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Deep in the night, at a small village, two guards were standing watch atop the walls of their village, staring out into the night and making small talk to pass the time.
Guard 1: "So, any news so far about those three traitor villages?"
Guard 2: "No updates so far, last I heard, they were gathering forces at the traitor villages. My guess is that once they are ready, they are going after the four big villages, that's when the real fighting will start."
Guard 1: "Yeah… luckily I was one of those tasked with bringing back the slaves before the Blazebringer forces and our men got attacked, only Joga made it back alive to tell us what happened."
Guard 2: *Sigh* "Yeah, we lost a good chunk of our warriors that day."
Guard 1: "Hey, cheer up, thanks to that, we both got women who needed a husband and got another wife. Not to mention the slaves we get to use anytime… speaking slaves, want to go to The Hut after our shift, it should be available for our use."
Guard 2: "But the slaves are sleeping."
Guard 1: "Who cares, there is a reason they are called slaves, they are here to serve us, and if I want to empty my balls in the dead of night, they are going to take my seed whether they are asleep or no-."
Just as the guard was about to finish his sentence, huge hands grabbed the two guards' necks from behind and lifted them off the ground, and with the strong fingers digging into their windpipes, they could not shout any warning and reached for their weapons.
But as their hands reached for the knives at their waist, the huge hands suddenly tightened their grip with crushing force and crushed the guards' necks.
***
Grud dropped the bodies of the two guards whose necks he had just crushed. He then made his way down to the main gate, easily lifted the barricade bar that usually needed the strength of two men, and opened the gate.
The moment the gates were opened, out from the treeline, Grud's fellow tribesmen and village allies made their way into the village as silently as they could, then the men would position themselves in front of each house and get ready for the signal.
That signal was Grud kicking in the wooden door of the house he chose and rushing inside with his long dagger drawn.
The moment they entered the houses, they rushed into every room they could find and dragged the occupants out of their homes, with extreme force if necessary.
Soon, all the residences of the small village were rounded up at the village square, and as Grud was done with his house, he heard someone call out from the far end of the village, "Found them!" and Grud quickly made his way toward the voice.
When Grud reached where the voice came from, he arrived in front of a small hut, and inside that hut were five scared and naked tribeswomen huddling in a corner and they did not look to be in the best of health. All of them had rope tied around their necks like a leash, were covered in bruises and abrasions, slightly malnourished, and had small baby bumps.
Once again, Grud was furious with rage at the scene. This was not the first small village on their list that he had witnessed this.
After rescuing the tribeswomen from the first few small villages, they learned that the Borak, the firstborn son of Voka, from the Blazebringer village, sent messengers to many small and medium villages promising spoils of war when they raided the new tribes, and that included slaves.
Most of the captured tribeswomen were distributed as slaves among the villages who willingly took part in the siege of the Riversong village, while the tribesmen, children, and some of the tribeswomen went to the main siege to satisfy their warriors and taunt the Riversong village.
Upon reaching the village the tribeswomen slaves would either join the village chief's harem, be given as a personal slave to their village warriors, or in this case, become a tool of sexual relief for the men in the village.
Learning of this news enraged the tribesmen even more and they swore this would be repaired tenfold. From there, they broke up into smaller raiding parties and targeted every village of every enemy body they recognized after breaking the siege.
Grud slowly approached the frightened tribeswomen, and said as calmly as he could, "I am Chieftain Grud of the Rock Claw tribe, we are here to rescue you."
Hearing this, the tribeswomen slowly snapped out of their fear and looked around to see other tribesmen and broke down crying in relief. There were none among the Newland tribes that did not know of Grud, they had heard great things of his exploits and strength, and also because they had to go through this tribe to get to the Newlands in the first place.
Soon some clothes were brought for the tribeswomen to wear and they were escorted toward the entrance of the village, as Grud and the rescued tribeswomen came into view of the rounded-up villagers, he loudly said, "Kill any men and boy fit enough to wield a weapon, tie up the women and children, and bring them back to the Riversong village."
