Kaijondei

By Carl Jordan

A prince that must prove himself in a world that aligns against him— but can he complete the Kraal alone?

Brenjai is the worst of the privileged royal family. He is wrong for the kingdom and wrong for the throne. As each of his predecessors have done, he must pass the Kraal. But can he? Will the Kraal, the rite of passage test for all rulers of the kingdom, prevent his reign?

"Kaijondei" is the story of this young prince who must defy the expectations of his father and the citizens and prove himself. This electric action adventure book is a quick read and will appeal to those who like a challenge.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098359683

Book preview

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This Book is dedicated to those who work tirelessly so that the author’s ideas and words actually make sense to the reader.

It is in that spirit that this book is dedicated to Edie Jordan

who turned my unintelligible musings into the more comprehensible novel you have before you.

Thanks for all you did.

Contents

Prelude

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Prelude

He was a figure of indeterminate age. The hooded robe of a monk shrouded his features. The flickering fire revealed only disconnected glimpses where a face should have been. This night was cold. It was always cold here. Only those who lived without fear or possessed righteous clarity passed through these mountains. This particular journey had been hard. Animals had died today. Some had lost their footing and taken those with whom they shared a tether into oblivion.

Those around the fire were silent, each person lost in taking the fullest measure of themselves. When one knows that one cannot go back and yet does not relish going on, there comes a moment that defines everything worth knowing about that particular life.

The monk raised his head and regarded his fellow travelers.

"I tell you now; in the tongues of the highest mountains, deeds are the masculine ‘yang’ and words the feminine ‘yin’. This tale is the revelation of both, but the understanding of neither. Understanding is what I commend to you this night.

Many faces have I seen reflected in fires such as this, faces of storytellers who claim this story of which I speak to be their own. But it is not. Many nights have I sat before a fire and listened as the night leapt ablaze with the dazzle of stolen jewels, the clash of armies, and the passions of royal houses. But these tellers of stories speak false. They cannot know of that which I tell you now, for only I am left who truly knows these words. Only I remain."

He paused to remember and regarded us passively. Not a word was spoken. Only the embers of the fire cracked as they traded their existence for heat. He continued;

"There is an adage that the past, and our memory of it, can be likened to a traveler and his path; both must exist together for neither can exist separately. They define each other...for who can be called ‘traveler’ without a way upon which to set his feet? And what is a path if no living thing has ever trod its way?

Deeds and words are of similar nature. The path of deeds runs backward in time, but is meaningless without the spoken footsteps of our memory to bring them alive. In kind, without our words as messenger, we would all be but prisoners of the present with no knowledge of either deeds or a path to follow to what has gone before. The traveler complements his path. He and the path arrive together at a common place and common oneness.

So too it is that words and deeds complement each other. Together they jointly determine meaning. It is this meaning that you will hear tonight. When I am finished it will be for you to imagine the deeds that my words have spoken of. It will be for you to decide if the words and deeds arrived together in the end.

Let this, however, be a warning: for it will be tempting to believe that truth is also like the traveler and his path. It will be said that like the traveler, truth does not travel alone. It requires another to define it.

Truth is a most difficult traveling companion, for it is not defined by its complement but by its opposite, the lie. The unwary traveler will oft hold that truth is his companion. Only later does he discover that truth found a different way and he has been traveling with a lie. The traveler who journeys with truth will be faced with many forks on his way. He will hear words and believe they are deeds. He will imagine deeds but not believe the words. He will begin to confuse what is true. The true way will not be clear. Those who have come before me have left what they said was truth. Is that so?

You will likely now say ‘but how do we know that you travel with truth, how are we to know except for your words?’ I offer this. Truth can be of both word and deed. Some truth is only of the present. Other truth is forever. Objective truth is forever. It is the truth of deeds observed by many. It is true everywhere and in every time.

The ‘other’ truth though, has two faces; one face speaks to the human mind and is knowable, the other face hides and is known only to the Spirit. Words deliver to us the first, but nothing can deliver to us the second. The truth of Spirit is a hidden face. It is immune to the pursuits of human sense and senses except when it chooses to show itself.

