Chapter Seven: The Next Step
All eyes were now glued to the grizzled old Soua at such a cryptic statement.
"Where?" Tomakaya asked bluntly.
Lyonas looked back to the mask in his hand, the key to the puzzle that they had been presented. He handed it to Tomakaya saying, "Tell me what this says to you? What clues can we gather from this mask?"
She looked it over very carefully inside and out as the others gathered close to watch, "It says that they are not Soua," She started. Quona only nodded at her, but did not seem satisfied by her answer. She looked at it again.
Raha broke in with, "There are no eyes, whoever did this sewed the lids shut. They must not see, not in the conventional sense."
"Good, anything else?"
Tomakaya spoke again, "They must be similar in build and markings if all that they require is the helm, some armor, and a skin of hair to pass as Soua."
"They would need little else in the heat of a battle, most would not look closely once the assumption had been made about their identity," Gui'Yata added.
"True, but in all attacks there had been survivors, and all said that even in the aftermath that they looked like Soua, there must be more than just a passing similarity." Nobaya added.
"And what of the disparity in their actions," Raha jumped in again, "Leaned forward as if crippled, walking on their toes? It sounds familiar…but where have I heard that description before and what creature was it regarding?" She ended musing to herself.
The Gather fell silent as all turned their thought inward. Suddenly Nobaya said, "They were Noa."
The Quona straightened to his full height, smiling and nodding at the quick processing of the clue, "Yes the Noa."
"But the chanting?" Tomakaya argued, "You forget that I was present for the attack on this city. The attackers celebrated their victory singing hunting chants of success. The Noa do not speak Sou, they are incapable of that kind of enunciation."
"Did they speak?" The Quona presented in a steady questioning tone.
"Y…" Tomakaya started to say but stopped tilting her head to one side thinking harder about her own encounters with the attackers.
Gui'Yata's face widened, "Perhaps not…not if they have the helms."
Quona nodded at his grandson, "There may be another reason for them to use the masks than to just hide their identity from their victims."
"The Recorders!" Tomakaya blurted as the answer suddenly presented itself to her. Her tone said that she was disappointed that she had not realized it before, "They could record the chants and play them back as if they were speaking."
"But how did they get enough to supply the numbers of attackers that we and the rest of the cities have seen?" Nobaya said softly glancing at his bondsman.
"There have been hundreds of disappearances in the past ten rotation, from dozens of cities. People trying to reach Taysa, hunters traveling from remote cities to major space ports for duty aboard pack ships, and those travelling for conclave in Donona. In all cases the warriors would be carrying everything that the Noa would need to masquerade as our kind."
"That would also explain a lot about the odd culling of trophies from the different cities," Raha added, "It could be that they took only from those that had their helms with them or that were wearing them during the battles. Something that they could use to restock their supply." She grimaced at that thought.
"But then the question becomes why? Why have they chosen now to attack us?" Gui'Yata stated in confusion, "They normally only bother us in the rotations plagued by drought, when the food on the forest floor is scarce. It is the only time that they will even move into the trees. There has been no such problem this season, the clouds were heavy with rain this summer."
"That is a question that still perplexes me," Quona said disconcertingly, "And a question I do not have the answers for. Nor do I have an answer for the organization that I have seen and heard from them this time. Their attacks are usually disjointed, hit and run, enough to harass us and no more. There is evidence that some one or some thing has coordinated this Species War that we are witness to."
"The Rogues say it was a human," Raha put in shivering with a chill that had nothing to do with temperature.
Quona snorted derisively, "Forgive me Raha, but that I cannot believe. Adaptable your race may be but to learn the Noa language would be near impossible, we have not managed it and we have been exposed to their society a lot longer than you," He looked down, "Even if this 'human' had managed it, the Noa would sooner eat him than make him their leader."
"Is there another human on planet, Quona? Did Bahlana have the right of it?" Raha added, concerned for her own well being should this human make trouble with the tribes.
The Quona was shaking his head in the negative before she had even finished her question, "That would have been a bit of news that would have spread rapidly through the planet. We would have heard long before now of its…his existence. You are the only Clusu from off planet."
Gui'Yata suddenly looked ill standing next to his Grandfather, "What of…"
The Quona seemed to read his thought, and most probably did, "The others brought when Raha was trapped? No, those died on the killing fields beyond Donona's spaceport. None would have escaped there."
