The sun, an inferno of nuclear reaction, roars as the deadliest of all predators within the solar system. Though the day has marched on and the new threat of a humid night approaches, those exiting the boats move without a hurried concern over what will hide in the shadows. Forty-three individuals leap from the edges of ships constructed of various metals and wood.
From these vessels, many of the armed individuals move from the docks toward the tree lines beyond the stretch of white beaches. Lively responses of curious creatures come in howling and screeching welcome.
The eyes of the Emel-Rakar, the young soldiers forming a perimeter, scan the area for any threat. No matter how many times they’ve heard of Amelioration and the Dominax’s control over the species of Rakar, they keep to the training of the generations before them. Calloused hands, on men and women alike, grip at whatever they keep for preferred defense. Two or three might have a pulser in hand, but most of the Emel-Rakar grip their wytun.
Almost all of humanity had forgone such primitive and resource consuming weaponry, but the Emel-Rakar keep ancient ghosts walking among them. They have many reasons, differing between tribe and individual, for wielding such a variety of tools and even antique technologies.
With their exolungs properly secured, the bodies of the Emel-Rakar at the perimeter lock into place. No movement of the shoulders. Shallow beats of the heart. They are as the beach itself. Mummified statues patiently taking in the world around them until that final, decisive moment.
As the deep blues of the sky give way to the violets and ambers, the Emel-Rakar continue their departure from the vessels. Tied off and ramps locked, carts and luggage move from sea to land. Orders begin to fill the air as duties are distributed among the people.
For brevity and comprehension, the discussions of the Emel-Rakar must be translated. From Litn to the universal tongue, the voices must be heard.
“Assist the elders first. I want the ships checked. Get that perimeter filled in.” A man with hair as dense and black as chilled tar rubs the sleep from the edges of his eyes. Copper bands dissolve into the greenish-yellow within seas of white. Sighing before a deep inhale through his exolung-guarded nose, he scans the docks and listens to the sounds of waves slapping against the metallic platforms and lengths of white sand.
After just a few orders are given, the man steps to the edge of the Prints-a-Ment dock with segmented metal wrapped around it. The path has been traversed with ease, and he scans the dark blues of the horizon for any sign that they’d simply avoided the threats in time.
No bubbles or rancid smell. No shrimp waiting.
Wind catches the strands of his thick hair to form flickering flames of darkness atop his head. For how unkempt the mane seems, it moves with a grace and ease which haunts the memory. Adding to the impressing atmosphere of command, a green and brown cloak catches the wind in violent jolts. A grayed uniform, perhaps once it was a lighter black, tenses around the flesh within it.
This man, somehow tense and relaxed, stands as the singular force of valley and mountain among the hurrying Emel-Rakar. He does not need to turn back to know that his people perform as needed. They know the height of the sun and stillness of the world.
“Yamay.” A man, his head covered in the wild bush of brown, steps quickly to the end of the dock. Stopping five paces behind his companion, the man wipes the wind from his moistened eyes of blue. “We’re almost done. Four empreys. Taken and tied off.” He lifts one of the knotted lengths of gray eel. The body, tensed and locked into place, undulates with that natural aggression animals exhibit when cornered or caught. “To the tribe?”
“Keep the largest.” Yamay calls back over his shoulder while still watching the distant, stilled waves. Still, the sound of the waters crashing over metal and sand fills his head with a chorus of the natural order—soothing him as he releases a slow breath.
Examining the balled up specimen in his possession, Ethar drops and yanks the head so the bound body bounces about from his waist to his knees. The tail occasionally slips over the Prints-a-Ment. “I’d say this one’ll do. What becomes of it?”
“A gift.” The voice is the bass to the treble of the hissing and moaning waters. The words are harsh, but the expression is as stilled as the distant horizon. He watches how the single line of blue, unmoving and calm, eventually blurs into the white-tipped talons of the beast battling the shore. “The Dominax has conquered the varabelm. A chief deserving athta.”