Many of you will hear this tale and disbelieve. This, will I expect and concede. When though, I have spoken my last, perhaps the blaze of understanding will light the eyes of one of you, and betray your soul. It is this one of you I seek tonight. If you should ask at the end of my tale whether I believe it myself, I will answer: This is a true tale of great deeds...and I believe it...every word."

Chapter 1

After more than a day of precise excavation, the pit was ready. Extraordinary skill had been used along the entire path to prohibit an alternative passage, an escape. The foliage on either side of the great pit rose in the tangled and twisted triple canopy of the most impenetrable of jungles. And the wet earth from the pit had been carried off so as not to alert the prey. Over the opening in the ground, lanced bamboo shoots were woven into the intricate pattern of interlocking weaves. Its lattice supported the vine and leaf concealment. It would barely hold the weight of a small mongoose. It was ready for It.

Warriors poised on either side of the path had spent the remaining daylight hours removing the last traces of their labors and disguising their scents. They had covered themselves with dirt and rubbed themselves with cloves from the pungent haeolin tree. These bravest few had come willingly, for to return with this treasure would bring great honor and royal favor. To die in this service, would secure a place in the highest temple...in the place of the Spirit. Now they would wait.

For as long as the longest living of the Ancient Ones could recall, no one had been able to take It alive. There were many stories of those who lay beneath the earth who had tried. It had rarely been seen, at least by any who had lived to tell the tale, but all had heard Its devil scream and manic cry. It was a cry that could be felt in that special inner place where fear is king...a place in us all that pierces dreams with unimaginable terror.

There were tales of two heads and a weight that was equal to eleven fully armored men. Its paws were said to be the size of a grown man’s chest and the shield could not be carried that would withstand the crashing force of Its powerful jaws. The raw speed of Its movements had led those god-favored few that had survived, to swear that they had been attacked from everywhere, and by many of Them, but the tracks of the next day spoke only of one. The carnage of Its violence, the uprooted trees, the broken and ripped bones, were terrible, lasting shrines to Its great strength. Many believed It to be an Evil from Hades itself.

Brenjai moved only his eyes. The sharp colorful shapes of daylight had dulled to shades of black and gray. An eighth sense would be necessary tonight. He saw and heard nothing...but It was near. He crouched well back into the matted screen of the jungle, waiting. His fingers tested again the blade of his weapon, it satisfied him.

The muscles of his body tensed. They channeled energy for the struggle yet to come. His body had been hewn from the competition of twenty-four seasons of athletic fields and the arena where he had practiced with his father’s soldiers. His tanned shoulders carried the deep-set muscles of the javelin thrower, and his legs the power of the distance runner. His thighs were banded and defined by shadows that hid their craggy surfaces from the light. He was accustomed to hardship, to power, to winning. The stories of his deeds were told and retold in the kingdom.

The palace mystics had shaped his sixth and seventh senses. He had practiced for hours, until he could smell emotion, taste color, hear flavor, feel noise, and see music. Each other sense was trained as his body was. His mind had been the hardest. As his mind became stronger he found that he knew things before his ordinary senses told him they were so. A second mind had grown up beside the first. One mind knew his senses, and his thoughts. The other mind knew something else.

You must expect that your opponent has evolved since you faced him last, his honored instructor had said. He had blindfolded Brenjai and asked him to see colors through the blindfold. There was punishment for being wrong. Brenjai had been taught to use his mind to ‘observe’ without his eyes. The honored one was a master. His mind could recount things that were unknowable to those not so blessed. There was no lie in his being.

Brenjai had learned quickly but had grown tired of the palace tutors. Some he had exceeded in ability, and they were dismissed as being no longer useful. Others had stayed ahead of his development, but he had become jealous of their ability. They too were dismissed. Eventually he was alone.

It was the challenge of the mind and the body that had brought him and these men to this place. It was the hunt, the planning, the capture, and if necessary, the kill, that drove them all. There were to be no hunts like this one.