Raha's eyes widened as she remembered the soldiers that had been trapped aboard the ship. They had been released just prior to her departure from the ship some eleven rotations or so ago now. They had been killed, or so she had been told. She had believed it, she had seen the killing fields of which the Quona spoke, guided through its perils as part of her training with Gui'Yata. They were full of creatures that used the tall purple grasses, the screening they provided to good use in snagging animals, and anything else not trained to avoid them, in their traps.
Her gut sank at the thought that there was one of those soldiers running loose on the planet, possibly instigating the Noa into a killing frenzy.
"Can we be so sure?" Nobaya said in a tone of concern.
The Quona shook his head, "In these times there is nothing for certain."
He twitched as he slept, images haunting him, life here was not always easy, that had been true from the start. In his dreams the first days reflected a thousand fold…
He wandered finally from the field of death, it was slow progress when he had to check every step for hidden dangers. Those same dangers had taken all the others that had been with him. He had been the only one to survive. Why? Why had they done this? He had only been doing his job and the creatures had subjected him to a journey across space only to release him to die. He felt his jaw clench, not this one, he was going to survive, and if given the opportunity he would pay those bastards back.
When he had reached the forest he thought that he would be safe. He found himself exhausted, mentally overtaxed and he crawled the last few feet to the base of an enormous tree. They were bigger than anything he had ever seen before, anything. They rivaled some of the buildings that he had thought were impressive. He fell asleep shortly with that thought rattling around inside his head, consciously wishing that he were suffering from a nightmare. That he would wake and find himself back in familiar surroundings.
When he awoke it was to the sound of their incessant clicking, he started as he found himself surrounded by muscular humanoid creatures. Several were very near his semi-prone form, seeming to look him over though their faces had no discernable eyes. Where the eyes should have been was a sunken area just below the forward portion of the ridges above the snout. It was smooth and featureless there, as if they had never possessed them in the first place. Each had a snout covered tightly with pale nearly white skin, sharp teeth were permanently bared, one blending into the next seemingly a serrated ridge rather than individual teeth. The tops of their heads were flat, cleft in the middle, and bared of anything that resembled hair. Instead they were ringed with two rows of corrugated ridges. They were striped and dotted with pale green and orange markings.
They walked hunched over and slightly forward due to the extra joint just above their ankle area. Hands and feet were possessed of three toes, each ending in wickedly curving claws, so much that they looked like cat's claws. They wore nothing but simple skins around their middle. He saw no weapons on them, none.
The two near him stood up slightly straighter, sitting back on that extra joint in their leg possibly discussing what he might be. The argument became quite heated, from what he could tell, the clicking coming from them almost a whine like a Cicada. The larger one suddenly jumped at the smaller and thinner, and seemingly older of them. The creature pushed the other to the ground straddling him and viciously slashing at him with those catlike claws.
When the older creature had stopped moving the victor turned back to him. The others behind him cowered back from the bulky creature. It turned its head to one side leaning closer to him. He was too petrified to move as that skull like face leaned in close to his face.
With quick movement the creature lifted an arm from where he had braced himself in the dirt, and bit into it. He cried out as the red hot pain took over his body, and it was quickly followed by numbness moving up his arm until the pain was a memory. He watched distantly as chunks of flesh from his arm disappeared into the creature at an alarmingly fast rate. The thing had started at his fingertips and was already up to his elbow. It was eating everything, bone, sinew, flesh and skin.
"I'm gonna die," He thought suddenly, "I am going to be witness to my own consumption!"
Suddenly the creature fell away from him, and it took long moments for him to figure out just why the creature now lay unmoving on the forest floor at his side. He blinked stupidly as the older creature leaned back into his view. The creature was bloody with long raking wounds across his chest and face, but it seemed to be in no pain. It reached into a pouch at Its belt and pulled out a bottle of a finely chopped plant. It quickly opened it spreading some in its hand and then on the glaringly obvious wound at his elbow. As he watched the creature work he noticed that the flesh around where the creature had stopped chewing on him was becoming soft. It was now less like flesh and more like jelly, like the consistency of flesh he had seen on his best friend, slowly liquefying in the clutches of that anemone creature back in the field. The creature worked quickly and the effects that he noticed ceased where he had applied the herb.
