Chapter 110: The Great March of the Black Skull Tribe
The smoke rising from the crater still tainted the air of the defile when the Black Skull Tribe’s shaman took two steps back, clenching his fists in a trembling rage. The faces of the thirty warriors escorting him were pale, covered in the cold sweat of panic after witnessing the mangled remains of Kaelen and his troop.
"Fall back! Everyone return to camp!" shouted the shaman, his raspy voice echoing with desperation through the canyon.
Without wasting a single minute, the party began a hasty retreat toward the central bastion. As they passed through the thick dark-wood palisades, chaos gripped the compound. The hunters and guards watching over the slave cages looked on in bewilderment at the return of their spiritual leader.
The shaman leaped onto the elevated stone altar in the center of the village, raising the blue-gemmed skull above his head while releasing a dense cloud of greenish vapor from his throat.
"Listen, all warriors of the Black Skull!" shouted the shaman, causing the general murmur to cease. "The southern rats are no mere hunters! They have a thunder demon on their side that has torn Kaelen and twenty of our best men to pieces without even touching their swords!"
A murmur of terror ran through the ranks of the warriors. The tribe’s women pressed their children against their chests, while the armed men exchanged doubt-filled glances.
"But we will not hide like cowards!" roared the shaman, thrashing his arms as the floating skull began to emit a high-pitched hum. "If we do not destroy them today, that fire will come to consume me, you, and everything we have built! Bring the iron weapons! Release the war hounds! We will march with every man capable of wielding a blade!"
In a matter of minutes, the camp turned into a hive of frantic activity. The remaining one hundred and sixty warriors rushed to don their cuirasses, adjusting their iron-reinforced shields and sharpening their broadswords. The fear of the unknown was temporarily replaced by a bloodthirsty frenzy driven by their shaman’s magical poison.
"Leave four guards at the slave cages," said the shaman, pointing toward the youngest warriors. "The rest will march with me. We will raze that valley before they have time to set another trap."
The wooden gates of the bastion swung wide open. The imposing column of one hundred and sixty barbarians, armed to the teeth, began advancing at a forced march through the arid terrain, led by the shaman guided by the skull’s bluish glow.
Brak ran without stopping throughout the entire night, gritting his teeth and squeezing every last drop of energy from his legs. The freezing morning air burned his lungs, but the terror of being overtaken and the adrenaline from the slaughter he had just witnessed kept him on his feet.
When the first rays of sunlight illuminated the entrance of the village, Kellar’s people were already preparing to head out for the next batch of saltpeter and resin. The nobles held the pull bars of the wheeled carts while Lennis checked the axles. However, seeing Brak emerge from the fog running blindly and stumbling over the snow, everyone stopped dead in their tracks.
"Shaman! Great Shaman!" shouted Brak, falling to his knees in front of Kellar, exhausted and with chapped lips from the cold.
Kellar approached quickly, helping him up as Krag and the hunters surrounded them with concern.
"Easy, Brak," said Kellar, handing him a jar of water. "Catch your breath. What happened in the defile?"
"They came... there were twenty elite warriors led by a commander in iron armor," said Brak, pausing to swallow hard. "I detonated both charges as you ordered. The explosion destroyed the column completely. The leader was severely wounded among the rocks... and I finished him off with an explosive bolt before they could react. I left no one alive."
A murmur of wonder and relief swept through the hunters. Kellar nodded with a broad smile of satisfaction.
"Excellent work, Brak," said Kellar, looking toward the troop. "With their commander dead and twenty warriors down, those bastards will think twice before coming close. We should be safe for a good while as we organize the rest of our defenses."
"No, Great Shaman," said Krag, stepping forward with a somber gaze and a voice with a gravity that silenced the plaza. "Those dogs from the Black Skull feel no fear like ordinary men. I’ve fought them in the past. When they suffer a humiliation like this, they don’t hide—they go mad."
Krag tightened his grip on the handle of his great war mallet, looking north toward the mountains.
"Furthermore, their shaman uses dark magic to track the blood of their fallen," said Krag, turning to face Kellar. "I am certain that by this hour they already know their people died here. They aren’t going to send another patrol... they will come with their full force in total war to raze this village."
Kellar listened to the veteran’s words, and his smile vanished, replaced by a cold, calculating gaze.
"Understood," said Kellar, crossing his arms as his mind evaluated the new tactical variables. "If they are coming with their entire army, we won’t wait for them in open ground. We will make every meter they advance into our territory a living hell."
Without losing a single second, Kellar canceled the harvesting expedition and redistributed the entire tribe to set up a defense in depth perimeter.
The first line of defense was set up in the Forest surrounding the approaches to the village. Mentz and his workers dug deep pits camouflaged with branches and snow, filling the bottom with the remaining explosive jars and sharpened wooden stakes. Any enemy attempting to flank the village through the trees would step onto the hidden fuses.
However, the real trap was set inside the settlement itself.
"Lennis, Mentz," said Kellar, pointing to the old wooden and hide huts of the former abandoned settlement, located on the higher ground. "I want you to modify the front walls of those huts. Dismantle the boards and cover the openings with thin layers of deer hide."
Under Kellar’s orders, the hunters installed heavy crossbows and artillery charges inside the old huts, hidden behind the fabrics. From the defile, the old village would appear to be a helpless settlement with terrified people hiding inside; furthermore, the higher elevation prevented the enemy from spotting the new wooden houses built down below. The old structures had been turned into camouflaged firing bunkers with a superior vantage point.
"When the Black Skull horde breaks through the old gates and crowds into the center of the plaza believing they have us cornered..." said Kellar, looking over the yard from above with cold satisfaction, "the hides will drop, and we will riddle them from above at point-blank range from every angle, keeping our new facilities untouched."
By midday, the forest traps were ready, the wheeled carts were positioned behind the upper huts as a mobile reserve, and the eleven hunters took up their firing positions in the old settlement. The Overlord Tribe was not going to risk its new home: it had turned its old ruins into a lethal trap.