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Catch up on RAW!

RAW
Table of Contents
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
EPILOGUE
OTHER TITLES
ABOUT ME
 CHAPTER I
“There will be many, many corpses,” Jak said as he ducked
under a branch, then stepped over a large rock. “And we must deal
with them today.”
“I’m not looking forward to it,” Rylee replied.
“I suppose it is worth it, if it means we have a new home, and
safety,” Niri murmured.
“Safety for now,” Jak said. “You have to remember that we will
never truly be safe. Especially not while we have so small a tribe.”
“Do you really think we can find others to join us? We are a
strange group: an elf, a magic user, and a man from a mysterious,
distant land,” Niri said.
“I think I can convince people to join us,” Jak replied. “They
already have a name for me.”
“Who?” Rylee asked.
“The Tolvar. They called me the Amber Warrior.”
“Hmm. I suppose the color of your skin is a little like amber,”
Rylee said. “And you are definitely quite the warrior.”
They fell silent as they approached the clearing in front of the
cave. Already, Jak could detect the various scents of the recent
slaughter. Blood, guts, excrement. Fear. He could smell it lingering
on the air, even now. As he caught this awful concoction of odors,
Jak felt his body responding instinctively. His senses opening up,
preparing to warn him of danger. Usually, if there were dead things
around, the thing that killed it might also still be around. Even
though in this case he was the thing that had killed, or helped kill,
everyone here.
But other things could have shown up since he’d gone to get
the women.
Slowly, they emerged into the clearing in front of the cave that
was to be their new home. For a moment, they simply stood there
together, surveying the carnage.
 “This is truly impressive,” Rylee murmured finally. “I don’t know
if I’ve ever heard of something like this. A single man wiping out an
entire warparty.”
“It wasn’t a single man,” Jak replied. “It was mostly spiders.”
“But you thought to lead them here. To pit them against each
other. And it worked,” Rylee pressed. “This is entirely your doing.”
“You two helped.”
“It was mostly you,” Niri said.
“Well, it’s done,” Jak replied, unsure of how to feel about this.
He did feel proud about the bloody battlefield, but it also made him
uncomfortable for a reason he could not articulate. “For now, we
should explore the caves, and be wary. Other predators or
scavengers may come up, and I imagine there must be more Tolvar
out in the forest, those who weren’t here when the battle
happened.”
“Oh...yes. That is true,” Niri murmured, looking around
uncomfortably.
“Come on. The sooner we begin this work, the sooner we can
claim these caves as our new home, the site of our new tribe,” Jak
said, and began making his way across the field of death. Though
the large bonfire had mostly gone out by now, a few fires still
burned from where something large had crashed into it and
scattered burning wood everywhere. Jak was grateful it hadn’t
spread to the forest. He studied the area with a focused eye.
The clearing sat in front of a large rock wall that curved up into
a broad overhang which shaded almost half of the space. In the rock
wall were three cave entrances. The one in the middle was the
largest, while the one to the left was the smallest, closer in size to
the cave Jak, Niri, and Rylee presently called home.
Perhaps the greatest feature was the waterfall. It was small,
about the same size as the one they had been making morning
pilgrimages to, off to the east side of the cave complex, just out of
sight enough to provide a little bit of privacy, creating a creek that
was just big enough to possibly sustain some fish and other
creatures.
 He tightened his grip on his club as he spied a few blood trails
leading into the caves. It was entirely possible that some of the
Tolvar had survived the battle and, while he had been gone, come
back and hid in the caves to heal. Or that wolves or other predators
had come and dragged some corpses into the caves for a quick
meal.
Either scenario meant combat.
“Stay behind me,” Jak said as he crouched and picked up one of
the more intact burning sticks. He passed it to Rylee. “Use this to
light the way.”
“I will,” she replied, accepting it.
“Niri, make sure no one sneaks up behind us,” Jak said.
“All right.”
Jak chose the cave to the right to enter first. He still had a
memory of it stored in his mind from his previous run-through before
going to get the women. This time, though, he would move more
slowly. He walked into the tunnel, studying everything he could see
in the daylight and the flickering torchlight. The floor and the
earthen walls to either side of him showed signs of life. There were
many footprints in the dirt, marks along the walls from hands and
weapons, made in passing. It seemed a few Tolvar shared Niri’s
proclivity for painting on the cave walls, though their paintings
seemed much more crude by comparison.
Broken pottery, bones, bits of flint and slate, vegetation, chunks
of meat, burned wood, and discarded tools and weapons lay
scattered randomly across the floor of the cave. There was a break
in the right wall that led into a small cavern. One of the blood trails
led there. Jak gripped his club more tightly, preparing for combat yet
again.
He got up to the turn in the tunnel and peered slowly around it,
revealing as little of himself as possible. The light was about as
good, as a few small holes in the ceiling of the cavern ahead let
some sun filter in. There was an unmoving shape near the center of
the cavern. Jak waited several moments, then began making his way
into the space. He quickly checked to his right and left, but no
lingering Tolvar waited for him, no animals hid in the shadows to
ambush him. The place was obviously lived in, not long ago likely a
communal sleeping place. Several simple furs and bunches of some
of the softer plants lay in heaps along the edge of the space.
Jak could see that the lump in the center of the cavern was
indeed a body, and not breathing. He prodded it with his club when
he got close enough. It didn’t react. He pushed it over onto its back
and found a Tolvar warrior, quite dead. The reason was obvious
enough: two deep bite marks on his shoulder and a gash across his
stomach. He’d been hit during combat and a giant spider had bit
him. He’d rushed in here in a panic and died. Maybe he’d had some
antivenom stashed somewhere. If that was the case, he clearly
hadn’t reached it in time.
Once he determined the sleeping area hid no threats, Jak
returned to the main tunnel and followed it to its end. It ended in a
split, one tunnel going right and leading to another cavern, this one
a bit bigger. One went left and connected to the central tunnel. Jak
went right and checked out the second cavern. It was much like the
first, though it had the beginnings of somewhat more permanent
residence. He saw larger clay pots and several baskets, as well as
some basic furniture. There were a few shelves, sticks fitted and
bound together with leather strips or vines, as well as a lot more
beds. All of it was very crude, though.
Jak wasn’t sure how much of it they could use, but that was to
be determined later.
There was so much to do.
He finished his inspection of this cavern and then moved into
the central tunnel. It was fairly broad, almost a cavern unto itself,
and it was obvious that several of the men had been living here.
There were a few fireplaces surrounded by picked-clean bones, and
ashes. A dead giant spider and a pair of Tolvar corpses lay near the
other end of the tunnel, at the main entrance. He kept moving,
checking out a little niche at the back of the primary tunnel, seeing
that it seemed to have been serving as a place to store extra
weapons and materials.
They walked together along the length of the central tunnel
until they were back outside again, coming back out into the
daylight, and then moved to the final passageway. It seemed mostly
clear. They moved down it silently, following it to its end, where it
turned sharply to the left. Something about it reminded Jak of the
cave they had been living in. It opened into a third cavern, this one
not too big, not too small. It had a single opening at the top and a
shaft of sunlight spilled in like a waterfall of light, catching motes of
dust in the air. The place seemed oddly untouched, just a bed and
some weapons and the remnants of a fire and some meals scattered
about. Maybe the Tolvar commander had been using it for himself.
“This will be our home,” Jak said as he looked around.
“You, me, and Rylee?” Niri asked hopefully.
“Yes. You, me, and Rylee. We will make our home in this cave.”
They stood there, looking around the cave. It was a little
smaller than the one they had previously been living in, but that
wouldn’t matter. Before, they had used that cave for everything, but
here, they could store extra food, weapons, firewood, building
materials, skins, and whatever else they might need in other parts of
the cave network. This would be their personal space, their home.
There was space for a large bed to accommodate all three of them,
for Niri to paint on the walls, a hole in the ceiling to let out smoke
from a fire, space for shelves and whatever else they might think to
construct as they were making the place their own.
“I like it,” Rylee said finally.
“I do too!” Niri declared. She seemed to beam with happy
energy as she walked around the cave. “It is wonderful! I love it
already!” She ran over to Jak suddenly and leaped at him, wrapping
her arms around him.
He laughed and caught and supported her easily. They shared a
kiss.
“Thank you,” she murmured, resting her head on his shoulder. “I
love you so much. You’ve done so many nice things for me.”
“I love you too, Niri,” Jak replied, giving her a gentle squeeze.
“You’ve done many nice things for me as well.” Supporting her with
one hand, he turned and extended his arm to Rylee, who stepped up
and hugged the two of them.
“I’m glad we are together,” she said.
 “So am I,” Niri agreed, kissing Rylee on the mouth. “We should
celebrate tonight!”
“If we have the energy,” Jak replied, letting her down. “We have
a lot of work ahead of us.”
Niri lost some of her good cheer. She sighed softly. “Yes, that is
true. And I…” she looked down at herself, “do not quite have the
body for hard work.”
“Well...it depends on the work,” Jak replied, reaching up and
briefly cupping one of her breasts.
She giggled and blushed. “I suppose that is true.”
“Come on, let us get to work.”
With that, he turned and walked back out of the cave, already
imagining what the place was going to look like once he had set his
hand to it.

The day was indeed very long.

Jak could tell that the corpses bothered both women, Niri
especially, so he took to the duty of handling those. Rylee and Niri
seemed happy enough to spend their time gathering up every
weapon, every piece of clothing, every tool, every waterskin, every
bit of food that was still eatable, everything that the Tolvar had
gathered that might be useful. Already, he was thinking ahead. As
Jak stripped each corpse and then hauled it off into another clearing
a little ways away that he’d scouted out, he was already considering
what might need to happen if they actually pulled off making a tribe.
It still seemed somewhat unlikely.
Almost everyone he’d met so far had been extremely hostile.
Save for Niri, Rylee, and Nessa, and he supposed technically that
crow, which seemed to have flown off for the moment, everyone
had tried to kill him. Or almost certainly would have tried to kill him,
had he not avoided revealing his presence to them for one reason or
another. Rylee had said there were others like her out there, and
Nessa had hinted at something similar, but after the slaughter he
had just instigated, Jak was having a hard time believing it.
 The sun moved across the sky and hours disappeared as he
stripped and hauled body after body through the woods.
He took a break once to eat, consuming a pouch of berries and
nuts that Niri and Rylee had found among the storage area, then
drained a waterskin and got back to work. He got the human bodies
out of the way first, given he wasn’t looking forward to dealing with
the giant spider bodies. They were heavier and more dangerous to
work with. He still had the antivenom in him, but he imagined it
would be a real pain if he accidentally got himself caught on a fang.
He kept at it, though, dragging them by their heavy limbs through
the woods.
By the time Jak had finished getting all the bodies to the
clearing, he was beginning to tire and the sun was starting to set.
Still, no Tolvar had showed up at the cave at least.
The clearing in front of the cave was bloody but otherwise had
been cleaned up. He tracked down Niri and Rylee in the rearmost
cavern along right side of the caves and found that they had
gathered and placed all of the spare supplies and weapons and food
from outside in there. There was a lot to sort through.
“We grabbed everything we could find,” Niri said.
“You both did great,” Jak replied.
“A lot of it seemed of low quality,” Rylee said. She was
inspecting a spear at the moment. “My people unfortunately rely on
quantity over quality. And it seemed especially true for this group.
Most of these weapons might do in the immediate sense, but they’ll
wear out quickly. Honestly most of them will be more useful for
burning.”
“Then we shall burn them, and salvage what we can,” Jak
replied. “For now, let us return to our cave. Tomorrow we can finish
preparing this place for ourselves and move our supplies here. And
claim it properly.”
Niri yawned. “I would much like to see our bed.”
“Me too. I don’t know how you managed to move all those
bodies by yourself,” Rylee agreed, seeming to hold back a yawn.
“I suppose I just have a lot of strength,” Jak replied.
 “Mmm...yes you do,” Niri murmured, running one hand up and
down his arm, then slipping it down lower, resting it over his crotch.
“Much strength…”
“Let’s get back to the cave,” Jak said, slipping a hand briefly
under her wrap and groping her bare breast, making her let out a
little noise of happy surprise.
