Salaryman
Managing a wolf pack proved to be a fascinating experience. Of course if they were normal wolves I am sure it would not have been as interesting. Most likely I would have already been eaten. They were intelligent enough that once I proved I had control they were willing to go along with me. Which meant I now needed to secure my continued position. Considering how in order to attain this position I had to kill the last Alpha, I could assume that that's probably how transfers of power were undertaken.
A good reason to get out of the pack the moment I found a way, as I doubt I would be young and strong forever even if I had some sort of altered biology. But for now, I needed to deal with the problems that were more immediate threats to my rule.
First on my list of troublemakers were the yetis. As invaders they were slowly creeping in and taking my pack's resources. Allowing this to continue would be detrimental to my rule and my life expectancy, so I began my operations against their infiltration by breaking the Pack up into groups of three or four and letting them hunt down these yetis. It was not long before we were dealing with any rogue scouts of theirs that tried to move further into our territory.
I didn't need to do much, the wolves were a product of generations on this world. They knew how to handle territorial invaders. Really, all they needed was for me to observe and offer assurances of their success when they murdered one of the wandering yetis. Frankly, the wolves were some of the best employees I had ever had. They were thorough, confident in their skills, and took payment in head pats and belly rubs which is a lot cheaper to give out than any other resource I could offer them.
Before long, approximately after our fifth kill, the seven feet Giants had stopped coming out of their camp alone and were now scouting and hunting in groups of three or more. This meant I could no longer split my wolves into smaller packs to hunt down the invaders. However, it was now a lot easier to get a good read of the number of Yetis I had to deal with. Over the course of several days, from my position in a tree at the edges of the open area, I watched the parties of monsters leave and enter their camp. It allowed me to gather data such as particular items certain individuals would wear and weapons they prefer to carry around. After some time I had a good idea of all the identities inside the camp's walls.
At any given time there were nine yetis inside the compound. Outside their makeshift compound there would be at least three groups or more hunting for game and such to feed the ones inside the compound.
So theoretically there were only 18 of the monsters I had to deal with though I gave it an extra + 3 due to the fact that I thought I'd seen a few rogue yetis pop up here and there during my watch.
21 in total then, the numbers were in my favor since we had nearly double that in wolf power but we have been hunting those single yetis in packs of 3 and I would like to preserve that tactical advantage. I hadn't lost a wolf yet and I wasn't going to lose one now, every lost wolf was a chink in the armor of my power and control and status as Alpha. Not to mention when we were done with these monsters I would still have to deal with the twenty or so wolves that had split off from the main group, as well as the other wolf tribes in the region that were nosing around.
No doubt if they saw weakness, they would strike and I doubted the leadership of the wolf packs coming to take our territory would leave me in power. No, I needed to preserve as much of my wolf power as possible for that inevitable fight.
How am I going to do it? Well that was simple, I had 40 wolves at my command, split that into three groups and I most likely could take out half of the Yeti's when they were out hunting.
So on a fine winter day, the sun is low in the sky and its blue light is creating some interesting patterns through the branches of the trees. I and my constant companions, Fierce and Cunning, were hiding behind some fallen tree trunks watching the camp. For this operation I needed wolves I could trust to lead the thirds of my pack and I couldn't think of anyone I trusted more than those two. If I was a sentimental sort, I might even say they were like brothers to me. Considering how well I was integrated into the pack, I acknowledge that they perhaps thought the same of me.
It had been getting even colder so I believed we were going into some sort of heavy winter season. As a result, I was wearing more furs than usual, enough so that from the distance, it would probably look like three wolves laying down watching the camp and not two wolves and a human. Patiently, we waited and before long the first Hunting Party left their Camp to ander towards the east. I tapped Fierce on the shoulder and he got up, heading off to get his third of the pack. Once they were gathered I knew they would stalk the yetis till they were an hour or so away. If we wanted this mission to be a success we didn't want any of the yetis to hear the other hunting party getting ripped to shreds.
About 30 minutes later the second group of three left their camp, heading to the north, and I tapped Cunning, sending him off to do the same as his brother. This just left me to watch the camp in the quiet cold morning. I got a little bit worried after an hour passed and the third group didn't come out. Eventually the party I was waiting for exited the camp, but there were four yetties and one of them looked older than the others. They started heading south.
As quietly as I could I got up and moved back into the woods, quickly finding the ten or so wolves that made up my pack of operations for this mission, including the Mother wolf since I trusted her to watch my back more than the others.
