The samuran looks back at me thoughtfully. I sense over the Bond that he’s feeling a little numb – I know that our village takes a bit of getting used to. More than half a year since I took over as leader, it’s practically unrecognisable from what it was. And the vast majority seem happier with it now than its original form. Even Windy has stopped complaining as much, though the relaxing of formality that has followed my lead seems to irritate her as much as it relieves me. She might be comfortable being treated almost as a god among mortals, but I’m not.

  I would guess that Bares-claws has just been informed of this, based on his greeting – though more formal than I would like, it’s still less than would normally be required of an Unevolved to the lead Pathwalker of their village. It doesn’t escape my notice that Kills-a-deer looks to him for guidance in this new situation for them both.

  What do you wish to know? Bares-claws responds after a pause. I sense more than hear him biting off the ‘Honoured Pathwalker’ at the end or something similar.

  “Well, how did you form them?” I ask, figuring that starting at the beginning was best.

  We captured the two beasts in the forest, one first and then the other when it came looking for the first. They are a mated pair, Bares-claws informs me, speaking readily. My master wanted to know whether I was able to develop a Bond with them on my own so I was in charge of caring for the beasts. Feeding them, cleaning their cages, getting them used to my presence, to my voice. And after a while, to my touch.

  “And?” I prompt with interest. That sounds very much non-magical taming to me. Yet there’s clearly a magical component too. “Did that cause you to develop the Bonds I now feel in you?”

  No, the samuran admits with an air of reluctance. My master was disappointed. But she was able to test something else. She created the Bond between herself and the two beasts and then attempted to pass the connections to me – with success. She said that that wasn’t something she’d ever been able to do before. She theorised that it was my care of the beasts beforehand which had allowed the Bond to connect with me.

  “Or perhaps the beasts needed to accept the transference and, due to the trust that you’d developed, they did so with you in a way previous beasts hadn’t done with others,” I muse.

  As the Pathwalker says, Bares-claws answers deferently.

  I ask him a few more questions both about the Bonds and about what he had observed of his previous master – the beast tamer. He was hesitant about a few of the questions, sometimes not knowing the answer, sometimes not knowing whether he should respond. In the latter case, though, most of the time he did finally give me a complete sentence. Perhaps he realises that being part of this village and not that one means his allegiance needs to shift. Or perhaps it’s the influence of the Dominate Bond. Either way, by the end of the conversation, I feel that I have a better idea of what beast tamers are like among samurans.

  The Bonds themselves sound like a hybrid between my Tame and Dominate – he doesn’t have the control that I do over my Dominate Bound, but he didn’t need to do the same kind of negotiation that I do with Tame. It seems that the process he followed of taming the beasts in the non-magical way first wasn’t necessary for his erstwhile master to do, but it apparently improves the chances of a Bond forming. Otherwise, from what he’s observed, the tamer has to attempt to brute force it – a bit like Dominate. Though it doesn’t seem that the Pathwalker he assisted ever spoke to him about a space like the Battle of Wills.

  It’s interesting to compare with my own Class – though there are certainly similarities, we’re certainly not the same.

  Of course, Bares-claws isn’t a beast tamer himself and his answers may not be completely reliable. However, he has been the other Pathwalker’s assistant for over two years so he must have gained a decent idea of how she does things. As long as I can be certain of his loyalty, he could solve a few potential problems for the village which have been worrying me. He could be even more beneficial if I can get him to Evolve into a beast tamer himself. But magic isn’t necessary to accomplish what humans managed to do for millennia so if he never Evolves it’s not the end of the world. The main thing that magic offers is the ability to communicate in a way that no non-magical solution allows.

  Hunter has been doing well with her runes, but she’s got stuck at four-rune combinations – experimentation is not a perfect replacement for instruction and we only have that one beginner’s book available to us. She’s been able to connect samuran and beast together, but only one at a time, and the connection doesn’t offer the kind of benefits that my Bonds do.

  Although I can create Alliances, I don’t know whether they will last if I’m not even on this world. Having a beast tamer who can create and transfer Bonds once I’m gone would definitely help with the farming. We’ve also been experimenting a bit with mounted samurans – each of them having a proper Bond with their mount might help. A grin creeps on my face at the thought – perhaps this trip could be the first proper outing for our mounted cavalry.

  “Alright, thanks for that information,” I say to Bares-claws. “Now, both of you. What do you know about a Great beast moving into the area near your previous village?”

  The two samurans exchange confused looks.

  A Great beast? My master didn’t say anything about that, Bares-claws answers uncertainly.

  There have been more deaths recently than usual, Kills-a-deer offers just as hesitantly. I haven’t heard anyone say that it’s because of a Great beast, though.

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  I frown. Is it just that they weren’t told? I know that the Unevolved are traditionally kept in the dark about many things – previous to my changes, the Pathwalkers would decide pretty much everything within their little group, perhaps giving some decision-making power over to the lead Warrior. But about a Great beast? Wouldn’t they have at least been warned to keep out of certain part of the forest?

  Perhaps the Pathwalkers wanted to avoid panic, suggests River, correctly interpreting my confusion. I remember that it took a while for the Pathwalkers to tell us about Kalanthia’s presence. In fact, they only told us when the Warriors went off to hunt her in her lair.

  I look at her sharply.

