The next day, some of the women twisted hemp rope while the others cleared the ground. Luo Chong had just marked out an area and told them to clean it up. They would start building the livestock pen in a while.
Luo Chong was no longer overseeing the copper smelting. Lame and his four companions were enough for that. The five of them were currently doing nothing but casting copper plates and tin plates. Since the specific alloy-casting steps required different proportions, they still needed Luo Chong's guidance.
Meanwhile, Luo Chong was leading the women in building the livestock pen. The trees brought back by the logging team had already piled up in considerable numbers. They were all around twenty centimeters in diameter, but extremely long—each stood more than ten meters tall, like a utility pole.
They cut them into four-meter lengths and sawed them all into stakes. One stake was driven into the ground every two meters, forming a rectangular enclosure. Two horizontal logs were tied across the gaps to secure them, then branches were woven into a fence and fastened to the wooden barrier to make a simple wall. Finally, they smeared a layer of mud over it, and the job was done.
Inside the livestock pen stood a wooden shed facing south, with its back to the north. The shed was four meters high, tall enough for the Dinophant calf to live inside. It used a great deal of timber, packed so tightly that not even wind could pass through, and was coated with another thick layer of mud. That made it a proper wall.
The southern side had a row of small holes, with feeding troughs outside. The animals could stick their heads out to eat grass. Of course, two of the beasts had no need for that—they only had to stick out their trunks, and everything was settled.
Once everything was built, the "grass mountain" piled up outside also had to be bundled and stacked inside the enclosure, to keep other animals or people from damaging it.
Everyone in the Han Tribe had their own duties, and the work was in full swing. Baldy's tribe was not idle either.
Baldy's tribe had originally numbered ninety-two people, considerably more than the Han Tribe. But after trading nine people to the Han Tribe for pottery last time, they no longer had so many.
Nine had been traded away, two children had died of illness, and an adult male had his belly torn open by a lynx. Their population had plummeted, leaving only eighty people—fewer than the Han Tribe now had. Baldy knew nothing of this, however. When he had come to trade last time, Luo Chong had not yet returned from his expedition, so Baldy did not know that Luo Chong had brought back thirty people.
Baldy's tribe had no elder and no real tradition of passing down knowledge. Baldy, however, was very good at imitation and learning. He had learned basket-weaving and spears from the Han Tribe, and they even made their own spears with stone tips. Baldy had even wanted to learn how to make pottery.
Baldy's tribe lived in a karst cave. Deep inside, a mountain spring seeped through a crack in the rock and gathered on the ground into a tiny pool less than two square meters in area. That was their everyday water source.
Under normal circumstances, it was manageable. But when late autumn came, the spring above the pool would run dry. Then they could only go to the Small River three kilometers away to fetch water, which was extremely inconvenient. They therefore needed a large number of containers to store water.
To obtain pottery, Baldy had not hesitated to use all their salt stone to trade with the Han Tribe. Without salt, they would merely feel weak, not die, and could replenish some salt by drinking animal blood and eating organs. But they could not do without water—especially now that Baldy had fallen deeply in love with the taste of meat broth.
That was why he had personally come to trade with the Han Tribe last time: he wanted to exchange for more pottery. But he had still failed to get his wish, and so he had begun plotting to seize it by force.
In Baldy's estimation, the Han Tribe had fewer than ten adult men, while they had fifteen. Beating them and stealing their pottery and food should have been no problem.
As for taking people back as well, Baldy had never considered it. More people meant consuming more food, and he did not believe he could obtain enough food to support any more mouths. Otherwise, he would not have traded people for pottery in the first place.
That morning, Baldy brought every adult male in the tribe. Including himself, there were fifteen of them. Each carried several spears, and they advanced toward the Han Tribe with great fanfare, intending to crush the Han Tribe's Hunting Team in one fell swoop before ransacking their settlement.
By noon, Baldy's forward scout had already located the Han Tribe's Hunting Team. He hurried back and told Baldy that they were cutting trees in the forest.
"Cutting trees? What for?" A question surfaced in Baldy's mind. But he did not think much of it. What do I care what you're doing? As long as I beat you, that's enough.
