They returned to the town and Rufus and Pema gave out their catch to other people of the town. They were extremely grateful for the aid they received from both Pema and Rufus.

Both Rufus and Pema had become very liked among the Dechen tribe's people. Rufus had been asked to work on all kinds of projects from fixing roofs, to helping to milk the goats to clear up the snow. As a proper pushover, he never refused. The kindness that Rufus was showing to everyone was being then shown back to Rufus.

Pema had many times also joined in. Not that he was a pushover, but because he just was very quiet and shy so never got the chance to refuse.

Neither were no longer shunned by the Dechen tribesmen. Both Pema and Rufus fought their way from prejudice in what neither of them could affect. Pema being an abandoned child and Rufus being a human.

Pema and Rufus returned to the house where Pema was now staying for good. Techiquelly Pema was still on guard duty, but he had gotten so lax about it he had almost completely forgotten that he had to do it not because he wanted to.

"Our two great hunters return. You brought us anything to eat this time?" asked Edward.

"Well uhmmmm," Rufus struggled knowing they just gave all the food away they had caught.

"Yes. We have these three rabbits," said Amala and gave away her three rabbits.

"Rabbits. Would have wanted something more fulfilling like boar or something, " Edward complained.

"So you gonna stay here tonight also Amala?" Rufus asked.

"Well, you got all my food so, of course, I have to stay here. I also have to eat," Amala yelled at Rufus.

"You sure there is no other reason...?" Edward asked and looked with a glimmer in his eyes.

"You shut up will you," Doreen said to Edward.

~~

After a while, they all started to dig into the rabbit stew they had made. Every food during the winter months was mainly stewed or boil, to make sure all the nutrients were gotten out of them. It was not uncommon to go a couple of days without food, but luckily only the hunter went out to do manual labor.

"So Amala. Tell me. When can I have my sword back? I am getting really tired of just training with weights here," asked Edward showing off all his homemade weights.

"I don't know. What I've heard is your strength could now even rival Pema here. Maybe you don't even need a sword anymore," said Amala back while eating rabbit stew.

"Haahaa. I am a swordsman. Big muscles are great and all, but I need to practice my swordsmanship at least. Doreen is allowed to read all those books, but why am I not allowed to practice with one of your grey skins swords at least?" Edward asked trying to get Amala to give back his sword.

"Tenzin will give you your sword back when it is its time," Amala said and proceeded to ignore Edward.

"Stop complaining. Even I haven't gotten my weapons back," said Doreen back.

"Yeah, and you probably will be all rusty since you have only used your muscles to turn pages lady," said Edward back.

"Yeah, and you probably have also muscles for brains," Doreen countered in the usual fashion.

~~

Pema, Amala, and Rufus were hunting again. They were traversing through the forest in the mountains. They were trying to track animals, but they instead found tracks of something else.

"Could this have been a large animal pack?" Rufus asked.

"No. These are grey skins," Amala said while inspecting the tracks in the snow.

"Another hunting party?" Rufus asked.

"No. Too many. At least fifty have come through here. Maybe more," Amala said while inspecting the tracks.

Amala started to look worried and so did Pema.

The three of them started to follow the trail the unknown group of grey skins had done. They started to hear sounds coming from a few hundred meters away. They buried through the snow to avoid them being spotted.

Sounds were being heard. It was indeed grey skins and by the sound, there were many of them.

They saw a large gathering of grey skins. They were all armored and it was clear they were not hunters, but warriors. All of them wore the typical iron masks, but they had a different style of paint and carvings than the ones Dechen warrior wore.

"They are the Trisong tribe. They are our neighboring tribe to the north," Amala whispered.

"The Trisong. Are they your enemy?" Rufus asked.

"No. We have never had problems with them. Why would they be here? Especially during the winter months," Amala pondered.

"Look," Pema said and pointed at a carriage that was being pulled by a black yak.

The carriage was full of food. It was no game meat, but frozen meat pieces of black goats and other farm animals. Other good had also been hauled on the carriage.

"Where the hell they have gotten all that?" Rufus asked in a low voice.

"I fear the worst. There is a Dechen tribe village near here. We must go there now to make sure," Amala said and started to crawl away.

~~

"Wait there are other settlements here than not just the town high in the mountains?" Rufus asked while running towards the village.

"Yes. Our town is in the center of the Dechen tribe, but there are a dozen villages scattered around our areas. Small settlements with maybe a few households in each village. They need protection from us since there is only a few warriors in each settlement. They are unable to defend themselves unlike our town," Amala explained.

The three of them started to get close to the grey skin village that was part of the Dechen tribe. Soon they saw smoke on the horizon. Finally, they reached the small village.

The only thing they were met by was misery.

They found the entire village burnt down. All the inhabitants had been killed and all the food had been stolen.

Amala and Pema walked through the rubble and even saw children who had been killed, whose bodies had frozen in the extreme cold. All the people had been killed to leave no evidence since grey skins didn't travel that much during the winter months. It was also so that they could not warn the other villages or the main town where most of the Dechen warriors were.