With patience and determination, the pack and myself followed quietly behind the four ugly beasts, keeping a good distance away so it was very unlikely they would spot us. But we had to be careful regardless, raising the alarm could be detrimental to the second part of my plan.
After about 30 to 40 minutes of following, I figured we were far enough away from the main camp that they wouldn't hear what was about to happen. Since I hadn't heard anything from the other two groups I assume that those operations had also been successful though I wouldn't know for sure until this was dealt with.
Carefully, I took a knee and tapped the mother wolf on the shoulder, giving a hand sign that I had taught them meant attack. Nodding, the wolf went off, followed by several of the others and quickly encircled the yetis. What was about to happen was going to be gruesome, but necessary for my survival.
I had considered possible negotiations with these beasts once or twice but I had ultimately thrown it away. For one it was a miracle I was able to communicate with the wolves as well as I did, and two the wolves during my initial hunts of the lone scouts had proven to be rather vicious in their takedowns of the 7 ft. beasts. Mix that with the first time I saw that these creatures were them trying to attack a mother wolf guarding her pups, it was very unlikely that the yetis and the wolves would ever have good relations. Frankly, I was left to assume that the yetis preyed on the young when the adults were away because they didn't have a chance of winning those fights without properly stacking the odds.
If I tried to smooth all this bad blood over I would just get myself covered in it. And if it's a choice between my life or theirs, well theirs didn't mean much to me, I already knew they used human bones for tools and decorations, I wasn't going to test my luck with them.
Once I was sure my pack was in position I stood up and prepared the makeshift javelin I built from Elkhorn and a local tree.
The yeti for their part were busy scavenging through The underbrush looking for berries or perhaps mushrooms, who knows what they ate. I aimed carefully at the older looking yeti who seemed to have a horn at his side, a very finely made one. Perhaps not one created by their species, but they knew how to use it to signal they were under attack and I was not going to let that happen.
With a true throw, I let loose the javelin, sending it through the yeti's chest. The beast screamed and toppled over, struggling with the spear in its chest. The other three looked up, confused, towards their elder, which took their eyes off the periphery as the wolves rushed in, jumping on and tearing at the yetis. Before long they were ripping them apart limb from limb, their blood splattering all over the place and staining the snow red. Carefully I made my way closer, confirming that the four yetis had been quickly dispatched and watching the wolves use the compacted snow to either clean off the blood or diffuse the acid in it enough that it wasn't hurting them anymore.
Once I was sure the four yetis were dead, I picked around in their belongings, stealing the horn for myself. You never know when a device for long-distance communication could come in handy. But besides that, there was nothing of use and I quickly set about organizing the wolves to head back towards their camp.
By my calculations, there were only 10 maybe 11 of the monsters left in their camp and they were now 40 wolves under my command as long as none had been lost in the other attacks. Assuming that stayed true, an attack on their camp was feasible; however I had another plan already in the works.
Once we were back in the periphery of the open area in which the yeti had created their base camp, I organized the wolves to start bringing me some of the wooden Spears I had created for this moment.
Quickly I set up a fire and then put the heads of the spears in the flame. They were wrapped in pieces of cloth soaked in tree sap that I found to burn quick well. It was a very flammable materials that I could put together, for this moment.
Once they were lit, I carried two of them over as close as I could and hurled them over the makeshift snow walls guarding their complex, aiming for the structures that looked like they'd been built by pulling trees over. I knew it was probably impossible to catch snow-covered wood on fire, but my hope was to cause panic, not burn the whole place down.
It worked better than expected, as the spear slipped through the woodwork and into the hut. I do not know what happened inside, but by the time I was readying the third and the fourth to throw over the wall, that hut was on fire.
As expected, those who were not fighting the fire rushed outside to find out who was throwing flammable objects at them. Fighting them outright was not on the cards, I was barely 5 ft. tall and even with increased strength, I didn't want to try and fight four of those hairy bastards alone, but I was faster than them and made the run back to the edge of the woods comfortably.
The four yetis rushed in after me and didn't realize their mistake until after the wolves had seized their legs and toppled them. Their screams as they were ripped apart were disconcerting, but it was necessary for my survival.
By the time the four yetis that chased me were dead, the other two groups of wolves had returned from their hunt and besides looking slightly bloodied and bruised from their own combat, they were all there. This operation had gone perfectly, I had reduced the enemy numbers greatly and now all that was left was to let the wolves have their fun.
I simply signaled them that they could attack and they charged at the camp. It was a marvelous thing watching a 7 to 8 ft. tall wolf jump over a 5 ft. wall, hearing the screams of bloody murder afterwards was less so.
