---Qrez’s perspective---

This is an OUTRAGE!

*fzzz**crack*

How DARE he!?

*fzzz**crack*

Who does he think he IS!?

*fzzz**crack*

Demote me?!

*fzzz**crack*

Confine me to camp?!

*fzzz**crack*

Put me on nightguard duty?!

*fzzz**crack*

ME!?!?!?

*fzzz**crack*

And all because he cares more about these primitive brutes and their superstitions than he does about his own…

*fzzz**crack*

…PEOPLE!

*fzzz**crack*

It’s not FAIR!

*fzzz**crack*

If that paleskinlover was half the leader he pretends to be, he’d step aside and let a real man lead!

“Yo! Qrez!”

My head whips from the rock I was about to pick up to see Re’lem striding towards me from the camp.

I tuck my sling into its pouch as my lieutenant joins me on the riverbank.

“Hey, boss… I heard what happened… I’m sorry. For what it’s worth, I don’t think you deserved demotion over it!”

“Of course I don’t!” I snarl, bitterly “That boy who calls himself our leader just cares so much about not upsetting the brutes that he’s letting them walk all over us!… In what world is a man responsible for a successful elephant jump demoted to the bottom of the male hierarchy rather than lauded as a hero!?”

“Yeah, I know boss, I know! It’s unfair!”

I turn to glare at the water flowing past us, just seething.

Then, I have an idea…

My back straightens and my eyes go wide as they pass over the bolder pitted with the marks left by my slingstones.

I turn to Re’lem, grinning broadly.

Taken aback, it takes a moment for him to ask “You have an idea, boss?”

“Yes I have, Re’lem!” I answer, ardently “We know we’re more than a match for any of the little tribes of savages, right?”

“Yeah?”

“Aaaaand…” I begin, starting to pace along the water’s edge as I do “…we know we’re more than a match for all of them if they joined forces!?”

“Yuh-huh?”

“By rights, we should either have told them to clear off and give us this entire plateau or stay and serve as our tributaries… the only problem is, our oh-so-convincing leader doesn’t want to do that! He wants us and them to be fwieeends(!) He wants us to crossbreed with them until we’re one people! He wants our blood diluted with theirs! He wants our women to bear their men’s children like Zgrizeh did! He already gave away Tsazel to that firefurred brute who walked us up the river! *pwuh*!” I spit in disgust.

“Alright? But what’s the plan, boss?”

I turn back to him “The plan, Re’lem, is that we take that choice out of his hands! We do something that will so alienate the paleskins that an easily winnable war between us and them becomes inevitable! Either Ksem gets on side or there will be sufficient will for a coup and I can take over to lead our people the way they should be led!”

Perturbed but clearly intrigued, Re’lem asks “And… what would we need to do to alienate them like that?”

Grinning from ear to ear, I state “Well… I’d say… We could achieve it quite effectively by helping ourselves to what we’re owed…”

“And… what’s that?” he asks, leaning in close.

“Well… I know we’ve both wanted a taste of the local women, right?”

His face lights up like a wad of tinder struck by a spark.

---Bwey’s perspective---

“Ksem?” I hear Eshker’s voice from outside the Main Tent.

“Just me I’m afraid, Eshker(!)” I quip “Come in and I’ll help you if I can.”

I see the flash of light as the door curtain opens.

I turn from the bags of traded forest veg I was inspecting to look behind me and immediately frown.

“Eshker, what’s wrong?” I ask, having seen the look on his face.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“I’ve… just seen Qrez leaving the camp with Re’lem.”

“And… I take it you don’t just mean to go and throw his tantrum on the riverbank?” I ask, not hopeful.

“No, Ma’am… They… erm… they went East… into the forest…”

“Ah!” well shit!

---Lashra’s perspective---

I walk through the woods of Bison territory, a sack of various vegetables slung over my back.

This is the first time I’ve ever gone outside my clan’s lands on my own and… it’s both terrifying and exhilarating!

