Shasuryu shook from the pain of his wounds, but that was not the only reason. Fear. The dainty vampire girl in front of him reeked of blood and death, her finery a stark contrast to the surrounding environment, she walked with confident grace, her head held high. It was minutes before he dared to speak to her.

“What-What do I call your master?” Shasuryu asked with trepidation, his arms hung limp at his side and swayed only lightly back and forth, buffeted only by the desperate trudge he still had left in him.

“Yours… soon enough, if you’re lucky.” The dainty girl answered, “As for me, you may call me Lady Shalltear Bloodfallen.”

“Ah, yes, Lady Shalltear, then.” Shasuryu felt the weight of his wounds finally bearing him down to the ground, driven only by his will to go on, his blood running down his scales carried away his will with it, a little lost in every drop that found its way to the soft ground under his feet.

“I… sorry…” He gasped, and went down to his knees with a heavy thud.

He had enough strength to see the towering figure and magnificent robes of a masked caster holding a golden staff of entwined snakes in hand. “A god…?” Shasuryu gasped, and saw nothing more.

“Oh my… well I suppose you made it here after all.” Shalltear said, looking down at the prone and unconscious body of the dying lizardman and then turning her eyes up to her master. “What do we do with him, my Lord? Should I turn him?” She asked and felt faintly green at the idea. ‘His blood does not smell appetizing, strange how Leinas seemed so succulent.’

“No, no I think not.” Ainz said when he looked down at the lizardman. A part of him felt overwhelming pity, the wounds he could see were ghastly ones, the backs of his legs had puncture wounds, the tip of his tail was missing and a small segment of what he assumed was bone protruded out of the end. Gashes seeped blood and rendered far more muscle visible than Ainz wanted to see.

‘By normal standards, to go on so long he must have been a terrific warrior. Lizardmen… I’ve never seen one, they also weren’t in Yggdrasil, are they rare here?’ Pity or not, his ravenous collector’s spirit would have demanded that he save this one, so he pulled out a scroll from his pocket dimension, held it over the lizardman, and used it.

“That should take care of his serious wounds, but he isn’t waking up…” Ainz almost asked why not, and very nearly broke into a sweat. ‘If I ask something like that…’

Shalltear, fortunately, seemed not to notice. “As always, My Lord understands everything, healing him while he’s exhausted so that when he wakes up to see your miracle, he’ll surely recognize you for the God you are.”

‘Right, he’s probably exhausted.’ Ainz realized, and then looked down at Shalltear, “Since we don’t know what village he’s from, we can’t return him, we’ll wait a little while until he awakens, and then have him take us to his village.”

“As you wish, My Lord.” Shalltear said with an excited, fang baring, smile.

Zaryusu’s unlooked-for installation as chief left him with an immediate decision. “First… we honor the fallen.” He said and knelt down to touch the corpse of Zenberu. “Had we not fought, we might have been like brothers one day.” He touched the rapidly cooling face of the fallen and let his scaled fingers trail over the once powerful chest.

He stood, fingers shaking whether from the emotion of the moment or the fading pressure of the fight, Zaryusu wasn’t sure, but when he stood, he found Crusch Lulu close at hand.

Her hand went to his shoulder while the elder lizardmen of the tribe came and when Zaryusu stepped away, they surrounded their fallen leader and carried his body away.

The rest of the tribe went down on one knee. Zaryusu recalled the adventurer who helped him long ago and the warning to, ‘Seize every moment, it’s not guaranteed to come twice.’

He took a deep breath and spoke as authoritatively as he could. “The frogmen are on the move! Something has changed and they’ve chosen to war against all lizardmankind. They want this lake for themselves and will not share it. They outnumber us considerably, and so if we want to live, we must fight together!”

“So what do we do?”

Zaryusu didn’t see who spoke from amidst the gathered numbers, but he had an answer for the sea of steady faces.

“Send the very old, pregnant, and very young to my brother’s tribe along with half the warriors. The rest will come with me to the village of the Small Fang. We’ll parley for an alliance, hopefully they will listen.”

“And if they don’t?” The various Dragon Tusk tribal members brandished weapons in silent suggestion.

“Then they die alone.” Zaryusu replied, “We can’t afford to waste our strength on one another. Not now.”

“We honor fallen chiefs with a pyre and a day of feasting, what about-” The voice of an elder began before Zaryusu cut them off.

“If you have preserving cloth, wrap him and bury him for now, we can come back to honor him according to your customs when we’ve won. A tribe is not to be thrown away for the chief.” Zaryusu ordered, and the matter was settled, “Get ready fast, pack all the food you have, any tools or weapons you need, there’s no more time to spare!” He exclaimed, and the sudden rise of his voice snapped them out of their disbelief.

They scrambled to carry out his will, leaving Zaryusu alone with Crusch Lulu for the moment. “Do you think we will have enough?” She asked.

Zaryusu didn’t answer right away, “I don’t know. I simply don’t know… if your count is right, we may be outnumbered more than ten or twenty to one. Large human armies also have reserves, we don’t know… really anything. When I get back, if we have time, we need a prisoner to interrogate.”

“What about the Razor Tail?” Crusch asked, her hand tightening around his arm at his uncertain answer.

“Their heavy armor would be helpful, but they’re farther away, hopefully the Small Fang can send a runner and will be believed. That is, if they’re even still alive.” Zaryusu answered.

“What…?” Crusch answered, her bright eyes glinted, her tail went stiff.

“The frogmen burned your home, but they haven’t reached mine and they didn’t chase you. Why?” He asked.

Crusch looked off into the distant horizon, “I don’t know.”

“I think they sent more than one group out, and I think it went for the Razor Tail, they’re farthest away, and some of the most dangerous. Red Eye is famous for its druids, and Razor Tail is renowned for its heavy armored fighters. I’m only guessing, but I believe they chose both deliberately. They may recall how we fought one another before and were hoping that we would fall on each other again. That we might ally together may not have occurred to them yet.” Zaryusu tried to speak with confidence, but like she could feel his doubt through his flesh, she clung all the tighter to him.

“This might really be the end for us… all our work, all our struggles, all the people who lived and died… and then we’ll be gone and nobody will remember us. Not even the ones descended from our killers.” Crusch whispered the words and her tail lashed behind her until she felt Zaryusu’s tail still it by wrapping his tail around her own.

“We’ll do our best, that’s all we can do, other than hope. If we don’t, what’s the point?” He answered, folding a hand over the one that clasped onto his own, she had no answer, leaving them waiting in silence while the lizardmen of the Dragon Tusk tribe rushed to and fro gathering everything they could.

It took less time than he would have expected, perhaps an hour and the tribe was formed up, the warriors divided themselves into two groups without needing instruction, falling in on either side of the very old and very young in two short lines.

Zaryusu made his instructions quick, “If you see frogmen, avoid them, they will probably outnumber you, my brother’s village has a good wall, tell him what happened here, that I will come back with as many allies as I can. If everything goes well, within a few days, we will have an army of Lizardmen, and we’ll make the frogmen regret ever coming to our homes!”

A great bellow went up, and weapons rose to shake in the air with the roar.

Then they began to walk, the warriors with Zaryusu left first, waiting only until he mounted the waiting Rororo with the Red Eye chief, and then went the ones too old or too young to fight. They split like a river which found a fork, and when they were out of sight of one another even when he or the others looked back all Zaryusu could do was hope they meet again.