Part of me was annoyed that I had to waste the resources the yetis could provide, but there was nothing I could do. I just sat back and let the wolves have their fun and once the screaming stopped I entered the camp, searching for any useful materials.
I had estimated there had been maybe six yetis inside the camp, I had been one off, there were seven adult yetis. No children, which seemed odd. Perhaps the wolves had eaten them whole, but that seemed unlikely. Then again, I couldn't tell which were female and which were male, so maybe this was some sort of expedition. Were the yetis the dominant species on the planet and the wolves just some semi-intelligent species that may have one day taken on a similar role dogs would take on Earth? It was hard to say.
All I knew for sure was that there were some resources to be gathered from the camp - cloth rope, pots full of food kept cold by being left in the snow, and other such resources that would be useful to my camp. I set about gathering as much as I could, creating a makeshift saddle across several wolves to tie the materials to, before sending them off home. By the time the blue sun was fading to just barely above the horizon, I had ransacked the camp and was on my way home.
Salaryman
With the yeti threat dealt with, I was able to let my charges take a couple of days to rest before throwing them at the next problem.
How was I going to deal with the 20 Rogue wolves in my territory? They left because I killed the former alpha. Most likely they were directly related or didn't feel that it had been a good kill, perhaps they felt threatened by the shift in power; I didn't know.
With the wolves not speaking a language I understood, it was near impossible for me to make a good estimation of what I needed to do to win them over from my enemies to my allies and I needed them as allies. The wolves outside our territory that were not part of my original pack were snooping around, it was obvious they sensed weakness and were ready to strike and take over all the territory that belonged to this pack before I had taken control. I have no idea of their numbers but I didn't want to risk being outnumbered so I needed to bring those 20 wolves back into my camp.
How I was going to do it took a bit of thinking, but eventually I came up with a possible plan. My pack had found where the rogue Wolves had made their shelter, to the east from my camp… or at least what I would consider east since that's the direction the Sun rose from. Once they were located I simply organized a hunt for food in that area. I'd come a long way from the surprise attacks on Elks as it was much easier to take down the megafauna with the help of the Wolves. I filled the saddlebags with as much meat as I could and then took the 40 wolves I had to their camp.
What I was about to do was a risky play. Yes, I had 2 to 1 odds in my favor but things could always go wrong. Perhaps the Wolves I was about to meet were the best fighters. I didn't know, but I had to hope that this operation would work because at this point I was committed, and I needed their wolf power if I wanted to survive the coming conflict with the outsider packs.
My pack arrived at their camp in the late afternoon, the sun was still high but it was on its way down, the blue light turning darker as it passed through a nearby volcanic cloud of debris. The rogue wolves had set up camp in a box canyon, not the greatest place unless they were planning to defend it to the death as they couldn't escape it but they would definitely know where the enemy was coming from.
I did not want to experience Thermopylae from a Persian wolf's perspective, so I'd already thrown out any plans to attack the camp. If this plan did not work, I would employ the same strategy I used against the yetis before ever assaulting this Camp directly. But there was no need for them to know that, so I quickly cut off the entire Box Canyon by having my wolves form a line along its entrance. I could see about 15 wolves inside the camp, with probably another 5 outside, so I deployed 10 to keep watch behind us to make sure they didn't catch us by surprise.
Once I was sure everything was set up, I pulled off the saddlebags from one of the wolves and started walking towards their camp. I had a spear in one hand and Cunning was by my side, carrying the other supplies I would need. I knew the other Wolves could cover the distance quickly in case the Rogues decided to try and take me out so I felt relatively safe as I walked down the rocky path towards the rogue wolves.
The rogues, of course, had noticed our arrival and had been growling in our general direction the entire time, trying to psych themselves up for the expected fight. Their de facto leader, I assumed, was the large gray wolf with scars running down its left flank. It galloped to the front of their line and gave up a howl, trying to frighten me off. It didn't intimidate me, but I did stop as I got about halfway between my line and their camp. I opened the saddlebags and revealed the meat before placing it on the ground. Reaching over to Cunning I opened the saddlebags on him and pulled out several chunks of wood and other burnable materials and quickly set about setting up a fire.
For the next 30 minutes or so, the Wolf attempted to frighten me or perhaps goad me into attacking, either way it put on an impressive aggressive display. But, after a while, it realized that wasn't working at which point curiosity and the smell of cooking meat seemed to have finally won it over, as it gave up its aggressive display and padded towards me quietly.
