[Beastborne: Voracious] (Book 5) Chapter 31

Author Note: Beastborne is back! I plan on releasing more than the usual chapters as well instead of the slower drip it's been recently. This is partially to catch up to where I wanted to be, and to pay back the debt of Dec not having any chapters. I'm tentatively aiming for a launch window in the next couple of months depending on how other projects go. So far Q1 2024 is looking to be pretty full.

A note about chapters. If you skip the rest, please read this as it'll help avoid confusion:

I'm leaving the post title as the Patreon-Chapter number, but both the PDF and the top of every post will include the "true" Chapter number. 

No, you didn't miss anything. While editing I broke up some early chapters that weren't working the way I intended and this created a drift of 7-10 chapters. 

The chapter titles for PDFs and at the top of each post (not the title) are book-accurate, but I've kept the post title the same to preserve continuity.

Chapter 38

Fenrir Poisonheart was precisely where Hal had left him. The young man burned with a passionate fervor whenever he looked upon Hal. He constantly referred to him as the “Brightking” which was unsettlingly like what the Balesians had called him when he was in the Abyss.

It didn’t sit well with Hal, but the man looked so happy that he didn’t have the heart to tell him to stop. Then there was the fact that he very much believed that he wouldn’t, no matter what he asked or commanded.

Sometimes all you could do was grin and bear it.

“Fenrir?” Hal said with Noth at his side. “I’d like to introduce you to Noth—”

The young man looked up and gasped. “The Brightqueen!” He bowed hurriedly, nearly smearing dirt on his forehead in the process. “It is my humblest honor to meet you!”

Noth looked at Hal a little worriedly and mouthed a question.

Hal nodded and mouthed, just humor him.

As much as she might have disliked this, there were very few people in any world that would balk too much at being spoken to with such respect and fervent awe.

It was heady stuff.

“I would like to introduce you to other members of Brightsong,” Noth told him, gently trying to get him to his feet.

“Brightsong for the Brightking,” Fenrir said, as if making a joke. “Very droll!”

Droll indeed, Hal thought as he came up to both Naitese and Orrittam, placing a hand on each in thanks for all they’ve done.

Tristal looked up. “You have made your decision?”

“I have.”

The Kinslayers were in the exact same position he had left them in hours ago. He had the feeling that they would stay there even longer if he had not come to get them.

Tristal’s words rang in his head, “Could you do that to your own blood?”

It was an unfair but, all things considered equal, a good question to ask.

Besal wouldn’t have asked it. Noth wouldn’t have. Not even Ashera. Nobody but Tristal had dared to press him on the issue and from all the angles he could look at this from, she gained nothing from tying herself to the Kinslayers and risked everything.

So why?

“Tell me why you stick up for them,” Hal said. There was no need to elaborate further.

The Kinslayers looked up curiously, but remained where they were.

Tristal brushed her hands over her dress. “Because I am a remarkably good judge of character, and they have been wronged. I do not like to see cruelty being done, especially if it does not serve a purpose. My mother raised me right, even if that was on another Worldshard.”

“Hard to think of Earth as a Worldshard,” Hal said.

“You have no idea. Still, they are strong, especially now that you’ve mended the Beastborne. She’ll be a valuable asset and as I said, where else are they going to go? Hirash will be the first one to tell of their betrayal. Rinbast will hurt them or worse. Can you truly allow that?”

“I don’t know,” Hal answered truthfully. “Had they not attacked, this would be a much easier decision, Tristal.”

“You might as well get mad at a dog that bites when you walk by then instead of the master that trained it that way,” Tristal snapped. “Abuse begets abuse. You want to break the cycle, be a better Founder than Rinbast? Then start with these two.”

Hal looked at the Kinslayers.

They both met his gaze. There was no fear there, no apprehension.

They would not ask because they did not feel they had the right to ask. Hal could almost sense their roiling emotions from here. From the Beastborne, he could feel those emotions thanks to their tether courtesy of Dominate.

Hal was the person they should be trying to kill. Instead, they were kneeling in front of him and awaiting their sentence. Even a decent outcome didn’t look that great for them.

They were, technically speaking, enemy combatants looking to defect. The problem was, Hal doubted they had any useful information that he could use against Rinbast. If anything, they might represent a greater risk to his family and friends.

He hoped not, but you never knew.

But what was the point of all this power, of owning his own settlement if he couldn’t do what he wanted? If he couldn’t make things different from the world he came from?

“On your feet,” he told them, a little harsher than he had intended.

The pair rose smoothly, but not so fast as to appear like whipped dogs. Tristal came up to say something, but he put his hand up to stop her and walked in front of both Kinslayers.

“Why?”

The woman Kinslayer looked at him. “Because you are stronger.”

“That is all?”

This was given a moment’s consideration. “Because you are stronger, and you entertain mercy. That is not the way of life for either beasts or Beastbornes. We would like to understand what it is… to be more than weapons.”

“We were sent to kill you, though not by Rinbast as I understand it,” the larger Kinslayer said. “We were, in essence, fooled. Regardless, you are something of a myth. You are the one that got away. You are what we could have been. And if we could have been… then perhaps we could still be.”

That was good enough for Hal.

He realized he could ponder and wonder all damn day and never get anywhere. They were him, weren’t they? While each of them had a slightly different upbringing and events splintered out in odd ways, they were, in essence, the same person.

