From: caz@owlnet.rice.edu (HWRNMNBSOL)
Subject: Kukul [Inn] Kukul's Story II: Hard Hearted
Organization: Rice University
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 05:06:00 GMT

Kukul and Listener sit by the fireplace in the Dragon's Inn, both waiting for
the evening when the clientele will flesh out a bit.  Kukul has been telling
his story to the elvish bard for a half-hour now, and his throat is dry.  He
fetches two spiced rums from the bar -- good stuff for cold weather and raspy
esophagi -- while Listener pokes the fire.  Sparks fly up into the rafters
as the embers settle; they carry a tiny parcel of soot with them, and deposit
it on the beams as they cool.  The rafters of the Inn are usually fairly
grundgy during cold winters, as only the Short Ogre Cook can stand to clean
the mess.

Kukul sits back down with the drinks.  Listener strums speculatively on his
baliset, picking out a quirky triad in quasiminor.  Kukul cocks an ear, then
hefts his rhapsodine and adds a lively counterpoint.  Listener playfully
switches keys and begins to chase Kukul's music along the tune.  Kukul 
speeds up, leading to a race that culminates in sore fingers, empty mugs,
and a thrown shoe from Littlefair, who has a headache.

"What I can't understand," comments Listener, wistfully staring at the lack
of rum in his pot, "is how an island boy like you learned to play the
rhapsodine, a beastly difficult instrument to master."

Kukul smiles -- a grim sight, if one is unprepared.  "We are a long way from
that, yet, in my story.  I have told you my tale, up to the point where I
completed the rites of initiation into Manhood -- a test that all who wish
to be warriors must pass or die.  I passed the test, and thus became a
warrior.

"But I was a long way yet from being a man...."

*****************************************************************************

In his sixteenth summer, Kukul fought The Others.

In outriggers of balsa and cane they came, five score and a score of them.
They came from the islands beyond the setting sun, a full two days travel
over open seas.  They must have been very desperate to make such a voyage:
desperate, and hungry.  

Kukul heard the cries of the sentry, perched in a tall tree nine score paces
up the beach.  He had been hunting for the correct shells.  If one boiled the
ivory whelk, a fine bluish ink would be made which was ideal for highlighting
details on one's skin decorations.  Boiling the silver whelk, a very similar
shell, would produce a bluish toxin which would produce rashes, fever, and
death.  Kukul was very careful.

Kukul heard the cries, and at first thought Ahua had been stung by a palm
fly.  He irritatedly paced up the beach, being careful for man-o-wars, his
oiled carapace creaking as he moved.  He stood under Ahua's tree and looked
up, his hand shading his deep black eyes.

"Aieee!  Ahua, you runt piglet!  Why do you squeal?  Do you not know that your
brother, who is my eldest brother's friend, is very near?  If he heard a 
warrior squalling so, he would remove a finger for your trouble!  Stop that
now, lame gull, or we'll both be in trouble!"

"B-b-b-b-but I s-s-see a.....a whole bunch of them!  I cannot count them all!"

Kukul squinted up at his friend.  "What are you talking about?  Is it the
heat again?  Come down, and I'll find you a coconut to drink from."

Ahua peered down, his face a mask of terror.  "No, Kukul!  I see canoes!  The
sea is covered with them!  And they are not ours!!"

Kukul blanched.  The two stared at each other for a moment.  Then Kukul began
to run, screaming, up the slope toward the Warrior's camp.  Ahua scrambled
down his tree like a monkey and followed: "Kukul!  Don't leave me!  Wait!"

Kukul did not stop, or pause, and soon had left his friend far behind.  He
was not the strongest warrior in the tribe -- not by a long wave swell --
but he was arguably the fastest, and the best aim with harpoon as well.  This
made his elder brothers jealous, but he bore their beatings with pride.  Was
he not a son of Ukambe Son of Ukambe, and did he not honor his father with
his prowess?

Kukul plowed into the Warrior's clearing, and was promptly brought up short
by a strong arm wrapped about his neck.  As he struggled, the arm bulged,
lifting him bodily off the ground.  Kukul twisted around in his assailant's
grasp, only to find himself face to face with his eldest brother, Xuthu.
He felt fear.

"So, little bug, what's all the ruckus, eh?  Screaming?  Most unwarriorlike.
Now I will take an eye.  Do not scream, or you will lose more."  He reached
down, his fingernails razor sharp and hard as bone, and began to trace a 
place around Kukul's eye socket.  

"STOP!"  Ukambe Son of Ukambe strode out from his hut made of palm leaves.
"Put him down, Xuthu, for I am father here, and I will determine punishment!"
His hair now greying, Ukambe Son of Ukambe was still a mighty warrior.  Xuthu
snarled, but released his brother, who gasped on the floor of the clearing.

"Xuthu, someday you will be chief, but not now," admonished Ukambe.  "Now I
rule here.  Do you wish to challenge me?"  He took a step forward.

Xuthu looked at his feet, but his eyes were not submissive.  "No, father. 
You are chieftain here."  Satisfied, Ukambe turned away.

"So, youngest son," he began sternly, "what is all this ruckus?  You had 
better have a good explanation, or perhaps Xuthu will get his way after all."
Kukul explained what Ahua had seen on the beach.  Ukambe's eyes grew hot as
two coals, and he reached for Kukul's arm in a vise-like grip.

"If this is not true, you will die."  Kukul nodded, once.  

"Then TO ARMS!" shouted Ukambe, and the Warrior's camp sprang into action.
Warriors fetched harpoons and bone daggers; nets were hastily emplaced; word
was sent to all parts of the island.  Kukul stood amidst the confusion with
no idea what he should do.  Suddenly, he struck his head: "Ahua!"  His friend
had never made it back to camp.  Seizing harpoon and dagger in hand, Kukul
dashed off into the undergrowth.

