Skirmish on the Border - A Tribal Experiment
"Makta hruus vaan!" shouted the hooded figure at the front of the group, waving his crude stone axe at the trio of Blackclaw wolves. "Hruus vaan! Makta hruus vaan!" he repeated with increasing volume and agitation, his muzzle contorted into a snarl and just barely showing from within the cowl he wore to cover his head. Like the Blackclaws, he and the others were wolves, though any further similarities were few and far between. Where the Blackclaws wore simple loincloths or breeches along with a few pieces of bone or simple stone jewelry, the Shroud Tooth pack wore little more than crude hide or fur cowls to cover their heads and faces. The Blackclaws were also built more solidly, with thick limbs and muscles sculpted through vigorous training in the arts of war. The Shrouds, meanwhile, were slighter of build and taller by half a head. Scars marred the pelts of the Blackclaws, though each was earned in combat, whereas the Shroud wolves often scarred themselves to show devotion to their beliefs and their superiors. While some wore scars born of conflict, most were self-inflicted, a shameful and disgusting act frowned upon by the Blackclaws. The pelts were also different from one another in that the Blackclaws were of darker, more earthy tones, where the Shrouds were almost a uniform gray, as if living in the Dark Wood had somehow sucked the life from their coats and left them the color of old, shed fur. The straps and bands worn on their arms and legs were bound tight, yet the fur underneath seemed too thin to even fluff out from underneath the bonds, as if the Shrouds were somehow sickly and frail, despite the visible musculature they showed in their nudity. These differences aside, it would take a long time (and a lot of arguing over details) for the Blackclaws to describe what makes the two groups so different. For now, the only thing that mattered to them was that these Shroud Tooth wolves had crossed the river serving as boundary between their lands. It was a trespass the leader of the trio would not condone, nor would he allow them to get off lightly. Narae stood an ear's height shorter than his packmates, Barna and Lun, but he was the tribe's most respected warrior, gifted with one of the few metal weapons owned by his people. The rough iron axe clutched in his fist felt like it weighed twice the weight of a strong buck as he tapped its head against his thigh and glared at the leader of the Shroud wolves. His golden eyes caught the light filtering through the trees at the backs of the Shrouds as a gentle breeze caused the branches to sway, making his eyes seem to spark to life with lightning amidst the dark
brown of his fur. He bared his teeth in a snarl and his ebon lips split to reveal points of shining ivory as he growled simply "Leave" and pointed his axe towards the woods past the rival pack. "Hruus vaan!" replied the Shroud alpha. "Makta hruus vaan!" Narae knew little of the Shroud tongue, but he understood a challenge when he heard one. "Hruus" was a common word in the Dark Wood, a word the Shroud Tooth used for a fight of any kind, though especially one for honor or bragging rights. It was a word that carried as much weight as the Blackclaw's term for a sacred duel, though the Shroud wolves through it around like whelps with their first words. Barna stepped forward, shoulder against Narae's, as the rest of the Shroud Tooth pack took up the words and began to chant. Barna knew their language well, and his teeth had long been bared upon seeing the pale lupines emerge from the shadows. "Makta kaas narak tayr'lok kriir!" the sturdy wall of imposing muscle and fury dressed as a granite-furred wolf sneered at the Shrouds, causing them to falter in their chant for a moment before the leader let out a primal howl and swung axe about in a furious series of arcs meant to intimidate the trio. Lun's ears pinned back as she gripped the hilt of her dagger in one hand, the shaft of her short spear in the other. "What did you say to them, Stone?" she murmured as the Shroud wolves fanned out to encircle the Blackclaws. Her brow furrowed as she casually slipped into a combat stance, eyes on the closest of the pale lupines. Her fur made her seemed a figure carved of river clay and ice, soft biege giving way to snowy white along her chest and belly, as well as covering her hands and feet. Despite her soft and frail appearance, Lun was as much as warrior as the males she travelled with, having more notches and knicks in her ears from close calls with the enemy than all the scars on her male packmates combined. It was a joke among the tribe that she secretly longed to be deaf, but couldn't