Saints: It Begins

1 SHOOTING STARS

Sedi was the first to see it. It was a particularly starless night but Gana was high, shining unusually bright as if to say I have a neat surprise coming your way. Legend had it that all life on the planet of Xanap had been created and brought down from the moon, Gana, by the Ancient Ones. These Ancient Ones brought from their home on Gana the various plants and animal found on Xanap, which used to be a giant deserted rock.

Nevertheless, Sedi didn’t believe much of all that legend stuff nor did she care. At the moment, all that was on her mind was the fact that her father and the other Elder Hunters were denying her the chance to prove herself worthy enough to join the hunts.

All over the continent, Kedi accord great respect and honour to their hunters. This is not only because of the constant supply of meat they provide for their people and the best quality furs and hides that are some of Kedi’s major trade commodities, but also because they hunt down monstrous creatures which could be threats to the safety and security of the Kedi.

As a rule, the Kedi taught their children the basics in self-defence, warfare and hunting as soon as they are old enough to comprehend. This feeds into many of them harbouring dreams of either growing to become warriors, guardians or joining the hunt. However, the elders ask the girls among these children to divert all their efforts towards homelier training, just after hitting puberty.

In the history of the Kedi – in fact, in the history of Xanap – there has only been one huntress and she, according to legend, was the greatest hunter to have walked the surface of Xanap. She was the embodiment of all the qualities a hunter should possess (Sharp of sight, sure of arms and steady of heart), making her one of the greats, if not the greatest in Sedi’s opinion. This huntress, Eli’kem, was so powerful that she could boss her older brothers, the twins Nuku and El’olo, around – at least that’s what Sedi heard.

In fact, Sedi was very certain that the Chieftain, his advisors, the generals of the army, the council of hunters and generally all men in Xanap were determined and earnestly dedicated to the course of keeping the women folk domesticated in order to prevent a repeat occurrence of the Eli’kem situation.

There was only one man whom, Sedi felt understood and believed in her and he always let her know this. His name was Raffial but everybody in the village he lived in called him Raff Quaff because of the reputation he had gained over the years as the village drunk. However, Sedi simply called him Raff, for short. Sedi was a city girl born and raised in the jungle-city, the Kedi capital of Tefe, but she spent so much of her time with Raff in Kope, his village, that nobody could guess she even had anything to do with the city.

Standing at the top of this lonely hill which towered over Kope like a mother bird ferociously guarding her hatchlings, Sedi was waiting for Raff for their usual appointment. In all her fifteen years of life, she had never been more determined with anything like this. Now, it was as if her life depended on the out come of this meeting.

Sitting on this hill with the fortification and safety of the camouflaged city of Tefe about a mile or two away in the east, Sedi felt a great sense of purpose. Even though Raff refused to tell her how he knew all the things he was teaching her or what their ultimate goal was, Sedi felt they were part of something even bigger and she learning them made her a part of it too.

Where’s Raff and what’s keeping him? Sedi thought as she started to pace their training campsite at the top of Etoviji, the ‘guardian’ hill of Kope. The campsite was a small clearing found in the middle of something that would not dare to call itself a forest with its sparse supply of trees, providing Sedi with a bird’s-eye-view of the village below through the largely spaced trees.

It was at that moment that the star appeared in the sky. It zipped through the empty night sky, right across Gana’s face as she took up her watch post in the sky changing shifts with Malo and Neru, the twin lamps of daytime as they retired to their nightly home in the east.

Sedi’s eyes followed this falling star as it sailed on its downward journey, split into many smaller stars along the way and then disappeared beneath a canopy of trees westward from the village a few hundred strides away from Tefe with a loud, crushing boom.

The whole of Kope was in chaos. People were running here and there like little critters scared out of their holes either covering their ears to protect them from the loud sound of the crush or pointing at dark clouds of smoke, smog and soot that rose from the spot where the ‘star’ was apparently resting after a few more kilometres of travel on land.

All this put Sedi in full gallop as she ran down the hill, turned towards the smoke and sprinted to find out what had just happened. She ran like there were sasa (demons) hunting her down like prey. Blindly she vaulted over logs and boulders that found their way onto her path, skipped over springs and streams and startled animals that were settling down from the fright the crush had given them.

There were alarms going off all around her in a chaotic chorus of whines, whirs and woos as the various military encampments posted all around the perimeter of the Kedi territory started to get wind of the incident that had just occurred, frightening the forest animals even more than they had already been.

But before they could deploy men to arm themselves and swarm the crush site to investigate what was actually going on, Sedi was determined to find out everything she could. This was going to prove to be a difficult task since there was a great amount of heat coming from the direction of the crush site. This heat kept increasing with every step Sedi took toward the site till she had no other choice than to crouch in the shadow of a big Boti tree to shield herself against the heat that the crushed object (which she could now see was obviously not a star) was radiating from a few meters away.

Just when she thought it was okay to come out from behind the tree and approach the fallen object, a hand grabbed her and someone covered her mouth as she was pulled back behind the tree, slamming her back against it. Sedi was looking at Raff now, his hand still over her mouth and gesturing her to be quiet and listen before pulling his hand away slowly.

As he leaned very close to her, Sedi caught a whiff of Apetsi – a potent local alcoholic brew – clinging heavily to Raff’s breath. The smell alone would have been enough to get her tipsy so Sedi was always amazed at how much of the concoction the man could consume and still be in complete possession of all his faculties.

She hadn’t noticed but, after relaxing and letting reason rule her thoughts once again, Sedi could now hear the sound of engines humming as they approached the crush site, orders being shouted out and about to anyone who wished to hear and obey them. Bozard was telling everyone around him what to do as usual. Bozard was Kazu’s older brother and Kazu was one of Sedi’s two best friends, the other being Hamza both of whom were now serving in the Kedi army.

Peering from around the tree they were both hiding behind, Sedi and Raff could see the hover-tanks and other military vehicles were in position with their primary weapons trained towards the outlandish object. The foot soldiers were also aiming at the object in case they needed to open fire on it or on whatever could be inside. Some members of this investigative team in a ridiculous looking form of protective wear found a way to enter the crumpled hunk of metal with some equipment only they would know.

After so many agonizing minutes spent waiting, breaths held, the bulkily dressed advance team emerged from the wreck, a strange looking elongated object held between them. As they got completely free of the crush, it became clear that the object was in fact a container. But a container for what? This question was about to be answered with another question because, when the container was briefly paraded through the ranks, all who saw what was in it, through the glass of the container’s lid, got an awe stuck expression on their faces. Then Bozard spoke the question that was burning hot on everyone’s lips when the container came before him.

“Who, by the ancient ones, is that?”