Snatched by cmsix

Chapter 18

I did not wake before sunrise the next morning, and in fact I barely made it out before noon. It was a good thing I'd left the other half of the antibiotic with the healing woman and asked her to give Shaton half of it after about six hours, and the other half six hours later.

My mates were not with me when I woke and I wouldn't have expected them to be. I dressed and made my way outside and toward the central fire. I hoped food could appear from somewhere soon. It did.

It was nearly as if Shaeta and Katia had been waiting and watching the hut to see when I'd come out. They had a bowl of food ready for me before I could even get seated in our normal spot. I thanked them and started eating, and I'm pretty sure my table manners, or bowl manners, were not the best.

"How is Zakat?" I asked, after I'd stuffed it all in.

"He looks much better this morning than he did last night. He doesn't even seem very weak," Katia said.

"Are you sure he was as sick as you thought?" Shaeta asked.

"Yes, the medicine we took from my trunk is very powerful. I'm sure it is what is helping him. He was not doing very well even though the other healing woman did her best," I said.

"There is another healing woman?"

"There was one being held captive by the men that attacked us. I'm sure that Zakat would have died if she hadn't helped him as soon as we found her," I said.

It was only a beginning on the explaining I was going to have to do and I knew it. I didn't blame them a bit because I knew that this type of thing just didn't happen very often. I cheated though and told them about the two men that fucked each other, and that sent them to their mothers right away, leaving me in peace for a while.

They weren't gone very long though, and they returned with their mothers in only a few minutes. I was surprised that most of the questions were about the two men lovers, and I was pretty glad I didn't know much about them.

"You will just have to wait until the women get here. That reminds me of something I'm wondering about. Will we take the women in?" I asked.

"If they want to stay with us of course we will. Didn't you say that these attackers killed all their men?" Caloe asked.

"Yes. One of the women told me they even killed all the boys, down to the youngest."

"I don't understand how any man could do such," Caloe said.

"I think they were confused by the one they called their Zakat. He was not really a Zakat though because they didn't have a real Calak. How can you call it a Calak if the women have to be held against their will?" I asked.

"You can't. That was no Calak, and the women they were holding knew it I'm sure," Shata said.

"But this leader they had, what makes you think he caused it all?" Caloe asked.

"He was easily big enough to have made his way into a Calak if he'd tried. He was either rejected when he tried or he never tried. He was a dangerous man though. I am glad he is dead," I said.

"It is better. They can worry about him in the next world," Caloe said.

"I don't think they will worry about him much," I said.

"Why do you say that?"

"I took his hands and feet before I sent him off. I cut them off with my saw and we burned them after he died. The only thing I see him doing in the next world is begging," I said.

"It is good enough for him. I hope he has a long life there," Shata said, and Caloe seemed to agree, but I could tell that she was disturbed by it.

That wasn't the end of the powwow though. Caloe had a lot more questions for me. Many of them I couldn't answer because I just didn't know. She asked so much about the ways of the faux Calak and its leader that I couldn't tell her. I knew it was frustrating for her, since I knew that she would be the one deciding on the fate of our former attackers.

On the face of it things would seem simple, but they weren't really. These were not grown men, even if they were larger than most grown men I'd ever met. Their ages probably ran from sixteen to nineteen. Old enough to leave their birth Calak but only coming old enough to try to join another one, and certainly not old enough to know better.

Kaglao was older. I don't know how old and probably we'd never know, but he was old enough and smart enough to sucker the young men he ran across into joining his Calak that wasn't a Calak.

In a way I felt sorry for them. They were turned out to make their own way and suckered in by Kaglao. He must have seemed knowledgeable and no doubt he had a strong personality. The trouble was, he was a piece of shit. On one hand it was hard to blame the young men he gathered to him, but in another way it didn't matter.

The knowledge couldn't be unlearned now. Growing up is a process, and when you learn something that makes it easier for you, you're likely to fall back on it later if need arises. They had learned to kill and take. Could we teach them that type behavior was wrong, and insure they wouldn't backslide? I doubted it but thought we should try. Not because I felt that they had some mystical right to live. That's horseshit.

Every life is not precious; in fact, babies are pretty damned easy to come by, and with a little organization they're easily raised. I know the mothers don't think like that but it's the damned truth. On the world I came from there were a hell of a lot more people than it could safely support and the numbers were growing all the time. If I didn't think I could drive the shit Kaglao put in these heads out, I'd shoot every fucking one of them myself.

That didn't mean they couldn't be useful, and if they lived they were going to be useful. I didn't intend to make slaves of them, but I was going to end up in charge of them and they were going to do things I wanted done, if they got to live.

Caloe and Shata finally decided they had all the information that I had, and they left me in peace. I was glad about it. I didn't mind telling them what I knew but I didn't know enough about it to matter. They kept coming up with questions that I couldn't answer and there was no point in my helping them speculate.