Kukul saw no sign of his friend all the way to the beach.  He ran out onto the
sand and looked about him.  No sign.  He searched the beach for tracks, but
there were many, and he was no great tracker anyway.  In desperation, he 
climbed the tree Ahua had been in, and had a good look at the opposition.

They can drawn up on the north beach.  They looked the same as his people did;
they were black-skinned, muscular, and almost hairless; they bore crude weapons
of bone and shell and bits of wood.  They also had strange sticks with cords
strung from end to end, but Kukul did not understand them.  Kukul watched
from his vantage point as his own people closed around the intruders and
began to assault them with harpoon fire.  It was then that Kukul saw the
other group.

There were perhaps five of them -- an advance party, perhaps, or simply
deserters -- who had landed a bit south of Kukul's position.  They had
beached two outriggers there, and seemed to be starting a small fire.  There
was also what seemed to be a captive in their grasp.  Ahua!

Kukul slid down the tree and raced into the jungle.  Following the paths of
the jungle boar, the young warrior sprinted for the enemy's encampment.  He
was there in a few minutes, but they had not waited for him.

Kukul had not realized from afar how starved the invaders truly were.  Their
muscles still bulged, but their skin pulled tautly over the bones in their
faces, and their veins popped out like the ribbing of the kelp.  The light
of madness gleamed in their eyes, and Kukul knew they had been drinking
sea-water on their long ocean trip.  They had started the fire to cook up
a little barbecued islander, but they must have been too hungry to wait.
They hadn't even killed Ahua.  To his credit, he was not screaming.

Kukul dashed from cover, making no noise as he did so.  Two were squabbling
over a leg, which they tugged at like gulls on a boar's tendon.  Kukul's
sharp bone knife silenced them both before they could cry out.  He threw
his harpoon through the back of a third, more patient than the others, who
was collecting driftwood for the flames.  He cried out, however, and the
other two, who were worrying Ahua's body, turned and snarled.  Kukul gave
a bloodcurdling cry and lept to attack; his foes did the same.

Fortunately, Ahua (or the half that remained) was still awake and aware.  The
closer one was foolish to turn his back, for Ahua reared up on his arms and
sank his teeth into his ankle.  He jerked to the ground as the other dived
forward.  

The one confronting Kukul was mad as Shark Smelling Blood, but he was still
a canny warrior.  He kicked sand in Kukul's eyes as they closed, temporarily
blinding him.  Kukul had no choice but to dive forward and grapple with the
intruder.

They wrestled in the sand.  Kukul could not see, and the Other had the 
strength of madness which would eventually win the day.  However, Kukul had
other weapons at his disposal.  He could feel the heat of the fire; he 
rolled himself into it while grabbing his opponent.  His carapace protected
him from the worst of the burns; the enemy had no such benison.  As he rolled
back out of the flames, he could hear the frantic shrieks of the invader
writhing in the fire of his own creation.  Kukul cleared his eyes and turned
to the last opponent.  

The invader was beating Ahua on the head with a piece of wood.  Ahua, almost
out of strength, was doggedly hanging on.  The insane Other looked up too
late as Kukul pinned him from behind.

"Ahua!  You must get one kill before you pass on!  Do it!"  Ahua feebly
seized Kukul's bone dagger from the ground and, with the frenzied enemy
struggling in Kukul's grasp, drove the point into the Other's eye socket.
He jerked once, then lay still.  Ahua promptly collapsed, the life draining
from the tattered remains of his body.

Kukul knelt by his friend's dying body, but did not cry.  Ahua opened his
eyes and looked up at Kukul.  "....my friend, you came back to me...."

"Of course I did.  Now stop gibbering and die.  It is a good death."

"....Kukul, they did not get to the good part of their feast...."

"What?  What are you talking about?"

".....my heart.  I give you my heart, my strength.  It is yours."

Kukul was truly touched.  "Ahua, this is a great gift.  I thank you."

Ahua's glazed eyes frowned. ".....it's best if taken while I'm still alive."
He was, of course, correct.

The carapace was a tough nut to crack, but Kukul managed.

                               - * -

In Kukul's twentieth summer, Xuthu became chieftain.

Kukul had returned from a successful fishing trip.  He personally had harpooned
a great marlin, and had ridden him down for the better part of a day.  He and
his small band of cronies, mostly younger warriors, returned to the island
victoriously.  They did not expect the reception they got.

Xuthu had won over Kukul's sole remaining other brother to his side, and when
Kukul was conveniently out of the way, Xuthu challenged aging Ukambe to a
fight.  With no other sons to champion for him, Ukambe had to fight the
battle personally.  It was a good fight, and was not quick at all.  In the
end, Ukambe told Xuthu, as his own heart was being removed, that he hoped he
choked on it and derived from it no power.  Xuthu ate it anyway, but Ukambe
died feeling he had struck a moral blow of sorts.

Kukul's company returned to a rather subdued village.  As his warriors
marched in, bearing their trophy, Xuthu confronted them with his own band
of supporters.  Kukul's men died to protect him as he fled for the canoes.
He barely made it out to sea with his hide intact; as it was, he had no
supplies, water, or weapons, and there was no landfall within a day's
journey.  However, Kukul had no doubts he would survive.

After all, he had Ahua's strength as well as his own....

******************************************************************************

Listener's nose wrinkles.  "I don't think I like the spin of this yarn.  A
little too gruesome for the standard palate."

Kukul grins.  "Ah, yes.  Savagery.  I have certainly seen savagery in my
time.  But the worst savagery there is is not the doing of savages, you
mark my words."

"Sounds like you speak from experience."

"As you shall soon learn...."



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