Savages of the Sacred Salvage
A party is sent to retrieve the carcass of the adult beakdog, and the tribe has a feast in your honor, with you repeating the dramatic tale to fascinated listerners again and again. The fact your son Chameek doesn't show up even for free food makes you understand and accept once and for all that he must be dead. After a period of mourning and appropriate offerings of crystals to the Bright Gods (all soon after stolen by demon locusts, damn them...but what can anyone do?) you and your husband move on with your lives, now childless and without much hope for comfort in your old age.
Your fame after that bit of excitement out on the hill turns out to have lasting benefits however. Before long the Chief is consulting you about another beakdog making trouble for herders. After killing that one with witnesses, the weapon and the technique you used becomes of much interest to the tribe's warriors, who seek to emulate and improve on it. Beakdog hunting, once a grim and dangerous affair, becomes an exciting and dangerous affair and a favored pastime of the tribe's hunters. In a few years someone even gets the bright idea to try and tame and train a few young ones. That works out better than anyone ever expected, and before long the sight of young people riding beak dogs across the fields to round up the herds is a common one, and communication between distant tribes becomes more reliable and frequent.
It's only a few years after THAT that someone gets the idea to use beakdogs when taking the fight to Hell. It seems to go well at first; the next batch of demon locusts that appears flashes the Oath takers and their mounts and flock of savage warbeaks back to Hell with them when they flee, and for awhile no more forces of Hell appear.
Then a lot of forces of Hell appear, all at once. Horrible stinging and flying ones that spit lances of red fire. These aren't content to merely rob the unresisting Bright Gods, but hunt humans relentlessly through every territory from one end of the God Maze to the other. The survivors are driven out with only what belongings they can carry. You and Bainto help hold the front line while Paita escapes with her children and grandchildren. Later, in the great nomadic society that forms from the united remnants of the tribes as they ride their beakdogs and drive their cattle across the hills and plains, your last stand and heroic death will become an enduring thing of song and legend.
Your fame after that bit of excitement out on the hill turns out to have lasting benefits however. Before long the Chief is consulting you about another beakdog making trouble for herders. After killing that one with witnesses, the weapon and the technique you used becomes of much interest to the tribe's warriors, who seek to emulate and improve on it. Beakdog hunting, once a grim and dangerous affair, becomes an exciting and dangerous affair and a favored pastime of the tribe's hunters. In a few years someone even gets the bright idea to try and tame and train a few young ones. That works out better than anyone ever expected, and before long the sight of young people riding beak dogs across the fields to round up the herds is a common one, and communication between distant tribes becomes more reliable and frequent.
It's only a few years after THAT that someone gets the idea to use beakdogs when taking the fight to Hell. It seems to go well at first; the next batch of demon locusts that appears flashes the Oath takers and their mounts and flock of savage warbeaks back to Hell with them when they flee, and for awhile no more forces of Hell appear.
Then a lot of forces of Hell appear, all at once. Horrible stinging and flying ones that spit lances of red fire. These aren't content to merely rob the unresisting Bright Gods, but hunt humans relentlessly through every territory from one end of the God Maze to the other. The survivors are driven out with only what belongings they can carry. You and Bainto help hold the front line while Paita escapes with her children and grandchildren. Later, in the great nomadic society that forms from the united remnants of the tribes as they ride their beakdogs and drive their cattle across the hills and plains, your last stand and heroic death will become an enduring thing of song and legend.
