"Chief Haiku." A scout from the squirrel clan kneeled before the council table. "Two hundred warrior dwarves approach our territory rapidly."
My wolf ears perked up. Dwarven warriors were exceptionally dangerous to any they considered their enemy, and it was easy to earn the title of enemy. We would need to be careful to stay out of their way. At least we didn't need to deal with them often since their stronghold was many miles away. "What is their purpose?"
"We believe that it is to slay demons." The squirrelfolk man replied as he pointed to spots on a map. His long bushy tail twitching too and fro. "They've altered course several times in order to wipe out any pockets of the hated race that they can find."
"If that's all. Then I believe we can leave them to their own devices. They will rampage across the wastes a bit and then go home." I expected the scout to leave so I could continue the meeting with the council, but he remained standing in the council chamber.
"Chief. They have a young beastkin girl with them." Every fluffy ear in the room perked up in interest.
"Why in the name of the gods do they have a beastkin with them?" A council member from the cat clan leaned forward with an intense look on his face. "Have they taken to enslaving our race for their own purposes? How dishonorable for their kind."
"I don't believe she is there unwillingly, Councillor Haxakra. Our scouts report that she appears quite close to a dwarf child her own age. She even sleeps on top of him."
The various cat beastkin in the room stiffened their tails for an instant in surprise before swishing back and forth in thought. As a wolf, I partially understood their culture. Pack mates only sleep close together if they completely trust each other. From the attitude of Councillor Haxakra, there seemed to be something else as well.
"Closely monitor the dwarves." I ordered the scout before turning to the council. "Prepare the bowmen and ensure the village is ready to evacuate. Dwarven warriors are, for the most part, honorable and don't attack those who don't harm them, but we should not risk our people unnecessarily."
"What about the demon packs that seem to be closing in on the village?" Another councillor asked, pointing at the red blocks on the map. "These ones in the north are spreading their miasma to the hunting grounds. If this continues, we will need to relocate again to keep food in our mouths."
"For now, we have to focus on the approaching dwarves." I replied. "There aren't any Demon Knights or Demon Barons with the demons. So they will simply wander on instinct. Make sure they don't find any hint of us, as for the dwarves, see if there is any way of leading them here so we can rescue the girl if she is being held captive against her will."
The next few days went by quickly. One concerning development that was reported by the scouts was that the beastkin girl was using her innate catfolk talents as a scout for the dwarves. Meaning that our own scouts had to keep upwind of her beastkin nose to remain undetected. On the brighter side, it became clearer by the hour that she was with them willingly and was quite well treated by them.
Finally the day of confrontation arrived. The dwarves stumbled into our village without a clue and fell into our encirclement none the wiser. It had been quite difficult to engineer this, but it was worth it to make sure the dwarven pride they were notorious for did not interfere with our talks.
I stepped forward with a few councillors and prayed that the beastkin girl could translate our words. More than once since the last Age of Judgement when our kingdoms had fallen, our tribe had come across individuals, or even entire packs, who had become quite feral or lost their original culture and language.
"Greetings, I am Chief Haiku of the Grim Claw Tribe." I introduced myself. I then waited to see if my words would be translated.
With a shrug, a dwarven child ditched the beastkin girl off his pack. She had been half napping, but she landed on her feet with the grace expected of a cat beastkin. With a mildly annoyed air, she sauntered towards us.
Thanks to the benevolence of the gods of the Eternal Hunting Grounds, she could still speak our native tongue, albeit with a rather harsh accent that seemed to emphasize the consonants. No doubt it was due to her time with the dwarves. "What was that, chief?" She said with an annoyed air as if we had interrupted her nap. "I wasn't listening."
Quickly, I repeated my words and asked her why the dwarves were in the forest. We had our own speculations, but it would be better to hear directly from them.
Within minutes, our guesses were confirmed. They were indeed on a quest to slay demons. The catgirl, who introduced herself as Yuki, included a few subtle derogatory words on how silly the longbeards could be on testing their own strength.
Beastkin dialects can include many non-verbal cues, cat beastkin mannerisms are notorious for this. From what I could perceive, she believed this was a great lark that didn't matter very much. She was only coming along because she had been promised something.
From there the conversation proceeded relatively smoothly. Even surrounded by our best archers, the dwarves still spoke haughtily and without reservation. Yuki included a few of her own thoughts in the translation, making it clear that Elder Wevrik and the clan leader were not the type to form alliances.
However, things took a turn for the better when one of my councillors asked her why she was with the dwarf child, whose name we learned was Mochi. She informed us with glee in her childish words that she had been given a place to live, training fit for a dwarven warrior, and plenty of food. All she had to do was use her beastkin talents to help her friend hunt demons.
Glancing at her twelve year old form, it did appear to be surprisingly well fed. Out here in the Demon Wastes, food untainted by miasma was a luxury, and even the best hunter could only hope to just barely stave off starvation for him and his family. She displayed no signs whatsoever of hunger or malnutrition. Not to mention she was clad in well crafted clothes and armor. Albeit, their pattern matched exactly that of her dwarf friend.
"Perhaps we can come to an arrangement." I said to the clan leader. "We have some items we can trade for food." We possessed little, our forced migratory lifestyle to keep one step ahead of the demons meant we could never accumulate material items that were not necessary for survival, but there were a few tribal artifacts left to us by our ancestors. History meant nothing in the face of starvation.
