Chapter 28: History
All the people inside the tent stared at Alfred confused about his question, then they remembered that Alfred was not originally part of their tribe. They stared at each other as if asking one another if it was okay to tell Alfred this history of the tribe.
"You all can go now, let me be the one to fill in young Alfred, I think he has the right to know this part of our history, after all, he is one of us now." Chief Viren volunteered.
The other 3 agreed with Chief Viren, thus, they all left the tent leaving the two on their own. Chief Viren coughed first then looked at Alfred with a serious face.
"You must listen very carefully young Alfred, this is the only time that I will tell you this history because this story is the darkest moment of our Tribe and my deepest regret."
Alfred couldn't help but swallowed his own saliva out of nervousness.
"In the past, the Arrows always brought an injured outsider back into our tribe to help them recuperate, this was a very normal thing to do for us because our ancestors always help those outsiders treat their wounds if they ever found an injured one in the forest.
Most of the time a lot of these people would leave to go back to their own tribe, but some would decide to stay in our tribe. However, this naive mindset led us to the darkest time in our tribe. 5 cycles ago (1 Cycle = 1 year), one group of the Arrows brought back an injured outsider into our tribe.
Of course, like we always do, we treat the injury of this person until he was back to full health, this person decided to stay in our tribe saying that he has nowhere to go, and we accepted him as one of us. This person lived with us for a very long time, he even became part of the Arrows.
One day, After the Arrows left the tribe including Vir and that person to hunt. That person returned earlier than the others, but that person did not return alone, he brought back a group of unknown hunters to our tribe.
These unknown hunters were from the Blood Tribe, we have no idea that the person we treat as one of us was a part of another tribe, he just joined our tribe to gather some information, so, they would know when to attack us. The Chieftain of the Blood Tribe was the one leading the attack, he demanded to us that we should surrender if we want to live.
Of course, I refused this demand. After that, a fight instantly broke out, luckily at that time we still had a lot of hunters to fight the Blood Tribe. The Chieftain of the Blood Tribe and I fought each other, our strengths are almost similar.
Even though a lot of the Arrows fought back with their life, the enemy was just too many for us to handle. Those Blood Tribe who have no one to fight them started killing the people who cannot fight back. My wife Arnit and my eldest daughter Ankur tried to save the lives of our tribesmen, they were also strong hunters.
They fought back against the people who were trying to slaughter our tribesmen. Regardless of their effort, a lot of tribesmen still died in the hands of the Blood Tribe. After a while, I finally killed the Chieftain of the Blood Tribe but I did not leave without injury.
I am seriously injured after the fight with the Chieftain. However, because of my worried for my family, I still forced my body to move to look for them. Even so, I was too late when I found them, my wife was already on the ground dead, and my oldest daughter was stabbed by the person who started this war.
In my anger, I ignored my wounds and rushed to that person, we fought each other to kill. I dealt a serious injury to that person by slashing him with my spear from his chest to his stomach, but that was not enough to kill him.
Finally, my body gave out, it was deteriorating faster than I expected. That person hesitated to fight me again because of the serious injury he received. Yet, when he saw me fall down and unable to get up again, he slowly walked toward me with the intention to kill.
Thankfully, Vir's group finally returned, then they immediately fought the outsider who was killing our tribesmen indiscriminately. When Vir found us, I am already on the ground beside me standing was the person who caused that madness.
That person hastily ran when he saw Vir, Vir tried to chase him but stopped when he saw my oldest daughter who was also his wife, was slowly bleeding out. Vir tried to save her by stopping the bleeding, but it was too late, she already lost too much blood.
We successfully defended the tribe against the Blood Tribe. Still, on that day, almost half of our tribesmen died. My only family who remained alive was my younger daughter Aponi, also after that day I treated Vir as my own son and Vir treated me as his own father."
Alfred's eyes reddened, he felt the sadness in Chief Viren's voice while telling the story. Alfred finally understood now why the tribesmen hated him when he first arrived at the tribe.
"May I ask why did the Arrows bring me back here if they hated the outsider?"
"You are just lucky, the one who found you was Armani, he thought that if you are from the Blood Tribe, we could gain some information about them, but to our surprise, you have the parchment containing the ancient language with you. Therefore, we tried to befriend you so we can get an honest answer."