Noting the cut at the end of the word, Ethar clears his throat. “If he’s worthy of such tribute, then you know best.” The man straightens as he reexamines the creature in his hands. Two of the long feathers of the cranial fins are twisted and knotted to keep the creature’s squishy head of endless teeth closed.
Without his multiple layers of family colors covering the man’s body, one might feel Ethar had undergone some manner of metamorphosis. Like some puffy caterpillar blossoming into a toned and steely butterfly, he peers down at the disarmed prey. A wide hand slides down one of the freed feathers, along the silvery appendage from the collapsed head (which is larger than his fist). Though slimy, almost offensive to the touch, the slick body possesses a sort of shimmer that appeals to the human senses—to the animalistic habit of being mesmerized.
Knowing; however, grants the meek a weapon.
“It will do.” Yamay nods and turns back to face Ethar. A soft smile spreads over the stony slabs of his lips as he examines the man. Tensed arms wielding a deadly creature. Hips and sides decorated with tools and weapons. A wytun across his chest. “You are as the branches.”
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“I bring prized gifts and face disrespect?” Ethar nods and spits to the side before returning his own smile. “Shaming your own blood, Yamay.”
“Shame comes from forgetting one’s blood, friend.” The leader steps forward to peer down into the emprey’s eyes. Black crosses bulge outward like plumes of ink. The eyes, while that of a large and vicious animal, seem to open as wide as they could—similar to that of a puppy begging for food from its master. “You,” his finger pokes the creature’s head; causing it to flop about as any fish simply desiring more water instead of the flesh from his bones. “You have forgotten your blood.
“All five skitters made it without issue.” Now addressing Ethar, he looks back to the waters they’d recently crossed.
“Besides the empreys,” Ethar shrugs to no one, “yes.”
“Five ships. No deaths. No losses.” Yamay plucks a leaf from a pouch on his breast. “Correct me, friend, for I may be wrong.” He tosses the curled leaf into his mouth to suck on. “Memory is as fragile as life itself, yet I recall that horizon once thrashing and discolored with the hunting of Emel-Rakar.” He spits a greasy droplet onto the dock. “Has the planet lost its hunger, or has Almakamla lost interest?”
Ethar’s boots move, and yet his feet make nearly no sound. Beneath the overwhelming crash of waves, these steps are imperceptible except by the trained ear of Yamay. The leader leans to the side and offers a leaf to his companion. Ethar declines with a sign of gratitude; extending his fingers up and over his heart.
“More for me then.” The drawl of the hardened man is cut by the flavorful plant. “So, which is it? Or you have another idea in your mind?”
“Something else.” Ethar responds with a voice like cotton.
Meant to comfort, the Metem instead sighs with the lingering dread. “Then share, o’ ye man of sight.”
“If you’d joke so,” Ethar swings out the empery as if to toss it back to the water, “your athta can sink back for his brothers to eat.”
“Such a threat!” Yamay snaps another droplet from pursed lips. This one soaring out over the Prints-a-Ment and into the water. “You talk to Metem so? Brazen. I’ll sleep with both eyes open.”
“Don’t already?” The suffocating emprey wriggles for freedom, yet it doesn’t even consider that it hangs from a meal. Ethar contemplates the beast for a moment. “Seems the grandest monsters are losing their teeth.”
“They’ve finished unloading.” Yamay’s hand glides over the pouches and holsters of his belt. “I’d like us to fan out. March through the woods along the paths. Elders in the middle-back. I want no surprises.”
“As you command.”
Yamay’s attention turns from the stretching blue to the expansive, rising greens. The path will soon be dark and difficult to navigate, and still he’d prefer it to the stretch of brightened day. “Keep illumination to a minimum.” He begins the walk toward the people and their gear.
Along the docks, the skitters rise in pinched mechanical arms to keep them out of the waters yet away from the wandering animals of the land. With no food left aboard, water sprayed along the edges, and blue canvases drawn over the tops will (hopefully) keep the vessels safe. This practice, as many others, has become a vestigial, time-consuming hereditary habit. Plucking at one rope attached to a canvas, Yamay notes the low hum of the vibration.
