Last time on Tales of the Great Beasts, Jhi recruited a young not!Asian girl on the eve of a global war. How will the rest of the world react? Find out after the cut.
About the Author:
I couldn’t find much about Gavin Brown. The Spirit Animals wiki says that he’s one of the official message board’s admins. He doesn’t seem to have written much — I don’t think many of the works attributed to him on Goodreads are by the same person — but it looks like he has a book coming out next year called Josh Baxter Levels Up.
Violet eyes gleamed in the dark. The enormous cat glided under red acacia trees, a shadow outlined by dim moonlight. Uraza sniffed the wind. The scent of prey was on the air. But it was not the antelopes, deer, or wildebeests that she hunted for food. No, this was the ugly scent of men, polluting her hunting grounds with their stink. Filling her peaceful night with their coarse songs and flickering fires. Waddling across her lands with their ungainly two-legged walk.
HOLY CRAP WE’RE GETTING A STORY FROM A GODLIKE LEOPARD’S POINT OF VIEW.
Uraza the Godlike Leopard spies a party of invaders in her hunting grounds. She’s heard of these invaders from the locals, who have attempted to ask for her assistance in driving them out. Uraza, being a Godlike Leopard, refused to help them because it’s a Human Problem.
Uraza hates visitors, so she attacks the hunting party. She leaves one of them alive to warn the other invaders that she’ll eat anyone who trespasses her territory.
For the next week, Uraza thought that the foreigners had learned their lesson. The sweet smell of distant fires reached her when the breezes blew westward, but no humans violated her borders. Then, on the ninth day, as she stalked a herd of gazelles across the grassy highveld, Uraza’s nose once again caught the smell of invaders on the wind. She reluctantly turned from her prey and made her way down to the savanna.
More strange-smelling invaders arrive in Uraza’s territory, this time with a herd of animals in tow. Uraza subdues one of them, a boy in a green cloak and his vervet monkey spirit animal. However, Uraza recognizes the boy as one of the Vendani, a local Niloan tribe, and wonders why he dared enter her hunting grounds. The boy introduces himself as Tembo, and warns Uraza that the invaders are trying to find something hidden in her territory. Uraza’s all like “Bwahaha! I’m a Godlike Leopard! Screw humans and their stupid problems! I’ll take care of these intruders myself!”
Unfortunately, Uraza’s attack doesn’t go as planned. The Conquerors coated their weapons with a poison that temporarily weakens Great Beasts, so they’re able to subdue her after a prolonged battle.
The floor shook unsteadily and was decorated with bars of light. Uraza drifted back to consciousness slowly as her body healed itself. She raised her head as her vision cleared, and saw the bars of a cage had cast the pattern on the floor. They were massive — each as thick as one of her forelegs.
Uraza wakes up in a cage and has a short talk with Samilia, leader of the Conquerors in Nilo. Samilia fancies herself the future queen of Nilo, which obviously pisses Uraza off. And Samilia will totally get her way, now that she has Uraza captured and her troops are free to comb the savanna for Uraza’s talisman.
Uraza tried to pace, nervous energy overcoming her. But there wasn’t room even to move the length of her cage, and she had to make do with walking in circles. Her legs quivered impatiently. She should be running through the grasslands, hunting for her next meal. No leopard was meant to be caged, least of all a Great Beast.
That night, Tembo storms the Conqueror camp alone in an attempt to free Uraza. He draws the guards away from Uraza, which allows his spirit animal, Omika, to steal a guard’s keys and unlock Uraza’s cage. Once free, Uraza wants to destroy the Conqueror camp, but Omika convinces her to save Tembo from the Conquerors instead. She only agrees because she owes a debt to Tembo.
Uraza finds Tembo and scares off the guards cornering him. Afterwards, Tembo tells Uraza that he was spying on the Conquerors, and learned that they know where Uraza’s talisman is hidden. Uraza is shocked by this revelation, but she continues to refuse Tembo’s offer to join forces with him to fight the Conquerors.
