by Rachel Aaron
James and Arbati were quickly whisked aside to meet with Thunder Paw in private. They didn’t have to wait long before the old Naturalist shuffled in along with his grandson.
The gnoll pup ran over to give James a hug and a high-pitched yip of thanks, making him struggle not to melt on the spot. The kid had all the cuteness of a puppy and a happy child rolled into one floppy-eared, big-eyed package. It was a real fight not to grab him and say, “Who’s a good boy?” but James restrained himself, though nothing could stop him from pointing at Arbati as he leaned down, whispering in the pup’s ear, “He helped you, too.”
The child dove at Arbati with a yip. The warrior went stone-still when the child hugged him. So did Thunder Paw. But the gnoll pup was completely oblivious to the adults’ apprehension. He just kept wagging his little tail and yipping happily until, at last, Arbati stiffly leaned down to hug him back.
James wiped the smile off his face just in time as Arbati shot him a death glare. Thunder Paw coughed uncomfortably and escorted his grandson out of the room, handing the pup off to someone outside. “You had a request of Me, James?” the one-eyed gnoll asked when he came back, his collar translating the barks and growls into curious words.
“Yes,” James said, clutching his precious sackful of the lich’s papers. “I have a plan if you will follow me this morning.”
That earned him a tilted head from Thunder Paw. James knew his phrasing was awkward, but he prayed the savvy old gnoll would hear the hidden message and roll with it.
“Our gratitude for you is deep,” the chieftain said at last. “Tell us what you need. If it is within our power, we will help.”
Thunder Paw said this with heavy formality, and James nodded gratefully. That had gone as well as he could hope. Now it was time to play his card. It wasn’t going to be a popular one, but it was the best shot he had, so James laid it out.
“I want you to send a peace delegation to Windy Lake to negotiate an alliance with the jubatus.”
Sure enough, Thunder Paw’s eye narrowed, but it was Arbati who exploded to his feet. “This is your plan?” he cried angrily. “Ally our clans with scavengers? With thieves? We would never agree to peace with the likes of them, not even if they begged us!”
“Arbati…” James said tiredly.
“No!” the warrior snapped. “The gnolls took our ancestral lands! They’ve raided my people’s herds and homes for two centuries! They even sold out to the undead for the power to try to take the savanna from us!”
That was all in the game’s lore, so James wasn’t surprised by any of it, but it also wasn’t the whole story. “And I’m sure Thunder Paw can recite an equally long list of thefts, murders, and attacks that the clans of Windy Lake have committed against his people,” he said calmly. “Even I know about the Thorn Ravine Massacre, and I’m not even a real jubatus.”
He looked over at Thunder Paw, who nodded in agreement, but otherwise the gray-furred gnoll didn’t interfere. He just watched Arbati carefully, which James took as a wise move and a good sign.
“So what?” Arbati cried angrily. “Everything we’ve done to the gnolls has been in retaliation for crimes they committed! We will not rest until we have driven them from our savanna!”
“Then why are they still here?” James asked, pointing out the window at the city below. “This village is bigger than Windy Lake. The Nightmare was only for eighty years, but you claim the gnolls have been a problem for centuries. If you’re the true rulers of the savanna, why didn’t the pre-Nightmare generation of jubatus get rid of the gnolls? Or the generation before that?”
“Because they are cowardly and they breed fast,” Arbati spat. “And their hit-and-run tactics make them hard to pin down for a real fight.”
“They have a fortified town!” James yelled. “It’s not a secret camp that moves around! We found this place in less than a day!”
“And when I return to Windy Lake, I will gather our warriors and destroy it!” Arbati cried. “We will have peace that way!”
James looked at Thunder Paw out of the corner of his eye. Thankfully, the Naturalist was still sitting calmly, but he wasn’t watching Arbati anymore. His one eye was locked on James, who took a deep breath.