During the past hours Brenjai had thought of the possible light cones of two imagined futures; one cone started with the cage, the beast, and the triumphant return to his father’s palace. He imagined the cone expanding to the feasting and stories to be told for many, many years. It expanded yet further to where he was...king.

The second cone was draped in the black cloak of defeat. The lumbering death wagons would carry his body and those whose lives had gone with his own, back to the palace. His father would mourn. It was a very small cone. It would end shortly.

As night changed the defined shapes of vision to dark gray and then to black, Brenjai listened and felt for Its presence. It was here. He knew It was here. He listened for Its breath; he felt for Its heart, he sensed Its thoughts. His second mind became part of the jungle. This second mind felt the crushing weight of Its paws as it trod softly through the night. His awareness drifted through the creature’s body, sensing the enormous raw power.

Brenjai had taken the place of greatest danger. The beast would be forced to the pit, and many men with metal dipped in the resin of sleep would weaken It. As It fell, it would pass through the downward pointing tree limbs that had been specially sharpened and fixed deep into the pit walls. The sleeping drug had been poured on the stakes as well.

Once It had fallen, an enormous, bottomless, cage would be dropped from the trees above. The banded reinforced beams of the cage walls and top would cover the pit. Holes had been dug for securing stakes in each corner of the cage that touched the earth. Once the cage was stable atop the pit, the top of the cage would then be slid back. High in the trees above, the hawsers and tackle to lift It to the level of the jungle floor hung down. Lifting bands would bind It tight and raise It up until the floor of the cage could be slid over the pit and under the load. It remained then, to secure the cage top and the beast would be his. The hawser would then lift the cage high enough for the round wooden wheels, as tall as a man, to be fixed to the cage.

The coiled, tensed fibers of muscle in his legs and arms stung only slightly even after all this time. He had removed his robes and wore only a thong and hunting skins on his feet. His long, dark hair had been tied in back and he felt the droplets of the jungle sweat on his neck.

He had oiled the straps of his shield and it moved noiselessly in its sling across his back. He had two throwing spears. They were light and were weighted for distance and accuracy. Their points had been drugged with haeolin as well. He also had his miniat, or fighting sword.

In the stillness Brenjai felt a pulse...Its pulse. He closed his eyes and sought Its mind. The beast was also searching, looking for something. He felt its movement, Its sense of Its own great power. Then It stopped. Did It know? Suddenly, there was a sensation that neither of his minds could recognize...it crept upon Brenjai and began to paralyze thoughts. It felt as though his minds were closing down! He fought to regain control!

No man can know his limits until he has stood face to face with his fear at the Gates of Hades. None who have done so can remain the same. Fear comes to all parts of the body. Each signal to the brain is a plea, a cry, and a piercing strike, demanding response. But the brain cannot rule such rabble. When the brain thinks everything, it therefore thinks nothing. It tells the body senseless, imaginary things. But the brain retains just enough of itself to know that it may die. It is unknowingness that is the essence of fear. And it doesn’t let go.

There was a very soft whistle, which sang like a shout from a tree to his left. It was not a sound of the jungle. Brenjai sensed alarm. He sensed the beast suddenly slowing his pace and stopping to smell, to listen, and to know. He felt the air, It was waiting...waiting for confirmation of a sound, a smell, a thought. It was moving again slowly, slowly. His minds regained some of what they had lost. They saw the redness of the beast growing in intensity. There were purple hues above the red.

Suddenly his mind lashed out! IT knew! How? It had leaped from the jungle in a dazzling, powerful but soundless prelude to attack! It was moving through the foliage with fierce purposeful intensity. He saw through Its eyes, and he saw his men with their backs to It!

In the instant that his mind concluded that thought, a sound like the opening of the Gates of Hades removed all further thought and crashed furiously against every sense in his body! Instantly there were cries and screams of death, as man and beast savaged, clawed, stabbed and bit. The air erupted into chaos of sound and urgency! It was a staccato beat of cries, warnings, orders, oaths, primal screams, as the darkened jungle was torn apart with impossible violence.