And if you couldn’t love yourself, how could you ever expect to love somebody else? Or to understand when somebody loved you?

Hal looked at the retreating backs of Noth and Fenrir. He understood love a lot better now than he once had.

It was worth the pain and the risk.

“You’re all welcome here, but there are a few ground rules that are, I’m afraid to say, completely non-negotiable,” Hal told them. He held up one finger. “First of all, with the exception of Tristal here, each of you has to join the guild. That’ll put you under extra protections as well as rules, but in the end it’s a win-win for all involved. Secondly, I need an Oath from each of you.”

As soon as Tristal opened her mouth to speak, Hal overrode her by saying, “Fenrir, your guide, has already offered one far more restrictive and one-sided than what I’m proposing. And before you think of how easy it might be to break an Oath, these are a little different.”

“I can practically hear the capital letter,” Tristal said drily. “May I speak now?”

“Go ahead.”

“I would like to join your guild.”

Hal stared. “Don’t you have your own lands to take care of?”

“I do, but that doesn’t mean I can’t join your guild, does it?” She took a deep breath. “Listen, Hal, I am pitting myself against not only one of the more frightening Founders, but also the will of the Council itself here. I need all the protection that I can manage and if you’re offering, I’ll take it. It’s not like I can’t leave, right?”

Hal thought about that for a moment. “I don’t think there’s anything against leaving the guild, no. Then the offer will be extended to you as well. For as long as you wish to have it.”

Tristal smiled the first truly relieved smile he’d seen all day. “I appreciate it. I take it that we don’t get to choose whether we agree to this Oath?”

“The Oath is non-negotiable.”

“Yes,” Tristal said with a grin. “I believe you’ve said that.”

“This comes from my Oathforger Class,” Hal told her. He didn’t know what he expected, but it wasn’t the look of panic and surprise on her face. “Something the matter?”

“You have two Fabled Classes?!”

Hal shrugged.

Tristal took a deep breath to calm herself. “Do you have any idea how rare one Fabled Class is? Most cities only have a handful of them. The fact that you have two is a statistical anomaly!”

“I still have a third Class slot open.”

“You, what? You—” She put her hands on her hips. “Is there a reason for wasting all that precious Experience?”

“I haven’t found the right Class, seeing as you got so worked up about having two Fabled Classes, I figured I might go for broke and get a third one.”

“They don’t just fall out of the sky, Hal.”

“I would beg to differ.”

“The world doesn’t work like that, even for Founders. We don’t get special treatment in the Class department, only in our Marks.”

“Kol’thil,” Hal corrected her.

The way her face screwed up in confusion was priceless.

Before she could respond, Hal said, “Later. It would seem we both have something to teach the other. For now, I’ll offer the same Oath I’ve offered to each Guildmate. It’s called the Oath of the Brightking.” Hal tried not to wince at that.

Fenrir had called him a Brightking, and there should have been no way for him to know what that was.

Was this all some weird twist of fate?

With a mental nudge, he sent the Oath to each of them.

Their faces ranged from curious to outright disbelief. Hal smiled and waited for them to finish reading it. All things considered, it was a solid mutually beneficial Oath that gave everybody power.

Oath of the Brightking

You give hope to those around you, and they, in turn, bolster your resolve to carry on. Those bound to you by this Oath perceive you as the leader you could be, the ruler that all goodly people yearn for. The kindly king those of dark intent fear.

Oath of the Brightking Boons

[Self]

Leadership Skill +5 | CHR +5

Spell: Warding

Shield an ally with layers of protective runes, providing them with 5 layers of 10 Resistance to a specific entity.

MP Cost: 50

[Allies]

HP +5% | SP +5% | MP +5%

Oath of the Brightking Axioms

Never intentionally harm an ally.

Protect an incapacitated ally above all else.

“This is all you require of us?” asked the larger Kinslayer. “That we do not harm anybody?”

“That is all I ask of my allies,” Hal said, turning to him. “Why should you be any different?”

He could see the two nearly tripping over themselves mentally to supply him with reasons, only to realize how idiotic that would be.

“If I treat you as if you’re special, as if you’re something to be afraid of, that means I’ve already failed,” Hal explained. “You are different, yes, but so is every person in Brightsong. By treating you the same and holding you to the same standards, I am telling everybody else that you are the same as them. They have nothing more to fear from you than they do each other.”

“But we could—”

Hal stopped him. “You could, but then you would be breaking the Oath and that would be dealt with. Every person in Brightsong is precious, and if you harm them, then you prove to me and to more than a hundred other people that you do not belong. It’s as simple as that.”

It wasn’t what Hal had expected or even planned to do. Originally, he had thought of making a far more restrictive Oath, one that would bind them hand and foot so they couldn’t betray him.

In the end, he realized how futile it would be.

Doing so would not only set them apart forever, it would stop them from being able to fully contribute in any way they could. This had to be for the best of Brightsong. He was utterly convinced of it.

On the upside, it meant he didn’t need to babysit them either, though he wasn’t going to leave them without guidance or watchful eyes. Noth would be glad about that.

With a smile on his face, Hal watched as all four of them accepted the Oath, and then the guild invite that followed. “Welcome to the Bravers Guild, and welcome to Brightsong.”