NOVEL NEXT Chapter 39: You Have Two Options
The group of kesh slowly approached, Dominic waiting for them. He kept the amesheks and lions back with a message in the Pride chat, but they were ready to move if the negotiations deteriorated.
As they got closer, he got a better idea of who had come to the negotiations. There were over thirty of the creatures, and Dominic suspected that a good number were Tier 2s even if not all of them were. When they stopped, he noticed that they arranged themselves in a way that looked deliberate.
There was a group of about ten kesh who were clustered close to the lead kesh, the one who had demanded and then taken the tribute from Dominic at the start of all of this. The rest of them were in their own groups, the largest other group being six, the smallest being two. The lion’s gaze passed over all of them, making some cringe a little, others bare their teeth slightly, and the rest crouch or shift uneasily. He wondered what the reasons for the varied reactions might be.
The lead kesh stepped a little forwards from his group, though not so much that the rest of his party couldn’t quickly surge forwards to surround him if needed. They stared at each other for a long moment. Their body language was practically opposite: the kesh was defensive; Dominic was relaxed. However, both seemed to be waiting for the other to speak first.
‘You won the challenge, then,’ the kesh started, baring his teeth slightly more than he perhaps intended. Like the mouths of many primates, his canines were noticeably longer than his other teeth. Not as long as Dominic’s, of course. Threat or discomfort, that was the question, though.
‘I did,’ answered Dominic, yawning. The gesture had the benefit of expressing both his relaxation and letting the blue monkey-like creature see exactly how much better his own teeth were – just to compare. He was projecting the words to everyone in the group since the way they had arranged themselves seemed to indicate that perhaps the leadership wasn’t quite as simple as it appeared at first. It did put him under a fair amount of mental strain, but he judged it worth the effort – who knew what the kesh leader had been saying about their interactions thus far? ‘You expressed interest in renegotiating your arrangement. Perhaps making it official, even.’
It was a little test. The kesh could communicate well, but could he pick up the subtleties in speech well enough to realise that Dominic had clearly been speaking with the amesheks? As he’d suspected, the ‘arrangement’ was nothing of the sort – it was more of the amesheks just choosing to ignore the kesh when they went hunting because they were more trouble than they were worth to attack.
‘Yes, I did. I’m sure that we can come to a mutually beneficial arrangement,’ the kesh answered happily. Hmm, test inconclusive, Dominic thought. No obvious reaction from the leader.
‘Well, an arrangement at least,’ Dominic replied non-committedly. ‘Let us establish the situation here. You have no doubt noticed the continued presence of the previous ‘centre guardians’.
‘I have,’ agreed the kesh hesitantly. Dominic saw his eyes drift over the amesheks nearby – and the multiple lionesses he could see. The former-human wondered for a moment if he would challenge Dominic on how so many of his pride had made it through the forest when he’d only paid for himself. After a moment of waiting, it seemed like the kesh didn’t have the guts to ask. Dominic continued the conversation.
‘Perhaps you are wondering why they are still here if I won the challenge.’
‘I admit to being so,’ agreed the kesh again, this time more confidently.
‘Perhaps you are even wondering whether I did indeed win the challenge.’
This time it seemed like the kesh feared a sort of trap and he was silent for a few moments.
‘It had occurred to me…’ the kesh said finally, very cautiously. His eyes flicked between watching Dominic and watching Nyx – always obvious among the others due to her sheer size.
‘Well, I won the challenge, but instead of killing or driving out those I had been fighting with, I instead added them to my pride.’ He took a moment to let that sink in. That not only had his own group been strong enough to overcome the amesheks, but that they were now even stronger.
This shouldn’t really be any news to the kesh since the fact that the lions and wolven creatures were lying peacefully side by side should in itself indicate that they had come to some sort of accord. However, making it clear that they had been added to Dominic’s pride made it evident where the power lay – and that the two parties would fight side by side.
‘I see,’ replied the kesh, now more guarded himself. ‘So shall we agree on how much tribute you wish to pay us to guard the forest around your clearing for you?’ He seemed keen to get to the whole point of the meeting.
‘Let me ask you something. How much tribute did the previous centre guardians pay you?’ Dominic asked, almost conversationally. ‘And I warn you not to lie to me,’
he added when he saw the kesh’s eyes gleam a little. His warning did cause that greedy glint to falter a little bit.‘They…paid tribute in the form of giving us beasts to kill and consume,’ the kesh replied carefully.
‘Be honest – they gave you no tribute at all,’ Dominic said while baring his teeth a little, this time in clear threat. ‘Unless you count leaving you alive and free to roam the treetops as your tribute.’
The kesh stayed silent, eyeing him with his lips pulled back a little too. It seemed like he was fighting the urge to bare his own teeth in response to Dominic’s threat.
‘I am inclined to go a step further,’ Dominic replied. His tone could almost be considered conversational – if a low growl hadn’t started rumbling in his chest, anyway. ‘I do not want to have a group of creatures I do not trust ‘guarding’ my borders, overseeing everything. I therefore present you with two options. First, all of you stay restricted to a small area of the forest – which I will determine – and follow my rules. Second, you will leave this forest completely and go to find a new home.’
‘You wish to kick us out of our home?!’ exclaimed the kesh, hooting angrily and shifting forward to slam two of his four hands against the ground. Behind the lead kesh, his group took up a threatening hooting and followed the leader’s example in pounding their hands against the ground.
