Chapter 64

Anya entered the throne room with Raven and Murphy.

"What are you doing here?" asked Lexa, acting confused.

"We have to tell you that I asked the Skaikru to blow up the pass to Azgeda territory."

"You did what?!" growled Lexa, raising from her throne. Anya moved towards the Commander.

"I asked Skaikru to blow up the pass. It's on our territory, Commander. I decided that it should be closed, that way no-one can attack us through it."

"You did this without my permission?" she said, aware of the other people in the room, most notably Titus and three ambassadors from Sankru, Delfikru and Podakru.

"I did not think you would object, Commander. The cliffs are in Trikru territory and as such, we do not need to get permission from any other clan."

"What about the Azgeda? They use that pass to come to Kongeda and the ambassador uses it to go home."

"He can use the other pass, as can other Azgeda to get in and out. I only had the pass in our territory closed, Commander."

"Commander," said the ambassador to Sankru, "Trikru are able to do what they want within their territory, just like the rest of us do. We have no problem with Trikru in this respect."

"Do you have a problem with Trikru in other respects?"

"No, Commander, I merely meant that no crime has been committed. Nothing was done that others have not done within their own borders. I know the Plains Riders have in years past, diverted a river to flow nearer to one of their settlements. This caused the river to stop flowing into other clan lands. As the diverting was done in another's lands, they had no recourse to have the Commander to do anything about it." Lexa nodded.

"And you will inform the other ambassadors of this?"

"Yes, Commander. I do not think anyone other than Azgeda will have a problem with that." Again, Lexa nodded.

"Very well." She turned to Anya and the Skaikru. "Next time you feel the need to blow things up, I want to be informed of it BEFORE you do it, am I understood?"

"Yes, Commander," said Anya, bowing her head.

"Yes, Commander," said Raven and Murphy, also bowing.

"Good. Go home all of you, I'll deal with you later. Today I have to appease the Azgeda ambassador that he wasn't singled out and punished for being Azgeda. He will no doubt want to go back to Azgeda to appraise his queen on what happened."

"Yes, Commander," they all said, with another bow and they left.

"That went well," Raven said to the other two, irreverently. Murphy laughed out loud. Anya looked at her as if she had gone mad.

"Raven, you have a knack for sarcasm that matches my own!" Murphy continued laughing all the way down the tower.

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Lexa was tied up in a meeting with all the ambassadors, including Azgeda. She told them what had happened and the Azgeda ambassador, predictably, yelled his displeasure. Lexa let it go on for a few seconds before she held up her hand. All the ambassadors except for Azgeda quietened down.

"Silence!" Titus yelled, and finally the Azgeda ambassador shut up.

"As I have told you, the cliffs are part of the Trikru territory. As such, they are not required to inform anyone about anything they do in their own lands. I do not have the right to tell them how to use their lands, even though I live in Polis and come from Trikru. I am not involved in the day to day workings of my people. I am in Polis and I am here for every clan, not to tell people what they can do on their land. Understand?"

"Yes, Commander," was chorused by all but Azgeda.

"How am I supposed to get home?" the ambassador yelled.

"There's another pass to your home, Azgeda. Use that," said the Yujleda ambassador.

"It's on the other side of our territory!"

"So? You were the ones who decided to put a pass there. You should have put one nearer."

"They've blocked our way to the clans!"

"No, they haven't!" said the Plains Rider Ambassador. "They've done nothing wrong. It's their land and they can do what they want to it. The only thing we could have objected to was if they had destroyed a whole part of their territory and turned it into barren land."

"But-"

"No." The Commander said. "Azgeda were the ones who pushed for the clans to have total autonomy over their lands. We know this was because you wanted to cut down the big trees in the north of your lands and we didn't want you to. But you pushed for it and enough ambassadors and leaders agreed with you that it stood. You cannot say that the Trikru have no right to total autonomy in their own lands."

"Sha," said several ambassadors.

"The queen will not like this! You have done this to spite her because you know she is the true Commander this Kongeda needs!" the Azgeda ambassador shouted.

"If she doesn't like it, she can leave the kongeda. I, for one, will not miss you disrupting everything when you can't get your own way - just like a child!" said the Sankru ambassador. The Azgeda ambassador rushed towards him.

"I will kill you for that!" Several other ambassadors grabbed him and held him.

Commander Lexa held up her hand and told the ambassadors to let the Azgeda one go. She then told him to approach.

