Chapter 693: Neutral Tribes

Over all the mood across the settlement was a strange, intoxicating blend of constant hustle and profound peace.

Children ran screaming through the side lanes chasing runaway hens, their games uninterrupted by the old terrors of Coalition

Women sat out on sun-warmed benches beneath the trees, mending cloaks and trading jokes with neighboring hearths while large pots of meat stew simmered over crackling pits.

Old men who used to spend their afternoons snarling around over firewood rations were now strutting about with their polished canes, puffing their chests out and passionately arguing over where the clan should raise its fourth dry-storage lodge.

...

The rhythm of the Veynar had settled into a steady, thriving pulse of budding paramount chiefdom, but the ripples of their absolute victory were spreading far beyond the immediate valley.

News in the Great Orrath travelled by foot, by bird, and by the terrified whispers of fleeing scouts... and when the full, staggering scope of what had happened at the battlefield finally reached the surrounding territories, it sent a shockwave through every neutral tribe in the Orrath region..

When the Coalition had first declared its grand campaign, these outer clans had huddled behind their palisades like field mice watching an eagle hunt.

To them, the Veynar had always been the most enigmatic, insular tribe in the northern basin... possessing ancient roots, vast hunting grounds, and above all, Veylara, the undisputed strongest Layer 4 warlord in the entire territory.

But even with her terrifying prowess, the regional consensus had been grim: three dominant powers joining hands meant certain doom for any isolated clan.

After all numbers were numbers. You did not survive four Layer 4 warlords marching abreast with five thousand blood-crazed warriors at their backs.

None of these smaller, fringe settlements had dared to intervene. Their own fighting strength peaked at early Layer 3 warriors; against the brute might of four Layer 4 warlords, sticking a neck out was suicide.

They had simply shuttered their gates, declined all invitations to join the slaughter, and sent their best stealth scouts to watch the butchery from the cliffs.

They had fully expected to wake up to smoke on the horizon, ready to send token gifts of submission to the newly crowned Coalition overlords.

Instead, every single scout these neutral clans had sent trailing behind the Coalition war-parties had simply vanished into thin air. Not a single bird returned. Not a single tracker crawled back through the brush to tell them which side had had fallen.

In fact it was all a coincidence, it was their fault for following so stealthily, as Sol’s ruthless perimeter sweeps had turned the entire gorge into a bottomless grave for anyone attempting to peek into the battle.

For days, the surrounding territories had languished in blind, maddening ignorance.

The forest seemed to had swallowed all information whole... a total, terrifying blackout.

And then, like a lightning strike on a cloudless afternoon, the sky had literally cracked open in the middle of the night, followed by the terrifying sight of Veynar supply columns marching south to casually annex every conquered stronghold in the basin.

That’s when they knew that the Coalition had not just lost; they had been erased.

Realizing they could no longer afford to sit quietly on the sidelines, the neighboring neutral tribes scrambled. Delegations were hastily thrown together, packing gifts of rare pelt-work, polished minerals, and ceremonial resources.

They called it an embassy of goodwill and congratulations, but beneath the polite smiles and formal bows, it was akin to scouting. They had to come and see with their own eyes what the hell was going on.

They needed to see the truth with their own eyes. They needed to gauge how wounded the Veynar were, how many warriors they had lost, and what kind of monstrous price this victory had cost them.

...

While the inner yard hummed with construction and the steady rattle of movement, the heavy horn atop the outer watchtower sounded three measured, drawn-out blasts.

It was not the frantic, double-tongued blare of an alarm, nor the rhythmic thunder that called the warbands to assemble.

It was the ceremonial greeting horn... a low, resonant signal declaring that an armed party stood before the outer perimeter without drawn weapons, requesting entry through the main gate.

Down in the thoroughfare, the passing haulers barely slowed down.

A week ago, an unfamiliar horn blast would have sent commoners diving behind timber walls while spearmen locked shields three ranks deep.

Today, an old woman gutting river carp by the water trench merely squinted toward the palisades, wiped her bloody knife on her apron, and tossed the fish head to a stray hound.

Standing next to Sol, Zeyra paused, the wet ink hovering over a fresh strip of hide. Her sharp eyes flicked toward the southern palisade.

"Right on time," she murmured, a thin, sardonic smirk curling her lips. "The vultures smell the meat, but they’re too terrified to land without permission."

Sol didn’t even shift his weight off the timber stack. He casually carved another translucent slice, popping it into his mouth with the tip of his knife. "Who’s knocking this time?"

"Our dear neighbors," Zeyra said dryly, tapping the hide ledger against her hip. "The ones who suddenly remembered they’ve always loved the Veynar like brothers."

The outer ironwood gates groaned as two squads of veteran spearmen hauled the heavy locking beams aside, widening the gate ceremonially, just enough to let a large, motley delegation through.

They arrived in a sprawling, multi-tribal delegation of nearly twenty people.

As if they had held a secret meeting in advance to coordinate their arrival, representatives from five different neutral clans had converged on the gate at the exact same hour.

There were envoys from the Stone-River clan, stout and broad-shouldered humans clad in rough black tunics; delegators from the high-canopy Wind-Runners, their slender frames draped in feathered cloaks; and even a handful of non-human envoys... leathery-skinned Scaled-Kin from the lower marshes, their slit pupils darting nervously beneath linen hoods, and two towering Horned-Folk who looked kinda a mix of.

The majority, however, were human tribesmen from the outer areas of Northern Great Orrath.