The Sands of Time

This happened a couple of times, and I was having a conference with the chiefs in my group.

"We must have killed almost hundred raiders. They must know that something had happening to their men. How odd they don't come out an investigate," I said.

I sent three men back up into the mountain to spy on the raiders. I wanted to keep tabs on them and be ready, in case they planned to attack in force. We used different color deer tails as signals. A white tail means all clear, and a black tail (one dipped in tar) means trouble. We had plenty of tails all divided up with the commanders. My three spies had a set of tails also.

I wasn't sure what happened, but one of our spies was waving a black tail for trouble. I didn't see the other two. The one with the signal got about half way to us before he toppled over with an arrow in his back.

Suddenly the raiders boiled out of the mountain in full force. They were racing toward our position. They must figure they could over run us. I had the units form up into battle units. The first unit would fire their arrows and move back to let the next unit fire, and so forth. On the other side they were sneaking around to the backside of the raiders to cut off any type of retreat.

My plan was coming together better than I hoped for. When the raiders got into range, the first group fired their arrows. By the time the third unit fired, the raiders had stopped their rush. On their backside my other division was firing their arrows, and we had the raiders pinned between us. When we ran out of arrows, the fighting was hand to hand. We had an enormous advantage, after the huge loss the raiders suffered from our bow attacks. We made short work of the remaining raiders.

We had wiped out all the raiders, and our losses were twenty-five warriors either killed or gravely injured. I led a group of thirty warriors back up the mountain, while the rest were busy stripping the raiders of anything of value. There were about twenty raiders left in the camp. We finished them off in rapid succession. We stripped the camp of anything of value and had the camp women follow us out. When we left, we destroyed the raider camp.

The march back to the Great Meeting Ground went rather slowly with the injured and the extra women and children with us. It took us four weeks to make it back, with a couple of the injured dying on the trip home. Once we got back, the tribes were glad to see us back as victors. There was a big celebration party a couple days later. Also, Raven and I were formally married. She was now pregnant with my child.

A short time later my tribe left the Great Meeting Ground and headed back to our home campsite. I was sure that both my dad and brother would have been proud of me for taking revenge on the raiders, for what they had done to our tribe in the past.

Chapter Seven

The story was now being told by my great-great-grandson Grey Wolf, this story now jumps ahead 100 years.

Hi, my name is Grey Wolf, and I'm the chief of chiefs of many tribes. I have only seen thirty summers, but our bloodline had been chief of chiefs since Thunder Bird was the first.

When the tribes all come together at the Great Meeting Ground, we then call ourselves The Nation.

The tribes had all thrived, growing crops, medical knowledge, and herbs. Our weapons have improved. We have domesticated horses, camels, and other animals. We were in a time period of tranquility. My main job now was ruling on disputes between tribes. We had an army that every tribe contributes hunters to. The army was more of a peace keeping force, keeping the peace between tribes.

My two wives' Song Bird and White Dove have produced seven children; four boys and three girls. We name the first boy Red Hawk, after our tribe founder. He was being groomed to take my place, when I'm ready to step down as chief. My second boy Running Elk, was being trained to command our army. My last two sons are being trained as hunters. Training the girls was up to the women.

Even though we have had peace for many years, our story tellers still remind us of our past history. They tell tales of the violent raiders, and what they did to some of our tribes. We have outposts in strategic places. Patrols guard our borders between the outposts. A couple of times a year, I led a group of hunters North into the mountains to check out the old raiders camp located in a valley within the mountains. So far the camp had been empty and showed no signs of anyone having been there. We never went any further than the valley in the mountains.

We were beginning to enter the Stone Age, with our weapon masters starting to make stone weapons. They started by making stone pointed clubs that were similar to a mace. They would put holes in the club with sharp pointed stones being struck by stone hammers. The masters then would then tar the sharpened stone points into the club. Once the stone was secured in the club, the master would then sharpen the outer points. Later on we discovered a plant that produced a sticky substance, which worked better than tar.

