Earths Eulogy #101-163
Author: CJ Fielding
Date: 2021-04-14T00:00:00+00:00
Publisher: anonymous

Table Of Contents

- Table Of Contents -

Chapter 7 February AD 81 Africa- Political wedding

Chapter 8 April 81 AD Texas- Yoke

Chapter 9 July AD 81 Africa-Seizing the other side of the river

Chapter 10 July AD 81 Africa- Mistake

Chapter 11 July AD 81 Texas- Plow

Chapter 12 August 82 AD Africa- Harsh Correction

Chapter 13 November AD 81 Africa- Genifa
Chapter 14 December AD 81 Texas- Culture
Chapter 15 January AD 82 Texas- Workers
Chapter 16 February AD 82 Africa-Diplomats
Chapter 17 July 100 BC Indian Ocean-Malaria
Chapter 18 March AD 82 Africa- Pandemic
Chapter 19 March AD 82 Africa- Unprepared

Chapter 20 April AD 82 Texas- Trevor’s First Hunt

Chapter 21 May AD 82 Africa- Warlord
Chapter 22 June AD 82 Africa- Defenders
Chapter 23 June AD 82 Africa- Siege Warfare
Chapter 24 June AD 82 Africa- Panic

Chapter 25 June AD 82 Africa- Storming The Tower

Chapter 26 June AD 82 Africa- Armies Clash

Chapter 27 June AD 82 Africa-Battle of Two Green Armies

Chapter 28 June 82 AD Africa- Macro Maneuvers
Chapter 29 June AD 82 Africa- Aftermath
Chapter 30 June AD 82 Texas- Young Trader
Chapter 31 July 82 AD  Africa- Interrogation

Chapter 32 November 82 AD Africa- Planting Festival

Chapter 33 January 83 AD Texas- Scribes

Chapter 34 December 82 AD Africa- Invasion

Chapter 35 April AD 83 Africa- What Happened to Abilio

Chapter 36 April 83 AD Texas- Power Tools

Chapter 37 May AD 37 Africa- Elzo's Counter Attack

Chapter 38 July AD 83 Africa-Bitter Return
Chapter 39 November AD 83 Africa- Progress
Chapter 40 December AD 83 Texas- A Big Gift

Chapter 41 January AD 84 Texas- Sharing Ideas With Congress

Chapter 42 February 84 AD Africa- Politics
Chapter 43 March 84 AD Africa- Savannah
Chapter 44 May AD 84 Texas- The Sea
Chapter 45 June AD 84 Africa- Indian Ocean
Chapter 46 June AD 84 Africa- Diplomacy

Chapter 47 July AD 84 Texas- The First Buffalo Riders

Chapter 48 July AD 84 Texas- Buffalo Rider Raids

Chapter 49 August AD 84 Africa- Family Get Together

Chapter 50 November AD 84 Africa- Planting Festival

Chapter 51 December 84 AD Texas- Emergency Congress

Chapter 52 March AD 85 Texas-Compound Bow
Prologue to book 4 Buffalo Riders of Texas
Chapter 1 March AD 85 Texas- Saddle

Chapter 2 March AD 85 Texas- Raiders Return to Camp

Chapter 3 April 85 AD Africa-Trimaran
Chapter 4 May 85 AD Africa- Beethoven
Chapter 5 June AD 85 Texas- Partner
Chapter 6 June AD 85 Texas-Buffalo Riding
Chapter 7 July 85 AD Texas- New River

Chapter 8 November 85 AD Africa- Planting Festival

Chapter 9 November 85 AD Africa- Illuminate

Chapter 10 November 85 AD Texas- Grand Theft Bison

Chapter 11 December 85 AD Texas-Coming of Age

Chapter 12 January 86 AD Texas- Congress

Chapter 13 January 86 AD Africa- Return to the Savannah

Chapter 14 January 86 AD Africa-Detective

Chapter 15 March 86 AD Africa- Trade Mission

Chapter 7 February AD 81 Africa- Political wedding

Misa woke up early in the morning and realized what day it was. She squealed in delight, waking several of the girls in the fiancée dorm.

Vanda yelled out, “SHUT UP! I am trying to get some more sleep in before Jujiann makes us go for morning martial arts practice.”

Misa said, “Sorry, I just realized today is my birthday. I am finally fourteen, and I get to marry the King!”

Vanda was the youngest bride, so she had to wait until the next summer to marry the King. She was a bit jealous, so she was not that excited for her friend. But she put on a smile and said, “Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Congratulations.” With that, Vanda laid her head on her pillow and tried to go back to sleep.

Genifa's head raised and said, “If you are getting married today, that means you will be moving to Paul’s house.”

Misa was startled by the realization, said, “Yeah, how did I miss that?”

Genifa said, “Let me help you get your things together.”

While the other girls slept, they gathered Misa’s things. Eventually, Jujiann woke all the girls in the dorm. When she did, Kyum woke up and asked, “What are you doing?”

Misa said, “I’m fourteen today. I finally get to marry Paul.”

Kyum said, “Oh yeah. Congratulations. I’m going to miss you.”

Misa said, “Don’t be silly. It won't be long until you marry him too, and besides, I’ll still be living in the capital. I bet Paul has me doing the same job as his first wife, and I will get to go around helping with the school.”

Kyum nodded and said, “True.”

Misa took her meager belongs with her when they went to line up for morning martial arts practice. Chazia was out there waiting with Jujiann, which wasn’t a surprise. Chazia often acted as a teacher, so she usually joined the martial arts class.

When Chazia saw Misa, she called out, “Misa, I need you to come with me.” As Misa came closer, Chazia saw that Misa was carrying her stuff, and so she said, “Its good you’ve already gathered your belongings.”

Misa asked, “What’s going on?”

Chazia said, “Tonight you will be married to the King. You have to get properly ready.”

Misa was confused and said, “Don’t most girls go about their day as normal before they move in with their new husband?”

Chazia said, “Misa, you are not most girls, and Paul is not most men. You are the daughter of a chief given to King Paul to create peace between tribes. Your status and purpose of marriage demands that you are properly presented before the King.”

Misa said, “Does Paul know about this?”

Chazia looked at Misa like she asked the dumbest question she ever heard and said, “Of course not. My husband, as good of a man as he is, has no clue about women things. He gave me the role as your teacher and guide, and so this is just me fulfilling the role and being a good wife.”

Misa asked, “Did he say anything about me this morning?”

Chazia smiled and said, “Yes. He mentioned that this is what I wanted. Truth be told, I wish he was marrying more women. The more women he marries, the higher our status.”

Misa nodded. This was certainly something that Chazia drilled into the girls. The more wives, the better because it means their husband is greater than any other men. What Chazia didn’t mention was the melancholy tone of Paul’s voice when he said that this marriage is what Chazia wanted.

Misa asked, “What about my duties here?”

Chazia said, “It's no big deal missing a day. Your duty to your King and husband is more important.”

Misa simply nodded and went with Chazia. At fourteen, Misa had a duty as an assistant teacher for the younger children. The girls who were between the ages of twelve and fourteen helped the new students learn basic reading, writing, and math, where the teacher helped the older students with more advanced things. When they were not teaching, all the girls of that age were learning to develop skills in the medical arts. Currently, they had a project of tracking down penicillin. Paul knew it was a blue mold but little else. The girls could see bacteria in the microscope, but finding a mold that was effective at killing it was proving an interesting task.

Chazia took Misa to the bathhouse first, and for the first time in her life, she had a bath by herself. Usually, when they bathed, it was as a group, the girls usually came in after they practiced martial arts in the morning, and once clean, they went off to school, either to learn or to teach. Misa bathed until the other girls started coming in. That’s when Chazia took Misa to the best seamstress in the capital.

The seamstress put Misa in a dress. Dresses and skirts were growing in popularity among the girls because with enough pleating it danced as they walked, it was easy to put frills on it, and it made going to the bathroom easier than with pants. And most importantly of all, it was prettier than pants.

The seamstress took measurements, tightened up some things, put needles throughout the dress, and finally said, “I will have everything perfect by midafternoon.”

Misa was happy about that. Only the married girls used the seamstress’s services because all the girls got married at fourteen and they didn’t earn an income until then. When they walked around in their dresses, they looked so pretty, and Misa was finally going to get to be just as pretty as them.

After that, Chazia took Misa aside to do her hair. Nobody was a dedicated hairstylist yet, but Chazia had fixed hair all her life. When she was a child, she fixed her friend's hair; when she was older, she fixed her daughter's hair, and since Paul came, she has been fixing school girl’s hair. Since Misa was finally getting married, Chazia decided to do something a little fancy.

After she was done, they had lunch, and it was time to put makeup on. Granted, what they put on would not have been recognized as makeup in the twentieth century. Chazia had several different selections of mud that, once applied, had an attractive contrast to Misa’s skin tone. Once complete, they went back to the dressmaker.

Once there, Chazia took wet towels and soap and cleaned Misa’s body before she put on her new dress. Once on, the dress did a fantastic job of showing off every curve the girl had. If they had a mirror Misa’s jaw would have dropped. Once she was dressed for the occasion, Chazia and the dressmaker explained the ways of men and women to Misa. They were getting her spiritually ready.

Finally, it was time to take Misa to her new home. There was no big ceremony. Most of the world did not have marriage ceremonies until the twentieth century. Even though there was no big ceremony by now, everyone in the capital knew that their King had obeyed his own law and had not touched the girl until she was of age. It's not that they were counting down the days until Misa got married; it's simply that her friends told everyone that Misa was finally fourteen and going to marry the King that night.

Chazia brought Misa into the house. When Misa stepped into the King’s home, her new home, this was the first time she ever came in. The workmanship was very similar to the dorms, as it was made out of logs, but the furniture was much better. It had chairs and sofas and tables. It was slightly messier than the dorms, but not by much.

Her new husband was seated on the couch with his five children. The three boys and the two adopted girls.

Chazia smiled toward her husband, grabbed Misa by the shoulders, and said, “Your new bride is ready.”

Paul had intentionally been avoiding his fiancées up to this point, but the time had come for him to start marrying them. He could not escape his obligation anymore. Going from always seeing this girl from a distance to seeing her clean, dressed to show off her curves, with makeup to highlight her best features, and her hair made up fancy made Paul’s jaw drop. She was dressed up so nice he couldn’t help but notice her.

Paul had no choice but to compare this girl to Chazia. Chazia grew up malnourished all her life. She had three children in that condition and did not meet Paul until she was nineteen years old. When they met, Paul thought that Chazia was much younger than she was due to her utter malnourishment. If you wanted to be kind, you would say Chazia was petit. Eating regularly since then has done a lot to put meat on the girl's bones, but she would always be petit.

Misa was half Chazia’s age but actually looked older. Misa had only suffered malnutrition in the youngest years of her life, but that stopped when her father became chief. She had the classic hourglass figure, which is something a woman who grew up malnourished never could have gotten. For the last five years, the girl had not only eaten well but been instructed in martial arts most days. Under Chazia’s tutelage, the girl learned to dress in a very attractive manner. In many ways, although not every way, Misa was more attractive than Chazia, and Chazia was actually proud that she made it happen.

Charity looked at Misa and looked to her dad and, with a very troubled look on her face, asked, “Is she our new mom?”

Paul looked at his adopted daughter and said, “No. This young lady is Misa. Since I am marrying her, that will make Misa your mom’s sister. You may call her Aunt Misa.”

Mercy got really excited and said, “Thank you, Dad, I always wanted an aunt.”

Charity and Mercy were only five years old, and even though they knew their father’s fiancés, one moving in was a whole different world to them. Paul talked with Chazia about this a long time ago, and they agreed that once married, the girls would be sisters to Chazia. But Paul suspected it would be a hard thing going from being an authority figure to the girls to being an equal. If they were back in the modern world and Chazia took a personality test, she would be called Choleric. Choleric’s loved being in charge, so a change in that status would be hard for her, and Paul suspected everyone else too until she came to terms with it.

The children stayed up until after dinner getting more comfortable with the idea of having this new adult member of their family. Once they went to bed, Chazia gladly left her husband alone with his new wife.

Paul looked to Misa and said, “I am sorry about this situation.”

Misa looked confused and asked, “What do you mean?”

Paul said, “Because of your father, you are forced to marry me. Without the treaty, you could have married whoever you wanted to.”

Misa's eyes widened in shock and said, “Do you think you are not worthy of me?”

Paul said, “I think that if it was your choice, you would marry a young man, not someone as old as me.”

Misa said, “You are rich, powerful, and handsome. Your status demands that you have multiple wives. It's an honor that I get to be one of them. Besides, if my dad hadn’t joined your nation, sooner or later, you would have come in and killed my father, and I would be over at the school tonight waiting for some soldier to retire so we could get married in a few months. My marriage to you saved my father's life.”

Paul thought, “She said that like it was normal.” Then he realized it was normal. That is what Paul did; he goes to villages, kills their leadership, and makes their young people part of his community. Sure he only does it in response to their raids, but he still has to do horrible things. In another time and place, what Paul was doing would be considered war crimes. But here it was normal, and during this century, many nations would have considered him soft because he didn’t kill the leader's family. They had a point considering what Elzo and his friends did, but Paul utterly refused to kill children. Paul knew he was a monster, but even he had lines, he would not cross.

Paul answered Misa, “That’s why I am sorry. You didn’t have a choice.”

Misa said, “I am not sorry. I am glad you are my husband. I am glad you obey your laws. I am glad you spared my village. I am glad you treat the people in your nation with kindness. My mom died when she was eighteen, which was normal. Now I am surrounded by people who are in their twenties! Chazia is almost thirty. I see it, but I can barely believe it. All of this is due to you. I am grateful to be your wife and all that entails.”

Regardless Paul felt guilty about the situation. But it was necessary to make the changes that would bring stability.

Chapter 8 April 81 AD Texas- Yoke

Over the past year, everything had been going well for John. The Texas Rangers finished their training and were begrudgingly allowed to apprehend raiders in their home village and bring them to another for trial. As the villages saw that raiding would be dealt with, the young men decided to avoid those types of adventures bringing about one of the most peaceful years in decades.

As the lock and dams were completed, many more villages joined the trading network along the river. As the villages grew rich in grain because they grew the hybrid grain that John supplied, they had much more to trade to the hunting tribes. This opened up the door for hunting tribes to settle down and start growing their food.

Due to these changes, over a hundred and ten chiefs joined John in his congress in January. What ended up happening is that they mostly discussed trade with each other and asked John for any new seeds he could spare. John helped out where he could, but there are a lot of tropical plants like pineapple, kiwis, and mangoes that needed a warmer climate like the Caribbean to grow. Practically everything else he had already given away.

Congress noted that the Texas Rangers did their job well, and everyone was pleased that those who raided their village were punished appropriately for it. They were even softening up, on their young people being punished when they raided another village. The trade alliance seemed to be doing well, which allowed John to focus on the real issues—domesticating bison.

At the beginning of March, fifteen bison were born. Six were male and nine female. John was hoping that he could safely train this generation. The first thing he did was try to get them used to a yoke before they were even a hundred pounds. The first time he put a yoke on them, they panicked and tried to get it off, but since they were bred to be wimps, they didn’t have any success. Instead, John fed them salt as soon as the yoke came on. They loved the salt. After a few days, they learned that the yoke meant they got some salt, so they were happy to have someone put the yoke on.

Now John needed them to pull a load and see if they would be willing to accept a rider. They were not that big yet, so John needed a little helper, so early one morning, he went into his son's room and said, “Trevor wake up.”

Trevor woke up and groaned, “Why are you waking me up so early?”

John said, “Do you want to help me with some man work, or do you want to stay in bed and help your mother with girl work today?”

Trevor immediately shot up and said, “I want to do man work!”

John smiled and said, “I need you to be very quiet, get dressed, and follow me. If your mother wakes up, you will have to stay behind and do girl work.”

Trevor was as quiet as an eight-year-old could be. Which wasn’t that quiet, but he was going out of his way to make less sound, which is all that John needed. It wasn’t long before the boy was dressed, and they were out the door.

John went over to a shed and grabbed a few things.

Trevor asked, “What are you getting?”

John said, “A sled and some ropes.”

Trevor asked, “Why?”

“We are going to train some of our bison to work.”

Trevor frowned and said, “Is this that plowing thing you are always talking about?”

John said, “No, this is preparing for that plowing thing I am always talking about.”

Trevor was unhappy. He had heard his dad talking about this all his life, and by now, it was boring to him. He asked, “Why do I have to be part of this?”

John was used to this type of attitude by now. It was the boat situation all over again. The attitude of the people was that when you failed, then you failed forever. When the boat didn’t work the first or second time, they decided it would never work. Even though the boat eventually worked, creating this nation, the people do not believe in failing over and over again until something works. If you fail once, maybe twice, then that’s it.

The bison took years to get to the place where they could be safely trained. They had to have both docility and desire to be around humans. The time John spent domesticating the bison was seen as a failure since it has been almost ten years. Unfortunately, the peoples' attitude about the bison rubbed off on his son.

It's understandable why the people feel this way. Try to do something new with farming or hunting, and if it doesn’t work, you, your family, and your tribe starve. These people are not stupid; they have a legitimate fear of starvation that could happen if they fail too often. Now that they have a lot more food security, hopefully, John will make them more comfortable with failing until they succeed. Nearly no innovation works well the first time, but at least now, failure doesn’t mean hunger.

John said, “You have to take part because I need your help. I have gotten the bison to where they will accept a yoke. Now, I have to train them to pull a load with that yoke. That’s what the sled is for. You will be the load they pull.”

Trevor looked thoughtful for a second, smiled, and said, “That doesn’t sound boring, that actually sounds like fun.”

John smiled and said, “You have been listening to the mob too much.”

Trevor asked, “What's a mob.”

John said, “The mob is when a bunch of people believe one way and try to make you believe their way. They have enough people that they don’t have to have logic to persuade you, just the amount of people they have proves their belief right. The truth is that many times the majority of people are wrong. Take the boat, for instance. Everyone in the village wanted me to stop trying to build one after I failed a couple of times, I refused, and now its revolutionized this land.”

Trevor looked at his dad and asked, “Dad, if you don’t want the mob guiding you, then why do you let all the chiefs do what they want? You should command them, and they should obey.”

John smiled and said, “The chiefs are not children. They are our neighbors. I don’t boss them, and they don’t boss me. We work together as equals, and we are all the better for it.”

Trevor said, “But the men in the village thinks that it would be better for everyone if you took command of all the tribes.”

John asked, “What do the men of the village think of me raising bison?”

Trevor said, “They think it's crazy.”

John said, “So when it comes to ruling over a hundred tribes, those men think I should take charge, but when it comes to bison, they think I should ignore it. Son, doesn’t that look like a contradiction to you?”

Trevor said, “No. Men have language; they can obey you. Bison don’t have language, so it’s a lot more work to train them. Ruling men is far more important.”

John shook his head and said, “Where I come from, we had domesticated horses, cattle and mules. Nobody knows who domesticated them, but everyone was better because of their efforts. We also had men who ruled empires far larger than the trading alliance. The men who ruled those great lands did not affect me directly, but whomever domesticated cattle did. I believe that training these bison will have more effect on men than ruling a nation.”

Trevor shook his head and said, “Dad, I believe ruling men is more important.”

John smiled and said, “Its okay to be wrong, son, I still love you.”

They continued to chat until they made their way to bison valley, and when they entered, Trevor asked, “Am I going to be okay, dad? Mom says these bison are deadly.”

John said, “Of course you are going to be okay. I have been breeding these bison for years for the sole purpose of making sure they were safe to be around, and now they are safe. Now that they are safe, we have to put them to work.”

Trevor nodded, but he stayed behind his father. John headed directly for the bison herd, and several of the bison came to John expectantly.

Trevor asked, “Dad, with all those bison headed this way, aren't you afraid they will run you over.”

John shook his head and said, “No. In the past three years, I haven’t seen one bison run. I think I bred that trait out of them by accident.”

The only thing Trevor heard was No. The rest of his father's statement went over his head. When the bison reached John, John pulled out the yoke, and the bison were excited to get it on. Once on, John gave the bison some salt. Then he began putting ropes on both sides of the yoke and tied them to the sled.

John looked to his son and said, “Get on the sled.”

Trevor was nervous with so many bison around, but he obeyed. Once on, his dad went to the front of the bison, grabbed the yoke, and began leading it. The bison didn’t care for the weight on the yoke and stood still for a minute. John being a bit of a softie, took out a carrot and fed it a piece. The bison loved it and started moving forward when John waved it in front of its face. Before long, the bison found out that it didn’t mind the weight it was pulling.

John yelled back to his son. “Trevor, when I tell you to pull right, pull on the right rope. When I tell you to pull left, pull on the left rope. When I say stop, pull on both ropes. Once stopped when I say start, I will need you to whip both ropes. Got that.”

Trevor said, “Yeah, but why?”

John said, “I am trying to train this bison. It doesn’t know what you mean when you do those things, so I will be up here leading it and showing what those things mean. When it does what it's supposed to, it gets a treat.”

Trevor said, “Okay!”

It took a little while, but Trevor figured out his job, and the bison was learning and enjoying the treats that came with it. Then out of nowhere, Trevor screamed!

John let go of the yoke dashed behind the bison, yelling out, “What's wrong!” only to see his boy covered in manure from head to toe. John couldn’t help it; he started laughing! The bison apparently got diarrhea from all the treats.

Trever, covered in manure from head to toe, embarrassment, worry, and irritation written all over his face, yelled out, “DAD, THIS ISNT FUNNY!”

John said, “HAHAHAHA! YES, IT IS!”

Trevor said, “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

John couldn’t lose his little helper, so between chuckles, he asked, “So you want to do girl jobs?”

Trevor thought about it, looked down, and said, “No.”

John said, “Well, son, when you are the bottom man on the totem pole, you do the worst jobs. In this case, you got to ride on the sled behind the bison’s manure maker. You will have to go to the bathhouse before we go home.”

Trevor wasn’t happy, but he continued working with his dad. Over the rest of the day, they worked with all the male bison. But John didn’t think they would have time to work with any of the females. The way John figured whichever bison was the best to work with would be his breeder next year, and next year once all the male bison were trained, he could sell them with a cart and a plow. Just had to train the bison, and make the cart and plow.

A couple of hours before sunset John and Trevor made their way to the bathhouse. If John hadn’t made one when he first arrived, he would have had to after today's mess. Trevor got pooped on by four different bison. After the second time, Trevor didn’t even tell his dad cause he got tired of being laughed at.

At the bathhouse, they were asked what happened, and of course, the crowd didn’t think it was worth getting pooped on for the bison, but John suspected that once they saw how quickly draft animals could plow a field, their tune would change. The wheeled plow was way better than the sticks they used to plow fields with before, but a plow pulled by a bison will be something altogether different.

After they were done with the bathhouse and made their way home John told Trevor, “Don’t tell your mother what we did today.”

Trevor nodded and said, “Okay, dad.”

When Trevor got in the house, he loudly told his brother, “Bobby, while you were hanging out with mom doing girl chores, dad took me to bison valley to train the baby bison!”

As the boys started arguing, Onawa gave John a look that took five years off his lifespan.

Chapter 9 July AD 81 Africa-Seizing the other side of the river

Badru had gotten married only a few weeks after his stepfather did. It was wonderful at first, and then Badru, due to the treaty signed by his stepfather, married another girl. His mom and his friends told him how lucky he was.

His stepfather said, “I am so sorry to do this to you.”

Badru asked, “Why? The more wives, the better.”

King Paul answered, “If a girl is nothing more than an object, I can see that as being true, but I raised you and most of the children in this nation to treat girls as people. As people, women need attention and love. Your attention and love will be divided, and that is going to cause problems. I feel guilty that I did this to you, but it has brought peace and prosperity to the tribes, so in all honesty, I would do it again because it’s the lesser of two evils.”

Badru thought nothing of his stepfather's words until a couple of weeks after his second marriage. The house he lived in as a lieutenant was a small one, but each wife got their own room, but because they lived in the same house, the wives had to interact with each other a lot. Badru could sense tension for a week and a half before he figured out that when his wives complemented each other, they were actually using the compliment as an insult. Once he discovered the secret, he couldn’t unlearn it.

Before his marriage, these girls were best friends, but now for some reason, they were upset they had to share him. They blamed each other and Badru.

Badru went to his stepfather and asked, “Ever since I married my second wife, there has been no peace in my home. What do I do?”

King Paul said, “I don’t know I am trying to figure that out myself. Right now, I am married to three women, with three more marriages coming up by treaty. My wives are fighting with each other, and me all the time. It's not fun, but at least I saw it coming. The only thing I can do is keep everyone busy until I figure something out.”

Badru has a scared look on his face and asked, “What about me?”

Paul chuckled and said, “Why don’t I send you across the river to capture some of the villages there? I am certain the men in the fort would like to attack instead of being attacked. Besides, it gives our newly graduated soldiers a chance to learn what fighting men is like so far they have only fought crocodiles and warthogs.”

Badru asked, “But do we understand their language well enough yet?”

Paul smiled and said, “No, but Funani, one of the men you captured two years ago when they attacked your fort, has done a good job of learning our language, and he is excited to bring his village into our nation. Several of the others we captured haven’t quite learned our language yet, but they know it well enough to go ahead and start conquering their villages now that the dry season is here. We just had to drag our feet on the conquest until more of our men knew his language well enough to teach students who spoke it. Although at this point, we don’t have any soldiers that speak his language, but we have several teachers who do. That should be good enough.”

Badru was stunned for a moment, and he asked in a hushed tone, “We aren't going to force their people to learn our language?”

Paul said, “Oh no, they are going to learn our language. But our students will be required to learn their language also.”

“Why?”

“Because it took two years for our teachers to understand Funani! Our soldiers still don’t. We have at least two other language groups that our teachers and soldiers are trying to learn now from people your brother brought back from down the river; that job is going to take at least another year. If we are going to continue conquering villages and become a great nation, our people need to be able to learn languages more quickly, so the more languages they learn, the faster they will learn new languages. To help with this, I plan on making a language dictionary.

Badru looked confused at the word dictionary. So Paul said, “A language dictionary is a book where both languages have their words written down. If the word means the same thing, they are next to each other. In fact, I am having my researchers looking for a way to make paper. Currently, a cotton form of paper is in the lead, and if we don’t have anything better by the time planting season comes, I will pay a lot for farmers to grow the cotton. We already have a way to get the seeds out of the cotton easily. The only reason why cotton production hasn’t skyrocketed is nobody has figured out a faster way to make thread than with a distaff. If anyone figures out the spinning wheel, we will be overflowing in fabric in no time.”

Badru said, “Why don’t you continue using the wood shavings?”

Paul said, “They are fine for making quick notes, but the ones we made five years ago are already deteriorating. Besides, I know a method to put words on paper much quicker than on wood shavings. Plus, you can do way more with paper and ink than you can with wood shavings and charcoal.”

Badru asked, “Makes sense, I guess. When do you want me to leave?”

Paul said, “Two days from now.”

“Why not tomorrow?”

Paul said, “If you leave tomorrow, then whichever wife you do not stay with tonight will see that as a sign that you love the other one more.”

Badru thought about it for a second, realized the disaster he almost had, and simply said, “Thank you, father.”

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Two days later, Badru left his two worried wives to cross the river. By orders of his stepfather, he brought a hundred soldiers, supplies for the villages they were going to conquer, and the wounded men they were going to use as translators and leave as chiefs over their new villages. They had more men from those villages, but they were only bringing the ones that learned the Paulsland language the best.

As the boats moved across the river, Badru could not help but be awed by his stepfather's vision. Currently, the bridge went from the river gate of the capital to a hundred and twenty feet into the river during the dry season! Now that the water was a lot lower and slower, his stepfather had the men building bridges all the way to the far island. It was something else to see the wooden containers in the middle of the river surrounded by barges doing a number of different things. Some had cranes that helped place and push logs into the river bed until they hit bedrock. Others were pouring concrete, and others were moving materials between them, or to the island so they could finish their bridge towers while the ground was still dry. It was a massive operation with hundreds of people. It made Paulsland seem grand and was something every citizen was proud of.

They crossed and made it to the fort on the other side of the river and dropped off all the extra supplies. They planned to conquer the villages one at a time, and since they didn’t want to tempt the future chiefs with betrayal, they left three of them at the fort and brought Funani alone to his village. Since Funani was going to be chief, they dressed him up in a militia man’s uniform and even gave him an iron ax. They needed him to look appropriately impressive.

After half a day of marching through the wilderness, Funani said they were an hour away, and so the soldiers stopped, set up a small camp, and waited until an hour before sun up to set off again. When they reached the village, they did a textbook seizure. With a hundred soldiers, they had enough men to send several soldiers to each hut in the village. When Badru shouted “Capture,” the young men stepped into the huts and immediately captured and bound the men. Very few were wounded, and none were killed.

Badru was proud of himself. This wasn’t the first time he captured a village, but it was the first time he was the leader of a group that captured a village. Now that the hardest part was over, he would work with his interpreter to finish the easy parts.

As the men were brought to the center of the village, trembling Badru asked Funani, “Which one is the chief?”

Funani said, “I don’t see him.”

Badru said, “Well, ask them where the chief is.”

Funani asked the people in their language, “Where is the chief.”

The people were shocked; one of the invaders could speak their language. They had sent skirmishers to fight with them two years ago, but when the men spoke gibberish, they thought that they were some sort of monster or spirit. They knew nothing good came from messing with spirits, so they left them alone. Seeing the monster spirits speak caused them to frantically chat among themselves, trying to understand their new reality better, until someone finally figured the best thing to do was what the spirit asked and said, “The chief is over there. He is the one starting to grow fat.”

Funani looked over at him and said, “That’s not the chief, that’s Kagiso. Where is the chief?”

Kagiso looked over to Funani and said, “Spirit, how did you know my name?”

Funani said, “I am Funani. When you left me behind two years ago, I was captured, and I learned their ways.”

Kagiso said, “You died and came back?”

Funani gave him a weird look and said, “No, you idiot! They captured me!”’

Kagiso said, “But they are spirits. They can't speak our language.”

Funani was dumbfounded; he had spent nearly two years with these men and knew them as men. But during those two years, Kagiso and the people of this village created terrible stories about the men who crossed the river because they were severely beaten by creatures they couldn’t talk to.

Funani said, “They are not spirits; they are just humans who speak a different language than we do.”

Kagiso said, “If you are not a spirit, then why do you look so strange.”

Funani said, “ I AM WEARING CLOTH, YOU IDIOT! They explained to me that wearing cloth helps protect against the sleeping sickness, and these men were feeding me three times a day.”

Shouts of surprise came from the people. Kagiso said, “That can't be true. I am the chief now, and I don’t eat three times a day.”

Funani said, “Oh, it's true. They grow a lot more food than we do. King Paul explained that some of it is because the seed they grow is a lot better than ours, but some of it is simply because farmers get to keep most of what they grow and trade it for other things. Since they keep most of their work, they work harder. Personally, I feel like he is wrong, but he is King, and there is a lot of prosperity.”

Kagiso asked, “Why are you here?”

Funani said, “King Paul wants to make this village part of his nation, and I am here to be the new chief.”

Kagiso said, “But I am chief now.”

Funani said, “Yeah, sorry about that, but you have to die.”

Kagiso’s blood drained from his face, and he fell down. He said, “But we grew up together, we were friends.”

Funani shot Kagiso an angry look and said, “Where was our friendship when you left me to die?”

Kagiso said, “You would have done the same thing, though. We fought these spirits. I mean men, and we couldn’t hurt them.”

Funani said, “I don’t care.” Then he took out his ax and killed Kagiso right there.

Badru was furious! He ran over to Funani and spoke in the tongue of Paulsland and said, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING! The villagers were supposed to kill him!”

Funani looked to Badru and said, “He was chief. He was going to die anyway. Why can't I be the one to kill him? This is the way my village has always changed chiefs.”

Badru said, “Because you killed him, the village can rightfully expect to get revenge for their chief. If each one of them had taken part in the chief's death, then they have to have a reason to make killing the chief a good thing, and there will be no hard feelings, no rebellion.”

Funani knew that they were dependent on him for translation, so he simply said, “Well, it's too late to change things now.”

Badru was furious, but Funani was right; there was no going back now. Badru said, “Go to the next part.”

Funani would get to that in a minute. Now that he was clearly the new chief. Claiming the title through the blood of the last chief like a good chief should he called out, “Where is my wife?”

A woman stepped back, but the crowd around her moved away from her. In her arms was a child, perhaps a year old.

Funani immediately recognized his wife and said, “Is that, my child?”

The woman shook her head with tears in her eyes.

Funani screamed and ran at her, yelling, “YOU ADULTEROUS PIG! HOW DARE YOU CHEAT ON ME!”

The woman fell down, covering up the child screaming, “THEY SAID YOU WERE DEAD. The witchdoctor made me undergo the purification ritual, and this is his child! He lied, get him!”

Funani punched his kneeling wife in the head and, She collapsed on her child. Then he started kicking her and yelling about her unfaithfulness. Her child began screaming. None of the soldiers were okay with Funani hitting and kicking a woman, especially when they didn’t understand what he was saying. When they saw him punch her, they ran to him. While they were rushing toward him, he kicked his wife several times. Once they reached him, the soldiers pulled him out of reach of his wife.

While they were pulling him back, Badru ran up to him and punched him in the face. The soldiers let go letting him fall while Badru screamed, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING!”

Funani got back up and yelled out, “THAT’S MY WIFE! SHE HAD ANOTHER MAN’S CHILD!”

After all the years of Paul requiring the soldiers to treat girls with kindness, they had no stomach for the mistreatment of women, so they got between Funani and his wife.

Badru calmly said, “I am sorry that happened, but you were gone two years. She thought you were dead. We will sort this out after we deal with the witchdoctor and his apprentice.”

Normally at this time, they would explain that the witchdoctors ate the spirits of the people around them and that the witchdoctors were the source of all the people’s troubles, then let the people take care of the issue. But Funani was not having any of that.

Funani looked around and found the strange man. Witchdoctors always tried to look otherworldly in order to give the people an idea that they were mystical, which made them easy to spot. When Funani saw the witchdoctor, he ran at him, tackled him, and started punching the man.

Badru was tired of this, but Funani was the only one here who could speak the language. They had to back him up even though he was messing everything up. Badru had no idea why the man felt like physically attacking everyone, but it was clear he was on a power trip. In the capital, he was as harmless as a baby calf, but out here, with soldiers backing him up, he was attacking and hurting everyone like he was an alpha dog showing everyone who was boss.

But attacking the Witchdoctor wasn’t exactly the worst thing he could have done. The villagers were terrified because they had been taught all their life that witchdoctors had powers over spirits, and Funani was attacking a man who could attack him with magic. Badru knew this whole situation was a mess right now, so he sat back and did nothing to stop the attack.

Funani punched the man over and over again until his fist hurt. Then finally, he took a rock and beat the man's head in.

Badru said, “He’s dead. You might as well do the same thing to his apprentice.”

Funani smiled and said, “Yeah.”

The apprentice had no idea what they said, but when he saw Funani turn to him with that predator’s smile on his face and that look of deadly delight in his eyes, he tried to turn to run away. The soldiers blocked him, allowing Funani to catch up to him, and beat him to death.

With blood all over his face, head, and body, a cruel gleam in his eye and a smirk, Funani began to explain what King Paul required of his new village. “Now that I am the new chief and the witchdoctors are gone, all the children seven years old and up will go with the soldiers…”

The people screamed in terror and wept. Their screams drowned out Funani. The children ran to their mother or father, and the orphans ran to each other, shaking in terror. Why would anyone want to go with a people so cruel? By the standards of what Paul would call the modern world, these parents were terrible parents, but even they despaired at sending their children to a cruel fate.

Funani got mad and yelled out, “SHUT UP OR I WILL BEAT YOU LIKE I DID THE WITCHDOCTOR!”

The cries from the adults stopped, but the children continued to scream and cry. They were terrified.

Funani forgot what else he was going to say about the children and instead said, “As for you men, you will make a stone road to the fort.”

The men wanted to ask what a stone road was, but they were gripped by fear. Funani began explaining all the things Paul wanted to do in the worst way possible. It basically amounted to the soldiers could beat and kill them at will if they didn’t do exactly as he demanded, and Badru couldn’t stop the weasel because he didn’t know what he was saying.

Badru could read the situation. He knew that this idiot was off the script, but he couldn’t do much about it.

Badru went to a group of twenty-five of his men and said, “I hate to do this to you, but this idiot is going to get this village to kill him tonight if you don’t stay. Don’t do anything King Paul wouldn’t like, and try not to undermine the moron's authority too much. I will try to be back in a day or two with the rest of the men from this village. They don’t speak our language well, but they cannot be worse than Funani.”

The men said, “Yes, sir!”

Another man looked at Funani with hate in his eyes and said, “Hurry.”

Badru said, “I am sorry I screwed up, I should have brought several people who could speak this peoples language, but I was more fearful of betrayal than I should have been. Which led to this betrayal.”

The men nodded. They were very unhappy with Funani; it was clear the man was on a power trip.

After that, Badru and his men gathered the children. They had to do a lot of prodding with the idiot Funani threatening the children with beatings and death if they didn’t go with the soldiers. The soldiers told Funani to say kind words to the children, but the idiot didn’t listen and gave threats instead. What could the soldiers do? They didn’t speak the language.

Finally, when they prepared to leave, they brought Funani’s wife and her child. Funani was not happy about it, but he was a coward that would never stand up to Badru. With that, Badru made his way back to the capital, and before the sunset Badru, Funani’s wife, and all the children were back in the capital, while Badru had a serious discussion with his stepfather.

Chapter 10 July AD 81 Africa- Mistake

The previous evening Badru surprised Paul by coming back the day after he left. Sure Paul expected students to come trickling back, but to see Badru come back so quickly was a bad sign. It meant that Badru had information to sensitive to send through the communications towers.

When Paul found out what Funani had done, he was upset. Anger isn’t the right word. Yes, Paul felt anger at Funani for ignoring his orders, but he also felt guilty for sending Badru to conquer a village where none of the soldiers spoke the language yet. Paul knew leaders led by example, and he should have been the first one out there figuring out an effective way to conquer villages with a new language before he sent his inexperienced men to do the same. One thing is for sure, from now on, they would have several translators when they conquered a new village, even if those translators were not the best at speaking the Paulsland dialect.

The next morning Paul gathered all the captured men from Funani’s village, several more soldiers, and his ivory throne. Paul believed the situation was salvageable but only if things were done in a specific way. Paul and a hundred and fifty soldiers made their way to Funani’s village. The need for this show of force upset Paul because it meant stripping the defenses of the capital and his forts on the far side of the river.

Paul waited in the forest while his troops entered the village. Once there, they immediately began gathering the people, while others moved Paul’s throne to the center of the village.

Once Paul’s throne was seen, people began to scream and point. They could see the tusks that made up the throne. They knew what it was. Villagers began running out to see the commotion, and they stood in awe.

Paul was waiting in the woods with several soldiers because he knew it made him appear more important if the people had to wait on him. He hated the pomp and circumstance, but it was effective. As he showed up, he saw all the people pointing and chatting about his throne. This caused him to smile. When he sat in it, they looked at him in with reverence.

As soon as Paul sat in his throne, he called out, “Where is Funani?”

Funani was in the crowd; he had no choice. He was one of the first people dragged there.

Funani stepped forward and said, “I am here.”

Paul said, “Lieutenant Badru says that you did not follow my commands.”

Funani was about to speak when the men who were just returned to the village began translating for Paul. Although they did not speak the Paulsland dialect well, they understood it well enough to translate it.

Funani mouth dropped open, and his eyes went wide. He thought he would get away with doing whatever he wanted to because the two sides couldn’t talk with one another. Instead of answering his King Funani turned toward the men and said in their language, “SHUT UP!”

King Paul looked toward one of his soldiers and said, “Strike his shin.”

Without hesitation, the man pulled his sword out and swung the flat of the blade at Funani’s shin. As soon as the sword struck his shin, Funani fell to the ground screaming and grabbing his shin.

While Funani was screaming over his wound, Paul turned toward one of the translators and asked, “What did he tell you to do?”

After seeing what happened to Funani, he wasn’t about to lie. He said as best he could, “Funani said no talk.”

Paul looked down at Funani again and said, “Why would you tell my translator not to talk?”

Funani thought about it for a split second and dug himself in a deeper hole when he said, “I was trying to make sure he had our entire conversation to give to the people before they spoke, to make sure there were no translation errors.”

The translators continued to translate the King and Funani’s words, and as they did so, the people began to realize that Funani was in trouble. This pleased them greatly. Funani had only been back a day and a half, and they all already hated him.

Paul said, “I am not worried about their translation errors. In fact, I am told you had several errors yesterday. Who told you to kill the chief?” Paul was trying to win this village to his side politically, and so he was going to do an age-old political maneuver he was going to direct the people's anger at someone else for political points. They would be much better citizens if they were not upset with Paul, so Paul was going to give them someone to direct their anger towards.

Funani gave the excuse, “King Paul, you sent me to become chief, and the way this village has always gotten a new chief is by another man slaying the last chief.” Funani answered in the way King Paul wanted him to. Paul was trying to win these people to him by showing the people he was on their side, and Funani was playing into Paul’s hands.

Paul said, “That is the old way. It would be excusable for you to practice the old way if you hadn’t spent two years in my capital.” Paul smiled as the translators continued to let the people know what they were saying and that the people seemed to be softening up to Paul.

Funani said, “But you wanted the chief dead.” Paul watched the people as the translators informed them of what Funani said, and Paul realized he was losing them, so he changed the subject.

Paul asked, “Was the chief you killed, the chief that launched an attack on my fort?”

Funani looked away from Paul and said, “No, King.”

Paul said, “You have been chief for a day and a half; how goes the road-building project.”

Funani said, “We are preparing for it.”

Paul looked toward one of the soldiers that Guarded Funani and asked, “What has this man done to prepare to build the road?”

The soldier said, “As far as I can tell nothing. He has screamed at the people and beat them. They always look like they want to strike back, but they look at us and withhold their rage. Granted, I cannot speak their language.”

Paul nodded, then turned to the people and asked, “What work has Funani had you perform?”

The translators translated the King’s words as they translated everything else, and one man stepped up and said, “Ever since he got here, he has demanded that we build him a house of logs and make him a bed and furniture. He kept saying that he had them in the capital, so he was going to have them here.”

The translator struggled to tell the King, “Funani had them make Funani house of log, and sofa, bed, table. Like in stone city.”

King Paul looked to Funani and said, “Explain.”

Funani had guilt written all over his face and said, “I learned from the girls at the school that a dirt floor is unhealthy and so I thought it best to have the men build a log house with wooden floors so that everyone’s health would improve.”

Paul nodded and asked, “And how did you treat the workers.”

Funani said, “Well, they are not like the people back in the capital. They are lazy and need discipline.”

Paul asked, “How often did you feed them?”

Funani began to shake and said, “They didn’t complete the work I had for them, so I didn’t feed them.”

Paul turned toward the people and said, “I apologize and ask forgiveness for trusting Funani. I expected that since he came from this village, then he would have your good in his heart, but instead, he has caused nothing but trouble for you since he came here.”

Paul then turned toward his soldiers and said, “Tie Funani to a tree.” When their King told them to do that, they knew what it meant. It meant they were to tie him like he was hugging the tree. When Funani heard that, he was actually relieved in his heart because this just meant he would be getting flogged instead of executed.

Paul then began to explain to the people, “I am King Paul, elephant slayer, and I came here to make your village part of my nation so that I could protect you from elephants, hippos, spirits, and other things. To become part of my nation, I will place a chief of your own people over you, and you will build a road to the fort you attacked two years ago. When you do so, I will gift you the best seed you have ever had at the beginning of planting season. With this seed, you will easily be able to eat three times a day.”

Several of the people nodded as the translator translated, and one of them asked the question, “What about the children?”

The translator turned to Paul and asked, “Children?”

Paul said, “Funani should have told you yesterday, but the boys are being taught how to become warriors and skilled craftsmen, and the girls are being taught how to become healers. They will come back during the planting and harvest seasons to help with your crops, the rest of the year, they will learn from me. In fact, when they come back at the planting season, many, if not all, will have gifts to bring back to their parents.”

As the translator translated, The parents smiled and nodded in appreciation, and one asked, “What about Funani?”

The translator asked, “What Funani?”

Paul said, “Funani betrayed me and you, but his betrayal cost your village the life of your chief and you much pain, so now that he is tied to that tree, I will allow you to beat Funani until he is mud. Do whatever you want to his corpse.”

Relief and joy filled the people's face, as Funani began to sob. Paul had won the people, and it only cost him a worm.

Then Paul pointed at one of his translators and said, “He will be your new chief. His job is to make sure you build a road to the fort before the planting festival, and to make sure you get fed at least twice a day from the granary and to solve disputes between you.”

When Paul talked about getting fed twice a day, the people cheered. Then the men went to beat Funani to death. Up till now, Paul had used a chief's death to create a relationship with his nation. Funani power trip made him the ideal candidate to be that glue.

Once the people were off enjoying the final hours of Funani’s life, Paul took Badru aside and said, “Did you see how they reacted when they saw my throne? I expected the tusk to have a reaction, but I never expected the reaction to be so strong.”

Badru nodded.

Paul said, “Let's make our way to the next village and see if we can be a bit more political in taking over that village. Perhaps we won't have to kill the chiefs as we continue taking over the villages.”

Badru said, “What about the witchdoctors?”

Paul said, “They rape children and feed on spirits; they all have to die.”

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The next day they made their way to the next village on their list of conquest. Once they were an hour away, they camped and slept through the night and made their way to the village at dawn. The village did not expect an attack. Why should they? It had been at least a year since they attacked the fort. With no walls and no guards, it was nothing to capture the village.

After the village was captured, the soldiers brought out King Paul’s ivory throne, and a few minutes later, Paul came forward with his guards and sat on the throne. It looked rather impressive, at least by the standards of the time.

Paul spoke, and the men that were captured attacking the fort a year and a half ago interpreted for Paul.

“I have come to make your village a part of my nation. If you join, you will be able to grow more food, have iron tools, and your own pieces of land. We will also protect you from lions, hippos, other tribes, elephants, and spirits. What do you think?”

One of the men got up to speak, and he asked, “What do we have to do to get these benefits?” One of the translators from this village was much better at the Paulsland dialect than the last translators, and he almost perfectly translated the words.

Paul asked, “Are you the chief of this village?”

The man said, “Yes.”

Paul said, “Simply build a road to my fort. I know your village knows where it is since you attacked it a year ago.”

The chief quickly changed the subject by asking, “Can you do what you have promised?”

Paul said, “The interpreters lived with us for a year and a half ask them.”

The chief did so, and the interpreters explained what they saw and experienced while being prisoners under King Paul. The translators were convincing. It wasn’t just the food issue, but all the wonders they saw and the comforts they had. Who wouldn’t want to have that brought to their village?

After the translators finished telling their amazing stories, the people were excited to join Paul. The chief wasn’t as sold as his people were, though. He asked one simple question, “What will it cost us to join you?”

Paul said, “Your village will give each man his own land to grow on, and they will only give ten percent of what they harvest to the village, but my capital will give them the seed they need to grow during the planting festival at the capital, along with tools that make planting crops much easier. Once you have collected your ten percent, you will send ten percent of that to the capital. You will also send all your orphans to the capital so that we can take care of them. All of your children from seven and up will have to come and learn at our school once the road and bridge are built, which will actually only be about an hour's walk from here. Nobody will be allowed to marry before age fourteen. Each member of the village will use the village's name as their last name to honor their village. But they will not be allowed to marry someone with that name.”

The chief nodded, none of that sounded too bad; then Paul asked, “do you agree to join my nation and receive the benefits of my people?”

Once the interpreter finished speaking, the villagers shouted in agreement. The chief was wily, though, and asked, “My people want to join you, but to make sure you hold your end of the bargain, you need to marry my daughter.”

Paul said, “No. You are going to eat better, have iron weapons, and be protected. I am not going to give a higher status to you by marrying your daughter. If you don’t want this for your village, I am sure that your villagers can easily replace you with a better chief. Perhaps one of the interpreters.”

The chief realized that King Paul was right and immediately said, “I agree to join you.”

Paul said, “Good. Several of my men will stay to help you start with the road-building project. We have some tools to help you get started.”

With that, Paul turned over some soldiers to help them build the roads, while he brought back many children to his capital to begin teaching and training them. It would be a few years before the village was ready to have its own school, but it was a prime candidate for Paul’s plans with the chiefs.

In the coming week, Paul made two more visits to the villages that attacked the fort and peaceably brought them into Paulsland. The ivory throne made a big difference, so discussion started on a diplomatic corps that had staffs made out of large ivory tusks; if it led to peaceful acquisitions of villages, so much the better.

That said, all the witchdoctors were accused of eating spirits and putting curses on people and executed within a month of their villages joining Paulsland. The villages were then promised that they would be protected from spirits by their King; the deaths of the witchdoctors were used as evidence of King Paul meeting his promise.

Chapter 11 July AD 81 Texas- Plow

Over the last few months, John had been putting a ton of effort into training his bison. Even though it scared his wife half to death, he got to use Trevor and Bobby to help train the bison, although their job was little more than sitting on a sled. He tried to get his boys to ride the bison, but every time he put them on its back, the bison wouldn’t walk. It just turned around and looked at the boys with an expression that said, “Why are you there?”

With all the inbreeding done to get the domesticated bison, John figured that the bison might have broken brain chemistry and unable to allow a rider. Even if he was never able to fix the bison, they were okay with pulling a yoke. Perhaps the difference was the boys were warm, and a yoke wasn’t. John honestly didn’t know.

Either way, having a beast able to pull a plow, cart, or other things was a monumental achievement for first-century North America. As long as these domesticated bison spread out, John felt like he had accomplished his goals, and now whatever he did was icing on the cake. He just had to get other people to accept the bison.

The first part of the plan was to build a barn. The villagers were okay with the bison stuck in bison valley, but moving them into the village would cause some issues, so he needed a place to put them to show the people that these bison were different. With the help of several men, he made a barn with six stalls. The men asked what the stalls would be used for, and John always smiled and answered, “You will see when the time comes.”

It wasn’t enough to just have domesticated bison, a yoke, and a barn. The people were rightly scared of bison. He had to show people the bison were worth the risk, and thus he made a plow and cart and put them in the barn. Once finished, he went to bison valley, got one of his six domesticated males, and brought him back to the village.

When John brought the bison into the village to hook it up to the plow, the people yelled, panicked, and kept their distance. Mama’s grabbed their children and made them come into their house. John understood why Bison were legitimately dangerous. Fully grown, they weighed more than a ton, they could run up to thirty miles an hour, run into another bison going the same speed, and walk away from the collision no worse for wear. If they did that to a person, it was basically being hit by a car a couple of thousand years before the car was invented, and the collision would do far less damage to the bison than it did to a car.

As John was taking the Bison to the barn to get the plow, Kuruk, John’s father-in-law carefully made his way to John and the bison as quickly as he could. He did not want to startle the Bison.

Kuruk said in a hushed and harsh tone, “John! What are you doing?”

John smiled and said, “I am getting my plow. I was hoping to put some wheat in the ground, even if it's late in the year. With this bison helping me plow, I think I can add in a couple of acres.”

Kuruk grips grew tight as he hissed, “You know what I mean! Why did you bring this bison into the village? You know how dangerous they are. It's one thing to keep them in bison valley but to bring them into the village is unacceptable.”

John said, “My bison are not dangerous. I bred all the danger out of them over several years. Now they wouldn’t harm a fly. Now that they are safe, I have to teach them to work, and get people used to being around the safe ones.”

Kuruk said, “Even if you made these safe, all your going to do is get the kids thinking they are all safe, and when they meet bison out in the wild, they will get killed!”

John shook his head and said, “No. You're wrong. My bison all have streaks running through their hair. Just teach the kids that the bison with streaks are domesticated, and the ones without are dangerous. Kids are not stupid; they will figure it out.”

Kuruk said, “John, you are chief, and that gives you a lot of leeway with the people, but that only goes so far. All the men have seen the damage done by bison, and many of the women have tried to put their broken fathers, husbands, and brothers back together after a bison trampled them. The people are legitimately terrified of them. It’s all well and good to hear how you are trying to domesticate them like our dogs, but to see one in our village is freaking everyone out.”

John nodded in understanding. To mentally know something doesn’t mean you emotionally accept it. Mentally they understand why domesticated bison could be much better than domesticated dogs, but emotionally seeing the bison in their village brings back horrible images. But John also understood that no matter when he brought the bison in, it would freak the people out. The sooner he gets them past the initial freak out, the better.

John said, “Why don’t you bring the men over to watch how I use the bison. If the wives are upset about it, then tell them that their husbands are making sure the bison doesn’t hurt their chief.”

Kuruk reluctantly nodded and said, “Okay.” And went off to gather a crowd.

The men started quickly trickling in as John made it to the barn and put the yoke on the bison, then tied ropes from the yoke to the plow. The plow had a couple of wheels on it to help move it around from the barn to the field that could be engaged or disengaged with a lever.

Once everything was hooked up, John had dozens of observers trying to peek at what he was doing, but they got in each other's way. John couldn’t help shake his head. They were scared of the bison running wild through the village, but they were all bunched together in front of the bison. Sometimes people were paradoxical creatures.

When John was ready to move, he yelled out, “You are in the way, make a path so I can take this bison to the fields.” The men did not want to miss the show, so they didn’t move. After a few seconds, they started looking at each other like everyone else should move.

John shook his head. Sometimes these men were hard-headed. John simply went to the back of the plow and snapped the reigns on the bison, and it started moving forward. When it started moving, the men panicked and tried to get out of the way of the moving bison. Several men fell over, and they started stepping on each other, trying to get out of the way.

The nervous bison looked back at John, who said in a soothing voice, “You're doing good, keep up the work.”

The encouragement was enough for it to continue walking forward confidently.

Fortunately for all the men, this bison was not a fast creature. Everyone easily scrambled out of its path before it walked by. The large crowd of men followed John for about half a mile before John got to the field. Once there, John used the lever to disengage the wheel, and the bison began plowing.

To someone who grew up watching tv, what that Bison did was not that special. But to a group of people who spent most of their lives plowing fields with sticks, the bison pulled plow was the most beautiful thing they had ever seen.

They liked the iron hoe that John introduced, and the wheeled plow was a huge improvement when it came to plowing fields since all you had to do was push the plow through the field. But John was now plowing a field ten times faster than they had ever plowed a field, and all he was doing was standing on the back of the plow, tugging on the reigns every now and then. The difference in speed is a rowboat vs. a speed boat. The difference in effort was like going from slave to master.

The next hour the men watched and marveled as their chief just did a day’s worth of work in an hour with no effort. John knew he was putting a show on for these men. If someone had never farmed before, they would be bored to tears watching him plow, but to these men, they were watching the most fascinating show on earth.

John decided to be kind and let the men play with his new toy. He got off the plow and asked, “Who wants to give it a turn?”

All the men raised their hands, and John said, “I have to let my father in law go first. When he is done, he can pick the next guy. So on and so forth until all the men use the plow.”

Kuruk got on the plow, and John showed him how to whip the reigns to get the bison to move, and before long, they were off. Kuruk knew the importance of straight rows, so he worked hard to keep the bison straight, and he was amazed at the ease of everything. Eventually, he realized he needed to give other men their turn.

As the day went, many of the men enjoyed the new experience. Sure some of the men got manure on them from the bison, and yes, getting pooped on publicly was embarrassing, and they got teased about it for weeks to come, but all the men left amazed. Before this day, their experience with bison was a hunter hunting a dangerous prey, but now they had a new experience where they were a master over their servant. In the world John came from, it was said that men put their world into boxes, and so now these men had two boxes for bison. They had prey bison and servant bison.

That night they went home and bragged to their wives about getting to ride a plow and how much more work bison can do, with so much less effort on their part. Their wives were skeptical, and it caused a number of arguments between men who were awed and their wives who still feared.

Part of the reason for the argument is that after the day’s work, the men had no problem with John leaving his bison in the barn in the village, and their wives did.

The next morning John let the men who didn’t get to ride the plow the day before take the oxen to their fields and plow. It may be a little late to plant summer crops, but then again, being able to plow so much with the bison made it possible to take the risk.

As those men left, John got another bison from the valley and brought it to his barn to hook it up to his cart. Today though, there was nowhere near the commotion as yesterday. People were still uncertain about the bison, but after so many ladies had their husband talking about how amazing the bison plow was, they had to wonder if the bison was really as dangerous as they thought.

Once John was done hooking up the bison to his cart, he brought the bison to one of his granaries and started filling up the cart with grain. The ladies watched and were amazed that the bison obediently stayed where he was supposed to. Once John was finished, all the women found each other and chatted and gossiped about how much grain the bison cart held. It was like a boat.

That day John went out and planted his seed. Several of the other men examined the bison cart and asked what it could move, and John assured them it could move whatever they could fit in there.

The next day the men came by and borrowed his bison, plow, and cart. John went off to bison valley and got one more bison. John prepared leather saddle, which held six very large baskets for this bison. Once it was outfitted, he took the bison to where his wife was gathering ripe corn, tomatoes, vegetables, and spices.

When she saw her husband bringing that bison by, she yelled out,” JOHN! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?”

John smiled and said, “Well, honey, I feel bad. Over the last two days, my bison have helped me to get a month's worth of work done in two days, and here you are working hard without any help. I figured I would come by and help you, along with my bison.”

Onawa was starting to freak out. It was one thing to talk her into coming into bison valley, and giving her time to come to terms with getting close to bison, but to show up out of the blue and surprise her was something else. She yelled out, “YOU KNOW THAT’S NOT WHAT I MEANT!”

John saw that his wife was paralyzed between fight and flight and said, “Why don’t you feed this one some salt and pet it's head.”

Onawa whispered, “I’m scared.”

John said, “Don’t worry, this one is only a few months old. It's still two years before it's at its full size.”

Onawa very reluctantly came over, took the salt from John, and fed it to the bison. The bison licked her hand while she petted its head. It's hard to be fearful of a calm animal you are petting. While she did that, John went over and started gathering the various fruits, vegetables, grains, and spices. Many of them grew throughout the spring and summer, so you had to pick them when they got ripe, or you missed out. The biggest problem was that the women could only hold so much before they had to take them back to their homes. This immature bison could hold twenty times as much as any of the women could.

With John and the bison’s help, Onawa managed to gather in a couple of hours what normally took her a week. Not having to take a long walk home dozens of times a day saved a lot of time. This gave her free time to get on her spinning wheel, weave some cloth, or make some new clothes. This is the first-century free time from one job meant you got to spend more time on the job you really liked, for many of the women, that was cloth and leather making.

That evening the other women villagers came by and asked Onawa if they could use her Bison and basket saddle the next day. She, of course, agreed, and now John won the women over.

But John wasn’t done, the next day, the various villagers were using the bison for different jobs, and so John went to grab two more bison and put them in a very distinct yoke. This yoke held the bison about five feet from one another, and it had a large iron clamp.

John then went to the woods and cut down a tree. Once the tree fell, he stripped it of its branches then hooked the tree up to the clamp. The bison then easily brought the tree to the village. Before the day was over John had brought back over twenty trees.

Once he was done, one of the villagers asked, “Do you have a way for those bison to saw the logs, or to turn them into coal? “

John said, “Not yet.”

But with that, John had successfully gotten the bison accepted into the village. Over the course of several months, rumors began to spread up and down the river and its tributaries about these domesticated bison.

Chapter 12 August 82 AD Africa- Harsh Correction

Elzo was following one of his lieutenants to a problem village. Accompanying them was four other chiefs and their warriors. A few nights ago, the witchdoctor’s assistant let the lieutenant know that someone in the village killed their chief and took his place.

When Elzo allied with the villages last year, he really had to ally with three groups of people. The first was the witchdoctors, and their alliance was easy; he pointed out that Paul was their enemy and that they needed to team up to kill him. Once he had approval from the witchdoctors, it became easy to ally himself with most of the village warriors by providing them food and weapons. Generally, this would create problems between Elzo and the chiefs, but Elzo made an alliance with the chiefs when his lieutenants started training the warriors how to fight.

What they did was teach the chief a lesson in private, and then have the chief teach his men. The lieutenants told the men that they must follow all the commands of their chief and that if anyone fought with the chief, they would be severely punished. If someone killed their chief, they would be killed and be replaced.

Every chief's goal was control. Everyone knew becoming chief meant you got to control who got to eat, who got to marry, and who went where on raids. Before Elzo showed up, most chiefs were killed by a member of their tribe strong enough to take that control away from their chief. The chiefs were thrilled to ally with Elzo because he gave them more control of their village and more safety within their village. They were not experienced enough to realize how much sovereignty they were giving up, and considering how much safer Elzo made them, they probably wouldn’t have cared if they did.

Elzo had twenty-one lieutenants. One lieutenant acted as a second in command and was in another part of the alliance dealing with other problems. The other twenty lieutenants were in charge of five or six villages each, and they rotated from one village to the next, giving the chief instructions and pointers on training his men until the village learned the lesson. Then they moved on. Each time they came through, they taught something a little more advanced.

Elzo instructed the lieutenants, which instructed the chiefs, which instructed the warriors. The warriors couldn’t even talk to Elzo or the lieutenants without getting beaten. Only their chief, witchdoctor, or smith could talk with them. The warriors' only duty was to obey their chief.

And now someone decided to kill their chief, so Elzo had to deal with the problem publicly and ruthlessly.

Around noon they made it to the village. The lieutenant was able to directly command the four chiefs and their warriors through the use of drums. The warriors entered from four different directions. Their job was to stop anyone from escaping from this demonstration. Elzo and this village’s lieutenant entered last with the village warriors looking nervous. All the women and children had already run into their huts to hide.

The lieutenant yelled, “GET INTO FORMATION!”

The nervous warriors quickly did so.

The lieutenant then yelled out, “Where is the chief?”

A man stepped forward and said, “I am the new chief. I slew the old one and became the new chief according to our traditions.”

The lieutenant walked toward the man who looked like he was gearing up for the argument. The lieutenant looked at the man's feet, then up to the man's eyes. The foolish chief looked right into the lieutenant's eyes as the lieutenant drew his sword and struck the man's head from his shoulders.

All four chiefs smiled. All their warriors just saw what would happen to them if they tried to kill them.

The warriors of the village cried out in fear. One yelled out, “We had nothing to do with the death of the chief.”

Elzo pointed at the man and said, “How dare you talk to me! Give the man forty lashes with the branch of an Umbila tree.”

The warriors standing next to the man immediately seized him, brought him to the square, and began beating him with a branch. They had several as being flogged was a common punishment since Elzo began military training of the men. The branch was used because it left scars but no lasting damage. The soldiers did their best to beat the man because if the lieutenant or chief thought they were being soft, the men giving the beating would also get one themselves.

After the man was done being beaten, the warriors went back and stood in formation.

Again the lieutenant yelled, “Where is the chief?”

No one answered this time.

The lieutenant pointed at a soldier and said, “Go find your witchdoctor.” The man did so, but he didn’t know this was all being done for show. The witchdoctor had already talked with Elzo about who his pick for chief was. They were just going to make it official.

Minutes later, the witchdoctor came forward. As always, the witchdoctor looked otherworldly. He had incense burning in his beard, twigs, leaves, and idles hanging from his hair, along with a walking stick that had an idol carved into it. Everyone waited quietly until the witchdoctor came.

Once out there, the lieutenant asked, “Where is your chief?”

The witchdoctor looked down and, with as much grief as he could muster in his voice, said, “He was sadly murdered by one of his soldiers.”

The lieutenant pointed to a head and asked, “That one?”

The witchdoctor visibly brightened up and said, “Yes.”

The lieutenant then asked, “Then if we are to fight our war against the evil Paul and his spirit eating ways, you, the wise witchdoctor who has led your village and protected it from evil spirits, must select a new chief.”

The witchdoctor feigned surprise and said, “Me.”

The lieutenant said, “Of course. Our battle against Paul is as much a spiritual battle as a physical one, so of course, the witchdoctor would be the most suited for choosing a chief.”

The witchdoctor nodded and said, “This is a momentous occasion. The entire village must see it.”

The lieutenant smiled and said, “Of course. Warriors go into your homes and make sure everyone sees this momentous occasion. I want every man, woman, and child in this village out here in five minutes.”

The warriors instantly ran to the huts. Sometimes they struck people to get them out; other times, they dragged them out. It was obvious when the chief's family came out because they started crying when they saw his head. It only took three minutes for everyone in the village to be brought out.

The lieutenant asked the witchdoctor, “Is this everyone in the village?”

The witchdoctor smiled and said, “Yes. Now I will need to perform a ritual to see who will be the greatest chief.”

The lieutenant asked, “What do you need to perform this ritual?”

The witchdoctor said, “I need to use the entrails of a boy to see who the best leader will be.”

The lieutenant looked around and said, “Detain the family of the man who claimed to be chief.”

There were screams from the wives and children of the man. They tried to run, but between the warriors of their own village and the warriors from the other villages, they did not get far. In total, they detained three wives, five daughters, and five sons. The man who took over from the last chief was an exceptional hunter, which allowed him to have a larger family than most. In the original timeline, he became chief a few months earlier and would have been chief for another decade, and had many more wives and children. But waves of change in the timeline were starting to happen.

The witchdoctor went to the oldest son, being held by two warriors, and slit his stomach open, pulled his guts out, and acted like he could see the future through his entrails. Of course, the boy supposedly had to be alive while he peered at them. The poor boy screamed in horror as the cruel witchdoctor pulled more and more intestines out of his small body.

Eventually, the boy died, and the witchdoctor finally said, “The entails show that Omari would be the best chief.”

Finally, Elzo spoke and asked, “Do you need any more human sacrifices?”

The witchdoctor shook his head and said, “No.”

Then Elzo said, “Omari, go with the lieutenant, he has to instruct you.”

Omari did so. Once gone, Elzo said, “I am very displeased with the men in this village. A usurper killed your chief, and yet when I show up in your village, you did not greet me with his and his family's heads. My anger must be quenched.”

The men looked around nervously. There were only twenty-eight of them, but the other four villages brought a hundred and forty-five men.

Elzo said, “First of all, each one of you will receive forty lashes from the branch of an Umbrella tree. Take off your armor and expose your back. You will take this punishment like men! If any of you takes a step during his beating, he will get forty more lashes.”

The men obeyed as men from the other villages stepped forward with huge grins on their faces. They came prepared. Elzo did not have all day, so all twenty-eight men were beaten at the same time as they stood in formation. Say what you will about these warriors, but during their beating, not one of them made a sound, and not one of them took a step forward, no matter how hard they were beaten.

Once that was over, Elzo said, “My anger is still not quenched. I now need every male old enough to hold a knife to come forward.”

Children from three onward came forward to Elzo, then he looked toward the warriors and said, “This is a good time to show the sons of your village what it's like to kill other people. The false chief's sons are still alive. Have your children stab them in none fatal areas.”

The poor sons of the false chiefs began being stabbed by those they were playing with the day before. What could any of these children do? When they hesitated to stab their friend, their father or another man in the village struck them until they obeyed. It wasn’t quick either as the young people were shown how to avoid veins and arteries, and where to strike so that a wound would take days to kill someone.

Each time they made a cut, Elzo told them, “You're so brave for getting revenge for the death of your chief.” It wasn’t long before the boys deluded themselves into thinking what they did was honorable. To them, it was better than living with the guilt of what they did.

Once the sons of the false chief were mangled, Elzo said, “They are broken, let them die slowly now.” Elzo was not about to leave a chief's son alive to get revenge on him like Paul did with him.

Finally, Elzo said, “Take his wives and daughters and rape them till they die. If they are still alive at sunset, I will consider you men failures.” With that command Elzo’s army began doing what nearly every army in history did. Use rape to control a population.

Elzo’s actions solidified his control over the chiefs. As long as Elzo was around, very few would dare try to take their position.

That night the chief sent a girl from his family to Elzo and another to the Lieutenant to solidify their relationship. Over the course of the last two years as Elzo gained power the witchdoctors and chiefs of the tribes gave wives to Elzo and his men to tie them more closely together. Elzo had a wife and a hut waiting for him in every village in this alliance, and his lieutenants had a wife and a hut waiting for them in every village they oversaw. It’s the reason why the chief murderer didn’t kill the chiefs family. The Chiefs family was also Elzo’s family.

Over the next few days, the lieutenant drilled the five chiefs and their men. Of course, this village's men were sore from their beatings, but if they did not perform up to par, they got beat by more men. It was very apparent to everyone around, though, that the chiefs were treated differently. Chief Omari never got beat once. When one of the chiefs messed up, it was their men that got flogged. The chiefs could ask for clarification, and the lieutenant would patiently answer their question. If the lieutenant got annoyed with a chief, he took him inside a hut. None of the men knew whether the chief was flogged their or not, but it was clear that Chiefs got much better treatment than regular warriors.

As they were drilled, the lieutenants made it clear to the men, “In Paulsland the soldiers never drill with so many men at once. When we get there, you will be used to working together as five villages, and they will have no idea what to do. The most they drill with is a hundred men, and even then, they break down into much small groups.”

At the end of the week, right before the warriors were to go back to their villages, the witchdoctor brought out a horrifying sight. He had taken the heads of the false chief and his family and turned them into lanterns. Their skin had turned into leather, with the horrible expression they had at death. A candle was put inside their head as a light source.

The witchdoctor said, “I have trapped the chief killer's spirit and his family’s spirits in their heads, and now you can watch the betrayers spirits burn forever. So will happen to anyone else who betrays their chief.” Elzo made sure these heads were spread throughout the alliance, along with the story of what happened. To say that the chiefs had grown much closer to Elzo would be an understatement.

That said, Elzo and his lieutenants still felt that the men had a long way to go before they were able to face the men in Paul's military. Granted, Elzo's plan was to overwhelm with numbers, and they should be able to do that within a year or two. It would just take time to teach their large units how to follow orders from drums. But that was fine. More time meant more competent warriors.

Chapter 13 November AD 81 Africa- Genifa

When Genifa woke up, she was annoyed. Today was the planting festival, and if it wasn’t for that, then she would have gotten to spend time with her husband today. Instead, she would have to wait until tomorrow. She was so jealous of Misa, who got to spend the night before with their husband. Genifa was the third of Paul’s four wives, and Paul would have two more next year. She didn’t know how she would handle it when her husband had even less time to spend with her.

Sure Paul tried being fair. He always spent a night with each one of his wives before starting over. But Genifa wanted more time with her husband! She loved the man. She was just grateful that she was pregnant. Maybe next year, once she had a child in her arms, it wouldn’t be so difficult seeing her husband in another woman's embrace. Granted, Paul was kind; he tried not to embrace one of his wives in front of the other wives, but all of them loved to rub it in when they got Paul. Whether he liked it or not, it was thrilling to his wives to show off when they had him.

When Genifa went to eat breakfast Misa, and Paul’s children were already there. No doubt, Paul woke up early to meet his responsibilities, and when he did so, he woke Misa up. Paul also probably woke up his children to give them instructions for the day. Genifa imagined that Paul wanted them to meet people and required them to memorize their names. Genifa knew about it because once Paul required his oldest son to do it a couple of years ago, Chazia thought it was a great idea and made all of the girls engaged to Paul learn the same lesson. Surely if a King's son was going to do something, a King's wife should too.

As Genifa pondered on this, Misa smirked at her and said, “Paul already left. He is King, and so he couldn’t wait for you. He has important things to do.”

Genifa put her hand over her protruding stomach and said, “That’s no problem at all. I am already fulfilling my duty as a wife.” Misa’s smirk vanished. She had been married for almost a whole year, and she still wasn’t pregnant. Genifa got pregnant immediately, probably on their wedding night. Even Chazia, in her advanced age of thirty, was pregnant again. Gizela had only been married to Paul for two months, and she missed her last bleeding, so even she might be pregnant, which is a real sore point for Misa.

While Misa was figuring out a backhanded compliment to give Genifa, Chazia walked in and asked, “What are you two talking about?”

Genifa was feeling snarky, so she said, “We were just talking about how pretty you are for your age.”

Chazia smiled and said, “Thank you.” But Chazia was not one to appreciate a backhanded compliment and asked with sickly sweet concern, “I have been wondering, has Paul stopped confusing you with Gizela?”

For years Paul struggled with mixing up Genifa and Gizela, and it had been a sore point for a long time for the girls. In fact, when they were engaged to Paul, it irritated Chazia to no end, but now that they were married, she used it to beat both girls down whenever either one got out of line.

Genifa said, “No! Paul has not mixed me up with Gizela since we got married.”

Chazia just smiled and sat down. Even though Paul said all his wives were equal, Chazia was still in charge. Her husband wouldn’t let her beat his other wives physically, but emotionally was another story.

Now that Chazia had asserted her dominance, she said, “Remember, Paul wants everyone to meet him on the island at noon, he has a show to put on.”

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Just a few weeks earlier, Paul finished his bridge. It was half a mile long, and it was very tall. Genifa was trying to gather her courage as she viewed this marvel of engineering that she did not want to use. She was afraid of heights.

She stood at the river gate looking at the bridge as it stretched out into the distance, and she could not help but think how massive it was. She didn’t like going over the bridges over small streams, and now her husband expected her to walk across this bridge to the island he wanted to build their new home on. Her husband planned on building his home on that island since before he even met her. Paul said it was the most defensible place in the nation. Once the three bridges were built over the two rivers, if anything really bad happened, they could escape by bridge or by boat, but it would take a massive army to take their future home.

The idea of her home being on the island truly frightened her because it meant she would have to walk across bridges. She wanted to give her opinion, but if she displeased her husband, he might not spend as much time with her, so instead, she encouraged his vision. He had no idea that she was scared of heights, and now she would have to show courage. She had never walked the bridge or been that high up before.

Genifa grabbed her stomach because she was instinctually protecting her child from heights. She knew her fear was irrational but regardless, she was going to protect her child from her irrational fear.

She began her walk right in the middle of the bridge and wished she could crawl so she wouldn’t have to see how high up she was, but she was the King's wife. She had to show dignity. She lifted her head up and put a brave face on. The bridge had what her husband called a guardrail, so unless she intentionally jumped over it or was thrown over it, she would not fall off the bridge, but it was still scary.

As she continued across the bridge, she went from being over a dry river bed that was dry due to the dry season to being over the river. The river was filled with hippos and crocodiles and probably other monsters. If she fell off over the dry river bed, at least it would only break her legs, but if she fell here, something would drag her underwater. Her pace increased as she could not help but imagine more and more ways of her accidentally getting over the guard rail, or the bridge failing with her on it.

As Genifa walked closer to the island, she saw where they built pile drivers around the island. Paul planned for a large wall to go all the way around it, and he wanted it to start at the river bed, and so they were using the pile drivers to drive logs all the way down to bedrock to have a solid foundation for the concrete wall. Those things were twenty feet tall, and they were all below the bridge. It made her very aware of how high up she was. She increased her pace. She wished she could run, but she had to show dignity at all times; she was a King's wife after all.

Finally, she made her way to the other side of the bridge, and she felt relief and dread. Dread because she knew she would have to cross the bridge again later that day.

She made her way over to a crowd that was standing around a very strange tower that had something spinning at the top of it. Her husband had a big smile on his face. She had no idea what this tower was, but he was so proud of it she couldn’t wait to find out what wonders he had made. One of Paul’s vices was keeping quiet on some of his inventions so his wives could be awed by them without any preconceived notions.

After a few minutes, Paul got up before the crowd and said, “I am glad to see everyone who could make it today. Congratulations to everyone who is representing their village in the various games. Today I get to show you a wonderful innovation that will make it to your villages. Its called a water tower. It is called a water tower because well it holds water. But to get the water up to the tower, we are using what my people call a windmill. See that spinning thing up top?”

Everyone looked up, and Paul continued, “That spinning thing is called a windmill by my people and what its used for is to make a pump push water up to the tower. Now during the rainy season, a water tower probably isn’t that important, but during the dry season, it will allow villages to have water all season long. Plus, in time, every home in a village will be connected to it. This water tower is only thirty feet high. Its enough for a proof of concept, but later on, they will be much taller. The higher the tower, the faster water can be pushed out.”

With that, Paul pulled a lever, and water shot up into the air a couple of feet and onto some rocks and down a trench into the river. Genifa thought it was mesmerizing. The children shrieked in delight. Genifa was a King's wife, so she could not shriek in delight, but she wanted to.

Her husband continued his explanation, “This innovation was built by several of my researchers who have a focus on engineering, and one of the things that held us back was building rigid pipes. This was solved by lining the inside of hollow bamboo with rubber and linking rubber-lined bamboo as pipes. Next year the capital will have running water!”

Paul’s cheer brought happiness to the people, although many of them already had running water because of the pumps, but they had no idea about the intricacies of running water and plumbing from the world Paul came from. Paul envisioned just turning a knob to have running water instead of the work of a pump.

After the demonstration, many people stayed to watch the water splash off the rocks, but Paul was very busy today, so he left immediately.

Genifa decided to walk around the island before heading back across the bridge. In a year or two, this is where her home would be. It was about a mile long and half a mile wide. It was much bigger than the village she grew up in, so she had no idea how her husband planned to fill up this island.

As she made her way around the island, she came across Misa and Layan. Layan was one of the many girls that Misa rubbed the wrong way before Chazia taught Misa how to act. Layan is not the forgiving sort.

Genifa overheard Layan say, “Your husband sure was in a hurry to get away from here once you arrived. No wonder he has so many wives. He is creating a buffer between you and him.”

Genifa may be jealous of the time Misa spent with their husband, but Misa was still family. When Layan disrespected Misa, she disrespected Genifa, and she could not let that stand.

Before Misa could respond, Genifa said, “Layan, the only thing keeping your husband from more wives is his poverty, and even then, I hear he spends more time with the oxen than you.”

Misa piped up and said, “Our husband is rich and powerful and marrying the daughters of chiefs. Your husband married well you!”

Layan learned long ago that you do not fight multiple enemies by yourself, especially in a verbal altercation, so she indignantly huffed and walked off.

Misa turned to Genifa and said, “I didn’t need your help dealing with her, but thanks.”

Genifa said, “If anyone disrespects you, they are disrespecting me, and our husband.”

Misa nodded and said, “Yeah.” They stayed silent for several moments before Misa said, “I am sorry for being mean this morning.”

Genifa said, “Yeah, me too. I get that it's hard having to share Paul, but we are the wives of a king. Its what’s expected of us.”

Misa said, “Maybe we can do better from now on.”

Genifa said, “I would like that.”

Misa looked over toward the bridge and said, “Would you mind walking back across the bridge with me? The height terrifies me.”

Genifa said, “Shhh, you’re a wife of the King; you cannot show fear. I will walk with you just to make sure you don’t embarrass the rest of the family.”

Chapter 14 December AD 81 Texas- Culture

It was one day until Christmas, and John had some gifts to give out. He knew he was breaking the new tradition, but he doubted he would have time to give these gifts tomorrow because once his boys saw their new gifts, it's very likely that for the next few days, they would take all of his time.

He first headed to his father-in-law, Kuruk. When John saw him, he smiled and said, “I have been looking for you.”

Kuruk turned around, saw the smile on his son-in-law's face, and said, “Good to see you. What brings you here?”

John said, “I know it’s a little early, but I don’t think I will get a chance to give this to you tomorrow.” With that, John handed his father-in-law a wrapped package.

Kuruk smiled and said, “You didn’t have to bring this by today, you know I will visit you tomorrow if only to see my grandsons.”

John said, “Once they get their gifts, I expect to be too busy to do much else.”

Kuruk asked, “Are you planning on taking Trevor on his first hunting trip?”

John shook his head and said, “No. Trevor has been getting a lot stronger with his bow, but he is not quite strong enough to use a bow that could kill a deer. So we will have to wait a few months for that.”

Kuruk face looked thoughtful as he considered what gift John could give that would take up so much time, and when he couldn’t figure it out, he just asked, “Well, if you are not taking them hunting, what could you possibly give the boys that would take up so much time? Are you taking them on a trip somewhere?”

John smiled, winked, and said, “You will have to wait till tomorrow to find out. Let's just say Onawa, and I are excited about giving our boys this gift. Now instead of being so curious about the boys’ gift, why don’t you open up your own.”

Kuruk said, “Okay, fine.” He then tore the paper off his gift and was surprised and asked in a deflated voice, “You made me a book?”

John just said, “Open it.”

Kuruk was an older man, and he did not like to read. He saw the importance of John’s numbering and word system for keeping things organized and was far more comfortable with the numbers than the words, but Kuruk really didn’t want this gift. But Kuruk did what he was asked and was surprised when he opened it up and saw pictures with words. John made the book like a comic book so that the reading would be much more palatable. Perhaps saying that John made a book more like a manga would be more accurate since everything was written and drawn with charcoal.

John said, “Where I come from, there was a great battle called the Alamo where a group of people defended their home and lost, but the victory cost the enemies so much that their allies were able to defeat them. I drew out the battle, and I hope you enjoy your gift.”

In order to make the story more digestible, John drew Davy Crockett and the soldiers with bows instead of guns and the artillery as catapults, but besides that, the story was as true as John could remember it. The art would not be considered good by the standards of where he came from, but in the first century, there would be few artists better than John. It's not that John was excellent, just that John had been exposed to so much art that he picked up a few things that first-century artists would never have imagined.

Kuruk flipped through the pages with wonder in his eyes. And he said, “Thank you. Can you come by sometime and read the words to me? It looks amazing.”

John smiled and said, “I will help you read the words, but you have to learn to do this on your own.”

Kuruk looked at the book then looked back at John with suspicious eyes, and said, “You made this just to get me to learn to read, didn’t you?”

John smiled and said, “I don’t know what you're talking about.” Then hurried off. He had more gifts to give.

The next man on his gift list was Nana. John looked for him at his house and then the docks where he finally found him. John called out, “Nana, what are you doing out here? It’s Christmas tomorrow, your wife will be mad at you if you miss it.”

Nana looked back and said, “I’m surprised to see you here. Usually, you are looking over your bison.”

John said, “I was looking for you; I wanted to give you a gift.”

Nana looked surprised and said, “Why not wait until tomorrow?”

John said, “I will be too busy tomorrow with my boys, and no, I am not taking them on their first hunting trip or a trip of any kind. If you want to see what I made them, you will have to wait till tomorrow like they will, just bring your wife and kids on by, I am sure everyone will have a good time.”

Nana had three kids around the age of John's middle two. Nana and his wife struggled to have children for a while, but then like magic, they just started popping out one right after the other; sometimes, human reproduction is weird. Regardless Nana was still loved by John's children, and John was loved by Nana’s children.

Nana said, “No problem. So what did you get me?”

John handed him the wrapped present and said, “Open it up.”

Nana ripped open the present enthusiastically but lost the enthusiasm as soon as he saw it was a book. He put a big smile on his face that did not reach his eyes and said, “Thank you.” In a way that left John unconvinced of his appreciation.

John expected this reaction and said, “Just open it up.”

Nana said, “Okay.” And was shocked by the amazing pictures inside.

John made Nana a comic book about a trader that was on a five-mast ship that traded with people in England, Rome, Egypt, Africa, India, China, Japan, Brazil, and well Texas. He drew the buildings and dress as best as he could from his memory. Big castles for England, Rome had the Colosseum and statues. Egypt had pyramids and the canal connecting the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, India had temples and the Taj Mahal, China had the great wall and forbidden city, Japan had the Japanese castles and Mount Fuji, Brazil had Rio de Janeiro and the Jesus statue on the rock. John hoped Paul was making it in Africa, so he drew the people there like they were in 1950’s business suits and dresses with skyscrapers made out of steel and glass.

Nana had seen the book John made for Trevor a couple of years earlier, but that was more like a picture book. This was a comic book following the trader “Captain Cook” who discovers the world is round and trades with people all over the world.

Nana was dumbfounded and said, “These pages are beautiful.”

John said, “Yes, and they tell a story about a trader much like yourself, but you will have to learn to read better to understand the story. I bet your children would love for you to read the story to them.”

Nana said, “Yes.”

Before Nana could compose himself enough to thank him, John walked off and started looking for Ulhas. Ulhas had helped John with the bison consistently from day one, and so John made his way to Bison valley to give a gift to his friend.

Ulhas was paying attention to the bison, and when he heard John coming, he asked without looking, “When are we going to move the rest of these into the village?”

John said, “We have already had this discussion. Until we trade bison with the rest of the villages, it's best to keep this herd out of sight, so we are going to continue having long walks every day, besides that’s not why I came.”

Ulhas turned around with a puzzled look on his face and asked, “Well, then why did you come today?”

John held up a wrapped package and said, “I brought you a gift.”

Ulhas didn’t ask any questions; he just opened it up. When he saw the book, he looked puzzled, opened the book, and a look of amazement crossed his face. He asked, “What are these pictures?”

