On the first Bast, the night had been calm and the brigade of sentries was finishing breakfast when a small contingent arrived at the camp, mostly made up of women who acted as accommodators.
The work of accommodation was a temporary function and those who assumed this role were preferably women because of their great capacity to observe and appreciate even the most insignificant details, which was particularly useful in cases such as this, in which a specific scenario had to be simulated.
These groups always included some men, especially those with a lot of physical strength to be able to hold the ushers, who were often suspended on ropes supported by simple cranes of medium load, formed by an isosceles triangle made with two long rods joined to a much shorter third that rested on two trunks buried in the ground with a fork at its outer end, In this way, both sides supported the trunks in a rocker's beam and a rope passed through the upper part where a stockyard with a chair knot was placed, in order to lower it through a precipice and leave it at a distance where it could work with the wall, placing small rocks and sand to make the ascent more complicated by this slope, the men were in charge of supporting the structure to raise and lower the stockyard as needed along the whole wall.
These inventions had been developed by the iron clan and were perfected little by little by the other clans that used them for different tasks, mastering the technique of assembly and handling of these structures quite well.
When the ushers arrived, they immediately searched for Kmer to tell him that they had to go down to see how they arranged things in the slope of the entrance to leave it in such a way that the Saurians discarded going up to the entrance because it would be dangerous to try, they had to leave no possibility of access from that side, it had to seem so dangerous and inaccessible that they didn't even try.
They examined the access throat and seeing the slope that went up to the entrance to the cliff, they decided to leave this road full of a great quantity of small round rocks of different sizes in a precarious position so that any touch would make them roll downwards, taking with them whoever had touched them.
Another group of collectors took to the edge of the entrance several of these rocks, which had been carefully selected giving preference for those that were the size and shape of a small orange, the collective of ushers took them and put them in a saddlebag, were hung from the cranes and they were balancing them almost from the base, in such a way that to the smaller pressure they slipped, leaving the route very unstable, in addition in other steeper zones, another contingent of ushers let fall abundant sand, so that the slope was even more complicated to climb and it did not seem to be a viable way.
Above they placed in order a series of large rocks piled among themselves, constituting a kind of wall that from below seemed to be a formation of rocks on the verge of collapsing and they totally covered the entrance, trying to give the sensation that there was no way to climb on that side and as from there it was a vertical cliff of great height, so that it looked like a plateau that had risen directly from the ground it was practically impossible to enter the mountain on this side and on the other side there was an almost impassable swamp full of hungry semi-aquatic Saurians that prevented a safe crossing, because the Saurians in spite of their number and capacities were also part of the food chain and although they turned out to be quite good in the water, they were no match for the aquatic Saurians, nor for the giant sharks that dominated the waters.
This work took practically the whole day and in the end, they checked the work and it was quite well done.
- They won't go up here and if they try they could lose a few teeth.
- Some will be crushed by the rocks above if they try to climb.
- Does anyone know how Lur followed?
- They say his fever has gone down during the night.
- Yesterday they were going to give him the rest, Thar had asked for it, but they managed to convince him to wait.
- His own son!
- For him, his duty to the Clan is greater
- I wouldn't want to be in his place.
This conversation took place between the ushers and the stockpilers as they put the finishing touches on their closed false path.
- How was it, will it have to be checked from below?
- Let me down to examine!....
- Uhh huuur!
A sensation of extreme cold ran through everyone's body from the neck to the feet, immediately all present were silent and threw themselves to the ground face down, beginning to crawl into the throat, one of the men pulled out the two forked trunks gave one and took the other while the rest dragged next to them the crane for medium load and reaching the point where there was a sentinel located at a point previously determined and verified, from where they could not be seen if they were below, they stood in complete silence, walking in a hasty manner, but without running or making sudden movements they went to the rescue ropes that were hidden among the projections of the rocks.
The more agile climbed helped by the ropes, those who were not so much or who wore part of the cranes were hoisted in suspense to again drop the rope and climb to another collector or accommodating.
As soon as they arrived at the top they ran towards the meeting point and there they took bows and quiver with arrows in case their presence was necessary to defend the Bast, in addition, they smeared the body with the mixture of water and sap that hid its human scent.
All this was done in a very short time and with absolute precision, the chiefs were amazed that not even in the rehearsals had come out so well and fast, the threat of the "Day of the Beast" was enough incentive for everyone to put the best of themselves.
No one spoke even between whispers, they knew that the slightest noise apart from the natural sounds of the forest or the simplest gust of human smell that reached the Saurians would trigger the attack, so once their smell was covered by the sap and their weapons in hand, they sat in small circles in sight of the sentries who would take them to the attack points to defend access to Bast.
Upstairs in the battlements, everything was tension, Mojim who had given the alarm signal, looked at the forest with expectant eyes, observing the movement of foliage caused by the passage of several entities that were approaching the clearing of the massacre.
After the signal, the other sentries had also warned about the movement of the foliage and some had already grabbed the alarm horn to put it near them just in case.
The tension increased as the movement in the forest advanced to the clearing from where the second Saurian scout group had come out and had withdrawn after the fall of its leader.
