The first rays of sunlight shone upon the village, but this time, Harkon didn't praise the good morning.
Instead, he was looking at his son making his last checks before departing.
They were in the city hall right now.
"Status report", Leigh said.
"All 10 000 soldiers are present and ready. The Egri family head just returned from the advance squad to report. All heirs are present.", Adamas answered.
The first thing Leigh stated in his list was that 30 shadows and the Nibo family leader head out immediately as a reconnaissance team.
Shadows were warriors trained by the Nibo in stealth, recon and assassination techniques. Even though not all shadows hailed from the Nibo family, all of them passed tests to be able to carry such a title.
The Egri family head went with them to gather intel before carrying it back to the village. One of the Egri's duties was to be messengers. They were 4 times faster than horses, and needed half the supplies to deliver a message, so they were the perfect people for the job.
"Good, I'll listen to it right now.", Leigh nodded.
Adamas was his 2nd in command, ranked higher than even the family head in this situation, because the Kowa were always the right hand men to the Emrys.
The Kowa heir proceeded to get the Egri family leader respectfully, and led her into the city hall.
Kayra, wearing her leather armour, entered the room. The brown leather made her fiery red hair stand out, and accentuated her athletic figure trained for high speed running and sudden movements. Her grey eyes looked at Leigh with respect when she came to a stop before him.
"The Egri family head salutes the lord!"
"Thank you for your efforts lady Kayra. Please tell me your report.", Leigh got straight to the point and said.
"Reporting back to the lord. The advance team has secured a way out of the mountain. The foggy path was no longer a hindrance as you said."
"We have spotted a village close to the mountain base, and it looks like our village, except for the villagers themselves. They appear to be very weak. The mountain base and the village are situated in a giant forest, making it ideal for ambushes. So far we have yet to find enemy troops, including in the spotted village."
Leigh nodded, "Good, that means that we can set up camp in the forest without being noticed."
"Adamas, get the heirs to enter while we are here.", he said next.
"Yes lord."
Adams went and got the other 3 waiting outside to enter as well.
"Silere of the Nibo salutes the lord!"
"Kita of the Egri salutes the lord!"
"Liera of the Seher salutes the lord!"
"At ease everyone.", Leigh responded.
"All heirs will be assigned a troop that is specialised in their respective families' specialty. The Egri have 2500 soldiers, the Nibo 200, the Seher 2500, and the Kowa 4800. This troop will be divided into divisions of 100 internally, with 1 captain assigned per group. Every group of 100 will then be divided into squads of 10, with 1 assigned team leader per squad. You can decide who the captains and team leaders are before we depart.", he said.
The villagers all trained since they were able to walk, and would choose a certain specialty once they were 12 years old. It went without saying that not everyone had the same talents, and that some occurred more than others, which is why the Nibo family always had the least amount of troops.
The villagers would then go to the respective big family to receive teachings in their specialisation, and that way, everyone could become proficient in one way of battle if they trained hard enough.
"Yes lord!", all heirs replied.
Leigh went on with the explanation, "The Egri family leader and I will support everyone and lead the army. When we need soldiers form someone's troop, it will become communicated. Does anyone have questions?"
Kita raised her hand immediately.
"Yes Kita?", Leigh said, knowing what she would ask.
"Who deals the finishing blow?", she said in a grim voice.
She was speaking about a certain smiling man, of which she could not bear to watch him smile again.
"The one who deserves it the most.", he answered her.
She nodded her head and kept quiet.
Seeing as no one had any more questions, Leigh dismissed everyone, giving them an hours' time to organise their troops before departure.
Only then did Harkon come to Leigh and speak with him.
"Have you heard?", he asked with a complicated gaze.
Leigh looked at him, and knew what plagued his mind.
"Yeah, everyone felt that weird sensation yesterday.", Leigh sighed, "Do you still think it's a good thing?"
"No one died yet, and no one started behaving differently, otherwise I would've sensed it.", Harkon said.
Indeed. One of the first things Harkon taught Leigh, was all of the villager's names, because they would become his responsibility as well one day.
The older you got and the more you interacted with everyone, the more you would get to know them, which is exactly what a chief did. That's why he knew everyone's temperament more or less, even if he didn't have to exactly be friends with everyone.
