>>5942304You wash the wounds in the river, and then wrap them in leaves. You pray the leeches are not poisonous, but other than being a bit shaken you don't feel any different.
That night you are kept up by the rustling of leaves and harsh croaking sounds. Something big is moving through the woods. In the morning, you discover fresh tracks not very far from where you set down. Four-toed feet, webbed, like a frog's but twice as large as your own feet.
You do not stay in camp for long and make haste to leave the woods behind. You eventually come out into a more hilly region. The river joins with the wall of a waterfall, with rapids up top. You decide to climb up, and keep to the border of the rapids. By evening you spot smoke in the distance, and there, beside the river, you can see distant mounds on the flat bank, the glow of fires, and the movement of people. You camp out by the border for the night, but the weather turns around evening. Clouds move in with the strong wind and your reed mat is poor protection against it. You light your torch, but the wind puts it out several times, and you eventually just give up. So passes another sleepless night.
Nevertheless, when morning comes, you are ready to go into the village. It is small, only a half-dozen families, but seemingly prosperous. The mounds you saw before are mud-huts. One is in the process of being constructed, revleaing long thin saplings lashed together into a dome shape to serve as the understructure. Several goats roam the area, some of them in odd places on the valley wall. A strong stench emanates from a drying rack on which is draped a deer pelt.
The villagers themselves are suspicious of you, as they are of all strangers. But, to your good fortune, the hunter you met earlier is among them and he recognizes you and invites you to his hut. There he listens once more to your tale and tells you that the elder will want to speak with you. To verify what you told the hunter, about the scalemen.
The elder, a wizened old man with a long white beard, half-blind, and a bit deaf, listens to your tale with a frown. He convenes a council that night with all the people of the village. The elder has two sons, the older is the current chief and is in favor of ignoring the scalemen and, if necessary, placating them with tribute. The younger, is the hunter, who believes that they should either fight the scalemen or move away from this place further into the mountains.
The people of the village are divided. Having settled here, they do not wish to move but neither do they want to be slaves to the scalemen and offer them the blood tribute they know will be demanded. Some wish to fight. Others consider it foolhardy to fight against the scalemen. The chief calls for peace and asks you to speak, having actually see the scalemen with your own eyes.
>"The scalemen are too powerful">"The scalemen will not be satisfied with tribute for long">"The scalemen are not invincible">Write-in 