There was a split. The tribe was in unrest. Yet they tried to stay united.
Mabess led a small party along the fringes of the worksite. Axes split wood and hammers clang against metal. Metal that did not come cheaply. The costs were piling up by now, and the ashlanders were not the monetary sort.
All had to be hunted to trade for resources.
There was no other way.
Before her lay a great waste upon the side of the spine, trees burned to ashes, some fires still lingering. The ground she stepped on was a thick layer of ash and the blackness on the sky was greater than any seen in her lifetime, it almost blotted out the sun. Half of the ashlanders were set upon work on a city greater than any seen before. Mabess, of course, was one of those that objection of building such a fortress in the mountains. Ashlanders were people of the land.
Though some part of her understood why some would move on to build a great city of their own, it was in their blood after all. To farm and live in cosy villages for generations like many many many generations back at the Blightlands.
For long they have avoided the men of the mountains, muttering how little claim the orcs had upon the land. This would change...
The nameless city was being erected. Reinforced stone foundations already rose upon the site. Piles of massive wooden beams and iron lay at the side, waiting to be hauled to the site where the first of the houses were being built.
Hunting nonsensically would leave the mountainsides dry, no, there were specific targets that would supply a greater worth with little damage to future hunting prospects.
»Mabess? I've seen the tracks west from the shrieking rock,« Mogrid spoke in her hushed, calculated tone. Mabess crossed over her arms.
»The great elk?«
»None other.«
»Rally the huntresses. «
