Vaslavis Clan: The Past (4)

At the present time, there were only fifty families left of the Vaslavis Clan. In total, they had a little over two-hundred-fifty members still living.

It was a great disparity from their previous population numbering thousands.

Gathering all of the women, children, elderly, and the others who could not fight only took them half an hour. In the meanwhile, the fighters had reconvened in the house bordering the forest.

The leader of the group that was to escape was a woman named Priveya. She was supposed to be a part of the fighters. However, she decided that it would be better for her to accompany the runaways lest they encountered the Orschettas on the way.

To their relief, there were five others who volunteered to help Priveya.

"Since it wouldn't be of benefit to travel with this large group, we will have to separate. There are six of us who can guide you. Each of us will be responsible for eight families. I'll be the one to divide and assign in order to make this fast."

Once she was done explaining, Priveya began to group seven to eight families together. Following that, she assigned one of the fighters to one cluster. As for her, she took it upon herself to protect the group where Zarya, Lorco, Neverio, and the families of their four other friends belonged.

"This will be our plan. There are several routes that we can take at this point. They have been decided by the very fighters who are currently in a meeting. Your assigned fighters will guide you to your safe places."

One of the women raised their hands and queried, "How long do you think this will take? We don't have enough food supplies to last us three days, much more a week."

"As for that, we can only wait. You're all aware of just how strong the Orschettas are. It won't be an easy fight."

It could not be denied that Priveya was being lenient with her words. The adults were sentient about why she was doing that.

It's because the children were listening.

A fight with the Orschettas would definitely not be an easy fight. If anything, it would be one-sided. They didn't even know if they could successfully escape the clutches of the Orschettas despite their early response.

"Please don't panic. Let's have faith in others and in ourselves."

Priveya's sentiment was met with the silent nods of the Vaslavis members. There was nothing more that the woman could ask for other than the wholehearted cooperation of her clanmates.

With that being said, the group began their escape. It might take them several days and nights to arrive at their destinations, but all would be worthwhile for their safety.

The haphazardly built settlement of the Vaslavis Clan became a ghost town in less than an hour. Only the men, and some women who were capable of combat, were left to tackle the situation.

"Grego, how did you find out that the Orschettas were coming?"

One of the men inquired, curious for the reason that Grego had his mouth shut from the very beginning of the meeting.

This time around, Grego gave his answer, "The gold coin, you know what that is, right?"

"Yes, the Orschettas will leave a gold coin to the clan they are going to attack. That's their emblem after all."

"The Gold Coin should be embedded with the signature symbol of their current head."

"The Elders brought one with them, saying they stole it just in case it has value."

Some of the members chimed in with their opinions. Soon enough, their chatter died down and they all looked at Grego. They already knew what he had to say. They merely wanted for him to confirm their suspicions.

Grego slowly nodded his head, supplementing his gesture with a story.

"My daughter, she was holding one. I think she got it from the riverside, but I'm not certain. She was talking about treasure hunting in the forest earlier. Maybe she found it there."

At that point, Neverio's father confirmed Grego's assumption.

"My son was talking about Zarya finding a treasure in the forest. But why did you throw the Gold Coin away, Grego? We might have been able to inspect that coin for the future just in case."

"No, we should not do that. The coin--" Grego then gritted his teeth, taking a deep sigh subsequently, "It's laced with the scent of a beast. It's for luring the berserks and the strays."

Berserk and Strays were beast people that didn't belong to a clan. Most of them were those who refused to subject themselves to someone's rule, banished after violating their own clan's regulations.

Since they had no inhibitions, these two types of beast people were free to attack whoever they wanted. And because of their rogue nature, they didn't choose their victims.

If the Berserk and Strays followed after the Orschettas, the Vaslavis Clan were as good as destroyed.

"We have to find a way to divert the Berserks somehow." One of the fighters said, "The strays won't be that much of a problem if we give them something in return."

"No, rather than that, there's a better way to get through this ordeal." Grego said as he stood up.

He went to the front of the gathering, hoarding the attention of every single one of the fighters' attentions.

"Rather than diverting the Berserks, we should make them fight the Orschettas on our behalf. There's one thing that we can offer them, right?"

As they listened to Grego, the fighters knew just what he was pertaining to. Though they had reservations about his suggestion, they couldn't deny that his plan might just be their best option at that very moment.

"The Berserks only want dead bodies of beasts. Our graveyard is full of them."

Regrettably, not all of the Vaslavis Clan's fighters wanted to agree with his proposal.

"What are you suggesting?! That we feed the bodies of our relatives to those savages?! Have you no respect?!"