All I’ve got to do is make it to the outlanders’ hearthstead, trade the vegies for the same weight of meat (still can’t believe that!), sleep there and come home tomorrow.

I’ll be back quick enough that I don’t even need to smoke the meat…

‘Very safe’ I keep telling myself.

Still… I’m constantly feeling the gnawing at the back of my mind that, if anything attacked me…

Well, nothing’s going to attack me!

I’m going to trade this veg, bring back the meat and all my clan are going to say ‘Well done, Lashra! What a brave girl you are, going to the outlanders all by yourself!’

I smile at the thought… then frown, curiously, at what I’m hearing.

Voices…

Men’s voices…

Men’s voices not speaking Basinspeak…

They appear from around the bend in the path, two tall, slim, flat faced and chested men with brown skin and small brown eyes.

All three of us stop as they both notice me.

I recognise the one with the sleek black hair as the scowling chief hunter from when I went to their hearthstead with Kordau.

I don’t recognise the other one in the fluffy hat and coat.

I don’t like the way they’re looking at me.

They confer with eachother for a brief moment before the chief hunter extends his hand to me and calls “Vwet waande, meshken… Vwet!” scooping it through the air in a clear beckon.

My heart pounding, I don’t go to them.

Instead, I move one foot backwards.

Immediately, the two of them begin sprinting towards me!

Terrified, I turn and run.

The leader said his chief hunter was as strong as Raala and I know I’m not anywhere near that strong but, even if I were, there’s two of them!

He also said we were faster…

If I can just make it to Bison before I run out of stamina…

*whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-fwish* comes the sound from behind me.

Something hits my legs and immediately tangles itself around them.

My front hits the ground and I skid across the cold earth.

Panicked, I reach down to my legs and see that they’re tangled in some sort of weighted ropes.

I hurry to try and free myself, seeing the two outland men rapidly approaching me from behind!

I manage to get my right leg free, pulling off my sandal in the process, and decide that will have to do.

I start to get up but before I’m fully to my feet I take a sharp knee in the side, knocking the breath out of my lungs and knocking me back to the ground!

Irresistible hands seize me and pull me to my feet.

The sack of veg is yanked off my back and hurled away to land with a thud.

I scream “HELP! HELP!!! SOMEONE HEL-hmmf!” but a hand stifles my mouth, pressing the back of my head into a flat, bony chest.

“Q’er nun eruhaleit tse teqte, Re’lem.” the one holding me tells the other.

As the one in the hat bends down to untangle the ropes from my left leg, my captor slips his hand beneath my dress and gropes my left breast.

Tears stream down my face and my whole body is racked with sobs at what’s happening to me.

Futilely my hands try to pull his forearms down but, as strong as he feels, I think I could probably hang my entire weight from his arms without it making any difference!

Why are they doing this!? Didn’t the leader say they wanted to be friends?!

Was that just a lie or is this part of making friends to them!?

No… no matter how different they are, they must know what they’re doing is wrong!

I wouldn’t have a hand over my mouth unless they understood that my screams might draw in people who would want to rescue me!

The hatted one finishes putting his throwing-ropes away and stands back up.

He produces a wad of leather which he brings toward my face.

The hand draws close but I clench my jaw and turn.

The answer that that resistance meets is the sound of stone being drawn from behind me and a sharp edge pressed into my throat.

Fresh tears stream down as I screw up my eyes and open my jaw.

They stuff it tight with the wadding before the one behind produces a length of rope with a pouch woven into it.

The pouch is drawn tight over my mouth and the ends knotted behind my head, gagging me.

“Eqhe tsergulez zgret mahelz… tsataq…” says the one holding me.

The other grins.

Suddenly and violently, they each grab a side of my top and yank them over their respective shoulder.

I give a stifled, sobbing scream as they rip my clothes off me and push them to the floor.

