Across the expanse of water that was only a slight shade dimmer than the blue sky above, the rainforest jungle wrapped the opposite lake shore like a canvas painted thickly with browns and greens of various shapes and tones. Even high above the shore, up into the rainforest canopy, the vines and leafy crawlers intertwined across branches regularly enough that he couldn’t see much further past the closest trees to the lake before it all blended into a great wall of distorted jungle color.

On top of that, looming over the whole clearing like a great eye staring down at him, was Kimitrius, the greater of their two moons, and on this day, it covered perhaps a full third of the sky. Wherever the trees didn’t, anyway. Kimitrius was a whiter moon than Demnus, the smaller. It looked like an eyeball completely made from ivory, all but for a bright purple band forming a circle placed right in the middle that looked far too close to an iris to be coincidental. It would normally have been a view Banon would have taken his time enjoying. Today, and for the past several, however, he was far more focused on a singular goal.

Progressing into manhood among his fellow Ooura, and, after passing all the trials, gaining the title of Kohthai.

Officially, he would be a named warrior and protector among his people, a day he had dreamed of since his first memories. And that would put him one inch closer to his further goals, ones far enough away he was only aware of their distant call, ever present in his mind and alluring. The maze of events needed to occur to get there still, however, felt every bit as daunting as the day he first imagined it.

But someday he would be emperor, and not merely as a followup to his father. A new kind of emperor. The kind their people needed now to bring them back from the brink of complete destruction at the hands of the Pyathen elves, or the Enka humans as well, since he suspected they would soon seize at the Ooura’s weakness also.

He sat just above the edge where the knotted-up green mat of mesa met divinely colored water, scanning his gaze along the nearby shoreline, but Banon was not looking for any standard game. He was looking for a tool and a weapon, one he was only now of age to finally acquire, though he had lived this day many times in thought before it actually came to pass.

The living reeds were numerous in the shallows today, appearing as dark, fist-sized spots just underneath the surface of the sapphire-colored lake water.

There were plenty of choices, but he wanted only one.

The best one.

He would wait here, sat at the edge of the mesa matt, and watch all day if he had to, even this late towards the deadline to bring back an Orux skull, allowing him to enter the next stage of his rite. Each living reed would have to come up for air precisely once during the daylight hours. When it did, its second internal chute would shoot straight up into the air until it equaled almost the length of the main stock still submerged beneath, and it would do that with a force that could shatter bone. The living reed was not in any way similar to most species of reed found in the Ooura rainforests and jungle, but was instead tube-shaped and perfectly straight from flat end to flat end. It looked, actually, much closer to some kind of aquatic bamboo species.

The unique physical endurance of the living reeds also set them apart; they were technically the hardest to kill organism in the entire jungle, also by an absurd margin. As far as anyone knew that Banon had ever met, they were indestructible. They made fantastic weapons for that very reason.

A spray of water shot straight up into the sky, pushed by the rocketing chute that had just decided to breathe. Anything sat on top of it at that moment would have been smashed to pieces and thrown dozens of feet into the air.

They made even better weapons for that reason.

Banon smiled.

That was the one. He’d counted forty-three chutes coming up for breath since sunrise, where he’d been camped on the lake in a makeshift hammock he’d woven between the tree trunks with leaves from the huge Moka stock that was growing nearby–its leaves were twice as long as a man and shaped in perfectly uniform strips. They made fantastic cord; if you were willing to separate out the individual fibers and then re-weave them. Then, you could have something capable of holding much more weight than the raw Moka leaf alone, and yet in a much more compact shape.

Last night, Banon had struggled the find the energy to even string up a few raw leaves shaped in a simple cradle-shaped braid just so he could at least sleep off the jungle’s floor. But now, almost into the next night again of the fifth day of his search for the perfect living reed, while most other boys were long since shifting their focus to their Orux, he was looking upon the fruits of his labor and finding it worth it.

