Nãgungire was a small village in the south of Zaambate Té Aháà, fewer than 40 permanent residents living there, and typically it was very quiet. It was nestled in the middle of an expanse of jungle, almost like a cul de sac with only one road going out. At the village gate was a checkpoint, with two armed guards sitting in the back of a pickup truck, and further down that road was the Temple of Vodan, and another military checkpoint with considerably more soldiers, that could not be passed easily. Further up the road from that is a small river that loops around a hill that the locals call Forget-Me-Not for the abundance of the flower there, but our current story does not venture that far. It began long ago, in a way, when revolution broke out in the 90's, and it represents the final embers of that bitter conflict where brother slew others, our present tale.
Officially, the war ended back in February, when the rebels finally captured the royal palace, and thus the capital, Sânkot'. The last of Nkolé, who is dead and of little consequence, was the last in the line that mattered among the Höhenzollern-Xuigebo Dynasty, which had been in place since the 1940's and now the House Takani presented patriarch Drazhaan Kelbon as their successor. He had led in the rebel faction, and had resided in Sânkot' since its capture and from there oversaw the final defeat of the old regime in all of its bastions, save their one at the Temple of Vodan. The Aháàng people are exceedingly religious and superstitious, and the priests at that temple were also loyalists, along with the 53 soldiers of the old regime that had taken up residence there, and the presence of the priests and their shouting of curses kept the new regimes soldiers firmly at bay.
Though the soldiers in the temple were foiled many times, they were thoroughly dug in, and as all assembled, old and new regime, were members of the Temple of Greater Unity, they all knew that no bullets could fly within the temple and that therefor the siege would last until the last of their food ran out. And yet, Drazhaan had vowed to forgo his coronation until the siege had ended, vowing it would be before winter came in. And so shadows met in the deep hallways of Sânkot', and they decided that something needed to be done sooner than that, but that what needed to be done would be controversial. They had heard word of Kestrel, the premier military service in Asucki that had come to renown in many lands, and they knew that though foreign bullets in a Unity Temple would be decried at length by the public, that they needed their problem to be solved in a manner that Kestrel could best provide, and that the scapegoat in their deal was Dede Anur.
Dede Anur had booked his AirBnB well in advance to the Kestrel operatives' arrival in Nãgungire in a quaint cottage that was on the outskirts of the village, and he expected it to be exceptionally peaceful. He felt he needed such retreat, having the weight of a coming skirmish upon his shoulders, but Dede came to misfortune on the day he arrived to find that the local farmers guild associates had taken the liberty of clearing a 'landing pad' next to the 'abandoned shack', and that they worked to maintain it for Kestrel's arrival daily, from early dawn until late evening. The coming and going of soldiers in and out of the village was an hourly occurrence though Dede didnt understan at all why, and the villagers were a lively and kind, but noisy folk, and jogged a foot trail that passed Dede's window early in the morning.
Dede yawned into his coffee from the village kettle that they had assembled earlier that day as he watched the sun come up. He palmed the briefcase at his side; the moment of Kestrel's arrival was close at hand, and so the anxiety in Dede's throat grew for himself, for the soldiers, and for his family back home who would come to be hurt by Dede's dealings with foreign sellswords. And yet the weather was growing more brisk as the cooling rains of fall threatened the sky, and the intervention was overdue. He heard a truck pulling in through the village gate, and knew it was the transport for the operatives who soon would arrive. Travel was always a pain in Aháà, due to its uniquely frustrating geography, and so a landing pad had to be cleared and regularly kept up, as said, for the sake of convenience for the foreigners. And yet in a week or so, the jungle would claim all that land again, and it would be as though Kestrel had never once been there.
But yet, here they came. Dede's chest and mind raced one another as he heard the whirring of helicopter blades coming near. He held the money agreed upon as a down payment firmly in his hands, and he muttered a soft prayer. He rehearsed what he would say to them when they arrived, he prayed once more, and then he resigned himself to waiting.
