by them. On the third level a tent, or more accurately, a house with proper stone walls was overseeing the cavern. There, from time to time, I had seen some ratmen bigger than any others in the village.

By my estimations there had to be about two hundred ratmen in the settlement. Three fourths of them were common ratmen while the rest were mostly tall ratmen. Forty of them tamers with a similar number of dogs and a dozen artisans. Then there were the mysterious individuals that were mostly seen in the third level of the slope. I didn’t know much about them other than their bigger size and the fact that they had to be the ones governing the village.

‘Hmm, I should come with a better name than common ratmen.’

Apart from doing menial tasks for the others inhabitants they also went out of the village in pairs, probably as explorers or sentries.

‘Hmm, should I call them commoners? Explorers? Workers?… Laborers. Yes, that sounds good.’

While lying down thinking about the village and its dwellers I saw Number Two and his assigned tamer pass by. The other ratmen were still uneasy around the pair and tried to avoid them when possible.

‘I don’t know why they are so scared. Sure, Number Two is a troublemaker, and he could probably kill one of them during one of his tantrums. But I have been working hard to make sure nothing like that happens.’

The last few days had been stressful. I had been almost constantly tailing the pair and stopping Number Two when he got too aggressive and in each occasion I also had to endure the stares of some of the tamers. I didn’t really understood their motives, but I was almost sure they just didn’t like seeing how someone else that had control over their tamed beasts. Even if that one was another of their supposedly domesticated animals.

‘They are envious pricks. It’s not my fault that I’m more competent than them.’

Thankfully they knew that I was the only one that could control the gray dog and we had always been put together during hunts.

Number Two himself hadn’t changed much after evolving. He still had a tendency to charge first every time we encountered a prey. Sometimes I had to order him myself to avoid him rushing alone, even when we were against the big lizards. At least he was in a better mood after coming back from the hunts.

‘Anyway his tamer has it worse than me.’

The poor ratman was on edge all the time and had been scolded plenty of times for being unable to control Number Two. He now carried a big bag of meat to treat my subordinate every time Number Two looked displeased. Talking about treats, I had also profited a bit from Number Two’s tantrums. I had been asking Tone for a morsel of preserved meat after each one of my interventions.

‘That stuff is the most delicious food I have had since awakening in this damn place. I really would like to know where they get all that salt.’

They probably mined it from somewhere in the caves, but I hadn’t seen that place yet. It might come in handy to know where I could find it in the future.

I was getting a bit bored of musing about my life in the settlement, so I got up from my spot in the flat area and lightly headbutted Tone, that was dozing off nearby. The tall ratman shooed me, but I insisted. He was just being lazy. Most of the tamers were training or walking their dogs, but Tone had stopped practicing with me after Number Two’s evolution. He had realized I was a lot more intelligent than the others and was neglecting our lessons. Not that liked them but moving around provided me with valuable opportunities to scout the village and its inhabitants.

‘I don’t mind if you take a nap from time to time, but it’s better to use our time off for something productive. Wake up lazy bum!’

Finally after a headbutt directed to the stomach Tone got up while glaring at me. I gave him some moments to stretch and shake off all his sleepiness before signaling him that I wanted to take a walk. If I could I would just go on my own, but the ratmen seemed to have some kind of rule stating that the tamers always had to accompany their dogs.

‘Probably someone was chewed by an unfriendly mutt in the past.’

Once Tone ended tidying his clothes I leisurely led the way towards a couple of tamers doing morning exercises with their dogs.

Unlike Number Two’s partner these tall ratmen seemed to be handling their companions without much trouble. One of the dogs was repeatedly fetching a bone with great diligence while the other was biting a ragged hide. I could tell that the second dog wasn’t trying very hard, otherwise the tamer holding the skin wouldn’t be standing.

Tall ratmen had felt really threatening when they captured us, but now I was sure I could overpower them in terms of strength, and the same was true for any dog. The humanoid beasts’ power lay in their capability to handle tools and weapons and pull off advanced tactics, not in their raw strength.

As I got close to the group the two dogs stopped what they were doing and came to welcome me.

