The train of bone-framed sleds followed the path of the Redwater River, making its way north before branching into the deep Eastern Gorges...
Walking alongside the sleds, Jax remembered the stories the elders used to tell around the fire.
Generations ago, this entire gorge had been an uninhabitable wasteland of glacial rock.
In order to catch the salmon runs during the spring melts, the ancestors of the River Clans had spent decades dragging the boulders away by hand, slowly carving out a network of shallow pools and fishing weirs.
However, during that multi-generational effort, a permanent seasonal trading ground had naturally formed on the flat ice of the gorge...
But the scene that unfolded before Jax’s eyes was different from the prosperous fishing tales of his youth.
The eastern gorge was no longer a thriving hub of the River Clans. Instead, the icy banks were scorched, and the once-lush pine forests had been reduced to a blackened graveyard of burnt timber.
Seeing this desolate destruction made Jax think of the barricades Frodo was currently building back at the mountain.
When Frodo’s defenses were finished, Jax believed that their mountain would become the last true sanctuary in the freezing world.
"I heard you were born in these river valleys, little shadow," a rumbling voice suddenly sounded from the sled beside him.
When Jax turned his head, he saw Orok, the scarred chieftain of the Salt-Gatherers, looking down at him.
Jax nodded. "Before Kael’s Blood-Walkers slaughtered my clan, I lived in the lower tributaries."
"How does it feel to return to your old hunting grounds?"
"Honestly speaking? It feels terrible," Jax said, pulling his furs tighter against the biting wind. "If it were not for the orders of my Lord, I would rather stay on the mountain. Although this gorge used to be a lively place, breathing the air here now just gives me a suffocating feeling."
"Is that so?" Orok chuckled. "How much do you actually know about your boy-leader, Frodo?"
"What do you mean?" Hearing this sudden question made Jax’s heart shiver slightly with vigilance.
"I think he is a terrifying creature, dressed in a boy’s skin. Of course, many strange rumors are flowing across the ice plains... you should know a lot of them. They say a demon possesses him," Orok paused, his eyes narrowing. "However, after visiting his mountain... it is nothing like the madmen say. His mind is unpredictable." Orok gestured behind Jax. "If the sweet-scented balm and the lever-machines were just born of clever tricks, why then, are the warriors he trains so entirely out of the ordinary?"
Speaking of the spearmen, Jax glanced back at the ten hunters escorting him.
Taking into account that their activities in the eastern trading grounds had to be hidden as much as possible, Frodo had explicitly ordered them not to carry the advanced Atlatls or wear their wolf-pelts.
Instead, their armor had been replaced with all sorts of mismatched deer hides, and the only weapons they carried were simple, wooden spears on their backs.
They looked like any other desperate, neutral porters...
Yet, their behavior gave them away to a trained eye.
For most of these men, it was the first time they had traveled so far from the mountain, but not a single one of them was carelessly gaping at the scenery. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
Their eyes constantly scanned the tree lines, and no one had taken off their boots or rested their spears in the snow.
On the other hand, the mercenary guards of Orok’s caravan had simply climbed onto the moving sleds, leaving only three or four men actually walking.
Those on the sleds were fast asleep, their weapons buried under piles of pelts.
"I am not sure how he does it," Jax answered.
It wasn’t that he was trying to hide a military secret; he simply didn’t fully understand it himself.
After Frodo took command, the very soul of the tribe had mutated.
"Perhaps the mountain spirits truly whisper to him."
"Perhaps..." Orok said nothing more, keeping silent for a moment before suddenly pointing his finger into the distance. "Look. The jagged ice-walls. We are arriving at the trading grounds."
At the end of his field of vision, Jax could make out the towering cliffs of the gorge.
As the gorge became clear, the miserable figures of the refugees also entered Jax’s field of vision.
A number of starving survivors had gathered in the freezing outskirts of the neutral trading camp.
