Mangrove trees, shrubs and vines congested every border of the entirety of a showery isle, with dewy scents that revolved around the inhabited center of a slough with soppy small grasses. Its dusty soil lying above the lily-topped freshwater that surrounded the drenched ground. The spacious, soggy inlands contrasted the sector's corners and borders, for each nearshore were covered in swamps. These swamps blocked entering points for outsiders, and it stretched all across the entirety of the saturated dominion; leaving the eastern coastline
Round huts made of mud, grass, millet stalks and wooden poles; tiki torches of similar features were spotted everywhere on the scene around the central wetlands, so were flags with green backgrounds attached to wooden poles. There were a large number of painstaking people working mainly on outdoors. These people were used to working on the sector's hydric soil, including those who were barefooted.
They are a tribe; as manifested by their outfits, the feathery head accessories they were donning and their face paints. Men were tattooed heavily with bold full-sleeve and body inks; women have lesser tattoos with thinner outlines, except the little children. They do have somewhat terrifying physical appearances, such as their outlandish earrings and nose piercings. They were more on doing woodworks.
None other than the House of Ardaja. Its stalwart scouts and warriors were lining up by the ends of the spacious, moist-earthed territory.
Every single group of at least four men were arriving home, with hard rods placed horizontally above their right shoulders; helping each other carry the ends of the huge stick with hanging bodies of dead horned animals. Women and children from this tribe were helping build up fires on combined pile of logs, through instruments such as swiftly collapsing and sliding stones contrarily; others inserted a standing stick into a hole in a wooden platform and persistently rubbed their hands until fire lit the top of the stick.
Some mothers and children handled the primitive culinary works, such as allowing flaming logs to boil up pails of water before proceeding to dipping mutilated animal meats. Others were cooking on old woks, where the animal fleshes' odors were leisurely changing from raw to having finely-seasoned scents.
Brawnier Ardajan men were carving up the preys on wooden chopping boards, removing their internal organs. Other men were helping in the construction; sweating as they did the hardest task such as assisting in the building of new huts for the shelter of their homeless residents.
Just as daily chores kept the Ardajan folks busy, a trumpeter by the ends of the wetland from the northern Ardajan shoreline blew blaring sounds of the wooden horn that caught everyone's attention. They rose altogether and adjusted to the sides with no other extra movements; little children who chose to play rather than help their parents earlier copied their adult comrades' rise to attention.
They witnessed an arrival of men–consisting half a number of muscular scouts and half a number of guards in a dozen carrying an enclosed wooden litter, with the poles placed upon their shoulders.
Jaghar turned out to be one of the men inside the human-powered transport, sitting next to him alone was the same preteen child he had been accompanying back at the time of their entrance and exit back in the Nean Forum venue at Prythermo. Normally looking aggressive as he has always been. Even in the wheelless carriage, Jaghar was sticking the boy close to him that he could not let go of his arm off the child's shoulder.
The boy asked him, who could not resist unthinking of how Jaghar nearly got into a fight, lately. "Did you really have to fight King Tip just for Neanthylae's demand for rocks?"
For a while, Jaghar moved his arm off the young man's shoulder. "Oh, I did not fight him," denied the heir, his voice smooth with mock contrition. Faking the remorse expressed in his face which seemed real to the child. "I am just defending myself."
"You nearly rammed him if it had not been for our scouts."
Jaghar narrowed his eyes to that response of recognition. "Are you taking the blue side?" he suspected.
"No! Of course, not," the youngster timorously shook his head. "I am just telling you."
The long-haired Prince's adverse scowl turned into a contented grin. Just what he had been waiting for to be said to him–opposition towards the other Houses. "Good, my son," Jaghar gave him a gratified stroke on the head, petting him like an obedient canine. "Our rival Houses should see the vigor of Ardajan strength. You will see, when your father becomes Chieftain, I will work my promises out for the House."
His son gave him a grateful glance and smile. And nodded in agreement.
Shortly, they felt the unwheeled carriage come to a halt, and being carefully lowered to the ground, sensing it was about time they flee the vehicle. One of the scouts opened the door for them. Jaghar led his son out of the litter; upon their exit. Jaghar scrutinized everyone around, and he and his son only met the unmoving gazes of the tribe people, and then they moved on their way somewhere.
