Chapter 34 Gathering.
Tenka's Point of View
This morning, the village is quiet, except for the rhythmic hammering from Riley at the edge of the village. He begins early, announcing the start of the day. Nobody has ever complained about it since it acts like a rooster or an alarm clock. Other than that, there is mostly the sound of birds and the mating calls of Rita's pheasants.
While Sam is gone to fix his body, I am in charge of the village, but I delegate most tasks to Temate. I only handle the great lines of our planning, such as building more houses.
We estimate that we might get around two hundred women, so we need at least one hundred houses, plus the required food stores. I also think that we need entertainment, so Salaba and I are making a fighting arena out of the strongest rocks we could find during our sparring sessions. Only a few types of stones can resist our powers.
Nalia's Point of View
This is great! I never thought I would travel again, much less with this new strength in me and my spider, Calamity. She is scary, so this name fits her well. You should have seen me when I saw it for the first time. I ran like hell. Chuckle.
Sadly, Calamity is only doing this because I asked her to. She would have preferred to stay home and catch prey in a web, or just sleep. She literally eats birds in the mountains. Chuckle.
She is not very fast compared to the wolves, but I do not have to walk, and she is very stable! She could also climb a wall with me on her back.
"Alright, girls, this is the first village and the easiest. The Grass Village. They will probably accept the offer to come right away."
Lily speaks up. "Why do you think they will come? I doubt that we would have."
"Because they are the weakest and most populated. The men take advantage of them a lot worse than what we got. Besides, the real enemy is not the men, but the organization that controls these men. Sam explained it, but most did not listen. I saw other places where men and women live together happily."
"Why did you not stay there?" Lily asks.
"People are afraid of outsiders, and you would need money. Besides marrying a pork or getting a shitty job, there was nothing for a traveler like me. There were so many laws that it was tougher to remain in the city than in the woods by myself. I was born in the End Village, so I came back when I was done traveling and felt I could not fight anymore. It is not like I knew better. Men left me alone since I was older."
"Makes sense," she says. "Like trading shackles. I admit, Sam is a good leader. We are free, and people tend to not need many laws and such. Only common sense."
"Yeah, but here we are."
As we approach the village, we see green fields being toiled by women. Beno is exploiting them a lot, and they are the biggest village under his control.
Whistle!
The four of us, riding our mounts to the village center, attract the attention of everybody. They come running in some cases, while others need help to walk, excited by the sight of us strong women. The leader comes to us.
"Hello travelers," Presil says. "How can we help?"
"We are not travelers, but women like you, who have been exploited by the men under Beno's command. We were awakened, freed from their grasp, and came here to do the same for you."
"Awakened? You mean, we could have mounts like these too?" Presil asks.
"If you come with us, this is what you will be able to do!"
I take my spear from Calamity's back. I charge it with my inner power and throw it at a tree, five hundred meters away, making the trunk explode and the tree fall to the ground.
"Hoooo!" Presil gasps.
The whole village have stars in their eyes. Then a cacophony begins, the women chatting amongst themselves. Presil speaks to a few mothers, who opinion matter the most, and comes back to us.
"We accept," she says with a nod. "What can we do?"
"Grab what you cannot part with, and come with us. We will burn this village down, to hurt Beno. Don't worry, we have a lot more than we can eat at home."
Luckily, Sam gave me the idea to make carts with Calamity's webs and wood. Like this, even the elders do not have to walk, sitting amongst the baggage. The wolves can help pull the carts, as their powers are no joke. Unlike Red, they grow in strength and size, making them as tall as a human on all fours.
We used a road that we made after reaching two kilometers from the village so as not to leave traces. The four of us take turns slashing the plants and trees on the way, taking about a week to finally reach the lake where Sam's cabin used to be.
From there, they only have to follow our dirt path north, which is already obvious to Beno's men. We just don't want them to find out right away, the the other villages came to us. Still, there is no way he will not guess it.
Since Tati is leading them, she can catch up with us, since I am slower to open the trails. While the grass go to our village, we set for the next target.
We use the men's roads to reach the next village faster, but my trail can be connected from the back side, deep in the wild, while the men's route does the opposite, tending to lead toward more populated areas, instead of deeper into the forest.
We reach the Cliff Village, living at the midpoint of a giant mountain on a cliff edge, large enough to house them all.
They live off birds, mostly. This place is northeast of Sam's old cabin, and east from Baraba's cave, our current village, connected to a chain of mountains.
In those mountains, many types of birds live, among other things, but the birds are kings and queens of this region. They even have to be careful not to leave a child outside alone, in case they get taken away...
While they were harder to convince at first, when we told them we actually live on the mountain chain edge, they came along happily. Bird brains?
The other villages are further south of Sam's old cabin, we should call it the Sam's lake... The first being the Toothi Village. A village in the tall and large trees, filling a immense valley.
The women in this village are all black, and giant, compared to us. The men only go there armed to the teeth and numerous, plus, those women do not care much about anything else but hunting and fighting. I actually wonder, how could those men have subdued them? Smarts?
"Woah!" Lily exclaims. "These women are tall and strong!"
"Yeah, makes you wonder if they actually like to be subdued."
Babaku steps forward. "It is not a question of like. We accept the way this works, for now."
"So, what would it take for you to come along with your village?"
"You are four," Babaku says. "You just have to fight four of us."
"Ha! Hahahaha!"
Lily joins in. "Hahahaha!"
Tama laughs too. "Hahahaha!"
Even Tati. "Hahaha!"
That kind of offended Babaku, but she is no stranger to danger. Those mounted women exude a real sense of it. She swallows her anger and brings them to the village center, which looks more like a fighting pit.
The outcome is easy to predict. No matter the size, it is the inner power and mentality that makes a warrior. My girls killed men before, so only a look can frighten normal people.
After beating them up, we brought them along to the other village since they can all walk just fine. Even the older gals have much strength.
The Leech and the Bug villages are in a straight line, so we went to the swamp first, which is the furthest south. Seeing the Toothi following us was all it took for them to come along, grabbing the Bug Village on our way since they also wanted in immediately.
This made a huge line of one hundred and twenty women, some pulling carts, leaving obvious tracks. So once we brought them home, I borrowed Bert to grow some vegetation and hide our trails, leaving no traces for them to follow and link it all to our new place. I hope.
Tenka's Point of View
From what Nalia told me, we should have around two hundred and fifty people, half the village capacity, so a little management needs to be put in place. A few rules could be good, too.
We all like a bit of an open-space environment. We do not need much space for gardening with our abilities to grow food faster. The Bugs will need a place to set their hives and other stuff. We already have a fighting pit for the Toothies. As for the Leeches, I do not actually know what they like yet. The Cliffs love to hunt and scavenge in the mountains, bringing the bow technology to us. They almost attacked the pheasants that Rita is rearing... possible tension here, giggle.
The last, or first one, is the Grass Village, which has many people. They are farmers, but not too bad at logistics and any manual labor.
I have so much to coordinate...
Sigh... Why did I choose to deal with this...