The beginning of the war came in the lies of the Nyust'taa. Like most who came before her, Kusi'Wi came to her position wanting nothing more than to solidify her position as the greatest of our esteemed title. To unite the clans and return to our ways as the chiefest hunters on the face of Elioloi, all that was required was to present an enemy that was tough enough to require full cooperation but soft enough to give way before our might.
To her estimation, the Saharliard Empire was the perfect target, and perhaps it would have been, if she hadn't granted it so long to strengthen itself. Instead, after providing years to solidify their roots, the Empire grew beyond her estimation, and the prices demanded by the Great Hunter too great to sustain us as the ravening hordes approached.
–Notes from the Nyust'taa daily record, spoken by the 21st Nyust'taa Yury'yai, recorded by Kichka
Now that I had a squad of soldiers who not only were stronger than their peers, but also twice as bloodthirsty, it was time to start to turn our enemies' expectations on their heads. After all, we'd remained behind the walls of the city without more than cursory attempts at exploration outside of the walls. At the first sign of resistance, I'd commanded those expeditions to cease, regardless of my people's reluctance to do so. There were no losses I thought were worth it until now. Now, though, I had soldiers who'd been strengthened and their futures darkened. I wouldn't want to sacrifice any of them needlessly, but now there was an opportunity to use their lives without being wasteful, and if they survived, then perhaps their success would push them towards the evolutions that had been pulled out of their grasp.
There had been plenty of conversations about my willingness to hold my people back from fighting until now, though, most of them headed by Sybil.
"Care for your people has allowed us to come this far, but there comes the time in which you must treat the required sacrifices to be made as just that: required sacrifices. A war cannot be won without losses, and holding tight fisted to the hope that all may survive this war will not strengthen your ability to find success and victory. Every one of us, regardless of how long we have been your companions, are tools and resources that you must be willing to spend in pursuit of victory. An unwillingness to pursue victory over all other possibilities will result in the total loss of life."
"Do not mistake my caution for fear or a particularly tender heart," I corrected her. "We don't know how many of our enemies hide in the forest, we don't know all of what they are capable of, and we don't know how many other supports they may bring to bear against us. Regardless of if I have conducted a war myself, every one of us can say that recklessly engaging with a foe whose numbers, strength, and positioning we do not know is the most foolish thing we could do. Until we have a greater understanding of what our enemies are capable of, I won't commit our numbers to an assault that will needlessly kill our own."
"Caution is the brother of wisdom," Sybil agreed, "but so too is promptness. Our position is not strong enough to hold us here for months of prolonged siege. Our food stores aren't deep enough to do so without turning our claws against the Violet colony, which will grant us a war on all fronts. If, in order to gain the information that we need to be successful and in a timely enough manner that will permit us all to live, there must be a sacrifice of some dozen or dozens of lives, that is a sacrifice that needs to be made, regardless of who it is, barring yourself."
"Again, I am more than willing to have blood spilled for victory," I snapped back, my calm rationale slowly bleeding away. "It doesn't matter if that blood belongs to a Saharliard, Misti Hawar, human, or anything else. Choosing to spill that blood when it is our own, though, needlessly only weakens ourselves."
"As you command," Sybil bowed her head, the other members of my elites standing nearby doing the same as they flared their frills. It was no secret that she disagreed with me, but I welcomed her willingness to speak truth, even if she would always demur to me if I maintained my stance. Beyond that, she wasn't wrong, especially as the days stretched on, and we learned how the Spawn of the Great Hunter would continue to grow stronger the longer they were left alive. Of course, there had to be some plateau to that, but I didn't want to see at what point the amorphous monsters slowed their growth. If each could fight as my equal, or even stronger if allowed to grow for long enough, they needed to be culled, and immediately.
Thus, the next morning, when I led out a pack of 50 of my people, the only complaints that were levied against me, and in private, were that I myself was going to the front lines. That came as a surprise to nobody, but Sybil never hesitated to remind me of the importance of my position as the only true leader that could rally the Empire, at least until our children came of age.
"We will not spread more than a couple dozen feet from each other," I reminded, my sonilphon strengthening my soldiers as we stood just within the walls of Nievtra. "These are Misti Hawar, they're expert ambushers. Be prepared to support anyone near you at any time. You've been blessed by the goddess, so show our wrath to these furry fools!"
Cheers filled the air at my words, and it wasn't more than half a minute before we'd crossed the walls and were rushing towards the forest. With how our enemies were, I didn't want to give them any extra time to react to our arrival, so we ran in without delay, claws glinting and fangs ready to tear into our enemies. I felt my own heart rate climb at the possibility of returning some revenge on these bastards.
And then, we were within the forest that had long been our own but had been stolen from us by these furry invaders. The snows here were sparser, not so deep as to swallow a Kha, but still enough to slow an advance, but our Sik'Tal hunters were turned to find the nearest enemy, so that we could visit our revenge on them. It wasn't long before we had a trail to follow, and I led my people forward, a grin on my face. Blood would be spilt, and our enemies would be reminded that they'd made a mistake in thinking we were easy prey.
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