The great Lycan was opening room for the challenge.
Of course I knew that possibility existed. Diplomacy was something extremely difficult — and, when it involved warrior races, it became almost an epic. For creatures like that, conversation was just the corridor that led to the fight. But, of all the bad things that could happen there, a one-on-one combat was far from being the worst.
The Lycans were a complex race. And one of many layers.
Their hierarchy was fluid — sustained, basically, by the capacity to maintain one's own position against whoever came to take it. There was no crown. There were only teeth, and how much you managed to keep them sunk into the step where you were. To an outsider, knowing a Lycan's status was the difference between fighting a cat and fighting a lion — and both wore exactly the same fur.
I had learned that the worst way: by underestimating. And, in the Oasis, underestimating charges high interest. Each creature I encountered since I set foot here carried an invisible tag that only appeared after the first blow — and, until then, the only way to survive was to treat everyone as if they were the lion.
The few exchanges I had with his brother told me one thing: that Lycan wasn't of just any caste. But also, with all certainty, he wasn't part of the top.
Maybe it was exactly for that reason that the two brothers desired the nest's power so much. It was the ladder. It was the shortcut. It was the only way to skip steps that an entire life of fights would never give them — without understanding that, very probably, neither Bestaria nor Wignall would allow that to happen. The weak dream of the treasure. The strong have already decided who's going to keep it.
And that was the silent tragedy of Castor and Pollux. Two brothers climbing a ladder that already had an owner at the top, betting their lives on a prize that would never be handed to them. Castor paid first. Pollux still thought he was in the game.
"Are you challenging me, Pollux?"
The presumptuous smile faded from his face.
Probably, he expected his own words to instill fear — that I would retreat, stammer, look for a way out. But, the instant I returned the question, it became clear to him that the tactic hadn't only failed: it had placed him in a most delicate position.
He had pulled the rope that now hanged him.
✦ ✦ ✦
"POLLUX! PUT THIS HUMAN IN HIS PLACE! I support a fight for that place!"
Broxes was dumb.
Hearing the word "challenge" seemed to obscure, in his head, each and every reason that had brought them there. But, in his own naivety, he fulfilled his role with a perfection I myself couldn't have scripted: the Orghaal's words pushed Pollux to the edge of the abyss. Now it was no longer a proposal between two. It was a public expectation.
And there is no worse humiliation, for a Lycan, than retreating before an audience.
I saw the calculation happening behind his eyes. Accept the duel and risk everything against an enemy he couldn't measure — or refuse and begin to lose the throne that very instant, step by step, until someone from his own pack decided to test him. Neither of the two doors led outside.
"Human… you're very cunning. Do you really think I'm going to fight with you after you took that dragon's power?"
The words seemed to shock everyone present.
And, to me, two things became definitively clear.
The first: Pollux was, yes, the holder of the knowledge about what had happened down below — the confirmation that was missing.
The second: that was a bluff. An excellent bluff, I admit. Scaring everyone around by saying I would be too powerful to be faced alone is an elegant way out for someone who doesn't want to fight. And I was sure it was a lie, because there was no hypothesis whatsoever of that Lycan knowing about the power I had taken down there.
It was almost funny to watch. Hiding inside a lie seemed, to him, the best way out — and, honestly, it was a way out I never imagined he would use. Maybe I needed to review some things about the Lycans. In the end, they were much more similar to humans than they presented themselves: fearful and cunning in equal measure.
And that said a lot about that Lycan.
But cowardice, when well managed, had another name: survival. And I wasn't exactly the most suitable person in the world to judge him for it.
✦ ✦ ✦
"Very well. I think that, since nothing's going to happen here, I'd like to understand the reason for the visit. If it's for the nest, I myself don't mind that you dig a hole and look for the entrance on your own. I can even offer a map of that place. But I won't allow you to enter my territory, if that's your wish. And I'm sure that, if it were the other way around, you would do exactly the same."
I presented the problem along with the solution.
Of course it wasn't the best possible solution — and, with all certainty, it wasn't the most practical for them. By my calculations, even starting with the help of the map I would give, they would still take weeks to reach the nest. Weeks of excavation, of logistics, of wear. And, besides, I doubted very much that they would trust the map was real.
I could have given a false one, of course.
But I believed that being sincere there would spare me from much larger problems. The time I would gain would already be enough — and, meanwhile, I continued to believe that, upon reaching down below, they would end up killing each other one way or another. In the end, it was win-win. The best lie is the one you don't need to tell.
There was one more advantage in that, and maybe it was the greatest of all: a map handed over willingly transformed a siege into an expedition. They stopped looking at my walls and began to look at what really mattered.
"And why do you think we should accept an easy map, instead of entering your territory by force?"
Irepia.