They had built incredibly flimsy, pathetic lean-tos out of broken branches against the ice walls.
In front of those sheds, dozens of weak fires sputtered in the wind, sending smoke into the air.
The refugees were boiling pine needles and tree bark in crude clay pots, trying to trick their stomachs.
For now, these people had not yet resorted to cannibalism, and a few still had the strength to stand.
But the neutral traders would certainly not support them with free meat forever.
As soon as the trading cycle ended and the nomads left, Kael’s elite forces would sweep the gorge, dragging whoever hadn’t frozen to death back to the slave pits.
"How do you plan to complete your recruitment?" Orok asked curiously, watching the sea of misery. "Will you send those ten rigid spearmen of yours to yell Frodo’s promises to the crowd?"
"No, that would be incredibly foolish. It would immediately draw the unwanted attention of Kael’s spies," Jax shook his head. "If you want to move people without making a sound, you don’t use warriors. You use the Cave-Rats. I assume a chieftain like you is already very familiar with how the scavengers operate."
"Ah, the thieves and the whisperers. Clever," Orok laughed. "I was going to offer my own hunters to help you round them up, but it seems you know what you are doing. If you need meat to bribe your rats, come to my tents."
Orok reached into his furs and handed Jax a green river-stone. "As long as you show this stone, my provision-masters will give you whatever you demand. Anything under two full sleds of meat, you may take without asking."
"Do not thank me," Orok chuckled. "The meat will be repaid to me by your Lord, with interest in sweet-balm."
After arriving at the edge of the gorge, Jax ordered the ten spearmen to establish a hidden camp in the dense pines outside the trading perimeter and wait for his signal.
Their only task was to avoid the sight of Kael’s roaming patrols. Jax himself slipped into the trading camp alone.
As he navigated the edge of the neutral ground, the first thing that came into his sight was a row of pine trunks driven deep into the permafrost.
Tied to the trunks were five frozen, mutilated bodies, their hands bound tightly behind their backs.
The corpses released a sickly stench that somehow cut through the cold.
Seeing such a brutal display of dominance made Jax immediately stop and frown...
"Kael’s vanguard sweeps the edges of the gorge," an old nomad muttered, walking past Jax and spitting in the snow. "Those unfortunates were caught trying to steal from the warlord’s supply caches. Or perhaps Kael’s elites just got bored and wanted to test the sharpness of their new green axes. No matter what, it is a miserable way to die."
During the last moon cycle at the mountain, Jax had realized that order and strength did not require sadistic cruelty, just as Frodo had demonstrated.
Looking at the frozen bodies Jax felt as if his heart were being crushed by a stone.
Apart from the sheer number of dying refugees, the trading ground itself was a horrifying mess.
The main paths were covered in yellow slush and rotting animal offal.
Whenever a sled passed, a spray of mud would coat the tents.
It was hard to imagine that this historically famous trading hub was vastly outdone by the sanitary, organized latrines and drainage trenches of Frodo’s isolated mountain cave.
After crossing through two rings of tents, Jax separated from the path of Orok’s sleds.
Instead of following the chieftain to the center, Jax waved a silent goodbye and slipped alone into the darkest alley of the camp.
Arriving at the familiar entrance of a semi-subterranean earth-lodge he pushed the hide flap aside and stepped into the smoke.
"Hey! The fighting pit isn’t open until the moon rises!" a voice shouted from the dark.
Jax ignored the warning and walked toward the central fire pit, facing the brute who was chewing on a raw bone. "Do you still remember me?"
"From what frozen puddle did you crawl out, little rat? Didn’t you hear me say the lodge is closed?" The brute threw the bone into the fire and raised his face, while two thugs stepped out of the shadows to encircle Jax. "I will count to three, and then I will break your legs— wait. Little Jax?"
"It is me," Jax spat into the dirt near the fire, pushing his hood back to reveal his face. "And I have a trade deal I want to offer you."