by John Migacz
CHAPTER 49
Drums and chanting sounded through the night air and campfires threw harsh silhouettes onto on an otherwise tranquil sea of moonlit grass.
Dieya crept closer to the Sevoal encampment through the tall grass, and activated his clothing to “camo” mode. Its reverse optics made him invisible for tonight’s work.
His suit reminded him of Adrianna, who had wanted to be introduced to his tailor. Wouldn’t she be surprised. He smiled, wondering how Balthus and Adrianna were doing with their charges. His smile widened when he thought of the war of wits that was undoubtedly waging between the “duo” and the “trio” as he thought of them. He wondered how much information the devious Balthus had tricked the trio into revealing.
Dieya had instantly liked Balthus and Adrianna, and he was someone who didn’t make many close acquaintances. Even though he’d known them only a short while, they felt like old friends. Dieya’s smile faded. When he next came to Ravar they would be old.
He would have to leave Ravar in ten months and return to Dieya Base for the enforced furlough. Dieya policy dictated a year on, six months off for a Class Six planet. His hand idly plucked at a long strand of grass.
The Alliance’s Dieya Base traveled in a fixed pattern through the galaxy, just below the speed of light. When going on leave, Dieya felt like he was boarding a ghost ship – a ship cursed to travel the universe in a giant circle, picking up lost souls along the way. For every three months spent on the base, eight years passed on Ravar.
He tore the grass strand into small pieces. Relativity was very hard on friendships.
Intellectually, he agreed with the policy. The Alliance’s covenant held that planets should have their own natural social evolution brought about by the original inhabitants. The furlough prevented a dieya’s constant contact from subconsciously directing the planet’s social development. During his absence, sentinel satellites stood watch.
A thunder of hooves snapped his attention back to the Sevoal camp. Several hundred more bow-waving, loincloth-clad warriors rode into camp on their ehtas. They wore the same splash of red ocher on their foreheads as did all the gathered warriors.
The initial Dieya surveys hadn’t given the Sevoal much credence. A nomadic people, steeped deeply in religious custom, their technology hadn’t risen higher than flint arrowheads. They lived primarily off the wartanga, a large four-legged, migratory herbivore with a brown striped pelt and an impressive single S-curved horn.
A Sevoal male never walked anywhere when he could ride and people joked that a grasslander and his ehta, a smaller, more powerful cousin of the luse, were really one creature. Their creed held that in the beginning, the god Ocaow so loved the Sevoal that he created the first ehtas in his image, and gave them to the Sevoal to help hunt the wartanga. With their curved bows made of wartanga horns, the Sevoal were incredible shots from the backs of their galloping ehtas.
So far, Dieya had only observed a dozen of the hundreds of tribes out on the plains, but had yet to find any evidence of the use of red arrows with steel arrowheads. He had noticed that about a third of the younger warriors and a few of the older ones painted their entire foreheads with red ocher. He would have passed this off as a fad or tribal mark except for the color and its appearance in more than one tribe.
As he had observed one such tribe, several dozen red-painted warriors gathered in the center of their camp. They talked for a few minutes, then began chanting a monotonous two-syllable “Wa – ta” sound. The chanting brought women and the unpainted warriors to observe the ceremony. Some of the older men looked on with obvious disapproval. After a few minutes, the red painted warriors ended their chant with a loud yell, mounted their ehtas, and rode south at a rapid pace.
Dieya had tracked them to this meeting place but it had been a rugged trek. To keep up with the hardy grassland ehtas on foot was difficult even with his physical augmentations. He followed their trail for two days to this gathering of two thousand red-painted warriors.
The assembly appeared to be waiting for something and Dieya worked his way closer to the center of the camp, using the shadows of the tents called “mutalehs” for cover. His greatest worry tonight wasn’t being seen, but being smelled. The Sevoal’s only domesticated creature was the grot, a small, four-horned mammal whose fermented milk was used to make the alcoholic drink “burkala.” The yapping grots had a good sense of smell and were always a part of any grassland tribe.
Dozens of women cooking scores of wartangas on spits held most of the grots’ attention and Dieya wormed his way closer to a small five-foot tall platform erected in the middle of the camp.
The drums and chanting came to a sudden halt and Dieya froze. A Sevoal warrior emerged from the center-most mutaleh and climbed the steps of the platform. Cheers and howls from the gathered throng greeted his arrival. He stood smiling, arms crossed, letting the cheers wash over him.