They headed back out into the clearing. Jak was reluctant to
leave the new caves after spending all day cleaning it out, but he
knew the time was not yet right.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow they would really make it theirs.
 CHAPTER II
The walk through the forest was strangely calm.
Jak wasn’t sure if it was merely his perception or if his actions of
eliminating what he saw as the biggest, most immediate and
obvious threats in the area had in fact made Avat’s Forest a quieter,
if not safer, place. But the night seemed more peaceful as the land
cooled in the absence of the sun. They walked through the trees and
among the vegetation, the three of them, sticking closer together,
listening to the sounds of the night.
The insects, the animals that were going to sleep, or coming
awake.
He did hear people out there, occasionally, in the distance, and
had no way of knowing if they were friend or foe.
“Do you truly think we can convince your peoples to join us? To
join our tribe?” Jak asked.
“I think it will be difficult,” Rylee said. “With some of them, at
least. Some will be desperate. But as fearful as my people are of
outsiders, you’re similar enough that I think you can win them over
with a show of strength. Often that’s enough. He who is strongest
leads.”
“Should be easy enough,” Jak murmured. “Niri?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted uneasily. “I want to say yes, it will
be easy, or at least simple. But my people are also mistrusting of
outsiders, and are not so easily swayed. Elves tend to value words
over muscles.”
“I’m not really the best with words,” Jak said.
“I think you’re pretty good. You’re very direct. I think my people
might appreciate that. But again, I was rather sheltered so it is hard
for me to say...I’m sorry.”
“It isn’t your fault,” Jak replied. “We will take them as we find
them.”
“It feels so strange, to build a tribe this way,” Niri murmured.
 “If anyone can do it, Jak can,” Rylee said.
Niri grinned. “Yes, that is true.”
Jak remained silent. He hoped their faith in him wasn’t
misplaced.
They made it back to their cave without running into anything
dangerous, and Jak got their fire going again while the girls stripped
off their wraps and prepared for bed. He looked around the small
cave as he got the fire going. Despite his good feelings about the
new cave, he was going to miss this place. Somehow, although not
that much time had passed, it felt like he had spent a great deal of
time here. He had memories here, almost all of them good.
But he could always come back, if he really wanted to.
And there were many new memories to make. With Niri, with
Rylee.
Maybe with Nessa.
He wondered how she was doing right now.
Jak finished with the fire and stood, then walked to the cave’s
threshold. He looked out over the forest. There were still several
glowing spots in the forest, but the big one was missing now. Where
was Nessa? What was she doing?
Was she safe? Was she happy?
“Is everything okay?” Rylee asked.
“Yes, we’re safe,” Jak replied.
“Come to us,” Niri murmured.
Jak turned and looked back at them. They were both naked,
laying together on the bedding, smiling at him.
He began walking back towards them, getting out of his
waistwrap.

That night, he dreamed of the mysterious blue figure again.

Jak stood on the rocky shoreline upon which he had awoken
what felt like a long time ago and watched the waves silently wash
upon the island’s edge. The moon hung overhead, shining a silvery,
ghostly light across the water.
 He sensed someone near and turned.
The blue figure stood beside him.
She was very tall, almost as tall as Nessa, but much more thinly
built. Her eyes were silver and seemed to glow from within. Her hair
hung down around her face, light blue in color, lighter than her deep
blue skin.
Her face was impossibly beautiful.
“Who are you?” he asked.
She looked at him and said nothing, as though studying him.
“Are you a Spirit of the Forest?”
The mysterious blue figure smiled.
For a long moment, they stared at each other. And then
something seemed to draw her attention. She looked over her
shoulder briefly, then returned her gaze to Jak. She looked sad now.
Without a word, she turned and began walking away.
Somehow, she vanished from sight.
Jak took a step after her, but felt a heavy hand fall on his
shoulder.
He gasped and spun around while leaping back, preparing to
defend himself from this sudden new person, and saw…
Someone who looked like himself. Similar build, similar skin
tone, a rough face with some of the same shape and structure as
the one he saw looking back at himself in the reflection of a pool of
water. The man looked angry and cruel. Fresh blood was splashed
across his large, bare chest. He grinned suddenly, a savage smile.
He thought the man would attack, but the dagger he thrust at
Jak was handle-first.
Cautiously, Jak reached out and took it.
The man from his tribe stepped aside and revealed a trio of
people, Tolvar but, he knew, not the Tolvar. Some other tribe, from
some other land, and some other time. They were on their knees,
heads bowed, defeated.
The man gestured sharply at them.
Jak looked at the people, looked at the knife, then looked at the
man. He shook his head. The man gestured once more, and once
more Jak shook his head, more firmly.
 The man’s smile faded. He grit his teeth, his features darkening,
and he drew a bone club, then began advancing on the three
defeated people.
He raised the club over his head.
“No!” Jak screamed and leaped at the man from his tribe.

Jak came awake all at once, his heart hammering in his chest,
soaked in sweat.
He sat straight up and looked around the cave, his hands itching
for a weapon of some kind, any kind. But the sensation of fear and
anxiety and a desperate need to defend himself began to fade as he
realized he was alone.
“Jak? What’s wrong?” Rylee asked, rolling over towards him.
“I...nothing,” he said. “I thought I heard something.”
She sat up and stared at him intensely. “You are lying,” she said
finally.
He stared back, then sighed, looked away. “I had a nightmare.”
“Why would you lie about that?” she asked after a moment.
“I don’t know. It feels...they should not affect me so,” he replied
quietly. “I don’t want you or Niri to start worrying that I cannot
protect you because I fear my dreams.”
Rylee got closer to him, wrapped her arms around him
suddenly. “We won’t,” she murmured. “You have proven your
strength ten times over. Fear will not make you weak. Niri and I have
already seen what you will do for us. I know your strength, Jak. Do
not worry about that.”
“...thank you,” he said after a moment. “It means much to me.”
“You mean much to me,” she replied. He hugged her back, then
released her. She frowned, looking around the cave. The gray light
of early dawn had begun to fill it. She yawned. “I suppose we should
get up now…”
“Yes, there is much to do today,” Jak agreed.
She sighed. “That there is. I suppose many of our days ahead
will be busy.”
 “Yes,” Jak said.
“Why do you sound so pleased about that?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I suppose I like work.” He got to his feet. “Let’s
get to it.”
“Yes,” Rylee grumbled, “let’s.”
“What’s happening?” Niri murmured.
“Time to greet the sun once more,” Jak said.
“It is too early,” she complained.
“Jak likes work,” Rylee replied dryly.
“I don’t,” Niri groaned.
“Don’t you want to be in our new home? You can start a new,
bigger painting,” Jak said.
She was silent for a few seconds. “I suppose that’s true.”
“Then let’s go.”

Despite his words and Rylee’s comfort, Jak brooded much of the
morning as they first ate breakfast and relieved themselves outside
the cave, then began sorting through the food, materials, and
supplies they had gathered during their stay at the small cave by the
coast. He couldn’t stop thinking of the nightmare.
Both aspects of it.
Had he been remembering the strange blue figure that had
visited him while he was lying unconscious on the shore, or had he
somehow been in contact with it? Could a Spirit do that? Enter a
dream? Well, why not?
He wasn’t even sure if he believed in the Spirits, but he had no
real compelling evidence to the contrary.
But it was the second half of his dream that bothered him so.
He knew that man who had handed him the dagger, but he didn’t
know how or why. He imagined they must have been battle brothers
at some point, perhaps even for whole summers and winters. He at
least knew what it was, whether it was an actual memory or just a
representation…
It was his past.
 The life he lived before arriving at this island.
The one he was becoming increasingly sure he wanted to
forget. It felt like it was creeping back in though, slowly, like moss
growing over rocks over many moons. He still didn’t have the whole
picture, why he was doing what he had been doing, why there was
so much death and murder and blood, but he knew he hated it.
When he remembered it, the thoughts turned his stomach and
soured his mood.
But why was it any different than what he was doing here?
It was different, he knew that. Killing in and of itself did not
bother him. It was a brutal, savage world, and if you were not
willing to kill, then you would be killed. And he did not wish to be
killed. Nor did he wish for Niri or Rylee to be killed or injured. And
the Tolvar he had encountered were violent and ruthless.
None had done anything but attacked him on sight.
What other response could he be expected to have?
He ruminated over this as they gathered their belongings up.
After an hour, they had a collection of several pouches and pots, and
a pile of items that could not fit in either or there was not room left
for. They gathered up what they could. Jak figured that they’d have
to make three trips to get everything moved in to the new cave, but
it would be worth it. Once they had everything, he led them down
the path, across the trench, and back into Avat’s Forest.
The sun began its slow rise into a clear blue sky as they walked
among the trees, keeping a cautious eye out for anything that might
want to do them harm. He noticed that despite their grumpiness
about awakening early and the work that lay ahead of them, both
women seemed to be in a good mood by now. They were smiling
and cheery as they walked through the woods, carrying their loads,
headed for their new home.
As they neared his cave, he found that even he was beginning
to cheer up, his misery fading at the prospect of a new cave, a place
to make their own, a real home.
That good mood evaporated as Jak was suddenly aware of
something alive up ahead, in the clearing in front of their caves.
Something human, his senses told him.
 “Wait here,” he whispered, carefully setting down what he had
been carrying and grasping his weapons. He drew his club in his left
hand, his unique spear in his right, then began to creep forward,
moving slowly through the underbrush.
He caught snippets of conversation as he drew closer.
“...happened to them all?”
“Maybe they returned?”
“Without us?”
“All of them!? Look at all this blood! Something happened! How
will we track and kill the magic users now!?”
“It was him.”
“No. It can’t be. Not one man.”
“Maybe he isn’t a man…”
What a perfect time to make his presence known, Jak thought.
He had reached the edge of the clearing. There were four of them,
all Tolvar, all armed.
He targeted the biggest one, then stood up, stepped forward,
and hurled the spear in one smooth motion. They reacted only as
the spear buried itself in the large man’s neck. He let out a gurgling
scream as he staggered backwards.
“It’s him!” one of them screamed.
Jak was already running forward, transferring his club from one
hand to the other. He surged towards them, feet pounding the earth,
and brought his club down in a hard tight arc. It landed with an ugly
and strangely satisfying crack that dropped the second Tolvar like a
rock. Jak managed to dodge a swing from another man’s club while
bringing his own around in another arc that smashed into the side of
his assailant’s skull and sent a spray of blood flying into the air. The
fourth and final man launched himself at Jak.
They went down as the man went for his throat, screaming
wildly. Jak got ahold of his wrists and pulled him sharply downward,
towards himself, while bringing his head up. He headbutted the man
and broke his nose, then threw him off of himself. Reaching down,
Jak loosed his blade from his belt and brought it down into the final
Tolvar’s eye, ending his screaming, and his life, in an instant. Jak sat
up, breathing heavily, feeling blood coursing down his chest and one
arm. Only one of the men was still alive, and he was only breathing
and shifting a little, muttering incoherently to himself. Jak ended his
suffering by stabbing him in the throat.
Rising to his feet, he looked around, wondering if there had
been anymore.
He saw no others, nor any fresh footprints leading to the cave.
He thought this was it, but wanted to be sure. Gesturing to Rylee
and Niri, he joined them at the edge of the clearing. “Wait here, and
keep an eye out, I want to make sure none are in the caves,” he
said.
“We will stand watch,” Rylee said.
Jak nodded and got to it.
He yanked his spear free from the dead man’s neck in passing,
then gripped it with both hands as he walked into the first cave.
 CHAPTER III
There was no one in the cave, and no other Tolvar in the forest
around their new home.
Jak surmised that these men must have been away from the
cave at the time of attack. He knew there may be more like this,
those further out who still were under the assumption that all was
well and would return at some point, or other Tolvar from another
part of the island who would come to investigate.
Some part of him hoped that they would not, that he could be
left out of this conflict.
Was that possible?
He didn’t know, so he tried not to think of it for the time being.
After securing the cave, they unloaded their things in their own
personal cave, and then made the trip back to their first home. It
actually took four trips, as they were attacked by a wolf on the way
back, which not only added to the things they needed to bring
home, but also made Jak warier, and thus he opted to carry less, so
they could be more ready to respond to a threat. Time passed as
they made their trips.
