Book I of III: The Swords of the Sultan (57 page)

Only a half an hour after the last of the
cannibals had retreated back home, King Cha immediately called a
meeting in the throne room for the whole tribe, and he even invited
the group to join.

Once fully assembled, two minutes later, he
declared, “Chao-chu-sha-maen can no longer tolerate these merciless
attacks from Conga-chasa-casua-craen. Enough is enough! The time
has come for war to be declared!”

Throughout the room, many whooping noises
erupted from the villagers—Baltor’s mind translated that the name
of the cannibals’ village actually meant, “The warring gods that
dominate over the blood-thirsty gorilla and vulture!”

Once the whooping noises had ceased, Baltor
verbally translated the king’s message to his Pavelian-speaking
friends.

The king waited for Baltor to finish, and
then he spoke to Baltor, “Tell your friends that our wars are not
your wars. You and your friends may stay here if you wish.”

As Baltor translated the message to the
group, Humonus began stroking his bearded face while he
squinted.

Once translated, Humonus pointed his index
finger into the sky, and suggested, “Tell King Cha that I have a
better plan! What if we were to train the villagers in our fighting
style? Give it a year, that’s all we’ll need, and then we can
decimate the cannibals for good. In the meantime, we can also help
the villagers to build some defensive fortifications around the
village, in order to give us better protection. Ask him.”

The plan sounded good in Baltor’s opinion, so
he translated the words to the king and queen and prince.

King Cha said, “Tell Humonus that my warriors
already know how to fight!”

Instead of translating the words to Humonus,
Baltor replied, “Not like this.” In Pavelian, he barked, “Humonus,
face me!”

Humonus did.

“Humonus, attack me!”

Humonus threw a full-forced punch at Baltor’s
face—easily, Baltor evaded the punch, grabbed Humonus’s wrist, and
twisted. Right away Humonus’s body flew over Baltor’s, just before
slamming hard into the ground.

Baltor continued to twist Humonus’s wrist
until the man yelped out in pain and slapped the floor hard with
his hand.

Baltor let go, faced the king, queen, and
prince, and then bowed—throughout and after the split-second
demonstration, they all bore amazed and shocked expressions upon
their faces.

After taking two steps back, Baltor added,
“This is but a taste of what we can teach your troops.”

Several more moments of silence had passed.
The queen was the next to ask, “Can we see more, please?”

“Of course, Queen Che-Baesucse,” Baltor said
with a smile.

For the next hour, Baltor and Humonus
demonstrated nearly two dozen more techniques of their fighting
skills with blinding speeds. The second that the demonstrations
were over, the king, queen, and prince immediately agreed to
Humonus’s idea.

It only took two days of hard work to set up
a good defensive perimeter—also thanks to Humonus’s ideas. What
they did was to collect an enormous amount of bamboo sticks, create
spears out of them, and bury one-quarter of the spears’ lengths
into the ground while angling the sharp points in an outwards
direction around the entire village, except for two different
positions where constant guards were set.

Once the defenses were completed, Humonus and
Baltor then began to teach the villagers how to fight.

In total, there were one hundred and
twenty-seven villagers that attended class, ranging from ten to
sixty years old. Brishava and Chelsea even took classes.

During these night classes, Humonus would
instruct the lessons and the movements; meanwhile, Baltor
translated, and typically was the dummy—no pun intended.

When not learning martial arts, eating,
partying, or sleeping—everyone (friends, villagers, and royalty)
would all come together to learn, enhance, and master the sign
language.

After about three months’ time had passed,
Humonus got good enough where he could teach solely through the art
of motion or sign language. No more yelling for him, not that it
did any good anyway, as far as the villagers were concerned. They
actually thought it very funny whenever Humonus would yell and his
face turned beet red.

By the end of the year, there were one
hundred and thirty-one highly skilled warriors of the
Chao-chu-sha-maen tribe. Of course, Baltor, Humonus, Brishava, and
Chelsea were among the numbers. In return, the Chao-chu-sha-maen
taught the entire group how to do ventriloquism, the art of casting
their voices into other locations.

