[KoJ] Chapter 86: Butting Heads

Ceph’s head is really soft. It’s surprisingly comfortable. Like sitting on a bubble of water that my body doesn’t slip within and isn’t wet.

Ceph’s head is really soft.

It’s surprisingly comfortable. Like sitting on a bubble of water that my body doesn’t slip within and isn’t wet. If I wasn’t so interested in the upcoming interaction between two factions I’d previously believed were part of the same, I might have just dozed off.

Through my time on the surface, I’d noticed that it was fairly common for the volans to hitch a ride on the heads of the dohrni when they weren’t flying. Now I know why. Fay and Tavi had preferred Hirsh down underground, but that was more than likely because they didn’t like Ceph than a preference for his hard antlers. Riding Ceph’s head was like being carried by a pillow.

The truck convoy rolls into direct sight of the small lake village, and the chatter amongst the soldiers disappears. Under the glares of a hundred portian and áinfean, the vehicles slow to a stop. Only when the the trucks’ growls stutter to a stop does the silence become apparent.

For a few moments, neither side seems to want to make the first move. They just stare at each other from across the clearing. I glance down to Ceph, who glances between them with a resigned expression. She decides to make the first move.

Leaping from the roof of the truck into it’s interior, I have to curl my tail slightly around her not to fall off. Instead of focusing on either side or making introductions as I expect  — As she’s done everywhere else so far — Ceph ignores them entirely. Instead, she loops a tentacle under the torso of the captive, lifts her, and hops out of the truck.

The injured woman grunts and glares at the patch of gravel she hangs over. By the way she bites her lip and turns her head towards Ceph, I’m certain she wants to say something. But not a word leaves her mouth.

Maybe I’m not as good as reading body language as I thought. I’ve been wrong more often than right today. Well, all the more reason to learn and improve.

The albanic’s limbs remain bent at uncomfortable angles. I’m still not sure what to think of that. It makes me uncomfortable that Ceph is so willing to injure a creature she didn’t intend to kill.

Earlier, she claimed it was because one as enhanced as she could not be easily suppressed. A single lapse in Ceph’s attention might be her end. I could understand that some threats had to be culled; it was the same as I had been doing over on the Other Side. But leaving a defeated creature to live in agony, while also not freeing them… it just seemed unnecessarily cruel.

Not that long ago, my thoughts would have been different. The desires of the strong were all that mattered. Now, I want to believe that the world is more than that. Especially from sapients. Those who have the ability to sympathise should treat those lesser than them the same way they want to be treated.

It is honestly disappointing.

Hunting, territorial disputes, and reactions to aggression were all acceptable. Unavoidable. But injuring the already beaten and killing for nothing but enjoyment are not things I think I can stand by. No, I won’t stand by them. And as Ceph carries the injured and already beaten albanic to the front of the truck, I have to physically hold myself back from hissing.

For now, I will hold myself back from making judgement. There’s still so much I don’t know about their culture, and Ceph thinks its a requirement. I will believe her for now. Information is important, and apparently not just for me. But is learning important enough to subject other — sapient — creatures to unnecessary pain?

I don’t know.

I would like to believe it isn’t, but there is also so much I have yet to learn, so I can only withhold my judgement until I don’t feel so… unsure.

Silence shattered, and stare-down broken, the dozens of warrior-castes leap from their trucks and rush to stand in an orderly line behind their commander. Each unsling their pellet shooters and hold them at rest, pointed at the gravel before them. I have to remind myself that those guns can actually harm most of the sapients, and the fact that they aren’t aiming at the portians and áinfean is probably a good thing.

Across the grassy clearing — the road not completing the distance to the village proper — a small group form from the masses and step forward. Amongst them, I notice that large, limping portian and the first few áinfean that climbed from the waters. Our side quickly does the same. Ceph steps in line with the commander — myself still on her head — and we are flanked by a retinue of half a dozen.

I may not know everything about sapients, nor these specific factions, but the tension is obvious even to me.

As both sides walk close, I notice Ceph puts in deliberate effort to stay a step ahead of the commander, and more than a dozen away. It would have been impossible for me to notice, subtle as she was, if the khirig commander hadn’t explicitly tried to step closer to her.

When our group and the others meet, they stop a good distance away. Close enough to talk, but not so close that either side could leap forward and strike before the other reacted. I get the distinct sense of two predators circling each other. Much like a pair of growling canines. The comparison is only strengthened by the few canine-bodied portians that barely suppress their growls.

“You will not get what you want here,” the large-bodied portian growls as they rise to the hind legs. Their height triples, going from already larger than the tallest on our side, to towering over us.

A few of the soldiers behind me reek of nervousness, but they give no outward show of their fear. If I didn’t trust my tongue so much, I might have doubted my senses.

But the large portion stinks far worse. And that isn’t just the usual stink of mammal. The way they favour one leg, and keep flicking their gaze back to Ceph reveals that they don’t believe they have a chance at all. The áinfean beside them doesn’t seem nearly as worried, and their eyes wander over my form longer than anyone else in our group.

I worry that they might know I am something mare than I pretend to be, but there is no scent of fear from them, so I can only assume they considered me a curiosity.