When they came back for the last time, they lingered.
“Will you miss it?” Jak asked, when he noticed Niri staring at her
painting. They had found some of the flowers she wanted, and she
had just begun to start making them into a paste she could use to
give the charcoal painting color.
“I will, but not too much. I liked it here very much, but I am
more looking forward to our new cave, our new home. I can make a
better painting there, and we can have more and better times
together there, too,” she said.
“We definitely can,” Rylee agreed.
“How about you?” Jak asked.
“I’m more looking forward to our new home. I don’t want to
sound ungrateful, because I am grateful. You saved my life, more
than once, and you gave me help and shelter and food, but being
here, it makes me think of my exile too much. I was so frightened,
but also so resigned to death when you found me. I thought for sure
I would die out here, it was only a matter of time. Not because it
was dangerous, as dangerous as it is, but because I no longer had a
tribe. I no longer had those around me who cared enough to keep
me safe. But I also realized that they did not care enough to keep
me safe, almost none of them, it just...happened, because of the
sheer number of us. Some hated me, more of them just didn’t care
about me,” she explained.
“We care about you,” Niri said, stepping forward and taking her
hand.
Rylee smiled. “I know. I feel very cared for with you two, and I
don’t have the words to tell you how much I value your caring. But
when I was here, I didn’t know you, either of you. I just thought this
was a temporary extension, that I was still going to die. But that
changed, obviously. I want to live now, and I believe I will live, and
not only that, I will live a better life than I ever have before. Better
than I can imagine, because you two care about me, and will help
me. And we will have a tribe of people who were not simply born
into it, but who willingly joined it. It will be different. And I can
cleanse myself of these feelings completely at the new cave, I feel. I
won’t be reminded of those dark times here.”
“Then let us leave,” Niri said. She gave Rylee a kiss on the
cheek. “I want you to be happy.”
And so they gathered up the last of their things and left their
cave one more time.
Once they returned, Jak and Rylee dug out a shallow place for
their new bed while Niri began sorting their things. This one they
made even larger than the last one.
Rylee noticed that. “Are you intending to bond with more
women and bring them into our bed, Jak?” she asked with a small
smile.
“Are you?!” Niri asked hopefully.
“Well...if you would be okay with it and we found the right
woman,” Jak replied. “Yes, I would intend to.”
 “I would love it,” Niri said, grinning broadly.
“Provided she does not cause problems, I am okay with this,”
Rylee said. “I have given myself to you, though, so it is your decision
to make.”
“You’re both a part of this relationship,” Jak said, “so you both
will have a say in how it is conducted.”
She paused in her digging and looked at him. “You are very
different from others. In most relationships I saw, the one who was
in charge had absolute control, and used it every day. You aren’t like
that. You only tell us what to do when you must, when there is
danger. Why is that?”
Jak considered her question for a moment. He noticed Niri was
looking at him as well, her curiosity plain. “I’m not sure,” he
admitted finally. “I want to be this way, so I am. I suppose, I think
that if I were in your position, I would like to live my life mostly how
I wished. I would not like to be told what to do.”
“That is true of everyone, I imagine,” Rylee said, “but it still
doesn’t keep many from abusing power once they have it. Why are
you different?”
“I don’t know,” he said. He thought about it. “I think I spent a
very long time under someone else’s command. They told me what
to do, and often what that was was killing people. And I didn’t like it.
I don’t want it for myself, and if I can avoid it, I don’t want to
impose it on other people. I will if I must, but if I don’t have to, then
I won’t.”
“I believe I understand,” Niri said.
“I think I understand you Jak, or I understand your thinking.
And I am happy for it. I’m just not sure I understand why you think
this way when so many others don’t,” Rylee murmured.
Jak shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“I suppose it doesn’t matter. I am happy for it.”
They continued their work, eventually digging out what Jak felt
was a broad enough space, and set to filling it in with furs and the
proper plants. After they had that done, the three of them set to
sorting through the materials that had survived the assault. He
found that their assessment was correct: many of the weapons were
in poor condition and would be good mostly for burning. They spent
awhile tossing out everything that wasn’t at all usable. Once that
was finished, Jak decided to let them handle the sorting.
He’d had a look at their supply of food. Though bolstered by
what had been still consumable stored here in their new cave by the
Tolvar, he felt the urge to get more. Plus, he wanted to check the
creek they now lived by and see if he could find reeds or clay
deposits or some of the more unique flowers Niri needed to make
paints.
There was so much to gather, especially if they were indeed
going to build a tribe. Jak wanted to have the cave more put-
together before attempting to go out and seek new tribe members.
So he set out, walking slowly along the creek’s edge, eyes
wandering, thoughts occasionally straying. The sun crawled across
the sky and the light began to dim. By the time he was making his
final return to the cave, it was getting dark.
He heard Niri’s and Rylee’s voices as he walked into the cave.
“I hear someone,” Niri whispered suddenly.
“I’m home,” Jak said, loud enough that they could hear him
clearly.
“Is all well?” Rylee asked.
He rounded the bend in the cave and found the two women
standing together near a small fire built not far from the hole in the
roof overhead. They had made a lot of progress today. The bed was
finished, off to the left, near the rear of the cave. Rylee had begun
putting together a small shelf, made of the sturdiest sticks she could
find and some of the leather strips they had taken. It was about half
finished, a simple two-tiered shelf.
She had mentioned she wanted a little place for herself to
gather medicinal herbs and plants, to keep it organized and at the
ready, in case of emergency.
A few spare wraps lay not far from the bedding on a wolfskin,
and several clay pots sat in small clusters around the cave. One
corner was also dedicated to holding the serviceable weapons they’d
found, a collection of clubs and spears mostly, but a few knives as
well. Near it was whatever flint and slate and other useful rocks they
had salvaged. Between the three of them, Jak had learned that they
could make somewhat serviceable tools for crafting better weapons,
but he knew that they would need to find someone who had more
experience with it.
“All is well,” he said as he approached them. He embraced each
and then gave them both a pouch. “Niri, here are the flowers I
found that you might use. Rylee, here are plants I managed to track
down that you asked for.”
They both thanked him and immediately looked into the
pouches.
“What does this purple flower you wanted me to find do?” Jak
asked as Niri pulled a handful of purple petals from the pouch.
“This,” she said, and tossed them into the fire.
They burned up immediately, and quickly after, a pleasant smell
that reminded Jak vaguely of honeysuckle came to him.
“Oh, that smells so nice…” Niri murmured.
“My mother taught me that,” Rylee said, then lost her smile. She
sighed and gave her head a small shake, then sat down by the fire.
“We should eat.”
Jak found himself agreeing, his stomach rumbling. They had
already begun cooking some deer meat by the fire. Jak checked one
of the slabs carefully, then pulled it away from the flame and set it
on a rock, waiting for it to cool. “It looks ready.”
They waited for the meat to cool and then ate it, the three of
them sitting together around the fire, in their cave, their home. It
felt good, but the sense was fleeting. There was too much on Jak’s
mind. He had been thinking all day long about this tribe of theirs and
many thoughts had come to him, and now he was ready to talk it
over.
“We should discuss some of the specifics of our tribe,” he said.
“We need to agree on several different things. The first thing is
some method of indicating that someone is a member of the tribe.
Something we can see, that can’t easily be removed. I was thinking
of your paints...but they would wash away or come off over time. I
don’t know if there’s some method or something else I’m not
thinking of…”
 “I know of something, actually,” Rylee said. “I was told this by
my grandmother. A cut that is cured with a Moon Rose, if the Moon
Rose is imbued with a specific spell, will leave a permanent blue
scar.”
“That would be perfect,” Jak said, excited. “You know the spell?”
Rylee nodded. “We could even make it a ritual. If they want to be
formally accepted into our tribe, a person must go out alone and
seek their own Moon Rose and bring it back. You will cast the spell,
and I will make the mark...I’ve been thinking about the mark itself. I
have a few ideas, but the one I like the most is three simple slashes
in a row, each one representing something: dedication to the tribe,
dedication to the land, and dedication to the self.”
“The land?” Rylee asked.
Jak shifted uncomfortably. “I’m still not sure about if I believe in
the Spirits of the Forest, but I’m beginning to truly wonder. But if
there is something that Niri has told me that I think is true, it is that
we should live in harmony with the forest, the ground, the plants,
the land itself. There are practical reasons for this, namely the
nymphs. I know they live in the forests, and they very well may live
in this forest. I have memories of battling them, and the glimpses I
get are terrifying. We would never want to anger them. But also, the
land sustains us. If the Spirits are real, they could change that. Or if
we take too much, make the land barren, it would no longer sustain
us, and we would die. So, we should also dedicate ourselves to living
in balance with the land.”
He didn’t share with them some of the other memories he had.
Of standing on a hilltop and looking out over a vast, empty, charred
desolation. A fire he knew he had taken part in setting that had
consumed a whole forest and entire fields...and a whole village. Or
another memory he had of looking out over a lake that was filled
with the corpses of fish. Dozens, hundreds, floating. All killed and
rendered inedible by some form of dark magic. He could not recall
where or how or even why, only that it had happened, and he had
bore witness to it.
“Okay. I agree with this,” Rylee said.
 Niri was nodding. “Yes, it is a custom of my people that I still
enjoy and respect. Harmony with the Forest and the Land.”
“The tribe I understand, but the self?” Rylee asked.
Jak was silent for a long time as he considered his words. “I am
still missing most of my memories, but I have pieced together some
things of my former tribe. One of those things was that I had no real
sense of self. It is...hard to describe. But it was like, I was not alive.
I was a tool. A weapon. I was told to do things and I just did them.
And I am realizing now that many, many bad things were done
because of this. Not just by myself, but by everyone in my tribe. We
killed many. We destroyed much. I don’t ever want that to happen
again unless it is truly necessary. I don’t know if it will be, but I think
we must protect against it happening mindlessly.”
“It may become necessary,” Rylee said quietly. He looked at her.
She sighed. “My people...there was much talk, before I left, of taking
control of the whole island. I know my people battle with nearly
everyone they come across who is not Tolvar. Almost without
thinking, as you are describing of your own tribe. We are not all like
this, but too many of them are, and too many go along with it. I
think, if they had their way, the Tolvar would be the only tribe on the
entire island. No elves, no karn, perhaps even no nymphs. And they
have obviously set their hand to cleansing the tribe of magic users.
Including those here…”
Jak sighed. “You may be right, and I will lead my tribe to battle
if it becomes necessary.”
“I don’t understand how we could possibly hope to defeat
them,” Rylee said. “You do not understand. My people...we are
many. So many. Even if we could unite every living person in Avat’s
Forest, it would be like...ants trying to fight a blade-toothed tiger.”
“If there is a way, I will determine it,” Jak said. “But let us not
focus too much on that. So, we are agreed, on the marking?”
“I agree,” Niri said.
Rylee nodded. “We are agreed.”
“Good. Next...bonding,” he said. He saw both women look at
each other briefly and then blush as they looked away, back towards
him. Niri looked excited, Rylee looked also excited but nervous. “We
should discuss a ceremony for bonding mates.”
“What did you have in mind?” Niri asked, grinning broadly at
him.
“I wasn’t sure at first, but that Moon Rose spell could also be
useful for bonding. Is it possible to change the color of the scar?” he
asked.
“Yes,” Rylee replied. “Though I only know two: blue and red.”
“Red will work. Maybe for this ceremony, a couple must go out
together and find a pair of Moon Roses, and they can decide on
what shape the scar takes, but it will be matching.”
“I really like this idea,” Niri said, flushing and smiling more. “We
should do it soon. I want to be bonded to you.”
“So do I,” Rylee said. “Niri and I can both be your mates.”
“I would very much love that,” Jak replied.
“I like the idea of each of us being marked that our hearts
belong to each other,” Niri said, “and if another woman joins, we can
have the ceremony again!”
“You really like that idea, don’t you?” Rylee asked with an
amused smile.
“Yes,” Niri replied.
“For yourself or for Jak?”
“Both. I mean, I am very attracted to women, and I would love
the opportunity to enjoy intimacy like you and I do, Rylee, with new
women. But I also very much enjoy seeing Jak share intimacies with
other women. I do not know truly why, but it makes me feel very
good.”
