The tribe was in high mood for war.
That much was clear to Valen as he strode through the heart of the settlement, his eyes sweeping across a sea of frantic movement and half-shouted orders. Fires crackled in open pits, men shouted chants in their guttural tongue, and children dashed between tents bearing bundles of arrows and sloshing waterskins.
It was a strange sort of joy, the kind born only when men were about to risk everything for something they believed in.
Dozens of warriors bore short swords, spears, and curved axes forged from Yarzat steel, the polished sheen of the metal a stark contrast to the coarse hides and hand-woven tunics they wore beneath.
The finest equipment had been given to the elder warriors — those grizzled veterans whose scars traced the story of a lifetime of raids and mountain ambushes. The rest were clothed in more meager fashion: animal pelts thrown over wool-padded tunics, feet bound in leather strips, helmets fashioned crudely from hide.
