"You want the stone stele?"
Shen Tang looked at the refugee headman who had come to see her.
The refugee headman was a middle-aged man with rugged features and rough, cracked skin that was dark with a reddish tinge. He was said to have once led a small tribe. Now he knelt piously at Shen Tang's feet, bowing deeply, all to ask her for the stone stele that had fallen from the sky.
"If you, my lord, agree, then my life is yours!" The refugee headman wasn't some musclebound fool. Seeing Shen Tang's indifferent expression, unmoved by his offer, he knew his life wasn't worth a copper to her. Remembering the terms Shen Tang had offered to recruit them, he changed what he had been preparing to say. "I have a brother in another place, with three thousand men under him!"
"If my lord needs it, I'll help you get in touch with him."
"I've also planted people in other tribes..."
The refugees were a diverse group.
They came from different tribes.
Those who escaped became refugees. Those who failed to escape were divided up by the victorious tribes and became the cheapest kind of slaves, bought and sold at will and scattered throughout the lowest rungs of society. If the stele's inscription spread through their network, it wouldn't take long to reach all of Ten Crows.
He could tell that Shen Tang hated the brutal large tribes as much as they did. She had also brought them abundant food, and, at just this moment, their ancestors had sent down a revelation. He believed this young lord would bring new life to Ten Crows!
The stone stele was their ancestors' guidance.
It absolutely could not be destroyed.
He and several of his brothers had discussed it for a long time.