One of the other groups did the same, though not quite as forcefully as the group behind the lead kesh. The other groups didn’t; they instead shifted uneasily.
‘Only if you cannot agree to respecting the fact that if you live in my forest, you live under my sufferance, and that you are obliged to do as I say.’
‘This is an outrage!’ exclaimed the kesh leader, starting to hop slightly in place, like he was only a breath away from leaping at Dominic. Frankly, the lion would be happy for that to happen – he was definitely interested in the Abilities he would find in the kesh’s Core. Behind him, his group started doing the same making it clear that if the leader leapt, so would they.
The other groups seemed more hesitant to follow the increasingly hostile behaviour. While Dominic remained relaxed on the outside, he prepared himself to react at a moment’s notice. ‘We came here to negotiate a new agreement, only to be presented with unreasonable demands! And that after you already cheated us out of Prey Points!’
‘No,’ Dominic denied firmly, sending a prearranged signal to the lionesses in the chat. ‘They are not unreasonable. You tried to coerce an agreement out of me when I was in the weaker position. I am doing just the same thing now the tables have turned and it’s you in the weaker position. As for cheating, I found a way around your demands – that is no cheat. You have two options; which will you choose?’
‘And if I choose neither?’ asked the kesh daringly, his teeth fully bared, his four hands clenched.
‘Then it is war between us,’ Dominic told him levelly, ‘and between any who follow you. We will hunt your kind down and kill them for Prey Points. And we’ll start with you.’
With another message in the Pride chat, seven heads now popped up all too close to the creatures, the lionesses attached pushing themselves to their feet. The kesh screeched and flinched, even those who had been hooting and working themselves into a rage before.
Dominic had asked the lionesses to surround the group of monkey-like creatures and, with all the attention on the large male lion, the smaller females had gone unnoticed as they slunk through the grass of the clearing. Even if the grass wasn’t what they were used to, but was instead a bluish colour, they had still managed to stay hidden. They were just that good at sneaking.
‘A trap!’ exclaimed the lead kesh. ‘We came here to negotiate in good faith and you have set a trap!’
‘You did not come to negotiate in ‘good faith’,’ Dominic told him scornfully. ‘You just hoped I’d be dumb enough to not realise what I would be giving up in an agreement to you. Now the shoe’s on the other foot and you’re getting all angry about it. Make your choice. You can talk to your friends about it, but don’t take too long.’
The lead kesh screeched angrily at him and then jumped backwards to join with the group of ten other kesh who had been following his lead throughout the whole of the discussion. The rest of the kesh converged, though still remained in distinct groups. The three largest kesh stood almost like sentries, watching the predators with cautious eyes.
Dominic pushed himself to his feet and stood waiting. The lionesses, too, stood like statues around the group. Behind him, the amesheks – except for Nyx – and the two other lionesses who had stayed there for the appearance of things casually pushed themselves to their feet. If it came to a fight, which Dominic was now almost certain it would, they would be prepared.
He watched the kesh carefully. It definitely looked like there was some dissent. The lead kesh and his group were facing off with the second largest group of six. They were hooting and screaming at each other. The other groups seemed to follow the side of one or the other. Dominic thought idly that it looked rather like some debates in the Houses of Parliament that he’d seen on the telly.
While watching, he was surprised to feel a connection being made with his mind.
‘Excuse me,’ he heard from an unfamiliar source. Looking around, he saw one of the kesh looking at him. Apparently he or she also had Telepathy, or something like it.
‘Yes?’ Dominic asked.
‘Must the decision be for all of our kind, or can we be treated separately? We are not all the same clan, you see.’
That made sense. They certainly weren’t behaving as if they were all the same group and having different clans involved explained both the number of kesh who had come and their internal division. He thought about the question for a moment. He didn’t bother asking Leo his opinion since he was pretty sure he knew what it would be: kill them all.
‘Exactly, so do it already!’ Leo growled at the back of his mind.
‘They need to make the first move,’ Dominic answered him, then responded to the kesh who had contacted him.
‘It doesn’t need to be all of your kind. Any who agree to abide by the terms of the first option – namely, that you will stick to a predetermined area of the forest and not try to interfere with me and my Pride in any way – are welcome to remain. Presumably, you are here as representatives for your clan, therefore your actions will be taken as your clan’s decision. Those who resist or cause problems will be treated as enemies, but I don’t see why all of you should be treated the same way.’
There was a long silence during which Dominic noticed a fair amount of body language communication going on between the kesh he’d been speaking with and the others around him or her.
It was a collection of a few of the smaller groups, but ones that seemed to be on the opposite side of things from the lead kesh’s party. The hooting and screeching was still going on between the group of eleven and the group of six – they looked to be about to come to blows. Dominic wondered with a hint of amusement if they would do his job for him.
‘We have decided,’ the kesh with a mind Ability said, contacting him again. ‘We will agree to your terms in return for protection for our families.’
‘If you want active protection, then you’ll have to do more than just not interfere with my group and stay in your section of the forest,’ Dominic pointed out. ‘Either we have a non-interference agreement, or we have an active alliance.’
There was another period of communication, though shorter this time before the kesh contacted him again.
‘We agree to a non-interference agreement for now, with the potential to expand into an alliance when the situation with the rest of our kind is settled.’ Read: when Dominic had managed to kill or drive out all of those who refused to abide by his terms.
‘Fine,’ he agreed, just in time for the lead kesh to turn to him with the ten of his own group and seven of two other groups behind him.