Jaghar's son came scurrying towards a spherical edging of five huts outside its empty, frontal yards, separated from the location of those where a majority of ordinary Ardajan servants work all day long. The litter stopped by in front of the bounded huts, with the guards opening the doors and giving exits to the Prince and his son.
A pregnant woman carrying a both a male and a female toddler went out from one of the left huts, closest to the biggest housing at the center a few meters farther in front of the father and son, the second to show up were her three other children–twins of opposite genders next to Jakheem in terms of age and a male child. Watching and waiting as their male family members arrived all the way from Neanthylae. The family had been exchanging feverish grins at that distance. The gap was not bigger now.
"Narwal!" Jaghar bid.
"Jaghar! Jakheem!" she greeted back warmly.
"Pop!" Jaghar's three younger children hollered a chorus of delirium.
"You go ahead, son. I have to check your grandfather on the other hut." Jaghar insisted. Jakheem ran to them and shared a moment with them. He stayed in his position for a little while, and watched his son entwining himself around his mother and younger siblings.
Before Jakheem returned to have a word with his mother and siblings, he witnessed his first younger brother, who has an identical female twin, approached their father. "Pop, can I come, too?" the boy mooched with his father by wrapping his much smaller arms around Jaghar's waistline as he asked in a smooth, playful tone.
"Oh, no, Devonir." Jaghar casted him a smile same as his son's attitude of asking him. The tall Ardajan pat Devonir's head lovingly. "I need to speak to the shaman in private."
The lasting embrace left Jaghar walking out and making his way through inside the central hut in front of him now. Devonir stared curiously at him that he would like to follow his father inside.
"Hey, Devonir!" Jakheem called, gazing warmly at him. "You might want to hear out stories. Mother sure has some for you!"
Young Devonir showed no interest, he was looking concerned while staring at the hut even until now, where Jaghar last left off. "I am not in the mood. I will not be contented until I have seen grandfather breathing well."
Devonir was a child. Jakheem, as a preteen, knew he could do nothing to stop his brother from worrying, and the thought he had in mind that naughtiness was common among children. "Alright. As long you stay out of their conversation." he permitted to avoid getting into a quarrel with Devonir.
Devonir did not reply but took note of what his older brother reminded him.
As Jaghar entered earlier, he came across a shaman kneeling down and tending to an elderly man lying down on a soft mattress. There were a couple of plants, smaller wooden items and a ceramic plate laid beside him–practically his instruments used for healing the sick.
The shaman wore a headdress made up of thicker grasses. And had numerous, thin braids tied into a single ponytail. With two face paints per cheek. Had a pair of golden earrings with hanging hoops. He donned a blue loose robe that lengthened down to his feet. Outside that robe was a leather brown belt keeping it tightened up.
He rose to his knees as Jaghar came in, whom he lately noticed and respectfully greeted, "Koupfron Jaghar." He genuflected back again.
"How is he, Yhwummu?"
"Koupfron Jaghar, I really could not confirm that the cause of his coma is some kind of a traumatic head injury," he explained. "It does not appear like an accident. It might have looked like somebody could have done this to him."
"Are you sure?" Jaghar raised an eyebrow of disbelief. In the way he did so, he hated to consider what the shaman has observed. "You reached out to Goddess Ardaja, didn't you?"
"She answered my calling," Yhwummu sewed up. "She gave me the thought of proving that someone within the House did this to the Chief."
"You mean a mole is lurking in the House?" Jaghar seemed quite dubious about that cause as the shaman sealed with a nod. "Now what foul mind would do such a thing to my father? Tell me this, Yhwummu, are you able to reveal the turncoat's name yet?"
The shaman looked so sorry for failing to tell him a specific name. He shook his head. "Just the gender, Koupfron Jaghar. A man. I have felt it."
"Yhwummu." Jaghar stared entirely at his father, and he told the Ardajan healer, "Leave us if you please. I wish to speak to my father alone."
"Certainly," promised the shaman. For a moment, Jaghar fixed his eyes on Yhwummu until he has finally departed the Chieftain's shelter.
