36 Second settlement of the black axe tribe.

"They will be divided into 10 hunting groups, each group will be made up of 5 men and will be led by a warrior of the black axe tribe."

Blake walked in front of 50 men from the extinct Ice-river clans, they were all young men, some of them no more than 12 years old. And Blake had made sure that those 50 men had families they could not leave behind, to avoid putting his warriors in danger.

"They will go deep into the forest and search for prey within 50 kilometers, they must be back at the tribe before nightfall."

The reason for his detailed commands was because right now he was at the outpost fortress, and surrounding the place were all the men and women who had joined the black axe tribe.

Blake was implementing the meritocracy system he had applied in the black axe tribe.

First, there were the children, and would be considered a child, any young man or woman under the age of 8, whether orphaned or not.

Blake had named these orphans as children of the tribe, and every older man or woman had the obligation to care for them and give them counsel as if they were their children while having the right to reprimand them as if they were their children.

During this time, the tribe would be responsible for feeding and clothing these infants. In the tribe, Blake had built shelter houses where the orphaned children could sleep, plus the food was made and served by the tribe in the morning and evening.

There were not many things that a child could do during this time, so Blake had built a school where they had to go to receive compulsory studies, and they would also receive training from a warrior after they turned 6 years old. In the tribe, this work was done by the best warriors, such as Wymond, Wren, Cam, and even Oswin at times.

After the age of 8, you would no longer be considered a child and would be considered a hunter.

You would be placed as the youngest member of the older hunting groups to learn how to move through the Haunted Forest, how to spy, hide, make fires, skin and bleed animals, identify edible plants, and generally how to survive.

The hunters gave the prey they obtained to the tribe, providing meat and skins, with which the tribe made clothes, and glue and fed everyone. If the hunter managed to catch enough prey he could ask the builders to make him a hut, big enough for him to live in with his wife and children.

And finally, when the hunter had a hut of his own he could ask to get a wife or ask a widow or a young woman who had had her first menstrual cycle.

Being a hunter was enough to have a comfortable life since you could give skins to be made into clothing, which included gloves, hats, and boots, or exchange them for wool scarves. You could also trade excess prey for products such as wine or cheese.

After demonstrating your skills as a hunter you could be appointed as a warrior of the tribe. There was no age limit or anything like that, the only way to become a warrior was to demonstrate your skills and have a tribal warrior give the go-ahead.

By being a tribal warrior you became elite, you were given a full set of armor, a longbow, a sword, and a shield and if you didn't have a wife you were given top priority to have one.

Warriors could go out in Oswin's caravan, getting some resources from exchanges with Free folk settlements or the Night's Watch.

Warriors also received some of the luxury resources of the village, such as cheese, milk, eggs, and clothing made from wool.

This was the warrior's path within the tribe, but it was not necessary to follow it to have a good life.

After the age of 8, you could also choose to join the workshop.

The workshop taught the builders, the tanners and tailors, the weavers, the cooks, the herders, the fishermen, and other miscellaneous tasks.

The builders learned all about wood, how to carve it, and how to differentiate between the different types of trees and their qualities, be it oak, beech, ash, chestnut, pine, spruce, ironwood, and others found in the Haunted forest.

Among the tasks of the builders were to make houses, walls, and furniture, extract pine resin, extract maple syrup, and create weapons.

Tanners and cloth makers learned to work hides to make leather or create clothing.

Weavers were in charge of the loom and also had the job of shearing goats and sheep and making wool yarn.

Cooks learned how to handle meat, fish, and vegetables so that they would not rot, as well as how to balance meals in a healthy diet and the necessary hygienic habits.

Cattlemen took care of all livestock, including chickens and horses, and fishermen set traps in the Milkwater River for fish.

There were some tasks that Blake had not yet incorporated into the system, such as paper making or farmers, as the tribe's farming area was very small and they were to expand soon.

"You guys will be in charge of fishing in Milkwater River using the techniques I've been teaching you the last few days."