By this point, the elk meat I had been cooking had finally reached a point where I thought it was edible for myself, so I took it off the makeshift spit and took an over-exaggerated bite, chewing aggressively. Offhandedly, I offered some to Cunning, who also took a bite, ripping about half of it off and swallowing the meat.
Then I offered it to the scarred wolf in front of me. The plan was very simple: offer the Wolves the chance to rejoin the original pack by showing that I had no hard feelings and would willingly share food with them. Of course, I had dictated a power structure by taking the bite first, and then Cunning before offering it to them, but that was needed to maintain control of a tribe.
The wolf stood there looking at the meat for a good few minutes before looking past me at the Wolves who had been their pack mates and now guarded the only entrance and exit of the canyon. That was an implicit threat, but I think the wolves were smart enough to get my meaning through my actions.
Finally, the wolf gave up and stepped forward taking the last bite of meat off the stick, this resulted in Cunning letting out a howl, surprising me, but then the other wolves, both from my pack and the Rogues, joined in. The Pact was signed and the aggression simply melted away as the rows of wolves started to flow together.
I smiled as the plan seems to have worked and pulled out More meat from the saddlebag, setting it up on the fire to cook before I took a moment to survey the situation.t Some of the Wolves had opened the other saddlebags I brought and were just eating the meat, which was to be expected. Cooked meat seemed to be a delicacy they may enjoy but didn't need.
Watching the 60 wolves intermingle I could only grin, as I'd seemed to have finally found a species of intelligent life that could understand me and do as I wanted. It would seem that the harsh environment of this world had led these wolves to be more social and willing to work with each other for a common goal when feasible. And that meant when presented with a logical argument, they were willing to hear the person out. That all this had mainly been done through action and I not words after all…
If domestic affairs with Wolves were this easy, I hoped foreign affairs with the outside wolves would be comparable. After all, I seem to be able to communicate with the Wolves fine, and communication was necessary for successful negotiations and the light of civilization to spread. I just needed to figure out how I was going to get the foreign wolves to communicate with me.
Chapter 4 Wolf foreign affairs 1
Salaryman
To understand my diplomatic position with the other tribes, I first needed to deal with understanding the terrain. To that end I had my wolf show me around their hunting grounds. Most I already understood as it was coming on my 6th month on this planet, but I did find out a few new things.
To the North of my position were heavier mountains with glacier-filled valleys, that area was less life-filled than where we made our home. Besides an occasional growl fest with one or two massive wolves that seemed to live that way, I doubted it was a threat to my position.
The particular wolves that lived on those mountains seemed to be more of the loner type, a massive monster compared to the wolves of my tribe, and the couple I had seen gave me the impression they did not see the smaller wolves I lived with as a threat. I got the feeling that if there were not more than 10 with me the greater wolves, as I coined them, would see me and any small wolves I had with me as lunch.
I toyed with the idea of trying to come to some diplomatic understanding with these greater wolves, but they were no threat and I was already having enough trouble feeding my pack as it was. It may be something I would pursue at a later date but for now I would focus on two threats that were present on my frontiers. And since the Yetis had come from their lands I would have to assume they had their own issues and threats to deal with, that I was not interested in taking up. My survival, and thus the survival of my pack, was what mattered.
To the East was a wolf tribe about the same size and strength as my own, they numbered close to 60 and they seemed to have good hunting ground as elks seemed to herd from their homeland into ours before passing on into the west. Why they did that was open to theorizing but I suspected, due to the high latitude of my position on the planet, that there was a possibility that the planet was Pangea-like. With a massive continent centered on the north pole, forcing the animals to naturally follow the sun in a circle around the planet.
How I came to this idea puzzled me a bit, it could just as likely be related to seasonal changes and they may come back my way from the West in 6 months. But I just had a good feeling about it and the same kinda feeling I got when I made the spear my first night.
But anyways the pack in the East was the same size as my own and had been poking at my pack borders, hunting the elk and other game that crossed from their realm into mine, and that needed to be dealt with. How I was going to do it was still up in the air.
With rogues I could negotiate from a position of power, thus showing generosity did not come off as weakness. Doing that with the wolves of the East would be less successful.
And of course, fighting them was not something I wanted to do because the wolves of the West were a bigger issue. Their incursions happened far more often and most likely had been happening before I took power. From the few scouting parties I stalked with Cunning and his band by my side, I had a good feeling there were at least 80 wolves in the western tribe.
More likely than not that number was on the low end, which meant if they really wanted to punch into my territory, they could. They would take hits, of course, but those would likely be acceptable losses by any meaning of the word.
