Leon wasn’t sure if he’d ever been in a more tense room than the one he found himself in just a few hours after consulting with Xaphan and the Thunderbird. Perhaps some of the meetings back in the Bull Kingdom when August and Octavius were in the same room, but he wasn’t sure.
He sat in a chair—one that was decidedly too normal to be a proper throne—in one of his temporary palace’s meeting rooms with Cassandra and the rest of his family at his side. Joining him were the ninth-tier leaders of the Tribes now sworn to him, Iron-Striker, and the various leaders of the bureaucracy that Iron-Striker had established during his time as Thunderer. There weren’t many in the latter camp, but they notably included Linda, the High Inquisitor, who’d sworn herself to Leon as Iron-Striker had. Notable for their absences were the rest of the Bear and Spider Tribes, as well as Hector.
However, even with them gone, there was more than enough animosity in the room for all of Kataigida. The former Thunderer and the more traditionalist Tribes. Cassandra and just about all of the Tribes. The Bison and Tiger Tribes and those who’d sworn themselves to Leon before the meeting of the Elder Council. Leon was surprised to find that he was quite possibly the least hated person in the room.
‘Strange to be on this side of the coin…’ he mused as everyone got settled.
“Well,” he said, drawing everyone’s attention, “we have much to discuss, so why don’t we just jump right in? Does anyone want to start?”
The Jaguar rose to his feet immediately and demanded, “What is he doing here?” He pointed to Iron-Striker, leaving no ambiguity as to what was rousing his ire.
“He’s here because he’s sworn himself to me,” Leon simply replied, and there were more than a few gasps of astonishment in the room. “I understand why there might be some… tension between those of us present, and not just with our former Thunderer. So, let’s air those grievances now and see them lanced instead of leaving them to fester.”
“The man who nearly destroyed the Ten Tribes has no right to be here,” the Jaguar insisted.
“And as your new King, wouldn’t you say that’s for me to decide?” Leon replied.
The Jaguar shot Iron-Striker one last venomous look before returning to his seat, not looking too mollified.
In response, Leon glanced at the former Thunderer, who looked barely concerned with the Jaguar’s mistrust. Instead, he sat in his seat completely impassively, his arms folded across his chest as if nothing in the world was large enough to concern him. As the island’s only tenth-tier mage, he would be almost right in such an attitude.
Iron-Striker caught his eye, and though he seemed like it was the last thing he wanted to do, he took to his feet.
“It is true,” he declared, “I have sworn to follow Leon Raime. As I’ve told him, and as I’ve told all of you many times, strengthening the Ten Tribes has ever been my goal. The Elder Council, however, has seen fit to entrust the fate of our people with the blood of our former Kings. In this, I will not argue; such is the will of the Elder Council. I am but fortunate that Leon Raime has proven himself magnanimous in this whole situation, and by the winged grace, he has allowed me to represent the Booming Bear Tribe in this council.”
Leon grinned for a moment before forcing his face back into stoic neutrality.
“It will take us time,” he said, “to regain much semblance of trust and cohesion among the Ten Tribes, but I want all of you to attempt to make peace with each other. The Elder Council met and declared me King; there is no further need to antagonize the man who lost the election, especially when he’s been so graceful in accepting his loss.”
Leon cast his gaze about the room, but he felt like everyone knew who his words were directed at. The Jaguar frowned but sighed and nodded. Leon considered that fine, for the moment.
“What concerns me,” Nikolaos said as Iron-Striker returned to his seat, “is what the rest of the Bears are doing right now. Though our… friend is now representing them here, the rest of the Tribe, nor our good fellows in the Ji Spiders, are here. How can anyone represent a Tribe when the Tribe is not with them?”
Murmurs of agreement rippled throughout the room.
“That is our first order of business, then,” Leon said. “The Booming Bear Tribe. They left the city following my accession. Where did they go and what are they doing?” Again, Leon cast his gaze about the room, but this time it wasn’t one of the elders who spoke up, but Linda.
“The Beast Lord took the rest of the Bear delegation back to Raidankana,” she said, referring to the capital of the Bear Tribe. “It hasn’t been long enough to determine what, precisely, they’re doing, but the army on the border with the Jaguar Tribe hasn’t been disbanded, and there have been some signs that war beasts are being moved.”
“They intend to launch a civil war,” the Jaguar growled, killing intent radiating from his body in intense waves.
