The Raid of Kollanus -Chapter 07

For the first twenty days he led his people northeastward and straightaway from Eden, Omag and Nod, Karrovo posted his most trusted and alert warriors close to the rear of his long column of followers. Here they scanned the southern horizon for any sign that the Squareheads were pursuing. By the twenty first day, confident that no effort to overtake them was being made, the rear watch was discontinued, but for the rest of his life, Karrovo himself continued to squint into the distance over land they had just crossed. In the land standing between the two great inland seas, there were trees of considerable height and dozens of reasonably large caves which offered shelter from the weather extremes. However, for the entire year they camped in this place, the nomadic tribe was repeatedly alarmed by the rolling and grinding of the land itself. So they abandoned consideration of this area as a potential home and moved further north into a very fertile area between two mighty rivers. Here they stayed through several miserably cold months waiting for the spring. When it arrived, the warmer weather brought with it ground quickly carpeted with rich, wild fruits and nuts. Unfortunately, along with this lush harvest, there also arrived an airborne river of gnats, bees and fleas. Further to the north plenty of game was available to all, out in the heat of the low country summer the ground surface ran to ankle deep mud and even more insect life. Still further to the north, with game remaining plentiful, they stayed long enough to decide that the ground here remained frozen through almost all of the year.

Shaking his head, Karrovo began to think that perhaps no ideal place existed on Earth other than that which he began to think of as a place of paradise, that garden called Eden. Return there however, was unthinkable. It was at this point he changed direction and began to lead his followers toward the southwest. The man charged by Karrovo to inscribe records was otherwise occupied as a warrior and as a husband, and because of this he was not nearly so careful in his keeping of records as he might have been. There was laxness in his journal and it is not known how long a period had passed, but after many months of trekking and camping, the rag-tag tribe, now numbering well over four hundred, arrived at the shore of a gently lapping sea. After surveying the area, Karrovo called his people to gather and with hope in his heart, for he was quite weary now, announced, “This must be the place”. For four delightful days and promising nights, the tribe frolicked on friendly soil, reveled in the richness of harvest which filled the bushes and became almost intoxicated with the freshness of the salty air. Then came the hour when the first gray ghostlight came to brush the waking world and on the dawning of the fifth day cries of alarm crackled across the icy, misted air. Karrovo was among the first out of his tent. Fully expecting to find the Squareheads in their midst, he squinted into the brightening skies and found something quite different.

Ringing the camp on all sides were hundreds of gnarled, bearded, twisted, short, broad men. The encirclement continued even on the water, where several dozen more stood on timbers which had been lashed together and now hobbled along with the gentle tide. There were no clubs or spears or bows and arrows visible, but each held rocks about the size of a mans fist and carried more of them in the loose-fitting folds of hide garments. Within moments Karrovo and his men were stationed facing these creatures who seemed as much beast as they did human, and for many minutes both groups stood, simply watching each other. Then as Karrovo finally chose to make an attempt at opening some sort of dialogue, a rock which had been fitted into a hide sling sliced the air. As it collided sharply with his mouth, he fell, crying out in pain, and immediately a veritable shower of slung rocks fell upon the Sons-of-Man. They responded with more deadly and much more accurate arrows. The rocks, while not nearly so death dealing as the arrows, were effective and capable of inflicting crippling injuries. Another of these sling propelled stones, considerably larger than the first now struck Karrovo in the side, not simply breaking the skin but actually cracking one rib. The first of these crude missiles had split his lower lip and broke several teeth as well. He was seriously injured but was still directing his archers as the attackers broke ranks and fled in the face of clearly superior fire power. A later body count showed at least forty of the rock slingers had died in the brief encounter. To counter this, seven of Karrovo’s men and one woman had been killed by the flying rocks. 

For three nervous days and three nights filled with fear, the followers of Karrovo maintained their camp, buried their dead and nursed their injured. In the battle, they had managed to capture two of those men who had stoned them. In spite of his severe injuries, Karrovo had difficulty hiding a grin as he overheard his guard refer to these two as “the two gnomes.” To him, his followers looked quite similar to these men. A day or two after being captured, one of the two began to succumb to his wounds and when he died, on the third day, his companion began refusing food. when those charged with guarding him began forcing food into his mouth, he promptly spat it out and on one occasion of his forced feeding, he actually bit one of his captors. Eventually though, he decided for reasons known only to himself, to accept food ..His hirsuteness, his shortness of extremities plus his twisted look were regarded as amazing by the tribe, but Karrovo, who had once been given the benefit of medical coaching, at least the basics of this study, knew something about this mans condition. He knew what happens to the human body when it has seen not enough sun and enjoyed not enough milk. Looking from his followers to their lone, sad, captive and back again, he muttered to himself, “how is it that they know not their own brother.”

Five days later, heading straight toward the south, the nomadic tribe arrived at the bank of a broad, slow-flowing river. Here they pitched tents, caught fish as well as a variety of low flying birds and in time realized they had found a place to their liking. There, blood oozing from the wound in his side which at first appeared a simple enough injury but had now festered and never really stopped bleeding, Karrovo lay down to sleep and just never woke up. He was in his fiftieth year. His followers who had come to regard him as little short of divine grew wild in their mourning and some hours after Karrovo’s death fell upon the poor captive and ripped the arms and legs from his torso. This expression of rage was the zenith of their anger. After this, they grew quiet and decided to remain where they were for a while. They sojourned on the edge of the Vistula for several hundred years and it was here their numbers grew into the thousands. The body of Karrovo, was buried in the Rimmer position of aristocracy, that is drained of all free fluids and standing erect, packed in dry, white sand. There are those who say the ancient grave marker is still there, across the Nogat from Malbork at one of the places where the ground occasionally manages to dry. The product of a high born daughter of the Sons-of-Man, a woman one might term a princess of sorts and an assistant chief engineer, the only heir to the fortune of an ancient Himmer family, Karrovo was a man who had grown up torn between two distinct traditions. 