“I’m sure it makes him feel good as well,” Rylee said.
“That it does,” Jak agreed. “Okay, so we are agreed on that
ceremony. I was also thinking of a name. I thought for a long time,
and after awhile, a word came to me. I don’t know what language it
is, or where I may have heard it, but it felt right. I think we should
be the Dektyr Tribe.”
“I like the sound of it,” Niri said.
“What would it mean, beyond the name of our tribe?” Rylee
asked.
 “I think it should mean what we stand for: together, safety,
acceptance, shelter, unity. We will be a tribe of exiles, and all we will
have is each other.”
“I think this is a good idea,” Rylee said.
Jak thought for a moment longer. “I think that covers the
biggest things we needed to determine. The next part is actually
looking for other people to convince to join us, and preparing this
place more to receive people.”
Niri nodded, then yawned. “It has been a long day,” she
murmured.
Jak nodded. “We can prepare for sleep soon, if there is nothing
else to talk about?”
“I have nothing else to talk about right now,” Niri said.
“I have one more thing we must discuss,” Rylee said. Both of
them looked at her. She seemed nervous now. She chewed on one
lip for a moment and laid a hand across her stomach. “I have put
much thought into it, and I have decided...I want to accept your
seed.”
 CHAPTER IV
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Yes,” she replied, “I am very sure. If you are willing to give it to
me, and if Niri is okay with it, I am ready to accept it.”
“I am okay with this happening,” Niri said. “I want it to happen.”
Jak knew that Niri had slight reservations about this exact
scenario, because she could not accept his seed, but she had been
clear when they had spoke of it earlier: she did want it to happen.
And honestly, so did he.
The thought of it excited him, but the idea of planting his seed
in Rylee and watching her swell with new life…
It made him anxious in a way he couldn’t fully understand.
“You look nervous,” Rylee said as she studied Jak.
“I am. But...I want to do this,” he replied.
“We should talk first. If you have any hesitations…”
“I know some of it has to do with my old life. I only get
impressions and ideas from the vague memories I do have, and one
of them is that my tribe did not want me sharing intimacies or
planting seeds. I don’t know why. I don’t know if it was something
to do with me or if it was something they didn’t want many of us
doing, but I remember that sharing intimacies was very forbidden. I
know that I did it, though. More than once. So there is a part of me
telling me not to plant my seed, but it isn’t worth listening to. The
only other feeling I have is that we live in such a dangerous place. I
can protect you, but...is this the best place to raise a child? The best
time?”
“I think that by the time I am ready to birth, we will have
established our tribe. But, more than that, I think...we cannot know
the future, Jak. All we can do is make choices and hope. I spent so
long avoiding so many things because I was afraid of the future,
because I felt like I didn’t have one. I don’t want to do that any
longer,” Rylee replied.
 “She is right,” Niri murmured. “I am only now realizing how
much of my life I wasted waiting around, doing nothing, because I
was simply waiting for my future to come to me.”
Jak thought about their words, then nodded. “You are both
right. We should trust in ourselves. Trust that we will be able to
provide...if you want, I will plant my seed in you right now.”
He saw a shiver of excitement go through both of them.
“I want it,” she said. “I want it right now.”
Jak felt a pulse of pure hot desire for Rylee shoot through his
entire body. By the time he got to his feet he was hard as stone and
ready to mate her. She stood with him and he picked her up with a
sweep of his arms.
Rylee let out an excited cry and kissed him immediately when
he brought her close enough. He kissed her back, tasting her sweet
taste as he walked across the cave to the bed. He could hear Niri
following just behind him. He lowered Rylee down onto the bedding
and undid her waistwrap while she took off her chestwrap. He
tossed it aside and then undid his own. Excitement was a living thing
boiling through him, his desire for her more intense than he could
remember. He stared down at her fertile, curvy body, laid bare
before him now, as she looked back up at him, excited and anxious,
waiting for him to make his move.
Jak did. He leaned forward, kissing her on one thigh and making
her let out a small shout, then giggle and twist as he kissed her hip,
again across her stomach, then pausing at her breasts. Her laughs
turned to moans as he licked across her breasts, her wonderful light
brown nipples. He paused to suck on one of them, taking an
immediate and powerful satisfaction in the act. Rylee moaned louder,
running her hand across his head.
Then he moved up higher, his lips finding hers again. She kissed
him deeply, slipping her tongue into his mouth, inviting him closer
with her body. Jak kissed her, enjoying everything about her, feeling
his anticipation building.
But he took his time. This was a special coupling.
He spent long minutes pleasuring her with his fingers. It was
strange, as much as he thought he would be inexperienced because
of how his memories painted his previous life, he seemed to know
what to do to induce pleasure in Rylee and Niri. He could only
surmise that he’d had more experience than he realized.
Jak wondered, suddenly, if it was his tendency to share
intimacies with several women that had ultimately been what had
gotten him exiled.
The sound of Rylee’s pleasured moans and cries of bliss filled
the cave as he made her orgasm twice with his fingers, and then got
down between her legs and set to work on her with his tongue and
his lips.
He made her orgasm twice more before she demanded he enter
her.
“Please,” she moaned, spreading her legs wide, “I need you
deep inside. I need you right now,” she begged, panting.
Jak found he could no more deny her than he could hold himself
back any longer.
He got atop her, in between her beautiful thighs, and stared
down at her as he penetrated her. Rylee let out a loud yell of bliss as
he slid inside of her. She was fantastically hot and wet, almost
unbearably so, and the pleasure of being within her was immediately
overwhelming. Jak began thrusting into her, burying his entire rigid
length into her wet opening again and again, moving hard and fast.
He quickly lost himself in their frenzied lovemaking. Nothing else
seemed to exist as he fucked her, pressing himself into her over and
over, the pleasure consuming him in a hot, mindless rapture. Rylee
screamed in raw bliss.
“Yes! IT’S SO GOOD! OH YES, JAK! GIVE ME YOUR SEED!” she
screamed, grabbing at him, wrapping her legs around his midsection
as he furiously fucked her.
“Oh Rylee!” he cried a few moments later when he lost control
of himself and began to loose his seed into her. It came out of him
in blindingly, overwhelmingly blissful spurts of ecstasy. She shrieked
in bliss each time his hips jerked forward, pushing him deep inside of
her, releasing a fresh spray of his seed. He filled her up, giving her
everything he had. He could feel his entire body throbbing with the
release, the absolute pleasure of the experience. It was more
powerful than any other time they had done it, enhanced by the
knowledge that he was impregnating her and that he was claiming
her as his own simultaneously.
He came for ages it seemed, and when he was finished, his
body trembled from the exertion.
Jak laid against her, resting his forehead to her own, feeling her
sweat-slicked, nude body pressing against his, her bountiful breasts
against his chest. Both of them panted, gasping for breath from the
intensity of the encounter.
“I love you,” he said.
“I love you as well,” she replied immediately, giving him a slow
kiss. “I have wanted this for so long. To be mated, to be claimed by
a worthy man. No one would have me, because of my magical
abilities. And anyone that might have would not have treated me as
you treat me, love me as you love me, Jak. I will always remember
that.”
They basked in each other’s presence for several long moments
before he eventually pulled out of her, aware of Niri’s nearby
presence as she silently watched them with a big smile.
“Oh my,” Rylee murmured as she sat up and looked down at
herself. “You planted so much inside me…”
“I think it’s Niri’s turn,” Jak said, reaching out and gripping her
wrist.
“Claim me, my love,” Niri replied, allowing herself to be pulled
roughly to the bedding and laid out beside Rylee.
“How can you have the energy for another encounter after
that?” Rylee asked, yawning as she watched them. “I want to sleep
already…”
Jak couldn’t think of an answer, because he was already kissing
Niri, losing himself once again in her slender body and large breasts
and luscious lips.

He was seeking a plant.

He was also in a very good mood.
 Jak had awoken the morning after he had planted his seed in
Rylee. Not once but three times, waking twice more in the night and
making furious, almost frantic love to her as she begged him for
more. In the morning he had fucked Niri until she’d had a
screaming, squirting orgasm. After breakfast, they had bathed in
their new waterfall, finding it just as good as the old one, and far, far
more convenient.
He could tell that both women wanted to spend the day
lounging in the sun with him, and part of him wanted that badly as
well. It was sorely tempting after the newfound sense of closeness
and intimacy he was feeling with them, and could tell they were
feeling as well. But they all agreed: there was too much to do.
Rylee wanted to begin building a supply of medicinal plants. Her
abilities were strong, but limited. Healing one person could drain her
for a day. She wanted to save the magic for emergencies or serious
injuries only. While Niri continued her work organizing their supplies
and making more clay pots, Rylee took on the task of hunting the
area immediately surrounding their cave for some of the more
common plants she would need, but she had asked him to hunt
down a somewhat more elusive plant that could grow along the
creek’s bank.
The day seemed warm and welcoming.
The sun was rising into the sky. Shafts of light beamed down
through the canopy, bathing the forest in a golden glory. Wildlife
proliferated among the brush and the trees. He saw several deer, a
few foxes, some rabbits, and a plethora of birds flitting about among
the branches overhead or pecking at the ground down below.
Today was a good day, he decided.
There had been no nightmares last night. In fact, all he could
remember of the previous night as he walked slowly along the
creek’s edge, were Niri and Rylee. As he considered this, Jak’s
senses suddenly whispered to him.
Something was up ahead.
A second later, he heard a distant, panicked shout.
He gripped his reinforced club more firmly, feeling his body
shifting from a casual alertness that he always felt when moving
through the dangerous wilderness to a higher tension prepping for
imminent combat.
The shouts were getting closer and, among them, he heard the
snarl of one of the big cats. His heart began hammering faster.
Those could be tremendously dangerous and fierce. The highest
likelihood of the situation he was hearing was that it was chasing a
Tolvar. But given he had wiped out so many of them, and that the
sounds were coming from the south, not the north or the west,
where new Tolvar might come from, the chances had diminished
greatly. And so the odds that it was an exile increased enough to
warrant a different kind of action.
Rescue.
Jak surged forward, dodging through the trees and hopping
over fallen logs and large rocks, honing in on the sounds. The man
almost ran straight into him in his panic. He cried out as he looked
forward and dodged at the last second, tripped over something, and
crashed to the ground. The big cat, a jaguar Jak saw, was hot on his
heels. It cut loose with a high roar as it saw new fresh meat and
instead came for Jak.
He timed it and then swung his club down hard and fast as the
jaguar leaped at him and crushed its skull into the dirt.
It twitched a few times and then died.
Jak turned his attention to the man who had been fleeing, who
was still on the ground, staring at the scene before him. He hunted
for marks on the man, who was clearly Tolvar, and indeed saw the
scar of an X on one of his shoulders.
“You are an exile,” Jak said.
“Y-yes,” he managed, finally finding his voice. “Who are you?”
“I am Jak, of the Dektyr Tribe.”
“I haven’t heard of this tribe,” the man said, staring at Jak with
a sense of wonder and fear. Before he could answer, the man shot to
his feet. Jak tensed, preparing for some kind of attack, but the man
looked beseeching. “Please, you must help me find my mate! We
were separated when the jaguars attacked us!”
Jak considered it briefly, and then nodded. Even if they did not
want to join the tribe, he found that in that moment, he wanted to
stick to a tenet he wanted to make core: help. He had hurt so many
people, he had to help who he could.
“I will help.”
“Thank you! Come with me!”
They set off into the forest, Jak marking the location of the
dead jaguar in his mind to come back for after this little rescue hunt,
as it would make for a good harvest. And perhaps he could get
another. He hoped they weren’t too late.
The two men hurried through the forest, Jak making sure to pay
close attention. It was not impossible that the man, exile or no, was
leading him into a trap of some kind. He trusted his instincts, mostly,
and the man seemed genuine. Failing that, Jak trusted his abilities.
They rushed on through the trees and sun-drenched foliage, and
began hearing sounds: the sharp growls of another jaguar. They
came into a small clearing a moment later, where a jaguar was
circling a tree, tail lashing wildly as it occasionally leaped up.
A woman in wolfskin wraps was as high up the small tree as she
could manage.