Jaghar gazed back at Zohaymar. He slowed down as he spotted this man resting on the ground; he narrowed his eyes as a devious air streamed through him. He stopped and wilily stared down at the exhausted elder. The crooked elder did appear to be lifeless on the way he rested. He was still breathing normally yet unable to open his eyes. Jaghar kneeled down, watching the senior's silent suffering and tried to sooth the old man's right arm, though he had felt no pain in his coma-like state. Giving him the body comfort he needed even at the time of his unconsciousness.
Outside. Jakheem was sitting right beside his younger sister, in a conversation with their mother as Narwal herself sharpened some silver blades of the spear to her undecided likeness with stones.
"How did your father do?"
He thought of altering the story. "Uh, he did not speak that much, lately. Mainly, it was Lord Rabiro and King Tip. Lord Rabiro mentioned that the storm flashed out half of Neanthylae's rocks from their coalmines. So, for the Neanthylaenean daily livelihood, King Tip formally agreed to make a trade of Tarskan rocks."
Narwal simpered, "That is what I admire you for," not to what happened, but the way Jakheem retold the events of the assembly. "Your listening skills. Your father had not mistaken. Choosing you for his successor is the rightest decision he has ever made."
"Oh, it is Rashnur and Merwyniedaa." Jakheem said under his breath before responding to his mother. Narwal moved the toddlers closer to his eldest brother for Jakheem to be able to pat them. He pats Rashnur on the head and rocked Merwyniedaa briefly before returning her back to their mother's arms. Then his first younger sister came. "And Andhetra." His second younger brother came after, making Jakheem greet him first. "Hey, Narmakur."
Narmakur was satisfied with the simplicity of his greeting, as long as he included him and there was cheeriness in his voice, although he was not greeted playfully. "Hey, ."
He felt pleased rather than pride. Enjoying his state of being an elder brother, given his close relationship with his siblings.
Jakheem went back to his mother. "Well, grandfather said it himself before he fell into a coma." His contentment melted, and his smile turned into a frown when he said the word coma. "A majority of male rulers are greater than the opposite, and I am your only son. A man can be a leader even if he's on the bottom of the totem pole. When a man sees that something must be done, he will not let his lack of position limit him from taking charge."
Gloom crept over Narwal and her children. Taking part in Jakheem's grief for the unwell Ardajan Chieftain.
"But grandfather stayed loyal to the dynastical type of leadership by preference."
Narwal nodded solemnly in agreement. Although the Chief's daughter-in-law and grandchildren felt sorrow that brief time. Whether he was to survive or not, his death had not yet come. Jakheem's continuous statement relieved his mother from her woe. It was his expanding knowledge.
Devonir emerged from the sick elder's hut three minutes later. He froze still and shocked. Speechless.
Jaghar followed. He was looking down as he exited the housing. He moved few steps forward away from the hut to stand beside Devonir and held a hand of his son tightly. At the time of his quiet intervening, his family faced him with thrilled looks of hunger for announcements coming from the man's mouth himself.
"Pop!" It was Jakheem's enlivened voice. "How is grandfather doing?"
"Is he alright?" Andhetra added to her brother's question.
Jaghar met his family's stirred-up looks and bore a look of forlornness. He did not answer his children in a trice. "I need to conduct a House meeting, everyone," he told them. "Kindly proceed to the center of the Karumstafi Circle."
His family obeyed, as Jaghar went to approach the aligned column of Tahzir and the trumpeters waiting and watching the camp; standing ten meters away from the protected sphere of huts of Chief Zohaymar and his family members. From that distance, Jaghar gathered Tahzir and the trumpeters around and said something to them. A probable commandment.
After the shortest talk with him, Tahzir led the group of signalers to the said location, as Jaghar himself headed straight and stood his ground at a taller tree stump in front of the Karumstafi Circle.
Horns blew altogether, calling the attention of all the working folks; mothers, maidens, ordinary men unaffiliated with Ardajan political works, and children–stopping them from whatever they were doing there and then. Silence dropped down as everyone heard the insistent noise. Jaghar was cooled down just as he exited Zohaymar's hut, earlier, as he afforded a view of the crowd of his audience gathering themselves.