Thanks to Humonus’s strategic planning, a
“battle-plan” formed that all immediately agreed was sound. The
army quickly prepared for the trip and the upcoming battle, and
then they left just after sunset.

Just before sunrise, the army camped about
halfway to the cannibals’ village. That day, there were no
incidents or encounters at all while Baltor slept in the back of
the wagon—night came, he woke up, hopped onto Grasha, and the
troops moved on.

About an hour before the battle was to
commence, at two in the morning, Baltor had gone ahead of his
troops and killed an unsuspecting cannibal guard.

With his powers once again in full force, he
headed back—he had learned that the original vulture-woman had been
killed in the same battle when he and the prince had escaped, but
the same gorilla-man was still alive.

Nearly three in the morning, the three
squadrons of forty troops split up, and silently surrounded the
cannibals’ village—Cheo led the first squadron of troops, Baltor
led the second, and Humonus led the final.

At four in the morning, once the simulated
bird-cries erupted throughout the jungle—the army silently stormed
into the village, eliminating anyone that was armed!

Not even two minutes had passed before the
war was over, as most of the cannibals surrendered without a fight.
There were only twelve casualties total—all of them were the enemy.
Those cannibals that survived were gathered into the center of the
village, right in front of the fire pit.

Without a word spoken, Baltor sliced the
ringleader’s head off before he could even think to react, and then
he cocked his head from side to side at Cheo.

Cheo then proclaimed, “Cannibalism shall no
longer be allowed here! Attacks upon the village of
Chao-chu-sha-maen will not be tolerated either! We shall be leaving
troops to ensure that our rules remain in place. If so much as one
of our soldiers gets hurt, we shall decimate you all completely! Do
you understand?”

The villagers responded by cocking their
heads from side to side. All but fifty of the glorious warriors
returned home; those fifty remained behind to guard.

It was quite ironic that at the beginning of
the second night of their journey back, Baltor happened to only
then start thinking about how the hell he was going to survive now
that his food sources were gone, when he observed these large gray
bats with extraordinarily huge wings landing at a green bush filled
with red berries not too far away.

He asked a nearby tribesman, named Hoo, “Are
those bats?”

Hoo replied, “Those are vampire bats, my
prince.”

“Vampire bats,” Baltor asked, “What are they
doing at the bush?”

“They are eating the berries from the
cah-su-cahn bush. That is why we never cut them down, so that they
will not feast on us, my prince.”

“Really,” Baltor replied, just before
climbing off his horse. He began to walk closer, but Hoo stuck out
his arm to block his path.

With a lot of worry in his voice, Hoo warned,
“My prince, I wouldn’t get any closer to them if I was you—they
will bite!”

Baltor laughed, “You—you guys go on ahead
without me. I’ll catch up in a minute. That’s an order from your
prince.”

He waited until everyone was out of sight,
before tethering his horse to a nearby true. He next walked over to
the bush, observing that the giant bats did not pay him the
slightest bit of heed. He picked up a berry and chewed on it—it was
wonderfully delicious!

After he ate a dozen more berries, he could
already tell that the juices were actually
quenching his
vampiric thirsts
—suddenly Baltor realized with
ever-growing
excitement
that he would no longer have to be a killer to
survive!!

Several more months passed, as the group
stayed safely hidden away in the massive jungle province of
Chao-chu-sha-maen, now consisting of the two villages, as well
approximately a thousand square miles of land.

During one of those nights, at a bonfire
party, Baltor had finally learned the mystery from Prince Cheo of
how he had acquired Baltor’s possessions, right before he had left
for the tower long ago.

The day after Baltor’s arrival to their
village, several kids had been playing in a large pile of dead
leaves in their playground, and there they were just lying
inside—his map, saber and sheath. Nearly right away the kids
delivered the objects to their parents, who delivered to the
prince. For some unknown reason, Cheo suspected they belonged to
Baltor. However, there had never been any sighting of his camel,
nor any of his other gear, by anyone of either tribe … whatsoever.
Valuspo’s fate remained an unsolved mystery.