I’m thrown to the ground and my wrists are wrestled behind my back then lashed together there.

Bound, gagged, naked and afraid before the two foreign men, I desperately make one last attempt to wriggle free, only to be grabbed, pulled back and rolled over.

My weight being forced to rest on my bound arms hurts a lot!

Looking down on my heaving chest, the sleek haired one pouts “Tlekseh! Vetse!… Beu… masheh misho… Qete neur nun Ksemu bwamvu eqhu… Ashei… Vetseknu vetse(!)” then he turns to his accomplice and gestures down to me “Qrosha neuz?”

The other one’s tiny eyes go wide as he smiles, greedily, and starts pulling off his own clothes.

I sob pathetically as my last hope that this was all some kind of big misunderstanding flees from me.

There is no escaping what’s about to happen as the naked man folds his horrifically gangling body down over me, pushes my legs apart and…

*thock*

…keels over dead?

The chief hunter seems as confused about what just happened as I am.

Then they appear.

---Bwey’s perspective---

“Shoot him.” I coldly order Reutsa, the only bowwoman among us.

She doesn’t make me ask twice, immediately drawing, nocking and loosing an arrow which hits the repulsive naked man in the neck, a single breath before he does something irreversible.

He falls over their victim’s leg without so much as a yelp of pain.

Qrez starts but hasn’t realised what just happened before I scream “QREEEEEEEEEEEEZ!” breaking into a sprint.

I flip my spear and, just as he turns, smash the shaft into his face with all my strength.

“You STUPID *whack* EVIL *whack* BASTAAAAAAARD!!! *whack**whack**whack*” I roar as I strike the rotted man, again and again, leaving his face a bloody pulp and a tooth missing as he writhes and groans on the ground.

I look down on the wretch, my anger raging like a wildfire inside me and my spear begging me to flip it around and let it finish the job, it takes me a long moment to get myself under control.

“Reutsa, Ksakei, Tsemu, get him tied up. He’s going to stand trial before my brother. Shelit, Versha, Netru, Wqetle, get that one redressed and make a travois so we can take him back.” I order.

The girls get to it and I turn to the titchy redheaded local, lying on the ground gagged with Qrez’s sling.

Her eyes widen and her breathing quickens as I approach and she starts vainly trying to push herself away from me with her unbound legs.

I stop and, forcing calm into my voice, say “Heeeeey girl… Is alright… Not to hurt you… Is safe now!”

She seems to calm a little at the reassurance but she’s obviously still scared witless!

Slowly and gently, I reach out to her face and pull the sling rope out of her mouth, then pinch the wadding and withdraw it from between her teeth.

With her ungagged, I kindly ask “You alright?”

“…Nooooo?” she whimpers.

“Ah… sorry… is bad question. You hurt? You sit tall?”

The only answer she gives is a heartbreaking blubber but she does at least rock herself into a seated position.

I round her back.

I’m reaching for my knife when I stop myself.

As tempting as it is to just cut this rope (since it’ll need to be destroyed anyway to keep the rot of this sin from contaminating anything else it might be used for in future) and have done with it, having a stone edge drawn on her is certainly not what this girl needs right now!

As I dig my nails into the knots, trying my best to get them loose, the girl dimly asks “This wasn’t…? They weren’t…?”

“This bad thing us, same like you!” I preempt her “VERY bad! So sorry!” hoping my sincerity comes across even in my broken Basinspeak.

I eventually manage to get her wrists free and pull her to her feet.

The tiny girl is heavier than I expected but not a problem for me.

I bend down and pick up her dress before turning around to hand it to her.

“Here…” I say.

Her eyes go from the dress to me, then-

“*Oof*!” I grunt as the naked girl impacts my midriff, sobbing into my front and jabbering far too fast for me to understand, crushing me slightly as her arms pin mine to my sides.

I raise a hand to pat her back and, not sure what else to do, just do my best to make reassuring noises at her.