“You can’t,” he said, turning his attention back to Arbati. “Your ancestors couldn’t exterminate the gnolls, and you can’t do it, either. That’s why there’s an entire city here despite your campaign against them. Because no matter what you do, no matter how they got here, the gnolls are part of the savanna now, and you can’t force them out.”
Arbati was red-faced when James finished, his hackles standing straight up. For a second, James was worried he’d just signed himself up for another fight, but then Arbati crossed his arms stubbornly over his chest.
“Say what you will,” he growled. “But I’m still the head warrior of the Four Clans, and I say we will never shake hands with them. Not while they have what is ours.”
“That’s a choice you can make,” James said. “But it’s not the only choice. The way I see it, there are two paths before you. You can keep wasting lives and resources, fighting the gnolls as your ancestors did. Or.” James paused for dramatic emphasis. “You can take this once-in-several-lifetimes chance to try something different.”
“And you’ve just shown how little you understand,” Arbati snapped. “We might have worked with the gnolls to win a victory over the undead today, but nothing has actually changed between our two peoples.”
“That’s where I disagree,” James said. “There is something different, something that has never been before in the history of the savanna.”
“What?” Arbati demanded with a contemptuous snort. “You?”
“No,” James said, nodding at the still-silent gnoll sitting beside him. “Thunder Paw.”
Arbati looked confused, and James pointed at the void-black choker that was still locked around the old gnoll’s throat. “You have the only gnoll ever who has the physical ability to speak the Language of Wind and Grass. Your two peoples have a long history of bad blood to be sure, but you’ve also never had the ability to reconcile your differences because, before now, you could never talk. Now, though, you have something none of your ancestors had—a gnoll who can not only speak your language, but is willing to negotiate. I doubt we could arrange for more collars from the undead or find gnolls willing to wear them even if we could, so this is probably the first and last time a situation like this will ever occur, and you’ve never needed it more.”
He held up his bag full of stolen letters. “This world—this part of the world specifically, since the savanna is only three days’ ride south of Bastion—is about to fall into chaos and war like no one has ever seen. Do you want the enemy to find the savanna divided and ripe for conquest? How much will all of that ancestral land matter when you’re undead and the grasslands are trampled under the Once King’s armies?”
“It will not come to that!” Arbati hissed.
“Tell that to Gore Maul!” James yelled, remembering the look of ultimate regret he’d seen when he’d executed the undead gnoll chieftain. “You’ve got a chance at everything here, Arbati! An end to two hundred years of pointless violence and a chance to survive the war that’s coming. Or, you could keep doing what’s never worked and look up from fighting the gnolls just in time to watch everything you love burn. That’s not even a choice in my book, so why aren’t you considering it?”
“Because I hate them and I want them gone!” the warrior yelled, his eyes flashing with animosity that had nothing to do with logic, strategy, or good decisions. This was about hate, hurt, and anger, and those, James realized suddenly, required a different angle.
“You fought alongside them last night,” he said, switching tactics. “Do you still want to kill them all?”
“Yes,” Arbati said without hesitation. “They killed my cousins before the Nightmare. I wish they’d all died to the undead last night!”
“What about Thunder Paw’s grandson?�
�� James pressed. “If you want to kill them all, are you going to slay the children, too? Did we save that pup from the ghostfire just so he could be murdered by you?”
Arbati’s mouth opened then closed again, and James turned to Thunder Paw. “How old is your grandson?”
“He is six years old,” Thunder Paw replied quietly.
James nodded and turned back to Arbati. “There you go. Are you going to kill a six-year-old boy? It won’t be hard. I think your sword is bigger than he is. How about you just rip his throat out with your claws?”
“Of course not,” Arbati said, recoiling. “I’m not going to butcher a child!”
“But his parent and caretakers are okay? You’re willing to kill Thunder Paw and leave that pup an orphan, alone and uncared for?” He shook his head. “That’s a pretty sick thing to do.”