"Come, let us speak of this privately," and she nodded her head to the balcony. The Azgeda ambassador was so incensed that he immediately went to the balcony without thinking about it. He turned around in time to see her bring her foot up and kick him off the balcony.

"I just had word before this meeting from one of our villages that Azgeda had killed several of their people in a raid the night before Trikru closed the pass. The reason no-one could tell us about it was that Azgeda stole all their horses and they had to walk to the next village. Azgeda has proven that it is willing to ignore boundaries and has no problem with raiding other clans. I suggest those of you who have borders with Azgeda, check on the villages nearest those borders. If they are willing to raid Trikru, they may be raiding others."

Several ambassadors whispered urgently but quietly.

"Commander, I would like to send a messenger to my clan and speak with my heda about this," one ambassador said, and it was taken up by others. The Commander raised her hand.

"Anyone who wants to go to their homelands, can. We meet again in two months for the half yearly leaders meeting. We will discuss this then. I ask you to make sure that ALL of your villages know about Azgeda raiding our lands. The matter of Azgeda being excluded from the Kongeda will be discussed then." She looked around. "This meeting is over. Titus, have the Azgeda body wrapped up and taken to the border with Azgeda and placed over the boundary. They can come and get him when they want." Titus bowed and left along with the ambassadors - all except Clarke. When they were gone, Lexa turned to Clarke.

"Did I do the right thing?"

"Yes. Now they know that Azgeda was raiding and that Trikru only did things on their own land. The ambassadors will inform their leaders that Trikru never went beyond their borders while Azgeda did. They will back you, Lexa." Lexa nodded. Taking Clarke's hand, she led her to their quarters and closed the door.

xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx

At the half yearly meeting, all the leaders of the clans - except for Azgeda - were all in attendance. After the ambassadors had gotten home and told their leaders everything that had happened, the leaders with borders to Azgeda had checked their villages nearest those holders. Each had found that though Azgeda hadn't killed any of them, they had been seen around the borders of other clans. Sankru especially, had reports of Azgeda travelling into their territory and taking the food and water sources from the border regions. Granted there wasn't much of either, but it was food and water that their own people would have used to keep themselves alive in winter. With Azgeda taking them, all up and down the border, Sankru were now forced to trade with other clans to get enough food for their people.

The Commander heard roughly the same stories from the other clans bordering Azgeda. As Trikru was quite rich in food sources, she had allocated a group from each affected clan to hunt in her lands on the way back to their own. She had made sure, though, that they hunted outside a village's hunting grounds. They agreed and a party of six warriors from each clan would catch one large animal each. That would be all they were allowed to hunt. The leaders agreed, stating that if the positions were reversed, they would limit the hunting as well.

When it came time to discuss Azgeda's aggression along the boundaries, all the clans wished for Azgeda to be expelled from the Kongeda. If Azgeda could cross the borders and take what was not theirs, then they would have no problem raiding. All of the leaders had at some point been subjected to Queen Nia's egomaniacal rage and she was not deferential to the Commander either.

All the leaders voted yes and the motion carried. Several messengers were sent out and warnings were posted all along the borders of Azgeda, in all clan lands. Each pass or trail was posted so Azgeda would know they were no longer under the protection of the Commander and retaliation for Azgeda crossing borders would be harsh. No Azgeda would be allowed on their lands.

It was done.

xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx

A month later and Adara was looking at the village they had built over what was a 'high school', whatever that was and an 'elementary' school. Neither of those names were elementary as she had no clue what they meant. However, she was now looking at the new buildings. They had decided that for single people, large longhouse style dormitories would be built. Each housed twenty people. Some people wanted it to be gender based and some wanted it to be mixed. In the end, they decided on gender based, solely on the grounds that they were for sleeping and not much sleep would happen if all you heard were couples having sex!

So now there were twenty longhouses for single people. They were grouped in twos. Two were placed at the northwest boundary at ninety degree angles to each other with a watchtower placed at the corner. Two more were placed at each corner of their village. Two each to the north, south, east and west of the village boundaries and the last two were built a little way in from the south boundary. These would be used for the kids deemed old enough to live in the single's longhouses but too young to deal with an emergency, but still within reach of the main areas. After all, this was still wild country and they didn't have a fence up yet.

