5 Gnu? Did you say... (1/2)
Today Five Cave Village was quite noisy.
Everyone had something to do to help the battle preparations.
Berg just came from checking on Cid, his third lieutenant.
[Cid is doing better. He should be fully recovered very soon, but he still can't hold a sword. Hm?] He turned his attention to the crafting cave from where laughter could be heard. It was currently used by women and children. [Let's see how they are doing.]
”Hello everyone!”
His greeting was met by many cheerful ”Hi!” from the children.
Berg stopped next to Rinat, a tall and buff woman sporting a ponytail, she is the group's carpenter, and she was overseeing the children in crafting arrows.
”How are the preparations going?” Asked Berg.
”Fifty arrows are ready so far. We should have a bit more than 500 of them ready in a few days.” She pointed to the stack of arrows piled up in a corner. ”Unfortunately, we have already run out of copper arrowheads. Therefore, we have replaced them with bone arrowheads. Is that fine?”
”Yes, my Lord said they only had to be able to pierce the skin. They do not have to inflict deadly damage by themselves. It seems he is looking into ways to complement our lack of firepower.”
Berg looked at all the little serious faces working carefully. ”I see everyone is working hard.” Berg was reminded of Chris' surprise when he noticed that each arrow was handcrafted, from start to finish, by a single person. Chris initially wanted to modernize the crafting process, but he pushed it for later as they were short on time, and what they needed right now was a guaranteed output of at least 500 arrows, rather than efficiency.
[What was the technique called? A production line?] Mused Berg.
She smiled as she patted one of the children's head. ”They sure are a big help, and no one is complaining.”
”Oh? I see you even managed to have Titus' daughter helping out.” Berg looked at a tomboyish child surrounded by the others as if she was their leader. She looked to be around ten years old.
”Haha. Petunia sure is a handful. But I think she is intimidated by my muscles.” Laughed Rinat.
”Well, now that's quite something!” Berg was quite amused. He, however, turned serious as he addressed Rinat again. ”I am sorry that we are wasting your skills on this.”
”Do not worry. Even the kids who should be playing around are not complaining.” She said with a slight smile. ”This is like a nice holiday for me. And besides, from what I heard of our king's plan, I should have plenty of work soon!”
Rinat had yet to meet Chris, but word of mouth was a potent information sharing tool in such a small community. Particularly since there was almost always someone in earshot. So everyone knew what they were working hard for.
Berg nodded and left for the other group in the cave. There he checked on the women who were grinding medicinal herbs into a paste, crafting bandages and the like. The rest of the women were in the nearby forest gathering the herbs to grind, flax for their fiber, and branches for the arrows.
They did not go too deep in the forest as only the immediate surroundings of Five Cave Village were safe. Groups of four or five women regularly came into the cave to drop baskets full of supplies.
Berg left the cave after making sure everything was fine, as he had his own duties, but his mind was elsewhere. What Rinat had said was still on his mind.
[The king's plan... Building a new city for every human. It's the same as declaring war on the Kunalls. There is no way they will let it pass, not after what they did to us and the hatred that was born from it.]
Berg was worried, but then he remembered the children doing their best to craft arrows.
”Sigh...” He closed his eyes and made a short prayer. ”My Lord, let's do our best.”
****** ******
Ferlin was in the forest west of Five Cave Village and was accompanied by half of the hunters. The other half was training for combat and guerrilla tactics under Berg's care. The goal was to learn to coordinate themselves for hit and run tactics. They swapped roles every day.
The hunter's workload, just like everyone else's, was quite impressive.
They had to hunt enough to sustain the village for the few days they will be gone to battle, and they had to do this with only half their crew.
For this, they decided to adopt a new tactic, courtesy of their king.
”Is everyone ready?” Shouted Ferlin.
In answer, he heard 100 motivated shouts of ”Yes!”
”Remember, we fan out in silence. Don't go farther than 300 meters west from this spot and don't go too far from the closest hunter, you must still be able to hear each other! When you hear someone shouting, do the same and close to this spot slowly, while making as much noise as possible!”
The spot they were standing in was in front of a large gorge that ended in a dead end. Any animals that fled to this place would have to go through the hunters standing at the exit. This was an efficient way to hunt from Chris' world. At least much more efficient than the usual ”stalk and hunt” tactics used in this world.
****** ******
Titus was also very busy.
He first organized a small group of scouts to keep watch on the Kunall Scout Camp. Their job was to find a good vantage point and to alert the village with a relay smoke signal as soon as a patrol left. The schedule of each patrol was already known, but they could not afford to take any chances. Chris made the sensible decision to drop all their plans and directly warn the refugee camp if a patrol left early and the battle preparations were not done. This was Plan C, for the worst case.
The refugee camp was two days away from the Kunalls, but just one day away from Five Cave Village, so the refugee camp would have enough time to pack up in a hurry and flee.
Titus said goodbye to those scouts in the morning.
His next job was a direct request from Chris. The Kunalls capabilities were explained to him. And one thing was clear, they had very tough skin. Tough enough that they did not wear armor. This was terrible for the humans who mostly used copper weapons and arrowheads.