Prologue: To the Victor goes the Spoils

Kraiten stood over 15 feet tall at the shoulders and massed around 6 tons. With a flowing mane and protruding tusks several feet in length he was a god amongst hogs. Truly a being worthy of leading his lesser kin into battle. And lead them he did. A horde of hogs flowed around the great trees at his command.

Was it for dominance? Was it for food?

Yes. All of the above. Beasts don’t bother with the more subtle motivations and the guilt that often come with it. Dominate the forest and food would be plentiful. Be dominated and it was a constant struggle merely to survive. Kraiten had lived that life for many years. The meaty bottom of the food chain. Surviving as much by luck, that the hog beside him became lunch instead, as bravery or skill. But he had traded on that luck, husbanding his strength as he ate every potent thing he could find. When his own strength was not enough, he raised his kith and kin up to fight alongside him. In their numbers they overcame strength.

Today was just another step up the ladder. His kin had suffered under the teeth of the Garka, the great camouflaged leopard, and his ilk for far too long.

The leopards had always been a fierce foe. A predator that picked off pack mates without notice or warning, and that was just normal leopards. Garka was far more than that. At twice the size of his lesser kin he walked the forest invisibly. Taking for himself whatever he pleased. Whoever he pleased.

His strength was worthless before a being who would not fight. Their numbers meaningless when Garka could reduce any contest to himself and his food. Today that would change. If strength and numbers were meaningless then his great passel, and the many sub passels beneath it, were doomed.

He refused to accept that. He would risk much to rise from a mere food animal and become king of this patch of forest. His kind would not stay everyone's meat!

So he called out to all who looked to him. The Alpha of alphas, The passel of many passels. He called to his children, and they to theirs. Through generations they united in this great toss of the dice.

Numbers don’t matter if he can hide? How can you hide from the sand on the beach? Unless you can fly, you can’t. With a cry his descendants flew forward into the leopards private range, a nearly solid wall of muscle flesh and bone. Hogs struck the very trees in groups of 5 or 10, releasing their stored energy to shake even the giants for a moment. From those limbs many things fell to be trampled beneath stomping hooves or eviscerated by flashing tusks.

It was the province of the powerful to have many children and Garka was no exception. Even the normally solitary panthers would unite under a strong enough chieftain, a strong enough father or grandfather. But they were a trickling stream before the tide. And the tide turned blood red as the lesser cats were knocked from purchase and killed. Invisibility failed again and again as they were left without a place to dodge. Hogs flushed them from hiding, and other hogs occupied all the places they could escape to. Visible or not, they were run down.

They didn’t fall alone, hogs who had dumped their stored force were vulnerable and the leopards took vicious advantage. Ripping out throats as they lashed out in equal rage at the indignity of their food invading their territory. This was not how things were done!

The leading edge of the tide broke and died in a froth of red, but there were always more behind. And they continued the charge, ignoring the bleeding wreckage of their brothers who had gone before. Too lost in the battle lust of their people to care.

On and on the tide raged, day after day as fat pork became skinnier and skinnier. Too lost in the battle madness to think, too lost to eat or drink. Till at last the charge was spent. They began to collapse, one after another. Their bulks collapsing wherever they stood, destined to feed the forest. What they took in life, they would not give back in death. New growth would spring wholesale from the slaughter.

But that was for the future and the present demanded attention. His gamble had failed. Struggling merely to stay upright they no longer had the momentum to overwhelm the unseen. The shoe was on the other foot. The hunters became the hunted.

And hunting was good!

Leopards that survived slid unseen through the exhausted remnants, tearing a throat out here, biting through a spine there. And still Garka, the prime foe went unseen, unspotted. A cat once found was merely the equal of a few Hogs. Unseen though… Kraitan could feel his doom approach with every passing moment.

He had lost, and his people had lost with him. His sons died around him as their children collapsed in exhaustion, waiting for their death in turn. Even hope threatened to pass on at any moment. It had such a slim path for survival, yet he must walk that path. He must RUN it!

He pivoted on his hind hooves and sprinted away. His great strength was also depleted by the last few days, yet much still remained. He saw the tattered dying remains of his passel of passels as he ran. If he could just make the prairie, then he would have a chance. The trees were his foes' fortress and the siege had failed. The succulent mushrooms were no longer his to feast upon. The potent herbs of the deep glens and the crystalline clarity of the dew pools was no longer his to feast and drink. But regret twisted his stomach far more potently than the hunger that gnawed at him. Yet, on he ran, he had no choice.

Hope.

It was poisonous and precious. As long as his people had the slightest chance he could not give up. Not the day before when Garka remained hidden, nor the day before that when the initial charge merely killed the younger and weaker leopards. Nor this day. If he could just escape, then he could breed another army. His blood was mighty and even through weaker sows it would breed strong children.

His eyes weekly saw the sunlight growing stronger between the branches of the thinning jungle giants. Joy sparked in him, he was so very tired, so very hungry. Just a bit farther, just a little more! His great feet slowed, his eyes grew heavy and his head drooped. At last he collapsed entirely and the shimmer of a great cat leapt from his massive shoulders. Its mouth dripped fresh blood from a jagged wound to the base of the hogs neck, anonymous now in the way that dinner became.

Rage still glinted in Garka’s eyes, but it had not controlled his actions. Not from the very beginning. He’d not grown to his current level of power by ignoring his advantages in favor of his emotions. He had waited, he had planned, and at last he had struck.

Leaning forward for the taste of victory he prepared himself. He was already at the brink of an evolution. His rampant predation on the more powerful variants of hogs had led to this fiasco, yet he could not regret it. He was feasting on the greatest amongst them.

His strength would soar!

Bite after bite he felt the magic flow from his belly to his muscles, to his mind. Concepts foreign to him began to become apparent. Ideas and plans that were once nothing more than ‘find potent food, wait for an opportunity, and eat it!’ began to grow and take on color.

With it came sadness and hope in equal measure. He was more. More than he’d been. More than he’d dreamed of being.

More than this patch of jungle could support.

Life was growth or death. Growth was change. Stability, death. He’d survived where so many others hadn’t because he didn’t fight fate. When change came, he changed with it. Adapted and overcame it.

He would do the same once more and leave for greener pastures and more powerful prey.

He would continue to learn, and to grow.

One step, one kill, one meal at a time.