“They have already started attacking mine,” Singer-in-Caves replied, drawing Leon’s attention.
“How so?” he asked.
“The Hawk elders who weren’t able to attend the Elder Council were waylaid by more troubles in the east. More powerful beasts, though none as strong as those you helped us defeat, but all entering our territory through passes used by the Bear Tribe. The stronger beasts are understandable; it’s hard to corral and keep control over such monsters… but those my elders had to deal with were weaker and more easily handled. The Bear Tribe had no business losing control of them, especially more than one in so short a time.”
“You have my apologies, for whatever they’re worth,” Iron-Striker quietly said. “It’s been a long time since I was last with my Tribe. They were always obsessed with keeping their claws sharp, but I never thought they’d actually use them, least of all on a fellow Tribe.”
“Then you’re a fool,” the Jaguar unkindly responded.
“I am,” Iron-Striker somberly whispered in agreement. “A fool who believed too strongly that we were ready to become one people. A fool who let his ideals get in the way of his judgment.”
“Refrain from insults, whether direct or otherwise,” Leon ordered. “Iron-Striker is right: the Ten Tribes are ready to be united, though perhaps not in the way he’d conceived. Despite that, we are all on the same side, so let’s not go around tearing at exposed jugulars, yeah?”
“Why not?” Menander inquired, a vicious smile gracing his face. “If an enemy exposes themselves, why not go for the kill?”
“Depends on whether or not they’re an enemy,” Leon replied. “Do you see any enemies here?”
Menander’s eyes flickered in Iron-Striker’s direction, and then briefly in Cassandra’s before returning to Leon. The Lion elder then said, “Maybe I do. Whether or not someone is an enemy depends on both parties agreeing to end hostilities, doesn’t it? And Lions only end hostilities when our enemies are dead.”
“Keep up that attitude and eventually you’ll try against someone you can’t handle,” Leon responded.
“That will be their right,” Menander sniped back. “The strongest rule. They decide right and wrong.”
Leon leaned forward and fully fixed Menander in his golden gaze. A smile crept across his face as his aura began to roil and churn. “Are you going to challenge me, Menander?”
Menander madly grinned back and, for a moment, Leon thought he would agree. But after a moment, he reclined back and simply said, “Not yet.”
“Here’s a thought,” Chrysi, one of the ninth-tier Eagles, began, “The Bears and the Spiders have long been allies. But that doesn’t mean they will always be. If they wish to just… leave, then why should we force them to stay? If they disagree so much with the ascension of the Thunderbird Clan back to its rightful throne, then they don’t have to remain with us.”
A spark of anger flashed through Leon’s body, but he kept his cool and ignored the urge to slam his hand down upon the table hard enough to break it.
“My first act as King will not be to cede territory. The Booming Brown Bear and Ji Spider were conquered by my Honored Ancestor. Their loss will not be tolerated, especially on Kataigida itself. The Bears have already shown a willingness to attack the Heart-Stabbing Hawks; what might they do if emboldened by a formal alliance with Hector or the Spiders? No, I will not allow them to simply leave, not without a fight. I will not leave our backs open when we finally have to deal with the Empires.”
Most of the elders muttered their agreement, but it was Menander and the other Lions who gave the most passionate response—they burst out laughing or otherwise expressing their satisfaction.
As his laughter died, Menander said, “Now those are the words of a true King!”
Leon gave him a thin-lipped smile and decided to proceed. He turned to Iron-Striker, who’d hardly reacted much during their discussion despite the topic, and asked, “How confident would you be in bringing your wayward Tribe back to the table, if not back into the fold directly?”
“Quite confident,” Iron-Striker replied without hesitation.
“You don’t even need to think it over?” Leon asked.
“No.”
“Should I then presume you have a plan?”
“I will go to Raidankana and assert my authority there as the strongest man in the Tribe. If they do not accept me, I will make them accept me.”
Leon’s eyebrows rose in intrigue as the Lions burst out laughing once more. The rest of the room was dead silent.
“You would slay your own Tribesmen?” Leon slowly asked.
“Not by choice,” Iron-Striker replied. His eyes turned dark and his aura went cold as he continued, “All who threaten the safety of the Ten Tribes, no matter who they may be, must be stopped. If I must convince the elders of my Tribe of their folly using more… coercive means, then I will. I will not allow my own Tribe to undermine everything I’ve ever fought for.”
“You were about to,” the Jaguar spitefully spat.