Second, was a stone axe, which did considerably more damage than a club would do. Also, they worked well in chopping down trees. Over time we made some stone bowls, but the work to do this was extremely painstaking process. They were shallow bowls. Once made, we could heat water and food in them.

From the Great Meeting Ground, go North about halfway to the Raiders Mountain entrance, then go West about three days ride on horseback. There were a couple of large tribes that we traded with. They traded us some black wood (charcoal) for some of the items that we had for barter.

We never traded our weapons. It was unknown what might happen to those weapons, and the possibility they might be used against us. Our weapon masters found out that by crushing pieces of the black wood, the pieces would burn hotter than our wood fires. But we had no idea on what to do with this discovery yet.

To the South from the Great Meeting Ground, about three days' ride, we traded with a couple of large tribes that had some rock nuggets. One day a weapon master took some of the smaller nugget pieces and put it into a stone bowl. He heated the bowl over a wood fire, and nothing happened. When he put some of the black wood pieces in the fire, the extra heat started the nuggets to melt. He notices that stirring the liquid, it would coat the end of his wooden stick. When cooled it left a metal coating on the stick, which was very hard to remove.

After going through a trial and error period. Using this process, we found that we could make two types of different arrows. The first was a flint head that was coated with this liquid metal. The other was a sharpened shaft end that was heated to a hardened state, and then coated with the liquid metal. We also could coat the axes and knives, and with a type of whetstone we could sharpen them. This whole process probably took us over a year to get right. We spent a lot of time just going back and trading for the raw materials that we needed.

Up toward the North East almost against the mountains, five-day ride by horseback, were a couple of tribes we trade with. They traded us some crystal looking nuggets.

They told us, "Crush the nuggets, and put the powder over our crops to help them grow."

To the East of the tribes to our South, was tribe traded us some yellow looking nuggets.

"Crush it up and use the powder with our medicines," They informed us.

The crushed nuggets burned fairly easily, putting out strange smelling smoke. The crushed nuggets when mixed with healing herbs into a paste product, seem to work as salve for rashes, and cuts.

After some trial and error, we combined the yellow powder and white powder together and used it on our crops. The results were simply amazing. The corn and wheat crops grew taller and fuller. Our crops and medicine took some major leaps forward with these two products.

One of our weapon masters crushed together some of the white, yellow and black nuggets, in a stone bowl. After a series of tests, he touched the mixture with a lighted stick. The resulting explosion killed him, and hurt two other people. We had no idea on what just happen, or what he did to the mixture. I started an investigation into this accident. I was intent on finding out just what had happened and why.

We recreated the accident and then I heated a stone red hot. Using a throw stick, I pitched the stone into the stone pot. The explosion threw the stone tree high into the air. Now we knew just what the explosion did. How do we use this find? I turned to a couple of weapon masters.

"Figure out away on how to best use this exploding powder," I told them

It had been a couple of years since all of these discoveries. All of our tribes have flourished with the advancements that have been made. Once every couple of years, when summer ends and fall starts, the tribes gather to meet at the Great Meeting Ground. It was soon time for us to pack up and head out to the Great Meeting Ground.

We were getting close, we started to encounter other tribes. They were heading in the same direction. They all said hello to us as they knew that I was the chief of chiefs. As always there is an unspoken universal peace between tribes as they head toward the Great Meeting Ground.

We camped for the night and spent the next day hunting to re-supply our food. We set up a smoke tent to cure the meat. There was a nice spring nearby to fill our water containers. Once we had enough provisions to last for a couple of weeks. We headed out. We were only a day or so away.

We came through a small set of hills and a there in front of us spread out in a huge valley was the Great Meeting Ground. We could see many of the tribes were already there. We cleared the hills, and headed for the spot that is reserved for the chief of chief's tribe to setup camp.

The army was out in full force protecting the perimeter to prevent any type of unexpected attack. Although there had been no sign of any of the raiders, we were going to be prepared just in case.