Of everyone there, in my opinion, she was the most intelligent — and, with all certainty, the most capable of dominating that coalition. The more I heard her voice, the more I observed her mannerisms, the more I felt that, even with the enormous Lycan carrying the title of new leader, in the end he would be nothing more than cannon fodder.
Which, by the way, made complete sense. In the first instant they reached the nest, the leader would be the first to be eliminated. That was how things worked.
The greed of the whole is what cuts off the king's head.
And Irepia knew that better than anyone. It was for that reason she hadn't disputed the command: whoever carries the crown on an expedition like that carries, along with it, the target on their back. She preferred to rule from beneath the throne. Safer. Much more efficient.
"My territory may be just a human territory. But, honestly, there are some new things I acquired… and that I honestly wouldn't like to need to use. I may have had my fortuitous encounters down there, yes. But the dragon is still there. Or do you really think I would have the capacity to kill it? Most of the treasure continues waiting for you. Do you really want to lose countless units over crumbs — while the true treasure is down below? Come on. You know I'm right."
Appealing to good sense.
It was the only currency I had left. I had no army to threaten, no alliance to invoke, no title that would make those creatures hesitate. All I had was the capacity to reorganize the numbers inside their heads until my death seemed a bad deal.
With that fairy, the only thing I could think of was to show that the cost wasn't worth the effort. If she believed the dragon was alive, she should conclude that I would never have the capacity to kill it — which would lead her to the natural conclusion that I had fled only with what fit in my pocket. The true treasure remained untouched.
In the end, her choice was simple: fight for crumbs, or go after the treasure.
To me, it wasn't a hard choice. The problem was another: I had not the slightest idea how she would manage to convince those two mules.
"Let's kill this human now…"
I felt Broxes's words hit dully against the Fairywood's ears.
She was calculating. Her eyes went from me to the wall, from the wall to the Yokai, from the Yokai back to me — adding, dividing, weighing. And, at her side, even the enormous Lycan reflected in silence about how to escape the problem he himself had gotten into.
"How do you guarantee us that this map is real?"
Finally. After what seemed an eternity, the little Fairywood understood what she gained — and what she lost.
✦ ✦ ✦
She understood that it made no sense for me to be lying.
And, in truth, I really wasn't. Of course I didn't know whether there truly existed something that dragon protected — honestly, I thought not. After all, that thing down below was a prison. Not a nest. But I think the Lycan let that detail slip; he, with all certainty, only wanted to avenge his brother, and vengeance rarely checks its own documents.
Either way, if they managed to kill that dragon, they would get something no one ever got.
His body, on its own, would be worth its own weight in nectar stones. Scales, bones, blood — all usable, all rare. Maybe killing it would even favor all of them with some fortuitous encounter granted by the Oasis itself. The probabilities were countless.
And, the more I thought about it, the more I noticed an uncomfortable thing: I could have killed that dragon.
I had the chance. He was fallen, blind with pain, with half his face melted. And I didn't do it — not out of pity, and not out of weakness. I didn't do it because I felt, deep down, that whoever had placed that dragon there didn't want it dead. They wanted it to pay in another way. Ostracism. Loneliness. Eternity.
There are punishments that death interrupts too early.
Killing it, very probably, would attract the hatred of whoever imprisoned it — and that was a bill no kingdom in the universe would like to receive. Besides, the power I was granted down below had already been fortuitous enough. It was fine to give up something of value in exchange for what I already had in my hands.
Of course that didn't apply to those in front of me. In them, there existed only the desire to have more. At any cost.
And it was exactly that greed I was selling back to them, wrapped as opportunity. There is no better bait than the one the fish itself chose.
✦ ✦ ✦
"The external perimeter of the tunnels must be protected by you. And you must give us a guarantee that the map is real."
The fairy spoke with the heavy breathing of someone who gives up fighting.
Her request didn't seem like much — and it was exactly for that reason that I knew there was something involved there. Something I couldn't allow under any circumstances. Small requests are the preferred way in which the intelligent ask for big things.
Protecting the external perimeter of the tunnels meant placing my units outside the walls. It meant dividing my force in two, exposing the elite in open field and, mainly, handing them the exact information of how many I had and what they were capable of. In a single polite sentence, she had asked for my army, my secret, and my flank.
"The map is real. That I guarantee you. As for the protection of the tunnels… I don't have enough power to protect the wall from the constant attacks of the Tyrin and, at the same time, guard the two main tunnels. What I can guarantee is that no attack will depart from my wall. But I'm not going to send my elite to protect you while you can stab us in the back."
"HOW DARE YOU, YOU INFERIOR BEING?!"
The great Orghaal advanced, seized by rage — my words seemed to have wounded his honor.
But, honestly, my words weren't even directed at Broxes. They were directed at Irepia. Because, of everything there was on that field, the only thing I trusted less than a furious Orghaal… was that little fire fairy.
