Yarra’s Adventure Notes
Chapter 426 - 52 Horse Herding Festival_1

Chapter 426: Chapter 52 Horse Herding Festival_1

"Beautiful girl, you are the brightest star in the night sky, lighting my way home as I tend the herds. I wish to spend my whole life by your side, galloping across the vast prairie on a steed..." Over the expansive Beastmen Prairie, a rich and resonant song rose from the horizon, reverberating across the endless earth and sky.

In the middle and later part of April, the prairie grass enters its growth period, indicating the arrival of the herding season. Every year from mid to late April, the Beastmen, having patiently endured the winter, eagerly herd their livestock onto the prairie where the grass reaches chest height, leaving the animals to roam freely in this food-filled ocean. At this time, the once empty prairie becomes dotted with large herds of cattle, sheep, horses, and deer. Excited shepherd dogs and domesticated magical beasts chase herds, consuming the energy accumulated over the winter as they run.

The songs of the Beastmen, the calls of the livestock, the cries of wild birds, the ceaseless whispers of the wind, all sorts of sounds resonate over the prairie, composing an anthem of life. This is the beautiful Beastmen Prairie. This is the beautiful spring on the prairie.

Another morning on the prairie.

A spring rain that quietly arrived during the night envelops the prairie in dampness. Brilliant, translucent raindrops dangle from the drooped tips of the grass blades, refusing to fall. The slightly moist soil emits an earthy fragrance. The sky after rain is as clear as a piece of transparent blue crystal.

As the night recedes, the wilds slowly awaken under the nascent morning sun. With the rainfall, robust vitality returns to the prairie.

In the dense, dark grass, two prairie voles stick their heads out of their burrow, their beady eyes scanning in every direction. After cautiously observing for some time, the two creatures slowly creep out, making their way through the grass unnoticed. Their greyish-green fur provides excellent camouflage, preventing them from being easily spotted by enemies during their cautious manoeuvres.

"Hiss hiss hiss." After crawling more than thirty meters, the voles finally stop and coil themselves up, camouflaging as ordinary clumps of moss-covered earth. They constantly pivot their tiny heads to record as many potential threats as possible in their environment. After keeping still for quite a while, the voles relax, stretch their short limbs, extend their sharp little claws, and start digging randomly-selected grass roots. After digging roughly ten centimeters, the two voles shudder with excitement and huddle together, their tails gently rubbing each other’s spine in an expression of joy. After a few moments, they continue to dig, soon excavating over thirty insect eggs, plump and thumb-sized. The sight of it sent the voles’ tails frantically wagging. "Aiwoo," one of them squeals, and the voles each grab an egg to feast upon.

"Whoosh," two grey figures dart out from the grass like lightning. A large and a smaller prairie fox have been following the voles from a distance ever since they left their burrows. They patiently waited for the moment when the voles would drop their guard. And finally, the opportunity arrived. The voles had relaxed their vigilance in front of food. The foxes seized this opportunity and struck like lightning, biting the voles forcefully to break their necks.

"Tap tap tap tap." The noise of galloping hooves approached quickly. The foxes, who had just caught their prey, got frightened by the sudden noise and ran into the depths of the grass with their kill. However, no dangers arrived. Nobody paid any attention to the movements of the foxes. Two horses galloped side by side, and an ancient and distant horn call sounded from the riders’ mouths, straight up to the sky.

"Woah~~~~" an answering horn call came from the depths of the prairie. Before long, other horns picked up the rally in the distant corners, their sounds representing the start of the Horse Herding Festival and spreading farther and farther until they could be heard in all directions.

"Thump thump thump thump." As soon as the horn call died out, a rolling drum beat started up, growing more and more intense. From a distance, it sounded like ceaseless thunder. At the moment when the "thunder" ceased, countless voices simultaneously issued a "(wo-)heh" battle cry. Without any tedious ceremony or opening speeches, the annual Horse Herding Festival began amidst these vocal exclamations.

The Horse Herding Festival in spring and Ancestor Worship Festival in deep autumn are known as the two main festivals on the prairie. The Ancestor Worship Festival takes place in deep autumn. The Beastmen, arranged by tribes, perform a grand sacrificial ceremony for their ancestors, sharing their yearly harvest to thank their ancestors for their blessings, which allowed the tribe to survive the dangerous year on the prairie. Yet, the Horse Herding Festival in spring tends to be grander since it’s a way to communicate with the Deity.