There were all kinds of events to test the strength of the tribe's best warrior. This was also the time when young men go from tribe to tribe looking to take a mate. I thought that I might find a wife for me if the opportunity presented itself. Both of my wives past away in the last eighteen months. Song Bird to a poison snake bite, and White Dove to an illness. I figured now was a good time to look for a new mate.

Our tribe had eighteen children between the age of sixteen to eighteen, eight boys and ten girls. The boys each took a mate, and we lost nine of the girls to other tribes. This helped to keep the inbreeding in check. My two oldest boys reaching the age of consent, both took new wives.

Our weapon masters had meetings with other tribe's masters to show what we have done with the new powders. There was a lot of talk with both the masters and in the chief meetings on what and how to use the exploding powder. We already had shared with the army weapons master, the liquid metal that coated the arrow heads.

By the end of the week, the weapon masters had come up with some ways to use the exploding powder. They filled a hollowed out gourd with the powder and pebbles and sealed the end with some tar. They had a hunter shoot it with an arrow that had its head heated. The hot arrow struck the gourd, causing the powder to explode shooting the pebbles out in different directions.

They used the same principal using a gourd with a wick in the end sealed by tar. The wick was made of grass and tar so it would not burn down too fast. Light the wick and heave it as far as possible, or at your intended target. When the burning wick touched the powder, it exploded shooting the pebbles out in different directions Both processes needed some extra work and fine tuning, but the concept was what I was looking for.

It was a great week. I had lots of fun meeting with all the chief's and their tribes. At one tribe camp, I met a woman called Silvermoon. I ran into her a few other times during the week. She was a first cousin of Running Bull, who was the chief of her tribe. She had been married once, but her husband died from some type of fever. We seemed to hit it off in a good way. She had brown hair and eyes. She was very pretty, and has nice size breasts. She had one child from her first marriage, a girl. She also lost one child at childbirth.

Late one night she came to my tent. She took off her fur clothing and crawled under the fur skin blanket with me. We kissed for a bit and I groped her breast and then sucked her nipples. She was squirming around and I could smell her arousal. We kissed and fondled each other.

"Oh Grey Wolf, it feels so good to be in your arms. It has been a long time for me to be with a man. I'm ready for you right now, please take it easy when you stick it in me," she softly said.

I moved to the back of her and she raised her ass up to me. I shoved my cock deep inside of her soaking wet pussy. She was tight and let out a soft cry. I entered her pussy with a vengeance. I pounded her pussy with my cock. I slowed down and started to fuck her slowly, but soon I'm back to slamming my cock back and forth deep inside of her pussy.

"Oh, yes, right there, don't stop, do it harder!!" She moaned as I continued to fuck her wildly.

She started to cry out softly when her orgasm started, while her juices started to drip down my shaft. I continued to pound away at her. Soon I got that good feeling in my cock and I shot a load of cum deep inside of her pussy.

"Oh, that felt so good," she said to me.

I just kind of puffed back at her, and smiled. After a couple of days of her coming to my tent at night. We were a couple in the eyes of the tribes.

"Why don't you stay here and share my tent with me?" I asked her.

It was a roundabout way of asking her to be my mate.

She smiled and said, "I was hoping you would ask and yes I will be your mate."

She became my mate, and she and her daughter joined our tribe. It was a big honor to her and her tribe for her to become the mate to the chief of chiefs. It seemed like she took me to our bed whenever she could, at least a couple of times a day.

Finally, she says to me, "This is my right time of the month, I hope you planted it deep to make it a boy." I just stared back at her with a smile on my face, hoping she was right.

After ten days of fun, it was time for the great chieftain party, which signaled the end of this year's event. While the party was going on, up to the far north revenge was starting.

The raiders had waited a hundred years to start their revenge. They started by destroying the outpost to the far north. They also took out any patrols that happen by. They captured the weapons from the dead warriors. Quickly the raiders worked their way down South, taking out the outpost as they advanced.

