Five Tribes

By Emerson Kluge

Once upon a time there was a world with two great continents inhabited by five tribes. Each of these
tribes ruled their land as they saw fit and did not interfere with how the other ruled their lands.
Their ancestors had long ago agreed on where one tribes land ended and another’s started so they had
no reason to argue with each other. The tribe of Knowledge inhabited the west coast of the first
continent and lived near the tribe of Heart, who inhabited the east coast of the same continent.
East, over a great sea, the tribe of Spirit inhabited a peninsula and several islands surrounding it.
To the south of them, the tribe of Power inhabited a desert from the sands from which they could
derive their living. East of the tribe of Power lay the tribe of Thought, who’s lands stretched the
farthest of any of them; from the desert to the east coast of the second continent.

In the beginning, these tribes traded and learned from one another peacefully and each man did as he
pleased without harming any other. Tribesmen traveled between villages with ease and many friendships
were forged and much good was done. They traded their stories, tools and crafts so that every man
could have access to the specialty of each tribe. They traveled the lands, learned much from it and
shared their discoveries with all others.

However, a tired beast also inhabited these lands, and as they traveled more and more their footsteps
disturbed and awoke the beast. It moved to a different location but once again its sleep was
disturbed by the footsteps of the tribesmen. The tribesmen didn’t mean the beast any harm, they
didn’t know they were disturbing its sleep or even that it existed. There were stories of something
strange in the lands but many strange things happeend, and so most people dismissed these stories as
legend. The men whos footsteps disturbed the beast desired to hurt no one, not man nor animal and
because of this, it was a great surprise to them that one day the beast reared its head and attacked.

The beast heaved itself from the earth throwing rocks, dirt and trees in all directions before
destroying the tribal villages mercilessly. First, the villages in the tribes of Knowledge and Heart
were destroyed for they lay on the same continent as the bests lair. Then, the tribes of Spirit and
Power, because the eastern sea was shallower and smaller than the western sea. Finally the villages
in the tribe of Thought was destroyed being farthest away from the beasts lair. Having done this, the
beast lay down and settled over the Tribe of thought’s land and rested.

As hard as the beast had tried, it could not kill everyone however, and some of the tribesmen of each
tribe survived and began to rebuild. Unfortunately they were now isolated from one another and could
not travel freely between their villages. They could not talk to one another and after a long time,
they forgot each other and forgot they were friends.

The tribe of Knowledge was the fastest to rebuild. Their wise-men had preserved the best grain and
cattle and had recorded how to build the best huts. They prospered and began to enjoy an easier life
once again. The tribe of Heart did not fare so well. They struggled to feed themselves and as their
hunger grew, they sent tribesmen farther and farther afield to find the food they needed. One of
these tribesmen found the tribe of Knowledge and reported that they had much food, so much that they
grew fat from it. The elders in the tribe of Heart were angry at this. They believed that the tribe
of Knowledge had abandoned them to starve.

The tribe of Knowledge didn’t know that any of the tirbe of Heart had survived the beast and had not
thought of searching for them.

This is how the tribe of Heart came to attack the tribe of Knowledge. They sent their warriors west
to take what they could and bring it back to feed their families. The tribe of Knowledge was vigilant
though, they had placed scouts at all corners of their land to watch for the return of the beast but
instead they reported a war party from the tribe of Heart. The few warriors that the tribe of
Knowledge had went out to meet the warriors from the tribe of Heart and a great battle ensued. At
first, the tribe of Knowledge were winning for they had arrows, swords and shields and the tribe of
Heart only clubs. They pushed the tribe of Heart all the way back to their village, but just as they
were about to enter the hut of the elders and tell them of their mistake, warriors of the tribe of
Spirit arrived and pushed them away.

Many days passes as the warriors fought, no side gained an advantage and many fine warriors lost
their lives, it was a sad time, the first of many.

In one battle however, two warriors, one from the tribe of Knowledge and one from the tribe of Spirit
were separated from their groups. Being an even match, they fought for days without either of them
gaining an advantage. Eventually, they began to talk to one another because their was nothing else to
do while they fought.

