Damon turned around but couldn’t see anyone, when he tried to locate the noise, it seemed to come from the village moat. Damon decided to head back to his hut. He’d learned his lesson back in the viscount’s territory. There was no need to get involved in unnecessary matters.

However, a few minutes after lying back on his bed the commotion grew louder. Now that it seemed to involve everyone in the tribe Damon begrudgingly came out of his hut. When he approached the village square, he saw that someone had lit a fire on the moat. The shadows of a few tribesmen could be seen gathered around it. Before he could ask any question to the other spectators Louis yelled, “Everyone get your weapons, the purple mouth tribe will attack.”

Damon’s ears twitched. Although this was something of great concern, he couldn’t care less for the village. For him this was an opportunity to take back his goods. First, he headed back to his hut and got his spear just in case anyone asked why he didn’t have a weapon.

When he retrieved his spear, he activated his shadow meld, and ran to the chief’s hut. But first he made sure they weren’t inside by doing a quick scan outside. He soon found the chief standing next to Louis on the wall with his three women. Although he didn’t see Gerald, he shouldn’t be in the hut without his father.

Inside the chief’s hut, he still couldn’t find his bag. It wasn’t hung on any walls nor stored in dark corners of the room. The only thing he could think of was a trap door under the chief’s fur carpet. He moved it out the way and there it was, like a proper movie or video game.

Damon pried open the trap door and there, in the small dug out he found the blade used to mark his chest, a few odd items he didn’t recognize, and his bag. He opened it and saw that someone had rummaged through it, but nothing went missing. He grabbed four monsters attracting vials, ran back to his house and buried them under his straw bed. There wasn’t anything else of value in the bag, so it was better to leave it. He wasn’t planning on making his escape right away since an opportunity to gain experience points had arrived.

When Damon ran back to the wall Gerald called out to him, “Where were you? We are being attacked.”

“How many?” asked Damon.

“They sent five hunters. It’s a skirmishing party.”

Damon thought about it for a second, if neither tribe had magic and fought with crude weapons, the casualties and death tolsl should be rather high and equal. As such these five hunters should still be a rather large force for them. If that was the case, they would probably send an even larger force to make the most of this attack, unless they planned to attack and retreat without engaging.

But the enemies shouldn’t attack with everything they had; it would be paramount to mutually assured destruction. Well, Damon couldn’t be certain since he knew nothing of the enemy.

“Gerald, how many elves does the purple mouth tribe have?”

Gerald thought for a second, “I don’t know, maybe a hundred, they are the biggest tribe in the swamp.”

Damon almost spat out blood. “Why are they attacking us?” What was to gain in annexing this worthless piece of swamp?

“I don’t know.”

Of course, he didn’t. Damon sighed at the fact that these elves probably didn’t even know what intelligence gathering meant. Why did he have to be captured by such a weak tribe? At this rate he wouldn’t even need to use his beast attracting potions. “Are they the ones who attacked us before I arrived?” asked Damon.

“No, it was the Felts who did. They wanted our territory since there weren’t many beasts left near their village.”

In an instant Damon learned the intricate workings of the tribes; there weren't any. Who knows, maybe this big tribe was getting too big for their original territory. He couldn’t imagine this swamp supporting more than a couple thousand people. That still meant there might be more than twenty tribes here. But still he didn’t know if that was the case, this place might not support more than a thousand elves.

“Archers line up!” yelled the chief. “Release.” He shouted after a few seconds.

In that instant twenty archers, who were all women released their stone arrows. They didn’t fly far, around fifteen metres and most of them missed their targets. Those that did hit bounced off the warrior’s armour since they were still out of their effective range.

Damon suspected that more purple mouths would come from the back, but he stood silently on the mud wall with the other tribesmen. He made sure to be in the front, in case that potential sneak attack came to be. As long as he could see the arrow, or sword come, a nice earth wall would easily deflect anything these people could throw at him.

The five purple mouth warriors started to throw fist-sized rocks at the tribesmen. Damon didn’t move. Most of the rocks went high or low, and the few which were on target could easily be dodged.

The archers kept firing their arrows. However, it did no good. The enemy warriors stayed out of range. Seeing this the chief pointed out ten men, including Damon to go and attack the five men below. The chief had took the bait. The chief appointed Gerald as the leader of the group. Damon decided that this would be the best time to use his magic. If he waited to use it after casualties were taken, he might be hated for not using it earlier.

Gerald’s group brandished their spears and wooden maces, screamed, and charged at what Damon guessed were decoys. When Damon came within five metres of an enemy with a spear brandished towards him. Damon showed him the palm of his hand and yelled in an exaggerated manner, “Stone spear.” The newly materialized stone hit the enemies face. He stumbled, and Damon pierced his unprotected neck with his spear.

Everyone on the small battlefield froze. One group due to their amazement and the other due to their fear. In unison, everyone yelled, “Magic.”

It seemed that they’d heard of it, although Damon didn’t know how. Especially since they hadn’t didn't know of humans. But then again, they had a metal tool. There were more than a few mysteries in this forest. However, this would make the whole procedure for Damon much easier.

While the enemies were still in shock, Damon pierced another warrior’s neck. This made everyone else snap back to reality. The remaining enemy warriors surrounded Damon. However, this let Gerald and the others flank the enemy and make short work of them.

When Gerald was about to give the order to scout the surroundings for more enemies, screams and yells erupted in the village. Damon recognized one of them.

“Louis!” yelled Gerald. Everyone ran back to the village.

When they entered the village, they saw Louis fighting alongside one other tribesmen against five enemy warriors. They seemed to have scaled the other side of the village wall. Behind them five enemy archers were pelting arrows onto the defending archers and Louis.