“Help!” she cried as soon as she saw them.
Jak loosed one of his honed throwing blades from his belt and
as soon as the jaguar looked in their direction, he hurled it. The
narrow blade plunged into its eye, burying itself most of the way into
the thing’s brain, and dropped the big cat.
For a moment, silence filled the clearing.
“How did you do that?” the woman asked finally, blinking a few
times as she stared at the dead jaguar at the base of the tree.
“Much practice,” Jak replied. “Are you hurt?”
She stared at Jak for a moment longer, then finally shook her
head. “No.” She shifted her attention to the ex-Tolvar man beside
him and smiled. “Mek! You are okay.” She began climbing down from
the tree.
The man, Mek, hurried forward and the two embraced tightly as
she leaped down from the tree. Jak saw a similar exile marking on
her shoulder.
Well, he hadn’t been expecting to run into an opportunity to
recruit the first of their new members so soon, and yet here it was.
 Both of them turned to regard him after they had assured
themselves that the other was safe and unharmed. For a long
moment, silence again fell across the small clearing, broken only by
the sounds of the forest around them.
“Who are you?” the woman asked finally.
“I am Jak. I lead the Dektyr Tribe,” he replied.
“What is this tribe?” Mek asked.
“New,” Jak replied. “We are a very small tribe. We are a tribe of
exiles.”
“You are an exile?” the woman asked. She seemed less guarded
than Mek, who was looking at Jak with more distrust as the seconds
passed. “Where do you come from? I have never seen someone who
looks like you.”
“I come from another land. I am an exile of my tribe,” Jak
replied. “I know that the two of you are exiles of the Tolvar...I would
need to discuss it with my other tribemates, but if you wanted, you
could likely join our tribe.”
“I don’t think that is a good idea,” Mek said.
His mate sighed. “Mek! We are dying out here!”
“We don’t know them!” he snapped.
“He saved my life. He obviously is skilled at fighting. I imagine if
he wanted to kill us, he would do so right now and there is little we
could do to stop him,” she said. “I am tired of struggling to survive
out here, fleeing every time a dangerous animal gets near.”
Mek shifted in place, staring at Jak unhappily, his distrust plain.
Finally, he sighed. “Fine then.”
His mate stepped forward. “I am Tia. We would like to meet
your tribemates.”
“Very well,” Jak said. He walked forward and picked up the
jaguar. “Follow me.”
 CHAPTER V
“How large is your tribe?” Tia asked as they walked back
through the forest. Mek now carried a jaguar as well, as they had
stopped to grab the first one.
“Three,” Jak replied.
“Three...including yourself?” Mek asked.
“Yes.”
He scoffed. “That is not a tribe.”
“With you two we would be five.”
“That is still not a tribe.”
“Mek,” Tia said, her voice sharp.
The man sighed and fell silent.
Jak held his own tongue, finding himself empathetic for the
man’s situation. He was frightened, anxious, probably in pain and
hungry and tired. Although he did not have a full understanding of
the feeling, Jak knew that being an exile created a specific kind of
terror. A sense of doom, an omnipresent foreboding that no matter
what you did, you were simply staving off the inevitable, because
without a tribe, one might as well be cursed. Even with a tribe the
world was dangerous and vicious and relentless.
Without one? Death waited around ever turn, then, behind
every tree, every rock. Lurking in the skies themselves. Every
shadow.
Waiting to strike.
Jak would have thought they would both be leaping at the
opportunity to join a new tribe, but he was coming to understand
that the Tolvar, and likely the elves, and maybe even every tribe or
group on the island, had an immediate distrust of outsiders, of those
who were not like them. He wondered if he and Rylee and Niri were
the exception.
Tia seemed calmer, more level-headed, which gave Jak hope.
He didn’t want just anyone to join the tribe, but he also found
himself reluctant to turn away any who showed flaws of whatever
kind. No one was perfect.
Hopefully Mek was more amicable when he calmed down.
They arrived back at the cave not much later, following the
creek to the waterfall. Rylee was out in the clearing, looking like she
was just heading back out to gather more plants. She hesitated, her
hand going briefly to the club on her belt as she saw them emerge
from the trees, but then relaxed when she saw Jak.
“I have found our first potential new tribemates,” he said. “Tia
and Mek, meet Rylee. My mate and tribemate, and our healer.”
“What kind of healer,” Mek said uncomfortably.
“Magical and non-magical,” she replied.
“It is nice to meet you,” Tia said, a little firmly. Jak imagined she
must find herself smoothing over a lot of situations.
“You as well,” Rylee replied.
“Would you get Niri?” Jak asked. “I want to have a discussion
about this.”
“Okay.” Rylee headed back into the cave.
“This is all yours?” Mek asked uncertainly, looking around.
“Yes. We killed the Tolvar hunting party that was living here and
took it for ourselves.”
“Is that why we haven’t seen them around anymore?” Tia
asked.
“Wait...you killed all of them? There had to be dozens!”
“There were,” Jak confirmed.
“How!?”
“I lured giant spiders here, let them fight, killed the survivors,”
Jak replied.
Both of them looked at him in silence until Rylee emerged from
the cave with Niri. The two looked over at them and Mek shifted
uncomfortably. Jak thought he would complain about Niri being an
elf, but was glad he didn’t. He was not liking Mek so far, but Tia
seemed smart.
“Hello, I am Niri,” she said as they came to stand beside Jak.
“I am Tia, this is my mate Mek. It is nice to meet you,” Tia
replied.
 “And you,” Niri said.
“So, the discussion is: do you want to join our tribe and do we
want you to?” Jak said. “Do you?”
“I think we do,” Tia said. Mek remained silent.
“All right. First question: why were you exiled?”
Both of them winced immediately at the question. Tia looked
sad, Mek looked enraged. He took a step towards Jak suddenly, fire
in his eyes. “We are exiled because I murdered the man who
murdered my son,” he growled. “That foolish animal was raging like
a mindless beast and hurled a stone the size of my fist into my
child’s head. It killed him. I wanted justice, but the Toval only gave
him a light reprimand because he was a prestigious warrior. So I
killed him. I stabbed him in the throat and watched the life drain
from his eyes and his wound and I avenged my son.” He said
everything in a low, furious voice and by the end was trembling with
rage.
Tia stepped closer and took his hand. “I convinced them to exile
him,” she said quietly. “And I would not stay without him, so I was
exiled too.”
“I’m very sorry about your son,” Jak said, and that seemed to
make some of fury leave Mek’s eyes. Something seemed to shift
inside of him, subtly, but something significant. Perhaps no one had
ever told him that before.
“His spirit rests peacefully now,” he muttered after a moment.
“My next question is: how do you feel about magic users and
elves? Or karn? Because we are not a tribe of a certain kind of
people, we are a tribe of exiles. And there are exiles from every
tribe.”
Tia looked uncomfortable and Mek twitched. “You would allow
karn in your tribe?”
“Yes, if they wished and proved that they could peacefully live
within the tribe.”
“Karn are not capable of peace,” Mek growled.
“I met a karn who was fully capable of peace,” Jak said.
“I have seen them. I have seen their mindless savagery,” Mek
replied.
 “Besides Rylee and you two, every single Tolvar I have
encountered has attacked me with mindless savagery,” Jak said, just
as firmly. “Should I condemn all Tolvar?”
Mek stared hard at him for a moment, then sighed quietly and
relented. “I suppose you have a point,” he admitted.
“He has fought the karn,” Tia said. “We are at war with them.
They are...very brutal.”
“I have seen then consume men alive,” Mek said. “Dripping with
blood, eyes wide and empty as they tear flesh from bone with their
animal teeth.”
“I understand,” Jak said, “but if you are going to be a part of
this tribe, then you will have to accept that there may very well be
karn living here. And elves. And whoever else lives on this island.”
He paused to consider that. “Well, probably not the demons I have
heard of. Although I suppose it might not be impossible…”
“Demons? Truly? You would allow a demon, an embyr to share
a cave with you!?” Mek cried.
“Only if the circumstances allowed it. Know that I do not intend
to put the safety of the tribe at risk,” Jak said.
“This is a bad idea,” Mek said.
Tia sighed. “Could we have some time to think about it, and
stay here while we do? We can help with tasks. Mek is a toolmaker
and I am a gatherer. We are both very skilled at what we do.”
Well that answered his final question.
Jak glanced at Rylee and Niri, both nodded their assent.
“Very well. You may stay here. Tomorrow we will discuss the
topic again,” he said.
Both of them looked relieved, even Mek despite his reservations.
Jak studied them for a moment as he considered what to do
with them first. They both looked very exhausted, and like they had
been out here for awhile. Their wraps were filthy, they were covered
in dirt and grime, and they had several small injuries. Cuts, scrapes,
bruises. They looked thin and almost like they were ill.
“Why don’t you wash yourself in the waterfall,” he said, “and
then I can show you to where you’ll be sleeping. We have a lot of
spare wraps that you can pick from and use, and we have food for
you.”
“Thank you,” Tia said. “Very much. After all we’ve been
through...it is very appreciated.”
“Yes...thank you,” Mek added reluctantly.
They began heading for the waterfall.

Several hours passed.

Jak noticed that they reacted a bit more strongly to his presence
than they did to Rylee or Niri, so he left it to them to help the
newcomers. Though he was sure to keep an eye on them. He
trusted Tia, she seemed to have a sound mind and control of her
emotions. Mek he was a little less sure about. He seemed more
unstable, and also more stuck in his ways. Jak found it difficult to
blame him, wondering how similar the Tolvar were to his own tribe
in the sense that they attempted to turn most of their people into
tools who did not think, only act.
He had likely been fed the idea that all who were not Tolvar
were, at the very least, to be regarded with suspicion.
The couple washed and allowed Rylee to tend to their wounds.
They dressed in fresh wraps, ate a meal of nuts and berries, and
then put together a bed and slept in one of the side caves. Jak spent
the time skinning and gutting the two jaguars he’d killed, mulling
over this latest development. His gut told him that they were going
to stay, and that they would probably make decent first additions to
their tribe. But still he wondered.
This tribe would be different than all others. Being born into a
tribe was one thing, joining it willingly as a reasoning adult was
another.
As he finished his work with the jaguars, Jak ultimately came to
the same conclusion he had before: he would handle it if a bad
situation arose.
After that, he found himself in a strange place where he wanted
to get back out there in the forest, as there were more things he
needed to track down, but not quite wanting to leave Niri and Rylee
alone with the two strangers. However, after the pair woke up and
they had lunch together, that feeling began to abate.
All five of them sat around a fire in front of the main cave,
eating some of the jaguar meat that Jak had set aside for the meal.
“How long were you out there?” Rylee asked.
“Awhile,” Mek replied.
“I lost track, but over ten days, maybe over fifteen,” Tia said.
“When we were first exiled, we tried to go to Ara Forest. We thought
maybe we could live along its edge, hidden from the elves,
somewhat protected. Our people hate the elves...uh, sorry,” she
murmured, looking at Niri.
“No, I mean, it isn’t new information,” Niri replied awkwardly.
“But they won’t attack Ara Forest. We lived there for a few days,
but then we ran into some elves and they made us leave. They
didn’t try to kill us, at least.”
“They would have if we hadn’t left,” Mek muttered.
“Yes...but we headed south, and eventually we ended up here.
But Avat’s Forest is...bountiful, but cruel and dangerous. It has been
a struggle to survive ever since. We found a few others, but they all
died. Killed by wildlife, or...one got sick. He was so stubborn, insisted
the plant he wanted to eat was not poisonous, but it was. Soon it
was just us.”
Jak wanted to ask if they had any compelling reason not to join
his tribe, but he didn’t. Part of him thought that they did not have a
compelling reason, and that by making them directly confront that
fact, it would sway them to join. But he knew the likelier outcome
was it would cause them to go looking for a reason, instead of
admitting they simply had not chosen because they were afraid or
tired. He was finding more and more that he wanted to make
decisions quickly and act on them, but he was also having to remind
himself not all people were like that. And, perhaps, it was a good
thing. He hated hesitation and disliked fear, but…
Not all choices could be made in the moment.
“I had a question,” Rylee said.
“Yes?” Tia replied.