bring herself to let someone take her ears for her. "I called his father a coward who mates with trees," Barna replied, just as one of the Shroud leaped forward with a shrill cry, swinging the studded club in his hand for a braining blow. Barna easily leaned back to avoid the blow, bringing up his own club in reply, driving it end-first to the underside of the Shroud's jaw and sending him sprawling to the dirt in a heap. "Subtle!" Narae chimed in as the leader hurled himself at the Blackclaws, wildly slashing at anything within reach. "Plan?" Lun asked then, fending off a pair of attackers with her spear as they shouted and growled at her. "Kill the leader, hope the rest run," Narae responded hastily, lashing out with his own axe to batter aside the weapon of the Shroud alpha. Barna broke from the loose battle line and charged the downed Shroud Tooth as he began to pick himself up, a solid stomp to the downed combatant's throat ending one threat as another with a rough spear charged the darker male. Barna side-stepped with a growl as the sharpened bone tip grazed his side, then swung his club in a lateral blow that stunned the thinner male long enough to follow up with a downward chop delivered to the collarbone. Clavicle snapping in two, the Shroud let out a yelp and dropped his spear. Narae's ears flicked tot he sound of pain and his eyes twitched away from his opponent long enough to do a quick head count. Two facing Lun, one with a crushed windpipe on the ground, and the one now being lifted into a bear hug by Barna made four. Four, plus the leader made five, though there seemed to have been more during the initial encounter and the taunting that followed. The Shroud Tooth weren't known to stand in place and fight, so it stood to reason that they'd move a lot when showing aggression of any sort. As they'd barely stopped shifted and circling during the whole exchange, it was likely that Narae had simply miscounted. It wasn't uncommon to face a pair of Shroud, thinking one was being accosted by four or more. Their hit-and-run tactics made them frightening to face in dense wood, but the clearing they'd chosen to face off with the Blackclaws left little option for that. Narae's moment of distraction was enough for the alpha to rush forward and tackle him, driving both combatants to the ground as both parties dropped their axes. Tooth and claw became the new weapons as Narae grasped the Shroud wolf by the side of his head, thumb digging into the other's eye socket as saliva speckled his face from jaws snapping close enough that the teeth grazed his nose. The rank, carrion breath of the Shroud alpha told Narae that they'd been out hunting unsuccessfully for some time, subsisting off of found meat while trying to find fresh game to take home to their people. Lun saw Narae fall and stepped closer to him, her back to her fallen alpha as she tried to keep an eye on each of her opponents while readying to aid her packleader, if she could. The two wolves in front of her sprung first, though, one lunging in with a curved blade fashioned of a sharpened rib from some large animal. The other ducked low and thrust with a
spear half again as long as hers, aiming to catch her in the upper chest. She leaned to the side and ducked low, watching the spear whisk over her head as her own drove upwards right into the belly of the blade-bearer. The weapon came down in a sharp arc that snapped the haft in two and left her with a broken stick and a bone dagger as her only means of attack. Barna was grappling with his second opponent, now, the two of them now twisting and struggling to gain superior position on the other while teeth gnashed and fur came away from muzzles as if sliced free by honed blades. Despite the broken collarbone and a couple cracked ribs, the Shroud held his own and even squirmed free to pick up his fallen comrade's club to brandish at Barna with a shout. "Makta Blackclaw! Chaargat!" shouted the pale wolf as he waved the club in his off hand, doing his best to remain a threat, even as his side was rapidly losing the skirmish. "Vaan mayr'tok kiir," Barna retorted, stomping forward with a roll of his right shoulder, the sting of a fresh bite wound cutting through the haze of his anger. "I'll fuck your mother, Shroud bastard!" he then bellowed and charged forward, the sound of heavy oak clubs crashing together following as he sought to cave in the trespasser's skull. As claws dug into his throat where it met his jaw, Narae twisted at the waist, driving his knee up into the unprotected loins of the wolf on top of him. With a yelp, the pressure on his throat slacked and the Shroud started to pull back. Narae used this moment to twist