Freedom and the Collective

  I Say and his allies brought a new mind-set (and strategy) with them when they left the Wolf People for the Settlement. They intended to attack the raiders, before the raiders could conduct their next raid on the settlement. Many opposed this, as the Raiders greatly outnumbered the Settlers, and an attack on them seemed suicidal. But what I Say had in mind was a series of raids of his own. "We will kill some of them, and retreat. Then kill some more, and retreat. Then send an emissary to negotiate, from a position of strength." Little Mother saw this as the Settlement's only chance of survival, and endorsed it. The first attack on the Raiders' encampment came within two months of I Say and his allied joining the Settlement.

Medicine Woman had died, and Little Mother and her generation were the Leaders of the Settlement. There had been raids, beginning two years after the founding, and a number of the people had been killed, despite the warning and attacks of the dogs, the defenses, tunnels, and martial training of the people. The Raiders were not nearly as many as the Slavers the Wolf People had wiped out, but still outnumbered the real warriors by over four to one. They had their own dogs, and spear-throwers. The pastures and fields couldn't be walled in. Their defenders were few, and most died protecting the tenders and farmers as they fled, along with many of the dogs. The raiders paid for the animals they drove off and harvests they stole in blood. The guardians carried shields and reinforced boiled leather armor, as well as superior melee weapons, and were superior warriors. Even the dogs wore spiked collars to protect their throats from their counterparts, and fought more viciously than the outs...

  Medicine Woman was the defacto leader of Little Mother's new tribe. She was a venerated elder, Little Mother's mother, Discovers Things' adoptive aunt and adoptive mother...although the people ignored most of this: Medicine Woman was who she was, and all accepted her leadership instinctively. Most of the Wolf People remained with the tribe, but one in five stayed with Little Mother. Few of these were as young as Quiet Menace and Little Mother.  Most were much older, and virtually all of the elderly and physically impaired stayed in the new settlement, as Medicine Woman had predicted: "The old and impaired will stay, but so will some of their children. The wisest and least selfish will stay with us, but all will be committed, and diligent. We will have the wisest, if not the strongest." More children would be born alive. More mothers would survive the births. The elders would live longer, and remain productive. While some couldn't hunt or scout, most could fi...