John smiled and said, “Those are pictures of the various men who rode horses from some of the peoples I came across. Some of the warriors are knights, Mongols, samurai. Others are the hard-working men, I was close to, called cowboys. In time I hope to see our own version of cowboys riding the bison and herding them. The story follows John Wayne as he interacts with men who are husbandmen to many different types of animals.”

Ullas flipped through the story seeing a John Wayne in a cowboy outfit riding a horse meeting people who ride horses into battle, or even men who rode camels into battle. Most of the book was about men who work with cattle, sheep, goats, and even elephants. Someone from the modern world would not be able to recognize the character as John Wayne, but John's art was not that bad.

As John turned to leave, Ulhas gave John a big hug and said, “Thank you. I think I see your vision now, and it's beautiful.”

John teared up. Europe, Asia, and Africa had horses, donkeys, camels, mules, cattle, oxen, sheep, goats, elephants, dogs, and cats, whereas North and South america just had dogs. John was on the cusps of dramatically changing the destiny of this people, and the book he gave Ulhas gave him a great idea of what the Bison should be able to do.

John left and went home excited about Christmas, the day after the winter solstice.

The next morning John and Onawa were so excited they got up before sun up, fixed breakfast, and actually had to wake up their children.

John walked into Trevor and Bobby’s room and said, “Time to wake up, boys, it’s Christmas.”

The boys slept hard until they heard the word Christmas. After that word left John's mouth, both of them started stirring, and a few moments later, Trevor shot up and said, “Presents?”

A moment later, Bobby shot up with a big grin on his face and also asked, “Presents?”

John laughed at his boys and said, “Breakfast first and then presents.”

The looks the boys gave after hearing about breakfast would make someone think they were told to eat poison, or John was back in the modern world, telling a child to eat brussels sprouts. One of the joys of being in the first century was that children were grateful to eat nearly anything as food was just too hard to come by.

Their moods got much better when John said, “The sooner you eat breakfast, the sooner we open presents.”

With that, the excited boys ran into the kitchen and began to eat. John and Onawa expected this, so they ate a little as the food was being prepared. As John walked to the dining table to eat the second part of his breakfast, Onawa came in with three-year-old Quincy and baby Walker. In a few months, Walker would be two, but for now, he was still learning to talk.

All the boys finished breakfast as quickly as possible. Even though Walker didn’t understand the concept of presents, his three older brothers urged him to hurry up. Walker listened to his brothers getting food everywhere. The boys acted like they were having a heart attack when they had to wait for their mom to clean up Walker’s mess.

The time came, and they rushed to the tree to open their presents; they took one final look at dad as if to say, “Is it okay to open the presents.” John smiled and answered the unasked question and said, “Go ahead.”

Without any further hesitation, the three oldest boys tore the wrapping off their presents. Trevor screamed out with delight written all over his face, “It’s a guitar!”

His screams of delight were soon followed by Bobby and Quincy’s. Little Walker started screaming and laughing too because his brothers were.

John’s original strings broke years ago, but he was able to substitute them with hemp strings. It took a special tool to weave the thread so the string would be strong enough to do the job, and it sounded off, but it worked.

This year John finally worked on making screws. For the last few years, he had been trying to figure out a way to do it without the utter tedium of it, but with his domestication project finally coming to fruition, he had to make long screws so he could make a precision lathe. He wanted fairly precise parts for his ox carts and carriages. He needed long screws to hold a tool bit steady and precisely as it shaped the pieces he was spinning.

During the project, he had a crazy thought. If he was going to make really long screws for a lathe, then he might as well make some short ones to make guitars for his son. They loved to listen to his guitar, and with screws, he could make some string tighteners and get them learning how to pluck cords without them actually breaking his totally machine-tooled instrument.

As the boys began playing with their new instrument, John took out his old one and said, “Okay, boys, hold your guitar like I am holding mine…” The rest of the week, he instructed them, and even the three-year-old was able to learn for a few hours a day off and on throughout the day. Trevor basically worked on his guitar morning until night until he could play four chords.

The rest of the community enjoyed the music. John played with the boys which helped his boys sound a lot better than they were. A number of people asked John for guitars and comic books. John’s answer was simply, “I will show you how to make them yourself.”

But before he could make good on his promise, he had to deal with congress.

Chapter 15 January AD 82 Texas- Workers

After Christmas, the Chiefs started showing up. Since the congress did not impede a village's actions unless two or more villages were at odds, there wasn’t much reason for the various chiefs to get to congress early this year. The villages on the river have taken the first baby steps into a federalist government, and this is the first year they are comfortable with it. The only reason why every chief showed up was because during every congress so far, village chiefs came asking for help attacking their neighbors, so every chief thought it was in their best interest to know if war was coming.

Since the last congress, several new villages had been added either by lock and dam or by hunting tribes becoming farming tribes. The seeds John brought to the first century easily provided enough surplus to feed far more people than lived along the river.

All the chiefs came by boat, and when they showed up at the docks, Paul made sure there were bison pulled carriages waiting on them. The carriages were there for show; they were made to look impressive. John did his best to make them look something like they came out of a movie. It had a door on both sides, leather seats on the front and back, a seat for a driver, and spoked wheels that were all precision-cut to be the same size. The carriages were meant to be a comfortable ride, and thus the reason why he needed to make a precision lathe. By no means was the lathe perfect, but it was precise enough to make all the wooden parts he needed for the spoked wheels to be the same size.

When the chiefs showed up and saw the bison pulled carriages, the chiefs looked at them with fear and awe. Every single one of the chiefs had witnessed people die when bison trampled them, and they had no concept of a domesticated bison. To come to the dock and to see a bison yoked up in front of them, and minding their keeper followed by a fancy device they had never imagined before. It would be like someone in the modern world going to work, and when they stepped into the office, they came across a T-Rex carrying people to their work area. To these chiefs, the situation did not compute.

John expected some sort of reaction, so he was there when the first chief showed up. To John’s surprise, it was chief Tonteel. John went out to meet the chief with a big smile on his face, only to see chief Tonteel point at the bison and talk hurriedly with his men.

John yelled out, “Chief Tonteel, I did not expect you so soon. What brings you here so early?”

Chief Tonteel had a look of puzzlement, panic, and confusion on his face. He turned to John, pointed at the bison, and said as bluntly as a human could, “WHAT IS THAT!?”

John smiled and said, “I thought you knew I was making the Bison as docile as dogs and a hundred times more useful.”

John tried not to laugh as Chief Tonteel was in his late sixties or early seventies, and he had the same facial expression on his face like a child who thinks you are crazy or tricking them. He said, “John, I thought that was a joke or an exaggeration.”

John said, “No, sir. Last year my bison finally birthed baby bison docile and smart enough to train. This is the first group. Get on the carriage and I will show you what they can do.”

“No.”

The smile left John’s face, and he asked, “What do you mean, no?”

“I mean, no. Bison are dangerous.”

John said, “Fine, then can we put your things in the carriage so we don’t have to carry them?”

Chief Tonteel thought about that for a while and finally said, “As long as you agree to replace anything, the bison damages.”

John said, “I haven’t seen these bison or their parent's damage anything, so no problem.”

John and Chief Tonteel chatted as the young men that came with Tonteel loaded the carriage with their things. They acted as if the carriage was going to bite them or something. Emotionally they were not ready for bison workers yet. Once they were done, John got into the carriage.

Chief Tonteel hissed out an angry whisper, “What are you doing?”

John spoke casually, “I am riding the carriage back to the village. If you want to walk, go right ahead, but I will ride.” Then John looked to the young men that came with Chief Tonteel and said, “If any of you have courage, feel free to ride with me.”

The young men looked conflicted for a moment as they did not want to be called cowards, and they were legitimately scared of being that close to the bison. Then their chief saved them from making a decision by saying, “None of you are allowed to ride. We can replace things, but we cannot replace you.”

Over the next couple of weeks, every chief had a reaction very similar to chief Tonteel’s. Emotionally these men knew bison were dangerous, regardless of what their lying eyes told them. John knew he was fighting emotional knowledge, so he made sure that his oldest son Trevor, and his wife were seen leading the bison during various tasks.

John casually mentioned to every young warrior that came to his village, “If you are not brave enough to do what women and children do, can you call yourself a warrior?” It was not long before chiefs began to reprimand their warriors for messing with the bison. In another society, the warriors would have been severely beaten or executed, but the Native American tribes of the first century were practically family, following whomever they thought was the best man to lead them. Those familiar bonds meant that the punishment for disobedience wasn’t severe. When it came to interacting with the domestic bison, this was a plus.

Time passed, and the chiefs and their warriors saw the bison pull carriages, carts, plows, logs, and stumps. That last one was a real eye-opener because the bison were a much better solution to stumps than fire. Burning a stump could take days; bison did the same job in hours, and in an agriculture economy, that was a big deal. It helped a lot that the bison never panicked or even ran. The bison were as docile as baby ducks.

Finally, time for congress came, and John was sure that the leaders would want to talk to him about his bison. John only had five he could sell, and by now, most of the chiefs would want one. John was planning on using this session of congress as an auction as soon as someone brought up the issue of bison.

When the various chiefs lined up, John asked, “Does anyone have any business that they want to start us off with?”

A chief John didn’t recognize, stood forward and said, “Yes sir. I have an issue with the Atsa tribe. Two years ago, we raided their village and captured a young man. He worked for us until after we joined the river alliance and then escaped back to his village. We want him back.”

John was stunned into silence. Here these men got to see the wonders of domestication, and instead of talking about it, this chief wanted to go to war over what was practically an escaped slave. John didn’t understand that in the world of politics, insanity was extremely normal; he would learn, though.

The chief from that Atsa tribe was furious and yelled out, “We won’t give him back!”

John saw that if he did not intervene immediately, this would come to blows and asked the first chief, “Which tribe are you?”

The chief said, “I am the chief of the Glosbe tribe.”

John asked, “When did you join the trading alliance?”

The chief of Glosbe said, “During the summer when another tribe built a lock and dam connecting our tribe to your network.”

John nodded and said, “How old was the young man when you captured him.”

The chief said, “Ten.”

“How often do captured men normally work for you.”

The chief looked away and said, “Less than a year.”

The reality was that slavery was not unknown to the tribes. It's just that with such small tribes, there was no way to keep a slave for very long. John had heard stories where one village would capture a hunting party just so the hunting party would do the very difficult work of moving rocks, logs, or plowing a field. Since they only had sticks to plow fields with before John showed up, it was pretty exhausting. They never expected the men to stay for very long, so this case of a chief wanting to hold onto a slave was strange since that went against normal expectations.

John said, “From what I understand, it’s normal when tribes capture men to let them go after a little while. The men do the work, and once done, they head back home.” John very carefully avoided using the word escape.

The chief from the Atsa village said, “Yes! Stop harassing our young man! He worked for you for two years, far longer than a full-grown man would have as he had no idea how to get home until a trader came by and helped him out.”

The chief from Glosbe said, “When we joined the trade alliance, that boy was our worker, and now that he left, we would like the trade alliance to get him back.”

John outrightly said, “No!”

Unfortunately, this got the chiefs thinking. Taking men and making them work was a pretty common practice, but they had no way to hold on to them for a long period of time, and when they ran, they had no way to get them back until now. The trading alliance could be used to keep those workers.

Chief Glosbe said, “When the raiders take a woman, the trade alliance lets the village keep her.”

That was a legitimately good point. John looked around and saw several of the chiefs nod in agreement. It was clear that they were thinking if they could take and keep a woman, why not a man?

John knew he was losing control, and he needed to get it back quickly, so he changed the subject. He asked, “Why are you concerned about enslaving men when men cannot do as much work as my bison? How many men does it take to move the logs needed to make a Hogan house? Ten? Twenty? And even then, it takes days to move all the logs to where you are going to build it. With the right yoke and harness, one of my bison can do the same work in a day.”

Chief Glosbe smirked and said, “Your bison are impressive, but men can do more than the bison can.”

John nodded and said, “Yes, men can go to war with you when you capture their men and make them work for your tribe until they die. Bison cannot do that. Do you want to start endless wars along the river just so that you have a bunch of men you have to watch like a hawk to get to work?”

As John made that last statement, the wheels started turning in all the chief's minds. On one hand with their treaty, if they captured a man, they could force the other villages to return them, making it much easier to keep a slave population. On the other hand, slaves were not good workers. They only did what you told them to do and never took the initiative, so they were best for jobs that were difficult. But since the bison could clearly do those difficult jobs better than any ten men, what’s the point of enslaving men?

What the chiefs had no way of knowing is that many slaves would grow comfortable in their slavery. They never had any slaves long enough for the slave to grow dependent on their slavery, and John was trying to make sure they never would.

Chief Glosbe said, “We will just take the men from tribes not in the alliance.”

John said, “The strength of the alliance is that everyone can join. When one group joins and finds out that you have their men, they will want them back just like the Atsa tribe. All that will happen if we allow you to keep men is that we will end up with endless wars, and for what? Those men cannot do more work than bison. The only reason why you would want to keep men in bondage is for pride. So you can stand above them and feel good about yourself.” John looked around to the chiefs and asked this question, “Do any of you chiefs want another chief to lord over you and stand on your neck?”

The chiefs would love to be the men to stand on other chiefs necks, but none of them wanted their neck stepped on, so they cried out, “NO!”

John was much more politically savvy than any of these men because his world was filled with politics, and it was new to these chiefs, so John said, “The chiefs said no to keeping men in bondage.” That isn’t what they said, but John was acquainted enough in politics to twist it that way.

Chief Glosbe, in frustration, said, “If we cannot capture men and put them to work, what can we do?”

John said, “You saw my bison all week.”

Chief Glosbe said, “Do you have enough bison for everyone?”

John hesitated as he said, “Not yet.”

Chief Glosbe asked, “How many do you have?”

John’s heart fell as he said, “Five, but we should have many times that next year. Twenty-one bison are pregnant this year, and by the time they breed, there will be thirty female bison able to carry young. “

Chief Glosbe said, “With that, it will take years to get bison to every tribe. Why not use men until then?”

John said, “Because men are not dumb animals. I believe men have the right to be free, and I will go to war with anyone who enslaves men. My tribe is rich, and we can pay other tribes to go to war with us. I won't allow it.”

That caused chief Glosbe to back down. The truth was John wanted to say the same thing about women being forced into marriage, but since every tribe practiced forced marriage, including his own father-in-law, he couldn’t stop it. The only reason why he could take such a stand against slavery is that until the tribes became something more than just individual tribes, they had no way to hold onto them, so they were ambiguous about slavery. If chief Glosbe hadn’t brought it up, then sooner or later, another tribe would have. John grew up in America, where everyone agreed that slavery was bad. It's practically the only sin every American agreed on.

John asked, “Does anyone else have any other business?”

The other chiefs stayed quiet and looked at John with caution. Many knew how fierce of a warrior he could be if circumstances called for it, and worse yet, he led war parties of combined tribes to attack individual tribes. If John said something was totally out of bounds, they would not cross him. It would be different if John demanded anything from the village, but John’s laws pretty much consisted of a couple of things they were not supposed to do and left everything else to the tribe. If John was that set against capturing men to work, then why cross him? It wasn’t worth it.

When the men stayed silent for a full half-minute, John said, “Good, then how about we start an auction for the five bison. Each one will come with its cart, plow, and harness to move logs. Getting them to your village will be your responsibility, and only one bison will be allowed to go to each village.”

With that, the chiefs started bidding on the oxen with their trade goods. One went to the salt village at the mouth of the river, another went to the tomato producing village at the source of the river, and three more went to various villages in between. To John’s shock, one of those villages used iron they mined to pay for the bison. With two villages mining iron, chances were iron mining would not die out. Hopefully, more tribes would find more metal ores in the coming days.

Chapter 16 February AD 82 Africa-Diplomats

When Paul had to fix the problems created by Funani, he was surprised by the impact his ivory throne had on the tribes. When they saw the elephant tusk that his ivory throne was constructed out of, they knew he was something special, and they wondered if he would be able to protect them from the giant beast.

Up to this point, Paul had brought new tribes into Paulsland one of two ways. The first way was when they attacked one of his villages. Paul would retaliate, conquer them, kill, and replace their chief, absorbing them into his nation. The second way was when a chief came to Paul and offered a treaty, a daughter really, to ensure their protection, and then Paulsland absorbed their tribe.

Paul wanted to give diplomacy a shot. The goal being that the diplomats go into the wilderness, find villages and try to convince the villages to join them. If they refuse, then warn those villages away from attacking them, because Paul would conquer any village that raided his nation.

The problem with diplomacy is why should a village listen to the men Paul sends? After seeing their reaction to his ivory throne, Paul had an answer. Have the men carry elephant tusks. If you have twenty-five armed warriors coming into your village, each carrying elephant tusks, you know these guys are powerful warriors. If all of these men slew the elephant of the tusk, they were caring all the better. These diplomats would be visibly strong men because it takes a lot of muscle to pull the string on a bow strong enough to kill an elephant. These diplomats would have an impressive staff, story, and strength.

The problem with the Elephant tusks is that they are six feet long and weighs around sixty pounds. The solution was to cut off the end of the tusk, carve in a short story of the warriors' victory over the elephant on the end of the tusks, and mount it to a staff made out of Tamboti wood. Tamboti is a hardwood, with a wonderful fragrance that made it a type of sandalwood. Granted, if you burned the wood, it makes toxic smoke. Paul didn’t know if twenty-five men carrying ivory staffs would have the same impact as the ivory throne, but he was willing to give it a shot.

Paul actually came to this conclusion seven months ago, a day after he saw the awe of the villagers in seeing the ivory throne. The only problem was that none of the men who had killed an elephant could speak the languages of the people across the river. Paul could send his diplomatic core toward the west, where the villages likely spoke the same language, but that is where Elzo and his men went, and it had been eerily quiet. If Elzo didn’t go far and his diplomats stumbled on him, he might lose the entire core. No best wait for a raid.

The problem was that in the last year and a half, not a single village in the far western reaches of the nation had been raided. Paul decided that this peaceful time would give him a chance to grow the nation north, east, and south; across three different rivers. Currently, the biggest hurdle was the language barrier.

Months ago, Paul requested that a hundred men that have slain an elephant come and see if they could learn one of the three new languages. Paul was hoping to have a diplomatic corps of twenty-five men each. The pay was the same as a lieutenant’s, and many of the older men who have never been part of Paul’s school system were qualified to take part.

Ninety-five men agreed to show up, but only about sixty had any proficiency in learning any of the languages. The easiest to learn was Funani’s language. It didn’t hurt that Paul had four villages worth of people willing to help his diplomatic corps learn their language. In fact, they were proud to teach it. If Paul had his way, every person in the nation would learn all four languages. In fact, Paul was well on his way to learning two of them.

The time to train them in languages proved to be helpful. Paul had elephant leather armor made for the diplomatic corps, along with a helmet made out of iron that shined in the light, a red cloak with rubber treatment to help them deal with the rain, and blue cotton stockings.

To complete the uniform, the men wore double-edged short swords with a fuller and carried a shield and a bow. The bow was the weapon they used to slay elephants, so it was a must. With the men carrying a heavy staff to show off the tusk of the slain elephants, they had no room for spears. Paul was hoping that this oversite didn’t cause a tragedy.

In February, one of the diplomatic teams were ready for their first peaceful mission. When Paul saw them, he thought they looked like a gaudy version of Gandalf. Regardless they looked mystical, very much like wizards from a video game, with a staff embedded with a tusk instead of a jewel.

Udo was chosen as the leader of the first team of diplomats. He was one of the soldiers that were with King Paul when they slew the first elephants in the Mtukufu Tembo village. That was six years ago when he was just thirteen. Now at nineteen years old, he was trusted with a mission that would allow for the peaceful expansion of his nation.

The diplomatic corps left Funani’s village and headed in a direction one of the hunters said a village was. They had to be careful as they journeyed because it was the rainy season and many creeks, streams, and rivers swelled up beyond their banks.

Udo was uncomfortable as they didn’t have spears to protect them from boars, lions, wild dogs, hippos, and other beasts that could easily kill men. As pretty as the staffs were, they were simply a decoration to give them clout as they met with the new villages.

The directions they got were not spectacular. Without any roads, the directions amounted to telling them to follow a stream then go east when they got to a split when they got to the second hill, climb it, then on the other side, go past another stream, and on the next stream go north. On the third day, the diplomats decided that from now on, they would take a guide with them even if that guide wasn’t technically a diplomat. It was just too easy to get lost in the wilderness.

On the fifth day, they saw smoke. They had no idea if it was from the village they were looking for or not, but smoke was a good sign. Problem was being in a tropical forest with hills, valleys and sheer cliffs made the search difficult at best. Udo was grateful when he saw the fields in the distance sometime around mid-morning.

Udo said, “We should be there by noon.” This was supposed to be a diplomatic visit, so they wanted to be seen a ways off before they entered the village.

It was the rainy season, and so it rained most days. This day was no different, but by the time they reached the fields, the sun had popped out, and it was warm enough to make the water mist.

When the men were spotted, cries of, “SPIRITS! SPIRITS!” were heard. When Udo heard that, he smiled. They were a strange-looking bunch walking through the mist. With their shiny helmets, flowing red cloak, leather armor, and blue stockings, they made a strange sight indeed.

It wasn’t long before the local witch doctor ran out with a human skull and lit incense yelling, “BEGONE EVIL SPIRITS.”

The diplomats laughed at the man, and Udo said, “We are not spirits. We are diplomats from the kingdom of Paulsland. We are here to speak to your chief and your people and offer them a great opportunity.”

The witchdoctor asked, “What opportunity is that?”

Udo leaned his staff forward and said, “Look closely at my staff. What is it?”

The witchdoctor carefully walked close to the diplomats and looked closely at the ivory tusk at the end of Udo’s staff. The witchdoctor's eyes grew wide with realization, and he asked, “How did you get that? Did you find a dead elephant?”

Udo said, “Look at the rest of my men’s staffs.”

The witchdoctor looked around and saw that each staff was capped with elephant tusks. His eyes went wide, and asked, “How do you have so many tusks?”

Udo said, “We bring the secret of how to slay elephants.”

With that phrase, the witchdoctor ran back to the village to get the chief. The rest of the diplomats calmly walked in his wake. Each step they took, they lifted their staff and set down like a walking stick. But it was done in a way to draw attention to the staff and the statement at the end of it. The statement was that these men were elephant slayers.

As they made their way into the village, the people were gathering around the witchdoctor who was wildly telling them, “These men are elephant slayers they can help us!”

The people looked to Udo and his diplomats, and their minds started working. The villagers just heard that they were elephant slayers, something they only heard about in legends and hoped was true. Then they look to the diplomats and recognize the tusks at the end of their staffs. Upon seeing the tusks at the end of all the men’s staffs, their minds begin to go from, “This can't be true, that’s just a legend,” to, “They have elephant tusks on their staff, maybe it's true, but how?”

The chief stepped forward and asked with curiosity, disdain, and hope in his voice, “How could you slay elephants?”

Udo smiled and pulled out an arrow and a bottle of cobra venom and said, “We dip this arrow in the venom, then shoot it into the elephant.”

The chief looked at the arrow and said, “What kind of arrow is that?”

Udo said, “Our King brought us the secret of iron.” Then he held up the arrow and explained, “This arrowhead is designed to deliver venom to elephants, and so it has to be long and narrow to get through its hide, but that isn’t enough. You also need a strong bow to get through its hide.” With that, Udo took out his bow and handed it to the chief.

The chief took the bow, which was much bigger than his own, and tried to pull the string. He could only pull the string back an inch. The draw weight was too much for him. He said, “Nobody could pull the string on that bow.”

Udo smiled, took the bow, and easily pulled it back. Udo told the chief, “All these men can easily pull the string on their bows. That’s why they were able to kill elephants. But it was our King who showed us how to make the bows, arrows, use the venom and develop the strength to use the bows. And our King wants you to join us.”

This is a wonderful deal for the villagers and a terrible deal for the chief. It took the chief years to get to the place where he ruled his people. He risked his life to become chief, and now these strange men from another tribe want him to submit to someone else. The chief would not bow the knee to anyone.

In order to keep his place as the highest of his people, the chief said in a dismissive voice, “We will never join you. You are cockroaches.”

Instead of getting mad at the name-calling Udo and the diplomats started laughing.

Now the chief was furious and yelled out, “WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING!”

Udo had a mocking smile on his face as he said, “You are so poor that you are in a loincloth. We wear iron. You cannot pull back the string on a bow that any of my men can easily pull. Our nation is so rich our orphans eat three times a day. I should know because I was an orphan.” This brought gasps through the crowd as Udo was a head taller than anyone in the village. How rich was Udo’s nation when they produced orphans of his size?

Udo didn’t stop there, he said, “We have come here as diplomats to help your people stop being cockroaches and become men. We have dominion over elephants, rivers, and the land itself. You cower under their power. We harness their power. You weep when elephants come, but we have enslaved elephants, and they weep when we play drums. We are putting shackles on the great river to the south of here. We are binding the land with roads and fields. We are men who will be in control of all creation, and we offer you the chance to join us, and help us bind this land to our will.”

The chief was furious at having his insult thrown back in his face and yelled out, “I don’t believe you. We will never join you.”

Udo said, “We are not here to force you to join. We are here to make the offer. I am sure you know where the great river is, go southeast of here to where another large river meets the great river, and you will see where our nation is binding the rivers. You will also see that our people are well-fed and well-armed. But I leave this warning; if your people attack us, we will come back and conquer this village and force you to join. We would rather you join of your own free will, though.”

The chief said, “I am not scared of you.”

Udo said, “Then you are blind. I can easily take on four of your warriors.” Udo would have said that any of his men could take on two of the chief's warriors, but there were militiamen here, who have not had the martial training all of Paul’s students had.

The chief said, “I would like to see that.”

Udo smirked, took off his cloak, then handed it, his staff, and his weapons to another diplomat and said, “Call your best four warriors out. As long as they don’t bring bows, I don’t care if they bring other weapons as my elephant leather armor can easily stop your stone weapons.”

The chief looked to his bodyguards and said, “Take him.”

They smiled, stepped up with their stone-tipped spears, and ran at Udo. Udo understood the way you fight multiple opponents is by fighting them one at a time. Udo saw that the guard to the right was the fastest, so Udo moved toward him and made it so that this guard was between Udo and the other guards. At this point, even though Udo was in a fight with four men, he was only fighting one man.

The guard telegraphed his spear strike so thoroughly that Udo was bored by the move. When the guard drew the spear back, it gave Udo plenty of time to put his weight on his right foot, and when the guard stabbed with his spear, Udo easily kicked off with his right foot dodging the spear by inches. In order to show his power, Udo captured the spear with his right hand, broke it with his forearm, then did a knife-hand strike on the guard's neck. The guard went limp, and Udo had a strange thought that the strike shouldn’t have killed the guard, but it would bruise and hurt for a few weeks.

Because of the limp guard's position, two of the guards could not strike Udo, but the third one to Udo’s left could. He thrust his spear at Udo’s face, and Udo diverted it with a high block. This left the man's ribs so exposed. Udo was tempted to kick the man, but that would have broken bones, and Udo was trying to be diplomatic, so instead, he stepped forward, punching the man in his diaphragm with his right hand, then he punched the man's liver with his left, stepped behind the man, grabbed his head, pulled back while kneeing him in his kidney. It would be months before the guard knew how diplomatic his beating was.

The reason why he stepped behind the man was to keep the man between him and his other two opponents. Udo let the man go limp and stepped away from him.

The two guards went around both sides of the limp man giving Udo a chance to attack the man on the left. Udo’s movements were so sudden the guard didn’t even have time to thrust his spear, as Udo hit the man in the jaw. King Paul taught them there were five places in the jaw to strike, and Udo hit the second one. This was a tactical error as it gave the last guard the time to stab him with his spear.

That spear strike hurt, but there was no way it was getting through the thick leather elephant armor. The guard was poorly trained because once he hit Udo, he did not pull on the spear and try to strike again. Perhaps this works in hunting, but it’s a very bad tactic in striking a man in armor.

Udo spun around, striking the spear hard enough to knock it from the guard's hands, but it was still sticking out of Udo’s back. Udo knew he was going to be mocked endlessly for that. When the guard saw this, he turned and ran.

Udo then flailed around until he grabbed the spear and removed it from the back of his armor and said, “That was easy. Your weapons cannot even hurt me, much less my Kings’ soldiers. We want to give your village the same ability, but if you refuse, we won't do anything about it. That said, my King is generous and requested that I leave you the ability to fight the elephants, and so my King gifts you a bottle of venom, five elephant slaying arrows, and an elephant slaying bow. If you find you are unable to use the bow feel free to join our nation, and my King will give your men the ability to use it.”

With that, Udo and the diplomats left. The people had many questions, but Udo and the diplomats turned a deaf ear to them. Over the next couple of days, the men of the village figured out that they could not pull back the bow as individuals, but two men together could, although you wouldn’t be able to use it that way. After that, they began to imagine every noise at night were elephants.

The next week when hunters went out, they went to check on the great river to see if what Udo said was true. They saw the nation was binding the river and the land, and they were even commanding elephants. When one of the warriors pointed this out to the chief, the chief had him beat. The next day the chief was found dead, and the village sent representatives to join Paulsland.

The poor witchdoctor should have paid better attention. As soon as the village joined Paulsland, he was accused of consuming his chief's spirit and executed. He should not have admitted to performing the purification ritual on girls.

Chapter 17 July 100 BC Indian Ocean-Malaria

170 years before Paul and John came to the past

Qadir’s father was sending him on a trade mission by sea because of the judgment Shiva was spreading through the land. Villages, towns, and cities, from east to west, were being struck down with fever by Shiva for some unknown sin.

Qadir was lucky that he inherited his father's position as a merchant in the Vaishya caste. Where brahmins, kshatriyas, shudras, and artisans in the Vaishya caste had no way to run from Shiva’s displeasure, Qadir could. Or so he thought.

What Qadir didn’t know was that on his way to the port city of Bharuch, a mosquito with the malaria strain of Plasmodium Falciparum had given him the parasite, and it was multiplying in his bloodstream. He thought he escaped judgment but instead, he was bringing it with him. Not the judgment of an angry god, but the judgment of a mosquito attracted by his sweat.

Qadir came to the city with his father, many more merchants, guards, and about a hundred camels laden down with goods. His father hired a ship to take Qadir, several servants, pepper, cotton fabric, and muslin to Opone, where he would stay for a year trading his goods for cinnamon, spices, and ivory. By then, Qadir’s father was sure Shiva's wrath would be over.

After everything was loaded on the ship, Qadir kissed his father goodbye. His trade empire was too large to go with his son. Besides, he had other sons to put on other ships to other places, as he needed one of his sons to perform shraddha when he died, and putting all his sons in one ship seemed like a bad idea. He was a merchant, and he was diversifying his investment.

When the ship set sail Qadir immediately became very seasick. A few days later, when the fever symptoms finally hit, nobody recognized them because they just assumed he was still seasick. After being on ship for fifteen days, they finally made Opone, and one of Qadir’s servants found him a room, expecting his master to recover. Unfortunately, the mosquitos still liked the smell of his sweat. But this time, they were not bringing him malaria, they were taking it from him. After they drank their fill on Qadir, they were content for a time. When they became parched once again, it would appear to Qadir that Shiva's wrath followed him. He survived and became a very devout Hindu. A quarter of the city died from the fever, though.

Opone is a trading port, and thus every trader had a different view on what the fever was. Some rich merchant from India said it was Shiva’s judgment, the Chinese merchants said it was paroxysmal fever, and the merchants from Egypt said that it was roman fever. Regardless it was devastating and spread to every port in the region.

Twelve years later

Rachna was being sent to Rapta by his employer. He is seventeen now and very attracted to his employer's daughter. Rachna’s employer doesn’t want his daughter marrying some broke seventeen year old who lost his father during the fever twelve years ago. His plan is to sell his daughter's hand in marriage to a wealthy noble and get a good return on his investment since his daughter was very beautiful. Since she had no political connections, its thought that she would make someone a good second or third wife. In order to make sure nothing scandalous happens, Rachna is being sent to Rapta.

Rapta is the port furthest south in the world. It is actually a colony of the Himyarite kingdom. They had to go that far south because to the north of the Himyarite kingdom is Persia, to the east is India, and to the west is Rome. The only land available was to the south off the African coast, but ever since they established the port, they have had nothing but trouble. Poor crops, constant sickness, predators wiping out their herds, and a very different climate compared to home.

Rapta was so poor it didn’t even have a slave market. Sure at times, the natives would bring people to sell, but those people were loaded up and sent somewhere where people could afford them. Rachna couldn’t help but shake his head at the irony that if he was a slave, he would have been too valuable to send to Rapta, but as an employee, he was expendable.

Rachna was being sent to Rapta with shoddy swords and spears made by apprentices to trade with the natives for anything of value they had. No one else would ever would these poor pieces of iron, but apparently, the natives couldn’t make their own, and so you could trade a worthless sword for a slave, ivory, rhino horn, or other things they brought back from the bush. As far as his employer was concerned, if Rachna ran off with the lot, then he only lost a little silver, considering how much he expected his daughter’s hand to go for it was a good investment. But if Rachna was honest, he had a chance of making a prophet off his daughter and employee.

Rachna didn’t know it yet, but fate was with Opone this time. Rachna’s father wasn’t the only one who caught the fever twelve years ago. Rachna had it too. In most cases, it was the child who died and parent who survived, but this was one of the rare times where the roles were reversed. The thing about malaria is that when you survive it, you are not over it. Malaria can hibernate in your liver for more than a decade. Rachna’s stress has allowed the slumbering parasites to awaken.

In a week, Rachna would get sick with a fever. Due to his broken heart and malnutrition, he would succumb but not before mosquitos spread malaria across the port.

Eight years later

Juma had lucked out on his hunt. He ran across the corpse of an elephant with both its tusks still intact. With his stone spear and knife, it took him nearly two days to remove one of the tusks. With this tusk, he would be able to get an iron weapon and replace his chief.

He made his way to Rapta, hoping he didn’t get ambushed by man or beast. It would be one thing if he went there normally with a hunting party, but he didn’t want to share his spoils with anyone, and so he was carrying a six-foot-long fifty-pound tusks through the dangerous forest of sub-sahara Africa.

He was grateful when he finally saw the port town. It had strange-looking but well-made buildings and boats. As always, they had guards watching for trouble. Juma had no idea why anyone would bother with boats when there was land to be had, but he was grateful he would finally get his iron weapon.

As he walked into the village, the guards let him by with barely a glance. Rapta was never really busy. Every village within fifty miles traded with it, but there were less than fifteen villages in that fifty-mile radius. For some reason, disease had hit them hard over the last few years, wiping out several villages, and in several cases allowing one village to exterminate another.

Juma walked straight toward the trader. He had come here many times with his chief and traded items for the villages good. Juma wanted to spit. Whenever the chief said something was for the villages good, the only one who used it was the chief. Juma was going to get an iron weapon, and from now on, whatever was good for the village would be good for him, because he would be chief.

As he made his way into the shop to trade, he noticed the merchant was sweaty and shaking. Juma didn’t think about it. He just put down the tusks and pointed at a weapon—a short sword with two edges. The sweaty man struggled to get up. Once up, he was very unsteady on his feet. He grabbed the weapon Juma had pointed to and brought it over to Juma.

Juma took the weapon from the man's hands, waved it around, and decided he liked it and left, leaving the tusks behind. If Juma knew that that tusks could have gotten him a full set of armor, with a sword and spear in Rome, he would have murdered the merchant.

Despite the amazing trade, the merchant didn’t care; he was too sick with the fever. He caught this stupid fever eight years ago, and now it was flaring up again. What neither man knew was that most of the mosquitoes in the area were now carrying malaria, and Juma contracted it. When he contracted, it was hard to say since one hundred and eighty-two mosquitos with the parasite bit him. The thong he wore did little to stop mosquitoes.

About two days later, Juma came into his village and slew the chief. The day after, he got the first signs of being sick. The next day the witchdoctor proclaimed the spirits were punishing him for the murder of the chief, and Juma was killed by one of the previous chief's guards. It was too late, though. Over the next month, everyone in the village contracted the fever. Half the adults died, and so did ninety percent of the children.

During this time, one of the other villages decided to raid Juma’s village. They killed everyone out of spite and took everything. But they also contracted malaria. Seventy percent of their children died, and twenty-five percent of their adults died.

The survivors had the parasite hibernate in the liver for four years until a famine struck the village. This time only ten percent of the adults and twenty-five percent of the children died. Although malaria directly killed so few, it made the villagers too weak to hunt, which made the famine worse, which ended up killing half the village.

When malaria was in full bloom in the village, a group of hunters unknowingly got within two miles of the village, and one got bit by a mosquito with the parasite. When he first showed signs of infection, the shaman claimed he was filled with an evil spirit and killed him during an exorcism, but it was too late, most of the village was infected by that time.

Every few years, the virus moved closer and closer to the Zambezi river that Paul was building his capital on. It was a slow process as these villages were spread out, with no roads between them. A raid at the wrong time or a hunter in the wrong place is what moved this parasite. The only good thing is that when someone survived it the first time, they would probably survive it the second, third, or fourth time around.

In the original timeline, it would have taken another century to reach the area known as Paulsland, but King Paul wanted to reach the coast. To do this, he was having his men build forts along each river emptying into the Zambezi and then build roads and bridges to those forts. He didn’t realize there were only three rivers emptying into the Zambezi between his capital and the coast and so he didn’t have any more forts to build. The coast he wanted to reach was two hundred and sixty miles from his capital, and the third river was a hundred and forty miles from his capital. His current plan has some logistical problems he will need to work out.

Paul sent his youngest step son to build a fort on the bank of the third river, in Ad 80. In March of AD 82, a warrior with malaria attacked the fort, was wounded, and captured and brought to the capital so that they could better learn his language. On the way, the mosquitos could not help but be attracted to the blood on his wound. The mosquitos disliked the smell of the corsages the soldiers wore, made from Lavender, Alliums, Chrysanthemums, Marigolds, Nasturtiums, Petunias, Geraniums, and floss flowers. Different soldiers wore different flowers, but the smell of blood drowned out the repellents in the flowers.

Two of the soldiers had not bathed as regularly as they should, and so they did not have the smell of lavender on their skin that acted as a final layer of repellent, and so the mosquitoes spread the disease to them.

On day seven of their trip, they finally went far enough upriver to enter Paulsland. The mosquitos in the area took a sip of the infected blood and then made their way to the farmers, loggers, miners, and other men working in the fields. Although their clothing and the lavender still on their skin allowed many men to avoid catching malaria, dozens of men still contracted it. Worse yet, before they ever felt sick, any mosquito that bit them carried it on to unsuspecting people.

Paul was always worried about the tsetse flies, and so every village had gardens filled with flowers and herbs that repelled insects, and the girls in the village made sure there was no sewage in the streets. This protected the villages from plague carrying insects, but it could not protect those who left the village.

After eight days of rowing up the Zambezi River, they finally reached the capital with a very sick captive, whom they assumed was suffering from an infection from his wounds. Several days later, two of the soldiers showed similar symptoms, and King Paul was notified.

Chapter 18 March AD 82 Africa- Pandemic

Paul was pleased with how quickly the nation was expanding. The diplomatic corps was doing a fantastic job bringing in villages across the river into the capital on the north bank. They were doing too good of a job actually and had to be called back after they convinced fifteen villages to join. That makes nineteen villages across the north bank of the capital.

Since the capital was built where two rivers meet, there were three river banks. The west bank, which encompasses most of Paulsland, the one to the north, which encompasses nineteen new villages, and the one to the East, which encompasses just five villages. All the villages to the East were recently conquered. A little more than a year ago, they attacked the fort on the East Bank, and now they are part of Paulsland. Paul expected to have diplomats that were able to speak the language the villages spoke on the East bank in a few weeks.

Paul thought it was nice not having to murder every chief he came across. It was even better that he was peaceably bringing in these villages without being forced to marry more women, or engaging them to his sons. The diplomatic corps was going to be getting a lot more support from Paul in the coming months. Paul had become pragmatic in his time in the first century; if he needed to murder a few bad dudes or marry a few girls to see his kingdom grow, he would. He just preferred not to.

Genifa had a son, and Paul named him Carver. He had four boys now, Alexander, George, Washington, and Carver. Gizela and Chazia were both going to have their children in the next few weeks. Poor Misa hasn’t become pregnant yet, and it was bothering her. On top of that, In another month, Paul would marry his last fiancée. Things were too crowded in his home, and his wives constantly bickered. Paul knew that would happen, but he had to solve the problem, so it would not rub off on their children. Paul needed a much bigger home for his family.

In a few weeks, once the rainy season was over, they would begin construction on his new home on the island that would connect to the three banks that makes up the capital between two rivers now that the bridge from the west bank was finished. But during the rainy season, it wasn’t wise to pour concrete at their technology level. Paul planned for two more bridges to connect the north bank and east bank to the island by the start of the next rainy season. Their home would be the center of the capital, and it would be very big. All the better to give the wives space away from one another.

The water towers the researchers built were standing up well during this rainy season. The research on septic systems was way behind, but water towers are good for more than just indoor plumbing. Paul realized water towers could be used to farm during the dry season. All they would have to do is build the water tower, add a windmill and pump to it, and whenever they need to irrigate a field during the dry season, just open a valve letting the water out into the fields. Once year-round farming is achieved, you will more easily be able to rotate your crops from food crops to industrial crops to animal feed crops. More importantly, many fruit trees need watering all year long, and with the water tower combined with a windmill and pump, Paul can finally grow them. The only requirement is to build the water towers near the river. The rivers are about to become the best farming land in the country.

This year they have their first real industrial crop in the ground; Cotton. It should be great for making thread with the distaff, and Paul plans on making paper by the ton with it; he just wishes they could have figured out the spinning wheel.

As Paul was planning his future, his pregnant wife waddled to the ivory throne with news that dashed all his plans to pieces. Chazia said, “Paul, a few days ago, Dashiell’s men brought in a captive from the fort on the far river. He was very sick when they got him here, and we assumed he was suffering from an infection from his wounds. Today two of the men who brought him to us are also showing the same symptoms as the man.”

Paul’s heart fell, then his face grew hard as he said, “It can't be all that bad?”

Chazia snapped at her husband, “Yes, it can! They brought in a captive, and when he reached the city, he was dying. It was like his wounds were infected, but now that two soldiers have the same symptoms, we know its not an infection! And whatever it is has them on death's door!”

Paul knew how bad some pandemics were in the past, and it looked like his first one was here. He said, “I will head right over.” Then Paul turned to one of his soldiers and said, “Shut the city gates, nobody is to enter or leave the city until we find out if this sickness has spread. Also, send a message via the communications tower that anyone who was in our city is to be put in a room by themselves for a week to see if they get sick. If so, they are to be taken care of until they are better, and their belongs burned.”

The soldier nodded and ran off to send the message. Paul was hoping that they could stop whatever the sickness was before it became a pandemic. He immediately went to the schoolhouse, where they kept their wounded and sick.

As Paul made his way to the schoolhouse, he chastised himself for keeping the sick and wounded there, but he needed everyone to learn how to keep stuff clean and that when someone is sick or wounded, you have to clean things with alcohol or vinegar when you didn’t have strong enough alcohol. It also allowed everyone to learn how to stitch up wounds. Although the girls learned more advanced medicine than the boys, the boys still needed to know the basics.

When Paul got to the medical room where the sick men lay, the older girl students were taking care of the men. This was a schoolhouse, so Paul began his lesson, “My wife informed me that we have a spreading sickness. This is likely a viral or bacterial infection. I need the walls in this room wiped down with alcohol and vinegar. Any cloth the men had with them needs to be burned, and anything they were wearing, whether leather or iron needs to be cleaned with alcohol. Also, send word to the barracks that the soldiers that they are to thoroughly clean everything.”

The students, all ladies, nodded their heads.

Paul continued, “Since this is likely a bacterial or viral infection, feed these men honey, and fruit and vegetables exclusively. No bread, no meat, and no spices for these men. Also, make sure they always have hot tea on hand. I expect them to drink one cup an hour, at least, except for when they are asleep. Also, send word out to everyone in the capital that they need to eat honey over the next three days. It should help if they caught this sickness.” Unfortunately, Paul’s lesson was wrong because he was dealing with malaria.

With that, the girls watched Paul as Paul checked on his patients. He asked one, “How are you feeling?”

The man said, “Cold, sir.”

Paul put his hand on the man's forehead, and the man was burning up and shivering. Paul knew that was bad but acted normal so he wouldn’t worry the man and asked, “Is that all. You just feel cold?”

The man said, “I also have a terrible headache, I feel very weak, and I have been throwing up.”

Paul nodded and said, “It sounds like what my people called the flu. Don’t worry; I had it many times growing up; it's not serious as long as you are strong.” Paul then smiled and said, “You are one of my soldiers, so of course, you are strong and will make a full recovery.”

The man smiled and said, “Thank you, sir.”

Paul then asked him, “Was the captive sick when you captured him?”

The soldier shook his head and said, “No, sir. He only started getting sick on the boat ride back to the capital. We thought he just had an infection from his wounds. I thought it was odd that none of the wounds were filled with puss or smelled bad, but then again, considering how wounded he was, I assumed we just missed the infection, or it was too deep to see.”

“How many days ago did you first see symptoms of the captive being sick.”

The soldier thought about that for a minute. Between being sick, and the man getting sick on the long boring boat ride back to the capital, it took a little while to figure out the answer. Eventually, the soldier answered, “It was the night we had canned beets and hippo. That was ten days ago, I think.”

“And you first started feeling sick this morning?”

The soldier said, “Yes, sir. I woke up this morning feeling cold, with a headache and throwing up. I was surprised to see someone else from my squad already in here with the same symptoms.”

Paul thought about it and realized it took more than a week for symptoms to show. Paul hoped that meant someone was only contagious after they showed signs of illness; otherwise, this was going to get a whole lot worse. Paul then basically had the same conversation with the other sick man and moved to talk to the girls.

King Paul told them, “I know these men feel cold, but they are burning up with fever. I need you to keep them cool with damp rags. I will have some men bring in a couple of troughs for these men to cool off in. I need you to boil any water before you put it in the troughs and let it cool to room temperature before you put these men in. We need these men to cool off, so they don’t die due to fever. That’s it for the lesson; get to work!” As the girls ran off to follow King Paul’s orders, Paul yelled out, “Make sure you stay clean and keep everything clean!”

The girls shouted out, “YES, SIR!”

Paul began heading toward the research department when a soldier saw him and ran over to him. Paul knew he must want something important and so asked, “What’s wrong?”

The soldier said, “When we closed the gate, we locked all the farmers, miners, and loggers out, and they hurried back to see what was wrong. We told them there was sickness in the capital, and some asked if we could ask you to let them in, others left.’

Paul facepalmed and said, “I shouldn’t have locked them out. They may have caught the sickness. Open the gates and let them in, but don’t let anyone out. Once you let them in, have them meet me at the ivory throne. Once you give them the message, send a communications message… Wait, never mind, I already sent a message saying if someone from the capital goes to another village, they are to be kept alone for a few days to make sure they are not sick.”

The soldier nodded and ran back to the gate.

It wasn’t long before Paul made it to his ivory throne and the various workers who waited at the gate were only a minute or two behind. As they made their way to Paul, they tried to ask questions, but Paul silenced them with a motion of his hand. He needed to talk to them all at once.

Once he saw that no more were coming, he asked, “Is this everyone?”

One of the farmers said, “Yes, sir, except for those who went back to work on their crops.”

Paul asked, “What about the loggers and miners?”

A few of the men looked around, and one of them said, “I think we are all here. Anyone who does logging or mining this close to the capital takes their good directly in, so there was no reason to go back to work until we found out what was going on.”

Paul nodded and said, “Good. If anyone isn’t here, one of the soldiers will have to inform them of the news. A couple of weeks ago, my soldiers brought in a captive that was sick. Everyone assumed he had an infection from a wound, but then two of the soldiers that brought him back have the same symptoms. Apparently, they have some sort of contagious disease. I don’t want this to spread, so I will bring everyone into the walls and shut the gates.”

The farmer's eyes got big, and one of them asked, “But what about our crops? We are already harvesting the first fruits from our crops. If we stay in the capital for a few days, we will lose everything.”

Paul hadn’t thought about that. Either these men worked their fields, or they starved. Paul had a lot of clout with these men, but if he tried to force them into quarantine, they would revolt. He contemplated the problem. There was no easy answer. Do you shut down the economy for a possible pandemic that will create a certain famine?

The men waited patiently for their King's answer. He had brought them far, and so they trusted him and appreciated their King, giving a lot of thought to their plight.

Finally, Paul looked up and said, “The farmers may go into their field and harvest their crops, but we will have to put the water tower irrigation process off for a year. Furthermore, no farmer may go to another village until a month after this thing has passed. As for the loggers and miners, you will have to stay inside the city walls.” Those men moaned, but Paul cut them off with a wave and said, “Your logs and minerals will still be out there when this is over. I just want to make sure this doesn’t spread.”

The men were upset, but they were all well off enough to survive without working for a couple of weeks, at least.

Paul hoped this didn’t get worse.

Chapter 19 March AD 82 Africa- Unprepared

One week after Paul shut down the capital, a message came in through the communications tower. When the soldier saw the message, he ran to give it to his King. The youth knocked people aside, ran full sprint around buildings, and banged the doors open to the Ivory Throne. The guards in the room reflexively pointed their spears at the young man who didn’t stop quite soon enough, and the pig spears cut deeply into his leather armor and shallowly impaled his soft skin underneath. The youth didn’t even feel it.

As soon as he saw his King, he yelled out, “One of the villages downriver of us has cases of men with fever, chills, headache, shaking, and vomiting!”

Paul’s heart dropped. He immediately made his way to the communications tower as the soldiers helped the wounded man. They honestly felt terrible about spearing him. Paul didn’t even notice. His mind was focused on this potential disaster. He had visions of smallpox, flu, and other illnesses wreaking havoc in his new home like it did to the American Indians. He thought he would have more time to develop medicine before they interacted with the cesspit of Rome. But now, in the middle of nowhere, they had some disease.

Paul needed to know how the men caught the disease, so he sent a message asking them if their people had been to the capital recently, and if not what their job was.

Half an hour later, another message came in saying a different village downriver from the capital had people with the same symptoms. This was two out of three villages downriver from the capital on this side of the river. He sent the same question to them.

Half an hour later, he got a message back from the first village saying that nobody in their village had been to the capital in two months, and none of the men that caught the sickness left the village since the planting festival. To Paul’s surprise, everyone who caught the sickness were men, and they all worked well outside the village. Either farmers, miners, or loggers.

About that time, another message came from the opposite side of the river on the east bank. One of the villages on that side of the river had the same sickness.

It did not take Paul long to figure out how various villages that have had no contact with sick men could all get the same sickness. It was the mosquitoes, and it was probably malaria. Paulsland was not ready for malaria. But ready or not, it's here.

The good news was that the tools he used to keep the tsetse fly from wiping out his people were clearly helping keep the mosquitoes at bay. By no means were they perfect, but those who lived in the villages, which required gardens of flowers and herbs that are repellent to bugs, didn’t seem to be catching it. The bad news was that it was harvest season, and the nation could suffer a major famine if his farmers got sick. The famine could kill far more people than malaria.

Paul turned to a soldier and said, “Go to the ladies working on the penicillin project and tell them to meet me at the researcher department.”

The soldier ran off to comply as Paul headed to the research department. It was time to put his training into action.

As Paul entered the department, he said, “Stop whatever you are doing. I have terrible news. The sickness has spread to several villages that have not been in contact with any of the sick men.”

One of the researchers asked, “Is it the spirits? Are we being judged?”

Paul shook his head and said, “No, it's not the spirits; it’s the mosquitoes.”

All the researchers' faces became confused, and one asked, “What are you talking about?”

Paul said, “You have swatted mosquitoes before, you know when you kill them, they are filled with blood.” They shook their heads. “Well sometimes if someone is sick and they drink their blood and go and drink someone else’s blood, they spread sickness from one person to the next. I am pretty sure that they are spreading the sickness known to my people as malaria.”

The men thought about what Paul said for a minute, and as comprehension dawned, some smiled, and others frowned. The ones who smiled did so because they finally had a new understanding. Those who frowned did so because they took that understanding to its logical conclusion.

Finally, the first man to frown with comprehension asked, “What is malaria?”

Paul said, “A terrible sickness. It's not as deadly as the sleeping sickness, but it's still very deadly and much more contagious. Most adults who get it survive, but there have been times where most of the children who get it die. Its main hallmark is that people who get it get a high fever, feel cold, and are exhausted. It can last anywhere from weeks to months. I am very sure it's not bacteria, but I am not a hundred percent sure. I think it was a virus, and my people never developed a viral cure like they did a bacterial cure. So we will have to help the sick recover and try to repel and kill the mosquitoes.”

One of the researchers said, “When I was a child, my village was filled with mosquitoes, flies, wasp and every other type of bug imaginable. Its why we had the door cloth, so we could go into our hut and not have to swat bugs as we slept. Granted, that didn’t stop the cockroaches. But the floors and herbs you had us plant and grow did a fantastic job of driving the flying bugs off; in fact, it was a pleasure to clean my home with lavender soap and see the cockroaches scurry off. The first time the boys from my village went into the bathhouse and cleaned with lavender soap, we watched lice and fleas scurry away. It took a few weeks, but eventually, the blood-sucking insects stopped bothering us. With lavender, do we really need anything else?”

Paul said, “With mosquitoes spreading a deadly disease, it's not enough to repel them anymore. We have to kill them. With the lavender repelling bugs from our people and homes and our crops being insect resistant, I hadn’t felt the need to make real pesticide, but times have changed. We need to grow fields of Chrysanthemums and process it into bug killer.”

Someone asked, “What do you mean process?”

Paul said, “The Chrysanthemum flower has a chemical in it than kills bugs, called pyrethrum. But it only has a little bit in each flower. Making pyrethrum is easy; all you have to do is dry out Chrysanthemums and then crush them, then add them to warm water and separate the particles from the water. The pyrethrum is very water-soluble. “

A researcher asked, “Should we mix it with the lavender soaps?”

Paul shook his head and said, “No. Lavender repels bugs with a chemical called linalool. Pyrethrum kills bugs. Since they do very different things, it will not work well to put them together. The problem is that I do not know how best to disperse the pyrethrum.”

Faizal, the head researcher, asked, “What do you mean?”

Paul said, “Where I am from, people were able to draw out a black liquid from certain places in the ground called petroleum, and it had many many uses. One of the first ways they used pyrethrum against mosquitoes and the malaria they carried was to mix it with kerosene, a substance they made from petroleum, and then dispersed it into the air. Pyrethrum kills all bugs on contact, but it doesn’t stay in the air all that well unless you mix it with something else, like kerosene. We don’t have kerosene or petroleum, so we are going to have to figure out something else to mix with the pyrethrum to make it effective in the air. Although since it will kill bugs on contact, even just getting to powder form will be effective.”

A researcher asked, “How much chrysanthemum do we have to work with?”

Paul said, “Not much. As soon as the farmers bring in their crops, I will have them plant chrysanthemum. We will have to build water towers to water the crops through the dry season. They should bloom in about eight weeks, and then we can really get to work. And yes, I know it countermands my last order of not building water towers. Thing is we need pyrethrum and will have to grow fields of chrysanthemum to meet our needs.”

By now, several of the women had made their way into the research department, and Paul said, “I hate to do this to you, but I need you, ladies, to stop researching antibiotics and start researching tree bark.”

Everyone in the room, researcher, guard, and women gave Paul a weird look. Paul ignored it and said, “I remember enough to know that one of the malaria treatments of my people was a type of tree bark.”

Chazia asked, “How do you even know if the sickness is malaria?”

Paul was stunned for a second and said, “That’s an excellent question. But we can find out right now. Go to one of the sick men and get some of their blood on a knife and bring it here. It doesn’t need to be a lot; just a little will do.”

One of the girls went off to do the job. Paul remembered the first disease anyone saw through a microscope was malaria. He wished he could remember whether it was a virus or not. As for the knife at this point, Paul was not about to introduce syringes as he doubted anyone would use such a complicated to make tool only once, and if they used it multiple times, the cleanup would need to be up to a very high standard. Maybe in a few years when some of the ladies, and perhaps some of the men became real surgeons and clean freaks, he would introduce it. Until then, if they needed a blood sample, a knife would do.

Paul said, “Ladies, I don’t just need your medical expertise to find the bark that helps with malaria. I also kneed your weaving expertise. You know the screens that we put in all the windows and doors?” The women nodded. “Well, I need you to make a fifteen foot by fifteen-foot version of that.”

Misa was the first to respond, and she asked incredulously, “HOW?”

Paul said, “I don’t know. Where I come from, when the mosquitoes got bad, they would put up something called a mosquito net, which is basically a really big version of the screens we use on our windows. The way it works is you hang it over your bed, so when you sleep at night, no bug can bite you.”

Misa shook her head and said, “Husband, that’s not what I am asking. It would take me a month to make enough thread with my distaff for that fifteen by fifteen-foot sheet. And that’s before making something as difficult as a screen. I mean, they are not too bad to make when you have pieces of wood to anchor them down and are making only a foot by foot diameter. I am sure we could figure it out, but every woman in the nation would have to stop weaving whatever they had been weaving to exclusively make this mosquito net.”

Paul was shocked. He knew that making thread was time-consuming and that weaving was also time-consuming, but the sheer amount of time they would have to spend just to get ready to make something as simple as a mosquito net blew Paul away, “I am sorry I wasn’t thinking. We really do not have the industrial capacity to fight this pandemic like I would want too. We really need the spinning wheel.” Paul looked over to his researchers and said, “While working on the chrysanthemums, also make a mock-up of the spinning wheels. A big wheel, attached to a small one. We will send one to each village, and maybe just maybe someone will figure out the secret to making it work. We need thread production to go way up if we are going to make mosquito netting.”

The researchers nodded, and that’s when the girl came in with blood on a knife.

Paul wordlessly took the knife, and brought it to a microscope, put it on a glass slide, and put it under the lense. He could see little critters moving. This proved it; it was definitely malaria. Everyone else got a look at the tiny critter that was the scourge of Africa in the last timeline. Perhaps this one would be different.

As they looked at the little creature that killed billions, Paul turned to a soldier and said, “I need you to let the other soldiers know we need to capture vervet monkeys and jackals.” The soldier nodded and went out to inform the other soldiers.

His wife, Chazia, asked, “What do we need them for?”

Paul said, “We have to figure out which barks are poisonous or not. We do that by feeding them to animals. If they survive, we bring in prisoners and feed it to them. If a bark helps with their symptoms, then we will figure out which aspect of the bark is helping them and concentrate that aspect.”

Chazia said, “What do you mean, prisoners?”

Paul said, “Murders are executed in Paulsland. Due to the pandemic, I will have all murders sent here, and their execution will be by research.”

Chapter 20 April AD 82 Texas- Trevor’s First Hunt

Just four hours before sundown, John woke up. Normally he wouldn’t sleep this late, but Trevor had finally shot the thirty-pound bow ten times in a row, and so as promised, John was taking him on his first real hunt.

There had been several times where he took Trevor in the woods for about an hour and called it a hunt where they didn’t happen to find anything. John did that with his boys because they constantly nagged him about going hunting with him, and they were so excited to go on a hunt they didn’t even care that they didn’t see any animals. They didn’t see any animals because they spent the entire time talking loudly with their dad.

John got out of bed, a proud dad. Tonight he was going to take his nine and a half-year-old son on his first real hunting trip. John had been eight when he went with his dad, but its easier to go real hunting with a gun instead of a bow.

John made his way into the kitchen, where Onawa was cooking their breakfast and preparing their midnight lunch.

John asked, “What are you making?”

Onawa smiled and said, “Your up a little early.”

John smiled back and said, “Well, I smelled your delicious cooking and couldn’t help myself.”

Onawa asked, “It must have been fun keeping Trever up late enough so that he is still asleep.”

John giggled and said, “It wasn’t hard. I just told him scary stories I heard as a child.”

Onawa frowned and said, “If he comes into our room begging to sleep with us, it's your fault.”

John hadn’t thought about that last night when he was keeping his boy awake. But before he could be fussed at by his wife about not scaring her boys, Trevor walked in all groggy.

Trevor asked, “What are you two talking about.”

Onawa shot John a mean look and smiled brightly at her son, “We were just talking about how you are going on your first overnight hunting trip. I am looking forward to making venison with your first kill tomorrow.”

That woke Trevor right up. A huge grin grew on his face as he realized what he would be doing later that night, and he said, “Don’t worry, mom, I won't disappoint you.”

It wasn’t long before they ate breakfast and chatted. Trevor wide-eyed with excitement and John kept saying, “Trevor get all this talking out of you now. If you talk while we are hunting, then we won't be able to kill anything.”

Once they were done, they went to the door where their bows were waiting. Trevor grabbed his small thirty-pound bow, and John grabbed his new bow. One he just finished making two days earlier.

Trevor looked at the bow and said, “Dad, that bow looks smaller than your last one.”

John looked at his son and said, “It is. I am getting old, and although I can still use an eighty-pound bow, too many elders have torn a muscle at my age using a bow, they were too old to continue using. Once those muscles are torn, there is no going hunting anymore. This sixty-pound bow isn’t as effective as my old eighty-pound bow, but I shouldn’t get injured using it.”

Trevor asked, “Dad didn’t you say you come from a place where they have things we couldn’t even imagine. Did they have any bows that would be easier to use?”

John thought about it and said, “Well, they had these things called compound bows, but they made them out of a metal called aluminum. It's like iron, but lighter and for some purposes stronger.”

“Was this compound bow like mine but made out of that metal you just mentioned?”

John shook his head and said, “No, it was very different. You know how we use pullies to help lift stuff?” Trevor nodded his head. “Well, the compound bow uses pullies to help you shoot arrows.”

Trevor, in a way, only a child could ask, “Why don’t you make one?”

John said, “I don’t have aluminum. We only have iron and wood.”

Trevor said, “Well, maybe it wouldn’t be as good with iron and wood as it would be with that other metal, but you won't know if you don’t try.”

John thought about it and said, “Well, making a compound bow with the tools I got will not be easy, but with things going so well with the bison project, I have the time. You know what? I will see what I can do.” Before John finished his sentence, Trevor was already thinking about other things, but John liked to hunt, and a compound bow would give him a few more years of hunting if he could get it to work.

As John was looking off in thought, Trevor said, “Dad come on. I want to hurry up and go hunting.”

John reluctantly let go of his thoughts about his future project and said, “Okay, okay. There is no rush; it's still a few hours before dark. Deer are nocturnal, you know. You can catch them in the day if you are lucky, but it’s a lot easier at night. Let's grab our tree stands from the barn.”

Trevor dashed off to the barn, while John followed a bit slower than he normally would. When Trevor got to the barn and saw his father's slow pace, he ran back, grabbed his father's hand, and said, “Come on, dad, hurry.” John got a kick out of it. Trevor learned long ago to ignore his dad's big toothy grin.

The tree stands came in two parts. One to sit on and one to stand on. The way they worked is the sitting part and standing part. Each had a rope that went around the tree. You would shimmy up the tree by pushing up off the standing part, lifting the sitting part higher. But when you put your weight on the sitting part, friction would keep it from going down. That’s when you would use your feet to pull the part you stand on up after you. You would push and pull until you were at the desired height. To get down, you do the opposite. Since these were made out of wood and rope instead of steal and chains like in the modern world, you had to make new ones every year.

This is an innovation that everyone in the river alliance loved using when they went deer hunting. It would have been a wonderful product to sell if the hunters didn’t instantly understand how to make it the first time they saw it work. It's just one of those things that people could have made at any time in history, but nobody thought about making until the Japanese in world war II. After World War II, all the rednecks that saw the tree stands the Japanese snipers used brought the innovation back since you can use it on any tree. Now John brought it to his new people, and they spread the innovation out.

John put his deer stand on his back, and Trevor asked, “Dad, why don’t have the bison carry it?”

John told his son, “Because the bison have much more important jobs to do than carry things we can easily carry ourselves.”

Trever said, “Okay.” And John helped his son put his deer stand on his back.

As they were leaving, they ran into the shaman, who asked, “John, when are you going to get a chance to help me put all my beliefs on paper?”

John looked annoyed and said, “I already told you that I would do my best to help you draw out your gods and ancestors once a month. But if you want to just write down your beliefs, you won't need my help.”

The shaman said, “Why can't you make today the once a month day?”

John said, “Come on, you see that I am going hunting. This will be Trevor’s first hunting trip.”

Trevor said, “Dad, we’ve gone hunting before.”

John quickly said, “I mean, this is his first overnight hunting trip as he can handle a thirty-pound bow.”

The shaman's face lit up with understanding; this was Trevor’s first real hunting trip. The Shaman said, “I understand. I will ask the gods and ancestors to bless you then.”

John nodded, and as they left, Trevor asked, “Dad, why don’t you help the shaman out more?”

John said, “The shaman irritates me. When I introduced writing, he had no interest whatsoever in writing down his beliefs. I asked him about it, and he said that his beliefs could only be passed down orally, as they have to wear the ceremonial garb when they share them. But then at Christmas, I gave your grandfather a comic book I made. Your grandfather was so impressed he framed the pictures and put them on the outside of his home for all to see. The shaman saw them, and ever since, he has wanted to put his beliefs in pictures and writing. I guess until he saw the mixture of pictures and words, it never occurred to him.”

Trevor was totally confused and asked, “Why does that irritate you?”

John said, “For whatever reason, comic books seem to click with this culture, and everyone wants to learn to draw and write words now. But because the shaman thinks he is writing a holy comic book, he thinks he should get exclusive time with me to better draw his various gods and ancestors and other religious iconic stuff. At this point, most of the guys who can do art are already better than me, including your brother bobby, but the shaman doesn’t nag them; he nags me. It's frustrating to help him draw a half wolf man god thing, or half eagle turtle man god thing, or some super strong ancestor who wiped out their immortal enemies or whatnot. I did the comic book thing to bring about interest in reading, and now everyone is too interested. I guess I forgot that every religion with a bunch of gods wants images of all their various gods.”

Trevor asked, “Dad, there are religions without a bunch of gods?”

John said, “Yes. In my homeland was a religion called Christianity, and they had one God. They had various symbols of God, but we did not have an image of him. Well, at least my sect of the religion didn’t. They put most of the emphasis on the word of God, instead of the images of God.”

“Dad, if you don’t like it, then why do you put up with it?”

“Its simple, I think literacy is very important. People who will not read other things might be willing to read religious stuff, so although it irritates me, I will help the shaman write his holy comic book. Truth be told, I am shocked by how much a reaction those comics I wrote got. If I had known they would generate this type of interest, I would have made them years ago. Even in our little village, I think literacy has tripled, and some of the comics the new artist have made have fetched a very good price in other villages. Art and writing have never been my strong point, but I will pass on what I know to help others.”

Trevor smiled and said, “Dad, the real problem is that you don’t like being around people too much.”

John smiled and said, “True.”

John and his son chatted as they made their way to the hunting ground. Out of the village, past the fields, and into the woods.

After a fifteen-minute trek moderately deep into the woods, John found two trees that were very climbable with their tree stands right next to each other. Once Trevor was older, he would hunt a bit further away from him, but for now, he would stay close.

They unslung their tree stands, set them up, and Trevor began making his way up the tree. He stood up, bringing his seat with him, then sat on it and dragged the foot part up to his level. He did several times until he was five feet up, and then fear grew on his face. He stood up, dragging the seat another foot and a half, and pulled up the foot part of the stand one last time before fear took hold, and he asked, “Dad is this high enough?”

John laughed and said, “Son, you’re barely over the height you would be at sitting on my shoulders. I need you to get to at least twenty feet.”

Trevor looked around nervously and said, “But its scary, dad.”

John smiled and said, “Good. Courage is doing things while you're scared.” That did not seem to encourage Trevor much, so John added, “We checked the tree, and the tree stand. There is nothing to be afraid of. Sometimes in life, you are going to have to check your tools in scary situations and trust them, its what men do.”

Trevor nodded and began slowly inching up the tree. Once he got to twelve feet, John could see that his son wouldn’t go any higher. John then set up his stand and quickly went up twenty feet to the amazement of his son. Usually, John would go higher, but he needed to be a bit closer to his son just in case anything happened.

After a few minutes, Trevor asked, “Dad, why are you so high up.”

John said, “I will tell you then we have to be quiet. I am not that high up. I knew a guy named Zeek who would find the tallest trees in the woods and climb all the way to the top with his stand. When he shot deer, he didn’t shoot them in the side; he shot them through the back he was so high up.”

Trevor said, “Wow.”

With that, they began waiting for the deer to come by. In the modern world, hunting deer could be a tedious affair as cars took out more deer than hunters did, but there were no cars in the first century AD. In fact, there were less than a million people in North America. Sure the wolves, mountain lions, and panthers took their fair share of deer, but there are many times as many deer in the first century as there was in the twenty-first century. In the twenty-first century, you needed a bit of luck for deer to stumble on you; in the first century, you needed bad luck for them to miss you.

With that expectation, the sun went down, and the moon showed brightly. The moon was bright enough that John spotted several deer come by that were out of Trevor’s range. They also heard raccoons make their way through the forest, both on the ground and in the trees. Then around midnight, a doe made her way too close to Trevor’s tree. He stood up, and the deer heard it, and looked around, its ears swiveling back and forth looking for a predator. While it was scanning its surroundings, Trevor pulled back on his bow, took aim, and let loose a shot. It flew true and hit right behind the deer’s leg, through its ribs, and into its lung.

The deer dashed off bleeding. It was a fatal wound, but the deer didn’t know that.

Trevor called out, “Dad, did I get it?”

John said, “I cant tell. I’ll go down and check for blood. If so, we will have to track down the deer.”

As John made his way down the tree, Trevor talked with him about how he thinks he shot the deer. With all the adrenaline running through Trevor at this moment, there is no way for him to be silent. John smiled; he was no different during his first real hunt.

Once John made his way off his tree stand, he took out his flint and lit his torch. He then checked around the area the Trevor shot the deer. There was blood.

John yelled out, “Trevor, you can come down. You got it.”

John made his way next to the tree in case Trevor got too excited about coming down the tree, and he had to catch him. As Trevor made his way down the tree in his excitement, the tree stand slipped, and Trevor fell three feet before the friction of the rope and stand made it stop. That put some sense back in the boy, and John said, “Be careful, son. You got the deer no sense in dying now.”

A sobered Trevor reached the bottom of the tree, and they packed up their deer stands, lit their torches, and started following the blood trail. Half an hour later, they reached the kill, and Trevor was so excited, he didn’t even mind doing the field strip. Granted, in a society where you do not get your meat at a grocery store, a boy isn’t going to be squeamish about blood.

There was no way Trever was going to be able to haul back the deer by himself, so John took half and had Trevor carry the other half. Once he could carry the carcass back all by himself, he would be old enough to hunt alone.

Chapter 21 May AD 82 Africa- Warlord

The last two years had brought vast changes to the many villages west of Paulsland. As village witchdoctors and chiefs found out about Paul’s brutal campaign to kill the leadership of the villages Paul conquered, they formed an alliance to prepare to go to war with him. The ability to get iron weapons, tools, and a much better food supply made Elzo the natural leader.

Elzo’s alliance was further cemented when Elzo and his twenty-one soldiers went around to the various villages and began training them for martial combat. One thing that was drilled into the men is that they were always to obey their commander, their chief. If someone were to kill their chief, then Elzo would have that person skinned alive, their family brutally executed immediately after, and the shaman would cut the heads off their corpses and use their souls as torches.

Being chief was always a dangerous game. The chief was in control of the materials in the village, so being chief meant you were wealthy by the standards of the people they ruled. But if someone was able to kill you, they became chief until Elzo came and brought a significant amount of safety to the chiefs. Most of the chiefs were so happy that this new system protected them from irate warriors that they didn’t realize they were now subservient to both the witchdoctors and Elzo.

Elzo demanded one thing. They had to drill their soldiers relentlessly. Paul’s soldiers had years of experience practicing martial arts and fighting others. Elzo could not match those years of experience, but he could make it, so the men had more stamina and group coordination than Paul’s soldiers. At least when it came to thousands of men.

After Elzo’s men finished training the men, it was the chief's responsibility to continue drilling their men every day and keep up their own personal training. Any chief that neglected their duty to train their men and themselves was dealt with by the villages witchdoctor’s poison, who then informed the men that a spirit killed the chief for laziness, and the witchdoctor found a replacement.

Every one of Elzo’s warriors was given a spear with an iron tip, a four-foot-tall shield, and leather armor, including a leather helmet. Elzo did not have a decade of iron production to fully kit out his soldiers with an iron-tipped spear, a sword, and a helmet made from iron, perhaps ten percent of his forces were fully kitted, but each soldier had to have an iron-tipped spear; otherwise, they couldn’t get through the leather armor all of Paul’s soldiers wore. The good thing about the situation was that the iron-tipped spear Elzo’s men had didn’t have wings like Paul’s soldier’s spears, and so it easily slipped through shield walls. That said, the lack of an iron helmet or sword was not the biggest problem Elzo’s warriors had.

The biggest problem Elzo had was that his archers were not at the level that Paul’s archers were. Paul had spent years developing his archers, and Elzo had only spent a year or two developing his archers. They could only handle eighty-pound bows. Not only were his most competent archers using weaker bows, but they couldn't shoot arrows as long as Paul’s archers could. Paul’s archers could shoot bows practically all day, whereas Elzo’s could only shoot for half a day. If Elzo’s archers were more competent, he would have already gone into Paulsland, but now he was impatient for war, so he called for his lieutenant, the chiefs, and witchdoctors to get their advice.

They immediately came at his call. It only took two weeks for all of them to get to the center of the nation where Elzo waited. Elzo hadn’t gotten around to making roads yet. Once they conquered Paulsland, their new slaves could build roads for them.

Elzo was the first to speak. “As you know, I called you here for your advice. Do we go to war during this dry season, or do we wait another year until our archers are more proficient with their heavy bows?”

One of the chiefs immediately stood up and said, “My men are ready to invade Paulsland and take their food, iron, and women. They have worked hard and are convinced that nobody could ever defeat them.”

Many of the chiefs shouted in agreement.

One of the witchdoctors stood up and said, “I do not think this is a question of whether the men are ready or not, but a question on whether the timing is right.”

Elzo nodded and said, “Yes, exactly. We have nearly five thousand warriors ready to go to war with Paulsland, but is the timing right?”

One of the chiefs said, “Whenever it comes to raiding, the longer you wait, the more fearful your men get. Once the men agree to it, the best thing to do is raid. If you wait, then the men might become too nervous to do the things that need to be done.”

One of the witchdoctors nodded and said, “Yes, but it's best to wait to raid until all the grain is in the granary or what's the point of the raid.”

Another witchdoctor said, “It's even better to raid a village when they are out raiding another village.”

Elzo asked, “Does anybody know what's going on in Paulsland right now? If Paul has his army near our borders, then it would be a terrible time to invade Paulsland. We need to wipe out a village before we face Paul’s army. It would force him to stand and fight, and once he does, we will wipe him out. Once Paul is dead, the rest of Paulsland will fall.”

The chiefs and witchdoctors began looking at each other before a chief that had a village close to Paulsland said, “Elzo, the last time our men scouted Paulsland, they were destroyed by the evil spirits there. None of my men have been willing to get close to it since.”

Elzo nodded. Back when he was informing the tribes of the problems of Paulsland, many sent scouts to check out Elzo’s story. When those men were told that the witchdoctors ate human spirits and began questioning the witchdoctors, the witchdoctors silenced them with a poison that killed those men in horrible ways. This was enough of a warning to keep the warriors away from Paulsland for two years. Elzo didn’t mind because he did not want Paul preparing for what he was going to do. But now things had to change so they could attack.

One of the witchdoctors, Elzo, assumed it was that village’s witchdoctor, stood up and said, “I will prepare a totem to protect a warrior from the evil spirits of Paulsland.”

Another chief asked, “If Paulsland has a curse associated with it, then how will our men be protected.”

One of the witchdoctors said, “All the witchdoctors will go into Paulsland with you. We will protect you from the evil spirits. Then once the leader of Paulsland is killed, his power will vanish, and it will be safe for our warriors to be in the nation then.”

Elzo said, “Have the witchdoctor make a totem of protection for your scout and send him out. Remind him that he needs to avoid being seen by the watchtowers, so he should stay behind the tree line. We will meet again the day after the next full moon. Bring your warriors, unless Paul has his army in the west part of his nation, we will go to war after the next full moon.” The last statement brought cheers! They were finally going to get all the stuff they had been promised and wipe out a potential threat.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

The days leading to the full moon was chaos. Thousands of men showed up. Their oxen were carrying their supplies. The young men were hot-blooded and tried to settle old scores with those from other villages. Elzo had no patience for it and just had those who picked a fight and those who fought back flogged to death in front of the entire camp. Even so, every other day, he had to remind the warriors of what was going on.

The scout only came with his chief and witchdoctor a day before the full moon. When he was brought before Elzo, Elzo was impatient and asked him, “So what did you see?”

The scout looked scared and confused and said, “Well sir, I went to the village you burned down, and it has been rebuilt, and the fields around the village stretch out much further than they did when I visited it three years ago.”

Elzo could tell that he was nervous about something and said, “Why are you so nervous? Were you seen? Did you get caught!?”

The scout shook his head furiously and said, “No, nothing like that, it's just that I didn’t see anyone outside the walls the five days I watched the village.”

Elzo was confused and said, “What do you mean?”

The scout said, “I know it’s the dry season, so there wouldn’t be any farmers, but nobody left the village or came in. Not even to hunt.”

Elzo asked, “Was it abandoned?”

The scout said, “No. I could see soldiers on their communications tower that you told us about. I have never seen anything so tall. I could clearly see them up top signaling someone, but the people they signaled were not people I could see.”

Elzo nodded. He knew that they were signaling another tower miles away. Elzo asked, “What do you think is going on?”

The scout said, “Maybe all the men were called away. But even then, shouldn’t the women and children occasionally leave the village for some reason.”

Elzo thought about it, and then an idea crossed his mind, and he said, “I bet they are fighting another enemy from the other side of their kingdom. When we get to Paulsland, the villages near us will practically be undefended.”

The scout looked at Elzo in wonder and smiled, and said, “You think so?”

Elzo said, “What else could it be? If we attack quickly and hard, we could raid their armory and arm even more of our soldiers with swords.”

That last statement made the chief shout in agreement. They were going to war, and they were going to get iron-rich!

Two days later, five thousand men began marching on Paulsland led by Elzo.

Unfortunately, this army was so new that Elzo didn’t know about the brilliance of military intelligence. The scout he sent out failed to notice that the tower and walls were made out of stone or that there were now three roads toward the village Elzo burned down instead of one. The scout heard about walls, towers, and roads and so assumed Elzo already knew all about them, never once thinking that perhaps in two years they had changed. Major battles throughout history have been won and lost because a scout failed in their job.

Chapter 22 June AD 82 Africa- Defenders

Idriss wasn’t sure if he was ready for the night to be over or not. It was his turn for second watch, which meant he had a long day ahead of him, but at least standing guard in the communications tower wasn’t hard work. But once the sun came up, someone with a fresher mind who could pay better attention to the dots and lines would take his place, and he would have to get to work doing other duties. Problem was that since the plague that King Paul called malaria came around, no one was allowed outside the village except for legitimate reasons. So no hunting. Instead, the lieutenant gave them lots of make-work, like doing drills with every weapon until someone fell then a couple of hours of making more and more arrows.

Idriss had mixed feelings about being forced to stay inside. On one hand, he was bored, on the other hand, several farmers had caught Malaria. Fortunately, the order came quickly enough to keep the miners and loggers safe inside the city, so only a handful of people had the malady inside the village.

The communications post was the best post in the entire village to relieve boredom. The telescope they used to see messages from the tower several miles away could be used to spy on the wildlife or workers outside the village. Considering this village was the westmost village, it got the fewest messages, and all the soldiers took the opportunity to pay a lot more attention to the surroundings than the other towers.

Two years ago, this was the village that got burned down by the traitors. Afterward, King Paul renamed the village Magharibi and was having the city rebuilt with stone like the capital between two rivers. The walls are currently twenty-foot high, although they are years from completion. The first fortification built was the tower, where the guards now live, which was an impressive one hundred and twenty feet high and had eight floors,t including the roof that Idriss was standing watch on. The tower was where everyone slept at night until the walls were ten foot high, and some gates were put up. Idriss still a little bit of claustrophobia from when everyone slept in the tower at night.

As the world began to get lit up, Idriss looked around. The world could start being seen a minute or so before the sun first popped over the horizon. As he looked at the world seconds before the dawn, he saw a lot of movement further west. At first, he thought the wind was blowing and moving some trees, but then the sun peaked over the horizon, and he saw a massive wave of something headed toward the village.

Idriss hit the gong four times, paused, hit it four more times, paused again, and hit it four more times. Four bangs on a gong followed by a pause lets the village know that something was happening to the west. One is north, two is south, three is east, and four is west.

Idriss paid no attention to the tired soldiers and villagers that ran from their huts to the western wall. Having done his duty to bang a warning on the gong, Idriss took out the telescope and began trying to figure out what he was seeing. As the sun continued to climb, he could finally make it out. It was thousands of armed men coming their way.

Idriss immediately start flashing towards the tower that was miles away. It took half a minute before they responded with the signal saying they were paying attention. Idriss sent a message back saying that Magharibi was under attack by thousands of men. And that Idriss would send more information as he got it.

Idriss then took his Telescope and began to look a the enemy in detail. He saw that they were basically dressed like the soldiers, except their spears did not have wings. There were far too many men to count, but Idriss could make out who the leaders were because they stood behind their men and yelled. Idriss began counting them, and by the time he was done, he counted over one hundred leaders. Idriss wrongly estimated the number of men at four thousand five hundred because he counted forty-five men in one group, times a hundred leaders.

Idriss sent this information as he spied it out.

While this was going on, the lieutenant was ordering the women and children to gather supplies and bring them into the tower. He also ordered them to start boiling oil. Everyone thought Paul was pessimistic when he built large cauldrons and fireplaces next to a spout over the one door in the communications tower. Now they wished they had more. Something similar was planned for the gatehouse, but that didn’t get built this year due to the pandemic.

Idriss watched as the two inner gates were opened in the top of the T section of the gate. It was finished enough to have twenty-foot walls and fifteen-foot gates. The lieutenant was ordering the militia to move firewood, lumber, and coal behind the outer gate. Idriss suspected he did so that the attacking army would have a much more difficult time getting through the gate with all that stuff there. As Idriss looked around, he saw the militia at every gate doing the same thing. If it wasn’t for malaria, they would have been able to set up concrete arches over the gates, and even if the gatehouse above the path between the outer and inner gate wasn’t finished, it would have had awesome defenses between the outer and inner gate. As it was now, they would do their best to hold.

As the enemy drew closer to the village, someone beat on a drum, and they stopped. Idriss was relieved and sent a message saying the army stopped when a drum was played. Then Idriss heard many drums play different beats, and the army split off into three parts. One army in the dead center stayed where it was. The left and right wings moved directly north and south. Then more drums and those armies moved straight east until they were in front of the north and south gates. More drums and an army split from the two armies to the north and south of the village and went east until another drum beat, and the armies turned toward one another and met in front of the east gate. They only stopped marching when drums played. Currently, each army was five hundred yards in front of every gate. Now even if they wanted to run, they couldn’t.

Idriss sent back a message explained that this massive army was being guided by drums and explained how precisely they moved. The problem was that Idriss couldn’t explain how shocked he was by the whole thing. Sure, Paulsland had more men than the attacking army, but that was spread out across every village. To have so many men come to attack their village was terrifying. But the ability of a drum player to move troops across a battlefield shook Idriss to his core. Idriss never even heard of anything like that, and he was a trained soldier. Sure they were trained to fight as a unit, but in his training, they only did a mock fight with at most a hundred soldiers because they could not communicate effectively with more than that. And yet there were thousands of soldiers surrounding his village being coordinated precisely with a drum.

Because the attacking army was at each gate, the defenders of Magharibi village had to guard each gate. The lieutenant had forty soldiers between the ages of thirteen and fourteen. He had another hundred or so men. Most had served as soldiers in Paul’s army. If the enemy had been nice and attacked one gate, then they could have focused their fire in one direction, but with the enemy splitting up and attacking each gate individually, it would be hard. The lieutenant put specific sergeants in charge of each gate, as he attempted to coordinate them. The problem was the lieutenant had no way to direct them from one wall to the next.

It could be worse, they could have half the soldiers they currently have as the older soldiers would be sent to the capital to retire when the new batch of soldiers finished training, but the plague had slowed down training a lot.

At this point, it had already been an hour since the sun came up, and Idriss had finally got a reply. King Paul had orders for Idriss to deliver to his lieutenant. As soon as Idriss got them, he moved through the tower as quickly as possible. It was no easy feat with over four hundred women and children gathering supplies and putting them in the tower. They all made way for him as best as they could, but the tower was crammed with bodies and supplies.