The creature started clicking in rapidly ascending and descending notes at him. And still in shock he stared dumbly at the creature. It continued repeating over and over again the same series of clicks. Suddenly he heard in his head, just as if the thing had suddenly learned his language, "You are the one we have waited for."
He woke with a start shaking those images from his head. That was so long ago now, he hardly remembered the events upon waking. This had always seemed to be his home, the creatures that had injured and then saved him were all that he had. He raised the stump of his arm before his eyes, seeing again the effects of Cckeick's saliva and chewing teeth. It was a permanent reminder of his introduction to this world. Kaiketa had killed Cckeick, hitting the younger and more rash Clan member in the back of the head where they were vulnerable. He remembered being just conscious enough to watch as they ate Cckeick. That was their way, they wasted nothing, the Clan recycled everything about their life, unlike the wasteful Brethren.
He began to fume yet again at the thought of those creatures, they were the reason he was even here. It was all about revenge for him, despite Kaiketa's belief that he was their Messiah, here to return the planet to the rightful owners. He could only think that he was going to pay them back tenfold for taking from his home, only to make him witness to the destruction of his whole unit. He would make these murderous Brethren sorry for messing with him, his unit, and above all his race.
He stood stretching his road weary muscles, they had been on the move non stop for nearly three moon cycles now and though he was road hardened it was beginning to tax him. He looked around him watching the Clan move about, preparing for the next strike. They were returning to the city where this campaign had begun, knowing that if they attacked too many cities they would give away their secret. The targets that they had hit should be enough to start the different clan factions into a war. It was a ploy to reinforce the idea that the mainstream was beleaguering Taysa, as its citizens called it, the mainstream was to think that the citizens of Taysa were to blame, and the Renegades were to think the whole world was after them. It was a good plan, and he had already seen the tension come near boiling in several of the cities that they had been spying on to judge reaction.
The Brethren were not so different from Humans after all, it seemed that the opinion of the general populace was just as easy to sway as humans. The campaign was as effective as anything that psyops had done back on Earth. Perhaps the ruling bodies were not yet convinced, he had heard of no declarations of intent against any of the other factions, but it was only a matter of time.
Kleeck approached him "seeing" that he was up, "Skiateta, all is in readiness. We will reach the staging point by sunset," He only nodded at the creature. Skiateta, he snorted, the chosen one, the savior. That was about what the word translated to. He had shown them the way to rid themselves of the blasphemous shadows of their own existence. They were pleased with what he had been able to do for them, they had rewarded him handsomely for his help and expertise. He snorted again, thinking bitterly how that would never return his arm.
Another approached him in a position of submission hunched over until his chest and knees met. The creature did not look at him. Over his body were burn marks as if from plasma fire and the attitude of the warrior told that the creature possessed news that he thought was sure would anger him, "Skiateta…" It swallowed before continuing, "There is a problem…"
He stared at the base of the creatures bare skull, "Speak!" he ordered harshly.
"A young Brethren escaped from the field where the 'ships' land."
He blinked relaxing a little, wondering why that would upset the young Clan so much, "We have had many survivors, one more is nothing to our plan."
"It is not that he escaped Skiateta, cull inventory has come up short. It has been determined that the boy carried away an item. He carried away a Brethren mask."
His eyes widened in anger, "What!" He bellowed, feeling the activity around him stop. He didn't bother to glance around him, that was part of what had kept him alive, he showed himself to be supremely confident.
"I am sorry Skiateta. We tried to retrieve the boy and the mask but he made it to the outcasts city and was helped by them. We lost three in the attempt."
"I don't care about your losses, Gidkita, you were instructed to obscure any evidence that might reveal the true nature of our plan! Now the Brethren will expose us. They will unite against us and we will fail! That will be your responsibility!" He growled, then looked up at those around him who turned away as soon as his gaze fell on them. For creatures that were blind in the traditional sense these creatures possessed a spectacular ability to "see" with their echolocation skills. He looked back down at the still prostrate creature, "How long ago did this happen?"
"Just two days now, Skiateta."
He pursed his lips thinking hard, "Tell the Zankiki that we will attack as soon as night falls. They will ensure the entire population is destroyed this time, NO survivors. This will be done before they can tell anyone of their discovery."