The warrior from the tribe of Knowledge asked the warrior from the tribe of Spirit why he was helping
the tribe of Heart, when it was the tribe of Heart that had attacked them and had tried to steal all
their food. The warrior from the tribe of Spirit replied that the tribe of Heart had told him that
the tribe of Knowledge had stolen all their grain and cattle, and he fought only for the side that
had been wronged.

At this time, the warrior from the tribe of Knowledge stopped fighting. He stood his ground and told
the warrior from the tribe of spirit that these were lies. He told the warrior that he could strike
him down now, but if he did, he would be killing an innocent man, and that he could prove that they
had stolen nothing.

The warrior from the tribe of Spirit was so impressed by this that he too stopped fighting and agreed
to see the Tribe of Knowledge’s evidence.

The warrior from the tribe of Knowledge took him back to his village and showed him their grain and
cattle. Each tribe grew and bred its own varieties making it easy to tell if they were stolen or not.
The warrior from the tribe of Spirit saw that none of their cattle and none of their grain was
stolen. He hurriedly departed and traveled as fast as he could to the elders of the tribe of Spirit
and told them what he had seen. The elders saw the same evidence and realized that they had been
tricked and immediately joined their warriors with those of the tribe of Knowledge. Together, they
were easily able to force their way to the elders in the tribe of Heart and told them of their
mistake.

The elders of the tribe of Heart cried upon hearing this, and pleaded for mercy, they had lied to the
tribe of Spirit after looking upon the face of his starving children. The laws of the land had been
preserved through the attack of the beast and they said that if the one tribe attacked another
unjustly, the elders in charge were to be banished. Although they saw that the elders of the Tribe of
Heart were sincere they could not ignore the law and the elders were banished across the southern
sea.

New elders took their place and a new friendship between the three tribes was founded.

However, all was not well in the world. The fight against the tribe of Heart had caused the tribe of
Spirit to move many of its warriors across the sea. The tribe of Power, seeing that most of their
warriors were gone from the village, attacked the tribe of Spirit claiming their lands were
rightfully theirs. The tribe of Power though of themselves as the greatest tribe in all the lands,
they rode swift beasts and their prowess at survival in barren lands was unsurpassed. This made them
proud and could not see the reasons why they were friendly with the other tribes before the beast set
upon them.

The two other tribes sent their best warriors to help the tribe of Spirit and using the swords from
the tribe of Knowledge they were able to repel the tribe of Powers mounted attacks. The Tribe of
Power was swiftly defeated, but upon reaching the elders hut in the tribe of power’s village, they
found it empty. Instead of facing banishment for their foolish acts, the elders of the tribe of Power
had fled east to the tribe of Thought, and to the beast.

All during this time the elders of the Tribe of Thought had been thinking. They thought about why the
beast had arisen and how it could be stopped. They had a jenuine desire to better the lives of their
people, but the presence of the beast on their land made their crops fail and their cattle sickly. As
their children grew hungrier their anger grew and they thought that if the beast could destroy lands,
maybe it could be used to make them new again. They studies the seeping beast and copied its ways and
manners. Finally, having nothing else to learn from looking at the beast, they killed it and ate its
flesh. This final act utterly corrupted their minds and they became the beast themselves.

Their chance to test their newfound power came when the former elders from the Tribe of Power
arrived. They told the elders fo the tribe of Thought about the four other tribes.

The elders of the tribe of thought were usually the wisest of the wise. They did not desire only one
aspect of the intellect like the tribe of Knowledge, but rather all of them. They desired to be wiser
than any of the other elders. However, because they had been corrupted by the power of the beast,
upon hearing about the prosperity of the other tribes their anger grew and they flew into a rage. By
this time their children too had taken on properties of the beast and they sent every person in the
village against the forces of the tribes of Knowledge, Heart, Spirit and Power.

The second terrible battle ensued and the four tribes sent their best warriors to meet those of the
tribe of Thought. They met between the land of the tribe of Power and the Tribe of Thought and fought
their warriors, or so it seemed for the first night. In the morning, when the sun rose over the
battlefield the warriors from the tribe of Knowledge, Heart, Spirit and Power examined the slain
warriors from the Tribe of Thought. They found that most of them were either so old, they could
hardly carry a branch or too young to be able warriors. They realized that virtually none of the
opponents they had faced that last night had been worthy warriors and many never stood a chance
against them. Many of the warriors cried at having to kill such helpless people but the senselessness
of what the tribe of Thought was doing only steadied their determination to stop its elders.