Arbati’s ears went back. “That’s not what I—”
“Do you hate Thunder Paw enough to kill him?” James kept on, merciless. “He’s right here, the Chief of Chiefs, no less. There nothing stopping you from doing it.”
As he said this, James would have killed for a mirror or a shiny surface, anything he could have used to shoot Thunder Paw a wink. He was uncomfortably aware of just how much blind trust he was demanding from a person he’d only met last night, but he didn’t dare take his eyes off Arbati.
“You twist with words, James,” Arbati growled. “There’s nothing wrong with killing thieves and murderers!”
“Okay, so you want redress, then,” James said, pointing back at Thunder Paw. “He’s the gnoll leader, so why don’t you challenge him right now for things his ancestors did to yours? He’s only an old, one-eyed caster who’s half your size and twenty levels lower than you. Heck, after last night’s battle, he’s even out of mana. That’s your favorite kind of opponent, right?”
Arbati’s face went so red it showed under his fur, and James thought for sure that he was about to get punched through the wall. He shifted his weight to the balls of his feet, just in case, but no punch came. Instead, Arbati dropped his head. “I am done with dishonorable fights. Damn you.”
“So you won’t kill Thunder Paw?”
Arbati sighed. “No.”
“What about his grandson?”
“Of course not.”
James crossed his arms over his chest. “What are you going to do, then? It seems your plan to ‘kill everyone’ suddenly has a lot of caveats.”
“Just because I won’t kill children and the elderly doesn’t mean I’ve given up!” Arbati yelled at him. “There are many here who are guilty of crimes against my people!”
“Which ones?” James asked, pointing out the window at the village, which was still cleaning up the death and destruction the lich’s rule had left behind. “That soldier over there, crying over his dead brother? Or maybe the old woman looking for her lost mate among the dead? How about the kids who had to put down their own undead fathers last night? Which of them will you kill?”
“We take names!” Arbati snapped. “Raiders, rustlers, and the like!”
“Is that so?” James said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Then name them, because so far, all I’m hearing is ‘Kill these gnolls. Don’t kill those gnolls.’ Were you just playing at the idea of ‘ending the gnoll menace on the plains,’ then?”
It felt so good to throw Arbati’s words back at him, but as much as James wanted to enjoy his victory, this was too important. “What will you do?” he pressed. “Whom will you kill?”
“I don’t know!” Arbati roared, stabbing his claws down at the village outside. “They stole our land! If we don’t fight them for it, we give it up forever!”
“But if you do fight them, then we’re right back to square one where everyone dies again,” James said. “If you war amongst yourselves while the undead invade Bastion, the Once King will win. His forces will arrive to find a weak and divided zone that’s easy to conquer, which is exactly what the lich was sent here to do. Are you going to do the undead’s work for them, or do you want to save your home?”
Arbati was growling deep in his throat when James finished, then the warrior turned and smashed his fist into a small table so hard, the wood snapped in half. “It’s not fair!” he cried. “Why should we have to give up what’s ours just because there’s a new enemy?”
“What if they didn’t steal anything?” James asked.
“They did!” Arbati snapped.
“How do you know? Were you there?”
The warrior bared his teeth. “Of course not. It was two hundred years ago!”
“It was,” James said calmly. “But do you know how or why the gnolls came to the savanna in the first place?”
“No,” he snapped. “And it doesn’t matter!”
“I think it does,” James said, turning to Thunder Paw. “Why did your people come to this place all those years ago?”
The old Naturalist jumped at the sudden question. “The songs and weavings say that we used to live in a place much like this. Then an evil took hold. It corrupted our lands, and our ancestors were forced to flee. The Grand Pack wandered for many, many years before finding the savanna, the only land we were suited to live in.”
James already knew as much from completing the gnoll questline in the next zone over, but he’d wanted to hear it in Thunder Paw’s own words, and he nodded his thanks before turning back to Arbati. “Which truth is better, Arbati? That evil, no-good gnolls stole your land, or that Windy Lake took in desperate refugees and gained Bastion a useful ally?”
