The swarm erupted with noise, chittering and screeching, beginning to rally for battle as I stepped forward with my hand up while I buried my spear in the earth to my side. They fell silent as I responded, “Hello. I am Ashlani, the Alpha of this swarm. You are?”

With one earth-shaking step the creature revealed its entire body. It stood tall, reaching nearly 3m, as it let its maul slip down from its four thick fingers. The head of the maul seemed to be solid stone and was about .25m long and .2m wide. It seemed to shake the ground when it was settled down in front of the leathery beast. It was covered in thick, gray skin, with heavier leathers wrapped around its forearms, shoulders, legs, and waist. The creature lifted its trunk and seemed to struggle over the words it wanted to speak.

“I am Bekizo. Indlovu warrior of Enkulu tribe. We hear one of us here. Not see them. Did you see them?”

I frowned briefly then looked to Took, Sybil, Foire, and Alaster. All shook their heads back at me. “I’m sorry, we haven’t. We haven’t heard anyone other than ourselves. How did you know there was one of your people here?”

“We not talk like this. With magic. Our person was talking to those.” He gestured at the wolfstags and I cocked my head questioningly. I opened my mouth, not quite sure what to say when Sybil stepped close to me before whispering, “Let me try something.” Immediately, Bekizo perked up, his ears flapping excitedly. His eyes roved briefly over the swarm as I noted the rustling of the grasses surrounding the swarm, beginning to reach for my spear.

“I am sorry for misleading your people.” Sybil’s voice cut through the growing tension while gesturing for me not to try anything. “I never could have known that my magic would confuse you. That is simply how I communicate with our wolfstag companions. Never would I have deliberately drawn your tribe into a dangerous situation deliberately.”

Bekizo laconically raised his trunk to Sybil, completely calm, and tried to rub her head. She froze, her crest twitching in confusion and indecision. I reached my own hand out, stopping the approaching trunk. “What’re you doing?”

He started, then, apparently embarrassed, withdrew his trunk while squinting at Sybil and evidently saying something to her with his magic. She turned to me, “Apparently, his people are a physically affectionate group. It was just a greeting.” She stepped forward and awkwardly embraced his trunk, which happily coiled around her torso for a moment while the indlovu’s eyes twinkled and he nodded, nearly lifting Sybil from her feet.

Around the swarm, more indlovu appeared, each one carrying a maul as impressive as Bekizo’s own. The smallest among them was well over 2.5m tall, towering over even Took. Every one of the warriors began to move subtly but nonthreateningly forward and the closest ones began to reach out their trunks to Sybil before she raised a hand and they paused as she shuddered.

“I am glad you appreciate my talent, but I would prefer that my people understand our conversation. You are strangers and I know nothing of you.” Sybil’s eloquence in the common tongue took me by surprise as she stood her ground and firmly pushed against the trunk still wrapped around her.

Bekizo nodded as his trunk slowly wound off of Sybil. “Apologies. The newness of you was interesting, and we not think of your comfort. We…” he obviously struggled over his words, then, with a sigh and a slump, he looked pleadingly at Sybil before obviously finishing his thought through magic.

In keelish Sybil translated for the swarm’s benefit, “He wanted to know why we are here, why we went into the sandlake, and what our relation to the keelish ahead of us is.” I felt over 500 eyes on me as I began to form a response. The indlovu all stood stock still while I contemplated our response. Every one of the gargantuan warriors had laid their mauls’ heads on the ground, but I didn’t miss the reality that they were still very much armed with deadly force while still surrounding us. Even Bekizo’s posture slowly but deliberately transitioned into a stance from which he could easily heft his maul and begin laying waste to anyone nearby.

I nodded at Sybil as I began to respond in the common tongue. “We are traveling east to Nievtra, we didn’t know what a sandlake was until we were in the middle of it, and the keelish in front of us are deserters that we were pursuing.” I was sure that Sybil was relaying my statement to the rest of the indlovu that might not have spoken the common tongue.

“You not stay here?” Bekizo’s voice had become hard, unforgiving instead of the previous gentle and almost childlike tones. He shook his head, his massive ears clapping loudly against his neck in a way that was only barely not aggressive.

“No, we plan on continuing onward. The deserters have maintained enough distance from us for an immediate pursuit to seem foolish.”

“Good. If you stay, we will have problem.”

I squared my shoulders and looked him in the eye. “What do you mean to say by that?”

“You eat too much.” Bekizo looked to Sybil, then, with a low trumpet from his trunk, began to retreat while the rest of his fellows followed suit.

“What did he mean by that?” I looked at Sybil from the corner of my eye, keeping my body squared on the indlovu.

She held up a hand, then after a moment she nodded and turned to me, speaking in keelish once again for the benefit of the swarm. “I am sorry for shushing you Alpha, they were all speaking at once, giving advice, warnings, and threats. In essence, we are many predators,” a hushed murmur of pride pulsed through the swarm, excited to be a threatening body. Sybil hissed at the interruption and the swarm went silent in respect. “We are many, and if we stay, we will overhunt the area. The Enkulu tribe is nomadic, they never come this far west so they don’t care too much about what we do here, but the further east we go, the more likely we will come across other tribes. If we overhunt traditional sites, we will unwittingly enter a ‘storehouse war’, and there will be a slaughter on both sides until the tribe has been thinned enough that the meat from both sides will feed the survivors for one year.”

A strange code of honor, but not the strangest, I supposed.

“They said I should try to keep using my magic as much as possible, since we’ll be seen as closer to people to the indlovu that way, and that was all.” Sybil nodded and stepped back to allow me to speak up if I wanted.

I slowly nodded, then addressed the swarm, “Should we go fishing before we go?”

Raucous cheers filled the air as any sign of the indlovu disappeared into the horizon.