Blake dismissed the hunters and now walked in front of 150 spear women to whom he would give the task of fishing.

"They should be back to the tribe by mid-afternoon, even if they don't manage to catch anything."

Right now surrounding the outpost fortress were around 700 men, at least 1300 women, and 400 children.

In just a few months the black axe tribe had quadrupled in size, with the complete absorption of the Ice-river clans.

But this would only become a large new Ice-river clan settlement if Blake did not organize these people well. So he would have to stay for quite a while in the outpost fortress to solve the problems of clothing, food, and housing, as he had done before. In addition to enforcing tribal rules and punishing anyone who broke them.

The vast majority of the men and women were digging the ground where the huts would be built, and cutting the trees needed for both housing and furniture.

At the outpost fortress, there were not many builders, Blake's trusted men were all in the tribe, taking care of the goods being sold to Shadow Tower, so he could not bring them in, having to make do with Benton, a couple of builders who managed to survive, and his 150 warriors.

These 150 warriors had helped in the construction of their own houses, so they would be of great help.

The first settlement of the black axe tribe was slowly growing, constantly remodeling, and having to destroy some houses to move them to another site. But since this place was being built from scratch, with the outpost fortress as the center, Blake made a detailed plan that marked where the residential areas, warehouses, workshops, and other spaces that he left blank for future projects, such as the road, would be.

He was working on the food, with the hunters and fishermen, just as he had begun to grow edible mushrooms and had half the chickens and rabbits brought in from the stables of the first settlement of the black axe tribe. And with the housing, placing all their warriors and many of the newly admitted tribesmen to cut down trees, it only remained to solve the problem of clothing.

The clothing was the least of his worries, since he had all the raw materials he needed and much more than that, thanks to all those who died in the attack on the outpost fortress whose skins were taken before their bodies were burned, and all the loot he captured from the 12 Ice-river clan settlements.

Blake had already chosen 20 women and was teaching them how to work the skins and make garments while explaining the process to them. The learning method was slow, just as it was in the first settlement, where it took him two whole years to teach everything he knew to his first group of apprentices, but it was also true that now he had more experience teaching, and he hoped to have the same results in half the time.

The Ice-river clans had no cattle, to Blake's disgrace, but they did have several good weapons as well as horses, something that surprised him.

There were not many horses that he managed to capture, about 20, and they were shorter and skinnier than the horses of the Night's Watch, but Blake was very satisfied with this finding.

In the first settlement of the tribe, there were a few horses, they belonged to the Free folk who joined the tribe looking for food and protection, but they were very few, only 6 horses for the whole tribe, a very small number to make an impact, Oswin used them as pack animals when he went out in the caravan.

Blake sighed, he didn't know how long it would take him to organize this place properly, he might have to stay a whole couple of years or more. He wanted to see Ygritte, so he decided to bring her to the new settlement when he felt these people could be trusted.

So far there had been no trouble with them, they were completely terrified of the black axe tribe, plus he had his 150 warriors working as guards to quickly appease any conflict that formed, but there was some tension in the air.

Blake was sure that after they were in their log cabins, wearing quality clothing and with full stomachs, this tension would begin to ease, but for now, it was dangerous to bring Ygritte to this place, mostly because she was very restless and liked to prowl all over the tribe.

On the side of the fortress men, there was no tension, they won a desperate battle, and they looked at the newly accepted black axe tribesmen with superiority as if they were looking at their inferiors.

This was a problem Blake also wanted to solve, both sides had to unite, the first thing Blake would do would be to find some pretty women and give them as wives to the warriors who survived the attack, he wanted them to form family bonds, and that maybe this way they would unite as one tribe soon.

It didn't matter if they already had a wife, there were too many women in this place, and in the tribe, there was no problem with a man having two wives, as long as he had a big enough house and could feed them and their children, of course.

Blake walked to the residential area to inspect the progress of the cabins, he had a lot of work to do.

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I wrote this chapter on demand, and I didn't have much time to review it well, so it may have some mistakes, sorry for that.