Once out, he ran toward the west gate.

Once Idriss saw the lieutenant, he yelled out, “Lieutenant, I got orders from King Paul!”

“Hurry up, give them to me, you twit!”

Their situation was so dire he didn’t even notice the insult. “The King said that it will take two or three days to gather the men to fight, and get here and so we need to hold out. He also said that if it looks like they will breach, we are to burn all the wooden buildings in the village, especially the grain silos.”

The lieutenant nodded. The philosophy was clear if your enemy came to steal and kill. Don’t leave anything for them to steal. If there is nothing to steal, why risk getting killed just to kill others? He asked, “Anything else?”

“Yes, Sir. He also said under no circumstances are you to use the elephants to fight the enemy. Instead, we are to put them in the barn, and when they break through the gates, and we retreat, we are to set the barn on fire with them inside.”

“What?”

“Sir, that’s what he said. If you want, I can climb the tower and ask for further details.”

“Did you already send messages detailing the number of enemy, their weapons, and the fact that they move according to the drums?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Then, don’t worry about it. I need as many bowmen on the walls as possible.”

“Sir, what will we do with the men with malaria?”

The lieutenant looked stunned for a minute. It's clear he hadn’t given them a thought. “leave them where they are at.”

“But sir, if we can not keep the enemy out, our orders are to burn down everything in the village. With the men we got and the area we have to protect, I don’t think we can hold out for three days on the wall. We will have to burn down everything, including the school. Those men are still in the school where they were getting treatment because they can not go into the tower with everyone else.”

The lieutenant looked over the walls and saw the men outside were still getting organized. Still waiting for something, there was clear melancholy in his voice as he said, “Come with me, I need to talk with those men.”

Idriss asked, “What about the walls?”

The lieutenant said, “The sergeants are in charge. They will be able to hold until I get back.” With that, the lieutenant jogged toward the school

Idriss followed the Lieutenant. Once there, the lieutenant told the sick men with a voice of resignation, “Thousands of men have shown up outside our walls. I believe they intend to take the village, and I do not think we can hold the walls. If they were complete, it would be possible. But the outer and inner gates are all just wood, the walls have no protection for our archers, and we do not have near the men we need to fight that many men. If the Communications tower wasn’t complete, we would have no hope.”

One of the men asked, “Do they have ladders?”

Idriss and the lieutenant's eyes grew very big for a second as they looked at each other, and the Lieutenant said, “I did not see any, did you?”

Idriss shook his head and said, “No.”

“Good because if they had them, we wouldn’t be able to hold the walls for ten minutes.” The lieutenant then looked at the sick men and said, “I know none of you were soldiers. You were too old when Paul came, but I have great and difficult things to ask of you.”

One of the men looked very concerned and asked, “What?”

“King Paul sent a message telling me to light everything on fire if the enemy breaks through the gate, and take refuge in the communications tower. If that happens, we have to burn down this schoolhouse, and none of you can come with us due to the sickness.”

The sick men were stunned. They had malaria, and they were very sick. It was a miracle that one of them was lucid enough to have a conversation. He told everyone he was cold even though his fever practically burned the nurse's hand every time they touched his foreheads, and all he wanted to do was sleep.

One of the men not yet willing to die asked, “When they breakthrough, where will we go?”

The lieutenant couldn’t look him in the eye as he said, “If they get inside the wall, you are dead. You cant go into the tower, and every other structure is wood. I am sorry.”

All the men’s hearts fell. The sick men because they recognized that they were almost certainly going to die, and the lieutenant and Idriss because these men, their friends, were going to die.

One of the sick men asked, “What do you want us to do?”

The lieutenant said with a bitter look on his face, “They are here to take what we have. So do your best to make sure to give them malaria. I will ask that you stand outside the inner gate, and when the men come through, cut yourself, get some of your blood on your sword, and do your best to give it to them. Paul said that malaria is spread by blood and mosquito, so make sure they get what you have.”

The dead men smiled bitterly. They didn’t want to die, but they liked the idea of giving their enemies their plague.

The lieutenant said, “Idriss help them leave.”

It didn’t take long to help the men move to the front of one of the inner gates and give them weapons and shields. The sick men enjoyed the shield because it gave them shade.

One of the men, the sickest one, asked, “Can you help me get up to the side of the wall?”

Idriss couldn’t say no. If this man was well, he would be up there with a bow waiting for the enemy to attack. Idriss helped him, and he looked across the field to the men who intended to be the death of them. He simply told Idriss, “Thank you.”

About that time, the sound of many drums began to rise all around the city, and the enemy began to march toward them. They did not run at the city like in a Hollywood movie. No, these men marched methodically.

The men on the walls prepared their bows. They had spent years preparing to use their longbows for war, and now the time had come. They watched in utter silence as the army in front of them marched forward from five hundred yards to four-fifty. It moved at a snail's pace. Then it made four hundred yards. Still, they waited.

The lieutenant was so focused on the army coming to bring his doom; he was startled when the sick man said, “Lieutenant, I have a request.”

The lieutenant felt nothing but pity for the man and kindly asked, “What is it?”

The man said, “Put my blood on your arrows.”

The lieutenant was shocked and said, “What?”

The man said, “Even if you win the battle today, I do not think I will survive malaria. So I ask that you dip your arrows in my blood.”

The lieutenant said, “But that would kill you.”

The man smiled and said, “But it will kill many more of them.”

The lieutenant said, “I won't kill you. You’re one of the people I am here to protect.”

“Don’t worry about it.” With that, he pulled out a knife and cut one of the arteries on his neck. Because he was sick, he passed out in three seconds. Fifteen seconds later, he was dead.

The lieutenant looked back toward the marching army, and it was still three hundred and seventy-five yards out.

He called out, “I need my best shots here now!”

Several archers came, and he said, “This man had malaria, and asked that his blood be given to the enemy. Harden your hearts and dip your arrows in his blood. If these men want what we got, then we might as well give it to them.”

The archers didn’t know what to think, but they obeyed the orders.

Several minutes later, the army was finally in range. With their hundred and twenty-pound longbows, they were able to pierce targets at two hundred and twenty-five yards. Paul hadn’t been able to figure out how to make stronger bows, and it was on his list of things to do. But currently, this was their best range.

All the soldiers on the wall let their arrows fly. Forty arrows lept from the west wall to meet the shields of this slow enemy. Most arrows glanced off, some pierced shields, but one that so happened to be coated in malaria tainted blood pierced far enough to scratch a random warrior’s arm. He was the first man in the army to get something these people had. He would not be the only one to receive their gift.

As the men moved closer, shields held high, several of the archers continued to dip their arrows in their sick friend's corpse. Most arrows did not even scratch the enemy at this distance, but with malaria, it only took one infected man to cause devastating effect, and many more than one man was receiving malaria.

At a hundred and fifty yards out, the sergeant in charge of the west wall called out, “HIGH AND LOW.”

At that moment, the archers fired into the air, trying to get the arrows to come straight down on the enemy's head. But since the arc took time, it also allowed them to shoot straight at the men. When timed correctly, the enemy got two volleys of arrows at the same time. One volley on their head, the other to their face. If only they had more than forty archers.

A minute later, the men could hear from the north wall, “HIGH AND LOW,” then the south wall, and finally the east wall. The enemy was less than a hundred and fifty yards away on all sides.

At this point, half the archers brought out their shields and got between their archers and the enemy, and it became twenty archers vs. more than a thousand men at each gate. When the enemy was a hundred yards away, several of the shield men moved to the sides, and their archers began firing. Two hundred men fired at the lieutenants forty. And so the battle became a duel of archers.

The lieutenant could tell that the enemy's bows were not as powerful as theirs because, at a hundred yards, it simply sunk into their shields instead of going all the way through them.

Despite the two hundred arrows being launched out, no one was injured. The shields held, arrows stuck in them or bounced off the shields, and the helmets. Some got stuck in armor but did not cause injury. Simply put, a hundred yards was not a good distance for those bows.

They continued firing volley after volley at the defenders, who shot back twenty arrows at a time. Both attackers and defenders had the same strategy. Fire your arrow, then duck behind the man holding the shield. Because the defenders had much better bows, they were taking out enemy after enemy. Granted, the lieutenant doubted any of them were killed, just momentarily hobbled. With luck, in a couple of weeks, they would die of infection or malaria, but that didn’t do them any good at this present time.

It was a distressing sight to see wounded men hobble back to their witchdoctors to be healed. The reality was that the witchdoctors knew a lot about how to use the plants of the forest to heal. Paul wouldn’t have believed it. He thought the only thing witchdoctors knew was how to turn plants into poison, but he forgot that many times poison is just over prescribed medicine. The lieutenant and his men could have shot at the fleeing men, but they wanted to buy time. Killing retreating enemies was not a good way to do that.

At seventy-five yards, another volley of two hundred arrows flew, and one arrow struck a soldier in the foot. The shields were only four foot long, and so it was inevitable that someone would get struck in the leg. The soldier began struggling to fire his bow because his stance was all messed up, so he took the shield from his protector, and his protector began shooting arrows at the enemy.

As the enemy reached twenty-five yards, the arrows started getting much deadlier. At this range, the arrows started getting accurate enough to bypass shields and hit men. Several men started falling due to headshots. And yet the enemy calmly replaced the dead men and continued moving forward.

Once they reached the wall, they had to keep going forward because the gate was built ten yards behind the edge of the wall. To get to the gate, they had to get between two walls filled with defenders. At this range, nearly every shot incapacitated or killed. But there were only eighteen defenders who could shoot them now. All others were too injured to shoot effectively, so they formed a shield wall.

When the attackers finally reached the gate, the shield men held shields out, and ax men stepped forward to break through the gate. The defenders were not surprised. Neither the defenders nor the attackers knew what a battering ram was. What they knew was that axes could cut through trees far faster than burning them down could, and so the attackers chose to use axes to chop through the outer gate.

There were ten archers on one side of the gate and eight on the other. They began firing in waves. One archer would shoot where he thought the shield man's arm was. If the arrow pierced the shield and arm, then the shield man would drop his arm and thus the shield exposing the axeman, who was then taken down by another archer. All the while, defenders were starting to get killed by the attacking archers. At this range, their arrows were easily piercing their shields. It would have been a total disaster if Paul had not upgraded the shields with metal bands to protect arms from piercing arrows.

The lieutenant could only pray for a miracle. It had only been a couple hours since dawn, and they were about ready to lose their first line of defense. They had to hold out for two or three days, but he did not see how they could do that with so many enemies.

About that time, one of the men sick with malaria came up and yelled out, “I am going to buy us time.”

The lieutenant yelled back, “We don’t need any more blood. We already have one corpse.”

The man said, “You grew up in Paul’s school. You don’t realize how superstitious these men are. If I am right, they will back off, giving you more time. If so, please watch out for my wife and children.”

The lieutenant turned away from the battle in confusion and said, “What are you going to do?”

The man smiled brightly, “I am going to curse them. And if what precious King Paul said about my blood is true, then it will be a real curse. And I am not the only one. All of us, malaria patients, agreed to this. “

The lieutenant just asked, “Agreed to what?”

The man ignored the lieutenant's question and took off his clothes and took out a knife and began cutting himself. Not deeply, just enough to get blood flowing all over his body. From his legs to his arms, to his torso, and finally his face, then he stepped forward into full view of the attackers and yelled out, “I CURSE YOU WITH MY BLOOD AND MY LIFE!”

At this moment, the attackers were hyper-alert. They had been getting shot at from both sides of the gate they were trying chop through. The archers were looking for targets, the shieldmen were protecting themselves and others, and the ax men were staying alert for when their shieldmen left them open. Although it was a battle, the only noise was the twangs of arrows, the thunks those arrows made either in shield or flesh, a few men screaming from wounds, and the noise the axes made as they beat on the gate. When the bloody man yelled on top of the wall at the gate, all of them looked and saw, and heard. Before the attackers could make sense of it, he jumped down onto the attackers. They were so packed that he got his infected blood on dozens of them.

The man, more or less, belly-flopped on a group of soldiers that had their shields over their heads. Several of them got broken arms, and one a broken neck. The attackers began freaking out, stabbing him and trying to get away from that man's blood and anyone who had that blood on them. They believed in curses from the bottom of their hearts. In fact, their witchdoctor warned them about a great curse that Paul was spreading throughout this land. How much greater was this curse of blood? They didn’t know.

The lieutenant and the archers took this chance to begin shooting into the attacking soldiers and started taking many of them out.

All around the village, similar scenes were happening. But the enemy started beating their drums hard, and it was clear the message they sent was to march forward. Some of the panicking warriors were cut down by their own chiefs, which brought discipline back to their ranks.

The lieutenant yelled out, “Shoot the ones who have the sense to kill their own men!”

The archers began shooting at those restoring order in their ranks, which caused them to stop restoring order. The problem was the men behind them marched forward, forcing them to push the panicking men forward. The ax men got back to work. Despite the sacrifice of the men with malaria, it only bought a few minutes.

The lieutenant saw that they finally chopped through the outer gate in places and started removing the firewood and lumber by hand, so he took a torch tossed it into the woodpile. As the flames started to rise, the men nearest the gate tried to get away from the fire, but the rest of the force pushed them into the flames. When the flames were twenty feet into the air, the drums started playing a retreat. Very few men died from the flames at the outer gate, but it bought them tome.

Over the next hour, the same scene played at every gate.

The lieutenant sent word, “When the enemy comes back and reaches the inner gate, retreat to the tower and set the village on fire as you go. I will set the barn on fire personally.

Chapter 23 June AD 82 Africa- Siege Warfare

After the fires at the gates stalled their attacks, the lieutenants of Elzo’s army called their men back and had the men eat while they waited for the fires to disperse.

Chief Omari had his men go to lunch, but he needed to talk to their warlord before he was calm enough to eat. It didn’t take Omari long to find Elzo as Elzo always hung out with the witchdoctors.

Omari's face was red with anger as he stomped over to Elzo, and his voice hissed out, “You told us the village walls would be made out of wood. That all we would have to do is march in close, and chop down the walls with our axes. When we get here, we find that the walls are all made out of stone and that the only wooden structure to cut down is the gates. We were so surprised by this we had to put off our assault for an hour so that the lieutenants could come up with a new plan and coordinate all four attacks.” Then Omari’s temper exploded as he yelled out, “ARE ANY MORE VILLAGES SURROUNDED BY STONE WALLS!?”

Elzo said, “You would be wise not to talk to me like that.”

Omari held his temper and said, “I made sure there were no warriors around to see me questioning you, just like in the village when we train. Your authority has not been undercut, but I need to know. I already lost four men today. Two died, and two others are too wounded to fight.”

Elzo raised his eyes and said, “You are extremely unlucky then because my lieutenants told me only fifty men have died so far, although about two hundred have been wounded. Most of those will be able to return to battle in a day or two.”

Omari shook his head and said, “Luck hand nothing to do with it. You're still punishing my village because some idiot killed the last chief.”

Elzo shook his head and said, “No. Although your losses were the largest, you know that you have had raids end worse than that. Many chiefs didn’t lose any of their soldiers at all. You just had poor luck.”

Omari wasn’t sure if he believed him or not but said, “You haven’t answered my original question. Are there more villages with stone walls?”

Elzo said, “Truth be told, I was surprised as well. The scout I sent out failed to mention the stone walls. But I don’t think there will be any others besides the capital.” Then Elzo pointed at the village and said, “Look at the stone wall. There is nothing protecting the archers. Look at the gate; there is no gatehouse above it. The wall is clearly unfinished. In contrast, I was told that the walls surrounding the capital are fifty feet high.”

Omari was shocked, and said, “If the walls are so high, then how are we ever going to defeat Paul?”

Elzo said, “We are going to draw him out to fight. If that doesn’t work, then this army will simply go to each village in Paulsland and destroy it. When Paul is down to one village, even if the wall is fifty-foot high, he will not be a threat anymore. If he is foolish enough to fight us away from his capital, then we will beat them and take his capital for our own. Paul’s villages will be our villages, his food will be our food, his wives will be our wives, and his children will be dead.”

Neither Elzo nor Omari were twenty yet and so they were convinced that they would win. Its why militaries love to recruit teenagers; they think they are invincible. Things would not be as easy as they think they will be. Their only saving grace is Paul’s military is just as green as theirs.

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Several hours later, the fires at the gates ran out of fuel to burn. None of the attackers ever thought about using ladders to climb the walls, which simply showed their utter inexperience. It was about an hour until sunset when they began marching for the gates once again.

Omari led from the back as a good chief should. It was his responsibility to make sure his warriors followed orders. The lieutenants gave those orders through banging on drums, and they received orders by Elzo banging on drums. If they had more complicated orders that they were not able to give by drums, they would have to send someone to explain them. That should not be a problem as they marched to the gate.

As they marched, Omari was happy to see that the archers on the wall were reduced greatly. It was a nightmare when there were forty soldiers shooting at them from over two hundred yards. Fortunately, at that distance, not many arrows made it through the shields. The problem was, the closer they got, the more dangerous the archers got. That said, the closer they got, the easier it was for his archers to hit their archers.

Three years ago, before Elzo came, they would never have thought about using shields to protect archers as the archer tried to kill the enemy archer, but now it was a pretty effective tactic. Problem was their enemy used the same tactic.

Omari watched as the archers had their duel, and the shieldmen on both sides kept the casualties low. Most injuries on the Omari’s side happened when an arrow went through the shield and the arm of the man holding it. Most injuries on the defender's side came when an archer got a lucky shot at someone's calf. This was by no means a quick battle because the injuries were only happening every few minutes, due to the effectiveness of the shield walls. Omari didn’t know it, but he was begging to come to the same conclusion about large full-size shields that most ancient militaries came too. They were awesome in part because they were super effective at stopping arrows.

When they reached the outer gate, it took little time to break through the crumbling wooden gate and make their way through the burning debris. The only problem was that they were getting pelted with arrows on both sides. This is where men on his side died. Omari didn’t pay attention to the deaths, though. He continually to yell out, “MOVE FORWARD! ONCE WE ARE IN THE VILLAGE, WE WILL KILL THEM!

As Omari and other Chief’s warriors made their way through the outer gate, they were surprised the stone wall continued forward, and that the Gate was not just one gate but three. The Gate system was designed as a T junction with two inner gates two the sides in the back.

Once Omari realized that he yelled out to his warriors, “GO LEFT! GO LEFT!”

Another chief yelled out the same orders. Several other chiefs yelled out, “GO RIGHT! GO, RIGHT!”

This was the brilliance of Elzo’s system. The lieutenants give broad orders with drums, but the chief gave more specific orders. The lieutenants were beating on the drums, move forward, but the chiefs could, when needed, give more specific directions.

If Paul had been there, he would have had his archers exclusively targeting the chiefs and the lieutenants. But the lieutenant in charge of defending this village was green, so he had his archers pelting the warriors at the front of the wave of soldiers, or had them picking off enemy archers. The greenness of both militaries led to many mistakes.

Omari was careful to stay out of the T junction of the gate. He was a chief, and therefore he was not expendable, and he did not trust any of his warriors to watch his back. He was happy to keep his shield between him and the archers. He was glad about his decision as he watched several warriors get taken down when they tried to use their shields to protect themselves from archers on one side of the T junction, just to be taken out by the archers on the other side because nobody protected their back.

Without a doubt, they were losing more men here in the thirty seconds of entering the T junction than they have lost in the rest of the battle.

Then something strange happened. As soon as the axmen started cutting into the gates at the end of the T Junction the archers, and the shieldmen protecting them, left, which allowed the axmen to chop into the gate without any interference. Omari knew he would have to charge in as soon as the gate was chopped open to guide his soldiers in killing the soldiers of this village. But he would run through that T junction as fast as he could because he was not comfortable leaving his back exposed for very long.

As the men were chopping into the gate, Omari was hyper-aware. This was a battlefield. He was looking for archers who could end his life if he had a moment of inattention. That’s when he noticed that there was smoke coming up from inside the village. It was already on fire! Omari came to the only logical conclusion and yelled out, “THE OTHER WARRIORS ALREADY GOT IN THROUGH ANOTHER GATE! HURRY UP AND BREAK THROUGH BEFORE THEY TAKE ALL THE SPOIL!”

At all four gates, similar things were yelled. Axmen redoubled their effort. Obviously, the battle was almost over if the village was already burning. They would never have imagined that the villagers would burn down their own village to keep them from getting any spoil. The thing was that most of the people in this village went to Paul’s school. They knew what it was like to be given a home, food, and supplies from outside of their village. Burning down the village was an expression of trust in Paul. Without being a part of the nation of Paulsland, they never would have burned their homes down, because it would mean a loss of everything. But they trusted their King would restore their loss.

As soon as the gate was broken enough to let men through, they scattered looking for loot because they assumed the battle was practically over. None of the chiefs or lieutenants tried to keep control of their men; it was a time for looting. Elzo did not give a signal for when someone breached the gate because he never imagined they would need it.

Imagine their shock as these men made ran around looking for loot only to be picked off by the archers on the stone tower. As these men broke through the four gates, the scene played out the same way over and over again. Men ran around looking for a building to loot, only to be killed by an arrow coming from one hundred and twenty feet up. Nearly a hundred men were killed because they got careless when they saw the fire.

The chiefs entering last saw the problem and called their men to them. Shields up to defend from the arrows, which were significantly deadlier without their shield walls protecting them.

Omari felt angry and confused as he yelled out, “Men keep your shields up, especially between us and that tower! Keep moving until we find a building that isn’t engulfed in flames!”

They were moving in a square formation—shieldmen on the outside, spearmen behind them, the archers, and the chief in the middle. The chief was in the middle because this was not the best time to be in the back, like when they were headed to the wall.

All throughout the village, the army began squeezing into the village, making square formations as they found out that there was still fighting to be done. None of the chiefs wanted to go after the stone tower yet since it's clear that’s where the soldiers are. They wanted to get some loot first!

That’s when Omari began to hear roars inside of one of the largest buildings. Next thing he knew, two elephants busted out of the building, on fire, hurt, terrified, and bursting through anything in its way, including the soldiers.

The two elephants went in two different directions. Omari thanked the spirits when they didn’t head his way, but he was in the perfect position to see when one of them went right through a square formation of another chief's troops.

The elephant charged right through the formation. The shields and spears didn’t even slow the elephant down. Omari would swear the elephant never even saw the warriors. Considering it was still on fire, it might not even have felt the crunch from crushing some of the men.

What Omari had no way of knowing was that Elephants had terrible eyesight, and this close to dusk, with all the flames around it, the elephant did not see any of the people. Part of the reason for the charge was that the elephant was on fire, but another part was that it had not been fed or watered all day, and it was in a desperate need for water. The only thing that it could see that didn’t have flames around it was the eastern gate, so it charged toward it, wrecking the soldier's formations. The other Elephant made the same reckless charge toward the northern gate.

Omari couldn’t help but think the elephant busting through the formations of hundreds of men looked impressive. The surprise attack only killed twenty-three men. But it actually ended up wounding three hundred soldiers to varying degrees and unnerved the entire army. Several of the chiefs in Elzo’s army still worshiped Elephants. To them, this was a bad omen.

While the men were recovering from the confusion the elephants brought, arrows continued to fly toward the soldiers, wiping out another sixty-three.

The lieutenants seeing the confusion and realizing night was upon them, sounded the withdrawal. After seeing the disaster that befell the chiefs years ago when they fought Paul at night, Elzo was utterly unwilling to fight at night. However, Elzo put several chiefs in charge of guarding the gates. Elzo did not want anyone escaping his siege.

Chapter 24 June AD 82 Africa- Panic

Paul and the researchers were frantically working on two things.

First of all, they were working on a way to disperse pyrethrum in the air. The research was very slow at first due to the small quantities of chrysanthemum available, but now that they got their first big chrysanthemum crop in, they were able to extract silos worth of pyrethrum. Extraction isn’t hard; just dry and crush up chrysanthemum flowers and put it in warm water, then filter the particles from the water. The pyrethrum is extremely water-soluble, so it will absorb into the water. Don’t boil the water; just let it dry. Before long, you have powdered pyrethrum. Every village near a river built water towers and grew chrysanthemums at the start of the dry season. Although they have not figured out a way to disperse it into the air, they have made a paste with the stuff that, once applied to the skin, instantly kills any bugs that touches it. Paul was already distributing it as fast as it could be made and sending word to every village that grew chrysanthemum explaining how to convert it into pyrethrum.

The second thing they were working on was identifying a bark or plant that had a negative effect on malaria, that didn’t also kill humans. Although they haven’t found anything effective against malaria, they did find a bark that looks to be aspirin. Now Paul just had to separate the aspirin part of the bark from everything else in the bark. But that project would be on hold until the malaria problem has passed.

Currently, due to the requirement that people stay in their village and keep it very clean, few people have gotten malaria. The smell from the herbs and flowers they grow keeps the mosquitos at bay. That said, men still have to work in the fields, and so most people who have caught malaria have been farmers. The other big group that caught it was the young men that came to man camp. Paul didn’t want to have it this year, but culture dictates the youths become men at twelve, and despite Paul’s authority, Paul could see how upset people were when he suggested postponing man camp. So on their trip to the capital, many young men got malaria and are now trying to survive it. Fortunately, once the fields of chrysanthemum bloomed, it was pretty safe to train them outside the capital walls, although it meant postponing man camp for a month.

With the pyrethrum paste, they were able to take the young men out in small batches to hold the line against warthogs and kill crocodiles. As they finished their training, they were being sent out to give pyrethrum to other villages.

So far, about twenty-five percent of the adults who get malaria died from it. About thirty-five percent of the kids who came to man camp and caught malaria have died from it. Of the younger children who have caught it, about fifty percent have died. Altogether across Paulsland, malaria has killed a few hundred people.

Paul did not want his soldiers or diplomats spreading malaria, so they were not out bringing new tribes into the fold. Paul had even called back his stepsons to help coordinate capturing jackals and monkeys so that they could test their various concoctions on animals before they tested it on humans.

In all this mess, Chazia and Gizela both gave birth to daughters who Paul called Florance and Nightingale.

Then Paul started his final marriage off on the wrong foot when everyone forgot Vanda’s birthday, and she showed up to the house and informed them that she was now fourteen, and in accordance with the treaty Paul made with her father, they were to be wed that night. She was the only wife since Chazia that did not get to be made up for her wedding.

Time passed swiftly as Paul dealt with national and personal matters until one morning, as Paul and his stepsons were going over a map trying to figure out where to go to get more test subjects, the gong started to sound.

Badru was confused and asked, “Are we under attack?”

Paul ignored the question and ran out and looked up at the communications tower. Whoever was up there was good and began to flash Morse code down to Paul, saying that Magharibi village was being attacked by thousands of men armed and armored like Paul’s soldiers.

Paul was stunned until Badru asked, “What’s going on?”

Paul said, “There are thousands of men attacking Magharibi village.”

Badru was stunned for a second and then said, “Our men have strong armor and weapons they should be able to fend off the enemy.”

Paul shook his head and said, “No. The message said they were armed like our soldiers.”

Shocked, Badru asked, “How could that happen?”

“I don’t know. Maybe its Rome, India, China, or some nation in Africa I never heard about growing up.”

“What are you talking about?”

“There are many nations in the world that are stronger than us. Much stronger than us. I just didn’t think we were near one.”

Badru asked, “What are we going to do?”

“We are not prepared to fight thousands, but we will do the best we can. But first, I must send some specific messages.”

With that, Paul ran to the communications tower made from stone. Once in, he ran to the door at the side of the room and began running up the stairs. The stone communications towers were made defensible, so the stairs were built along the curve of the wall up to the next level. They built a wall between the stairs and the room it was in with arrow slits, so if someone invaded, they could pelt them from the stairway as they tried to break through the door. Paul ran up eight flights of these stairs until he was at the top of the tower.

Once there, he said, “I am going to take over now. I have a lot of messages to send.”

First, he sent a message to Magharibi village telling them that before the enemy gets inside the village, make sure they set the village on fire and retreat into their own tower. They are not to try to use the elephants to fight the enemy. Keep them in their barn and right before the enemy breaches set the barn on fire. Paul knew that elephants could kill more of your own people than the enemy if they panic. It's one of the reasons why war elephants stopped being used. They are a liability in a battle.

With that message sent, Paul began sending messages to the surrounding villages. Every village east of Jiwi Mkuki village was to send their active and retired soldiers to Jiwi Mkuki village. They were to also send all their militia except for twenty men whose job was to guard their own village. They would also have to bring enough food supplies for a month.

As for the villages west of Jiwi Mkuki, they were to send their militia, active, and retired soldiers to the nearest village to them that are two villages away from Magharibi village. With the same amount of supplies. The villages that have roads directly connecting them to Magharibi are to put their soldiers on alert. If a small force comes for them, they are to defend. If a large force comes for them, they are to flee.

All villages that have pyrethrum are to bring it, and as soon as soldiers have access to it, they are to put it on their bodies. It's better in the paste form, but if they have to do it in the powder form, that’s okay too.

It took about a half an hour to send these orders out. Once done, Paul turned toward the soldier in charge of communications and asked, “Did any message come in from Magharibi while I was sending out messages?”

The soldier said, “Yes, sir.” And then began to read the message that described the army in more detail. Finally, he said something that really concerned Paul, “The attacking army seems to obey signals from drums. When the drumbeat changes, the army does different things.”

Paul’s heart fell when he heard that. Paul had no way to communicate with his military over a large field. His soldiers were trained to fight raiders. Even if they were outnumbered, their training and equipment would give them victory. But his soldiers did not have the training to fight together in groups of thousands. Paul thought fast, looked around, saw the warning gong on top of the tower, and said, “I need you to get help and take the gong down. Put it in a cart. We are going to take it with us when we go. We are taking it to battle with us.”

The soldier was confused, but knew to say, “Yes, sir.”

Paul was scrambling to get supplies together in a hurry. Every Ox in the village was being grabbed. They didn’t have enough carts for the oxen, so a lot of supplies were put on saddles. The whole thing was a mess. Paul’s military was not ready for this. They didn’t have a supply system, didn’t have a systematic way to move the supplies, and the soldiers did not have the tents to stay in when they were in the field. Most of the time, they fought in a place within a days walking distance from a village. Paul was utterly unprepared for this type of combat, and so he would have to change things if he survived.

Magharibi village was about eighty miles from them by road. Paul trained his men to be able to do forty-mile marches in a day. It was almost forty miles from the capital to Jiwi Mkuki village and another forty from there to Magharibi village. They would march all day to get to Jiwi Mkuki village, then another whole day of marching before they got to Magharibi village. The march wasn’t too big of a deal since the men were used to walking everywhere. To Paul’s knowledge, there wasn’t even a horse in this part of the world, and if Paul remembered correctly, it was because the tsetse flies were utter death to horses. Paul had a weird thought that maybe he should invent the bike. Either way, he was hoping that Magharibi village could hold out in their communications tower.

At this point, there were only three stone communications towers in the country, the one in the capital, the one in Magharibi village, and the one in Jiwi Mkuki village. But if they were going to be facing thousand man armies, they would need more fortifications like it.

Paul had these thoughts and a million others like them going through his mind as he was preparing his men to go. Paul had Eleven Hundred twelve-year-olds still in training to bring to Jiwi Mkuki village. The other villages from the east of Jiwi Mkuki village should be sending about a thousand active soldiers and another thousand retired soldiers, along with another eight hundred militia. There would be less militia since they were supposed to keep some for their own villages' personal defense.

What concerned Paul was how many of them would catch malaria before they could get pyrethrum. Although many villages had a supply of it, it had not gotten to every village yet. There were roads, but in a real way, the villages were self-sustaining. Having to rely on another village for a vital perishable supply was foreign to them, so a distribution network was something else Paul would have to develop.

Finally, about noon, when they were ready to leave, Paul talked to his stepson Dashiell and said, “I am going to leave you here with fifty soldiers to guard the capital. With the fifty-foot walls, that should be enough if anyone attacks. If a group of men tries to enter the city before the battle is over, let them in through the outer gate. Close it behind them and slaughter them the outer and inner gates.”

Dashiell was surprised and said, “Why?”

Paul said, “When bad things happen, they tend to happen in threes. We got malaria this year, and now we have an army at our doorstep. I suspect your uncle Abilio will make an appearance somewhere, and I would rather he not take my capital, as it would be very difficult to get him out if he did.”

Dashiell nodded in understanding and said, “Yes, Sir!”

With that, Paul marched off with his entire force behind him. To everyone, this force looked very impressive

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That night Misa tossed and turned in her sleep. She kept waking up, remembering things Paul had forgotten. About three in the morning, she got out of bed and went to the older girls' dorm and woke them up.

She told the girls, “Our men forgot to bring honey, vinegar, alcohol, thread, and needles. If they get injured, what are they going to do? Some of those men can do basic first aid, but we train for healing every day. The men brought flour with them, but who will make their bread? They need to fight. Girls grab your medical supplies, pots, pans, and whatever else you need. We are going to follow our men and help them.”

One of the girls asked, “But the men took every bag they could get their hands on to carry their supplies. How are we going to bring the things we need to bring.”

Misa thought about it for a second and said, “We will just have to wrap our supplies in cloth and sew straps on it and carry it that way.”

The girls nodded and got to work. As girls, they had to know how to make thread, and weave it into cloth. They all had cloth in various stages of the weaving project. Each one of these girls took down their cloth and began making packs as quickly as they could so they could carry the supplies their men would need.

After they were done, they found that they didn’t have enough cloth to make bags for all the girls, so the girls began going around and knocking on the doors around the capital, explaining to the women what they were doing, and before long, those women gladly gave cloth to the girls so those girls could bring supplies to help their men.

They were ready about the time the sun came up. When Misa led the women to the gate, Chazia came storming out and asked in an angry and confused voice, yelled out, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?”

Misa looked to her and said, “Paul didn’t bring any medical supplies with him, so I am bringing them. Along with the girls who are able to use those medical supplies.”

Chazia was upset and said, “You are a wife of the King. Your job is to stay here and raise children.” Chazia realized her mistake instantly when she said it, but it was too late.

Misa asked, “What children? So far, I am barren. Your job is to protect and raise the children of the King. My job until I have children is to help my husband to the best of my ability. The only way to do that is to go and help him and his men.”

Chazia asked, “What about these girls?”

Misa said, “What is the first duty of women?”

Chazia looked down and said, “To keep their family, village, and nation healthy.”

“That’s right. I nor these girls have a family here to keep healthy, so we must fulfill our duty as women and go to the battlefield and keep our nation healthy.”

Chazia looked very sad, then turned toward the gate and yelled out, “Dashiell, open up the gate for your aunt.”

Dashiell yelled out, “Yes, Ma’am.”

As the gate opened, Chazia walked over to Misa and gave her a hug and said, “I love you, sister. Don’t die.” Chazia wanted to say more, but tears were rolling down her face, and she could no longer talk.

With that, Misa and the girl left the capital. Anywhere else in the world, the women would have caused confusion, as these women all had heads held high like they were all nobles, but they carried heavy loads on their backs like servants, they had Naginata like soldiers and carried small axes on their hips like laborers, and they all had pyrethrum powder on their face and exposed skin, almost like the makeup a prostitute wore. In Paulsland, these were just normal brave women doing a job that needed doing.

Chapter 25 June AD 82 Africa- Storming The Tower

Omari and his warriors woke up before dawn, ate marched to the walls of the village, and waited for the sun to be up. Elzo had only put two lieutenants' worth of troops on sieging the tower, or about five hundred soldiers. Granted, Elzo had one lieutenant’s set of troops watch the gates until midnight, and another watch until he was relieved by these two new lieutenants relieved him.

The plan was to wait for Paul so they could wipe out his army, and once it was defeated, the villages would be defenseless, making raiding easy. They just had to wipe out this village first to force Paul into battle. Apparently, Paul was soft and would be upset about his villagers dying.

Five hundred troops waited at the gate until the sun was up, and once they were able to see, they began marching toward the tower. Elzo would not fight at night because of the victory Paul had several years ago in Jiwi Mkuki village. After seeing the Elephant rampage at sundown, Omari couldn’t disagree with Elzo’s assessment. It would have been a disaster if they attacked this village at night only to have those elephants rampaging through their lines when they couldn’t see what was going on.

The men came from all four gates. As they entered into the main gate, they were protected by the top of the T junction until they passed the two inner gates. As soon as they did, they began being pelted by arrows from the top of the tower. The shield wall made the arrows more or less ineffective. Every now and then, Omari heard a man scream from somewhere when an arrow got through, but out of five hundred men, only a handful were injured.

There were many archers in the group attacking the tower, but their arrows were ineffective as the tower had teeth on top that protected the defenders from Elzo’s men. They all reached the tower about the same time, only to be stymied by the fact that there was just one small door for the entire tower. To make matters worse, there were gaps at the top of the tower between the floor and the teeth protecting the archers allowing the archers to shoot directly down onto the attackers. If Omari knew that Paul called these murder holes, he would have to agree, as the angle was far more effective at killing men than shooting between the teeth of the tower. Although in the previous timeline, they were called Machicolations.

Once the warriors reached the tower, it took less than a minute to get the ax men to the wooden door, but as soon as the axmen took their first swing, several spouts above the door poured out boiling oil. The warriors around the door were either chopping into it or raising their shields, protecting the ax men from arrows. The shields protected them from the hot oil only as long as it took for the oil to find gaps in their shield. Then the boiling oil began finding skin and melting it. The warriors in pain dropped their shields, which allowed the boiling liquid still pouring from the tower to find their faces. The arches took advantage of this, and the lucky men were killed instantly.

Those not killed by the arrows could not run. They were crammed into this hell by five hundred of their fellow warriors. Those who could see what was happening tried to move back, but those who couldn’t pushed them forward. But the screams of the men were so terrifying that several of the chiefs moved forward to see what was happening. They hoped the screams came from their enemies. When the chiefs saw there men's skin melting, they called for an immediate retreat. They were losing men for no gain.

As they retreated, they did their best to keep the wounded men behind shield walls. The archers continuously fired on them, but once the shield walls reformed, the archers were ineffective. When they made it past the inner gate and passed the T junction, they counted their losses and found that they had lost fifty men. Omari could still hear some of them screaming around the tower. Apparently, someone got wise and didn’t put them out of their misery, although they were too injured to retreat. Another twenty-three were too injured to keep on fighting, and so they went to the witchdoctors for any healing they could offer.

As soon as his warriors were safe, Omari went to find his lieutenant. Omari was not the first chief to find him.

One chief was yelling at him, saying, “We can not take those kinds of losses. I lost more men from the boiling oil than I did from our battle all day yesterday.”

Another yelled out, “Why are we surrounding the tower when they only have the one door?”

The lieutenant said, “Fine, fine, your right. I will send one chief with his warriors at a time. When they break through the door, the rest of you charge the tower with your men.”

Omari yelled out, “How does that help us? They still have that boiling oil!”

Their lieutenant answered, “I sent word back to the main camp. Warlord Elzo will come up with a solution. I will need everyone to wait until his solution gets here. ”When that did not pacify the chiefs, the lieutenant reminded them, “You will get to be the first group of men in the tower, which means you get the loot first.”

That statement calmed them down as they waited for Elzo’s solution.

A couple of hours later, several men came carrying an ugly wooden roof on poles.

The Lieutenant said, “See, Elzo came through for us.” Then he pointed at one chief and told him, “Go forth to chop open the door of the tower.”

Omari watched in the distance as they made their way to the tower door, getting pelted by arrows that did nothing. The way the roof and its poles were set up allowed the warriors to make a shield wall all around the formation, with the roof protecting their heads. The thing worked so well that Omari wished they had some of those the day before when they broke into the village.

As the men finally reached the door, the ax man began chopping on the door. Next thing they knew, a yellow/orange substance was being poured out of the same holes the boiling oil came out of. Omari smiled as it did nothing but cover the roof and the ground around the men. Omari wondered what the stuff was as it looked just like sulfur.

Then someone shot a flaming arrow at it, and it caught fire. Then the roof caught fire as sulfur is very flammable. The men on the side started screaming as their clothes caught fire, and they tried to put it out. The axmen were not very disciplined, so they stopped trying to break through the door to help out their fellow warriors. Only for the warriors to realize the roof was getting hot, and toss it aside. When they did that, a stream of arrows came down at them. Several men died, others started running from the fire, and in their panic, they did not put up a shield wall, and so they were shot in the back.

Few of those men made it back; their chief was not one of the survivors.

Word was sent back to Elzo, and before long, several more roofs were made and brought out to them. This time the lieutenant sent out two groups of men. One to break through the door, the other to be a shield wall if the roof caught fire and the men had to run.

It took three more attempts, and it was afternoon when they finally broke through the door of the tower.

Immediately Omari and his men ran across the burned village to get into the tower. That’s where the loot was. Once inside, he was surprised to find no enemies waiting on him, but there were several dead bodies of his allies. Then an arrow came from the wall and barely missed his head. He immediately put his shield up.

It took Omari a minute to grasp what was going on. There was another door inside the tower, clearly leading to a staircase. The staircase went up along the wall, around the tower, but there was a wall separating the staircase from the first room of the tower, and it had slits in the wall so that the defenders could shoot anyone entering into the first floor. The staircase went around half the tower, so they were getting shot at from weird angles.

Omari didn’t care. He wanted the loot, and the bottom floor was bare. He ordered his men, “BREAK THROUGH THE DOOR!”

The axmen did their work as best as they could. The rest of the warriors shielded them, but due to the odd angles, they were getting injured, and to make things worse other warriors were cramming into the tower because even though the door was open, the archers at the top of the tower were still firing at the warriors. Their only place of supposed safety was inside the tower, which made the inside of the tower a great place for the archers to pick off the confused attackers.

As soon as the axmen broke through the door, men surged forward. At this point, the men are not waiting for their chiefs to give orders. The tower is too cramped for that. As the men made their way through the door, they were met by the spears of the archers who had been firing at them. The attackers were losing more men as they had poor footing and had to fight an uphill battle, but before long, they wiped out the defenders in the stairwell, and took their weapons, and iron helmets. Loot comes before anything else.

When they finally made it to the top of the stairs, they found another locked door. The axmen came forward to chop it down. It was great; it was the first time all day they hadn’t been attacked until a hole was made in the door, and a spear came through and gutted the axman.

The attackers immediately responded by putting their own spears through the door, but the defenders easily dodged it and ripped the spear out of the attacker's hand. The defenders were in a large room, whereas the attackers were in a cramped stairwell with stone walls on both sides. It took them nearly half an hour to break the door down, and when they did, they took heavy losses and had to retreat. They could only get one or two men through the door at a time, who would immediately be attacked by ten or fifteen men. The tower was a meat grinder.

Omari saw that their current plan wasn’t working. It would be insane to lose a thousand men to this tower before they fought Paul’s army, especially since it looked like Omari would be one of the men to do. Omari led his men back to the gate under fire from the tower to come up with a new plan.

When Omari got to the gate, his lieutenant, who never came close to the tower, yelled out, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING! GO BACK AND TAKE THAT TOWER!”

Omari yelled right back, “YOU FIRST! I WILL BE RIGHT BEHIND YOU!”

The other lieutenant with a better head on his shoulder yelled out, “Calm down. Calm down. What's wrong?”

Omari said, “To get up to the second level, we have to go up a narrow staircase, and when we get there, dozens of men are waiting for us in the next room. We can not get men in the room fast enough to fight them. As soon as a man tries to step into the room, he is stabbed by a dozen spears, and the doorway is so small for the next man to get in there, he has to move the first guy's body out of the way; when he does that, he is stabbed by a dozen spears.”

The lieutenants looked at each other, and one said, “I will find Elzo and ask what he wants us to do.”

The lieutenant jogged over to the main encampment and found Elzo and said, “Sir, we have a problem.”

Elzo asked, “What?”

The lieutenant said, “The men got up to the second floor, but the staircase is narrow, only allowing them up there one man at a time. When they reach the second floor, dozens of men attack him. What do you want us to do?”

Elzo face turned furious, and he screamed, “This is why I want to face Paul and his men out on the field! If we have to go through the defense of every village, we will lose all of our men.”

“So, do you want us to stop attacking the tower?”

Elzo looked a the lieutenant like he was the dumbest man on earth and said, “No. We can not afford that. When Paul comes, we can not have an enemy at our back, and that tower is filled with weapons we need.”

“But we can not just keep sending men to die without any gain. What do you want us to do?”

Elzo said, “Give me a minute to think.” Elzo put his hand to his chin and began trying to come up with a solution, and after about two minutes, he smiled and said, “Do you remember what Paul did when he wanted to capture bees.”

The lieutenant smiled and said, “He put smoke under the beehive.”

Elzo said, “Go grab a chief out of the camp and have his men cut down trees and then start a fire in the tower. When those villagers are coughing up smoke, they will be easy to beat. Do it quickly; we need to get that tower out of play.”

The lieutenant had a huge grin on his face as he yelled out, “Yes, sir!”

A few minutes later, the lieutenant was leading about fifty men with logs and firewood to the tower. Once he reached the gate, he yelled out, “FORM A SHIELD WALL FOR THESE MEN! WE ARE SETTING A FIRE INSIDE THE TOWER!”

Hundreds of soldiers lined up to shield the men carrying logs from shots fired from inside the tower. When they made their way in the tower, some archers shot at them from the stairwell, but they did little. The defenders knew better to go and fight the much larger force of enemies, but they watched in horror as the fire was lit. The defenders wanted to put out the fire, but the attackers guarded the fire until it was too large to put out, and they left, giving the smoke time to do its job.

The defenders wished they could get away from the smoke. It was worst in the second and third levels, but there were over four hundred people in the tower. There was no room for them to retreat to a higher level. To make matters worse, the flames heated up the floor, and the men on the second floor began getting hyperthermia. They did their best to weather the heat and smoke. They dipped rags in water and covered their face. They poured water over their bodies, but it wasn’t long before the second, and then the third floors were saunas.

After two hours, the fires finally died down, and Omari’s warriors came back. Elzo was pushing them to kill everyone in the tower before nightfall. They could not have those people at their back.

This time Omari’s soldiers had a very different time coming into the second floor. The defenders were exhausted from heat and lack of oxygen. When Omari’s men charged the second floor, a dozen spears met them, but there was no power behind their strikes. Once the defenders were pushed back far enough to let Omari’s men flood in, the fight was over. After all the soldiers on the second floor were killed, Omari, the warriors, and the other chiefs looted the corpses on the second floor, they kept the best for themselves and sent the rest to the army. The thinking was simple, share loot now so you can get more loot latter.

Once everything of value was taken, the ax men chopped open the door, and a fresh set of warriors made their way up to the third floor. On the third floor, the soldiers put up more of a fight, killing a couple of dozen warriors, but they were exhausted from the heat and smoke and so did not put up much of a fight. While they were looting, another group happily made their way past them. When they made their way to the fourth floor, they found nothing but women. When they saw the women, rape became their goal.

BUT everyone of these women had been trained by Paul and others to fight. As the men came in, the women's axes and knives came out. The men had lowered their spears and shields to grab hold of these women. That was the last thing those men ever did, as the women swarmed the men.

The men coming up from below heard the chaos. They had no idea that their foe was women. They came up the stairs full bore intending to get revenge on those who would dare kill their brothers in self-defense. But all of these warriors were stunned for a moment when they saw the women. Women fighting did not compute in their mind, and for these very well trained women, a moment's hesitation was enough for them to get a kill in.

It wasn’t long before exhaustion took hold of these women. Not due to the weight of the ax, but due to the heat and smoke. Elzo had been dead right on how effective smoke would be, as Paul did not plan a countermeasure for the strategy.

By now, none of the men had rape on their mind. Who would try to rape a woman who was covered in blood, guts, intestines, brains, and was actively trying to gut you like a fish? These women were warriors from a warrior culture, and they terrified these men.

As more and more warriors entered the tower, they plowed through the resistance. The archers that had been on top of the tower went down to the fifth floor. They had no choice, everyone beyond the fifth floor were children, and babies being taken care of by children. It was a dozen men against an army.

As the warriors finished killing the women on the fourth floor, they heard the drums play. It was about five o clock, and Paul’s army had finally appeared over the horizon. Their time was almost up. They had to finish killing the people in the tower before their armies clashed.

When Omari heard the drums, he knew he and his men needed to stop looting and get to killing. They need to concentrate their forces to face Paul instead of having two separate forces between the tower and army. They could come back at midnight and finish getting the arms and armor.

They raced up the stairs, past other warriors looting corpses of men and women until they reached the fifth floor. The dozen soldiers on the fifth floor did their best to stop the warriors, but they were beaten by numbers. As one warrior was impaled with a pig spear, another came past and stabbed the soldier. It wasn’t long before it was just warriors and screaming, crying, children.

Omari said, “We have to get to the top of the tower, cut down the children as you go.”

To get to the children, they had to fight through all the men and women of this village. Considering the trouble, they caused what greater joy could these warriors have than killing the children those annoying people tried protecting. They didn’t realize it, but it was to their own good fortune that they killed the children as they passed as any child over the age of five was armed with at least a knife. If they had gotten close, many of the children would have tried stabbing them.

The warriors made their way up until finally, they were on the roof. Once there, they were surprised at the number of children on top of the tower.

One of the warriors asked, “How will we signal that we took the tower.”

Omari thought about it for a second, grabbed a child, and threw him over the side. The child screamed on the way down, but the men laughed. They had a miserable time coming up the tower, and now it was time for payback. The children’s screams were music to their ears.

Omari said, “That should let our men know we are up here.” Then Omari looked toward the east and saw Paul's army in the distance spreading out. Omari smiled and said, “Why don’t we give them a show.” With that, Omari threw children over the side of the tower so that the army of Paulsland could see.

The men began grabbing the children who had no where to run and throwing them over the side and made a game out of it. One yelled, “Mine went the furthest.”

Omari, being chief, refused to be shown up by a warrior, so he grabbed a screaming, crying six-year-old girl with both arms, and ran toward the side of the tower, twisted his hips to throw her, and as he went to let go at the end of his run when he was furthest off balance the girl took a knife out of her shirt and stabbed him in the bicep. As he let go, she held on. As she went over the teeth of the tower, Chief Omari went with her.

The six-year-old girl made Chief Omari pay dearly for her life.

Chapter 26 June AD 82 Africa- Armies Clash

Paul got to Jiwi Mkuki village about two hours after the sun went down. Fortunately, the moon was out to light his way. He marched into the village with more than a thousand men. When they got in, there were another two thousand men that already made it to the village.

The old Jiwi Mkuki village had rooms for all these men thanks to the schoolhouse that went all the way along the wall, but since it was burned down two years ago, there was no roof for most of the soldiers to stay under. They were still constructing the stone walls, although the stone communications tower was completed a year ago. There was enough room to house the hundred or so lieutenants but not the three thousand soldiers, so every lieutenant chose to sleep outside with their men. The reason was because lieutenants were chosen mostly as teachers, and their willingness to lead from the front.

When King Paul showed up, nobody told him about the lack of housing. Instead, his men led him to the best house in the village and told him to “Rest.” Paul didn’t realize the housing problem; he simply went to bed and tossed and turned all night with the realization that they were going into a war they were ill-prepared for. His military had been set up to fight raiders, not an army containing thousands of men. Worse yet, Paul still didn’t know where this army came from. The only mercy Paul had that night was that he did not realize that he was sleeping with a roof over his head when his men were not.

The next day they marched to battle. They would make it to Magharibi village a couple of hours before nightfall, and so Paul expected at least a skirmish. The only thing that was better about this day than the day before is that all the men were able to put powdered pyrethrum on themselves. Paul hoped that in their rush to defend Paulsland, none of his men contracted malaria.

As they marched to battle, Paul talked with his lieutenants as they had to have a plan before they got there. Paul knew confusion could destroy an army as easily as the enemy.

The first group of lieutenants Paul called for were the lieutenants in charge of the quick response units. The quick response units job was to invade any village that raided any village in Paulsland. There were three quick response units, but only two were able to make it Jiwi Mkuki village. The third was standing guard over a village near Magharibi village. The quick response units had a hundred men each.

Paul told them, “Your units are the biggest in the military. Nearly every other lieutenant leads around thirty active-duty soldiers. Your units also have the most combat experience. When we march into battle, we will spread out across the field, and I will need your units to fight at the far ends of the army on the front line. When the enemy attacks, your job will be to keep them from flanking our army. When we attack them, your job is to try to flank theirs.”

The lieutenants looked confused and asked, “What do you mean by flanking.”

Paul’s heart fell. These were the most experienced men in his army, and they didn’t know what most eight-year old’s knew from the modern world. Granted, the eight-year-olds got their knowledge from video games.

Paul said, “Armies generally win by having more of their forces attacking your forces than you can attack their forces. Even if there's less of them, if they can have say, ten of their men attack five of our men at the same time they will win. Let's say there is a hundred of them, and two hundred of us, if they position themselves where in each conflict ten of their men are always fighting five of ours, then they will win.”

The lieutenants nodded, and so Paul continued, “Flanking an enemy is one way to make this happen. When two armies go out to fight, at first, they fight along a long line, but if an enemy can get around to one of the sides then they can attack them from the front and the side, allowing them to fight ten men to five men.”

Understanding came to the lieutenant's eyes, and they smiled despite the grimness of the situation. “Your job at the far ends of the army will be to keep the enemy from flanking the army. I do not know where this army came from, so you two are not allowed to flank the enemy until we know more.”

The lieutenants said with one voice, “YES, SIR!”

Then Paul called the lieutenants of the various villages over to him. There were about fifty. The lieutenants were directly in command of the soldiers and also in command of the sergeants who were in charge of the militia and retired soldiers. Depending on the village, the men they had varied greatly.

This was a difficult conversation to have because they were having it while they were marching as quickly as possible. It was one thing to talk to lieutenants while marching, but to talk to fifty was something else.

Paul yelled out as best as he could, “You will form your men up into formation. Each formation will be six men deep and ten men wide, so your formation will have to combine two units and have two lieutents. Your retired soldiers have the most experience, so their formation will be in the front. The active soldier's formations will form their formations behind them, and finally, the militia will form their formation in the rear and help guard the front two sets of formations with their bows. The front line will fight hard against the enemy. The second set of formations will fill in any gaps the enemy tries to go through as the archers continually fire arrows into the attacking army. The diplomats will go wherever they see an opportunity to strike. Any questions?”

Obviously, there were lots of questions, but an unexpected one reached Paul first. One of the soldiers that was still in training a day ago yelled out, “Let us go first.”

Paul and the lieutenants looked at him, confused, and Paul asked, “Why?”

The young man said, “All the retired soldiers have wives, and most have children. None of the active-duty soldiers do. If we die, women do not lose husbands, and children do not lose fathers. Most of us know what it's like to lose our father, and we do not wish that for the next generation.” The young soldiers in training nodded or shouted in agreement.

Paul was so stunned he stopped marching. These were not the twelve-year-old’s from his world whose parents were afraid of them seeing blood in a movie or video game. All of them had seen death and seen it often. And yet they would rather that they be put in harm's way, than a man who had a wife or child. Paul wanted to weep. What a cruel world he entered where a twelve-year-old would make that declaration. But he had to admit that in 1776 many of the young men who fought in the revolutionary war felt the same way. These child soldiers were heroes. Every one.

When Paul stopped marching, all those around him did so, and as soon as he composed himself, he yelled out, “WHY DID YOU STOP MARCHING? WE HAVE A BATTLE TO GET TOO!”

With that, he began marching and the rest with him, and he said, “The young man is right. Put the active-duty soldiers in the front lines, followed by the retired soldiers, and finally the militia.”

As they continued to march, Paul began passing out more specific duties to his various lieutenants and sergeants, but the reality was his army needed a rank between King and Lieutenants. Paul only had three men in charge of a hundred men, but nobody was in charge of hundreds. Nearly every leader was only in charge of about thirty men, and every leader was under Paul's direct command, with no leadership in between. Paul felt that adding in those men now would do more harm than good at this point.

After ten hours of marching, they finally made it to the last hill before they could see Magharibi village. Paul sent soldiers forward to scout the way simply because it would be a terrible end for his army if the attacking army was waiting for them over the ridge, and they stumbled into it.

They ran back and told Paul, “The attacking army is on the far end of Magharibi village, but the communications tower is covered in smoke.”

When Paul heard the news, he hurried to the top of the hill with his men and looked on with his telescope. He tried to signal them, but the tower did not answer. Paul knew the fighting must be fierce if they didn’t leave any men behind to signal the army. The only thing that set Paul’s heart slightly at ease was that Paul could see the children moving on top of the tower. There were still people to rescue and save.

Paul yelled out, “Men hurry and form up as I told you, there are still people to save from the tower!”

As the men crossed the hill and formed up, Paul began hearing drums from the far the enemies camp, and Paul watched as the men in that camp formed up in eighteen distinct squares and began marching forward. There were thousands of them, and they went from rest to ready to formation in less time than it was taking his men to get into their formations. This greatly bothered Paul.

As his men were still getting into their formation, Paul could see adults on top of the tower. He told some of his men, “Try to communicate with those men on top of the tower.”

As they held their telescopes and flashed signs at the tower, they watched in horror as one of the men picked up a child and tossed them over the side of the tower. Then they watched as several more men began tossing children off the sides of the tower. It was the first time Paul wished the lenses had not been improved as he could see the joy on the men's faces as they threw the children to their deaths.

Paul hissed at his commanders, “Memorize those men’s faces; if they are captured, their deaths will give witchdoctors nightmares!”

As the men watched in horror and hate, they were surprised to see one of the children somehow drag her murderer over the side of the tower with her.

Paul called out with pride and grief in his voice, “One of our Children killed their warrior.”

By now, the warriors could see children being thrown over the side of the tower. The people they were there to save. It was breaking the morale of the army, until someone started chanting, “Our children are taking their warriors with them.”

The men quickly caught on, that yes, the men, women, and children they were there to save were dying, but even the children were killing the enemy warriors. One of their child’s lives was worth a fully trained warrior's life. The trade was bitter, but worth it.

One by one, the men in the army began to chant, “Our children are taking their warriors with them.”

Before long, all across the field of battle, the chant could be heard, “Our children are taking their warriors with them!”

The chant encouraged the soldiers that they should quickly be able to beat this enemy, and so about an hour before dark, the armies clashed. From Paul’s position, it looked like several squares were blocked by several rectangles. It didn’t take long for Paul to get worried. The enemy was outmaneuvering his army. It was those stupid drums. Every time the beat changed, the enemy formation changed its movement. Sometimes the beat changed, and only one block in the army changed. It was obvious to Paul that this army was much more ready for a large scale battle than his own.

When the two armies marched out to face one another, there was a time where there was a great pause, where neither side moved. Paul knew why his side paused. Each individual man in the army had to come to terms with marching into a mass of men who wanted them dead. Paul didn’t understand why the other army paused. With their superior mobility, surely, they have faced several militaries before.

When the armies stepped forward to clash, Paul hardened his heart and watched dispassionately through his telescope. He had to watch the battle with cold hard logic. He saw young men fighting in stances and in ways that did not work well when you were surrounded by men. Before them, a wall of men with shields stymied their forward momentum. They had to be wary of swords slipping through shield walls from the first line of men, and spears from the second and third line of men. While the men to their side stymied their lateral movement, and yet they had to protect their brothers in arms from an attack, they may not be able to see while attacking their opponents together. All the while, they could not move back because the men behind were shoring up their attack with spears and arrows. One of the things that surprised Paul was how dangerous of a position the second row was. Paul watched as a swordsman saw an attack coming, dodged it, and the spearman saw the attack too late. Even though the spearman behind him saw the attack, they just didn’t have time to move.

That didn’t begin to express how dangerous of a job the front line was. Each of his soldiers had nine men able to attack them at every moment. Three swordsmen, the one directly in front of them, and the two to his side. Then The next two rows of spearmen were also able to stab him with their spears. Three spearmen in the first two rows behind the swordsman. It got worse from there if they were flanked. Then the men at the corners had eighteen men able to attack them at once. The only good thing was that as long as they were not flanked, his men were able to help defend each other.

Paul realized he would have to dramatically adjust how he trained his men to prepare them for this type of meat grinder. His men were trained to fight raiders, not an army of men standing behind shield walls, doing mass attacks on one individual at a time.

Worse yet, the spears his men were using had wings on them and were getting stopped easily by the shield walls. Some of his quicker soldiers started using the wing part of their spears like a halberd, where they lifted it over the shields and brought it down like a hammer to pierce the enemy's heads. The only problem was they had helmets, and so the spears were not effective. Once this skirmish was over, Paul would have to have his men remove the wings from their spears because theirs was doing little across the battlefield, whereas the enemy was causing a lot of casualties.

It wasn’t all bad, though. Many of his soldiers had been learning to fight since they were six and picked up a few things. They were able to dodge and block more effectively than the attacking army. They knew little tricks to open up gaps like bumping knees, stomping toes, how to block with a sword, and go for a pommel strike. Some of the men were able to grasp the art of the pig spear and snake the spear through gaps in the enemy's shields, then use the wings of the spear to cut throats. The problem was that overall their spearmen were much more effective than Paul’s.

Paul was just thankful that he set up his army in several lines, because every time the enemy tried to flank a group of his men, the second line would come in and stop them. Paul was thrilled to see that his archers were much better than the enemy archers; it was the bright spot of this battle. As night started to fall, the enemy army disengaged, and so did Paul's. It was a prudent course of action as it was common throughout history for an army to fight itself at night in confusion.

Paulsland lost more than the attacking army, and they had one night to adjust.

Chapter 27 June AD 82 Africa-Battle of Two Green Armies

Paul never expected to face a large army in his lifetime. He was thousands of miles from Rome, India, Persia, China, and thought he was safe. That’s why the only spears they had were the pig spears. They were perfect for fighting animals and raiders, but they were awful for fighting large, well-armed armies. The previous day they only fought for two hours with them, and that was disastrous. If they had to fight an entire twelve hours with them, it would have decimated the army. Overnight Paul’s army broke the wings off of most of the spears, except for those who had the touch get their pig spears through the gaps in the shields and use the wings to injure and kill their enemies.

The lieutenants were instructed to reform their lines, six men deep. The front of the line was made up of swordsmen with shields. The next four lines were spearmen, and the last line was bowmen. The last two lines of spearmen were not to point their spears at the enemy but instead hold their spears parallel to their line giving the bowmen a place to stand and shoot their bows. The last two lines of spearmen had pairs of spearmen holding their spears so that the bowmen could climb up and have firm footing, one foot ahead and one foot behind, as just one line of spears would not give them the footwork necessary to fire their longbows. The archers were to shoot the second and third lines of the enemy. The front line of the enemy was to be taken care of by the swordsmen and the two lines of spearmen behind them.

This wasn’t anything new, but with so many men attacking the line, they did not get a chance to pull it off in the previous evenings one hour of fighting. Paul hoped it would surprise the enemy.

As for the militia, which was exclusively archers, they would take ox carts into battle filled with arrows. Paul’s plan was for them to constantly shoot at the enemy all day. The only problem with the arrows was that most of them were stone-tipped, but regardless if they hit human skin, they would penetrate.

The retired soldier's job was to keep the enemy from flanking the active-duty soldiers, and also to keep the enemy away from the archers. If they had to make a decision between protecting active-duty soldiers or the militia, they were to protect the militia first as they were more exposed.

The diplomatic corps job was to do whatever they felt was necessary. Paul wanted them moving around the battlefield because they looked special. All the diplomats were wonderful archers as a requirement to be in the diplomatic core was to have killed an elephant. The men had to leave their Ivory staffs back in Jiwi Mkuki, and they lacked spears but having a clearly different enemy wondering the battlefield shooting powerful arrows at you randomly and perhaps even showing up and fighting with sword and shield here and there could confuse the enemy. Paul really hoped he didn’t lose the diplomatic core, it took forever for them to learn the foreign languages, and he didn’t want to wait another year for new people to learn them.

Over the night, those too wounded to take part in the battle but healthy enough to work went to work cooking and preparing tea for the upcoming battle. In the morning, an hour before first light, the army made its way through the meal line, grabbed some food to eat, filled their water skins with tea, and formed up.

As the sun came up, they marched over the ridge and toward the burned up husk of Magharibi village. As they marched, they saw the enemy also marching. It grieved Paul to see how much better the enemy was maneuvering their forces. He knew he was going to lose a lot of good men this day. Paul just wished he knew who he was fighting.

Paul was watching from the crest of the hill. If he had been whole, he would have been tempted to lead his men into battle, but with his wounded arm, he did not have the strength necessary to fight with a sword. Sure he could swing it around, but the power needed to strike an enemy dead in battle was gone. Instead, he stood in back with those too wounded to fight. He would bang the gong to give them simple instructions, but for complicated things, he gave messages to his wounded men to run and give instructions to the various lieutenants and sergeants.

The only thing that made Paul happy was that the enemy army didn’t have horses. Granted, that didn’t surprise Paul much since one of the few nuggets of information he remembered from the modern world was that as devastating as tsetse flies were to humans, they absolutely decimated horses. Nobody was ever able to keep horses in parts of Africa with tsetse flies. With an army at Paul’s doorstep, Paul planned on reaching the coast and trading for horses. He needed to see if putting constant coats of pyrethrum on horses would keep them alive. If so, conquering the savannas of Africa would be easy. Even if someone got a few of their horses without pyrethrum, they would soon die.

But that was for the future. Now Paul needed to make sure they still had one.

Paul watched as the two armies marched toward one another. His side was shooting arrows as soon as the enemy was in range. Their side maneuvered to take advantage of gaps in Paul’s formation. It was frustrating to watch because the enemy's army moved as one with the beat of drums, while his army adjusted like a drunk man trying to walk a straight line.

When the two armies met for their first clash, Paul could see a huge difference from the day before. The spears without the wings were slipping through gaps in the shield wall, giving the enemy pause that they did not have the previous day. Then the last two rows of the front line of Paul’s armies lifted up archers and shot into the enemy lines to devastating effect, but almost as if they were expecting it, the enemy archers opened fire on them. Waves of Paul’s archers were shot. If they were not killed outrightly, then they were too wounded to continue fighting.

Paul was despondent at that turn of events. Paul had gotten the idea of lifting archers from the tv show Vikings. Maybe they had gotten the idea from a common battle tactic at this time. It just mortified Paul that they were able to adjust so quickly.

As Paul thought that, the militia in the third line of the battlefield responded with their own arrows and were able to decimate the enemies archers. The archers were vulnerable because the shield wall had to open up so that the enemy archers could shoot Paul’s archers standing on the spear shafts.

Paul’s soldiers came out ahead on this exchange, but it was a devastating exchange for both sides. The enemy banged their drums, and the army responded by pulling back. Paul banged the gong ordering the same maneuver. All the while, the militia continued doing their job of shooting at the enemy until they were out of range.

Paul had to admit he loved his longbowmen. They were not as effective as he had hoped, as shield walls were amazing at stopping their arrows, but if the enemy wanted to back off and get a breather, they had to go back over two hundred yards. This bought Paul’s armies precious time. The longbowmen’s job was clearly suppression.

Throughout the rest of the day were more clashes. The enemies superior maneuverability meant they continually got the better of Paul’s army all day long, except for one notable exchange.

When one too many holes opened up in the frontline formation, and one block of the enemy moved forward to take advantage of the hole, it looked like Paul’s army would have to withdraw to the ridge. The diplomatic core took that moment to act. Paul’s heart fell as they didn’t have any spears, and about half the core was militia, not trained as soldiers. But then, too, Paul’s shock with just bows they stopped the enemies block formation cold.

The core’s front line got on their knee and shot their arrows at the enemies’ shins, while the second line shot their arrows as the enemies' faces. The enemy naturally raised their shields to protect their faces, but the men on their front line had their legs wrecked. This caused a lot of confusion among that block of enemy soldiers giving time for the front line to reform.

At the end of the day, Paul felt that the battle was a disaster. His front line continually had holes put into their defenses, the second line filled with retired troops moved around all day filling in the gaps, and the militia in the third line fired arrows all day long, and they were almost out of arrows.

Part of the issue is that Paul’s troops just didn’t have the communications needed to exploit holes in the enemy's lines when they opened up. Because Paul was overseeing the army from the ridge, he could easily see things the troops on the ground largely couldn’t see. With no way to quickly communicate, opportunities were lost over and over again. Another part of the problem was that Paul didn’t know who he was fighting; this caused a lot of hesitation.

When evening came the two armies broke apart. Paul’s front lines were utterly exhausted. It had been an issue all day with both armies. The men who fought in the front were stuck there in the crush of battle. That said since both frontlines were more or less stuck until someone signaled for the entire block of soldiers to move it meant that the battle more or less stalled all day. Paul couldn’t understand why an army that large was just as green as his.

When Paul got back to the camp, he was shocked to see young women there tending to the wounded and cooking a meal for the men.

Paul turned toward one of the young men and, with frustration in his voice, asked, “When did these women get here? Where did they come from?”

The young man recoiled in fear and said, “They got here a couple of hours ago. I thought you knew because Misa led them.”

Paul frowned and said, “Take me to Misa. And young man, spread the word next time there is a change to the status of our camp. I need to be the first to know, not the last.”

“YES, SIR!”

Paul followed the young man to a lean too inside the walls of the camp with wounded men inside, and young women tending to them.

When Paul got inside, he saw Misa and yelled out, “MISA! What’s going on?”

Misa turned toward her husband and said, “I came because I thought your men would need healing and that the girls could cook better than your soldiers.”

Paul shook his head and said, “Misa, I needed to know you were coming. If we had to withdraw, this surprise would have slowed us down.”

Misa gave her husband a stern look and said, “If we had told you we were coming, would you have let us come?”

Paul shook his head and said, “You know the answer to that. It's dangerous out here. This army is showing no quarter. Last night just after we crossed the ridge, the enemy began throwing children off the top of the communications tower. They are here for blood and want us to know it.”

Misa gasped. If her father had heard the story, he wouldn’t have been surprised at all, but Paul’s softness had rubbed off on his wives. The reality was that in history, killing your enemy's children after you killed your enemy, genocide, was often called pulling the problem out by the root. If you killed your enemy's children, then there was no one to get revenge on you.

Paul continued, “If they are willing to kill everyone in that village, you are not safe.”

Misa said, “But the men you trained are strong.”

Paul shook his head and said, “We were able to hold them back today, but now after a day of fighting, we are running low on arrows. Our archers are easily better than theirs, but their army as a whole outmaneuvered ours. I haven’t trained our men to maneuver as well, and so tomorrow will be a bloody mess, especially with our archers running low on arrows. They will be able to get away with things tomorrow that they couldn’t get away with today.”

Misa looked at Paul, confused, and asked, “Don’t you have more men?”

Paul nodded and said, “Yes. We have a thousand men in each of the three villages connected to Magharibi. The problem is that I keep expecting some of the enemy forces to go for either the village to the north or south of Magharibi. We, as men, have a duty to protect those villages, so I can not strip them of their defenses. In all honesty, I am surprised that this army hasn’t sent raiding forces deeper into our territory. It would force me to divide up my soldiers if they did.”

Misa said, “Well, maybe they haven’t split up their army because they are just as new to this as you are.”

Paul shook his head and said, “Those men have armor and iron weapons. No way they are new at this.”

“Your army is new, and it has armor and iron weapons.”

“But that’s different. I knew the secrets to making iron, and how to find some ground with iron in it pretty easily in this part of the world, especially since nobody has ever mined it here.”

“But husband, how many years have you been teaching those secrets to everyone who would listen? And how many of those people have gone off never to be heard from again?”

Her words seriously bothered Paul, he thought about it for a minute, and a thought struck him hard, and he said: “No, it couldn’t be.”

Misa looked puzzled for a minute and asked, “What couldn’t be.”

“Elzo was trained as a blacksmith. But he has only been gone for two years. There's no way that he or his little traitorous group could put an army together.”

“Maybe Elzo didn’t have too. I have heard stories of powerful chiefs like you who forced several villages to follow their rule. Maybe Elzo stumbled on one of them, and outfitted their army.”

Paul nodded and said, “That would explain a few things. I did train Elzo and his group of traitors. Adding in drums to guide the army around is ingenious, but I know of armies where I came from that did similar things. I wonder if they got the idea from me, or just figured it out on their own. It would explain why the attacking army is making a lot of small mistakes.”

Misa said, “If they are making a lot of small mistakes, why are you losing.”

Paul said, “My army is making more mistakes because my men haven’t been trained to maneuver at this scale. But the mistakes their army has made deals with not sending out scouts or raiding parties. They are overly reliant on their numbers without realizing it's their maneuvering that is overwhelming my forces right now.”

“Is there anything you can do to outmaneuver them?”

Paul’s face turned grim as he said, “If this is really Elzo’s army, and they are as green as ours, I can outmaneuver them, but it will be a big risk. Its something I have been thinking about doing all day, but it's very dangerous.”

“What?”

“Withdrawing our army up the road, and having the two thousand men from the north and south villages come in behind them when they follow us. The only problem is that if I do that, I am fully committing most of the men in the nation to a battle. If it turns bad, Paulsland is dead. This maneuver is a great risk to our survival.”

Misa asked, “What's the alternative?”

Paul frowned, “The same thing but slower.

Chapter 28 June 82 AD Africa- Macro Maneuvers

Paul called in his lieutenants and sergeants and said, “Our plan for the battle tomorrow is to lose.”

There were gasps of confusion, silent curses, and questioning looks across their faces. His stepson Badru was the first to speak, “Father, what are you talking about?”

“Today on the battlefield, they outmaneuvered our army at every turn. If it wasn’t for the archery of our militia, they would have crushed us. Tomorrow our archers are going to run out of arrows well before noon. When they do, we will have to fall back. We are going to lose the battle of Magharibi. It's my fault. I did not think we would face such a large group of well-armed and trained enemies. I should have trained and prepared all of you better, and if we survive this, I will.”

One of the sergeants asked, “Then why not leave tonight?”

Paul smiled and said, “Losing a battle doesn’t mean we lost the war. I want us to lose the battle of Magharibi in such a way that we crush our enemies.”

Someone said, “What?”

“To put it simply, they are out maneuvering us on this battlefield, so there is no way for us to win the battle here, so we are going to battle where we can win. If it wasn’t for the quick thinking and leadership of every one of you, we would have already lost this battle. Thank you for showing courage. In the coming months, the active-duty army will learn to maneuver with drums, horns, and gongs. We will not be caught so badly off guard again. But that doesn’t help us today. What does help us today is that the villages north and south of Magharibi village have a thousand soldiers each. I will send them a message tonight telling them to have their entire army in Magharibi village at noon tomorrow, and then from there travel to Salama village. We should be able to pincer our enemies between our two armies.”

Paul felt bad at his failure of micro communications across a battlefield, but thankfully he had macro communications across his nation. Paul spent the next hour explaining to his leaders how they were going to defeat the enemy by losing in a very specific way.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

As the sun came up, Elzo was excited. Very soon, he would finally get ahold of that albino and skin him. Elzo looked across the battlefield to the hill that the albino's army was coming down to fight them once again.

Elzo banged drums, and his men very quickly got into their twenty squares. Each square was supposed to hold five villages' worth of men, although some had been hurt more than others. It didn’t matter; it just meant more loot for the survivors. After his men looted that cursed stone tower and brought back iron ingots, weapons, and tools, not to mention new spices and various other goods, the entire army got excited about the plunder they would get once Paul’s army was defeated.

Morale was high after the previous day’s battle. The albino’s army barely held together, and that was with all those archers raining down arrows on Elzo’s men. The thing was that they could see the ox carts that held the arrows. At the start of the day, those Ox carts were full of arrows; at the end, they were almost empty.

Either today or tomorrow would be the end of the albino’s army and the start of Elzo’s looting.

Elzo watched as his soldiers marched to the battlefield, and each block moved independently according to the beat each lieutenant played on their drums. Elzo was expecting some sort of surprise from Paul’s army but was disappointed when nothing new happened when the two armies met. Perhaps the best Paul could do was have his spearmen lift up his archers and shoot at the second row of spearmen. That wasn’t a surprise to Elzo, as Elzo was trained in that maneuver himself when he was in Paul’s army, but it was shocking to see how effective it was at the beginning of a battle. If Elzo hadn’t told his archers to look for that specifically, it really could have devastated them.

That’s the difference between Elzo and Paul. Elzo knew all of Paul’s tricks, but Paul didn’t know any of Elzo’s tricks.

After half an hour of fighting, Elzo banged his drums, and his front blocks did what they were supposed to; several went left, and several more went right, forcing the albino’s army to move left and right. The block directly behind the first row of blocks moved forward, trying to split the middle, only to have Paul’s second line step in and stop the charge.

Elzo was irritated. If only the archers would stop constantly firing, then his men could move fast enough to shoot the gap, flanking his enemy and causing real damage to the albino’s army. In the scant two years, he had to train his men, he only had time to train them up in eighty-pound bows. Sure some could shoot a hundred and twenty-pound bow a handful of times, but the albino's archers could shoot them all day. But once those archers were out of ammo, the battle would practically be over.

As the morning passed, Elzo got more and more frustrated. His army moved smoothly, while the albino's army moved like a sick duck. Then the arrows started to thin out, then they turned to a trickle, and then all across the battlefield, they stopped. The albino was finally out of arrows. Elzo took out his drum and banged on it for his troops to charge.

As they surged forward, Paul’s troops retreated. But they retreated orderly. Shields up, spears held out. Sometimes the rear line stepped forward if the front line was getting breached, but the entire time the army as a whole moved back.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Usually, an army on its backfoot would be overrun by the attacking forces, but on an individual level, all of Paul’s soldiers were very well trained, especially in footwork. Plus, they had the advantage of backing up on a hill. No doubt, this retreat would cause many lives, but the retreat was very well executed.

The militia made their way to the crest of the hill as quickly as they could, then they made their way up the road. The problem was that the road went from a large field to a forest, and they were squeezing almost a thousand men into the narrow gap the road made into the forest. The frontline soldiers knew it would take time, and so they fought to hold their position as well as they could as hundreds of men made their retreat along the narrow road in the midst of Paulsland’s tropical forest.

When the archers had finally made their way onto the road and were no longer squeezing through the bottleneck, a gong sounded, and the second line began making their way to and through the bottleneck as quickly as possible.

Elzo’s army got excited as they saw the second line disappear over the crest of the hill and fought the more fiercely. They knew that once this army was gone, they would be able to rob, rape, and pillage to their heart's content. Within a few minutes, the front line of Paul’s army was pushed back to the crest of the hill.

The chiefs cried out encouragement to their troops, “Push them over the hill, and the battle is ours! PUSH THEM PUSH THEM PUSH THEM!”

Elzo’s army fought all the more frantically as victory was in sight.

Paul’s army held them back as best they could. Then a gong sounded, signaling that the second line, the retired soldiers, had safely made it through the bottleneck in the road. With that gong, the front line moved as one to push Elzo’s army back. That push caused the front lines in Elzo’s army back a step and caused a surprising pause in the midst of battle. The chiefs feared for a moment that they would take advantage of the pause to charge forward and cause commotion on the hill, only to be surprised when Paul’s army turned, ran, and scattered into the forest.

The turn so shocked Elzo’s army that they paused for three seconds before someone on the front lines began running after them. This one-man caused a wave of men to follow.

Elzo was surprised when he saw Paul’s army run away. When he saw his army break formation to run after them, he almost panicked. He began frantically beating a message on the drum to hold formation until he could give further orders. There was no prearranged drum beat that said, “Don’t follow our enemies into the forest.”

Elzo ran to the crest of the hill and looked out, and was very pleased with what he saw. His soldiers held their formation while hundreds of the albino's men scattered into the woods, and the rest of the albino’s army was running up the road.

Elzo quickly found his lieutenants and told them, “Have your men follow the albino’s army up the road.”

One of the lieutenants asked, “What about the men scattering into the forest?”

“Don’t worry about them. If we can crush the army's main force and capture the albino, then we can raid the rest of Paulsland as we see fit. Besides, to chase after the dregs that ran into the forest would be a bad idea. We would have to split up our units to just chief-sized raiding parties, and at that size the Albino’s troops would fare much better. We trained to counter the Albino’s army. He trains all his soldiers to deal with small raiding parties, not massive forces like we brought. We need to stick to our strengths.”

The lieutenants nodded, went to their units, let the chiefs know what was going on, and fairly quickly began following Paul’s army down the road.

Paul’s army passed bridges and hills that could serve as bottlenecks, but there was one that was particularly suited to this battle. About halfway between the villages, the road wound its way between a stream on one side and a cliff on the other. For maybe a quarter of a mile, it was cliff and stream before it flared back out into normal forest. Paul’s army stopped there and waited for Elzo’s army. They were able to put a lot more men at that bottleneck than Elzo could get up the road.

As soon as Elzo’s troops saw Paul’s troops, they charged. Why wouldn’t they? So far, they had fought better than Paul’s troops. Unfortunately for them, because of how this bottleneck worked, Paul’s soldiers were able to put many more men on the line than Elzo’s army.

The lieutenants that were supposed to be commanding these troops couldn’t see a thing, and Elzo was, of course, safely in the back of a half-mile line of warriors. He was pretty upset when the line stopped suddenly, and the longer the line was stopped, the more upset he got.

About this time, the two, thousand man armies from the villages north and south of Magharibi reached Magharibi. The only people in Elzo’s army that were still there were wounded men and the witchdoctors taking care of them. As soon as the witchdoctors saw the large armies, they ran away. The warriors who were not severely wounded followed suit. The two armies ignored Elzo’s camp. They had bigger fish to fry, and they were on a schedule.

Forty minutes after they met at Magharibi village, they saw the back of Elzo’s army. When they saw them, they began beating a gong. When the gong began to be beaten, Elzo took notice of the army. He didn’t know what to do. He did not have a message to beat on his drums, telling his men to fight an enemy on one side of the road and one on another. He was stunned.

At the same time, Archers began leaning over the cliff and shooting into Elzo’s army, many of whom had gotten lax and not held shields over their heads because it had been hours since an archer shot at them. This caused mass devastation along the lines of Elzo’s army. When Paul’s men saw the confusion and devastation from the archer's shots, they began charging forward.

The lieutenants all up and down the line began playing drums saying they are being ambushed. Elzo had no choice; he had to save his army. He took out his drum and played a tune that said, Scatter in all directions, and returns to the rallying point.

To Paul’s utter shock and no one else's, Elzo’s entire army broke apart and ran headlong into the forest beyond the stream. To the rest of Paul's army, this move was logical. They had their enemy trapped, so like a school of fish or a herd of antelope, everyone scattered in different directions, and the guy who gets caught gets caught, but since they scatter, most will survive.

But there were losses. As these men made a mad scramble to cross the stream, there were men taken down by crocodiles in one part, and in another part, hippos took them down. But out of three thousand five hundred and eighty-six men, losing just five to animals in the river was nothing.

Dozens more were killed by the two armies that came in from the rear.

What really caused mass casualties were the young men spread across the forest. Their training dictated teams between four and ten men, to take on forces triple their own at worst. They were trained significantly to take on groups of raiders, and when Elzo’s army scattered, Elzo’s army became a group of scattered raiders.

After just three days of fighting, Elzo and Paul’s armies both had around a thousand men die and twice that injured in some way. It's hard to say who won this engagement as Elzo’s army was broken and scattered, but Paulsland lost every member of a village. One of Elzo’s strengths was the Paul did not know where Elzo’s villages were, and after this battle, Paul captured many men who could point him in the right direction.

Chapter 29 June AD 82 Africa- Aftermath

In the aftermath of battle, Paul began leading his troops back to Magharibi village. There was no way he was going to leave a village with a stone wall and tower abandoned.

On the way there, someone asked, “King, what do you want us to do with the men we captured?”

“Bring them to Magharibi.”

Someone else asked, “Why don’t we just kill them?”

Paul turned to the man and asked, “Did we kill every warrior in their army?”

“Um, no, Sir. Most of them got away.”

“Do you know where their villages are at?”

“No, Sir.”

“This is why we don’t kill the men we capture after a battle. No matter how furious I am, I can not let my fury dictate my rule. I am a King. I must think about my people's needs down the road, and right now, one of those needs is to make sure this threat goes away, and that only happens if the captives we have tells us where their homes are.”

No more words needed to be said. Word trickled throughout the scattered army that captives were not to be killed out of hand or tortured to death as they needed the prisoners to guide them to their villages and that all the prisoners were to be taken to Magharibi village.

When Paul got back to Magharibi village, he went to the children's bodies broken from the fall from the tower and began moving to the center of the village and laying the broken bodies like they were at rest.

Badru asked him, “Father, what are you doing?”

“It's my fault these people died. If I had better prepared the army or went out after Elzo when he betrayed me or had Magharibi’s defenses completed or done more, they would not have died. These people were out here because I asked them to come because I thought this village should be rebuilt after Elzo burned it down in his escape. The least I can do is make sure everyone in this village has a proper burial.”

As more and more people in the army came into the village and they saw what their King was doing, they joined him. As they moved the children’s bodies, they came across the chief that went over the side of the tower with the child he murdered. His body was cast into the outhouse where human waste goes.

