Chapter 70 -- A very short lived victory
In the village of Nok, almost all the villagers could be seen gathered around the village hall. Today was the day all the able-bodied men would set out to hunt the mountain lions which have been terorrising their village
The women and children could be seen hugging their husbands as for some of them, it would be the last day seeing them.
"Are you gonna come back alive?" Olivia asked Owen, who was fiddling around with his bow.
"Well that depends on whether the wife wants me to come back alive" Owen chuckled.
"Well the wife is ordering you to come back alive" Olivia said.
"Yes mam I will be sure to return unharmed" Owen laughed.
"But seriously Owen, I lost one already" Olivia turned serious.
Seeing her serious expression, Owen stood up and caressed her tiny face with his large hands.
"You will not lose me. How could I leave you to raise my baby girl alone?. I will be back, I promise"
"Okay people!, goodbye time is over let's head out" William shouted. One must know that William is the same person who was paid to teach Zane about magic back then, he is also the acting chief, being the late chief's son.
"You heard the 'chief', I gotta get going" Owen emphasized the word 'chief'.
"Go get them tiger" Olivia cheered.
"I think you mean, go get them mountain lion" Owen laughed as he left with the group.
The makeshift mortal hunter group was made of 20 men. Ten of which carried spears. Six of them had bows, including Zane's father, while the remaining four had swords. William was in the four, welding a fancy looking red sword.
Well it was fancy in Nok village standards. In Willow city it wasn't even regarded as trash.
The group walked towards the mountains in the distance. The lions always came from the direction of these mountains so naturally, their habitat would be there.
Although Nok village was near the border of the Willow city safe zone, it wasn't at the edge. There was another village between Nok and the beast zone.
This other village was located just after the mountains were the group was headed. This meant that either the lions lived on Nok village's side of the mountains or the inhabitants of the other village managed to drive them away to Nok's side.
It didn't take long for the group to arrive at the foot of the mountain, they had moved quite quickly, on account of William being the only one riding a horse.
Every single person there was a farmer, all of them had horses back at their village but apparently only William was allowed to ride out on his. This further infuriated Owen, it was clear William would make the worst chief in history.
The group was about to advance up the mountain when Owen noticed something at the corner of his eye.
"Wait! look over there" He pointed at the side of the mountain. The mountain was in front of then and Owen was pointing to their right.
The others followed his hand but didn't see anything of note were he pointed, except for a weirdly shaped tree.
"What is it?" William asked in disgust, he was about to lead the villagers to a victory that would make him the most beloved chief but Owen was about to get in the way of that.
"It's the mountain lions, they're over there, come on" Owen said as he started walking towards the direction he pointed at.
Without even questioning him, the villagers followed. Along with a very unhappy William. No one even asked for his input!.
It didn't take long for the whole group to see the lions. They were a pride of 10 and they were all sleeping lazily in a clearing on the foot of the mountain.
Most of the villagers gritted their teeth in anger when they saw the remains of their livestock strewn across the clearing.
The villagers knew that they needed a plan, charging into a pride of mountain lions was suicide. Their previous chief was a good example.
Naturally they all looked at the the self proclaimed leader of the group. William was still on his horse as he also watched the lions with hatred.
"Ahem" One of the villagers cleared their throat to get their 'chief's attention.
William took his eyes away from the lions and was surprised to see everyone surrounding his horse looking at him.
"What do we do?" Asked Owen.
That's when William regained his composure and thought of the best way to deal with the lions.
"The bow users stay at the back and shoot from afar while the spear user throw their spears. The rest of us will charge ahead and slaughter them all while they are preoccupied with the arrows and spears." William ordered.
"When you say the rest of you, you mean yourself and the three other sword users" Owen asked for clarification.
"Yes" William confidently nodded.
"So just to be absolutely sure. Your plan is for sixteen people to throw spears and shoot arrows from afar while four people with swords charge in?" Owen asked.
"Are you deaf Owen?. Although I wouldn't be surprised if disability runs in the family" William finally snapped after keeping his annoyance with Owen under check. He didn't even know what made him agree to teach their son three years ago anyway.
William was one of the few people in the village to know about Zane. The others had no idea, so they didn't understand William's insult.
"Fuck you William, thank your lucky stars i promised my wife not to get hurt" One could literally see the killing intent coming from Owen.
'I don't know when, but i am going to kill him' Owen thought.
"Listen up everyone this is our real plan" Owen began addressing the villagers "I don't want to lose anyone today we all have to return safe to our families so we are going to do this cautiously"
"How many of you have experience hunting mountain lions?" he asked.
Silence.
"So then no one is gonna fight a lion head on. We outnumber them two to one so we trap them all in one place so the bow users can shoot from a safe distance."
"Spear users, you will create a circle around the lions and use your spears to force them to stay still. Make sure the you circle them tightly, if even one of them escapes we are all dead" Owen explained.
A few of the villagers seemed lost on the plan but most understood. Owen didn't explain himself again as he didn't want to risk the lions waking up, so those who didn't understand would follow the lead of the others.
The group immediately got into action, the sword users put away their swords and luckily some spear users had extra spears so they borrowed them. No one knew where William was at this moment.
The lions had slept close together, probably for protection. It wasn't hard for the men to surround them. Although the villagers were scared, they knew only they could save their families and farms.
The circle the villagers made around the lions slowly got smaller as they moved closer, it got to the point were there weren't any gaps between the villagers as they stood with spears pointed at the surprisingly still sleeping pride of lions.
The circle was about 4 meters in diameter.
When the villagers couldn't make the circle any smaller they stopped, just as Owen had ordered. It was at this point one of the lions woke up to a spear head in front of it's face.
Quickly jumping back, the lion woke up the rest of the pride with its movements. If they could show emotions, the lions would be shocked to find themselves surrounded by spears.
One of the lions pounced at the human closest to it, and was impaled by a spear. The man shook the dead lion off his spear and got back in position.
"Fire" Owen said and not a second later, a rain of arrows descended on the trapped lions from a nearby tree. It didn't take long for all the lions to die under the attack. They couldn't jump because of the arrows and they couldn't run because of the spears.
"We did it!!" One of the villagers raised his spear into the air victoriously. Followed by the shouts of the rest.
AHHHH!
ROARRR!
Everyone went silent as they looked towards the mountain, and the sight they saw made quite a few grown men urinate themselves in absolute terror.
William could be seen running down the mountain, screaming like a little girl, and behind him, a giant two meter tall lion, behind that, an army if more than fifty mountain lions.