----------------------------------------------------------- - The Ta’ainvel - – By Khan – ----------------------------------------------------------- 1. The Ta’ainvel stood at the top of the hill and looked out over the scene developing below him. The first thing he had seen was the slowly moving caravan heading east along the road towards Han. The second had been the men that were lying in ambush behind the bend in the road at the far side of the meadow below him. Taking his rifle from its holster on his back, he decided he didn’t like the odds. Four women, three men and one child, against a total of twenty brigands. The meadow had offered little shade as Jante had walked over it a few hours earlier, towards the hill he now stood on. The few trees and bushes were too scattered, and the copse on the hill looked far more restful, and more private, than sleeping by the side of the road. Having run all the way from Duin, about six miles to the west, Jante was understandably tired. Even Ta’ainvel became tired, running in hot sun for several hours at breakneck pace. He had lain down to catch some sleep before continuing towards Han, and delivering the message he carried in his satchel. He never knew what kind of message he delivered as he was a professional messenger and what he carried was not his business so long as it arrived to where it should. The loud, and ear piercing, crying of a Human child had wakened him. No, he didn’t like it at all. Jante frowned as he saw the flash of a yellow coat of fur among the ambushers, but didn’t hesitate any further. Turning on the sun visor he wore over his eyes, he stepped out of the shade of the copse of tress he had just been resting in. Running low between trees and bushes scattering the meadow, he reached a point about twenty yards from the nearest brigand. There he raised his rifle, looking through the scope. What he saw alarmed him. The men all had the same sun visor as he, and all were aiming standard Ta’ainvel starhip crew handguns towards the caravan. Frowning once more as he caught sight of the yellow fur among the men, and directed his scope towards it. This time he was more irritated than alarmed. The yellow fur belonged to another Ta’ainvel, another Catfolk as the Humans called them. Now the caravan had almost reached the point where the brigands were most likely going to attack. Jante took careful aim of the apparent leader; a large, bearded man wearing a dirt coloured jacket giving hand signals to several other men. Then he fired, and saw the leader being hurled towards the next man standing beyond him with a large bleeding wound in his chest. He took aim, fired again, and another man went down, and before the brigands could organise themselves into finding the shooter, three more were down. Then they attacked him. He quickly shot the next man coming at him, and then lowered his rifle. Pushing a clip he had ready into place, he fired the now automatic rifle into the brigands coming at him. They were only eight when they realised they should take cover. Glancing, only glancing, at the caravan Jante saw that the men had put the women and the child into safety inside the slow moving vehicles. One man had picked up a rifle of his own, and was now firing at the back of the remaining brigands. Three died, and then guns were thrown high into the air, out of the small stand of trees where the five remaining brigands now stood. ”Stop! Don’t shoot! We surrender!” The voice sounded like it belonged to someone no older than sixteen, or younger. Jante put his rifle back in the holster and pulled out his handgun, aiming it at the trees. ”Come out of there.” The voice indeed belonged to a Human boy at the rough age of fifteen, in the company of three older men, about twenty. All had their hands clasped behind their heads. The last brigand was the Ta’ainvel with the yellow fur. He was not entirely yellow, bearing black streaks hidden beneath his jacket. The loincloth he wore was black, and decorated with two vertical silver strips on the right side. Jante wore a similar loincloth, but his was green, with four golden stripes on it. The other Ta’ainvel had also thrown his gun, but now had a Chi’sa in his hand, the ritual knife of the Warrior. Returning his gun to his hip- holster, Jante opened his jacket and removed his Chi’sa from its ornate sheath. ”You dishonour your Kin and your ship,” he said in his own language. ”Why?” The other snarled, and said ”You speak of dishonour, running errands for the Humans! You are na’Chetu. You will die!” The Ta’ainvel hurled himself at Jante, knife held to strike. Jante stepped aside, placing a well-aimed arm across the other’s chest, stopping him in mid air. The Ta’ainvel was gasping for breath as he fell to the ground. ”You are the one who are na’Chetu. You helped Humans commit crimes against their own. You are the one who will die.” Jante knelt by the stunned Ta’ainvel and calmly slit his throat. Picking up the other’s fallen Chi’sa, he put his own back in its sheath. Still kneeling he thrust the knife with his entire anger hilt deep into the soil beside its dead owner. He whirled around, and the man who had just cracked the twig Jante had heard stopped in mid-stride. ”I-I’m sorry, I just wanted to see if you were alright…” he said in a thin voice. In Dinathinian, a mix of English and Ta’ainvel language, Jante said, ”Human, never fear a Ta’ainvel will be hurt. At least not so he can still stand.” He paused, then asked ”You and yours? Are you alright?” ”Yes, thank you. You saved us from being robbed, or even killed by these criminals. Its our luck that you happened to be here at this time.” The man’s voice got stronger as he spoke, and his wary glances at the arms Jante wore halted on the Haninian mark of a Messenger he wore on the left chest of his jacket. ”We must bury these men, that at least they deserve,” the man said and glanced at the dead Ta’ainvel. Jante followed his look, and shook his head. ”I will burn him myself,” was all he said as he lifted the Warrior in his arms and carried him towards the hill. Reaching the summit, he gently laid the dead one on the blanket he had left there. He covered the Warrior with another blanket, wrapping it around him like a shroud and proceeded to build a bonfire. Taking mostly dead branches scattered in the copse, he soon had enough to put the dead Ta’ainvel on. ”Na’Chetu, your Chi’sa is deprived of you. Your living Honour is forfeit, may you find your last honour in Death.” Speaking those words of ritual, he shivered, sensing a change in the wind around him. He quickly torched the bonfire, and it flared up around the Warrior. Having cleared about two yards around the bonfire from any grass or bush, he still waited, to watch over the fire, and the Warrior. Then he wept for the dishonour of the last action of the Warrior’s life. As the fire subsided, and Jante was sure it would not spread across the dry hilltop, he walked down again to join the men burying the dead brigands.