Gathering the bodies was a solemn affair. In the end, they sorted the bodies into groups. The few their Pride had lost, the larger number that their allies had lost, and the even larger number that their newest allies had lost before they had converted to Dominic’s side at the end of the battle. Finally, there was the pile of those who belonged to no allied force, either because the survivors had chosen to run away, or because there hadn’t been any survivors at all. That was the biggest of all.

  Dominic spent the time while they were sorting the carcasses considering what approach to take and the implications of the options. Finally, he stepped forwards, projecting his intent to speak with a leonine chuff. Heads turned towards him, eyes training themselves on his form. Dominic noted that this approach seemed to be a good way of gaining everyone's attention.

  ‘We have a tradition,’ he projected solemnly. ‘When we have lost our own, we Consume their bodies so that they remain with us, even though they now are gone. My Pride and I will demonstrate and then I invite my allies to join in subsequent funeral…clouds.’

  He didn’t waste any more time, but stepped over to where the lioness, two kesh, two albuhas, and the newly named ameshek lay on the ground. They were diminished in death, their bodies stiff with rigor mortis. Leo snarled with regret-filled anger as Dominic leaned down to lick at the bloodied remains of Serena’s head.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Dominic said to her, the emotion heart-felt. Their losses had been extremely light considering the numbers they’d been against, and both their tactics and new armour had truly proven themselves in keeping almost all of the Pride alive. For all that, the fact was that any death among those he considered under his protection was one too many.

  Leo, of course, was more regretful that it was one of the females, but at least he’d learned better than to express any wish for someone else in the Pride to have died instead. This time.

  Dominic repeated the same actions with Slow-Eye, Four-Stripe, and the posthumously-named Lupus, and then moved off to the side to allow the rest of his Pride to do the same. The new lions stayed on the sidelines as the ones who had known the six dead said goodbye, but Dominic made a point of inviting them to join in with the ceremony afterwards.

  It took a while, but finally everyone who wanted to had passed by the dead to pay their respects. Looking around, Dominic was interested to see that several of the other beasts were mimicking the Pride members, licking, nosing, or even grooming their own dead. Dominic took it as a good sign.

  Moving back to the four dead Pride members, Dominic triggered Consume on their carcasses, then stepped quickly through the golden dust instead of lingering. Following his lead, the rest of the Pride quickly did the same. Only six carcasses meant that the golden dust was quickly absorbed. Their armour sagged to lie in shapeless heaps upon the ground when the bodies they had been protecting vanished from within. But this was only the beginning.

  Dominic moved over to the places where the ullas, trodils, wild dogs, and harashes had put their own dead. Without the armour or healers that the Pride had available, a much bigger fraction of their forces had fallen, even though they hadn’t borne the brunt of the army’s attacks. In total, three ullas, three trodils, five wild dogs, and four harashes had met their end. At least the tactics they’d used at Nyx’s and Sekhmet’s instigation had limited their losses a bit. Fortunately, none of the leaders had fallen – as usual, it was the weakest and youngest who made up the majority of the dead.

  Although he felt a faint sense of pity at the sight of the small bodies lying broken and dead on the ground, particularly three of the wild dogs who looked to be barely out of puppyhood, he didn’t have the emotional attachment that he did to his own Pride. And perhaps Leo’s emotions influenced his own too – Leo cared nothing for them.

  The leaders came to meet him as he stood next to their dead.

  ‘I’m sorry for your losses,’ he offered formally.

  ‘So are we,’ the wild dog leader answered glumly.

  ‘Losses are part of life,’ the ulla replied philosophically, though it was clear he was saddened as well as he nudged at the hulking carcass of one of his herd members.

  ‘Especially in this new world where it is kill or be killed, grow stronger or die,’ agreed Dominic, thinking sadly of all the losses they’d suffered since the System had arrived. ‘Have you all said goodbye to your companions?’ he asked, reminding himself of the task at hand.

  ‘We have,’ agreed the harash, sounding more affected than Dominic had ever known her to be. The Trodil leader stayed silent through it all. Dominic nodded and then stepped forwards. Licking the forehead of each of the dead briefly in his own gesture of respect, he triggered Consume. A cloud of golden dust billowed into the air, the ullas in particular creating more dust individually than all the wild dogs put together.

  Having learned from past experience, the survivors padded, trotted, and scurried through the cloud, forms brushing past each other, felt more than seen. Sekhmet and Nyx led the Pride to join the dance-like ritual after their allies had had the chance to absorb some of the dust.

  By the time the golden cloud was fully absorbed, everyone had had the chance to join, though some of the newest lions and albuhas had been rather tentative about it.

  It was interesting, but Dominic could already see the effects of the battle, followed by their victory and their bonding ritual – his allies were standing closer to his Pride, and the signs of discomfort were less obvious in their bodies. It was something subtle, but he sensed that the bond had strengthened between them all.

  He made up his mind about something he had been debating over up until then. Padding forwards, he approached the second biggest pile of carcasses, surrounded by a group that was bigger than the rest of them put together and far more diverse than any he’d managed before. Yet Dominic didn’t feel any fear as he faced those who had only recently sworn alliance with him.

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  ‘We fought against each other, killed and injured each other. But we are now allies. Would you like to take part in the same ritual as you have just seen happen with those who have been allies for longer? To say goodbye to your companions in a way that makes them a part of you?’

  The beasts arranged before him looked around at each other, shifting uncertainly. And then the scrin leader stepped forwards, raising her head proudly into the air.

  ‘I will join,’ she declared firmly. Behind her, the others in her clan showed their silent support with their presence.

