Early in the morning, Shikele and his entourage led their personal guards out onto the grasslands to receive them. Sure enough, they soon spotted the advancing army in the distance.
What surprised Shikele was that this force was not as large as he had imagined. It numbered only three or four thousand men. Even if every one of them was a trained warrior, such a small force likely would not have much impact on the overall fighting in the Blue Lake Bay Region.
This made Shikele even more curious about why the Great Chieftain had sent this force.
The two sides soon met. Shikele saw the officer leading the reinforcements: Kuba, one of Heshima's Commanders of Ten Thousand.
Kuba's status was somewhat similar to Shikele's. He was not a direct descendant of the Iron Bone Tribe either, having been subdued by Heshima later on. However, Kuba had come from a somewhat better background than Shikele. He had been a Barbarian warrior who had voluntarily pledged himself to Heshima.
Declining tribes often appeared on the grasslands. Even the most impoverished of them would still have some proper Barbarian warriors. Most such tribes were forced to abandon their ancestral lands and become wandering tribes, migrating everywhere until they found a new homeland or vanished altogether.
Yet some of the Barbarian warriors from these tribes chose not to migrate with them. Bringing their blades, armor, and warhorses, they sold themselves to the larger tribes for a chance to integrate into them and once again become Barbarian warriors of a new tribe.
Kuba was one such man. Not only had he sold himself to Heshima, but he had also brought along an elite Cavalry force of nearly five hundred men.
Heshima therefore valued him greatly. Although Kuba had joined much later than Shikele, he