At that moment, Dashu, Beast Tooth, and the others were still cutting trees in the coniferous forest on the ridge. They worked quickly that day. With three broad axes, two long saws, and two hand saws, they could fell a tree under thirty centimeters in diameter in less than fifteen minutes.
After spending some more time clearing away the branches, they could basically obtain one clean log every half hour.
And that was only one group's speed. Aside from the Elder, Lame, and Luo Chong, the Han Tribe had six other adult men, plus four from the former Tree Tribe—a total of ten people. They worked in groups of three, with one person watching the Blue Antelopes. Each group had one broad axe, and they could basically fell three trees at the same time within half an hour.
Wooden Porpoise was watching the antelopes today. The six Blue Antelopes were grazing on the hillside and would later be paired off, each pair dragging three logs home.
Just then, a group of people suddenly came running from the mountain opposite the valley. Each carried a spear. Wooden Porpoise had once personally witnessed the Cannibal Tribe's attack, so he naturally knew these people meant no good. He immediately shouted toward the ridge, "Enemies!" Then he pulled up the reins and dragged the Blue Antelopes back.
Dashu could naturally understand this rustic dialect. He immediately gestured and shouted to One-Ear and the others that enemies were coming.
Everyone immediately stopped working and snatched up their weapons, ready for battle. Not a single person fled.
That made things rather interesting. Dashu had once killed people alongside Luo Chong, and was no longer the same Dashu as before. He naturally would not become a deserter again.
As for Beast Tooth, One-Ear, and the others, they were practically fearless warmongers. Just ask yourself: how could a youth whose ear had been torn off by a lynx and whose face had been raked bloody, yet who still dared to face the lynx head-on, possibly run away?
Wooden Porpoise led the six Blue Antelopes in a desperate dash, while Baldy and his men pursued relentlessly from behind. When they reached the ridge, several sharp whistles tore through the air from behind Wooden Porpoise.
They were followed by shrill cries. The two antelopes at the back were struck by spears and collapsed with agonized bellows. The other four, tied together with them, continued charging, dragging the bodies of their two companions all the way toward the Han Tribe's "grass mountain."
"Wooden Porpoise, get over here!"
Dashu shouted toward the front, then drew the Stone Axe from his waist. By the time Wooden Porpoise reached his side, Baldy had already brought his people within fifty meters.
The Han Tribe's people, hidden behind the trees, each pulled a Stone Axe from behind his waist. They exchanged glances, then suddenly burst from behind the trees. In an instant, nine Stone Axes spun through the air toward Baldy and his men.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
"Ah! Save me!"
Thud! Thud!
Under the assault of the nine Stone Axes, three of Baldy's men died instantly, while two others were wounded. Only ten remained advancing. This was something Baldy had never expected.
He had thought the Han Tribe's Hunting Team would have only six or seven people. Seeing so many of them arrive, they should have been frightened into fleeing. How could they still dare to fight back? And what had they just thrown? Why were they not spears?
Baldy was furious. Things were not supposed to turn out like this. He immediately ordered them to throw their spears again.
But the moment their ten spears flew out, Dashu and the others ducked behind the trees once more.
Whoosh, whoosh, thud, thud, thud!
Ten spears stabbed at angles into the ground carpeted with dead leaves, making dull thumps. Baldy and his men had also reached within thirty meters.
As soon as the spears landed, One-Ear and the others flashed out from behind the trees again. This time, ten White-shafted Long Spears were raised in perfect formation. Luo Chong had equipped every member of the Hunting Team with three, after all.
The sound of spears tearing through the air rang out. Four more people from Baldy's tribe fell instantly, while the rest took cover behind the trees in time.
One-Ear and the others hid behind the trees again, waiting for the enemy's next attack. But they waited and waited, and no sound came.
There was no way they would attack again. They would sooner die than attack again. In those two brief clashes, Baldy had been scared witless. He had never imagined the outcome would be like this. The enemies before him were terrifying.
He also suddenly realized that the Han Tribe had more people than he had expected—possibly more than ten. He himself had only eight people left, two of them wounded. Fighting was out of the question. At this point, whether they could escape was already a problem.
So he immediately led the remaining people back to the karst cave. Returning to the cave now might allow them to salvage their lives.
There were votes, right? And collections, right? Leave a comment, click, and show the characters some love...
Before you continue