When they started going through the tower, they realized quickly that Elzo’s army did not care about their dead. When one of his men died, the other men stripped their bodies of all gear and left them. Those bodies were tossed into a pile to be burned later. But as for Paul’s villagers, they were laid out carefully in the middle of the village. Misa and her ladies cleaned the bodies, and dressed them in dignity, and put pyrethrum on them to keep the bugs off.

Eventually, captured men made it to Magharibi village, and someone asked Paul, “Do you want to use the prisoners to help with the dead?”

Paul’s face turned red with anger, and he pointed toward the bodies and said, “Don’t you think they helped enough already? No, we do not want the dead desecrated anymore by them. Instead, these men should pay a price for what they have done. Your job will be to cut off half of every captive’s right foot, and then sear the wound shut.”

The soldier was very surprised and reflexively asked, “What?”

“I know it's not what I normally do, but they have to pay a price for the lives they cost. They committed genocide in this village, and because we need their information, we can not kill them out of hand. Besides, if we cut off half of their right foot, they will be unable to fight again. It's better than putting all the captives to the sword.”

The man, still shocked, said, “Yes, sir.” Then went off to do as commanded.

It wasn’t long before Paul began hearing screams from the captives. When Paul’s men heard the screams, they grabbed weapons to fight, but when they found out what the screams were, it became music to their ears as they moved the corpses of the people the enemy killed.

After the bodies were laid out, Paul asked for his men to go down the line and see if they could name the people. Most of these people moved in from other villagers, and so nearly every adult was named, but most of the children were only known inside the village. So, Paul had the men go and dig graves, and the children were buried in the center. The adults were put in graves encircling the children they protected in life, so they could protect them throughout eternity. When they were buried, each adult's grave was marked with their name, and in time that marker became stone, and a memorial was built to honor the adults and children who fought with such bravery.

The story of a child killing an adult warrior in a hopeless situation would be told in every classroom in the country for generations to come, and from parent to child for many generations after that.

The next day Paul went from gate to gate, wall to wall, then to the tower and looked at each room closely. He was looking for what went wrong and how he could do better. Around noon he called for his lieutenants.

When they came, Paul told them, “We can not have this disaster happen again, so I am reforming our military.”

One of the lieutenants said, “What are you talking about? We won.”

Paul blew some air out of his mouth, dismissing that statement, and said, “We didn’t win. We fell back and were lucky that the army we fought didn’t know what to do when an enemy was falling back. If they did, we would have lost. At best, we had a draw, and that is not going to happen again. The next time we fight that army, we are going to win. We are going to crush them. We are going to treat that army like all the villages we raid. But we have to reform to do that.”

Paul continued, “The first thing I have to do is inform all the chiefs that they have to pay their villagers to act as guards from now on. No more will be coming from my group of active soldiers.”

“What about the new villages?”

“That’s different. Until a village is able to have its own school, the active-duty soldiers will be guards for them, but after that, the village will have to supply their own guardsmen. But currently, in Paulsland, over a hundred villages are at that point. Now that we are freeing up so many active-duty soldiers, we will be forming them up very differently.”

“Ten men together is a unit, but ten groups of ten will be known as ranks, and five ranks will be known as a regiment. Three regiments will be known as our legion. As we grow bigger, we will come up with different names. A unit will be led by one of the active-duty soldiers, we will give him the rank of sergeant, a rank will be led by a lieutenant, a regiment will be led by a major, and if we have a legion, I will lead it for now.”

“But don’t we have a couple of thousand active-duty soldiers?”

“Not anymore. I don’t even think we will be able to pull together fifteen hundred right now. They fought on the front line in our battles, and hundreds died, and hundreds more were injured. No telling how many will survive their injuries, much less make a full recovery. And we have to let the fourteen-year-olds retire. They need to start preparing for their life.”

“But what if Elzo’s army comes back? we need as many soldiers as possible to fight our enemy.”

Paul shook his head and said, “In a week or two, their army is going to come down with malaria. That’s going to give us months to prepare our forces. And believe me, we need months because they outmaneuvered us at every turn. Did everyone notice how they outmaneuvered us by listening to orders from drums?”

The men nodded their heads. Paul then said, “What they did was a legitimately brilliant idea. I have heard stories of how my military back home did something similar, but they had drums and horns, so what we are going to do is have the lieutenants control their ranks with drums, majors will control their regiments with Kudu horns, and a legion will be controlled with a gong. But it's going to take months to work that out.”

Badru asked, “Father, you have many more lieutenants than the twenty or so you need for this army. What are you going to do with all of them, and will I have a role in this army?” he asked because he assumed he would be a major.

Paul said, “I like using the lieutenants as teachers. This world is a harsh place, and they have done a good job of preparing the children to become soldiers, and they have done a good job of training the militia and keeping the retired soldiers ready to fight. Without them doing their job in every village, we would have fallen before our enemy. Once our army is retrained, I will retrain the lieutenants to retrain the militia and retired soldiers. We will also need some of them to be retrained as scouts and artillery units.”

Someone asked, “What’s artillery?”

Paul smiled and said, “Artillery is a machine that is used to throw heavy objects at enemy troops and fortifications. In this case, I want to make a trebuchet to throw heavy objects a couple of hundred yards to break enemy formations. Sadly our arrows did not kill our enemies. That’s my fault, I should have had the researchers figure out how to make stronger bows, but I thought our bows were good enough. They were great at suppression, but they didn’t kill a lot of the enemy. The artillery will kill or permanently injure anyone hit by it.”

“But the trebuchet will take months to design, build, and train engineers to run it. What we need immediately is scouts, but to get the scouts I need will take time to train and equip. We need to train the scout in map making and equip him with stuff that will make him very hard to detect. Since the researchers will be working on the trebuchet, I will put the ladies on making a ghillie suit and moccasins.”

“What’s a ghillie suit? And what’s a moccasin?”

“A ghillie suit is clothing that goes from head to foot with strips of cloth that look very similar to plants or whatever environment you are in. In this case, it will need to look like the forest. I know it sounds weird but done right; it makes a man practically invisible. Moccasins are shoes that make a man very silent. With these two pieces of equipment, a scout will be very hard to see or hear.”

Paul asked, “Any more questions?” No one said anything, so Paul said, “Then I will go ahead and send the militia and retired troops home, and get the active-duty soldiers ready for their new training. In a week, the ones retiring will come back with me to the capital for their pay. Finally, talk with the prisoners to find out what they know, but don’t do any enhanced interrogations, wait a month, then have the diplomats do it. In that time, send any of the prisoners who shows signs of malaria to the capital to be experimented on. As much as I want to interrogate the prisoners and go to their villages and conquer them, malaria is a bigger issue than conquering our enemy, especially since we have to retrain our men to fight thousands of men at a time. As you saw the last three days, that type of fighting is very different than what you have been trained in. We have to be patient as we fight a war against them and another war against malaria.”

Chapter 30 June AD 82 Texas- Young Trader

Bobby was excited! He was going on his first trade trip with Uncle Nana and his best friend, Hetane. Bobby knew that Uncle Nana wasn’t really his uncle, but that’s what he called him all his life. Hetane was Uncle Nana’s oldest son, and at seven years old, Uncle Nana thought that Hetane needed to start learning the family business. Trading up and downriver. Back in March, Hetane took his first trip with his dad, and Bobby missed his friend so much that Dad agreed that if Bobby could go on Uncle Nana’s summer trading expedition if Bobby got a month ahead in his school work, and Uncle Nana agreed.

If Dad had made that demand last year, Bobby likely would never have been able to get through the boring schoolwork, but then in December, Dad introduced comics where you have a drawing that goes with the words. So Bobby did all his schoolwork like comics! Bobby did it so much his drawings looked better than his dad's! It didn’t hurt that his dad answered every question he could when Bobby asked.

At a young age, Bobby learned the importance of trading. His dad did not believe in making siblings share their stuff, so if Bobby wanted to borrow something of Trevor’s, he had to get Trevor to agree. Turns out that big brothers don’t like to share, so Bobby had to learn to trade stuff with Trevor, and at first, his older brother always got the better end of the deal. Over time Bobby learned to get the better end of the deal, and now Bobby was beginning to leverage that experience with adults!

The first time Bobby did this was right after his dad graded one of his papers and handed it back to Bobby. Bobby took it down to the docks and told the men there, “Chief John gave this comic a 98 out of a hundred. What will you trade me for it?”

The traders looked up and down at the artwork, and they all agreed it was fantastic. One agreed to trade two jars of ketchup for the comic.

From then on, every piece of homework became a comic in some way. If Bobby had to write the ABC's, he made a story about each letter. If he had to do math, he drew out things to count, add, and subtract. If he had homework about animals, he drew them out with a warrior hunting them.

His dad was so proud until the other artist in the village began demanding that their chief grade their artwork like he graded Bobby’s because Bobby was leveraging his dad’s grade to get better trades. Dad stopped putting grades on his work after that, but Bobby was happy about how jealous Trevor was when he found out that all the extra work Bobby put into his paperwork paid off.

After a while, some of the other comic artists in the village were drawing much better comics than Bobby, and he wasn’t getting as good trade as he used to, so he started saving his artwork to trade when he went down river with uncle Nana.

On the morning that they left, Bobby was carrying a huge stack of papers, and Hetane asked, “Bobby, what's all that?”

Bobby smiled and said, “We are going to the sea to trade with Chief Tonteel’s village. I was just bringing something to trade. Otherwise, what's the point of this trip?”

Hetane was stunned; his mouth fell open, but his dad started laughing and said, “I heard stories about you selling comics! If you're going to make a profit, I ought to charge you for this trip.”

Although Uncle Nana said it as a joke, Bobby was still six and took it literally and said, “Uncle Nana, you can't do that. You already agreed to take me on this trip for free. If you want payment, you will have to wait until next time.”

Nana started laughing harder and said, “If you do good on this trip, and do bad, maybe I will do just that. Maybe I will have to sell my boat to you and work for you.”

Hetane being seven, didn’t quite understand sarcasm yet and asked, “Do you think Bobby could own this boat?”

Nana finally realized the boys were taking things too literally and said, “Boy’s, I am joking. Maybe one day you will have your own boats, maybe not. But just in case you do, me and my men will show you how to work the river.”

And work they did. Nana and his five adult helpers showed the boys how everything worked and worked them as hard as they could. One of these days, these boys would need to put food on the table, and so these men did the best thing they could think of to help these boys, they showed them how to make a living. They taught them how to paddle, pole, tie, and loosen knots. They showed them how to move and carry heavy loads, how to set up camp when you were between villages and more. Each night the boys slept good and hard because they were worked as hard as the men could push them because teaching the boys how to work properly is the greatest kindness these men could show the boys.

After more than a week of back-breaking work for the six and seven-year-old, which was not that bad work for the men, they finally made it to Chief Tonteel’s village. It was bustling! There were dozens of boats in its very large docks. It had docks deep into the river so that boats stayed afloat even when the tide went down.

Uncle Nana paid a fee and told the boys, “Stay with me. You are both here to learn to trade, and we will do that first.”

Bobby and Hetane said, “Yes, sir.” In unison.

Both boys kept their mouth shut as they followed Nana. Nana took them to the end of the docks, where piles of salt were built up. Next to the piles of salt were several men, and Nana came to them and said, “I have a load of Ketchup and Iron. I would like to trade the ketchup at one weight of ketchup for three weights of salt. And one weight of iron for seven weights of salt.”

One of the men’s face twisted into a look of shock and horror as he said, “Are you trying to rob us? One weight of salt for one weight of ketchup, and two weights of salt for one weight of iron.”

Nana shook his head and said, “No way. I could get better prices for salt in Texas, and that’s halfway up the river. One weight of ketchup for Two and a half weights of salt, and one weight of iron for six weights of salt.”

The salt merchant said, “It just can't be done. Listen, I will do you a favor since I like you. One and a half weights of salt for one weight of ketchup, and four weights of salt for one weight of iron.”

Nana said, “If that’s how you treat someone you like, I dread to think what you do to your enemies. You have piles of salt sitting next to you, and yet you charge such a high price. How about this. Two weights of salt for one weight of Ketchup and five weights of salt for one weight of Iron.”

The Merchant asked, “Are you trying to rob me? I cannot do it. How about…”

Before he could finish, Nana cut him off and said, “don’t worry about it, any less than that, and I can get a better price in the next village. I will head to the trader's lodge, rent a room for the night and leave in the morning for a better deal.”

The boys were shocked. They thought they came here to trade for salt, and now the best trader they knew was walking away. The rest of the men in the group was walking away like nothing happened. Bobby and Hetane were stunned stupid and stood still as the rest of the men moved.

Nana turned around and said, “Bobby, Hetane come on.”

Nana’s words got the boys to move, and so as he walked toward the lodgings, Hetane asked, “Dad, why didn’t you finish your trade?”

Nana said, “Because we are still negotiating.”

“What? But you walked away, how are you still negotiating when you walked away?”

“Son, if you are going to become a trader, you need to learn that the best negotiating tool you have is the ability to walk away. Those men have piles of salt that they want to trade for other things. They have more salt than they could ever use. But they are trying to get the best price they can for the salt. When the price of the thing they want to get rid of got too high, I walked away. You watch, son, sometime before I leave someone will find me and agree to the price I gave. Anyone unwilling to walk away from a deal should not be a trader.”

Hetane and Bobby nodded at Nana’s wisdom.

That’s when he smiled and said, “Well, tradings done you boys might as well explore.”

The boys shouted out, “Yeah!” then they started running off the dock. That’s when Bobby turned around and yelled out, “Uncle Nana, which ways the sea.” Nana pointed in a direction, and they were off in a dead run. First past the trader’s lodging, it was a big building with lots of rooms, then they passed the village proper, and out of sight of Nana.

The boys wanted to see the sea. They had never seen it before. As they made their way to the sea, the boys gasped. As far as the eye could see, there was water. It blew them away, but between them and the sea were small flat salt ponds that seemed to stretch into the horizon along the coast.

Making salt did not need deep ponds; making salt needed shallow ponds, and the coast was covered in them. Considering they were the only producer of salt for every village in the trade alliance, it made sense. And from what Bobby had heard, they still don’t produce enough salt for all the demand, especially in winter.

As they made their way down the coastline staring at the sea and salt ponds, Bobby was surprised to see the Bison Tonteel village bought from his dad out near the sea plowing up dirt. As Bobby walked closer, he watched as men went behind the ox and moved the dirt, the bison loosened up, into an ox cart. It didn’t take much imagination to see that the bison what helping them significantly.

The boys chatted and played as boys will down the coastline until they saw something that shook Bobby. The men of the village were using dogs and loud noises to direct a bison into a large wooden structure like the wall in bison valley.

One of the men saw the boys and yelled out, “BOYS HEAD BACK TO THE VILLAGE THIS INSTANT, OR I WILL TAN YOUR HIDES!”

That wasn’t an idle threat. If an adult saw a child in a dangerous situation, they could spank the child and explain it to their parents later, which usually meant a much harsher beating by both your parents. First-century earth was a dangerous world, and parents preferred their child getting a spanking to a funeral.

As the boys ran back to the village Hetane said, “Did you see that?”

Bobby said, “Yeah, they are capturing Bison.”

“What do you think they are doing with them.”

With the certainty, only a child could have, Bobby said, “Obviously they are trying to breed them. I’ll tell dad, and he’ll stop it.”

“Well, what are we going to do now?”

Bobby smiled and said, “Let's go to the trader's lodge and sell my comics!”

“YEAH!”

They went back to the lodge, and Bobby made a very good profit on the comics he made. He mostly traded for salt, and he didn’t sell to a man from the same village twice.

The next morning they were woken up by a nock on the door to their room. Nana got up, opened it, and asked, “What do you want?”

A man said, “We agree to your terms of two weights of salt for one weight of ketchup and five weights of salt for one weight of iron.”

Nana smiled and said, “Good.”

Bobby was groggy and cranky and said, “Why did he have to wake us up to tell us that?”

Nana said, “Because he didn’t get the price he wanted for the salt. It's an acceptable price, no doubt, but since we are not giving him as much profit as he wants, he is making the trade as uncomfortable for us as possible by waking us up at first light.”

Bobby was shocked and said, “But that’s mean!”

Nana laughed and said, “Did we come here to sleep in or to trade?”

“Trade.”

“Then who cares if it's mean? As a merchant, I have to embrace the fact that my family survives off of how well I trade. So if someone is mean, disrespectful, rude, or hateful, I don’t care as long as I get the trade that helps my family. As a merchant, you have to come to terms that your pride comes from your profit, not kindness, respect, strength, or anything else.”

Bobby and Hetane just stared at Nana in shock. But Nana was preparing his son to be a merchant, and if he was going to survive as a merchant, he had to harden his heart to everything but profit.

The rest of the day, Bobby and Hetane followed Nana as he worked with Tonteel village to exactly measure out the salt they traded. This was not a quick process because they had to measure the weight of everything on scales. Two weight of salt for one weight of ketchup meant putting each jar of ketchup on a scale and balancing it with salt twice. Five weight of salt for one weight of iron meant balancing the iron on the scale with salt five times. That doesn’t even go into the time spent moving the trade goods from the boat to the scale and then the salt from the scale to the boat.

After a long day of tedious work, they stayed at the trader's lodge one last night, and the next day, they made their way back upriver. Bobby and Hetane got to discover the joys of poling, slowly upriver for a few weeks, although Nana and Bobby both traded at several villages along the way.

It was late July when they got back. Bobby had put on a lot of muscle poling up the river the last few weeks and was ready to get home. As soon as the boat touched the dock, he grabbed his stuff and made his way to his home.

When he got there, his dad said, “What's all this? Did Nana pay you?”

Bobby said, “No, dad. I traded my comics, and then traded at the various villages as we came upriver back to Texas.”

“You did really great!”

Bobby said, “This is nothing, wait till I bring the rest of my stuff in.”

“Rest of your stuff?”

“Yeah, I got jars of ketchup, lots of spices, and some finished goods. Uncle Nana told me to focus on small valuable things to trade until I get my own boat. The only way to make a profit off of grain is by volume, and I didn’t have that much space on his boat.”

John was flabbergasted by his son and asked, “Is trading the only thing you did on your trip?”

Bobby thought about for a second, then his eyes got real big as he remembered the bison and said, “Oh dad, I almost forgot; when we were in Tonteel village at the sea, I saw them capturing bison to breed with that one you sold them.”

Bobby was shocked when his dad grinned and had to ask, “Dad, why are you grinning. If they successfully breed bison, then you will no longer be the only supplier.”

“So what? If they can breed my docile bison with wild bison and get tame Bison all the better.”

“HOW? You have spent countless hours breeding docility into bison. If they start breeding them too, you will never get your investment back.”

John shook his head and said, “That might be true if the only thing I did was breed bison, but I am diversified. I grow my own crops, mine ore, smelt it, make tools out of it, and I even make the harnesses, carts, plows, and carriages that make bison so useful. So if they start breeding tame bison, then I will get my money back in manufacturing, and besides my merchant son, you are missing a huge detail when it comes to trade.”

Bobby was already beginning to see his dad's point, but he couldn’t help but ask, “What?”

“Sometimes it's cheaper to buy other people's products.”

“What!” Bobby had no idea what his dad meant.

“Bobby let's say that to raise each bison cost me ten pounds of iron, but Tonteel village or another village was to make raising tame bison so cheap that they sold them for five pounds of iron. What would be more profitable for me, to keep raising bison or to buy bison? Keep in my that my income is diversified.”

Bobby thought about it and said, “I suppose since you have goods coming in from many sources, the best thing for you to do would be to stop raising your own bison and just buy theirs.”

John smiled and said, “Exactly. The only way someone undercutting your price hurts you is if you are only selling one product. As you trade, and I expect you to keep doing so considering the haul you brought back, remember to diversify what you trade. Someone will always be able to undercut your prices sooner or later; when that happens, don’t get mad start buying from them.”

Chapter 31 July 82 AD  Africa- Interrogation

It had been a month since they won the battle between the cliff and stream, and now Udo was back in Magharibi village to interrogate the prisoners. He left because he was part of the procession bringing the dead heroes home. Paul wanted each of the warriors who died buried either in their home village or the village they protected, and so every available man was tasked with putting the brave men on their shields and carrying them home to be buried. It's unfortunate that due to Elzo’s threat and the need to train, the active-duty soldiers could not be part of the procession since four out of five of the men who died were the active-duty soldiers who were on the front lines.

When Udo got back, fifty-eight men were waiting to be interrogated. One hundred and sixty-seven men had been captured, but sixteen died from their wounds. Ninety-three had malaria and were sent to the capital to be experimented on.

With so many captured men with malaria, the enemy's army must be crawling with the stuff. Udo couldn’t help but smile as he thought about the army taking that extremely contagious disease back home with them. Malaria was going to buy Paulsland months of time to retrain their army for massive field engagements.

It wasn’t all good news, though. About ten percent of Paul’s army caught malaria. They were doing their best to keep the fever at bay until something could be found to cure it, but those men were suffering terribly, not as much as the sick prisoners as the nurses were force-feeding them every herb, root, or bark that didn’t kill a jackal or a monkey hoping something helped with malaria.

But none of that was Udo’s concern.

Paul had given specific orders on how to treat the prisoners so they would be much more open to interrogation. First, the prisoners were to be given bread and water each day at sunset. The prisoners were tied together outside in the middle of Magharibi village. It was the dry season, so they got to sit in the hot sun all day long, until sunset, when they finally got food and water. Since they cut off half of every prisoners' right foot and seared the wound closed, none of the prisoners felt like running away, although they were under constant guard. If any of the prisoners felt good enough to stand, they got beaten. If they had to use the bathroom, the area they were sitting in was good enough for them. If they got an infection, it would be cut out and seared closed. If they died, then Paul figured they shouldn’t have killed everyone in Magharibi village. The only thing the prisoners were allowed to do was talk to each other.

As they talked to each other or talked to the guards, they confirmed that Elzo had trained them and somehow became a warlord to various tribes and that most of the men spent more than a week traveling through the wilderness to get to Paulsland. But now that a month had passed, they were going to be properly interrogated by Udo, the diplomat.

First thing in the morning, Udo had some soldiers put a table in front of the prisoners, and then they began putting canned food, bread baked that morning, and large containers of water on the table. Then they set up a fire and began roasting meat in full view of the prisoners. Once all the nice things were set up, they quickly set up stocks on the far side of the table in full view of the prisoners.

Once everything was done, Udo announced, “My name is Udo. I am a diplomat, and I am here to ask you questions. If you answer them honestly, then you will get to sit down and eat and drink with me. If you refuse to answer, then the soldiers will put you in the stocks and torture you until you answer their questions. So to begin with, who wants to be the first to have a meal with me?”

Many of the men looked around before putting their hands up. When that happened, one of the men yelled out, “PUT YOUR HANDS DOWN! THE WARLORD WILL BE BACK SOON AND DEFEAT THESE DOGS! WE ALMOST HAD THEM IN THE FIELD BATTLE!”

The men put their hands down, and Udo smiled and pointed toward the man and said, “Your first.”

With that, the soldiers came forward, roughly grabbed him, put him in the chair, and Udo smiled and asked, “What is your name?”

The man gave Udo an angry frown and said, “I am not answering any of your questions.”

Udo nodded and said, “That’s all right; you can answer their questions then.”

The soldiers grabbed the man and dragged him to the stocks. Once his head and arms were firmly locked in place, Udo said, “I forgot to mention all these soldiers were chosen for their job because each one had family members in this village. They are all very upset that you killed them.”

That made the man worried; then he saw the small sharp sticks the soldiers took out, and he got really worried and said, “I will answer your questions please let me out.”

Udo shook his head and said, “Sir, please refrain from speaking until they ask you a question.”

About that time, a soldier grabbed one of the man's fingers and forced the sharpened stick under his fingernail and all the way to the back of his finger. The man screamed and tried clenching his fist so they couldn’t shove any more sticks into his fingernails, so the soldiers just took a hammer and broke his hand, and casually began inserting more sticks into the man's fingernails.

He began screaming, begging them to stop. After a few minutes of that, Udo very cruelly said, “If you want them to stop, you need to answer their questions.”

The man shouted back, “They haven't asked any questions.”

Udo nodded and said, “That is a problem, isn’t it. I guess they are upset that your army killed their family members. As long as you don’t answer their questions, they get to keep torturing you, but as long as they don’t ask any questions, you cannot make their torture stop.” Udo smiled at the young soldiers and said, “You young men are very clever. You found a wonderful loophole.”

One of the soldiers smiled and said, “Thank you.”

For the next hour, they shoved sharp sticks into every painful spot that they knew of. From head to toe, they found places to hurt the man. They put the sticks in the man's eyes, several nerve endings in his arms and chest, in his privates, in the major muscle groups in his legs, and even in his toenails. It wasn’t just awful; it looked awful. Every prisoner was freaking out. Eventually, the man had a heart attack from the pain and died.

Udo said with feigned regret in his voice, “He can not answer any more questions, so put him back with the prisoners.”

The soldiers casually removed the body and brought it back to where he had been sitting earlier and dropped it. All the prisoners moved away from the body.

Udo asked, “Do you feel better?”

One of the soldiers said, “A little bit.” Then the soldier started pointing at the prisoners and said, “But I will feel much better if I can do that fifty-seven more times.”

Udo laughed and said, “Well, that’s not up to me. It's up to these men.” Then Udo randomly pointed at a man and said, “Your next.”

The man crapped his pants right then and there. When the soldiers went to move him to Udo’s table, he was sobbing.

Udo said, “It would make my soldiers day if you refused to answer my questions. Would you be willing to make them happy and refuse to answer my questions?”

Through sobs, the man said, “I will tell you anything you want to know. Please don’t do that to me.”

Udo looked toward the soldiers and said, “I’m sorry, I asked nicely, but it just seems this prisoner wants to cooperate with me. Maybe the next prisoner will be more disruptive.”

The prisoner was a wealth of information. He told them how to get to his home village and several others, then he told them how Elzo’s army was laid out and how it was formed. As the prisoner ate and drank, he grew more comfortable talking to Udo. The thing that surprised Udo the most was that Elzo made these people terrified of Paulsland. Udo could understand why the witchdoctors and chiefs were terrified; Paul executed them out of hand, but the people were terrified of Paulsland, and that bothered the diplomat in Udo.

Udo asked, “What do you think King Paul wants to do?”

The prisoner said, “The witchdoctor said that he would come to our villages and sacrifice us to make himself stronger.”

Udo and the soldiers started to laugh. The prisoner started to look nervous, and when Udo was calm enough to talk, he said, “King Paul doesn’t do human sacrifice. King Paul kills those who do. We learned long ago from King Paul that the witchdoctors eat the souls of their villagers, and that’s why everyone dies so young. King Paul was conquering the villages to rescue you, and you fought on the behest of those who were eating your soul.”

The prisoner was shocked and almost in rote said, “That’s not true; it can't be true. If that was true, why would Elzo come and teach us to fight Paul?”

“Because Paul killed Elzo’s father. Elzo doesn’t care about anyone or anything but his revenge. If he would have killed Paul, the next thing he would have killed would have been your witchdoctors.” Udo had no idea if Elzo would have killed the witchdoctors, but he was trying to win hearts and minds.

“But the witchdoctors backed up Elzo completely.”

“Really? What did the witchdoctors do for Elzo or you?”

“The witchdoctors protect us from evil spirits, showed us how to make peace with the various gods like the earth god, river god, and elephant gods. The witchdoctors also heal us when we are sick.”

“King Paul has shown us how to make the spirits run away, he has made the elephants our servants, he has shackled the land with roads, and he is shackling the rivers with bridges. I have seen the healing the witchdoctors do, and King Paul has trained our women to be ten times the healers any witchdoctor ever was. I lived in fear under the witchdoctors, but under King Paul, we have dominion over the things we used to fear.”

The prisoner was shocked and said, “That’s not possible.”

The diplomat said, “We are still months away from conquering your villages and bringing them into our fold. In that time, I will show you how we dominate the things you fear.” Despite his current cruelty, Udo was a diplomat and knew that Paul’s plan was to bring as many people under the umbrella of Paulsland as possible. Since this man was cooperative, Udo figured he might as well start preparing him for what was to come.

With that, he sent the prisoner back to the rest of the prisoners, well-fed for answering the questions, and his thirst quenched. The questioning continued the next few days. Rarely did a prisoner need to be questioned by the soldiers. Granted, the soldiers refused to ask questions; the pain of their prisoners helped sate their loss. Udo wasn’t lying when he said these men had relatives that were killed in this village.

Once the interrogations were done, Udo had a good sense of who ran their army, how it was set up, how the villages were set up, and where they were located. He also learned the role of everyone in the battle. Unfortunately for some, they were part of the group that attacked the tower, and they were honest about the massacre they brought. The diplomat listened, never judged, which allowed each man who was a part of it to be more comfortable in the telling. Udo had orders to make specific notes so that they could improve the defensive capability of their stone communications towers. Four men gave very detailed accounts about what happened, and Udo suspected that these accounts would get the most scrutiny.

After every prison had been questioned, those four were put in special stocks to have drops of molten glass dropped on them. The special stocks allowed them to tear their own flesh off to get the molten glass off their body. The prisoners watched in horror, especially the three who were told they were next. The rest of the prisoners were relieved that they did not have the bad luck to be sent to attack the tower. It was a different sight to see one man tearing his body apart to get the burning glass off himself, only to see other men sobbing because they were told they were next.

After they died, Udo had one last message for the prisoners, “King Paul does not kill children. When we conquer your village, we will do everything in our power to make sure your children stay safe. Maybe you think he’s soft because of it, but understand that soft man is the man who enslaves gods.”

Chapter 32 November 82 AD Africa- Planting Festival

This had been the hardest year in Paul’s life. He had to deal with malaria randomly killing his people, then Elzo killed everyone in one of his villages, and then he marched an army of twelve, thirteen, and fourteen-year-olds into Elzo’s army. Hundreds of dedicated young men died, and it was all Paul’s fault, and yet Paul knew the world was still better off with him than without him. If Paul thought differently, he would have committed suicide due to his grief. Paul’s most depressing thought is that marching nearly eight hundred young men under the age of fifteen to their deaths was better than the alternative. Paul never realized how awful the best bad option could be until now.

Their deaths had far-reaching effects. Most of the eight hundred active-duty soldiers killed were the ones set to retire, and when they were brought back to their villages on their shields, there were shrieks from the girls that were waiting to marry them. Throughout the nation, there was morning for the heroes lost. But in the months since, many of those girls felt the need to get married, and so many of them became second wives to men a few years older than them. A few of those girls decided to make a go of it themselves, deciding to leave the security of the girl's dorm to make a living with the skills they learned. Only time would tell who made the better decision.

Paul’s personal life was just as depressing. He had six wives that wanted his undivided attention and were constantly fighting each other for it. Paul had hoped that once they started having babies, things would improve, but if anything, they used their babies as a reason that Paul should spend more time with them instead of his other wives or his duty as king. It broke his heart because he knew each and everyone was worthy of being his only wife, but politics didn’t allow it.

But a week ago a wonderful event finally happened. They confirmed they finally discovered the cure for malaria. It hasn’t cured his depression, but it goes a long way in helping. He sent a message out that every chief is to bring their best healer and glass maker when they come to the capital for the planting festival to learn how to make the drug.

The morning of the festival came, and hundreds of people were there to learn how to cure the disease that had killed people in every village of the nation.

Paul came out and said, “Thank all of you for coming. Today I will show you how to process African sagebrush so that you can make an effective cure for malaria. It's also why I had you bring in glassmakers as the process is the most complicated part of chemistry this nation has developed, and they will need to make new tools to make the process happen.”

“First of all, to discover this drug, we force-fed bark and bitter herbs to our prisoners. The ones that were force-fed African Sagebrush started showing their symptoms improving. Maybe that would be good enough for some people but not for me. If you will please follow me to the ox powered mill.”

This group of several hundred people followed Paul to the place where a couple of years ago, researchers demonstrated how quickly an ox powered mill could make flour and cooking oil. Then watched as Paul filled the trough with African Sagebrush and had the oxen harnessed to the grinding stone start moving the grinding stone, which squeezed the liquid out of the sagebrush.

Once the liquid started pouring from a spout built into the mill into a glass vessel, Paul explained, “After we saw the sagebrush was effective, we processed the sagebrush further. One group was given the liquid, and another group was given the crushed dry plants. The group given the crushed plants showed no improvement, but the group given the liquid showed improvement in their malaria symptoms, but not enough to be considered a cure.”

“Many of you have worked with our copper stills to make strong alcohol. We tried distilling the cure in the copper still. Our thought process was that either the toxin or the cure would rise as steam, and then once it cooled off, we would have two new liquids to give to our prisoners, one from the dregs in the still and the other that came off the steam. When we gave it to the sick prisoners, neither liquid helped with malaria at all, which means that the high heat of the copper still was destroying the cure in the liquid.”

“This is where my knowledge of chemistry came in. There is a law called Boyle’s law.” Paul couldn’t help but realize at that instant that in this timeline, Boyle’s law would be boils law, “What this law says is that the lower the pressure, the lower the temperature needed to get things to boil, the higher the pressure, the higher the temperature to get things to boil. Since the copper still was destroying the cure, we had to find a way to boil off the bad stuff without destroying the cure, and to do that we had to make a pressure chamber to cook it in. Follow me to the research institute to see what we came up with.”

The group followed their King a short way into a large room into the research institute, and on a large table, they saw glass beakers and tubes held together by melted rubber, and it even had a rubber hose attached to it. Wooden sticks held up the entire contraption. Maybe this would not have passed muster in your average high school science class in the twenty-first century, but this would have been cutting-edge technology in first-century Rome or China.

As the people stared in awe at the most complicated thing they have ever seen, Paul began to explain how it worked.

“This glass pressure chamber actually has three chambers in it. The first and big one is where we pour all our sagebrush liquid into, then when the liquid is being distilled, the steam goes up this glass tube into the steam chamber, and from there, it goes down another tube to the waste chamber. Please note that this is only the waste chamber for this particular drug, if we were making alcohol, the waste chamber would actually be where the alcohol ended up at, but for our malaria cure, it’s the waste chamber. Connected to the waste chamber is a rubber hose; we use the rubber hose to suck the air out, lowering the pressure. Let me show you how it works.”

With that, Paul cut off the rubber attaching the big chamber to the first glass tube. The big chamber was only about a foot in diameter. They still had a long way to go in their glass making skills. Once the rubber was cut off, he poured in the sagebrush liquid and filled up the chamber to seventy percent capacity, then put the big chamber back under the glass cylinder and melted rubber to make an airtight seal between the two pieces.

That’s when Paul said, “I have to lower the pressure now.” He picked up the hose attached to the waste chamber and began sucking all the air out. Before long, he could not suck any more air, and the hose got very flat.

Paul explained, “The reason why the hose got flat is because it has no pressure inside of it. Before I sucked the air out, the air inside was keeping it round. Now the pressure is too low on the inside of the hose, so the pressure outside is keeping it closed. At this time, we can begin slightly heating the sagebrush liquid.”

With that, one of his researchers brought him a small torch, and Paul held it two feet under the big chamber. Paul wished they had a temperature gauge, but he hadn’t found any mercury yet. He knew civilizations had access to it, but he needed to find them to get some for himself.

Paul continually waved the torch under the big chamber and then would touch the glass with his hand. He more or less wanted the glass to be hot shower hot. Any hotter than that was too hot. Between the low pressure and the heat, the liquids were evaporated away.

Eventually, there was a chalky residue at the bottom, which was the cure. Paul then cut the rubber seal off, took out a long wooden spoon, and scooped out the cure. Paul pointed at the spoon and said, “This is one dose of the cure. You need to give the same amount three times a day to cure someone with malaria. Healers, I need you to talk with my ladies to figure out the exact details on how to make this. Glassmakers, I will need you to talk to my researchers in order to learn to make the glass. This is way more complicated than jars. Part of the reason for the complication is that the glass has to be thicker to handle the low pressure on the inside, and another part is that the glass has to be shaped in more complicated ways. As for you chiefs, I need to meet with you at the ivory throne.”

With Paul’s command, everyone separated. The healers and glass makers would be spending a couple of days going through all the details on the new creations, but Paul’s conversation with the chiefs would not take long.

Once all the chiefs were in the throne room, and Paul sat down, one of the chiefs publicly asked, “When are we going to get our soldiers back? Having to pay the men of the village to guard it is hurting our production.”

Paul was stunned and said, “You're not getting them back. As long as we only had to worry about a little tribe doing a small raid on a village, it was fine to spread out our soldiers across the nation. But Elzo sent thousands of men to attack us. We have to have a large enough force to address that.”

Another chief asked, “When are you going to attack Elzo?”

“I have to wait until the dry season.”

“WHAT?!”

A soldier immediately dashed toward that chief and yelled in his face, “YOU DO NOT RAISE YOUR VOICE AT THE KING!”

The soldier’s yell stunned the chief, and he practically whispered, “I am sorry, I did not mean anything by raising my voice. I was just surprised. Why are you waiting so long until you go after our enemies?”

“Despite Elzo’s attack, malaria was the more pressing issue. I sent out some scouts a few weeks after his attack, and some of Elzo’s villages were devastated by malaria. Considering ten percent of our army caught it in three days of battle, despite having pyrethrum, I figured I would focus on the bigger danger. Now that the rainy season is upon us, flooding rivers and streams will make it impossible to move our army through their territory.”

“King Paul, would it be okay to send your active-duty soldiers back to our villages just for a little while so that our guards can go work?”

Paul’s face grew irritated, and he said, “No, I just said that we need enough men to counter Elzo’s force should he attack. The men will not be idle either. They will be training every day until we avenge our losses. Besides, we just got the trebuchets working, and our men need more training on fighting while fifty-pound projectiles fly over their heads.”

That sounded very dangerous to the chiefs, and one got the courage to ask, “What’s a trebuchet?”

Paul said, “It’s a machine that throws fifty-pound projectiles further than a man can shoot an arrow. During the battle against Elzo, his warriors marched slowly to fight our men. If they march that slowly this time, the trebuchets will wreck their formations. I don’t know if rock, wood, or rubber will work best, so I have fifty pound or so projectiles of each type. Feel free to come out to Magharibi village and check out our men's practice. The army is being trained very differently to deal with the new threat.”

Paul frowned as he changed topics, “That brings me to the reason why I asked you to come here. The army is very expensive. I am doubling your taxes. Each village will now send me twenty percent of their taxes instead of ten percent. And you are not allowed to raise taxes on your people.”

Before the chiefs could shout, several large armed soldiers stepped between the chiefs and their King. Fear won out to anger.

But one chief voiced his displeasure, “So not only are we losing our guards, which means we have to hire guards from the workers in our villages, we now have to pay double taxes? King Paul, you are practically tripling our taxes.”

Paul's face showed no emotion as he said, “Build better infrastructure for your people. The better infrastructure, the more you will be able to make. Before Elzo’s attack, it was no trouble to keep your taxes at ten percent because each one of your villages was responsible for feeding the handful of soldiers you had. But now all those soldiers are my responsibility to feed. Safety demands that your taxes go up. I’m sorry, but we don’t have a choice. If you want to blame anyone blame Elzo.”

The chiefs were upset, and they grumbled, but what could they do. King Paul had an army, and they had no choice but to pay for its upkeep.

Chapter 33 January 83 AD Texas- Scribes

This year John’s Christmas was a headache. He wanted his boys to get a bit better at math, so he made some edutainment games. That’s a game that’s supposed to be educational and entertaining. Dominos, Farkle, Yahtzee, and Chess. The problem was that carving all those little pieces of wood and making a chessboard was tedious and took a lot of time. So the boys got games from dad and clothes from mom.

John’s Christmas consisted of teaching his boy’s the games while his boys pointed at each other, yelling, “YOUR CHEATING!” A few days later, once the boys figured out the rules, they started playing with the other village kids, creaming them, and their parents came to John complaining about John’s kids cheating. So John had to teach the games to the adults who often did not know how to count, add, or multiply as well as their children. John just wanted his kids to do better in math, and it turned into a big headache.

John was thrilled when the various chiefs started showing up for congress because it meant that he did not have to answer any more questions about the games he “invented.”

With two days until congress, the delegation from the coastal tribe showed up. John had been keeping an eye out for them because his son told him they were trying to breed their own bison, and John wanted to give them advice.

John walked to the delegation with a big smile on his face, and then it wavered as he asked, “Where is chief Tonteel?”

One of the men said, “He died a month ago, now Atsadi is our new chief.” As he talked, he pointed to an older man.

John stuck his hand out to shake the new chief's hand and said, “I am sorry for Chief Tonteel’s death. He was a good man.”

Chief Atsadi shook John’s hand and said, “Thank you.”

“How did he die?”

“He had chest pains for a few days. He knew the end was coming soon and nominated me for the position.”

“I am so sorry to hear that. I wish there was something I could have done.”

“Don’t worry about it. I have heard the stories that say you came from the land of the gods, but unless you were willing to give chief Tonteel eternal youth, this is for the best.”

“The land I came from was not the land of the gods. Just some very clever humans. And no, we did not have the ability to give someone eternal youth. We could save someone from chest pain, but that took a lot of medicine. I have no idea how to make and often skilled surgeons.”

The new chief shook his head and said, “Then don’t worry about it. Twenty years ago, we had a chief who withered slowly and lost his mind. It was difficult because we as a tribe were in denial of his declining ability to think, and the entire tribe suffered. It was even harder when we had to replace the chief while he was still alive. We select a chief who we think is wisest among us, who can lead us the best, and so usually the chief is an older Elder, but we are aware that sometimes age destroys the mind before it kills the body. That is a worse fate for a chief and his village than a quick death like Tonteel’s.”

“Your right and I think chief Tonteel would take comfort in the fact that he died without hurting the tribe.” Chief Atsadi nodded his head in agreement, and then John changed the subject, “I heard your tribe was breeding bison.”

Atsadi looked surprised and guilty and slowly said, “Yes.”

John laughed and said, “I am not accusing you of wrongdoing. If you can breed domesticated bison, I am all for it. I hope that one day everyone will have their own bison to help with their work.”

Chief Atsadi looked relieved and said, “I am glad you are okay with it.”

“Others might not be, but I am looking down the road. That said, I know how difficult it can be to breed docile bison. I assume you have bred the male bison you bought from me last year with some captured female bison?”

“Yes.”

“Be careful then. I have been breeding my bison for generations. I bred them to be wimps, but if you breed yours with wild bison, the offspring probably won't be as docile as the bison you bought from me.”

Chief Atsadi shot John a dirty look and said, “You're just trying to worry me. Your afraid that we will get in on the bison market.”

John shook his head and said, “No. If you can make your breeding operation work, then I would likely start breeding my male bison with wild female bison. Its just breeding and domesticating animals is pretty complicated. I have detailed notes on the lineage of the domesticated bison and how I modified them through breeding. If you want them, I will let your men copy them.”

In a hopeful voice, Atsadi asked, “Are they in comic book form?”

John was confused for a moment, and it showed on his face as he said, “No, why would I make that into a comic book?”

“Well, then I don’t want them. You're probably trying to sabotage me anyway!”

John just smiled at the new chief and said, “Good luck.” No reason to remind the new chief that the reason why they were salt wealthy was because he showed them how to make salt ponds.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

The day of congress came, and John was excited; he had fifteen bison to sell. He would make a good profit, and all the chiefs had a few months to get the bison and their gear home before the planting season started.

John started the congress by asking, “Is there any new business?”

One of the chiefs John didn’t recognize said, “I have new business. I propose that we rewrite our laws in comic book form.”

John’s mind went blank for a moment long enough for the other chiefs to start shouting their agreement. They thought it was a great idea. John was wondering if he was dreaming until one of the chiefs asked John, “Are you alright? What do you think?”

John was confused and asked in a tone of voice that would suggest he was angry, “Why in the world would you want laws in comic book form?”

Without hesitation, the chief said, “Because the comic books you introduced are a lot more interesting than words alone. Besides with the pictures there you can see exactly what you mean in the law. For instance, when it comes to flogging raiders, do we do it with sticks or leather? If you had a picture of it, like in the comics, there would be no question.”

No one had talked with John about this. It had been a few years since he led the traders in war against those imposing tribute, and now due to various factors, there were more villages in the trade alliance that did not take part in that war than those who did. John’s influence was still high since the congress always met in Texas, but it’s not what it once was, so John was not ready at all for addressing this issue.

John just asked, “Do you know how much more work it will take to write a law in comic book form instead of just the words of the law?”

“Well, you drew the first comics, surely you can draw and write our law in comic book form.”

“IT TOOK ME MONTHS TO WRITE THE COMICS I WROTE! If you want me to rewrite the law into comic book form, it would take weeks. I am not that fast of an artist. In fact, several people in the village can illustrate comics much faster than me.”

“Really? Then I vote we bring those men in here to rewrite our laws in comic book form.”

There were shouts of agreement. All the chiefs loved this idea. Over the last year, comics have been making their way up and down the alliance, and all the chiefs loved them at first sight. The reality is that this shouldn’t have surprised John as most of the first written languages were pictographs. They drew pictures for words. Why was this the first language? Because all people love illustrations and art.

The congress voted to hire several comic artists to illustrate and write out their laws, and they spent two weeks agonizing over every illustration. Only time would tell how illustrating every law would affect their government and court system.

As for John, he was confused by the totally new way of writing law, but he still sold all his bison. Although he refused to sell to any group he sold to the year previous, he wanted the bison to spread out, and perhaps one would get lucky and breed ridable bison.

Chapter 34 December 82 AD Africa- Invasion

It was time for war. Paul could not allow a nation with an army to survive in the western part of his nation. They would either be wiped out or integrated into Paulsland.

Paul made his way back to Magharibi village, where his soldiers had spent the last year learning to fight together in formations of hundreds, in groups of more than a thousand men. This was a different kind of combat than what Paul used to teach them. Fighting raiders and fighting armies are totally different types of fighting.

Paul had one thousand eight hundred active-duty soldiers who drilled and drilled in how to maneuver by drum, horn, and gong. They learned how to stand so that they did not stumble over each other in a crowd of hundreds of men, while another crowd of hundreds of men tried to push them back.

During the battle Elzo, Paul watched as the two front lines grew more and more tired, but due to their formations, they were stuck, more like crushed, in place. The next battle would be different.

One of the drills they had to learn was how to let the men in the front line move back so that they could get rest. Most of the deaths that happened in the battle with Elzo’s army happened because the front lines got tired.

In martial arts, one of the drills Paul loved to practice was putting a man in a small square and then line up a group of ten men across from him. Each of the men in line would spar him for thirty seconds, and for five minutes every thirty seconds, he would fight a fresh man. It’s the most exhausting drill Paul ever did in martial arts. And so Paul was changing how their lines worked in formations, so fresh men always fought on the front lines.

Paul also made a needed change to his soldier's uniform. He added in leather armor to protect their necks. When Paul went to the battlefield to move the bodies of his men, a good twenty to twenty-five percent had mortal wounds on their necks, and it was his fault for not putting proper armor there. His soldiers didn’t know better, but Paul did. Paul heard growing up that marines were called leather necks for the leather armor they wore around their necks in the eighteenth-century battles they fought.

With these adjustments, his men were ready for war.

That isn’t even mentioning the sheer advantage they will have in battle now that they have Trebuchets. Paul added a new class of soldiers called combat engineers who are able to put together a trebuchet inside of fifteen minutes and start firing at the enemy. Twelve oxen carry the pieces. The arm is nearly forty feet long, with the pivot point at eight feet. With two tons of weight, it can launch fifty-pound projectiles up to three hundred and twenty feet before the first bounce, or better yet role. Paul planned to use them as anti-personnel artillery to break the lines, and since the fifty-pound projectiles are moving at speeds of over seventy miles an hour, anyone who gets hit will not be getting back up, shield or no shield. Since the trebuchet is so small, they even rigged up a system to use the oxen to rearm the trebuchet every fifteen seconds.

Paul had his researchers make four different types of ammunition. Stone, wood, rubber, and a stone wrapped in rope and covered in rubber. What Paul wanted was ammunition that would continue rolling or bouncing once it hit the ground, like a bowling ball hitting pins. Except, in this case, it would be men's legs shattering and keeping hundreds of men from killing his precious soldiers.

With his soldiers, artillery, archers, and baggage train lined up and ready to go into the wilderness known as Subsahara Africa, Paul turned to his head scout Wawi and asked, “Is everything clear?”

Wawi was dressed in his ghillie suit and said, “Yes, sir. I checked the nearest village out myself a week ago, and there were very few warriors there. Either it’s a smaller village than average, or malaria really took them down a notch. There were only about thirty men, a hundred women, and a hundred and fifty children. Seeing so few children in a village like that was surprising.”

“Honestly, I am surprised there are that many men there. I would think Elzo would want to gather his army and fight us.”

“They were still gathering their crops when I scouted them out. They have to be farmers before they can go to war, unlike your active duty army.”

Paul frowned and said, “I had no idea how expensive an army could be until all these men had to be stationed here to stop Elzo’s army. I wish I could go back to dispersing the army all across Paulsland because it's so much cheaper when each village can take care of a couple dozen of my soldiers.”

The scout smiled and asked, “How many secretaries did you have to hire to make sure this army got all its supplies.”

Paul’s frowned deepened, and said, “Too many. I had to hire forty. They have to collect the taxes, store the taxes, trade the taxes for goods for our army, and make sure we get the supplies we need. I probably need more, but we just don’t have the manpower.”

The scout nodded and said, “Are you ready to go?”

“Are your scouts in place?”

“Yes, my King. Nothing will be able to get within a mile of your army without warning. Do your soldiers know what to listen for.”

“Of course not. But the officers do. The soldier's job is to obey their officers, so we don’t want them thinking too much. The officers know to listen for bird whistle, monkey squeal, bird whistle, monkey squeal as they march. Several of your scouts have come through and helped the officers learn your system of signals, but everything starts with bird, monkey, bird, monkey.”

Wawi laughed and said, “I am glad your officers know who is in charge.”

Paul shook his head and said, “We were able to run off Elzo’s army because he didn’t have scouts. As long as we are going through this wilderness without roads, I need you and your men giving orders as needed. Your our eyes and ears.”

“No problem. These ghillie suits are amazing. We are almost invisible in the forest with these.”

“Make sure to tell my wives. They were very upset when I cut strips out of cloth they made to put on already made shirts and pants. I think they told me a month of cloth went into your ghillie suit, and that’s from my six wives. Someone needs to hurry up and figure out the secret behind the spinning wheel; we need more cloth for everything.”

“I understand. I have two wives, and they are upset with how much thread and cloth goes into maintaining my ghillie suit. No wonder all your scouts are married men. It’s almost my wife's full-time job to keep this suit maintained.”

Paul blinked and said, “Yeah, that’s why I only picked married men.” Then he quickly changed the subject and said, “We better get moving.”

Paul then beat a gong telling the army to move out. The three majors began blowing in their horns, telling their regiments where to move. The regiments were a bit large with six hundred each, although once the next class graduates from man camp, there will be four regiments unless these battles go horribly wrong. Then the lieutenants beat on drums directing their hundred men, and finally, the sergeants corrected their groups of ten as needed.

The three regiments surrounded the oxen that carried the trebuchets, the engineers who led them, two hundred archers that Paul learned in the last battle are great for suppressing an army with shields, not so great for defeating it, the oxen that carried their food and supplies and several prisoners of war who were doing their best to keep up with Paul’s army. The prisoners struggled since each of the men had half their foot cut off.

The next village was three days' travel through the wilderness. Normally it wouldn’t be that long, but the oxen were laden down with goods, so they needed safe fords for them and the soldiers. The scouts did a wonderful job of directing the army with their bird whistles and monkey shrieks. Every time a leader was starting to take his men in the wrong direction, the scouts corrected them.

The thing that bothered Paul was that if a road was built, then this village would be at most an hour and a half from the last village. The wilderness kills trade.

When the army finally got to the village, Paul handed a prisoner of war a white flag and told him, “Tell the chief when he is ready to surrender and serve me wave this, and my army will stop killing his men, and we will talk details. Run directly to the chief. If you try to escape before giving the chief my message, my invisible scouts will kill you. But once you give the message, none of my scouts will harm you if you run.”

The prisoner of war was terrified. During the march, he had seen men that perfectly blended with the forest come into the camp for supplies. He thought they were spirits, and Paul had somehow gotten spirits to serve in his army. He didn’t say a word; he just hobbled quickly toward the village.

Paul watched as the man went toward the village with the flag over his shoulder. Paul didn’t care if he gave the message or not. Sooner or later, a chief would listen to one of the prisoners of war.

Once the Prisoner was in the village, Paul banged the gong, and his men began marching out of the forest. Surrounding every village were large fields where they planted their crops. There was a good half mile of recently harvested fields between Paul’s army and the village.

The villagers saw the army coming out of the woods, screamed, and ran. Some of the men and women grabbed their children and ran; others didn’t. Paul watched from the distance as men, women, and children ran in the opposite direction from his army, and he smiled. This village was part of an alliance of villages. Paul needed to beat all of them at the same time; otherwise, it would take years to bring them in. Paul didn’t want to fight a guerrilla war for the next twenty years. He wanted to get this over with this year, if possible.

In minutes his men surrounded the village, and they captured a couple of adults who had malaria and several children too young or scared to run away. They were sent back to Paulsland.

Then Paul told his men something new he said, “Gather the grain we need it for our campaign against the villages that would attack us. Once all the grain is gathered, burn the village to the ground.”

Once the village was looted and burned, Paul moved on to the next village. Over the next few weeks, he burned down two villages a week, and every village told the same story. The albino was leading an army of men to their homes.

Chapter 35 April AD 83 Africa- What Happened to Abilio

Three years earlier.

After the failed assassination of Paul, Abilio realized his life was in terrible danger. Abilio knew that most of the soldiers and all the lieutenants were completely loyal to Paul, so over the course of two months, he led his six hunters through the tropical forest of Paulsland to either safety or death. Between the difficulty of the terrain, avoiding the communications towers, hiding from hunters, and having to hunt as they traveled, they were lucky to make five miles a day. By the time Abilio reached his destination, he sorely missed the roads.

Eventually, Abilio made his way to the Siri Jani tribe and waited. Abilio needed to speak with the chief of the tribe. If Abilio could convince him to protect and hide him, he would live. If not, he would die.

Abilio didn’t have to wait long. As one of the very few chiefs in Paulsland to seek out membership in Paulsland, the chief was healthy and whole. Abilio knew the greatest fun a chief had was hunting, so Abilio and his hunters watched for the chief to head out to the tropical forest to hunt. He didn’t have to wait long. Once the chief was under cover of the tropical forest Abilio, and his men followed the chief until they felt it was safe to speak.

Abilio called out, “GREAT CHIEF OF THE SIRI JANI TRIBE I SEEK AN AUDIENCE!”

The chief was annoyed. He turned around and said, “I am hunting today, come and talk with me when I am back in my village.”

Abilio got closer and said, “Look closer, Great Chief. I can not be seen in your village.”

The chief looked confused a moment, then took a closer look at the man in front of him, and his eyes got wide in understanding and surprise. All the chiefs knew what Abilio looked like because Abilio was Paul’s right-hand man for years.

The chief frowned and had a dangerous tone in his voice as he asked, “Why shouldn’t I turn you over to my son-in-law?”

“Son-in-law? Misa isn’t married to Paul yet. Misa hasn’t had his child yet. Even when Misa has Paul’s child, that child won't become King without a lot of help. Chances are one of my nephews will take over after Paul dies, and if my nephew doesn’t care for you, I could save your life. You know that Paul is far older than anyone else in the nation; how much longer will he live? A year? Two? Especially with those wounds, my men gave him.”

The chief had to think about Abilio’s offer. There was a lot of truth to what Abilio had to say. He had been around long enough to see everyone in a chief’s family wiped out by the new chief, and Abilio could offer some protection if things went south when Paul died.

Abilio and his hunters stayed very quiet as the chief thought about his offer. Finally, the chief said, “If Paul catches you in my territory, it could go bad for me, but I know of a place that’s perfect for you to hide. My most trusted men will bring food out there, and you will stay there until needed.”

The chief of Siri Jani figured that if they got caught, he could deny knowing anything, but if he needed help after Paul died, the uncle of Paul’s sons could save his life.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Several months ago, right after the planting festival

Chief Siri Jani was furious! King Paul doubled his taxes and has permanently taken away his soldiers, so now, instead of all the men in the village working and building the economy of the village, he will now have to pay some of those men to guard the village. It’s a triple hit on the economy. A loss to high taxes, fewer workers, and paying the higher wages family men needed.

Instead of going back straight to his village, he made a slight detour to the place he hid Abilio and the other traitors.

When he got to their hiding spot, he yelled out, “Abilio, traitors, come out. I need to talk to you.”

Instead of quickly coming out, the chief heard groans, so he asked, “Where are you?”

Abilio crawled out and groaned, “We caught the sickness, one of my men already died.”

The chief sneered at them and said, “So what. King Paul found a cure; in a few weeks, we will get you some.”

Abilio brightened up; he had this fever for months off and on. With a smile on his face, he groaned out, “What do you want?”

“Since Elzo attacked, Paul is doubling our taxes so that he can keep that big army of his all together, which means they will not be protecting my village, so I have to pay hard workers to guard my village. And to make things worse, King Paul said, I am not allowed to raise taxes. This is going to hurt me.”

Abilio was practically delirious and said, “What does this have to do with me?” Any other time he would have been much more diplomatic, but he has a fever and feels cold.

“If Paul is going to hurt me. ME! The man whose daughter he married. I am going to hurt him. I am not like the other chiefs. I went to him and diplomatically joined Paul. Paul said he would only tax me ten percent, and now out of the blue, he is changing everything. He married my daughter! HE OWES ME!

Abilio was not following the chief and was half-convinced; he was in a fever dream, so he asked, “How?”

The chief smiled and said, “My good traitor, I am going to put you to work. Now that Paul has a cure for malaria, he is preparing his army to conquer Elzo’s land when the rainy season is over. When Paul’s away with his army, I will send you out to kill his tax collector and bring those taxes back here. There is no way for Paul to figure out who did it. The only people Paul is leaving in our villages are the lieutenants who are too busy teaching children and the men on the communications tower who won't care when some new supplies are brought into the village.”

Abilio smiled, “Good, anything that hurts Paul is great.”

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

It had only been a few days since King Paul left, but Katibu was hard at work, gathering taxes from the various villages. Currently, there were forty secretaries doing this job, and in Katibu’s opinion, they needed three times as many.

Why did King Paul call Katibu a secretary instead of a tax collector? Because Katibu’s job was more than just collecting taxes. Paulsland did not have the metal resources needed to start coinage, and even if it did, it would take years to educate the people on the subject, so Katibu’s job was to collect taxes in all its forms and then trade it into something that their King needed.

For instance, all the secretaries had spent the months of the rainy season collecting 20% of the logs, iron, stone, oxen, and fruits the chiefs brought in from taxes and preparing the pay their soldiers would get when their service in the military was over. Farmers, miners, carpenters, blacksmiths, stonemasons, and other workers needed various tools for their trade, so the secretaries traded the raw goods for useful tools, then made sure those tools got to the right spot.

On top of that, they made sure the armories were filled with all the weaponry the soldiers needed, the soldier's granaries were full, and that the schools had all the resources they needed to teach the children.

Forty men to keep track of all the taxes, resources, and needs of more than a hundred and fifty villages with the duty to make sure the needs of the government were met out of those resources. Katibu had a difficult job, but he was very well paid by the King; he just wished he had more time to spend with his wife and child.

Currently, he was bringing a load of lime to the capital. Every village wanted more concrete, and fortunately, lime was plentiful in Paulsland. Nearly every village dug up their own during the dry season because every builder wanted concrete as it made building a foundation for new projects easy. Furthermore, many villages have started the construction of stone towers, which is very concrete intensive. Although after the fall of the stone tower last year, the first floor was redesigned with ventilation shafts, and the doors will be reinforced with iron lattice.

King Paul needed this load of lime for his bridge project. A couple of years ago, they finished the bridge to his Island, but now they needed to finish building the other two bridges from King Paul’s Island two the other side of both the rivers in the capital. If they didn’t have a malaria outbreak, chances are they would have finished the bridges last year. Between Malaria and Elzo, they were over a year behind on infrastructure. It was the secretary's job to get things back on track, and part of that was to make sure the workers never ran out of concrete for their project, and thus Katibu was leading five ox carts filled with lime straight to the capital. With the slow oxen and heavy load, it would take two days.

As Katibu was leaving the village, he passed the communications tower and yelled out, “Watchman, see any lions, hyenas, or anything that wants to eat me today?”

The watchman looked out from over the tower and said, “No, but I did get a report that lions were spotted in the north.”

Katibu smiled and said, “That’s fine; I am headed east. Any hunters going after the lions?”

The watchman yelled back, “Yes. Some of the farmers are going after them. Much better to kill the threat during the dry season than the rainy season when they need to work on their crops.”

Conversation over, Katibu left the village, leading the first ox by hand. The ox was hitched to a cart that had a rope attached to the next ox, and so Katibu led a train of oxen to the capital with tons of lime. Katibu was old enough to remember when this was unimaginable. Wheels, concrete, carts didn’t mean anything because all that mattered was getting your next meal, then King Paul came, and he brought those seeds which grew so much food. Once Katibu’s belly was filled, he began to learn, and he had a talent for organization.

He was so proud when he was chosen to be a secretary. The day he retired from the army, he was given this job, a home, and moved his fiancée into his home, making her his wife, and now they had a six-month-old son and another on the way. Katibu couldn’t help but smile, in a few years the army was going to double in size from all the babies born since Paul brought stability to the land.

Katibu daydreamed as he led the oxen through the fields that surrounded the village. Every village in the nation was surrounded by fields, except now those fields were owned by individuals instead of the village. After two miles of walking, Katibu began seeing homes that were built away from the protection of the village. It says something about the stability that Paul brought that people were willing to live in a home two miles away from the village walls.

Katibu continued to travel down the road, and after five miles, he finally left the fields and entered the tropical forest of Paulsland. In the tropic forest, he had to pay more attention. Although the communications towers could see each other's light from many miles away, that didn’t mean they could see into the tropical forest, and there could easily be predators, cobras, rhinos, or hippos around. Worse yet, this part of the road was much less traveled as people only came this far when they were going from one village to the next.

As Katibu considered this, he noticed some travelers on the road, and he thought it was odd that they didn’t have any supplies with them. Why would you leave your village and go to another empty-handed?

One of the men looked at him and said, “Do you know who I am?” as the men started walking to Katibu.

Katibu thought the situation was getting stranger, and he looked closely at the man. The man did seem to look very familiar.

Katibu said, “Sir, you do look familiar, but I meet a lot of people on my travels as I am one of the King's secretaries.”

The man smirked and said, “I used to be about the king’s business. I am sure that’s where you know me from.”

Katibu did not like how the man said, king. He said it like King Paul was just a king. It didn’t sound right to Katibu’s ears.

Katibu politely asked, “Where was that.”

“I used to teach the young men how to hunt at man camp, although I was only a drill instructor the first two years.”

And then Katibu’s eyes went wide with understanding. He was Abilio, the King’s brother in law. A traitor who tried to kill the King and killed many soldiers as he sought the King’s life. Katibu did know him, barely. Abilio instructed him in hunting for perhaps an hour while Katibu went through man camp.

As Katibu processed this, Abilio and his men drew swords on Katibu. They were already swinging their swords when Katibu began drawing his sword. Katibu was just two slow, and they struck him down.

Abilio laughed and said, “I told you this would be easy. It looks like he has a load of lime. The Chief will love this. If a minor spent a month digging up lime, he may not get this much. We’ll give the chief the lime and keep the oxen. If nothing else, the meat will be great. Now hide the body in the woods and follow me.”

Abilio’s men quickly dragged the body into the woods, and they split the train up. Abilio was the first to make it to the village. Even though Abilio was a traitor, not many people remembered his face, and as time passed, few and fewer people remembered it well. In fact, none of the guards at the gate remembered him at all since the guards chosen by this chief never went to man camp.

One by one, the rest of the ox carts made their way through the village and then took different routes back to Siri Jani. It took three days for them to get back. On day four, the search for the secretary began.

A message was sent through the communications network asking where Katibu was, as he was two days late. When Katibu never responded, another message was sent asking where he was last seen. Once they found that out, men went to search for him, and all they found was his leather armor. Scavengers had already devoured his body, and the ox carts filled with lime were nowhere to be seen. When they asked the guards and watchmen about ox carts filled with lime, no one could remember a thing. Goods come and go through the villages all the time, but they don’t pay any attention to it. They are there to protect from trouble.

When several chiefs found out that a secretary was killed and his goods were taken without anyone knowing who the culprit was, they began planning their own raids. Why not? The King raised their taxes, and he was away for a while. And so before King Paul returned, nine secretaries died to raiders who were hired by chiefs secretly. As far as the chiefs were concerned, if anyone got caught, the chiefs could deny everything.

Authors note- It was always my plan that Abilio become a bandit protected by one of the chiefs. Just had to put the chiefs in a sitaution where they were willing to risk Paul's wrath to figure out which one would do it, and then it made writting about Abilio much easier. Hopefully this will be the only major thing I overlook in writting this story.

Chapter 36 April 83 AD Texas- Power Tools

John was thrilled. It had been nearly a year, but he thinks he finally did it. He was very sure the compound bow he made wouldn’t break this time.

He yelled out, “Boys come here.”

Before long, the pitter-patter of little feet could be heard running toward John’s work shed. Trevor was the first to enter, and he asked, “Dad, what do you need?”

John smiled and showed him his compound bow and said, “I finally finished the compound bow. With the pullies and odd angles needed to make the pullies work, it took me forever to carve it the wood and make the screws for it.”

Trever’s look of disappointment broke John's heart, and then Trevor said, “Dad, you already failed at that four times. Why keep trying?”

John again tried to teach a lesson that was hard to teach someone surrounded by people who were scared of failure because failure could mean starvation. John said, “Son if you fail at something, the best thing to do is to get back up and try again. Try, try, and try again until you succeed.”

Before Trevor could repeat the words, he heard the other adults in the village say, the rest of the boys charged in.

Quincy yelled out, “DAD, THAT’S SO COOL!” John visibly brightened now that he had the approval of his son.

Bobby asked, “Dad, what’s that bow worth?”

John frowned at Bobby and said, “It's worth a lot to me. I don’t have to trade everything I make.”

Little Walker just asked, “Can I play with that.”

John smiled and said, “When you're older. But boys, I wanted you to see my triumph. This is my compound bow. It works with pullies where the pullies on the bow allow it to shoot with twice as much force as it takes to pull back. Let me show you.”

John then grabbed an arrow and put it on the string, and pulled back. It was only forty pounds of pull weight, but one of the advantages of a compound bow was that the forty-pound pull weight would deliver eighty pounds of force. Another advantage was that he could hold the arrow to his cheek easily as he aimed the bow. He could not do that with a longbow. John smiled as he aimed and then let go. His grin grew as the arrow went, “THUNK!” into the wood.

All the boys went, “WOW!”

John grabbed another arrow, put it on the string, and pulled back, and the bow cracked and broke. John wanted to curse, but his boys were there, and they would tell on him to their mom. They thought it was funny when he got in trouble, and his day was already bad enough.

Quincy was the first to speak and said, “Dad, that bow was really good till it broke. You will do better next time.”

Before John could respond, Trevor said, “See, dad, there's no point in spending a couple of months making a new bow. Use the regular bows; they do the job just fine.”

John said, “Trevor, I am getting old. The new bows will be just as powerful as the old ones but much easier to use. I want to go hunting when I am sixty, not be like the other elders who tore the muscles in their arms using the old bows.”

Trevor said, “But dad, one of the elders tore a muscle when using an ax, another when they were trying to force something with a hammer. You're going to hurt yourself trying to make these new things. I know it's inevitable, but I want to hold that off for as long as possible.”

John thought about what his son said for a minute and said, “Your right. I could be hurt while using my tools. The reality is that with all my responsibilities, it will take a few months to build another compound bow. Using hand tools is hard on the body and takes too long, but you know what; I bet I could make some power tools.”

Bobby was the first to pick up on the new words and asked, “Dad, what do you mean by hand tools and power tools?”

John smiled and said, “A hand tool is a tool that only uses your own two hands for power, but a power tool is something that gets its power from another source.”

“Like magic?”

John thought about his question for a second a carefully said, “If I had an electric source, then yes, but in this case, we have the river flowing right there; I bet I could use it as a source of power. You boys go and play. I am going to look for a good spot. If anyone asks for me, tell them I went upriver.”

It didn’t take long after John left before the boys began telling the people of the village that their dad was going to make the river power their tools. And the people imagined that John was going to commune with the river, take its mystical power, put it in tools, which would float in the air and build things when John ordered them too. What they imagined and discussed would have fit into Walt Disney’s fantasia or a Wuxie cultivation novel.

Watermills powered by moving water, connected to tools via gears, were outside of anything in their culture.

While John’s kids were spreading rumors about his magical abilities, John was looking for a place to build a small canal. John was looking for a place with a few feet of drop that was close to the river. He planned to build a small canal to that place where he would build his watermill. That way, all he would have to do was dam up the canal with a board when he wanted the watermill to turn off or remove the board when he wanted the mill to be on. The falling water would, of course, provide the power.

John hadn’t made a watermill yet because making gears to power things was complicated, and you needed precise tools to make the gears work. He had precise enough tools to make a compound bow, so he should be able to make a workable mill. John began figuring out in his head how he would attach a saw, a jigsaw, a drill press, and a hammer. John smiled at the thought of a power hammer. Then thought maybe he could even make a powered press.

About a mile from the village, John found a place that should work, although he would have to make a half-mile canal through woods.

It was evening when John got back, and practically the entire village was waiting on him. The shaman rushed over to John as soon as he saw him and asked, “Your boys say that you are going to empower your tools with water.”

John said, “No. I have to make new tools so that the water can power it. But before I make those tools, I really need to dig a canal and make a watermill. If you all would help, we can probably get everything done in a couple of weeks. And of course, whenever I am not using it, anyone who needs to use it would be welcome too.”

The shaman's eyes got real big, and said, “Of course we will help you with your endeavors.”

John had no idea what the villagers were thinking, and the villagers had no way to know what John was thinking. Even when his wife talked with him that night about the water-powered tools, John missed the assumption that the tools would be powered by magic instead of directly by the movement of water.

The next morning John brought one of his bison out with a plow and plowed the area where he needed the canal. Several young men followed behind him, shoveling the dirt out of the way. They did that until they had a four-foot deep ditch to John’s hill, where the canal would pour water to the watermill. John bricked it up to protect it from erosion.

After a week of preparing the canal, they began chopping trees down and building a log structure that would house the gears and tools. When they were halfway finished with the mill house, John placed a log through the wall and began building the wheel that would be powered by water. John had lots of help as the people knew this must be magic because they had never seen anything so strange.

John began work on the simplest tool first, the power hammer. He needed a lot of help to move it because John decided he needed the power hammer to be dead simple, so the hammer weighed a hundred and twenty pounds. The hammer had a handle as long as a spear, and it had a pivot point about halfway through. Even though the power hammer was the simplest tool, the way the water mill powered it was a bit complicated. John designed the watermill so that the water wheel had a long log that spun with it. The log was long so that John, over time, could add lots of gears to it for lots of different tools. In the power hammer case, he put two long arms on the log designed to push down on the back of the long shaft of the power hammer. As the back of the shaft holding the hammer went down, the front lifted, but as the wheel turned, the arm would slip off the handle. When that happened, the hammerhead fell and struck the anvil. With this power hammer, blacksmithing would become much easier for John.

When John thought everything was ready, he made the announcement, “I think my first power tool is ready. We are going to open the canal up to the river, and once the water fills the canal, we will open up the small dam and see how the mill works.”

The people cheered. They were going to see real magic.

John sent one of the young men to break down the final wall between the river and canal. About fifteen minutes later, the water reached the dam, and before long, the canal filled up. John waited for the young man to get back before he started the show, and once everyone was ready, John lifted the board that was damming the canal, with a pully, and the people watched in amazement as the first water mill in North America began to move.

John yelled out, “It's working! Alright, y’all follow me into the mill.”

Even though the mill was a rather large building, there wasn’t room for everybody, but plenty of people came in, and John said, “The power hammer is just my first tool we will have more in time.” Then John went over to the spinning log and quickly connected the arm, and it pushed down on the back of the handle of the hammer, as it turned the hammer went higher, and higher, then as the log turn the arm slipped off the hammers handle, making the hammer fall onto the anvil with a big, “THUNK!” Then a couple of seconds later, it did it again, then again, and again.

After two weeks of seventy men working hard, with the help of bison, the first water-powered tool was working!

John jumped up and yelled, “IT WORKED!”

One of the men said, “That’s it?”

John gave him a dirty look and said, “What do you mean that’s it? With this, we can let the river hammer for us.”

“I thought you would take power from the river and make the hammer fly up into the air and do all your work for you.”

John looked dumbfounded for a minute and finally said, “No. To my knowledge, there is no such thing as flying hammers. What this water mill does is use the water to run tools for us. Granted, I will have to figure out a different gear system for each tool.”

“What's a gear?”

John hadn't made any gears yet. He wanted to make sure everything else worked before he started making complicated things since these people tended to give up the first time something failed. So John thought about it and said, “It's like having a circles with gap teeth. The circles go together, and as one spins, the teeth in one circle make the other gear spin. I saw examples all the time in video games.”

The man looked at John with a confused look and asked, “What's a video game.”

John thought about it and said, “There is literally no way for me to explain video games to you.”

“So, video games are one of those god land things?”

John thought about it and said, “Yes.”

“If you saw them in video games, then how are you making it here if video games are god land things?”

That was a really good question that John did not want to spend hours talking about, so John said, “I am able to bring some god land things to our nation. This is one, and it will help me bring other god land things to us.”

That seemed to please the people, and it actually made the shaman ecstatic. Although the people were disappointed that none of the tools flew around, it did not take them long to appreciate how much work could be done in the watermill. Being an agricultural society, they did not think the watermill was as good as the domesticated bison, but they still thought it was excellent.

Over the coming weeks and months, John would begin working out how to make the tools he needed in the watermill, including a desire to make an actual mill in the watermill. John’s biggest shock and disappointment about the mill was that a very large pond developed between the village and the mill that he had to spend an extra twenty minutes walking around every day. He had failed to think about building a canal back to the river until it was far too late, to the amusement of everyone.

Chapter 37 May AD 37 Africa- Elzo's Counter Attack

Ever since the second battle with Paul, everything had gone wrong. Elzo’s tribes should have been thrilled with the loot they got from the walled village and the corpses of the soldiers they killed, but then death came. Some of the men didn’t even make it back to their villages when they began to die. Many of the villages were furious with Elzo, but they were too sick to seek him out.

In the village Elzo lived in, the men were furious, but Elzo avoided their wrath by saying, “I told you we must kill Paul. We didn’t, and now he is making everyone sick. I warned you.”

In the villages under Elzo’s control, a quarter of the men died, another fifth were sick until the rainy season, and most of the rest would get better for a few weeks only to come down with the sickness again. A third of the women died, and over half the children died.

Once the rainy season came, the villages had to focus on planting and tending crops. Even if they wanted to attack Paulsland, they didn’t have the supplies to do it. Besides, when the rainy season came, it brought flash floods, which made going through the tropical forest with an army too risky.

Once the rainy season was over, and they were gathering the last of their crops, Elzo sent for the rest of the witchdoctors and chiefs to plan their next attack on Paulsland since they had to kill Paul to end the dreaded disease. That’s when Elzo got word that Paul’s army was burning down villages. The only good news was that Paul’s army was only a bit more than two thousand men.

There were no roads between Elzo’s villages, and so his response was very slow. It took six weeks to send for and gather his army, and even with the addition of the new flock of twelve-year-old men, Elzo’s army only had a little more than twenty-two hundred men. Paul had burned down twelve villages in that time. Elzo brought his army to the last village Paul burned down about mid-morning and was shocked to see Paul waiting for him.

Elzo couldn’t help but shout, “YES!” With a huge grin on his face.

Fields surrounded every village in this part of Africa. When Elzo’s army left the cover of the tropical forest, they were a bit more than a mile away from Paul’s army. In fact, Paul’s army was positioned as far away from Elzo’s army as possible, almost like Paul knew exactly where Elzo’s army would come out of the forest.

Elzo shouted out to his warriors, “PAUL HASN’T LEFT YET! LAST YEAR WE NEARLY KILLED HIM, BUT HE ESCAPED ON HIS ROAD. THERE IS NO ROAD TO ESCAPE ON HERE! TODAY PAUL DIES! WHEN HE DIES THE SICKNESS WILL GO AWAY!”

Elzo’s warriors began cheering.

Elzo, his lieutenants, and chiefs began forming up their army as Paul’s army patiently waited for them. Elzo was thrilled Paul was foolishly giving him all this time to prepare his men. He almost had Paul last year; he would not let him get away again.

While the soldiers were streaming out of the forest and forming up into battle formations, a man with a distinct limp and carrying a white flag left Paul’s lines and began limping toward Elzo’s lines.

Elzo and the rest of his leadership were too busy trying to arrange things to notice at first. But once he got within three hundred yards, a warning was sounded throughout the camp. When Elzo saw the man, he yelled out, “BRING THAT MAN TOO ME!”

Immediately several warriors ran to the man. He put up his hands, and when they saw he had no weapons, they drug him to Elzo.

Elzo said, “Who are you?”

The man said, “I was one of the warriors that went to battle with you last year. King Paul captured me.”

Elzo did not like how he said, king. Elzo said in a cold voice, “What do you want? Why did Paul let you go?”

“King Paul said that when your side is ready to surrender, wave this flag, or start waiving cloth, or your armor and his soldiers will stop killing your warriors.”

Elzo, his lieutenants, several chiefs, witchdoctors, and warriors looked at this poor man in disbelief for a moment, and then they busted out laughing.

Elzo had a giant grin on his face as he said, “Did Paul forget about last year, where my warriors nearly defeated his entire army. If it wasn’t for the battle on the road, all of Paul’s troops would have died, and I would have taken his life.”

The messenger was young and foolish, and since the men were laughing at him, he said, “King Paul told me you might say that. King Paul told me that if you thought that today's battle would go like the one last year to remind you that just because you learned everything you know from King Paul, it does not mean King Paul taught you everything that King Paul knows.”

The men around Elzo took several seconds to process what the man said, but Elzo figured it out first. The man just called Elzo stupid to his face, so Elzo pulled his sword out and ran it through the man.

The death of the messenger got the entire army’s attention. Elzo saw all eyes were on him, so he yelled out, “BY THE END OF THE DAY, MY SWORD WILL TASTE PAUL’S BLOOD!” There were cheers, “WE ALMOST HAD HIM LAST YEAR, BUT THIS YEAR HIS ARMY IS TINY, HIS ARCHERS ARE FEW, AND HE HAS NO ROAD TO RUN AWAY ON!” There was more cheering! “WE DON’T EVEN HAVE TO GO TO PAULSLAND TO GET GOOD WEAPONS; PAUL HAS BROUGHT THEM TO US!” With the promise of loot, Elzo got the loudest cheers yet. Elzo smiled as he saw the morale of his army rise. Then he began playing his drums.

It wasn’t long before his armies formed into their formations, the drums beat, and the warriors marched to battle. Elzo stayed in the back with his witchdoctors, and they began discussing the coming battle.

Then one of the witchdoctors asked, “Warlord Elzo, what are those wooden things surrounded by cattle?”

Elzo had to squint to see what the man was talking about. Once Elzo saw them, he honestly didn’t know what to think. There was some tall wooden thing, with oxen and people all around it. Elzo finally had to give the man a guess and said, “Perhaps he is going to offer a sacrifice to spirits to help him win the battle. I honestly don’t know what they are.”

Then his soldiers got around three hundred yards away from them, and the large wooden structures began to move. When it first happened, Elzo didn’t believe his eyes until he saw the others moving too.

There were cries from the witchdoctors asking, “What are those things doing?” They were bewildered; they had never seen large wooden structures move, much less move so quickly, and make a sharp noise. They were so focused on the wooden structures that they almost missed when their soldiers began to die.

The small trebuchets were able to launch fifty-pound projectiles over three hundred yards, at a bit over seventy-five miles an hour. One of the solid rock projectiles hit a man on the front line, it broke through his shield like paper and hit his stomach with enough force that his abdomen popped like a very gory zit over his fellow warriors. He even managed to live for three whole seconds after the hit. The man marching behind him lost his left leg at the knee. The man marching two rows behind the first victim lost his foot, although he actually survived.

Another projectile was a thirty pound stone covered in twenty pounds of rubber and rope. Everyone it hit had their bones shattered, and it had the unpleasant ability to bounce around a group of soldiers instead of going directly through them. Half of these men died of their injuries in the coming days and weeks.

The final type of projectile was fifty pounds of rubber. It bounced over the first formation of men and hit men in the second formation. It didn’t kill anyone, although the men had broken and shattered bones and would not be able to fight.

As the projectiles hit, everything on the battlefield stopped except for the engineers manning the trebuchets. They reloaded them as quickly as they could and used the oxen to quickly cock the arm back. The trebuchet was as novel to these men as the first airplanes were to men in the 20th century. The concept was so new everyone had to come to terms with large pieces of stone flying three hundred yards, but when the second wave hit, breaking dozens of men, everyone on the battlefield woke up.

Once Elzo realized that the flying projectiles meant death, he quickly beat out on his drum that the men were to fast march to Paul’s soldiers. He realized that once his army got close to Paul's men, it would be too dangerous for Paul to fire those heavy stones because it could hit Paul's men.

As the men came closer, the trebuchet began firing heavier rounds. They used heavier rounds because the enemy was getting closer, and the heavier the round, the less distance it traveled. So as Elzo’s army got closer, the trebuchet got deadlier. At a hundred and fifty yards, they began using two fifty pound projectiles to spread the damage across the formations.

As the various projectiles fell, the chiefs kept yelling, “WE WILL BE SAFE WHEN OUR SWORDS ARE AT OUR ENEMIES THROAT! CHARGE! CHARGE! CHARGE!”

At a hundred yards, a trebuchet launched two sixty pound stones, and a warrior lucked out by marching directly between the two stones that killed the men to the left and right of him. This was too much. He panicked and began running at Paul’s army. As he ran, others panicked and began running to the area their chiefs called safe; Paul’s front line.

It looked like all the Hollywood action scenes Paul had seen growing up as a child. The difference was that Paul’s army had formed up a shield wall with at least two spears sticking out for each shield on the front line. As Elzo’s warriors ran at the line in panic, it was easy for the soldiers on Paul’s second and third lines to adjust their spears to meet the panicking warriors. As the panicked men reached the line, they ran full force into the spears and died like flies. They practically jumped on the spears; it was like spearing fish in a barrel.

Dozens of men were killed by the trebuchets, nearly two hundred more were permanently injured. But more were killed by the panicked run on Paul’s army's shield wall than died under the two minutes they spent getting crushed by the trebuchets. Nearly every fool that panicked and ran at the shield wall died outright.

Those who were a bit slower took note and tried to stop, but they had an army behind them, pushing them forward. Throughout history, generals and kings loved formations because the men in the front who could see the danger could not run because the men behind them, who couldn’t see a thing, pushed them forward. The ignorant forced the frontline to fight. The warriors raised their shields and spears as they were pushed into the spears of Paul’s army.

Elzo was relieved when the infantry finally began to clash. Elzo remembered their last encounter and knew that this would go the same way, although, at this point, he had less men in fighting shape than Paul.

Elzo was relieved for ten minutes, and then Paul’s lieutenants began playing drums, and the second line of Paul's troops took the place of the first, while the first went to the back of the formation. Now Paul had fresh troops fighting Elzo’s troops.

A few minutes later, the drums played again, and the line got changed out again.

This kept happening for about half an hour, and then Elzo’s front line collapsed in a wave. For half an hour every few minutes, his front line soldiers had to fight a fresh opponent. It's one thing to fight the same guy for half an hour where you are both equally exhausted, but to fight a fresh opponent every few minutes, one who is in top form is untenable. It wasn’t long after the first line fell that the second line fell.

Elzo sent orders for his soldiers to back off. As his army began retreating, Paul’s army did not let them. Paul’s army stayed on them. Then Elzo heard a trumpet, and the drums played by Paul’s lieutenants began beating different beats. Over the next few minutes, Elzo watched as Paul’s forward formations forced open Elzo’s formations, and one of Paul’s rear formations moved forward, got between Elzo’s formations, and started slaughtering his men.

To Elzo, it looked like Paul’s army was rolling his army up like a piece of cloth.

Elzo had no choice; he was beaten. He banged on his drum the retreat signal. Those who could run ran, those who couldn’t dropped their weapons and fell to their knees, hoping for mercy.

Elzo was one of the first people into the tree line. As he ran, he saw a tree move oddly, then it stabbed him and said, “You're not getting away this time, traitor.”

