Unto the Ages

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As the day after liberating the Riversong village got started, Grud, various chieftains, and village chief Jorah Riversong convened a meeting to hear the reports on casualty numbers.

 

Counting Grud’s forces and those who were trapped in the Riversong village coming out to fight, the overall casualty count was a fifth of the total fighting force that was dead or rendered combat ineffective.

 

As for the enemy’s deaths, the count was around roughly three-quarters of the 2000+ enemies, and with the help of the people from the Riversong village, besides a large chunk of enemy bodies belonging to the Blazebringer village, they identified the markings from at least 15 smaller villages. The names of those villages were recorded and in time, they will get their vengeance, but they will have to wait, they have some villages to save.

 

As the meeting continued and they planned on the attacks on the sieging forces attacking their allies, Grud noticed more armed and ready tribesmen streaming towards their current location at the Riversong village.

 

When Grud enquired how many people were still on their way, he found out that there were still people from the Mainland and many Newland tribes still streaming in.

 

Grud decided to discuss with Thagrak and other chieftains if it was worth the wait for more men to join and bolster their forces, because there was no doubt that the enemies who ran away would let the other siegeing forces know they were coming.

 

After much discussion and quite a few tempers flaring, it was decided to wait one day for more forces to gather, and after much insistence from Grud, two small forces of the sneakest hunters available along with Grud to be dispatched today to harass the sieging forces at the other villages in order to take some pressure off the sieged villages.

 

When the meeting was over, Grud called for anyone who was confident in their stealth abilities to gather. Within the hour of the word spreading around, Grud had more volunteers than he knew what to do with and had to limit the number to 200 people.

 

Those 200 people were split into 2 groups of 100, the first group would harass the enemy at the Wisperwind village, while Grud along with the second group would harass the enemies at the Fangfall village.

 

With the planning done and leaders appointed, Grud handed the broken but still alive body of, Borak son of Voka, to some men to join his brother back at the Thunderfoot Tribe.

 

Once that was settled, Grud and his 100 men were off at a light jog in order to make the best time.

 

***

 

The journey to the Fangfall village which would usually take one and a half days of walking from the Riversong village, including rest, was covered with a full day’s travel, it was currently the dead of night, and all of Grud’s men were tired. 

 

They decided to stop about an hour’s distance from the Fangfall village to take a rest. They made a rudimentary camp and had to dig pits to light their cooking fires in to conceal the fire’s light. They cooked some game they killed on the way here and lay down to rest.

 

While his men were exhausted, Grud was a little tired but still had it in himself to do some scouting of the enemy position.

 

After an hour of sneaking around the woods, he ran into an enemy patrol that was out in force, and by the look of alertness that Grud observed like a predator in the night, it was clear that they had been warned of the attack on the Blazebringers forces.

 

Grud decided to leave the patrols alone for the moment in order to give his men some time to rest, he did not want the enemy getting suspicious about their patrols not reporting in.

 

With his night vision and enhanced senses, it was child’s play for Grud to sneak around and make his way to the Swiftwind & Greatlake forces encircling the Fangfall village.

 

At first, Grud was planning to assist the Wisperwind village, but due to the other leaders wanting to wait a day for more people to bolster their forces, he changed his mind and went with the harassing plan. 

 

As for choosing which force he would join, Grud decided to assist the Fangfall village because it was being attacked by two big villages and thought it prudent to assist them in case they heard of the upcoming attack on the Whisperwind village and decided to take any drastic actions.

 

Grud’s hope was that he and his men would be considered a big enough threat that they would have more of their forces paying attention to him instead of the village.

 

When Grud got to a vantage point at the top of a tall tree overlooking the encirclement, he looked down over the enemy and saw two torch-lit camps surrounding the Fangfall village, and unlike the Blazebringers who just had one banner marking their portion of the camp, the two camps had their banners posted all over the place.

 

On the east side, Grud recognized the banner belonging to the Swiftwind forces, while the west side’s banner belonged to the Greatlake’s forces. And where the two forces completed the encirclement at the north and south, there was a larger concentration of both side’s forces than normal.