“That’s not what happened!” Arbati cried.
“But it could be,” James said patiently, moving closer. “The jubatus have fought the gnolls for a long time, but all your ancestors who had firsthand claims against the gnolls are dead. You don’t have to answer to them, but you will have to answer to your children. Will they say that you were wise, the voice of reason who united the savanna and built a safe, strong future? Or will you have to explain how a two-hundred-year-old grudge was so important that you passed over your one-time-ever chance at peace so you could keep fighting gnolls while the Once King turned this world into a grave?”
James stopped there, waiting for his answer, but for once, Arbati had none. The whole room fell silent as the warrior wrestled with himself. Finally, in a small voice, he whispered, “But they have to pay.”
“They have paid,” James said quietly, grabbing the jubatus’s shoulder. “Look.”
Arbati dug in his heels, but James made him walk forward, dragging him out onto the lodge’s open balcony. He snared a bit of wind magic as he went. Not enough to cast, but enough to shift the breeze so that the stench of burning flesh and fur reached Arbati’s nose.
At the center of what had been the spike pit for executing players, the gnolls had built a twenty-foot-tall pile of furry corpses. They’d dug out the remaining spikes as well, using the logs to build a pyre around the dead. The blaze was just getting started, but already a black plume of smoke was rising to the sky. Around it, gathered along the edge of the drained lake, were hundreds of grieving gnolls. Their whining rose like sad, atonal music, drowning out even the ceaseless wind of the grasslands. Occasionally, one of the crowd would step up and throw a memento onto the fire, whining and crying with grief that needed no translation.
“What could you do to them that would be worse than this?” James asked quietly, his eyes locked on the pillar of smoke. “How much more death could you want?”
Arbati raised his hands to his face. “But…” His strong voice cracked. “But why does it have to be me? You did my quests. The gnolls captured me. They tortured me. Why do I have to be the one who forgives them?”
“Because you’re the one who’s here now,” James said. “This is when it has to happen, and you’re the only one who has the power to do it. You’re the head warrior. You can give Thunder Paw safe passage into Windy Lake to start the peace talks. No one else could make that happen. No one else could be trusted. But everyone knows h
ow much cause you have to hate the gnolls. If you lead them to Windy Lake, the other jubatus will listen. I can’t do that. Only you, but you have to choose.” He smiled. “What songs will they sing of you, Arbati? Will you be just another head warrior put there by his father? Or will you be the hero who ended ten generations of bloodshed and brought peace to the savanna?”
With that, James returned to his seat by Thunder Paw, leaving Arbati staring at the black smoke from the pyre. The silence stretched on for several nerve-wracking minutes before Arbati suddenly lashed out, grabbing the wooden railing so hard it splintered. Cursing silently, James shot to his feet. He’d really hoped that would work. But just as he was moving into position to tackle Arbati before he could do anything regrettable, the tall warrior turned around.
“Chief Thunder Paw,” Arbati said, speaking each word as if it were being carved out of him with a knife. “As the Leader of War for the Four Clans, I offer the Grand Pack a temporary truce and safe passage to Windy Lake so that we may…talk.”
Thunder Paw nodded gratefully, the crystals in his fur chiming softly. “As the Chief of Chiefs of the Grand Pack, Me accept your offer and will honor your truce.” Then the gnoll gave Arbati a tough look. “Me not agree to any unfair treaties, though. Me only offering hand, not whole arm.”
Arbati nodded, and James let out a huge breath. They all did. When it was over, Arbati turned to James. “You got what you wanted,” he said, his voice tired. “But remember, I don’t actually handle treaties. That’s up to Gray Fang and the clan heads. All I can do is bring them face-to-face.”
“I couldn’t ask for anything more,” James said, trying his best not to smile like a maniac and ruin the somber and serious air of what was happening. “Thank you, Arbati.”
The warrior waved his words away and sat back down on his pillow, out of the way of the reeking, smoky breeze drifting in from the pyre.
