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Topic: Blood Heir (Read 363 times)

Floyd Looney
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Blood Heir
« Thread Started on May 28, 2009, 5:06pm »

Blood Heir

The high grass rustled, something shot through space between two trees, Grimak jabbed a spear at it and felt contact. It had caught him a bit off his guard but he knew it would fall somewhere nearby.

He passed through the dry high grass coming upon a bank of a stream, likely a tributary of the mighty Nonga River. Not far away he saw a small animal lying on its side just inches from the water on a bed of pebbles. He could see the slight rising and falling of its gray furred chest, soon the rising and fallen stopped.

Grimak knealed next to his kill, a rather small animal but it need feed only two. He placed his hand on the animal and closed his eyes, yes its life force had left its furry little body while its blood was still warm.

“Thank you for my meal” he thought toward whatever spirit an animal left behind. He cupped his hand beneath the wound and pressed with his other hand, filling the palm with the warm blood of a once lively creature. He drank the small amount of blood in honor of the creatures sacrifice. He honored that which he killed for food, he did not kill for sport, that would be immoral.

Grimak carried the kill back to his camp, he found his son, Rinkat, sitting on a stone next to a small roaring fire that had not been lit earlier. They would not have to eat the Havalan raw after all.

“Not one fish would enter my net father” the boy said without looking up, he had heard Grimak enter the camp, although he had made no noise. The boy looked at with a light smile “Has that poor creature consented to be our dinner?”

Grimak shook his head “I do not like these jokes, they are ill-fitting the future ruler of our world. You have much to learn before I can die and leave you to make a mess of it”.

“I take it very serious father, I would not have it any other way”

Rinkat began removing the skin of the animal skillfully, it would be stretched between limbs and set out for sundrying tomorrow. The meat would be their evening meal, rather late with the sun already dropping past the distant mountains.

Grimak looked up at the stars and the double moon, "Our people came here centuries ago aboard massive craft. Today things are so different that they might never be repaired, you will have a lot to bear on those shoulders, my son, future Protector!"

"Yes father. I shall try to be a good ruler" the boy said seriously.

Grimak regarded his son as an abled warrior, intelligent and cunning on the hunt. The boy was fascinated by the stories of the elders and the founders, always a good sign for a ruler. At night Grimak often found his son gazing at the sky, usually thinking about the wandering stars that glide across the sky every night.

Tonight was a bit cloudy and his son would sleep well, they would both be rested enough to hunt their food and for the meeting.

Grimak was the ruler of the world, its judge and its executioner. He was the sole source of justice for their people. He traveled great distances across the lands and sea doing his job, sometimes having to put a man to his death. Grimak was the only judge and executioner for a people who had once sworn themselves free of any rulers. Until a time came when one became necessary.

But Grimak did not make the law, there were none who had the power to change the law, the natural law that governed the people of this world. It was considered sacred, their law, their most prized acheivement in coming here to this place.

When the sun first began rising above the forests both men were awake and set about to do their daily chores. First they rolled up their sleeping mats and coverings, these would be carried on their packs.
Before leaving they dug up the remains of the evening meal from the ashes, it was still warm, this was their morning meal before they set off to the meeting place.

Grimak carried his spear in his hand while Rinkat had his slung over one shoulder as he drank from the water pouch he carried. The furry skin of the Havalan still stretched on limbs was strapped to the back of his pack. They walked silently through the forest hearing the rustling leaves under their feet while listening for any other sounds.

Soon they were on a rise looking down upon a pond, they stood next to a large gray boulder with moss climbing one side. Here they would wait for the others, this was the meeting place.

Grimak reached deep into the pack from his back and pulled out a small book, held together with leather straps. Here was the basic knowledge of their whole world, the oldest book ever written on this world when humans had first stepped upon it. A chronicle about a trip through the ocean of stars and of their first days after arrival.

He read it aloud, and Rinkat was listening even though pretending to retie one of the straps holding his pack together.

The Departing:
We leave our homeworld with heavy hearts, filled with nostalgia and grief about what could have been had things been a little different. A world that seemed tailor made for our kind, even designed for us to prosper and provide for our happiness.

If only it were thus. We have squandered the opportunity that our maker, be it God or nature, has given us. Our potential has been anchored and thrown into the deep sea to drown. The world was given to us and our minds were given to us so that we might make it a little better all the time.

It was not to be. We have wasted our minds, we reject our minds in favor of our animal apetites. In doing so we have assured ourselves of rising this far and no farther. Our people were once wealthier and more advanced than today and tomorrow we will again be primitives.

Not all of us could accept this, of course. We have decided to cross the expanse of space to one of the worlds that appears much like our own. We do not fear being followed by those who have rejected the improvement of the species, who accept the idea of becoming savage animals as some sort of virtue.