Shortly before he was born, Karrovo’s father was recalled to Himmer and while he knew him well in later years, there never truly existed a strong father-son relationship. Many remarked about the strong physical resemblance between the two, but others knew that he also looked a great deal like his mother’s family. It seems that in the time approximating the beginning of the crossbreeding experiments, evolution of a similar nature was taking place all by itself. There were some children born with longer, more narrow feet and hands. There were those whose bodies were a bit taller and not so thick and there was an unspoken understanding that nature was in the process of creating a new class of the family of man on Earth; a ruling  of what came to be called aristocracy. The great mass of Sons-of-Man had looked upon what was in the process of development here, and grudgingly admitted to themselves, but never openly, that these new people may well have been superior in some ways. Karrovo’s mother was one of these new people. Relatively free of body hair and facial coarseness, she even had a partially formed chin and when the aliens came to her, found that she was able to learn their language easily. It seems that the experiments which took place in the interworldly blending of seeds and eggs was merely a short- cut in the race of evolution. It was, however, a shortcut of several thousands of years ; giving the recipients of this “blessing” a decided advantage over those not chosen, an advantage which still stood.

 In the many years which had passed following the flight of Karrovo and his men, with no one choosing to remain in either Omag or Nod, the population of Eden grew. some fifteen hundred pure Sons-of-God lived there as did many times that number of what were now called the Sons-of-Man. In addition to these, there were a few, perhaps fifty, men and women who carried within their vessels the pure, undiluted blood of the originals, but they were a dying group in Eden and some forty years after the abandonment of Nod and Omag, absolutely none of the “old ones” remained there. Never publicized, but none the less understood, they had, in fact, been sterilized. “No, ” said Suallah, the aged, unofficial spokesman to the Sons-of-Man, “…you cannot leave Eden with any reasonable hope of survival.” His tired voice occasionally trailing off into a kind of hoarseness, he continued, “The fierceness of the battles fought there against the followers of the accursed Karrovo… may his soul fail to reappear in the stream of life, has left shining death sewn within the very soil. And as you know, to simply step upon it brings baldness to the body followed by stinging sores that will not heal… and finally the most horrid of deaths… the shining death of which you have known but have thus far been spared from seeing.” Then, satisfied with the effect of his words, his face took on its well-rehearsed paternal expression, and he concluded, “No, no my treasured people… for better or for worse, you must never even consider leaving this place… this Eden.”

Now as the white- bearded Suallah surveyed his audience, trying to gauge the impact of his words, a voice from the middle of the assemblage was heard asking, “Will you then tell us, good Suallah… have you won? Have you slain our brother Karrovo? And if so, why can neither you nor we leave this place… this Eden?” Then another voice from closer to the front was heard. “Can it be that the ways of your warfare are so fierce that even the winners are losers ? ” When another shouted question came from the crowd, “And what is so special about this new building you have erected… the one surrounded by a wall of ugly trees? You know of our dislike for the look of this installation… of how it offends our eyes… why do you insist on keeping it when you are well aware that were we to have our way, it would be gone within the hour? Why must it remain? Will you destroy it… or must we who had not anything to do with it do away with this dreadful structure?” Suallah’s pale face shook with rage at this inquisition and he seemed able to respond only after much stammering and shaking. At last, clearing his throat, he was able to muster his voice into what might be considered a shout.” This building simply happens to be the most important part of our cultural life! No one, not one person is to ever approach it without first being granted official permission. What is housed therein is so vital, so delicate, so very holy… that simple thoughts of doing harm to it are thoughts of Hell! As for the trees… they happen to be trees from our ancient homeland, and we have reason to believe that without them Eden… our wondrous Eden… would cease to be a garden. I will tell you now that the fruit of these trees… which only now is beginning to ripen… when fully matured will be offered to you all… and after eating of it, your lives will become long and full as is our lives… and yes, you will also become wise as we are wise. And, hear me well… to touch of that fruit now before it has a chance to mature will bring death… awe-filled death,  not simply to the person involved, but to his wife, to his children, to his parents… and to his brothers.”

Actually, Suallah had been anticipating and dreading that general line of questioning for some time, and now that it had happened, he felt proud of the way he had handled it. Despite that, some time during the night, almost half of the grove was destroyed and evidence abounded indicating that some concerted effort to destroy the building itself had been made. There was a crushed part of the roof plus a large charred place on one wall where four torches had been leaned against it. According to the guards, they had been lured away by several young crossbred women, but according to the Sons-of-Man council, it was the guards who had started the fire. “They have always hated us, ” was one comment. “They did this in an effort to have us punished,” was another. And from every corner of the places in Eden where the the crossbreeds were allowed to live, came cries of, “Please! Oh please do not turn us out to certain death, ” That was precisely what occurred. Before the sun was directly overhead, the parade of the evicted Sons-of-Man began. Eight and sometimes ten abreast, they came, fear on their faces, despair in the hearts. The shining death? There was none. In fact, the fierce, bitter battle against the evil forces of Karrovo which occupied so important a place in the written history had actually never taken place. Still, the casting out went on hour after hour. In all, there were estimations of numbers as high as one hundred forty four thousand. In fact, it was a most inhospitable world into which the Sons-of-Man were exiled. Here were people unlike any others on earth forced out for the first time. It was not to be the last.