22. Securing the Greater Area

Once the growth ended, Mark and a good portion of the guards went to the crevice to join the village meeting that would soon take place.

While the guards were the ones protecting the village, they were not the only ones who could slay the beasts. The hunter parties were also capable of fighting the mountain beasts and they were the ones who would replace the injured guards that needed to rest during attacks on the village.

They were not trained in guard duties so they were never the first picks when the village needed to be defended and their skills were better for ambushes and planned attacks. Nevertheless, they were still skilled in killing animals and they regularly had to take on the mountain beasts when they went out for a hunt.

There were other groups of people that would go out to slay the occasional beast. The leatherworkers had to get their own beasts from time to time when they had custom orders for specific types of beast leather for one reason or the other. Stone masons would sometimes have to defend themselves when they were collecting and transporting different types of stones. Overall, there were many groups in the village that had their own ways of killing the beasts and they would all band together after a growth to drive the beasts out of the greater village area.

After each time there was a growth, the village elders and those capable of hunting beasts would have a meeting while a sensibly sized group was left guarding the gates. It was rare to have a beast attack after the growth but not unprecedented. Everyone else was at the meeting to form a party and head out to clear out the greater village area since that is where their farmland and most of the gathering areas were located.

They did not have to slay all of the beasts and animals in the area, they just had to drive them out to an acceptable safe distance. The beasts and animals would get the hint when the parties came out in force.

This was accomplished via several methods that had been developed over the centuries.

The hunting parties would form their groups which were typically the same each time, with the young adults joining in on experienced groups to get the necessary instruction to do it themselves down the road. The people who were incapable of fighting the beasts would hang back behind the hunting groups with various pieces of metal like pots and pans to make loud noises.

There were also people with torches that would wave them around if the beasts got too close to the backline noise people which was also effective in scaring off the animals.

People like Mark who were used to fighting the beasts on their own would go out into the greater village area and indiscriminately slay the beasts as quickly as they could or at least cause them some damage. Their goal was to strike fear in the beasts so the rest of the villagers would have an easier time scaring them off.

Once everyone had gathered, the village chief had them break up into their groups.

"Guards, hunting parties, and Mark, head to your gates and begin the clearing process. Everyone else, grab the materials you need and form up outside the gates to follow the clearing parties.

Everyone knew what to do so the gathering part was more of a formality. The guards mostly wanted to make sure the people in the crevice were fine before they headed outside the gates. The crevice people also wanted to make sure their family members at the gates were alive and well. The injured guards were either placed with the noise line or sent home to recover.

Mark decided to head to the west gate since they had the craziest interaction during the growth period. 

'There is no way anyone else would be able to deal with the chimeric mountain panthers. I better take care of any that are still hanging around before anyone gets killed.'

The west gate guards noticed that Mark was headed west and they felt relieved. No doubt they had similar thoughts as the blacksmith.

It didn't take long for Mark to get to the gate and they had already unblocked it by that point, making sure to have a strong presence at the gate to deter any potential attackers. He noticed that the guards were tense but otherwise fine, and they started to relax when they noticed Mark approaching.

Mark just nodded to the guards that stood to attention for him. They obviously were treating him with even more respect than they used to. He had thought of chatting with them but he had other things of on his mind.

'When I get done with this I need to collect all the beasts and process them. Maybe I should ask the leatherworkers and some butchers for help since that would speed things up and would just cost me some meat that would spoil otherwise and some leather that is not that important to me. . . '

'I really like the look of those chimeric panther horns. . . they were even able to deflect my spear which I know is exceptionally difficult since it can stick into the bedrock around here.'

Of course, his thoughts were all about his new toys he could play with at the forge. He would not even craft them for anyone else as they would just go into his research since he had never gotten to work with the panther materials.

'I also noticed that their leather was quite tough, that first cut I made on the big guy was not as deep as I thought it would be because I met some resistance from the fur and skin before I cut into the flesh.'

What he would do with such leather was not quite apparent yet, but he could already see his adventuring attire getting an upgrade.

He soon came upon his first group of mountain animals after he ran out of the bedrock corridor and into the expansive mountain terrain. The wolves he ran through didn't stand a chance even though they tried to defend their newly acquired territory. The ones that did not immediately get cut down by Mark ran off as fast as they could, scattered instead of the cohesive unit they had been.

'Damn wolves, pests more than anything. Why couldn't it at least be wargs. . .'

Mark was feeling ambitious as he had already secured quite a few materials for his crafts. His greed was only apparent when it came to getting new things to try out at the forge.

He continued to run around the western area of the village but it seemed his initial slaughter had alerted any of the other beasts in the area because they all fled upon seeing him. Soon, he had reached the limits of the eastern area that the village kept under control and after checking every side, the rest of the guards and noise makers caught up with him to confirm that the east side was secured.

Since he was already on the furthest northern part of the east side after his sweep, he decided to head to the northern territory. It would be a difficult task for anyone else, but Mark traversed the terrible terrain with practiced ease. He would often cross these areas of great chasms and sheer cliffs to search for the special ores when he couldn't find them in the caves. The in-between areas between the territories were rarely crossed by people or beasts so any of the special ores that managed to fall in these areas would stick around for Mark to find them.

With that in mind, he kept a lookout for any of the ores he could work with and actually found some small rocks of the orange ore he needed to finish his plans with his sword.

'I finally have enough orange to test my theory of the vibrating ore and then implement the alloy in my sword. I need to finish this cleanup quickly.'

He did not manage to find any more ores as he made his way to the greater northern area of the village, but he made a mental note of the place he found the orange ores so he could come back later to check again.

The northern area had a warg that was running away from some hunters when he showed up, and he noticed that his fellow villagers were out for blood so he threw his spear into the fleeing warg's body which greatly slowed it down and allowed the hunters to catch it and brutally kill it.

He made his way over to them to make sure they were good.

"Hey guys, is everything alright here?"

One of the hunters, Josh, looked over at Mark.

"Oh, hey Mark. . . thanks for the help there. Yeah. . . everything is fine. That warg had hurt my brother Tevon and it really pissed us off. I know we don't need to kill every beast that is in this greater area but we felt the need to put this one down. Again, thank you for the help. It almost got away."

Josh looked quite pissed still but Mark noticed his expression soften as he talked. Mark also noted that Josh seemed quite chatty so he decided not to ask him things in the future.

"I think you guys should take the warg since it caused you so much trouble, besides, I hardly did any of the work here."

It was common for hunting parties that went after the same beast to have disputes about how to split the loot, but Mark decided that he had more than enough materials for the day. Some warg fur would not be a significant harvest and having the thanks of the hunters would be a bigger deal. He made them weapons and repaired their stuff often but he didn't get much of a chance to interact with them. Unlike the guards, the hunters didn't have an exaggerated sense of respect for him. He was not looking for that level of respect but he did think that it would be easier to trade with them in the future if he gave them this one.

The hunters were not only surprised at his generosity, but they were also quite impressed with his humble attitude. They knew that without Mark, they would not have been able to slay the beast but Mark would have taken the thing down on his own with ease. They expressed their gratitude and as Mark walked off they talked among themselves about how they needed to make sure they repaid him in some way in the future.

As for Mark, he made his way around the greater northern area and found that the cleanup had gone quite smoothly. One group had to run off some gullen, but it seemed that they knew of the other gullen that had been killed because they ran off in fear. The rest of the groups just had regular beasts to deal with and the noise was instrumental in chasing them off.

Once Mark was sure that the greater area was secured, he headed back to the village to collect his treasures and begin his experiments.