Finally, there was the South and there was no threat there. When it came to the East and West the terrain was similar enough: rocky hills, volcanic lakes, and lots of trees. To the south of this terrain, was valleys full of trees, and beyond that I didn't know. From the way the wolves had returned from that area, I suspected that it was their natural hunting grounds, that this area was where they came to rear the young as I stumbled on one too many times. And to the South is where they got fat on the bounty of the meats and food of the world.
If that was true that also may be where humanity was located. If further up the mountain were yetis, and greater wolves, and who knows what monstrous horrors, then it stood to reason that the further down you got and safer it was for things to exist. Such as small hairless apes. It was the theory but it was one I would need to investigate if I got the chance.
How I would get that chance would depend on if I could navigate the wolf politics of the region. I would need to deploy a strategy to depose my wolf tribe's competitors… Depose?
I had been sitting in front of the cave that made up the home of the wolves, scribbling on the ground with a burnt stick to plot out the information as I understood it, when that thought tapped my head. If tribes worked off alpha wolf theory then, if I could defeat the alpha wolf of one of those tribes in combat, perhaps I could force them to join with my tribe? It was worth considering.
Standing up I stretched my muscles out, as a plan began to form in my head. I had to get recon done and figure out which tribe had a weaker leader that this plan could work on, and if it would even work. Which meant I was going to have to go to the border and watch them like a hawk.
Smiling I looked down at the scribbles i made in the snow, noting several younger wolves looking at them with interest and giving me thought to see if they could learn them before I tossed that out, as they were unlikely to be able to find a way for them to make them in way that would be very readable… then I noticed something I hadn't before. Scribbles were not in Japanese, taking a knee I looked over the runic-looking script in confusion. On one hand, I had never seen this script in my life, on the other, I could read it perfectly…
My suspicions about my lost memories grew a bit heavy as I looked it over. There was no way I could just know this and use it instead of Japanese, I would have had to have learned and used it for years, perhaps decades. It had to be a long time for me to be this comfortable using it. This left me with one conclusion, whatever memories I lost between my death and this life were far more numerous than I knew or even suspected. What had been stolen from me?.
Salaryman
Hunting the alpha of another tribe was a difficult affair, for one, wolves tended to look very similar. I generally had to go by personality ticks and general color for wolves in my own tribe. Doing the same for wolves who would aggressively try to assert their dominance, well they tended to have the same personality of growling at you. There was no tool or clothes to use as a guide to figure out who was who and, after a few days of watching them, I nearly came to the conclusion that this was an unsuccessful prospect.
However I eventually spotted something that clued me into who was the leader of my enemy, and it was an interesting development. One of the wolves had a friend… a large raven-like bird. It was not the greatest point to use as proof that it was the leader but once I noted that future I watched how the other wolves treated this pair and quickly came to the conclusion that they showed the pair a certain level of deference , one that I saw my own wolves show me.
Believing I had found the leader of the enemy pack, I now felt that I had a working plan. The wolves did not do full deployments, there were 60 of them but they only sent 20 into our territory. Why they did this was simple, no doubt there were issues on their other borders, but also risking losing out to 2/6th of their number in those raiders meant they still had a large number of wolves to protect their home.
Well, that was a good plan if your enemy didn't know about defeat in detail and who was their leader. As it was all I needed to do was wait for an opportunity to present itself. Until that Opportunity presented itself I went about training wolves in basic mathematics, teaching them something complex like writing seemed foolhardy but giving them a lesson on how to tell me what numbers they spotted crossing the border was not as hard. I simply used the runic-like math I remembered that included such wonderful simple figures as X meaning 10… and an X shape was something my wolves could make easily enough with their paws. Teaching them that X meant groups of 10 was not hard at all. Teaching them 0-9 was a bit harder but some of them came to get the basics of those numbers and could even add and subtract. What mattered was that they understood that 10 meant X.
Because I didn't have to wait long. About 10 months after my arrival on this world a wolf scout returned ahead of time and rushed to where I was attempting to teach some of the younger pups mathematics. It immediately stamped a pair of X into the snow, Signing that there was a crossing of 20 of the eastern tribe. Now that did not justify full mobilization, there had been crossings before and I wanted them to make a move. If I countered every incursion they would stop crossing and since my plan required them to be on my territory that was detrimental. No, what immediately had me swear was the inclusion of a right-angle triangle with a mark inside. Those were the runic symbols I remembered that meant A, and what better way to explain the concept of Alpha than adding it to my shoulder pad of my dou leather armor. My plan would seem to work as not only did they now identify me as the leader by that symbol they could tell that their leader was among that tribe. At least I hoped they did. There was a distinct possibility that they didn't know that but were just trying to get my attention, or that they knew who the leader was and it was not the wolf with the raven friend.