Iron-Striker didn’t even spare him a single look.
“How long would it take?” Leon asked.
“A month at most,” Iron-Striker replied. “After that, the army of the Booming Brown Bear will retreat, and no more beasts will be unleashed in the direction of the Hawks—or any other Tribe’s direction, for that matter.”
“Then I give you leave to go,” Leon said. “After this meeting.”
Iron-Striker bowed his head while Leon weathered a few disbelieving looks from the Jaguar and several others.
[Just give him this chance,] Leon silently insisted to them, heading off any vocal criticism.
Instead of acknowledging their questions, he turned back to Linda and, after glancing at the silent Solomon, asked, “Have we any intel on Hector’s whereabouts?”
“He fled east,” Linda explained. “He made it to Tiger territory, and it was at the border that he disappeared. The other missing Tiger soldiers did not directly accompany him, but their trajectories roughly matched his. I wouldn’t feel comfortable stating that they followed him, but I wouldn’t rule it out, either.”
Leon nodded in thanks before focusing on Solomon. He didn’t have to state his question aloud before the man began to speak.
“I have not been in any contact with my brother since the Elder Council. I have received words of support from the remaining Tiger battalions in the central army, fortunately.”
“Give me hard numbers,” Leon demanded of the room.
“My army was two hundred thousand strong,” Iron-Striker told him. “That includes support and logistics personnel and doesn’t include the Inquisitors. About fifty thousand are fighters.”
“Hector fled with only five battalions,” Linda added. “That’s about ten thousand fighting men and women.”
“No logistics or support went with him?” Leon asked.
“None,” Linda confirmed.
“The remaining Tiger battalions have indicated to me that they consider Hector in rebellion, and will not join him,” Solomon reiterated.
“I have been told the same by my people,” Tillan added.
Leon nodded to the Rock-Mane Bison. He knew that the man’s daughter being in Iron-Striker’s army had been the biggest reason he’d initially supported the man.
“I want to know where he went,” Leon said. “Of all our current potential threats, I consider Hector to be the least stable. He is the most likely to try something stupid and violent. Find him. Stop him.”
He mostly said this to Linda and Solomon, both of whom nodded their understanding.
“Good. While we’re on the topic of the Tiger Tribe,” Leon continued, causing Solomon and the other Tiger elders to stiffen in their seats a bit, “I’m curious about the three elders from the Jaguar Tribe.”
“Traitors,” the Jaguar vitriolically whispered.
“How are they?” Leon asked. “They didn’t join Hector, did they?”
“They have not…” Solomon replied. “However, I have neither accepted nor denied their petition to join my Tribe.”
Leon leaned back in his seat for a moment, contemplating the problem. “I… want to speak with them,” he said. “Do nothing with them until I have that opportunity.”
Again, Solomon nodded his understanding.
“That leaves the Spiders…” Leon said.
“They present no credible threat on their own,” Nikolaos said.
“I hope you’re not proposing that we leave them alone,” Leon responded.
“Not at all, but without Hector or the Bears, I believe they’ll fall in line.”
“I agree,” Exallos Aetos said.
Leon glanced around the room and found that most of the elders agreed.
“Fine,” he said. “But I want all four Tribes that border the Spiders to be on high alert for any sign of action coming from their territory. We can put together a diplomatic mission later.”
He looked around the room and found agreement on the faces of everyone present.
“Now,” he continued, “let’s get to perhaps the most consequential bit of business we need to clear up in the coming however-long-this-takes. The Empires across the sea.”
The atmosphere in the room became even more serious as everyone’s attention turned to Cassandra.
“I have personal alliances with the Ilian and Sacred Golden Empires,” Leon stated. “I am also allied with the Director of Heaven’s Eye and have access to essentially all of their resources. For all intents and purposes, Heaven’s Eye, formed from many defecting organizations set up by my Clan, has returned to the fold.
“I want no one to doubt my commitment to these alliances. They have proven valuable enough, in their own ways, and if they’re to be broken, it will not be by me.”
“And the other Empires?” Solomon asked.
“Fair game if they attack first,” Leon said. “We’re largely in a defensive posture anyway, so nothing is to be changed in practice. Defend what we have, for now. If you have concerns about this, bring them up to me. But I intend to attempt to forge a peace between the Ten Tribes and the Empires after we finish dealing with our domestic problems. Reaching some kind of truce at the very least with the Empires will give us the breathing room to prepare to leave this plane. And the Ilian and Sacred Golden Empires are amenable to that truce.”
