The mood was somber. Everyone was dejected. The small victories they had gained were now almost useless. Eskaria tried to fake being affected by what had happened, but her father could see through it. Reeve was not really sad, but he wasn't happy either. The rest of the tribe felt terribly sad.
So, what had caused this sad, somber mood? Oh, nothing much. The Southern Water tribe had arrested Karim, just after Mrak and Reeve had left for the negotiations. An army commander of the Three Kingdoms Alliance had personally led a few troops to make the arrest. Ridiculous, wasn't it?
After arresting Karim, the commander had left a letter from the Southern Water tribe. This letter informed Mrak that the tribute arrears he had, were now required in two weeks. And that wasn't the only problem. After paying the arrears, their tribute had been increased as well.
There were multiple solutions to this problem, but there was only one effective one, and no one wanted to do it. They could just pay the gold, after all, one thousand gold coins wasn't much to them. Well, the problem wasn't the gold. The problem was the motive behind being forced to pay gold for no absolute reason. Confused? So was Reeve.
He grimaced as he made the decision. If they didn't strike while the iron was still hot, then their negotiations would have been for naught. They had the element of surprise, considering the Southern Water tribe didn't know about their alliance. However, he didn't know if the other tribes would agree to this. It was too sudden after all.
"Is there anything that can cause explosions? Or anything that burns … wait a minute … is there a bog anywhere near the tribe?" asked Reeve.
"Yes, Sir Reeve. There's a bog at the end of the forest, towards the south eastern side", said Mrak, pointing in the direction of the Southern Water tribe.
Reeve smiled, before saying, "Now, I have a plan. It's payback time!"
The first thing they did, was to talk to the tribes which had agreed to participate in the rebellion. All the tribes agreed to help in the plan Reeve had come up with. To prevent the plan from leaking, Reeve made sure that only the tribe chiefs were allowed to know about it. He ended up selecting a few people from each tribe, and together they went to where the bog was.
After arriving at the bog, Reeve discovered that there was bamboo growing at the edge of the bog. Seeing this, he was even more thrilled! He ordered the men to cut down the bamboo, and then cut them into smaller, hollow pieces. He went closer to the bog, and then smelled the air. After confirming what he was looking for, he instructed the men to cover up one end of the pipes with mud from the bog.
When they were done covering up the pipes, they inserted them at the shallow end of the bog, with the covered side outside the murky water, and the open side in the water. Of course, the men were confused as to how this was supposed to help fight against the Southern Water tribe. After all, they weren't aware of the plan.
After waiting for a full day, they went to the bog to retrieve the pipes. Reeve instructed them to carefully retrieve the pipes, and then cover up the open side once they had taken the pipe out of the water. Everything went smoothly, from Reeve's perspective of course. After covering up, they put a small thread in each pipe, through the mud covering the openings.
"Umm, Sir Reeve, what do we do with these things?" asked Mrak, as he looked at the pipes.
"Now, we need to proceed to phase two of the plan. We need to lure the warriors from the Southern Water tribe away from their village. While they are away, some of us will launch a sneak attack on the village, using these weapons", explained Reeve, while pointing at the sealed pipes.
The other chiefs looked at each other. How were wood pipes considered weapons? It was Myris who asked the question.
"Don't worry. If you follow my instruction clearly, you'll see their might!" Reeve responded with a thorough conviction.
Reeve ended up splitting the warriors into two camps. One camp was the main force, and it was made up of warriors from all the tribes. Their major purpose was to confront the warriors from the Southern Water tribe. The other warriors were given robes like those worn by rich merchants as disguises so that they could go and cause confusion within the village. They spent an entire week making weapons for all the warriors who were supposed to be fighting. Altogether, they had close to three hundred warriors. However, most of the warriors were not highly trained. In fact, some of them were bakers, miners and storekeepers! Only a handful were trained warriors.
The warriors woke up early in the morning, after a week had passed, and the disguised warriors set off on a journey to the Southern Water tribe. The rest of the warriors followed afterwards. As for the chiefs, they were being ferried to the battlefield by carriages. Reeve acted all this time as the coordinator. Of course, he had instructed the disguised merchants from the Southern Earth tribe to rescue Karim after planting the weapons, during the confusion. That was their major mission. Despite thinking of himself as a terrible strategist, Reeve was actually surprised that he had managed to come up with a plan like this. After arriving at the chosen location, a warrior blew a trumpet signaling that a battle was about to begin.
In the Southern Water tribe, a few merchants arrived. The merchants were nervous, but the guards didn't see anything fishy about them. Well, even if they did, they were not paying much attention, therefore they wouldn't put it to mind.
The elders of the Southern Water tribe were particularly happy. They had captured Karim, the person who tried to incite a rebellion. He was currently being held in a dungeon.