He’d spent the past five days straight–the duration so far of the summer festival– searching for a special one, while most of the other young Ooura out in the jungle like him, undergoing their transition from boyhood to men and warriors, would have just picked the closest reed they could grab at the bank on the very first day, far more concerned with their eagerness for the next part of this stage in the competitions to decide their future status. The jungle, their extended home, would be teeming with other boys like him in their eighteenth year, all participating in the first stage of selection for the status of Kothai, the name of the warrior who guides the helpless. Before the seventh midnight of the summer festival, each boy would be expected to return to the circle of elders with their new living reed staff and the skull of the Orux they claimed with it, just as countless generations of Kothai had before them.

Banon, on the other hand, had no value for more time when it came to hunting an Orux. He could have the trail of one within the day, and from there, it would come down far more to brute force and resilience than any training, since all the prospective Kothai out hunting during the summer festival were forced to hunt alone for a creature best taken with a two to four man team, and only after using bows to soften it up first, none of which they were allowed to do now, lest risk complete exile for tarnishing the sacred rite.

This weighting of scales must have been the exact reason the ancients chose to carve the path for each new generation of warriors in this way. It was because although Ooura were together a strongly woven tapestry, it would still be expected of each and every individual strand to be the greatest of possible stock if they were to be allowed the name and responsibility of being a warrior among their respective flocks.

If a man did not think himself worthy, he would simply pass on his attempt at the rite and result himself as a Karnuu, those occupying the rung in society between men and women. They would not be maimed of their manhood, like the new kind of Pyathen servants Banon had heard of. They would just be seen for what they were.

Useful, but lesser.

Banon watched as the water-polished second-chute loomed out of the water, and he listened to the great sound of its screechy inhale. It was taller than most– which was perfect for Banon– and paler of color than any he had seen. Its secondary chute was thicker in width than even some of the main chutes of the lessers surrounding it as well.

But it was its speed and explosive movement that was the true stand out that had made him choose this one. The extra dimensions of it would fit even better in Banons large hands, but the force with which he had just witnessed was…

Well, he hoped it was enough to shatter an Orux skull in one well-placed blow.

Before he could lose it, or trip over himself in sheer excitement, he dove in. Banon swam down, breast stroking his way out of a dive that took him weaving in between the lesser chutes for the real prize.

Just as he was swimming in place next to it, admiring what must have been ten whole feet of the second internal chute on top of what he suspected was about twelve feet underwater, which was a perfect match for Banons own height of eleven feet and a half feet, it began to retract into itself again.

Banon laughed with himself as he climbed down the shaft to the bottom of the lakebed, bubbles from his laugh tickling his face as he descended. Once he reached the chutes rooted in bottom, he stopped letting out air unnecessarily and then planted his feet and began to pull.

He tore it out quite easily, as to be expected. For all living reeds’ exterior shell durability, their roots were weaker than dead skin. They were that way because of the way the living chutes drift from place to place, shedding and regrowing new roots as they went.

Banon kicked off the bottom, the force from it sending plumes of sediment spreading up the water column in a trail after his own path of ascent. He breached the surface, sprayed water in the air from his full cheeks, and then held his new staff above his head triumphantly as he swam in place on the surface. Then he began to bellow into to the newly fresh air.

“Ooura! Hunter, bowman, man of the shield! All fight for the strength to make Ooura succeed!” Banon’s triumphant call trailed seamlessly into a short, booming laugh.

He found himself quiet again and staring up at the twelve-foot-long chute in his hand, its sheen-wet surface gleaming.

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He also found himself unable to wait until he even got back to the bank.

Banon felt around until he had it; the small notch in the midsection of the living reed, his new staff, and there he found it. The only weak point in the living reeds outer shells, always found there, in that same spot, and the secret to their use as a weapon.

Banon squeezed down on the weak point with enough might to pop a Pyathen skull. Just as he felt a slight give in the creased spot, the second chute erupted out, giving his staff an extra ten feet to one side. Even with nothing resisting its explosive motion but air, it still jarred his arm, strong as he was.

