The Sands of Time

After lots of discussion, it was decided by the tribal council, of which I am the leader, that 90 members of the tribe would go. Then it came down to who would go, and who would be staying. It was decided that the old and the young, and any woman with children would stay. Thunder Bird would be in charge, along with a group of hunters.

We said our goodbyes, and loaded up the camels. We headed east toward the Great Meeting Ground. The journey would take more than a full moon to get there. We did the same thing as last time. We stopped a day short and loaded up with food and water. When we got close, I had the hunters put away their bows, and just be armed with clubs and spears.

We camped in about the same spot, on the South end of the Great Meeting Ground. We did a couple of trial camp protection runs, just as Wolfgard did with me, about fifteen years ago.

I left for a chieftain meeting and War Eagle was left in charge. I made my rounds to different tribes, I noticed a few had bows out, but all were a type of short bow, and very crude. Not one was as advanced as the ones we had. The arrows were also very crude compared to ours. I watched them shoot the bows at targets and they were lousy shots. Most arrows wobbled a lot in flight, because the arrow head was too large for the arrow. This caused the arrow to drop quickly when it lost speed.

At the chieftain meeting, those chiefs' who had the bows were bragging about how good they were, and that they are more advanced than the rest of us. It was starting to make me gag. There was talk about games and contest with the bows to see who the best shot was.

I was so tempted to run back to our camp, and get my bow. I would show them all, who was the best. But I could hear the words of my father ringing in my ears. He would preach patience and never give up the element of surprise. He would say that surprise was something that you just might need down the road. To give away that edge just might turn the tide against you.

We had a good time at this meeting festival. I would spell War Eagle and give him a chance to meet other people. It was the custom of all the tribes that women were married off to different tribes. Yes, we lost some of our women and also we gained new family members. One of the big topics was the possibility of a very large raider tribe on the other side of the Spine of the World mountain range, way up toward the North.

The festival lasted just over a week and the tribes broke up and headed back to their territories. Again it almost took us over a full new moon to get back home. Thunder Bird was there to greet us.

"It was very quiet while you were gone, but we did have one small encounter with a group of what looked like raiders. They left when the hunters and I arrived at the east end of the valley," he reported to me.

"I think that we need to start posting a couple of guards at both ends of the valley," I told him.

I didn't like the sound of raiders scouting our location.

"What we should do is construct six small blinds to hide our guards in, so they are out of sight. Do this at both ends of the valley, and they can rotate into different blinds, on different days." I said this to both War Eagle and Thunder Bird.

They nodded in agreement.

Work started on both ends of the valley, constructing different types of blinds for the guards to hide in. Also, I had the arrow makers start working on more arrows to double our supply. I had more bows and spears made for each hunter. This preparation kept the tribe busy for a while.

I sent scouting parties out to check the area around us. On their return they would do some hunting to get us some fresh meat. The women were grinding up seeds to make a paste for tending to wounds. Other women were making paste type breads and other grain foods. They made more baskets and skin pouches to hold water. It seemed like we were preparing for a fight that may never come. But I just had this feeling in my gut that something wasn't right.

After about four new moons of preparation and many hours of practice. Finally, our defenses were built. We dug many deep pits in different locations. The pits were then covered with branches to conceal the pits from view. Each pit floor is lined with sharp pointed stakes. We erected barricades of trees and boulders away from the camp toward the east. We had an area in front of the barricades cleared so they could not sneak up on us. The river on the south side of us helped to act as a barrier.

A few days later a small worn out tribe came into the valley. They reported heavy fighting to the north as a very large group of raiders had attacked. We gave them some food and patched up their wounds. I gathered a dozen hunters and we went north to do some scouting. After a fast three-day march, we encountered the raiders. They were resting in a large valley. By looking at the size of their forces, there must be six to seven hundreds of them in the valley.

We raced back to camp to prepare. I sent scout teams out to keep watch of the raiders and inform me of their location. The rest of the tribe started to prepare for battle. I felt that we were ready for anything. I could not have been more wrong.