Going over to where Denac was still guarding the attackers, I decided that there was no sense in letting them sit on their asses all day. We were going to have to feed them, for a while anyway, and we might as well get something out of it.

"Denac, do you think the two of us can keep control of them if we take them to the burned out place to make them work?" I asked him.

"I don't see why not, they haven't been causing any trouble," he said, and damned if one of them, the one I'd made tell me Kaglao name, didn't open his mouth and prove Denac wrong.

"We are not going to work unless you let us join the Calak," he said, in a defiant voice that made me wonder where he'd found the courage.

I shot him in the abdomen as soon as I could get the Glock out.

"You just couldn't wait to see what it feels like when the Glock stings your belly, could you. Are you happy now that you know?"

He didn't seem very happy. He had a hand over the entrance wound and was screaming as loud as he could stand to. I asked Denac to keep an eye on the others while I went to my trunk, where I fetched one of my few plastic ties.

He was still screaming when I got back and by now there was a crowed around him, a crowd from our camp.

"What has happened?" Caloe asked, when I got back.

"That one," I said, pointing out the obvious culprit, "decided he didn't want to live much longer. He said that he was not going to work unless we let him join the Calak. There is no need for us to feed him and let him live if he isn't going to work."

"I can see the sense in that," Caloe said, and seemed to realize that the rest of the show was for the benefit of the prisoners left alive.

I went over to the howling one, slit his trouser's waist cord and then pulled them off him, leaving him naked below the waist. Of course this brought another question from Caloe and I was glad to have it.

"What are you doing now?" she asked.

"Matatu warned every one of them that they would be leaving this world without their hands, feet, eyes, or manhood if they caused more trouble. It seems that they think our Matatu was not telling them the truth, as if that were even possible," I said, and then looped the tie around the base of his penis and top of his scrotum, pulling it as tight as I could.

"I have to do it this way so he won't bleed to death before I am done," I said.

"Very well. If Matatu has spoken we must not fail to keep his word for him," she said, and then left.

I kept hoping that this would get nauseating for me, but as I'd feared, it wasn't as bad as last time, even though I had the additional gruesome tasks. At least Denac helped me with the hands and feet, and his way was better.

After I'd removed the balls and dick, I stabbed his eyeballs. They were harder to penetrate than you'd have thought, or they were harder than I thought they'd be anyway.

Denac was sure he didn't need to tie off the hands and feet to keep him from bleeding to death before it was finished. He used his axe, which was the biggest one I'd seen here so far. It took him one stroke each for the offending appendages and he was done. It was probably easier on the patient too. At least he died a lot faster.

Of course this had taken time and it was getting too late to get any work out of them today, except for the upcoming burial detail for their former companion. We rode herd on them while they carried him about a mile from our camp and then dug a grave with their hands. I decided to give them a pep talk while they were digging, albeit a short one.

"I hope that the rest of you finally understand that I'm not going to put up with any trouble making. Every one of you will leave just like this unless you can learn that you are not a bunch of warriors destined to rule the world. You are nothing to me unless you can make yourself useful. If you don't want to try that, then speak up now in a polite tone and I'll kill you quickly without removing any parts. If you make me angry you'll end up just like the others have."

They must have been listening because their grave digging took on a will. They had him in the hole in less than an hour and they'd covered him up fifteen minutes after that. We led them to a stream to let them wash the dirt off and then back to camp for supper.

I kept asking myself, all though the meal, if I was getting too bloodthirsty, and I convinced myself that I wasn't. The ones that didn't decide to be responsible citizens were going to die. We couldn't afford anything else. I still didn't enjoy the mutilations but I did still think they had a chance of convincing the others that obedience was far easier than any alternative we were giving them.

Just before the meal I checked with Darita, the healing woman, about Shaton. He was sleeping at the moment but she said he seemed much better. I went for three more of the thousand milligram caplets and gave them to her, telling her that I thought a quarter of one four times a day would be best. I started to bring some aspirin but decided not too. His fever wasn't very bad and I didn't want him to feel so much better that he decided he needed to get up and around.

After the meal was over, Denac and I led the prisoners out into the woods to take care of bodily needs and then found a place not far from the fire for them to sleep. Chalti helped Denac and I tie all their hands behind them and then each of their legs to one of the other's legs. Yes, I knew it would be uncomfortable for sleeping.

"Tomorrow, if none of you makes us kill him, we will let you sleep without being bound," I said, and then took a seat on a nearby rock to do the first guard duty.

Chalti came to relieve me a few hours later and I went to my hut. My mates were sleeping but woke as soon as I started getting out of my clothes. They seemed very solicitous of my needs but strangely more quiet than usual. We were asleep in minutes.