  As if that was what the others had been waiting for, other affirmations came in one by one until Dominic had received unanimous agreement. That was fortunate as Dominic didn’t want to take the time to separate the bodies of those whose surviving members didn’t agree.

  With an air of solemnity surrounding him, Dominic stepped forwards and triggered Consume with every heartbeat. His paws, nose, tail, all were used to work his way through the massive pile of bodies ahead of him. He even leaped to the top of the pile and worked his way down. At times, he felt almost like he was in a candle flame on the verge of being drowned in hot wax as he had to work at clearing the bodies around him as well as under him, or risk becoming buried by them.

  He was aware of movement beyond the bodies, but couldn’t see it due to the sheer density of the golden cloud. Even when he thought he had cleared all the carcasses, he discovered that he hadn’t when he almost tripped over another body. Focussing on using his Spatial Awareness rather than trying to use his eyes, he found the remaining bodies even as various beasts brushed past him, touching briefly and then disappearing once more into the golden cloud.

  Unlike the previous ones, this cloud seemed to last forever. Dominic’s resource pools were fully regenerated – oddly enough, even his mana was also fully regenerated which he hadn’t expected. It had never happened before – maybe some of the beasts who had died had had mana pools and he’d been able to benefit from that?

  But of course, it couldn’t truly last forever, and slowly the golden dust cleared. Looking around, Dominic saw a group of beasts who had been united in action. And though they had stilled their dance with the disappearance of the gold dust cloud, there were still no divisions. Lions were mixed with jackals, ullas were interspersed with buffalos, wolves were standing beside albuhas. Lillips and queebs, dingos and jackals. For that one moment in time, they were one group, and Dominic was sure he wasn’t the only one feeling that way.

  Sadly, all things must come to an end and they had things to do.

  Dominic moved around where the funeral dust clouds had been and loaded every Core he could see into his storage space. Once he had done that, he headed over to the pile of carcasses that still remained, asking Sekhmet to join him.

  Dumping out some of the older carcasses, he filled the rest of his storage space with as many of the small to medium-sized beasts that he could. He decided to keep the spiky toads, though – he was considering putting them out on the perimeter when the dungeon beasts were due. Even if they started rotting there, their spikes would be good caltrops.

  Meanwhile, Sekhmet filled her storage bracelet with other carcasses. A quick test had shown that the item stacking required the beasts to be the same species and approximately the same size. Dominic guessed that level might play a part too as there were a few beasts who were the same size but who didn’t stack. Since her limit was more about numbers and types of carcasses, she preferred beasts where she could get ten that would stack, and the bigger the better.

  That still left a good number of beasts, though after the funerals and filling both storage spaces, the number was significantly reduced. Still, it felt like a bit of a waste to leave them behind.

  He could just absorb all the Cores which he’d already put in his storage space, but they were small enough that even with the hundreds that he now had in there, they didn’t take up much space. He might be able to fit another two or three carcasses instead, but that hardly seemed worth the time he’d need to spend manually absorbing all of the Cores. Not when he could just let the Ability Forge absorb all of them back at the Place of Power.

  Fortunately, there were non-magical ways of transporting things too, and the kesh had the needed agility with their fingers that Dominic’s leonine paws didn’t have.

  Going over to Loud-Hoot, he projected an image into the kesh’s mind with Telepathy.

  ‘Do you think you and the others can make these?’ he asked. The kesh looked thoughtful while he eyed the long grass and trees around.

  ‘Should be possible,’ he judged. ‘We’ll try.’ With that, he turned away to consult with the other kesh. It seemed that the non-Pride kesh who had been in the battle had either died or chosen not to join the Pride as all he’d found of them had been bodies. But then, if his suspicions about where those kesh came from were right, they probably realised that he wouldn’t accept them as allies anyway. Right now, he’d have really appreciated having more fingers at hand – if they had been closer to the elves, he would have got them to come and help.

  Actually, perhaps that wasn’t such a bad idea anyway. No one said they all had to travel together, after all, and this basin was at least on the same side of Selanthis as his forest home. It wasn’t exactly on the route there, but it wasn’t too far off it either.

  Perhaps while the kesh worked on a way to transport the remaining carcasses, Dominic could take a group of Pride members back to inform the elves of what had happened – and to retrieve the remaining weapons and armour owed to them. Perhaps they could trade for some storage bracelets too.

  ‘We have those Challenge Credits to use too,’ Leo reminded him. ‘Perhaps storage spaces will be available in exchange for those.’

  ‘Good point,’ Dominic acknowledged. He hadn’t thought of that. But then that would mean that he should take everyone back with him – everyone who had earned Challenge credits, anyway. Which, as far as he knew, included all his Pride members. He’d need to check with his allies whether they had been given anything – they hadn’t indicated that they had, but they hadn’t indicated that they hadn’t either. Nyx and Sekhmet had both confirmed to him that they had the impression that something was waiting for them in the elves’ forest town.

  Of course, there was no guarantee that there would be storage devices available, but at the same time, it had to be done. If worst came to worst, they could ask the elves to create something that could carry carcasses and then bring it with them on their way back to the Place of Power. And it was probably a good idea not to take everyone back to the elves’ forest anyway – he didn’t want the elves worrying that they were about to try to take over. He’d already seen how Ilastir reacted when he’d only convinced four groups of beasts to swap to his side. He hated to find out what they would think with thirteen leaders now supporting him.

  ‘Loud-Hoot, come back,’ Dominic called, interrupting the kesh who was clearly discussing transportation construction ideas with his companions. ‘Sorry,’ Dominic apologised when he came closer. ‘We can experiment with that later. For now, I have a new plan.’

  here!