Elzo cried out, “Spirits! LET ME GO! I WILL DO ANYTHING!”

The man in a ghillie suit smiled and said, “Spirt! I like that name. Now die traitor.” And with that, he cut off Elzo’s head and brought it back out to the field.

The scouts found Elzo’s army the previous day, let Paul know through their signals allowing Paul to be ready long before Elzo’s army exited the forest; ever since, the scouts have been waiting along the perimeter ready to kill any escaping men.

As the scout stepped out in full view of the fleeing soldiers, he was joined by the other scouts who were cutting off the heads of anyone trying to escape the battlefield. Their orders were to kill any individuals who escaped but to leave large formations of men alone. If the individuals happened to be leaders, they were to carry their heads back to the battlefield to show their enemy. Their ghillie suits made them perfect for the job. And it had a greater reaction than Paul expected.

As the fleeing soldiers saw them, they cried out one by one the same word, “SPIRITS!” As much as they feared and disliked Paul, they were much more frightened of spirits holding severed heads, and they could not surrender to King Paul fast enough.

Chapter 38 July AD 83 Africa-Bitter Return

Paul was happy as he marched his victorious army back into Paulsland proper. The chiefs surrendered before they fought a full day. They were badly beaten and terrified of the scouts they assumed were spirits that surrounded the field of battle. Paul gave the chiefs the same conditions to enter into Paulsland as everyone else, and they agreed to it. Paul even allowed the chiefs to live as they had a proper fear of him. Then he had his scouts execute the witchdoctors. The faith the warriors had in their witchdoctors was broken because they thought the scouts were spirits, and no matter what the witchdoctors did, they could not ward off these spirits. They replaced their faith in the witchdoctors with a faith in King Paul, the man who commanded the spirits. If Paul knew this, he would not have been so happy on his return.

Because there were no roads, it took Paul two weeks to get to Magharibi village. It would take months for his new villages to build roads to it, but once they did, his little nation would have roads that stretched over two hundred miles. It would take his army five days to travel that far from the capital. Paulsland was finally at least as big as a state. A small state, no doubt, but a state nonetheless. He was looking forward to visiting all his new villages next year.

As soon as Paul entered the gate, one of the men from the communications tower ran to Paul, yelling out, “URGENT MESSAGE FOR THE KING!”

Paul’s heart dropped, and concern flooded his voice as he called out, “What is it?”

“After you left, men began attacking your secretaries. They stole whatever supplies they were transporting and killed them. Nine died before we were able to put guards on them.”

Paul was furious. Someone dared to attack his people while he was gone. Paul asked, “Do you know who did it?”

The man shook his head and said, “No. They attacked only once the secretaries were in the forest. No one saw a thing.”

Paul said, “I know that we have a manpower issue right now because this army can’t help the villages across Paulsland, but I can spare ten soldiers for each secretary. Let me work it out with my lieutenants so that the soldiers get changed out every couple of weeks. I will see what else we can do because we really need those secretaries.” Paul thought about it for a minute and said, “I am sad we lost those men, but perhaps some good will come out of it. I have been worried about how my unmarried soldiers would meet acceptable brides in the army's new situation, but if they travel with secretaries, perhaps they could develop relationships in the various villages they visit. I am just sad that it cost nine good men their lives for me to realize this.”

The man was surprised and said, “King Paul, it isn’t your fault.”

King Paul shook his head and said, “I know it's not my fault, but it is my responsibility. I stepped up to become a chief; then, as I conquered more villages, I became a king. I chose this responsibility. I am doing the best I can, but there is only so much I can do.”

Paul gave his soldiers permission to go home for a week and an order to return to the capital for the retirement ceremony at the end of man camp. On his way back, he sent word telling every gate to keep track of everyone entering and leaving a village who was not from that village. If anyone was attacked near a village, they would now have a record of those they should bring in for questioning.

It took three days to get back to the capital, and Paul was pleased with the progress made on the bridges. Before the planting festival, they should have bridges to every shore in the capital. With an Island and two rivers meeting at the capital, it amounted to three bridges all meeting at the island. Once finished, each bridge would basically have a fortress at both ends. This capital would practically be impossible to take until someone invented tanks, and maybe not then.

When Paul got to his home, he smelt delicious food. His wives were apparently going all out to make him a feast. They knew he would be back sometime today, but they didn’t know when and so nobody was watching when he came into his house.

The first thing he heard was his son Alexander yell out, “Your not my mom, your not my dad, you don’t tell me what to do!”

Then he heard Misa say, “I am your aunt and one of your dad’s wives. You will obey me.”

As Paul began to stomp over and take his belt off, Alexander said the worst thing possible, “So what? You’re the worst wife he has; you can't even give him children.”

Paul walked in and saw Misa tearing up from what Alexander said; she recoiled in shame when she saw that Paul overheard, then Alexander saw his dad, and his face lit up in joy. He was glad to see his father until he saw the look on his father's face. Paul was furious and slapped Alexander’s disrespectful mouth so hard that the boy fell down. Then Paul grabbed his leg and began beating him with the belt that normally held his sword.

Spankings were normal in this society, and the noise brought the rest of the household in to see what was going on. The kids were happy to see their father until they saw the look on his face. The wives were wondering when the spanking would end. Chazia was grabbing a stick to spank Alexander with when Paul was done because, in her opinion, his spankings were too soft. But then Paul didn’t stop when he normally did. Then Paul didn’t stop when Chazia normally did.

After a while, Paul’s wife Kyum said, “Paul, I don’t know what he did, but you have spanked him enough.”

Paul ignored her and kept going. After a while longer, Chazia said, “Paul, you are going too far. That’s enough.” Paul ignored her and kept lashing the boy's rear with his belt.

Gizela said, “PAUL! If Chazia is saying you are going too far, you are going too far.”

Paul Ignored her and kept spanking the boy who was screaming now.

Finally, after what felt like five eternities, Misa said, “Paul, stop your going to kill him.”

Immediately Paul stopped. Paul looked at Misa and saw the concern in her eyes for Alexander, her nephew by marriages, and stopped. Paul’s homecoming was ruined. His wives all felt sorry for Alexander and were mad at him for taking things too far. His children were scared of their dad after the beating given to their brother, and the neighbors were wondering what Alexander did to make Chazia beat him so much. Paul would get in trouble the next day when Chazia found out the neighbors thought she did the beating.

Paul looked around and said, “Everyone stay here and finish getting the food ready. I need to take Alexander for a walk.”

Chazia looked at him suspiciously and said, “You're not going to beat him more when you get away from here?”

The rest of the wives gave her a look that clearly said I can't believe you are asking that.

Paul said, “No.” Chazia gave Paul a skeptical look, and Paul said, “I promise I won't beat him more. But he needs to understand what he did. A spanking only prepared him for the conversation.”

Chazia said, “Okay.”

Paul started to leave, then he told Alexander, “Come on, we need to talk.”

Alexander rubbed his butt as he limped after his dad. He would have bruises after this spanking. Alexander followed his dad as his dad made his way to the bridge connecting the west side of the capital to the island.

Once they were alone, Paul asked one question, “Why do you think I beat you the way I did?”

Alexander said, “Because I was trying to hurt aunt Misa.”

Paul nodded and said, “That’s part of it. But the other part is that you’re a King’s son. One of these days, when I die, there is a chance you will become King. That means you and every one of your siblings are in danger.”

Alexander nodded. His father had told him many times before that he had to act a certain way because he was the King's son.

Paul continued and said, “What you said to your aunt had the chance to make her bitter toward you, so I beat you until she felt sorry for you. If she had not told me to stop, I would still be beating you. If she didn’t feel sorry for you, then from now on, when she thought about you, she would think about how much she dislikes you because of what you said. You went after her sore spot, and you know better.”

Alexander looked down in shame and said, “Yes, sir.”

“Now, when she thinks back to this day, instead of developing bitterness, she will feel sorry for how badly I treated you. All my wives are upset with me over what you did.”

“Dad, I don’t feel particularly good right now either.”

“So what? Pain is a small price to pay to keep anger and bitterness out of your relationships. I know it's not fair to you to be the King’s son, but life isn’t fair. You have to treat people well regardless of how you feel.”

“But dad, I have seen you treat people badly.”

“Son, the only people I have treated badly were people I was prepared to kill. I have only done that in life and death situations. As a King, I have to remember the wall builder’s story.”

“Whats the wall builder's story?”

Paul was surprised and said, “I never told you the wall builder's story?”

Alexander shook his head

Paul said, “In a land far to the east of here was a kingdom that was building a great wall. This wall was so long it went hundreds of miles. While building the wall, there were two men who woke up late for work one day. One of the men asked, what is the punishment for being late to work. The other man said death. Then he asked, what's the punishment for rebellion. The man said death. Since the punishment for being late was the same as rebellion, they figured they had a better chance of surviving by joining the rebellion.”

“What's that got to do with me?”

“One day, when I die, you could take my place. Everyone you say mean words to could be fearful that you will execute them. To those people, rebellion will lead to their execution, but so will not rebelling. But on the other hand, if one of your other brothers becomes King, then they could remember your mean words. Either things you said to them or their mother. When those words come to mind, they may be fearful that you will bring about rebellion, and so they will execute you due to your words. Do you understand now why I beat you for the things you said to your aunt?”

Alexander nodded and said, “Yes, sir. You beat me to save my life.”

“Not just your life but the lives of all my children. One day you will have manipulative men come to you and tell you to kill your brothers and sisters. What that man wants is for you to kill your siblings so that he can easily take power by killing you. With as many children as I have, it will be impossible for a man to kill one of them without the rest rising up and slaying them. So he wants you to do his work for him. If it's possible have that man executed immediately. If it's not possible, and politics can make it impossible to kill the manipulator, do your best to crush that man until the day that he has so little influence you can get rid of him. That man will tell you all about the things your siblings have that you don’t. Envy is his weapon. Kill him before he can slay you with it.”

With wide eyes, Alexander began to understand what it meant to be a King’s son and the weight that went with his words.

That night Paul enjoyed a very somber banquet, and for the first time since he married Misa, he went to bed alone in his home. All his wives were still upset with him. They did not have the perspective to know how dangerous an eleven-year-olds words could be if he was a King’s son.

The following day Paul made his way to the Ivory throne for the first time in months. A young lady with a toddler was waiting on him.

Paul asked, “How long have you been waiting here?”

The young lady saw Paul and began to whisper almost like she was scared she was in trouble, “Since yesterday. I came from my village as soon as I heard your army had won. I knew you would be back in the capital soon.”

“You are not in trouble. Tell me why you waited.”

She grew more confident and said, “My brother-in-law stole my land.”

Paul was confused and asked, “What? How?”

By now, she was crying; this was clearly distressing to the young woman, “My husband fought in the battle against Elzo last year. He was just a farmer, but he was called in to serve as an archer when the nation was attacked. He died bravely in battle. But at least he met his son before he went off to battle. This year I planted crops and harvested them, and as soon as the grain was in the granaries, my brother-in-law went to the chief and told him that my husband wanted him to inherit the farm, and so the chief gave my farm to my brother-in-law, including all the grain that I farmed. When I tried to talk to my brother-in-law about it, he said that I could have the farm back if I became his second wife. I spit in his face.”

Paul was furious and asked, “Every village has a lieutenant over the school. What did he say?”

With tears in her eyes, she said, “He went to the chief and demanded that he change his decision, but he wouldn’t budge on it. The lieutenant used the school to feed and house my son and me until he got word you came back. He told me that this situation was too complicated to send through the communications tower and that I needed to come to you to explain the situation because he didn’t have the authority to get rid of a bad chief.”

Paul nodded and turned to a soldier and said, “Send out twenty soldiers to get the chief, her brother-in-law, and the lieutenant.” Then Paul turned to the young lady and said, “I am so sorry for your trouble. Stay in the school until we can get this resolved.”

Two days later, twenty soldiers brought the three men in question to Paul.

Paul asked the chief first, “Did you give,” Paul pointed to the brother-in-law, “this man a widow's land?”

The chief looked frightened and said, “It is our village's custom that a brother gets his brother's things when he dies.”

“So you tossed a widow and child out of their home for a strong young man to take it over?”

“King Paul, it's our custom.”

Paul looked him dead in the eye and said, “Shut up.” The chief did so.

Then Paul looked at the brother-in-law and asked, “How did your brother, the widow's husband die?”

The man said, “In battle fighting the nation's enemies.”

“Did you fight in the battle last year against Elzo’s army?”

“No, Sir. I stayed behind to guard the village in case Elzo sent out raiding forces.”

Paul looked at the two men and said, “So neither of you were brave enough to fight in the battle against Elzo last year, but you are brave enough to rob widows.” Paul knew he told the chiefs to stay and guard their villages, but he only did that because he had plans for the chiefs, and he needed them to look weak.

The chief said, “We didn’t rob anyone.”

Paul turned to the brother-in-law and said, “Young man, after you took control of the property, did you give the chief anything?”

The brother-in-law looked away from King Paul as he said, “No.” in the most unconvincing lie Paul had ever heard.

Paul then turned back to the chief and said, “You attest it is your village's custom that when a man dies, his brother gets his property.”

The chief said, “Yes.”

Paul stepped directly in front of the man and yelled in his face, “THEN WHY DIDN’T YOU GIVE THIS MAN THE PROPERTY LAST YEAR? WHY DID YOU WAIT FOR THIS POOR WOMAN TO PLANT AND HARVEST CROPS BEFORE YOU GAVE HER LAND TO SOMEONE ELSE! WHY DID YOU WAIT UNTIL I, YOUR KING, WAS AWAY FIGHTING A WAR TO GIVE ANOTHER PERSON’S LAND AWAY! I ACCUSE YOU OF BRIBERY!”

The chief panicked and raised his voice and said, “I didn’t take any bribes.”

A soldier drew his blade and slapped the flat of it against the shins of the chief and said, “DO NOT RAISE YOUR VOICE TO THE KING.”

Paul ignored it and turned to the brother-in-law and said, “How much of a bribe did you give the chief?”

The man said, “I didn’t give him a bribe.” Paul couldn’t believe it; this man was even less convincing than he was earlier.

Paul got directly in front of him, put his hands on the man’s shoulders, and yelled, “I CAN TELL YOUR LYING! WHAT BRIBE DID YOU PAY TO HAVE A WIDOW AND CHILD THROWN OFF THEIR LAND!”

The man was scared now and said, “The chief forced me to do it. He forced me to kick my sister-in-law off the land because he wanted all the grain from one of her granaries.”

The chief who was on the floor due to the strike to his calf yelled out, “HE IS LYING! IT WAS HIS IDEA! I DIDN’T WANT TO, BUT HE MADE ME!”

Paul turned to the lieutenant and said, “Their guilt is clear. But why didn’t you stop this? You were the lieutenant in the village.”

The lieutenant said, “King, when you left, you took most of the soldiers. The guards in the village never went through the school; they are loyal to the chief. Those who went through the school are doing jobs that are much more lucrative than guard duty.”

“Why didn’t you form up the militia?”

“If I did that, then I would have become the chief. King Paul, you are the only one who has the right to make someone chief, not me.”

Paul was stunned, but he had to admit, “Lieutenant, you are right. There is no fault in your actions. I will give you a bonus and a promotion sometime soon. I have a job that’s just perfect for you. That said, the chief is my responsibility. He must pay for bribery. But this scum who would rob his brother's widow, bring him down to the barracks and let the soldiers deal with them as they see fit. Those soldiers fought in the front line last year so that men who had wives and children would not die. But this scum used his brother's death to hurt a widow and child. Have the soldiers show their displeasure.”

Several of the soldiers smiled as they dragged the man off.

The chief was terrified but calmed as Paul said, “Put the man in the stocks. Bribery deserves a specific punishment.” The chief thought the stocks wouldn’t be too bad.

Soon after the man was in the stocks, Paul came out with a white-hot iron and a pair of shears. Paul yelled out, “Attention, Attention!” Everyone who was near stopped what they were doing to hear what their King had to say.

Paul said, “This man is a chief, and he accepted a bribe. I am sure he thought the bribe was a small thing, so as he took a small thing from Paulsland, I will take a small thing from him.”

With that, a soldier forced the chief’s hand open, and Paul took the sheers and cut off the man’s trigger finger at the first joint. He still had most of his trigger finger left. Paul then took the white-hot iron and seared the wound closed.

It was extremely painful, but the chief was happy. This wasn’t too bad of a punishment for what he did.

The next day Paul came out, gave the same speech, and cut a piece of another finger off, and seared the wound closed. Paul did this for twenty-eight days until his fingers and thumbs were completely gone. Every day making the point that the chief only stole a little, just like Paul was only taking a little from the man.

Then Paul did the same with the man's toes, ears, nose, eyes, lips, groin, hand, foot. Paul cut a little piece off the man every single day until the man died, four days before the planting festival. The message was clear a little bribing here and there would kill a nation, so as far as Paul was concerned, any government official accepting bribes would die as slowly as they killed a nation.

Many government officials in Paul’s government asked him why he was so brutal.

Paul answered each the same way, “Government officials have power and authority over people. If they abuse it, then the punishment for their abuse should be extreme. It’s a terrible thing when government officials can break laws and get away with it. As long as I am King, anyone in government found abusing their power and authority will be brutally punished. Government officials will be held to a higher standard than anyone else.”

Chapter 39 November AD 83 Africa- Progress

Paul was in a wonderful mood. It was finally the planting festival he had been waiting for. Sure he had some wonderful new technology to showcase, but the real joy was that he was finally going to deal with his chief problems. Most of the new villages completed their roads, and every village connected to the capital by road had sent their chief. The furthest village out was a five-day walk from the capital. Next dry season, he would examine his new border. But that was half a year away. For now, he needed to focus on the planting festival.

The Planting festival was to be held on the island in the center of the capital because, after five years, all three bridges to the Island were complete. The capital was built on two rivers, and thus it had three banks instead of two, and each bank now has a bridge connected to the island, connecting three areas of Paulsland.

Paul was glad to see men, women, and children coming to the island over each bridge. Some of the people got there early so they could cross all of them, back and forth. Paul noticed many of the men doing this were the young men who had to cross the river dozens of times in boats as soldiers. It was almost like they couldn’t believe that the bridge was finally done, or perhaps they were thrilled it was done, and they wouldn’t have to fight hippos as they crossed.

Eventually, it was time for Paul to give a speech and a demonstration, and so he got up and said, “Welcome to capital island. In time this island will be surrounded by walls and have a fortress in the center to protect everyone from any enemy that may come and attack. But today, we are not here to celebrate the future, but the present. After five long years of construction, we have successfully bound the Zambezi river with a bridge. In time we will make more bridges across the river, further cementing our control.”

People cheered. Many of them grew up in fear of the river due to crocodiles and especially hippos. But then Paul brought weapons that defeated their ancient foes, and now there was a bridge that allowed them to bypass it.

Over two thousand of the people there were the children brought in from Elzo’s villages. Over the dry season, they watched as the bridge was built. Considering the stories and legends they were told about rivers, they were in awe of the bridge, the legend, they watched getting built. It would have been one thing to see a bridge; to them, it's as amazing as seeing a great mountain in the distance. But seeing the bridges being built was like watching someone build a mountain in a few months. Paulsland was special, and King Paul is what made it happen.

Paul then said, “This year we will have a new competition. I have asked the ladies to bring their distaff and spindle to see who can turn half an ounce of cotton into thread the quickest.”

One of the ladies yelled out, “King Paul, I am all for a good competition, but that’s a lot to of thread; it will take at least an hour for someone who is quick, two hours for those a bit slower.”

Paul smiled and said, “I know my wives told me.” Then Paul frowned and said, “Over and over again. But I have a plan. Alright, ladies, raise your spindle’s and distaffs up high.”

Over a thousand women and girls raised their spindle and distaffs up high. Paul even saw four-year-old girls that brought their own. Every woman spent time every single day making thread; it was a slow but vital part of life.

Paul yelled out, “BEGIN!” And the ladies lowered the distaff and began getting the spindle twirling as they started making the thread. Paul knew that most of them were just happy they got free cotton to make thread. It was nicer than whatever they were making thread out of before. Paul had never been able to figure out the name of the plant they were using, but cotton was now in full production, and it was much better.

While the ladies had begun their thread-making, Paul sent a signal, and within minutes several soldiers brought out a spinning wheel and a very proud looking lady. They put the spinning wheel directly in front of all the other women, and another soldier brought out a fine looking chair and sat it in front of the spinning wheel. The young lady sat in the chair, put her distaff in a little holder for it, and pushed some peddles on the spinning wheel and began making thread. It was quickly apparent that she was making thread much quicker than all the other ladies. In twenty minutes, she had half an ounce of thread.

Paul yelled out, “WE HAVE A WINNER!”

One of the ladies yelled out, “THAT’S NOT FAIR, SHE DIDN’T USE A DISTAFF!”

Paul looked over to his wives, and he could tell they wanted to say the same thing, but they were not about to question their husband in public. It would make them look bad. Paul was sure they would show their displeasure in private. But he had to admit the look on their faces was pretty funny and worth the trouble. At least he hoped it was worth it.

Paul said, “I admit it’s unfair, but I have been hoping for someone to figure out the secret to the spinning wheel for years, and the young lady has done it. With it, you can make thread three times faster. It's why I had this little competition, every lady here has tried their best to make thread as quickly as possible, and with this new machine, each and every one of you can make thread three times faster. I want everyone to know the lady who made this wonderful invention’s name is Uzi!”

Paul waved at Uzi to come over; when she did, Paul said, “Would you tell these fine ladies of Paulsland how you made the spinning wheel.”

Uzi blushed and looked like she wanted to hide, but she was one of Paul’s students, and she learned in martial training to keep her chin up and look straight ahead. So instead of slouching like her body wanted her to, she spread her legs out to shoulder with, stuck her chest out, and looked right at the crowd, with a blush on her face so strong that you could see red on her face. Which was something because she was as dark a complexion as an African could be.

Uzi said, “Well, last year… no, it was two years ago King Paul sent out a mock-up of the spinning wheel. He said he knew the contraption made thread somehow, but he didn’t know how. When I first looked at it, I had no clue how a big wheel and little wheel could possibly make thread. I mean, where do you even put the raw fibers you are going to spin into thread? At first, I tried to take my distaff and have the big wheel spin against it, but that didn’t work, then I did the little one, and that didn’t work. I thought perhaps King Paul’s people had some magic I didn’t know about, so I gave up on it after a few weeks.”

“At the start of this dry season, my husband got one of the researchers to help him build a water tower with a windmill-powered pump. They needed all the hands that they could get, and so I helped out. During the process, I saw how the windmill was connected to the pump and how it used spinning to make the pump, pump water up to the top of the tower, which got me thinking about the spinning wheel. Maybe the big wheel just helped the little one spin, like on the water tower, and maybe the little wheel didn’t turn fibers into thread but instead powered something that did.”

“What I did was I used a belt to connect the big wheel to the little wheel and spun it, and it kept that little wheel spinning really well. Then I thought perhaps the small wheel could turn my spindle for me, and so I put my spindle sideways on the little wheel and was shocked when I was making thread twice as fast, although it was a little finicky at first. My husband was great throughout the process, I would have an idea about the project, and he would build it according to my specifications. Really we built it together.”

“We brought it to show King Paul, and he rewarded us with several pounds of iron and asked us to keep it secret till the planting festival; he wanted to have this competition to show you ladies how great the spinning wheel was. Once we agreed and King Paul saw me working on it, he and the researchers added the peddles, which is a lot easier than spinning the wheel by hand. That made my work go from twice as fast to three times as fast.”

Uzi stopped speaking for a few seconds and looked at King Paul. It was clear that she said everything she was going to say. Truth be told, Paul thought this was the longest time he had ever heard her speak, and so he said, “Ladies, instructions on how to build the spinning wheel will be sent to your villages in a day or two. Although it will be a while before every one of you gets their own spinning wheel, I would encourage you to talk to Uzi Spinner. For her and her husband's good work, their new last name is now Spinner so that all generations know what wonderful work their ancestors performed.”

As the ladies began making their way to an overwhelmed Uzi Spinner, Paul called out, “I need all the chiefs to follow me.” The more discerning chiefs were troubled by the grin of utter delight on Paul's face. The grin was of a preditor that captured its prey.

Paul brought the chiefs into a building, and there was a very strange contraption in there. As they looked around, they saw powder, and stains all over, and even several papers with strangely uniform writing. Only about half the chiefs could read at this point, which was one of the problems Paul had with his chiefs. Although half couldn’t read, most of them were observant enough to notice the lettering was almost identical on the papers. Those who could write wondered how the letters got so uniform.

Paul smiled as they looked around and said, “Behold the movable type printing press.”

The chiefs were utterly confused. Paul made it sound super important. Paul sounded like it was the most important invention in centuries, but surely the spinning wheel was more important. Now that the women could make thread faster, they would have more time to weave.

Paul saw their confusion and said, “This printing press can write much faster than the fastest human. How it works is a blacksmith makes the letters, and then we put the letters on a flat piece of iron. Once the letters are all secure, we put it on the press.” All the while, Paul is holding up a piece of iron with all the letters already secured to it, and then showed them how he secured it to the press.

Paul then said, “Once it's secured to the press, you put ink on it, and then put the paper under it. Once secure, you turn this super large screw, and it presses the ink onto the paper.”

With that, Paul turned the screw, which forced the ink onto the paper evenly. After a few seconds, Paul loosened the press and added new paper to it.

Paul smiled as he said, “This press can make thousands of copies of pages a day.”

The chiefs didn’t really do writing, so they didn’t know how impressive that was. The reality was that a person by hand can only write about forty pages a day. A press was able to do a hundred times that.

Paul’s grin became feral as he said, “Let me read to you what the very first thing I printed off. In fact, I had my soldiers bring it with them over the last week so that they could deliver this message today.”

Paul began to read, “Is your chief doing a good job? Can you or someone else in this village do the job of the chief better? Today on the day of the planting festival, Paul is calling for every village to vote on whether they want to keep their chief or if they want a new one. If you elect a new one, King Paul will back up that chief, and your old chief will have to find a new job.”

The chiefs began to cry out. The chief of the Siri Jani tribe yelled the loudest, “YOU ARE MY SON IN LAW, HOW CAN YOU BETRAY ME!”

Paul’s soldiers surrounded him and pointed spears at the chiefs. Paul said, “If you have been doing a good job, I am sure your people will elect you again. But I have been very displeased with your performance, and I do not have the time or energy to go through each village and pick the best leader, so instead, I will let you village do it. Furthermore, I know some of you told your men to rob and kill my secretaries.” The chiefs shut up when Paul accused them of the crime. Paul sneered at them and said, “Don’t worry. I don’t know which of you did it. There is enough evidence that I know it was several of you. You are the only logical suspects, so instead of wasting time investigating you, I am pretty much having your villages fire most of you. But be warned, if I find out who did it, then you will suffer horribly.”

One of the chiefs asked, “How can you know a chief did it?”

Paul said, “Because it was organized. You, as chiefs, knew when I was out of communications, you knew the schedule of the secretaries and had access to the manpower you needed. Most of you took part in raids before I conquered your villages. This is well within your ability to do, and I know you have not been pleased with the new taxes. In my land, we studied history, and history has shown that whenever there is organized crime, and this was very organized, it always has either government backing, or a government official created the organized crime. When most of you are voted out from being chief, I will have gotten rid of most of the organized crime in my nation. And it will make investigating you so much easier.”

The chiefs shuddered. Few were guilty of the robbery and murder of the secretaries, but many of them had done less than legal stuff. What if their replacement knew about their deeds and reported on them? Paul walked out of the press room with a huge grin on his face as he left and enjoyed the rest of the planting festival.

Chapter 40 December AD 83 Texas- A Big Gift

It was two days until the winter solstice, what John had named Christmas. When John woke up, he heard wind blowing, and he turned over to Onawa and shook her and said, “Honey wake up.”

She said, “It’s winter; let me sleep in.”

John smiled and said, “Listen.”

Onawa listened for a second and said, “All I hear is wind.”

John said, “Exactly, this would be the perfect day to give our boys their gift.”

Onawa sternly said, “NO! The boys can wait two more days to get their gift.”

“But honey, we spent so much time putting it together, and there may not be wind for it on Christmas. If we give it to them today, then we know that they will have a good time with their gift.”

Onawa thought about it. Then she thought about the days, weeks, and months she spent making her part of the gift that she didn’t know would work or not. John had to do a lot of begging and convincing for her to spend so much time and effort on this Christmas gift.

Once she was done thinking, she said, “Are you sure it will work today?”

John said, “Yes, it sounds like it will be a perfect day for it.”

“Okay, fine, wake up the boys and let them know they are getting their present today.”

John hopped out of bed with a big grin on his face. He couldn’t wait to see the look on the boy's faces when they got their gift. He hated that they would have to share one big gift because he knew there would be a lot of arguing and fighting, but he would have to deal with that when the time came.

John woke up his eleven year old first, “Trevor, wake up! We are going to give you your present today.”

Trevor woke right up and asked, “Is it Christmas already?”

John said, “Not yet, but your mother and I feel that today is a great day to give you your present. Go to the kitchen and get breakfast; it's going to be a long day.”

Trevor ran off, forgetting about everything else as John went to wake up his seven years old, five-year-old, and finally his three-year-old. They all asked if it was Christmas, and John sent them off to breakfast.

After breakfast was over, John began leading his family to his workshop. It had grown since they built the power hammer powered by a watermill. It has taken months, but the workshop was filled with many more tools hand-built by John. The biggest new addition was a sawmill. He had to put that in a second building with a second watermill. The operation is pretty simple; the water turns gears, which turns a five-foot diameter circular saw. A log is hitched to two bison on both sides of the log, and they pull the log through the saw, back and forth until you have the boards you want. It is significantly faster than two men sawing out a log.

The reality was that John needed to make his workshop before the sawmill because he needed to make fans that connected to his workshop's watermill, which heated up a larger furnace to high enough temperatures to make much purer iron in batches large enough for a five-foot diameter circular saw. That’s not even talking about all the work the power hammer did. It has more force than a human can muster, and its swing is constant for days on end. Without his workshop, he would never have been able to build the water-powered sawmill.

As they got closer to their goal, they had to go around the large pond that formed at the end of the canal that fed the watermills. Truth be told, the large pond is what gave him the idea and opportunity for his gift.

Trevor being the oldest and most impatient, asked, “Dad, where’s the gifts?”

John said, “Well, son, this year, the gift is so big we have one gift all of you will have to share.”

The boys immediately began to complain. Well, the oldest three complained. Walker, the youngest, was happy because it meant he got to spend time with his older brothers. John and Onawa grimaced as they hoped this worked out well since they spent a lot of time on this gift.

Finally, they were at John’s workshop doors. Since this was a workshop meant for large projects, the doors were the size of barn doors.

John smiled and said, “When I open this door, you will see your gift.”

The boys had great mixed feelings when they heard that. They were happy to get the gift, not so happy they would have to share it.

John opened up the doors to his workshop, and it was obvious to all the boys what their gift was.

Trevor yelled out, “YOU MADE US A SAILBOAT!”

Bobby yelled out, “ITS JUST LIKE OUR TOY BOATS!”

Sitting before them was the best sailboat John could build for his sons. The body of the boat was built like the longboats he already built for the traders, but the mast had a boom and a triangle sail. The triangle sail was much more complicated than a square sail, and it’s a massive leap in technology over the square sail that nearly every civilization started with. The thing was that in TV, Movies, and even in the sailboat racing that was occasionally shown on sports channels, all showed sailboats with triangle sails and a movable boom. TV had accidentally let John skip an era of technology.

The only problem with the sail on this boat was it made it top-heavy. When John realized that the sail made the boat lopsided, John added a keel a few feet long to keep the boat from capsizing. The boat was on a small cart that kept the keel off the ground.

John said, “Make sure to thank your mother. It took her months to make the yards of cloth necessary for the sail.”

The boys were staring at their new boat so hard that it took them a minute to recognize what their dad said, but then Quincy was the first to speak and say, “Thank you so much, mom. This gift is the best ever.”

Followed by the other boys saying, “Thank you, mom.”

Onawa said, “Your welcome, boys, but your dad put in a lot of work too. All I did was make the sails. Your dad made, cut, and shaped the boards for the ship, and made all the iron pieces to hold it together.”

Again Quincy was the first to react, although this time he ran to his dad, hugged him, and said, “THANK YOU, DAD!”

John said, “Well, we also had to buy some ropes, but pretty much everything else on this boat was made by your mom or me. Let's get this into the water.”

The boys very happily helped John move the boat into the large pond, and as they moved it, Bobby was the first to notice the boat was about twenty feet long. He only noticed because most of the trading boats on the river was at least forty feet long. His little seven-year-old mind just thought that it was a child-sized boat meant for children, and he wouldn’t be wrong.

They put the boat in the water next to a dock that was clearly made for the boat. John told his boys, “Once you get good with it, we might take this boat up to the river.”

Once everyone was in the boat, Trevor said, “Dad make the boat work.”

John smiled, and he got a twinkle in his eye as he said, “This isn’t my boat, so I am not going to make it move. It’s your boat, and I will tell you how to make it work. First of all, we need someone on the rudder to control where it goes.”

Trevor said, “I want that job! What's a rudder?”

Up till now, all the longboats on the river have been powered by paddles, and thus they didn’t really need rudders.

John pointed to the back and said, “That little piece of wood sticking out connects to a big paddle-like thing called a rudder. As the wind moves the boat, the rudder will move the boat left and right.”

Trevor immediately ran to the position to control the boat. He figured since he was the oldest, he should be in charge.

Then John said, “We will need two people on the boom. One in charge of moving it, and another in charge of tying and untying it to the boat.”

Bobby asked, “What’s the boom?”

“See the long pole in the middle of the boat?”

Bobby nodded.

“The boon is that piece of wood attached to it, with the cloth on it. The cloth is the sail. When you raise the sail, the sail catches the wind, which moves the boat. You move the boon around so that you can best catch the wind. The better you catch the wind, the faster the boat goes.”

Bobby nodded and said, “I will be in charge of the boon, and Quincy can be in charge of tying it off.”

Quincy said, “Okay.”

John smiled and said, “Before we can do anything, though, you have to raise the sail.” John pointed to a rope attached to the mast and said, “Pull on that rope. It's attached to a pulley at the top and will raise the sail. Bobby, your job is to move the boon so that the boat catches the wind as best as possible, Quincy when he gets it there, you tie it tight so the boat can move fast, and Trevor, your job is to point the direction you want the boat to go in.”

Walker asked, “Dad, what’s my job?”

John said, “For now, your job will be to enjoy the boat ride unless they need help. In a little while, I will have you guys change jobs.”

Walker smiled and said, “Okay, daddy.”

With that, the boys raised the sail, and Bobby began figuring out how to get the boon moved to the right place. Once he caught the wind, Trevor directed the boat while Quincy tied off the boom. As they caught a good piece of wind, Quincy started yelling, “FASTER! FASTER!” While Onawa started worrying about her boys. She had never moved so fast in her life, and the whole thing was worrying to her.

She was worried up till they hit the bank, and although they had some bruises and scrapes, no one was injured. John showed them how to get the boat unstuck, and they began sailing around the pond. With the triangle sail, it didn’t matter where the wind came from; they could move wherever they wanted to. Throughout the day, they all took turns doing different jobs. Even little Walker did his part, with his parent's help.

In the coming weeks, all the village children learned to sail. All the while, Trevor fell in love with the sailboat because he got to boss the other kids around, and they had to listen.

Chapter 41 January AD 84 Texas- Sharing Ideas With Congress

Several days before congress began, chiefs started showing up. They didn’t want to talk with John; they wanted to talk with chief Atsadi. Word had gotten around that after his village bought bison from John two years ago, he bred his bison with some of the wild females he caught. During the last congress, those female bison were pregnant with the first set of offspring. The chiefs copied his idea, and now that they all had a dozen, or in some cases dozens of pregnant bison, they wanted to know how it went for Atsadi.

The evening before congress met, Atsadi showed up. It's almost like he wanted to be the last chief to make it so he could be seen by everyone.

When his boat hit the dock, he yelled out, “WHERE IS CHIEF JOHN!”

One of the villagers of Texas looked annoyed at Atsadi and said, “Probably at home eating supper with his family.”

Atsadi said, “GOOD!” and then began stomping off toward John’s house. To John’s eternal regret, every chief in the river trading alliance knew where his house was. They all bothered him at one time or another with their petty desires.

As Atsadi marched toward John’s house, being as loud as possible, the other chiefs took note and began following him. They wanted to see what was going on, and they wondered why chief Atsadi was so upset with John when his predecessor was a close friend of John.

When Atsadi reached John’s door, he banged loudly and yelled out, “CHIEF JOHN, I DEMAND TO SEE YOU! YOU CHEATED ME!”

About half a minute later, John opened the door and asked, “How did I cheat you?”

“THE BISON ARE UNCONTROLLABLE!”

“The bison I sold you is uncontrollable?”

The chief shook his head and said, “No. My men captured female bison, then we had the bison I bought from you breed with them, and its offspring won't do anything we want.”

John asked, “So the bison I sold you is still doing well and doing what it's supposed to do.”

“Yes, but not its offspring.”

“So what? I made no promises about its offspring. Last year, when I tried to give you advice about how to raise its offspring, you ignored me because you thought I was going to mess you up somehow. Even then, I told you I don’t know how well breeding wild bison with the domesticated ones would go.”

One of the chiefs looked at Atsadi in astonishment and said, “John tried to give you advice, and you ignored it?”

Chief Atsadi turned red from embarrassment and said, “Well, I didn’t think he would want me trading bison. I figured if he gave advice, it would all be wrong.”

John said, “I don’t care if you trade bison. In fact, my bison are not ridable, and I was honestly hoping the bison you bred would be. Having bison that act as draft animals is a big step in the right direction, but getting ridable bison would be amazing.”

At that moment, John realized all the chiefs were there and were looking at him weirdly, and so John asked, “How many of you are breeding bison?”

Dozens of hands went up. It looked like everyone who got one of John’s bison were trying to breed them. This didn’t bother John at all.

John said, “Despite Atsadi’s harsh words, I will help you if I can. Atsadi, how did you go about training your bison.”

Atsadi wished he could hide in a corner, but since he was called out, he said, “We tried training them like our dogs. We give them orders, and when they don’t follow them, we beat them.”

John’s jaw dropped, and he asked, “YOU DID WHAT?”

“We would give them orders, like go and stop. If we told it to go and it didn’t, we beat it. If we told it to stop and it didn’t, we beat it. The stupid creatures never learned. And then the female bison would get so upset when its young started bawling, some of them killed themselves trying to get to their young. You know, if you do this with a dog in a couple of weeks, they are trained. What is wrong with these bison.”

John just stared at Chief Atsadi for a long minute. Finally, Chief Atsadi said, “What?”

John said, “That has to be the dumbest, most stupid, wrong way to train a draft animal that I ever heard of.”

“It works for dogs.”

“Does a bison look like a dog?”

“But it works.”

“You have been hunting bison all your life. Have you ever seen bison fighting?”

Atsadi said, “Yes.” In a tone that asked, what's your point?

John said, “What happens when one of the bison loses.”

Atsadi said, “It leaves.”

“When two dogs fight, what happens?”

Atsadi thought about it for a long moment and slowly said, “The one who loses follows the one who wins.”

“When you beat a dog, in the dog's mind, you are now the alpha male. He must follow you because you are stronger. In the bison's mind, when you beat him, he must leave the herd. Beating a bison will never result in a trained animal. You must win the bison over like…” John had to think about this for a while because this culture was very different than his own. Far more brutal.

John just asked, “How many of you men got your wife on a raid?” About a third of the chiefs raised their hands.

John asked one of the chiefs, “When you want to marry a girl in your tribe, what do you do?”

The chief said, “I go to her father and asks what he wants for his daughter. He tells me a price, I pay it, and his daughter comes with me.”

“What if she doesn’t want to come?”

The chiefs looked shocked, and the one explaining the situation said, “Then her father would beat her before I take back the bride price.”

John covered his face with his hand and thought to himself how much he hated this world at times. Then thought about how to explain the situation to these brutes.

After thinking about it, he said, “To get what you want from the bison, you have to treat the bison like a girl's father. You give the father something he wants, so you get what you want. If you want the bison to learn to go, stop, or turn on command, you have to give it something it wants, like fruit, honey, or sweet vegetables. What chief Atsadi did was basically slapping your chief in the face to get his daughter.”

The chiefs sucked in their breath. They started to understand, and then one of them said, “Could you explain all this to my scribe?”

John sighed. Scribes were annoying. It wasn’t the writing that was annoying; the scribes would ask a million questions about how to draw what he was telling them.

The next day congress went well. Nobody declared war on anybody else, and John sold all the bison he had for sale to new chiefs. At this point, nearly three-quarters of the chiefs had domesticated bison, and next year all the chiefs should have some, and John could start selling his females, bringing his herd to much more manageable levels.

After the congress was over, a few dozen of the chiefs who did not have bison yet came and talked with John.

Their spokesman said, “Chief John, most of the tribes have bison now, and they are able to grow more food and spices than us. Now that most of the tribes have bison, there is no way for us to keep up. Can you help us? If not, then we are going to have a real lean year, until next year when we finally get our bison.”

John thought about it for a second, smiled, and said, “I think I can help. Let me show you my workshop.” The chiefs did not look enthusiastic, so John said, “My workshop uses water to power tools.”

Their eyes lit up. It sounded like magic to them.

John said, “Grab your scribes and follow me.”

They quickly called their scribes and then followed John with great expectations. Many wondered if he put a spirit of water and if he had water golems going about doing his bidding. They saw in the distance two weird buildings with wheels at the side of them. John didn’t say anything, but when he got to the buildings, he went up a hill, and there was a large lever with a rope attached to it. John pushed on the back of the lever, and it lifted a piece of wood that was damming up the canal. Once the water flowed, it made the wheel at the side of the house spin.

John said, “This is my water wheel. When the water hits it, it spins. On the inside of the workshop, there is a long log with lots of gears cut into it. With clever gearing, you can make tools that do much more work than a man can do by himself. My people called this type of system a water mill. I know you have many questions, but please hold off on them until you see what it's like inside.”

John opened up the large doors of the workshop, and the chiefs and scribes hesitated to follow. In the back of the workshop was the spinning log with gear teeth cut into it. All around it was gears and tools connected to them. It looked like a madhouse.

John said, “I know it looks overly complicated, but that’s a bit deceitful because these gears go to a lot of different tools. I think the most complicated tool here is the jigsaw.”

John took them to a small saw that was sticking straight up. Then John connected a gear to the spinning log, and the saw started going up and down.

John said, “This tool is great because it allows me to make very precise cuts very quickly. If I need to turn the piece of wood I am cutting, I can no problem.”

One of the chiefs asked, “How can it go straight up and down when all the gears are turning in circles?”

John smiled and said, “That’s a great question!” John then began taking the machine apart so they could see the gear system. John pointed at it and explained, “All the various gears leads to these final two. A big one and a smaller one in a box. The saw is welded to the box, so as the small gear goes around the big gear, it moves this box up and down. While the gear is going around the big one, it can move in the box left and right. But while it's going left to right in the box, it's forcing the box up and down. This little jigsaw has helped me immensely in making gears as it can precisely cut large pieces of wood quickly. But that’s not my most valuable tool.”

John took them to a large metal tool with a big screw a the top and metal plates the had a large gap between them.

John said, “This is my metal press. The way this machine works is I make a casting of small tools I need like nails or screws. The casting will be on two plates, and each plate holds half the shape I want. I put one on the top of this and the other on the bottom, as they mirror each other. Then I heat up pieces of iron, put them on the plate where the shape I want is, and connect the water wheel to this big screw. It screws it down with a ton of force. Then I unlock that gear from my press, and I hook up a larger gear to unscrew the press. I have to do that with a larger gear because the larger gear has more force, and it takes a lot of force to unscrew the press. Once the press is released, I have a lot of little nails, screws, or other things that just need to be filed down a bit to make them ready for use. I can make hundreds of them a day if I want to, but the reality is the reason why I use the press is that it's so much easier to use than to hand-make them myself.”

The chiefs were impressed, and the rest of the day, John went through the workshop and then the sawmill and showed them how everything worked. The men stayed two more weeks with their scribes drawing out John’s designs and making notes on how everything worked. It was the first time John was happy that scribes knew how to draw. Once they figured out the principles, they found out it wasn’t as hard as they thought.

Once John casually mentioned, “Back home, they used to use presses to make books very quickly.”

One of the scribes looked up excitedly, “Comic books?”

“Yes.”

“Can you do that?”

John shook his head and said, “No. I could make books with words alone with a press, but not comic books. I would need copper for that.”

One of the chiefs was listening in and said, “Well, once you get copper, whatever that is, make that. But if your books don’t have pictures, nobody would care.”

John frowned as he continued to explain how the rest of the workshop worked.

After John was done, he left the scribes to draw diagrams and write words. It wasn’t long before Bobby found him and asked, “Dad, why are you giving away all your secrets?”

“This shouldn’t be a secret.”

“But what about us, your family. You could have sold these secrets, and you would have been richer. They would have happily paid for them.”

John knew Bobby was an amazing salesman. It worried John how much Bobby cared about material goods, but John also knew it was the best way to talk to his son.

“Bobby, in the long run, giving away these secrets will be far more profitable for us.”

“HOW?!”

John was irritated at his seven year old raising his voice at him but decided to answer, “Bobby, there is a saying where I come from which says, the easier the job, the more you make.”

“What? How can an easier job make you more?”

John smiled and said, “You have seen farmers go out with a stick to plow their fields, right?”

Bobby nodded his head and said, “Rarely. They only do it when they don’t have a hoe, a wheeled plow, or a bison plow.”

John asked, “Who is working hardest in those groups?”

“The man using the stick.”

“Is he getting the most work done?”

“No, he is getting the least done.”

“Who is getting the most work done?”

“The man with the Bison plow.”

“Is he working the hardest?”

“No, his job is the easiest…” Bobby began to understand and said, “I get that with the bison. But how does this work with your workshop?”

“Let's say before the sawmill; two men can turn one log an hour into boards. Every day they need to eat; throughout the year, they have to maintain their home, get clothing, and have other expenses. Their work has to cover all those costs. But they get a sawmill, and let's say they can turn three logs an hour into boards; their cost to survive is still the same, but what they are producing has grown, so they can sell those boards at a lower price and still survive. Even if they are selling the boards at half the price as they used to, they are still making fifty percent more and doing a lot less work.”

Bobby said, “I understand that, but why didn’t you sell your plans to them?”

John said, “Because I wanted them to get to the workshop as quickly as possible. The sooner they make their workshop, the quicker the price of goods falls. Furthermore, when it comes to profit, there are only two iron mines in the river alliance, and I own one of them. Giving people a new way to use your product for free is a good idea.”

Bobby thought about that for a minute and said, “DAD, YOUR BRILLIANT! You're going to make so much trade! Making your workshop took a lot of iron!”

Although that satisfied Bobby, it wasn’t the real reason. The real reason why John shared his workshop design with the chiefs was because he was a homesteader, and they asked for help. He would make a profit from trading them iron, but that wasn’t why John did it. John liked helping people. Although he knew he needed to give his boy a reason to help people that his boy could digest.

Chapter 42 February 84 AD Africa- Politics

Warning this chapter is Very Violent, it contains gore and unecesary cruelty

Paul took five hundred soldiers to check out his newly conquered land. It had been nearly a year since he defeated Elzo. Paul wanted to see the progress the villages made in fulfilling his order to build roads. Most of the villages made a road to the next village creating a road network connected to Paulsland, although Paul got word that several had refused.

Paul was examining this new land in part due to the need to check out the new lands, but also because he needed a break from his wives. Besides Chazia and Misa, his other four wives were in different stages of pregnancy, and they were cranky and constantly fighting with each other. The infighting was getting to Paul, and he was taking his oldest three biological sons on the inspection. More to get them away from the infighting, backhanded compliments, and disrespect his wives were showing each other than for an actual education. Paul desperately wanted his children to love each other because he didn’t want them killing each other once he died, but his wives were setting a terrible example.

With the children in tow, it took four days to reach the new section of Paulsland. Paul made an appearance at every village along the way more to introduce his sons than anything else. Once they entered the newly conquered territory, they were cut off from the communications tower network. In fact, one of the purposes of coming out with so many soldiers was to help build wooden seventy-foot tall communications towers and log walls to protect the villages. Five hundred soldiers can do that quickly.

But in other parts of Paulsland, Paul’s distance from quick communication was an opportunity. The surprise election replaced nearly every chief. Without their authority to discover good targets and cover for the criminals, organized crime almost died in Paulsland for a short while. But some of the chiefs managed to win their election despite being away, and one of them was Misa’s Father, who was keeping the traitor Abilio in hiding.

As soon as he got word that Paul was out of contact with the communications network, he quickly took a hunting trip with his most loyal guards and made his way to Abilio. Once he found Abilio, he saw that Abilio and his fellow traitors were skinnier than he had ever seen them before.

When Abilio saw the chief, he yelled out, “WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!”

The chief answered, “In my village, doing the hard work of a chief.”

“Look at me and my men. We’ve lost a lot of weight! Where is the food you promised.”

The chief wanted to point out that the traitors were not suffering a horrible death because of his whim, which he could change at any time, but he had a job for them, so instead said, “Ever since Paul came back after the raids last year he has instituted new rules that make it hard to sneak food to you. The communications tower keeps note of who comes and goes through the gates just in case there is a problem somewhere.”

“Why not give us food from one of the outlying farms?”

The chief gave Abilio an annoyed look and said, “You know my grain is stored inside the village. If one of my men took a bunch of grain out of it and left the village, too many questions would be asked. After the surprise election, we can not afford to take such risks. Now that Paul has said the people should choose the next chief, they ask questions about everything. Especially Paul’s students.”

With that, the chief started ranting, “I used to be in charge of my village. My guards were given free rein to do what they wanted. But now, not only does Paul control me like he controls an ox, he has also made it so that the people control me through voting. THIS IS TOO MUCH!”

Abilio saw that the chief was losing his temper and realized that he would be the target for the chief's wrath if he did not calm the man down, so he said, “I understand. We had a good thing going until Paul showed up. Is there something we can do to ruin Paul’s day?”

The chief coldly said, “Yes. And it will fix your food problem too. During the planting festival, when Paul told us an election was going on while we were gone, he said that he believed the chiefs were the ones who had his secretaries killed and their goods stolen. I am offended he shows me so little trust. I am his father in law. He should show me more respect.”

Abilio wisely chose not to point out that the chief was guilty and that Paul was actually older than his father in law. Instead, he asked, “What do you want us to do?”

“As one of the few remaining original chiefs, I have to get the suspicion off me. So you are going to attack one of my villager's farms. This particular villager feels safe away from the wall since Paul’s army has subjugated everything within a two or three days walk. He has a nice home just out of sight of the village walls, and he has been encouraging others to build outside the village walls because they have more room to build than in the village. This villager was one of the first young men my village sent to Paul’s school, and at nineteen years old, the little twirp tried to replace me as chief during the election. Most of the young people that went to Paul’s school voted for him. He has a wife and three kids under five; kill them all.”

“What about my food?”

“His home is on a farm. He has a couple of large siloes and oxen. Kill his family and take whatever you want. Don’t burn down the home, though; I think people should see what you and your men do. Make their deaths violent and gruesome. That way, nobody else in the village will think about building outside the walls. Paul won't suspect me because what chief would have his own people killed. Besides, once you kill them, Paul will have no choice but to give me more power to protect my people.”

“Sure, no problem. Do you want me to do this tonight?”

“No, get some rest, eat something, and tomorrow night kill them.” With that statement, the chief's guards took out some food and handed it over to Abilio.

“I thought you said you couldn’t bring me food?”

“No, I said I couldn’t bring you large amounts of food. If you want a large amount of food, hit the farm tomorrow night.”

……………………………………………………………………………………………………

The next night Abilio led his five surviving hunters to the home the chief told him about. Although the moon was out in full, it was easy to hide as it was almost harvest. The grain crops were taller than the men as they snuck through the fields.

Their plan was simple if they can quietly get into the house, they go room to room until they find someone. If it’s the adults, they kill them in their beds. If it’s the children, then they stab them in the gut; hopefully, when the child screams in pain, the parents rush to the child without weapons making their job easy.

If they can not quietly enter the house, they will bash through the door, and then they will rush in as a group and take out the parents as best as they can.

When they reached the house, they tried entering through the front door, but it was locked tight. They didn’t have mechanical locks like in the modern world yet, so that meant there was a long wooden bar on the other side of the door, keeping it tightly locked.

Abilio took out his sword and slid it through the crack of the door, and began lifting up the bar. He smiled as the bar lifted because it meant that this family was worried about the wildlife of Africa, not bandits. Abilio wasn’t surprised, it wasn’t too long ago when most villagers used a piece of cloth as a front door, and all that did was stop bugs.

Once the bar was lifted, Abilio very carefully opened the door, and they made their way into the home. The moonlight coming through the door showed a comfortable home with chairs, a fireplace, a spinning wheel, toys, and half a piece of cloth on the weaver's frame. It made Abilio mad because he had to hide in the wilderness for the last three years while these people got such good things. That ends tonight.

Abilio led his men to a hallway, and they tried to open the first door on the left, but it wouldn’t budge. Abilio figured that this is where the parents were because the door was locked. What parent would let their kid lock their door? Abilio lifted his finger to his mouth, showing the men that they needed to stay quiet. Then he pointed at one of the men and then pointed next to the door, and then pointed to the other door on the other side of the hallway. Then he signaled for them to prepare to strike. They lifted their weapons, ready to strike anyone who came out.

Abilio took the rest of the men with him to the next door and pushed it open. Inside the room was a little boy sleeping. Abilio smiled. The boy was at the age where he was dead to the world. He signaled for his men to step inside the room and next to the doorway and hide along the wall. If someone got past his two other men, then they would get them once they stepped into this room.

Abilio took out his sword as he walked to the bed. Once there, he plunged his knife into the little boy's stomach, twisted it, and pulled it out in one motion. The sword was so dull it snagged intestines, and they came out with the sword.

The boy SCREAMED! The scream a child makes when they have been hurt. Moments later, Abilio heard as his parents stumbled out of bed.

The boy's father came out of his room, sword drawn. He imagined a cobra or viper had bitten his son, but as soon as he stepped through the door, men on both sides of the door swing their axes. With two axes embedded in his chest, he collapsed, still alive.

His wife screamed in horror. Someone was murdering her husband, but she had already grabbed her naginata when she heard her son scream, and when horror took hold of her heart, muscle memory took over.

The naginata is a slicing weapon, So she stepped forward and swung her weapon at the man to the left of her husband as he tried to remove his ax from her love’s chest. He never got the chance as her blade cut through his left arm, through his ribs, and through his lung.

As the blade slide out of his chest, she takes another step forward, and as she steps, she slashes the man across from him. Her blade severed his right arm in two and sliced into his stomach. He lifted his arm up in shock and watched the blood spurt out in horror. While he does that, she takes a step while lifting her blade and strikes through the front of his neck. Blood gushes out the savagely cut throat, but the cut wasn’t deep enough to separate the head.

As the men fall, she looked down at her dying husband, and he said, “Our son, save our son.”

Panic grips the mother's heart as she runs to her boy's room. She sees a sadistic man over her boy's bed, pulling out her son's insides as her boy screams in pain, terror, and confusion! She runs forward to kill the devil, only to be struck down by the men who were waiting in the corner of the room.

Abilio turned around and said, “Good job. Now we have to kill the other two kids.”

When he said that a little girl started screaming, he looked at the doorway, and there was the second child they were supposed to kill problem was she was turning and running toward the door of the house.

Abilio yelled out, “Kill her before she leaves!”

All three men started running after the girl. They got in each other's way as they ran out of the room, giving the girl more time to run. As they made their way past the girl's father, he tripped the first one who fell on his face.

Before he could turn and kill the father, Abilio yelled out, “GET THE GIRL!”

All three men began chasing the girl again.

Abilio walked over to the father and said, “Just thought you would like to know that your chief is the one who sent us to kill you and your family. He was very unhappy with you trying to take over his job.” With that, Abilio took out his short sword and slit the man's throat.

As he looked up, he was furious to see the girl made it out of the house, all three men chasing her. Abilio ran out following them and saw the girl was running toward the grain fields, trying to hide in the tall crops. She was screaming the entire way. One of Abilio’s men threw his ax, and it hit the girl in the shoulder. She went down, and the men were so furious they stomped her to death.

Abilio went back inside to find the last child. It wasn’t hard to find as he could hear the baby crying due to all the screaming. It was clear the baby was scared. When Abilio found the nine-month-old baby, he picked it up by its feet and slammed its head against the wall. It burst like a watermelon. After that, he tossed the small corpse aside.

Abilio called out to his men, “Do you think this looks gruesome enough, or do we need to make it worse?”

One of the men said, “We ought to drag a different body into each room and pull out their organs.”

Abilio said, “Sounds good. Afterward, wash up. We don’t want their blood and gore all over our grain.”

The men laughed and said, “Yeah.”

As they were moving the bodies around and making the murder scene look worse, they were not paying attention. If they were, they might have heard the guards jogging up the road. By the time someone heard the guards, someone shouted, “CHARGE!” and then it was too late.

Abilio’s men were scattered across the house, covered in blood. They pulled out their axes, or in Abilio’s case, short sword, but those are pathetic weapons against men with shields and spears. Even though it was dark, it was not hard for the guards to figure out that they were supposed to kill the men covered in blood, waving weapons at them. In less than twenty seconds, the fifteen guards had pinned Abilio and his hunters to the walls of the house. And so ended a traitor and a bandits life.

The chief soon followed the guards and said, “I told them not to build a home outside of the village walls. I told them, and now they are dead. Them and their children.” Then he turned to the two guards that were with him when he made his deal with Abilio the previous day, “It’s a good thing you were watching extra careful now that King Paul is away from his communications towers. You were right that bandits will use it as an opportunity to strike. Let me see the damage done.”

The guards let their chief through. They had all seen terrible things in their life and truth be told, some of the public executions they had seen were worse than what was in the house.

As the chief made his way through the house, he couldn’t help but smile at the death of his political enemy. He wished he could take credit for what happened but with King Paul around, that would be unwise, even if the King was his son-in-law.

When he got to Abilio’s body, he cried out, “IT’S THE TRAITOR ABILIO! YOU MEN HAVE DONE A WONDERFUL SERVICE!” The guards cheered and patted each other on the back. Only the chief's personal guards knew about his dealings with Abilio, and now those dealings were finished forever. It was finished in such a way to make it clear to Paul that the chief had not been conspiring with bandits.

When Paul got the news, he was sad for the dead man and his family. But he was glad to see Abilio came to justice, although he knew Chazia would grieve for her brother. At least the traitor's saga was over.

If Paul knew the man who died almost defeated his father in law in an election, he would know something was up, but Paul was a King of almost three hundred villages now, and he did not have the ability to pay that much attention to them. And so unawares, Paul traded one traitor for another.

Chapter 43 March 84 AD Africa- Savannah

Paul’s tour of his newly conquered land was going well. He brought his three oldest sons with him (Alexander, George, and Washington), and the trip was turning out to be a wonderful educational opportunity.

The war and malaria had devastated the population. Every village he went to had half the population of any village he ever conquered, and many of the men and women were injured due to the war or malaria. As far as Paul was concerned, this was great news. It meant that they could not effectively revolt.

That said, a part of the reason for this tour was to help the villages set up their own communications towers, and log walls. Paul’s soldiers were helping, and they were getting much better at carpentry. For many of the villagers, it was their first real look at carpentry. Without iron, they could not make things like axes, saws, or drills, and so everyone was learning skills quickly, including Paul’s boys, who were thrilled to work with the men. What boy doesn’t want to work alongside the men they look up to?

Part of the reason for Paul’s tour was to meet the new chiefs in their homes. Paul wanted to see how the villages and chiefs were fairing after the election and how many of them were flexible enough to do well under the new way of doing things. One of the good things about having a population that was so young is that young people were more flexible than older people, and Paul was pleased with how things were looking.

In most of the villages in Paulsland, the new chief elected was one of Paul’s students. Paul had absolute faith in the people he trained. He was a bit worried about the new villages, as they didn’t have anyone who went through Paul’s schools yet, but he was pleased things seemed to be going well. Paul thought he might have been rash to change leadership so forcefully so soon after a treaty, but Paul did not want the chiefs he formed treaties with forming a rebellion, so he instituted elections before he thought they were ready. Fortunately, the old chiefs were despised because they were harsh task maskers under Elzo, so the change in chiefs made Paul a very popular man in his new territory.

Most of the former chiefs were forced out of their villages, which was wonderful news to Paul since it meant a group of people who understood how to raise an army, which Paul could not execute in peacetime because it would mean breaking his word, were not in a position to oppose him.

Paul’s tour took several weeks when he got word about Abilio’s death. He was sad he could not be there for Chazia when her brother died. Paul wasn’t upset that Abilio died; he was upset that he could not comfort his wife. That said, Paul would have to pay more attention to Misa’s father as it was a little too coincidental that his first wife’s brother was killed just outside the village of his second wife’s father. Then again, perhaps jealousy spurned Abilio on. Paul didn’t know anything for sure, but being from the modern world, he knew from books, movies, and history that coincidences like that were bad things.

As the tour continued from one village to the next, Paul couldn’t help but notice the trees were getting thinner. Paul was glad to see his nation would soon reach the savannah of Africa. Paul was a bit disappointed when they reached the end of the road in the last village, and it was still tropical forest.

There was a chief waiting for him at the village, so Paul brought his three sons to greet the chief.

As Paul approached, the chief bowed on the ground and said, “Great King Paul, slayer of elephants, binder of the land and rivers, master of Paulsland, I greet you.”

Paul smiled and instantly said, “Stand up, elected chief.” Paul called him elected chief because Paul had no clue what the man’s name was nor what village this was.

The man stood up but kept his head down.

Paul was not pleased that the chief kept his head down, and so Paul admonished him, “You are a chief of Paulsland. You have been elected by your people to lead them until I call for a new election. I need you to lift your chin up, puff out your chest, and look me in the eyes.”

The chief nervously did what Paul asked.

“That’s better. Now that I have your attention, I need to know if there are any villages further west of here that fought for Elzo?”

The chief nervously stuttered and said, “Yes, Great King.”

“Then why don’t they have a road built to your village?”

The chief looked down again to Paul’s annoyance. One of the first lessons he taught his students in martial arts is that they need to be proud martial artists and to lift their chin high and look people in the eye. If this chief did not change his attitude, then one of Paul’s students would easily become chief in a couple of years.

“I don’t know. Do you want me to go and ask?”

Paul examined the chief and realized the chief was doing his best to give Paul the best answer he could when there were no right answers, and Paul said, “Don’t worry about it. We have to give you a communications tower and a log wall first, and then I will take my soldiers to the village and ask them what’s going on.”

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Three days later, Paul and his soldiers followed one of the local hunters to the next village. Paul needed to know why a group of people he promised not to kill as long as they became part of his nation have not lived up to their agreement. Paul assumed the five hundred soldiers he brought with him would encourage cooperation if not the execution of their chief would.

As they walked, Paul quizzed his children from their language dictionary. The first book to come off his movable type printing press was a dictionary with over a thousand words for each of the six languages in Paulsland. English, and whatever the other five were. Paul was going to have to get around to naming them. He would have let the villages name them, but each of his three hundred and some villages had a different name for whichever one of the six languages they spoke.

As Paul was quizzing his kids on the various languages, Alexander asked, “Dad, why do I have to learn the new languages? I am going to man camp in a couple of months. I think I am too old for this.”

Paul’s other two sons looked on in excitement. They hated being drilled in the new languages and hoped their brother could convince their father to do more interesting things than language lessons. If not, then at least it would be Alexander getting in trouble instead of them.

Paul looked at his boy and said, “Too old? Son, there are now six languages in Paulsland, and you are only proficient in three. You are behind. That’s not your fault; it just took time to get the right people into Paulsland so they could teach us the new languages. Now I have to cram them into you before you go to man camp and become a soldier.”

Alexander did not want to get back into the language lessons, and so he tried to change the subject. He knew that if he could get his father talking, then his father would forget about the lesson, so he asked, “Dad, why do I have to become a soldier? I am your son. A King’s son. Shouldn’t I become a lieutenant instead?”

Paul shot Alexander a dirty look and said, “How can you lead soldiers if you never were one? You would have no idea what your men were supposed to do.”

“Wouldn’t I learn that in man camp?”

“No. Man camp is to teach you how to be a soldier, but that doesn’t mean you understand the job. It’s like martial arts. Do you remember the first time you sparred someone?”

Alexander looked down. He knew where this was going, and he was not happy when he said, “Yes.”

“What happened?”

“I threw one punch, and they punched me seven times, and kicked me four times while I stood there like an idiot.”

“You punched and kicked the air for weeks, and yet when it came to fighting a real opponent, you froze up. Do you still freeze up?”

“No.”

“This is the same thing. You have to learn what a soldiers job is before you can ever lead soldiers. Worse yet, you wanted to be a lieutenant before being a sergeant. So you think after two months of training, you would be able to lead a hundred soldiers into battle? You think at twelve years old you should be telling sergeants what to do?”

Alexander said, “Not if you are going to put it that way.”

“I know being my son makes you think you are special.” John then looked at his other two boys and said, “This goes for all of you. The truth is that every human being is special. I want you to be the best person you can be, not because I am your father, but because you are human, and you should live your life to your fullest potential. Every one of you will go through man camp and become soldiers for two years. If you show leadership ability, I will offer you a job as a lieutenant like I did your two older brothers. If you don’t want to be in the military after that, you can retire from the military and get the pay needed to start your new career like everyone else. If you do not show the ability to lead, then you will not be offered lieutenant status, and we will discuss what your best options are.”

George’s eyes got wide, and he said, “We don’t have to become lieutenants?”

“Not if you don’t want to. Out of all your brothers, there will definitely be some who don’t want the job and others who do not have the right temperament for the job, and that’s okay. There is so much work to be done in Paulsland that becoming something other than a lieutenant at fourteen is acceptable.”

The boys didn’t know how to take the news. In their mind, their life was always going to follow the path of a lifetime of military service, but their dad just said they didn’t have to do that for their entire life. They began to think they didn’t have to train so hard.

Then Paul decided to dash their fantasies by saying, “Fourteen is still a long way for you guys. You still have to get through man camp, and the sergeants and lieutenants there have been given special instructions to make things harder for my sons than anyone else.”

Washington said, “Aww, do we have to?”

“Yes.”

Then Washington said in awe, “Dad, look around, we have never been anywhere like this.”

Paul looked around and saw the tropical forest was ending, and they were entering into the vast savannah. In Paul’s previous life, he had visited the savannah before, and he had to admit there was a lot more wildlife in this one than the one in the modern world, but it wasn’t special to him. But this was new to his boys, so he said, “Fine, we won't do any more studies today, but you still have to stay in the center of the soldier's formation. This is a dangerous place. I don’t want you getting hurt.”

George asked, “What’s this endless expanse of grass called?”

“The savannah. Lots of herd animals live out here alongside some very dangerous predators. In fact, there is a very fast cat called a cheetah that lives out here. It can outrun anything with legs.”

Washington said, “Really!? Can we see it?”

“I don’t know. We will have to wait and find out.”

Paul spent the next few minutes discussing what he recalled about the savannah to his children, and it wasn’t long before they came to the village in question. This village was a lot different than the villages built in the tropical forest as the huts were made out of branches and grass instead of branches and more branches. As they approached, it was clear that they did not farm at this village; instead, it had a lot of empty pens. When Paul saw that, he braced for disappointment. When they finally reached the village, it was empty.

Paul called out to the hunter who led them there, and when the hunter reached Paul, he was terrified that Paul would blame him for the disappearance of this village.

Paul asked, “Did these villagers have a lot of animals?”

The hunter was surprised at King Paul’s calmness and said, “Yes.”

Paul nodded and said, “I suspect that we won't find these villagers. I think they are nomads leading their herds around the savannah. I bet the reason why they went with Elzo is because of the promise of loot, and their nomadic life probably keeps them pretty close to the tropical forest.”

The hunter was relieved that King Paul was not going to execute him for something out of his control. He told King Paul, “I have come to this way hunting many times, and sometimes this village is surrounded by animals; other times it's not. Sometimes when it's not, there are people here. Perhaps they were hunting too. I don’t know.”

Paul shook his head and said, “Don’t worry about it; it's not your fault.”

Alexander asked, “Dad, are we going to track them down?”

Paul waved his hands in all directions and said, “Where would we even start? No, we will go back. Currently, there is no way for us to begin taking control of nomadic tribes. We have to get some horses first.”

“What’s a horse?”

“It’s a very fast animal that people can ride on.”

“Where do you find them?”

“Up north. Most nations have them, and we would too, but the sleeping sickness is devastating to horses. In a few months, your older brother Dashiell is going to continue down the river until he finds the sea because we really need to start trading with other nations. One of the first things we need is horses.”

“Whats the sea? And if sleeping sickness kills horses, then how are you going to keep the horses alive?”

“The sea is a massive body of water as far as the eye can see. As for the horses, we will just have to cover them in pyrethrum continually.”

Paul, a bit disappointed, led his people back to their land. He had no intentions of growing Paulsland into the savannah until they had horses, and that was years away. If the nomads of the savannah raids the villages near here, well, Paul wouldn’t care for a couple of years.

Chapter 44 May AD 84 Texas- The Sea

John was taking his family in their new sailboat downriver to the sea. He suspected that Chief Atsadi would not be thrilled about his family's venture, so John was going to tell Atsadi that he was there to help him learn how to train his bison calves.

As they traveled downriver, John and Onawa took great delight in their second son Bobby bossing around Trevor the entire trip. Bobby had learned a lot on his trip with his Uncle Nana, and thus his experience meant that John let Bobby boss around Trevor. Instead of breaking Trevor’s spirit, this made Trevor determined to learn the job well enough so that he could be in charge on their next trip.

The sailboat had every trader they passed, asking the same question, “Why do you have a pole sticking out of your ship?”

John answered the same way each time, “It's to help travel at sea.”

Every trader’s eyes got big and said, “The sea is a monster! It will swallow you whole.”

John smiled back and said, “Not with our poll and sail.”

The traders just shook their heads. They all knew who John was because he was the Chief of Texas. Texas was in the middle of the river, and every trader had traveled to Texas and traded with John many times. Most of these traders went back to their villages with news that John was doing something crazy at sea.

As John’s family got closer to what was getting to be known as the salt village, each trader made Onawa more and more worried about going out to sea. She had never been to the sea, but she had heard wildly conflicting stories about the sea. On the one hand, the traders all feared it because it was far wilder than the river; on the other hand, her husband thought it was a place of great riches and opportunity.

The boys just wanted to prove their bravery by going to the sea, and they looked forward to having a lot more room to play with their boat than what is available in the large pond by their dad's workshop.

When they finally reached the docks at the salt village, one of the men asked John, “Why does your ship have a pole?”

John had been asked that question dozens of times by everyone who saw that boat and was annoyed by the question, so he ignored it turned to his family, and said, “Boy’s go ahead and take the sailboat out to sea.”

The boys cheered as their father turned back to the man and said, “If you want to see why the ship has a pole go and watch what they do. That said, I am here to see chief Atsadi. I am chief John, and I am here to help him with his bison project.”

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Onawa was nervous as her husband left her alone with the boys. He told her to make sure to stay within sight of the coast and not to worry; the boys were pretty good at sailing the boat.

As soon as her husband was gone, Onawa said, “Boys put on your gourds.”

The boys all whined, and Bobby said, “Do we have to?”

Onawa shot her son a look, and he said, “Okay, mom. You don’t have to give me such a mean look.”

It wasn’t long until Onawa saw the sea for the first time.

Bobby said, “See, I told y’all water as far as the eye can see.”

Everyone was impressed. They never imagined so much water or such big waves.

Trevor said, “Bobby, Quincy get to the boon, its time to see how fast this ship can go when we have way more room to sail!”

All his brothers shouted as Onawa got nervous, grabbed Walker, and sat down out of the way of the boon.

Walker yelled out, “GO FAST!”

Bobby and Quincy quickly put up the sail and found the wind! The wind was coming in straight from the sea, so with the triangle sail, Trevor had to zig-zag the boat into the sea. They were going pretty quickly when they hit their first wave. The boat bounced up into the air, and Onawa’s heart dropped as her boys laughed and cheered!

As they started rocking back and forth on the waves, the boys had a blast while Onawa kept thinking to herself, “John said it was safe. John said it was safe.”

Trevor began weaving the boat back and forth to get deeper into the sea. It wasn’t long before his mother saw they were a hundred yards or so from the shore and said, “Your father said not to get too far away from the shore. This is far enough away.”

The boys had never been out in the sea and were actually getting uncomfortable with how far away from shore they were. Trever said, “Okay, mom. Alright, guys, swing the boom so we can go fast as we race alongside the beach.”

Trevor used the rudder to turn the longboat so that it was parallel to the beach, while Bobby and Quincy repositioned the sail to best catch wind from their new position. It wasn’t long before their boat was going at the blistering speed of ten miles an hour, and sometimes with the right gust went as high as twelve miles an hour. Everyone on the boat was getting a rush from going fast. They could never have gotten these speeds on the pond back home.

Without anything but running to compare their speed too, they all felt that they were going very fast. Car’s hadn’t been invented yet, the buffalo were not ridable yet, so sailing was the only way to feel constant speed. Onawa felt nervous at such a high rate of speed, while the boys felt joy.

On the mainland, where they had turned their beaches into salt ponds, the sailboat was noticed. It would have been a miracle if it hadn’t been seen. Although the sailboat was small at only twenty feet long, the sail stood out. Even if someone were to miss the sail, humans were hard-wired to notice moving objects, and the sail was moving at a blistering pace in the opinion of everyone working on the shore that day. Many of the people working went to inform the chief of the mysterious object.

A few minutes after passing the village, Onawa looked back and saw that the smoke from the salt village was getting really far away, and she told the boys, “Turn around. We are too far from the village.”

Trevor was in the back with the rudder, and he said, “AWW, Mom, do we have to?”

“Do you want to sit on shore the rest of the day?”

Trevor instantly stopped whining and said, “No, Ma’am.” Then he yelled at his brother’s, “Move the boon we got to go back the other way.”

Bobby and Quincy adjusted the boon so that the wind stopped pushing the boat, and then Trevor removed the rudder from the stern. He took the rudder to the bow of the ship put it in its place, as his brothers started moving the boon so that the wind would move their longboat in the opposite direction. The longboat’s bow and stern are made in such a way that either end can work as either the bow or stern. When you are constantly beaching your boat, it’s a convenient design.

Onawa watched her sons do all that work and asked, “Why did you stop the boat before you went in the other direction?”

Trevor said, “That’s what we do at the pond. We get the boat going as fast as we can, and we slam into the bank, so instead of turning around, we just move the rudder to the other side.”

Onawa was speechless for a second, then said, “Look around. There is plenty of room to change directions in this sea.”

The boys looked around, and Trevor said, “I never thought about that. We’ll practice going in circles when we get back to the salt village.”

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John had quickly found chief Atsadi and Atsadi was pleased to see John. The salt village saw how valuable domesticated bison were, and so Atsadi was happy that John showed up to help him train the new animals, especially since they were still newborns, and thus they hadn’t made any mistakes with this group.

John was showing them how they needed to train the seventy-pound calf by putting a harness on it. Then have someone take the reigns of the harness to teach it to obey specific commands while someone else led it and made sure it obeyed the commands. The man up front would reward it with honey or juice before bringing it back to its mother after an hour or so.

The whole point was that these bison grew fast, and it’s a lot easier to train a seventy-pound newborn bison than a three hundred pound bison calf, or a full-grown two thousand pound bison whose head alone from nose to horn was five and a half feet long, and weighed more than a man.

After John showed them how to train a newborn, they were discussing how much easier the process would be in a couple of years when the mothers of the new bison were already domesticated and trained, when someone came running toward chief Atsadi.

He yelled out, “CHIEF ATSADI, THERE IS SOMETHING STRANGE IN THE SEA!?”

John smiled. He figured he knew what it was.

Atsadi said, “What is it?”

“I don’t know. You have to come and see. I have never seen anything like it.”

John was concerned by that last statement, as the sailboat he had made had simply added a sail to a longboat, but John figured that perhaps the boat was far enough out at sea that they only noticed the sail.

The man ran off, leading Atsadi and John back toward the sea. John was irritated he had to run, but Atsadi was clearly worried.

When they got to the shore, John smiled as he saw the boat going in circles.

Atsadi asked John, “Do you know what that is?”

John smiled and said, “Yes! That’s my sons’ longboat. I made it for them at Christmas. You know the winter solstice.”

“How is it moving so fast? And how is it moving without oars or poles?”

“The triangle is a big piece of cloth, and its catching wind, which is moving the boat. The faster the wind, the faster the boat.”

Atsadi gave John a confused look and said, “Why didn’t you make the sail for all the riverboats? It would have made the trader's jobs a lot easier!”
“Sails don’t work that well on rivers. They work really well on lakes or the sea. On the river, you will just end up crashing into everything, and at times the wind will push you the wrong way.”

Atsadi nodded and said, “Why aren’t you afraid that the sea will swallow your family?”

John said, “Because it’s a longboat, not a canoe, and because my boys are wearing hollowed-out gourds so they can float if they fall off the boat. I know there are times where storms come in, and the sea really turns into a monster, but most of the time, it's calm and safe to travel as long as you have the right equipment. Longboats with sails are the right equipment. And with them, we can get the riches out of the sea.”

“We already get fish from the sea.”

“I have seen your men casting nets into the sea from the shore, but if you took a boat and went further out to sea, you could get a lot more fish, sharks, and shrimp.”

Atsadi looked nervous, and so John said, “The longboat isn’t a canoe. I understand why you wouldn’t want to throw a net from a canoe, especially with the waves, but it's no problem in a longboat. Send for your best fisherman, and I will get the attention of my boys, and I will take you fishing in the sea.”

Atsadi wanted to say no, but John’s sons were all very young, and if children could face the sea in a longboat, Atsadi felt he had to also, lest someone question his courage. So Atsadi said, “Okay.” Then he turned toward one of his men and said, “Go get Mahpe, tell him to bring his net.”

While someone went off to find Mahpe, John waved his hands at the boat. After a few minutes, one of his kids saw him, and they brought the boat around. Considering their dad had a different skin tone than everyone else in North America, it was not hard for them to pick out their dad.

When the boys grounded the boat on the beach, the boys screamed in delight, and they started yelling at their dad about how good of a time they were having.

John interrupted them and said, “I am glad you are having a good time, but now we are going to take Chief Atsadi out fishing in our boat with one of his fishermen.”

While they waited, John and the boys were explaining the sailboat to chief Atsadi. Truth be told, the boys did most of the explaining since it was their toy. John learned early in life, those who played with the toys learned how it worked best, and so his sons were already better experts than him.

Once Mahpe showed up with his nets, the men pushed the longboat into the water, and the boys began sailing out.

Trevor asked, “Dad, where do you want me to take the boat.”

John said, “Ask Mahpe. He has been fishing here all his life, so he should know the signs the best.”

Mahpe looked uncomfortable. He had never fished this deep in the sea, and he wasn’t sure if his net was up for it, but since John implied he was the expert, he wasn’t going to tell him they were wrong. Instead, Mahpe said, “Take the boat straight out, and we will see what we find.”

The boys moved around the boon until the sail picked up wind and began making their way out to sea. Since the wind was blowing straight at the coast, they had to zig-zag. Asia was the first place to figure out how to use the triangle sail to sail against the wind, and they only did that a few hundred years earlier. Now thanks to John, this technology made it to North America a millennium and a half early.

As the boys sailed straight out in a zig-zag, Atsadi asked, “Why do you keep going back and forth.”

Bobby answered honestly, “I don’t know how it works, but when we want to go towards the wind, we have to move the sail to an angle, and somehow it makes us start moving toward the wind, but not straight on. We move toward it at an angle. So we have to move back and forth, constantly adjusting the boon.”

Atsadi asked, “Do you think it’s a secret of the gods?”

John immediately said, “No. If anything, it’s a blessing that we should use.”

Atsadi nodded and said, “I will discuss this blessing with our shaman. He should ride on this boat also.”

As they zigged back and forth, constantly getting further and further away from the coast, Mahpe ignored the conversations and kept his eyes on the water. He was nervous because his reputation as a fisherman was on the line. But he had learned to be patient. And so he waited, and waited and then he saw fish and threw his net in the water. He began dragging the net back on the boat, and when he did so, he was shocked at the four foot long fish he had caught. He had never caught anything so big.

Mahpe shouted, “YES! Have you ever seen a fish this big!?”

` John saw the fish, smiled, and said, “You really are a great fisherman.”

Atsadi said, “There really are treasures in the sea. Chief John, what can we do to get one of these sailboats.”

John said, “I can show you the plans and sell you lumber for it. I have more lumber than I know what to do with now that I have a sawmill. As for the sail, your women will have to talk to my wife about how to make it.”

Atsadi said, “Wonderful. What's a sawmill? Wait, never mind, that doesn’t matter at this time. How will I get my people to accept this sailboat?”

“I can stay a few days to help you out with the rest of your bison calves and get you started on your sailboat production. Especially in helping you build the sails. That will take you some time. And while I stay, my boys can take your villagers on a ride in their boat.”

The boys immediately shouted in glee, “YEAH!”

Their excitement was contagious, and so Atsadi said, “That will work.”

Over the next few days, the boys took great joy in taking the villagers out on their first sailboat ride. Many of them had tried taking canoes, or more recently, long boats out in the sea, and paddles vs. waves was not fun in the least. But the sail vs. the waves was a joy. Once the traders heard about it, they took rides also. And so the River Trade Alliance finally took their first shallow step into the sea.

Chapter 45 June AD 84 Africa- Indian Ocean

Dashiell was on an important mission given to him by his father, King Paul. Dashiell was to continue down the Zambezi river until he finds the ocean. Once there, he is to build a fort, leave a hundred men to defend it, and report back.

Paul was nervous because one of the villages he defeated disappeared into the savannah. Dashiell had no way to know, but in Paul’s previous life, he learned that much of the savannah was populated by groups of nomads who lived off their herds. Those nomads were fierce warriors who at one time used spears to defeat British soldiers armed with repeater rifles, and now those nomads had reason to go to war with Paulsland.

The problem was that Paulsland was a nation of stationary farming villages. The savannah was filled with villages and probably tribes of very mobile people who could attack at random times and then disappear. Their way of life could cause Paul significant headaches, so he wanted to get horses as quickly as possible, and step one to getting horses was getting to the ocean.

Dashiell’s current pioneering mission was different than his previous ones. In his previous missions, he built a base at every major river he came across. This time, he was to skip any river he found and continue to the ocean before building a base. He had two hundred soldiers and Udo, the diplomat, to help him with this vital mission. Paul made it abundantly clear that the base Dashiell establishes will be the direction of Paulsland’s expansion over the next few years.

Dashiell started his mission at the capital between two rivers, and from there, he led twenty-five boats over one hundred and forty miles downriver to their farthest outpost. This is the outpost Dashiell started several years ago on the third major river from the capital. Paulslands still had about fifty miles to go before its borders meet with this outpost. Currently, the outpost is fairly self-sufficient since it has ten local villages under its thumb, but Dashiell will feel better once it has a road and bridge connecting it to the capital.

Dashiell had his men stop at the outpost for three days to get rested up and resupplied, and then they began taking their trek downriver. This was the second time Dashiell was taking a journey down this river with no clue where it would lead him. Of course, he knew that his stepfather, the King, must be right about an ocean of endless water at the end of this river, but between the outpost and the goal was endless possibilities.

On the second day of their travels, they went over a hippos territory and had to kill a dozen hippos and then repair two damaged boats. By now, they had the weapons and experience to deal with hippos easily, but the pause in travel was unwelcome.

As they traveled, Dashiell made sure that they started out at first light and found a place to camp at least three hours before sunset. The most dangerous part of the trip was getting off the boats, especially since you couldn’t see what was just behind the tree coverage on the river bank.

It wasn’t long before a week had passed, and they were still looking for the ocean. Each day that passed on their trip downriver, was likely three or more days travel upriver. This concerned Dashiell immensely.

As they traveled, they passed streams and small rivers. Nothing as big as the three rivers Dashiell made outpost on, although some of the rivers they passed were respectful. On day ten, Dashiell saw something that surprised him. The mighty Zambezi river split in two directions.

Dashiell shouted out the order, “DROP ANCHORS!”

Without hesitation, all the boats began dropping anchors as Dashiell turned toward the Udo to get some advice.

Dashiell said, “This is the first time I have ever seen a river split like this. Up till this point, every time I saw two rivers, they were coming together, not splitting apart. My father never mentioned anything like this. What do you think we should do?”

Udo asked, “King Paul wanted us to find an ocean of endless water, so we have to keep going until we find it.”

“I know that, but which way should we go? North or south?”

