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x “Why have they not broken through?” Outside the valley, a young wild man asked the question with open impatience.
He had a long, horselike face, dark skin, a powerful frame, and a necklace of animal teeth hanging around his neck.
An experienced hunter would have known those teeth at once.
Shadowcat fangs.
Among the mountain tribes of the Red Mountains, the Shadowcat Fang tribe was famous for them.
Its warriors considered the killing of a shadowcat the highest proof of courage.
After a man killed one with his own hands, he took the longest, sharpest fang and wore it on his chest.
The young man who had spoken wore so many fangs that they crowded against one another.
The longest among them was more than five inches.
The beast it had come from must have been enormous.
Two other young men stood beside him, close enough in their features to be kin.
Their own necklaces were just as thick with fangs.
They were the three sons of the Shadowcat Fang chieftain, the most powerful tribe in these mountains.
Keka, the eldest.
Kemu, the second.
Keman, the youngest.
When they found signs of the settlement column, the brothers began calling warriors from nearby tribes.
They meant to drive the damned Reachmen from the lands of the Red Mountains.
The mountain tribes fought one another often enough, but against the Reach, they were natural allies.
The brothers had not attacked at once.
The settlement column included more than two hundred well-armed, well-drilled soldiers.
Instead, the wild men shadowed them through the mountains while waiting for more warriors to gather.
When the Reachmen reached their chosen valley and began building a camp, Keka grew restless.
He could see how strong the place was.
If the Reachmen raised a proper camp there, or worse, a castle, the mountain tribes would lose this ground forever.
By then, the fame of the Shadowcat Fang tribe had drawn more than two thousand warriors to the brothers’ side.
Keka still hesitated.
Against trained soldiers from the Reach, the mountain tribes were weaker in arms, armor, and discipline.
Without a great advantage in numbers, they did not willingly meet such men in open battle.
On paper, they had that advantage now.
But the Reachmen held the valley mouth.
Keka wanted more warriors before committing himself.
Time favored the enemy.
Each day brought more defenses.
Each hour made the valley harder to take.
Caught between attacking too soon and waiting too long, he sent men to harry the camp, slow the work, test the soldiers, and seize any scouts they could catch.
They captured two.
From those prisoners, Keka learned the settlement column held two kinds of soldiers: a hundred elite men from House Tyrell, and another hundred raw recruits the chartered knight had gathered before leaving Highgarden.
Then, near dusk, the Reachmen reacted like a disturbed hive.
More than a hundred armed soldiers marched out of the valley to search for the missing scouts.
Keka was not frightened.
He was delighted.
The Tyrell soldiers, the best men in the camp, had left.
An opening.
A good hunter did not hesitate when prey showed its flank.
Once he was certain the Tyrell men had gone far enough, Keka gave the order to attack.
In his mind, a hundred raw recruits and one famously useless knight, even with higher ground, could not hold back more than two thousand mountain warriors.
When the fighting began, something felt wrong.
The resistance inside the valley was far stronger than expected.
The narrow dark passage became a pit without a bottom, swallowing warrior after warrior.
“They should break soon,” Keman said, though he too sounded uneasy.
“The camp holds only raw recruits.
They must have taken heavy losses by now.” “And our warriors?” asked a chieftain from another tribe.
“How many have we lost?” No one answered.
Darkness hid the dead.
All they had were the sounds of battle and the thick smell of blood.
Keka rose suddenly and drew his blade.
“I will lead the charge myself.” The other chiefs brightened at once, as if the first warrior of Shadowcat Fang entering the fight would end the matter.
Keka had taken only a few steps when someone caught his arm.
“Brother.” Keman leaned close and lowered his voice.
“The more I think on it, the more this looks like a trap.” Keka froze.
“What trap?” “If the camp does not fall, and the Tyrell soldiers who left suddenly return, what happens to us?” Keka’s eyes widened.
Then they narrowed.
He set a hand on his youngest brother’s shoulder.
“You may be right.
But we cannot withdraw now.
You and Kemu watch our rear.
If the Tyrell men return, hold them.
Once I break into the valley, we win.
Every Reachman inside dies.” He turned and strode away.
Keman sighed quietly.
His brother was right about one thing: it was too late to simply leave.
Most of the warriors were already packed into the valley mouth.
A retreat would be difficult even if they ordered one.
And if the Shadowcat Fang tribe fled without being defeated, its name would be ruined.
They could only go forward.
Then a wild man came running, panic in his voice.
“The Reach soldiers who left!
They are coming back!” Keman’s stomach sank.
So it was a trap.
He knew he must not show fear.
This army of tribes had been sewn together for a single night, and panic could tear it apart in a heartbeat.
He smiled calmly at the stunned faces around him and raised his voice.
“Why fear?
It is only a hundred Reachmen.
I will take three hundred warriors and hold them.” His confidence steadied the others.
Voices rose in praise of the three sons of Shadowcat Fang.
Keman wasted no time.
He found Kemu, gathered more than three hundred warriors, and formed them outside the valley to meet the Tyrell soldiers coming from behind.
The enemy advanced hard and fast.
Keman forced his worry down.
Trap or not, he was one of the three strongest warriors of Shadowcat Fang.
He had walked beside death more times than he could count.
Never once had he turned his back to an enemy.
“Warriors of the mountains!” he shouted.
CREATORS’ THOUGHTS TheDevotedReader I hope you enjoyed this chapter.