Chapter 166: Surrender
The next morning.
The sky was a flat, mottled grey, as though something had smeared a layer of grime over its original color and left it there to dry.
What remained of the beastman nation's leadership gathered again for another council.
The tent they used this time was considerably smaller. The tribal chiefs squeezed in together, and the atmosphere was oppressive in a way that left no room to breathe.
Gazok, chief of the Fang Tribe, was not among them.
His wild boar head was nowhere in the crowd. His absence from the meeting was obvious and went without explanation.
"Where is Chief Gazok?" one of the tribal chiefs looked around and was the first to speak. "Why isn't he here?"
The beastman king sat at the head of the table. His golden lion mane was somewhat disheveled, and he carried himself with a faint air of exhaustion.
His voice was rougher than usual.
"The Fang Tribe held the rear guard position throughout. Their strength was not depleted in the fighting." The beastman king paused slightly. "Given how precarious our situation is, if the Dragon Kingdom's forces were to seize the opportunity to counterattack, the consequences would be severe. I have already dispatched Gazok and the Fang Tribe to guard against any Dragon Kingdom advance."
The tribal chiefs nodded when they heard this.
A few exchanged quiet words with their neighbors — the general sentiment was along the lines of "His Majesty is thorough" and "we can't afford to be careless." No one pressed further.
After a brief murmur of discussion, the atmosphere shifted abruptly into silence.
The next item on the table was one nobody wanted to touch.
Everyone in the tent understood perfectly well that this conversation had to happen. Nobody wanted to be the one to start it.
The beastman king's gaze moved across their faces, one by one.
He understood.
They were waiting for him to be the one to say the ugly thing.
The beastman king's bearing seemed to age a few years in that moment. Something crossed his face that was difficult to name — not quite anger, not quite grief.
Then the complicated feeling dissolved completely, leaving only a flat, resigned calm.
"I have decided."
The beastman king's voice filled the tent.
"To surrender."
A beat of silence.
Then came a wave of long exhaled breaths, one after another, as the tribal chiefs' shoulders dropped with unmistakable relief.
Not one voice of opposition.
Against a gap in strength this absolute, accepting defeat was the sensible thing to do. These tribal chiefs were fighters by nature, but they weren't fools. They had seen that dragon's capabilities with their own eyes. If they kept fighting, the beastman nation would be buried entirely.
"Since His Majesty has made the decision..." an older chief was the first to follow. "Then let's move quickly. The longer it drags out, the more likely it is that the dragon changes its mind..."
Nobody dared finish that particular train of thought out loud.
What if the dragon decided its previous terms were no longer enough? What if it decided to wipe the beastman nation off the map entirely?
The thought was too ugly to look at directly.
"In that case," the beastman king's gaze swept the room, "who among you is willing to serve as envoy and go to negotiate the terms of peace with the dragon?"
A silence even heavier than the one before fell over the entire tent.
Surrender and treaty negotiations required someone of real standing. That much was understood. But this kind of humiliation — nobody wanted it attached to their name.
What if the dragon happened to be in a bad mood and just killed the envoy on the spot? And even setting aside physical danger, being the one to sign a surrender treaty was a mark that would never wash off. Everyone who came after you would know what your name was attached to.
The chiefs looked at one another. No one moved to take the task.
The atmosphere in the tent grew as stagnant and heavy as standing water.
The beastman king looked at them, and something cold moved through him.
This group only ever rushed to the front when there was plunder to divide.
His gaze circled the tent and came to rest on one particular figure.
The chief of the Steel Fang Tribe.
One of the strongest tribal chiefs in the beastman nation.
That tiger-head beastman had his head lowered and was making a convincing show of examining the iron axe at his hip.
"Chief Bazel." The beastman king spoke his name directly.
The tiger-head beastman's body went slightly rigid.
He looked up and met the beastman king's eyes. The only thing in his own was a very clear unwillingness.
The beastman king held his gaze, and the corner of his mouth curved upward into something quiet and unreadable.
"I would like to ask Chief Bazel to serve as our envoy and go to the dragon's location to finalize the terms of peace."
The tiger-head beastman's pupils contracted sharply. He opened his mouth, already lining up his refusal. He wasn't someone to be managed.
"This business has taken everything out of me."
The beastman king cut across him, his voice carrying a note of genuine fatigue.
"From this point on, the beastman nation's major affairs will need to rest on Chief Bazel's shoulders. I ask that Chief Bazel give it everything he has."
The words landed.
A low murmur moved through the tent. Every tribal chief turned to look at the tiger-head beastman at the same moment, their expressions complicated.
Bazel himself had gone still. His tail swung behind him twice without him noticing.
The beastman king had just publicly transferred authority to him, in front of everyone.
Before this, Bazel had been a tribal chief — significant, but not remotely comparable to the beastman king's standing in the nation. Now the beastman king had put the "major affairs" of the nation in his hands. That made him, in effect, half the nation's ruler.
Something that had been smoldering quietly inside Bazel for a long time ignited all at once.
If he could use this opening to build real prestige throughout the beastman nation, and then when the beastman king's strength finally failed completely...
Bazel pressed those ambitions back down. The expression on his face shifted from stunned to something that looked very much like being deeply moved.
"Your Majesty..." His voice carried a slight catch in it. He went down on one knee. "I will not fail Your Majesty's trust."
The beastman king looked at him, and the curve of his mouth rose a fraction further.
"Rise. The matter of the envoy — I leave it in Chief Bazel's hands."
"As you command."
The tiger-head beastman got to his feet, chin lifted, shoulders squared, with the bearing of someone who had decided there was no one more suited for the job than himself.
The tribal chiefs around him watched with expressions that said many different things.
None of them said any of those things aloud.
The council ended quickly after that.
The tribal chiefs filed out one by one, their footsteps gradually fading.
The beastman king sat alone at the head of the table. He watched the direction the tiger-head beastman had gone, and the last trace of expression on his face disappeared.
"Fool," he said quietly, in a voice only he could hear.
Meanwhile.
The Fang Tribe's column of wild boar beastmen, led by Gazok, and the guard captain's column of lion-head beastmen moved in silence along the dirt road between the hills.
Their initial heading had indeed been toward the Dragon Kingdom's front lines. Everything about their departure had looked exactly as it should.
They had been marching for roughly an hour when the forward scouts came back with a report: nothing ahead, no sign of any Dragon Kingdom counterattack.
The guard captain and Gazok exchanged a look.
No words needed.
Both of them turned their columns at the same moment and led them down a different road.
Capture Aindra alive.
Gazok repeated the phrase in his head. This was the secret mission the beastman king had given him.
An assignment this sensitive, the beastman king would only give to someone he trusted completely.
Everyone in the beastman nation knew the history, wild boars and lions had been close allies since the nation's founding. The wild boar beastmen's ancestors had helped the lion beastmen's ancestors reclaim the throne, and the friendship had held ever since.
Gazok was not like Jaka, the leopard chief who had simply been used and spent. Gazok had been the beastman king's friend since childhood, and throughout the campaign the king had deliberately placed his tribe in the safest position.
So when the beastman king had laid out this desperate plan, Gazok had agreed without a moment's hesitation.
The columns pressed on through the hills.