Leon gave Cassandra a look, and she stepped forward. “On behalf of my grandmother, the Grand Druid of the Sacred Golden Empire, and my mother, the Sacred Golden Empress, I will affirm our commitment to our alliance with Leon.” She paused and hugged Leon from behind. “I wouldn’t have married him if we weren’t committed. We’ve spilled our blood enough, we have to stop at some point, and I hope that that point isn’t when one of us ceases to exist.”
Silence fell upon the room as the elders exchanged looks between themselves. Leon guessed many were communicating silently, and he allowed the silence to stretch so that they could get on the same page. He would keep working at this until the Tribesmen accepted his decision.
“Just to be clear,” Exallos began, breaking the silence, “if the… Empires attack us first, what are our rules of engagement?”
“Return all hostilities with prejudice,” Leon said, earning him a few chuckles from the Lions and a few smiles from the Tigers. “As I said, defend all that we have, including the Sword. There is no truce until it has been agreed upon, is there?”
Exallos bowed his head slightly in acceptance.
Leon could see that this was going to take more work on his part from the way the elders were looking at him, but at the very least, there weren’t any more questions right now.
After waiting a while for any more, Leon turned to the Ravens.
“Back in Occulara, I have someone of great interest. Well, several people really, but for your Tribe specifically, I want to introduce all of you to someone.”
“Who is it?” Asger asked without much care.
“A like-minded researcher,” Leon responded. “You see, Heaven’s Eye managed to get its hands on a great deal of old arks and other curios from my Clan…” The mention of arks certainly seized the attention of any elders who might’ve been zoning out. “None of them are entirely functional, though all are relatively intact. However, to return them to working order will cost a significant amount of resources, and would require tools that we don’t currently have back in Occulara. Nestor can give you the entire list later and we can see if we can coordinate on that. We’ll need a lot of Titanstone, and we need to see if we can build some facilities that are capable of repairing wisps.”
“Wisps?” Asger asked, his eyes widening in surprise for the first time in the entire meeting. In fact, all four of the ninth-tier Ravens were now staring at Leon with unabashed surprise.
“Indeed, we have a couple that survived the fall of my Clan and the millennia since. Not undamaged, but, you know, that’s why we need the repair tools.”
Asger’s expression flashed to excitement but quickly fell. “We… we have no tools that can fix broken wisps…”
“We can see what we can do when we speak with ‘Nestor’,” Frode said, practically panting in excitement.
“Fantastic,” Leon said without much inflection. “There is a possibility that some wisp-related tools are still in my Clan’s old capital on this plane. But, of course, whatever remains of that place is deep in Sentinel lands, and I have nothing even close to an alliance with them. Getting access to those old palace complexes is going to be difficult, even with an unlikely alliance. As it is, I’m already assuming we’re going to have to fight our way there. But one of the wisps we have is a navigation wisp, and that will be a key tool for our departure. We need to get those tools.”
Leon turned his attention to the rest of the room as he spoke, impressing upon them one of the more practical needs for his desired peace with the Empires. He received much the same reaction as before, but he didn’t mind.
“Now, is there anything more we might need to discuss?” he asked the room.
“Yes,” Solomon said. “It is my understanding that you have a personal guard of one hundred warriors pulled from four different Tribes. I would ask that my Tigers be allowed to join, as well.”
“That was always my intention,” Leon said. He glanced at the Bison, Harts, and Ravens. “There will also be space in my Tempest Knights for your Tribes, as well. I want all the Tribes represented in this order.”
Nods were given all around, though only the Tigers looked particularly pleased with that order. Leon supposed he understood; the Harts were fairly peaceful, the Ravens cared for little other than their own research, and the Bison were farmers, not warriors. Still, they had to have some warriors to spare for his Tempest Knights. Even if they were mediocre, he trusted Alcander and Alix enough to get them up to scratch.
“Anything else?” Leon asked once more.
This time, it was Nikolaos who said, “Yes.” Leon turned to him, and the Jaguar elder said, “It is not lost on anyone that this palace, while suitable for an elder, perhaps, is not up to the standard of a King. It is the opinion of my Tribe that work must begin on a new palace more befitting of our King…”
Leon smiled and allowed himself to start relaxing. If it was time to talk about palaces, then there wasn’t much more of immediate import to discuss. There was still much to do, but he was at least happy with what had been done today.
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