Bickering in the Tribes

As we've moved through the villages, down into the valley and further from the entrances to the under-land, I seem to have become more and more of a celebrity.  I don't think these villages receive many visitors outside of their own people, and, as Gallanarre was telling me, there is no road down from the mountains here into the lands of the Hznaman.  He tells me the route would be difficult through the mountains, the best way is back through Gora, through its ornamental entrance overlooking the rolling plains to the west, then south around the mountains to a town called Saltley.

This area is a high plain among the mountains, and despite the mineral mines out here being relatively poor, the lands are fertile.  If the minerals were richer, as they are in the mountains away to the south, then perhaps the Hznaman would have a trade route up here.  Without Hznaman trade, though, the Gnaeblin have thrived.  They're not isolated but they are sheltered.  And they have a great stretch of land that, if Gallanarre were a Gurgam, he would probably covet and want to take.

As we ate our breakfast in the clear light of morning, he pointed out the size of that the lands of the Gnaeblin inhabit.  To my Dzarraf eyes, looking out over the high plain stretching into the valley it seems such a distance and it's hard to focus so far away, but there seem so few settlements, the Gnaeblin have such small numbers.

He tells me that he's journeyed to the north and the east of the mountains here, to the lands where the Hznaman live.  They have the most fertile of the lands, he explained, and they stretch such a distance, right from the feet of the mountains to the east and over all the plains out to the sea, a hundred or a hundred and fifty miles from the mountains.  But their lands are just like these of the Gnaeblin.  They build homes from wood, and sometimes from brick or stone, and they grow crops and keep animals just like this land here before us.  Perhaps I'll get to visit those places some day.

Alongside our formal work, we have been chatting to many of the villagers and peasants to try and understand how they feel.  There is a general consensus that the Gurgam are a bad enemy, and should be dealt with before they kill any more Gnaeblin.  The people are pragmatic and they don't like the conflict, but they see how open this land is, and they've been aware for generations of the threat the Gurgam poses.  If the Gurgam were to live elsewhere, there'd be no desire among these people to hunt them down or to fight them.

I have found a few dissenters, though, and in both extremes.  Those who are keen for the fight seem to be those who have already suffered at the hands of the Gurgam, and some whose losses stretch over many years.  I met some who have lost fathers, cousins, brothers and their own children.  These seem to be the keenest to fight – the first to talk about manning the defences and getting their revenge.  It is hard to keep a lid on this kind of deep rage, all you can do is try to focus it out on the Gurgam who may be here any day now.

At the other extreme, everywhere we've bumped into small pockets of people that are not so opposed to the Gurgam.  Some have said the Gurgam are just the victim of scaremongering and malicious stories, others told me they'd heard rumours that the conflict is down to us Dzarraf building up the threat to more than it really is.  There are some that suggested that the Gurgam really want to fight the Dzarraf, and the Gnaeblin are just in the way (and I think there may be some truth to this one).  I even found a couple of older Gnaeblin here in the village of Marrekt who believe that the Gurgam have been drawn into this fighting by a Gnaeblin-Dzarraf alliance for some obscure political gains, that these raids have been a response to other provocation and that they're not normally interested in fighting over these small lands.  We do what we can to convince them; Gallanarre's story often helps, but there is a hard-core that thinks that fighting isn't the answer.

Whatever the real reason for their objections, the purpose of my visit hasn't changed.  I've helped out where I can, but there is still much more work to be done.  Already these villages are capable of defending themselves much more effectively, and with fewer people doing the defending, but I'm concerned that the fighting will begin before we've visited everyone, and there will be some that will suffer because we've not been able to help.

I'm going to continue gathering information from the folk living here.  If there is some kind of political game being played, I'd like to know about it – Banneghenn never mentioned anything, and he was sincere in his dealings with me (his real problem was earning consensus from his own people) so he's probably unaware of anything going on.  If the protagonists are Dzarraf, then it has particular interest to me, and I'll be taking that matter much further.  I'm not yet sure who I'd be reporting it too though.  Surely Bekzham would have to be involved if the Dzarraf were co-ordinating this whole mess?