  “When they came to kidnap Lathani? But I had the impression that you’d known of her before that.”

  No, not then. Earlier than that. I knew of her because I came across the remains of a group of Unevolved who had been caught by her when I was barely more than a hatchling. When I told Herbalist about them, she ordered me to keep silent about it. It wasn’t long after that that the Pathwalkers announced that a group of Warriors would be going to kill the Great beast which threatened us. I joined the pieces together.

  “But…they didn’t kill her,” I say slowly. “They…drove her away?” Am I getting the timeline straight?

  Not even that, Poison answers, pausing as he passes by. We went to hunt the Great Predator in a great number, yet found her lair empty. We waited to try to ambush her when she returned, but she never did. We returned three days later, glad that we were alive yet fearful that she had merely found a different location to launch her attacks from. But no attacks came. She had gone. With that, he twitches his tail and then continues walking to wherever he was going before he was distracted by our conversation.

  I nod slowly.

  “OK, I understand.” From what Kalanthia said, there had previously been various strikes made on the side of the samurans, but their war-party aiming straight for her den had been what made her give up on the area completely. Instead of risking her life – and with it, Lathani’s – she had migrated further up the mountain-side.

  After a little more conversation with the four of them, the two new Unevolved start to relax the longer we speak without me snapping at them. Unfortunately, I can’t spend all day chatting so I make my excuses and move on. If we’re going to travel out in two days’ time, we have some preparations to make.

  The first task is, of course, to decide who’s going – and who’s staying. I don’t want to leave the village defenceless in my absence after all. Fortunately, with the additions to our numbers, having enough in each party is easier than it would have been previously.

  I’ve been continuing with my efforts to help Unevolved samurans to Evolve with good effect. In the last three months since the Festival, I’ve managed to help nine more Warriors to break through the barriers which had been holding them back – usually something that had gone wrong with the formation of the channels.

  Sometimes their channels were too narrow, sometimes too wide. Sometimes their design had a sense of incompleteness to it. Other times their internal matrix was just a hodgepodge of different styles – something that can apparently happen if they consume too many Cores from vastly different creatures. This latter has proven to be the hardest to fix and I still haven’t found a good method. Many of those haven’t even got close to Evolution yet, but the process of trying to help them has taught me a lot.

  In addition to those nine Warriors, we have two new Pathwalkers – and both seem to have been significantly influenced by the Energy Heart fragments I’ve been giving out. Jumpy has become Earth-shaper. Flicks, interestingly, has become Fire-whisperer – the first in living memory.

  Flicks doesn’t do exactly what I do, and I should know – I’ve been working extensively with her. She can’t just create fire from nothing. But once it’s created, she can shape it, mould it, convince it to do what she wants, leading her to spend plenty of time with Happy near the forge. I would have called her Fire Tamer, but she chose not to take my suggestion. I don’t blame her – Fire-whisperer is pretty badass. And there’s that whole prejudice against tamers which she was probably trying to avoid.

  Those two are definitely candidates for staying here. Though combining abilities can lead to more impressive effects, we haven’t practised enough together to be able to meld magic in combat. Doubling up, therefore, on Skills I already possess isn’t very logical. Having them back here to help the village in my absence makes far more sense.

  River will be coming with me; of that, I’m sure. Similarly, Bastet, Lathani, Fenrir, Storm, Ninja, Catch, and Pride are definites. As much as I’d rather not put up with her presence – since becoming Tier three, she’s been practically insufferably arrogant – Windy’s firepower will be needed if this comes down to a fight. I may have learned Air-Shaping two months ago, but she’s far better at it than I am and she is a storm mage too.

  I wonder about whether to take Yells or not – we’ve been experimenting a lot with her reflecting and enhancing abilities. Not only useful for combat, she’s become something of a multi-purpose tool, able to enhance any sort of magic. Tarra has made some incredibly powerful healing potions and poisons with her help, Happy has made her best pieces of armour and weapons with Yells there, and Hunter has created amazingly strong and durable runes with Yells present at their activation. I actually look forward to seeing how the equipment the last three have made together will hold up in combat – maybe this Tier three will give us that opportunity.

  If Yells comes with us, she won’t be able to help those I leave behind and I doubt that I’ll take any of the more support-role Pathwalkers with me. Then again, it shouldn’t be for that long. Happy and Hunter can do without her for a while – it would be good to have Yells’ enhancing magic available in a fight. Not to mention that she’s discovered ways of using her opponents' attacks against them – with excellent results in our last ranking battle. Even I had to be a little careful with my fire attacks.

  I’ll also take Dusty – that way between us we’ll cover all four elements since my Water-Shaping is still not particularly good. And Windy also covers lightning even if she’s still not able to direct it particularly well. With a good complement of Warriors, that should be enough.

  Hades and Persephone will be able to join us this time without the hatchlings to look after. Honey and Komodo will probably be interested in joining us – they’re both usually happy for a fight. Thorn probably shouldn’t – he seems to have made fast friends with a group of Unevolved who he hunts with almost exclusively.

  I won’t use a second favour from Raven – I reckon that we should be able to take on a Tier three with that line-up, especially if we add some Warriors into the mix. I’ll have to speak to Shrieks about that – though I’ve got some preferences, his input will definitely be valuable.

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