 

‘It seems like they do not like or trust each other, i may be able to make use of this.’ Grud thought to himself as a plan started coming together in his head.

 

***

 

Deep in the night, at the Swiftwind’s camp, on the southern side of the siege of the Fangfall village, two men Joza and Motok were sharing a tent, deep asleep, waiting for someone to wake them up for the next guard shift. 

 

As they slept, oblivious to the world around them, a figure loomed over them, dagger drawn.

 

As Joza was snoring peacefully, he suddenly snorted awake, or at least he tried to. He woke up to his nose pinched close and mouth covered. 

 

When he tried to flail around, he realized he could not, like something unseen was holding his wrists and ankles to the ground. 

 

Just as Joza was about to try and buck his hips in order to try to free his body, he felt something run across his throat. 

 

Joza tried to scream, but the only thing he heard and felt was gurgling as he felt something wet trickle down around his throat. 

 

As Joza ineffectively struggled, he felt his strength rapidly leave his body as he felt himself growing cold, and just like that, he passed from this world.

 

“Shut up and stop moving around Joza… trying to sleep here.” Motok grumbled half asleep, not knowing of the death that just took place next to him. And that would be the last mistake he would ever make.

 

Motok was rudely awakened by a hand that was not his covering his mouth, immediately followed by stabbing pain in his chest, because that was what it was. The last thing Motok saw was an ominous figure looming over him, repeatedly driving a blade into his chest.

 

Motok died soon after.

 

When the dagger wielding ominous figure confirmed the two men were dead, it soaked a piece of fur in as much blood as possible, dipped its feet in the puddle of blood, and sneaked out of the camp, leaving a trail of bloody footprints and dripping blood towards the Greatlake’s camp.

 

***

 

Grud stuck to the shadows as he shifted between the shadows cast by the tents. It was a pain in the ass, but Grud was forced to keep himself in a crouched position while sneaking around. 

 

After making the bloody tracks that led to the Greatlake’s camp, Grud wrapped up the blood dripping fur piece in some leather and used his drinking water to wash off his blood stained feet before doing more sneaking to escape the camp he just snuck into.

 

With his enhanced senses and some telekinesis to create distractions, it was child’s play for Grud to escape the Greatlake’s camp undetected.

 

As Grud was halfway to the tree line, he heard the first shout of “Murder!” echoing out of the Swiftwind’s camp.

 

Not wanting to be caught out in the open, Grud used the cover of night and sprinted into the woods and into a tree to observe his handy work.

 

In the distance from his perch, Grud heard the shouting get louder as more torches were lit and converged on the tent he killed the two men in their tent.

 

This commotion in the Swiftwind’s camp caught the attention of the sentries on the Greatlake’s side and more people were woken up in case something happened.

 

Soon enough, Grud saw that they found the blood trail he left behind and followed it with a bunch of armed men. This trail led to the Greatlake’s side and the men following the trail were naturally stopped from entering the Greatlake’s camp to follow the trail.

 

An argument ensued with a few men from the Swiftwind side acting and posturing aggressively. Grud was too far away to hear what they were saying, but whatever insults they traded caused bows to be drawn on both sides as they tried to shout each other down.

 

Then it happened. As they were posturing, taunting, and trying to be as intimidating as possible. Apparently, one of the men on the Swiftwind side was doing too good a job at being intimidating and caught an arrow to his chest for his troubles. 

 

There was a second of stunned silence before someone on the Swiftwind let out a war cry and released his arrow. 

 

From there it was a shitshow. As the shouting got louder, more people on both sides got out of their tents and joined in the fight, only knowing that their side had been wronged, blood had been spilled, and they needed to defend the honor and reputation of their village.

 

By the time the higher-ups from both sides got on the scene to get everyone to stand down, there were dozens of men dead or injured. 

 

Seeing that his plan worked, Grud had half a mind to attempt the same thing on the North side, but decided against it, he was starting to get tired and the enemy was now on high alert. So Grud headed back to his men to turn in for the night.