It was as the apprentice predicted.
Where the fire had charred the land, tribes tilled the ground and planted seeds. For now all the kobels could see was a boring soil but they had seen it and knew it would soon grow crops to harvest. Hay, wheat, oats or barley.
Fields so vast that the prisoners were building huts in the middle of them to sleep on site, without a single kobel to order them.
Captives were guarding captives.
And now some of them carried collars that marked them as the kobels' most trusted, messengers of the tribe's will. With them around the tributaries took on a new life.
Most of the hill's plateaus by now were covered with the kobels' houses. Only the lowest ones had space for workshops and pens, as well as shacks where the workers huddled for the night, seeking warmth even under a lenient weather.
Down there the same hot water that pierced in jets from the cliff had pushed that high within the hill to start streaming out in two sources.
So they had built stone basins where the kobels from up high drew with ropes like open wells.
Near the closest such fountain was where the small field had been set, with a low wooden fence for the captives to fight in. When the kobels didn't descend, it was mostly abandoned in favor of the many chores they had to carry.
But Savae was there and so the captives had no choice but to attend.
Having finished above with his own round of duels, Tunu had walked down the path to go see how she fared. It was no surprise for him to hear the clamors from afar even as he approached.
She was savage, absolutely brutal but prevented from being merciless. So instead, like a wérén, she toyed with those she was not allowed to kill. Every day at dawn the warrior was told exactly how many could fall and every day she would kill no less.
The captives were fighting like their lives depended on it.
And they preferred fighting her to him for another, very simply reason.
He could never tire of seeing her fight. The way she held that sword, the way she licked her lips and lunged on her enemy, the way she moved, so sleek, was hypnotizing. Iron against copper, bringing brief sparks probably he alone could see.
But after a minute of it, with the captive still armed and holding, she stopped.
And that wulver, heaving hard, realized he had made it.
Those who got such a draw were freed. But that wulver had already got such luck and come back for another round. This time it meant he could join the kobel fighters as a suppletive.
He howled his guts out.
No captive around rejoiced from this one's luck. The more died the more likely they were to live; the more succeeded, the more likely they were to die. They did not know who was next or when it would and and simply waited anxiously.
Tunu approached the fence.
His scales still had not grown back enough to choke that cursed fur, but he caused the crowd to make space and fall on their knees.
"You could have beat him."
She gave him a mocking smile.
"He has more guts than you. I'll make him my pet."
"And what if he says no? You freed him."
He had hopped past the fence to approach her.
"You are envious."
She approached in turn.
"But it's true." Savae whispered at his ear, excitedly. "Those savages have more courage than most of you. If I went with them..."
He caught her arm. She hissed and shook him off.
There was some truth in her words. Rumors abounded, since the ritual, of wulvers killing others and even their own kind to feed. True or not, it had the two champions thrilled; because kobels could not stand being bested by those lesser beasts.
And so the other warriors had started to look for opportunities.
With the new tribal rules, there was only one way for them to get the blood they craved for. They had to become champion and to do that meant facing either him or her. If it was him it was safe, but they were almost certain to lose.
If it was her, they could win.
For as boring as those days felt the two kobels found it exciting, to see each day who would build the courage to face one of them and which.
"Are you done?" He asked her. "I barely got to see you fight."
"You would love to see me bathing in blood."
"Yes."
She smiled, plunged the sword in that soft soil and left the field behind. He could pick it up, do the killing himself. Or he could follow her back.
The scaled kobel chose the latter.
The road had been entirely paved now. They used cattle to drag a cistern to the higher plateaus. Water spilled through the tight, plugged planks.
There was his statue. Now that the kobels occupied this plateau they had turned it into a large place in which to meet. So naturally the first stalls had found their place and now kobels came her to trade goods, what luxuries came from their tributaries.
On the other side of the road, where some fields remained before another patch of houses, the children played with wooden sticks, tirelessly chasing each other.
It was weird, to them, to see childish kobels wearing such fine clothes.
Further up was Etelet with the chief, talking while sit on the slope. They saw the champions and the old kobel hailed them. Only Tunu bothered, hesitated but came by to join the group of four. Four, because the two black fawns were there too.
"Good news, Tunu. We were discussing the remaining tribes."
"We're finally subduing them?" The champion wondered aloud.
"No."
Etelet's voice was still a bit hollow. His gaze drifted any time he was in company, so much so that no matter how close kobels got to him he always seemed absent.
The chief explained: "We can only control so much, and those tribes would not give us much. So we will murder them instead."
And Etelet: "Kill them to the last."
"I don't mind, but why? What about the balance?"
"That's the beauty of it. Our tributaries see them as threats, apparently. As for us, we'll create a barrier of fear to keep new tribes from drifting into our territory. When all they see is death, they'll turn back and leave us alone."
Strangely, all of those promises of murder, that massacre, was leaving Tunu's heart indifferent. He had more thrills dueling with other kobels for fun than the perspective of feeding.
Why that was, he could not tell.
"What about captives? There are brers out there, I thought they were good craftmen?"
"Kill them. Kill them all."
There was something somber in that hollow voice. An inscrutable depth.
"Okay. If you say so, Etelet. You know best."
They talked some more, about the where and when. It had been quite a long time since the last raid and so the kobels had some impatience about it.
Their plan would be one long expedition, supported by the tributaries that would bring them food and shelter as they circled the plain. They would be one hundred strong, all warriors and suppletives, a force none could withstand even without the legend at their helm.
With that matter settled, Etelet got up and left them without a word.
It had Tunu worried, but he stayed in the grass with the chief, if only to escape for a while longer the noise of his followers.
"Eh, Kreil, is he mad at me?"
"Shamans are always like that." The old kobel mused. "He is getting that aura, you know? Like he can see things we simpletons cannot."
Shamans pretended to read the stars, to mend wounds or control the weather. But what a tribe needed most was a guide. Someone to light a path through life. So a good shaman was, before all, a kobel mad enough to feel like he could read the realm.
And the apprentice, by now, had reached that stage where he could give that pretense.