NEEROK
Sumerian water world, with little dry land and much
undersea mining.
OROUTH
Ancestral home planet of the human race.
PROMETHEUS
Human manufacturing facility on Proteus, one of the
smaller of Neptune’s moons.
RAGNAROTH
Ancient Rothii space station, now researched for Rothii
technology. Destroyed by Invardii during first attack
inside Sumerian/Human space.
ROCKHAVEN
Sumerian seaside settlement on Uruk. Gathering place
during the evacuation of the planet.
ROKAR
Sumerian mining world and industrial base of Sumerian
empire. Home of Sumerian war fleet.
ROUM
Capital city of the medieval planet Hud. Descendant
stronghold.
SANCTUS
Hidden planet of the Orion race, provided by their
Druanii protectors.
SAUROK
Sumerian forest world, devastated by Invardii.
SEENIROK
Dry Sumerian world where survivors are settled after
Invardii attacks on other Sumerian worlds.
SHELLPORT
Fishing village on Hud where outcasts have gathered
to build a new life. Destination of Hudnee and his
family on their journey.
THE LIZARD’S HEAD
Kantari (longhouse) description of the place on Orouth
where the research team finds the Valkrethi.
URUK
Sumerian home world.
APPENDIX D
RACE AND CASTE GROUPINGS.
BUCCRA
Prison race closely controlled by the Invardii,
sometimes used as shock troops.
CAERBRINDII
Original sentient race in the galaxy. Due to ‘cultural
dissonance’ split into Druanii, Rothii and Invardii.
CENTAUR
Druanii protectorate race.
DESCENDANTS OF THE PROPHET
Self-appointed group on Hud who claim religious
control of the planet.
DRUANII
Hybrid race descended from Caerbrindii. Inhabit
outer reaches of the galaxy.
HUDNEE
Inhabitants of Hud. Medieval water planet with
one large continent. Also one individual.
HUMAN RACE
Home planet Earth. Instrumental in forming and
leading an alliance against the Invardii.
INVARDII
Hybrid race descended from the Caerbrindii who
attempt to annex Sumerian and Human space.
K’SARTH
Trading race under Sumerian protection.
MAGENTA
Druanii protectorate race.
MERSA
Home planet Alamos. One of the races that form
an alliance with Earth against the Invardii.
ORION
Druanii protectorate race, used as a translator to
communicate with Druanii human allies.
PAR’BRAHMAD
Leadership caste in Sumerian society. The equivalent to
a Regent on Earth would be a Para’Par’Barahmad.
PAR’SANNI
The ‘first mate’ or ‘lieutenant’ caste in Sumerian society,
charged with carrying out Par’Brahmad orders.
ROTHII
Race descended from the Caerbrindii who vanished
200,000 Earth years ago, leaving the Sumerians to carry
on using their technology.
SHEOMAL
Wandering, singing, shaggy giants on Orouth.
SUMERIANS
Species whose technology has remained unchanged
since their masters the Rothii disapearred 200 thousand
years ago. Part of an alliance with Earth.
VALKRETHI
War machines left on Orouth by the Rothii for the Humans
transplanted to Earth.
END OF BOOK TWO
MEDIEVAL PLANET
Third Book in the INVARDII series.
Warwick Gibson.
© 2019 Warwick Gibson.
All Rights Reserved.
DISCLAIMER.
This novel is a work of fiction. It does not draw from actual events. The characters in this story are entirely fictitious, and do not bear any resemblance to any persons living or dead.
ALSO by WARWICK GIBSON
And available at Amazon Kindle
THE UNSOUND PRINCE (Sword and sorcery fantasy)
ROUGH JUSTICE (Small town Chief of Police)
MARIC’S REPRIEVE (SAS thriller set partly in Borneo)
STRUGGLE FOR A SMALL BLUE PLANET (Sci-fi thriller)
The INVARDII Series
ANCESTRAL HOME
ALWAYS BACKWARD
MEDIEVAL PLANET
BOXED SET: BOOKS 1 -3
FEDIC VITS (coming soon)
RISE OF THE VALKRETHI (coming soon)
ANTARES CRUCIBLE (coming soon)
PREVIEW
The first two chapters of Book Four in the INVARDII series, Fedic Vits, can be found at the end of this book.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1 CHAPTER 2 CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4 CHAPTER 5 CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7 CHAPTER 8 CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10 CHAPTER 11 CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13 CHAPTER 14 CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16 CHAPTER 17 CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19 CHAPTER 20 CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22 CHAPTER 23 CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25 CHAPTER 26 CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28 CHAPTER 29 CHAPTER 30
APPENDIX A APPENDIX B
APPENDIX C APPENDIX D
PREVIEW
DECLARATION OF PERSONAL INTEREST.
