*
Raw cries of anguish and sorrow permeated the forests of the Five Realms on the traumatic day of departure. Villages all across the woodlands were left behind, empty and purposely abandoned, as the great exodus began.
Emotional wounds suffered in the vicious attacks from the skies were ripped open even further. Most villagers had not recovered well from the sudden pronouncement of the Grand Council’s decision, for the tribes to desert the villages and their lands. They could not believe that they were leaving the lands that they loved, and had inhabited for all of their lives, heading into a future fraught with instability.
There had been no time to adjust or prepare, and the tribal people were not coping well. The decision of the Grand Council had been swift in its delivery, and absolute in its urgency.
Throughout the tribal lands, each village left as a group. Plans were quickly made so that the village groups would eventually combine together into larger contingents, all along the way of the various forest trails crossing through their extensive lands.
There had been no time for proper condolences, or even for the proper, traditional burial rituals. The hastily constructed platforms holding the wrapped bodies of the dead were cleared immediately, as the bodies were hastened into great pits. It was not wholly unlike their regular practices, but it was greatly shortened in terms of ceremony, and the methodical, tribal customs, something that was considered to be a very bad omen by many of the villagers.
The only comfort to be had anywhere was found in the fact that family groups would be kept together. The villagers would still have the presence of their cherished clan matrons, clan sachems, Wise Ones, and headmen walking on the long march with them.
Even so, between the confederated tribes and villages there were many friends who were being parted from friends, and lover from lover, making the exodus one of tremendous discomfort, pain, and frustration for the sorrowing people.
The people had little time to salvage whatever they could from their villages. Those who were a part of the great Healing Societies reverently gathered together all of the ritual masks that had survived the destruction, along with ash, rattles, and other implements used in their mystical ceremonies.
Foodstuffs of all kinds were scraped up and gathered into baskets, buckets, and any method of containment that could be taken along. Weapons were also collected, with quantities of arrows distributed and placed within quivers woven of corn husks, or fashioned of hide.
Ayenwatha, fresh from the formal war council, had volunteered to keep the seven exiles with him. None of the others in the village, under the circumstances, could reasonably be expected to care for the needs of the outsiders in the midst of the terrible calamities that had been mercilessly thrust upon their own families and clans.
When he found them towards the base of the hill, at the Place of Far Seeing, it was clear that his appearance startled the exiles, for his skin was now painted red and black for the impending war.
*