Another mystery that Baltor solved on his
own, which he had figured out through experimentation only a few
nights prior to this party, is that if he dried the cah-su-cahn
berries and ground them into dust, and then dusting the powder into
his food or drinks, he quenched his thirsts and hungers. Only one
of his powers remained, language comprehension, and that was okay
by him.

After all, the more that Baltor and Brishava
got to know one another, the more their love flourished, and
reigned—the power of “True Love.” Finally came the day, nearly a
year after their arrival, when they got officially married—the
Chao-chu-sha-maen way.

And only one day later, Humonus and Chelsea
got married in the same tribal fashion. The group, now a part of
the Chao-chu-sha-maen tribe and family, had grown very strong and
inseparable throughout all of these most wonderful of times….

Only a minute or so before the sun had set, a
little over a year later, upon a particular evening that had
partly-cloudy skies—those dull-gray clouds unexpectedly lit
themselves up into a dazzling array of beautiful colors and
patterns—pinks, peaches, oranges, purples, yellows, blues (light to
dark), and yes, even greens!

As always, this spectacle of nature instantly
drew the attention of the villagers of Chao-chu-sha-maen, and
excited them so greatly that they stopped whatever they were doing,
dropped to the ground, and began chanting, whooping and rolling all
around on their backs.

While their arms and hands remained extended
above them reaching for the skies, their fingers continuously
opened and shut, as if trying to clutch the skies.

As for Baltor during this timeframe, he
remained “obliviously asleep” on his back, in his bed in his hut,
as it was still during his slumber time. Sleeping next to him in
bed but facing the other direction was his wife Brishava.

Only seconds after the loud noises had begun,
however, she got awoken from her slumber. But as she understood
all-too-well their unique religious customs, she simply shifted her
body close to her husband in bed, placed her head on his stomach,
and drifted right back to sleep.

It was one second later that Baltor’s
sleeping mind began to have a lucid dream.

At first, he could only see that he was
standing within a black area of unknown proportions, floating in
the middle of the air. Though there were no sources of light, he,
upon glancing down, could see his own body as if he were standing
in broad daylight.

Just after he had physically pinched himself
to be sure that he wasn’t dreaming while surprisingly feeling
substance, he began to suspect that maybe he wasn’t dreaming at
all, but more likely, fully conscious in another dimension.

As he looked around one more time, he
confirmed yet again that there were absolutely no sources of
light—or anything else anywhere else.

Until, about a minute after his arrival, just
off to his right about fifteen feet away, this sultan-sized bed
unexpectedly popped out of nowhere!

As he turned his head to look over, the first
thing about this bed that caught his eye were the mahogany posts at
each of the four corners, which he estimated to be ten feet tall
and circular in shape.

In addition, wrapped around each post were
two see-through veils of silk, red and blue, which began at the
base, and then gently wrapped their way around until they reached
the very top, where there was a golden hoop that the veils went
through and streamed to the opposite post on the bed, forming a
loose x pattern.

Upon closer examination of the bed’s mahogany
base, he also saw various predator-styled animals etched throughout
and that there was a neatly made purple velvet blanket upon the
bed, embroidered with dozens of rows of golden diamonds.

Last not but least, though there was no
headboard, there was still a wide assortment of colorful pillows
neatly arranged at the head, each embroidered with one large golden
diamond.

Now, even though the bed was very elegant in
his opinion, he didn’t much see the relevance in it, so he began to
look elsewhere to see if anything else would pop out. It does, but
not where he was looking at the time when it happens.

For, only a short time later, as he glanced
again to the bed, he surprisingly saw a very thin and old man lying
under the blanket near the edge of the bed, who looked as if he had
been there all along.

As Baltor looked closer, he saw that this man
appeared to be venerable, bearing a few scattered strands of
silvery hair upon his head, dark and sunken eyes, a very pale
complexion, and skeletal hands that extend from underneath his
purple pajamas.