We had slowed our journey just a slight bit the last three days. We still hadn’t seen any signs of pursuit, and it was good for the swarm to be able to rest and take some time for themselves each day. The jungle here was different, and beginning to cool. I wasn’t well traveled, but I had learned that the further south you traveled, the cooler it would become. Our travels had taken us to the coast, and it was slowly driving us further south to stay in the jungle.

The swarm was still comfortable, but the summer was obviously shifting towards autumn. In the jungle, the seasonal shift was hardly noticeable, mostly noted by the shift in the mating behaviors of various creatures. Now that we were going further south, though, the temperature was dropping, just barely noticeable through our journey. The Toothy Bullfrogs retreated to their burrows and their homes, leaving the jungle relatively quiet without their incessant croaks and matting calls.

In their place was the greater population of dulgar, “treats” (which the adult keelish had decided to call tree rats), as well as the appearance of stoneskins. The dulgar were again the armor-skinned variety–the Sandy Dulgar must have only existed on the beaches–while the tree rats were arboreal here in the jungle, instead of their land-living brethren on the beach. Both were just as simple to hunt as previously, but Ishtar had become so proficient in hunting the tree rats that it was nearly a work of art; with just a quick step and slash of her claws, she would have another of the little things in hand. Isnanna benefited from this, getting little treats from her sister when she asked, but Iituli had to fight to contain his envy, while Sybil shook her head and left them to it.

The stoneskins, on the other hand, were a tricky prey to hunt as a keelish. The creatures live up to their names, their skin being nearly as hard and durable as stone. They can take more of a beating than they would initially appear, with their skin being their greatest and most consistent defense. A stoneskin lives in the proximity of large boulders or rocks, and are an omnivorous species, primarily consuming leaves and ferns that grow nearby but also devouring any creature impotent enough to be killed by them. The stoneskin looks like a pudgy rat, with a narrow face and long teeth, but without the long tail, weighing sometimes as much as 50kg with their heavy skins. Their skin is a rough, hard gray, and when they felt threatened, they would either bury their heads into a large nearby stone, sinking their teeth deep into the heart of the rock and keeping the aggressor from pulling them out of their haven, or attempting to bring the fight to the aggressor with their large, sharp-toothed mouths.

Frequently, a member of the swarm would stumble across a stoneskin, only for it to immediately burrow its upper body into a nearby boulder. Most members of the swarm had nothing that they could do at that point, since they couldn’t mortally injure the creature with only its rock-hard posterior exposed, and they couldn’t remove it from its protective hole. There’s a weak spot just under its chin, but with how they burrow it was impossible to reach it without removing the stoneskin from its hidey hole.

There was a trick, however–there was a spot just barely exposed from the stone on most that, if tickled just right, would cause the creature to involuntarily loosen its hold, and if one had a companion to wrench it out of the cavity in the stone right then, the stoneskin would be forced to fight. They were surprisingly quick and flexible considering the inflexibility of their skin, and if the puller wasn’t careful, they could find themselves missing a finger before they could blink. But, if two adult keelish or khatif were there to kill it, there wouldn’t be any injuries. Once their pelts were removed, there was about 20kg of meat to be eaten, and they were good eating.

This new schedule was almost relaxing, and, despite the frequent and ever more violent bouts between Took and Rulac, the petty arguments between my children, and the lack of a home, I found myself pleasantly settling in. I smiled, and decided to finally begin my “training” to evolve my [Improved Vision]--go eighteen days without using my heat-based vision.

…

[Varali POV, three days earlier]

High Speakers were amazing. It had been just over a week since Varali had met up with them, and they were moving nearly twice the speed as before, while traveling for about half the time. She had offered Fen’s services in bolstering the troops’ movement, but High Colonel Mualtir di’Thnufir had chuckled lightly, “Girl, these are keelish. They might be more impressive than normal ones, but they’re still keelish. We’ll catch them soon, maybe take the Alpha to experiment on, and destroy the rest of them. We’ll soon avenge your brave parents.”

Initially, Varali hadn’t believed that just seven High Speakers would be able to do that, but the more that she saw, the more she believed the High Colonel.

She was an impressively built woman, her naturally dark skin so sun baked that it was almost the same black of a Moonchild’s. High Colonel di’Thnufir walked with a slight limp, but her strides were purposeful, and given that she stood an impressive .3m taller than Varali’s own 1.6m, Varali had to jog to keep up most of the time. More impressive than her stature, however, was her Windspeaking. Throughout the entire day’s march, every day, she would sustain a Calling that lightened the load on everyone, reducing their weight by half and extending their strides.

The High Colonel was far from the only impressive High Speaker in the group. There were the two Earthspeaker brothers, Dantlar and Khoult, who maintained an… energy… in the earth around them, causing it to be springy and return more energy on each step, which had been monumental in their hurried march through the Tuurlon Peaks. The Flamespeaker pair (a couple named Viirla and Norat) had been pretty antsy, but hadn’t had much to do other than light the fire at night. They had enjoyed speaking with Varali during the marches, and had offered great suggestions on how to improve her own Speaking.

The other two members of the High Speaker contingent were a Waterspeaker and Soulspeaker. The Waterspeaker was a soft spoken man named Lierthan that was a remarkably good scout. Varali had asked him how he did it, “I feel the moisture of living creatures.” had been his unsettling, casual answer before he continued drawing water out of the air and into her canteen. The Soulspeaker, Frul, was a petite woman with a husky voice that occasionally sent spurts of energy out through Rousing Speech every so often. She frequently smiled and often asked, “Do you need a pick me up? You’re no career soldier like the rest of us.”

Altogether, the squad of High Speakers was a motley group, but they obviously trusted each other and joked around throughout the weeklong march they had sustained. The small, elite squad had sustained a constant pace of 50 miles a day, even though the craggy cliffs and steep slopes of the Tuurlon Peaks. In just one week the group had made their way to the path the keelish vermin had followed east.

When the High Colonel di’Thnufir caught sight of the ambush scene, her demeanor shifted and she whistled for the group to round up. Immediately, Varali found herself within the bounds of supportive and protective bodies, Dantlar and Khoult on each point of the formation while the rest readied themselves. After a brief moment, Lierthan approached the High Colonel and they spoke briefly, before a frightening grin spread over di’Thnufir’s face.

“We have their tracks. Let’s run them down.”