They had built similar buildings of two storeys for the couples and families. Each had a small closed area. A double bed, and small wardrobes were all that was in the rooms. Everyone was to mingle with others in the specially designed lounge areas of the buildings or in the many community buildings. Food would be cooked at a central building they called the food hall. It was specially made with kitchens to one side and tables and chairs spread out through the rest of it. The space was large but not large enough to feed everyone at once, three shifts were kept going 24 hours a day. Food was served when you were hungry but no more than twice a day. If you wanted anything else, you either had leftovers - which there wasn't much of - or you went out berry picking, not much of those remained either. Food and water crews were out each day. The Skaikru were assiduous in teaching the Arkers how to forage and what to forage for, which animals to hunt in what season and when not to hunt certain animals. Breeding season was the biggest one to stay away from.

It was now fall. One of the hunting parties had gone across the river to the north and found a cave system which was the home to several big cat families. It was deemed that across the river was a no go zone. It was left to the cats. They had plenty of land to hunt on without it. It was the reason for the watchtower on the northwest boundary. It was the closest area to the cat country.

The engineers were busy trying to remember how to build solar panels. If they couldn't remember, they would have to reinvent them. Adara helped out with this as she had discovered several of the 'stores' near them. Several were tool stores - or whatever they were called - they had found a variety of tools, nails, screws, door handles and knobs, locks, hooks and other things to do with building and such like. They also found a window and door maker with dozens of them in storage. They all grinned when it was discovered, these plastic doors were not damaged nor warped. These would be perfect for the buildings they were putting up. Several teams worked on getting the doors and windows to the building site and storing them for future use.

One of the stores also sold solar panels. They were bigger than Adara expected, but then she remembered that these were from over 100 years ago, so they had not advanced like the Ark did. The Ark's solar panels were smaller but produced more power. They would do until they could figure out how to make them smaller.

All in all, Adara was pleased at the pace at which the village had been put together. She knew in later years, things would be moved or replaced and things would be subject to be altered as they realised they had either forgotten to add something, or they needed to readjust as the people figured out how to make things better. Yes, this was nicely done. Adara was pleased.

xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx

There was a commotion in the newly finished square as Drew came running up to her as she was reviewing plans for decorating the village square with a couple of Arkers. Drew had lookout duty on the northwest tower today.

"Adara! Adara!" he yelled. Adara grabbed his arm so he didn't rush past her in his haste to get to her.

"What's happened, Drew?" she asked, fear filling her with dread.

"We saw Paul Slater coming from the river back towards us. Sterling went to see what was wrong as I stayed on watch. He was injured. He said that Myles and Connor were still there - on the other side of the river. They'd gone to look at the cats caves for some stupid reason. Paul said that Myles and Connor were injured by the cats. Paul ran to get help."

Adara spun around.

"Murphy! Octavia! Miller! Front and centre, now!" she yelled out. The requested people ran to her from three different directions. "Connor and Myles are over the river in cat country. They're injured. Rescue party now. Arm up!" The three went running. "Atom!" she called. Atom, whose party was about to head out and explore the south west, stopped and looked at her. "Bring your team. Get stretchers. Rescue party across the river," she said, pointing to the north. Atom nodded and detailed two of his team to get the stretchers. The rest of his party were already armed. Harper and Roma were exceptional with bows and the rest had either swords or staves. All had been taught how to use them by Trikru warriors and had been drilled until they were some of the best warriors Skaikru had.

"Kane!" Adara yelled again, looking around.

"Here!" Kane said, running up.

"Tell Abby we've got wounded - or possibly dead - across the river. I need Jackson to go with us and Abby to prepare for emergencies." Kane nodded and ran off. Two minutes later, Jackson came running with a medical bag slung over his shoulder, the two from Atom's group running after him carrying the stretchers.

When they were all assembled, Adara moved off with them. They passed Paul being helped towards the small hospital they had built. Adara stopped them.

"Paul, where are they?"

"Over the river," he said, slumped between two people, barely talking.

"Where across the river?"

"Down. Go west from the bridge, following the river. There's a rise. We looked down on the cats from there, but Connor fell over the edge. We scrambled down to him but we were attacked. Myles took a slash across his face and throat. Don't know how bad Connor is, I ran for help." With that, he fainted and the two boys picked him up and carried him to the hospital.

"Okay, move out. Let's find this bridge."

Several minutes later, they reached the river and looked up and down it. No sign of a bridge nor the remnants of one. Adara looked back at the watchtower. Drew was pointing upriver some way and Adara nodded before heading out.