"I see, how do you know that I am not from the Blood Tribe?"
"You are too soft and naïve, if you are from the Blood Tribe you will be already dead by now."
"What if I am just pretending to gain your sympathy?"
"Haha, look how naïve you are, do you think we are easy to fool? Of course, we observe your every move before arriving at that conclusion."
Alfred scratched his head with embarrassment.
"Then one last thing, you said that Vir is not your real son?"
"Yes, he is the husband of my late daughter. Vir is also the son or adopted son of the previous Chief of our tribe."
"Adopted?"
"We found Vir in the forest while he was still a baby, we do not know how he survived in the forest, but we cannot bear to see a baby to be eaten by a monster, so, we brought him back to the tribe, then the Chieftain decided to adopt him as his own child."
"You mean Head Arrow Vir is also an outsider?"
"You can say that. Do you have any more questions?"
"No, I do not, thank you for telling me this."
Alfred stood up, he walked outside while dazed because of the revelation he learned, he needed time to process this information. Therefore, he went straight to his tent to thought about it deeply. Vir went straight to Dara after the meeting was concluded, and he gave Dara the answer that she has been waiting for.
When Dara found out about the Elders' decision she smiled widely, thank Vir, and immediately ran to her people to inform them of this good news. The people of Dara were finally able to relax when they heard the news, they wanted to celebrate but Dara said to keep it a secret, for now, the Elders would announce it later.
When the night came, The Elders gathered all the tribesmen in the biggest open area of the tribe. In the middle of this open area was a bonfire that illuminate the surrounding area, tribesmen were gathered in front of this bonfire waiting for the Elders' announcement.
"Sorry for keeping all of you waiting, we gathered you here for 2 reasons. Firstly, the people that Vir brought back with him are now joining our tribe." Chief Viren announced
The tribesmen started whispering with each other when they heard this.
"Silence! I know that a lot of you are concerned about suddenly living with a lot of unknown people but look at them, a lot of them are children and elderly, their tribe was destroyed by the same tribe that killed half of our tribesmen, they have nowhere to go.
However, that is not the only reason why I accept them into our tribe. These people can solve the food crisis of our tribe. Therefore, I am asking you as your Chieftain to treat them well or at least get to know them first before we judge them."
The tribesmen started to whisper again to each other, but this time Chief Viren let them. When the tribesmen heard that the new people had the solution to their food problem, they started to see them in a different light. After a while, Chief Viren raised his right hand signaling them to quiet down.
"If there is anyone who has concerned speak now."
"Chieftain, how can be sure that they will not attack us while we sleeping." One of the tribesmen spoke his concern.
"That is a reasonable concern."
Chief Viren shifted his attention to the new people.
"How can you reassure my people that you will not attack them?"
Without a delay, Dara walked forward.
"I, Dara, will give my vow to all Guardian Tree that I will not attack the people of this tribe, and treat them as my own people."
In this world making a vow to the Guardian Tree was sacred, they believed that whoever broke their vow would lose the protection of the Guardian Tree and would die miserably. Therefore, they treat this vow very seriously.
After Dara finished her vow to the Guardian Tree, all the people behind her followed suit. The tribesmen were now more reassured when they saw the new people vowing to the Guardian Tree. The Elders were satisfied with this action, it just showed how serious Dara was about joining the tribe.
"Is there any more concern? If not, I will continue to my second agenda." Chief Viren asked again.
After a few minutes, there was still no one who spoke. Thus, Chief Viren continued.
"Now, for the second reason, to give our respect to the hunters that lost their lives for the tribe, they are the reason why our tribe was still here, let us give them a few seconds of silence to remember the bravery of this hunters.
All the tribesmen became silent, and the family of the hunters that died in the hunt started crying when they remembered their faces. After a few seconds, Chief Viren spoke again after the family of the deceased hunter calm down."
"We must not stay sad, they did not sacrifice their life for us to become depressed, they sacrifice it to protect the tribe and their family, we must show them that we are grateful. Tonight, we will rest while remembering those fallen hunters within our hearts, I hope for one last time, they showed up to our dreams and say their final goodbye.
Tomorrow, we will offer the Life Stone to the Guardian Tree to show it our gratitude for protecting our tribe."