Edge of Revelation
Page 29
The trackers turned to their Matlala overlords and widened their eyes so that the black irises were starkly surrounded by white rings. The eyes swivelled toward the wadi and the clear slurp and pops of the feeding beasts. They withdrew through the warriors to watch the huntsmen take over, fascinated as ever by the sheer madness of these big warriors tackling a pride of lions.
Rakul stepped forward between the warriors and they formed around and behind him. General Zam and the bushmen took the rear of the group, ensuring a solid wall of warrior flesh was always between them and the noise of the feeding beasts. Rakul stepped quietly to the edge of the sparse thorn bushes at the top lip of the hollow. Below was a scene of primitive carnage. A row of a dozen or so lionesses were prone on the ground like sphinxes facing him, the bare ribs of some large game animal reaching upwards. The faces of the lions were streaming in rivulets of gore, the prey animal reduced to a bloody mess. Only the black skeletal form of the prey was distinguishable, all else a pulp of oily black flesh being eagerly consumed. The young lions had not yet taken their share and were patrolling impatiently. Standing with the young was an enormous male lion, monumental in contrast to the capering youngsters. This king of the jungle had eaten first, face dark with blood protruding from a thick black mane turning hazel orange around the face and neck. Rakul reckoned the beast to be half as long again as he was tall and three times his weight. The male lion was stately in his satisfaction at the moment he turned his amber eyes on Rakul, quiet for now, but Rakul was under no illusion of the fighting capability of this beast. He was fast revising his estimation of earthly large cats and concluding that this could be a testing encounter after all. He placed the primitive shield on the ground and stepped over it. The surrounding warriors cast wary glances at each other for such foolishness knowing the need for even this scant protection from his ripping claws. They kept tight to Rakul’s sides and back. They knew they would be held to account by Mblane if their guest failed to survive his ordeal.
A lioness paused from her gnawing, head tilted to one side to strip a leg bone. She raised up on her rear haunches, stretched her forepaws out and clawed the earth turned to gory mud all around the carcass. She stood up and prowled halfway toward the warriors, staring at them with eyes of fire, daring them to interfere closer with their bloody banquet. Rakul felt his ixwa throbbing to life in his fist, all of its functions available to him now at the inspiration of his touch in combination with the threat as determined by sensors on the weapon. The processor in the ixwa was bonded to Rakul’s behaviour over their lifetime together and anticipated his moods. Rakul sensed the majesty of the pride of lions and felt his spirit reaching out to them; his ixwa selected ‘Respectful Comradeship’ as the mood of the moment and prepared to amplify Rakul’s thoughts with drugs and pheromones that would augment Rakul’s responses to these beasts. Rakul inched forward over the lip of the depression, toes grabbing into the slope for purchase, head low and forward, shoulders at an angle to present the ixwa point first towards the lions.
The lioness twitched towards him and snarled, racing two steps towards him and then swerving away. The movement had been electric, her head swaying, eyes fixed on his, but was a false charge. The remainder of the pride continued their meal, watchful of the warrior group but undisturbed yet. The male lion prowled displaying his great size, recognising a challenger in the tall man but totally confident in his unbeaten record in combat with his peers. The tall man had a pride of native humans to his back but their size was pumped up by feathers and fur that held no fear for him. Their teeth were small and claws absent, other than the flimsy sticks they carried. The male lion had his entire harem arrayed before him, each a killing machine, together indomitable, waiting for the men to cross the invisible line that would rouse the feeders to lethal action in defence of their food and family. The arousal level of the pride rose to fever pitch, shot through with head stretches and growls, though as yet it did not manifest in raw aggression. Giant muscles were being pumped up in readiness driven by the heavy weight of adrenalin and oxygen coursing through them.
Rakul pressed back with his left hand, warning the warriors around him to stay where they were. He was finely attuned to the electric state of agitation of the lions, seeing the point at which they would attack and keeping just the right side of it. He circled clockwise round the kill, knees and spine bent to stay compact. Two other lionesses popped up from the kill and patrolled the ground around the male, ushering the young ones out to the rear. The male yawned massively, his way of mocking the challenger and displaying a complete set of powerful teeth, not yellow yet, ivory still in the full flood of his prime, framed by black lips and dark read throat. The maw could take my head and most of my shoulders, Rakul noted as he stared down the lion’s throat.
