sjar Chapter 603: The Traitor.
Chapter 603: The Traitor.
"It doesn’t matter."
The cloaked beings shook their heads.
"There are only two sides to choose in this War, make them choose you once, no matter what tactic or trick you use.
And once they stand by you, they can no longer be against you because the enemy would not accept them."
"What if they betray us at the last second and join the enem—"
The Stormcaller Leader tried to counter.
The Stormcallers were no fools, they may not understand alliances so well because they had always been alone, but they could still picture themselves on the other side.
And while they could see how difficult it was to choose the other side once a tribe made its choice.
But...
If what they brought was valuable enough...
Then acceptance wouldn’t be impossible either.
Sure, the Velmourns wouldn’t accept the tribes who marched together with them but...
What if they brought one of the Stormcaller Leaders’ heads with them? What if they revealed all their tactics in advance in return for acceptance?
Or the simplest and the most dangerous, what if they turned against them during the War, attacking them from behind, slaughtering every single one of their people just in the hopes of being accepted?
Was it too far-fetched?
It might be.
But it was still a possibility.
And if the Stormcaller Leaders could think of it, so could the leaders of those tribes.
Going to War in a position as weak as this was nothing more than foolish but—
Just as the Stormcaller Leaders were trying to explain it to the Cloaked Beings, in hopes of convincing them how bad of an idea it was—
A Stormcaller Warrior stepped in.
"Chief—"
He spoke, or he tried to but—
"Leave."
The Stormcaller Leader commanded as he glared at him.
The Warrior blinked in confusion, but just as he was about to leave—
"Wait."
The Cloaked Being stopped him, then, he turned towards the Warrior and the Warrior’s body flinched.
Why would it not?
This was the first time the ’Outsiders’ had directly interacted with him, before, they simply acted like he or any other Stormcaller other than the Chief and the Elders, did not exist.
"Why come here?"
The cloaked being asked.
The fluency with which he spoke the Stormcaller Tongue surprised the Warrior, but instead of answering, he turned towards the Chief and the Elders but—
"Do not look at them.
If I talk to you, you answer to me."
The Cloaked Being spoke.
Honestly, the Warrior didn’t even understand which of the three beings was talking to him since their heads were covered with their cloaks and maybe because they sat a few meters away from him or maybe they were using a strange Artifact, he couldn’t discern the exact direction of the sound either.
It was coming from them, that he knew, but which one of them it was coming from, that was still unknown.
Not that he had the luxury to think this through or understand why it was happening because as he looked at the Outsiders, he felt a strange form of pressure.
A pressure that urged him to do what he was told.
So—
"The Traitor sent a message."
And the instant those words were said, the Stormcallers’ expressions changed.
The Traitor.
A Traitor from the Velmourn Army.
Someone who had been giving them information for months now, he was also the one who told them that the Flying Man had begun recruiting other Tribes.
They thought he was compromised and was forced to feed them false information to raise fear and create panic, but...
That turned out to be true.
If they had acted on time, they could have stopped the recruitment for good.
But this time...
"What did he say?"
The Cloaked Being questioned before the Stormcaller Leaders could.
"He says there is trouble inside the Wall."
"Trouble?"
The Cloaked Beings tilted their heads.
"Heh."
The Stormcaller Leaders laughed.
"Of course, they recruited multiple different tribes in a matter of a few days, what else did they expect if not trouble?"
One of them snorted, others agreed.
This was the only good news that had come in the past few days and maybe it was them being miserable, but they were glad about it.
The Cloaked Beings, however, were different.
"What trouble?"
They asked.
To them, these petty emotions did not matter.
What mattered was how this could be used in their favor.
"During a training drill, two warriors from two different tribes, the Cindersteps and the Emberfolk, got into a scuffle, which led to an even bigger scuffle since warriors from those two tribes came to support their tribe’s warrior, the previous resentment that they had been holding exploded and it became an even bigger battle.
It seemed like other tribes would have joined as well but the Flying Man appeared at the last moment and stopped them.
But even he couldn’t contain the incident, the news spread throughout the army. The resentment got even stronger, especially in Warriors of the Cindersteps and Emberfolk, all attempts the Flying Man had been making to make amends failed so finally—
He had no choice but to separate them."
"How does he plan on doing that?"
The Cloaked Beings asked.
"He would separate the Cinderstep Warriors who started the scuffle by moving them first, he plans on taking all of the Cinderstep Warriors to a Scouting Mission at the shore in the North West."
"What mission?"
"That wasn’t explained.
The Flying Man only announced the solution in the morning, he will be leaving in the evening."
The Stormcaller Warrior explained and as he did, for the first time since the meeting began—
"Good."
The Cloaked Beings sounded... pleased.
Then, all of them turned towards the Stormcaller Leaders and—
"Here is the opportunity you have been waiting for.
You do not want War, correct?"
The Stormcallers frowned but the Cloaked Being continued.
"You fear that tribes won’t gather if you tell them to go to War against the Velmourn Alliance, correct?"
The Stormcallers nodded.
"Then gather them for this instead."
"For what...?"
"For only killing the Outsider Kael and forever being free from the pressure of a War."
The Cloaked Being announced in a generous, noble tone.