“If the ocean is endless water like the King says, then it probably doesn’t matter which way we go. I know King Paul thinks the ocean is paramount for trading with other civilizations. Assuming both the rivers go to the endless ocean, which river would be best for the King’s purpose?”

Dashiell thought about it, and as he thought back to conversations he had with his stepfather. Several times King Paul mentioned nations up north, and Dashiell said, “I have heard my father mention that there are powerful nations north of us, so we will take the north river unless you have a reason to go south.”

Udo smiled and said, “No, sir. Your idea to go North is a good one.” As a diplomat, Udo was politically wise. When asked a question, he did not give his opinion and thus could not be held responsible if a bad decision was made.

Dashiell yelled out, “Pull up your anchors we are going up the north branch.”

The men immediately did as ordered, and they began making their way north where the river split. A mile or so downriver and the river began to change. Dashiell hoped the change meant that they were near the ocean of endless water his stepfather talked about.

Another couple of miles and the river bent, and as they rounded the bend, they saw it. The ocean. The men looked in awe for a long moment. Regardless of what they imagined the ocean looked like, their imagination paled in comparison to the real thing. Then the men began to cheer.

Dashiell yelled to his men, “Take your boats to shore! King Paul says that flat bottom boats will not do well on the endless ocean.”

The men immediately and with great cheer, began rowing hard for the shore. When they landed, they landed just west of what was known as Chinde, Mozambique, in the modern world of the previous timeline.

As they landed, they could not help but stare at the endless water. Eventually, Dashiell was the first to awaken from the wonder that was the ocean, and he began shouting orders.

“Grab your axes. We have a fortification to build before nightfall descends!”

The men were slow to act, and so Dashiell shouted further orders.

“We do not know who else lives along the ocean of endless water. Do you want to be killed in the night?!”

That comment made the men work at an acceptable speed. Some had grown up in a village before Paul came and had seen what happens when you do not have a wall protecting the place you sleep.

It wasn’t long before the Axes, saws, and hammers were out, and the men made great noise as they cut down trees, shaped them, and moved them. Dashiell didn’t realize that when the river split a few miles back it turned this land into an island, and half the island could hear Dashiell’s men’s work.

It wasn’t long before a dozen warriors showed up with bow and spear. They were furious as they headed toward the sound, but when they saw two hundred strong men, they decided it was wise to be polite.

As soon as Dashiell’s men saw the strange men, they began yelling out, “MOVEMENT!”

With that one word, axes and hammers stopped swinging, men lifted their heads, and as they saw the strange new men, they also yelled, “MOVEMENT!” and held their weapons between them and the strangers. Several men unlatched shields from their backs and stood between the strangers and their brothers in arm.

The warriors were intimidated, but this was their home, and so they asked, “Why are you here?”

Udo being the diplomat, spoke to the warriors first, “We are here on the behest of the Great King Paul. He has asked us to build a fort overlooking the ocean of endless water.”

The warriors were nervous, but their leader said with all the confidence he could muster, “This is our land. You can not build your fort here.”

“Are you the chief?”

The warrior shook his head and said, “No. The chief is sick.”

Udo almost smiled, but instead, he gave the most concerned look he could give and said, “Our King has created powerful medicine; perhaps we could help. Could you take us to your chief?”

The warrior shook his head and said, “No. I cannot take an army to my chief.”

Udo said, “You don’t have to take everyone. How about just me?”

The warrior took a glance at the two hundred armed soldiers, thought about it for a second, and said, “Okay, I think we can do that.”

Udo turned to Dashiell and said, “I am going to follow these warriors back to their chief and see if we can work out a deal.”

“Are you sure that’s wise?”

“Considering there are two hundred soldiers here ready to get revenge if anything happens, yes, it's wise. But King Paul put you in charge, and if you don’t want me to go, let me know, and I will tell them.”

Dashiell thought about it and said, “You’re a diplomat; you have taken your men to many villages before; you’re the expert. Go do the job my father gave you to do.”

Udo smiled, said, “Thank you.” Turned toward the warriors and said in their language, “Take me to your leader.”

The warriors led Udo several miles into their territory, and when he saw a village in the distance, he said, “What a well-built village. Which huts are yours?”

The warriors looked at Udo with a peculiar stare and said, “Our homes are not in this village. Our homes are in the village the chief lives in.”

“So, is this village allies or yours?”

“No, this is one of the villages that make up our tribe.”

Udo was surprised; it was rare to come across a tribe instead of a village. The difference is that a village is just one group of people living together, whereas a tribe was made up of several villages.

“I am impressed. How many villages make up your tribe?”

“Five villages make up our tribe.”

“Are they all on this Island?”

“Yes.”

“How long has your tribe had five villages?”

The warrior thought about it for a few seconds and said, “Always. Every now and then, a chief will die, and the villages go to war with one another as different men try to become leader, but as far back as memory goes, we have always been one tribe.”

Udo continued asking questions of the warrior as they made their way to the chief of this tribe, including questions about their chief’s sickness. Their description sounded a lot like malaria, especially since the warrior let it slip that most of the people in their tribe caught it just after the rainy season started.

After a few miles, they came across a new village, and Udo asked, “Is this where your chief lives?”

The guard said, “Yes.” And then led him to a hut.

Once in the hut, Udo saw the chief lying on a mat on the floor and a man standing over him who was clearly the witchdoctor. Udo couldn’t help but marvel at how every witchdoctor seemed to want to dress as strange as possible to show their connection to the spirit world.

Before Udo could speak, the witchdoctor asked, “Who is this?”

The warriors said, “We went to investigate loud noises to the northeast of the island, and there were over two hundred men there using great tools to cut down trees like a farmer cuts down wheat…”

The witchdoctor cut them off, saying, “That’s not possible.”

Udo was surprised at the warrior's description and the witchdoctors dismissal and then realized that this tribe was somewhat isolated and probably didn’t know what an ax was. And without an ax cutting down trees is more than a little difficult.

Udo cut in, “With the right tools, anything is possible.”

The witchdoctor gave Udo a stare and asked in a voice full of malice, “Who are you?”

“I am Udo, Diplomat of King Paul. King Paul is the slayer of elephants, A King who binds both earth and river, he has defeated armies, and spirits fear him.”

The witchdoctor was openly furious now because Udo said spirits fear King Paul. The witchdoctor’s job was to appease the spirits, but if someone could drive them away or control them through fear, the witchdoctor would have to find an honest job.

The witchdoctor yelled out, “YOU ARE NOTHING MORE THAN AN INVADER YOU SHOULD BE KILLED!”

The warriors so used to following orders grabbed Udo, but Udo’s response was, “I am here to save your chief's life. I have a potion that can heal him, and yet you run me off. Is it because you intend to kill the chief?”

The veins on the witchdoctors head and neck began to bulge because he was so angry, and he screamed, “I AM NOT KILLING THE CHIEF!”

Udo took out the malaria medicine, turned toward the chief, and said, “This is the cure for your sickness. It will not harm you if you take it. I am so sure I will drink it myself.” And with that, Udo gulped down the medicine, which confused everyone in the room. Then Udo said, “You see, my medicine is not poison but is that true for the witchdoctor?”

Everyone looked back at the witchdoctor, who was shocked and surprised and said, “I am not poisoning anyone.”

The chief weakly said, “Why would the witchdoctor poison our tribe?”

Udo asked, “Isn't it the witchdoctors job to appease the spirits?”

The chief answered, “Yes.”

“What if the spirits asked the witchdoctor to kill the chief and poison the villagers? Wouldn’t he be obligated to obey the spirits?”

The witchdoctor was horrified and said, “No!”

Udo looked concerned and said, “He spoke too quickly. If he was being truthful, he was not have answered so quickly?”

“But I wouldn’t poison the chief or out people.”

Udo acted like he was thinking about the witchdoctors words, then said, “We can prove whether you poison the people or not.” Then Udo turned toward the chief and said, “Have your warriors go to the witchdoctors hut and have them bring back his potions. Make him drink them, and if he dies, then that proves he was poisoning you. If he lives, then that means his medicine is good.”

The witchdoctor yelled out, “NO!”

Udo quickly said, “That proves it; he was poisoning you.”

“NO, I WASN’T!”

The chief, now half convinced the witchdoctor betrayed him asked, “If your medicine is good, then you should drink it.”

“But that’s not how it works!”

Udo smiled and said, “My medicine is good, and so I took it. If your medicine isn’t poison, you should take it.”

The witchdoctor seeing he was defeated by this stranger, said, “How do we even know if your medicine is good? You could be making it up.”

Udo’s smile grew bigger, and he said, “I happen to have two more vials of medicine.” He removed them from under his cloak and showed them. “The chief can take one, and I will take the other. Or if he wants, I can take half of both, and he can take half of both. If he starts feeling better, then we can send for more medicine until he is completely cured of your poison.”

“I DIDN’T POISON THE CHIEF!”

“That’s easy to prove; just drink all your potions in front of the chief. If you get sick, we know you were poisoning the chief.”

Before the witchdoctor could protest anymore, the chief said, “Yes. I order it. Warriors go to the witchdoctors hut, grab his potions, and he will drink them in front of me. He has been having me drink them, so if they are good for me, then they will be good for him.”

The witchdoctor tried to follow the warriors out, but then the chief said, “I need two warriors to make sure the witchdoctor stays.” By now, the chief was completely convinced the witchdoctor had poisoned him.

In truth, Udo knew how unfair he was being to the witchdoctor. Udo and the other diplomats had learned how important dosage was after the researchers had discovered aspirin. Back when the researchers had been looking for the cure for malaria, they stumbled across aspirin, which made King Paul very happy. Aspirin helped a lot of men with their minor aches and pains. But if you give someone too much aspirin, it gets ugly fast. That’s when they learned that too much medicine is poison.

The witchdoctor likely had a lot of herbs and potions that helped in the right dosage, but forcing him to drink it all down would almost certainly make him sick. At least Udo hoped it did. Udo did not hold the same hate for witchdoctors that King Paul did. King Paul hated the witchdoctors because of their purification rituals where they raped girls. Udo simply saw the witchdoctors as people in the way of Paulsland’s rising power.

The religion the witchdoctors preached was about appeasing spirits, but Udo had left that religion years ago to follow King Paul’s religion, where men bound the spirits and made the spirits serve Humans. Whether it was the spirits of the land, river, or elephants, the diplomats didn’t care as long as humans were the masters. Paul didn’t know it, but the diplomatic corps by and large have decided that Paul is more or less a super version of the witchdoctors, and they are his apprentices spreading his new religion. There were a lot of holes in this religion, but it’s a lot better than what they used to have.

Udo and the chief began a chat as they waited for the warriors to return with the witchdoctors doom.

Chapter 46 June AD 84 Africa- Diplomacy

As they waited for the warriors to return with the witchdoctors potions, the chief took Udo’s medicine, then the chief asked Udo, “How long will it take for this medicine to work?”

Udo said, “You will start feeling better before nightfall, but you must take the medicine twice a day every day for the next twenty days. If you do not, the sickness will come back worse than ever.”

The chief nodded and asked, “Do you have enough for my people?”

Udo shook his head and said, “No. We would need to go back to our capital to get enough medicine for your people, and unfortunately, it would likely take us thirty days to get back to the capital, a week to gather up the necessary medicine, and ten days to get back here.”

“What would it cost for you to do that? Some of my people have been sick for more than a hundred days, and I get reports of more people getting sick and dying every day.”

Udo’s face stayed stoic, but his hand tightened into a fist. This sounded like victory. Udo responded, “You would need to agree to join my King’s nation. Once your people are his people, he will do everything in his power to cure every one of this sickness. Not only that, but he will give your people new crops that grow better than anything you have ever seen, and new tools that have to be seen to be believed.”

The chief thought for a minute and asked, “What’s the cost?”

There was a brief pause before Udo spoke, “You would have to follow King Paul’s laws. This includes every boy joining the military for two years when they become men, each individual of a tribe owning land instead of the tribe, having the older children going to school, and each adult paying taxes. But you would still remain chief.”

The chief nodded. That wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be. He expected that Paul would demand that his tribal warriors go to war when Paul demanded it. He couldn’t comprehend that Paul much preferred training disciplined soldiers to having older and more skilled undisciplined warriors.

“If I agree to this, then I would want to tie my house to his through marriage.”

Udo wanted to curse. “I am sorry, chief, I do not have the authority to accept a bride for King Paul or one of his sons.”

“How can I trust you if there are no family ties?”

Udo thought about it for a minute and then smiled as he said, “The King’s stepson is on the island leading the task force that brought me here. He may be able to make that decision. Do you want me to get him?”

The chief thought about it for a minute and said, “Wait until after we test the medicine on the witchdoctor.”

The chief and Udo talked for several minutes about the wonders Paul built, especially the bridges, until the warriors showed up with the witchdoctors potions.

The chief commanded the witchdoctor, “Drink each one.”

With a sword to his throat, the witchdoctor had no choice. He began to drink his bitter potions. He only drank a little of the first, and so the chief said, “DRINK IT ALL!”

He drank a little more and stopped, and so the chief said, “Hit him with the shaft of your spear until he drinks it all.”

The guard began hitting him, and so the Witchdoctor gulped it down. Normally the guard would have hesitated, but Udo brought a new way of doing things. Under the witchdoctor, the guard had to fear the spirits, but Udo talked about commanding them. As far as the guard was concerned, he was trading up and so felt no compunction about beating a man he feared hours ago.

Halfway through drinking his potions, the witchdoctor fell over, clutching his stomach.

Udo pointed at him and said, “See, he was feeding you poison.”

The chief was furious, and Udo could hear the anger in his voice as he said, “Force the rest of his potions down his vile throat.”

The guards smiled as one held the witchdoctor, and another tried to force-feed him his potion, but he wouldn’t open his mouth. Another guard took his spear and pried open the witchdoctors mouth, cutting through one of the man's cheeks as he did so. Another guard poured it in. Within a few minutes, the rest of the potions were forcibly fed to the witchdoctor.

It wasn’t long before he began throwing up. The chief tossed him out after that, and Udo kindly pointed out, “You need someone to clean up his body fluids with boiling water.”

The chief nodded, thinking that Udo was telling him how to counteract the witchdoctors magic.

After a while, the witchdoctor developed a high fever, got diarrhea, and if they had the tools to check, they would have found out that his blood pressure fell dangerously low. Two hours before nightfall, the witchdoctor died in a puddle of his own filth. Udo was very aware that as long as the chief felt better, he would more or less take the man's place.

As the sun began to set, Udo told the chief, “I have one last vial of medicine you need to take, and in the morning I will have to get more from my camp. Are you feeling better?”

The chief sat up on his mat for the first time and said, “Yes. I still have a fever and chills, but it isn’t as bad as it was this morning.”

Udo nodded and said, “Good. You will have to take this twice a day for the next twenty days. But like I said, I will have to go to my camp in the morning to get more medicine. We have enough for you and maybe a few others, but we will have to go to the capital to get more.”

“Fine, in the morning, go get the medicine and bring back the King’s stepson.”

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

The next morning Udo made his way to the camp and told Dashiell, “The island is filled with malaria victims, including the chief. I gave him the medicine I had yesterday and told him that Paulsland can supply the medicine, but they will have to join Paulsland.”

“What!? You should have sent a message yesterday!” Dashiell looked over to one of the soldiers and said, “Inform everybody to put their pyrethrum paste on. This island has a malaria outbreak.” The soldier ran off to let everyone know, while Dashiell looked back at Udo and asked, “Did they agree to join?”

“Yes, under the condition that the chief joins houses with Paul.”

“I am not marrying another woman. I have two wives constantly fighting over everything, and ever since they had children, it's gotten worse.”

“What about your brother? The one that became a man this year.”

“He is not committed to anyone, but dad would be upset if I engaged him to the daughter of some small village chief.”

“Oh, um, oops, I forgot to mention that this chief is chief over the entire Island, which is made up of five villages.”

Dashiell’s mouth dropped open, and he got quiet for a minute. Finally, he said, “I guess it’s a good thing they caught malaria; otherwise, it would have been very difficult for us to build our small fort. I need to talk to this chief.”

“What about the marriage issue?”

“I would have to meet the girl he wants my brother to marry.”

“No problem, and now before I head back, I need to get some pyrethrum paste on.”

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Udo, Dashiell, and several soldiers carrying a load of medicine and the on contact bug killer, pyrethrum paste, made their way to the chief and were quickly admitted into his hut. Udo couldn’t help but notice the chief was looking much better.

Udo spoke first, “Mighty chief of five villages I have brought the stepson of King Paul, and he has brought gifts.”

The chief perked up with that and asked, “What gifts did you bring?”

Dashiell said, “I brought enough medicine to heal you and five of your people. I also brought pyrethrum paste. Pyrethrum paste is a substance you rub on yourself that reduces the chance of you catching the sickness. The witchdoctors often use bugs to spread their vile sorcery, and this paste kills any bug that touches it, which protects you from the poison.”

He grew excited and said, “THANK YOU, THANK YOU! I can save my favorite wife and son now! As for you, have you considered my offer to combine our houses?”

Dashiell nodded and said, “I have considered it, and it depends on whether you have a suitable match or not. If so, my father will accept it, and my mother will be excited to marry her third son to the daughter of such a powerful and important chief.”

The chief nodded. He knew how important it was to offer a pretty bride in this sort of exchange, and he called out, “Bring me Lishan.”

In half a minute, a pretty little girl walked into the hut, topless and in a grass skirt.

The chief asked, “She is strong. She came down with the sickness, and in just a few weeks, she overcame it.”

Dashiell had to admit she was acceptable in looks and health, so he asked, “How old is she?”

“Eight.”

Dashiell sighed and said, “My step-father passed a law years ago that no one is allowed to be married before they are fourteen years old. So I will accept as long as you understand that she will have a six-year engagement to my brother.”

The chief was surprised and said, “What if your brother dies? What if she dies? How will we have peace unless our houses are combined?”

Dashiell thought about it and said, “If my brother dies, I am sure my mother will make sure another one of her sons marries her. One of the reasons for the delay in marriage is so she will not die. My step-father has a lot of compassion and noticed that a large percentage of women died giving birth to their first child. Since he has moved the marriage age back, far fewer women die during the birth of their first child. The last time a woman died in childbirth in our capital was three years ago.”

That was shocking to the chief, “One in three of our women dies giving birth to their first child. How did the death rate fall so low?”

“The way my step-father explained it is that the baby is going to be the same size whether the girl is nine or fourteen or nineteen, but the womb at fourteen or nineteen is a lot larger than at nine, and thus a woman is much more likely to survive giving birth. My step-father says that he expects men to have self-discipline and not touch a woman until they are old enough to give birth safely. This includes him and his own household.”

“What do you mean this includes him?”

“You are not the first chief that wants to bind your house to my step-fathers. The first one who did so brought his oldest daughter to my father when she was nine years old. My father did not touch her or spend any time alone with her until she was fourteen. As King, nobody would have cared if he broke the law, but he never wavered. If our King obeys his own laws, so will the rest of the people.”

The chief was shocked but also comforted. The chief said, “If your King shows so much commitment to protecting women, how much more commitment will he show to me a chief? I mean, women are not even men, so if he keeps his word over such small things, he will surely keep his word with me.”

“Yes.”

“Take my daughter to your capital. Whether she gets married now or later doesn’t matter. I trust your King to keep his word. She is the sign that we have an alliance, and I agree to the terms you presented, as long as you bring back the medicine.”

Dashiell said, “I can agree to that. My mother will give her a great education over the next six years, and when she is fourteen, she will wed my brother. I will head back immediately for the medicine, although I have to admit it will be at least three moons before I get back. In that time to show our support, I will leave a hundred of my men to help you in any way possible. If you want, with the tools they have, they can help you build a much larger, nicer home. When you get better, come by the fort and see what they can do.”

The chief's eyes lit up in excitement. He never realized that Dashiell never asked permission to keep the fort on the chief's island or for land it was on. Dashiell offered to let the chief command them, and the chief forget everything else. That said, the fort was only there if things went bad; everything always went better when there was a peaceful transfer of power from the chief to the King.

Chapter 47 July AD 84 Texas- The First Buffalo Riders

Last year Tokala’s tribe had bought one of chief John’s bison. Then over the summer, they captured a dozen wild female bison and bred their one domesticated bison with the wild ones. Fortunately for them, in January during the congress, John had helped their scribes make a comic book showing exactly how to train the new bison. The bison were born in March, and over the last four months, the tribe's men did the very dangerous job of getting the calves away from their wild mothers every day to train them, and the calves took to the training very well. It took four months, but now the calves were finally weaned, and their untrainable mothers were butchered. Everyman in the tribe enjoyed butchering the wild mothers because the wild bison had injured nearly every man and severely injured two men.

They now had dozen bison to help with nearly every aspect of life. But that wasn’t enough for every member of the tribe. Tokala went on a trade trip last year and saw a comic supposedly copied from one that chief John drew that showed men riding different types of animals, and it entranced Tokala. He had to give riding a chance, but he had to wait until it was late at night before giving it a try.

Tokala was fifteen years old, and he was harshly corrected with punches and kicks when he tried to ride the bison when the other men were around, and before tonight the bison spent the evenings with their mothers. Mothers who would have stomped him into paste, but now that they were gone, he had a chance. He just hoped these three hundred pound four-month-old animals wouldn’t hurt him too badly as he tried to be like the men in the comic.

Tokala snuck into the pens as quietly as he could. The problem was that the pens were made up of log walls, and the heavy doors were somewhat loud. As soon as he entered, the calves began crying out. It was dark out, and their mothers were gone. They were afraid and herded as far away from the noise as they could get.

Tokala whispered, “It’s me. It’s okay.”

As soon as they recognized his voice, the scared and lonely bison dashed toward him. Tokala braced himself before they knocked him down and began nuzzling him. The bison were relieved to have company.

Tokala had to pet them and comfort them half an hour before they gave him room to actually try to ride one.

It was dark, and so Tokala wasn’t sure which bison was which, but he kept petting the head of one of the bison, and then he fed it a carrot, and then he pressed down on the shoulder where they had been putting the harness. The bison held very still when it felt the weight. At least that part of the training had been effective.

With the bison holding still, Tokala, as carefully as he could climbed on. The bison started panicking. This was not the utterly inbred bison that chief John sold them that held very still when it got scared; this was a mixture of that type of inbred bison and a wild one, and so the Bison Tokala was on decided to try and shake Tokala off.

Tokala held on and yelled out, “STOP!”

The bison stopped. Their training worked!

Then Tokala yelled out, “Forward!”

The bison began moving forward.

Then Tokala pushed down on the right, and the bison moved right, just like it was trained. Then Tokala pushed down on the left, and the bison moved left.

Tokala shouted, “YEAH!” Then Tokala remembered he snuck out and shut up before someone heard him and the rest ofo the men beat him up.

That night Tokala went around to several more of the bison, and all of them were ridable.

Tokala had no way to know that there were two reasons for it. Reason one was genetics. Wild bison would normally run wild if something tried to climb on their backs, and John’s bison would stand still and turn their heads to look at whoever tried to ride them due to the genetics of inbreeding. But take one of John’s specifically inbred group and mix it with a wild bison, and you have a bison that won't panic when someone rides it and isn’t struck dumb by the situation either.

The other reason is one they will find out in years to come. When you separate bison from their mothers, they want companionship from a parental figure. As you train them over months, you are that parental figure as much as their mother in their eyes. When the tribe separated the bison from their mothers due to them being weaned, the bison desperately wanted companionship, making the time just after they are separated from their mother the easiest time to train them.

The next day Tokala went to his friends one by one and told them he had something amazing to show them, but only if they kept their mouths shut. They all agreed, and he told them to meet him by the buffalo pens after everyone went to bed. Although they were old enough to get married, they were still young enough to get a lashing if they made the elders cross, so they snuck out that night to meet Tokala.

Tokala was the last to arrive and said, “Since everyone is here, I got something amazing to show you in the pen.”

“What?”

Tokala wanted to tell them but knew they wouldn’t believe his words. Seeing is believing, so he said, “It will be better for me to show you than tell you.”

Tokala opened the outdoor to the bison pen, and his friends followed him in. Then they shut it and opened the inner door, and the bison were excited to see them and so practically knocked the young men down in greeting. They never had to train the bison not to knock them down while their mothers were alive, but Tokala would have to figure out a solution soon.

“Tokala, why are we here?”

“Just sooth the bison. Once they are calmed down, I will show you.”

The young men pet the heads of the bison and talked to the bison like a mother would talk to her baby. Once the bison were calm, Tokala moved to the side of the bison he was soothing, put pressure on its shoulder, and hoped on.

The other young men watched in disbelief. Then Tokala called out, “Forward,” and the bison began to move forward. As it moved, Tokala had it turn left and right and then guided it back to his friends, and when he got to them, he cried out, “STOP!” The bison did as it was told.

Tokala’s grin was so big his friends could see it in the night, but they were speechless. They had the same feeling of awe as the wright brothers had when they first flew a plain at kitty hawk. They had the same feeling of awe as the world did when men first landed on the moon. They thought riding a bison was impossible, and there Tokala was grinning like the fox that got the hen. They remained speechless until they could process this dramatic change to their world.

After a minute, they could speak, and someone cried out, “YOU’RE RIDING A BISON!”

Tokala’s grin vanished, and he said, “Shut up! We do not want the elders to catch out here!”

Then in a whispered voice, he said, “But you are riding a bison. That’s amazing.”

Another one of his friends said, “If you can do it, I can do it.”

Tokala said, “Be careful, put your hand on its shoulder where the plow harness normally goes. And from there climb on its back.”

He did so, and before long, he was riding around the pen on his bison. Once the rest saw that it was easy, they began climbing on bison and riding them around the pen. Four hesitated too long and were left standing around watching their friends do what was thought impossible at sundown.

It wasn’t long before the young men started figuring out how fast the bison could go in their pen and when they determined it wasn’t that fast, someone yelled out, “Open up the doors.”

One of the young men who did not have a bison to ride on said, “Are you crazy? What if the bison escape!”

“Stop being a baby. We have these bison fully in our control.”

“Fine.”

After a minute, they opened the inner and outer door, and the buffalo riders got to see how well riding bison worked. The first thing they noticed is that even at a walk, the bison walked faster than them. They found this out as they had the bison walk far away from the village. But once they were past the crest of a hill, it didn’t take these young men long to figure out that the bison could trot faster than they could run, and when the bison ran, it was faster than they had ever gone in their life. They were fortunate that Tokala got them away from the village; otherwise, the sound of thunder the bison made when they ran would have woke up the entire village, and Tokala wasn’t ready for that yet.

They played with the bison until it was almost sunup. After Tokala brought the bison back, one of the young men who didn’t have a ride said, “Where have you been? If the chief and elders caught wind of what you did, he would have gone after all of us.”

“Oh, sorry. We forgot all about you guys. Can you shut the outer gate after we get in?”

He gave Tokala a dirty look and said, “Fine.”

Once all the bison were in, the young man followed them into the pens as he shut the outer gate behind them.

Tokala said, “These bison are fast!”

The other young men nodded in agreement, and one said, “I never imagined going so fast.”

“How about we meet back here tonight and go on a raid.”

The young man who didn’t get to ride a bison yelled out, “NO!”

“What do you mean no.”

“Have you forgotten that I am a couple of years older than you?”

Tokala rolled his eyes and said, “No.”

“Have you forgotten that I went on a raid two years ago?”

“Yeah, I did forget about that.”

“Well, the Texas rangers figured out about the raid and who did it real quick, and I got flogged with fifty strikes. My back still gives me trouble. I don’t want anything to do with your raid.”

The other young men’s enthusiasm about a raid plummeted, but Tokala smiled and said, “You did your raid on foot. It's really not that difficult to figure out who did a raid when you are just going to walk there. But these bison are fast. We will be able to raid places farther away without anyone ever finding out it was us. As long as we don’t take a wife, they will have no way to figure it out.”

One of his buffalo riders said, “I’ll go with you.” After his vote of confidence, the rest all promised to go. This would be an adventure they could tell their kids about, and the Texas Rangers would never figure it out.

But the young man who closed the gate said, “It's foolish. You are going to get flogged.”

Tokala said, “As long as you don’t say anything, they will never find out. Do I have your word that you will keep your mouth shut?”

The young man thought about it and nodded and said, “You have my word. I will not say anything, but I implore you not to go on this foolhardy raid.”

Tokola and his friends did not go on a raid that night. The young man was pleased that Tokala listened to his wisdom. He thought his words got through to them. He was mistaken, they were saddle sore, and thus they had to put the raid off for a few days.

Chapter 48 July AD 84 Texas- Buffalo Rider Raids

A week after Tokala and his friends first rode the bison, they snuck out at night to go raiding. All week people had commented on their weird form of walking. They were saddle sore, and people mocked them when they walked with their legs spread wide. Everyone gossiped about why they were walking so weird, but nobody imagined they had been riding the bison. They still assumed that was impossible.

Tokala and his friends planned their raid all week. They were going to go two villages downstream to do their raid. They felt that if they skipped one village to go to the next, no one would suspect they were the raiders, especially if they were back before morning and they hung out with the Texas Rangers all day. If nobody in the village knew they could ride bison or knew how fast bison were, there's no way anyone would suspect as they got back in time.

Since joining the alliance, their village sent out two men to be trained as Texas Rangers, and two men came from two other villages to be Texas Rangers in their little village. The Texas Ranger's main job was to catch raiders, although they spent most of their time settling disputes between traders. The reason why you couldn’t have Texas Rangers acting in official duty in his own village or have two Texas rangers from the same village in your village was so that they could settle disputes impartially. If anything, Texas rangers settled disputes like elders did in the village, except they only dealt with disputes when people from two different villages had disputes.

Tokala and the other young men in his village were furious the previous year when one of the Texas Rangers married the prettiest unmarried girl in the village. She was the chief's daughter and was old for a bride at seventeen, but all the young men were upset someone else got to marry her. The best revenge they could get is tricking the jerk into giving them an alibi.

As they rode, they stayed quiet. They did not want to get caught. After a couple of hours of riding, they passed the first village. If they had been on foot, that would be as far as they would have been able to go in one night. At least if they wanted to get back to their village before sunrise, but the bison were fast enough that they had more options.

They traveled another hour before they crested a hill, and Tokala saw something in the moonlight that surprised him. One of the hunting tribes had set up camp. Tokala whispered to his bison, “Stop.” And the bison obeyed him.

His friends came up next to him and asked, “Why did you stop?”

Tokala pointed to the camp and said, “There's a hunting tribe out here.”

“So what? They don’t have any iron or finished goods. All they have are furs and bone tools.”

“Think about it. They are not connected to the trade alliance, so they don’t have a Texas Ranger in their village. We could rob them tonight, and nobody in the trade alliance would know about it. In two weeks, when they are gone, we can come back out this way to raid the village. Double the raids, double the loot.”

His friends smiled, and one said, “That’s a good idea.”

“Pick out a teepee and run your bison through it. The hunters who survive will run off thinking it’s a stampede, and we can go back into their teepees and take their furs and anything else we want.”

“What if they don’t run?”

Tokara took out his bow and said, “Then fill them with arrows. It's not like they are part of our tribe. They should be grateful we don’t wipe them all out.”

The others chuckled, and they began their charge.

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Waya was asleep in his teepee next to his wife when all the dogs in the camp began barking furiously. He instantly got out of the sleeping mat and grabbed his bow and some arrows; when the dogs barked like that, you did not ignore it.

As he stepped out of his teepee, he also saw other villagers stepping out of theirs. One yelled out, “What's going on?”

No one answered, which meant no one knew, and everyone began looking around in the dark for the problem. Before long, they heard thunder coming from a hill near the camp. When Waya turned, he saw the most peculiar sight in the moonlight. Several small bison were charging his village with what looked like men on their back. Everyone in the village was struck dumb for a minute as the sight went against everything they knew. Bison were wonderful food sources, but they were incredibly dangerous, yet these men rode them.

It took several seconds for Waya to realize what was happening, but when he did, he yelled out, “STAMPEDE! GRAB YOUR CHILDREN AND RUN! STAMPEDE!”

Immediately men dashed back into their teepee to grab their little ones. Waya went into his forcefully snatched up his two-year-old son, who was freaking out, took his wife by the hand, and began running away from their teepee. He was fortunate that he moved so fast because just as soon as he got them out, one of the bison tore through his teepee. All around the camp, he heard great crashes. Then there were screams.

He wondered what kind of demons, spirits, or gods rode on bison, but as he turned back, he saw that most of the bison had lost their riders. The ones who still had riders on them turned toward the fleeing villagers and started charging them. Waya was lucky, none of the bison were charging his family, but they were charging his neighbors. Waya took his bow aimed at the man on the bison and let the arrow fly toward the man's side.

His arrow flew true, and there was a scream, and the figure tried to hold on as he fell, but with the wound, he couldn’t hold on, so he had a great tumble. The rider pulled on the bison's fur as he fell, which told the bison to stop. The bison was well trained and so stopped.

Waya yelled out, “KILL THE BUFFALO RIDERS!”

At this point, there were only three bison left with riders on top. As Waya’s words left his mouth, the riders in fear took out their bows, but their bows were too long to use on the bison, which made them easy targets for Waya’s men who surrounded them. In seconds they knocked them off their mounts.

Waya called out, “CAPTURE THE RIDERS!”

The villagers had no idea who could ride a bison. Whether it was man, spirits, or gods, but if it was men, they wanted to know their secret. It wasn’t long before the young men that were picked off the bison were captured. Two of them had mortal wounds, but they were not dead yet. Men stood guard as the rest of the men went through their devastated village. They helped the wounded, moved their dead, and found the rest of their attackers. Eight of them had been knocked off their bison as they rode through the teepees.

After seeing to his villagers, Waya came to the young men and asked in a calm voice, “Who are you?”

They were too young to realize how dangerous a calm man in this situation was, and so one of the young men said, “I am Tokala. We are from a village upriver, and you better let us and our bison go, or the Texas Rangers will come for you.”

Waya nodded and said, “How are you riding the Bison?”

The one that called himself Tokala looked like he was about to speak when another one of the young men shook his head, and Tokala gave Waya a defiant look.

Waya turned to his warriors and said, “Show them what we do to our enemies here.”

The men chuckled, got a couple of their dogs and a rope. They snatched up the young man who shook his head and stripped him naked. Every time he tried to resist, they beat him. Finally, they tied the rope around his manhood and then to the dogs.

Waya yelled out, “MUSH,” and the dogs sprinted off, which caused the man's manhood to come loose. It did not pop off, though, as the human body is very interconnected; instead, organs and intestines began to be pulled out with his manhood as the dogs sprinted away. The young man shrieked in pain and terror as his insides followed his manhood away from the rest of his body. Then Waya called the dogs back, pointed toward the young man's guts that were pulled out of his groin, and said, “Eat.”

Tokala and his friends watched in horror as the dogs began eating his manhood and insides while he was still living. They had heard stories about this sort of thing, but watching it happen to their friend broke them.

As the dogs were eating and the young man shrieked, Waya turned back toward the other young men and asked, “How are you able to ride a bison.” Tokala and the rest of his friends answered every question he asked. Waya had his men capture the bison to check out their answer, and once they got comfortable riding the bison, they ended Tokala and the other raiders lives the same way they ended their friend's life.

Afterward, Waya said, “Their deaths are not enough. They said they came from the village upriver; let's do to them what they intended to do to us.” Unfortunately for the village, Waya did not ask which village upriver Tokala was from.

Waya had a dozen of his men ride the bison to their destination, and another thirty men walked. The rest stayed with the village. Waya intended to wipe them out.

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Waya and his warriors made it to the village around noon. As far as Waya was concerned, in July, this was the best time to have a raid because people tended to ignore their dogs more when the sun was out, and his men could hide in the tall fields of maize.

Waya and his soldiers, who were on foot, snuck into the fields of maize while he sent his buffalo riders to a section of woods. His buffalo riders rode with spears. Waya noticed the attackers the previous night had trouble shooting their bows while on the bison, and when his men tried it, they had trouble since the bottom of the bow kept hitting the back of the bison, so spears would be the buffalo riders weapon of choice for now. The buffalo riders were only supposed to come once they heard the screams from battle. Waya was hoping that they would be able to hit any warriors in their blind spot while Waya had their attention.

As they crept closer to the village, they lucked out as no one was in the field they were making their way through. When they reached the end, they saw some of the men attaching some contraption to a bison. This was the proof they needed. They had bison, and so this is where the attack came from. Waya and his men took aim, but before they could shoot, the dogs noticed the men and began barking, but it was too late. They released the string on their bows, and as arrows fell, men fell with them.

One of the men shouted, “WE ARE UNDER ATTACK!”

The entire village paused for a moment, but then the people began going in different directions. People in the fields started running toward the village; men in the village began running out to attack the attackers, dogs ran toward Waya and his men.

Waya’s archers took down the dogs first. By the time the dogs died, more men were in range with their bows, and they opened up. Waya heard the sickening thump as his men got hit. His uninjured men were able to launch a response and take out more of their enemy.

As the villagers were notching their arrows for a second volley, they hesitated as they heard the sound of thunder. They looked to their right, and there they saw Waya’s men on bison running them down with spears. Before they could react, twenty men were either speared or trampled by the bison.

Now that the largest group of attackers were taken care of, Waya, his men, and the buffalo riders made their way into the village. When they came across men, they killed, them while rounding up the women and children.

They made their way through the village until they reached the stream the village was built next to. Waya was surprised by the depth of the stream. Waya asked, “Last time we came through this area, was the stream so deep?”

One of the older warriors said, “No.” Then he looked around and pointed at wood sticking out of the stream and said, “What’s that?”

They made their way to the lock and dam and watched as some of the children ran across the logs to make their escape. Waya raised his bow and took one of them down before they could get to the safety of the woods on the other side.

Waya looked at it and said, “It looks like a beaver dam, but made by people. It's been years since I have been by here, but this village is changing the world around them, and we need to change with it. Look at the bison. They used them to run our teepees down last night. If they had been a little wiser, they would have killed everyone in our village. We have to catch up with the times.”

“The best way to do that is with captives.”

“Your right.”

And with that, they made their way back to where the warriors brought the captives. Once there, he looked at them. It was a bunch of women and children. None of the boys were over the age of eleven. Ways went over to one of the older women to make it clear what was going to happen. He believed it would make the rest of the women more malleable.

He grabbed her and yelled out to the men, “Do any of you want this woman as your wife.”

His men looked at her and remained silent.

“Going once, going twice,” then he looked directly at the woman and said, “No one wants you.” He then slit her throat.

The children screamed, but the women expected it. They knew the stories. When a tribe badly beats your tribe, they will keep some of the women and maybe some of the children and kill the rest.

Waya did not feel guilty about murdering the woman. The previous night men, women, and children were killed in his village, and if he didn’t fight, this would have been his tribe's fate. He was doing what anyone else would do.

Over the next few minutes, Waya rewarded the women to his warriors and killed any that were not wanted. The young girls would make good brides in time, so they were spared, and any woman that lived who had a baby or small child was allowed to keep them. But Waya had a different plan for the rest.

He gathered together the remaining children and, with a kind voice, said, “See my buffalo riders.” The children, with tears in their eyes, nodded. Waya said, “Their job is to run their spears through your bodies, but if you can make it to the woods, you get to live. Run.” The children were too frightened to run, so all kindness left his voice as he screamed, “RUN.”

The scream woke them up, and they began running. Waya then turned to his buffalo riders and said, “Got you some moving targets go break them.”

And with that phrase, the buffalo riders did the same thing every calvary in the first century did. They used captured children to practice their calvary spearmanship. None of the children made it to the woods.

Afterward, they forced their captive women and children to carry the grain supply. One of the women pointed out that a cart would carry more grain. The men did not know what a cart was, so she showed them then showed them how to harness their bison to the cart, and they were impressed. The cart alone could carry weeks worth of grain.

After this retaliatory raid, they had more women, more food, and more bison, and it didn’t cost him any men. Waya decided they would continue their retaliatory raids on the trade alliance because it was so profitable.

Chapter 49 August AD 84 Africa- Family Get Together

Paul got word through the communications towers that Dashiell would get back to the capital sometime late in the day. They had reached the ocean and needed two thousand malaria medicine doses for the villages next to the sea. Paul approved, although it would take a week to get that much medicine ready.

When Dashiell finally arrived before the Ivory throne, Paul was waiting for him, Chazia was standing on the right side of Paul’s throne, Dashiell’s wives and children were standing on Paul’s left. When Chazia saw her boy, she ran to him and gave him a huge hug. Dashiell looked embarrassed but embraced his mom. Dashiell’s wives were a bit slower, but they chose to embrace him one at a time. It was clear that they did not like each other. Finally, his Two-year-olds embraced their dad's legs.

Paul knew that Dashiell had important information, but Dashiell had a family that wanted to see him and so his information could wait until hugs and hellos were exchanged.

Then Chazia noticed something and asked, “Who's that girl?” She only noticed because topless girls in the capital were rare. When they came through, it indicated a new child for the school.

Dashiell said, “This is Lishan. The chief of the villages by the sea said he would only join Paulsland if his house was joined to King Paul’s by marriage. She is now Alexander’s fiancé.”

It took a few seconds for Paul to process that his stepson had committed his firstborn son to marriage without his permission. Once it clicked, Paul was furious. Paul’s anger showed on his face so much that his two grandchildren ran and hid behind their moms. But Chazia’s face beamed with happiness when she heard that Alexander’s father in law was the chief of several villages, and she said, “GOOD JOB! How many villages is her father chief of?”

“Five.”

“With a father like that, she is definitely worthy of marrying Alexander.”

This was not the first time Paul regretted marrying Chazia. She was happy at something that made him furious. But the deed was done. Paul had to uphold his stepson's decision or renounce his stepson.

Paul, finally able to speak, said through clenched teeth, “Ladies take Alexander’s new fiancée and find some clothes for her, and take the children too.” When his grandkids began to cry, Paul’s face softened, and he used a comforting voice to say, “Don’t worry, little ones, your dad will be able to spend time with you later.”

Dashiell told the ladies, “Go on. I will catch up with you in a few minutes.”

The ladies reluctantly left, and Dashiell got very serious. He had enough conversations with his stepfather to know that his stepfather did not like the idea of arranged marriages, although his stepfather believed they could be politically expedient.

Dashiell waited silently as Paul gathered his thoughts. Finally, Paul spoke, “Tell me why I shouldn’t break your legs?”

Dashiell spoke calmly and slowly, “At the end of the river is an island. The island has five villages, all ruled by one chief. I think that if the weather is clear, I can make the trip downstream in just ten days. But depending on the weather and depth of the river, it will take thirty to sixty days to get back upriver to the capital. If you want to have access to the ocean quickly, you have to take the island peaceably. If we have to fight to get the island, I don’t see how we could hold onto it. Not yet, anyway. There is just too much distance between Paulsland and the island. Marrying off Alexander is the only way to make that happen.”

Paul stared at Dashiell for a while then said, “I am not happy that you made this decision, but I have to agree it is the decision I would have made. Once our nation takes control of both sides of the river all the way down to the ocean, I know of a way to make the trip back up to the capital much quicker, but until then, your right, we needed to take control of the island peaceably.”

“Thank you, father.”

“Don’t thank me just yet. I will need someone to take control of the island as my lieutenant, and you get to do the job.”

Dashiell frowned and asked, “But I thought we were taking over the island, peaceably.”

“We are, but that means opening up a school and teaching the kids. The island is too far away to bring the children to the capital for school, so you get to be the principal of the island. Your wife and kids will go with you. I will miss your kids; I so enjoy my grandchildren. I am still mad at you, so it will be a long time before I miss you.”

Dashiell’s mouth dropped and hung open until he fully processed what his stepfather had said, and finally, he responded, “But I want to be a commander. I want to fight.”

“It’s not time for you to fight right now. Both you and your brother have served in battle and done well. But now it's time for both of you to teach students. You will be teaching the next generation, the ones on the island connecting Paulsland to the rest of the world. If you do well, then in a few years, I will allow you to command five hundred men mostly made up of the young people you are about to teach. But only if you do well.”

“Why?”

“I have given this a lot of thought, and I will let you and your brothers know about it in a couple of days. I am going to order Badru, Loide, and Alexander back to the capital to celebrate Alexander's new engagement. It's long past time for us to have a family get together, and this will let you have time to get to know some of your new brothers and sisters before you head to your new job.”

Dashiell realized that his stepfather was not doing this out of spite. Well, maybe his posting is due to spite, but Paul was already planning on making him a teacher. Dashiell just smiled and said, “You must really want a family get together if you are forcing Loide here just to see Eulalia.”

Paul smiled and said, “Loide has treated Eulalia well ever since they got married. Besides, it's been forever since I saw Eulalia’s kids. And I haven’t met her fourth one yet.”

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That night after the children were in bed, Paul met with all his wives. As they came together, the women gave each other uneasy glances. It’s not that they hated each other; each wife had a best friend in the wife group. Best friend is not the right term; perhaps it would be better to say uneasy alliance as they constantly gave each other hurtful digs and backhanded compliments.

Paul started out by saying, “In a couple of days, all of my children will be here.”

Genifa said, “Except for Alexander, all your children are already here.”

Paul frowned and said, “You know I consider Eulalia, Dashiell, and Badru my children. I know you don’t like it since you are the mother of two of my children, but it's something you have to accept.”

Genifa frowned. She was trying to make her children’s’ status higher, and it was hard to do when her husband considered three step kids as his own.

“The reason why I called you ladies here is that you have to do better. When all my children came from Chazia alone, the hurtful remarks and backhanded compliments could be ignored by me, especially since the older children saw everyone except their mother as siblings since, during the engagement, Chazia was correcting you like she did her own children. All of you have children under two, and they can not grow up seeing their mother and aunts hurting each other.”

Vanda said, “Misa doesn’t have any children.”

Misa looked down in shame, and Paul defended her, “Misa is with child. I know it's possible she will have another miscarriage and that this pregnancy is very hard on her, but it's only right to treat her as a mother.”

Several of Paul’s wives frowned. As long as Misa didn’t have any children, then she would be in their mind the worst wife. Chazia wouldn’t even look at Misa or talk to her since Misa’s father killed Chazia’s brother.

Paul said, “It’s obvious you ladies are growing bitter toward each other. Your adults and I can not stop your feelings, but you risk passing on your bitterness to your children. That is incredibly dangerous.”

None of Paul’s wives spoke, although they started to pay more attention.

Paul said, “In the land I come from; there was a story about a wicked king. The King of the Ottomans. He knew that he would die soon, so he picked his favorite son to be his heir and inherit his kingdom.”

As Paul spoke of a son inheriting a kingdom, all his wives looked at their husband with longing. They all hoped it was their son that would inherit Paulsland.

“Once he chose his heir, he had all his other sons executed. Then with the exception of his heir's sons, he had all his grandsons executed.”

All of his wives' mouths dropped open in surprise, and Genifa was the first to speak, “Why did he do that?”

“He did that because he did not want his kingdom to be split apart by civil war. He knew his sons would fight for his kingdom after he died, so he killed all but one just to get it over with. After his son became king, he did the same thing to his sons and grandsons when he chose his heir.”

Chazia was trembling and asked, “Are you planning on doing that to our children?”

“No. I could never do that. But if your children catch your bitterness, they could do that to each other.”

Immediately all his wives stopped looking at him. They knew they were wrong to be so mean and spiteful against their sister wives, but they were jealous.

Paul explained, “Our small children are picking up your dislike for each other, and too often in a king's family, that means they will try to kill each other once they are grown their father is dead. Maybe you are so bitter you think that if your kids kill all your sister wives children, then you are okay with it, but once siblings start killing each other, they don’t stop to all of them are dead. Except for Misa, all of you have at least two children. Do you want them murdering each other?”

The ladies couldn’t say a word or look at Paul, but they shook their heads no.

“Once all my children are here, we are going to have a big get together, just my wives and kids. The point of the get together is to let the older children, younger children, cousins, uncles, nephews, aunts, and nieces to play with one another to get to know one another. Then I will explain to the older ones how one of them will inherit the kingdom after me.”

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

It took three days for Badru, Alexander, Eulalia, her husband, and children to reach the capital for what Paul called Alexander's engagement party. Alexander was twelve, his bride to be was eight. It would be a five and a half year engagement.

Paul had the party on the island at the center of the capital, where the three bridges connected the three shores. Although there was a lot of construction going on between building his new, very defensible home and several towers around the island, there was still plenty of room to play games.

It was fun for Paul to see the two-year-olds excited to be on a team with their older brothers and sisters. Although they got a bit confused when they had to change teams.

Since this day was publicly about Alexander and Lishan’s engagement, they had to be on the same team all day long. Paul knew it was terrible, but he thought it was funny whenever they argued. They argued every time one of them messed up. They were both very competitive.

As the day went on and they played the games of the villages, or they played one of the games Paul brought back from his time, Paul was heartened to see his kids getting along so well and his wives avoiding bickering in front of the children. They seemed to take it to heart that their children needed to get along with each other and encouraged fair play, and smoothed over ruffled feathers.

Once all the little ones were tuckered out and put down for their nap, Paul had all his older children, their spouses, and his wives come to the ivory throne. It was time to talk about how the next king would be chosen.

Paul started out by saying, “Alexander’s engagement gave me the opportunity to have this meeting with all of you. I appreciate Alexander and Lishan having such a good attitude about this engagement even though they had no choice in the matter.”

Lishan and Alexander looked confused, and Alexander said, “My older brothers had arranged marriages, so I always figured I would too.”

That remark blew away Paul. Paul was still having culture shock and was not used to this new normal. Paul smiled, but his eyes were sad.

Then Paul said, “Thank you for having the right attitude. That said, I have called you together today to talk to you about who will be king when I am gone.”

Alexander looked at Badru, but everyone else in the room looked at Alexander. It was clear that everyone but Alexander thought Paul’s first son by blood would be announced as heir, and Alexander thought his oldest brother would get the job.

Paul could tell what they were thinking and said, “It's not that simple. I will not choose who is the next king.”

Everyone was shocked, and several said, “What!?” at the same time.

“If I choose the next king when I die, how can I enforce my decision?”

Paul paused a minute and let the question sink in.

“As you know, well, except for Lishan, the chiefs are now chosen by their villager's vote. When I die, all the chiefs voted in by their villagers will come to the capital and will vote on who should replace me. Whichever of my sons gets more than fifty percent of the vote wins. If no one gets more than half the votes, then the chiefs have to debate about who should win and vote again. They will have one month to get to the capital, and once the voting starts, they will not be allowed to eat until there is a new king.”

Badru was confused and asked, “Why would you let the chiefs chose the next King?”

“Several reasons. The first is simply that it will force the various chiefs to publicly throw support behind my sons long before I die. If they want to turn around then and try to take the kingdom from you, the people will be so confused they will not support the usurper. The second reason is that it forces any of my sons who wants to be king to go out and do good for the kingdom. Villages will support whichever king’s son supported them. If you want to be king, you must go out and mingle with the people. But the biggest reason is that it makes it difficult for you all to fight each other for the throne. Each of you will be able to see how much support you have, and thus those with little support should be smart enough to leave the brothers with much support alone, and if whoever is elected king gets fearful of a brother killing him and taking his spot he will have to give thought to how much support the various chiefs gave his brother. Simply put, once I die, the vote of the chiefs will publicly show how much support each of you have and thus lower the chances of infighting. When I die, I do not want you fighting each other. I would rather see you helping the people of Paulsland in my lifetime.”

Badru said, “Dad, we would never fight each other like that.”

There was a far off look in Paul’s eyes as he said, “I hope that is true, but you and your brothers are still very young. It's very easy to get greedy, or bitter and things change. Tomorrow I will send out the way new kings will be selected to all the villages, alongside an order that an election for a new chief will be held every three years.”

“That said, it's up to you whether you will be king or not. You need to get support. Obviously, my older children will have more opportunities to become king, but if there is someone among my younger children who is outstanding, they still have their chance. Dashiell is being sent to the Indian ocean to teach students there. Badru, I will make you one of the lieutenants in the capital, and you will teach students on the north bank of the capital. Since the capital has three banks and an island, it will have four lieutenants. If you desire to become king someday, you will need to be a good teacher.”

Badru asked, “But if I am stuck teaching children, how will I ever get support?”

“I hope to see those children you teach grow up long before I die. That said, I will have you teach them for two years, then make you a major; as a major, you will be in charge of a regiment of five hundred men. I will make sure your regiment is made up mostly of people you taught over these two years. Same goes for Dashiell.”

Alexander asked, “What about me?”

“You have to finish up your service. Once done, if you do well, I will make you a lieutenant. If not, I will make you a secretary, or allow you to make your own way in life. Military service is not the only way to draw the attention of the chiefs. That said, I would prefer each of my sons spends time teaching and will leave that opportunity open for you once you are sixteen or so. I think it's best if a teacher has real-world experience before they begin teaching.”

In the coming days, Paulsland was in an uproar as the political reality of elections swept through the nation. The people went from having a slight curiosity about Paul’s sons to wanting to know them much better as it was their responsibility to choose the next king. Paul’s inlaws began working hard to petition other chiefs to vote for their grandsons who were still in diapers. And Paul spent a good deal of time making the competition good-natured instead of contentious.

Paul also prepared his sons to teach before giving Badru his new job and sending off Dashiell to the island with the supplies he needed. Paul had a terrible but necessary reason why he wanted his sons to teach two years before they became majors and went back to battle. As lieutenants, they had already learned about leading men into battle, but there was a wall between them and the men they commanded. But as teachers, that wall would be taken down.

In two years, when they command the people they taught as majors, they would have an emotional connection with the men they send to die. Being a king meant that lives were on the line, and Paul wanted his sons to feel the weight of responsibility, of the lives of the people, and stand under the strain. History shows that kings and leaders often spent their men's lives like water. Paul wanted his sons to learn that every life was important and that they should feel the weight of it when you spent it.

If the weight was too much, they should step down from the race to be king. Paul suspected that once his sons knew that leadership and kingship meant sending people you loved to die instead of you, several would step down. But that’s a lesson they had to learn through experience. You could not know that lesson in theory. Who knew if the one that everyone thought was soft would step up and if the one everyone thought was strong would collapse. Unfortunately, Paul had to let experience be the harsh teacher. Sadly the pain he was intentionally setting his sons up for was not even in the top ten of hardest decisions he had to make since coming back in time.

Chapter 50 November AD 84 Africa- Planting Festival

It was time for another planting festival, and Paul had requested that his chiefs come. Paulsland was large enough now that not every chief could make it due to distance. Paul didn’t mind. He had a gift for all who came, an exciting new technology to show off, and a game whose prize was a job offer.

During breakfast, Paul got up and stood on the wall, and started speaking to his people.

“CAN I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE?”

As soon as their King started talking, everyone went silent. Paul had everyone’s loyalty and admiration. Those who worked in the capital loved their King’s vision. The soldiers had been taught that they were to die for their King and believed that conditioning with all their heart. The chiefs that made this festival were almost all students of Paul in years past. This was an absolutely loyal group of people.

“Over the last year, I have sent men to the various villages to get the stories your villages passed down from one generation to the next. Those stories are important because it shows where you came from. As the men brought those stories back to the capital, we printed them off. Currently, we have fifteen volumes of books that we are naming the stories of Paulsland since these are the traditional tales of each village. Paulsland was never about wiping out your people but making each village more. This book shows the dedication of our nation to making each village more by putting your village's stories, the stories you have passed down with word of mouth into writing.”

“Since these are your stories, we are going to give each chief the honor of bringing these books back to their village to be taught in your village's school. I would encourage each chief here to open up the book to the story of their own village and read it to the children of your village, and let them know where they come from.”

With that announcement made, several of the chiefs started cheering, and before long, all of them joined in. King Paul had shown each man and the village those men came from great respect. Several of the chiefs didn’t even know about men showing up in their village and writing down their stories, so to those chiefs, this was a complete if pleasant surprise.

Although Paul honestly did this because he thought securing and respecting their cultural traditions was the right thing to do, he had no way to know how the young people would view these stories. Although this part of Africa dealt with spirits more so than gods, the stories were not too different from the stories of Greek mythology, except in these stories, spirits usually did the smiting instead of the gods.

The stories were filled with evil spirits bringing death and disease, giant gods who stomped fields bringing famine, demons who rose out of lakes and rivers to cruelly kill those who simply thirsted. It told of wars with enemies for generations, about how it took a week to get to a village just a few miles away. It told of impassible rivers filled with monsters.

In the days to come when children who were born in Paulsland asked their teachers about the truth of these stories, their teachers who remembered the time before Paulsland would tell them all the stories were true, then King Paul showed up and conquered each of the enemies written in the Paulsland volumes. King Paul was their Prometheus, except he didn’t get chained to a rock; his gifts to the people made him King. In due time after Paul’s death, each of the stories written in these volumes would have a new section written about how King Paul overcame each problem. Although this would be discussed in every classroom in Paulsland during his lifetime, he would never let that get printed.

After the books were handed out, books that would make Paul one of the most well-known people in the world after their inevitable revisions and a few generations, Paul requested that all the chiefs and all those who had time to come to a house that Paul commissioned the researchers to build. Over the house was a seventy-foot tall water tower, with a windmill on top pumping water from the river to the tower. This water tower had much more pressure than the previous generation of water towers that were only fifteen feet high.

Once the men surrounded the building, Paul got up and said, “This building contains one of the greatest inventions of all time. It contains the toilet.” The people looked confused, but Paul continued speaking. “The toilet is an indoor seat that carries away your poop and pee.”

Paul's smile wavered when the men looked worried, and one of the men asked, “If it carries away our pee, where does it store it till we need it?”

Paul was confused for a moment and asked, “What do you mean? What do you use your pee for.”

“King Paul, you’re the one that showed us how strong leather armor is. You know pee is part of the process of tanning hides. Besides, we need pee to help clean our clothes.”

Paul wanted to facepalm, but he couldn’t. He was so excited about his plumbing project he forgot that pee was needed for everyday living here.

Without missing a beat, Paul said, “Obviously, if you need to store your pee, you can use a jar, or bottle, or something. But if you do not need to store it, the toilet will allow you to remove the stink of your pee and poo no problem and with no mess. Obviously, you know that poop can contain sickness, and the toilet will allow you to dispose of it more easily. I could explain how the toilet works, but inside this building, there are a dozen working toilets, and so each of you can come in and check it out for yourself.”

And so Paul the King of a nation began showing his people how toilets worked. Paul had long ago taught his students that poop carried sickness, and so they had to dispose of it carefully, but the toilet, once built, made it much more convenient. Paul showed them the swirl of the toilet bowl when flushed. Then he showed them how the mechanism worked in the toilet tank and how water came from the water tower, which powered the entire mechanism, including the bidet. Paul had to show them how a bidet worked. A bidet is a hose that squirts water to clean your backside. A bidet is a lot easier to produce than toilet paper at their tech level. Paul was the only king in the first century humble enough to teach adults how to use the toilet.

Afterward, he took the people behind the toilet house and said, “The construction of the toilet wasn’t too terribly difficult. We just made it out of concrete. The hard part of the process was making the septic system. As I taught many of you, poop can contain sickness, and so we had to make a place to put the poop. Under the toilet house is a series of pipes that bring the waste to a big concrete chamber called the septic tank. Inside the septic tank, the poop gets separated from the water, and the water moves on.”

“When I was a child, I was brought to a place that dealt with human waste, and one of the things they did was after they separated the human waste from the water was they sent the water through a swamp, and they said that the swamp was perfect for dealing with human waste. So we set up some pipes from the septic tank to go out further and make something like a swamp. The pipes are several feet underground, with the swamp built above them. I had the researchers go to one of the swamps in Paulsland and bring back some of the plants there, and we made a small swamp to help process this waste. So far, we have not suffered any ill effects.”

Paul then turned toward his chiefs and said, “During the next dry season, I expect each of you to make your own toilet house and septic system. I will have my researchers give each of you instructions on how to make it for your village, and if your artisans need more instructions, you can send them to the capital to learn at the village's expense, of course. You will have the next half year to get things ready, and it will allow us half a year to work out any kinks in the system. That said, time for lunch.”

Nobody was bothered by going from the septic tank to lunch. This is a society that loved and praised their hunters. They had all regularly seen more disgusting sights than poo as they cleaned their kills.

After lunch, they had their competitions. Warriors rock, the women’s tournament, the children’s tournament for those who were eligible for the army next year, and all the logging competitions. As the logging competition was going on, Paul was saddened that in another year or two, the forest would be cut so far back they could no longer have this competition at the capital, although he was glad there was so much farmland near the capital.

After the last tree was cut and log was split, Paul announced, “There is one new game I will have you play. On the island where three bridges meet, I am building my home. It is not complete, but there are many rooms. Anyone interested will go there and follow the instructions. The top ten people will be offered a job. If you are not interested, you may go to dinner… Oh, and one last thing, chiefs are not allowed to participate. You already have your government job.”

The chiefs had mixed feelings. On the one hand, they could go to dinner early; on the other hand, they did not like being excluded. Some chose to be happy they got to eat; others chose to cover up their indignation in food. Either way, the chiefs all went to dinner.

As for the rest of the people, they went to the island where three bridges meet. This new game was a very different kind of game. They entered the rooms one at a time, and they were asked different questions in the room. In the first room, there were multicolored pictures. The pictures had a background of one color and a number of a different one. The person in the room asked them to write down the numbers. Curiously a few of the smartest people missed writing down some of the numbers.

In another room, they were asked which direction the water in the toilet swirled, what was the color of the clothes the lady in the previous room wore, how tall was the person asking questions, and descriptions of the various people who took part in the games. It was very curious as they were being given a pop quiz that basically came down to having good observational skills and good memory. It took about two hours, but they got everyone through the short test, and everyone was confused by it. The scores were tallied, and the winners were asked to meet King Paul at his ivory throne.

The winners made their way to the ivory throne, and of course, they waited on King Paul. He was the King, and he would see them when he had time. They were pretty excited to see about the job their King had for them. They thought they might end up being researchers since the game they played involved a lot of questions.

After a while, King Paul came in, but he did not go to his throne; he came to them and said, “Gather round in a circle.”

They immediately did so as this was something commonly done in their martial training.

Paul then said, “Over the last couple of years, Paulsland has had problems with raiders murdering its citizens. I do not know who has committed these crimes, and unfortunately, I do not have the time to investigate them like I should. The test you were given was to pick out the best candidates to learn to be detectives. The country I am from had many experts in solving crimes. I do not know a lot about the art of crime-solving, but I do know the best detectives were people who had great observation skills. I do not know a lot about how they solved crime, but I did learn about how to use something called fingerprints…”

And thus, on the planting festival of 84AD, the Detective's Institution of Paulsland was born.

Chapter 51 December 84 AD Texas- Emergency Congress

Back in August, John got word that a village had been wiped out, and some of the survivors said that the men who attacked rode bison. Unfortunately, John could not ask the two rangers in that village what they saw since they died defending the village.

It was immediately thought that a young man named Tokala wiped out the village since it was reported that he stole his village's bison and told a friend that he intended to go on a raid. This seemed to be confirmed when they found that there were almost no women under the age of twenty found dead. Obviously, they had been taken as wives by whoever attacked the village. The Texas Rangers sent messages up and down the river asking the other villages to be on the lookout for Tokala and his friends.

Then September came, and another village was wiped out. This one was on a different stream than the last one, and this stream was north of the last one that was hit. Again the Texas rangers died in defense of the village. The few villagers who got away said that the attackers waited until the majority of the villagers were harvesting and a few hundred yards away from the village before attacking them. They said that the enemy rode on bison that practically stampeded over anyone who fought or ran. This time there were more dead young women, but each woman under twenty that was killed was killed by being trampled by the bison.

The confusing part was that the witnesses reported far too many people for the attackers to just be Tokala and his friends. This caused legitimate fear that perhaps a village had killed their rangers to cover up their crimes, and so each ranger was asked if there had been an influx of young women in the last few months and to send their response to Texas to confirm that they were alive and safe. When John started getting these messages back, it took him minutes to realize that it would not be difficult for someone to write a message saying they were the Texas Rangers they killed. John had no way to confirm the identity of the Texas Rangers. So John sent a message up and down the river with instructions explaining what the Texas Rangers needed to look for above and beyond the missing women.

Then in late October, another village was overrun by the buffalo riders. This time the village was on a stream south of the first village hit. And this time, the Texas Rangers took a close look at everything that had been taken. They found that the grain silos had been emptied, all the domesticated bison had been taken, alongside the bison cart. What is worth noting is that the plow had not been touched, nor the logging harnesses. Once John got this information, he called for an emergency secession of congress, with a message telling every village to build log walls. He also requested that the survivors of the attacks come and share their stories.

It took till December for everyone to get to Texas. It was still a few weeks until Christmas, the winter solstice, so although this was an emergency session, it took place only a month before their normal session took place. Travel along the river was just too slow.

They met outside, as was their tradition, and John asked the witness from the first attack to come forward. It was a ten-year-old boy.

John asked him, “Can you tell us what happened on the day your village was attacked?”

The ten-year-old looked around and was clearly nervous with all the adults looking at him.

John tried to comfort the boy by saying, “It’s okay. We want to stop the bad men that attacked your village. What you say may help us do that.”

The boy looked at John, nodded, and stared directly at John as he said, “I was helping in the fields when the bucket of water became empty. Since I was big enough to carry a full bucket but not big enough to do a man’s work in the field, I was sent to the stream to get water. While I was filling up the bucket, men started screaming, I turned back, and I saw men firing bows at each other. Then I heard a stampede from a different direction, and I saw men riding on bison. They came from a different direction than the men with bows.” The boy started crying as he said, “The bison trampled some of the men. The men on the backs of the bison speared those who they did not trample. I ran toward the lock and crossed it as quickly as I could. I don’t know what happened after that. I never looked back.”

John was writing down notes as he listened, and then he told the young man, “Thank you for telling me your story. What you said is important, and thank you for being so brave.”

One of the chiefs asked out loud, “What did he do that was so brave? He ran instead of fighting.”

The crying boy looked down in shame.

John's face grew grim as he said, “This boy brought back vital information. If he went and tried to fight those men, he would have died, and nobody would know what happened, but since he brought back information, he showed us the bravery of a scout.”

The elder shut up, and the boy, still crying, lifted his head a little and puffed out his chest some. He was a brave scout, according to chief John. He never thought like that before.

As the boy was leaving, John said, “If you want, you can live here in Texas.”

The boy turned to speak, but before he could, a man said, “I am taking care of him. I am a trader, and I was away from the village when it was attacked. My wife and children were killed, but I have a responsibility to take care of the children who survived. My village is my family.”

John’s heart broke for the man and said, “Tonight, come and have dinner with my family. Let me know if you need help with anything, and I will do what I can for you.”

The man looked into John’s eyes, sizing up John for a moment, then said, “Thank you.”

Afterward, John called forth three other children who managed to escape that village, but they told very similar stories to the first. John made a point to thank them all for showing the bravery of a scout and had to explain the concept to a six-year-old survivor. A scout is a warrior who goes into a dangerous place to retrieve information so that his side can fight better.

Afterward, John called forward one of the three survivors of the second village attack. It was an eight-year-old girl.

She walked forward, staring at her feet. It was clear that she was a very shy girl. John walked over to the girl and crouched so that he was at her level and said, “I am chief John, and I am very interested in what you have to say today.”

The girl immediately turned her head away from John. She was so scared she was trembling. John thought about it for a second and took out a carrot and started eating it. Back in the modern world, very few children would have been tempted by a carrot, but carrots have a high sugar content. John had not started growing sugar; he had the seeds, but he didn’t think it would survive in this part of the world, so he could only use a sweet carrot to tempt the girl.

As he crunched on the carrot, the girl's curiosity beat her fear, and she turned to see John eating. John smiled, took out another carrot, and asked, “Do you want it?”

The girl nodded her head. John smiled and handed it to the girl.

As the girl ate, John asked, “What's your favorite thing about carrots? My favorite thing is that they are square.”

The girl gave John a weird look and said, “They’re not square. They’re round.”

“Prove it.”

The girl forgot her fear and spent the next few minutes, pointing out how round the back part of the carrot was from the front to the back.

Once she was clearly more comfortable, John asked, “Are you a brave girl.”

The girl nodded.

“I need your help so that I can get the bad guys. Can you be brave and tell me about what happened that day.”

The girl started crying right then and there, and John thought that she would clam up again, but she started speaking, “I was washing clothes in the stream near the lock and dam when I heard a stampede. When I turned and looked, there were men riding the bison.”

“What were the adults doing then?”

The girl couldn’t answer for a little while because she was crying hard and started getting the suckbacks. John hugged the girl and held her close to him until she got her crying under control.

Then she said, “Most of the grown-ups were in the field bringing in the crops. I was supposed to be with them, but I got in trouble for spilling food on my clothes when I was doing something I wasn’t supposed to do, so mom made me wash all the clothes by myself. I was supposed to be out there with them, but I was being a bad girl.”

“No, your not a bad girl. The men who attacked your village are bad men. Your parents were just trying to teach you responsibility. That’s why you were where you were. You were not there for being bad; you were there to learn how to act like a grown-up.”

The girl looked at John like a starving man looks at food and said, “Really?”

“Of course. Your parents are without a doubt happy that you are going to get to grow up like they wanted you to.”

Now the girl started crying again, but this time tears of relief.

After she calmed down, John asked, “Can you tell me what happened after you saw the stampede?”

She said, “Everyone scattered. Some ran to the woods, others towards the village. The bison chased after those who were running toward the village, and… and… trampled them. The screams were terrible…” And again the girl started sobbing.

“Did anything else happen?”

She nodded and said, “When the people got close to the woods, men stepped out and shot arrows at the men and captured the women and children.”

“Where were you at this time?”

“I was so scared I couldn’t move. But once I saw men coming out of the woods, I turned and ran across the lock. I know I am not supposed to because it's dangerous, but I was so scared of those men and bison I had to run in the other direction.”

John patted her on the back and said, “thank you for your story. “ Then he turned toward the crowd and asked, “Can we have the next survivor?”

The other survivors from her villages told the same story. The bison came first, then men attacked from the woods, and they all escaped over the lock and dam.

John then called for the last group of survivors, and their story was the same as the second group.

Once the testimonies were done, John sent the survivors to lunch and turned toward the chiefs and said, “There are some real problems here, but I think we can deal with them.”

“First of all, in all three attacks, the enemy attacked when the villagers were working in the fields. When I called for this meeting, I asked that you leave instructions for your people to build a wall around your village. Although that would help with a nighttime raid, that won't help with them if they are attacked when they are planting or harvesting. So on top of building a wall to protect your village, I suggest building watchtowers in the fields that your people work in that they can reach in case of an emergency.”

One of the chiefs asked, “What’s a watchtower? And how do you make it?”

John wanted to curse. When he said watchtower, he used the English words instead of whatever language these people spoke because he didn’t know their word for tower, or even if they had one.

John thought for a second and said, “A tower is a building as tall as a tree that has a platform that you can walk around on. If these enemies attack people while they are working the fields, then the people reach the tower, climb it up and start shooting arrows at them from above. Since Texas doesn’t have any towers yet, I will have to show you how to make them later.”

Another chief asked, “What if they have bows? How could you climb a building that’s as tall as a tree while they are shooting at you?”

John was ready for this question and said, “None of the survivors mentioned bows on the buffalo riders. Many of you have seen my comics where men ride different animals. To shoot a bow from those animals, you need special types of bows meant for shooting from the back of the animal; otherwise, the animal gets in the way of shooting the bow. Chances are that if a village is attacked while they are in the field and they can get into the walled village or up into a tower, then they will be safe from the buffalo riders. But they will still have to deal with the archers that the survivors mentioned that were with the buffalo riders.”

For the next hour or so, John and the Chiefs talked about this new enemy, and they couldn’t come up with any better plan.

During the discussion, one of the chiefs asked, “Why don’t we go after them?”

John sighed and said, “Because bison are a lot faster than humans. The bison riders will be able to go two or three times the distance a man on foot will be able to go every single day. We would never be able to catch up with them on foot.”

“Why can't we ride our own bison?”

“I can try riding mine again, but it appears either they need to be bred with wild bison to be ridable, or whatever bison the group of raiders got won the genetic lottery.” Every chief gave John a weird look, so John said, “The bison might be special, and only those special bison can give birth to ridable bison.”

“Since we are here, let's try riding yours.”

John thought about it for a second and said, “No problem. But if my bison are not ridable, I would encourage you to check your own when you get back.”

John had more than two hundred bison in his heard. They tried to ride every single one, but anytime a man got on the gentle bison’s back, the bison would only turn their head to look at the man on their back. John had no idea why they would pull a plow, wagon, or log but put a man on their back, and they would just stand there. They were just too inbred.

Afterward, John and his Villagers built fifty watchtowers all throughout their fields with the help of the chief's entourages. They were to help defend against the specific charging attack of the buffalo riders, and thus they were only ten feet tall. They were built with four posts, which were about five feet by five feet apart, with a floor and guard rail at the top of the towers. Even though they were pretty short, John made sure they had cross beams to help support the towers and ladders to help people quickly get up them in an emergency.

John’s last suggestion was that the tribes should require everyone to carry around their bows and fill the watchtowers with arrows. If the enemy comes, it will give them a nasty surprise.

Before the Chiefs left, John made sure to give any chief without bison one. And so, every village in the trade alliance had at least one draft animal. The last thing John did was order one of the new breeds of bison from several of the nearby villages. John needed to see if any or all of the mixed breed bison were ridable. If it was any, then he could really work with that, but if it was a genetic lottery issue, then he would have to find one then spend another decade breeding enough bison so that his Texas rangers had one each.

Once the chiefs got back to their villages, those who had bred bison the previous year sent their bravest warriors to try riding them. Unfortunately, unlike Tokala, they tried to ride them at the wrong stage of life. At this stage of life, the bison were more rebellious and so threw the riders off. It’s too bad that John hadn’t explained a saddle because, with proper equipment, many of the warriors could have stayed on long enough to make the bison submit to the rider.

Chapter 52 March AD 85 Texas-Compound Bow

Back in January, John finally built a compound bow that didn’t fall apart. He built the bow part out of green dogwood, then let it dry in a sealed chamber over two weeks. The pullies were made out of oak because he couldn’t find dogwood big enough to make the pullies in one piece. The string was just treated leather. It was all held together by a bunch of very carefully placed screws.

Thanks to the pullies, his bow only had a forty-pound pull weight but an eighty-pound launch weight. When fully drawn, it only took ten pounds of force to hold the string, unlike the rest of the bows used in the world, which kept their entire draw weight when they were pulled fully back.

Although the compound bow was a lot smaller than the bows used by the people of Texas, between the dogwood and screws, it weighed a bit more than a regular bow. Once John added the fast fire magazine, it started reminding him of the weight of a large rifle.

John took great joy when he went hunting for the first time with this bow. It was so much easier than with the old bow he used.

Afterward, he made bows for Bobby and Quincy. It made Trevor so mad because the compound bows allowed Bobby to kill a deer while he was nine, and Quincy killed one when he was seven. They beat Trevor, who didn’t go hunting until he was nine and a half. Beating Trevor happened so rarely they constantly brought it up.

Little walker wasn’t ready for one yet, but the new compound bow had a low enough draw weight that John made one for Onawa. John wasn’t going to make one for Trever; instead, John was teaching Trevor how to make his own. Trevor was twelve going on thirteen, and it was time for Trevor to learn to make things on his own.

Each bow took a couple of weeks to shape and assembly and another two weeks to let dry properly. By the time the end of February came, everyone in John’s family had one except for Trevor and Walker. Trevor because he was learning a lot of hard lessons about attention to detail and Walker because he was just not big enough yet.

Onawa liked her bow so much she let some of the women use it, and John got a thrill when they shot better than their husbands. John had to stir up some trouble, and so he made Bly, Nana’s wife, a compound bow.

It was the start of the second week of planting season when the bow was ready. The previous night John had brought it back to his house so he could give it to her first thing in the morning. The next morning he had a huge smirk on his face as he was getting ready.

When Onawa saw the smirk and the twinkle in his eyes, she got suspicious and asked, “Your up to no good?”

John’s smirk grew bigger, and he said, “Yeah.”

Onawa was suspicious and asked, “What are you going to do?”

“Remember a few weeks ago when you lent your bow to Bly, and she outshot Nana?”

Onawa slowly said, “Yes.”

“Well, I made Bly a bow and wrote on it, “The Nana Beater." I am going to go over there and give it to her.”

Onawa burst out laughing and said, “He is going to hate that.”

“I know, that’s why it's so funny.”

John left soon after and made his way to his friend's house and knocked on the door.

It wasn’t long before Hetane answered the door. He was surprised to see John there and asked, “Chief John, what brings you here?”

John smiled and said, “I have a gift for your mom.” And lifted the new bow.

Hetane’s eyes got real big, and John put his finger over his mouth. Hetane got the message, stayed quiet, and let John in.

When John stepped in, Nana, Bly, and the rest of their children were sitting at the table.

Nana was the first to notice John and asked, “John, what are you doing here?”

John’s smirk grew as big as it could, and he said, “Remember a few weeks ago when your wife outshot you? Well, I figured I better get her a bow so she could protect your family for you.”

Nana’s wife and kids burst out laughing as John held out the compound bow to Nana’s wife.

Nana gave John a mean look as he said, “I don’t know how, but I will get you back.”

John just grinned at him, and he turned to leave when Bly said, “THANK YOU! I know how hard it is to make this kind of bow. Please stay and have breakfast with us.”

John smiled and ate with them. All the while chatting about how the planting was going and only every now and then talking about how Bly was a superior archer to her husband.

Nana asked, “Do you think we could trade your bows to other tribes?”

“In time, yes, but I would like to arm the Texas rangers with them first. When I get around to trading them, you will be the first person I go to. If I need someone to shoot them, I will go to your wife.”

Nana’s kids laughed their heads off every time John picked on their dad. They thought it was hilarious.

After breakfast, John went back to his house, got his wife and kids, and made their way out to their fields for planting. Planting was a long slow process. After you plow the fields, you have to bend over and put seeds in the ground one at a time. It was times like this that John was very grateful to have children since they did this job better than him or his wife. They were closer to the ground, after all.

As they planted and John’s back grew sore, he began to complain about the watchtowers they set up back during the congress. Instead of spacing them evenly, they were just scattered around the village in random places. Come winter, they would have to find better places for them. Now that the fields were plowed, they were not about to mess up their fields by moving them.

As they were planting, John heard dogs barking, but he looked around and saw nothing. After another fifteen minutes, he heard more dogs barking.

John asked Onawa, “Why do you think the dogs keep barking like that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe there’s a bear or mountain lion nearby.”

“Kids stay close to us. If anything comes out of the woods, we have our bows and can protect you guys.”

Trever said, “Aww, dad, I’m twelve years old with my own bow. If anything comes out, I can kill it myself.”

John shook his head and said, “Your bow is good enough to get through a deer’s hide, but a bear has thicker muscles. I wish you had a compound bow, then it wouldn’t be a problem, but you need to learn to build your own.”

“If you gave me more time at the workshop, I would already have it done.”

“Trevor life demands that we plant crops. And since I have responsibilities as chief on top of feeding you and the rest of the family, that means you get more time in the workshop than I do. Sooner or later, you will be skilled enough to make your own compound bow, but until then, be grateful you are strong enough to use your normal bow.”

Trevor nodded his head.

All around the village of Texas, families were out planting their crops, but the men were nervous because of the dogs barking. Like John, they kept their children and bows close.

When noon came, they heard thunder. The dogs barked more fiercely than they had all day. As the eyes of the people turned toward the thunder, they saw a stampede of bison.

None of the people hesitated. They all moved. Although they had peace over the last few years, wolves, bears, mountain lions, alligators, and snakes occasionally attacked humans. This was not the first time any of the adult villagers had been in a deadly situation. There were even men there who had faced a bison stampede before.

John spotted the nearest watchtower, pointed toward it, and yelled, “Run that way.” While he picked up Walker, turned his back to the stampeding bison, and ran toward the watchtower.

The thunder got closer and closer, which spurred John and his family to run harder. As he reached the watchtower, he threw little Walker up toward the top of the ladder and yelled, “Grab the ladder, climb up.” Then he turned around and grabbed Quincy and did the same.

By now, the thunder was so close. John yelled out, “GET UNDER THE WATCHTOWER.” His hope was the cross beams would make the Bison swerve away.

As John and his family got under the watchtower, John turned and saw men riding the Bison. John was furious. He grabbed his bow that was hanging off his chest by the back of the fast-firing cartridge and pulled the string, and he shot at the buffalo rider. His first shot hit the bison's head above its eye; his next shot went high over the man's head, his third shot went low under the bison's eye. The bison's head was so hard those shots were breaking skin and nothing more.

As John fired his arrows from under the watchtower, the Bison grew closer and closer. They were thirty feet away when he fired his first shot, twenty when he fired his second, ten when he fired his third, and then the bison were upon John and his family, and the bison parted instead of running into the watchtower. As the bison passed the watchtower, their riders tried to spear John, but the crossbeams deflected their spears in the fraction of a second they had as they passed in full gallop. John tried to shoot them as they passed, but it was a blur.

John yelled out, “CLIMB THE TOWER.” As he turned and launched arrows at the back of the buffalo riders.

Trevor and then Bobby rushed up the ladder while Onawa fumbled with her bow.

John turned around and yelled, “Get up the tower before they return.”

Onawa wanted to cry, but she had to watch out for her sons, and so she quickly climbed the tower. As she climbed the ladder, John between Onawa and the buffalo riders, pointing his bow outward just in case any of the buffalo riders turned around. He had to protect his wife.

John looked out across the fields as his wife climbed the tower, and he saw the buffalo riders split into three groups. They were trying to trample his people, and there was nothing John could do about it; they were out of bow shot.

Onawa yelled out, “John, hurry climb the tower.”

John turned around, let go of his bow, allowing it to hang off his chest, and quickly climbed the tower. When he reached the top, he changed out his magazine and looked over the field. Most of the families made it to their watchtower, but Catori and his family were lagging behind. John watched as Catori ran as hard as he could with two children in his arms, his wife in front of them and their oldest child between them, but they were too slow. When the Bison were feet away from them, Catori tackled his wife, keeping his body between his family and the bison. The raiders cheered as their bison trampled the family. John winced as he heard bones crunch from a hundred yards away.

By now, the men of the village had made it up the towers and had their bows out. As the bison riders passed, the villagers shot down into the raiders and began hitting their targets. As the buffalo riders were struck with arrows, they fell like birds fall from the sky when struck with an arrow.

The bison riders panicked and turned to ride away from the battle. Unfortunately for them, they turned and charged right back the way they came, and this time John was up high. As they charged toward John’s watchtower, John realized why they had so badly overrun the other villages. The riders were riding bareback, and to stay on, they were practically laying down on the bison’s back. The arch in the bison’s back protected them from arrows as long as they were charging at someone. As the bison charged, only the raiders and bison’s faces were exposed. The raider's faces were very small targets, and the idea of killing a bison by shooting it with an arrow in the face is laughable. Two thousand pound bison run into each other at thirty-five miles an hour for hours at a time to prove their dominance. An arrow shot into its face from a hundred-pound bow might not even annoy it. To kill a bison with an arrow, you have to shoot it through its side. Its head is just too tanky.

But John wasn’t on the ground anymore. John banished all thoughts except for the ones that made him aim better. He took aim, adjusted for a moving target, and fired his first shot. He hit the man dead center in the back and waited long enough to watch the man fall off. John pulled back on the string as he lined up the second one in his sight and released the string. This man was hit a little low in the back near the kidney; with that wound, he could not hold onto the bison and fell. John had just enough time to fire one last arrow, and he hit this one in the left shoulder, and he fell off the bison.

As the bison riders passed, several of the bison who no longer had a rider stopped running. One of the bison ended up next to the tower, and so John jumped from the tower onto the bison. John grabbed onto its back, pulling on its fur, and then John squeezed its sides with his knees, the same way you would do to a horse if you wanted it to gallop.

The pulling of its skin and squeezing of its side hurt the bison, and so the bison began charging. John quickly experimented and found that whichever way he pulled its skin, it moved, and so John started chasing after the bison raiders.

It wasn’t long before John caught up to the buffalo riders. John let go of the bison’s fur, lifted the bow that was clipped to his chest, and started firing at their backs. John didn’t realize it at the time, but a compound bow was special in that it was small enough to be fired while you were riding full gallop.

The first arrow hit a man in the shoulder. He didn’t fall off right away, but as John aimed at the next man in the group, the man slipped off his bison. The next man was hit in the spine. He screamed, and that’s when the bison riders noticed John. They turned to engage, but as they did so, John fired two more times, and two more men fell. The men panicked and scattered.

They scattered for two reasons. The first was because they knew it was impossible to shoot a bow from the back of a bison. The second reason was that they knew was that it was impossible to shoot multiple arrows without reaching into a quiver. John did two impossible things on the back of the bison, and so they panicked and scattered.