“I am Commander Alasoic, and this is the Beith mercenary Ceph. We are-”

“Don’t even try it.” Ceph glares at the khirig, before stepping forward to address the áinfean and portian. “I am here for my own reasons.” She gestures to the albanic hanging from her tentacle. “This is one of the Henosis. Can I borrow some of your restraints?”

“Of course,” the large beast says, relief all too clear. Nodding to one of the legless rabbit portians. “Sanimr will take you.”

“I will?” a startled, high pitched voice squeaks. “I mean, of course. Follow me.” She is quick to do as told under the glare of the larger portian. Her long tail pushes off the ground and sends her body rolling along the grass back to the wooden huts… entirely forgetting to wait for Ceph.

The dohrni simply shakes her head beneath me, and moves to follow after the rolling rabbit, but is stopped short by Alasoic.

“What are you doing?” he hisses through his teeth, probably meaning to be audible only to Ceph, but by the number of twitching portian ears, it is a failure. “As a mercenary of the pact nations, you should be assisting us.”

The cold glare she shoots him has the man take a few steps back. “I think I’ve assisted you enough already.” A shift of her occupied tentacle makes it clear what she means.

Before Ceph can make to leave again, I dive off her head. Only at the last moment do I remember I am trying to hide my distortions, so I ended up thumping against the ground with a bit less grace than I intend.

Between learning what Ceph intends to learn from a defeated opponent, and this confrontation between species, the choice of what interests me more is obvious. Hopefully the dohrni will tell me what it is she wanted later.

Ceph pauses at the loss of my weight, glances to the locals, then brings her glare back on the commander. “Remember what I warned you earlier.” And with that, she trudges towards the village, where a small portian waits for her on the edge of the deck.

Commander Alasoic can’t help but drop his eyes to me after that warning, which, in turn, attracts the curious gazes of the áinfean and portian. I put on my best blank not-a-sapient expression. Just a dumb rodent-eater here; no need to pay any attention.

As expected, it works perfectly. The feuding sides return their attention to one another.

Alasoic tries his best to cover his frustration, and with the scrape of antler against antler, declares his reason for being there. “Due to emergency measures, mandatory conscription is now in effect. One hundred áinfean and two hundred portian are to join the pact nation military for immediate training. You will choose fit-bodied participants yourself, or we will do it for you.”

“Three hundred!” the crippled beast exclaims. “You would take half our population?”

“Be glad that we are not demanding more.” The commander straightens his back. “How many centuries have you benefit from the protection of the pact, and never paid your dues?”

“I think Spenne alone has contributed plenty,” one of the áinfean says with a veneer of calm.

“He has been around for a century. You cannot continue to hide behind a single áinfean.”

“A single áinfean that has achieved more in that century than the entire pact nation’s unenhanced army in all its existence.”

“And caused just as much internal disaster. There’s a reason they call him mad. Tell me, has he returned even once since leaving all those years ago?” In response to the commander’s words, the áinfean simply glare, proving the question true. “Besides, if more of your kind can even come close to his strength, is it not better you help defend the nations that have separated you from war for so long? Where is your patriotism?”

“We owe your kind nothing.”

The communication between the two sides is clearly breaking down. They look ready to strike at each other. I slither to the side a bit so that when they do leap at each other, I won’t be in the way.

But as I do, the motion feels strange. Not only because I have almost never slithered along the surface with such little weight holding me down — though that is likely a major reason — the grass is strange. Dragging my tail through soil, I find that beneath the grass, there is something soft, springy, and solid. When I dig away more of the dirt, I find what can only be more of that substance that dripped from the trees, yet instead of a liquid, it is hard.

Just like the wooden huts and decking coated in the stuff, there is a flat layer of the springy sap just beneath the surface of this clearing. Why it is there, I don’t know. If I had to guess — especially with how flat the entire grassy field is — the second surface extends all the way to their village.

“Do not push this.” One of the áinfean says, and an arc of electricity snaps from their tail down into the dirt. “We will never provide our hyle for the other nations if you continue with your demands.”

The crack of lightning finally brought my attention to something I’d paid no mind to earlier. Around their legs and wrapping their tails, the same tree-borne substance binds their bodies like strips of cloth. I’d thought they were just normal clothes like I’d seen some of the other sapients wear, but I now realise it actually has a purpose.

Alasoic scoffs. “We no longer have any need for your hyle. An easier source of specialist hyle has made itself known. Fire elementals from the far south have already proven to be more than your lot pretended to be.” He waves his hand, and the small army of soldiers behind him raise their weapons.

“Lies.” Langr, the large portian hisses, and almost immediately, the buzz of electricity amplifies through the air.

“Make your decision. Just know that if we do not leave this mountain with our conscripts, you will still lose them.”

As tensions amplify and fury bounces between the sides, I can’t help a little swell of joy. The áinfean use this tree-sap everywhere because it stops their electricity arcing off their bodies and through the earth. An incredible display of forging the environment to your benefit.

Oh, right. I quickly bring my mind back to the two factions that are about to rip off each others heads.

I wonder who will win?

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With Orm hiding their ability to speak, I should really write a little mini-arc where the kids of the village discover our snake's voice, then get up to some shenanigans where they burn down a sawmill or smth and Orm has to save them. ;)

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