ch 16- meeting new people

Mirik's POV-

I reached the last stop on the bus route. I got off the bus. The area where the village was supposed to be was inside the forest. Right now I was on the outskirts of the aforementioned forest. If I wanted to reach the village before sunset I had to start my trekking as soon as possible. I had asked the people on the bus about the Kala village but not many people know about that place and those who know only say that village still live in the past times. No electricity, no vehicles they had nothing. Which made me think why would uncle come here in the first place.

"You have a long way to go. Better get going or it could get difficult in the forest." Adi woke me up from my stupor. I began my journey to the village.

After six hours on the track, I was following probably made by carts the village used, I saw the first signs of humanity. An abandoned watchtower. It looked like it was not in use for quite a time now. Why do they even have a watchtower in the middle of nowhere and the size of the watchtower also didn't make any sense? It was not very high and the platform was too wide with a frame of wood above it.

"What kind of watchtower is this?" I mumbled.

"It is not a watchtower. It's a hanging platform." Adi said in a grim voice. The hanging platform was on one side of the track and on the other side was a wide clearing. I instantly knew that the clearing was made for the crowd to watch the person who was being hanged. I was starting to feel weird thinking about what was going on here. But I put it into the back of my mind and continued the journey.

I finally saw the village after two more hours of following the track. The village even from far away was not small at all. The houses though primitive looking were as big as three-storeyed buildings and the city management too looked clean for a backward village. I continued my walk for a while when I suddenly stopped.

I could feel the presence of people around me. I started walking again and the people around me followed too. They were clearly looking for an opportunity to attack me or maybe they were just following me. My trust in them was broken when a spear came from the side towards me at a great speed. The good thing was that I was ready or I might have been skewered. I dodged the spear easily and it hit the tree behind me.

"You can all come out." I said while looking at the directions where they were hiding. There was no movement for a while, but then three people came out of the forest with their spears. All girls maybe not more than twenty, fierce-looking. They wore light armor above their clothes which made them look like warriors.

"What business do you have with our village?" she asked while looking at me with a hateful stare. But if she wanted to ask me this she could have done so from the start. I threw the small rock I had picked up while dodging from the spear back then. I threw the rock at the most vulnerable time, they weren't expecting me to have any weapon on me which made them put their guard down.

The rock went straight for the eye of one of the girls on the left. The girls were shocked but quickly defended against the attack. The girls took an attacking stance and were now wary of me.

The girl on the left looked at me with hateful eyes but I couldn't care less how she felt. I ran towards the one in the center but was intercepted by the girl on the right which was followed by a strong stab by the one on left. I dodged the first attack but parried the attack from the girl on left.

They attacked me again in a formation that looked like they had practiced all the time from the proficiency they were showing. I was not getting an opening to move in for an attack, so I went with the strategy of annoying the girl on the left. By parrying and making her attacks look like nothing I was successful in making her lose her focus. She broke the formation and came too far to attack me. The other two girls saw this and tried to cover for her.