When they eventually reached the remains of the bridge, they found the woodwork was gone but the ironwork still remained. There were two strips of metal running across the river from bank to bank. Planks would have been fastened horizontally to them for walking on. Now they only had two narrow strips more than shoulder wide apart. They would have to walk on one of them only. A four inch wide strip was a bit daunting, especially carrying two wounded - or dead - people.

They carefully crossed the river then Adara sent Murphy and Octavia ahead to scout. They spent a tense few minutes until Murphy waved them forward. They kept low and only talked in whispers.

"What you got?" asked Adara.

"The rise is over there. Octavia's on the right side of it in those bushes," he said, pointing to her right. Adara nodded and sent him to the left side. She detailed Miller to watch behind them. Adara, Atom and Harper crawled to the rise and slowly crawled up it. They slowly looked over the edge. The scene below was horrific. Myles was lying on his back - with his throat ripped out. Connor was missing an arm and part of a one leg. There was an enormous amount of blood spread around. A lot of that would have been arterial spray. She looked around and didn't see any cats. She positioned Harper and two of her teammates on the rise. She took the rest with her around the base of the rise and into the cat's area. Murphy detailed Roma and two others to high rocks as lookouts and Octavia climbed the rocks on the other side.

Octavia looked outwards but couldn't see any animals around. She signalled that they could go to the downed boys. When they got to the bottom, they knew Myles was dead, but they hoped that Connor was still alive. They found a weak pulse. Jackson immediately got to work putting tourniquets on Connors stumps. Once done, they put him and Myles on the stretchers and strapped them down. Atom's team picked them up as the others covered them from attack. They made it back across the river and headed for home when Jackson called a halt. He had checked Connor's pulse every 30 seconds, but now there was none. They put him down and Jackson tried to revive him, he was still going five minutes later with no response. Adara put her hand on Jackson's shoulder. She got no response as he continued his work. Adara pulled gently on his shoulder.

"Jackson, stop," she said, gently. He shrugged her off and kept going. She pulled more forcefully on his shoulder.

"Jackson! Stop! It's been over five minutes and there's no response. He's gone, Jackson. It's over." Jackson slowed his ministrations and his head dropped as his hand stopped pumping his heart. He looked over his shoulder at her, his eyes beseeching her to continue.

"No, Jackson," she said gently. "He once told me that if anything like this happened, he didn't want to live. He didn't want to be a cripple or unable to do his job anymore." Jackson nodded his head and stood up. Everyone was saddened that they couldn't save him. They picked up the two dead boys and carried them back to the village. Adara saw Drew and Kane up in the watchtower and she shook her head. Even at that distance, they knew what that meant. With a heavy heart, Kane climbed down the ladder to go inform Abby.

They entered the village and everyone in the village was gathered there. Atom and Murphy took the boys to Abby. Adara stood up on one of the outside tables.

"I know this is the first loss we've had in the village and I'm saddened by it. Both those young men were my friends. We will be having a ceremony for them in two days. In the meantime, I need volunteers for burial detail. I'll make two coffins for them, but someone will have to form a party to dig their graves. Any volunteers see Kane. Other than that, we'll have a memorial for them and anyone who wants to, can talk about them. Any funny stories, anything the boys talked about of their time on the Ark, or down here on the ground. All will be invited, but it's not mandatory." Adara looked at them and some of them nodded. "Thank you," Adara nodded back and then got down.

She went to Miller and Octavia.

"You two ride to Tondc and tell them, then ride for Polis to inform Clarke. I know you won't make it back here in time for the funeral, but I need you to do this for me. I won't make you go if you really want to be at their funerals, but I'd like it if you did." Octavia looked at Miller and nodded. He nodded back.

"If we go now, we'll make Tondc before nightfall. We can go on to Polis in the morning." Miller nodded agreement at Octavia's suggestion. Adara nodded and the two of them moved off to the stables.

Adara sighed. Honestly, she had thought more of them would be dead by now. Looking back on how many died in the first month last time, she was amazed that the two young men were the first to die - months after dropping. The first deaths of her people and it ripped at her soul. She knew that she never wanted to go through this again, but knew she would. Death was a part of life. She hoped that this tragedy would drive home the message that the earth was dangerous. There are no safe areas, there are no areas where there are only safe plants and animals. Everywhere you go, you need to be on guard. Life is hard - and harsh. There were no cushy jobs and no areas of the village were risk free. They were building walls, not just for defense against other people, but to keep out wild animals. Life would never be the same again, but that didn't mean you gave up. No, those men's lost lives would not be in vain.