The giant leopard prowled under ancient red trees. She had been expecting to find soldiers, spirit animals, and tents — but the orchard was deserted. There was no prey here, but their signs and their musky scent were everywhere.
Uraza arrives at the Red Orchard, where she hid her talisman. Unfortunately, it is now an ex-orchard: the Conquerors had camped there earlier, and chopped down the trees. And to make matters worse, the talisman is gone. But at least Tembo is there to explain what happened to the talisman (the Conquerors took it) and how he beat Uraza to the orchard (humans excel at long-distance running).
Uraza’s set on exacting her revenge on the Conquerors for stealing her stuff, and Tembo wants to help her by recovering the talisman. The Godlike Leopard reluctantly accepts his assistance.
They tracked the wagon trail through the night and into the next day, Tembo jogging easily alongside the Great Beast’s long strides. Omika perched on the spear warrior’s shoulders, chattering her wordless encouragement. From the freshness of the tracks and scents, Uraza could tell that they were gaining.
Uraza and Tembo come across the remains of the Conquerors’ next camp: an abandoned cart and tracks leading in four different directions. Tembo reasons that Samilia kept the talisman close to her, so he decides to follow the set of tracks that contain giant lizard footprints.
That night, the party sets up camp outside the village of Dakami, where one of Tembo’s friends lives. Granted, Tembo first met this friend when he was stealing one of his goats, but whatever. They’re friends now.
While waiting for Tembo’s friend to arrive, Uraza asks Tembo why he bothers fighting the Conquerors when they totally outnumber him. Tembo recounts how the Conquerors betrayed his village: The elders agreed to a truce with Samilia’s army, but she trashed the village, killed all their livestock, and ate their best goat anyway. Tembo took offence to how the Conquerors stole their livelihood, so he left the village and joined a group of rebels. His little army gained in strength after the Conquerors forbade summoning spirit animals. Tembo’s rebels have renounced all ties to their former tribes, and wear green cloaks so they can hide in the savanna. Someday, they hope, they will drive the Conquerors out.
Don’t worry, they totally will. But that won’t be until the end of this anthology. Still, it’s great to know that our Designated International Heroic Organization initially started as a group of disgruntled not!Africans dressed in grassland camouflage.
The next morning, Uraza loped along the savanna, Tembo jogging easily next to her. Omika, exhausted from the journey, had gone into the dormant state, disappearing into a tattoo on Tembo’s arm. They passed hippos sunning themselves in the Kwangani River, and a flock of sandpipers flew overhead, heading to their breeding grounds for the season. Finally they reached an area where the acacia trees had all been cleared. For a mile, they passed only stumps and discarded branches.
Tembo and Uraza scout out Samilia’s heavily fortified camp. They decide to discuss strategy with the rebels before storming it. Uraza begrudgingly admits that this is a good idea, though she’d rather just barge into the camp and kill Samilia for stealing her stuff.
That night they met the resistance fighters at the one tree still standing within miles of the enemy fort. It had been burned out by a lightning strike, and was a charred wreck not suitable for building. Several of the smaller ones cowered in the back, wide eyes never leaving her huge, muscled form. Uraza could smell the fear coming from them. Even the most fearsome of them, a man fully an arm taller than the rest, was gripping his ax so tightly it looked like the wood might splinter. He had the tattoos of the Takweso people running down his bare chest, intertwined with a Niloan wild dog tattoo — his spirit animal in a dormant state. From what Uraza knew of the local tribes, the Takweso were ancient rivals of Tembo’s Vendani. But the massive man gave Tembo a crushing hug as he arrived.
Tembo introduces Uraza to some of his rebel friends: Djantak (the guy with the not!African wild dog tattoo), Kinwe (an old man with an owl spirit animal), and Jinta (a girl with knives). Uraza is initially shocked that most of the rebels are all children, but then she remembers that the war is a Human Problem and that their age is not her concern.