Brenjai had leaped to his feet and sprinted quickly to his right. He smelled blood and he felt Its shape in the background of the brush in front of him. He pushed through the growth and moved quickly towards a group of soldiers near him. Suddenly with a sense- splintering crash, the jungle around them erupted in carnage! Tree and bone, flesh and leaf, blood and dirt rained down on them. It had come!

His men were flailing and swinging wildly, their spears striking trees as often as the beast. Many had struck their target only to be yanked away with ferocious strength. Brenjai touched six men in rapid succession and pulled each of them towards him. They circled behind the beast. As they approached, It knew! Again somehow, It knew! It turned with great ferocity and lashed out! Instantly, Brenjai plunged with his spear, and knew it had taken. There were cries from everywhere and the sound of crushing bone and wood. The beast was thrashing and snarling and lashing out in every direction! Others had thrown their spears and they too had taken.

On his right, a flame erupted from the darkness. One of his soldiers had struck an oil flint and was moving towards the beast. Brenjai sensed fear, real fear. Fire, he yelled, Bring more fire! The remaining hands that still had strength, responded and soon there were several blazes of flame. As the fires grew in intensity the jungle became as though it were a living spirit. The trees moved, the earth pounded, as the motion of man and beast flickered in the light. The fires grew as more oil was added all moving in concert, pushing, pushing the beast towards the trap.

The firelight could not believably translate to the eyes of men the terrible features of beast before them. Their eyes told their first minds what they saw, but their first minds could not reason with such an unholy sight. The beast was shaped like three animals, and moved so quickly that Its shape changed as soon as the mind and the eye had recognized It.

Yet It was afraid! Brenjai could feel It! Then the fear stopped. The beast had gained the path and snarled between the fire and the pit. Brenjai stopped too. His second mind suddenly knew but it was too late. Before he could cry out the beast had smashed the trees on either side of the path with Its tail. As trees were uprooted they fell on the men with the fire, and one by one the flames went out. In the darkness, a cry broke from the opposite side of the path. His men were throwing spears and punishing the beast towards the pit. All was frantic chaos. It was backing towards the hole when It suddenly turned and struck back with a vicious cry that paralyzed some men in their places. Many died with that sound flailing their minds.

Brenjai ran toward the form in his mind. He hefted his second spear, and was poised to throw, when suddenly his side exploded in indescribable pain! He was lifted off his feet and was thrown in the air like a piece of Naru bark. The branches of the nearest trees clawed at his flesh as he fell back to earth. He landed hard but it was not the unyielding ground. The ground was moving! It was moving! A fierce snarling primal scream again overpowered his senses. He was atop It! He drew his sword and struck again and again. The pit no longer mattered, only life mattered now! With a sound that had never been heard on earth, the whole matted, writhing, blood covered base of his world fell away and there was a terrific pounding, splintering shriek! Brenjai was pitched forward with incredible force. His shield, still slung on his back struck something with vicious suddenness. His skull flashed and he fought for his senses. He saw lights, colors, then black. It would stay black for a long time.

Chapter 2

All men are of two minds. The first mind records all sensory stimuli from outside the body and then reacts. It is this most basic mind that keeps one alive and is the one that is most commonly in use. Its decisive abilities are a combination of thought and emotion. However there is a second mind. This second mind acts when the first mind is overwhelmed or fails. It repairs damage to the first mind. The second mind governs awareness, intuition, pattern recognition and is the part of one’s soul that does not give up.

In the first moments of consciousness, Brenjai’s senses flooded his first mind with image, sound, smell, feel and taste. The simultaneous surge of demands caused the first mind to back away. The first mind could not assimilate what it was being told…it only knew it was alive. His second mind would not recover for some time.

