Fumbling with his relatively new Ability, Dominic felt an oddly resounding click when he met eyes with the female hyena. Sensing that the connection was established, he poured his thoughts down the link. 

‘Why are you doing this?’ he cried, not even thinking to communicate with images rather than words. ‘Why did you attack us?’ Realising his error, he started trying to figure out what sort of images might possibly communicate his meaning. About to call on Leo for help, he was shocked when the hyena responded. 

‘Territory. Ours.’ In words no less. Was this hyena higher level than he thought? Into Tier 2? That didn’t change what he wanted to say, though.  

‘Then duel me. Winner takes all.’ He was 90% sure that he would win such a duel: even if they happened to somehow be the same level, Dominic was sure that his natural advantages of having started off as a lion would help him win. 

‘No. Unbalanced.’ Apparently the hyena thought the same, unfortunately. Dominic grit his teeth. 

‘Then bring your bodyguards. Three on one is more balanced, right?’ He was a lot less sure about winning that fight, but still confident enough to offer it. He’d faced worse odds than that before, and that had been before he’d had Regeneration. 

‘No. Pointless.’ Unfortunately, the hyena wasn’t biting that either, though it took Dominic a bit of effort to puzzle through her second word. 

‘Why’s it pointless?’ he asked to clarify. 

‘Win anyway.’ Dominic felt a rumble in his chest as anger flashed through him. So the hyena wasn’t willing to put her life on the line when she figured that the end was a foregone conclusion? She wasn’t exactly wrong but it rubbed him the wrong way that she would just sit back and wait for her underlings to wear the lions down with a war of attrition. 

If it had been Dominic on the other side of this, he’d have been doing exactly what he was doing now: fighting on the front lines to minimise losses as much as possible. As it is, he was more and more convinced that she must have some sort of ability to siphon off Prey Points from her minions, whether it was an ability through something similar to the Pride enhancement Lion’s Share or an Ability. How else would she be so high level when she didn’t seem to do any fighting? 

But that was only relevant in the fact that it told him she was perfectly happy to throw troops into the meat grinder. However, her reinforcements couldn’t be unlimited. Already, the stream of hyenas adding to the battle had stopped. The area boiled with spotted fur and snapping teeth, and Dominic was finding it harder to avoid serious injury. 

Even worse, as he bit at a hyena that was trying to attack his flank, he felt an ominous crack and a sharp pain in his mouth. A moment later, the hyena he was biting twisted free and snapped at him again. Feeling with his tongue, Dominic realised with horror that two of his weakened canines had actually given way. One – on the top left – had just lost its tip, but the second – on his bottom right – had actually cracked halfway down its length, the tip now jagged but nowhere near as effective as his proper canine. 

My teeth! he mentally moaned, the incident reminiscent of several childhood nightmares. 

‘Focus!’ snapped Leo at him, though Dominic felt the same horror emanating from him too. More, perhaps. Seeing no other option and determined even more to make the diplomatic option work, Dominic bounded through the mass of predators, focussing on keeping the link between him and the female leader intact. His bigger size managing to make a path, he jumped into the circle of females. 

They were run ragged – even though their health and stamina levels were holding up fine, the regular absorption of bodies seeing to that, the mental strain of constant fighting was getting to them. Dominic was filled with renewed determination to get them out of this, especially since his own fighting prowess had probably dropped with the cracking of his teeth. With focus, he sent another message to the hyena leader. 

‘You might win eventually, but we will not go down without taking a lot of your hyenas with us.’

‘Strong survive,’ was her uncaring rejoinder. Dominic thought quickly to try to work out a way to get through to her. Leo was silent, a sense of incomprehension all that came from him. 

‘Perhaps, but are there not better challenges to face? Ones which will make them stronger without killing as many?’ The hyena didn’t respond verbally to that, but her unimpressed presence in the telepathic link appeared to not think much of his argument. He decided to change tack. ‘If you lose too many, you will have fewer to help you increase in level,’ he tried next, taking a chance that his conclusions about how she increased in level were correct. 

This time, there was a sense of consideration, and not just automatic rejection. Proof that he was right? Dominic decided to double-down. 

‘You want the territory. We’ll give it to you-’

‘What?’ Leo cried in outrage. ‘Give it to these filthy scavengers? Be driven out of our territory? No!’

‘Which do you want?’ Dominic asked him quickly and angrily. ‘Your territory, or your females? Because clearly you’re not going to keep both.’ At that, Leo was silent. Confident that he knew what Leo would choose, he kept speaking to the hyena, the pause in the conversation only actually taking a moment, their internal communications not being sent to the hyena.

‘-We’ll give the territory to you and you let us go with no further attacks.’ He felt the hyena was about to reject the suggestion, probably for the same reasons as she’d rejected his attempts to force a duel. ‘That way, you don’t lose so many minions, uh, sources of points to get stronger.’ He spoke fast but tried to sound confident. 