Either way I needed to move to the border and find out what the citation was, so I called out to the wolves, rallying them. I would have liked to take the whole 60 but at the moment, 20 were on the border of the west keeping eye on incursions there, so I had to take 35 wolves with me. Five remained here to keep watch on the young pups, fewer numbers than I would like but it didn't matter. Forces quickly gathered together, I led a charge of my wolves through the woods toward the border; I needed to hit them fast and hard. The more shock I instilled with initial appearances the more likely things would work out in my favor. I only stopped to grab a saddlebag of smoked meat from my attempts to create more long-lasting foods with some flavoring that I didn't need fire to eat.
I wonder what the wolf leader thought as one moment they most likely were hunting elk, expecting us to not appear, the next a blond girl and pack of nearly 40 wolves came rushing out, the wolves enveloping their formations. If he had any thoughts about it, he seemed to quickly take control of his pack and rally them to form their 20 wolves into a close square. Claws and fangs bared, they barked and howled readying for the expected attack, one I was not willing to give them.
Stepping forward, I shoved my spear into the ground between our two groups. And took a seat across from the wolves. Catching their leader away from the main unit was the goal, now came the difficult part of getting the wolf to submit to me. There were two ways to do this, negotiation of food like I had with the rogue's leader or murder like I had with the original leader of this tribe.
Which method really sat with the wolf leader, they were out of options, and… the raven-like bird took off and started flying away. Considering how close it was to their leader I didn't have to be a genius to figure out it was going for help. In a flash I was back on my feet and drew the spear from the ground, taking aim to let my spear fly, catching the raven's wing and causing it to fall from the sky just as it got over my line of wolves.
What happened next I should have expected, attacking someone's pet of course would not go well for negotiations no matter if it is used in a military capacity. If I had not relied on my instinct perhaps I could have thought of a better option than chucking a spear at it, but I hadn't and thus the near chaos that threatened to break out because I didn't was my fault. In a flash of movement the leader of the enemy pack was charging me, moving before my wolves could react.
I, on the other hand, was able to. As the beast closed range, leaping at my neck, my right fist clocked it in the face. The wolf tumbled off to the left crashing into the snow covered ground. If it was stunned by the hit it didn't show it, instead of getting up off the ground quickly and turning to growl at me.
Some of my wolves growed back and moved closer but I raised a hand to tell them to stay back. There were still chances to salvage negotiations, and letting the chaos that threatened take the field would not improve the chances of salvaging them.
The wolf howled something and charged me again with its tribe staying in circles, I took that as a sign that option 2 of deposit was not on the field. Well, then there was really only one option then. As the wolf jumped at me again, attempting to use its bulk to overcome my right fist, I ducked low and smashed my left shoulder into its chest. I didn't have much time as its head was over my shoulder and it could try something, its front claws were not something to play with either. I grabbed onto the front legs as far up as I could then lifted.
I had been testing how much my biology differed from what humans should be able to do, and so far I hadn't found an upward limit of weight I could lift. This was good for this situation as I was able to lift the entire wolf up into the air from there. I let gravity do the work as I fell backward, crashing the wolf in the solid earth behind me. This time the wolf was stunned and before it had a chance to recoup I wrapped my arm around its neck. I was more careful this time about how much pressure I put on the windpipe and, when it stopped moving, I let up the wolf leader. Still somewhat awake, I held it there and signaled Fierce to bring me the bird. Fierce nodded, walked over to the downed bird and carefully carried it over.
As I suspected the bird was still alive, so I had Fierce put it on the wolf's chest then carefully I took a free hand and reached into the pack on Fierce's side and pulled out some smoked meat. Holding the strip of meat in front of the Wolf's face I applied a little bit of pressure, and let the wolf choose. Take the meat and submit, or die. Signaling the right choice by lessening the pressure when moving its head toward the food. The wolf quickly came to the right conclusion, though not as fast as the raven as it stood upon the chest of the wolf and grabbed the meat from my hand first, eating it without care. By the time I had the second slice of meat out, it reached forward and snapped up the bit of dried meat.