Jaghar waited for all of them to settle in stillness and lack of movement, without feeling a surge of impatience boiling up in his veins.
"Brothers, sisters, compatriots," he looked around him. "It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of my father, Chieftain Zohaymar." His voice was low and deep. "Few minutes ago, I was there when he succumbed after two weeks in coma."
Source of distress rippled through the House like a wintry zephyr. Among those in front, Narwal, Jakheem and Andhetra dropped their jaws down. It was something they never expected to hear. A woman with three children, a son and two daughters just in between the ages of Jakheem and his younger sister, came to stand beside Jaghar's wife and five children.
"Father has gone too soon?" It was the mother standing next to Narwal–basically on her addressment of the recently deceased leader–she was one of his children and a sibling of Jaghar. Her widened eyes and her children's turned wet with grief. Narwal and her children glanced at her for the briefest of time, before turning back up to Jaghar for another round of incoming speech.
Jaghar took a deeper breath and expressed his regrets. "I was wrong to tell you all that it was some kind of a traumatic head injury that led to his coma. Goddess Ardaja herself," he pointed a finger to the skies referring to their deity, "I had a talk with our shaman, and he said that a black-hearted renegade did this to his own leader."
Bereaved chattering rose from above the crowd. The announcement of Chief Zohaymar's death was like a stab to their hearts.
Jaghar inhaled dully once more and spoke further, "I know this is not the best time to express our grudge, but I tell you that we are after that person now!" his voice coarsened with short-lasting pine for comeuppance.
The audience sounded a voice of approval to his desire for the person most responsible for it. But Jaghar would not let this day of lamentation be quashed by everyone's hankering for requital. Whilst opening out over the rest of his listeners across the backer portion of the gathered crowd, had he not noticed that his family members were weeping in silence.
"For your information, the Chieftain's body is still in his hut." Jaghar had a glimpse of the cold blue afternoon skies, where cottons of clouds invaded it on its own time. He gulped down the sadness that kept him from speaking. "I covered his body under a bedding. So, I wish to call the men's assistance to have my father's body properly placed in a casket at once at the time of this speech's conclusion."
Everyone could not quit whining. Those snivels were for real, deep with the hearts of the Ardajan people. And Jaghar did not fail to notice everyone's mourning even though he was quietly grieving without shedding a tear. He knew how much his father was loved by the tribe for a dearest ruler.
"I could feel it, friends," the rest looked up at him again. "I am grateful for you all. Thank you for loving my father in return for his good deeds. Except for that heartless traitor–who had not find it in his heart to treat him the same way you did years prior to his demise." He frowned his eyes back again, confidently raised the tone of his voice above the crowd.
Anger crawled up to battle the pain every folk had for the loss of their Chieftain, whenever Jaghar would mention anything with any relation to the suspect. Making them cry tears of rage and thirst for vengeance.
"Not only will we do this for my father," Jaghar's nose started to smoke in calmer fury. For the second time, he pointed a finger to the skies; saying, "Ardaja–our Goddess. At the same time the first ancestor of my family that carries this House's dynastical leadership." Everyone nodded in agreement and in attentiveness. "We will have to give justice to the death of one of the Ardaja's descendants. We will do it for her own peace."
Jaghar ended his speech there. He walked down the rugged slope from the tree stump. His family and a group of few gentlemen followed him, choosing themselves to pick up their late Chief's body per Jaghar's request.
"Has it been so soon, mother?" asked Andhetra.
Narwal transferred her hand from Andhetra's nape to the back of her head. "Not really, honey," still consoling her children for the loss of their grandfather. "He has ruled the House of Ardaja even before I was born. At least he has lived up to eight decades of age. It is already a blessing for a person." She went on as her children continued to sniff to breathe air, "But I really never thought he will die by intended murder."
Narmakur followed up with his question, "Who could it be, mother?"
"You heard your father, Narmakur. The shaman foreknew treachery within the House," Narwal jogged her son's memory. "Unfortunately, he has not identified the features of the suspect yet."
"I wonder what will become of Ardaja now," Andhetra worried.
Jakheem, although struggling to cheer up just after learning about the recent death of their grandfather, touched Andhetra by the shoulder and made the littlest of effort to comfort her.