“Mercy to an enemy is often little more than cruelty to oneself.” - Old folk saying.

“Your tribesmen are pretty persistent, I’ll give them that,” said Cal to Ashani while she sipped on a glass of local alcohol made from fruits and berries harvested from the forest.

What made her say those words was the sight of the local youths - and some older ones as well - who still tried to tangle with Ognar despite repeated failures. Cal’s half-orcish student was seated by a tree stump where he placed his right elbow, his arm holding against that of three of the tribesmen at once.

They had tried to arm-wrestle Ognar for days, at times even resorting to using both arms, or of late, multiple people, to wrangle him, all to no success. He remained solid as a rock despite their grunts of efforts until they finally tired themselves out, all with a smirk on his face.

“That they are,” replied Ashani with a chuckle. “Grandmother actually felt really glad that your group happens to be the first guests pretty much most of the village has met. It made her warnings about the outside world go much easier.”

“Oh? How so?”

“Simple enough,” replied the young therian girl with a wide smile. “She simply told that people like your students are why none of them are allowed out until they could get their instincts under complete control. Otherwise they might well offend those they shouldn’t offend and get their hides turned into a cloak.”

“I guess we do make good examples of that,” said Cal as she joined the girl in chuckling at the thought.

Over the past few days of their stay in the tribe, her students had mingled some more with the tribesmen, and made it very obvious on multiple occasions that they were not to be messed with. For the most part, that wasn’t a difficult task, as the tribesmen knew better than to disrespect healers, while pretty much everyone else in Cal’s party could easily hold their own, other than Tal.

That the locals considered having an animal companion as part of one’s strength also made things smoother, as that meant Leila and Ilena gained the respect of the locals very easily, thanks to Lumi and Ida’s presence. The locals themselves had not possessed many animal companions, though Cal noticed a few birds of prey that they used to help in their hunt.

Later that afternoon, Nerun had invited Cal to a hunt, which she obliged. Ashani had also come along for the hunt, as had Willa, on top of around two dozen young adults of the village, Nerun’s paramour Ylica included.

As they walked into the forest, Cal noted that most of the village had not seemed to possess much in terms of storage items. Several had small ones, while medium ones seemed to be limited to the leaders of the hunt. They probably traded for them through intermediaries like Dalorian and Rosalind.

All the villagers carried daggers and spears with them, with around half of them also carrying bows slung on their backs with arrows in a quiver by their waist. The ones that had no bows instead carried several javelins in a leather bandolier across their back. It was a pretty normal set of equipment for hunting, Cal thought.

They walked for several hours through the forest until they reached a prairie to the south-east of the village. There Cal saw a herd of large horned lizards - not unlike the ones ranched by the dwarves in the Caliphate back then - grazing contentedly, unaware of the herd of predators about to pounce on them.

Nerun gave signals to the hunters using his tail, and they spread out as he commanded. The therian hunters encircled one horned lizard that happened to be a bit far from others of the herd, and waited until everyone settled into position before they began their hunt.

With a loud hissing yell, Nerun rose from the tall grass that had covered him from sight, and attracted the attention of the beast with a thrown javelin that stabbed into the side of the lizard’s thick neck. The beast roared and charged his way in rage from the disturbance.

At the last possible moment, Nerun leapt out of the way of the charging beast, and quickly hopped back to his feet as he hurled another javelin at the beast’s rear. That naturally further enraged the beast, which turned to charge at him once more.

Before the beast finished turning around, however, the rest of the hunters used the opening in which it slowed to turn around to unleash a hail of arrows and javelin on it. The horned lizard bellowed in pain and anger, but before it could even charge at its new tormentors, Nerun hurled a third javelin, this one accurately into the eye of the beast.

Half-blinded and almost crazed from the pain and rage, the beast charged at the therian hunter once more. Cal noticed how the others only popped out to shoot arrows and hurl javelins when the beast slowed to turn, while Nerun made sure to keep its attention on him.

After several repeats, the horned lizard was bleeding from dozens of wounds, projectiles stuck all over its body, making it look almost like a porcupine. Nerun, who had run out of javelins, now wielded his spear, as he eyed the beast carefully.

The horned lizard made one last charge, which Nerun deftly avoided even as he pierced deep into the lizard’s neck with his spear. When he pulled his spear out, it caused a deep wound that bled profusely, and the beast bellowed once more.

Its steps became more and more uncertain, until finally the massive horned lizard toppled over on its side, too weak from the blood loss to move any further, and the hunters descended on it with their spears to finish it off.

Just as they finished off the beast however, another horned lizard bellowed and charged their way. The hunters dispersed, surprised by the intrusion of the second beast, but Willa stepped forward to meet the beast’s charge instead.

She caught the beast’s snout just by its foremost horn, and held on with her arms even as the beast’s charging momentum pushed her back, her feet cutting deep grooves into the grassy soil. Finally, Willa managed to get a proper foothold as her feet were pushed against solid rock, and she grunted as she concentrated her magic to reinforce her body to the maximum and twisted hard.

With a loud, audible crack, the second horned lizard toppled over to its side, its legs twitching reflexively even as the hunters watched in awe. The beast was dying, its neck broken and twisted by the force it was subjected to, while Willa huffed and patted herself with self-satisfaction.