Brenjai moved slightly. He was on his back. He listened. Nothing. Then pain! His side was screaming! His shield arm had pumped a great pool of blood onto the soft green moss and insects had gathered to feed. He turned his head painfully to the side and saw the severed head of the captain of the engineers, the bloated eyes dangling from their sockets. He listened again. No sound, not even the usual noises of the jungle. His powerful body responded to his command and he labored cautiously, painfully, onto his stomach. Brenjai rose slowly to his knees. His mind knew pain, it knew illness, and it knew it needed help. In response, his eyes searched the nearby foliage for the flowering aspergai shrub. His first mind knew its pods contained an elixir to repair torn flesh. His eyes painfully settled on a small bush a short distance away. For what seemed like the remainder of his life he crawled to it, and broke a pod over his left arm. He swallowed another. His first mind then again went to black.

As consciousness returned his first mind returned to him for a second time. Brenjai remembered. He felt a dull awareness from his second mind. He and it were stronger. He thought he was outside the pit. As his body crawled back towards the pit he could not support his weight on his left arm. He tore cloth from a dead soldier’s tunic and bound it. He was holding the cloth tight in his teeth and gritting against the pain. His body ached with every movement.

Brenjai was physically spent from the effort. He lay on his back and stared at the sky. It was lighter now, morning perhaps, but the triple canopy darkened the surroundings to a lightened gloom. He dozed and faded in and out of numbness. His first mind was fighting for control, but his body was sending too many messages that had to be attended to, especially pain! After an incalculable time, he rolled to his side and stared down the break in the jungle that had once been a path. The path was unrecognizable. The foliage from either side had been splintered and strewn around as though ripped apart by a giant scythe. The dead were everywhere. The cage had fallen as desired and lay atop the pit but it was not lashed down. There was no sign or sound of life. With his right arm he drew his sword and using it as a brace began to try to stand. The aspergai began to block the minds from the signals of sharp pain that the body had been sending. Brenjai leaned heavily on his sword to balance himself. He felt very dizzy. He limped slowly around the pit.

All along the rim of the hole were deep, wide grooves in the dirt, some as wide as a cane stalk. He leaned on his sword as he reached the edge of the cage and looked through the bars. His eyes moved slowly down into the pit. It was impossible for them to describe to the first mind what they saw. There were broken bodies, shattered stakes and twisted limbs of man and beast. It was there. The beast had fallen head first into the hole and had lashed out with insane fury. It looked to be part cat with four enormous paws and claws the size of scimitars. Its tail was barbed with spikes near the end. It would have taken incredible strength to wield it with any force. And yet it was not a cat. The head and chest were of such a sort that it looked reptilian. It had scales and the narrow triangular head of a snake...and something else. One of its two horns had been broken against the lower row of stakes. Yet, It had somehow survived. Brenjai secured the cage to the four stakes with metal bands as best he could, and looked high in the trees for the hawsers. They were hopelessly tangled and he was in no condition alone to restore them. He dazedly gazed along the path looking for a sign that others had survived the night. There were blood trails. Perhaps, some had escaped.

Suddenly he heard a groan and looked down inside the pit. One man lay tangled with the creature in a twisting blood covered web of vines, bamboo, stakes, and human parts. Brenjai seemed to recall his name was Drayu, a skilled archer. He started forward to climb down into the pit, but the pain was too intense. No good, he thought. He found a vine and tied it to the cage and let the lose end dangle down into the pit. Then he found some of the large iron nails that had secured the hawser, and tied them in a necklace around his neck. Next he gathered more of the aspergai pods and tied them around his neck as well. He crawled between the bars of the cage to the edge of the pit, and with one arm, tried to lower himself down. He had overestimated his strength and he fell with a jarring crash into the pit. He heard the groan next to his ear and turned to see a most hideous site. Drayu’s head from the eyebrows to his hairline had been peeled back and the gray, plant-like part of his brain lay exposed. His mouth was moving but no sound came from it. Drayu’s left leg had shattered at the knee and he had lost much blood. Brenjai looked at Drayu’s face, a strong and surprisingly peaceful face that seemed to be seeking....

Brenjai whispered, "Yes, Drayu, we have won. You lie on your victim even now. He is full of your arrow strikes. Your bravery will be remembered this day. I will remember it! I swear!"

