A grouping of red dots appeared on the north western side of the display as Chantelle turned off the alarm. The contact list showed three Forest Keepers leading a lot of beast people. Humanoids with features of animals. I saw oxen, rabbits, deer, bears, badgers, and moles represented before the contacts side of the table switched from its display mode to its list mode. They were headed for the pavilion at the bottom of my stairs. Which wasn't large enough to cover the roughly one hundred people that were on the way. More concerning was that two of the snow worms were headed towards them.

"I think I'll have to go and greet our guests." I said. "It's probably my responsibility now that they're on my land to see that they aren't eaten."

"Actually, with no treaties in place you have no obligation to them until you invite them formally as guests on your land." She said. "Until that time they are uninvited guests and must see to their own protection."

"I still feel responsible for them." I said. "They are most likely the refugees that Mal'Thorn said he would ask if they wanted to live here. If they can grow food we need them to feed your people after we rescue them."

Technically I could feed any number of people easily from the single fish and muffin we were still eating, but some variety would be nice. And I didn't want to be responsible for personally making food for an entire village of people.

"Stay here where it's safe and keep an eye on the detection ward." I said. "I'll go get them."

She nodded, and I headed out. As I got to ground level down the outside stairs I sank my power into the snow for ten meters all around me. I set off mostly north west, clearing a path in the two meter deep snow by converting it to air. A minute later I felt a void in my power, there was a living thing in the snow off to my left waiting in ambush. I extended my power further that way. It was enormous, a meter and a half wide and a six meters long.

I could hear the crunch of snow coming from in front of me and headed in that direction. Forty meters further along a very large oxen beast person stumbled through the space that I'd just cleared of snow. He fell face first from the meter deep snow he was trampling a path through towards the hard ground, and me. I stepped forward, placed both my hands on his chest, and pushed him with just enough force to reorient his fall into a step down onto the ground.

I stepped back as he let out a bellow, ducking his head down to put his impressive horns at my chest height.

"Easy there." I said. "I was just making sure you didn't hurt yourself."

I had my sword in the stone scabbard I'd made, which was secured behind my back. I was still tracking the snow worm, who had been keeping pace with me ten meters to the left. It moved closer as two more oxen men cleared the snow to either side of my path.

"Lord C.C." I heard from behind the first oxen man. "Brutus, stop threatening the man we've come to ask for help."

The oxen man raised his head and stepped back, grunting. Behind him was a deer person with an impressive set of antlers. The snow worm was now within what I estimated as being its striking distance.

"How did you know it was me?" I asked. I moved my hand to my sword, drawing it slowly. The snow worm was bunching up to strike.

"I told him you were coming." Mal'Thorn said, coming down from the tree a few meters to my right. "They come in peace, there is no need for weapons."

"I will greet them properly in a minute." I said. "There is just one problem I-"

I slowed my perception of time drastically. The snow worm was launching itself at the oxen man on my left. The line of its strike wouldn't carry it through anyone else. I couldn't stop its mass with my sword, but I could cut it in half down its length from in front of it.

This was going to be tricky. I swung my staff down behind the oxen's legs and jumped towards him. With my sword hand I manoeuvred the blade carefully to avoid cutting either of us and punched at him with the hilt. Just before it hit I reduced the force and turned it into a solid push. He was falling backwards before he could react, and would be clear of the snow worm.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I was already turning and raising my sword higher as the snow worm burst from the snow bank. It was a gaping maw nearly two meters wide ringed with row upon row of dagger-like teeth. The teeth were all curved inwards, to pull its prey further down its throat while it shredded them. Those teeth were not giving me good feelings. I couldn't see any way of avoiding them. I soaked my power into my body and focused it on reinforcing my skin.

I swung my sword down and leapt forwards, down the snow worm's throat. I made it about two meters down, cutting the top half of the worm in half. I'd only moved a meter forwards, the worm had moved the other meter in its strike. I cut my way to the side of the worm, cutting off a quarter of its cylindrical body, to get out.

The whole thing had taken less than three seconds from my jumping at the oxen man to emerging from the worm. And I was once again covered in gore. And I had an audience, a dozen beast people and three Forest Keepers, all looking at me in shock.

"Ick." I said. "Excuse me a moment."

I said it more to avoid shocking them any more than for any other reason. As I used my power to convert the mess covering me into air a gust of warm wind washed out from me and over them. My skin reinforcement worked great, I didn't even get a scratch. Mal'Thorn was the first to recover.

"Snow burrowers." He said.

Oh yeah, that's what they were called. Snow worms worked for me.

"There was another one headed towards you." I said. "And there is a third one on my lands, but it was staying where it was on the other side of my fortress. I'll be right back. I think I want to kill it before it attacks, as that wasn't pleasant."

I soaked my power into the snow, pushing it towards the right, where the other snow worm would be coming from. I could feel where the beast people had trampled a path and the slight voids where their feet were pressed into the snow.

There, sixty meters ahead and approaching the tail end of the beast people's group. I had about thirty seconds before it made a meal of someone. Mal'Thorn opened his mouth to speak to me, but I raised my sword hand to stop him and dashed off to the right of the path the beast people had made, clearing the snow from my path as I went. The snow worm was just bunching up for its strike when I went straight through it, leading with my sword and beheading it. Much better than jumping down its throat. I sheathed my sword and headed back down the path I'd made.

"Sorry about that." I said to Mal'Thorn. "Necessity precluded politeness there."

I turned to the oxen man I'd pushed down, who was standing next to the snow worm. It looked as though he'd taken a glancing blow from it as it went past, he was bleeding slightly. Ah, I hadn't accounted for the top part of the worm being pushed into his path when I cut it.

"Are you alright?" I asked him.

"Yes." He said gruffly. "Thanks."

Okay, then. A man of few words. I turned back to Mal'Thorn and the deer person.

"Now that that unpleasantness is done with, allow me to welcome you to my lands." I said. "Come, talk with me on our way to my shelter."

The path that the beast people had been trampling through the snow, with the oxen people as their path breakers, was about ten meters wide. I could keep a sedate walking pace and clear that amount of snow at the same time. A human joined Mal'Thorn, the deer person, and I as we set off.

"This is Dael (Day-El), lord of these people." Mal'Thorn said, indicating the deer person. "And this is Shawn, priest of the summer god." Pointing to the human.

I nodded to both of them in turn. "You follow the god of summer?" I asked Dael.

"We are primarily druids." He said. "We follow balance, which means we welcome both of the gods, while following neither of them exclusively. Which was a problem for the god of winter, we had a priest of winter with us before we left our village. He told us that we were either with the god of winter, or against him. That was before he left us to join an army that is coming to besiege you."

"I take it that is why you are here?" I asked.

"Yes." He said. "We come seeking asylum. Our village had no defences, we relied upon our alliances with other nearby villages to keep us safe against attack and we were at peace with the typically hostile creatures of the forest due to our druidic nature. We started looking for someplace safer after the village north of our old village was destroyed. A week later the Warder Clan's village fell. The Forest Keepers said that you could offer the safety of strong walls, so long as we could prove useful. The primary requirement that was mentioned to us was that we would have to be capable of providing our own food?"

"Yes." I said. "It is possible for me to do so if absolutely required, but I would prefer my fortress to be self-sufficient without my input."

"We are druids." Dael said. "Give us good soil and we can do the rest. We even have an enchanter who can enchant mana crystals with a sunlight effect."

We arrived at my pavilion and I spent a few minutes expanding it to be able to cover the entire beast people group, and warming the stone to make it comfortable. Once that was done I created a stone table and some chairs. It was time to negotiate a treaty of my own.