My Kingdom Building Done Right!
Chapter 260: Travis’ Proposal
Gundar smoked on a pipe while seated on a log that overlooked the river.
From his location, he could see thousands of warriors from the Darkmane Tribe either bathing in the river or casting nets to fish.
Three days had passed since the war between the Darkmane Tribe and the Aslan Tribe came to pass.
In the first two days, Troy and his men had suffered two consecutive defeats, and the Darkmane army’s morale had sunk to an all-time low.
In fact, after these two clashes had ended, the Darkmane Tribe realized something.
Their prized siege weapons truly had no effect against the defenses of the Aslan Tribe.
If their siege weapons weren’t working, how could they possibly break past their defenses?
During the meetings of the Darkmane Tribe, some Elders proposed that they charge at the wall and try to scale it using ladders.
Troy had been hesitant to approve of these measures. He knew that the moment they came within the range of the Aslan Tribe’s siege weapons, hundreds, even thousands, of people would die.
While he knew Jafar could turn the dead into their fighting force, losing that many lives was something even the Chieftain of the Darkmane Tribe didn’t wish to happen.
They needed some kind of breakthrough.
Something that would allow them to at least deal damage to the Aslan Tribe.
However, Travis, who had kept quiet during the meetings, suddenly spoke up.
"Is there even a need to continue this war?" Travis asked, surprising his father, and everyone gathered there.
"What do you mean?" Jafar frowned. "Are you implying that we should end this war and go home as the defeated?"
"No," Travis replied. "I’m saying we should probably negotiate with the Aslan Tribe and find a compromise. The way I see it, even if our entire army were to rush to those walls and weaponize numbers and brute force to scale their walls, there would still be no guarantee of success."
The young man then raised a finger as he made a proposal.
"Isn’t it about time that we at least try to communicate with them?" Travis asked. "We can ask to settle this war with a duel. Of course, the chances of them accepting this are very low. However, this is better than risking the countless lives of our warriors, right?
"No one here wants to admit it, but the moment our Fire Catapults dealt no damage to their defenses, we already lost this war."
Travis didn’t hesitate to address the biggest problem their tribe was facing at the moment. The Elders could only stare at him with conflicted expressions on their faces.
However, they didn’t deny that he was right.
Even Troy didn’t say anything. But he was still surprised that his youngest son suddenly spoke up in their important meeting.
Back then, Travis would simply observe and watch as the adults gave their proposals and stated their opinions.
"Last but not least, we can just reach a compromise," Travis stated. "We can pay the Aslan Tribe compensation for declaring war on them and create a contract that there would be no hostilities between the two tribes for five to ten years. How does that sound?"
"If we do that, it is equal to admitting that we really lost against the Aslan Tribe," one Elder spoke up. "The other tribes are here, watching this battle. Are you saying that we should bear the stain of the defeated and have the other tribes mock us?"
"So what if we get mocked?" Travis arched an eyebrow. "So what if they call us losers? At least, we can preserve our manpower and try again later even if that later is years from now.
"Do not forget that the gathering of tribes is only a few months away. If our representative can win the tournament, we can wash away the shame of losing this war. Being the Regent of Eden will solve everything."
This time, everyone in the meeting quieted down.
This was something that they couldn’t decide, so they all shifted their attention to Troy, who was lightly tapping his finger on the armrest of his chair.
"Jafar, what do you think?" Troy asked. "Do we really not have a method of breaching those walls?"
Jafar hesitated for a bit before giving an answer. He had already thought of sending all of his Special Forces on a suicide mission while carrying vials filled with poison.
The moment the vials broke, they would release a liquid that would immediately turn to smoke and spread poison in the air.
This was one of the trump cards he had planned to use against the Aslan Tribe.
Jafar believed that it could work if his Undead could just reach the walls of the Aslan Tribe. If even a dozen of those vials could reach the ramparts, then dozens, and even hundreds of people could die when the poison takes over their bodies.
"We still have a chance," Jafar replied. "I have created a special poison that can neutralize people in minutes. They won’t die right away, but it will be enough to incapacitate them for hours. Maybe we can use that chance to finally turn the tables against the Aslan Tribe."
