Chp.8: The tigermen's leader

Darbi had quickly realized that the tigermen were hostile to him. They clearly didn't appreciate that there was a dragon nearby. Nonetheless, he was cordial. "Nice to meet you. My name is Darbi and yes, I am the one who is currently in command of this small fleet. May I know your names?"

The tigermen who had come forward first raised his head and puffed out his chest, as if he wanted to appear bigger than he really was. But despite his efforts, Darbi was still at least two meters taller than him. "I am Tzegorn, and I am the momentary leader of the tigermen who lived in the city of Collabar. You should know that we tigermen..."

"I know how divided your social structure was," Darbi stopped him. "In the former territory of the tigermen there was a city, Collabar, which served as a kind of small capital, and was surrounded by several small towns and villages. Each village had its own chief, who however had to obey the leaders of each city, who in turn had to obey the leader of Collabar, who was indeed known as 'tigermen lord'. If I remember correctly, he was one of the deceased legendary warriors who met their death in the war. Am I right?"

Tzegorn seemed surprised that Darbi knew the tigermen so well. He obviously ignored the fact that the dragon had inquired about this a long time ago. "You're well versed in our culture, I see" he grumbled. "Anyway, currently both the city of Collabar and all the others no longer exist, but we still decided to form a new command system at least until we can establish ourselves somewhere. Since creating one from scratch would be a long process, we decided to copy the old system, with the difference that for reasons of time and personnel we excluded the leaders of the villages and we kept only those of the cities. Those you see behind me are consequently the leaders of large groups of tigermen, and are for the time being led by me, as the momentary new chief of the people of the former city of Collabar"

Darbi looked behind Tzegorn, where there were about a dozen tigermen, who visibly ruffled their fur as they caught his gaze. Some looked away, but many of them didn't even try to hide their hostility. "Mh. All clear. So I have to turn to you for discussions concerning the people of the tigermen?"

"The choice won't be up to me alone, but you can consider me a spokesman, so yes" Tzegorn responded.

Darbi nodded. "I see. You speak pretty well for any tigermen. Are you of noble stock?"

"All of us are, or we wouldn't have been chosen as leaders" Tzegorn answered. While the tigermen respected strength, they still placed great value on royal and noble bloodlines. This wasn't uncommon among beastmen: in many cultures nobles deemed themselves so superior to common peasants that any son who did not excel in at least one of the many fighting arts, strategy or politics was immediately disowned. It was no coincidence that some of them even practiced eugenics. "I am the fifth son of Lord Farthur, the tigermen lord's chief adviser before the war. I was left behind to help defend Collabar during the war, and therefore saved myself. The same goes for these people behind me, who they are all children of important people now deceased. Now that we have finally been freed from the bondage of the evil Carrion, it is our duty to lead the tigermen people towards a bright future to honor the memory of our fathers"

It could be clearly felt that Tzegorn was of noble stock: to explain something that could be said in two sentences he had spent almost five minutes. Darbi found it excessively long-winded, but otherwise it didn't sound too bad. After all, the tigermen were a very proud people and would hardly have accepted to be led forever by someone else; if he could ingratiate himself with their new boss immediately, he could save himself a lot of headaches in the future. "Well, yours is a very noble intention" he said trying to be as polite as possible. "I can assure you that I will support you in this endeavor and that if you decide to continue with us..."

"No need to keep talking, we already know where we're headed. Your captain explained it all to us some time ago, and we agree" Tzegorn said, glancing at Gord. "While reaching the Thul Oasis will be difficult, at the moment it is the best option we have. Even if our blood boils and we long to avenge our fathers and take back our land, we know full well we don't stand a chance. If even if we put a weapon in the hands of all the survivors of our people, we would not be able to win a single battle And since we can go neither east nor west and the south is unknown territory to us, we believe that the best choice is to join you and head for the oasis. You seem well prepared for this undertaking, so we have no reason to believe otherwise. When your captain has finished explaining everything to us, with a detailed description to boot, all we were satisfied and wished not only to join you, but also to personally meet the person who had led this fleet to free us from our chains". His eyes narrowed a lot. "However, I hope you understand how great our surprise was when we found out that such a person was a dragon"