This was an impressive warrior, self-confident and charismatic. Taller than most grasslanders, who tended to be of small stature, he wore only a loincloth that displayed his remarkable physique. A splash of red marked his chin as well as his forehead and like the others, his jet-black, wartanga-greased hair was slicked back to an ehtatail.
The warrior raised his arms above his head and the crowd quieted. “Hail Disciples of Ocaow!” he said, and lowered his arms. The crowd went wild again.
So that’s what this is all about! Another Ocaow cult had risen from the grassland people. Dieya relaxed. Religious cults had risen from time to time throughout Ravar for centuries and were considered by the Alliance as a necessary social evil that would ultimately lead toward planetary enlightenment. He stepped further back into the shadows, feeling it unnecessary to catch every word.
The speaker raised his arms again and silence fell. “Ocaow has been good to us!”
More cheers followed.
“Ta’Lon, Ocaow’s visible hand, has been true to his word. He has given us the rays of the sun that prove Ocaow’s superiority. On the second full moon, we will meet at the Horn River and once again we will loose the rays of the sun and taste victory!”
While the crowd cheered, a now very attentive Dieya moved closer to the platform.
“Ta’Lon, wishes you to know that Ocaow is very pleased and he sends you this gift.” He motioned backward with his arm and the crowd parted to let four ehta-pulled wagons roll to the platform.
An older warrior in the crowd yelled, “Sistek! You do us dishonor by having ehtas pull that contraption! Ocaow will not be pleased!”
Sistek glowered for an instant, then once again resumed his consummate politician’s smile. “You have your ehtas pull your mutaleh when on the move, don’t you?”
The older warrior nodded.
“Then I say it is you who dishonor your ehtas. To pull a wagon is much easier for the ehtas than pulling the mutaleh skids. Why do you mistreat your ehtas? That brings dishonor!”
The crowd grunted agreement, more against someone who would mistreat their ehtas than the standard use of mutaleh skids. The older warrior tried to counter.
“This was not done before. It cannot be right!”
Some in the assembly muttered agreement.
Sistek scanned the crowd. “Ta’Lon, Ocaow’s visible hand on earth, has learned of this device from the mouth of Ocaow himself. It is another gift from the gods, as are the rays of the sun. Ehtas themselves are a gift of the gods, yet there are old tales told of those who spurned riding because it was not done before.”
Muttering agreement arose from the crowd.
“Would you spurn your ehtas and walk like a woman?” he shouted.
The crowd’s muttering became a growl.
“No!” shouted the older warrior, his voice quavering with fear. “I did not think! Ta’Lon is Ocaow’s hand and mouth. We should heed his words!”
“Hear him indeed, brothers. Ta’Lon will surely
bring us many victories.” Sistek leaped to the nearest wagon, reached down, held up a wartanga skin bag and held it over his head. “As a token of his faith in you, Ta’Lon sends you this gift.” He opened the bag and poured a stream of burkala down his throat, spilling most onto his chest. The crowd cheered and the chanting and drums started up again.
Sistek tossed the bag into the crowd and gestured for others to help him unload the rest. There were many willing hands and the wagons were soon empty. The crowd moved to the wartanga spits, drinking burkala and praising Ta’Lon. With his arms crossed, Sistek stood and watched, a smug smile on his face.
Dieya threaded his way to the outskirts of the encampment. Sevoal wagons? It could be possible. Maybe this Ta’Lon was a grasslander genius with a gift for the dramatic. Technological advances did occur in nomadic cultures, but there were just too many coincidences.
He needed to get a closer look at those wagons to see how they were constructed. He sat down on the grass and waited.
His patience was legendary, even within the Dieya Corps. He had found that watching the years of time spin out from under the people he guarded, while he changed little, gave him the long view.
It was well past midnight when Dieya stood. Most of the warriors were drunk and rowdy, or sound asleep. He made his way easily toward the wagons. Dieya saw that they weren’t a first-generation attempt at wagon building. They were as sophisticated as any wagon on Ravar.
He avoided the open areas and made his way around the mutalehs to the side of the wagons then stopped in his tracks. His face hardened. Turning on his heel, he made his way from the camp to a little ravine where no one could see the blue flash from his dimgate. Two months until they gather at the Horn River. Where will they attack next? Frowning, he touched his amulet and vanished.
The signet on the side of the wagon had been that of Eastedge Stronghold.