Chapter 432
Unsurprisingly, the weak–willed male quickly gave in to my “persuasions”. It turned out that he was, despite his unwillingness to suffer for the cause, considered something of a well regarded member of the Misti Hawar military, or whatever it technically called, that was coming to eradicate my people. As I’d suspected, one of their number had stayed back in the forest to watch their leader actually. When that leader was mentioned, the young scout named Iskatti couldn’t help but mention that said the leader would have been able to destroy us all handily.
“If that’s the case, why did he let this happen? Is he just… wanting to watch you all get slaughtered? Or is there something that I’m missing about how your people don’t actually die when their heads are crushed or they’re eaten? Because seems to be a coward to me.”
He didn’t seem to have much of a response to that, unsurprisingly, so I left off that particular subject. I was willing to bet that, even if their Nyust’taa had been present, she wouldn’t have been able to do anything. And perhaps the scout was right, that, for some reason, this other clan leader was so powerful that he could have defeated us all without significant threat to himself, but I refused to believe as much until I saw anything resembling that. Something else he told me, and this was the most valuable piece of information that he provided, was that the Misti Hawar as a whole were planning to engage in a fighting retreat all the way back to their homeland for now. The winter was ending, and they preferred to engage with us on their own terms, meaning just during the winter.
“Zaaktif,” Foire whispered to me in our tongue, “do we want to pursue them? Perhaps we can cut off the threat at its source now, to keep them from returning next winter. Kill their leader, cut them all down.”
“Despite the way that I feel,“ I replied, tamping down the burning desire to kill every one of the furred foes,“there’s no way that we can confidently kill them all right now. We’d sacrifice too much to find victory, and I’m far from positive we can kill them all even with every one of the members of the Empire. If we push into their lands, we don’t know how many we’re fighting or how to supply ourselves, and though we’ll be aggressive, we’ll still be on the back foot.” As I said as much, another thought crossed my mind, and I turned towards Iskatti and asked, “How old are you?”
He squinted at me, but didn’t hesitate to answer, “Fourteen winters, this being my fifteenth.“
“And you are a child? An adult?”
“I am an adult! I am fully grown this year!”
I turned my attention away from the petulant “adult”. As I looked at Foire to explain why I’d asked as much, he twitched his tail slowly. “They can’t replenish their numbers as quickly as we can. The more time that we have, the better the balance of numbers will settle in our direction.”