The eyes could not see, the ears could not hear but the damaged second mind sensed the presence of another human being. Brenjai told the soul that it was all right to die. And Drayu died.

Brenjai sat for a long time after saying the rites of the dead. He thought of death, he thought of life. ‘I can never be the same,’ he thought. ‘No mere words will be able to tell of this... as it really was. Only the memories of those who were here, if any still live, can speak with the honor of having been here. All else is meaningless. Perhaps’, he thought, ‘our ancestors watched this from their places with the gods. Perhaps they know....’

He did not have the strength to move for a long time. He lay where he had fallen. The jungle sounds had begun to cautiously return to his ears and he slept.

His ears registered sounds. His face felt wet. There was a misty rain falling. Brenjai lifted himself up as darkness was again descending, and broke more of the aspergai pods. He rose and found the end of a broken spear. He took the necklace of nails and remaining aspergai pods from around his neck. He had to get out of the pit. He pounded nails into the sides of the pit on either side of the vine he had earlier lowered. With a last look about he began his climb out, using the nails as steps and the vines to balance. It took all of his remaining strength but at last his head appeared at the top of the pit. He crawled between the bars and fell to the ground. He slept a second night at the edge of Hell.

The following day Brenjai awoke to continued pain like he had never known. He lay on his side and tried to focus. He thought he saw movement but sensed no danger. His second mind still had not fully returned.

As he crawled to his knees and steadied himself on the pit-cage he heard a shout, and a moment later a phalanx of mounted palace guards appeared. Their armor had been woven with jungle brush to blend into the foliage. The lead officer was a commander that Brenjai recognized. He was one of the best. He was shorter than many men but was the most skilled and well-trained fighter in the kwaiji matches held each year. He wore his heavy armor as easily as his tunic and those he had beaten revered him. He swung easily from his mount:

It is good to see you my prince, said the commander, the concern showing as he glanced at Brenjai’s arm. The palace has been awaiting our return. There are those preparing for your funeral. You were reported dead.

It was nearly so, replied Brenjai. How many others...?

…Survived? interjected the warrior Seven, my prince; and two of them will never draw blood in battle again.

The men were dismounting and setting about their duty. They had come prepared, with the black wagons for what they knew they would find.

What happened, lord? the commander asked and motioned to the herb bearer to attend to Brenjai’s wounds.

Brenjai spoke softly It is hard to say with certainty commander, our preparations were detailed, our attention to the smallest item checked twice, and yet it was we who were taken by surprise. It lays where It finally gave up consciousness. I believe you will find others there underneath where It fell.

The remaining men set about reinforcing the cage using grappling hooks to bring the dead up from their jungle floor tomb. More sleeping drug was injected into the beast by additional spear thrusts. There was no movement. A poisonous herb brew was made up as a precaution and archers took up positions awaiting the rig to be made right. It would remain to see who would climb down and bind the beast for the final lift into the cage.

Black death wagons were full by the time the cage was secured. None believed the cage bars would withstand the beast if It awoke. The commander moved inside the cage and lowered himself to the bottom. When he returned he found Brenjai on a litter of skins and straw.

It is hurt badly my prince the commander stated as his eye again warily roamed the wounds along Its spine.

"Yes, yet It is only hurt. said Brenjai, It would be in Hades by now if It were a lesser demon. I cannot recall such an assault on my senses. I knew It was here, knew it! And yet somehow It knew I knew. It was as though It could read my thoughts while masking Its own. I sensed intelligence, a mind, before It attacked, before all sense was rendered useless"

The commander nodded, uncertain whether it was the prince or the aspergai drug that was speaking. Do you still desire to transport It to the palace? he asked, silently willing It be killed and buried forever in the pit.

Sensing the commander’s thoughts, Brenjai’s voice struck like an ax against a tree... When so many have given so much for the glory of this moment? the prince glared fiercely at the commander who saluted and made his way to the cage to make it so.

