Formations

The caravan took the space of about four playing fields when it stopped like this, moving from a straight orderly three family-or-other-social-unit-wide line to a snakelike formation encircling each caravan leader’s makeshift hut like a semi-formed spiderweb. A seemingly person-made plateau had been spotted at the caravan leader’s ten o’clock position and scouts had been sent two days ago to assess this new sign of civilization. The youth named Topek had snuck within earshot of the central tents at the urging of his parents, mostly as a means to wear out the child whose thirteen years had not managed to dampen his curiosity or energy level one bit; the boy seemed to exhaust even the younger children, though, as of late he was also developing a brooding streak, a healthy skepticism, that marked him apart from the younger kids he played with along with his new gangly stature. He was technically a man at this age, according to the customs of this segment of one of ten tribes forming Topek’s society, but in that awkward phase between child and adult that we all must navigate. Topek settled in outside the center tent, crouched in the sand, he listened:

“Could we take ‘em?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Is that really the question we should be asking? You say you encountered nomads leaving the area where we see the structure; what impression did they give?”

“They were exiles of those who call themselves Laanites. I told them they could join us if they could learn to worship as we do—they told me the land they left bow to Sh’kuot—I told them then if they could not give up the worship of the deity of our forerunners’ oppressors they must join us as servants…”

“Yes, yes, I am well-aware of our policy on non-believers who wish to join our ranks. Did you get close enough or did these exiles, who I assume chose to strike out on their own…”

“Actually, they are still deliberating and one day behind me. If we wish to discuss attack strategy…”

“Do we know how many of these so-named Laanites there are? Is this structure an outpost or have we struck upon a city?”

“Never mind all that, it is already clear we have struck upon a potential foe,” the caravan leader finally spoke; the one voice familiar to Topek.

It had been two generations since, as the legends told to a now skeptical Topek and his friends went, the caravan leader and his parents and elders were exiled themselves from the land of their forerunners and forced to cautiously roam the uncharted and vastly unsettled territories. By now they had more than the hastily organized network of spies and saboteurs that had forced the hand of their former rulers and put such strain on an overburdened empire that they were allowed to be expelled; they had a nascent army but were reluctant still to deploy.  It was tradition to sound trumpets when it was time to re-assess their course to signal to every subunit of all ten tribes to circle the wagons, as well as to send out four scouts each, one in each direction, which for most caravans meant at least one scout would be meeting another scout to exchange information on each caravan and news on the society as a whole.  The leader of each of the ten tribes headed up a unit or caravan, each tribe broken into three caravans, the two others of which were lead by elected officials, and when the message was received to set up camp, a view from the sky showed a nine-sided shape formed and filled in by twenty-seven wheel-like formations covering roughly five square miles; not an empire to be sure, but a large enough group to be a community that needed to check in with itself as it began representing ever-more disparate ideas on its direction in physical and ideological space.