Tribal - The Clash

Chapter 1

Where did it all go so wrong?

Zuri slowly lifted Aleksei's chin up to get a better look at his face. 

Her dark red lips slowly arched into a smirk as proud as a lion's. Her eyes fixated on his. Aleksei couldn't return the favour. 

His frown only worsening as he growled up at the leader draped in red. He refused to show any form of respect to Zuri, let alone a smile back. The sharp spears drew closer. Grazing his neck.

His gaze averted to the Peak warriors behind him for a moment. His people speechless. Unable to do anything. 

The Snake tribe's ships had been seized, along with those who had escaped on foot from the other settlement. 

Overpowered by sheer numbers and strategy, Aleksei - and especially Artem - had been outwitted by Zuri and her war chief Sefu. The Peak tribe had learned.

The waves laughed as if joining Zuri's, crashing against their destroyed ships, scattered Honeycups gently hugging the water's surface. 

Zuri was a cunning and merciless coyote. Egotistical. That was her. Spoiled. 

That crown of roses only decorated thorns, an elf who would take everything she could coil her fingers around. 

But it would surely never be enough. She was just like her mother.

It had all started to spin out of control when one of the warriors on Aleksei's ship noticed tall, red sails slowly approaching from the other side of the ocean. 

Fishing nets dragged across the sides of dark curved ships like hair. 

Aleksei turned to Artem for guidance, their eyes meeting with concern, soon growing closer as they quietly mumbled to themselves. 

Discussing their next moves between them as their people could only look on with unsure gazes and whispers of their own.

Soon, Artem stood in their ship and commanded they also cast their fishing nets out as well. As the checkered rope crashed into the waves beside their ships. 

Aleksei continued with their plan as he asked the fishers to stand in the boats whilst their warriors sat and hid. 

They would use the same tactics they had used in a previous war with the Peak tribe when they won a naval battle against them.

The Snake tribespeople obliged, following their orders as the fishers stood, the warriors armed themselves as they sat huddled together below the edges of their boats. 

Quietly sailing towards each other, Aleksei and Artem thought they would be able to pass without issue. No trouble. 

They'd possibly even take over the Peak tribe's settlement in the mountains. It was bound to be theirs in the end. 

They had won most of their previous wars, after all. It would be theirs. Or so the two unsuspecting elves thought to themselves.

Until a sudden cascade of arrows raining down, they were a hail made of fire, the crackling of the flames only just being heard over the cries of those they pierced. 

The Peak tribe ships weren't their fishing boats. 

They were their naval lookouts. 

They were ready and they were using the exact same tactic the Snake tribe had used on them before, and it worked. 

Arrows continued to rain down as the warriors stood up in confusion and alarm, their fishers ducking and hiding out of fear, the organisation they thought they'd assembled was torn apart in seconds.

The wooden boards squeaked under their panicked footsteps. 

Aleksei and Artem tried to reorganise and get their warriors to fight back in some way. 

No bows. No arrows. They had brought flowers. 

What good were bright orange flowers? Why did they take flowers but not bows? 

There was no time. 

More and more arrows lit with fire rained down onto their ships as their wood began to catch fire. 

The people on them desperately trying to put them out with sea water. 

How many arrows were there? Why? Why was the Peak tribe attacking them?

Artem knew why. 

Aleksei soon also know why as they bit their lips and clenched their fists, trying to fit as many of their people who could not fight onto smaller boats so they could escape. 

But where would they go? How far were Hephcana's tears reaching? How big was that almighty goddess' tantrum? 

How many Peak warriors were there? Arrows. So many arrows. 

In the confusion and rush, the other ships crashed into each other, their red and purple sails almost tangling together as they were boarded. Cries were drowned out by the roaring waves.

It felt like only moments before the entire fleet of Snake tribe ships were overrun and destroyed by the Peak tribe. 

Taking hostages onto their own boats and dumping any goods they saw as useless to them. The honeycups were the first to go.

 As if in a cruel retelling of their likely fallen allies across the western seas. They were next. 

How could they have been so blind? So ignorant? They were dragged onto the shores by the mountainous main settlement of the Peak tribe.

There, they were surrounded by more Peak warriors. Spears in hand. Their ends a dark carefully sharpened rock. 

They all had short spears. That hadn't changed. The Snake tribespeople were all disarmed of their whips and daggers. 

Families were methodically picked out and split apart from each other. 

They smeared the purple paint across and off all of their bodies and took their jewellery. 

Artem losing his snake-tooth necklace, and Aleksei his own necklace made using an entire snake. Robbing them of their connections to Meducautl.

It all came back to their opposing deities from their first encounters and wars. 

The Peak tribe worshipped a god of the oceans, storms, and war, Nepeidon. Whilst the Snake tribe worshipped their goddess of snakes and war, Meducautl. 

The two opposing ideologies of which deity was stronger and which brought victory in battle often made them clash. 

However, the Snake tribe would often overpower the Peak tribe in numbers and strategy, especially in naval warfare. 

The few times the Peak tribe won was when they were on lands near the mountains.

This time was different. 

They were ready for a naval battle and had likely been practising day after day, for this very moment. 

The moment they ever tried making a step towards their territory again, they would be swiftly and efficiently dealt with. 

They had underestimated them. They had underestimated their enemy at a deeply grave price. Their honour, their faith, their lives. 

Aleksei was then shoved forward, away from his people, spears at his back pointed by Peak warriors then forced to kneel in front of a large hut made from rocks and mud. 

He glared up as the leader of the Peak tribe, Zuri, exited and donned her bright red crown of roses.

He could feel her cold, calculating smirk already starting to take shape.