It took the rest of the day to restore the cage to its original strength. Iron bands had been fashioned around the legs of the beast and its neck was banded as well. Each band was attached by a chain to all other leg bands and then attached again to Its neck. Its eyes were covered by cloth and Its jaws had been bound shut. It had taken twenty-three men to pull on the hawser to lift the beast after the pit had been cleared. The floor of the cage had been banded with iron, linking the trunks of great green trees that had been felled for this purpose. A continuous flow of the sleep resin was coursing into It from a bag tied to the top of the cage. Finally, all was in order.

The power It had held was false. It was false by virtue of a greater power, the power of man. Wherever the beast had roamed it had been the local truth. Its way had been the way of absolute death. Then It encountered a greater local truth, a greater power, and Its power was shown to be a lie. It had lost to greater truth, a human truth. And it was a greater human deed.

The wheels of the cage dug deeply into the jungle floor as the soldiers and their lumbering cargo set off for the palace. The horses kept a distance from the cage as if repelled by the smell of the beast’s blood. Those in front were straining at their bits to make headway. Brenjai dozed on his mount as they made steady, even progress through the night. He considered his fortune and smiled. A victorious door of glory lay open to him. The future light cone of possibilities could not be more propitious. No one could deny him his right to the Kraal.

As the winged footed news of the victory swept ahead of them to the palace, there were frantic preparations to celebrate in every street. A great cry went out from the people, a cry of redemption, and the voice of a people who had suffered long from the beast’s nocturnal strikes of death. No ruler before, not even the King himself, had claimed such a victory. There were cries to make Brenjai king the moment his banner was spied from the palace walls. The King was pleased with his son. No other would have chosen this test as proof he was ready for the Kraal. It was however, only the first step. Others would come soon enough, and the King knew well that this was perhaps the easiest of all that remained. For now, his son had prevailed... prevailed in fortune, prevailed in strength and prevailed in the energy of spirit, the greatest gift from a son to his father.

It is a miraculous accomplishment my Lord, if the stories they tell are only half true, the voice of Lord Tanas softly intruded at the King’s shoulder. They say this is the most extraordinary start to the Kraal in the recorded history of time. I have seen to it that every member of the palace has been turned out for the prince’s arrival.

It is well nodded the King, and he half turned toward his chief minister, his eyes intent on the visage of a man whom he had known since childhood. You are not going to the gates of the city and welcome him yourself? asked the king without altering his gaze.

No my Lord, I serve you best when I serve you here. Besides, there will be much need for me here to arrange the details of the feast. Would you have me leave your evening to the whims of the low castes? Besides, Great One, the people are certainly more anxious to see you than me. And his head bowed slightly in deference.

The King felt the air for traces of a word out of place, a betrayal of the eye, a hint of insincerity in Tanas’ announced deeds. He found none, but this did not prove satisfying. The King tested his senses. Perhaps it was his age that materialized suspicions like spirits. Perhaps he had lived too long. Over the years he had felt a...what was it exactly, perhaps a subtle nuance of change, a word with a different flavor, a deed of unnecessary complexity? Tanas was clever, a master at his craft. After all, Tanas too had survived the Kraals necessary to replace his own father as chief minister. Some whispered he was too clever, and that his father’s spirit had departed sooner than the time chosen by the Spirit. He would see to it that Brenjai would guard his thoughts closely in Tanas’ presence.

No, you’re correct in the presumption of your duties, he found himself saying. Was that the faintest of breaths he heard, a breath of satisfaction? Was there more here? But the face that met his was as similar to the one that had entered his chambers as was possible to perceive.

The loaded cage had made slow progress. They had struggled to make it out of the jungle. The ruts from the cage wheels dug deep into the jungle floor and at times the horses could not budge it. The men had to push and pull to make any progress. It was very tough work.

The small band was still several days ride from the palace. Brenjai was weak from the loss of blood and pain. He rode up front beside the captain of the guards.

Have you brought my ceremonial robes for entry into the city? he asked.

"Ahhh.... no my lord. We left in a hurry out