As John chased them, one yelled out, “ESCAPE! RUN! THIS VILLAGE IS TOO DIFFICULT TO RAID!”

John nearly had a heart attack when he saw men with bows step out of the hiding spots in the woods. When John saw them, he did the math and turned his bison back toward the village. As he fled, he turned back and saw the archers getting on bison they had hidden further back in the woods.

As John headed back to Texas, he was preparing to send a message to the Texas Rangers, they all needed to come back and become Buffalo Riders; otherwise, they would never be able to deal with these raiders.

END OF BOOK 3

The story will continue in book 4, “The Buffalo Riders of Texas.”

Prologue to book 4 Buffalo Riders of Texas

Gandore and Filkith were in the virtual world, watching Earth’s timeline change. It was only nine seconds since the Gandore had performed Earth’s eulogy and sent Paul and John back to 70 AD, and yet they had already watched up to the year 80 AD. For most of these nine seconds, the aliens have been unimpressed, but then again, genetically altered aliens, that are nearly immortal, who went to school for hundreds of years have standards that are a little high.

Then they watched as Paul stepped into a trap when his second in command betrayed him. This did not surprise them as lower life forms were faithless, but they were slightly impressed that Paul escaped the trap and even saved the lives of some of his people.

Filkith was the first to speak, “That Paul Earthian may be slow in building a civilization, but he did escape a trap.”

“Yes. His betrayers created a splendid trap. It wasn’t like it would be difficult since Paul trusted them completely, but Paul found the one variable that they overlooked, and he discovered it in moments. He may be a lower life form, but he is tenacious. If he can give that tenacity to his people, then perhaps we won't have to perform another eulogy.”

“Or that tenacity will cause them to nuke each other as soon as they get nuclear weapons.”

Gandor laughed and said, “That’s more likely. Before we get too far into the lives of our time changers, let me check to see what is supposed to happen in the original timeline over the next five years.”

Gandor began typing in a device, and he said, “According to the Earthers records, 80 AD was a busy year. The Romans finished building the Colosseum a rather impressive structure considering their technology level.”

“What’s the Colosseum?”

“A brick and concrete arena where up to eighty thousand Earthians went to watch other Earthians kill each other. It was built well enough that it survived for nearly two thousand years until the asteroid apocalypse wiped out the earth, and we had to perform the Eulogy.”

“Is that it?”

“No. it Looks like 80 AD was a major year for Earthians. The Romans finished building a sixty-mile long aqueduct, and then they proved that Britain was an island.” Gandore taped on some keys, smiled, and said, “It only took them a hundred and twenty-five years to figure out that Britain was an island. No wonder these Earthians were wiped out by asteroids; they drag their feet.”

“Wasn’t there something important about the Britons?”

“Not for another fifteen hundred years. Until then, they were going to be beat down by the Romans, the Vikings, and the Normans. Granted, it looks like this timeline will change some things. Whether that means they will stand sooner or never stand at all remains to be seen.”

“Anything else?”

Gandore smiled and said, “The Huns formed a nation.”

Filkith gave Gandore a confused look, and Gandore said, “In a few hundred years, they are supposed to cripple the Roman Empire. They may not be much in 80 AD, but by 450 AD, they are a terrifying force. It remains to be seen whether the changes Paul brings will still allow them to develop.”

“Is that it? What about technology? Did these primitives do anything worthy?”

Gandore skimmed through the few files that earth had on the first century, then his eyes went wide, and he got excited as he said, “Looks like they made the first steam engine. Pretty impressive considering the weakness of their steel.”

Filkith looked it up and then started laughing and said, “You didn’t see a picture of their steam engine, did you.”

Gandore laughed when he saw it and said, “That’s what I get for trusting unintelligent animals. It looks like someone wanted to make themselves look smarter by calling that toy a steam engine. How can a teapot put over a fire that spins around be called an engine? There is no way it will have the torque to do anything except make children clap, and they will only be excited the first time they see it.”

“Is there anything else of importance?”

Gandore skimmed over the Earthian's notes on 80 to 85 AD and said, “No. Just normal stuff. Leaders die, future leaders are born, and armies fight for minimal gains.”

“Then let's watch Paul. He seems to have an exciting few years ahead of him considering the assassination attempt.”

With a press of a button in this virtual world, they began watching Paul as he changed the past to save the future.

They didn’t care about what the traitors did as they escaped Paul, and they cared little when Paul sent his stepsons off to capture pieces of land around the river. But they both took notice when one of Paul’s people made effective lenses.

Filkith checked something about earth’s history and said, “Well, they made spectacles eleven hundred years early. Fifteen hundred years early on telescopes and microscopes.”

“Microscopes are necessary to make many major scientific discoveries, and what’s more impressive is that Paul didn’t make it. One of his people learned about the device from Paul and figured out how to make it himself. Granted, they don’t know the math behind lenses, and they have to use their own perception to make it work, but it is a worthy device to bring back on a eulogy..”

They continued to watch Paul as he started marrying many women, set up a diplomatic corps, and smashed headlong into a pandemic.

Gandore watched as Paul used Chrysanthemum to make a bug killer, looked up some information on it, and told Filkith, “Chrysanthemum makes a natural nerve poison that kills bugs. The problem is that it can kill fish too, and at the rate, Paul and his nation are growing and using this insecticide, in a couple of generations; there will be no fish living in the lower reaches of that river.”

“It's only natural that unintelligent life destroys their own habitats. Granted, unintelligent life often doesn’t have a better way to deal with problems.”

“This is why the trade department goes out of its way to make sure our probes get good DNA samples of every species. If the Earthians should get faster than light travel and become an intelligent species, we can always sell them the species they made extinct. Or at least the DNA sequences as they should have DNA printers by that time.”

“Don’t talk shop. We are here to see how these Earthians rise to the challenge or crash and burn, not how you plan on selling them data at a high price.”

Gandore nodded as they turned to watch more of the eulogy. They were unsurprised by the brutality of Elzo’s army when he invaded, as there were much crueler armies in the world at that time.

Neither were they surprised nor worried when Elzo’s army beat Pauls as it was clear that Elzo specifically made his army to counter Paul’s. At this point, if Paul died, chances were good that his innovations would last and change the world.

They showed no emotion when Paul’s army retreated, and Elzo’s followed it into a trap. They continued in their emotionless state when they saw the brutality of interrogation. Why should they have empathy for an unintelligent species?

But they got interested when they saw some of the POWs being used as test subjects as Paul franticly looked for a cure to malaria. Paul was using the scientific method to find a cure in a most horrible manner for the POW’s.

When they saw Paul use Boyles law to process the medicine into a concentration that was usable, Gandore had to say, “Look at that human go. The first twelve years in the past have been unimpressive, but using a low-pressure vessel to vacuum distill medicine is finally a step in the right direction. It’s the first time I have seen that Earthian do something that a strong infant couldn’t do.”

Filkith whistled and said, “Making an effective malaria medicine will change the face of that continent. Africa is absolutely rich in resources, but disease kept people from finding it without consequence, but Paul just changed that. The pioneers that were killed by malaria looking for riches in Africa in the previous timeline now have a way to survive, and once they find riches, there will be a flood of people and soldiers. It was normal for malaria to kill more soldiers than battle in the previous timeline, but Paul may have just changed that. Once the timeline catches up to the present, the physics of the matter should be interesting considering this is a change happening almost two thousand years early.”

Gandore nodded, and they continued to watch Paul’s life. They thought little of the stone bridge crossing the Zambezi river as they thought Paul should have finished it much quicker. But then they saw that Paul had made a moveable type printing press.

Filkith was the first to speak, “It took him long enough to make a printing press. If he has any sense, he will write down his knowledge and print out tens of thousands of books, making it hard to lose his knowledge.”

Gandore shook his head and said, “Look closely. This idiot human is using the press to print political material and language books. He has vast amounts of knowledge that took his species two thousand years to collect, but he is not immediately publishing it.”

Filkith shook his head and said, “This is why we usually have to perform multiple eulogies. That said, the physics of eulogies are always fun to study.”

After that, they continued to watch as Paul began building his home on the island at the center of the capital, then watched Paul’s stepson reached the sea, and finally watched as Paul announced his new government that would likely have been called a democratic monarch in the previous timeline. Well democratic when Paul dies.

That’s when Gandore said, “It doesn’t look like Paul will be doing anything exciting for a while, so let's switch over to John and see what he did from 80 to 85 AD.”

When they switched to John, they were not interested that John was creating a police force instead of an army. Police at the alien's level of technology was far more common than the military, but due to their disinterest, they overlooked that John was making the first police force in human history with his Texas Rangers.

They were interested in watching John domesticate bison. A part of their several hundred-year mandatory education was learning how to do everything that built their civilization from prehistory to post FTL, including domesticating wild animals. Animal domestication will change from one animal to the next, and so they watched as John began training his bison with keen interest.

Then they were flabbergasted as John struggled to introduce his domesticated bison to his village. Although they were a highly advanced species that had a lot of education, they did not have much empathy. To them, in their culture, domestication was a class they spent a few months learning about and was a normal and mandatory part of life. But it meant that they could not look at things from the human perspective of fearing this new thing that was clearly dangerous.

Due to their disconnect with human culture, they did not realize how much trust the people showed John by accepting bison domestication. As time passed, they missed the significance of other villages purchasing bison and bringing them home for their own use. To Gandore and Filkith, this was just logical, but Gandore and Filkith did not have the understanding to see the danger in domesticating bison as the bison could not hurt either alien.

Eventually, they watched as John began working on his watermill power tool shed.

Gandore said, “It's about time. He should have built this eleven or twelve years earlier.”

“Goes to show how inflexible humans are. He came from a time of electric-powered tools, and once that electricity was gone, it took him over a decade to realize he could use water as a power source. I wonder if the other human will figure out how to use a watermill.”

“It’s unlikely. The water level in his part of the world raises and lowers too much for him to make a simple water mill, and he has not shown the cleverness needed to make a watermill where the water depth changes so much.”

As they continued watching, they watched as John finally introduced sailboats.

“It's about time. It only took him ten years to add sails to a longboat. The boat the Vikings used to sail across the Atlantic ocean with.”

“If he would have just introduced sails earlier, he would already be trading with groups of people hundreds of miles away.”

This is another case of the aliens not understanding the people they are watching. John saw that the people feared the sea, so he had to bide his time before introducing sailing. If the aliens knew why John did what he did, they would have just disparaged humanity as a whole.

The Aliens were watching John and not North America as a whole, so they missed the first buffalo rider and the first raids. If anything, they were fast-forwarding through John’s life, looking for interesting tidbits. Because they were skipping so much data, they wondered why John was building watchtowers throughout his fields, and they were taken by surprise when one day, out of nowhere, a group of natives rode buffalo into John’s village, attacking John.

Gandore was the first to speak, “Can you believe that. The development of the bison is already out of John’s hands. Another group is already riding it.”

“I wonder why they can ride the buffalo when John has been unsuccessful in his attempts to make them rideable for years. I want to say it's luck, but they have a lot of buffalo riders.”

“Let’s face it. John is an idiot. The good news is that whether John lives or dies, the domestication of bison has taken hold in North America. It will outlast him.”

They watched passionlessly, wondering if this was where John was going to die, but it was clear that John was ready for the attack as he took his family to one of the watchtowers he built. On the ground, John and the rest of his people were ineffective at fighting the men who rode the buffalo, but in the towers, they easily fought them.

Once a bison lost its rider and came near John’s tower John jumped on it and rode it like a horse, and used his bow to shoot down other riders. Gandore and Filkith missed the importance that John could use his bow while riding the bison.

They watched on with great interest as John came back on his bison after chasing the raiders off. What would John do now that his great work of domesticating bison was complete?

Chapter 1 March AD 85 Texas- Saddle

John had extremely mixed feelings as he made his way back to his village. On the one hand, he was thrilled that bison could be ridden. On the other hand, his village was attacked, and some of his people were crippled. He saw his dream come to pass in nearly the worst possible way. He was just grateful that his family was safe.

As John rode his bison back to the village, he was worried he would be mistaken for one of the bandits, and so he waved his hands back and forth, yelling, “ITS ME CHIEF JOHN.”

John yelled it out a few times before he was close enough to the village for someone to hear him.

Ulhas was the first to notice and yelled out, “What are you doing on the buffalo?”

“I was chasing down the raiders, but there are a lot of them. If we hadn’t set up the watchtowers, we would have been overwhelmed. Where are the raiders that fell from their buffalo?”

“We beat them to death.”

John nearly fell off the bison and yelled out, “What?!”

“We beat them to death. They attacked us, so some of us took our tools and beat them until they were dead; other villagers stomped them until they were dead.”

“WHY!? We needed to get information from them. I don’t know where the raiders camp is.”

Ulhas thought about what John said, then said, “Oops. We should have beat the information out of them then beat them to death. If we ever get raided again, I will make sure everyone knows.”

That’s when John had a horrible thought, and he yelled out, “YOU DIDN’T KILL THE BISON, DID YOU?!”

Ulhas gave John a confused look and said, “No. Why would we kill them? We can always use more bison, especially this kind that are ridable. Honestly, I have heard you talking about riding bison so often that I really look forward to it.”

John sighed in relief and said, “Oh, good. You had me worried for a minute. Where are they?”

“We put them in the stable. After the battle, the bison wandered around. I thought we would have to catch them, but when I came up to the bison, they seemed to be relieved and let me lead them to the stable. They are definitely used to people and don’t seem to care who those people are.”

“How is Catori and his family?”

“Catori died. I don’t know if you saw, but he laid across his family as the bison trampled him. By the time the raiders were gone, and I got to him, he was already dead. His wife told me that his last words were, “I love you and the kids.”

“Are they injured?”

Ulhas nodded, “There are some broken bones, but I don’t think there are internal injuries. If there are, then at least it will allow Catori’s family to be buried alongside him tomorrow.”

Tears began to run down John’s face. Everyone in this village was his family. John knew enough about medicine to set a broken bone, clean a wound, stitch a wound, or how to put a tourniquet on, but dealing with a crushed organ was beyond John. John decided to deal with grief in the only way he knew how. Work.

John said, “Grab a lot of leather and meet me at the stable.”

“What about the bodies?”

“Have the young men move Catori’s body to his family home. The young men can dig a grave in the morning when they know whether they need to dig one or more graves. As for the raiders, slit their throats to make sure they are dead and cast their bodies into the woods. I don’t like the idea of having scavengers around, but the raiders do not deserve a funeral; they deserve to be eaten by vultures. Planting still must be done so the young men will stand in the watchtowers with their bows as the small children plant seeds, and the women take care of Catori’s family. Send the traders up and down the river with a message for the Texas Rangers to come back to Texas, and that as many are able to bring back half-blood bison. Bison mated between my domesticated bison and the wild bison. I will show the Texas Rangers how to ride properly, but before I can do anything, I have to make saddles. After your done, meet me at the stable; we have work to do.”

Ulhas ran off to obey John’s orders as John rode the bison to his barn. Onawa caught sight of him as he made the way to the barn and yelled out, “JOHN! I WAS SO WORRIED!”

Onawa ran to John, tears flowing down her face. She hugged John’s leg as he was on the bison and said, “When you rode after those raiders by yourself, I thought they would kill you. But I had to be brave for the boys and our people. Catori died, and his family is hurt, and I had to take care of them and put on a brave face and tell them everything is going to be alright.” Then with tears in her eyes, she asked, “Is everything going to be alright?”

John said, “Yes. We managed to chase them off.”

Onawa asked, “What if they come back?”

“Then, they will die. Most of them have bison, but that only gives them two advantages. They can move from one village to the next more quickly, and they can overwhelm men on foot. But we have log walls and watchtowers set up, so our advantages are a lot bigger than theirs, and now that I have a ridable bison, our advantages are going to get much bigger.”

“How? What are you going to do?”

“I am going to go to the barn and make a saddle for the bison.”

Onawa’s face scrunched up in confusion as she asked, “Saddle? Like the saddle that holds the basket on the bison when we harvest crops?”

John shook his head and said, “No, a saddle to help men ride much better. You saw the battle; even moderately wounded men were falling off their bison. Most of the raiders were barely able to hang on as they attacked. Once I make a saddle and add stirrups, the men will be so stable they could die on their bison and not fall off. It will make fighting from bison far easier.”

Onawa thought about what John said then said, “I will send the boys; they need to learn how to make their own saddles.”

John nodded saddle making was a good trade, and it would get his boy's minds off the tragedy. Trevor was old enough that he definitely needed to learn saddle making, perhaps Bobby and Quincy were a little young to learn this skill, and Walker was definitely too young, but that didn’t matter. His boys saw murder today, and he wanted to show them how to protect themselves from it, and the saddle was a part of that. John was not much of a warrior, but he spent his childhood around horses, and in his previous life, John and his wife had horses on their homestead. John knew a lot about riding.

Once John was in the barn, he put the bison in a stall, grabbed a full hide of bison leather, then got some paper and coal to draw with.

About that time, John’s boys made it into the barn, and when they saw their dad, they ran over and hugged him. Normally the four boys were fighting and arguing with each other, but today after seeing murder, they were very quiet. As a parent, he always wanted his sons to get along, but not like this.

Quincy asked, “Dad, what are you doing?”

“I am going to make a saddle to make riding this buffalo easier. I want you boys to grab some paper and coal and keep notes about what I am doing as best as you can. This is going to be the first saddle I make for riders but by no means is this going to be the last one. I want every Texas Ranger to have one as soon as possible. And you know how things are; as soon as the Texas Rangers get their equipment, everyone else will want equipment just like it.”

As he was finishing up his speech with the boys, Ulhas came in with his own pieces of leather.

John smiled and said, “Ulhas, good to see you. I will want your help with some of the leatherwork. As soon as we finish my saddle, we will get to work on yours because you will need one for one of the other bison we captured.”

Ulhas gave a weak smile and said, “Thank you.”

John then began taking measurements of the bison and then used the measurements to begin cutting out the shape of the saddle. John had never made a saddle before and knew he didn’t have all the tools that saddle makers had in the modern world, but someone had to be the first to make a saddle in the previous timeline, and John was sure that his would be better than that.

Then John began measuring the head of the bison. Ulhas asked, “What are you doing?”

“I am measuring its head, so I can make a set of reins for it.”

“What's that?”

“Its leather strips put around its head so I can easily control it.”

After a couple of hours of cutting and slicing, John had to go to his workshop and work on metal. The workshop was a ways away from the village.

Quincy asked, “Dad is it safe to go all the way out there?”

John thought about it and said, “I think it is, but I will just take Ulhas with me, and we will ride out that way just to be safe.”

Ulhas said, “But I haven’t ridden a bison before.”

“Don’t worry; it's clear that the captured bison are used to being ridden.”

Ulhas had no trouble mounting and riding the bison. It wasn’t like they were galloping to John’s workshop.

Once there, John made two stirrups, a buckle, and a bit. It took a couple of hours, and it was getting dark when John finished. But John had all the pieces he needed for his saddle and reigns. The next day John put the pieces together.

Bobby happened to notice that the part of the saddle that wrapped around the bison's belly was a lot longer than it needed to be, so he asked, “Dad, why did you make that saddle so long?”

John smiled and said, “Well, son, it's so that as the bison grows, the saddle will still fit him. Come over here and look at this.” All the boys came over, and John showed them the buckle that held the saddle on the bison. Their clothes did not use a belt, so they were unfamiliar with the buckle design, so John showed them how it worked.

Once John showed them how the different parts of the saddle and reigns worked, John put a blanket on the back of the bison, then put on the saddle. The bison didn’t care for its belly being wrapped up, but it didn’t give John too much trouble.

When John tried to put the reins over its head, though, it freaked out, sticking its tongue out and shaking its head hard, back and forth. John was just glad it didn’t charge him. John gave the bison a pear, and it calmed down. Then John began rubbing its head and saying kind words to the nearly thousand-pound bison.

Once it was calm, John put some salt on the bit. At first, the bison did not want the bit in its mouth until it tasted the salt. Once it tasted the salt, it enjoyed sucking on the bit.

Now that the saddle and reins were on, John climbed the bison, and it was like John transformed. Sitting on the back of that bison back straight, towering over the rest of the men, John looked like a legend. John began putting the saddle through its paces by riding through the village, and everyone noticed Chief John’s new demeanor.

Seeing the dignity and pride of John made every man and boy determined to become buffalo riders, and every unmarried girl in the village decided that they wanted to marry a young man who rode a bison. And just like that, buffalo riding became a status symbol.

Chapter 2 March AD 85 Texas- Raiders Return to Camp

Waya was furious. The captured women told them that this village called Texas was the richest in the trade alliance, but it was a trap. Half the men he sent to stampede through the villagers didn’t return.

Now instead of bringing back more bison, weapons, food, and women, he was bringing grief to the camp. If he saw any of the captured women rejoice over their husbands' death, he would beat them to death himself.

It took two days of riding to get back to their camp. The entire way Waya and his men grew more and more furious at their captive wives. Obviously, the warrior's failure was their captive wives' fault. They should have given them better information.

Despite his fury, Waya couldn’t help but be relieved when he saw one of the young men out training one of the captured bison with the queer-looking yoke. Apparently, they lucked out when they captured bison that were ridable, but after their second raid, all the bison they captured threw their riders off whenever someone tried to ride them. Waya’s solution was to put a yoke on three bison. Two ridable ones, with the unrideable one in the middle. With the yoke on and being between two bison, the untrained bison could not buck its rider off. It usually took about a week to make a bison ridable, and the young men were hard at work trying to finish training all their bison before Waya got back with new bison.

The young man turned the bison toward Waya and trotted over. He had a big grin on his face as he yelled out, “HOW DID THE RAID GO!”

Waya wanted to cry. Instead, he yelled out, “We were ambushed, and we lost half the stampeding raiders.”

The grin fell off the young man's face, and he yelled back, “Did my dad and uncle survive?”

One of Waya’s raiders yelled back, “I’m sorry, your dad was killed in the ambush.”

The young man started bawling. His uncle guided his bison away from the rest of the riders toward his nephew. He needed to make sure that his nephew got back to the camp safely, as his grief would make him unwary of the danger of the buffalo he rode.

Waya continued making his way back toward his camp. The relief he felt at seeing one of his people left him as he realized that there would be mourning the next few days.

It was another half hour after seeing the young man before Waya caught sight of the camp. When the camp caught sight of Waya, Waya could his his people yelling at each other to come and greet the men. Waya’s heart broke as he heard the joyful calls and yells of his people. The children were looking forward to seeing their fathers. The free wives were looking forward to seeing their husbands. Everyone was excited to see the loot he brought back.

When Waya and the raiders reached their camp, they were met with smiles and peppered with questions until people notice the look on their faces.

Someone asked, “Chief Waya, what’s wrong?”

Waya said, “Everyone needs to hear this; make sure nobody is left in the teepees.”

The mood of the people instantly fell. They knew they were about to get some very bad news. Women and children instantly went back into their teepees and grabbed the elders, toddlers, and captive wives.

When everyone was assembled, Waya said, “We attacked Texas like we attacked the other villages, but they laid a trap for our men. Half of our stampeders died before they could escape the trap.”

There were gasps. Then the women and children began looking around, and when they could not see their husbands or fathers, they began to weep. Even some of the captive wives wept for the men they were forced to marry; once again, their future was in doubt.

In the midst of the mourning, one captive wife looked around, didn’t see her husband, and she smiled. It was not a small smile, her face beamed, and tears of joy began to fall down her face.

Waya saw that and said, “Why are you smiling?”

She looked her captor in the eye and said, “Because some of the dogs that killed my father and brothers died.”

Waya never got a chance to move. One of the women who lost a husband struck her. When the captive wife tried to defend herself, several other women came by and began to beat on her. Their husbands had just died, and this lady had the nerve to be happy about it and call their husbands dogs.

Instantly a mob of grief-stricken people formed and began to take out their grief on the poor captive wife. Women were tearing hair off the woman's head; children were punching and kicking her. As they grew tired, some of them started biting her because they no longer had the strength to punch her anymore.

Waya had no idea how much time passed as the camp's women and children took out their grief on the woman. But when their energy was spent, she was a bloody mess. She looked like a bear had mauled her. But she was still alive. Waya could see her chest moving up and down. Waya rode his bison over to her and plunged his spear into her chest.

Then he looked around and was surprised to see that all the captive wives and their children snuck back into their teepees. They were trying to hide in case the violence was directed at them. No doubt, over the next few days and weeks, they would be getting beatings, but Waya didn’t care. Ways made his way back to his teepee.

Waya stepped inside and found his three captive wives sitting on the ground, legs crossed, trembling. Tears streaked down their faces. As Waya stepped in, they looked down at his feet. They knew better than to look him in the eye. That was a right reserved for his free wife. He wanted to beat them fiercely, but they were pregnant, and he would not harm his own children.

Waya asked, “Why didn’t you warn me about the trap in Texas?”

The oldest captive wife said, “What trap? We have never been to Texas. All we know about the place is that it is the place where new things come from, and there is an iron mine there.”

Waya went over to her and kicked her in the leg. She fell over, wincing in pain. But she didn’t cry out. She knew he wouldn’t show mercy and that her pain often brought glee to the man.

Waya said, “That’s right, you better not make a sound when I correct you. Your people, the trade alliance, attacked us. We had people die when your people raided us last year. Now you get to spend the rest of your life repaying us for what your people did.”

All the captive wives in unison said, “Thank you for your mercy.”

Waya smiled. They were right; he was a merciful man, so instead of continuing the beating his captive wives deserved for the sin of their people, he asked, “How many villages have…” Waya had to think about how to describe it, “Wooden platforms about ten feet in the air?”

The wives were quiet for a moment, waiting for the others to speak. When no one did, they looked at each other, and finally, the oldest one spoke again, saying, “I have never heard of anything like that.”

Waya slapped her across the face and yelled, “WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU HAVENT HEARD OF ANYTHING LIKE THAT!” Then Way’s voice lowered to a whisper, “They were dotted all around the village of Texas. When we saw them from the woods, none of us had a clue what they were until our men stampeded through their fields, and their people climbed them and started shooting our men off the buffalo. How can you not know what they were?”

Before any of the terrified women could speak, Waya’s free wife came into the teepee and asked, “Why are you yelling? We have people grieving out here. Why aren’t you comforting them?”

Waya turned to her and looked down at his feet and, with an apologetic tone, said.,“My people died because they didn’t give me the information I needed.”

Waya’s free wife came up to her husband, lifted his head and looked him right in the eye, and said, “There will be time to beat and interrogate these women later.”

Waya shook his head and said, “There isn’t time. I know our women and children need to grieve for their men, but I saw one of the men from the trade alliance riding a Bison. They could be a day behind us. Even if he is the only one with a ridable bison, if they follow on foot, a bunch of their men could be here in two or three days. I need to get information from the captive wives so I can make a decision about whether we should move the camp tonight, and if so, where we should move it.”

Waya’s free wife considered his words for a moment, then said, “That’s worse than I thought.” Then without warning, the free wife turned toward the captive wives and smacked each one in the face, and yelled out, “This is your fault. Give my husband better information. If you make us suffer, we will make you suffer more.”

The oldest captive wife’s lip trembled, but she knew better than to cry or sob. She had to appease her masters to protect herself and the other captive wives, her only companions in the world. “If you saw it in Texas, then it's either in all the other villages in the trade alliance or soon will be. The chief there, chief John, constantly makes new things and then shows the other villages how to make his creations. He gave us iron, new crops, spices, lock, and dams. If he has platforms, then the rest of the villages already has them or will have them. If he is riding bison, then all the other villages are riding them too or will soon. Chief John is not chief over the other chiefs of the trade alliance, but he sets the tone for how it's run.”

Waya was horrified. “So your saying either all the villages are riding bison or will soon because Texas has them?”

“Yes.”

“Then we will have to pack up and leave tonight. Do you know if John has any dealings with tribes on other rivers?”

She thought about it and said, “The only thing I have heard is that the last village is built where the river meets the sea.”

Waya smiled and said, “Then we will head west for a few days until we come across a different river system.” Then Waya turned to his free wife and said, “Pack everything up; we have to leave tonight. The trade alliance may have their own buffalo riders tracking us. I will let the rest of the tribe know.”

Waya left, and as soon as the tent flap closed, the free wife, the wife loved by their husband, told the captive wives, “You will do better when you give information, or you will suffer more. Never forget the reason why you are captive wives is because your people killed our people. You will provide our tribe, new tribe members, tenfold. Those children will be Waya’s children. As Waya’s free wife, they will be taught that I am their mother. When they get hurt, they will come looking for me, their mother, when they are proud, they will show me their mother, when they get old enough to hunt, they will bring their first kill to me, their mother. Just be grateful that your bellies allow you to pay back what your people cost us.”

Chapter 3 April 85 AD Africa-Trimaran

Faizal was excited that he would finally see the ocean that Paul had talked so much about. Over the rainy season, King Paul and the researchers designed what Paul called a trimaran. A trimaran is a boat with three hulls, and Paul said he got the design off a movie named water world. When the researchers asked him what a movie was, he described something that sounded fantastic and magical.

Over the rainy season, they made the nails, tools, a triangle sail, and a cradle for the boon. Paul expected Faizal and Dashiell to figure out how to put the boat together on the island between the river and ocean. Dashiell was to have the lumber ready when Faizal got there, although Faizal would bring everything else, including rubber, to seal the boat.

Faizal got excited when he saw the river split; it meant he was close. He also saw the signs of how busy Dashiell must have been over the rainy season as a wooden communications tower signaled his boat. They sent back a message saying why they were there and that Dashiell should meet them at the fort on the northern part of the island as soon as possible.

A few miles later, they went around a bend in the river, and Faizal saw the ocean for the first time. It was more amazing than everyone said it was. He couldn’t wait to build the trimaran and go out into it.

As they landed on the shore, Dashiell was waiting for them with dozens of children.

Faizal asked, “Why are there so many children here?”

“These are my best students. King Paul commanded me to come to the island and teach, and this is a wonderful educational opportunity.”

One of the children asked, “Is that the boat you are taking into the ocean?”

Faizal said, “No. That’s a flatbottom boat; it will not do well with the waves. What we are going to make is called a trimaran, which King Paul says will work wonderfully in the ocean. The flat bottom boat is just filled with supplies to make it.”

“What’s a trimaran?”

Faizal took out a paper with the drawing of a trimaran and said, “This is it.”

The kids all ran forward and looked at the picture, and they were wowed by it. One of the kids said, “It looks like you put a platform on three canoes.”

“It's way more complicated than that.” Then Faizal took out pictures of what the inside of the three canoes was going to look like and said, “When we build it, we are going to take a long piece of wood and make a keel, then we are going to add ribs to the keel, and then put boards on the side of it and make it watertight, so each of the canoe looking parts will be much bigger than any canoe you have ever seen.”

Then he took out another paper and showed them the mast and boon and said, “The trimaran will be moved by wind. We have a giant piece of cloth that we are going to put on it, and we will be able to swing the cloth back and forth with a boon. Paul had his blacksmiths make a big metal cradle for the boon over the rainy season. He wasn’t sure if it needed to be metal or not, but if it did, he did not want the construction halted on the trimaran because we were waiting on the cradle. When we make our second trimaran, it will have a wooden cradle since that would be a lot cheaper. If a wooden cradle works, then we will build all trimarans with wooden cradles. Either way, we will soon become an ocean fairing nation.”

Faizal was patient with the children as they asked dozens of questions, and when they started asking the same questions twice, Dashiell stepped in and said, “That’s enough questions, time to get to work. Help us unload everything, and tomorrow you will help us and the carpenters begin building the trimaran.”

The children actually cheered. They didn’t have legos or Minecraft, but they did have carpentry. It was harder but often more rewarding as they could use the things they built.

It took a week to make the first keel, and once they had the technique down, only one more for the other two. Making all the ribs and installing them took another week. It took about two weeks to make the boards and nail them to the boat. Making sure the boat was tightly sealed with rubber only took a day. Adding the deck took four days, and outfitting the interiors of the three hulls took another three. Finally, they rigged the mast, boom, and sail. The last thing they put on the boat was the rudder. It was midway through may before the ship was finished.

The day after they finished, they planned on taking the trimaran out for its first short voyage. Hundreds of villagers showed up to see the spectacle. Many even brought their own canoes to travel next to it. King Paul couldn’t make the trip to see the first boat in his ocean navy; he had to stay around the capital as he had learned that when he left the range of the communications towers, people took the opportunity to cause chaos. It would take a year or two before Paulsland extended the communication tower network to the coast.

Dashiell, Faizal, and several of the soldiers with floating armor went out to the trimaran with great apprehension. They had no idea how well things would work, and everyone was watching. Their apprehension was because they had no idea what they were doing. Faizal got his information from his King, who had never sailed a boat before, and Dashiell got his information from Faizal. They were going to have to figure this thing out on their own, with hundreds of people watching. No pressure.

As they reached the boat, Dashiell realized he had a problem. In all the excitement in building the trimaran, they never once thought how they would get it into the water. It was their first boat, and they were worried about the tides, so they built the boat on the beach above the highwater mark.

Dashiell, having learned a bit of politics from being around his father, called out, “Thank you for coming here today to see our first sailboat launch. This is an important event for the entirety of Paulsland, and so I wish for everyone to take part. To show the unity of Paulsland, everyone, please come to the boat and help push it into the water. One day when your children and grandchildren ask about the sailboats, you will be able to tell them not only did you see the first one launch, you helped it launch.”

The people grew so excited they began to cheer. One of the young men was so excited he began running forward to be the first, which caused others to run too. Dashiell smiled; he turned the shame of his oversight into something to be proud of.

After the boat was in the water, Dashiell, Faizal, and the soldiers got on heads held high, chests puffed out, and with all the swagger they could muster as they tried not to fall as they got in the boat that was rocking due to the waves. Dashiell couldn’t help but think that they should have gotten in the boat before it was pushed in the water, but it was too late for that now.

One of the trimaran's design features was a basket on the top of the mast. King Paul had insisted the boat have a lookout, and so one of the men, Bahari, climbed the pole and got into the basket to see how it worked. This was a trial run, and so they were just trying to make everything worked well and what changes needed to be made before they started on their second boat.

The wind was blowing straight at them, so Dashiell said, “Take out the paddles. We will row until we are further away from shore.”

As they began rowing out, several of the villagers got in their canoes and rowed with them. They wanted to see how this sailing ship worked. It was the most exciting thing to happen in years.

It wasn’t long before they were a good ways from shore, and then Dashiell yelled out, “Raise the sail.”

They lifted the sail, and immediately the wind began pushing them back toward the shore.

Dashiell yelled out, “Move the boon.”

They did so, and it helped some.

Faizal said, “Get on the rudder and steer the ship. I think we have to use the rudder and boon in conjunction to move through the water.”

Dashiell dashed to the back of the boat and began steering the ship, and it helped. He began calling out directions to the boon crew, and before long, they had it figured out. The ship couldn’t go in straight lines, it had to zig-zag back and forth wherever it went, but doing so, it could go in any direction. When the realization clicked, he easily outpaced the canoes. The trimaran flew across the water at ten miles an hour.

At first, they were laughing, enjoying the speed and the waves as they rocked back and forth and rolled from side to side. The speed and the motions were fun for a while. But then Bahari, who was in the basket, started getting motion sickness. He was only the first as he was going through a lot more motion than the other men. It also didn’t help that the mast had to rotate to move the boon, which meant that not only did he rock and roll worse than the other members of the crew, but he was also spun back and forth.

About the time the adrenalin wore off, the young men on deck began to feel queasy. Right after they started feeling queasy, Bahari, high in the basket on the mast threw up, splashing them with vomit.

One of them yelled out, “WHY DID YOU DO THA!?.”

He called out in misery, “I’m sorry, I feel terrible. I felt good when we left, but now I am so sick. I don’t think I can get down.”

They started keeping their distance from the mast because he kept vomiting. But then the rocking and rolling started taking its toll, and one by one, they ran to the side to blow chunks.

As more men got sick, Faizal got worried and said, “We have to go back; everyone is getting sick. It could be another plague.”

Dashiell nodded and said, “I don’t feel so well myself. But if this is a plague, we cant bring it back to the island. Let's land on the beach next to it.”

As best as the sick men could, they guided the boat to one of the beaches next to the island. The men in the canoes were curious, and when they came by, Dashiell called out, “We are sick; stay away, so you don’t catch what we have.”

A message was immediately sent to Paul explaining that all the men on the trimaran got sick on the boat and what they should do about the plague.

About four hours after landing, the men felt better. The next day they felt so much better they went out on the ship again only to feel sick again. Although this time, the symptoms were not as bad as the previous day. Because they were still sick, they did not land on the island. It took a couple of weeks, but eventually, when they went out by boat, they no longer felt sick and made their way back to the island.

Almost a month later, they got a note back from King Paul which said,

“Thank you for your status report, its been a long time since I have laughed so hard. The reason why you were sick was due to the motion of the waves. It's called seasickness where I come from. Most people will get that the first few times they go sailing, and some people will never get over it. It's not contagious. Sorry forgot to tell Faizal about it. Good job on your first voyage. Make a few more trimarans, sail them every day, fish with them, and in order to combat seasickness, have the young people practice martial arts on the deck of the trimarans as it floats on the ocean at least once a week. Good job. If things continue going well this time next year, I will have you take your trimaran north on a trade mission. We desperately need to trade with the other civilizations, and despite your set back you are doing a great job.”

Chapter 4 May 85 AD Africa- Beethoven

Paul finally had a free day. This was one of the busiest times of the year for Paul because of man camp. It was always a pain in the neck when man camp was coming around because he had to make sure they had enough resources for the young men joining the army and enough pay for those retiring.

Paul hadn’t gotten around to making a currency yet because every scrap of iron was being used for tools, weapons, or nails. It's one of the reasons why Paul wanted to trade with some of the other civilizations. Paul had plenty of spices he knew were unknown to this part of the world since the spices were originally from South America. Paulsland would grow very wealthy very quickly once they reached out.

Due to the lack of currency, it meant that Paul had to trade one material for another. Or, as all too often the case, his secretaries did the trading for him. Paul had a hundred of them now, and every year he raised their pay. He could not rule the kingdom without their help. The communications towers were invaluable since the communication towers sent reports on what various people were willing to trade. Paul only allowed a tax of ten percent on his people and traded with them for everything else. Which often meant that his secretaries were more merchant than bureaucrat.

Thankfully they were able to get man camp supplied a few days ahead of time, and now he had a free day. A free day was coming more and more rarely as the kingdom grew, so he would do what all workaholics did on a free day; more work. He was going to check to see how Badru was doing as principle.

As Paul made his way over to the school, he had to wonder if Badru knew how much of an advantage Paul was giving him in the quest to be king. The school Badru was the principal of was the capital school. All the children who lived in the capital went there, but Paul passed a law that each village's best and brightest was also to be sent to the capital to learn. In time when those children grew up, it meant that Badru would have allies all over Paulsland. Assuming, of course, he was indeed a good principle. If Badru does poorly, he will have enemies across Paulsland.

When Paul entered the school, he was very pleased. It was filled with children that the various villages considered their best, but due to Paul making changes in their belief system, it meant that there were several sets of twins in the school and even a few albino children. Before Paul showed up, the twins would have been left to die, and some fool witchdoctor would have eaten the albino child to try to get its power. Paul showed that these children were a blessing to the nation as a whole and taught that the witchdoctors had them killed out of fear. It had really changed things.

It didn’t take long for the children to notice Paul, and they got really excited and waved at their King. Paul always tried to make his way to the school every chance he could. In part, because he liked the children, but also in part because the more he got to know them, the more loyal they would be in the future. Paul never tried to deceive himself about the school system. It made the next generation loyal to him.

Paul said, “I am looking for your principle Badru. I want to talk to him.”

The kids immediately started saying. “Ewwwwww.”

Paul stopped that by saying, “He is not in trouble. Why is it every time I come here to talk to someone, you think they're in trouble. Most of the time, when I come over here, I am trying to get a wise person's advice on some important Paulsland matter. Or I am coming over here to find someone to spend a day of fun with.”

One of the kids said, “Can I spend a day of fun with you?”

“Not right now. Today I need to talk with Badru and hear his perspective on some things. Perhaps I will come by sometime and give you a field trip.”

The kids cheered. Every now and then, Paul came by and had the kids go out and play on a field trip day. Those decisions always came from Paul as Paul was intent on developing the children’s loyalty.

It wasn’t long before the noise brought Badru by, and he said, “King Paul, what brings you by?”

“Badru, you can call me dad. I came by to take you out of here and talk with you. I know we didn’t schedule this, but I finished some of my other work and wanted to see how you were doing.”

Badru smiled and said, “Sounds good.”

They quietly left the school because they did not want the children overhearing what the adults said, especially since the conversation would be about the children.

They walked to one of the bridges as Paul asked, “How are you doing now that your first batch of students joined the military?”

“I’m alright. I did what you suggested, and I changed the martial arts curriculum to something I think would be more useful in battle. More one versus a line of ten, and I made several katas that are designed to be done in close-knit groups with spears like in battle. Now that those young men are gone, I worry for them in a way that I never worried for the men under my command when I was a lieutenant. I know they will go to battle, and I fear I will never see them again.”

“It’s because you personally know them, but you're not leading them. You’re having to trust someone else to do their best. Even if they are a great commander, some of the kids will die, and you can do nothing about it.”

“Dad, that’s not encouraging.”

“That’s leadership. And I hope it always stays hard. Some leaders can throw away their soldiers like chum in water. All too often, those same soldiers turn around and kill their leader. Love your men, put their good before your own, and everyone will be better for it.”

Badru did not like this conversation, so he changed it, “So, dad, how is Misa’s baby doing?”

Paul looked a little surprised and said, “Sauti? He is doing a lot better. I was so worried when he got that ear infection when he was only a week old. A baby that young needs to sleep, but he was in so much pain all he could do was scream. The only thing we could do for the baby was pour strong alcohol down his ears to try to kill the infection. It made me wish for antibiotics more than ever since that would have cleared the infection right up.”

“I’m glad Sauti survived. All too often, a child that young will get an infection, and a mother has to watch her child scream in pain for days only to watch them die. Misa doesn’t deserve that.”

Paul’s eyebrows raised a little. It was well known that Badru’s mother did not like Misa.”

Badru saw it and answered the unspoken question, “I am not my mother, and for a time, I was raised right alongside Misa and your other wives. We are friends. In fact, I know her a lot better than I ever knew uncle Abilio.”

Paul smiled and said, “Makes sense.”

“I have heard that since the Sauti has gotten better, Misa thinks something is wrong with him.”

Paul sighed and said, “Yeah. She says there something wrong with him, but she can't place her finger on it. The last time I held Sauti, he appeared healthy and strong to me, but I do not spend nearly the amount of time with infants as the ladies do. They are more likely to spot something wrong than I am.”

“Is there anything else you wanted to talk with me about? If not, I really need to go back to class.”

“Yes, how are the girls doing on the penicillin project? If we had penicillin, it would likely have killed that infection immediately. A lot more babies and children will make it to adulthood if we can make it.”

“They are making a lot more penicillin broth than they used to, but the extraction is going terribly. Vacuum distillation doesn’t work like it does for the malaria medicine, and we have tried filtering the penicillin broth through everything we can find, including fruit. It just isn’t going well.”

“I will come by and talk about using chemicals to help with the extraction process. There were a number of chemicals that used sulfuric acid to separate one chemical from the next, and we have that in abundance. If that doesn’t work, the girls will have to experiment with more things.”

“We know we are on the right track; we just lack one or two steps.”

“Your right. Well, you head back to school. I will find Misa and see how Sauti is doing.”

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Paul found Misa back in their home crying over the child. Paul's heart fell. He thought the child was dead and asked, “What’s wrong.”

Misa sobbed as she said, “I finally figured out what is wrong with Sauti. He’s deaf. I’m so sorry, Paul.”

“Hold up Misa, are you sure he’s deaf.”

Misa held up the baby with the baby’s back to Paul and said, “Make a loud noise.”

Paul clapped his hands together loudly. Sauti didn’t react at all. Then Paul took out a couple of pieces of metal and clanged them together. Sauti didn’t react. His son was deaf. Sadly Paul was the greatest expert in the land and didn’t know what to do next outside of comforting his wife.

“Misa, this isn’t your fault. These things happen. How many children in Paulsland have been born healthy but became deaf due to an ear infection? Or blind because something infected their eye? This isn’t your fault or my fault. Sometimes life throws these things at us, and what's important is that we do what’s best for the child. We want Sauti to grow up happy and healthy and live a full life.”

“But he’s deaf. How can he live a full life? Sauti won't ever be able to talk to people.”

“Where I am from, deaf people learned to speak using their hands. They used something called sign language.”

Misa’s tears stopped for a moment, and she asked, “Do you know this sign language.”

“A little. One time when I was a child, someone brought me to a vacation Bible school, and we sang the song “Jesus Loves Me” and did sign language with it. I remember what book and love is.”

“That’s two words. How will that help?”

“It’s a start. It shouldn’t take long to figure out what signs to make for what words, especially if you help.”

“What good is it if our child is the only one who knows these things?”

Paul didn’t have an immediate answer for that. He thought about it for a little while and said, “Our son is not the only deaf person in Paulsland, and there are people who are blind or have other special needs. I think it's past time to start a school here in the capital for them. The deaf kids will learn to speak with their hands, the blind kids will learn to walk with a cane and write with dots, and the weak-minded ones can learn how to work. Everyone else will learn to treat them with dignity.”

“Who will lead this school?”

“Why not you? You are a King’s wife, and our son should motivate you to be the best person for the job.”

Misa thought about it for a second, then said, “Your right.” Then she hugged Paul with Saiti between them and said, “Thank you, husband.” Paul could tell she was struggling with the situation and agreed so quickly because it gave her a direction to go in. Something that might make things marginally better.

While she was holding onto Paul, Paul touched his son's head and said, “Change Sauti’s name to Beethoven.”

Misa struggled with the name, “Beethoven? Why?”

“Where I come from, there was a very famous composer of music. He made some of the most remarkable music our world had ever heard, even though he was deaf. It goes to show that even if our son can not hear, that won't limit him.”

Misa smiled and lifted up the boy who would never hear his name and said, “Beethoven, you will do great things. I will see to it.”

Chapter 5 June AD 85 Texas- Partner

Dakota has had a bad month. First of all, he was faithfully serving as a Texas Ranger at the village assigned to him by chief John when he got word that buffalo riders attacked Texas. Fortunately, chief John able to fight them off and even managed to capture some of the enemy's bison. But then chief John ordered all the Texas Rangers to return to Texas with one bison that was half wild and half domesticated, and he would teach them to ride.

Dakota was ecstatic at first, but when he went to the chief of the village, he was serving at, the chief denied his request and said, “Our bison will be given to our own villagers to ride. If you want your own bison, you will have to go back to your own village.”

Dakota tried to argue with the chief, but it was pointless. Especially when the chief pointed out, “The Texas Rangers our village supplied to the trade alliance will almost certainly have to return here for a bison. If we give one to you and the other Ranger, then what will our own people get?”

So instead of immediately getting a bison and making his way to Texas to learn how to ride, he had to take a slow boat upriver to his own village. To Dakota’s surprise, they had a bison ready and waiting for him. They wanted him to get the secret to riding and bring it back to them. Once he had the secret, his stint in the rangers would be over, and they would send someone else.

Dakota put supplies on the bison and began leading it toward Texas. The trip to Texas was long and wet. The spring rains were a part of the reason for the wetness of the journey, but another part was that every single stream was damed up. The locks were everywhere in the trade alliance. Dakota already knew that bison were good swimmers, but he learned how good on this trip as he led a bison on a rope all the way to Texas. Turns out Dakota is a pretty good swimmer too.

As Dakota drew closer to Texas, he spotted another man heading that way, leading a bison. Dakota called out, “HELLO!”

The man turned around and waved and yelled back, “HELLO. ARE YOU A FELLOW TEXAS RANGER?”

“YES!”

“HURRY UP THEN I COULD USE THE COMPANY!”

The man stopped, and Dakota hurried up. Before long, Dakota caught up and said, “I am Dakota.”

The man smiled and said, “I am Powaw.”

“Nice to meet you. I have been a Texas Ranger for four years now.”

“I have only been one for three years.”

“That’s great. Although it looks like this will be my last year.”

“Mine too.”

Dakota looked at Powaw suspiciously and said, “Do your elders want you to bring back the secret of riding as soon as chief John imparts it to you?”

Powaw smiled and said, “Yes. I guess yours told you the same thing.”

“Yes. Chief John is sure going to be disappointed when he spends all this time training us only for us to rejoin our tribes afterward. I wonder what he will think about training our replacements.”

“It doesn’t matter. The chiefs I talked to said that chief John is pretty easily pushed around. I mean, sure, if you cross a line with him, he will fight to the bitter end over the issue, but for the most part, the chiefs can get him to do whatever they want.”

“Problem is that when you push chief John over that line, so many chiefs owe him a favor he can bring fifty tribes against your one tribe.”

“That’s true. It's just that he doesn’t have that warrior spirit. When I agreed to become a Texas Ranger, I thought I would become this great warrior; after all, Chief John is the only chief in memory to lead several tribes into battle, but when I went to learn under him, I was disappointed. When he gave me the iron knife and tomahawk, I was grateful but surprised that chief John was by far the worst hand-to-hand warrior I had ever seen.”

“That’s true, but you have to admit he is a good archer.”

“For how long? He is getting up in age. If he was my age, his pathetic hand-to-hand fighting skills would take away any chance of warriors from my village following him. “

“Oh, come on. You know chief John has followers because he spreads his wealth around, not because he is a good warrior. Granted, he has openly taught everyone how to use that wealth to help every village he could reach, but wealth is a poor substitute for skill in battle.”

“I think it has more to do with the things he makes. I can remember as a child hearing how he could shoot arrows really fast without reaching into his quiver and how I would love to follow a magical warrior like that. Then I got my own fast fire bow and realized how easy it was to be that super archer. That realization made me realize he wasn’t a great warrior, just a clever one. It was really disappointing to meet him.”

“But you only had that realization because he shared his technology with everyone.”

“Shared is a stretch. I had to cut down a lot of trees to be able to afford my bow.”

“Even so, everyone watches Texas to see what new and grand ideas come from here. Only an ignorant fool would attack it.”

“Yes. Between his weapons, boats, trading, and domesticated bison, chief John has earned his place as chief, and I see why the other chiefs listen to him. For many of the chiefs, chief John has made them richer than all their people combined. But chief John isn’t a warrior.”

“I agree. He is a soft leader, not a warrior.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing. I can just imagine my chief trying to form an alliance. He would insult the village he was trying to ally with then demand that they follow his leadership and that after the battle only his warriors would get the spoil.”

“I want to laugh, but my chief would do the same. On the other hand, Chief John just points out to the warriors and chiefs how much they have to gain by fighting together and then throws in a reward on top of everything.”

“Then the real warriors do all the fighting, and chief John stops them from finishing the enemy.”

“Don’t you know that’s why the chiefs meet up in Texas and follow John? He won't stab them in the back, and if they disagree with him, he won't try to wipe them out. He’s soft, but it allows this alliance.”

“I rue the day that chief John dies. I suspect the next day every tribe on the river will go to war with one another.”

“I don’t know. Between the traders and Texas Rangers, the tribes have interconnected themselves a lot.”

Before they could continue their conversation, they saw a bison running toward them full speed with a man on its back. They were so transfixed they stopped walking. As he got closer, their bison got nervous, and they had to calm them down.

When the rider got there, he said, “When you got to the village, put your buffalo in the stable, feed and water them before you do anything else. Afterward, come and find me. This is going to be your one and only warning. From now on, you will treat your buffalo better than you treat yourself. You will feed it before you feed yourself, water it before you water it yourself. When you ride it, and it gets tired, you will get off it and walk beside it.”

The men stood there mouths wide open. Sitting on the bison was chief John, but he looked like a different man on the back of the bison. He looked like a real warrior for once, and they couldn’t explain why.

Eventually, Dakota said, “Yes, sir, Chief John. I will feed and water my bison first thing when I get to the village.”

“Not your bison, your buffalo. It was confusing people constantly going between bison and buffalo, so from now on, if you ride it, then it’s a Buffalo. You are here to become buffalo riders. If it's wild or a plow puller, then it’s a bison. Got it?”

“Yes, sir. This is my buffalo, my riding animal.”

Chief John sharply said, “NO! That is your buffalo, your partner. You will treat it better than you treat yourself. Now quickly make your way to the village and find me when you get there.”

With that, chief John raced back to the village.

Dakota asked, “What in the world happened to chief John?”

“I don’t know. I heard stories about how he acted when he was fighting other tribes, but I didn’t believe it. On the back of that bison.. er buffalo, he looked and acted like a great warrior. Maybe it was the beast under him, but I would not try to push that man around.”

Chapter 6 June AD 85 Texas-Buffalo Riding

Eventually, Dakota and Powaw made it to Texas. Once there, they brought their buffalo to the barn, found stalls for them, fed them, and watered them. After they obeyed all of chief John’s orders, they went looking for chief John. They found him outside the village riding his buffalo, instructing a few of the Texas Rangers who were also riding their buffalos. Chief John looked like he was born riding the buffalo while the rest of the men reminded Dakota of clumsy toddlers. Dakota’s opinion of chief John was dramatically changing.

When chief John saw Dakota, he yelled out, “Have you fed and watered your partner?”

Dakota was confused and asked, “My partner?”

Chief John gave him an irritated look and asked in an annoyed tone, “Your buffalo is your partner. From now on, when I ask about your partner, know that I am asking about your buffalo.”

Dakota and Powaw both said, “Yes.”

“Good.” Then chief John looked around and looked directly at a man on a buffalo and said, “Ulhas take these two to find food and show them how to make and use a comb for the buffalo.”

Ulhas yelled out, “YES, SIR!” Then he rode his buffalo over to where Dakota was and said, “Follow me.”

They followed Ulhas to a building that they remembered as the bunkhouse for the Texas Rangers, and Dakota wondered why John didn’t just tell them to come here. Every Texas Ranger knew where this building was. Ulhas tied his buffalo reins to a post and led the men inside, grabbed a couple of jars of food, and gave it to them.

Dakota asked, “Arnt, you going to eat with us?”

“Did you see me feed my partner?”

“No.”

“Then that’s your answer. Every buffalo rider must feed his partner before he eats himself. Since you two have already fed your partners, you can eat. That said, if you want to get in the bathhouse after your long trip, you will need to clean your buffalo first.”

“Why?”

Ulhas nodded in understanding and said, “How big is your buffalo? Eight hundred pounds?”

“Probably closer to a thousand.”

“One of these days, it will be two thousand pounds. If you are going to be riding that creature across the land, then it would be best for that creature to be best friends with you. If you always put it first, then that won't be a problem. To encourage that friendship, I am going to show you how to comb a buffalo. You will do this every day, either before you go into the bathhouse or go to bed. The buffalo love it. But before I show you how to comb the buffalo, I have to show you how to make a comb.”

While they ate, Ulhas took out a flat piece of wood and a saw. He then began sawing small groves into the piece of wood. When they finished eating, they quickly did the same thing. Once they had their combs, Ulhas showed them how to comb the buffalo's hair, and Dakota had to admit he never saw his partner so happy.

The next day Ulhas woke them up at sun up and began instructing them on how to put a saddle and reins on a buffalo. Dakota had no cultural reference for a saddle or reins, so he listened to Ulhas like he listened to his dad on his first hunt. What Ulhas stressed was the comfort and safety of the buffalo.

Once all the equipment was on the buffalo, they had to learn how to take it off and store it correctly. Ulhas required them to take the equipment on and off the buffalo all day long with the promise that if they put it on correctly the first time in the morning that they would finally get the chance to ride the buffalo. If they failed, then they would spend the whole day the next day putting on and taking off equipment under his watchful eye.

Dakota asked, “Why are you in here with us? Why isn’t chief John showing us how this works?”

“I am in here with you because chief John is showing the second batch of buffalo riders how to ride their buffalo. When the raiders attacked us, chief John instantly gave the buffalo we took from the raiders to the two Texas Rangers stationed here and to some of the villagers, including me. He sent word up and down the river alliance to send their Texas Rangers back to Texas with bison. None of the villages did so. They all sent their Texas Rangers back to their home village so that that village could pay the expense of a bison. Many of the Texas Rangers have married into their new village, but sadly each village still considered their Texas Rangers to be outsiders and made them go home to get their own bison. I am from the first batch of riders trained by chief John. He is currently working on the second batch. You are the third batch. At this pace, we will probably be getting Texas Rangers trickling in until autumn.”

“But why you specifically? Why not one of the Texas Rangers?”

Ulhas smiled and said, “I have been working with John on his buffalo project since the beginning. I helped him capture the first wild bison. I helped him put up the large fences needed to keep them contained. I kept wolves out of the pens they were in. I culled them and bred them. After chief John, nobody knows more about bison or buffalo than me.”

The men were suitably impressed, and the rest of the morning did their best to impress Ulhas, but then Dakota got bored and complained around noon, “I am getting sick of putting the saddle on and off my buffalo. Why can't we try riding them yet?”

“Is your partner used to the saddle yet?”

“What?”

“Is your partner used to the saddle yet?”

“I don’t know.”

“Your partner is a lot bigger than you. He has likely been trained all his life to pull a plow but having a rider will be a new experience for him. Right now, you are getting him used to having a saddle and reins put on and off. That’s a new and uncomfortable experience for the buffalo, especially since you keep doing things wrong. If you jumped on your partner's back at this point, then your partner would panic and hurt you. So we are going to get your partner used to everything while we give its rider some semblance of brains.”

There was little grumbling after that. It took Dakota three days to get the saddle and reins right the first time in the morning.

Ulhas said, “Good. Now we have to give your partner time to get used to wearing the saddle and reins. Tie the reins to a post near the trough and follow me.”

Dakota hurried to follow his orders. Ulhas led Dakota to a round fence with a buffalo inside and said, “This is my partner. For the last three days, you have been getting your partner ready for a rider by putting on a saddle and reins, but you are not ready to ride him because you have no idea what you're doing. My partner is used to a rider now, and so you will ride him.”

Dakota’s face lit up, and he yelled, “YEAH!”

“Calm down. We have to get you on first. If you are too excited, my partner will not let you on.”

Dakota quietly said, “Yes, sir.”

It took Dakota five tries to get into the saddle, and then Ulhas began leading the buffalo around by the reins.

Dakota didn’t care. Ridding a buffalo was still a very new cultural phenomenon, and so he did not connect the dots that this is what you do with a child. While he was riding, Ulhas kept giving Dakota instructions on how to ride to make it more comfortable for him and his partner.

At first, Dakota was charmed by the new experience. Riding the buffalo was a blast, but eventually, it grew normal, and so he asked,” Whys isn’t chief John showing me how to ride the buffalo?”

“My, aren't you important. Needing the chief of a village to give you riding lessons.”

“But chief John has always personally taught the Texas Rangers, and you said that he was teaching the second batch how to ride buffalo. Well, if he is teaching them, why not me?”

“I guess that’s true, but right now, chief John is showing the other buffalo riders how to do things like galloping, shooting a bow, and using a spear while on the back of their buffalo. He doesn’t have time to show you the basics of the basics.”

“Shouldn’t you be learning all that stuff too?”

“I will in time, but I am not a Texas Ranger. For years I have been chief John’s bison rancher. I am his best expert on the buffalo, and so I am best able to teach you, new guys, how to ride your buffalo. Chief John might help out at this stage if your partner doesn’t want to be ridden, but not before.”

The rest of the day was spent riding around on a buffalo pulled by Ulhas or getting on and off the buffalo. Dakota only fell three more times. The next day was a struggle for Dakota as he was saddle sore for the first time, and Ulhas made him feed and water his partner before taking care of himself.

Then the next day, while still saddle sore, he finally got a chance to ride his buffalo.

Ulhas had him put the saddle and reins on his partner and take it inside an area inside a fence that made a very large circle. Once the buffalo was in the dead center, Ulhas went outside the fence, closed the gate, and climbed up the outside of the fence. Dakota could just see Ulhas's head and shoulders.

Safely on the other side of the fence, Ulhas said, “Your job is to put your foot in the saddle and get on in one motion. Hopefully, your partner won't mind, but if it does, hold on. If you can't hold on, try not to break anything. Oh, and get to the other side of the fence as fast as you can.”

“What do you mean get on the other side of the fence?”

“Well, sometimes these buffalo throw you because they are confused. Other times they throw you because they are mad, and when they do that, they can be vindictive and charge you. The fence is designed to be easy to climb, so climb it and get over as quickly as you can.”

This made Dakota nervous, and he said, “Why don’t you try to ride it first then.”

“It’s your buffalo.”

Dakota wanted to argue, but there was no arguing with that logic. Dakota went over to his buffalo and nervously put his foot in the stirrup, and threw his other leg over the buffalo. As soon as his full weight was on it, the buffalo panicked and threw Dakota off. Fortunately, once Dakota was off, the buffalo did not run around or charge Dakota. It stood there and looked super nervous.

Ulhas yelled out, “Calm down, your partner.”

“What about me?”

“Can you get up?”

“Yes.”

“Then calm down, your partner.”

Dakota went over to the buffalo, who was so nervous it had its tongue sticking out. Ulhas had taught Dakota that was a sign of stress in a buffalo. Dakota pet it and made comforting noise like he was calming a baby.

Once it was calmed down, Ulhas yelled out, “Try again.”

Dakota got next to it, put his foot in the stirrup, threw his leg over, and the buffalo threw him again.

Ulhas yelled again, “You're lucky. Most of the buffalo who throw their partners try to trample them afterward. Now hurry up and calm down, your partner.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“I am going to get John.”

While Ulhas was getting John, Dakota stayed right there and calmed his partner down.

Before long, Ulhas came back with chief John who hopped right over the fence like he had years of experience with the new thing and came right to Dakota.

John said, “I hear your partner is giving you trouble.”

“Yes, sir. He keeps throwing me every time I try to get on.”

“That happens. He doesn’t know what to do when someone gets on his back. Since he is your partner, you will try to keep him calm while I get on him. You stand there petting his face, and I will get on its back. If he freaks out, then you dash for the fence.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dakota began petting and cooing to his partner as John came along its side. Then John put his foot in the stirrup, threw his leg over the side, and was on its back. Because Dakota was there trying to keep it calm, the buffalo took a few seconds to react, but in the end, it decided it disliked someone being on its back more than it liked Dakota calming it down, and so it tried to throw John.

John pulled the reins to the right. With its head turned, it couldn’t buck John. So the buffalo tried to spin, and John pulled the reins the other way. The buffalo decided to try to lay down, and John took slapped it across the back of its head, which made the buffalo jump back up in surprise. This went on for about half an hour. If the buffalo tried to jump, John pulled the reins to the left or right. If the buffalo tried to spin, John pulled the reins the other way. If it tried to roll, it got hit in the head. Eventually, it started doing what it was supposed to do.

That’s when John got off and told Dakota, “Your buffalo has a great spirit. In time that will be very helpful to you as a rider, but as a new rider, it will be a worthy challenge.”

Dakota was in awe of the man and said, “Yes, Sir.”

“Now that he knows what to do, he should be easier to control. Get on.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dakota got back to the buffalo, put his foot in the stirrup, and swung his leg over the side. This time the buffalo behaved a bit better, and when it misbehaved, he pulled the reins to the left or the right like John to make his partner behave.

John watched and finally said, “Well, you might as well join me. It will be good for your buffalo to see the other buffalo be ridden.”

“Do you think so?”

“Can't hurt.”

John rode his buffalo ahead of Dakota while Ulhas went back to train others in the most basic aspect of buffalo riding.

When John got back to his group, he noticed they were missing one and asked, “Where is Viho?”

One of the men said, “He went back to the lodge. He said he has learned everything he needs to know and is going home.”

John looked upset and had an edge in his voice when he said, “Follow me.”

John led them back to the lodge, where they found Viho putting saddlebags on his buffalo.

John yelled out, “VIHO! what are you doing?”

Viho looked back and said, “My chief told me to come back when I know how to ride and teach riding to our people.”

“So you're quitting the Texas Ranges.”

“Yes.”

“Then leave your saddle and reins and get out of here.”

Viho defiantly got on his buffalo and said, “No. I need them to teach my people.”

John took a coiled rope off his saddle, tied a loop into it, and started swinging it over his head. None of the men had ever seen this, and they wondered what chief John was doing. Chief John threw the loop at Vigo and snagged him. Everyone was shocked, Viho most of all. As Viho struggled to get out, John tied the rope to a horn on his saddle and then made his buffalo gallop away, yanking Viho off his buffalo. John dragged him through the village until they were out in the fields

Dakota and the rest of the men followed on their buffalo. They were not going to miss this show.

Once they were out of town, John cut him loose and said, “We will bring your buffalo and supplies back out to you because they are yours. But everything else stays because the Texas rangers have need of it.”

Viho yelled back, “But what about my village? They need someone to teach them to ride buffalo.”

“Yes, they do, and it needs to be the Texas Rangers.”

“I was a Texas Ranger. Why not me?”

“Because you are from your village. When you teach your young people how to ride the buffalo, then you are a great warrior from their village, and they imagine that their village should rule all the villages because they are so great. But the Texas Rangers are never stationed in their own village. When they teach the young people to ride the buffalo, then the young people grow up thinking that they want to be a Texas Ranger. The Texas Rangers are warriors whose job is to bring peace between the tribes.”

Viho was totally confused and asked, “What does it matter?”

“Most warriors are about bringing loot to their tribes instead of peace. By having the kids trying to emulate the Texas Rangers, there will be a greater chance of peace in the alliance after I die. Before I came, if one chief wanted to war with another, they had to walk days on foot to fight their enemies. They also had to carry most of their supplies themselves. Things have changed. War will be significantly easier now. When I die and someone else takes over and wants more control than I do, they will likely resort to war to get their way unless things change. A part of that change is the traders. I hope before I die that most of the chiefs will be traders. They will likely want trade more than war. A part of the change I bring is the Texas Rangers, who are warriors who actively try to keep the peace between the tribes. I want all the young people in the alliance to imagine themselves as warriors of peace, and who teaches them to ride buffalo will be a big part of that. You all are just seeing the immediate effect of the buffalo. I am looking down the road and trying to leave a better world for my children.”

All the Texas Rangers were floored. It was clear that Chief John had put a lot more thought into this than they had.

John asked, “Men, Texas Rangers ask yourself this. Do you want the short-term gain of your village having buffalo riders within a couple of months, or do you want the long-term gain of your children and grandchildren being able to go anywhere along the river alliance without fear? Make your decision now.”

One by one, the men made their decision to follow and obey John over their own chiefs.

Chapter 7 July 85 AD Texas- New River

Nana still couldn’t believe it. He was on the sea heading west to find the next river. John asked him to do it so they could expand their trade networks, and in essence, grow the trade alliance.

Nana still didn’t know how John talked him into this journey. If anyone asked if John's children taking a longboat into the sea and sailing for days while he, a brave grownup, was too scared to go to sea had anything to do with it he would deny it. He was the trader with the most experience, and so, of course, he had to take this trip. His children questioning his courage had nothing to do with it.

While Nana took his trip west, another trader went east. That trader was actually one of the fishermen from the salt village. The previous year the man found out that he really liked sailing on the sea, so he built a fishing boat, nearly starved fishing, and so asked John for help on a trading expedition heading east. John loved the idea supplied the man with lots of iron tools and nails and told the man if he could bring back a ship filled with bison hides, John would give him a load of iron just as big that he could keep. John needed a lot more leather for the saddles he was making, and he suspected tribes who had never seen iron before would trade more hides than tribes familiar with iron.

If anyone asked why Nana was taking this trip, Nana would tell them that he pounced on the lucrative offer. This whole thing was the idea of the man from the salt village, and John’s terms were so good when Nana heard about it, he went to John and asked for the same deal.

He didn’t tell anyone that once John heard the idea from the failed fisherman that he found Nana and offered him the same lucrative offer, and even then he had to point out that Nana’s fear of the sea was well known and that Nana could prove everyone wrong if he went. When that wasn’t enough to move him to action, John pointed out that Nana was the best trader that John knew, and this would help grow the alliance, and so for his friend's sake, Nana braved the sea to find the next river.

John also told them to let the chiefs know if they came to Texas for the meeting of Congress, they would be allowed to join the trade alliance, and he would give them a riding buffalo and bison to take back home. It was a rich gift, but John thought he could afford it.

When Nana started his trip, he thought that waves, tides, and storms would be his biggest obstacles, but it turns out that the islands and shape of the coast would be. River travel is simple, you go up it or down it. Coastal travel, on the other hand, was complex. If you see smoke in the distance, you head toward it only to find an island in your way. You go around that island into a bay only to find the bay goes nowhere, and so you have to make your way out of the bay past another barrier island to another bay which is blocked by a peninsula.

If Nana knew where he was going, he would have made this trip in a day or two, but figuring out the coast was killing him. On top of that, going from bay to bay meant his men had to constantly change from sail to oar. It was frustrating Nana and his men. Nana couldn’t believe he let John talk him into this mess.

That isn’t even getting into the frustration of finding a creek, only to discover quickly that it is too shallow to poll up.

Days after they started this trip, they made it around one more Penninsula, and Nana saw a river pouring water into the bay.

Nana called out, “Does that look big enough for our boat?”

One of the men said, “Only one way to find out.”

They began moving the boon and the ruder to get the best angle on the waterway. It wasn’t long before they made it, and Nana yelled out, “YES! I THINK WE FOUND IT! FINALLY A NEW RIVER!”

The men cheered. It looked like this part of the trip would be over soon. They just had to travel upriver until they found a village. It wasn’t long before the sail was causing more trouble than help, and so they lowered the sail, secured the boon, and began poling upriver.

Before noon they spotted smoke and began poling harder. They hoped the village was near the river. Eventually, they rounded a bend and cheered when they saw fields of corn. This village planted its fields all the way to the edge of the river.

Nana yelled out, “Keep polling. Let's go to the middle of the fields before we get out. It will probably be the closest to their village, and if we are in luck, they will spot us.”

As they passed the first edge of the fields, they almost immediately heard shouts.

Nana said, “They noticed us, best to just land right here. Don’t want to agitate our new customers more than necessary.”

The men deftly pointed the longboat toward the bank and landed the boat. They were old hands at river landings and appreciated the simplicity of not worrying about whether it was high tide or low tide. Afterward, they all got out but stayed close to the boat in case they needed to make a hasty retreat.

It wasn’t long before bewildered warriors, elders, and a shaman came out of cornfields.

Nana being a merchant, kept a huge toothy smile on his face and said, “Welcome, welcome. I am Nana, and I am glad to meet you. I have a wonderful gift for your chief.”

The men looked at each other in confusion, then a gray-haired man said, “I am the chief. Who are you? Why is your canoe so big, and why does it have a tree growing out of it?”

Nana smiled some more. Clearly, they hadn’t heard him the first time he introduced himself, and he said, “I am Nana. I am from a village called Texas in the trade alliance. The trade alliance is a group of well over a hundred villages that agree to trade with each other instead of fighting with each other. It’s made up of the villages on the river east of you. Feel free to send a warrior that way to check out our story.”

“My canoe is known as a longboat. It's made by cutting a tree into many parts called boards and nailing them back together in such a way that they don’t leak. The tree in the center is known as a mast, and it holds a sail.”

The men looked at each other and asked, “What’s a sail?”

“Oh. Sorry about that. Hey guys, raise the sail.”

“Yes, sir.”

Nana’s crew quickly raised the sail, and Nana explained, “The sail catches wind which pushes us across the sea.”

The Chief was baffled and asked, “If you are just the next river over, how do you have all these things when we have never heard of them.”

“I know it will be hard to believe, but our chief comes from the land of the gods.”

Nana paused, expecting them to say something, but instead of asking questions, they all leaned in closer.

“Chief John has brought us grain that grows much better than anything we had before, he showed us how to turn rock into iron, he makes bison plow our fields, and he makes the river do many of our labors for us. Not only that, but he teaches everyone how to perform this magic freely.”

“Why haven’t we heard of him before?”

“He has only been around for well, I don’t know. I have known him for more than ten years now. You would have likely heard of him sooner, but he is so wealthy and generous he has turned a lot of the hunting tribes into farming tribes along the rivers and streams.”

The chief's eyes lit up, and he smiled as if a mystery had been solved and said, “That would explain why we haven’t seen that many hunting tribes in recent years.”

One of the elders said, “Yes. We have noticed that they come by much less often than they used to. Now that you mention it, it's been a very long time since a hunting tribe has come from the east. The few that come by here all have come from the north. And you say it's due to your chief generosity and magic?”

“Yes. Chief John can afford to be generous. The plants he has given us to grow produce a lot more grain than anything we grew before. Plus, he showed us the secret for keeping meat fresh.”

“We know that secret. All you have to do is cut the meat thin and smoke it.”

Nana shook his head and reached back into the boat for a jar and said, “Chief John showed us the secret of canning.” Nana broke the seal and took out a piece of meat, and said, “Try this.”

The chief smelled it and bit into it and said, “It tastes like it was cooked yesterday.”

“It was cooked last summer.”

“You’re lying.”

Nana took a jar out and said, “Here, you keep this jar. In a few days, weeks, or months when you are sure it will have gone bad, open it up and taste the meat. When you jar food, you can tell if it goes bad pretty quickly because bad food will burst the jar. Good food will stay good until you open the jar. And you can jar anything.”

One of the chief's warriors walked over and took the jar, and looked at it strangely.

“Now, for your gift. I have a spear with an iron head just for you.”

Nana turned around, found the gift, grabbed it, and walked over to the chief. The chief looked at the spearhead with suspicion, and when Nana handed it over to the chief, the chief began tapping on the head.

The chief said, “The head is way too big. It will break the first time you use it.”

Nana shook his head and said, “That’s iron, not stone. You could hit it against a tree, and it wouldn’t break.”

The chief checking out his new toy, walked right over to a tree and began hitting it against the tree. When he saw the spear dig into the tree, he started hitting it over and over in wonder.

“How did you make the spearhead so strong?”

“It's iron. Chief John showed us how to take certain rocks from the ground and make them into iron. If you like hitting the tree with that spear, you will love the ax.”

Nana took an ax out of the boat and handed it to a warrior, and said, “Hit the blade against the tree.”

The warrior didn’t need any more encouragement. He walked over to the tree, swung the ax, and it dug into the tree. The men cheered. Their cheering encouraged the young warrior, who began swinging the ax into the tree until it started falling over.

Nana yelled, “Watch out the tree is coming down.”

The chief, elders, and warriors began scrambling away from the falling tree, and lucky for them, everyone managed to dodge the tree.

The warrior started yelling out, “Sorry, sorry. I didn’t know.”

The chief walked up to him and slapped him with the flat of the spear, and said, “Give that ax to someone who isn’t an idiot.”

The warrior yelled out, “YES CHIEF!” and scrambled to give the ax to someone, anyone else.

Nana laughed and said, “That’s not all we brought. We also have nails. Lots of nails. Nails are used to hold wood together. When you are building a house or something else, they make the job so much easier.”

What Nana didn’t say was that nails were very easy to make with the press, although it was a boring job to pour molten iron onto the mold on the press, and so only the young men who got in trouble were taxed with the job. Usually, they were required to make a thousand as punishment, although they could usually do it in a day or two.

Instead of giving away information that would lower its value, Nana walked over to a tree and said, “These nails are very hard to break and can be reused.”

With that, Nana used the back of an ax to beat the nail into a tree; then, he used the front of it to pry the nail back out.

Nana then smiled and said, “What we want is whole bison pelts for these marvelous items. One bison pelt for an ax, or one bison pelt for fifty nails. The spear was a special present for your chief.”

The chief nodded and said, “Go get your pelts to trade with these men. I will stay here and talk with them.”

The young men immediately ran back to their homes to get their bison pelts. They could always hunt more bison, but they did not know if they would ever get a chance to get such valuable tools again.

The elder asked, “Would you stay a week or so? I am sure if you give us a chance, we would be able to hunt more bison and get more of your wonderful things.”

Nana shook his head and said, “No. Although I am here to trade, I am also here to offer the villages on this river the chance to enter the trade alliance. If I stay here a week, that will get in the way of the mission. Chief John told me that I should offer every chief the chance to come to the Congress. It takes place a few days after the shortest day of the year. It's when all the chiefs that are part of the alliance meet. He said that every chief who comes would be given their own bison. Although you would have to work out how to get it back to your village.”

“Why would he make this offer to us?”

“Chief John does not like war. He feels that if every chief is part of the alliance and trading with each other, they won’t fight each other. They would be friends, and their trade would benefit each other enough that fighting wouldn’t happen. Granted, that doesn’t mean chief John cant fight. He is a fantastic archer, and he knows how to ride the bison… um, oops, when bison are ridden, they are supposed to be called buffalo.”

The chief was shocked and said, “You can’t be series. His magic is so strong that he makes bison plow fields, and they allow him to ride them?”

“Yes. But he isn’t the only one with that particular magic. Some raiders got ahold of the magic to ride the bison, uh buffalo, and they destroyed a couple of villages. The way John dealt with it is he built a wall around the village built from trees, and then he built towers around the village. When the raiders came, we climbed the towers and shot arrows into them. They could do nothing while we slew them from up high.”

The elder shook when he realized the implications of evil men having the power to ride bison and asked, “Will you return to take me to see chief John?”

Nana actually had to consider the question for a while. On the one hand, finding this place was a pain, but now that he knew where it was, it shouldn’t be that difficult. But did he want to make a trip without making trade? Normally it wouldn’t be that difficult of a question, but he didn’t want to give away this location for free, considering how much of a pain it was to find. Then he realized that John would likely pay him for either the location or the trip.

With that realization, Nana smiled and said, “Either I will or someone else from my village will. Don’t worry about it.”

Over the next few weeks, Nana had the same conversation over and over again as he made plenty of lucrative trades.

Chapter 8 November 85 AD Africa- Planting Festival

Paul was nervous about today's planting festival. Not for himself, but for his wife, Misa. Today would be the official opening of the special needs school, and Misa would be in charge. Misa woke up earlier than anyone else to get ready for her big day. She did her hair, makeup, and clothes and then got her son, Beethoven, ready, all before anyone else was awake. Then the sun began to peek over the horizon, and the rest of the household began to wake up.

Although this was a big day for Misa, this was one of the most relaxed planting festivals for Paul in a long time, so he was going to get to have breakfast with his family.

When Paul made it to the table, his seven wives were putting their toddlers in their high chairs, while several were holding their infants at their hips. Between all seven of his wives' children and the adopted twins, Paul had nineteen children at the table, and two of his wives were pregnant.

The weight of responsibility was crushing. Being a husband, father, and king meant so many relied on him, but he couldn’t be there enough.

As Paul considered this, Misa’s father came in and said, “Paul, why haven’t your wives cooked a hot meal?”

Paul was annoyed by Misa’s father and thought it was too bad that he kept his job as chief during the last election. Paul wasn’t sure if it was worth it to try to get him defeated during the next election or not. If Misa’s father lost, he might decide to live in the capital.

Although annoyed, Paul addressed him like he always did, “Chief, the ladies, have a busy and difficult day today. Eating canned food for breakfast is perfectly acceptable. It wasn’t that long ago that you were eating one meal a day.”

“What are you talking about? I was chief. Maybe some of my people were eating one meal a day, if they were not that useful, but me and my family always ate at least twice a day.”

And that’s what irritated Paul. His father-in-law was a leader that fed himself more than he fed his people. As long as he got his desires met, he could care less about the needs of his people. That wouldn’t be so bad if he had a soft touch and allowed others to go about their business, but Misa’s father was a micromanager. If anything was being done in his village, he had to be a part of it, or he killed it. That settled it. Paul would have to get someone to run against the man. They couldn’t be worse than him.

Paul tried to defuse the situation, “I see. Well, I am glad you took care of Misa all those years.”

“You're just trying to change the subject. You owe me, you know. I killed that traitor of yours.”

CRASH!

They looked over to see Chazia tearing up.

She said, “Excuse me.”

“What's her problem?”

“Abilio was her brother.”

He gave a derisive snort and said, “Why do you keep her around then? If her brother is a traitor, she is probably a traitor and her kids too.”

And that’s when Paul punched him in the face and yelled, “GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT!”

All the toddlers and infants began screaming and crying while Misa ran in between Paul and her father and said, “Paul, why did you hit him?”

“NO MAN TALKS BAD ABOUT ANY OF MY WIVES TO MY FACE PERIOD! He is lucky the young men didn’t hear what he said.”

Misa turned to her father, helped him up, and said, “Dad, we need to get you out of here.”

Misa’s dad held onto his daughter and said loud enough for all to hear, “I don’t know why he’s getting so mad. I just told him the truth.”

Misa helped her father out of the family home, and as they left, she hissed at her father, “You just made my son a lot of enemies. My son is deaf and will have enough trouble in life, and you just told Paul’s oldest sons that they can not trust me or my son.”

“No, I told your husband he shouldn’t trust Chazia or her children after what Abilio did. Besides, don’t you think your husband betrayed you giving you that sick child.”

“That’s not how Paul thinks, and that’s not how sickness works. It's not Paul’s fault that our child became deaf.”

“You are his first wife by treaty. Your child should become the next King. But its sickness will make that impossible. You don’t think a man like Paul made that happen on purpose?”

Misa had learned a lot about biology from her husband and said, “No. And what your saying is treason.”

“Your husband has a treaty with me. You are that treaty. He has already broken it with this election thing. He could always break it again by killing me.”

“Dad. No. Stop it. I love you. I do not want to see my husband renounce you as a traitor like he did Abilio.”

He looked down and said, “Fine. I will be quiet, but I am not happy with the way things are going.”

Misa said, “I am very happy with the way things are going. You would be too if you looked around. Things are better than they ever were before.”

He just huffed at her words and walked off.

Misa made her way back into the family home, and Chazia came across her, bitterness written all over her face. She said, “I can not believe your father has the gall to talk about my brother when his daughter let her son get sick and become deaf. The first duty of a woman is to keep her family healthy. You are a failure as a wife, mother, and woman.”

Misa was stunned. The rebuke was unwarranted but true. For the last few years, she had been unable to give Paul a child, but when she finally fulfills her duty as a wife, her child became sick and then crippled. She failed to keep her son, her family healthy.

Unfortunately for everyone, Paul heard her words and said, “Chazia.”

Chazia jumped when she heard her name. She didn’t know Paul was there.

Paul continued and said, “This is getting out of hand. I know you and Misa have been going at each other's throats due to what happened to your brother, but I didn’t know it was getting this bad. I think you two need space. Chazia, tomorrow once all this festival stuff is done, I will have you moved to one of the towers. I will still visit you as my wife. That hasn’t changed. This is only to give you and Misa space.”

Chazia wanted to argue, but she was ashamed that her husband overheard her hurt Misa. Chazia and Misa went back to the table to finish feeding their children while Paul stood alone in shame. He was treating his wives like they were little children. It disgusted him, but he had no choice. He longed for the modern world where sending your wife to her room would be met with contempt. But here, it was simply a part of keeping the peace. Whoever thought harams was a good idea was an idiot.

The ladies finished feeding their children, cleaned them up, put a smile on their faces, and faced the world. They were the wives of a King. They couldn’t let anyone think there were any problems.

Most of the wives went to various places around the festival, but Paul held Beethoven and walked hand in hand with Misa to the new special needs school. It had been open for a number of weeks, but the planting festival was the official open date. The school was not just about teaching the children, but their parents also. Bringing entire families to the capital was not always easy, but since most of the chiefs usually came to the planting festival in the capital, they were told to bring these families with them.

In front of the special needs school was a piece of red cloth that looked remotely like a ribbon tied into a bow. In front of it was a stage for Misa to stand and give her speech. The families with afflicted children and their chiefs were waiting on her, but she was a King’s wife. Her position demanded others wait on her, not the other way around.

As Misa approached the stage, her husband holding her hand, she noticed that there were a lot more people here than the families with the afflicted. It was publicly announced that the special needs school would be officially opened today, but Misa thought the only ones who would care would be the families of those who were afflicted. She didn’t think that a school dedicated to educating them would draw anyone else. She was wrong. This was a festival, and certain people were always drawn to the weird and strange, and she was opening a school for the weird and strange. If she voiced this opinion to her husband, he would have been appalled. It was hammered into him as a young child that you do not refer to special needs people as weird or strange, but he was no longer in the twenty-first century.

That said, the people who came here to see a show would behave themselves. A King’s wife was opening a school, and not even a drunk would be foolish enough to cause her trouble on the day she opened the school.

After they were on the platform, Misa let go of Paul's hand and stepped away from Paul, and began to speak, “Thank you all for being here. I am sorry that I did not know the extent of the problem with afflicted youth in Paulsland until my own son became afflicted with deafness. When King Paul found out about Beethoven’s affliction, his first response was to tell me what is important is that we do what's best for the child, to have him grow up as healthy as possible and live a full life.”