My name is Herodotus. I am an historian.
The story of the planet Aqua Regis, or Hud as its inhabitants prefer to call it, is a story of innocent people. It is the story of a medieval planet that was unaware of the planetary civilisations that surrounded it in the galaxy.
The people of this planet had no choice but to suffer, not knowing why, as conflict moved across star systems near them, and influenced their world to devastating effect.
I have been given the task of recording the terrible events of the last four years, including the story of Aqua Regis, by Regent Cordez of the South Am trading block. He is the most powerful individual on Earth today.
If this planet and its people do not survive, it is Cordez’ hope that the records I write will be discovered some time in the future, by races from far-flung star systems, and we will not be forgotten.
The material is taken largely from personal logs of the people involved, vidlink interviews where personnel are still alive, and star ship recordings. The reader will forgive me if I add some imaginary details to make my stories more coherent.
Taken together these papers give a full picture of what the last four years have been like. The story of unending loss of ground, and defeat after defeat, that has been the lot of the Human race and our Sumerian allies.
This then is a story about the heart and soul of ordinary and everyday people. Although they are a civilisation at a medieval level of development, the people of Hud had families, and an ability to understand their situation that was the same as ours, and they had hopes for a better future.
Instead of peaceful development, they were forced to endure a disturbance to their sun that destroyed most of the life on their planet, followed by a long period of civil war. In the end they were able to help the alliance fight back against the creatures that had done this to them. But that is a story for another paper.
The next story in this series recounts the legendary exploits of Fedic Vits, Regent Cordez’ top field operative. Sent to do the impossible, time and again, he contributed more to the war agai
nst the hybrid invaders than most people will ever know.
The first few chapters of this fourth paper can be found at the end of this story.
Once again, I refer you to the appendices below, which cover the entire four years in depth, as they may be needed.
Appendix A provides a time-line covering all four years.
Appendix B consists of brief descriptions of locations.
Appendix C describes the main characters.
Appendix D covers the racial groupings.
CHAPTER 1
________________
Hudnee shouted encouragement as the long line of herd beasts strained against the thick rope. The massive stone block rose slowly into the air, and inched ponderously along the overhead gantry. The master builder signalled the overseer as the block began to sway from side to side, and the animals slowed to a crawl. Then, at last, the block began to slide into position.
There was much shouting and cursing as the herd beast drivers finally halted the animals. The drivers kept the beasts straining against the heavy weight as the team of labourers lined up the imposing block with the one underneath it.
The labourers were the biggest and burliest of men, trained from a young age in the ways of leverage and coordinated effort. Bone teeth, fitted to heavy footwear strapped to their legs, took a firm grip on the soft ground.
With a hollow thud the block touched, and was laboriously turned and fitted into place. It didn’t lie perfectly flat on the block below, but a coating of ground smoke rock and light neema oil would fill in the gaps. The mixture would render the finished column perfectly smooth, and harden to a flawless white finish.
White was the most sacred of colours. In all of Hud white was the only colour that did not occur naturally. The greys and greens of the toxic lowland swamps ran into the dark tans of the seas without showing the sacred colour.
The bones of the great leviathans that came sporting and playing in Spring of each year lay purple and gold on the beaches, stained with exotic metals from the tiny seafood they consumed in vast quantities. Every colour could be found somewhere, but never white.
When the Sumerian survey ships had catalogued the system aeons ago, they noted the strange nature of the water planet, with its string of islands round the equator and one small, flat continent. The crust of the planet was thicker than usual, and the core less active, so that volcanic activity and tectonic plates had not occurred.
The core of the planet produced little in the way of a magnetic field, and ozone-damaging gases produced by the anaerobic activities of the lowland swamps had stripped the atmosphere’s natural protective covering. These two events had combined to leave the planet defenceless against solar radiation, and the plants and animals that had evolved here had learned to adapt.
The people of Hud had developed a thick, protective skin, and an immune system that was very effective at hunting down and killing cancer cells. But their first line of defence lay in the extraordinary colour of their skin. It was more than dark. It was a shining, iridescent bronze that seemed to catch and reflect all the colours around it.
Every piece of flat land that rose out of the lowland swamps was cleared and used by the people of Hud, the Hudnee, and there were always population pressures. When there was not a time of war, expeditions put to sea looking for new land, and traded with the string of islands that lay to the east across the treacherous Strait of Storms.
In all of the low-lying continent of Hud it was one of the main duties of the Descendants of the Prophet (may his holy name never be spoken) to regulate the population in ways like these.
This particular Hudnee was a builder, and it was rare for someone to be named for the people. It was a mark of his high status as a master builder, working on the holy pilars for the Descendants of the Prophet. Hudnee saw that the stone block was positioned correctly, and signalled to the herd beast drivers to rest their animals.
