Chapter 174: The Heart of the Tribe
Kellar sat behind the heavy wooden desk in the security office, reviewing the recent census reports and data. Mentz stood before him with arms crossed, maintaining an attentive posture.
"So these are all the people left in the main settlement..." muttered Kellar, running his finger down the numbers. "There are less than twenty men remaining and over two hundred women, not counting the children. The situation is precarious. I need the women to work in production processes outside the village as well."
Mentz looked at him, his brow furrowing.
"But sir, they are already working," said Mentz, tilting his head. "The ones felling the trees, building the houses, and bringing in fish meat from the rivers with crossbows are the women. If we tell them to go collect ash or limestone outside the walls, they will go without hesitation. I don’t see the problem."
Kellar froze for a second. Between the merchant negotiations, the system interfaces, and the tech blueprints, he hadn’t supervised the daily labor at all.
"Is that true?" asked Kellar, looking up with a mix of disbelief and surprise.
"Yes, sir," confirmed Mentz. "In fact, there is discontent among them. Upon learning about the firearms, the women are demanding to enlist in the army. Not just them... even your wife Mila requested a spot in the ranks. Given her condition, I turned her down; I assumed she had spoken with you about it."
Kellar blinked, caught off guard.
"No... she didn’t," replied Kellar, rubbing the back of his neck. "So they actually want to fight?"
"Yes, my lord," stated Mentz. "All the women of the tribe are warriors at heart. There were never enough resources to train and equip them like the men, so they were left behind in domestic duties. But the moment you send them to the front, they will pick up weapons without batting an eye. I cannot speak for the women among the survivors and slaves rescued from the Black Skull, but every native woman of our tribe wants to enlist."
For a moment, Kellar felt foolish. The shortage of manpower and soldiers he had been wringing his hands over wasn’t an issue to begin with; the solution had been right in front of him all along.
"How many weapons do we have left in the armory?" asked Kellar.
"There are fifty rifles left," reported Mentz. "We halted the production of new firearms by previous order to conserve steel, leaving the manufacturing of ammunition and powder active."
"Recruit fifty new soldiers from among the tribe’s women immediately!" ordered Kellar, leaping to his feet and slamming his palms onto the desk. "We don’t have time for prolonged training. Send forty of them straight to the Mountain Fortress front with the rifles, and have the remaining ten begin training with the village police. We march—I need everything ready before morning. The situation is urgent, we must set out to..."
A sharp, deafening shriek pierced the air, echoing from above and rattling the heavy timber beams of the office.
"Shit! What was that?" barked Kellar.
Kellar bolted out of the office toward the central courtyard. Ignis was already charging at top speed from the stables, sparking with fire and roaring in fury, while Frejya, moving like a white shadow across the roof rafters, leaped into the sky. In the blink of an eye, the giant cat slashed through the air with energy-infused claws, decapitating a giant eagle that was diving toward the compound. The winged beast’s head hit the dirt, followed by a shower of blood.
"Dammit!" roared Kellar, glaring up at a sky dominated by a dozen feathered shadows with wingspans over five meters across. "I hadn’t gone after you in the mountains yet, and you dare come to my home?"
"Lightning Spear!" shouted Kellar, extending his right arm.
A blinding bolt of lightning burst from his palm, tearing through the air with a crack. The targeted eagle flapped its wings at the last moment, narrowly dodging the direct hit as the lightning incinerated a tree right behind it.
Organized chaos erupted across the settlement. The sharp cracks of rifle fire from the gate guards echoed out, shattering the afternoon calm. The tribe’s women, wielding hand crossbows, flooded the battlefield, firing iron bolts in coordinated volleys from the rooftops and palisades.
Down in the main courtyard, a group of ten women joined forces to haul the three giant siege ballistas into position.
The sharp rifle shots echoed in coordinated volleys, bringing down four of the younger eagles. The feathered beasts plummeted, crashing onto the dirt. However, the larger and more experienced ones reacted in an instant; noticing the lethality of the firearms, they soared higher into the sky, well beyond the effective range of direct fire. From above, they executed devastating dives at terrifying speeds, forcing the warriors and women to throw themselves to the ground to dodge massive talons that splintered wood and tore up the earth, injuring several people in their path.
"Dammit!" roared Kellar.
Kellar leaped onto Ignis’s back, setting himself upon the beast’s flaming scales as it unleashed a torrent of fire toward the sky.
"Poison Curse!" shouted Kellar, extending both hands toward the shadows darting through the clouds.
A dense cloud of green smoke billowed into the air, but the eagles, leveraging their massive wings, created a gust of wind with a heavy flap that dissipated the toxin before it could touch them.
"Slowness Curse!" Kellar conjured again in rage.
The pulse of dark energy shot skyward. The beasts maneuvered in midair to dodge it, but the wave managed to clip the edge of the flock. The spell’s range was too small at that distance, barely making impact on two of the larger eagles. Their wingbeats turned heavy and clumsy, losing the lethal speed of their dives.
"The Shaman slowed them down! Kill them!" Mentz screamed at the top of his lungs, pointing at the two beasts struggling clumsily to maintain flight.
The ten women positioned at the giant ballistas released the iron mechanisms with a dull thud; three massive steel harpoons tore through the air at a terrifying speed, piercing the chest and wings of the two slowed eagles. The beasts let out a deafening shriek before dropping like lead onto the village dirt, where the guards finished them off with a hail of bullets in an instant.
Seeing the fall of their leaders and the fierce resistance on the ground, the remaining giant eagles flapped their wings in desperation, turning back to retreat in haste toward the distant peaks.
"They’re fleeing! Attack!" Kellar roared atop Ignis, raising his electricity-shrouded arm as the ballistas and rifles thundered once more to pursue the winged shadows vanishing into the horizon.