 “Those marks on your shoulder...are you magic users?”
Both looked at their scarred shoulders. “No. Why?”
“I was marked like that,” she said, gesturing to her own
shoulder. “They told me it marked me as a magic-user.”
“Oh...I think at this point they have decided to use it to mean
exile. I have seen many with this mark who have no magical
abilities,” Tia explained.
“I see,” Rylee murmured.
He and Rylee and Niri ended up sharing shortened versions of
their own survival stories. Jak ended up choosing to omit his
memory loss. At this point, he had decided not to let anyone outside
of Niri and Rylee, (and, if it did happen, anyone else who joined their
bond), know about that. After their shared lunch, Niri went back to
sorting things in their own private cave, and Mek and Tia ended up
agreeing to join Rylee in hunting around the immediate area for
useful plants, for eating and medicinal purposes.
By then, Jak found himself comfortable enough to head back
out on his own. He made sure Niri and Rylee knew that he was, then
made sure his survival gear was all on his person, and then he
headed back into Avat’s Forest.
For awhile, he wandered, hunting for a specific type of vine.
Leather strips were useful for making furniture, but Rylee knew of a
kind of vine that, if dried and cured properly, would actually hold
together not just tougher, but for longer. Jak knew what they looked
like, what specific shade of green they were, and knew that while
they weren’t abundant in the forest, they were common enough that
he should be able to walk around for a few hours and find a fair
amount. His progress was slow, but leisurely.
He felt good again. They already probably had two new
members of the tribe. Three would likely soon be five. And Mek was
a toolmaker. That would be very useful. That was a skill none of
them seemed to possess beyond a basic sense. Jak knew that he
would need some tools to make the weapon that he had been
craving for some time now: an adze. The little handheld chopping
blade, made of the right material, could be extremely effective in
battle. Depending on the size or shape, you could even make ones
meant to be thrown.
Jak knew that he had trained much with them before now. Even
as he imagined it, he could feel his fingers curling into a fist, could
almost feel the weapon in his grasp. The club he had made was
good, the spear was great, but an adze…
He thought it might be his favorite weapon.
Also, he found as he located some of those vines, it would make
for a much better implementation when it came to chopping plants.
And also the wood, he realized, running his hand over the tree
the vines hung from. In his head, he saw his village, but fully
realized. The caves would not support that many people. Eventually,
they would need to expand. They could make huts. And they would
have to make the place more defensible. He knew of ways to help
define a border to their territory, methods of making it safer, making
it harder to assault successfully, and easier to defend.
So much work, all of it he looked forward to.
But they were still so few, even with five.
As Jak finished his work with the vine, he looked at the forest
around him. How many people did Avat’s Forest conceal?
How many might join their tribe?
Jak stopped musing and walked on.
There was more work to be done.
Another random document with
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only halls of state and banquetting rooms. On the left the ‘silver
palace’ adjoins the larger one. It takes its name from the fact that all
the vandyked ends with which the roof is decorated are hung with
innumerable little silver bells. Beside the silver palace stands the
monument of King Radama—a tiny wooden house without windows;
to this fact, however, and to the further circumstance of its being built
upon a pedestal, it owes its sole resemblance to a monument.”
The singular custom prevails in Madagascar, that when a king
dies all his treasures in gold and silver ware, and other valuables,
are laid with him in the grave. In case of need, however, the king can
dig up the treasure. “As far as I could ascertain,” says the observant
Ida Pfieffer, “this had been done in several instances.”
The same lady favours us with a description of the chief national
festival among the Malagaseys, the “Feast of the Queen’s Bath.” It
takes place on New Year’s Day.
“On the eve of the feast all the high officers, nobles, and chiefs,
appear at court invited by the queen. They assemble in a great hall;
presently a dish of rice is carried round, each guest taking a pinch in
his fingers and eating it. That is the whole extent of the ceremony on
this first evening.
“Next morning the same company assemble in the same hall. As
soon as they have all met, the queen steps behind a curtain which
hangs in a corner of the room, undresses, and has water thrown
over her. As soon as she has been dressed again she steps forward,
holding in her hand an ox horn, filled with the water which has been
poured over her. Part of this she pours over the assembled
company. Then she betakes herself to a gallery overlooking the
court-yard of the palace and pours the rest over the military
assembled there for parade.
“On this auspicious day nothing is seen throughout the whole
country but feasting, dancing, singing, and rejoicing, which is
continued till late at night. The celebration is kept up for eight days
dating from the day of the bath. It is the custom of the people to kill
as many oxen on that day as they contemplate consuming during the
other seven; whoever possesses any oxen at all kills at least one at
this feast. The poor people get pieces of meat in exchange for rice,
sweet potatoes, tobacco, etc. The meat is still tolerably fresh on the
eighth day. It is cut into long thin strips, which are salted and laid one
on the other. The preliminary celebration of the feast occurs a week
earlier and consists of military processions. The votaries of pleasure
then begin their feast and thus have a fortnight’s jollity—a week
before the feast and a week after.
“The soldiers whom I saw in the procession pleased me well
enough. They went through their manœuvres with tolerable
accuracy, and, contrary to my expectation, I found the music not only
endurable but positively harmonious. It appears that some years ago
the queen sent for an European band-master and a complete set of
instruments; and her worthy subjects were inducted into a
knowledge of music probably by means of a stick. The soldiers were
dressed in a simple, neat, and perfectly uniform manner. They wore
a tight-fitting jerkin reaching to the chest and covering part of their
loins. The chest was bare and covered by the gleaming white belts
supporting the cartridge-box, which had a good effect in contrast to
the black skins of the soldiers. Their heads are uncovered. Their
arms consisted of a musket and the national lance called sagaya.”
According to the same authority, however, satisfactory as is the
appearance of the Malagasey soldier, his lot is a very hard one. He
receives no pay, and even his regimentals must be provided out of
his own scanty means. To meet these expenses he is obliged, if he
is a craftsman, to beg so much leave each day of his superior; or, if
farm work be his avocation, he on certain days of the week
abandons the barrack for the plough. The soldier, however, says
Mrs. Pfieffer, who would obtain enough leave of absence to enable
him to maintain himself in anything like comfort, must propitiate his
captain by giving him part of his earnings. The officers are generally
very little richer than the soldiers. They certainly receive, like the civil
officials, a remuneration for their services from the customs’
revenues; but the pay is so small that they cannot live upon it, and
are compelled to have recourse to other means, not always of the
most honest description. According to the law a very small portion of
the customs’ revenue should come to the common soldier; but so
insignificant is the amount that neither common soldiers nor officers
think it worth while to make any fuss about it.
So it comes about that the unlucky Malagasey soldier who can
find no work, and is too far from his native village to receive
assistance from his friends, is in danger of starvation. His leisure
hours are spent in grubbing about the country in search of herbs and
roots with which, and a little rice, he manages to keep life and soul
together. The rice he throws into a pot filled with water, and after it
has soaked for a time the rice-water serves him for a dinner; in the
evening he banquets on the soddened grain remaining in the pot.
But in war time, as soon as he is on an enemy’s territory, he makes
up for his protracted season of “short commons;” he plunders right
and left and literally lives upon the fat of the land; his long training
has provided him with an excellent appetite; indeed, it is said that
four able-bodied Malagaseys are equal to the task of consuming an
entire ox in the space of four days, and at the termination of the feast
to be so little incommoded as to be able to flee from pursuit with the
nimbleness of deer-hounds.
The Malagasey soldier at war, however, is only to be envied while
his health remains unimpared, and while he is lucky enough to keep
his carcase within a sound skin. His comrades are bound to take
care of him in sickness—but how are they to do this when they
themselves are pinched by poverty and are without even the
common necessaries of life? It frequently happens on a march that
the sick soldier’s companions will endeavour to rid themselves of
him; not by killing him outright, but by the less charitable process of
denying him food to eat or water to quench his thirst, till, preferring
death to further torture, he begs to be laid under a tree and left,
when his tender nurses readily yield to his solicitations, and he is left
to die.
Let us wind up our notice of Royalty and its attributes in
Madagascar by a description of a court ball.
The ball began soon after one o’clock in the day, and was not held
in the apartments of the palace, but in front of the building, in the
great fore-court in which we had been admitted to our audience. As
on that former occasion, the queen sat on the balcony under the
shade of her great parasol, and we were obliged to make the usual
obeisances to her and to the tomb of King Radama. This time,
however, we were not made to stand; comfortable arm-chairs were
assigned to us. Gradually the ball company began to assemble; the
guests comprised nobles of both sexes, officers and their wives, and
the queen’s female singers and dancers. The nobles wore various
costumes, and the officers appeared in European dress: all were
obliged to make numerous obeisances. Those who appeared in
costume had seats like ours given them; the rest squatted about as
they liked, in groups on the ground.
“The queen’s female dancers opened the ball with the dreary
Malagasey dance. These charming creatures were wrapped from top
to toe in white simbus, and wore on their heads artificial, or, I should
say, very inartificial flowers, standing up stiffly like little flagstaffs;
they crowded into a group in such a way that they seemed all tied
together. As often as they staggered past the queen’s balcony or the
monument of King Radama, they repeated their salutes, and likewise
at the end of every separate dance. After the female dancers had
retired, the officers executed a very similar dance, only that they kept
somewhat quicker time, and their gestures were more animated—
that is to say, they lifted their feet rather higher than the performers
of the other sex. Those who had hats and caps, waved them in the
air from time to time, and set up a sharp howling, intended to
represent cries of joy.
“After the officers followed six couples of children in fancy
dresses. The boys wore the old Spanish costume, or were attired as
pages, and looked tolerably well; but the girls were perfect
scarecrows. They wore old-fashioned French costumes—large, stiff
petticoats, with short bodices—and their heads were quite loaded
with ostrich feathers, flowers, and ribbons. After this little monkey
community had performed certain polonaises, schottisches, and
contre-danses, acquitting themselves, contrary to my expectation,
with considerable skill, they bowed low and retired, making way for a
larger company, the males likewise clad in the old Spanish, the
females in the old French garb.
 “All these various costumes are commanded by the queen, who
generally gets her ideas from pictures or engravings that come in her
way. The ladies add to the costume prescribed by royalty whatever
their own taste and invention may suggest, generally showing great
boldness and originality in the combination of colours. I will give my
readers an idea of what these costumes are like, by describing one
of them.
“The dress was of blue satin, with a border of orange colour,
above which ran a broad stripe of bright cherry-coloured satin. The
body, also of satin, with long skirt, shone with a brimstone hue, and a
light sea green silk shawl was draped above it. The head was
covered in such style with stiff, clumsily-made artificial flowers, with
ostrich feathers, silk ribbons, glass beads, and all kinds of millinery,
that the hair was entirely hidden—not that the fair one lost much
thereby, but that I pitied her for the burden she had to carry.
“The costumes of the other ladies showed similar contrasts in
colour, and some of these tasteful dresses had been improved by a
further stroke of ingenuity, being surmounted by high conical hats,
very like those worn by the Tyrolese peasants.
“The company, consisting exclusively of the higher aristocracy,
executed various European dances, and also performed the Sega,
which the Malagaseys assert to be a native dance, though it is really
derived from the Moors. The figures, steps, and music of the Sega
are all so pleasing that, if it were once introduced in Europe, it could
not fail to become universally fashionable.
 Malagasey Ball.
“This beautiful dance was far from concluding the ball. After a
short pause, during which no refreshments were offered, the élite of
the company, consisting of six couples, stepped into the court-yard.
The gentlemen were Prince Rakoto, the two Labordes, father and
son, two ministers, and a general—all the ladies were princesses or
countesses. The gentlemen were dressed in old Spanish costume,
except Prince Rakoto, who wore a fancy dress so tastefully chosen,
that he might have appeared with distinction in any European Court
ball. He wore trousers of dark blue cloth, with a stripe down the side,
a kind of loose jerkin of maroon-coloured velvet, ornamented with
gold stripes and the most delicate embroidery, and a velvet cap of
the same colour, with two ostrich feathers, fastened by a gold
brooch. The whole dress fitted so well, and the embroidery was so
good, that I thought Mr. Lambert must have taken the prince’s
measure with him to Paris, and that the clothes had been made
there; but this was not the case. Everything, with the exception of the
material, had been prepared at Tananariva—a proof that, if the
people of Madagascar are deficient in invention, they are
exceedingly clever in imitating models set before them.