Then he called the midday break, and the labourers took to the shade to refresh themselves with water, and the bitter quinac that dulled aches but kept the mind alert.
A small group of men and women had the midday meal ready in the cooking sheds, and a much larger group of women was still chiselling decoration into the shaped stones that lay nearby, ready to be lifted into place in their turn.
The morning had gone well, and Hudnee climbed the lashed framework that supported the gantry to better survey the progress. His practised eye noticed wear on the lashings and splits in the timbers, little things that could mean death for his labourers or the undoing of the hard work that went into placing a single stone. He noted in a professional way that the framework would last for a while yet.
Along the top of the gantry were two runners, lashed either side of the regular crosspieces that ran down to footings in the ground. He sat across them and surveyed the morning’s work.
Nearly all of the supporting pillars were finished. Soon he would be able to start on the roof. He felt pleased at the way the work was going. This was going to be one of the largest pilars ever constructed by the Descendants of the Prophet. It would be a great open-sided hall of worship that soared above the people into a black vault painted with the constellation and morning star of the Prophet.
Then a rich female voice called to him from a pile of unfinished rocks to the west of the building site. Daneesa! What was she doing here?
It was always embarrassing when his mate came to the work site. The others laughed behind his back, particularly since she was so much younger than he was. He worried that her presence made it more difficult for him to wield his authority. He hastened down the framework of poles, hoping she wouldn’t call out again and alert the others, now busy round their midday meal.
She was waiting for him behind a pile of stones that had yet to be worked. These were quarried from a bed of hard, slate-like sedimentary rock, great slabs that were quickly squared and stacked roughly so Hudnee could see what was available as he needed it.
Daneesa caught his eye as he came closer, and vanished into a narrow aisle between two rows of rock. Like all of the women of Hud she was lean and wiry from a hard-working life. It was the men who started life built large and powerful, and turned to fat later on if they stopped exercising and didn’t watch what they ate.
Hudnee hurried after her. She wanted to play games, and that was not a good sign. Daneesa waited until he had walked past, and then stepped out from her hiding place and draped herself across his back. Her voice, naturally low and rich, was now husky and urgent.
“I’ve missed you, handsome stranger,” she murmured, working one of her hands inside his builders’ apron.
We live in the same house, we got up together this morning, how can you miss me? growled Hudnee to himself, but he knew that was not what she meant. The women of the Hudnee were fiercely reproductive in the first few years past maidenhood, and could not be reasoned with at this time.
On the other hand, their children were quickly independent, and by midlife the women were valuable workers in the community. He was a master builder and could have had almost any woman he chose. Why had he chosen such a young mate? A little older and the fertility of Hudnee women quickly dropped to zero.
Why had he not chosen a woman nearer his own age, a loyal mate who could think clearly and wisely about their life together? He imagined the companionable silence of evenings together without the constant demands of children.
“You’re thinking about something else,” Daneesa said reproachfully, and began to pout.
Hudnee felt guilty. He looked at her disappointed face. She was beautiful. A hint of red added an exotic tinge to her richly bronze face, particularly around her eyes and mouth. Hudnee had the tints of green on his skin that identified him as a Hud mainlander, but Daneesa was from the islands to the east.
She kissed his throat and pulled his hips in against her. He smiled. She had already given him a strong and clever boy, and two intelligent and affectionate girls. She was almost twenty-six now, an
d her fertility must be dropping.
Perhaps if he lifted her up onto the shelf of rock behind them and pulled up the shift under her cloak, it would not mean another child. It was time they started to think about their future together.
The last child was already four and it might be the last one. Daneesa needed to think about what work she would do when she was no longer bearing or nursing children.
She slapped him playfully and pulled his head down to a dark bronze breast she had eased out from behind her shift. His loins stirred, and he looked furtively about to see that they were alone. She cuffed him again, less gently this time.
“Pay attention,” she ordered, untying his builder's apron and pushing it aside.
Hudnee lifted her onto the shelf of rock, still not fully convinced that this was a good idea. The men in particular were already laughing behind his back at his choice of mate, now they would have something else to laugh about.
He knew he was going to be embarrassed about this for the rest of the day, but a little voice was telling him to give her what she wanted – if he was to get any peace over the next couple of days.
As they clung together, Hudnee looked up at the deep blue-black of the sky and thought how fortunate he had been with his life. Then he paused. Daneesa murmured a little protest and pulled him toward her.
Something wasn’t right. It took a moment for Hudnee to realise what it was. In the sky above him, five new stars burned in the constellation of the Prophet. At least, that’s where the constellation of the Prophet was during the midnight services he sometimes attended. Stars that burned in the daytime. How could that be?
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