Even though I got to bed late the night before I was still well rested when I woke, mainly because I'd slept til noon the day before. My mates seemed in a much better mood this morning too, and we left our hut with them going to help with breakfast and me headed over to check Denac and his brood.

"Any trouble last night, or this morning?" I asked him.

"None. I believe they realize that it is time for them to relearn how to live in a Calak, instead of like a pack of wild animals," he said.

"We can only hope so, for their sake," I said, as we took them toward camp for the meal.

Caloe and Shata had a plan of their own in mind for the prisoners. It seemed like a sort of carrot and stick approach to me and I hoped that it would work.

Breakfast was as good as any we'd ever had this morning and it was plentiful. No one stinted on the food our guests received either. In fact, all the women of camp seemed to be stuffing them full. It was easy to see that the young men were surprised, and also pleased.

Damnation, I was pretty well pleased myself. This was my first morning back as far as a regular breakfast went, and my mates made sure I had plenty, along with their lively company. Of course Shaeta started in with the questions first thing after we were done eating.

"What is on your agenda for today, our hero?" she asked.

"What is this hero business?"

"You are now a hero, for a while at least. You have saved our Zakat's life, rescued many women, and you have protected us all from these wild loners," Katia said, helping her co-mate out with the teasing.

"If you two aren't careful my next trick will be teaching the both of you what a spanking is," I said, teasing.

"We already know what spankings are," Shaeta said, falling for it.

"Good, then maybe all I'll have to do is remind you."

"That is the problem with having a hero for a mate. Mother is so grateful to have daddy back and still breathing that she would probably help him hold us still," Katia said.

"As if she and my mother wouldn't have anyway after he and Denac found more honey than we have ever seen at one time before, not to mention those candles," Shaeta said.

"It's probably a good thing that we've already finished the dreadful thong cutting task he gave us," Katia said.

"Have you really?" I asked.

"Yes, and we think that you may have more thong than you planned on," Shaeta said.

"How many of the long ones were you able to get?" I asked.

"There are eighteen that are sixty feet long, and dozens of others that are shorter. The shortest one is thirty feet," Katia said.

"That is wonderful. We can make three ropes with the eighteen sixty-foot ones," I said.

"What do you mean we? You can show Katia and I how to do it and we will make them. You have more important things to do," Shaeta said.

"What important things?" I asked.

"How should we know? Just do something else that makes life easier, like the candles, or the pots, or find another big bee tree. We will make these lariats, as you call them, just show us how," Katia said.

So I did. I showed them how bundle the thongs and keep them damp and then showed them how to do the six strand plait. It only took them a minute or so to see what I was doing, and it seemed they understood at once why the thongs had to be in separate bundles as they worked.

They almost caught on too well in fact, and I had to stop them.

"Why do we need to stop?" Shaeta asked.

"We need to make you something else, before you do much of this at a time," I said.

"What something else," Katia asked.

"Something I should have showed you much earlier. I will get you started on the first pair and then I'm sure you can discover a way to make them even better than I can show you," I said.

"Fine, but what?" Shaeta asked, again.

"Gloves."

"What are gloves," Katia asked.

"They are made from animal skins and you put them over your hands to keep from getting blisters and calluses as you work. They are good for tasks like this, where you have to keep doing the same thing over and over," I said.

"Well show us then. We've never seen gloves."

We went to my steamer trunk then, since I knew I had at least one or two needles and some thread. I'd never been camping anywhere that I didn't end up tearing something that needed a few stitches, and I always brought some needles and thread. When I found my sewing kit I knew at once that it had been expanded upon.

My mates were thrilled when I showed them the needles and the thread. Of course they were familiar with the process, but had never seen a needle. Their method used tiny awls made from bone and rawhide or leather thongs for thread.

When they sewed something, they pushed a hole into the material and it had to be large enough to push the end of a thong through. When they had the thong through they had to grasp it on the other side and pull it tight. The holes had to be much larger to make this work, since the thongs had to be larger. It took them maybe ten microseconds to understand how much better the needles and thread would work.

Our next job was finding a suitable hide to make gloves from, but that wasn't really a problem. When the three of us went to see Caloe about it she told us to look through the skins and hides and see if there was anything that would do.

"If there isn't we will send most of the men out today to hunt for a suitable animal," she said, and she never even asked what we wanted it for.

We found a qaka skin that was perfect almost right away. Back at my steamer I amazed them again with a pencil, of all things. Of course they'd never seen anything like it, and when I had Katia lay her hand on the hid and traced around her fingers, the handprint I drew was new and wonderful. It was so wonderful that they ran me off right away.

"We see what to do now. Go on about your business. Go and show the wild one something wonderful. Cutting poles for the shed you said you wanted to build, or something else useful," Shaeta said, letting me know I'd been dismissed.