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Ba'Rak was in a foul mood. His march to war had been interrupted, his men were killed without even seeing the enemy, and now, the stench of a dead woman's blood had seeped into the wood of his carriage, spoiling his appetite.
It had taken over an hour to get on the march again, and Ba'Rak's hands were itching to crush some heads.
A couple of hours later, there was a scream of pain coming from the front of the column.
Anticipating battle and wanting to vent his wrath, Ba'Rak kicked open the carriage door and waddled out while waving his club around. "Where are they?! I'll kill them!" he shouted in excitement for bloodshed.
When he reached the front of the column, Ba'Rak saw a bunch of his men crowding around, a man kneeling on the floor in pain, his foot in a shallow hole with spikes sticking out. Ahead of the man who had his foot in the spike hole, there was a line of men poking at the ground with their spears.
Ba'Rak muscled his way to the front and shouted, "What is the hold-up?!"
"Chieftain, we have run into traps on the path." the commander Ba'Rak put in charge to lead his forces, only to be interrupted by one of the men ahead shouting, "Found one!"
Both Ba'Rak and the commander turned to look at the man who shouted and saw him standing beside another hole. Not even a second later, another man shouted, reporting another trap being found, and just like that, every few seconds, another trap was discovered.
"As you can see, chieftain, the enemy has trapped the path, and it is going to slow us down." the commander reported.
Upon hearing this bad news, Ba'Rak soon began to tremble. The commander recognized this sign and knew what was to come, so he stepped away. Ba'Rak's trembling soon turned to a full-on violent tantrum. A tantrum that he decided to take out on the one who stopped the column and was groaning in pain.
Ba'Rak swung his club down on the head of the man who had his foot in the spike trap, killing the man on the spot.
"Get the men moving! The enemy has shown their weakness by performing such acts of cowardice! Move!" Ba'Rak shouted to his commander, not knowing the irony of his statement.
***
While all this was happening, little did Ba'Rak and his men know that the progenitor of their problems was perched on a tree and having a great time watching a walking lump of sentient fat lose his shit.
[Do you think there are enough traps to slow them down to the point they need to make camp?] Grud asked Mita telepathically.
[I should think so. You even trapped places that I doubt anyone would run into.] Mita replied.
Grud giggled, [I want them to second guess everywhere they go. But the real fun begins tonight when they set up camp.] Grud said menacingly.
As they watched the column of men slowly prod the ground for traps, they soon slipped into a comfortable silence. After a few seconds of silence, Mita telepathically asked, [How about I take care of that bulge between your legs while we wait for tonight?]
Grud was about to accept Mita's offer, but he noticed some men poking around on the ground, away from the path, this brought a grun to his face as he got an idea.
***
Tun'Ja of the Thunder Strider tribe was one of the men at the head of the marching column, a place he was very much proud of. When they first started the march, he had dreams of being the first to encounter the enemy and draw first blood, earning much honor and glory for himself, and hopefully, even the affection of the women when they heard tales of his bravery.
What he was not expecting to do was slowly prod the ground before him with his angry chieftain behind him.
When they were coming up on a narrow point along the path, Tun'Ja's commander ordered him to prod the ground off the beaten path for traps.
Tun'Ja grumbled about having to walk off the road where all the weeds and tall grass would get all kinds of bugs and vegetation stuck to his legs and especially his sandals, but he did as he was told.
After a few minutes of probing the ground, he discovered a trap and placed a stick with some vines tied to its top to mark the trap's location. After he made sure the stick was firmly in place, he shouted to alert others of the trap's location and continued forward.
What Tun'Ja did not know or see was a vine tied into a lasso, slithering like a snake through the grass as though it were moving under its own power toward him.
When his back foot left the ground to take a step forward, the lasso darted forward to loop around his ankle. Naturally, Tun'Ja felt something catch on his foot and looked down just in time for the lasso to tighten around his ankle, and a powerful tug pulled him off his feet.
Not having enough time to react, he fell down on his side with an "Oof!" attracting the attention of the men around him, just in time for them to witness Tun'Ja screaming as he was dragged into the woods.
This put the whole column of men on high alert as the commander shouted orders for pursuit teams into the woods.