So that is how the battle against the tribe of Thought went. Every morning the other tribesmen would
cry for the unworthy opponents they had faced, every afternoon they would walk closer to the village
of the tribe of Thought, and every night they would be set upon by more unworthy opponents.

After a time, the number of unworthy opponents sent against them every night waned and the warriors
rejoiced at not having to kill so many, but their rejoicing was short lived, for those the tribe of
Thought did not send against them, they sent against their villages. A second ocean separated the
eastern shore of the Tribe of Thoughts land, and the western shore of the tribe of Knowledge’s land.
With all its warriors away defeating the tribe of Thought, the tribe of Knowledge had left itself
open for attack, and that is what the Tribe of Thought did. Although their unworthy fighters stood no
chance against the warriors from the tribe of Knowledge, but they could still attack and kill their
women and children. So they did and this caused great disruption in the attack on the tribe of
Thought.

Many warriors from all four tribes were sent to defend the village of the Tribe of Knowledge but this
caused their attack against the tribe of Thought to falter. Instead of advancing every afternoon,
they warriors from the three other tribes had to build walls and trenches to avoid being overwhelmed
by the unworthy opponents from the tribe of Thought. For years this went on and nothing changed. The
warriors defending the village of the tribe of Knowledge held their ground as did the warriors
fighting to defeat the Tribe of Thought.

However, one day, on the same day, two warriors, one with the defenders of the Tribe of Knowledge’s
village and the other in the camp of those attacking the Tribe of Thought, awoke and found their
pulse quickened by some unseen force. The opponents from the tribe of Thought now came at all hours
of the day, and that afternoon they attacked both the camp and the village. Foolishly, these
warriors, so enraged by the evil they saw in the elders of the tribe of Thought that they jumped over
the fences and ditches and began to fight the unworthy opponents in the open.

Many warriors believed they would be killed but to their amazement they drove off the unworthy
opponents. This surprised both the warrior and their opponents, and surprised the unworthy opponents
so much so that they fell back to safer positions. Being lead by wise men, the warriors of the four
tribes moved forward on both fronts and took up positions father away from the tribe of Knowledge’s
village, and closer to the village of the tribe of Thought.

Not only did these brave warriors provide benefit to their fellow warriors on that day, but inspired
many of them to similar feats of bravery, and once again, the war against the tribe of Thought turned
in favor of the four united tribes. However, the delay in defeating the tribe of Thought made the
task ahead much harder. The tribe of Thought had increased their numbers and were able to provide a
greater danger to the warriors of the four tribes. The battle against the tribe of Thought dragged
painfully slow, each step of earth cost the lives of warriors and the mass of unworthy opponents. The
warriors grit their teeth and tried to separate themselves from the unpleasant task of fighting, but
they still cried for all they had to kill.

After a time, the unworthy opponents were driven completely away from the village of the tribe of
Knowledge and most of the warriors protecting the village were able to return and fight the tribe of
Thought.

The battle went quicker then, and as the four tribes moved over more and more of the land of the
tribe of Thought, the tribe of thought became weaker and less able to fight. Less and less did the
elders of the tribe of Thought know what was going on in their land, and the unworthy opponents they
set upon the four tribes began to falter and flee. After some time, the unworthy opponents from the
tribe of Thought stopped setting upon them and the warriors from the four tribes were able to walk
freely toward the village of the tribe of thought, only pausing to fight when a group of opponents
were found, and then, only if they were attacked by them.

They arrived at the village of the tribe of Thought and found that one final challenge awaited them.
The elders of the tribe of Thought had gathered the loyalist of warriors in the village to try to
stave off defeat for a few more days. The last great battle ensued and a great cloud of dust rose
over the village as the warriors fought their way to the elders hut.

It was not before hungered s of warriors lay dead and many huts burned that the warriors from the
four tribes made it to the elders hut. There they found all of the elders transformed into wild
beasts, snapping and clawing on each other. Feeling pity for their lowly fate, the warriors quickly
put the beasts out of their misery.

Thus was peace restored to the land.