"And the chance of success?" Troy asked.
"Very high," Jafar answered. "But the moment we use it, everyone will know we used poison in battle. This might bite us back in the future since the other tribes might also employ poison against us.
"Once we use this method, it will only be downhill from there. Every tribe will actively produce poisons, and we won’t be able to stop it in the future. More accurately, we don’t have the right to because we started it first."
While using poison in wars wasn’t a crime, it was something that Barbarians rarely used since it was considered a dishonorable act.
Troy also understood the complications of using this method. If they really used poison against the Aslan Tribe, he had a feeling that he would die of poison as well in the future.
The fact that their food reserves were burned, instead of being laced with poison, was because the Aslan Tribe was still following the rules of combat.
If the Aslanians could burn their food, they could also poison them back, and when that happened, Troy would have nothing else to blame but himself.
"Let’s save that as a last resort," Troy declared after a moment of consideration.
He was also very wary of how Gundar would react if he discovered that the Darkmane Tribe had used poison.
The main reason the great shaman had killed the previous chieftain was related to poison as well.
They had meant to kill Gundar, but the one who died was a dear friend of the great shaman.
After killing the one who used poison against his friend and interrogating that person’s soul, the truth came out.
The one who gave the order was the previous Chieftain of the Darkmane Tribe.
Without a word of warning, Gundar unleashed his fury and flipped the Darkmane Tribe outside down.
Since then, using poison had become a tricky matter within the Darkmane Tribe.
If Leone really died from poison, then the chances of Troy and Jafar dying were nearly guaranteed, given how the great shaman held the young chieftain in high regard.
After hearing everyone’s opinions, they decided to take Travis’ proposal.
In order to ensure that they wouldn’t be attacked, the Darkmane Tribe reached out to Gundar and told him that they wished to initiate a parley with the Aslan Tribe.
The great shaman asked what kind of proposal they planned to make, and it was revealed that Troy had proposed a duel to settle the dispute between the two tribes.
Those who were at the scene also heard these talks and made them understand that the Darkmane Tribe wished to find another method to end the war because a direct confrontation wasn’t working for them.
The mere fact that the mighty Darkmane Tribe had requested a parley after only three days of fighting told everyone the same thing.
They couldn’t defeat the Aslan Tribe using their famed siege weapons, nor use brute force to claim their walls.
The tribe that had only been founded for a few months had forced one of the high-ranking tribes to seek another path to victory... or another path to save their reputation.
In the eyes of the gathered tribes, Leone had done something that no other chieftains had done in the Borderlands for the past century.
He won against the Darkmane Tribe, and he had done it without a single tribe member dying.
Vlad couldn’t help but grin as he glanced at his older brothers.
The same people who had mocked Leone only days ago now stood in complete silence.
None of them could find a single word to say because even they couldn’t accomplish half of what the person Vlad admired the most had done.
Finally, Gundar agreed to their proposal, and an hour later, the great shaman, Troy, Jafar, his sons, a handful of elders, and a dozen warriors from the Darkmane Tribe made their way towards the mighty walls of the Aslan Tribe.
Daedalus had already informed Leone about their purpose for coming and had informed his vassals as well.
Originally, Leone should have been the one to face this delegation, but Kael rejected the idea.
"They might be up to something sinister," Kael stated. "Great Chieftain, please allow me to handle them. If you want to say something, you can say it through telepathy, and I will pass this message without fail."
Ulric, Jason, Brann, and Otto also supported Kael’s proposal.
There was a possibility that they would launch a sneak attack against their young chieftain.
Granted, the chances were small, but a chance was still a chance.
For his safety, Leone decided to return inside the fortress, with Brann protecting him.
Since Daedalus allowed him to see and hear what was happening within his domain, he simply waited for the delegation of the Darkmane Tribe to arrive at the Aslan Tribe’s first line of defense.
The same defensive walls that Troy, Jafar, and their subordinates were starting to think were impossible to overcome.