“He can’t be trusted,” the Jaguar growled.
“Why not?” Leon asked. “I found him sincere enough.”
“That he built up a force of Inquisitors is reason enough,” the Jaguar vehemently responded. “The Tribes see to their internal affairs, he has no right to force himself in, yet he does anyway. This isn’t a man who leaves matters of state to chance, and he isn’t going to let the Elder Council decide anything.”
“I wasn’t thinking he was going to do so,” Leon replied. “We’re building our support and then once all Tribes have decided on a side, we’ll throw down at the Elder Council.”
“That’s assuming he doesn’t strike first,” Menander interjected.
“That’s what I would do if the opportunity to grievously harm an enemy presented itself,” Xanthippe said.
Leon smiled at the two of them but didn’t immediately reply.
The Thunderer had left just a few moments before, and he’d spent that time bringing the leaders of his supporters up to speed on what had been discussed. Xanthippe, Creon, and Thraso, the other three ninth-tier Lions in addition to Menander had all arrived in that time. In addition to them, the Jaguar, Ipatameni, Rain-Dancer, Maia, Valeria, and Cassandra were all there, too.
“Does he see us as an enemy, though?” Rain-Dancer asked everyone in the courtyard.
“It’s clear enough from the moves he’s been making,” Ipatameni replied.
“If he gives the order, the Bears will attack,” the Jaguar added. “My people’s land will bear the brunt of any civil war that breaks out. If we are to win, it would be best to attack first—”
“We’re not attacking,” Leon insisted.
The Jaguar grimaced lightly, but bowed anyway and didn’t mention that option again.
“What we are going to do,” Leon continued, “Is focus on the two remaining Tribes that haven’t decided their positions, yet. The Harts and the Ravens, what can we say about them?”
“We really should discuss more our plan of action should the Bears invade,” Ipatameni insisted.
“What plan do we need?” Menander asked, his tone intense. “If they attack, we’ll kill them! They are a fellow Tribe so we won’t destroy them entirely, but the Bears are no threat! What more need be said?”
“I was hoping for something more concrete,” Ipatameni replied.
“A more thorough examination of the forces we all have available to us would do us all well,” Cassandra added, impatience and frustration evident in her voice.
“I suppose there’s no reason we can’t do that right now,” Leon said. “We have the armies of four Tribes. The Thunderer has four of his own, plus the army he’s built that’s ostensibly for all the Ten Tribes, but is really loyal to him.”
“Don’t forget the Inquisitors,” the Jaguar spat. “They don’t have much visible presence in our lands, but they know what we’re doing at any time. If civil war truly breaks out, can we believe that the Thunderer won’t use these assets to try and shorten the conflict?”
“He just had the opportunity to end the conflict,” Leon pointed out.
“I wouldn’t say that his loss was out of the goodness of his heart,” the Jaguar riposted.
“Had he killed you in our arena,” Creon growled, “he would’ve found himself in terrible trouble. We wouldn’t allow such dishonor to take place in our home.”
“You have children killing each other elsewhere in your territory,” Cassandra said with an aggressive smile. “Are we to believe that you’d blink if my husband never walked out of that arena?”
“Do not question our honor,” Creon shot back, his aura rising dangerously.
Before anyone could say anything more, both Leon and Menander acted, exchanging only the briefest of glances before doing so. Leon turned in his seat to look at Cassandra, not saying anything but making sure she knew with his expression alone that he didn’t want her to continue down that branch of dialogue. She didn’t expressly back down, but she did frown and look away before crossing her arms over her chest in displeasure.
Menander, however, was more physical, springing to his feet and stalking over to Creon. Despite the two being of equal tier, Creon shrank back as Menander towered over him, and in only a moment, the latter not only fell silent but let his head drop until the back of his neck and part his long golden hair until the back of his neck was exposed to Menander. Only then did Menander click his tongue and return to his seat.
“Moving on,” the Lion’s Lawspeaker growled, “I would estimate that we have a force that could number more than five million when fully mustered. About half that at most would be combat forces. We have many ships, but those would be of little help in Kataigida’s interior. But we have several thousand large war beasts, tens of thousands smaller, and we have twenty or thirty war arks at our disposal. Unfortunately, my Tribe’s army is still at the Sword holding that ground from barbarian counterattacks.”
“Same with ours,” Rain-Dancer replied.
“And with the Bisons,” the Jaguar added. “With the Tribes sworn to him, the Thunderer outnumbers us, but not by so much that the Harts and the Ravens wouldn’t swing the balance back in our favor. The Harts have a large enough army to make up for manpower differences while the Ravens have more arks than any other Tribe.”
“And if either of these Tribes swears themselves to the Thunderer?” Valeria quietly asked.
“Then we’ll still press our claims, but any potential military engagement would most likely end poorly for us,” Rain-Dancer replied.
“Speak for your own Tribe,” Menander responded. “One Lion is worth five Bears, let alone the Bison or the Spiders! Only the Tigers would provide real challenge, but their reserves have been hollowed out by the Thunderer to staff his army! The Tigers now have one of the smallest armies on the island!”