The sentries saw a Saurian head appearing which raised the tension to the maximum, but then all breathed calmly when they saw that, although they were Saurians, they were not their enemies but small "weed-eaters", surely it was a small family herd, of ten or twelve members of which three went out to the clearing smelling the air and feeling the stench of the massacred Saurians and seeing their remains still scattered on the ground, they were very frightened and decided to return to the forest away from there as soon as possible, did not stop to investigate anything, simply left the place frightened.
These other reptiles lacked the intelligence, cunning and predatory instinct of the Saurians, they ate grass, fruits and the soft stems of some plants, they were peaceful and quite frightening, to tell the truth, they were a delicious dish, but at this moment they could not think of hunting them, no matter how much they wanted to.
It was really strange that in these latitudes Saurians of this species were walking, surely this patrol had been lost and they did not find the way to return to the warm lands of the valley, they had very few possibilities of surviving long, if the cold did not kill them, they would be victims of the herds of wolves, big cats or of the horde of Saurios that was besieging them.
Mojim, the sentry who had given the alarm signal waited the necessary time before giving the calm signal and told those who had crept in to join him in case he had to give additional directions:
- They were just a family from Comehierba, they saw the dead Saurians and left frightened.
- Thank goodness, we're warning the others right now.
Like a gust of breeze, the boys who had approached Mojim, came down from the battlement and the tree where he was, to reach the meeting point and gave the message that everything was calm and that they were nothing more than "weed-eaters" who were looking for a place to sleep, frightened to see the Saurians torn to pieces.
- What a pity, we could have had a delicious dinner tonight.
- If you want, we'll take you down so you can hunt them down.
- No way! Now I'm not even going down if Mara asked me to, naked and lying on a rock.
- Well, if you put it like that, I think so, I'd go down.
- To tell you the truth, so do I - she rectified the previous one.
- Can I go? - asked a third.
- And you think I'd ask you to do it? You're a useless bunch! - said the aforesaid, who was a beautiful and brave girl of generous and firm flesh.
The laughter relieved the tension a little, but only a little.
- Shall we then return to finish with the accommodation? - asked one of the girls.
- The truth is we did almost everything, just need to clean the work area.
- Shall we all go down then?
- Just four of you go downstairs to clean our tracks and pick up all the things you left behind," said Kmer, who after the smoke incident had gone to inspect the works at Bast itself.
- I'm going," said Lea.
- This time, don't stand around putting branches in the moat!
- Idiot!
- Ha ha ha ha. I'm going too," said the funny man.
- Anybody else?
- I'll go with you Lea - said Mara
- And I told you Patu, who was the one who started bothering the girl with the rock thing.
- Well, the four of them are already there, but they're going to work, not courting each other," Kmer said, laughing.
- If I see them wasting their time, I'll go down and kick them up!
- Yes, Kmer - they all looked down because they were really afraid of him.
- The others leave the bows and arrows in place and go back to rest," said one of the sentries.
A unanimous sigh of relief was heard in the middle of the bus.
Still, in silence, the collectors and ushers left the weapons in their places, placed a new row of quivers in their supports to leave them at hand and filled them with arrows, at the end the groups were reorganized to retreat with adrenaline making their muscles jump.
The two girls and two boys stayed to clean the traces of the accommodations they had made, they put full skins with the flammable tar to the edge of the pit, where they were in good position to be reached by an arrow, so that when they were perforated they would explode pouring the content of the skins on top of the trunks to be able to ignite them from above, this was an extra precaution, so that the Saurians would not feel the smell of tar and put them on alert, although they did not know if the Saurians recognized as strange the smell of inflammable tar from the trees, they did not want to risk, this time they did not want to venture into anything.
The cleaning work was much slower than the preparation, it was necessary to take care of every detail and not leave anything that would put the Saurians on alert if they went up to this point.
Even though they kept joking from below, the boys were doing a very conscientious job of cleaning the place, from time to time they had the impulse to bother each other and they turned upwards, meeting a frowning and imposing Kmer, watching them with a sullen look, making them see that he would keep his promise, so they gave up talking and concentrated on their work, but in their wandering, they found each other and Patu said to Mara between their teeth.
- There is the rock Mara
- And with her, I'll break your face
And they went on as if nothing had happened, but after a while, the two couples had already met that same night in the village after dinner.
The four boys swept every corner of the entrance throat and picked up all the things that were not natural from the corners and corners so as not to leave any human trace, covered the holes in the posts that supported the cranes and erased with branches full of leaves all the traces left by the others.
They were leaving everything so as not to give rise to doubts about the supposed desolation of the site, but even so they did not trust each other, nobody knew it, but Koba was preparing one more surprise in case they reached the throat, although in the deepest part of his being he did not want to have to use it.
Kmer at the time of the incident with the bonfire and the smoke, sent a messenger to look for Koba from the village, to inform him, because although it had been only a fraction of time he was very worried, almost terrified by the implications of this error and the best thing was that someone like Koba evaluated the situation and proposed the best way to counteract any event arising from the incident.
It was for this reason that, upon learning of the incident, Koba did not think much about it and began to prepare something more than they had already planned, carrying out the necessary consultations, talking with other old people about some strategies used successfully in the past and began to evaluate the different possible scenarios and even some impossible ones.
Everyone hoped that the group of Saurians who had "discovered" the cause of the massacre would be the last they had seen in a long time, but they could not be trusted, - The best strategy - said Koba - is to expect the worst, from there any damned result is profit.