Conflict

Like clockwork Luca immediately gets up when the first rays of sunshine touch the ground, he wasn't an early bird before coming to this primitive place however he needed to get up early and do everything that needed doing before the sun was down. Hunting in the darkness without a lot of experience and a coordinated group is tantamount to suicide, especially with the Karaskir roaming around the area. He grabs his spear, wear his squirrel trousers and puts on his bear hide before briskly walking out of his hut for today's hunting.

"You, Lu'ka." he hears a voice call out to him and glances at the person, not taking long to recognise them as Cuth'lu, one of the people present while Sarr'vuln was discussing what to do with the Karaskir. He should be one of the higher ups of the tribe so why was talking to him? Luca wondered. "Yeah?"

"Come with me, you will be fed by the tribe today so put away everything but your weapon." the large black haired man says as he crosses his arms and starts waiting.

Luca doesn't say anything and does as he's told, knowing that this is probably serious if they're feeding him today. He follows Cuth'lu to a small hidden clearing not far from the village, inside he sees around six other men that seem to around his own age. A few look nervous but others have determined looks on their faces.

Cuth'lu stands in-front of them all and clears his throat, "I am sure you all know of the situation with the Karaskir. Sarr'vuln's speech yesterday should have made our stance clear, we are now at war. You are gathered here and now to make the first strike against them."

...

Luca struggles to comprehend what'd just happened, had he just been drafted to fight in a war? This couldn't be happening... "Wait, I don't know how to fight, why am I here?" he voices his concern but is scornfully looked at by the other young men who think he's a coward, justifiably so.

One of the boys frowns, "My younger brother praised you whenever we spoke of you, seeing you now makes me wonder if we were talking about the same person."

"And who's your brother?" Luca asks, not allowing an insult to go unchallenged.

"Ke'du. I am Le'du." he states.

Cuth'lu interrupts them, "We do not have time for you all to befriend eachother, you will learn to work together in battle or die. You, Lu'ka, you were not chosen because we thought you could fight, you were chosen because no one else can. We are not a large tribe like the Olmnar and lack experienced warriors. While the others hunt to feed the tribe we will be defending our territory."

Luca reluctantly nods, he wasn't a great hunter so it isn't weird for him to be forced to fight instead of making valuable people fight... Essentially, he's cannon fodder. He shakes his head to rid himself of these thoughts, if he continues thinking about it he won't be able to hide the resentment he's currently feeling towards the Sua'jiki.

"We will not be teaching you to fight as most of you already know the basics, no, you will be learning through experience. Our leader has tasked us with ambushing the Karaskir scouts that are hunting on the outskirts of our territory. I will lead you all and will only ask one thing of you, follow the commands I give." The group nods at his words with noone confident enough to try and argue with him.

Cuth'lu nods to himself, "Prepare your weapons, we will need to be quick on our feet if we are going to catch them..." he stops for a moment, "Before I forget, the Chief's daughter made these for you." he says, handing each of them a small pouch filled with some kind of powder.

Luca's curiosity is peaked, he'd seen Sarr'ina's supernatural abilities before and wondered what affect this would have on them. "What is it?" he asks.

Cuth'lu simply grins, "You will know when the time comes, before we enter combat I want you all to push your noses inside the pouch and breathe heavily through your noses." with that said he ties some kind of flint axe to his belt while throwing his bow over his shoulders and walking off, expecting the boys to follow him.

Luca quickly follows and finds himself unfortunately walking with Le'du, he tries to ignore him but the boy starts trying to make small talk with him. "So, you are an outsider? What tribe are you from?"

"The.. Mallory tribe" he says after a moment of thinking, "You wouldn't have heard of it."

Le'du nods his head, "Must have all been weaklings to produce someone like you. I have heard about you from the others, needing the Shaman to teach you everything from hunting to cleaning. They even told me the story of how you did not even know how to wipe your ass properly... I want you to know, it was my chair you ruined by sitting on it." he grumbles.

Luca's face goes red in embarrassment, as he'd lived his life using toilet paper trying to wipe himself clean with leaves that sometimes even stung him was difficult and made him get lazy... He'd quickly fixed that after sitting on a primitive chair and leaving behind a gift for whoever owned it. Apparently Le'du was the owner. He felt less guilty about it now though. "I'm sorry about your chair but I lived a different live from that of the tribe, I've seen things that'd make your head explode." he quickly says but Le'du shakes his head in disbelief.

"Whatever outsider, just know that I am only here to fight for my brother and mother. If you hold the group back I will put you in the ground along with our enemies." he says grimly.

"Dude, you talk as if you're some kind of badass but I can guarantee you will die before I will." Luca says somewhat bitterly, causing Le'du give him a weird look.

Cuth'lu raises his arm abruptly after an hour of walking which has those behind him to stop and drop into a crouch. Luca stares at the mans back as he listens to the surroundings and slowly retrieves his bow from his back. He then draws the arrow back and slows is breathing, Luca still has no idea what he's aiming at...

Cuth'lu fires the arrow and the group hears a a dull *Thud* followed by a heavier one not too long afterwards. Luca stands to peer over the bushes and spots a man lying on the ground with an arrow sticking from his temple. A wolf bursts from the clearing and whines at seeing it's master dead, it's head rapidly looks around to find the culprit but Luca's spear had already left his hand. The adrenaline that'd surged through him at seeing a human corpse had caused him to throw his spear without even thinking about it. Luckily for the group the spear strikes true, like the other wolf he'd skewered it penetrates it's neck, lower than the last but still a fatal injury.

It whines loudly and rolls on the ground in pain, inadvertently causing the wound to widen and allowing a huge amount of blood to gush out. This eventually ends it's life through blood-loss and silence once against reigns supreme in the forest.

Cuth'lu glances at him and pats him on the shoulder, "Good throw." is all he says as he slowly approaches the corpse, not becoming relaxed for even a moment. His attitude makes the others wary of more being around and act accordingly.

Le'du doesn't say anything but is impressed by Luca's quick reaction to the wolf, he'd barely even had time to draw his bow by the time the spear had hit. Maybe there's something to Ke'du's praise?