Zarn
Second Largest Moon of Rychel
Largely tundra/snow covered mountains
Second Largest Moon of Rychel
Largely tundra/snow covered mountains
The conclave was not going well. The leaders of the various tribes that had gathered had still not come to an agreement as to how to share Runk’ra’s share of Zarn’s equatorial territory and only arable land. Since the mysterious disappearance of the Runk’ra tribe, there had been suspicions and even accusations levelled at all the tribes, but none had be willing to confess to the death of the tribe. Whoever had been guilty of the crime against the brittle treaty had done the deed in such a way as to give every tribe an easy out, namely, how could they kill them all and leave no trace of the battles? How could none escape to inform the other tribes of the treachery? Runk’ra seemed to have all but vanished, pots of gruel still simmering down to nothing when an envoy came to check on their camp, beds still made, tents still standing and the coals of their fires still warm to the touch. They were just...gone.
Keo was only permitted to attend the meeting of the tribes, known as the Ca’Kra, because her mother had become ill and was unable to attend at their chief’s side as per usual. Keo had had to step up from her apprenticeship role into the place of village physician, or Palental. With her mother potentially on her death bed, years older than the average life expectancy for an inhabitant of the moon, Keo was the only one left in her tribe with the eye of the mind, the hand of healing and the tongue of the beasts. None expected their tribe to last much longer without her mother’s guidance and wisdom, let alone with an inexperienced Keo at their chief’s side.
”Var chun nar re, Keo.” (You will wed him, Keo)
Those were the words of her chief, a tall, muscular woman with a hard, weathered face and slowly deforming, bent back. Her chief was admired and respected among the small tribes of the moon, but they also knew she was also in failing health. The attempt to marry Keo off to one of the other tribe’s chiefs would be met with much anger, as it would upset the balance with two tribes uniting into one. Keo knew that it would be the end of her chief’s life to request this, but it would also insure the survival of her small group of people that were hunkered high in the mountain caves to the south west of the pillar of Ca’Kra.
The pillar of Ca’Kra was the only permanent structure of which Keo knew. A large square brownstone base was weathered away from what had once probably been a sharp right angled cut to the rock, but now was an unevenly weathered rounded edge. A good meter in the from base was the main pillar extending like an obelisk some ten meters into the air. On all sides, there were numerous, sundry runes which made no sense to the illiterate peoples of Zarn.
It was before this pillar that Keo now stood. It was night. Campfires out front of the various tents of the tribes gave the pillar an almost godly appearance, as it was lit by flickering lights on every side. Few people, other than guards and secret lovers trying to hide their movements between tents, were awake at this time, but Keo had not been able to sleep. She knew people doubted her ability, and she knew that her childless chief would see her as the rightful heir of the tribe should their tribe not merge with another. Being Palental and chief had never been done. Such responsibility would likely be too much for one person to bare. Perhaps this was the true reason for the doubt that people had. It was not the doubt in her abilities as her mother’s successor, but as successor to her mother and their leader. Keo understood this reservation. She shared it wholeheartedly.
Stepping onto the base of the pillar, Keo tilted her head to examine the runes. As normal for her people, it meant nothing to her, merely decorative in nature to her reckoning. There was something about it though that seemed to hum with an energy, a distant heat buried beneath the surface. It called to her. Called her to reach forth and touch it. There was some sort of power she had not sensed before, her mind’s eye was widening in awe of what it sensed.
As her hand lifted and pressed upon the pillar, a noise from the sky grabbed her attention. Hand still on the pillar, she looked up and saw lights descending through the he clouds. Fear gripped her heart as in the same moment a large blue beam of light erupted from the top of the pillar and shot out towards the lights in the sky. An explosion from the lights caused stirring, and moments later screaming from all in the camp. But Keo was gone. Nowhere to be seen by the guards that had previously noted her presence, but had left to check on their chief’s at the first sign of trouble.
——————
Keo ran across the harsh landscape and frozen ground of the near equator territory running west and east from the place of Ca’kra. The lights had not disappeared, but rather gone down. The noise of them hitting the ground had grabbed her sole focus and set her off on a journey across the land that would undoubtedly take days. By the time she reached the location of the downed sky lights, Keo was wearying, surviving only off berries and water gathered from the melting frosts each day. The last good meal had been the elk type creature known as an Ak, that she had killed, and whose rank-smelling hide she now wore against her body as added protection from the elements.
What she found shocked her. People. Actual people, in garb unfamiliar to her, collapsed outside the still burning wreck of a new monument from the skies. She looked back up to the sky in wonder. Where had they come from? Who were they?
Whoever they were and wherever they had come from, they appeared near death.
By Keo’s reckoning, her own people’s village in the mountains was now closer than the place of Ca’Kra, and it was likely that there would be a party sent from the Ca’Kra that would be in pursuit of the fallen lights as well. They would most likely kill the two invaders and ask questions later. Keo would not allow this. Fashioning a sled, she was able to fix both men to the make shift stretcher, with branches from a nearby evergreen tied behind it to cover their tracks.
She would travel only so far as she could, find a cave and tend to wounds for the first night. Time with light to spare would be needed to cover her tracks better, and throw off their scent. Their scent was thrown off, but not without sacrifice when she rubbed her newly acquired hide-coat over some trees that were near to a stream, and then threw it in for it to flow down stream taking the scent with it, she continued up stream before finding the cave in which they could spend the first night.