“Woof~,” the first one saluted me while sitting down and the second stood by his side.

They were Number One and Number Three, both of them had evolved a couple days after Number Two. All of us had become dogs with only a slight time difference.

‘In fact these two only stayed as fierce rats for a short period. Next time I may not be the first one to change… I hope Number Two never get to evolve before me.’

Currently I wasn’t even sure if there was a next form for us to advance into. I hadn’t seen any beast that resembled a dog, but I had good reasons to think that I could go even further. Most, if not all the creatures in this underground went through various phases, and while I hadn’t seen many different species in the caves I had seen their hides.

Here and there in the village there were skins from animals unknown to me. Most belonged to reptiles of varied colors and sizes, but a few were dog pelts.

‘I want to think they were taken from dogs that died during hunts or of old age.’

One of these pelts in special was adorning the entrance to the big house on top of the slope and I was sure its original owner had been quite bigger than me. Most probably a more advanced evolution.

I circled my two subordinates and suddenly turned around to snatch the ragged hide from the tamer’s hand. Then I looked at Number One and Number three and taunted them into taking the rag from me.

‘C’mon slowpokes, let’s see how well you do today!’

The dogs soon came at me and the three of us ran around while trying to keep the worn down skin in our possession. The game was fun, but it wasn’t like I did it for the entertainment. I needed these interactions to make sure they wouldn’t forget about me.

Now that everyone had evolved into dogs I could be a bit more at easy. These two hadn’t have any problems to adapt to their new routine, and they still seemed to respect me as their leader. For the time being I wanted Number One to help me keep Number Two under control, like he used to do. That way I could focus on finding my other followers.

‘If only I could convince Tone to get out of the village with me…’

I had tried several times to leave the village with the tall ratman, but he wouldn’t let me go further than the entrance. It didn’t matter if I appealed to him by acting cute or used a more forceful approach like biting his clothes and pulling him towards the caves, he wouldn’t budge. I had even made an attempt to leave alone, hoping Tone would follow me, but he and the guards had gotten quite mad.

I could probably go by myself, but I still hadn’t decided if I wanted to leave this village with my subordinates and risk the ratmen pursuing us or stay here until most of my band evolved into dogs. The only thing I wanted at the moment was to make sure they were alright and to relocate them in a place closer to this cavern.

‘That’s the problem of not being the one in command. If I can’t convince Tone in the next couple days I will escape for a bit and at least check if the gang is alright. It doesn’t matter if the ratmen get a little annoyed.’

Having interacted with my subordinates for a bit I left them with their assigned tamers and headed to the crafting area.

‘The smell is always awful here.’

The stench of that black powder was always present in this place. I had confirmed that many of the clothes worn by the ratmen had a whiff of it that seemed to fade with time, unlike the village doors, that were probably treated regularly to keep other beasts at bay.

I could see some artisans using bones to scrape the meat off the skins of the most recent preys while other was inspecting the hides covered with salt and ordering his servants to clean and pile a few of them.

Some laborers were doing simple tasks, like smashing dry animal tendons between two rocks to make sinew strands. They were mostly used to make bindings for weapons and other objects where leather straps wouldn’t work well.

‘All this work is really time consuming. If one had to survive on his own in this underground place it would take a lot of effort to even do these simple things.’

After a bit one of the artisans guided some servants carrying desalted skins to the enclosed area on the north and I decided to follow behind, hoping to at least take a peek inside.

‘The odor here is even more terrible.’

I looked at the opening leading inside that was covered by a curtain of sewn hides and showed Tone that I wanted to get inside.

“Gno,” like always the tamer refused my suggestion. This one and the sloped area were the only places I hadn’t been able to explore yet. For a while I roamed around the perimeter of the tannery under the attentive watch of Tone, but I was unable to discover anything interesting. I was about to ask him to go back when I saw three figures coming in our direction.

Two of them were the bigger species of ratmen I had only observed from afar until now. They were escorting another individual that I had never seen before.

‘So big!’

The ratman in the middle was more than a head taller than his comrades.

‘The heck! Is that the village’s chief? Should I even call that a ratman? He is even bigger than a human!’