Slack. Too much. They hurry to the tasks of the now not considering how we’d get home if this failed. “We’ll relearn this when we leave.” Snapping the leaf’s juice from his lips, he turns toward his people with a more dutiful expression. “Attention! Ye hunters and survivors. Ready yourselves.
“We move as the tribe.” The drawl is a deep slithering of a massive serpent. Every note of the fleshy bass hangs in their ears. People turn and watch with careful eyes while the perimeter keeps half their attention on the woodlands. “Blood of your brother, blood of your own.”
“Blood of our brother, blood of our own.” The group responds in unison.
The elderly, the young, the armed, the serving… they all speak with the same, hushed strength of union and understanding. A chill of comprehension, the connected spark between human souls, runs up Yamay’s spine.
“Then move as one. I would meet this Dominax that seeks to rule as king. Almakamla guide us.” All nod toward the direction of the sun. “Let’s move. We dare not waste the dusk.”
“I’ll get the young moving.”
“Give them the other emprey.” Yamay points out as he snaps another mouthful of leafy juice out. “Live to bear more fruit.”
“As you wish.” Ethar’s chin dips as he takes a pause beside the Metem. “Pardon, Yamay, but the men asked.” He rolls his shoulders to attempt to relax himself.
“They want to know my plans.” The leader nods as he pats his friend’s back without looking toward him. “Brother, you know me. My blood is yours. My blood is that of the tribe.”
“There’s no question of that.” Ethar responds immediately.
Lifting his hand, Yamay silences the concern. “I’ve not named the path I will walk. I’ve yet seen the most visible paths and wait for my eyes to catch those still hidden in the wood.” He nods toward the thick woodlands.
A mixture of many worlds; one the vast majority of humanity could never manage. Conifer woods, dense jungles, deep quagmires, dry underbrush and moist canopies, and all manner of mixed ecosystems mashed into a violent turf war. This land, even for how often the tribes have traveled to these sacred place, has produced the same, clashing air of awe and horror. A duality of life and death bred together in this place of unspeakable glory hidden in the blood of nightmares.
“There lies my path, brother.” The bright rings of the man’s eyes catch the dying light of day. As if fire, perhaps even the spark of Rakar itself, dances along the edges of the rings. “The Dominax walks his path, and I must walk mine. I carry the blood of our people. He must carry my blood. Now, we see if this burden, the weight of all tribes, will be accepted.”
“So,” Ethar shrugs and swings the disarmed emprey toward the young men and women of the perimeter team, “you’ll leave the choice to him.”
“I’ll leave the choice to him.” The leaf, sweet and soothing to the mind, draws Yamay’s calm into a deeper appreciation of the land. “Almakamla shall lead us.” He leans, only a few centimeters to the side, and whispers, “And of his men?”
“No Sign.” Ethar closes his eyes to recall the events. “I was dragged in, sat down, and rushed out so quickly. Enough time only to burn the memory of Simora Nor-Noctlin into my brain.”
“You met him alone. No Sign? Nothing of his mother.” Yamay nods with satisfaction. “You said his eyes were gold.”
“Gold.”
“Good.” Thinking of the black holes which steal the light of all existence, the documenting and analytical eyes of the Blue devils, creeps into the leader’s mind. Haunting are those black portals that stare, often unblinking, to absorb all the essence of the situation. Much of such data came from those under her employ at The Keep. “We shall study their people. I do not wish to make war unless necessary.”
“We will keep our eyes open.”
“As always.” Yamay plucks another leaf from his pouch and adds it to the dulled flavor of the first. “Lips tightened in the sacred lands.”
“As we must remain silent to the ways of the tribe.”
Yamay nods as his hand swipes his forehead of sweat, touches his lips, and then balls up over his heart. Saying a silent prayer, he looks back to the tree line of the world they must travel into. “Let’s get these hunters moving. I’d not linger at the edges of this place.” His eyes catch the final rays of the roaring sun over the horizon of deep blues, “We enter the land of the Black.”