Unlike the previous ambush, these tracks were easy to follow because of a man being dragged through the forest floor. What they found at the end of the track, however, made some among the pursuit team lose their lunch.
Hanging upside down from a tree by his legs was a man dripping with blood. But what made it so revolting was the state of the man whom the pursuit team assumed was Tun'Ja. Instead of a clean death by being stabbed or beheaded, Tun'Ja was skinless from the waist up.
On closer inspection by those who had stronger stomachs, it seemed like whoever did this scored the skin around his waist and ripped the skin off like they usually do when skinning small woodland creatures they hunted.
But the worst of all was that Tun'Ja was still alive… barely. They only found out and almost shit themselves when Tun'Ja wheezed out through shallow breaths, "kill…me…kill…me…please…"
The leader of the pursuit team looked at Tun'Ja's pitiful state and nodded grimly before plunging his spear into Tun'Ja's heart, putting him out of his misery.
Once they made sure Tun'Ja was put to rest, the trackers set to work trying to find a clue as to where the perpetrator of this atrocity was. Unfortunately, they ended up with the same results as the tracker during the first ambush. Tracks that started out of nowhere and disappeared to nowhere.
When the pursuit team got back, instead of reporting directly to the chieftain, they reported to the commander because they had heard of what happened to the first tracker who had given the same results that they currently had.
When the commander reported what happened to the chieftain, everyone could hear his tantrum, and they saw the commander dodge a cup thrown out of the carriage.
When they got the orders to keep marching, the commander deployed every scout he had at his disposal to make a sweep of the area before they could move out.
***
After an hour of slow marching, Bo'Gan, one of the men bringing up the rear of the column, was chatting with his friend, Za'Pu. Both were from tributary tribes required to provide manpower at the Thunder Strider tribe's request. While the men in front were eager for glory, these two and others like them were mostly here because they had no choice. It was either they join up, or their tribe would face the consequences of refusing.
To keep his spirits up, Bo'Gan was shooting the shit with Za'Pu who had been giving monosibalic answers to humor Bo'Gan. "So I said, 'There is no way it was that big.' You know what I'm saying?" Bo'Gan said, with his eyes forward, but this time, there was no response.
He turned to his left while asking, "Za'Pu, you with me?" only to see that Za'Pu was no longer beside him. The first place Bo'Gan looked to find his friend was behind, and he saw him standing about twenty paces away.
"Hey, Za'Pu! What are you doing back there?" Bo'Gan shouted to his friend, drawing the attention of those around him. But as Bo'Gan looked at his friend, he could tell something was very wrong.
Za'Pu was standing oddly, but the most alarming thing was that he was bleeding from his neck, "Za'Pu!" Bo'Gan shouted and ran to his friend with a few other men in tow.
When Bo'Gan reached Za'Pu, he saw that his friend was already dead. He gently touched Za'Pu's cheek as he wondered what to tell Za'Pu's wife, but that touch alone was enough for Za'Pu's head to topple off his neck.
When Bo'Gan stepped back, he saw the full extent of what had happened to his friend. Za'Pu was beheaded swiftly and silently, then propped up on a spear jabbed into his back, making Za'Pu stand like a tripod.
This attack made the column grind to a halt again.
***
When the latest casualty from the rear of the column was reported to Ba'Rak, he was on the verge of an aneurysm. "They are toying with us!" Ba'Rak shouted as he punched a hole in his carriage.
"They are sending a message that they can kill us with ease, whenever they please." Ba'Rak shouted, not knowing how right he was.
After a few minutes of venting his anger at the commander who made the report, Ba'Rak commanded, "All scouts will surround us while marching! No more surprises!"
***
From a treetop in the distance, Grud was grinning at the response to his stealth attack at the Thunder Strider's rear. He was tempted to pick off the spread-out scouts one by one, but he estimated that at the speed they were going, especially with his interruptions, they were going to need to make camp at a cave a few hours ahead.
So Grud chose to allow them to think that sending their scouts to search for him was effective in keeping him at bay. He would wait for night to fall before he started picking them off like a predator in the night. He would make them hear the screams of dying men throughout the night.