“This group of dancers appeared with much more effect than their
predecessors, for all the ladies and gentlemen were much more
tastefully attired than the rest of the company. They only performed
European dances.
“The whole of these festivities, which had occupied three hours,
had not put the queen to the slightest expense. The court-yard was
the dancing floor, the sun provided illumination, and every guest was
at liberty to take what refreshment he chose—when he got home.
Happy queen! How sincerely many of our ball-givers must envy her!”
 Borneo.

CHAPTER XIX.
Installation of a Dayak Rajah—A visit to the Grungs—A Dayak dance
—Captain Hall’s visit to Corea—The chief on board the “Lyra”—
Entertained at one’s own expense—The chief loses his temper—
The marriage of King Finow’s daughter—The marriage
ceremonies—Mummying a king—King John’s skull—The
Bushman’s mourning.
n Borneo we find the ruling power to be a Sultan, assisted in
his rule by “Rajahs” and “Pangerans” and “Bandars,” and
many others whose titles are equally unintelligible to us.
Each of these minor rulers, however, appears to rule
absolutely over the people in their immediate care; and
much ceremony is observed at their installation. Sir James Brooke,
himself a rajah, was once present at the election of three of these
petty rulers.
With the Dayaks all council is divided into hot and cold—peace,
friendship, good intentions, are all included under the latter head;
war, etc., are under the former. Hot is represented by red, and cold
by white. So in everything they make this distinction; and as the
public hall is the place for war councils and war trophies, it is hot in
the extreme, and unfit for friendly conference. A shed was therefore
erected close to the Orang Kaya’s house wherein the ceremony was
to take place. “About nine in the evening we repaired to the scene;
loud music, barbarous but not unpleasing, resounded, and we took
our seats on mats in the midst of our Dayak friends. A feast was in
preparation, and each guest (if I may call them such) brought his
share of rice in bamboos and laid it on the general stock. As one
party came up after another, carrying their burning logs, the effect
was very good; and they kept arriving until the place and its vicinity
was literally crammed with human beings. A large antique sīrih-box
was placed in the midst, and I contributed that greatest of luxuries,
tobacco.
“The feast in the meantime was in preparation, some of the
principal people being employed in counting the number who were to
eat and dividing the bamboos into exactly equal portions for each
person. About six inches were allotted to every man, and it took a
very long time to divide it, for they are remarkably particular as to the
proper size and quantity to each share. The bamboos of rice being,
however, at length satisfactorily disposed, the Orang Kaya produced
as his share a large basin full of sauce composed of salt and chilis,
and a small stock of sweetmeats, and then the ceremony of his
installation commenced as follows:
“A jacket, a turban, a cloth for the loins, and a kris (all of white),
were presented to the chiefs as a token of sejiek dingin, or cold (i.e.
good). The chief then rose, and taking a white fowl and waving it
over the eatables, repeated nearly the following words [The
commencement, however, is curious enough to dwell upon: the
opening is a sort of invocation beginning with the phrase ‘Samungut
Samungi.’ Samungut is a Malay word, Samungi signifying the same
in Dayak; the exact meaning it is difficult to comprehend, but it is
here understood as some principal spirit or fortune which is in men
and things. Thus the Dayaks in stowing their rice at harvest, do it
with great care from a superstitious feeling that the Samungi of the
padi will escape. They now call this principal to be present—that of
men, of pigs (their favorite animal), of padi, and of fruits. They
particularly named my Samungi, that of my ancestors, of the
Pangeran from Borneo, of the Datus and of their ancestors, and of
the ancestors of their own tribe. They call them—that is, their
Samungi—to be present. They then call upon Jovata to grant their
prayer that the great man from Europe and the Datus might hold the
government for a length of time]:—‘May the government be cold
(good). May there be rice in our houses. May many pigs be killed.
May male children be born to us. May fruit ripen. May we be happy,
and our goods abundant. We declare ourselves to be true to the
great man and the Datus; what they wish we will do, what they
command is our law.’ Having said this and much more the fowl was
taken by a leading Malay who repeated the latter words, whilst
others bound strips of white cloth round the heads of the multitude.
The fowl was then killed, the blood shed in a bamboo, and each man
dipping his finger in the blood touched his forehead and breast in
attestation of his fidelity. The fowl was now carried away to be
cooked, and when brought back placed with the rest of the feast, and
the dancing commenced. The chief coming forward uttered a loud
yell ending in ‘ish,’ which was oftentimes repeated during the dance.
He raised his hand to his forehead and, taking a dish, commenced
dancing to lively music. Three other old chief-men followed his
example, each uttering the yell and making the salute, but without
taking the dish. They danced with arms extended, turning the body
frequently, taking very small steps and little more than lifting their
feet from the ground. Thus they turned backwards and forwards,
passed in and out in the inner rooms, and frequently repeating a yell
and making the salutation to me. The dish in the meantime was
changed from one to the other; there was little variety, no
gesticulation, no violence, and though not deficient in native grace,
yet the movements were by no means interesting. The dance over
the feast commenced, and everything was carried on with great
gravity and propriety. I left them shortly after they begun to eat, and
retired, very fagged, to my bed, or rather my board, for sitting cross-
legged for several hours is surely a great affliction.”
Sir J. Brooke, in company with a modern writer on Bornean
manners and customs—Mr. St. John—on another occasion paid a
ceremonial visit to a chief of the Grungs, and with results that are
worth chronicling.
 “We found the village crowded with the representatives of all the
neighbouring tribes; long strings of men, women, and children were
continually arriving as we approached. Directly we ascended the
notched tree that served as a ladder to the Orang Kaya’s house, we
found that we were no longer free agents. A crowd of old women
instantly seized us and pulled off our shoes and stockings and
commenced most vigorously washing our feet: this water was
preserved to fertilize the fields. We were then conducted to a
platform but slightly raised above the floor and requested to sit down,
but the mats were so dirty that we could scarcely prevail upon
ourselves to do so—perhaps the only time it has occurred to us;
generally the mats are charmingly neat and clean. The arrival of our
bedding freed us from this difficulty.
“We were surrounded by a dense mass of men, women, and
children who appeared all to be talking at once; in fact, more
excitement was shewn than I have before observed. We had to do
so many things, and almost all at once,—to sprinkle rice about, to
pour a little water on each child that was presented to us, until, from
force of example, the women and even the men insisted upon the
ceremony being performed on them.
“Silence being at last restored, Kasim explained in a long speech
the object of Captain Brooke’s visit. He spoke in Malay, interlarding it
occasionally with Dayak phrases—I say Malay, but Malay that is only
used when addressing the aborigines,—clipping and altering words,
changing the pronunciation, until I find that some have been
deceived into believing this was the true Dayak language. It is to
these people what the Lingua Franca is to Western Asia.
“We got a little respite while eating our dinner; but as soon as we
had finished we were again surrounded. The priestesses of the place
were especially active tying little bells round our wrists and ancles
and bringing rice for us to—how shall I explain it?—in fact for us to
spit on, and this delectable morsel they swallowed. No sooner had
these learned women been satisfied than parents brought their
children and insisted upon their being physicked in the same way,
taking care to have a full share themselves. One horrid old woman
actually came six times.
 “The Orang Kaya now advanced and there was strict attention to
hear what he was about to say. He walked to the window and threw
some grains out, and then commenced a kind of prayer asking for
good harvests, for fertility for the women, and for health to them all.
During the whole invocation he kept scattering rice about. The
people were very attentive at first, but soon the murmur of many
voices almost drowned the old man’s tones. He did not appear very
much in earnest, but repeated what he had to say as if he were
going over a well-remembered but little understood lesson; in fact, it
is said these invocations are in words not comprehended even by
the Dayaks themselves—perhaps they are in some Indian language.
Then a space was cleared for dancing; the old Orang Kaya and the
elders commenced and were followed by the priestesses. They
walked up to us in succession, passed their hands over our arms,
pressed our palms, and then uttering a yell or a prolonged screech,
went off in a slow measured tread, moving their arms and hands in
unison with their feet, until they reached the end of the house and
came back to where we sat; then another pressure of the palm, a
few more passes to draw virtue out of us, another yell, and off they
went again; at one time there were at least a hundred dancing. Few
of the young people joined in what appeared in this case a sacred
dance.
“For three nights we had had little sleep on account of these
ceremonies; but at length, notwithstanding clash of gong and beat of
drum, we sank back in our beds and were soon fast asleep. In
perhaps a couple of hours I awoke; my companion was still sleeping
uneasily; the din was deafening, and I sat up to look around.
Unfortunate movement! I was instantly seized by the hands of two
priests and led up to the Orang Kaya who was leisurely cutting a
fowl’s throat. He wanted Captain Brooke to perform the following
ceremony, but I objected to his being awakened, and offered to do it
for him. I was taken to the very end of the house and the bleeding
fowl put in my hands; holding him by his legs I had to strike the
lintels of the doors, sprinkling a little blood over each. When this was
over I had to waive the fowl over the heads of the women and wish
them fertility, over the children and wish them health, over all the
people and wish them prosperity; out of the window and invoke good
crops for them. At last I reached my mats and sat down preparatory
to another sleep, when that horrid old woman led another
detachment of her sex forward to recommence the physicking:
fortunately but few came, and after setting them off dancing again I
fell asleep and in spite of all the noises remained so till morning.”
When, in the year 1818, Captain Basil Hall undertook what was in
those days considered a formidable undertaking—a voyage of
discovery to the coast of Corea and the great Loo Choo Island—he
was entertained at the former place by a potentate of so remarkable
a character as to entitle him to a place among the necessarily few
and consequently rare specimens of savage royalty which figure on
these pages. It will be understood that Captain Hall’s ship, the
“Alceste,” had anchored off Corea, and in the morning sent a boat
ashore to feel the way to closer intimacy.
“The curiosity of the natives was already aroused; every boat was
crowded with people, and ornamented with numerous flags and
streamers; but one of them being distinguished by a large blue
umbrella, we steered towards it, on the supposition that this was an
emblem of rank, in which opinion we were soon confirmed by the
sound of music, which played only on board this boat. On coming
closer we saw a fine patriarchal figure seated under the umbrella; his
full white beard covered his breast and reached below his middle; his
robe or mantle, which was of blue silk and of an immense size,
flowed about him in a magnificent style. His sword was suspended
from his waist by a small belt; but the insignia of his office appeared
to be a slender black rod tipped with silver, about a foot and a half
long, with a small leather thong at one end, and a piece of black
crape tied to the other; this he held in his hand. His hat exceeded in
breadth of brim anything we had yet met with, being, as we
supposed, nearly three feet across. The old chief by signs expressed
his wish to go to the ships. We accordingly rowed to the “Lyra,”
which lay nearer to the shore than the “Alceste.” When the chief’s
boat was within ten yards of the brig, they let go their anchor and
threw a rope on board her by which they drew the boat alongside in
a very seamanlike style. The old man did not find it an easy matter to
get up the ship’s side, encumbered as he was with his splendid
robes; he was no sooner on board, however, than we were crowded
with the natives, who boarded us on all sides. Some climbed up the
rigging so as to overlook the quarter-deck, others got on the poop,
and a line was formed along the hammock netting from one end of
the brig to the other. As the evening was fine, it was thought best to
entertain the venerable chief upon deck, rather than give him the
trouble of going down to the cabin, which, indeed, we had reason to
fear would prove too small for the party. Chairs were accordingly
placed upon deck, but the chief made signs that he could not sit on a
chair, nor would he consent for a time to use his mat, which was
brought on board by one of his attendants. He seemed embarrased
and displeased, which we could not at the moment account for,
though it has since occurred to us that he objected to the publicity of
the conference. At length, however, he sat down upon his mat and
began talking with great gravity and composure, without appearing in
the smallest degree sensible that we did not understand a single
word that he said. Meanwhile the crowd of natives increased, and
their curiosity became so great, that they pressed round us in a way
nowise agreeable. Some of them roved about the ship and appeared
highly entertained with everything they saw. The chief himself,
however, did not appear at ease, but continued giving directions to
his officers and people about him with an air of impatience. He more
than once ordered them all into their boats, but they always returned
after a few minutes. One man persevered in climbing over the
hammocks close to the chief to see what was going on; the noise
made to keep him back attracted the chief’s attention, who
immediately gave orders to one of the attendants for his being taken
away: it will be seen by and by what was his fate. It was nearly dark
when the chief gave directions for preparing the boats, and at the
same time to two of his attendants to assist him to get on his legs.