Darbi's smile faded. He could clearly see the tension in the tigermen's eyes. "You know, we tigermen pass on our traditions through stories" Tzegorn continued. "There are many stories, and they vary from family to family. Noble families tell certain stories, while the peasants tell others. But there is one story that all families have been telling for centuries, and which is always the same. The story of how about two hundred years ago our people did not live divided into various villages and towns, but united in one very powerful city-state, whose glory was recognized in all the ancient Baudonia City Alliance... until the day when a dragon did not come upon the city and devastated it completely, devouring all the inhabitants one by one. No defense served. No warriors were able to stop it. No sacrifice changed the fate. In less than an hour, the city that had taken hundreds of years to be built was completely razed to the ground, to the point that not even the ashes remained of it. All the inhabitants were devoured, and the dragon had fun several times making them escape and then chasing them to be able to see the little hope they had extinguished in their eyes. The parents threw themselves on their knees in front of the beast, praying that it would not harm at least their children, but their pleas were useless and indeed, the dragon forced them to watch while it ate the tigermen that they themselves had generated. But the dragon's actions did not go unpunished: the great god Tharon opened the heavens and with his breath tore the dragon's wings and a good part of its armor to pieces. The beast fled east crawling over his mangled body. But anyway, the tragedy had already occurred. Only a few tigermen had survived, and they dispersed into various tribes that wandered in search of resources, until eventually settling in the places where cities and villages would later arise which would later be unified under the banner of Collabar". The eyes of Tzegorn became even harsher. "Obviously I bear no ill will for that dragon's actions. That would be silly since this happened too many generations before I was born. But in any case, this story has taught me and all tigermen very well what it means to cross paths with a dragon. So I hope you understand if we don't trust your good faith completely"

That dragon could very well have been one of his brothers or sisters from previous broods, Darbi mused. Since his mother was more than four hundred years old, and hardly another dragon would appear in her vicinity, it was probable that that dragon of two hundred years ago was one of the few survivors of one of Neytiri's first broods, who once became an adult hadn't disdeined feasting on anything it found in its path… and just like Neytiri, it too had been defeated by a god. However, that wasn't the time to think about the family situation. "I can understand your suspicion, but I can assure you that I have no bad intentions and neither do my..."

"And this story isn't the only source we rely on. There are many others handed down from our ancestors and from peoples of different lands. All of them always describe dragons in the same way and warn us against their evil plots" Tzegorn interrupted him. "Therefore, I would like to know what your real goal is. Or I might end up believing that in reality you and your siblings, which your captain told us about, are just playing the part of good guys and really just want to create a great source of food"

'What? We aren't that terrible! Well... maybe not completely. No, come to think of it, this is something Haku would do for sure. And Sisna too. And Corgorin. And Malchia. And… damn, this family is really full of ruthless individuals!' Darbi thought, and then tried to appease the tigermen: "Do you really think that our plan is to use you as beasts for slaughter? Come on, it's ridiculous! Look around, you alone are more than seven thousand! If we tried to kill you, you would be upon us immediately!"

"For now" Tzegorn said. "For now we can fight each other. But when you and your siblings will be adults? Who guarantees that you won't kill us then?"

Very legitimate objection. "If we wanted to raise you as beasts for slaughter, why didn't we just take your children? Why free all of you? It would be much easier for us to raise children and convince them that they exist only as our cattle, than to take you adults along with us, don't you think?" Darbi tried again, even though that excuse didn't sound very credible even to him. He wished that Haku was there with him: he would surely know what to say. "Listen to me, I know it sounds crazy, but we really just want to help. We want to try to live differently from our ancestors"

"Live differently? Tsk! This is even more ridiculous" Tzegorn said with a sound of disgust. "A wolf can dress up as a sheep, it can eat a lot of honey to make its voice sweet, it can dust its paws with flour to make them look like white hooves, it can even roll around in a dung heap to imitate its smell... but it will never really be a sheep. Eventually, it won't be able to resist the temptation to devour the other sheep, because its hunger will consume it and eventually its predatory instinct will prevail over its desire to be different from the other wolves. Do you really think that a dragon, the apex predator par excellence, could have a different ending?"

"Well... dragons are smarter than wolves" Darbi replied, though those words sounded rather weak to him.

Tzegorn let out an annoyed snort. "If that's your answer, then you're really foolish. Not even the most rational creature in this world can change what is" he grumbled. "If you really want to be different, then you should try to do the only truly good deed you could ever do and kill yourself, to spare others the suffering you will bring them"

Darbi gritted his teeth so hard that the noise was heard all over the ship. The tigermen's fur stood up instantly and their looks became worried. Even Tzegorn feared for a moment that he had exaggerated and instinctively his hand went to the small sword he kept at his belt. But before anyone could do anything, a voice stopped everyone: "DARBI!"

The dragon turned and saw an avatar appear on the bridge. He knew from the voice that it was Sisna, but the strange thing was that she hadn't even created an illusion to disguise the dead body, as if she was in a great hurry to talk to him. "Sister? What...?"

"Stop playing with your friends and come here now! It's an emergency!" Sisna exclaimed, and Darbi knew from her voice that she was very worried… and also very angry. "Rhaegal has been kidnapped!"

Darbi's heart skipped a beat at those words. "What!?" he cried in a strangled voice.