One of the patrolling lionesses accelerated to charge in an instant. She issued a terrifying snarl, designed to turn prey to petrified stone as a precursor to an efficient kill. She came at Rakul in a weaving run, head low, swaying from side to side, eyes fixed unwaveringly on her prey. The speed of the charge was startling; Rakul was impressed that these warriors would choose to face such a danger with their meagre frames and primitive weapons just to prove their manhood. The lioness launched herself towards Rakul’s throat, front paws reaching, claws extended for purchase to bring him down and tear his flesh. Rakul’s ixwa flashed to meet the charge, the scything control lights distracting the lioness at the last minute and deflecting her past as Rakul danced to the side. The brush of the ixwa delivered a narcotic dose from snickering hypodermics that calmed the lioness by the time she had turned back to face Rakul. The remainder of the pride watched in surprise as she calmed and returned to rest by the carcass. The male leader was irritated now and chuntered in gutturals at the intruder who had somehow quieted the lead lioness of his pride. He stepped forward haltingly, displaying his anger and overt threat towards Rakul. The lionesses and young cleared the space for the two dominant males to compete. Rakul circled slowly, watching intently. The lion stepped forward and stopped in shortened intervals that threatened an imminent climax of anger. Rakul looked into the eyes of the beast and saw the bloodlust rise behind its broad brow. The Matlala warriors were awed in the low light, protected by the deserted litter from the prey carcass that lay between them and the battleground. The rest of the pride milled about behind the male, watching and waiting, sure of the outcome of this encounter.
Then all happened in a rush. The lion came on more ponderously than the lioness had done, all bellow and muscular mass in a straight charge, as unstoppable as a runaway train. Rakul saw the great head pitch to the side, black mane swirling to the right, snout flesh snarled in fury, dragging the lips from the teeth. The left paw reached for Rakul’s shoulder to trap his head between teeth and claws. In amongst the roaring and close approach of the huge jaws and paw, Rakul chose to twist inside and away from the paw, around the lion’s standing right leg that was planted in the ground. Rakul saw no benefit in slaying this beast and his ixwa responded immediately to the thought, releasing a drug and hormone cloud down the tight target of the lion’s throat.
The combatants were suddenly apart, Rakul still low in a defence posture, the lion turning again more in surprise that his rush had not resulted even in contact with his enemy. A strange feeling occurred to the lion and gave him pause from the flood of aggression that was fast clearing. The lion felt a rush of respect for this enemy, like the times of his youth when he played with the rest of the juvenile males, before the imperatives of maturity drove him to his sole domination of the females of this pride, driving off the other males. Rakul saw the change in the eyes of the beast, softening round the edges, the ferocity of the snout relaxing. Rakul responded very slightly, standing taller, withdrawing the menace of the ixwa only slightly as both combatants backed away and regarded each other with respect.
Rakul eased to the ground and sat, still watchful of the giant lion that was relaxed but standing, head low, a
few yards distant. The warriors of the Empikas watched on in amazement. In all their lives ceremonial lion hunts led mostly to the warrior killing his lion, or being saved by the Ilmeluaya warrior group, or indeed being injured or slain by the lion. Certainly not face-to-face battle of warrior and lion resulting in a quiet truce. Rakul was feeling comradeship with the lion, extending brotherly respect to the beast, communicating with the lion in ways it would understand. The lionesses were expressing exasperation at the unlikely truce between their leader and this human intruder and they remained agitated and aggressive. Some of the younger male lions, the size of a grown man but unmaned as yet, came to inspect Rakul. They rubbed ear glands against him and he tousled their heads.
Rakul never approached the adult male lion but it was clear they were exploring each other. A bond had been formed that they could both call on in future. A bond more straightforward and dependable than any such alliance would ever be with President Mblane. General Zam still watched from the top of the ridge over the whole scene. The lion was enormous and powerfully muscled down its spine when viewed from the elevated vantage point. Long and with shoulders of enormous proportions. How he would have liked to see the alien lord do single-handed battle with this beast. He could see this was not happening as Rakul stood and walked by the lion, brushing past its mane and flanks without fear. Well, if the beast were not to kill the alien then this would still make a legendary story to tell for the rest of his days. The warrior troupe would bear witness to the truth of the story and they would all be heroes together in the telling. Rakul returned up the low gradient from the wadi, in step with the great male lion, as joint leaders. The male lion drooped his lips to expose his chisel incisors dripping in bloody slaver. He cast his steady amber gaze over the line of supporting warriors set in a nervous shield wall just a few yards away. The line of glistening bodies in ceremonial furs jostled together seeking to present the best defensive wall against the unpredictable beast, indeed against this god Rakul, too, who was also so mercurial. The warriors were uncertain which way this would develop in the next few moments.
Rakul paused and swished his ixwa low to the ground, indicating the lion should remain. He turned his head to indicate that he would return to his own group. The lion stopped, gaping, mesmerised into thinking that he had bonded with a new brother who controlled his own pride of humans, not lions as such, but a group of followers that would absolutely accept the directions of their leaders who now understood each other so well.
*
The warrior band returned to the picnic site in high spirits, relieved to have survived the ordeal without injury. President Mblane was holding forth to his acolytes, women and favoured sons. There was a great contrast between the triumphant column of the lion hunters and the partying picnickers. Rakul followed the mood with amusement, remaining aloof as befitted his encounter in which he had not claimed the life of the Lord of the Jungle but somehow joined with him in an act that transcended taming and entered the realm of legend-making. President Mblane greeted them loudly, wondering at the strange mood of the returning band, not knowing what kind of encounter had befallen them as they presented contrasting emotions. General Zam reported the adventure closely into his ear. President Mblane’s eyes widened at the drama of the short combat and ensuing calming of the lions.