A few days later, Thunder Bird raced up to me and pointed to the top of the cliffs on the north side of our camp. There as far as I could see there were raiders' standing up there. I heard a scream and another one, and a third one. They had captured our scout team and threw them off the cliff.

I called our tribe into battle action and recalled the advance guards from both directions. I figured it would take them about a day to get into position to attack us. I knew that they had bows; I just hoped they were not as good as ours. Their attack would probably come from the east, as it was very difficult to get to us from the west from atop of those cliffs.

We had plenty of food and livestock. Camels and bison had been captured and put into a make shift enclosure. All the water containers were full and we had the rivers for water also. We had lots of firewood stacked in the caves to keep it dry. If they try a siege, we should be in good shape for a while.

The raiders did attack from the East and we could see them in front of us. They were trying to light the valley on fire. The valley is very green and nothing seemed to burn very well, but the fires generated lots of smoke.

Which I couldn't figure out, until I realized that they were trying to blind us with the smoke and sneak in through it. The smoke was one thing that can neutralize the bows. It was hard to shoot, if you can't see anything to shoot at.

I had all the hunters fall back toward the center of camp, where the smoke wasn't as thick. The thick smoke took away some of our ability to defend ourselves. We could hear screams as some of the raiders fell into our pits. A short time later we could hear raiders, but we couldn't see them through the dense smoke in front of us.

"They may try and shoot arrows at us, if so then get your shield up to protect yourselves from the..." I shouted at the hunters.

The words were hardly out of my mouth and I could hear the singing of arrows in flight at us.

"Shield's Shield's!!" I screamed as loud as I could.

Even with the shields up, we still had a number of hunters go down with arrows stuck into them.

"Form up and do not shoot until you see a target to shoot at," I hollered at the hunters.

"Get those injured hunters out of here and attend to their wounds," I said to the women.

Just then there was a loud scream and the raiders attacked. We fired volley after volley of arrows at them killing many. A few managed to get through and there was hand to hand combat then. We were holding our own so far. But what I didn't anticipate were the raiders scaling down the North cliff, using hemp ropes and vines. The cliff was covered with smoke, and we couldn't see them coming down.

There wasn't a lot of them but they attacked us from the North side which was unprotected. Their attack caught me by surprise. Many of us died. I diverted some of my hunters to the North. The confusion gave the main force the diversion they needed to make a strong push. They were starting to overrun us.

I took Thunder Bird aside and told him to take all the young hunters, women and the children. Get some supplies and escape to the West. We will try and hold them off. He disagreed with me, but in the end he did as I requested. He loaded up a some of the camels with supplies and they left.

The fighting was fierce and we were outnumbered at least 3-1. Slowly they were beating us back. War Eagle and I were fighting back to back, when I heard him grunt in pain and he slid down the back of me. When I turned, two raiders shoved spears into my chest and I joined my son on the ground with our life force dripping out of us. As I was dying, I looked to the West and I could see no sign of Thunder Bird. I hoped he escaped.

After War Eagle and I died, the rest of the tribe broke and tried to flee. The raiders chased them down and killed all the remaining members of the tribe. Our last hope of the tribe continuing, rested on the shoulders of Thunder Bird.

Chapter Six

The story was now being told by Thunder Bird.

I left with twenty-five hunters, twenty-five women, and twenty-five of the older children. We took enough food and water to last us a couple of weeks. After that, we would have to forage for food and water. I led our tribe toward the west out of the valley. We then swung around to the southwest toward the river. After thirty days of walking we came to the valley where the tribe had first settled. A few of us tore down the rock wall my father had installed in the bear cave. The valley was lush, with plenty of game to hunt.

We did our grieving while on the walk here, now it was time to put our grief aside and start to rebuild the tribe. We started by scouting our surrounding territory making sure it was safe. We hunted and planted a few crops like my father had taught us to do.

