“Whaddya need me t’do?”

“Use your magic on stones like these and mold them into spears or some other weapon with reach greater than our own.”

“... You seen my magic? Ain’t so delicate as you’re asking.”

“I think it can be.”

Ytte sighed. “Spears’ll be hard to learn, gotta stab and throw, keep your body centered with the extended stabbing. Better to do some kinda whacking thing that doesn’t need anything more than a strong arm and a lust for violence... A rock at the end of a long stick. Maybe sharpen the rock’s edge?”

“A halberd.”

“If that’s whatcha wanna call it, sure. Get me sticks and rocks and I’ll make em sharpish.”

“Thanks, Ytte.”

Sybil smiled at me as I walked away from the conversation. “You’ve become twice as dangerous since acquiring your spear. It seemed beneficial to offer that same growth in combat capability to the rest of the swarm.”

“Yes, I wish I’d had the forethought to begin work on arming the swarm earlier…”

“To be fair, you have been rather preoccupied with a mass migration and the possible continued pursuit by a dangerous foe.”

“... I don’t much like excuses, but I’ll take this one for now.”

“Wise. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll organize a weapon material gathering party of sorts. I’m sure Octavi will be thrilled to have something useful to be doing.”

I nodded as Sybil walked away, a subtle but pervasive whistle coming from her mouth. Before long, Octavi was there and the two had their heads together in conference as they continued walking towards a dense population of scouts.

With weapons increasing our reach, we should be able to overcome the innate advantage these Sea Wolfstags retained over us in their domain. Now, just to create the weapons…

…

Ytte supposed it was to be the work of two days to outfit 40 of the swarm’s hunters with our improvised weapons once she saw the rate at which the scouting parties brought the materials, and I wasn’t going to spend that time idle. Initially, I had approached the girls to just check their progress. Ishtar had continued her training with Wisterl, now working with Took. As far as I could tell, she was well on her way to becoming the next Wisterl in her own right. Isnanna wasn’t slacking off either, having approached Foire, Vefir, and Silf and was well on her way towards becoming capable of filling in at any responsibility within the swarm. Initially, the two had been thrilled to see me approach them, but they pretty quickly realized that I wasn’t doing anything interesting. Isnanna’s response had been especially biting:

“Father, if you aren’t going to do anything, why would you inhibit our growth alongside your own?”

The comment had stung, but also made me remember part of what had made me so helpless during the wolfstag’s attack–once my spear was out of reach, I was out of ranged attack options. I couldn’t expect to always have stones within reach or a quiver of javelins on my hip to throw whenever the opportunity arose. One thing I could always expect to have, however, was access to my magic.

With the growth of my magic stat, it was rare, if even nearly impossible for me to run out of magic without actively trying or being caught in an extended fight. My magic as it was served me well enough, but it was still severely limited in what it could do–support or strengthen my allies, make my voice louder… and that was about it. I’d briefly experimented with vibrating my arms, hands, and fingers, but my strength and the sharpness of everything below my elbow had combined to make it a pretty fruitless endeavor. There needed to be more that I could do with my sonilphon, but what, I didn’t know.

That was how I found myself approaching Histy, Berk, and Iituli. The two Alqat had taken Tuli under their tutelage and he was quickly proving himself quite powerful. He was far from as accomplished as Histy, but his magical prowess was nothing to sneer at: he could quickly envelop his arms in a searing flame and just as rapidly send the flames lancing outward to scorch and burn a target of his choosing.

“You soft headed claws for brain! Watch where you’re sending those flames!”

Berk’s rage-filled voice filtered over as I neared. Looking over, Iituli had supplied excessive magical power into his flames and had nearly scorched Berk’s tail. Iituli chuckled, “How about you keep your primitive tail moving instead of squatting there uselessly?”

“Just a couple of days ago you needed to be carried by your daddy to make it to the end of the march! How about you and your fangless mouth stay quiet and listen to your betters!”

Tuli’s grin spread wider. “Make me!”

Immediately, Berk was flying towards my son, and they were quickly embroiled in a wrestling match that Iituli was wildly outmatched in. Before long, his mouth was buried in the dirt and the back of his head under Berk’s foot. Between pants and heavy breaths Berk spoke, “There! That’ll keep some Nievtala-blessed silence around for the next couple of seconds!”

Sounds of spitting. “I’m getting closer.”

“But you lost!”

I finally stepped forward and Iituli noticed me before Berk did.

“That’ll teach you, you spawnling still wet from the egg! Get your flames near me again…” He trailed off as he noticed me. Iituli’s face was chagrined, embarrassed, nervous, and almost angry. He tried to rise but Berk held him down as he continued talking, “Alpha, he was talking like he was something, had to show him his place.”

I nodded. “Rightly so. Sometimes whelps get bigger heads than they deserve and need to be knocked down a couple of pegs. Good for him this one was a lesson from a friend, not an enemy.” I reached down and offered a hand to my son who took it with his head held low. “No shame in losing a fight. I lose to Wisterl most days, unless she’s off for some reason. Learn from it.” Iituli’s head rose, not showing the previous shame but disbelief.

“But you let her win, right?”

“I would say yes, but she’d come put me in my place if I did.”

His jaw dropped.

“That’s the way it is. I’m getting better and she helps me learn. There are many things I’m better at than her, but it’ll be a while yet before I’m better than her at keelish on keelish combat. So take your licks, keep your head down, and keep learning.” I nodded down at Iituli, then to Berk. “Thanks for keeping him in line. He has a lot to learn yet, and so do I. Could you help me with my magic for a while?”

“Of course, Alpha.”

“Good. Now, I have this question about how to form your magic into a denser, more concentrated blast, and I think your magic is the closest to my own when it comes down to it.”

“Ahh, that’s a tricky one. It took me quite a while before I learned the trick…”

…

I made a fair amount of progress on learning a better way to weaponize my magic, and before I realized it, two days had passed. Finally, the weapons were ready and we could begin the hunt.