The moment Grud said that, the tribesmen descended on the rounded-up villagers, dragging the men and male teenagers out of the village walls as they were put to death. The only small mercy Grud would show them was to not let the women and children see the execution of their fathers, brothers, and sons. Grud would have liked to spare the young teenage men, but he could not risk them being a danger to them while the women and young children were being transported.
But despite the lamentation of the village women, they knew that this was the way of things, as some of them were slaves from fights between villages or descended from slaves, and seeing the rescued tribeswomen being escorted out by their people, the women villagers knew what their future entailed. The strong conquer, the weak submit.
The only thing they could do was ease the crying of their children as they were tied up and marched out into the night.
***
Over the next month, Grud and his raiding party continued taking down village after village in much the same way, silently infiltrating at night to take out the guards and enter the villages to surprise them in their beds.
This strategy mainly worked because the small villages had their guard down, they thought they would be forewarned in the case Grud's army made a move and had some time to escape to safety. Unfortunately for them, the first thing Grud's army did before the bulk of the forces moved out, was hunt down and kill all the people sent to spy on their movements.
But recently, Grud had noticed the villages had become a lot more vigilant, their guard was doubled and so were the torches. It got to the point that on one occasion, Grud could not silently take down all the guards, resulting in a messy fight that resulted in some of his men dying.
This forced Grud to bring along some of his men on the infiltration, increasing the risk of being discovered, Grud had to literally throw his men up to the wall to make a quick infiltration, after that, it was the same procedure, kill the guards and open the gates.
Wanting to know why security had increased, Grud interrogated some of the men and learned that they assumed something big was coming due to all the men they sent out to check on his movements never returning.
Grud sighed at the inconvenience but sucked it up and carried on.
***
As Grud's people struck more village names off of their grudge list, they entered the area where the mid-sized villages were, and the raiding parties that were split up eventually got so close to each other that they just decided to merge back into a few larger groups.
The guides from the Riversong village accompanying Grud's men recommended that from this point onward, they should watch who they attack to avoid conflict with the mid-sized villages that did not seem to have any part of the attack on them.
That was why Grud was slightly confused by the news one of the scouts brought back, "Chieften Grud, there seems to be a group of what looks to be a bunch of Witch Doctors, accompanied by warriors in full copper armor."
"What are they doing?" Grud asked.
The scout made a face like he was trying hard to think up an answer before saying, "They are just sitting there… it was weird… they had a canopy set up and were sitting facing our direction while drinking tea. It looks like they were waiting for us."
Grud scratched his beard which had grown rather unruly, "Hmmm… sounds like a trap."
"That's what we thought too, but after searching the surroundings, there was nobody waiting in ambush." the scout reported.
After more beard scratching while contemplating the situation, Grud said, "Witch Doctors… if they are anything like us shamans, they may have sensed an omen of us coming… I will go talk with them."
As Grud stood up, the group of tribesmen that usually accompanied Grud around lately also got up to follow, but Grud turned to them and said, "Alone." and then asked the scout to lead the way.
After some walking, Grud came upon a clearing, and as the scout said, they had a canopy set up, and under that canopy was a cadre of copper-clad warriors guarding seven Witch Doctors bedecked in skulls, feathers, and bones, sitting on a cushion atop a well-designed mat, and in front of the seven Witch Doctors was an identical cushion and mat.
As Grud closed in on the Witch Doctors he noticed they ranged in age from early 50s all the way to decrepit like Chief Shaman Zargall, who still refuses to kick the bucket.
Grud closed the distance and stood before the empty cushion, that was when the old lady who looked to be the second oldest, whom Grud estimated to be in her 80s spoke, "Welcome powerful one, this gathering of Elder Witch Doctors greets you." the Elder Witch Doctors gave a small bow of their heads, all except the oldest and most decrepit Elder Witch Doctors who looked like he did not know where he was or what he was doing.
The old lady Witch Doctor, gestured to the cushion in front of Grud and said, "Please, take a seat powerful one. We have much to discuss."