Our new tribe we had one man who studied the ways of the shaman and one woman who had studied the uses of herbal medicine.

It had been over a year now since the attack that killed my family and most of the other tribe members. It had been a real struggle at first, but slowly things started to work themselves out. We still run scouting parties to the north to make sure the raiders haven't followed our trail.

When a strange tribe wanders into our territory, we check them out completely, before we make our presence known. Many times we would trade with those tribes, including exchanging women. A good source of information was by talking with the members of these various tribes. One tribe did tell us that the raiders had gone back North toward the mountains.

Our tribe was growing stronger as the years went by. The last few years the tribe was starting to have new additions. The women were starting to give birth. We're training the older children how to hunt, and fish. How to survive by building a shelter and how to search for food. Also how to stay hidden when there seemed to be trouble.

We taught them how to build bows and make arrows. We found some really good Ironwood to make new arrows. The wood from the Yew tree still seemed to make the best bows. I kept playing with the arrow heads, using different sizes of flint and even trying to use bone as a head. Trial and error method seemed to work the best, to find out which material would make the best arrow heads.

We practiced with dummy arrows so we would not damage our good battle and hunting arrows. Most of the hunters were very accurate at 100 paces. Our best shooters could hit the target at more than 200 paces. We practiced daily and in various locations just to be prepared.

Life appeared to be good for our tribe, we had food, water, shelter and nobody bothered us. Still something seemed wrong or was missing. I could not put my finger on this odd feeling, but it was there.

I increased the patrols and the range that they covered. The patrols reported back that all was clear. There hadn't been any contact with other tribes, or raiders. I would go out with a patrol to the north, just to be sure. I didn't want a sneak attack to catch us off guard. But so far so good, with no contact with any of the raiders.

A few months later a tribe came through our camp. They told us that this was the year, for the tribes to meet at the Great Meeting Ground. The location had been changed to an area a lot closer to us only about a ten-day walk from our camp. I needed to replace my wife who died of a fever six months ago. With a trip to the Great Meeting Ground and I could have my pick.

When the time came, we packed up a couple of camels, and headed Southeast toward the new Great Meeting Ground. As in previous marches to the Great Meeting Ground, we stopped within a day of arrival and refilled our supplies, so we had plenty to eat and drink. The whole journey took ten days and we arrived along with a lot of the other tribes, close to the same time frame.

This time we didn't hide our bows. After we pitched camp, I had the hunters practice protecting our camp. After an hour of drilling, I left for a meeting with all of the chief's. They all express sorrow about what the raiders did to our tribe, but glad that some of us made it out alive. The talk was of how the raiders were killing and capturing different tribes.

"Why don't we put together a group of our best hunters? We go north and attack the raiders, wiping them out," I suggested to the other chiefs.

It became deathly quiet, as they all studied me.

"Who would lead this group?" One of the older chiefs asked.

I looked back at him and just shrugged my shoulders. After all I was the youngest chief at this meeting.

There was some major discussion about my idea, it seems that this has been talked about before, with no real conclusion ever came out of those discussions. They could never find anyone who would lead this group. Finally, after much discussion and finger pointing,

"What about you?" The head of the chief council asked me.

"I would have to have full control, no interfering or meddling by other chiefs or older warriors,"

I replied back to them.

They all nodded their heads in agreement. After further discussion, it was decided that every tribe was to contribute ten hunters, and two camp workers. Wives would be allowed to go with their husband, but no children. They would be expected to help as camp workers. Finally, all the major details seemed to be worked out. We broke the meeting and headed back to our respective camps.

When I got back to our camp, I called a meeting for all to attend and listen. I explained what was discussed at the chiefs meeting. A group of hunters would go north in search of the raiders, and the rest of the tribes would wait here for our return. All the hunters volunteered to join this group. I picked out ten hunters to go with me, and left my step-brother in charge until I returned. A couple of the wives volunteered to go as camp workers.