“But my husband's concern did not stop with meeting Bethovan’s needs. He also began thinking about the needs of his people. Paul knew there were many people in Paulsland who were deaf, blind, lame, and simple. Due to the enormous responsibility of being King, he had not gotten around to helping them directly yet, but our son's condition changed that. King Paul, several of the best teachers in the capital, and I have all gotten together over the last few months to develop a curriculum to help the afflicted whether their affliction is being deaf, blind, lame, or simple.”

“This curriculum will include a chance for the deaf and mute to learn how to talk with their hands. The blind to read and write with dots. The crippled and simple to learn industry. And for the family of the afflicted to learn how best to take care of them.”

“The time where the afflicted were left in the forest to die is long over. It is the position of Paulsland that all humans have value. All humans must unite in order to rule over the land, the rivers, the sea, and the beast. If a human is afflicted, they are still human and should be helped.”

“That said, many are afflicted because an infection got out of control. Currently, we are working to find a cure for infection. When that is found, we will be able to keep the majority of people from becoming afflicted. But in time, even if it takes many hundreds of years, it is our wish that all afflicted individuals be cured. Paulsland has researchers that have a great and long vision.”

The people began to cheer. They loved the idea of curing people of infections before it blinded, deafened, or crippled them. The idea of one day curing an affliction was also amazing to them. King Paul had brought so much to them, so why not.

Misa waited for the people to stop cheering, then took out a knife and cut the ribbon and said, “The school for the afflicted is open.”

The people began to cheer again. They trusted that Misa would treat them right since Misa was King Paul’s wife. King Paul had always treated everyone well.

As people began to move, Paul stepped forward on the podium and said, “Before you go, I want everyone to know that at each gate are some of my detectives. Their job is to write down everyone’s names and get your fingerprints. As sad as it is, not everyone in Paulsland is able to write, and we will be able to use your fingerprints in contracts. Over the next few weeks and months, they will go all across Paulsland and get everyone’s fingerprints. That way, we can be assured of someone's identity in contracts, property rights, and anything else that proves who you are. If you have any questions feel free to ask the detectives as you leave.”

Misa’s father was in the crowd, and he didn’t like the sound of fingerprinting. He couldn’t place his finger on it, but he still remembered how Paul tricked all the chiefs a few years ago when he called for elections while they were away. He couldn’t help but think this was another trick.

He began looking around and watching how the detectives interacted with the people. Most were all business. A couple seemed snappish, and authoritarians but one was very friendly. That one chatted with everyone who went by. He had a smile on his face and joked with people. The chief had picked his target.

Although he was in no hurry, he began to act busy, looking at the school and tower. He learned long ago, you better look busy if you are watching someone. He waited until well after there was no one in line, and the friendly detective started looking bored. Then he began walking toward the young man.

When he reached the young man, he said, “My son-in-law said you were a detective. What’s a detective?”

The young man smiled and said, “A detective is a truth seeker.”

The chief smiled outwardly, but inwardly he frowned. He wanted the detective to ask him who his son-in-law was. Since the detective didn’t take the bait, he continued to ask questions, “Truthseeker? What truth are you seeking?”

“When a question of law comes up, we try to seek the truth of it.”

“And these fingerprints will help with that?”

“OH YES!” As he said the words, his smile grew disgustingly big.

“How?”

“Well, we have had some cases where contracts have been in dispute. One person had worked on their land for years, building home, silo, and farm only for someone else to bring out a contract with their signature on it, claiming they sold it. It can be difficult to prove which party is in the right in these cases, especially when there have been times where a public official was helping someone commit fraud. In order to discourage that, we are getting everyone's fingerprint on file and requiring all contracts to have fingerprints next to someone's signature. With that, it will be very easy to spot a forgery as a fingerprint can not be forged like a signature.”

“Is that all fingerprints do?”

For the first time, the young man's smile disappeared as he said, “Yes.” In a way, anyone over the age of six could tell was a lie.

The chief smiled. He knew there was more to this thing than just contracts and signatures. He moved in close to the young man and said, “It’s okay, you can tell me. I am the father-in-law to King Paul. The father of Misa. I am Chief of Siri Jani village. I can not make it to the capital very often because I am so busy in Siri Jani, but when I do, King Paul always asks for my advice on various things. Our time is so limited though it helps for me to be up to speed on the things he is developing.”

The young man was surprised for a moment and said, “Oh wow. Sorry I didn’t recognize you. You have gotten older. Although it's true we will be using them to handle contract disputes, the reason why King Paul gave us jobs as detectives is to find murders, robbers, and raiders. Everyone has fingerprints, and when you touch something, you leave them behind. When a crime happens, we will be able to go through the crime scene with dust and find fingerprints. We will then use a piece of tape to lift the fingerprint and match it against our fingerprint records. We just have to fingerprint everyone in Paulsland.”

The chief's smile never wavered, but his heart dropped. He had plans for getting extra wealth. Plans he would prefer nobody ever learned about, and this fingerprinting would get in his way.

The chief asked, “But what if someone doesn’t want to get fingerprinted?”

“That would be great. Someone who was that afraid of identification would be high on our list of suspects.”

“What if someone cut off or burned off their fingerprints?”

The young detective's smile returned as he said, “King Paul told us about that possibility. He said that their hand would have scars instead of fingerprints and be much easier to find. All we would have to do is look for people with scared fingertips and match their fingers to the print they left behind. Honestly, it’s a lot of work to match all the circles on a fingerprint with a finger.”

“Thank you so much. If this topic comes up tonight, I will let King Paul know how well you informed me.”

As he left, the young detective yelled out, “Chief, I still need your fingerprints.”

The chief turned around and said, “Yes, Yes. No problem.”

As the young man fingerprinted the chief, the chief asked, “So do you have any fingerprints you are looking for?”

“Yes, a few from home invasions, but nothing from any particularly violent crime.”

Relief flooded the chief's soul. All the crimes he had his men commit were very violent. Once the fingerprinting was done, the chief found his guards.

“The wealth creation plans we had for when we were heading home are canceled. Paul is on to us and has a new trick that almost got us. If it wasn’t for a talkative young man, Paul might have figured out what we have been up to.”

One of the guards asked, “What are we going to do then?”

“We are going to have to be more clever. The good news is that it looks like some of our competitors are about to be taken out. As I get news of their demise, I will send you and my other guards around to collect their surviving subordinates. I am sure we will be able to find a new and wonderful way to make more wealth.”

Chapter 9 November 85 AD Africa- Illuminate

Two days after the planting festival, Paul called for all his researchers to gather and then had soldiers set up a perimeter outside the research institute. This was to be a conversation between King Paul and his researchers and nobody else.

In another lifetime, in the modern world, Paul would have shown up before anyone else and gone nervously over his notes. But in this lifetime, Paul was the King, and he constantly had less and less time to deal with the researchers. Honestly, every one of them was smarter than Paul, but Paul has seen so much more information than them it was a tragedy. If they had seen what Paul had seen and read the books Paul had read, Paulsland would be so much better off.

Paul was running a little late due to a discussion with one of his secretaries. It was the planting season, a time when the secretaries began gathering the pay for those retiring in the army. Paul was now up to a hundred and fifty secretaries, and the enormity of putting together pay for about fifteen hundred soldiers was pushing Paulsland’s bureaucracy to its limits.

When Paul entered the research institute, all of his researchers were waiting. The youngest would have been in high school in the modern world. The oldest would have been working on his master's degree. Despite their youth, they had helped build bridges to cross a massive river, made medicine for a deadly pandemic, created piston pumps, among many other accomplishments. The reality was that there wasn’t a lot of material to teach them, so they had to be creative enough to learn a lot on their own.

The truth was these were the professors of Paulsland. Currently, they were writing about their experiences in developing new technologies, and Paul was having it published. Their knowledge was too valuable to lose.

Paul walked from the back of the room to the front, and as the young men noticed, their King chatter died off. They knew their King had valuable information to give today. In fact, this was the first time that the information their King had for them was so valuable that he posted soldiers to make sure others couldn’t hear.

Paul stepped onto a slightly raised platform that allowed all to see and moved behind a podium. Behind Paul hung large pieces of paper so he could write or draw. They hadn’t invented the chalkboard yet, but the researchers were considered valuable enough that it was okay for them to waste paper.

With every eye on him, Paul began to speak, “Two days ago, many of you were at the school for the afflicted when my wife Misa mentioned that I had a plan that would take centuries to complete. Misa had mentioned something that I have talked about with her often as we laid in our bed at night. She didn’t realize I haven’t spoken with my researchers about it yet. I am glad she mentioned it because it gave me the push I needed to talk to you about our long-term plans.”

“The place where I am from was at Paulsland’s technological level two thousand years ago.”

The researchers gasped. Working alongside Paul, they knew they were backward, but they didn’t know how backward.

“Don’t gasp. The place where I am from was destroyed. My goal is that it doesn’t take Paulsland two thousand years to get to where my civilization was. If it does, my time here will have been a failure. That said, it will take hundreds of years at least to get to where my civilization was. What I am about to do is give you a vision of the future. Your job and the job of the research institute is to make the future come to pass.”

“I am at an impasse because there are things that need to be public, and there are things that need to be secret. For instance, it is commonly believed that there are only four elements. Earth, wind, water, and fire. That is very incorrect. The truth is that my civilization knew of 118 elements.”

Paul paused, but there were no gasps. These young men were taught under Paul, so perhaps this is the first time they had ever heard of the idea of four elements. From what Paul remembered from school, the greeks would have been astonished by the idea of 118 elements.

“The reality is that each of the 118 elements has four states. Solid, liquid, gas, and plasma. What that means is that each element can be earth, water, air, or fire.”

Now Paul got his gasps.

“Changing the temperature and pressure changes the state of matter. Higher temperature and lower pressure mean things will tend toward liquid, gases, and plasma. Lower temperatures and higher pressure mean that things will tend toward liquid and solids. The best example of this is when we boil water. We see water going from liquid to gas. In the land I come from, I have seen water get so hot that it burned.” Paul knew it was a bit more complicated than that, but he didn’t want to confuse his students, who were extremely impressed with Paul’s knowledge at the moment.

Paul began drawing out the periodic table. It's been so long he no longer remembers the atomic weight of each atom, but he could never forget the periodic table.

“The periodic table shows us the elements, from the smallest to the largest. The smaller the element, the fewer electrons, neutrons, and protons it has. Don’t worry about what an electron, neutron, or proton is at this moment. I will spend a few days explaining it, and that knowledge should not leave here. These elements like to connect to each other to make something known as molecules. For instance, water is made out of two hydrogen elements and one oxygen element. If you break the bond, you get hydrogen and oxygen. I want as many people as possible to know about the elements and that different elements going together makes different substances.”

Faizal raised his hand and asked, “Why is it that you want people to have some of this knowledge and not other parts?”

Paul smiled and said, “I am glad you asked that question. There are 118 elements; some of those elements will not be found in Paulsland. To make certain creations, we are going to need those elements. Before my homeland was destroyed, I could ask for nearly any of these elements and have a supply within a week. Anyone could. Because the supply was so great, we were able to make amazing things quickly. We were able to discover new things quickly as well. The problem is that I do not know how they extracted most of these elements nor where they can be found, so we are going to have to make the elements public as quickly as possible so a great many people can start looking. “

“ After the harvest, my son Dashiell will be making a trip up north in the hopes of making contacts with one of the civilizations up there. If we should make peaceful contact, I want the periodic table to make its way to the northern civilizations as soon as possible. As they find these elements, we will have a source so that we can make the real discoveries.”

Paul paused, waiting for questions, and Faizal took this opportunity to ask another, “If that’s the information we are giving away, what is the information we are keeping?”

“I once told a story about how my civilization could use steam to power mechanical machines. Back when I told the story, we didn’t even have walls surrounding our villages. Now we have completed a stone bridge across a major river, so I think you are ready for a better description.”

Paul turned around and began drawing a train and cars connected to it. Once he was pleased with his drawing, Paul turned around and said, “In my homeland, we had these things called trains that were powered by steam. They were made out of something called steel, which is a much stronger version of iron. The trains could move much faster than a man could run, and it could keep up the speed for hours. Despite its speed, it could carry incredibly heavy loads. It pulled loads in what were called cars that were the size of most houses in the capital. Some of these trains pulled a hundred cars at a time.”

Mouths fell open as Paul described the steam locomotive. Several gasps of “magic” could be heard.

Paul said, “Not magic. Steam. There are two major problems keeping us from this, though. The first is that we do not effectively turn our iron into steel. To a real degree, that’s not too hard. You just add carbon to iron. The problem is that you have to get the iron so hot that it turns into a liquid and add carbon while it's in that state. You can make steel by hammering iron with a good carbon source around like coal, but it’s a lot more work and not as uniform. If we were to make a train engine with the iron we currently produce, it could not handle the heat or pressure needed to make a train run. That’s not even considering how much metal goes into a steam engine. One steam engine would cost half of our yearly iron income. We couldn’t afford it. We need steel, and we need a lot of it. We have a long way to go before we can start building steam engines.”

“The second problem is that it takes a very complicated mechanical gear system to run. Even if we had all the steel in the world, we would have to be able to make gears able to turn the steam pressure into movement. We have a little bit of experience in turning wind energy into mechanical movement with the windmills we use to pump water into our water towers, but a steam engine is much more complicated than that. I think the next step for us is to make a grandfather clock. I will publicly put out the grandfather clock challenge before harvest, but that’s a different conversation.”

“Whoever builds trains first will have a strategic advantage. In my homeland, there were several nations that warred with each other before the creation of the train. Once one nation had access to the train, they quickly realized they could move their troops much more quickly than their enemies, and thus with the use of the train flanked their enemies. With the invention of the train, wars began to change dramatically. Since this invention is tactical, even if it takes a thousand years to invent, it should not be made public until Paulsland builds it.”

“The steam engine also opens up the ability to make the steam shovel.” Paul turned around and began drawing a digging machine. Once he was satisfied, he turned back around, pointed to the shovel part, and said, “The shovel on this machine is larger than an ox cart and is able to out dig a dozen elephants. If you are digging up ore, lime, or something else, this machine can easily do the work of a hundred men.”

Paul expecting a question about the steam shovel, paused, giving his researchers time to ask a question, and one asked, “King Paul, if we are a long way away from making these things, then what is the next step? What is the great invention we are closest to making?”

Paul smiled and said, “I am glad you asked that. The next great invention we will likely make is the thermometer. A thermometer is where you put a liquid metal inside a glass tube. The hotter it gets, the more it looks like the liquid metal rises. The colder it gets, the more it will look like the liquid metal falls. It’s a metal that my people called mercury. I am sure the civilizations to the north have it. There will be a lot of chemistry we can do once we can tell what temperature things are. Granted, without a compressor, we can not make things colder.”

The room went dead silent as the researchers heard Paul’s last phrase. Everyone stopped writing. They just looked at Paul in disbelief.

Paul answered their unspoken question and said, “Yes, my people were able to make things cold. Nearly everyone in my land had a box in their house able to produce cold air. The way it works is that you have a mechanical device that forces air to be pressurized. You all have seen the opposite of this with the vacuum distillation of the malaria drug. We had machines that made the pressure rise up to incredible degrees. Now that part of the process actually made things hot, but we had radiators to deal with the heat. What happened next was what made the things cool. When you make air go from high pressure to low pressure, it makes things cold. When we were able to do chemistry with the cold, it led to a lot of discoveries. The problem is that until we have at least steam engines, I don’t think we will be able to make a compressor. Might have to wait until we have electric engines.”

Paul wanted to curse himself as he now had to explain what electricity was. How that engines were made using copper and magnets to run off a sliver of power from lightning. More or less, that one lightning strike could power two thousand homes for weeks, which also led to the discussion on there being elements like aluminum that had to be processed with electricity.

Although it wrecked his schedule, Paul spent days talking with his researchers about technology. And it was decided that next year after the planting festival, they would have this conversation again. The things that could be shared would be published in book form and sent across Paulsland. The things that couldn’t be shared would be chiseled into the research department's wall. From now on, the research department would have guards keeping everyone but the researchers out. The ideas they were trying to develop were too dangerous to leave Paulsland.

Paul decided to have some fun with the whole situation and changed the research department's name to the “Illuminate.”

Chapter 10 November 85 AD Texas- Grand Theft Bison

In the northern part of the trade alliance near what was called Lubok, Texas, in another time in another timeline, we find three friends. They are thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen years old.

Mohe was the oldest and started complaining again, “All I do in this tribe is work, work, work, and I get nothing back for it. All spring and summer, I worked to help with the harvest. I wanted to build my own home, but everyone said that we had to focus on the crops, so I focused on the crops all summer. Now that all the crops are harvested, and I have time, the elders say I can't use the ax because older, more important members of the tribe need it. They say once they are done, I can use the ax. But when I go hunting and kill a deer, the entire tribe gets to take part of my kill. I am fifteen years old and would like to get married, but every father in the village points out that I don’t have anything worth trading for their daughter. The chief's son got married at fourteen because the chief helped him out. Me? The chief gives me so much work to do I can't find time to get a bride, so it will take forever before I am able to afford a wife.”

Dustu, the fourteen-year-old, said, “Man, I know how you feel. There are some pretty girls in our village, but as long as you are living with your parents, they have no interest in you.”

Salal, the youngest, said, “It’s hard because we have to wait to use anything. If we had our own axes, bison, or boat, we could make something of ourselves.”

Mohe said, “Your right, but how would we go about getting any of that stuff? The bison, the crops, the tools all belong to the tribe. Sure our village has produced some merchants who have their own tools, but besides them, we are at the mercy of our chief and elders.”

Dustu said, “We could always use the tribe's tools to make enough wealth to get our own.”

Mohe laughed bitterly and said, “I can't get the tools now. If the chief found out I was trying to use the tools to enrich myself like the merchants, he wouldn’t let me use them again until I was his age.”

Salal laughed and said, “We ought to do what the chief did when he was our age and wanted something.”

Dustu was confused for a second and asked, “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, come on, you know the story. The chief wanted to get married, and there were no girls of marriageable age in the village, so he went out with his friends to a nearby village and got his wife. He tells the story all the time. If we need tools to get ahead, then we ought to go out and take them.”

Mohe, the oldest, sarcastically said, “I can see it now. We go to another village, steal some tools, and while we are walking back, the Texas Rangers catch up to us on their buffalo, take the stuff back and flog us.”

Salal, the youngest, countered, “Didn’t the Texas Rangers teach you to how to ride a buffalo a few months ago? I thought they taught all the young men in the village. All we would have to do is borrow a few buffalo after everyone is asleep, go do our raid and be back here before the sun comes up. No one would know what happened.”

Mohe, and Dustu’s mouth fell open. After a few seconds, Mohe said, “Your right, I didn’t think about that. Over the last few months, every time I have asked to borrow anything, I have been told no. Maybe it's time to borrow without asking.”

Dustu wasn’t certain and said, “Let's say we borrow the buffalo without permission, and then we go to another village for a raid. How will that work? I mean, all the villages have walls surrounding it.”

Mohe was blown away and said, “I hadn’t thought about that.”

Salal said, “If all we are doing is looking for tools to steal, that isn’t a problem.”

“What do you mean that isn’t a problem? Not being able to get to the tools we need goes against the point of robbery.”

Salal reached up and slapped the older boy in the back of the head and said, “You're so stupid. Look at our village.”

Mohe tried to hit him back, but Salal was already out of reach, so Mohe did as he said, “Okay, I see our village. What's your point?”

“What is outside the wall?”

Mohe thought for a second and then said, “The dock.”

“Exactly.”

Mohe and Dustu were lost and didn’t get it. When Salal realized they were not following, he said, “What's at the dock?”

“Boats.”

“What’s in the boats?”

Mohe and Dustu’s eyes grew big, and Dustu answered, “Merchant goods.”

“Exactly. Those boats are stocked full of good things. If all we want to do is steal, then we ride a buffalo over there in the night, go to the docks, go through the boats until we find what we want, steal it, and come back. We will be back before anyone notices, and chances are the merchants will think someone in that village stole from them.”

“You're brilliant. We will do our robbery tonight.”

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

That night Mohe, Dustu, and Salal snuck out of their homes and met at the barn. The entire way to the barn they hoped none of the dogs started barking, but lucky for them, the dogs recognized the boys and ignored them.

Once they all made it to the barn, they snuck in, put saddles on the buffalos, and very quietly made their way to the gate of the village. Their village did not have a professional military or guard force, so no one was actually watching the gate. The villagers just figured if someone attacked their village, the dogs would give warning.

Mohe very carefully opened the gate. He didn’t want to make any sounds that would get the dogs barking and wake up the chief or his parents. He was fifteen, but if they saw him borrowing the buffalo without permission, he would get beat by everyone. He slowly lifted the bar keeping the gate shut, then very slowly opened the door. Then he led his buffalo out, and when his two friends passed, he slowly closed the gate. Now his only worry was that the latch would fall down and lock them out before they got back.

The three began slowly leading their buffalo through the fields, and once they were past them, they got on and began riding hard to the next village. They chose the village downriver of them because it meant that any boat coming from there would have to travel upriver, which was slow. Why they thought this would matter when the Texas Rangers can ride buffalo can be chalked up to their youth.

A few hours later, they reached the village and then quietly began making their way to the dock. The docks were not hard to find; it's on the river, right across from the wall surrounding the village.

The boys were very nervous, but they had so much adrenaline pumping through them they never felt so alive. They tied their bison up right next to the dock and made their way out to the boats on the dock. There were two boats just sitting there. Every time the dock creaked, they wanted to jump. Slowly step by step, they made their way to the nearest boat. One by one, they carefully got in and began looking for something to steal.

They were looking for tools, but it was dark, and they didn’t have any torches, so they had to search by touch. As they searched, they moved things around. They moved slowly and carefully because as soon as the dogs started to bark, they would have to get out of there.

After searching up and down the boat, all they found were jars. They didn’t want jars or whatever they held. They wanted iron tools, and so they left the first boat and began making their way to the second boat.

Mohe got in with very little noise, but somehow Dustu lost his footing and fell in. There was a loud thump, and some things got knocked over, and Mohe could hear a loud crash. Mohe, Dustu, and Salal stopped. They stopped moving, breathing, and thought even their heart stopped. All of them were praying that nobody heard the noise, but apparently, the gods didn’t hear the prayer of thieves because a moment later, the dogs inside the village began barking.

The three young men immediately, wordlessly dashed toward their buffalo, untied them, and then galloped toward the woods as fast as they could.

Once they reached the woods, Mohe yelled out, “STOP.”

The other two stopped, and Salal said, “What do you mean stop? If we stop, they are going to catch us.”

“We don’t know that. We made it to the woods without them catching us. Let's turn back around and see if they sent anyone after us. Everyone knows that dogs often bark for no reason, so maybe we will get a second chance.”

“But we have to be back before the sun is up, or they will know what we did.”

“If it looks like we are going to get back late, we can always tell them we went hunting. The chief and our parents will be upset, but they will understand. That said, I don’t want to go all the way out here and return empty-handed.”

The three young men took their buffalo to the edge of the forest and watched and listened.

After a few minutes, Mohe said, “It’s dark, so I can't be sure, but it seems to me like they are fighting about something.”

Dustu smiled and said, “The dogs are not chasing us. Maybe they think a raccoon messed with their stuff.”

Salal said, “I don’t see anyone on a bison. We can wait here until they all go back to the village and finish our search for stuff to steal.”

And so they waited and waited, and waited. They waited until the sun started coming up, but the entire time people were on the docks.

Dustu said, “The sun is up; we better get going.”

Mohe said, “We are going to be punished no matter what now, so we might as well wait a few more minutes to see if we can get anything out of this.”

As they waited, people began to leave the village. Some even had tools.

Mohe said, “If we are patient, we can wait until one of those men with an ax comes our way. We could do a lot if we had our own ax.”

The other two said, “Yeah.” In unison.

As they watched, the boys were disappointed as none of the men went in their direction, but they still waited. The entire time they were paying a lot of attention to anyone who had tools. But then they noticed a couple of girls about their age was making their way to the forest.

Mohe said, “Hey guys back up a little. If those girls step into the woods, we could get a couple of wives. That would be way better than a tool.”

Wordlessly the youths maneuvered their buffalo further into the woods.

As the girls got closer, they could hear them talking.

One said, “The merchant was arguing with the Texas Rangers all night demanding that they flog whoever was responsible for robbing his boat. He just knows it's one of the young men from our village.”

The other one sounded delighted as she said, “Who do you think did it?”

“I don’t know. It would be incredibly stupid to rob the merchant. The Texas Rangers will get to the bottom of it, but it seemed like the Texas rangers thought it was a raccoon or something. If it is one of the guys from our village, how do you think they will catch them.”

“Oh, it's not that hard; just see who sleeps in this morning and search his house.”

The girls were laughing at the situation when Mohe had his bison charge behind the girls. The other two had their bison charge right next to the girls. The girls froze, not even able to scream; they were shocked, frightened, and confused.

One of the girls asked, “Who are you? What are you doing.”

None of the young men answered; instead, two of the young men got off their bison while the third blocked the girl's escape route. Then the young men grabbed the girls and lifted them on the bison. The girls let out a scream as the men grabbed them, but they were too far away for anyone to hear, and the youths were much stronger than the girls.

After a few miles, the men stopped the bison and got off them.

Salal started coming to his senses and said, “Guys, we can't take the girls back to our village. If we do, they will know what we did.”

One of the girls said, “Yes. Please let us go. We won't tell anyone what you did.”

Mohe said, “Nonsense. We are going to get in trouble for taking the buffalo anyway. If we let these girls go, we will have nothing to show for it.”

Dustu said, “But there's three of us and two girls; how do we pick.”

“Simple Salal is the youngest, so he doesn’t get a wife. Dustu and I will take the girls a little deeper into the woods, make them our wives, and head home.”

The other girl said, “Please talk to my father first. I am sure he will let you purchase my hand in marriage; don’t take me like this.”

“Our elders have taken wives from other villages for generations. If it was good enough for them, it's good enough for us.”

And without even knowing the girl's name Mohe, and Dustu violated two girls and justified it by calling the girls their wives. Salal stood back and did nothing because that’s how it's always been.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

It was near dusk when they reached their village. Ekta and Jacila held onto their husbands as they made it to their new village for the first time. Each had tears rolling down their faces.

Ekta could remember the first time she heard the men telling stories about how they captured their wives. She was a little girl and laughed as the men laughed. The men clearly thought it was good sport capturing a wife.

She was only four years old when she asked her mom about it, and her mom said, “What is good sport for men is horrible for women. A woman who is a captured wife can never return to her people. If a woman is captured, she is a disgrace to her people.”

Ekta can remember asking her, “If a captured wife is a disgrace to her people, then why do the men laugh?”

“To have your daughter captured is shameful. But for a man to capture a girl shows he is mighty. If a man loses his daughter in this way, not only will he forever reject that daughter, but the entire village will also reject her, but for a man to capture a wife means that he has to make a place in the new village for her.”

Ekta can remember being scared and asking, “So if a man captures me, everyone in the village will reject me?”

Her mother nodded and said, “Yes. Your life here will forever be severed.” This caused Ekta to forever be afraid of being captured.

As time passed, every now and then, a girl was captured from the village, and the village treated her as dead. At other times a man returned to the village girl in tow, and that girl had no choice but to cling to her new husband as anything else meant death.

Ekta and the other girls always feared being taken. Although the worst thing to happen would be to be captured, but before your new husband could make it back to his village, he died. Without that husband, his village would reject you, and since you were captured, your own village would reject you for dishonoring them. What could be worse than being rejected by the entire world?

Then their village joined the trade alliance, and a law was passed punishing men who captured a wife. Sure the captured wife was punished too, but after being raped, and losing your home forever, what was a little flogging? At least the man who took you was punished too. After this rule was issued, a lot fewer women were forcibly taken. It wasn’t the flogging that did it. It was the fact that the man would have to pay the bride price whether he captured the girl or not. If you were going to pay the price anyway, why add a flogging to the price on top of everything else.

It was truly shocking to Ekta and Jacila when those buffalo riders showed up and took them. They screamed and fought back as best they could, but these young men were a lot stronger than them. Now that they were no longer virgins Ekta and Jacila’s village would blame them for the forced marriage. Ekta and Jacila had no choice but to go with these men now. Although tears still flowed down both girl's faces, they steeled their hearts as they got closer to the village.

As the buffalo entered the gates, there was a loud commotion.

One of the men yelled out, “WHAT HAVE YOU FOOLS DONE!”

Mohe said, “We found wives.”

“DID YOU PAY THE BRIDE PRICE!”

Mohe said, “No. Like three of the elders of the village, and the chief, we captured them.”

“GET OFF YOUR BUFFALO NOW!”

The three young men and the two girls got off their buffalo. They were scared; none of them had seen anyone so angry. Ekta and Jacila were extra scared because this wasn’t how things were supposed to go. When you were a captured wife, there was supposed to be a party thrown, and you were supposed to act happy and make friends with your new village. If things went bad and they were thrown out, Ekta and Jacila had no idea what they would do. They needed a village, a tribe.

The man walked right up to Mohe and punched him in the face. And as Mohe was falling over, he yelled, “YOUR VILLAGE IS PART OF AN ALLIANCE, AND YOU BROKE THAT ALLIANCE! I TRAINED ALL THREE OF YOU IDIOTS IN RIDING BUFFALO, AND THIS IS HOW YOU REPAY ME?! BREAKING THE LAW THAT KEEPS THE ALLIANCE TOGETHER!!!”

Then the Texas Ranger started Kicking Mohe while he was down. When the girls saw that they hugged each other and started bawling. Dustu and Salal turned and started running, but the other warriors in the village blocked them and started beating them up. Then the chief showed up with a branch in his hand.

“YOU STUPID YOUTHS! HOW DARE YOU STEAL THE VILLAGES BUFFALO AND BREAK THE LAWS OF THE ALLIANCE! THERE ARE A COUPLE HUNDRED VILLAGES IN THE ALLIANCE NOW! DO YOU WANT A THOUSAND WARRIORS SHOWING UP HERE TO KILL US!”

The Chief started beating the boys with his stick. They begged for forgiveness and mercy. The girls stood by crying, not knowing what to do. Eventually, the villager's anger subsided.

Then the chief said, “In the morning, take these five to a neutral village to be tried.”

Ekta, the braver of the two girls, asked with a grief-filled voice, “Are you rejecting us? They already made us their wives. We cannot return home. If you reject us, we will die.”

The chief gave the girls a bitter look and said, “During the time before the alliance, we would have celebrated the youths returning with you. But now it's too much of a liability. We will accept you, but not like before. These three fools are our family, and so you as their wives are our family. Which one is your husband.”

Ekta pointed to one and Jacila pointed to another, and Jacila said, “They haven’t told us their names yet, nor have they asked for ours.”

The chief said much more kindly, “I am sorry for that. What are your names? We need to know who our new family members are. “

“I am Jacila, and she is Ekta.”

“I will inform the others. I will also tell our girls that if some men are trying to capture them, fight harder. You girls do not know the trouble you are bringing to our village.”

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Etka was shown where her husband's parents' house was because her husband had not yet built his own home. Mohe’s parents were furious with him, although his mother showed some kindness toward Etka. She knew the girl had nowhere else to go. All the women knew the horror stories of being a captured wife.

Etka knew that her happiness and comfort depended on her husband's happiness and comfort, so she tended to his wounds as best as she could. She listened to him complain about how unfair everything was. She wanted to yell at him that his lot in life was due to his actions, and he just made her lose her home, but she was scared and so instead said, “Your right Mohe, but things will get better, I promise.”

Etka had to make the best of a bad situation. Like many women before her and many women after her, Stockholm syndrome was a survival mechanism.

Chapter 11 December 85 AD Texas-Coming of Age

Christmas was getting close, and John lay awake worried about his oldest son Trevor.

As he laid awake, his wife asked, “John, are you still up?”

“Yes. I am worried about Trevor.”

“Me too. It won't be long until he is old enough to leave home, and I am worried about what he will do. All he talks about is the adventure he wants to go on with his friends.”

“I have been teaching the boys how to ride buffalo, and Trevor is an okay rider. They have been asking what they need to do to get their own buffalo. I just don’t trust Trevor enough. I think if I gave him a buffalo, he will go out with his friends and find trouble. He’s just turned thirteen; he is still a little too young to head out. I know that he wants to prove his manhood, but his attitude is so bad it worries me.”

“Worse yet, my father regals the boy with stories about how he captured my mother all those years ago. If Trevor had a buffalo, how long would it take for him and his friends to talk each other into raiding a village for a wife?”

“I can just see it now. Trevor and his friends get buffalos, so one day, they decide to go hunting. They travel three or four days out to the middle of nowhere, and they start telling stories around the campfire. The boys start talking about how their father or grandfather captured a wife, and they start daring each other to do the same. They find a village see a pretty girl, and try to snatch her. In the attempt, perhaps they all die, or some live, and others die. Then they drag some poor girl back and force her to be one of their wives. Maybe they drag several girls back. The worst thing about it is that none of them plan on it when they head out.”

“That seems to be a very specific story, husband.”

“Sorry, I got similar reports from three different villages over the last month. Although in two of those, the youths directly disobeyed their elders when they borrowed the buffalo before stealing a wife. I feel like it’s my fault. I gave the order for the Texas Rangers to teach people how to ride buffalo. I thought it would improve things. Instead, the first thing the young men do after learning to ride buffalo is what their fathers and grandfathers did. Capture women. All the youths have been severely punished, so with luck, this is over. But I worry my own son will do something just as insane.”

“We have a year before he decides he’s grown up enough to go on his adventure and face danger with or without our blessing. Do you think there is anything you can do to change the situation?”

John thought a moment and said, “Trevor is the most prideful of our sons by a mile. I think I can change the situation, but I don’t know if it will be for better or for worse. I also don’t think it will be a year. His grandpa went on his adventure at fourteen. Trevor will want to beat that.”

Onawa’s voice became very stern as she said, “John, you're not allowed to let that happen.”

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

The next day at breakfast, John’s family was eating when Trevor asked, “So dad, me and my friends have been wondering what do we have to do to get buffalo? Pretty soon, I will be old enough to go on an adventure and show everyone in the village my bravery and courage. So when does that start?”

John looked at Trevor and said, “I don’t know about other villages. But right now, almost all the buffalo in our village are being used by the Texas Rangers. They are going North, South, East, and West to deal with every danger. By the time the next batch of buffalo are born, weaned, and broken for riding, I imagine they will have tamed the land. Once everything is safe, I will give you and your friends your buffalo.”

Trevor’s mouth fell open, and he said, “What do you mean once everything is safe, you will give us buffalo?”

“I mean exactly that. Between the Texas Rangers and the traders, we are contacting all the surrounding villages, not just the ones on our river. Honestly, I plan on giving any chiefs who come from a different river system their own bison and buffalo. Once they have them, I am sure in short order, any nearby dangers will be taken care of. By the time you turn fourteen, you would have to ride a buffalo a year into the wilderness to find any danger or adventure.”

“But dad, I want to be like the men in the village. I want an adventure.”

John’s face twisted into a stern look as he said, “You think you want adventure now, but adventure comes with loss. It's one of the reasons why the Texas Rangers and the traders are trying to make peace with the surrounding tribes and kill any dangerous animals. We are sick of the loss that comes with adventuring. Unfortunately, I can't get anyone to deal with the dangers out at sea, but thankfully you don’t want to head to sea. You want a buffalo. I can make sure things are safe for you and your friends before you or your friends get them.”

John had never seen Trevor look so disappointed. For years Trevor imagined going on an adventure with his friends. Sure it wouldn’t have been like the stories he heard. The stories about what happened before villages allied with each other, but it would have been grand. Then someone figured out the trick to ridding buffalo, and they had an opportunity to go on an adventure much grander than anyone ever had. All year Trevor and his friends had talked about riding buffalo into unknown danger and adventure. But they had forgotten that the Texas Rangers were getting the first shot at it. And now Trevor found out that the Texas Rangers were purposely destroying his shot at a grand adventure.

While his son processed this information, John was getting nervous. His son had missed the bait he laid out for him, so John changed his tactics and looked over to Bobby.

“Bobby, I hope by the time you are older we can make the sea safer before you build a longboat and head out to trade.”

Bobby looked worried and said, “Dad, don’t get too excited about that. I have seen the trade Uncle Nana has made going to new places. I don’t want to pick up other trader's crumbs. I want to be the first to explore and trade with some of these groups.”

Trevor instantly reacted to that word first. “You're not going to get the chance to be first. I want to be like grandpa and be the first to meet new tribes and villages. I want to fight great beast. If the Texas Rangers take away my chance on land, then I will go out to sea to have my adventure.”

Bobby looked panicked and said, “NO! YOU’RE AN IDIOT! YOU WILL RUIN EVERYTHING FOR ME!”

“I’M NOT AN IDIOT!”

“Oh yeah, then what's your plan when you meet these new people?”

“I don’t know.”

“We have iron, spices, food, glass, and other things to trade. So far, all the traders have told me that whenever they reach a new village, the villagers have never seen these goods and so the traders can make fantastic deals. You're too stupid to realize how lucrative new trade partners can be.”

“If your so smart, how come I will get to go first?”

Bobby looked over to John and said, “Dad, can I start working on a longboat now? I am far more ready for the rigors of the sea than stupid Trevor.”

Trevor was mad now and said, “What do you mean you are more ready for the rigors of the sea than me? I am the leader when we go sailing.”

“It doesn’t take much ability to move the rudder.”

“I’ll show you. I will build a boat with my friends, and we will go on a grand adventure at sea! We will be the first, and you can trade after I lead the way.”

Bobby turned to his dad, and tears were forming in his eyes as he said, “You can't allow this. He will ruin everything.”

John turned to Trevor and said, “I don’t know about this. Your brother is right that you don’t seem to have the sailing skills he does. I will have to talk with your mother about this.”

Trevor’s mouth dropped open, “Oh, come on, dad. Your Texas Rangers already got to have the adventures on land. Let me go out to sea and discover new things. I want to be the first to see new lands. Your Texas Rangers already took that away from me on land, don’t let Bobby take it away from me at sea.”

John wanted to smile, but he suppressed it. He stayed quiet a long time as he was afraid he would laugh. Every second John was silent, Trevor’s worry grew. Trevor had always been prideful and sought the affirmation and praise of others. He needed to go on an adventure, meet new tribes, do things that nobody had ever done before.

After a long silence, John got a hold of himself and said, “If you can get at least fifteen people to go with you, I will allow it.”

Trevor smiled and did the math in his head and said, “But dad, my group of friends is only eight people.”

“I guess you are going to have to make more friends then. Once you have fifteen people, you can begin working on your longboat at the workshop. You will only have access to the workshop on days when all fifteen people can be present. If you are going to go sailing, then everyone needs to know how to work on the boat. Accidents happen when it happens everyone needs to be able to jump in and fix the boat.”

Trevor nodded in understanding and said, “Okay, dad. Give me a day or two, and I will have everyone.”

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

After breakfast, Trevor went looking for his friends. It wasn’t hard to find them. They all wanted to be buffalo riders, so they were taking care of the buffalo. Considering it was a cold day in December, the older buffalo riders were letting them.

Trevor was a bit surprised to see that all his friends had beaten him to the barn, but many of them skipped breakfast to get an opportunity to take care of and ride the buffalo.

When they saw Trevor, one asked, “Did your dad agree to give us buffalo.”

Trevor shook his head and said, “No. And there's no point.”

“What do you mean there's no point? How are we going to go on an adventure like our dads, uncles, and grandfathers if we don’t have buffalo?”

“I talked with my dad this morning, and I found out that the Texas Rangers are heading out in every direction to make peace with every tribe, to slay any dangerous beast, to make everything safe. Dad says that he was protecting us by making everything safe.”

This set of twelve, thirteen, and fourteen-year-olds looked like someone had died. They desired danger, risk, and adventure and just found out that due to the Texas Rangers, they wouldn’t find it.

Trevor continued, “Dad said we would have to ride a buffalo an entire year before we could possibly find an unsafe area.”

“How is that possible?”

“Over the last few years, how many Texas Rangers has my dad trained? The first year it was well over a hundred. It's been dozens every year since. Now that they all have buffalo, they are getting to take all the adventure for themselves.”

One of the boys was almost in tears when he said, “We were born too late. I can see it now. When men sit around a campfire to tell stories, the Texas Rangers will have great tales of wonder, violence, and profit, but when it's my turn to tell a story, I will have to talk about how I was safe in the village. It's not fair. How can I be a man without an adventure?”

Trevor said, “It’s not all bad news. Although the Texas Rangers are taking away all the adventures on land, nobody has really challenged the sea. Sure some of the traders have gone up the coast a little ways, but no one has gone straight out to sea. We could be the first.”

That word first was the sweetest words these boys ever heard.

One laughed and said, “That would be great. Just imagine telling stories around the campfire and everyone who goes out to sea after us having to give us credit during their story because we were first, and they followed us after we made it safe for them.”

“Dad said he would allow us to use his workshop to make a longboat, but only if we have at least fifteen men.”

“But there’s only eight of us.”

“You have brothers and cousins, right? Most of you are not even from Texas, so can you send word back to your old village asking for some of the young men to come help. Tell them that Chief John’s son will lead an expedition to sea and is looking for brave young men to come with. The only rule is that they have to help build the longboat that we will sail on. Dad said that the sea is dangerous and the longboat will probably be destroyed, so we have to be able to build another one.”

That promise of danger drew the young men in like bees to a flower. On the buffalo adventure they planned, nobody said anything about a buffalo dying, but an adventure at sea was so dangerous that their ship would probably be destroyed. This is what they craved. Instantly they began to send word out.

Chapter 12 January 86 AD Texas- Congress

Light peaked through the window, waking up John on the day of the year that congress met. John couldn’t help but smile. Even though congress was held in Texas and he was still the moderator, he was no longer important enough for the chiefs to bother incessantly. In years past chiefs would bang on his door at night to get his attention which just meant that it was exhausted when the day of whining began. Granted, John preferred the whining to war, but John had no illusion about what this day would hold for him.

As John got out of bed, Onawa woke up. John smiled at his wife, who said, “I am still mad at you.”

“What for? What did I do?”

“You know what you did?”

“I feed my family, keep a roof over their heads, I started the congress so we wouldn’t lose people to war. I do not see anything to be mad about.”

Onawa shot John a look that only a woman could give, and John tried not to laugh. If he did, he might as well find another place to sleep that night.

“When Trevor asked if he could move closer to your workshop, you said that as long as he built a place for him and all his friends to live, it would be okay, but he would have to supply his own food.”

John put on his most innocent face and said, “Oh come on honey, how was I supposed to know they had a mind to work? They had their log cabin up in three days, then killed several deer and smoked the meat because they didn’t have the funds to afford jars for canning.”

“It’s still your fault because you allowed him to do it.”

John's voice filled with compassion for his wife, “Onawa, those boys want to go on an adventure. If I told them no, then they would just go behind our back and do something really stupid. I have bought us time with our boy. In a few months, certainly by this time next year, they will go out to sea for weeks or months. Right now, they are close to home. You can go see your boy every day if you want to. But that will change in a little while. Honestly, I think it's good for Trevor to be out from under our care, considering what he wants to do. He built a roof for himself and is feeding himself. He is learning every aspect of building boats. If he wanted to start a family, he can provide for them.”

Everything John said was logical and reasonable, but Onawa was a mother who yearned for her firstborn son, and so the logic did not get through her feelings. “John, this is your fault.”

“Look at the bright side. Trevor and his friends invited several young men to help them on the project. Those incredibly messy young men now have a place to stay that isn’t our house.”

John counted it a victory when his wife smiled at that. She knew how messy young men were, and she was at least grateful that she would not have to clean after several more of them.

Then her smile disappeared, and she said, “I am still mad at you.”

John beat a hasty retreat. An angry wife made him look forward to congress.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

John made his way to where congress met early in the morning. It was just a field where the various chiefs would stand and talk with one another. John did not want congress growing too strong and taking away the rights of the various villages, and so John kept congress as uncomfortable as possible. John liked the idea of the various villages running things as they saw fit, instead of running things the way a national body required them.

John was one of the first, but not the first. Out in the field were several chiefs with Nana. John smiled and went to meet his friend.

“Nana, who are these men?”

Nana turned and said, “These are the chiefs from the river west of here.”

“I am glad to see you brought…” John quickly counted, “7 men.” Then John looked confused and asked, “Where are your warriors. Surely you brought protection.”

The chiefs smiled, and one said, “They are wandering through your marvelous village. They have never seen a wonder like a bison slave. They are very interested in the tools you use to make it happen.”

John was a little miffed and said, “The bison are not slaves. They are our partners. If you treat them right, they will do a lot of work for you. A couple of years ago, one of the chiefs tried to force a bison to do work for him by beating it, and it didn’t go well for him. I told him you have to treat a bison like you would treat the father of the girl you want to marry if you want the bison to work for you. Once he treated the bison like that, he got a significant amount of work done.”

All the chiefs looked confused, and one said, “But a bison is just a dumb animal.”

“A bison is a dumb animal that weighs ten times as much as you do. Or do you think you are stronger than a bison?”

“No, the bison is stronger.”

“Then treat the bison as a partner in respect of its strength.”

The chiefs nodded and considered John’s words. Finally, one asked, “Nana said that you would give us bison if we came.”

John actually smiled and said, “Yes. I will give each of you three, with a bison cart, plow, and a logging harness.”

One of them frowned and said, “Nana promised that you would give us a riding bison.”

“First of all, we call riding bison buffalo. And second, the way we give those out is a little different. If you join the alliance, you will be required to send two men here to become Texas rangers. Those two men will learn to ride buffalo, and they will be given buffalo. Those two men will not be sent back to your village. As long as they serve as Texas Rangers, they will serve in other villages. Each village will be given two Texas Rangers from two villages to serve as their Texas Rangers, and a part of their job will be to teach your people how to breed, raise, and ride Buffalo. There is a lot of work to it, so don’t expect your people to be riding buffalo for at least a year, more likely two.”

“But that’s now what we were promised.”

John said, “I apologize for any miscommunication or misunderstanding, but if you don’t like it, you don’t have to take your three free bison home with you.”

The chief froze, thought about what John said, then said, “You know what your right. There was a misunderstanding. I accept your gift.”

John smiled. That’s the thing about giving gifts. You had all the leverage. The reality was that these people had nothing John wanted except maybe some hides, but John was always looking down the road. If he helped them with their home, in time, they would have things he wanted and could trade with them.

John continued to talk with them, then had a similar conversation with those chiefs that were from the eastern river, and then congress started.

As soon as it started, two men stood out and said, “We have important business that needs to go first unless there is an emergency.”

John called out, “Is there any emergencies?” No one said anything, which surprised John. John hoped this meant that the youth’s stealing wives using buffalo issue was over. John thought that perhaps it wasn’t so bad that the Texas Rangers taught everyone to ride buffalo.

After a minute of no one saying they had an emergency, John said, “Go ahead.”

One of the men said, “Our chief died a month ago, and the elders of our village are split between who should be the new chief. I am a trader, and now that the sea has opened up due to sailing, I think we should move our tribe near the sea because, near the sea, we could gather salt, fish and be a waypoint for travelers.” The trader stopped speaking.

Then the other man started to speak, “I am a farmer. Over the years, I have seen our village prosper due to the fertility of the land. The crops that were gifted to us by Chief John have brought more prosperity than what I imagined was possible as a boy. I want to stay where we are at, although admittedly, it’s a poor place for a trade hub.”

John asked, “And you want me to decide who should be chief and whether you move your village or not.”

Both men nodded their heads.

“Why?”

The trader spoke, “Our people are split evenly. Half the elders agree with me, and half agree with him. Half the warriors agree with me, half with him. All the farmers agree with him. All the traders agree with me. Our village is split on the issue, and many fights have broken out over it. Our prosperity has come from you, so we thought we would ask your advice in front of the entire congress.”

John wanted to kill both of them. They could have asked in private, or they could have asked the congress as a whole, but instead, they put John on the spot. John didn’t speak right away, and instead, he pushed down his anger and thought about their request.

After a while, he said, “My oldest son Trevor wants to go on an adventure. He has heard stories from the men about how they went off on an adventure around his age, and he deeply desires it. I could try to stop him, but that would only make him bitter, and sooner or later, he would go anyway, so instead, I gave him a set of guidelines that if he follows, he should be safe on his adventure.”

The two men making the request looked confused and irritated, but most of the other chiefs nodded in nostalgia. They remembered the first time they went away from home to see the world. Perhaps to go hunting, or perhaps to find a village where they could snatch a wife.

John continued, “The reality is that sooner or later, the trader's group is going to leave the village to start a new one, just like my son is going to go on an adventure.”

The trader smiled; he thought John was taking his side. The farmer frowned in bitterness.

“But if the trader forces the farmer and his people to go, they will be bitter and unbearable to live around.”

The trader's smile disappeared, and so did the farmer's frown.

“Both of you are adults, your elders are adults, your warriors are adults, your farmers and traders are adults. I don’t see why those who want to move to make a better life don’t go ahead and do so while those who want to stay, stay.”

The two men looked at each other, and the farmer spoke, “But they are family. If they split up from us, we will never see them again.”

John turned to the trader and said, “If you started a new village, you would never ever visit the place that you came from when you went trading up and down the rivers?”

The trader said, “No. We would visit. They are family; besides, we would still have business with them and around them.”

“Well, there you go, my advice is for you to go your separate ways. Think of yourselves as brothers. Eventually, a brother has to leave his family home to start his own life. This is no different even if the distance is further. But if you are unwilling to make that choice, don’t worry; it's clear that your brother loves you and will allow you to stay. This is a hard decision for both of you to make; the congress will not make it for you.”

The farmer asked, “But until the decision is made, we won't have a chief for the congress.”

“Hopefully, the congress will not make broad enough decisions today to affect your village.”

And so it was. The congress more or less spent the day setting up trade agreements, deciding on which of their Texas rangers would come back home and who would replace them, and some talk about overland routes for villages at the far end of rivers and streams.

John was glad. He didn’t want a congress with a lot of power. He wanted a congress that stopped war due to trade and the appearance of power.

Chapter 13 January 86 AD Africa- Return to the Savannah

It was nearly noon, and Paul was going over figures with his architects and secretaries. They were building bridges over the next two rivers that emptied into the Zambezi River, and the secretaries needed to find out how much material the bridge builders could handle at the various stages of building the bridge. It was somewhat complicated because the secretaries were responsible for distributing concrete to every government project. The bridges were the top priority; once they figured out a delivery schedule for the bridges, everything else would get scheduled.

Paul was determined to get the bridges built as soon as possible because they would soon be trading with the major civilizations of the first century. Paul couldn’t help but imagine meeting Romans, Indians, and Chinese at the golden ages of their civilizations.

As they were working, a soldier came running in, and by now, they had learned not to run straight to King Paul. His guards might accidentally stab a messenger that got too excited.

The messenger yelled out, “There has been an attack at the border of the savanna. Raiders attacked one of our villages but were stymied by the log wall and left after taking casualties.”

“Why am I just getting this message now?”

“They attacked at dawn. It's almost a seven-day walk from here to the border of the savannah. It takes some time to send the message across all the communications towers.”

Paul nodded and said, “Send a message back to the nearest fast response unit telling them to capture the raiders if they can. If the forces look about even, kill who they must. If they are outnumbered, retreat and let me know. Also, tell them that I am on my way and that any captured prisoners are to be treated well until I get there.”

“Yes, sir.”

As the messenger ran out, Paul told one of his soldiers, “Go to the school and tell George and Washington to come to the house. They are going to come with me on this trip.” Paul thought for a second and said, “Carver is still too young to come, but in another year or two when these emergencies happen, I will bring him too.”

The soldiers smiled and said, “Yes, sir.”

Within the hour, Paul had his sons, supplies, and soldiers and began making the long trek west. The soldiers were there as guards, and as they made their trip west, Paul talked with them about their future goals. Some wanted to be builders, others farmers, others miners, and some wanted to work in government. Paul was pleased to learn that both his sons had learned all the soldier's names.

After two days of travel, Paul got word that the raiders had been captured after a long chase and that they were indeed from the savannah. In fact, their entire tribe was captured with their cattle. Paul sent word back that only the men were to be detained so that he could have a conversation with them. Once the conversation was over, Paul would allow them to leave.

Once George learned what his father did, he asked, “Dad, why don’t you keep this village like the others?”

“Because they are nomads. They don’t stay in the same place. Right now, if I tried to force them to be part of Paulsland, they would just move away.”

“What do you mean right now?”

Paul smiled and said, “Good job on picking up on that. In the future, I will force them into Paulsland, but we are going to need horses first.”

“What’s a horse?”

“A horse is a large animal that, among other things, humans ride. We do not have them in this part of the world because the flies that cause sleeping sickness will kill them all.”

“How will they survive if the flies can kill them so easily?”

“With our pyrethrum paste. We have been testing it out on the cattle, and the pyrethrum stays on for three days during the rainy season and eight days during the dry season. The researchers have put pyrethrum paste on a bunch of cattle as they go through their day pulling plows and carts among the other jobs the cattle do and found that the group with the paste on didn’t have a single loss due to sleeping sickness. When we get horses, we will put that on them.”

“But where are you going to get horses?”

Paul smiled and said, “Once the rainy season is over, one of the sailors will take a ship north and see about trading with other lands. I was going to have Dashiell do it, but he has other obligations. I doubt the sailor will get a horse on his first trip, but in time we will trade for plenty of them. If we are going to take the savannah, we need horses.”

George thought about it and said, “But dad, why do we need the horses for a savannah. Isn't our army big enough?”

Paul laughed and said, “It doesn’t matter if our army is big enough. Nomads randomly move their villages to keep their cattle fed. Whenever it's time for the nomads to pay taxes, send their children to school, or join the army for the mandatory service, sending men on foot would be too slow. It would cost more than it gains. But if we have horse riders going across the savannahs, then we could quickly get it under our control and start figuring out a way to effectively rule the savannah.”

George looked very confused, “I am lost now. What do you mean figure out a way to rule the savannah? Just rule them like you do the rest of Paulsland.”

Paul shook his head and said, “No, son, I can not do that. Currently, Paulsland is mostly in what is called a tropical forest. Most of the people there are farmers who are tied to the land. A small part of Paulsland is on the coast, where the men are farmers and fishermen. And now we are about to add savannah. That is three very distinct types of places, and they all have to be run very differently because the people who survive there survive in different ways.”

“But I thought our way was the best way.”

“For a tropical forest, it’s the best way we know how to do things. But if you went into the savannah and tried to have a farm like we do, then you would starve. If you went to the coast and did the same thing, you would be wasting a major resource. Different places need to be run differently because they have different advantages and disadvantages. As Paulsland grows, I will set up the tropical forest of Paulsland as central Paulsland, the coast as coastal Paulsland, and the savannah as grassland Paulsland. Each different district will have a slightly different set of laws to meet its specific economic reality. The problem is that I do not have anyone with the expertise needed to advise me on what wise law for the savannah or coast is yet. But it will come.”

George was blown away, and even though he was twelve, he had to say, “Wow, dad, your so smart.”

The days passed as they kept going. Eventually, they reached the last village and then the end of the road. The soldiers stopped at the end of the road as they had no way of knowing where to go next.

Then an aberration appeared and said, “Hello.” About ten of the men jumped in fear.

Paul laughed and said, “I have to let the army train with you scouts more often.”

The scout laughed and said, “Don’t do that; it will ruin the fun the scouts have with new recruits.”

“So, how long of a march do we have before we get to the prisoners?”

“About a day and a half. And unlike in the forest, making a road won't make it that much faster. The grassland allows fairly quick travel. It's just so expansive.”

“Did you have any trouble getting back?”

“Not really. The beast out in the savannah had trouble seeing me in this ghillie suit, so even though I saw them, most didn’t notice me.”

“Good lead the way.”

“Aren’t you worried that some bandits will try to get away with robbery while you are away?”

“I am sure there will be bandits and robbers, but they will be tracked down and caught this time, I am sure of it. I feel bad for those they attack, but they will get justice this time.”

The scout looked thoughtfully at Paul and said, “Okay then. Follow me.”

Most of the animals of the savannah avoided such a large, heavily armed group, although they did have some issues with a bull elephant. The elephant charged them twice, then let them go when it saw how easily they avoided it.

Normally it wouldn’t be that big of an issue, but there were no elephant slayers among Paul’s guards. The twelve to fourteen-year-olds just weren't strong enough for the bow that could pierce the elephant's hide. Paul never fully recovered from the wound given to him by Elzo, and the scout was focused on being a scout, so he never developed the muscles necessary for such a strong bow.

The entire situation made Paul more determined than ever to control Africa. Paul wanted to make Africa like Europe, where the people, if nothing else, were safe from the wildlife.

After a day and a half, they reached the area where the raiders were being held. Paul wasted no time in talking with them.

When Paul reached the group, he yelled out, “Who is your leader?”

None of the men said a word.

Paul more calmly said, “If I wanted you dead, you would already be dead. I want to talk.”

The prisoners didn’t move for a while, then a grey-haired man said, “I am the leader.”

Paul saw the man smiled, and said, “You’re the first grey-haired man I have seen in my time here.”

The man said, “You must have spent all your time in the forest. For some reason, the people in them seem to die young. We avoid the forest.”

“Avoid them, except when you want to rob them.”

The man looked Paul in the eye and defiantly said, “The savannah isn’t a good place for farmland. We only raid so that we can get grain for our family.”

Paul nodded; he already suspected that was the case. Then he asked, “Why rob? Why not trade. I am told that you have plenty of cattle.”

“If we traded our cattle, then pretty soon, we wouldn’t have any.”

Paul looked at the man strangely and said, “You must milk your cattle. Don’t you make cheese and butter from the milk?”

“I don’t know the words cheese and butter, but yes, we do turn the milk into food.”

“Do you have any with you?”

The elder's eyebrow raised, then he turned and asked his men, “Does anyone have any jibini?”

A few of the men raised their hands, so the leader went to one of his men, took the jibini, and brought it to Paul.

Paul took it, smelled it, and smiled. It was cheese. Real cheese. He had no idea how to make the stuff, and neither had anyone in the tropical forest, but it makes sense that nomadic cattle herders knew how to make cheese. Paul wanted to eat it as it had been nearly sixteen years since he had cheese, but there was no way he was going to eat this before he cooked it and then had someone eat it first to make sure it wasn’t poisonous.

Paul said, “I would like to trade for your jibini. It's what my people would call cheese.”

The chief looked at Paul, then Paul’s soldiers, then back at Paul and said, “Something can be worked out.”

“I don’t mean just one time. I would like to trade with you and the nomadic tribes from now on.”

“There is no way the nomadic tribes will go into the forest for trade.”

“That’s fine by me. I will build a trading post out here in the savanna.”

The chief’s mouth dropped open, and he said, “The tribes will not like that. There isn’t much water out in the savannah, and if you build a village around one of the watering holes, the tribes will come together to take it back.”

Paul honestly hadn’t thought about that, but he was glad that this man just let it slip that the tribes of the savannah will come together to face a threat. That was useful information. It might make conquering the savannah a lot easier.

After a long pause, Paul said, “What if I dug a well at my trading post. Would that upset the nomads?”

“What’s a well?”

Paul was shocked for a while then realized these people were nomads. They went from one watering hole to the next, one green grassland to the next. They never stopped long enough to consider digging for water.

“It's where you dig in the ground until you find water.”

The chief thought about it and said, “Like when animals paw at dry creek beds for water?”

“Yes, but much deeper.”

The chief thought about it and said, “If you don’t take away a watering hole, then the tribes probably wouldn’t mind. “

“Deal. Now that we have that out of the way, who has jibini they want to trade?”

Three of the men raised their hands.

Paul told them, “Get up, come over here.”

The men did so, and they took out little bags with cheese in them. Paul was pleased to see it was a few pounds, and since he really wanted to trade with these people, Paul took out three iron knives and traded with it for three bags of cheese. When the other men saw what the first three got for their cheese, they wanted to trade to, and Paul obliged them. Once word got out, he would have the nomads coming to him.

Once the trading was done, he told his soldiers, “Let them go.” And Paul took out a piece of paper and began making plans for a new trading post.

George asked, “Dad, what are you doing?”

Paul looked down at his son and said, “Jotting down ideas for a forward base for our invasion of the savanna.”

Chapter 14 January 86 AD Africa-Detective

Not even one day after Paul left Paulsland, messages began being sent out across Paulsland about bandits killing people on the long stretches of road between villages. Experience made Paul expect this, so before he left, he scattered his detectives across Paulsland with the order to investigate the murders that happened nearest them.

Haki was one of the detectives, and he was ready when he got the message telling him where a body was.

Immediately he set out with ten soldiers and marched past three villages to get to his destination. When he got there, a village guard contingent was surrounding a naked body.

Haki asked the guards, “Is this how you found him?”

One of the guards said, “Yes?”

Haki wanted to curse. The bandits were not content with the man's goods; they felt the need to strip him naked. Haki could understand cloth and leather were valuable since they took a long time to make, but it also meant that any fingerprints the bandits might have left on the body would not be found. When they took the clothes, they took their fingerprints with them.

As Haki examined the body, he noticed the man died from a wound to the neck. It looked like someone slashed his throat. Then Haki examined the arms, and there were no defensive wounds. Someone cut his throat from behind. Chances are someone was chatting with him, and when the victim let his guard down, he was murdered.

Haki asked one of the guards, “Have you identified this man yet?”

“Yes, sir. His name is Zahur Kina Msitu. He was a trader that traded some oranges from the river orchards for quicklime our village mines.”

Haki nodded, Kina Msitu was the village Zahur came from originally. King Paul’s demand that everyone use their village name as a last name helped with investigations. It helped Haki paint a story.

Haki asked the Guard, “Did he trade all his oranges, or did he have some leftover?”

“He traded most of them, but he had some leftover. I imagine he wanted to eat them himself.”

“How much lime did he get?”

“I don’t know, but it was a lot. He had two oxen pulling his cart, and it was a big four-wheel one. He must have had it filled two feet on all sides.”

“Was there anything special about the oxen?”

“No.”

Haki nodded and asked, “Did anyone see if a cart matching that description came back through your village?”

“No, sir, we would have noticed that. There are not that many four-wheeled carts around.”

“Do you have a list of people who came through your village the day Zahur did?”

The guard smiled and said, “Of course.” And handed over the list of names. After the last incident of robberies, Paul made it a requirement that each village had to write the names of everyone passing through and which direction they were heading in. It wasn’t full proof, but it was a good place to start the investigation.

Haki told the guard, “Thank you. I will head to the next village to see what they can tell me.”

After about an hour of walking, Haki and his soldiers made it to the next village. He sent a message to Zahur’s wife asking if she could describe her husband's clothes as his murderer stole them. Haki knew this would be hard on her, but the woman likely spent weeks twisting the thread together, then weaving it into cloth, and finally stitching it into clothing. If anyone could describe what her husband wore, it would be her.

Haki asked about any four-wheeled carts that came through, and it turns out that in the time period that the murder happened, three came through, but only one from the direction of the murder. Haki quickly checked the names and found that the name given for the man who came from the direction of the murder was not listed in any of the surrounding villages. It looks like someone gave a false name.

Haki began sending messages looking for that specific four-wheeled cart, and in every village the murder went through, he gave a different name. Tracking the murderer was easier than it should have been because the cart was very identifiable because it had four wheels, two oxen, and was filled with quicklime.

Sending all these messages and getting a response back took hours. Part of the problem was that sending a message in Morse code took time, and part of the problem was that there were hundreds of villages sending messages back and forth. Several of those messages had a higher priority than Hake’s message.

To save time, every time Haki got a lead, he would move to that village with a message to forward all messages about the investigation to that village. There were times where he beat his message on foot simply because the volume of messages were so high.

Eventually, Haki finally got a message about the four-wheeled cart with two oxen getting brought into the village by a local. The problem was that there was no record in any of the surrounding villages of that local visiting them. Haki smiled; he had his man. But that wasn’t enough. He still needed to gather the evidence. And for that, he sent for a fast response unit and for a document.

About seven hours later, a hundred soldiers met Haki. They showed up about an hour after the document arrived. Haki and the fast response unit made their way into the village. They made a lot of commotion as they quickly took over the gates and watchtowers. Once they were in control, the gates were shut.

Haki made it to the top of one tower and said, “I am currently in charge of investigating a recent robbery. A man was killed and his goods stolen. I have tracked down the perpetrators to this village, and until they are captured, and the evidence gathered, everyone will wait in the village square.”

Most of the people in the village looked concerned or a bit afraid, but several of the men looked like they were ready to panic.

The chief of the village said, “I am the chief, and I do not give you permission to shut down my village.”

Haki frowned and said, “I am King Paul’s detective, and I am investigating a murder. I believe I have tracked down the murder to your village, and I will investigate. Not only do I have full authority from King Paul to shut down this village to investigate a murder, but I was also explicitly instructed to do so. King Paul wants everyone to see that if someone is a robber and a murderer they will be caught. There is no hiding.”

The chief looked around at all the soldiers that Haki brought and said, “Fine then. But I will send a complaint to King Paul.”

Haki chuckled and said, “Go ahead. I hope I get to see the flogging King Paul orders for you.”

That shut the chief up. It was not an idle threat. King Paul had ordered chiefs flogged in the past for wasting his time.

With the chief delt with Haki went to the four-wheeled cart and checked it for prints. He matched the fingerprints on the cart to the document he sent for. The document was from Zahur’s village, it showed Zahurs fingerprints, and the document matched the fingerprint on the cart. Without a doubt, this was Zahurs cart. Months ago, during the planting festival, King Paul ordered every person in Paulsland to get fingerprinted, and now that foresight was going to solve a murder.

Haki asked, “Who brought this cart into this village?”

One of the village's gate guards said, “It was Mwiza.”

A man in the crowd said, “No, I didn’t.”

A lady in the crowd said, “But I saw you bring it into the village.”

Mwiza was practically panicking when he said, “You must be mistaken. I have never seen that cart in my life.”

Haki smiled and said, “There is a very simple way to prove your innocence. I just need you to give me your fingerprints. Don’t worry. It will be done just like a few months ago when your chief should have gotten them.”

Mwiza had no options, so he said, “Yeah, okay, no problem.”

Haki had a friendly smile as he took the fingerprints, and they matched exactly to fingerprints all over the cart.

Haki said, “Mwiza, for someone who has never seen this cart, you sure have touched it a lot.”

Mwiza was in full-on panic mode when he said, “I don’t know what you're talking about!”

Haki told the guards, “Do not open the gates; keep everyone in the square. I need to talk with Mwiza privately.” Then Haki pointed to one of the soldiers and said, “Bring him into the schoolhouse. We can talk there.”

The soldier instantly obeyed by grabbing Mwiza’s arm and forcing him toward the schoolhouse. Haki waited until Mwiza was inside the schoolhouse before turning to another guard and saying, “Mwiza is guilty. I want you to go into that schoolhouse and tell Mwiza exactly what is going to happen to him for the murder of Zahur. Also, tell him how much of a dog he is for killing a husband and a father of four children.”

The soldier sneered. He was really upset with Mwiza; it was not an act and said, “No problem. I will enjoy bringing terror to that waste of a human. Not as much as I will enjoy killing him. But it will bring great delight to see him cringe in terror.”

With that, the soldier went to the courthouse, and Haki followed after.

The soldier kicked the door open, making Mwiza jump, and the soldier started yelling, “YOU PIECE OF CRAP! WE KNOW YOU KILLED POOR ZAHUR! WE KNOW YOU RODE HIS CART ALL THE WAY BACK TO THIS VILLAGE! YOU MURDERING FILTH! I LOOK FORWARD TO YOUR DEATH! WITH A MURDER AS BAD AS YOU COMMITTED WE ARE GOING TO POOR MOLTON GLASS ON YOU!”

That’s when the soldier began to whisper with a cruel smile on his face, “First, we are going to poor glass on your feet. It's going to be so hot that your skin will burst into flames and your skin will melt, and your blood will boil. Once that cools off, we will do the same to your hands. Then we will do the same thing to your manhood. I love watching criminals lose their manhood, and you deserve it more than most. You piece of scum, you killed the father of four children. How dare you sneak up behind him and slit his throat.”

Mwiza was horrified and began to shake as the soldier described his upcoming death. But when the soldier started talking about Mwiza slitting Zahur’s throat, Mwiza said, “I didn’t slit his throat.”

That’s when Haki stepped in and yelled, “YOU LIAR! IF YOU DIDN’T SLIT HIS THROAT, THEN WHO DID?”

Mwiza instantly covered his mouth. Haki paused to give the man time to speak, and he said, “I can't say. Um, I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know.”

Haki’s voice became calm and said, “We know you took his cart, and that’s theft, but King Paul doesn’t allow mere thieves to die. If the only thing you did was steal his cart, then that would be forty lashes as most, instead of the terrible death that our soldier friend here described. Mwiza, do you want molten glass poured over your body for a crime someone else committed?”

Mwiza saw hope, and he said, “No, I do not want molten glass poured on me for something someone else did.”

“Would you rather get flogged for the crime you really did commit?”

Mwiza was in tears as he said, “yes.”

“Look, Mwiza, I like you. I understand that sometimes you go out to commit a theft with an acquaintance, and they tell you that it will just be a theft. But then they go too far and kill someone. That isn’t your fault. Whoever committed the murder, that’s their fault. Why don’t you give me their name, and they will get what they deserve for betraying you like that.”

Mwiza began to nod as he listened to Haki, then with a look of righteous plastered all over his face, he said, “Yeah, they betrayed me. I never wanted things to go down like it did. Mauaji did it. Me and Mauaji traveled two days to commit our theft away from the village, so it would be hard to track us down. The entire time we were saying that we were going to just commit a theft. When we saw that man traveling down the road with so much wealth, two oxen, a four-wheeled cart, a full load of quicklime, eating oranges, and all by himself, we knew we found the perfect target. I went and talked with the man, and while he was distracted, Mauaji went behind him, put his hand over his mouth, and slit his throat. I was mad because he was just supposed to hit him over the head and tie him up, but Mauaji was too cheap to waste the rope on the man and so killed him instead.”

Haki nodded and said, “Mwiza, I believe your story, but what evidence do you have that Mauaji was the murderer? You already admitted to being a thief; how do I know you're not lying?”

“Because Mauaji kept the target's clothes, and he also got to keep one of the oxen.”

Haki wrote that down. He got a fantastic description of Zahur’s clothes from Zahur’s wife. This would be pretty easy to confirm.

Haki then asked, “Where is the other ox? Did you keep it?”

Mwiza looked down and whispered, “I am really really not supposed to talk about that. It could get me killed.”

“Don’t worry, Mwiza, I will protect you.”

“The other oxen went to the chief, so did all the quicklime. The chief is the one who set everything up. He found out from one of the men in the communications tower that King Paul was leaving Paulsland for a few days, and the chief is scared of King Paul’s mystical powers. When King Paul is in Paulsland, the chief behaves himself, but when King Paul isn’t in Paulsland, the chief goes back to raiding like he did before King Paul took over. Although this time he raids secretly.”

Haki really perked up and asked, “So this isn’t the first time.”

“No.”

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

After a lengthy interrogation with Mwiza, Hiki interrogated Mauaji and then the chief. Once done, Haki was ready for the very public trial.

Haki brought all three criminals before the village and said, “A few days ago Zahur was murdered. None of you know him because he was not from this village, but Zahur was a citizen of Paulsland. After Zahur was murdered, his oxen, four-wheeled ox cart, quicklime, clothes, and oranges were taken. With no doubt,” Haki pointed toward the four-wheeled ox cart, “that ox cart is Zahur’s.”

The villagers gasped, but honestly, they were enjoying the show after standing around bored all day.

“Mwiza brought the stolen ox cart into the village, and so he will be my first witness. Mwiza, please come up here and testify before the people about what happened.”

Mwiza came up and said, “The chief used his authority to force me to commit a robbery far away from the village.”

The people gasped again, but the chief yelled out, “YOU LIAR! I WILL HAVE YOU KILLED FOR THAT!”

Mwiza shrunk back, and Haki yelled out, “Soldiers shut him up.”

A soldier slammed the flat of his blade against the chief's shin. The chief fell to the ground clutching them and trying to rub the pain away.

Then Haki said, “Continue.”

Mwiza said, “The chief used his access to the communications tower to make sure we committed the robbery when King Paul was gone. This is not the first time the chief has forced me to commit a robbery.”

Haki asked, “Did you commit this robbery alone?”

“No, sir. Mauaji came with me. We were simply supposed to knock the target out and tie him up. But Mauaji was too cheap, so slit his throat instead and stole his clothes.”

“What evidence do you have to support your claim.”

“Even though I was tasked with bringing back the oxen and cart, Mauaji and the chief each got an ox. I was the lowest man on the totem pole, so all I got was the wagon which I was supposed to sell off.”

Haki said, “We have investigated and found that Mauji and the chief both have oxen that belonged to Zahur. Is there any other evidence?”

“Yes, sir. Mauaji kept the Zahur’s clothes, and the chief got to keep the quicklime. All I got in the robbery was the wagon and a couple of oranges.”

Haki announced, “We have checked Mauaji’s new clothes, and it matches exactly with Zahur’s wife's description of his clothes. Ladies, you know how much time you spend making your husband's clothes. Could you make a mistake in describing them?”

The ladies shook their heads. After spending a month or two making one set of clothes, it gets ingrained into their mind.

“Furthermore, the chief was found with significantly more quicklime than he should have. He has no receipt for it, and so I find this story credible.”

That’s when Haki turned toward Mauaji and asked, “Is there anything you want to add, Mauaji. At this point, your words could not hurt your case.”

Mauaji was panicking, and he said, “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. The chief promised everything would go smooth without King Paul in Paulsland. He said once King Paul was away from the communications towers everything would be easy. He made me do it. If the chief hadn’t made me do it, then I wouldn’t be here.”

Haki nodded and asked the chief, “Is there anything you want to add?”

“I had no part in this. I demand to see King Paul.”

Haki smiled and said, “I am very sure you will. And you will even have a tongue when you see him. I am under strict orders, though, that any government official caught intentionally breaking the law will lose one piece of themselves a day until they die. Soldiers put him in stocks and take off the tip of one of his fingers.”

The chief started yelling, “I AM CHIEF YOU CAN NOT DO THIS TO ME!”

Haki ignored him and said, “Mwazi and Mauaji are both murders. They intentionally waited for a time to commit their crime when they thought they could get away with it, they tracked down an innocent man they did not know, and they murdered him in cold blood. They will both be glassed.”

Both the men started crying. Mwazi yelled out, “BUT YOU PROMISED I WOULD GET OFF IF I CONFESSED!”

Haki said, “Shut up, you dog. You murdered an innocent man. I am showing you the same mercy you showed them.”

“BUT THE CHIEF MADE ME DO IT!”

Haki turned to one of the soldiers and said, “I am giving you a direct order. When these men get glassed, make sure you do it one at a time. While the molten glass is pouring on them, announce loudly, ‘if a government official tells you to commit a crime tell King Paul. HE WILL BE VERY INTERESTED.’”

The Haki looked around and said, “Where is the lieutenant of this village?”

A man stepped forward and said, “I am the lieutenant.”

“Make sure the belongs of these men are sent to Zahur’s family.”

The lieutenant looked confused and said, “What about the criminal's families?”

“This is a direct order from King Paul. If a man commits murder, then all his belongs goes to the murder victim's family. The murders family will have to make do the best they can. Although the family of the murder may keep the roof over their head and the clothes on their back, everything else goes to the victim's family. Paul assures me this will encourage wives to encourage their husbands to follow the law. If you have any questions, you can ask King Paul when he gets back.”

All across Paulsland, similar scenes were taking place. The detectives had made themselves known in a huge way. All across the nation, every murderer trembled in fear.

Chapter 15 March 86 AD Africa- Trade Mission

Faizal felt bad. He was holding up their first trade mission to the north, but it wasn’t his fault. King Paul made him wait for a few trade goods before he could go on the mission.

He was bringing the last of the supplies down the river, and he was almost to his destination. When the flat bottom riverboat finally made the last bend in the river, it was breathtaking to see the ocean.

The flat bottom boat made its way to a floating dock built more or less where the river and ocean meet. Perhaps in time, the flat bottom boats would be replaced with trimarans that could go in both sea and river, but the hippo population would have to be significantly reduced first. One enterprising captain found out the hard way that hippos can get their mouth around a trimaran’s hull when the hippo's teeth punctured his hull.

The boat captain asked, “Which trimaran are we going to?”

In the scope of a year, the people on five village island fell in love with the trimaran, and now all around the island were docks filled with boats. The hardest part of making them was the sail, and the spinning wheel significantly helped with that.

Faizal looked around and spotted Dashiell’s trimaran, pointed to it, and said, “That one. The one with all the stuff on board.”

The boat captain nodded, and the rowers paddled the boat in that direction.

When they reached the trimaran, Dashiell had a huge grin on his face and, in mock annoyance, said, “It's about time.”

Faizal could hear the teasing in Dashiell’s voice but was still a little embarrassed and said, “Sorry I’m late. Your father has been trying hard to make the compass project work, but no matter what he does, he cant figure out how to make iron magnetic. None of us researchers have any idea what he’s talking about, so that project is mostly us doing what he tells us to do. He did say that perhaps the experiments they had him do in elementary school were not actually practical.”

Dashiell nodded and said, “Yeah. Dad’s a mystery. So what did you bring?”

“I have fifteen pumps with long rubber hoses, Oranges, rubber life vest, a few rubber toys, and cloth that has been rubberized to be waterproof.”

“With all the preserves, spices, tea, galvanized rubber blocks, and cloth I already have onboard, I don’t think you would be able to fit much more on here.”

Faizal looked across the deck of the trimaran. He was surprised how much stuff they could fit on the deck of the trimaran. A few months ago, they tested the stability by loading down the ship with rocks and sailing it into a stormy sea, and the ship did just fine.

“King Paul isn’t sure what will sell, and he says that once we find a port, above everything else, we need to bring back people to teach us their language. Even if we have to buy slaves. Once we can speak to each other, we can set them free.”

Dashiell smiled and asked, “Have you ever heard dad rant about slavery?”

“Oh yes. He ranted about it when he realized we would likely have to buy slaves to bring back to Paulsland. He considers it stupid for a nation's government to allow slavery but also understands why citizens in a government would want to own slaves. He waxed… eloquently about how the government has to stand up to the rich and ambitions who want slaves.”

“Eloquently? More like drones on and on about it.”

“You’re his son; you can use more familiar language.”

“Oh, come on, Faizal, your practically family. I bet my dad would even appreciate you pointing out that he drones on and on.”

“I am sure King Paul would, but your mother would have my head.”

Dashiell started laughing and, with a huge grin on his face, said, “Your right she would. My mom gets into all that dignity and ceremony stuff. Speaking of mom and dad. Is dad still mad at me about betrothing Alexander? What do I have to do to get back in the good graces of my father? When does my banishment end?”

Faizal blinked. He was stunned. “Dashiell, your father, isn’t mad at you. Sure he was mad when he sent you to the coast, but he got over that pretty quickly. He understood why you did what you did and was more mad at the situation than mad at you. Your banishment is more or less what he intends to do with all his children. Separate them so that they can learn to lead on their own and allow them the opportunity to develop loyal followers. Your father feels bad about sending you north on this trade mission because it means that there will be weeks or months where you don’t get to develop the loyalty of a group of people. He is sending you on this mission because he trusts you.”

Dashiell was now the stunned one and asked, “But why didn’t he say something?”

“He thought you knew. I can tell you that King Paul has big plans and you are definitely part of them. Over the last few months, King Paul has mentioned that the coast will have to be run differently than the tropical forest of Paulsland, and he is giving considerable consideration to making you the economic leader of the coast. It's one of the reasons why he is sending a map maker on this trip. Step one is getting a map of the coast. Step two is that in a year or two when your students are ready to send you up and down the coast, making it part of Paulsland, then once the coast is strong enough to allow you to make decisions and policies that make sense for the coast that doesn’t make sense for the tropical forest of Paulsland. King Paul plans to have you and your brothers compete in different parts of the country for developing the economy and infrastructure of Paulsland.”

Dashiell’s mouth dropped open and said, “I had no idea.”

“I don’t know how much of that King Paul planned on telling you when you get back, but King Paul spends so much time with us researchers, his secretaries, builders, and diplomats we often know a lot more about his plans than his family. King Paul is trying to put you in places where you can develop your own leadership skills instead of being a yes man like me.”

Faizel could see that Dashiell was shook up, so he asked, “If you need a day to compose yourself, we could always load up today and go tomorrow.”

Dashiell shook his head and said, “No. This trip has been delayed long enough. I just need to get my mind focused. What mission did my father give you for this trip?”

“I am to gift the most official-looking person at the harbor with two books. One book is the book on the elements that King Paul printed up, and the other is a dictionary of all the languages in Paulsland. Besides that, I am to try and find tools, books, maps, or gadgets to buy that we don’t have.”

“What about riding animals?”

“Unless he told you differently, he mentioned to me that our trimaran wasn’t big enough to transport them. He plans on waiting for ships to come to our harbor before trading for them. It will be two years at least before we start getting them.”

“That matches with what his letters told me. Okay, now that I am focused, let's finish loading, strapping down the supplies, and let's get out of here. We have new lands to see.”

Table of Contents

- - Table Of Contents -

- Chapter 7 February AD 81 Africa- Political wedding

- Chapter 8 April 81 AD Texas- Yoke

- Chapter 9 July AD 81 Africa-Seizing the other side of the river

- Chapter 10 July AD 81 Africa- Mistake

- Chapter 11 July AD 81 Texas- Plow

- Chapter 12 August 82 AD Africa- Harsh Correction

- Chapter 13 November AD 81 Africa- Genifa
- Chapter 14 December AD 81 Texas- Culture
- Chapter 15 January AD 82 Texas- Workers
- Chapter 16 February AD 82 Africa-Diplomats
- Chapter 17 July 100 BC Indian Ocean-Malaria
- Chapter 18 March AD 82 Africa- Pandemic
- Chapter 19 March AD 82 Africa- Unprepared

- Chapter 20 April AD 82 Texas- Trevor’s First Hunt

- Chapter 21 May AD 82 Africa- Warlord
- Chapter 22 June AD 82 Africa- Defenders
- Chapter 23 June AD 82 Africa- Siege Warfare
- Chapter 24 June AD 82 Africa- Panic

- Chapter 25 June AD 82 Africa- Storming The Tower

- Chapter 26 June AD 82 Africa- Armies Clash

- Chapter 27 June AD 82 Africa-Battle of Two Green Armies

- Chapter 28 June 82 AD Africa- Macro Maneuvers

- Chapter 29 June AD 82 Africa- Aftermath

- Chapter 30 June AD 82 Texas- Young Trader

- Chapter 31 July 82 AD  Africa- Interrogation

- Chapter 32 November 82 AD Africa- Planting Festival

- Chapter 33 January 83 AD Texas- Scribes

- Chapter 34 December 82 AD Africa- Invasion

- Chapter 35 April AD 83 Africa- What Happened to Abilio

- Chapter 36 April 83 AD Texas- Power Tools

- Chapter 37 May AD 37 Africa- Elzo's Counter Attack

- Chapter 38 July AD 83 Africa-Bitter Return
- Chapter 39 November AD 83 Africa- Progress
- Chapter 40 December AD 83 Texas- A Big Gift

- Chapter 41 January AD 84 Texas- Sharing Ideas With Congress

- Chapter 42 February 84 AD Africa- Politics
- Chapter 43 March 84 AD Africa- Savannah
- Chapter 44 May AD 84 Texas- The Sea
- Chapter 45 June AD 84 Africa- Indian Ocean
- Chapter 46 June AD 84 Africa- Diplomacy

- Chapter 47 July AD 84 Texas- The First Buffalo Riders

- Chapter 48 July AD 84 Texas- Buffalo Rider Raids

- Chapter 49 August AD 84 Africa- Family Get Together

- Chapter 50 November AD 84 Africa- Planting Festival

- Chapter 51 December 84 AD Texas- Emergency Congress

- Chapter 52 March AD 85 Texas-Compound Bow
- Prologue to book 4 Buffalo Riders of Texas
- Chapter 1 March AD 85 Texas- Saddle

- Chapter 2 March AD 85 Texas- Raiders Return to Camp

- Chapter 3 April 85 AD Africa-Trimaran
- Chapter 4 May 85 AD Africa- Beethoven
- Chapter 5 June AD 85 Texas- Partner
- Chapter 6 June AD 85 Texas-Buffalo Riding
- Chapter 7 July 85 AD Texas- New River

- Chapter 8 November 85 AD Africa- Planting Festival

- Chapter 9 November 85 AD Africa- Illuminate

- Chapter 10 November 85 AD Texas- Grand Theft Bison

- Chapter 11 December 85 AD Texas-Coming of Age

- Chapter 12 January 86 AD Texas- Congress

- Chapter 13 January 86 AD Africa- Return to the Savannah

- Chapter 14 January 86 AD Africa-Detective

- Chapter 15 March 86 AD Africa- Trade Mission