“So you did not complete the kill, Powerful Ally. That was not the intent of the mission,” President Mblane said in straight tones, genuinely curious.
“I chose to spare the beast, Great Leader,” Rakul replied in an equally even tone, as if this were a most casual event in the diary of a superhuman. “We had a light skirmish and indeed the beast proved to have fearsome qualities that would have exercised my skills but we decided that an alliance without one of us losing our lives would be most productive. Rather the same as our new alliance, Great Leader; we could choose to do battle but it would be so much more productive for us both to forge an alliance together.”
President Mblane loved that sentiment. Before his close friends and most fearsome warriors, this newly arrived god had compared their relationship to one where Mblane was represented by the noblest lion they had encountered in living memory. Rakul moved off to sample the remains of the food and tins of lager, chatting to the family entourage as easily as if he had been on a game drive. President Mblane insisted on hearing the details of the night’s events from the grateful General Zam and his trusted warriors, basking in the reflected glory of his Powerful Ally, now proven in their own trial. Even the little bushmen trackers were consulted to confirm haltingly the extraordinary power of the lion, the agitation of the lionesses protecting their kill and above all the other worldly prowess of Rakul. President Mblane listened and questioned, peering out of the corner of his eye at Rakul chatting like a sporting hero to his fans by the torches around the picnic tables. What more special powers could be harnessed to Mblane’s cause and could this Rakul be trusted?
SEVENTEEN
A tall and striking woman in a flowing black robe stood on the control deck of the Saturn space station that was the command centre for the Spargar campaign for Planet Earth. This Omeyn MuneMei stared out of the full wall screen before her at the road of icy rocks that fell away in a perfect arch, golden in the rays of the Sun, down and round the planet below to her left. Beyond Saturn’s ring was total blackness pierced by bright star pinpricks and a few larger stars close enough to display their colour. The Hyades star cluster in the constellation Taurus was an arrowhead of bright stars, the largest red star in the heavens pointing the way home to planet Spargan from this outpost. Aldebaran sat between her home and her mission here in the Solar System so was more of a way station than a part of the core Spargar home range. At the top right of the screen wall was an enlargement of the Hyades playing newsreel that may be of interest to staff stationed at Saturn outpost. The Saturn station was concealed in plain sight from Earth as an agglomeration of ice rocks that would pass as such under the closest scrutiny of Earth-based telescopes. The station had grown over time from an irregular accretion of Spargar spacecraft that attached to the station in seemingly random ways and then attracted small rocks to their surfaces by low-level gravity generators. Arriving and departing craft, of which there were many if only for the transport of human abductees and mineral samples between Earth, the station and the rest of the Empire, were cloaked to avoid detection.
Down low and left on the screen wall before the Omeyn was a striking image insert of the bright blue world that the fuss was all about. Earth, a jewel of its kind with its perfect molten iron core providing the magnetic field to protect the development of life from cosmic radiation, attracted attentions not just from its rightful Spargar claimant but also the further distant Gayans who were overreaching themselves in their campaign for its control.
Omeyn MuneMei bowed her high-domed cranium with the twin sickle runes and jewels reaching from below the neck of the robe and curving high over both ears to points at the temples. She peered along her aquiline nose at the screens in an attitude of close scrutiny. A Conclave of Omeyns was signing in from across the Spargan Empire including the remaining Omeyn on planet Earth from her home in the hills above the San Andreas fault in Silicon Valley, California.
Soon, fifty or so Omeyns had devoted their time to this Conclave, having apprised themselves of the most recent intelligence reports. They were genetically identical, but separated across the galaxy they each had different skills and experience of the worlds under their control, and cultivated minor changes of appearance and dress without extending themselves to a difference amounting to personal conceit. No outsiders were invited to a Conclave so the benefit was that the forum amounted only to a group of identical siblings talking among themselves; no criticism was issued or taken as it would be equally applied to all. Decisions could be examined in detail with great objectivity, but without external diversity of opinion. This Omeyn stood at the command console by the huge screens surrounded by many others a
t desks going about their business collating data at high levels of analysis. Only the most senior Spargar agents, the highest level Zarnha, would be in such close attendance to an Omeyn, but even so there was an immense gulf between the highest Zarnha and their controlling Omeyns. When the Omeyn spoke, or gestured as if she may be about to speak, then all fell silent. The only being that could interfere with the Omeyns’ perfectly uniform authority was the vanishingly rare male form of the MuneMei, the Rakul, and there was a frisson of excitement in the air that a Rakul was deployed on planet Earth displayed before them. The Omeyn on Board was not about to discuss such matters before her staff, as the gulf between them was so great their opinion was immaterial.
The command deck fell eerily silent as the Omeyn on Board murmured a formal greeting to her sisters across the Mind network to start the Conclave. A susurration of responses encouraged her to continue with the issues for consideration, no scene-setting being required.