on top of him, pinning one arm down to strike a hard punch to the bleeding left eye of his opponent. The cowl came away as he landed a second, this time striking with a shot from the left to knock the right-hand fangs from the Shroud's mouth. The yellowed teeth looked nearly as sickly as the hate-filled pale eye revealed as the hood no longer obscured the Shroud Tooth's features. Ritual scars and markings covered his face, rare even among the Shroud Tooth tribe and others of the Dark Wood. They were twisted and entwined together to form the shape of flames rising from the eyes, a freshly-scabbed set of markings on the forehead resembling a third eye with similar markings surrounding it. The wolves of the Dark Wood may have scarred themselves and applied ink to their flesh, but these wounds appeared to have been made with brands. Branding would imply that they had gotten their hands on metal, which meant they would have to find their own source... ...Or be receiving theirs from outside the Dark Wood. Narae's hesitation allowed the Shroud Tooth below him to recover somewhat. It was just enough to push the Blackclaw off of himself and pick up Narae's axe, intending to use his own weapon against him. Narae scrambled to his feet and ducked down to pick up the crude implement of his foe, noting it to be made of a jawbone of some sort, heavy, strong, and sharp at both ends. Blood pouring from his gouged eye, the Shroud Tooth came at Narae with a vengeance, seeking to burying iron into flesh. Narae met him halfway, clashing the hafts of their weapons together before driving his elbow into the scarred lupine's snout. A punch to the ribs followed, as the two stepped back from one another and then met again in a crush of fur, flesh, and fury. Lun called out something that Narae missed, the words lost beneath the sound of his blood singing through his ears. He could hear his own heart pounding as he and the branded leader grappled for control of the other's weapons. Blood ran thick, mixed with the saliva of the Shroud as he snapped his jaws and swore in Narae's face, only Narare wasn't fighting him back in like fashion. Stepping forward and swinging his arms down to either side of their bodies, he brought the top of his skull into contact with the other wolf's muzzle. Bone crushed and a pained sound burbled out of the Shroud as Narae struck him a second time, twisting free both weapons at the same time. His foe's axe was then twisted about and thudded into its owner's ribs, the pointed back spiking clean through bone to damage the tissue beneath. The iron axe was used in like fashion, though Narae's precision with the first strike was as much luck as skill. Luck was all that allowed the blade of his own axe to bite into the back of the Shroud's thigh and pull his leg out from under him, sending the lank form crashing to the ground. A downward chop finished the scuffle and allowed Narae to wrench free the bone weapon to wield at Lun's attackers. With one stabbed full of small holes that were superficial at best and the other one trying to limp backwards and remove her dagger's blade from where it had broken off in his hip, the female was once again holding her own in combat. The spear-wielding Shroud took one look at the blood-drenched Narae and turned tail, narrowly avoiding being skewered by Lun as she thrust forward with her broken spear from well within his weapon's reach. If he had any idea how close to losing his entrails to a broken stick he'd come, the wolf of the Dark Wood would be leavig a trail of urine in his wake. His compatriots took the flight as a
sign to run as well, Barna's opponent abandoning the fight to scamper off after his packmate while the badly-injured Shroud with Lun's weapons buried in his flesh fought to catch up. With such serious injury and being such a long way from home, it would be a miracle if he survived long enough to see the shadows of the Dark Wood. "So," Barna panted as he wiped blood from his foe's discarded weapon, claiming it as his own before wiping blood from a gash over his left eye, likely caused by the weapon. "Who's hungry, huh?" "Narae said to kill the leader and the rest would run," Lun scowled at him. "And we did! Just had to stomp this runt over here first is all." Narae glanced down at the bodies and laid his ears back thoughtfully. His pack watched in silence for a long moment before he turned to them. "These wolves were not Shroud Tooth," he said at length. "We take the bodies with us for the seers to examine, then return them to the earth." Barna groaned and Lun simply nodded. "Lun?" Narae then said as he looked down at the disfigured alpha. "Yes, packleader?" "Your ear's bleeding."