Chapter: 419 Bonus - Inhuman Perspective (Patreon)

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Kem was both horrified and elated.

He was elated because his simple reconnaissance mission had led him to see something entirely unprecedented.

He’d approached the rogue human city during its slow, inevitable decline into ruin—as all human creations are wont to do—and he had seen a pack of wolves approaching the walls.

For a moment, he’d hoped to see an early end to the humans beneath the claw and fang of the capricious wolves, but no.

They had challenged one of the humans.

A girl had come from the city, a tiny thing that was obviously weak beyond belief.

Nothing like the Eskau and Pillars of the Major Houses. Kem had snuck closer, increasing his consumption of magic and shortening his mission time just to witness the death of the tiny human.

But she’d won.

Somehow, the vermin of a bird had helped the little human enough to squeak out a victory against one of the Pack.

That was not good.

Such a victory would mean a closer alignment between the wolves and the humans, if not an outright alliance, depending on the god-beast’s moods.

Kem needed to go back.

But things had gotten worse, then.

Kem had felt a concept radiate out of the little human.

It was faint, and obviously just underlying her usual, fake magics, but it had been there.

Ravenous, jealous devourer. That is what Kem had felt.

Humans often had concepts underlying what they did, but they almost never truly resonated as this one had.

He needed to report this.

He needed to make the City Lords aware.

Such was his focus that he never saw the quick-snatching jaws, which took off his head from behind.

* * *

The sireling growled and fought the strangely awful taste of the human’s blood as he bit and tore and tried to finish the fight.

His magics weren’t working as he expected, but he didn’t have the time to change them.

He wasn’t healing properly at all.

The annoyingly quick bird had been dealt with finally. Thankfully, it had abandoned the field rather than fighting until the end, or he might have had a problem. The avian handled, he’d turned to finish the human as well, despite his growing, unexplained weakness.

But he’d been fooled.

Something akin to a poison was working its way through him, stealing his strength and making his natural healing count for less.

It was stealing strength from his jaws, forcing him to take much smaller bites than he wanted.

Even so, he would not fail.

The sireling allowed himself to sink into his instincts, deadening his emotions to ensure he had the energy for the kill.

It would be over soon.

He positioned himself correctly and clamped down, feeling the thrill of victory, his pain fading to nothing as he exalted in having slain the…

Wha—? Where’d she go?

The human wasn’t in his jaws any more… did he even have jaws any more?

There was nothing around him at all as he floated through nothingness.

No…

With a burst of light, the sireling felt himself being rebuilt, and soon enough his eyes beheld the moonlit glen in which Anatalis generally brought back members of the pack, though it wasn’t a requirement.

“Greetings, sireling. Your coat is new once more.”

The sireling flinched downward, partially in reverence, partially at the rebuke.

The only wolves with a clean, new coat were those who were too cowardly to fight, or those who were too unskilled to stay alive while fighting.

None of the first lasted long in the Pack as Anatalis removed them so utterly that only rumors of them persisted from the founding days of the pack.

The second were not thought poorly of, but they were still a drain on the resources of the beast-god. Their honor lessened with each return.

At least the sireling had always thought so.

He hesitated then, Anatalis clearly waiting for him to realize, or say something.

The sireling almost apologized, then, for his failure against the human pup, but he hesitated.

Something occurred to him that had never crossed his mind before.

Anatalis has a clean, new coat. So does our Den Mother.

Could it be that he had been thinking of things wrong?

One with many scars could be seen as a wolf who pushed their abilities right to the edge without failing, or he could be seen as a wolf who never reached beyond himself, striving for the top.

The sireling bowed his head. “I understand, sire.”

Anatalis’ laugh rolled through the clearing, both deeper than any other wolf’s and yet not disturbing any of the leaves, pebbles, or snow within sight. “Do you now? What have you understood?”

“To be reborn is to have reached beyond my current capacity, to have encountered a challenge worthy of striving to overcome. I have an enemy worthy of surpassing.”

The god-beast grew in the sireling’s perception even without changing physical size.

Anatalis swelled until he was all that could be perceived. He was the unassailable Pack, unopposable jaws of the many, the endless hunt.

