Agerzam of the Brokenstripe Pride stared at the cluster of claws. Shiny, black, razor-pointed … each hung from a leather cord, and dangled tiredly from the tip of the weathered, cracked cactus wood staff resting across his lap. The staff was a symbol of his power and position in the Pride. Power. Position. Ironic, those, given the catastrophe they now faced.
His distantly leonine features should have lent his face a certain softness. Instead, the barely-noticeable fur on his cheeks was patched and ragged, and his slightly slanted eyes were yellowed and tight.
Agerzam looked across the fire at what was left of the Pride. Lemtuna, his mate, was sitting next to Erasmus, their last surviving son; her hand covered his. She didn't bother murmuring words of false comfort. She knew this wasn't the time. She always knew. They'd lost all three of their other young in the past year. Two to a wolfpack. One to the Clench, the same illness that had taken Thiyya, Erasmus' mate, last night. In the end, every one of her muscles had pulled in with such force, her teeth had shattered. As she broke, so to did Erasmus. His spirit, anyway. She'd mustered enough will to grunt a few words, at the end, so Agerzam could record her final wishes in his shaman's book1). “Protect my family.” At least, that's what it sounded like to Agerzam. Breaking that promise had hurt terribly.
Come morning, Brokenstripe Pride was down to a grand total of three members. Thiyya's sister, uncle and father had run off during the night. Agerzam fingered the claws bearing their names, still hanging from the staff. Twelve claws hung there, one for each of the Pride2) that had started out two years ago when Thiyya's family and a pair of sisters from the northern prides had joined them during The Flowering.
Two years. Nine lost. Catastrophe wasn't the word. Power and position as Pride Shaman? It didn't seem to have counted for much. The next Flowering was just six months off. Every Pride within a month's walk would gather to trade goods, tales, and to break apart a few Prides and knit them back together. Finding a mate was hard, as they rarely saw other Prides out in the wild, but the Flowering was more than a market for cleverly-carved totems. True, fewer and fewer seemed to gather every other dry season, and none would dare join him now that he'd lost nearly everyone. But Agerzam knew what to do now. Finally. He would give up his staff, his shamanship, and combine Brokenstripe into another Pride. Perhaps the Tufts. They were strong. And kind enough to share directions to one of the few oases still showing signs of life on the eastern edge of the wild.
He'd heard from the Tuft shaman that one of their hunters had strayed into a human village, and lingered – hiding – inside one of their cavernous huts as a woman spoke of a mighty creature whom the humans supplicated with words and offerings. In exchange, this beast protected the people and granted miraculous powers to a few. It sounded incredible, and most likely a twisted misunderstanding by the hunter – human language was vague and unpredictable – but the idea nagged at Agerzam. Protection from a creature mightier than wolves, stronger than bandits, more powerful than anything. Even the Clench. If only it were true. He closed his eyes.
Six months passed. They hunted without the usual pleasure of a kill. Erasmus pinned two rabbits with one shot of his crossbow as they bolted for a hole. Erasmus didn't puff or brag as he was given to do, and Agerzam's heart sink. He'd tried to console his son, offer him some peace and counsel, but he knew the malaise went deeper than Thiyya's death. He could see it in his son's eyes. The questioning. The doubt. He'd planned to start his own Pride this year, with Thiyya. He'd even fashioned a sturdy staff from the same cactus Agerzam had used twenty years ago.
And now the remnants of Brokenstripe Pride walked. The Flowering was in the heart of the wild, near the Birth Oasis. Its waters were no longer sweet, but it was where the First Pride had awoken from the thousand year sleep long ago, and old habits die hard, or not at all. This was their gathering place.
It was midway between daybreak and Top Sun when the trio crested the ring of hills overlooking the Birth. The morning cookfires should have still smoldered, but the air was clear. The mews of children and clatter of stickfights should have filtered out from the scattered camps. Silence.
Agerzam looked down. Breathed. He looked back up. Erasmus and Lemtuna stared at him, pleading. As one, they ran toward the oasis, howling the First Pride's call, over and over, as they ran. The grass whipped past. Their feet seemed to graze the ground, a light kiss.
Erasmus broke through the clearing first, and the Birth seemed empty. A broad, beaten-down meadow alongside a muddy brown pool. No, not empty. One rumpled figure sat there. A man. They ran to him.
He rose slowly. Ikken, of the Dewclaws. Agerzam knew him, distantly. Questions.
Answers. Dewclaws had suffered the same fell luck as Brokenstripe. A flash flood. A bandit attack. Several dead giving birth, and their young perished with them. Some lost to Clench. All nineteen were gone. Of the other eleven Prides, Ikken had come across just two stragglers. Both had gone wild, and fled when he'd approached, growling and spitting.
No one else had come to The Flowering.
They all looked to Agerzam. He knew their question. He was shaman. He knew the law. They didn't, not for something like this. And he did know.
The law was clear. When the Prides failed, they would have to disband. There were other Prides, supposedly, out in the world, and they would have to split up and seek them out. No matter their bond, no matter what was in their hearts, they could not stay together. It was not permitted.
Lemtuna knew he was right to keep to the law. She understood. Erasmus, still with the hollowed-out look he'd had since they buried Thiyya, looked … ready, oddly. Agerzam was startled. Did Erasmus know, somehow, this was how today would end, and what was to come? He wouldn't say. “There is a reason we have lost our strength” is all he would offer.
They drew together. They held each other, even Ikken, and murmured their final words. Our bond will not break. We will find others. We will see each other again. We will be a Pride again. With that, they turned, each facing a different hill. Agerzam could no longer see Lemtuna and Erasmus, but he still felt their warmth in his palms, heard their breath. He loosened his grip. They held on for a moment longer, then dropped away. They ran. He ran. He didn't look back.
Erasmus ran for two days, heading south. He had only the vaguest notion of his destination, rumors picked up from Flowerings past. Where to find trade routes, roads built by men. Leading to their strange, awful, tantalizing cities. And the large, strange huts where people spoke to the mysterious, powerful creatures who protected them from harm.
He knew, from moment he lost Thiyya, he knew. The Prides had been failing for years. Fewer were born every cycle, and those that did survive were weak and listless. The Birth Oasis no longer held their power. But there was strength out beyond the wild. Their could not rebuild the Prides alone.
Humans, elves and even stranger creatures … they bonded together without being part of the same Pride. They allied themselves with powerful creatures who could shield them from harm and cure their illnesses. The Prides lacked this strength.
He left the wild behind. Over the next year, Erasmus joined every faith and cult that would have him3). He learned their ways, sought their divine solace, and pledged to them his allegiance. He saw no conflict in promising himself to dozens. He would build a new Pride that was strong enough to survive anything and, in time, would seek out his father and mother to return them to the fold.
His fierce instinct to protect his new Pride is inbred. After taking tutelage in several religions, he expanded the boundary of his new Pride to include the entire Lost Kingdom and joined the militia. He broke his cactus staff in two and fashioned a proper weapon … a flail … from the pieces. His crossbow skills remain sharp.
As a militia regular, he transfers from garrison to garrison. Given his broad (but shallow) religious training, he often comforts members of his squad who are mortally injured in combat, administering last rites if needed. To show kinship with his adopted family, he took up the ritual of the Pride Shamans, promising to fulfill any last wishes they desired and recording them in his own Red Book. Messages delivered, grudges avenged, promises kept. Erasmus occasionally bonds strongly with a squad-mate, and would often help accomplish some arduous task, even kill if asked.
As the game starts, Erasmus Brokenstripe is transferring yet again to a new garrison, in seek of a new group of friends to add to his Pride.