"True. Or maybe the changes haven't taken effect yet", Leigh muttered.
"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it, if we ever get to it in the first place.", Harkon said flatly.
"Also true.", Leigh nodded.
They both went to spend some time with Lina before Leigh would depart.
She had caught a wild boar this morning for the occasion, and grilled the meat splendidly.
"Don't you think meat in the morning is going overboard honey?", Harkon cautiously asked.
"Nonsense, the boy needs all the strength he can get. And nothing is better than meat to toughen him up!", Lina said with an adamant attitude.
Even though he complained, he couldn't wait to get a taste of it. Lina was one of the best, if not the best at making roasted boar.
After the Emrys family was done eating, they got up and went to the big space before the formerly foggy path to bid Leigh farewell.
Right in front of the formerly foggy path at the south-east border of the village, stood 10 000 armoured soldiers and their leaders awaiting Leigh. A bit further away, a big part of the villagers stood in wait to bid everyone farewell. Only the family heads of the big families and some villagers were away on duties.
When Leigh got there, he went to stand in front of all the soldiers.
"I'm going to keep this short, because we all know why we are here.", Leigh's voice seemed to carry a heaviness to it.
"Someone slashed my father and hurt our fellow villagers."
Sounds of fists tightening and grinding teeth could be heard when Leigh spoke.
"Someone broke a promise they made to us, and killed 3 children."
Growling could be heard.
"And now someone has to pay. If any of you think this is out of proportion, speak up now."
No one spoke.
"Then from this moment forward, we are officially at war with the kingdom called Hezra, and will not rest until we have we have avenged the blood that was spilled and screams for revenge."
"Are you with me!", Leigh roared.
"YES LORD EMRYS!", everyone roared.
"Until the end!", Leigh roared.
"AND AFTER DEATH!"
"Then by order of the Emrys, the royal family of Hezra will pay for their crimes against this village." Leigh spoke, this time with a certain aura in his voice that came from somewhere deep within him.
"UNDERSTOOD LORD EMRYS!", everyone, including the heirs and Kayra said.
"Then let us depart", Leigh said.
As the troops picked up their weapons and got ready to depart. All the villagers, together with Harkon and Lina said in one voice.
"WE WISH YOU FAREWEL, AND TO FIND YOU KIDS BACK IN GOOD HEALTH!"
And with that, the army began its march.
***
Around this time, a different scene was playing out in the capital of Hezra.
In the throne room, Leno was hearing the report from his son that had just returned, while taking a sip of his wine.
"WHAT?! you were all defeated 8 days ago?!", king Leno screamed in surprise.
"Yes, my king", Ilis answered with a complicated expression.
"We were held up because we had to resupply our food and march here by foot, as all our horses were somehow killed with a dagger to the head. That's why we just arrived today."
It would take 3 days to go from the capital to the village by horse, and 8 by foot if you had to resupply. This happened to them because Sica led his Shadows to cut their mode of transport because Leigh ordered for no one to escape.
"Did you get ambushed by the villagers? Did someone there suspect you?", Leno asked, as he couldn't comprehend what had happened.
"No father, we had taken the initiative and everything went well at first, but then..", Ilis said.
"Then what!?", Leno grew impatient.
"Then someone threw daggers form an unknown location at the soldiers that had hostages. And then the villagers…"
"GO ON!", Leno began to scream.
"They were nothing like I had ever seen before.", Ilis remembered, "They had more points of accumulation than anyone I had ever seen. No one had even formed a core, yet they could easily take 3 men of ours. It was as if they had trained since birth."
"And the chief's son… That guy can't even be called human. I think we poked a hornet's nest father. Something that shouldn't have been touched."
"Isn't that exactly what I asked you to figure out in the first place!?", Leno lost his control and threw his wine cup to the ground.
"Everyone leave, and make sure to get the royal guards ready. This won't be the end of it, I'm sure.", Leno ordered.
Reclining back in his throne, Leno Ilemo thought back to what his father told him about the people of the mountains.
"Beware of the people up in the mountain, for they are only up there because we are down here. Should those demons ever make it to the ground, then golden eyes is the last thing we will see"
It was simple, but the message was clear.
Don't mess with them.
The only part that puzzled him were the golden eyes.
But he didn't have time to think about it. He had to prepare, because he knew.
War was coming.