“You’re quite adamant that the Bears aren’t a threat,” Valeria quietly stated. “Yet they have powerful war beasts, don’t they? And until recently, a couple of their escaped charges were causing much trouble in Hawk lands. Are we to assume that they don’t have anything in their back pockets that won’t tip the scales their way?”
“They’re dangerous enough,” Menander conceded, but he then looked at his three fellows and almost as one, all four began flexing their auras. “But the Bears are nothing compared to the rest of us. They haven’t been a proper military force for centuries!”
With a sigh, Leon asked Menander, “You’re confident that the Bears aren’t a threat. Do you have any real information on why that is or is this just bravado?”
“They’re in decline,” Menander said with a dismissive wave.
“By what measure?” the Jaguar asked.
“Their own,” Menander replied. “I presume none of you have been paying much attention to what’s been happening in other Tribes?”
“Our own Tribes and Clans take up most of our attention,” the Jaguar easily replied. “Besides, we don’t have the authority to evaluate the condition of our fellow Tribes.”
The sentiment was shared well enough among the others, Leon noted.
“When was the last time you were even in Bear territory?” Menander asked.
The Jaguar paused a moment and answered, “Half a millennium.”
“A time when most of us were still recovering from the last war we fought with the barbarians,” Menander said, and again, Leon heard a quiet sigh from Cassandra. “Most of us recovered well enough. I can speak for my Tribe in saying that in the past few centuries, our numbers recovered to the point that our available manpower exceeded what we had before that war.”
“The exact moment when our population levels returned to their state antebellum was one hundred and twelve years ago,” Thraso quietly stated.
“It took us a little longer,” Ipatameni said. “One hundred and five years ago was when we reached the same point.”
“Two hundred and forty-nine years ago for us,” Rain-Dancer smugly stated.
“Ninety-nine,” the Jaguar stated.
“You people need to have more sex,” Cassandra said under her breath, but not so quietly that anyone in the courtyard missed it. “Or maybe stop killing children…”
“We should spar later,” Menander replied. “And perhaps discuss your views on the matter. But as for the other Tribes, I’d imagine they reached their antebellum populations in the same timeframe that we did: about one or two centuries ago. The only real exception would be the Bears. They still haven’t yet recovered.”
Silence descended upon the courtyard like a sack of bricks as the elders stared at Menander in shock.
“… What?” Ipatameni whispered.
“That’s… how can that be?” Rain-Dancer asked, sounding genuinely confused. “It’s been seven centuries! That kind of generational turnover should be enough…”
“They took heavy casualties in their upper echelons,” Menander stated. “The Bears lost more than eighty percent of their Tribal Council in the last war. Even now, their numbers are barely back up to sixty percent of what they were antebellum.”
“How do you know this?” the Jaguar demanded.
“The Thunderer himself told me,” Menander replied.
“When?!” the Jaguar almost hysterically shouted.
“When he was trying to get my Tribe to join his in electing him to his current position,” Menander explained. “I almost didn’t believe him, but it lined up with what we’ve seen in recent centuries. How many times have you seen all the Bear elders—as numerous as you thought they were—show up to an Elder Council meeting?”
The Jaguar went quiet for a moment, and Leon thought he saw the exact moment when the Jaguar decided to believe Menander as his face contorted in realization.
“If the Bears are truly so diminished, then they’re not a threat, are they?” Menander said.
“I would disagree,” Ipatameni slowly said. “If what you’re saying is true, then what’s to stop them from doing something stupid and dangerous under the assumption that they’re screwed anyway?”
“A cornered Bear is a dangerous Bear,” Rain-Dancer agreed.
“Just kill them all if they attack,” Menander replied.
Leon saw this as his moment to interject. “The best way to do that is to be stronger, indisputably, than they are. Numbers are only one aspect of strength. The Bears have strong elders, don’t they? They just have fewer than other Tribes might.”
“That’s true,” Menander conceded. “But that doesn’t take away from the glory of the fight!”
“I care little for glory,” Leon replied. “Only victory. If we find ourselves fighting fairly, then we’re fighting stupidly. In that vein, I have some things that might help in that regard. Tell me Menander, Xanthippe, Creon, Thraso, have any of you ever wanted to not just channel the power of your Ancestor, but to become like your Ancestor?”
A moment of confused silence followed his question, broken when Xanthippe asked, “… ‘Become’?”
“Could you elaborate for us, Your Majesty?” Menander asked.
Leon grinned and stood up, the others all standing at the same time. But he waved them back down and said, “I’m just going to demonstrate. Why elaborate when I can demonstrate, after all?”
He judged the courtyard to be more than big enough for his transformation, so with a quick knowing look sent to his ladies, he walked over to the largest open space devoid of furniture. Once there, Valeria conjured an opaque ice wall obstructing views of everything beneath his waist, and he pulled his clothes back into his soul realm and immediately began growing in size.
A moment later, he stood before his allies, his silver feathers gleaming in the moonlight, his blue crest spilling down his back like a sapphire waterfall, his aura noticeably growing in intensity in step with the growth of his body.
[I can achieve this by stimulating my Bloodline with a special enchantment,] Leon explained to all of them, though of course, only the Lions were in any way shocked.
