He said the River Demon had only summoned its allies because the Bakwaniri hunters would soon slay it, for what other than weakness could force this once powerful creature to need any aid.
And as the sir-jon steered the crew’s anger back toward the beast, Capan Seetree had rummaged through his mind for an answer.
True it was. The hunting parties had crossed the river before, but the many deaths that stalked them kept those Johnnies from probing far and wide once there.
With a great army, they could...
That was a problem that required more men to fix, and such a fickle resource had been running low. There were too few Johnnies left strong of arm and brave enough to challenge the forest across the river while still leaving men in place to protect the ship.
And the crew was hungry.
In the five years of the killing quest so many hunters had failed to return that few of the healthy slaves in the ship could be put upon the plate, busy as they were at all the chores.
The hunting parties still found slaves in their search for the River Demon, but of recent they had been commanded to bring the very old and young to answer the grumbling crew’s appetite.
It seemed that there was but one solution.
There were still enough men to form the greatest hunting party that had ever challenged the River Demon’s land, and if successful they could kill the beast, and bring home new meat and slaves—though the ship would be poorly defended for a time.
But Hearties, children and crippled old men could fire arrows and thrust spears.
Great pressure had been building on Capan Seetree, and while the ship was still defended, it had only been a matter of time before these Johnnies would return and declare their mission a failure—then would come the vote and Seetree would swing with the sir-jon.
So he had felt the press of their anger like the heat of a cook fire, as did the wizard, and with neither man wishing to go to the butcher block, the capan had seized upon the sir-jon’s warning to order a final glorious charge toward the sea.
There the River Demon would be found, and great honor would go to the brave hunter who slew the beast. Their enemy was weak now and vulnerable to the final stroke!
Whether the crew was truly inspired by his speech, or it came in combination with the scurv that ate at their brains, the men were caught up in Seetree’s vision.
They had formed a great force and headed across the river a final time...
...only to return with the River Demon’s head.
Seetree sighed with relief, and laughed again as he left the circle dance and took from the sir-jon a skull-mug full of grog.
And he drank.
Now that the River Demon had been slain, surely its servants would be banished back to the jungle hell from whence they’d slithered, and in their place, would come the great plunder of the forbidden land by the crew who had sacrificed so much.
Capan Seetree had long dreamed his scurv-ridden dreams guided as they were by his disease and gilded by delusion. When he wasn’t stalked by the demon in his sleep, he did dream of the golden paradise to the west over which he would be capan.
A conqueror would he be and his crew would dance a merry dance upon the decks of silver ships stuffed with booty, and their slaves would be bound with gold and jewels.
With no more jungle gods to conquer, there was only an empire to make.
For now he would let his brave crew rejoice and feast upon the flesh of precious slaves, and later would he send his burnished army toward the sea from whence the first fathers had come crawling.
The crew stood thick around Seetree, gleeful smiles gleaming in painted faces and at his word, they returned to their joyful dance.
“More grog!” he roared to a pair of crewmen. “And go forward to tell the butcher we have flesh for tomorrow’s feast.”
The sir-jon had assured him that though the captive men were servants of the River Demon they were still mortal made of white meat and dark, exhausted though they were and injured.
They were too old to work as slaves, and would make stringy meals when tenderized, but what else could a capan offer his brave Johnnies with so many fellow crewmen lost in the wilds. Old or not, the meat would fall from the bone if it was cooked long enough, and would taste like child cheeks to a tongue scorched by grog.
As the capan and sir-jon shared another mug, Seetree called the hunter Billock over, the Johnnie who had been second in command of the greater group. His mask was canted back on his head to drink and glistening molars showed through a ragged hole in his face.
“You done a good job, Billock,” the capan said, with one hand gripping the man’s arm and shaking it at every other word. “You fellows killed the demon fine!”
Billock glanced at the River Demon’s head, before nodding slowly.
“But you’re up early! Your feast ain’t till tomorrow night,” the capan laughed. The surviving hunters were sleeping and resting, exhausted from their great run that had exceeded every expectation.
“I will eat and sleep again,” Billock answered happily.
“The flesh of slaves for now—a surprise for tomorrow...” Seetree bellowed at the man. “If only the others had returned to join the festival. Thrice the number of men you left going north, you say, and with Mack the first in charge?”
Billock reported: “Aye Capan, Mack the first led most of the group on a swing around to the coast to have a look-see.”
Capan Seetree was pleased to know he still had a force of men in the lands he planned to conquer. Surely, they would return with greater news, gold perhaps, and jewels. He clapped Billock on the back and sent