The hyena paused, not immediately rejecting the suggestion. Dominic wanted to speak, but held himself back – he’d heard that after presenting an offer, the first to speak would be in a weaker negotiating position. He didn’t know if it was true or not, but couldn’t think of anything else that he could say anyway that might improve the situation. 

‘Leave female,’ the hyena responded finally. 

‘I’m not leaving the females!’ Dominic responded hotly. 

‘One. Sacrifice.’ The whole of Dominic’s being revolted at the idea. Even if he was willing to sacrifice one for the majority, how would he even choose which one to leave? But he wasn’t, so it was immaterial. 

Instead, he turned from defensive to offensive in a blink, using Powerful Swipe dialled up to maximum strength and Rapid Attack to rip out the throats of the three level 5 hyenas closest to him within a second and a half, immediately absorbing their carcasses and tucking their Cores into his storage space. 

‘No sacrifice. You might be most likely to win in the end through sheer numbers, but you haven’t yet seen just how much damage I can do to your little band of scavengers,’ he threatened. ‘Let us go peacefully, all of us, or see just how many hyenas we can take down before we fall.’ 

There was a long pause. To show that he meant business, Dominic bounded forwards and used Rapid Attack to make three more devastating attacks. Though he didn’t get a kill on each strike, he did get a kill on the first one. The second two strikes were to a level 7 hyena and each left a bleeding effect on the creature, the effects stacking. Even as he turned to a third hyena – a level 6 based on its size – the level 7 succumbed to the gaping wound in its gut. 

‘Retreat agreed,’ the hyena spoke into Dominic’s mind hurriedly. Out loud, there was a series of whoops and grunts. The hyenas were slow to respond, but they did – pulling back from the little knot of lions and leaving a relatively open path out the opposite direction from the hyena leader. ‘Territory ours.’ 

Dominic couldn’t help filling in the unspoken words of ‘never come back, or we’ll kill you,’ that apparently the hyena couldn’t – or wouldn’t – say. 

Returning to the females, grabbing as many carcasses as he could en route, Dominic sensed their confusion and wariness. 

‘Leo, help me out here.’ The lion growled grumpily. 

‘You negotiated us out of our own territory and want me to break it to them?’

‘Yes,’ Dominic snapped back. ‘I negotiated us getting out of this with our lives intact and would very much appreciate you telling the lionesses that and getting us out of here before the hyenas change their minds!’ 

A hint of abashment coming from his mental companion, Dominic sensed the lion communicating with the lionesses. From their growls and grumbles, they were just as unhappy as he was at losing their land. Perhaps more – Leo had only been able to consider it ‘his’ territory for a few days where they had called it home all their lives. 

But unlike Leo, they didn’t seem to need as much cajoling to realise that it was better to lose their land than their future. They turned towards the opening in the encirclement of hyenas and started walking warily out. Dominic stood behind them, facing the bulk of the hyena forces – by this point probably over forty of them – and daring any to attack the backs of the lionesses. 

They backed up slowly, and a glance around made the lion realise why: they were travelling at the speed of the cubs, one of whom had obviously been hurt in the fight. 

‘We need to pick up the pace,’ Dominic commented fretfully to Leo. ‘Can you get them to carry the cubs?’ The lion sent across a feeling of acknowledgement and apparently got to work as their pace increased rapidly.

That improved the situation, and they quickly moved past the last stragglers. Dominic met eyes a final time with the female hyena, clear even from this distance from its proud position, and the way the other hyenas clustered around her. 

‘Peace over,’ she warned. Since the hyenas didn’t suddenly rush them, the former-human had to guess that it wasn’t a warning about betrayal, but more about the consequences of if they came back and tried to take the territory again. 

‘We’re going to, though, aren’t we?’ Leo asked, suddenly sounding younger than he ever had. Dominic abruptly felt the fact that he was still just a juvenile lion, probably only around two years old. 

The former-human sighed, the breath huffing out of his chest even as he paused and watched the hyenas starting to melt back into the bush. 

‘I’m not going to promise that for sure,’ he said. ‘But yes, we’ll certainly try. We’ll need to be a lot stronger than that, though. Enough that they can’t overwhelm us with numbers again. And you can bet that they’re going to be aggressively pursuing the same goal.’

‘So…it’s hopeless?’ the lion asked, sounding defeated already. Dominic shook his head, his mane ruffling around his ears. 

‘No, it’s not,’ he said with certainty in his voice. ‘If there’s anything humans know, it’s that giving up removes any possibility of success. No, we will be back. We will meet that hyena again. And next time, we’ll be prepared.’

‘You have a plan?’ the lion asked, more hope in his voice. Dominic even got a mental image of what he might look like in that moment: his ears perked up, his head tilted on one side, eyes with a spark back in them. 

‘Half of one,’ Dominic admitted. ‘I think it’s time we go revisit some old friends.’

‘You mean…’

‘Yes. It’s time to make a play for the Place of Power.’

S_Winter

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