Each took an arm, and in this way succeeded in raising him up,
which was no sooner observed by the people, than they jumped into
their boats with the utmost alacrity, and the chief, after many bows
and salaams, walked into his boat. This did not give him so much
trouble as he had experienced in coming on board, for a platform of
grating and planks had been prepared for his accommodation during
his visit, an attention with which he seemed much pleased. So far all
seemed well; but there was still something amiss, for the old man,
seated in state under his umbrella, remained alongside with his
attendants ranged on deck about him, he and his people preserving
the most perfect silence, and making no signs to explain. We were
greatly puzzled to discover what the old gentleman wanted, till at
length it was suggested that, having paid us a visit, he expected a
similar compliment in return. This idea was no sooner started than
we proceeded to pay our respects to him in his boat. He made signs
for us to sit down, honouring us at the same time with a corner of his
own mat. When we were seated he looked about as if in distress at
having nothing to entertain us with, upon which a bottle of wine was
sent for and given him. He ordered an attendant to pour it into
several bowls, and putting the bottle away, made signs for us to
drink, but would not taste it himself till all of us had been served. He
was nowise discomposed at being obliged to entertain his company
at their own expense; on the contrary, he carried off the whole affair
with so much cheerfulness and ease as to make us suspect
sometimes that he saw and enjoyed the oddity of the scene and
circumstances as fully as we did ourselves. After sitting about ten
minutes we left the chief in great good humour and returned on
board, thinking of course that he would go straight to the shore; but
in this we were mistaken, for we had no sooner left him than he
pushed off to the distance of ten or twelve yards, and calling the
other boats round him, gave orders for inflicting the discipline of the
bamboo upon the unfortunate culprit who had been ordered into
confinement during the conference. This exhibition, which it was
evidently intended we should witness, had a very ludicrous effect, for
it followed so much in train with the rest of the ceremony, and was
carried on with so much gravity and order, that it looked like an
essential part of the etiquette. During the infliction of this punishment
a profound silence was observed by all the party, except by five or
six persons immediately about the delinquent, whose cries they
accompanied by a sort of song or yell at each blow of the bamboo.
This speedy execution of justice was, no doubt, intended to impress
us with notions of Corean discipline. As it was now dark we did not
expect the chief to pay any more visits this evening; but we
underrated his politeness, for the moment the above scene was
concluded he steered for the ‘Alceste.’ He was in great good
humour, and seemed entertained with the efforts which were made
to please him. He asked to look at a mirror which had caught his
attention. When it was put into his hands he seemed very well
satisfied with the figure which it presented, and continued for some
time pulling his beard from side to side with an air of perfect
complacency. One of the attendants thought there could be no harm
in looking at the mirror likewise; but the chief was of a different
opinion, and no sooner observed what he was doing, than he very
angrily made him put down the glass and leave the cabin. The
secretary, too, fell under his displeasure, and was reprimanded with
much acrimony for overlooking our paper when we were writing.
Scarcely five minutes elapsed in short during his stay, without his
finding some cause of complaint against his people; but we could not
determine whether this arose from mere captiousness, or was done
to give us a higher notion of his consequence, because in the
interval he was all cheerfulness and good humour. He was offered
tea and cherry-brandy, which he took along with us, and appeared at
his ease in every respect. We thought that he made signs implying a
wish for us to visit him on shore; to this we cheerfully assented, and
an arrangement for landing in the morning was made accordingly by
means of similar signs, with which the chief appeared much pleased,
and rose to go away. He had not got much beyond the cabin-door,
however, before the serenity of his temper was once more
overturned. On passing the gun-room skylight, he heard the voices
of some of his people whom the officers had taken below, and who
were enjoying themselves very merrily amongst their new
acquaintance. The old chief looked down, and observing them
drinking and making a noise, he called to them in a loud passionate
voice, which made them leave their glasses and run up the ladder in
great terror. From thence alarm spread along the lower deck to the
midshipmen’s berth, where another party was carousing. The grog
and wine with which they had been entertained was too potent for
this party, as they did not seem to care much for the old chief, who,
posting himself at the hatchway, ascertained by personal
examination who the offenders were. On this occasion his little rod of
office was of much use; he pushed the people about with it to make
them speak, and used it to turn them round in order to discover their
faces. One man, watching his opportunity when the chief was
punching away at somebody who had just come up, slipped past and
ran off; but the quick eye of the old man was not so easily deceived,
and he set off in chase of him round the quarter-deck. The man had
an apron full of biscuits which had been given to him by the
midshipmen; this impeded his running, so that the chief,
nothwithstanding his robes, at last came up with him; but while he
was stirring him up with his rod, the fellow slipped his cargo of bread
into a coil of rope, and then went along with the chief quietly enough.
The old man came back afterwards and found the biscuits, which he
pointed out to us to show that they had not been taken away. He
continued for some time at the hatchway, expecting more people, but
finding none come up, he went below himself to the main-deck and
rummaged under the guns and round the mainmast to discover
whether any one was concealed, but finding no person there he
came upon deck, and shortly after went into his boat.”
The reader has already made the acquaintance of King Finow;
here are some further particulars of him and the manner of his court
in connection with the marriage of his daughter. He had three
daughters, the eldest of whom, about eighteen years of age, had
been long betrothed to Tooitonga, who having expressed his wish
that the marriage should take place, Finow gave orders for the
necessary preparations. Tooitonga was now about forty years of age.
The particulars of this chief’s marriage, which was somewhat
different from those of other chiefs, shall be here described.
The young lady having been profusely anointed with cocoa-nut oil,
and scented with sandal-wood, was dressed in the choicest mats of
the Navigator’s Island, of the finest texture, and as soft as silk. So
many of these costly mats were wrapped round her, perhaps more
than forty yards, that her arms stuck out from her body in a ludicrous
manner, and she could not, strictly speaking, sit down, but was
obliged to bend in a sort of half-sitting posture, leaning upon her
female attendants, who were under the necessity of again raising her
when she required it. A young girl, about five years of age, was also
dressed out in a similar manner to be her immediate and particular
attendant; four other young virgins, about sixteen years of age, were
also her attendants, and were dressed in a manner nearly similar,
but not with quite so many mats. The lady and her five attendants
being all ready, proceeded to the marly of Tooitonga, who was there
waiting for their arrival together with a number of other chiefs, two
matabooles sitting before him. The lady and her attendants being
arrived, seated themselves on the green before Tooitonga. After the
lapse of a little time, a woman entered the circle with her face
covered up with white gnatoo; she went into the house of the marly,
and proceeded towards the upper end, where there sat another
woman in waiting with a large roll of gnatoo, a wooden pillow, and a
basket containing bottles of oil. The woman, whose face was veiled,
took the gnatoo from the other, wrapped herself up in it, and laying
her head upon the wooden pillow went, or pretended to go, fast
asleep. No sooner was this done than Tooitonga rose up, and taking
his bride by her hand led her into the house, and seated her on his
left hand. Twenty baked hogs were now brought into the circle of the
marly, and a number of expert cooks came in with knives (procured
from European ships; formerly they used bamboo) to try their skill in
carving with speed and dexterity, which is considered a great
recommendation. A considerable part was shared out to the chiefs,
each taking his portion and putting it in his bosom.
The remainder of the pork was then heaped up and scrambled for
at an appointed signal. The woman who had laid herself down,
covered over with gnatoo, now rose up and went, taking with her the
gnatoo and the basket containing the bottles of oil as her perquisites.
Tooitonga then took his bride by her left hand and led her to his
dwelling, followed by the little girl and the other four attendants. The
people now dispersed each to their home. Tooitonga being arrived
with his bride at his residence, accompanied her into the house
appropriated for her, where he left her to have her mats taken off and
her usual dress put on, after which she amused herself in
conversation with the women. In the meantime a feast was prepared
for the evening, of pigs, fowls, yams, etc., and cava. This was got
ready on the marly, where, about dusk, Tooitonga presiding, the
company sat down to receive their portions, which the generality
reserved to take home with them; the lower orders, indeed, who had
but a small quantity, consumed theirs on the spot. After this cava
was shared out and drunk. The musicians (if so they can be called)
next sat down at the bottom of the ring, opposite to Tooitonga, in the
middle of a circle of flambeaus, held by men who also held baskets
of sand to receive the ashes. The musical instrument consisted of
seven or eight bamboos of different lengths and sizes (from three to
six feet long), so as to produce—held by the middle, and one end
being struck on the ground—different notes according to the
intended tune (all the knots being cut out of the bamboo, and one
end plugged up with soft wood). The only other instrument was a
piece of split bamboo, on which a man struck with two sticks, one in
each hand, to regulate the time. The music was an accompaniment
to dancing, which was kept up a considerable time. The dancing
being over, one of the matabooles addressed the company, making
a moral discourse on the subject of chastity. The company then rose
and dispersed to their respective homes. The bride was not present
at this entertainment. Tooitonga being arrived at his house, sent for
the bride, who immediately obeyed the summons. The moment they
retired together, the lights were extinguished, and a man appointed
at the door for the purpose announced it to the people by three
hideous yells (similar to the war whoop), which he followed up
immediately by the loud and repeated sounds of the conch.
For the accuracy of the following description of an Australian
monarch Mr. W. H. R. Jessop is responsible:—
“King John, chief of the great Adelaide tribe, after reigning many
years to the satisfaction of his numerous subjects, was taken ill and
died. His body was not buried as would have been the fate of a
common body, but disembowelled, thoroughly washed, and trussed
like a fowl. Then a triangle was erected like that of a gipsey’s fire,
and from it he was reverently suspended. Over all a tabernacle was
made of green boughs and grass, something in the shape of a
beehive. Beneath the venerated remains thus shrouded, a slow fire
was kindled—so slow as to burn three weeks and not consume the
body, against which calamity every precaution was taken by
watching day and night.
 “Meanwhile the subjects of the deceased monarch assembled,
each one bearing in his hand a shell, and crowding round the
enclosure where the body was roasting. Then followed a ceremony
much too horrid for detail. It shall only be hinted at. Like all animal
bodies subjected to the action of fire ... the saucer-like shells that
were held beneath ... with which every subject anointed the tip of his
tongue!
“Well, when the body had been duly smoked, and as far as
possible mummied, the king’s dutiful lubras took it down, wrapped it
up carefully, and for three months, by means of relief squads, carried
it to and fro through the entire length and breadth of the defunct
king’s domains. The bounds having thus been beaten they return to
head-quarters, and there having selected a gum-tree, proper and
tall, they set the old man gently and firmly in a fork of the topmost
bough. But he might get cold, for they don’t believe in his death while
his body is to be seen, so they build over him a little tent of twigs and
grass, and then leave him to his fate.”
In an earlier part of Mr. Jessop’s hook (Sturtland and Flindersland)
mention is made of a certain “King John,” the proprietor of a skull of
marvellous thickness, which was deposited as a natural curiosity in
the “office” at the Sturtland station. Whether there were two
monarchs of the same name, or this was the veritable skull of the
king of Adelaide fallen from its nest in the gum-tree is not known,
though as the latter monarch was renowned for shrewdness and
intelligence, it is probable that the thick skull belonged to him. “Of his
prowess and the difficulties of his position,” writes Mr. Jessop, “his
skull is a lasting monument, more durable than brass or stone,”
graven by art or man’s device. “Upon it I counted fourteen cavities, in
each of which a marble would rest, all dents made by the waddies or
clubs of enemies whom he had encountered.”
As already intimated the plebeian Bushman receives none of the
sepulchral honours paid to the king. When he shows signs of giving
up the ghost, his friends carry him out of his “wurley,” or hut, and one
of them lays him straight along the ground as though he were
already dead, with his hands by his side, and his feet close together.
The dying man’s friend then commences what to a looker on would