Damon looked around and found the chief lying on the soil. He had an arrow in his neck, another in the back of his knee and three others in his surroundings, no doubt having barely missed or bounced off his leather armour.

Louis had taken Damon’s sword which had been in the chief’s hands and used it to cut down two of the three enemies. Before Gerald and the others could reach him. An arrow from the now two enemy archers pierced Louis’s tibia. This made him lose the strength and prevented him from moving move away from a blow of an enemy warrior. That’s when a stone mace cracked open his skull. When Damon came into range, the two remaining enemy archers had been dealt with by his tribe’s archers, so he used a stone spike to impale the man next to the one who killed Louis. Gerald took Damon’s sword from the hands of his dead brother and cut the head off his brother’s killer.

He promptly fell to his knees and hugged his brother with teary eyes. Louis’ two wives ran from the archer formation and clung to him. The chief’s wives did the same to their late husband and the other villagers stood they’re in shock. Although they’d no doubt suffered losses in the past. To lose the chief and the potential future chief could be seen as a death blow to a tribe.

While Gerald mourned the loss of his brother and father, Damon turned to the remaining members of the tribe. He pointed to five hunters and said, “You five, patrol the north and east-facing walls. The other five take the west and south. We don’t know if there’s anyone else. If anyone attacks someone else’s position do not move. The archers will move to assist them. We don’t know if they’re planning another sneak attack.”

In this difficult time, they’d listen to anyone who gave them orders.

Next Damon pointed to four archers, “Go help the mourning and store our chiefs’ who honourably gave up their lives for ours. The rest of you spread out equally on the walls and be ready to assist the group of hunters who need it. I will go and make sure no one is hiding in the village.”

Damon ran to each hut and made sure no ambush groups remained. He took this role to see if it would help counterbalance his low charisma score. Strike while the iron is hot after all. Plus, if it all went well and he could get rid of Gerald, he might be able to get back his sword and the title of chief.

Speaking of striking while the iron is hot. This would be the perfect time to use his vials. By attracting monsters here, not only would he snuff out any enemies hiding in the forest, but any opposition to his future position. He grabbed the four vials he hid under his bed, removed the cork which sealed the liquid inside and poured three in the shade of an isolated hut.

Now done with the first step, he went up to Gerald, “I’m sorry for your loss. Your family accepted me into your tribe and gave me a new hope in life. I’m sure they’ll look forward to the day when you become a great chief.”

Gerald nodded. “Go overlook the moat, I have to place them in my father’s house for now.”

Damon nodded and poured a bit of the potion on Gerald’s back. Now that this affair was finished, he went to the wall, ran to a hunter, strained his memory for a name and said, “François, did you see anything.”

The hunter shook his head, his rigid body and the sweat forming on his brow showed his anxiety. He couldn’t be trusted in such a crucial moment, Damon decided not to assign him with any high-ranking position in the future. As such Damon decided to go through the nine other hunters and identify everyone with talent. With this he identified two potential candidates. They were Canva, Philip, and Dominique.

Next were the archers. First, he went to Fabienne, “Did you see any enemies?”

She still had a stoic look on her face, “No, but I’ve seen a few beasts roaming around.”

Perhaps her cold demeanour wasn’t just due to his low charisma. If she could stay cool in such a situation, she might just be that kind of person. Damon turned his head to the swamp, “how many?”

“Five salamanders, and I think I’ve seen one crocodile.”

“That sounds like trouble, might they have smelled blood?”

Fabienne nodded, “Although I’ve never such a thing, I can't think of anything else.”

Of course, she’d never seen it, but these people wouldn’t be able to put two and two together. They didn’t have the experience of those poachers. He’d just need to shift any blame to the purple mouths. Other than that, he’d marked her as a potential leader for the archers. After having talked to half of the archers, more and more beasts started to appear, however, perhaps due to the earth wall they didn’t charge frantically into the village. They were probably trying to find an entrance.

Damon decided to find Gerald. He couldn’t give out orders without him, lest he be seen as a usurper.

“Chief I’m sorry to interrupt your mourning but beasts are about encircling the city. It might be a ploy—”

“Beasts? How many?” asked Gerald in a frantic voice.

“At least fifty or more.”

Gerald almost stumbled but he caught himself and took the sword. “Let’s go.”

When Gerald climbed the stairs to the wall, his jaw almost dropped then he took on a serious air. “Damon, I’ve heard of magic; do you have anything that can deal with this?”

Damon shook his head, “What you saw earlier was the extent of my powers. If I were more powerful, I wouldn’t have been chased away by the humans.”

Gerald squeezed the grip of his sword.

Damon spoke again, “I’m afraid this might be done by the purple mouth tribe. What should we do?” To be honest, he himself was at a lost. He didn’t expect that more than fifty salamanders, and six crocodiles to come here. He could even see a giant frog in the back of the horde. If he had his blade, he’d feel a bit better, but with a rock spear he wasn’t sure that he could deal with them.

Since Gerald still hadn’t spoken up Damon continued, “If we wait for them to attack us, I’m afraid we’ll be overwhelmed. We should strike first. Let’s bring five men and attract the beasts closer to this side of the wall and let the archers pelt them.”

Gerald nodded. Damon turned and picked out the five weakest men and said, “let’s go.”

Gerald, Damon, and five other hunters jumped down from the two metres tall dirt wall. The beasts immediately smelled the potion I had poured on Gerald and turned to him in unison. Their tongues licked their nostrils and their reptilian and amphibian eyes twitched. Even Damon who had created this situation, had shaky hands. The next instant five salamanders jumped towards Gerald.