Now that everyone’s gathered, Tembo reveals his plan: he’ll blow up the Conquerors’ supplies, then ride into the camp on Uraza so he can steal the talisman. Uraza refuses to let Tembo ride on her, though, so the group decides to sneak into the Conqueror camp instead.
They struck out just before dawn. During the night, Jinta had used the cover of darkness to sneak up to the camp’s palisade and weaken the stakes in a large section. Uraza crept forward, slinking through the grass alongside the green-cloaked humans. Though many times their size, the Great Leopard was a more than able stalker. When she did not wish to be noticed, eyes simply moved past her. They reached the palisade, and she waited while Tembo and Djantak quietly dislodged the wooden slats. How had she ended up here, reliant on humans to do things for her? She’d developed a certain fondness for her little warrior, but now a whole crowd of the smelly things surrounded her.
Tembo overhears some Conquerors discussing the surrender of Niloan villages, stealing Cabaro’s talisman, and how fun it is to betray all the Niloans who swore allegiance to them. Naturally, this pisses off Uraza.
Eventually, Tembo and Uraza sneak into a building that should contain the talisman. Just one problem: the building is empty! Samilia obviously knew that the rebels were coming, and set a trap for them. Tembo faces off against Samilia and uses Omika to steal Uraza’s talisman, right when the rest of the rebels set fire to the Conqueror camp.
Uraza trashes the Conqueror camp, but Tembo is injured in the chaos, and Samilia manages to use her spirit animal to steal back Uraza’s talisman. Tembo tells Uraza that she can chase Samilia and retrieve her talisman, but Uraza decides to help Tembo escape the Conqueror camp instead so they can fight another day. She lets Tembo ride on her — and promise never to tell anyone that this ever happened — as they escape.
They met the others at the lightning tree, where Jinta removed the arrowhead from Tembo’s leg while Djantak and the others held him down. A knife heated by flame cleaned his wound. Afterward, the humans sat around the fire, retelling stories of the raid and the various mishaps and near-disasters that had occurred. Though he claimed he would have survived anyway, to hear the others tell it, Djantak had only escaped because a log had fallen on a group of enemies who had him cornered.
The humans may be celebrating their minor victory, but Uraza isn’t in a joyous mood. Her talisman has been stolen, and she realizes that she can’t fight the Conquerors on her own.
Tembo has other things on his mind, too. He’s heard from his Euran allies that the Conquerors are allied with Great Beasts, and that they’re shipping siege weapons to Nilo. Uraza decides to help him fight the Conquerors — and put up with his affections — for the time being.
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Stuff I Forgot to Mention Above:
Ninani the Godlike Swan likes to meddle in human affairs — at least, according to Uraza.
The Vendani are probably similar to the Maasai, an African ethnic group living in Kenya and Tanzania.
Tembo means “elephant” in Swahili.
The Vendani coming-of-age ceremony is called the Nights of Fire. That’s way more awesome sounding than “Nectar Ceremony”.
In-universe, “Vendani” translates to “goat thief”.
Take note of how the Conquerors deal with Nilo during their initial conquest. The new Conquerors aren’t much better during the second global war.
Great Beasts can survive poisoning and illness, but it takes them time to adapt to new ones. This explains why Uraza succumbs to the Conquerors’ poison.
Samilia is bonded to a tuatara. She also had her teeth filed to points to match her spirit animal.
Samilia used to be a brigand in Zhong before the Conquerors recruited her.
Have you noticed that all of the original Conqueror’s lieutenants so far are female and not!Asian?
By the laws of the Vendani, Uraza belongs to Tembo because he stole her from the Conquerors.
Tembo stole his signature green cloak from the Conquerors when he left his village to join the rebels.
“Kwangani” (as in the Kwangani River) means “sky” in Swahili.
Samilia’s standard is a red flag with a lizard on it. The Conquerors’ standard is black.
The Amber Leopard grants enhanced melee attack speed to its wearer.
Tembo can make Omika appear in precise locations when he summons her, which is apparently a rare ability.
Kovo normally lives in Nilo.
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Next time: A not!European girl tries to recruit a Godlike Wolf.
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