"Hello, Steel Exiles. I am Estel. It is my job to make sure you idiots can hold a line of the Wound well enough for Kellids to take responsibility for their own border back from the witch you all hate. It is a job I am doing because the Herder wants me to, and I don't like the Ugly Grandmother much more than you." And also that the Herder is adorable and Estel would follow her into the Abyss itself.

"If any of you had been south into the places which know how to forge steel, which, you know perfectly well, you haven't, you would have heard of a 'drill sergeant'. His job is to take a bunch of farm boys, hand them pikes, and teach them to fight a war."

"My job is easier than his in one respect. You know how to fight. It is much harder in the same respect, because you think you know how to fight a war."

There is, as expected, some grumbling from the large mass of large shaggy men. They have 'warred' with tribes other than their birth tribe for years, in a few cases decades. In fact, two of them have personally crossed blades several times when their birth tribes fought, and obvious wary respect between them has been visible since the moment they realized they both chose to take the deal Herder Ata was offering.

Two things preempt this grumbling from turning to outrage:

One: An even larger man, actually half-giant, with bluish skin and hair like a frozen waterfall, is standing behind the crowd and slightly off to the side. Corl's unofficial job title is 'enforcer' or 'the slab of meat so meaty that all meatheads will defer to him'. (He, also, would follow Ata into the Abyss itself.)

He thumps the haft of his (huge) mace into the ground, as a reminder that no one in this mob is the scariest warrior.

Two: Corl predicted how that pair of rivals would react, and Ata suggested a way to turn it against the mob.

"Let's have an example. Girm, Watten: Step forward."

Surprised, they do.

"You have fought each other more than once, as did your tribes. You might call that 'war'. In a war, one's side has a goal. Either of you, what was that goal?" 

"Vengeance!," says Watten, "for-"

Girm cuts him off, "Lies! It was we who took venge-"

"Silence!", booms Estel (technically her illusion, but still counts). When this doesn't immediately stop them, she flicks an acid splash at the less calm of the two.

"I do not care which of your tribes was in the right and which was wronged. You are Steel Exiles until you run away or earn your steel. And in any case you did not answer my question. Vengeance is not a goal, it is a reason. What did you seek to do, to the other tribe? Kill their herder? Take his wife? Ruin their best source of water? Burn down their tents?"

The one who didn't get splashed, Girm, answers, warily but with the air of stating the obvious, "To take from their herds, to wound their warriors or kill them."

"That, yes, that is an answer to what I asked. Watten, yours?"

"To protect our herds and warriors... And to wound theirs or kill them."

"And the purpose? No, let me guess. The herds you take, or guard, because you live off your herd. The hunt does not always go well. Yes?"

There are nods, and not just from the two she cornered.

"Would any of you care to explain what purpose wounding their warriors serves, or do I have to guess, again? It is not just to make it easier to leave with more of the herd, it is a goal of its own."

There is a pause, and another man moves to speak, but Watten lifts his hand to stop him.

"Because we want that they regret attacking us. And that they not attack us again."

She gives him a dirty look, and starts the hand motion for acid splash again.

"...And when we struck them in the past," he continues, grudgingly, "or if they have struck back since I departed, the same purpose. That they regret attacking us or giving us offense. An attack without reprisal shows weakness."

Girm nods with satisfaction at this answer, and receives a dirty look from Watten. He notices and looks a little chagrined, and then speaks up. "I would say the same of us. And... if we attacked a weaker tribe, we might also seek to take slaves. For the same reasons, and because the offense of a weaker, smaller tribe attacking a stronger is greater and demands we cause more regret."

Watten nods, satisfied, and they exchance a look more friendly than any they'd yet shared.

Estel doesn't have a clue what that was, except 'politics, probably'.

Fortunately, she has a telepathic bond!

Corl, what did I just miss?

Watten admitted his tribe's side of the feud was of the same merit as Girm's. Girm, in return, admitted that Watten's tribe are equals, not inferiors - else they would have sought slaves.

And now they are treating each other with the respect of a rival within a tribe. If they both live to return with their steel, this may even end the feud.

Ah. Good, feuds are the most pointless thing your people do.

"Right. About what I expected. To summarize it: raids are for survival, and to inflict fear. And you all know how to raid, and defend against raids. Maybe better than I.

But that is not the point of war. And it is not the point of fighting the Worldwound."

"Settled people do not fight for survival. And the cost of fighting to cause fear, when each army is the size of a dozen whole tribes or more, is too high."

"What they do fight for is land. To take it, and to hold it. A herd can be moved; take it from another tribe, and fend them off while you return to yours, and now your herd is larger. Land does not move."

Are they following me, Corl?

Some of them have even guessed where you're going, he confirms.

"Remember this: Against demons, if we lose land, the barrier gets weaker, and that means it is a harder fight for everyone else who fights them. And for us. If we take land, push the Wardstone in further, we make the demons weaker, and one step closer to a day where Sarkoris is livable again."

A few weapons and shields shake approvingly - of Sarkoris's survivors, those that fled to True Kellis are the most loyal - in their own eyes, at least.

"And also this: You cannot make a demon fear. They have no loyalty to others you can threaten. The masters of the Abyss are far more fearsome than you, any of you, or than me, or the Tower, or Herder Dances-Through-Arrows. We will never scare them more than what's behind them."

"Any of you bright boys want to tell me what I'm going to say next?"

"Raiding demons is pointless," says one of the shield-shakers.