Banon hacked in laughter as he swam back and forth around the shoreline, not even worried if a giant arapaima or jungle kraken spotted him, or a titan boa, or any of the other jungle threats with the far advantage over him in the water. He was too busy basking in success. He’d already known this was the plan; to prioritize his time spent waiting for an exceptionally strong weapon instead of taking as much time as possible in the hunting portion in hopes the extra time would help one find a particularly weak and young juvenile Orux, one at least within reason of killing alone. Though, even an Orux like that would still be a task many of the prospective Kothai would struggle with. More than likely, some would even be killed by their intended quarry during this part of the selection process.

But regardless of how long he had spent on this fringe idea, leaving him with only two days to hunt, he still couldn't have hoped for a chute this exceptional if he hadn’t seen it himself to know it was even possible at all to find one so powerful.

Banon stopped his cackling and rapidly paddled for the shoreline after having an idea. He needed to see what this beast could do.

Come to think of it, Banon started splashing loudly on his way back.

Just on the off chance of attracting that arapaima after all. Since, well, it's not like just because an Orux was what he was really out here to get before the end of the summer festival that he could turn his nose up at the chance to cave in the skull of another treasured monster of nature's choosing.

Besides, he was planning on testing his new staff's striking ability on practically everything, moving and not, that came within his striking distance until he had a thorough understanding of its capabilities.

After Banon got up on shore, having finished his little bout of flailing in an unsuccessful attempt to attract a predator, he considered abandoning the lake immediately for a part of the forest more likely to find grazing Orux.

Until he saw a ripple approaching from long across the lake.

***

Banon pulled his larger knife out of the juvenile aeropaima’s skull with a sound that had all the worst parts of wet and hollow. He then set himself to dragging the prey he’d attracted in with his splashing up onto the bank of the partially floating edge of the mesa mat made from intertwined tree roots and thick, grubby weeds. Right there, he proceeded to gut and fillet it.

They say an Ooura with less than four knives on their person is no Ooura at all. Banon, personally, only carried two knives for cleaning game. A stout knife for skinning with a blade only about as long as his middle finger but close to as wide as that also. A large butchering knife for severing joints and making rough cuts, though it also served the function of a machete, and, if need be, a short sword for combat, and its design was somewhere in between all three functions.

His other two blades were tiny, no larger in their totality– blade and handle included– than his two little fingers pressed together. They were hidden, and he kept them for the inevitable possibility of his own capture, whether in a targetted attempt due to his royal status or simply at random in battle. All four of his knives were immensely sharp and made from knapped obsidian, and the two larger ones were passed down from his late uncle.

Most Ooura carried more, and it was not uncommon for men to carry obscenely large ones purely as an egoic display since the knives Kothai men carried were always seen due to their lack of clothing besides a simple loin cloth.

It was a cumbersome display, a silly exercise in over-preparing at best. Two good knives and two lesser ones were, among his other physical advantages, a significant part of what allowed Banon to move among the tree canopy so well, even for an Ooura.

It would be a new trick to pull off the same dynamism he was used to while constantly dragging a staff as tall as him around. But, once he got the hang of it, he would, in fact, be far more mobile than he ever was before. The massive force generated when a reed extended its secondary chute wasn’t only useful for combat after all, though many of his elders may disagree; it was nonetheless another reason he had been so set on finding an exceptional reed for himself.

With enough added practice with it, in addition to his existing skills, he would practically be running up the tree stocks in vertical… someday, anyway.

For now, after he finished harnessing the fillets to himself and got on his way, he settled for his usual routine; bounding from branch to branch among the low canopy, swinging over the gaps too far to jump using the thick slimevines, and just focusing on not sabotaging himself by accident now that he was carrying the unfamiliar new tool along with a full pack out of raw meat.

It would take some getting used to, but once he did, he would never look back.

Many Ooura kept the same staff for their whole lives. As long as you submerged it in water daily, which could be found practically anywhere in the Ooura-controlled jungle rainforests, it would survive as long as its outer shell did.

On the other hand, the perhaps two hundred and fifty pounds of raw Aeropaima meat slung over his shoulder, bundled inside a makeshift pack out of raw Moka leaves, was very dead and permanently so. It was still only about a quarter his own body weight between the two fillets, and normally he might have carried only a single fillet each in two quicker trips, but his time was running short to start his Orux hunt now. Even he could acknowledge that.

