Chapter 34: A Way To Kill It

STORM EAGLE MOUNTAINS.

A somber atmosphere hung thick inside the cave — somber, and heavily laced with terror. The Lyndwyrm alpha lingered outside for close to three hours, slamming itself against the cave’s metal gate again and again, each impact echoing deep through the stone. It felt deliberate, almost taunting, as if it wanted every soul hiding inside to remember it was still out there. Waiting. Making sure no one grew comfortable enough to forget that death lingered on their threshold.

Kren hated every second of it. His party had been given a wide, deliberate berth by nearly everyone sheltering inside. The cave itself wasn’t enormous — roughly the size of a football field — but it offered enough room to keep the various groups scattered at a comfortable distance from one another. It was only after the gates sealed shut behind them that Kren noticed the Storm Eagles weren’t the only tribe taking shelter here.

Three other beast tribes shared the space. A cluster of Vulture-kin sat near the back wall, a group of goat-kin — Satyrs, as they were more commonly known — kept to themselves near the entrance, and a smaller knot of Mole-kin huddled close together in one shadowed corner. The latter marked Kren’s first encounter with their kind. From the scattered conversation drifting through the cave, it sounded like two more groups had already either fled back up the mountain to the main Storm Eagle village, or arrived here under circumstances similar to Kren’s own party — caught, trapped, and pinned down in place by Lyndwyrms that dove on anything or anyone bold or stupid enough, to try leaving the storm mountains in the open, especially that Alpha.

It said something unsettling about the creature’s eyesight that it could spot prey from that high a perch and track it so precisely. The thought troubled Kren more than he wanted to admit, given what now sat squarely in front of him. But deep down, buried beneath the logic and strategy Aki had spent a decade hammering into him, something far more bestial stirred in response. Every cell in his body wanted to hunt that thing down and test himself against it directly.

Still, there was little to be done about any of it right now. The last few hours had stretched taut enough that Kren saw no benefit in forcing the issue — doing so now would only sour an already fragile atmosphere further. His impatience was obvious to anyone watching, so he’d spent the waiting hours working through the absurd backlog of system notifications still queued in his mind.

Individual kill notifications, one for every Lyndwyrm he and his party had cut down. He’d lost count somewhere around the seventh, but the final tally came to thirty-eight separate notifications — twenty-five worth a thousand Sovereign Points each, the remaining thirteen worth five hundred apiece. Net gain: thirty-one thousand five hundred points. Combined with the four thousand already sitting in reserve, Kren now had thirty-five thousand five hundred Sovereign Points to work with, heading into whatever confrontation waited with the alpha. He had gained most of them during their escape from the meadow, just running and cutting down any Lyndwyrm that got in their way.

Except he wasn’t convinced it would be enough. He had no real plan yet. No clean angle of approach, because nothing currently in his arsenal felt strong enough to meet that thing head-on and walk away. But if there was one principle Aki had spent the better part of a decade forcing into his skull, it was this: be ready for anything, and study your enemy — along with the ground they stood on — before you ever commit to a fight.

Kren rose abruptly, the beginnings of an idea already taking shape in his mind, though he refused to move on it without confirmation first — without understanding exactly what he’d be walking into. His eyes swept the cave, ignoring the way every other group tensed at the sudden movement. He caught Jomin’s eye instead, not far off, sitting quietly among his grieving servants as they mourned the friends lost that day.

The teenager startled slightly, then excused himself from the group, his dog trotting along at his heels, growling softly at every unfamiliar shadow it passed. Every eye in the cavern tracked Jomin’s path across the open floor — an uncomfortable weight for anyone to carry, though the boy bore it with more composure than Kren suspected he himself would have managed at that age. Jomin reached them and offered a formal bow to Kren, then turned and repeated the gesture to each member of his party in turn.

"I can’t begin to express how grateful I am — for what you’ve done for me and my people. By any reasonable measure, we should already be dead. The fact that I get to see tomorrow is entirely because of your mercy. Thank you, Your Majesty. And thank you, to every one of you, for coming to our aid." The boy’s hands trembled faintly as he spoke, but there was no mistaking the sincerity behind it.

"It was the right thing to do." Kren said simply, gesturing to the spot across from him. "Sit with us. I have questions I’d very much like answered."

"Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to direct those questions to the actual heir of the Storm Eagles?"

Pina’s voice cut across the conversation as she dropped into the very seat Kren had just offered Jomin. Fima let out a low growl at her sudden presence, which Pina ignored entirely, locking her gaze on Kren instead while Jomin took the seat beside her with visible awkwardness. Kren traded a brief glance with Aki. He was growing steadily more irritated by her blatant disregard for her own brother — but he also understood exactly how careful he needed to be here. With this — for lack of a kinder word — bitch!

Who could very well end up becoming his first wife, or concubine, or whatever precise term the royal courts used for it. As beautiful as she was, her character left a great deal to be desired, at least from what he’d witnessed so far. But he needed this alliance — needed the bodies the Storm Eagles could throw into his ranks, needed their weapons, needed the strategic weight these mountains would bring if they ever fell under his banner.

So he smiled at her. He caught the exact second she blinked in response, a faint dusting of pink rising across her cheeks before vanishing just as quickly. Kren wasn’t unaware of his own appeal, his handsomeness as they would say. Bernice had once called it, in her own words, "ridiculous, bordering on unnatural." It was satisfying to see that same effect hadn’t skipped the Storm Eagle princess.

"Well? Ask your questions. Because I have a few of my own that need answering as well... Your Majesty."

Kren held her gaze — one beat, then another — letting the silence between them stretch until it bordered on genuinely uncomfortable. Then he shrugged, unbothered.

"I want everything you can tell me about the Lyndwyrm alpha and its habitat. Its habits. Where it sleeps. How fast it moves, when it hunts, where it hunts, how it hunts." He paused briefly, just long enough to confirm Pina was still fully engaged. "And how I get close enough to reach it."

Pina blinked, caught off guard — but it was Jomin who spoke first, a thread of genuine awe running through his voice as understanding dawned on him a step ahead of everyone else in the circle.

"You’ve figured out a way to kill it."

The way Jomin said it, it wasn’t posed as a question at all — it landed as a statement of fact. Kren felt his respect for the boy climb another notch. There was clearly a sharper mind behind that easy smile than he’d first given Jomin credit for, and a surprising amount of insight packed into it besides. Pina turned toward her brother, scowling briefly at the interruption, before her attention snapped back to Kren.

"You can actually kill it?" she asked. Whatever her attitude toward her brother, there was no mistaking the raw hope threading through her voice. She wanted this thing dead — likely more than anyone else sheltering in this cave. And if Kren wasn’t simply bluffing, if he’d genuinely found an opening, he might just be holding the one thing capable of saving both her, and everyone she was responsible for.