And, before the Orghaal advanced for good, a smile from Irepia was enough to contain her own ally.
A smile. Not a single word. And the six-armed giant stopped as if he had hit an invisible wall — which, alone, told me more about the real hierarchy of that envoy than any report Eris could have given me.
"Very well… You're quite intelligent. Maybe that's why you managed to get out of there alive… Pollux, can we have a conversation?"
Pollux still stared at me for a few seconds before returning to the envoy with Irepia and Broxes.
✦ ✦ ✦
Morgana and Livina approached, seeing what seemed to be the resolution of the matter.
"What happened, Lord? Did they accept?"
My eyes still leaned toward the sky.
There were so many things that could go wrong that, honestly, I didn't want to keep my hopes up. But I felt that, if there was good news there, it was that there existed someone intelligent among them. Of course, that was a double-edged sword — in truth, it only meant I would have to stay alert to any intelligent attempt to destroy my kingdom.
In the end, I lived a strange conflict: preferring to deal only with brutes, who know only the battlefield, or with someone intelligent enough to understand that they don't need any battlefield.
"I don't know, girls. I think maybe we managed to get the time we needed…"
Morgana and Livina's smile was something I didn't share with the same enthusiasm.
But I felt that, maybe, with enough time, not even intelligence would be enough to kill me. At least, that was what I believed.
That belief lasted exactly until the end of that afternoon.
After what seemed an eternity, the enormous Lycan finally began to approach.
His face carried rage — but it was a rage with acceptance inside it. And that said everything. It had worked. We would have the necessary time.
While he walked in my direction, my body began to relax. My mind was already running to the next stage: the best ways to deal with the enemy, the order of the constructions, how many warriors per day, how much mana…
And it was then that something struck my mind.
A feeling. A formless certainty that something was wrong — almost a sixth sense, the same kind of mute warning that kept me alive more times than any weapon.
Out of instinct, I grabbed Morgana and Livina and hurled myself backward.
A good few meters backward.
And it was only in the air, with the two of them in my arms, that I saw an enormous spear explode the ground exactly where I had been. Before I could even question what had happened, another crash made me shut my eyes tight. The earth began to rise in a curtain.
"DAMN! What's happening, Lord?!"
"These sons of bitches…"
Livina and Morgana screamed while my daughter approached at a dash and Prince beat his wings above us.
And, when the earth finally settled, I managed to see the place where Pollux was.
Only, this time, what occupied that place was no longer Pollux.
✦ ✦ ✦
It was a Burman.
Cheetah face — slender, but visibly strong, the kind of body built to arrive before you understand it left its place. And, beneath his feet, I could see blood. And something deformed that took me a whole second to recognize.
It was Pollux's body.
Or what remained of it.
Broken into every possible piece. Half of his face had exploded — and the other half still seemed confused about what had happened, the eyes open in a question that never got to be asked.
It was too fast even for him. And Pollux was of a race of hunters. If that instinct served for nothing… mine shouldn't have served either.
But how?
The answer took no more than a second to appear before my eyes.
[ — Blood Trail (Legendary) ]
[ Congratulations. You have discovered the power of Vo'ruun. ]
[ You are the first human to use the blood sense of dragons to identify threats. ]
Unfortunately, I didn't have time to be happy.
Because, on the ground, was the leader of the Belt. Castor's brother. The Lycan who rose to the throne through information instead of strength — dead without a duel, without a speech, without even having seen the blow. Stepped on like an insect that got in the way.
It was there that I understood how wrong my calculation was.
I had spent hours playing chess with the wrong pieces. I studied the Lycan, measured the fairy, discarded the Orghaal — and negotiated each word with a table that, in the end, decided nothing. There were two hands above that table. And they had just swept the entire board with a single gesture.
"So you came to make a deal with the enemy… Pathetic beings."
Somehow, they had finally arrived. The two whose disinterest in the command of that band Eris and I had found strange from the beginning.
The two Burmans. The same ones who, until that moment, I couldn't say the reason for being absent — and whose disinterest in the command chair had allowed Pollux's ascent. Apparently, the disinterest was over. And everything I had thought, each calculation, each concession, each word I had spent in the last hours… would have to change drastically.
The great cheetah looked at my confused face.
There was an arrogant boredom in those eyes — the boredom of someone who arrives late to a party and decides, for sport, to break the furniture. He didn't look at me the way Pollux looked at me. Pollux measured me. That one there had already decided the outcome before asking my name.
"You're really a different human — for managing to dodge my brother's spear. But can you dodge the edge of my razor?"
The Burmans were always impetuous. But strong.
And there was no calculation, word, or concession that would solve that. I needed to get out of there. As soon as possible.
"ARACHNE! NOW!"