My Kingdom Building Done Right!
Chapter 256: Emergency Meeting Of The Darkmane Tribe
Over a hundred people from the tribes spectating the battle earlier rode on their mounts and headed toward the wall of the Aslan Tribe to look at it up close.
Vlad was riding on his Raptor, Rappy. He excitedly called out to Leone, who was still standing on the ramparts.
"Leone, how did you do it?!" Vlad shouted. "There’s no damage on your walls! There’s not even a single dent on it!"
"I’ll tell you after the war is over," Leone replied with a smile. "For now, we will keep it a secret."
"Okay!" Vlad nodded. "That’s a promise!"
While that was happening, Ragnar and Wayne inspected the wall in disbelief. Just as Vlad had said earlier, the walls didn’t even have any scorch marks on them.
Naturally, Marcus and Elias were equally bewildered. They even glanced at their father, who had also appeared on the ramparts, as if asking him through eye contact if he knew if Leone had done something unexpected.
However, Hagen only shook his head because he really hadn’t seen anything strange from his vantage point earlier.
"Can we come in for a while?" Marcus asked. This time, his tone no longer contained any arrogance toward Leone.
After seeing with his own eyes that the walls of the Aslan Tribe remained unscathed from the attacks of the famous Fire Catapults of the Darkmane Tribe, he had no choice but to acknowledge that Leone’s tribe was truly formidable.
He knew that if those same catapults were used against the city walls of Grimhowl Tribe’s city, they wouldn’t have stood a chance.
"I’m sorry, but I can’t do that," Leone replied. "We are still at war with the Darkmane Tribe, so our doors will strictly remain shut until the war is over. I hope you understand. This is standard military protocol."
His father, the Viscount of Frontera, had taught him a few things about war. To prevent enemy spies or saboteurs from infiltrating their fortress, all external requests to enter it from outside would be denied.
While they were talking casually, Daedalus had informed Leone that dozens of masked warriors from the Darkmane Tribe were moving to retrieve the dead bodies of their warriors.
This was a common practice during wartime, so he had no intention of interfering with it.
As long as they didn’t make any move to advance towards their territory, they could take their people back with them.
’Leone, those masked men are Undead,’ Daedalus reported.
The young man narrowed his eyes at the masked people in the distance. The Orcs had already told him about the Undead that had infiltrated their forest the night before it was burned down.
He even asked Hagen and Malik if they knew that the Darkmane Tribe was using Undead in war, which surprised the two chieftains.
While there was no hard rule stating that such a thing was forbidden among the barbarians, it still made them more wary of the Darkmane Tribe. The idea of using the dead in this manner made them uncomfortable.
Leone glanced at the people who had come for a short visit and noticed that his great uncle was not among them.
Gundar didn’t need to check the walls up close since he had his own ways of doing that.
Because of this, he stayed in the ’Spectator’s Camp’ to make sure that the Darkmane Tribe wouldn’t do anything fishy to vent out their failed attempt at bringing down the defensive wall of the Aslan Tribe.
After Vlad and the heirs of the other high-ranking tribes returned to their camp, Leone went to look for Otto and praised him for doing a good job.
He also praised Castor and Pollux for helping the archer reload the ballista, allowing him to shoot without worry.
Truth be told, even now, Otto could shoot the warriors of the Darkmane Tribe from a distance.
However, he refrained from doing so.
It wasn’t an act of mercy.
Instead, it was because Leone asked him to let them go when they decided to retreat.
Truth be told, he was very wary of the mission he received before the war officially started.
The main siege weapons of the Darkmane Tribe weren’t worth considering a threat, so he couldn’t help but wonder what any other threat could endanger him and the Aslan Tribe.
"The enemy before you is not always the greatest threat," Leone muttered as he gazed at the Darkmane Tribe’s camp in the distance.
After pondering for a few minutes, he went to look for Yuni and asked her to send her Red-Tailed Hawk, Rio, to scout past the Darkmane Tribe army and the surrounding lands to look for anything that seemed suspicious.
Yuni didn’t question her chieftain’s order. She simply followed because Leone didn’t do things without a reason.
For now, the first day of the war came to a close, with the Darkmane Tribe reeling from the shock of their failure.
Having learned that their siege weapons couldn’t deal substantial damage against their enemy’s defenses, Troy, Jafar, and the officers of their army had an emergency meeting.
All of them pondered on what they could do to change the situation.
"Are you sure that there’s really no damage, Jafar?" Troy asked.
"I took a risk and sent one of my men to inspect the walls earlier," Jafar replied.
By one of his "men," he was referring to one of his Undead, which he treated as disposable cannon fodder.
Before it died, it managed to confirm that the walls truly showed no sign of damage. It wasn’t an illusion of some kind to trick their eyes at all.
"What kind of sorcery are they using?" the temporary commander of the siege weapons asked with a grim look on his face. "This has never happened before. I refuse to acknowledge that our Fire Catapults failed to damage those walls."
"So what if you refuse to acknowledge it?" one of the Elders of the Darkmane Tribe scoffed at those words. "Your acknowledgment will not change the fact that our bombardment did no visible damage. I don’t know what kind of sorcery they are using, but it is very troublesome!"
Everyone nodded in agreement. Jafar speculated that it was some kind of regeneration spell that worked on structures.
He had heard that the Golems inside the Dungeon of Eden had regenerative properties whenever their body parts were destroyed.
Unless you destroyed their cores, they would keep on regenerating until their opponent was exhausted.
"Then, what do we do?" The temporary commander sighed. "Are we supposed to scale those walls using ladders? Is that even possible?"
The other officers and elders made their own proposals throughout the discussion. However, none of them were realistic.
One of them even asked that they should ask for a warrior’s duel against the Aslan Tribe, the only feasible method they had at their disposal.
Still, Troy believed that the Aslan Tribe wouldn’t accept such an arrangement.
Duels were held when both armies were fighting in a plain because no one had a distinct advantage in flat terrain. It was a popular way of starting a war, serving as an opening act.
Though with the Aslan Tribe safe and sound behind their towering walls, there was no need for them to risk their lives to fight in a duel.
"How much food do we have left?" Troy asked Jafar.
"Six to seven days," Jafar replied. "If we ration it, then maybe we can extend it to ten days, but that’s our limit."
Troy clicked his tongue because time wasn’t on their side. Once their food supplies were used up, they would have no choice but to travel back to their domain as losers.
"Start rationing it," Troy ordered. "We will meet again tomorrow after breakfast. Use today to think of ways we can win this war. I don’t care what methods you use. Deceit, poison, or dirty tactics, we will use them all. Any method, even those that are inhumane, is allowed."
He had no intention of returning home as a loser.
No matter what happened, he would do everything in his power to win and rid himself of the stain that haunted his tribe.
An uneasy peace descended upon the land after that. When the sun had finally set, Leone retired inside the mountain to rest.
The members of the Aslan Tribe were quite happy with their victory, but he reminded them that overconfidence was a slow and insidious killer.
Leone had already informed his vassals about his latest mission. Because of this, they, too, were on high alert.
The penalty for failing the mission was something that they couldn’t allow to happen.
They had come this far, so they would make sure to defend their fortress without fail.
Somewhere in the distance, Yuni’s hawk, Rio, soared high across the sky.
It was keeping watch for anything that looked suspicious because Leone wanted to make sure that there were no other enemies that threatened him from a place where his eyes couldn’t reach.