Yuki translated the disappointing answer. "He says that they need all their food to kill more lousy demons. They just want to hunt some more."
"Hmm, maybe a temporary alliance then." I suggested. "The village is on the verge of being overwhelmed by demons, forcing us to move on. If we could lead you to them, or lead them to you, it will cut your journey short and you can give us the food you would have saved."
In a manner informing us that she was getting bored of her task, Yuki translated my words to the dwarf leaders. Based on their gestures, I could tell they were going to turn us down. Then something surprising occurred. Mochi spoke against his elders. With his aid in the negotiations, we came to an accord.
That night, we invited Yuki to dine with her long lost kin. She accepted only on the condition that Mochi could come with her. We gladly granted her terms since this would allow us to gauge the dwarf child's character and figure out why she trusted him so completely.
"Is this it?" Yuki asked rather rudely when she received her portion of dinner. "Or are there seconds later?"
I frowned. She had received more than a day's worth of rations in a single meal. "This is all we can afford to serve. Miasma free meat is getting harder to obtain every day."
"Oh, is that all?" Yuki smiled as if our misery didn't matter at all. She then turned to the dwarf boy and began speaking in the dwarven tongue. Their conversation lasted only a few minutes before he got up and left the dining hut, grumbling about something. He returned after a bit of time with a device and some miasma tainted meat. Everyone recoiled from it instinctively. It was hazardous to touch and deadly to consume.
"Don't worry." Yuki confidently told all of us. "Mochi can make any meat yummy!"
The dwarf boy Mochi did something with his device that made it hum and the runes glow. Then the impossible happened. Meat that was completely inedible was magically, literally, transformed into a delicious cut of boar flank. My mouth watered at the sight of it.
"Can… Can he do that with any meat?" I asked in awe, my brain just couldn't believe the evidence of my eyes and nose. "No matter how tainted by the demon's curse?" It had to be a miracle. There was absolutely no way he could solve our problems so easily with a wave of his hand.
"Mhmm!" Yuki smiled and handed the cleansed meat to the cook. "He can even make demon's meat yummy. Well, not yummy. Demons have a kinda fiery taste that makes my mouth burn a little. Mochi likes it though."
This was revolutionary. We had to get either the dwarf or his device to stay with us to secure the tribe's future. But that was an issue for the morning. Tonight we will party!
"Quickly!" I ordered. "Get any meat we had to discard due to miasma taint and bring it here at once. Mochi will ensure we will eat well tonight!"
My words became more than true as the night progressed. For the first time in my life I ate until I could not eat another bite, the same was likely true for the rest of the tribe. Was this what it felt like to have a full stomach? This was heavenly beyond what even the gods could provide or had the gods at last taken mercy on us and sent this dwarf to us?
"Miss Yuki, do you eat like this every day?" I asked in disbelief as I struggled to remain awake.
"Nya, if I ate like that every day then I'd never move from my bed! Elder Wevrik shouts a lot if I try that."
"..." This had to be a dream. At any minute I'd wake up and thank the gods for a heavenly vision. Contrary to my expectation, I remained awake. "If he gives you this much food every day, I can see why you follow him so devotedly. How did you come to such an arrangement with the dwarf child?"
"I just followed him home." She smiled warmly as she looked at Mochi. They reminded me of my own youth, and how my wife had signaled her affections to me when we were their age. Of course, since we were members of the wolf clan, my current wife was much more aggressive about the business in later years compared to how the catgirl would develop. I still bore scars from my wife's courtship.
Later that night when the two had returned to the dwarven camp, I assembled the council. "What do you think, Zurek?" I asked the old wizard from the bear clan. "Can you replicate the device or the actions of the dwarf if we had the device?"
Zurek stood up slowly, his stuffed belly and old age preventing anything faster. "To be honest, I haven't the foggiest idea. Dwarven rune magic is a secret closely guarded by their race, not to mention nearly all magical knowledge among our kind has been lost over the centuries, the most I can do is read the miasmic winds and use relics left to us. So the possibility of replicating the device is nearly impossible. If we could procure the device, then perhaps my apprentice's apprentices could determine how to use it, but it is just a hunting dream."
"We don't have that kind of time in an Age of Judgement." A younger councillor exclaimed in subdued tones. "We will all go extinct."
He was entirely correct. In the last Age of Judgement, the disparate beastkin kingdoms that once occupied the lands now known as the Demon Wastes had all fallen to neverending hordes of demons leading to several powerful beastkin races who stood against them vanishing from Ranoch. If a catastrophe of that level occurred again in this age, then there was no hope for survival for any of us. No matter how fast we ran.
"For now, we should aid the dwarves." An older councillor from the fox clan advised. "If we can prove ourselves as worthy allies, perhaps the dwarf child will aid us as he did the catgirl."
"There is one problem with that-" My objection was cut off by the old fox.
"We should worry later. Our agreement states that we will lure demons to the dwarves so they can hone their warrior skills. They may not even survive the encounter. If the worst happens and they fail to overcome the odds, we will need to evacuate with all due haste. If they succeed, we will have more options open to us. We can either remain in the temporarily much safer village, or… Well, we shall see."
With the council decision put off for now, we busied ourselves around the map to determine where we should guide the dwarves to prepare their battleground. It had to be on high ground, with the right type of soil that wouldn't become a muddy quagmire of demon blood.