Chapter 158: The Envoy
The beastman king continued to pace across that enormous hide-skin rug.
His golden-brown mane swayed in the lamplight, and the shadow it cast on the tent wall moved like a great beast circling its cage.
As a king, he had to think further ahead than any other beastman around him.
First: Urgov was dead. The several thousand elite fighters of the Giant Claw Tribe had been effectively wiped out, and the fear in those bear-beastman survivors was real. Even allowing for some exaggeration, there was no question the other side was formidable.
Second: that human had not pursued the ones who fled. That meant he was not someone who killed for the sake of killing — or at minimum, killing was not his objective.
And finally — the word he had used was "discuss." That meant that even if this was a powerful dragon, it wasn't certain it could stand against the entire beastman army. If its strength was enough to simply crush that army outright, why start with a call to surrender? It couldn't be out of simple kindness.
Putting those pieces together, the beastman king arrived at a conclusion.
This old man was connected to the dragon that had founded the Dragon Kingdom. Possibly was that dragon itself.
He had come to protect the Dragon Kingdom.
If the beastman nation pressed on with its campaign to finish the Dragon Kingdom off, the other side would continue striking at the beastman forces. The likely outcome: mutual destruction.
The beastman king drew a slow breath and let it out.
He walked back to the stone chair and sat down.
"All of you — get up." He said it to the bear-beastman warriors.
They blinked, and carefully got to their feet.
"Have the tribal shamans tend to your wounds." The edge in the beastman king's voice had softened slightly. "The Giant Claw Tribe... with Urgov dead, you'll fall under the Iron Fang Tribe's command for now. Once the front line campaign is finished, I'll reorganize the arrangement."
The bear-beastman warriors exchanged glances.
The lead warrior looked like he wanted to say something — but they had fled a battlefield and were in no position to make demands. He swallowed it and gave a dull, "...Yes."
They limped out of the tent.
"Your Majesty."
The guard captain's voice came from the right. He voiced the question he couldn't hold back.
"Do you actually believe what those bear whelps said? One punch killed Urgov? That one was at least—"
"I believe it." The beastman king cut him off.
The guard captain absorbed the rebuttal and had the sense not to press it further.
"Pass the order." The beastman king raised one hand. "Send an envoy. Go and meet that human."
The guard captain stilled.
"Your Majesty — you mean... negotiate?"
"That is correct. His strength is not something to be taken lightly."
"If he truly intends to stop us from finishing the Dragon Kingdom..." The beastman king's voice dropped slightly. "Then every plan we have made will need to be reconsidered."
The guard captain's ears went up. Something complicated settled on his face. He had served the beastman king for many years and rarely seen this weight in his expression.
"Your Majesty," he chose his words carefully, "no matter how strong that one individual is, we have one hundred thousand fighters in the beastman nation. Even rotating forces through in waves, we could—"
"Waves?" The beastman king looked at him coldly. "Three thousand elite bear-beastman fighters couldn't land a single wound. What do you think we'd pay to bring him down?"
The guard captain went silent.
"Have the shamans prepare a gift. Find a few sharp-minded envoys and make sure they carry no weapons. First light tomorrow — follow the trail the bear-beastman survivors came back on and find him."
The beastman king walked to the tent flap and lifted one corner, looking out at the darkening sky.
In the distance, in the direction of the Dragon Kingdom's front line, there were faint flickerings of flame.
He couldn't say what number assault was burning out there now. Even from this distance, the urgency of it carried across.
The fox-head clerk poked his head out from his corner, moving quickly to record something on his parchment.
The beastman king closed his eyes. His lion mane fell from his shoulders and covered half his face.
"The front line push..." His voice came muffled from behind the mane. "Slow the pace for now. Wait until the envoy returns."
"Understood." The fox-head clerk scratched it down quickly, then clutched his parchment, tiptoed to the tent entrance, and slipped out.
The moment the tent flap lifted, a gust of wind came through and set all the oil lamp flames shaking hard.
Then everything went still.
The beastman king sat alone at the center of the dimly lit tent. The certainty of the last few days — that assurance of victory — was gone.
Morning light leaked in through the gaps between the hills.
Sebas stood at the roadside beneath a dead and leafless tree, both hands clasped behind his back. The hem of his black tailcoat lifted slightly in the morning wind.
His gaze rested on the distant horizon, where a small group of figures was moving toward him.
Clearly not a military force.
This was a group that hadn't brought weapons of any kind.
At the front walked a fox-beastman. Lean and wiry, with greyish-white fur that had gone a little brittle with age, and a crude pair of crystal spectacles on his muzzle.
Behind him came five or six beastmen of different species, carrying several boxes and cloth bundles, moving at a quick pace.
Sebas stood exactly where he was and watched the small group draw closer.
The fox-beastman stopped about twenty paces away. The attendants behind him stopped with him. A few were already breathing hard.
The fox-beastman wiped the sweat from his forehead and walked forward alone toward Sebas.
He stopped in front of him, gave a slight bow, and held the posture of deference.
"Esteemed... sir." The fox-beastman's voice was a little rough. "I have come on His Majesty the beastman king's orders, bearing gifts, to pay my respects to you."
Sebas gave a slight nod. "Please continue."
The fox-beastman straightened up. Those slit pupils looked through the crystal lenses and took in the old man in front of him.
Black tailcoat. White-grey hair. A gentle expression. If it weren't for the descriptions from the bear-beastman warriors who had fled back — he would have found it very difficult to believe that this lean old man was the one who had killed three thousand elite bear-beastmen alone.
He cleared his throat and began to convey the beastman king's message.
He was practical enough to skip the lofty formal preamble, rendering the king's intentions in plainer language.
"His Majesty says he is willing to negotiate with you. The beastman nation is prepared to abandon its plan to destroy the Dragon Kingdom. However..." The fox-beastman watched Sebas's expression carefully. "However, the beastman nation would require fixed periods each year to enter Dragon Kingdom territory and conduct... limited activities."
He had weighed his phrasing and settled on the relatively neutral word "activities."
"Limited in both duration and scale," he added. "Nothing that would threaten the Dragon Kingdom's foundations. Surely that would not be disagreeable to you."
The instruction His Majesty had given him was this: they could agree to give up destroying the Dragon Kingdom outright, but negotiate to extend the beastmen's "hunting" season as long as possible.
The ideal outcome was six months of hunting time per year. The absolute minimum he was to accept was three.
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