“I had heard rumors…” Menander said in wonder as he stood back up. “I didn’t think it true…”
[It’s true,] Leon confirmed. [My power’s greater in this form than it is in human form—though it does impair the use of armor or weapons. A fine trade, as far as I’m concerned, the power boost is more than compensatory for the price.”
“I can sense that,” Menander whispered.
“What is Your Majesty proposing?” Thraso asked as he joined Menander on his feet, but where Menander was busy admiring Leon’s body, Thraso kept his gaze locked on Leon’s golden eyes.
[That I share with you what I’ve shared with the other Tribes who’ve sworn themselves to me,] Leon said as he turned his head in Rain-Dancer’s direction. Since the Heart-Stabbing Hawks were the first of the Tribes to enthusiastically adopt his transformation technique, Rain-Dancer was the only one among the assembled group who could transform.
“How do we know that it works?” Xanthippe asked as Rain-Dancer rose from his seat and began to shrink. A moment later, a large hawk about half the size of a full-grown man stood on the table in the center of the room. Much like Singer-in-Caves, Rain-Dancer’s coat was reddish on his body while his tail and wings were spotted black and white. His colors, however, were just a little more vibrant and eye-catching than hers had been.
[I would never make such claims without proof that they work,] Leon said. [When I offer power, I mean it. I don’t intentionally lie, and I fully believe that by making my allies stronger, I make myself stronger. You have sworn yourselves to me, and I want to offer you some fruits of that trust as a much-deserved reward.]
Leon knew he could offer them more literal fruits, but he was still set on waiting until returning to Raikos for that.
“I would know how to do this!” Menander immediately declared. His three compatriots expressed similar sentiments not a moment later, and Leon was assured that many others in the Tribe would be eager to try their hand at using the enchantment as well.
“I’ll stay for a couple days, then,” Leon said after returning to human form. “We can plan our next steps in that time. Harts and Ravens, yes?”
“Yes, Harts and Ravens,” the Jaguar said, the least fazed of the entire group at the display he and Rain-Dancer had just put on. The Lions, however, were staring at Leon like he was a living god, and he had to admit, he was conflicted. Such attention was flattering, but it also made him just a little uncomfortable.
“The Harts…” Menander whispered as he took his seat, clearly still flustered at what Leon had just shown him. “Yes, yes, the Harts. Show them this,” he said. “Show them what you can do. They are more… spiritual about their Ancestor. Show them how close they can become to their Ancestor and they’ll fall over themselves to swear themselves to you.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Leon replied. “But I’d also like to know more about them, in general.”
“They are disparate and spread out, their Clans more isolated from each other than those of most other Tribes,” Ipatameni explained. “They’re brilliant artisans, but they seem to love their forest more than their works. They live in harmony with nature, rarely building great cities. Instead, they prefer to hunt and fish, and mostly only use their incredible crafting techniques to support themselves with food from the Bison Tribe.”
“Is that going to be a problem?” Leon asked. “With the Bison Tribe swearing to support the Thunderer, might they be tempted to wage some kind of economic warfare on the Harts to try and force their hand?”
“That sort of thing might be expected of the Ji Spiders,” the Jaguar said, “but not the Bison. They are loyal and legalistic, and their deals with the Harts are writ on ink and paper, which might as well be Adamant for that matters to the Bison Tribe.”
“That’s good,” Leon whispered. “Good, good. I can work with that. Now, the Ravens I’ve heard many good things about. Enchanters and arksmiths, aren’t they?”
“Among many other things,” Ipatameni whispered. “Of the two, the Ravens will likely be the easier for you to convince to join you. They’re… not rivals of the Bears, but the works they make do often conflict with the war beasts of the Bears, and there might be some tension there to exploit. The Bears might have the most war beasts of all the Tribes, the Ravens have the most war arks at almost fifty last time I saw hard numbers.”
“Fifty?” Leon asked in disbelief.
“Yes, though many are smaller than what the other Tribes use. The Ravens also have other marvels of magical engineering which, if I might drop our typical rhetoric for a moment, keep us ahead of the barbarians even as they loot the corpse of your Clan.”
Cassandra didn’t make a noise this time, but Leon detected a slight flutter in her aura and knew that he would have to have a quick chat with her sooner rather than later.
“They sound… delightful,” Leon whispered, barely able to contain his excitement.
“They are certainly… something,” Menander responded.
“What do you mean?”
“They’re strange people,” Menander explained. “Highly fixated on their goals, not usually given to social niceties.”
“They sound delightful,” Leon repeated.
Menander shrugged. After a long moment of silence, he said, “If there’s nothing else for us to cover, how about we start on that transformation? I, for one, would like nothing more than see how it works for us…”
“We can begin tomorrow,” Leon replied, to Menander’s obvious disappointment. “If Singer-in-Caves is any indication, it’s easy enough to pick up. But right now, we have a party going on in this place! Let’s get back to it!”
The elders mostly made their agreement known, in their own ways, and in only a moment, Leon found himself leading them out of the courtyard and back to where the rest of his retainers and supporters were busy celebrating the addition of the Lion Tribe to their ranks.
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