“You have not earned the Pack an enemy this day, young one. Do not take on one yourself. You may be hunting beside those such as her for eons to come, but she will likely not outlast you. Each member of humanity is but a fleeting season in the turning of the world. Does one make an enemy of a passing storm?”

“No, sire.”

“Does one bend before its howling?” The voice of the god-beast caused the very air to silently scream under the pressure of his power.

The sireling had no idea how he, himself, remained untouched, but he bent lower nonetheless. “No, sire.”

“And if some of the young die to its bite, do we despise the winter storm?”

“No, sire. We thank it for showing our weakness. We learn from where we have failed.”

“Precisely.” Anatalis veiled his power once more, the still-cloudless sky seeming to brighten again, cracks that the sireling thought he’d seen growing across it fading away along with the memory of them having ever been. “Now, tell me. Where did you fail?”

* * *

Lisa shivered within his deep home, the feeling of Anatalis flexing his power rippled through the world in a manner even the most powerful gated humans would never feel, but the gateless would.

It would be a chilling of the air, and tingling of the spine, a sense that doom was upon them.

Anatalis wasn’t even focusing on humanity, let alone arcanes sheltering in human lands, yet Lisa shuddered nonetheless.

He knew that only three things raised the wolf’s hackles like that.

One, someone finding a way to permanently kill one of the Pack.

The response to the few who had ever achieved that was swift and merciless, and Lisa thanked the stars that he’d never been more than an observer of such a cleansing.

Two, a sovereign or other beast-god trying to exert authority over what Anatalis deemed was his.

The last such clash had been between Anatalis and a dwarven sovereign, who wielded a terrible ax, powerful enough to split mountains in twain.

Only one of the powerful beings had survived, and the question of who had an obvious answer.

Three, a sireling of his line requiring a lesson about the truths of existence.

Lisa was never more grateful to be a fox than when the wolf was acting paternal.

* * *

Paresh looked out of his high tower toward the north, where the great wolf was flexing his power with impunity.

He extended his will down into the magical mechanisms within Howlton, turning toward the east, to sweep back around and head south.

They’d still not found the resting place of the clockwork thunder, but the metronomic rumbling continued throughout this whole subregion.

They knew they were close, but that had been true for nearly a decade, now.

We can check to the south for a little while.

As he looked back north and west, he caught hints of the forest there. It had been just over two years since that gated human came through, bound for the cities.

She’d said she would return, and he still believed that she would.

At their level of advancement a decade or two one way or another was of no consequence.

Assuming she’s alive.

He somehow didn’t doubt that she was, even if the dasgannach that had invaded her had seemed like an insurmountable obstacle.

There were so many curses wandering the world in myriad forms. Maybe she would take what she learned—the skills she developed—through her own survival to help them all.

Maybe your kind will find some peace, some safety and purpose, my love.

He felt the gate within him resonate in response to his loving thoughts, even if he didn’t get a coherent answer in return.

As usual, his thoughts hovered close to his wife, and his hatred for the curses of this world—trapped and free—only grew.

* * *

Terry continued pretending to sleep as the durable one and the dodgy one talked about their human relations.

They were an odd pair, so opposite and yet so similar. Both had focused their artificial magics around staying alive, a sentiment that Terry could appreciate both because of those he’d lost and his oh-so-recent condition.

Their Healer had put him back together, but he didn’t feel whole.

His only potential flockmate was growing beyond his reach, and that wasn’t acceptable.

He’d claimed the right of a flockmate, but he was hesitant to take the last step.

They could bond and both be better for it, but Terry knew he couldn’t survive another breaking.

Even with that fear, could he survive as things currently were?

No.

He knew that, but he was still afraid.

He feared what he would become, joining with such an alien mind.

He feared losing who he had once been.

He would no longer be the flockmate who had failed them.

He didn’t know if he deserved that.

But maybe, just maybe, they would want him to find a new flock, to grow into who this new flock needed.

There were hatchlings to watch and train.

There were threats to subdue.

There was a flock to fight for.

After all these years, it might just be time for Terry to, once again, truly be flockbound.

HERE ENDS BOOK 10

Millennial Mage continues in Book 11 - Flockbound

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