Carefully I let go of the wolf. Letting it roll over and take a moment to get a breath, I reached into the bag and pulled out more of the meat, offering it to the wolf before pulling out bandages. Looking over the raven I saw my spear had left a large cut on its side, and it was best to get that treated as quickly as possible. The wolf watching me like a hawk I carefully wrapped the raven's wounds so it could still fly if needed. I was not pecked by the bird which I took was a good sign.
Sitting there I waited for them to take action, my wolves waited behind me and their wolves waited behind them. Neither group made a noise, adding to the air of expectancy. The ball was now in their court, if the wolf and raven sprung to attack me… Well I'd fight like hell and hope the wolves of the other tribe would just mostly accept me as their new alpha. But if they took the other option that would be preferable to me.
After a bit of waiting the raven took a seat across from me and the wolf made an annoyed sound as it did the same before ultimately laying down on the ground, looking up at me.
I smiled and pulled out more of the smoked meat. I most likely would be out by the end of the day, but things looked like I was going to come out of this with a larger force of wolves.
Salaryman
Forcible integration of another wolf tribe seemed a lot easier than I expected, the wolves for their part seemed to just accept a new alpha without issues, and as long as I provided meat for them they were happy to stay loyal. Granted I could tell they were more loyal to their original alpha, which could be a problem, but Fierce seemed to have had me covered there.
Fierce seemed to be spending a lot of time with the other alpha, running off with the alpha to go hunting and to be alone. At first, I wasn't sure why that was, but then I realized why and I felt rather foolish. The alpha was female, Fierce was a male, a simple equation. I don't know if he did this to help me or if his beastial instinct had simply rolled well in my favor, a marriage alliance would last longer and cement the creation of a larger tribe.
Once I realized what was up I snuck a little bonus meat into Fierce's rations, a good worker deserves a bonus and he had been a very good employee with that maneuver.
But that was only half of the domestic situation. Now that I had another tribe under me, I had more wolf power to work with, and more issues. The area the new tribe held was not really different from my old tribe, their border though ran up in mountains in the far East.
This was good, as the more rocky area there meant less food, which meant there were no wolf tribes to worry about. Oh sure there most likely were monsters on that mountainside that could be issues, but monsters tended to not come steal territory meaning my only real issue was the pack to the West. On a theory, I climbed to the highest point on the mountainside that was safe from said monsters and looked as far West as I could.
There was another mountain ridge in that direction, which meant there were at most one more wolf tribes to deal with my current western problem.
That gave me something to work with as it meant I had a freer hand to deal with the situation. At this moment I had 120 wolves under my command while the western wolves had 90, not a great advantage in numbers but one nonetheless. If I could I would like to settle things without a fight, every one of those I engaged in was one that could go wrong and end with my life over.
But that was out of my hands. It would depend on what the wolves of the West would do. Till they made a move though I had time to shore up my defenses. With the new tribe, the initial camp area was no longer of a suitable size, so I went about finding a bigger area for my tribe to live. This was not hard as there were a lot of caves in the area that benefited from the heating of the mountain. On the border of my tribe which used to be the eastern tribe territory I found what I was looking for, a series of caves that could house… Well, probably more than 300 wolves, not only enough room for my current tribe but room to grow.
With the help of several of the bigger wolves, I was able to effectively cut trees using the scrap metal ax I made when I first arrived and had the wolves pull the logs back to this new base camp. From there I worked with the wolves to stock them up creating a walled area around the camp, my goal was not to completely seal out the outside, though I would like that it would not work with how the wolves came and went whenever they felt like it. Not to mention that they could jump walls up to seven feet high. Simply, I used the wall to limit the way someone could enter the camp, while also creating a dead zone outside our camp. An area with limited trees so nothing would be able to spy on us too easily.
Over the course of the week, with help of wolf muscles to push and pull things into place, I was able to get to a 4-foot high wall. I would have stopped there, but I figured out how to make leather straps that wolves could wear without getting in their way. That allowed me to tie several wolves to a log, combine that with a team of wolves piling up snow on one side of the log wall so the log didn't need to be lifted vertically, and well, I was able to push that height up to 7 feet over the next week.
With that successful wall creation, I began to consider what other things I could build with a little elbow grease and wolf power. It would be nice to have some kinda cabin over living in a cave, but I ultimately decided against that idea as, at the moment, that would require a lot more refinement of the wood than what I could do with my scrap ax. However, the building of a meat processing building was in the cards.
There were two ways I was preserving meat at the moment, keeping cold before cooking it, and overcooking till it became jerky. Cold preservation was an easy affair but not exactly the safest: dig a hole in the snow and hope nothing came along and snacked on it while you were away. If I could build a hut to keep the meat in that would secure the meat better. Not to mention I could better ration the cooked meat for my tribe.