During the distant Third Epoch, when the prairie was still in a dark and brutal age, the Beastmen would form bands from their tribes at each Horse Herding Festival. They would arm their slaves and warriors and send a team from each tribe to fight to the death within a designated range, offering the most thrilling battle to the war deity. They did so to please the deity and to pray for the deity’s blessings so that everything could proceed smoothly in the coming year, be it war or production. There were many tribes, thus, many teams. Every year, nearly four to five thousand people would participate in these battles. Thousands of people would fight in a small arena until the last team remained. This team was the final victor who would receive the best rewards. Even the slaves in the team could thereby gain freedom and become regular members of the tribe.

As time gradually passed, these barbaric and bloody battles slowly retreated from the stage of history. Even so, the festival still had to continue, so the beastmen transitioned from bloody fighting to more civilized activities like horse racing, archery on horseback, hunting, and various competitive games. These sports replaced the real bloodshed and were held during the three-day Horse Herding Festival. Although the beastmen initially worried that the deities would punish them for changing the tradition, the God of War soon sent down an oracle approving of this new form of celebration, which relieved the anxious beastmen.

This year, as in previous years, the Moqiya Tribe was holding a grand Horse Herding Festival. Not only were the beastmen from the tribe participating, but numerous visitors from all over the world were also travelling here to enjoy the festival’s exotic charm.

The Moqiya Tribe is a member of the tribal alliance on the prairie, with thousands of square kilometers of tribal grassland and a vast expanse of common pasture. The tribe is relatively powerful among the alliance, with tens of thousands of members, its own priests and temples, countless livestock, and is one of the strongest tribes in the south of the prairie. It is also one of the main organizers and venue providers for the annual Horse Herding Festival hosted by the surrounding tribes.

When the drumming loud as thunder made the earth tremble, a team of less than ten people quietly entered the bustling tribal territory. Before entering the tribe, Catherine halted her horse, and looking around, she gasped in awe.

The tribe was vast, especially compared to the smaller tribes they had seen outside the range of the tribal alliance, this place was astonishingly large. Here, the beastmen lived in tents as family units. However, since there were too many families, it was impossible to arrange all the tents in a circle as small tribes did. Therefore, thousands of tents were scattered across a grazing field of more than a hundred square kilometers, used as a residential area. The arrangement seemed chaotic but actually contained some strange and unique order. Beyond the residential area, there should have been the tribe’s own endless pasture where large herds of cattle and sheep could be seen grazing, but these were missing during these days. Instead, numerous competitive venues had been set up across the vast pasture in preparation for the Horse Herding Festival.

The cessation of the drumming signaled the start of the Horse Herding Festival. The whole tribe was gradually getting excited, with both the locals and visiting tourists mingling together. People of all sorts began to move around the venue, gradually enriching the festive atmosphere.

"It really is different from human celebrations." Catherine murmured softly, "Human festivals often pursue a concentration, focused in one city, in one area. The denser the crowd, the better, the more people, the livelier. But it’s entirely the opposite here, the people separate, dispersing into different places. Even though it doesn’t seem as lively, in reality, it’s not less attractive than human world festivals."

"There’s no difference, they’re all like a pack of starving stupid dogs smelling food. Wherever there’s food, they move to it." Lina commented coldly. When they returned to the client’s camp, Lina had turned into a different person within a single night, but no one expected that after a half-month journey, Lina accidentally revisited an unknown book and turned back into this detestable version of herself, to everyone’s dismay. Although her evaluations were often accurate, blunt comments like these were not always pleasant to hear, as was the case at present: "The so-called difference is simply whether they see one pot of leftover food or ten."

"Ahem, Lina," Catherine finally couldn’t stand it anymore and said, somewhat in headache: "Can we make a deal? Can you try to finish this book tonight and start a new one? Is that okay?"

"Alright." Lina thought for a while with a straight face and reluctantly agreed to Catherine’s suggestion: "If this is what you want, big sister, then I’ll do as you say. I’m almost done with this book anyway."

"Phew." Catherine sighed in relief, and turning her head, she saw everyone by her side giving her thumbs up in praise.

"Wow, brother and sister, have we arrived yet?" Behind Catherine and Pannis, stood two children each wearing a toy puppet costume. Although they looked a bit odd in these costumes, the crowd participating in the festival had people dressed in all sorts of peculiar outfits. A puppet costume was nothing unusual and wouldn’t attract too much attention.

It was clear that Catherine had kept her promise, allowing the two children who had been lonely for many years to finally walk openly among the crowd and play with everyone. (To be continued. If you like this work, welcome to qidian.com to cast your recommendation votes, monthly tickets. Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users can read at m.qidian.com.)