Word reached us as we were about to break camp. A rider from one of the outposts, arrived to tell us what had happened. The whole camp was in an uproar. Slowly warriors from patrols and outposts that fled before the raiders had reached them started to filter in. They filled us in on what the raiders were doing and how far away they were.

I sat down in a war council with the senior tribe chiefs, to figure out just what to do. None of us had ever been in a major war and we were lacking in battle strategy. We set up a 5-point plan

1. Send our scouts out on horseback to check out the progress of the raiders and report back.

2. Send out hunters to get in plenty of food, water and wood for fuel.

3. Get the weapon master to make more arrows and axes. Also get the exploding powder

bombs built.

4. Start to fortify the area to the north.

5. Get the army fully staffed with extra hunters and work on battle field tactics.

The first scout reported back telling us the raiders were twenty-five days away and moving toward us fast.

There are 25 tribes that make up the nations. The average tribe has somewhere between 100-150 members. Most tribes were generally split somewhere around 40 men, 40 women, and 50 children give or take in each category. Each tribe contributes ten hunters to the army, making our army 250 men strong. They are well trained by our weapon masters and commanding officers.

Not all men in the tribes were hunters. Some do have other tasks. But all are trained in some form of tribal protection. If every tribe had twenty hunters available. Then that would give us a backup to the army of around 500 extra men.

I started to give some of the chiefs tasks to do. Some worked with hunters training them. Some worked with the medical people on how to treat our wounded. A couple of chiefs had the task of working out a plan of getting our dead out of the way and buried. A couple of others had the task of feeding all of our hunters and warriors and the rest of the tribes in camp.

Three chiefs worked on our defense. After about fifteen days of preparation and many hours of work, finally our defenses were built. We had dug pits and covered them with branches.

The bottoms of the pits were lined with sharp stakes. We erected barricades of sharpen limbs and boulders away from the meeting grounds toward the North. We wanted to break up the raiders, so they wouldn't have a clear run to us. We had an area in front of the barricades cleared so they could not sneak up on us. We burned off all the grass in front of our location to the north, so they couldn't use smoke against again.

We planted bombs at certain location in the center of the battlefield. Our hunters practiced hitting them with dummy arrows. We had bombs all over the place within the barricade area. It

will be of our last line of defense.

One of the tribes were trained horsemen. I had them training on guerrilla tactics, to attack the raiders from the side and back. They carried some grenades with them. I hoped an attack from a different direction might slow down the raiders.

The river on the East side of us helped to act as a barrier. The mountains and hills to the West also helped to act as a barrier. The days seemed to flash past us, while the raiders were drawing closer.

With the use of our horses, our scouts were able to stay ahead of the raiders. They kept us informed on the advancement of the raiders. Finally, we could see the dust that the raiders kicked up as they moved toward us.

The next day I moved up toward the front to view the raiders. My, God, they covered the ground for as far as I could see. Must be thousands of them? We must be out numbered 10 to 1. We are going to be massacred, how are going to survive against so many.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Best guess they were maybe a day or two away. Our defensive team had been busy placing bombs in the right places and our hunters were practicing to hit their targets. The weapon masters had been busy making both bombs and grenades. Arrow and bow makers had plenty of arrows. The bow makers had back up bows and extra bow strings. The women were trained to get arrows and bows or strings to the archer who might need them.

We had primitive shields made out of sticks and bark and animal hides. They might stop an arrow, but not much good against a club or spear. But they were better than nothing. Our weapon masters were busy making more of these shields.

Our perimeter defense was designed to slow down the raiders and funnel them toward the middle. The hope was to then have the bombs and grenades put a hurt on their charging forces, with back up help from all of our archer's.

I had twenty-five guerilla hunters ready to go up into the hills and plan their attacks on the raiders from the hills. They carried some grenades with them. I hoped an attack from a different direction might slow and confuse the raiders.