Skytrails

5-On The Warpath

Sharn kissed his wife and son goodbye.

He meant to go by himself, but Watu waited outside his roundhouse and would not be dissuaded. Watu's grandmother gave them fresh fried fishcakes and flatbread, hot off the fire, and roasted corn. She put the food in a basket and slung the strap of the basket around Watu's forehead, so he could carry it on his back.

Sharn and Watu paddled their canoe toward the setting sun, taking it in turns to eat while the other steered and paddled. The sky grew red, then purple, then deep, dark blue. A three quarter moon lit the river through a clear sky and a thousand million stars danced on the rippling currents. They passed other villages and saw people bathing or fishing or mating in the shallows. Sharn made a bird call greeting as they passed, making sure anyone who saw them knew they were Kualii Edain and no enemy or evil spirit.

Hours into their journey, the moon disappeared, leaving only reflected starlight to guide them in the thick dark. Sharn and Watu pulled their canoe up on the bank of the river and slept inside. They woke with the sun's light, ate a little food, slid the canoe back into the water, and paddled on.

Mid morning, they parked their canoe and began the overland trek. They walked through dense forest, across clearings covered in tall grass, and over rolling hills.

Sharn noticed new Minkaera homes and settlements where before there had been none. They steered clear of these as much as they could, but eventually they could not help but use the main wide path leading into the town.

They passed older Minkaera homes which had been here longer than Sharn had been alive, and were as much a part of the geography of Kaalbriia now as any mountain or river.

The young Minkaera who saw them stopped and gawked or ran away in fear. The older ones kept a respectful distance. Some called their young to them. Some spat. Some smiled or nodded in greeting. Sharn returned smiles and nods and ignored the rest.

Watu had not been to a Minkaera town. The boy looked from one side of the path to the other, trying to see everything at once. He walked so close to Sharn, he almost tripped him. Sharn gently nudged him away, the boy too preoccupied to notice. Sharn remembered being the same way his first time around so many Minkaera.

They came to the center of the town, a place where the big path Sharn and Watu walked intersected with another big path. Buildings crowded in around the intersection along the edges of the paths. One of these they called town hall, and that is where Sharn went.

He could feel the stares of the townspeople, walking past or standing in the open doorways of the buildings nearby.

The buildings here were mostly made of wood, though some were made of brick. The brick ones impressed Sharn the most. To think that men were capable of such things, to change the face of the earth so much.

The Kualii Edain made their round houses of wood and earth and hide and their homes kept from one season to the next, but only if repaired and maintained. Otherwise, the Kualii Edain homes would slowly disappear and be reclaimed by the land around them. Sharn had seen this before where tribes had left their villages and never come back.

Their were whole cities built by the first peoples which had rotted and crumbled and sank into the earth. But Sharn did not think these brick buildings would ever go away. They seemed able to withstand all but the end of the world.

Sharn and Watu stood outside town hall and waited. It would have been rude beyond description to enter a building of another tribe without being invited in. For any Kaalbriian tribe, Sharn would not even have entered the village, but he knew Minkaera well enough to know the best way to speak with the chief would not be to stand outside the town. In fact, standing outside the town might be the fastest way to get them both shot. These westerlings, he thought, how can our two peoples be so different?