Chapter One; 'what is due us'

"Nayoo, you can not allow this."
"Silence shaman, My needs must be fulfilled. The fireblood's killed my livestock and without them to fulfill my needs I demand that I be allowed the captive with which to fulfill them."
"It is perverse. Your father would never have allowed this."

The young chieftain rose angrily.
"You will not tell me what my father would or would not have allowed. Haown may have what is due him, what the firebloods have denied him he make take from them." Nayoo turned to the clan gathered before him, dividing the spoils of their last raid. "As shall we all have what is due us. The firebloods have slaughtered our kin and denied us the pleasure of the hunt and land in which to dwell."
"Thank you chieftain, truly you shall return our people to the glory your brother lost us." The warrior walked off towards the small cage and its frightened inhabitant.
"And you, shaman Aurou, will do best not to challenge my authority."
"Your father Traonih was twice the leader you are. I entreat the spirits daily that they might grant you his wisdom."

A scream emerged from the cage. Aurou tried to ignore it, to challenge the chieftain was futile. He spoke often of 'what is due us' and 'the destiny before us'. Aurou could remember the days when all a warrior was entitled to was that which he could make, win, or gather and was not needed by the clan as a whole. This younger generation's sense of entitlement was leading them down a dark path.

A very different scream rose from the cage suddenly. The whole clan rushed to the clearing where the cage was hidden. Inside was not the perversion they had all wished to press from their mind, but Haown's mangled corpse and over it a ginger furred beast, his blood and flesh hanging from it's fangs.

"The child has conjured a beast, kill it at once."
One of the clan's archers stepped up to the cage and set a shaft to his string. He loosed the iron bolt at the beast, but it turned and caught the bolt in its fangs and snapped it before them.
"Slay it, Haown's share of the spoils to the one who brings me its hide."

Another warrior readied his axe and flung open the cage. The beast lept at him and h cut it from the air. Without flinching it rose to its feet and pounced upon him. It's weight bore him to the ground and its fangs crushed his mail and tore into his throat. Before the others could react the beast had slain the warrior.
It wheeled to attack the others, baying and barking at them. A fiery bolt struck it across the side and flung it into a nearby stone where it lay motionless.
"Fools," Nayoo yelled as he stepped over it brandishing his staff. "Must I do everything myself?"

As he rebuked the undeserving onlookers the beast rose behind him. The warriors winced as the beast bit into his most vulnerable parts, and they moved slowly back as it began devouring him.
"Shaman Aurou, what can we do? We cannot allow this beast to simply walk unopposed in our camp."
"We cannot destroy it, that much is clear. Let us instead reason with it."
He knelt before the beast and conjured some meat. He placed it before the beast, slipping some sleeping powder into it as he did so. The beast approached it cautiously, but it ate the meat quickly. Powerful and indestructible as it was, the sleeping powder worked quickly.
"Return the beast to the cage. Raola, Sneffu stand watch and alert me as soon as the beast awakens. The rest of you return to your business."

Peace returned to the camp, though an air of fear had settled upon it. Aurou may not have liked Nayoo or even respected him, but in the end he'd proved right; He and Haown had received what they had been due them.