That would have to be the next project I decided on as I worked designing the building in the snow. Really I should be using paper or something to draw blueprints like this but I noticed one other change since I arrived on the planet. Perfect recall of things I saw. Not only had scored a stronger body but the brain seemed to work at peak efficiency as well. If I ever met the person responsible for my design I would have thanked them for that, then maybe ask them why I had been reincarnated as I had?
Whatever thought I was about to get into would have to wait, as howling went up around me.
I was at the old camp cleaning up the last of the gear for transferring to the new camp. Cunning and his dozen followers were with me, helping by providing a strong back to carry a saddle bag of gear. So the amount of howling that should be going on in my area was near zero but there the sound was, and going by the way my wolves seemed to go on the defensive I knew something was wrong. Quickly I rushed to Cunning's side and loaded the last couple of spare knives and furs into his saddle bag. I didn't know what was going on but I had this feeling that it was time to go. Said feeling was quickly proven right as, before I could start running, a group of wolves larger than my own rushed out from the nearby wood to the west and headed directly for me.
A quick count of the numbers showed that it was three to 1 odds against my little group. Without much time to think, I came to my best option. Grabbing onto Cunning's side I pulled myself up onto his back. Tapping his shoulder hard I pointed in the direction of the new camp, cunning got it right away. Holding on tight to my impromptu stead I looked back watching the 30 some wolves give chase as we fled.
Not the greatest look, considering I was refusing the fight I forced every other alpha I met into, but the only thing that mattered was my life and those that mattered to the continuation of my life. Besides any possible loss in my status among the tribe would be made up soon, that I was sure of. In any case they didn't want an alpha fight as the way they had been coming at me didn't feel like they were going to force me to submit. There was blood lust in their eyes, I had seen it plenty of times before… How I saw it before was up there, I just had a brief flash of a girl in a blue uniform with the same dark look in her eyes. If I ever found out who screwed with my memories I was going to lodge a complaint with their boss because this was silly. However the point was quite clear, they were not coming to challenge me to anything. They were coming to kill me and assassinate the leader of another tribe before they could become an issue for their own. That is probably how this tribe of wolves had maintained power in the region of this valley.
Opening the saddlebags I dumped food, lightening the load.As an added bonus some of the wolves chasing us stopped to eat what I dropped. Unprofessional mob of meat-eaters, my tribe would stick to the plan harder than this unorganized horde. I have to make a note about this, as it would most likely be useful in dealing with the western wolves.
By the time we were halfway to the new camp, I could feel Cunning getting tired. All the wolves were slowing down but our little run had done three things in our favor. First, we tired out our assassins, making them easier to fight. Second, the number of wolf assassins behind me had dropped from the 30s to half that. And third... Well, the third involved me taking the horn I had gotten from the yetis and giving it a blow.
I didn't know who had made this horn, didn't know how it was made, but damn was it loud. I could almost feel the sound in my bones. And that was a good thing because after that horn was blown I heard howling from in front and to the sides of me. Looking back I saw more wolves stop and look around before turning tail and running. Those must be the smart ones, as the 7 remaining wolves that chased us would not be coming home.
I hopped off the back of Cunning, letting him continue to run and pulling a spear from my backpack. The other wolves that ran with me turned back and came up to my sides. There were now more of us than the 7 coming to kill us, better odds. Of course, the 7 in front of us didn't care as they came charging, not caring about odds. A mistake as more wolves came out of the bushes to their right, then some from the left as wolves of my tribe streamed in from all sides. A full muster would take time but this fight was already over, all that was left was to clean up the mess.
Really I should have given them a chance to surrender, but the west wolves had put me in a bad situation for that. Sparing assassins would just invite further attempts and would likely make me look weak in front of my own tribe. That was a threat to my survival, and well I was not going to let this threat stand. Hefting my javelin I took aim and threw it toward the charging wolves, the spear embedding deeply in a beast's skull and causing it to fall forward and tumble over itself. I would be happy with that throw if the damn wolf's death throes hadn't caused my spear to snap in half.
I could only sigh and shake my head, I would have to make another one. The wolves, on the other hand, took this as a sign that they could do as they wanted. So they charged the 6 remaining wolves and tore them apart.
They were too tired and outnumbered to do much more than minor injuries, which I could heal with no problem when we got back to the camp. But now I knew something about the western wolves:There would be no friendly negotiation with them.