After a couple of weeks of practicing with our weapons, the group was ready to head north. I had a hundred-twenty warriors and another twenty-five camp workers. I didn't realize what a major job it would be to feed everyone. I divided the warriors in groups of twenty to practice as a unit. There was a chief in charge of each group.

One of the camp workers was Raven. She was the daughter of Lone Wolf. He was the head of the chief's council. She had been married once, but her husband was killed in a hunting accident. We seem to hit it off good right away. She was very pretty, with brown hair and eyes, and she seemed to be built better than most women in her tribe. She never had any children from her first marriage, and I had one boy from my first marriage.

There are different laws in regards to couples who get married the first time, then those doing a second marriage.

Late one night she came to my tent. She slipped off her fur clothing and crawled under the fur skin blanket with me. We kissed for a bit and I groped her breast and played with her nipples. She was squirming around in arousal.

"It had been a long time for me, please stop fooling around and just stick your thing in me," she cooed at me softly.

I moved to the back of her and she raised her ass up to me. I shoved my cock deep inside of her soaking wet pussy. She was tight and let out a sharp holler as I slammed my cock back and forth deep inside of her pussy.

"OH, yes, that feels so good!" she yelped as I continued to fuck her furiously.

I could feel her juices as they started to drip down my shaft, as I pounded away at her. Soon I got that good feeling in my cock, and I shot load after load of cum inside of her pussy.

"I hope you make it a boy," she panted.

"Is this your right time of the month?" I asked her

She just nodded her head yes.

After that night we were pretty much a couple and nobody thought any differently of it. She spent her free time with me in our tent. She was considered my wife, even though there was no formal ceremony to bind us together.

The march north went smoother than I anticipated. We made really good time and could see the mountains in the distance get closer. I had scouting parties head out east, west and to the north. They were on the lookout for any raiders. They did come across a few tribes that never made it to the Great Meeting Place. They had been pretty much wiped out by the raiders.

After a three-week march, we made camp in a clearing surrounded by a small forest. I led a band of ten warriors into the mountains, to see if we could locate the raider's hideout. We hid as a small band of raiders went by us, heading into the mountains. We followed at a discrete pace, so not to be seen. The path leads through a pass and into a large valley. The raiders' hideout was in this valley.

I sent a couple of warriors back to the main camp, to inform them of our discovery and wait until I returned. The rest of us moved off the path and found some nice hiding places, where we can observe the raiders in the valley below. I guessed there to be between a 400 and 500 raiders in the valley. What we weren't sure of, was how many were out in raiding parties.

They had numerous different tribe women as sex slaves and camp workers. I didn't see a single man in the captives they had. There were some children, mostly small and new born. We watched them for a few hours. I noticed that the raiders did nothing but lay around resting and eating. Some were fucking the sex slaves.

I signaled the rest of the warriors that it was time to go. All the time we were watching them, I never saw a group come or go. We left the same way we got in there and we headed back to our camp. We scouted the area to get the lay of the land, as a plan was beginning to form in my head.

There are seven of us that were at the commander's meeting that I had called. One chief to lead each of the four units of men, the fifth unit was mine to lead and two chiefs that assisted me with planning, and carrying out orders. I laid my plan out. I'm going to send three units (60 men) to the East side of our position and on the opposite side of the path from us that up went into the mountains. There were some small woods for them to hide in. They were to wait and attack any raiding parties that either went into or came out of the mountain hideout. We would do the same thing on the West side of the path. Hopefully this would lure out the main body of raiders, when they realized that they were losing men.

We didn't have to wait too long and the first group of raiders came in our direction. There were twenty-five men in that raiding party and we took them out real fast. We dragged the bodies over to a pit and tossed them in, getting rid of the evidence. On the other side they caught a group of twenty raiders leaving the mountain hideout. After disposing of the raiders in rapid fashion, they brought the supplies and the captive women over to our camp. We had more space here to take care of them.