The wind in Dry Wind Gorge stank of charcoal and roasted meat.
The soldiers worked in silence and with efficient brutality, dragging corpses away and throwing the twisted limbs into dug pits as if they were butchering livestock.
Brin, his armor stained with black filth and dust, strode up to Solomon and spoke in a hoarse voice.
"My lord, we've counted the bodies in the gorge."
He paused, frowning.
"But the numbers don't add up. A lot of people are missing. Almost none of the women, children, old, or weak were there. It was far less than we expected."
The moment he finished speaking, swords came out all around the gorge.
Every soldier's gaze flared like fire and snapped toward Coby and the forty-odd Tree Men who had survived beside him.
"Liars! These wildlings are lying! Kill them!"
"They must have secretly let their own people go!"
"My lord, wildlings can't be trusted! Kill them! Cut off their heads! All wildlings deserve to die!"
"Burn them all alive! Burn them!"
The furious shouting echoed through the empty gorge. The killing intent returned at once.
The Tree Men wildlings looked around in panic for anything they could use as a weapon.
Solomon slowly raised one hand.
At once, the noise vanished.
It was as if an invisible hand had seized every throat in the valley.
The soldiers gripped their weapons tightly, trembling all over, red-eyed and fixed on the wildlings, but not one of them dared make another sound.
Solomon turned and looked at Coby.
His eyes were cold, empty of feeling, yet somehow more frightening than a drawn blade.
Coby's face went pale as paper.
He stepped forward and dropped to one knee, his forehead almost touching the ground. His moment of mercy had brought disaster on himself and his tribe.
His voice shook, but he tried to keep it steady.
"Black Lion war chief, please calm your anger. There were too many of us. If we moved together, the group would have been too large. I feared it would make you suspicious."
"So I split them in two. The fighters who could carry weapons came first. The old, the weak, the women, and the children who could not fight took a separate trail behind them."
Solomon said nothing.
He just looked at him, as if inspecting every thought buried inside his soul.
Time passed in the dead silence.
Each second felt like a knife cutting into Coby's heart.
The Black Lion and his plainsmen were now more terrifying to him than the charcoal-burners ever had been.
At last, Solomon withdrew his gaze and turned to Rosso.
"Take everyone. We move."
His army did not hesitate for even a breath.
They turned at once and marched hard toward the direction Coby had pointed out.
In another, more hidden valley, a huge force was struggling forward.
It was made up mostly of children, stumbling old people, and female wildling warriors carrying weapons.
Their faces were full of exhaustion and confusion.
They looked like sheep abandoned by their shepherd.
Then Solomon's army burst out from all sides like a black tide and completely sealed every route in and out.
The wildlings froze.
Black Lion and his plainsmen.
Despair struck them like the sudden bite of winter and froze their blood in place.
Then, when they recognized the familiar figure standing beside the plainsmen, despair twisted into shock, then exploded into rage and hatred.
Coby, son of Gern!
They understood instantly.
A traitor.
A white-haired old wildling trembled as he raised a finger and pointed straight at Coby.
His throat rasped out the most venomous curse he could find.
"Traitor! Coby, son of Gern! You sold us out!"
"I curse your soul to never know peace!"
"Traitor!"
"Coward!"
"Shameful!"
The women hurled the filthiest curses they knew at him.
The children old enough to understand stared at him with fear and hatred in their eyes.
The Tree Men behind Coby bowed their heads in shame.
They could not meet the eyes of their former kin.
In the wildling column, only a few dozen men who could still fight, along with some fierce female warriors, raised their crude weapons and moved instinctively to stand in front of Solomon's army.
They formed a brittle, pathetic line and stared ahead with desperate determination, ready to die fighting.
Solomon stood off to the side, expressionless, watching the curses rain down on Coby, son of Gern.
He meant to drive the Tree Men into a dead end first, then complete his plan and turn these wildlings into obedient hunting dogs.
The cursing went on and on.
It only grew louder, as though they meant to tear open the sky itself.
At last, Solomon lifted a hand.
All around him, the soldiers moved in perfect unison.
Rows of crossbowmen raised their cocked weapons.
Black bolts gleamed with a cold sheen as they pointed them at the wildling column.
The shouting vanished at once.
The valley fell into a terrible silence, broken only by the wind and the children trying not to cry.
The wildlings knew any resistance would be pointless.
They were no match for these plainsmen now.
But they would rather die as warriors, and return to the mountains with their ancestors.
Just as the standoff reached its peak, Solomon moved.
He stepped beside Coby, son of Gern, and placed a hand on the shoulder of the wildling who had been cursed so viciously he looked ready to bury himself in the dirt.
Then he finally spoke.
"From this day on, you are no longer highland wildlings of the Moonstone Mountains."
He drew the longsword at his waist and pointed the blade at the Tree Men behind Coby.
"From this moment, you are the Solen Tribe of the Black Lion!"
"The chief of the Solen Tribe will be hereditary. Coby, son of Gern, from this day forward you are the first chief of the Solen Tribe. Your son will be the second."
The words fell into the water like a pebble and made no visible ripple at all.
The Tree Men looked at one another in confusion.
They did not understand what was happening.
Solomon understood why they reacted that way, and he continued to announce his "gift."
"I do not require tribute from you!"
"You may keep your old way of life!"
"Keep hunting! Gathering! Herding!"
"Even raiding! Raid my enemies!"
"If famine comes, if you lack food, I will provide it!"
"From now on, you will never go hungry again!"
At last, the wildlings of the Tree Men showed a hint of emotion.
Hunger had been the nightmare they could never escape, generation after generation.
And now they could keep their old way of life too.
But Solomon's tone shifted.
His gaze sharpened.
"However."
"You will owe me blood tax!"
"During war, you must provide soldiers for me!"
"In peace, you live freely. In war, I call, and you fight for me!"
"That is your only duty. It is also the value of your existence to me!"
He slowly lowered his sword, then pointed the blade toward the female wildling warriors in the crowd, their eyes wide with shock.
"Now, the property of the other tribes, and their women, belong to your tribe, Coby, son of Gern."
Coby and the Tree Men behind him froze.
Then, all at once, they burst into uncontrollable joy.
Like wolves released from a cage, they howled and rushed into the crowd, claiming their new property and women.
Shrieks, crying, and wild laughter mixed together.
Solomon watched the chaos coldly.
Everything was going according to plan.
These people would survive in hardship and poverty.
And they would become the natural warriors who paid blood tax to him.
He sheathed his sword and looked around at his soldiers again.
"The male wildlings of the old tribe. Anyone who can speak. Leave none alive."
The order was given.
His soldiers moved at once.
No mercy.
No pity.
They worked like an efficient pack of butchers, dragging out every remaining male wildling who still tried to resist or who could still cry out.
Old or young, it made no difference.
Steel fell.
Heads rolled.
Hot blood soaked the mud beneath their feet.
The final resistance was crushed to nothing under absolute force.
Coby, son of Gern, stood at the center of the chaos and slaughter.
He watched his own people joyfully and brutally divide up the women and goods.
He watched Solomon's soldiers carry out the killing with cold precision.
He smelled the thick reek of blood.
But he also caught a faint scent of what the plainsmen called power.
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