Maybe Banon shouldn't have wasted the time to kill and butcher it at all, when he only had two nights left before the end of the festival when he would either present a fresh Orux skull and be accepted into the next stage, or fail.

But, like always, he simply couldn't help but jump at the opportunity to show off. When he’d flailed in the water, he hadn't actually expected to attract one; it was just a background idea he had in the moment, but after he had emerged from the water and seen the ripple snaking across the lake towards him, he couldn’t just walk away.

He’d poised on the edge of the floating mesa, continuing to make a disturbance in the water with his new staff. Then, when its shovel-shaped head had lunged its extending jaw towards the flailing staff, Banon pulled it back out of the way, immediately transitioned to aiming, and in the split moment he found his beed, he activated his new staff.

Its christening kill was not one that anyone back home would be shocked to see Banon return with, but that was mostly just his reputation. The massive fillets of fish themselves, skin adorned with orange and green armored scales, would still be more than enough to put smiles on the faces of many hungry families displaced by the Pyathen’s destruction of their lands and water supplies, as well as craftsmen seeking the skin for leather and the scales for various purposes varying from ornamental to personalized cod-piece’s and armoring adornments for their Orux skull headdresses.

Banon himself found the various kinds of armor the Pyathen and Enka liked to use limiting and terribly noisy when attempting covert movement. In that way, he was as his ancestors for thousands of years had been. Unarmored, with only folds of woven cloth and leather to cover his manhood and, hopefully soon, an Orux skull to adorn his head. For all his challenges towards Ooura traditions in the ways of war that had failed them against the Pyathen’s new inventions, he was a traditionalist in every other part of his life.

Banon smiled as he leaped across a river cutting through the mesa matt, sending a school of shallow jumping carp scattering.

He only barely made it to the other bank and found himself slipping backward towards the water down the tangled, water saturated greenery exposed on the edges of the recently separated matt. Just when he was about to pitch into the water, he found his balance for a fractional moment, just enough time to slam his staff down, burying its tip into the squelchy matt of weeds and algae.

Banon’s slippery descent halted.

Just as he was about to begin picking his way up the hill slowly and carefully, a dull color caught the corner of his eye from the flowing water behind him. Deep beneath the surface was the unmistakable dull purple hue speckled with tiny yellow glowing lures all over the surface of its body.

A jungle kraken.

It was almost too far down to see even in the crystal clear turquoise-tinged water, and it might not have had the time to get up to the surface and snag him with one of its tentacles if he hadn’t saved himself from falling in.

But, mights were how men like him died before their times.

Banon finished glaring down at it, turning to his staff instead, where it was still stuck into the matt.

“You have already proved your use to me, my friend.”

He looked around until he saw a slightly drier, thicker patch of matt nearby enough to get to. Banon then tiptoed carefully along the slippery lower edge of the torn edge of the mesa, using his staff for balance, even gripping the wet weeds between his toes for purchase. Just to the right of where he was focusing on his next footstep, almost directly below, the kraken began to shift underneath the currents in response to him.

Banon stepped up onto the raised surface of the drier, thicker section of matt.

There was still a vertical bank of slimy mesa in between him and making it back up onto the main surface of the mesa. It rose above him perhaps one and a half times his own height. Too far to jump, even for him. He did have almost half his own body weight in fish meat weighing him down, after all.

He decided this was the perfect moment to test the reed's secondary use, that which most Ooura– himself not included– considered useless for battle. Of course, it was useless in the standard shield wall advance Ooura had dominated their two rival peoples with for generations. But now, with Pyathen death dominating not just battlefields but burning into their homelands as well, and their liquid launchers that burned flesh faster than any fire, the Ooura would have to adapt, whether they liked it or not.

Banon would see to that himself.

Banon flipped the staff in his hand, ignoring how quickly the color of the kraken was brightening as it got closer. He then planted the shooting end on the ground, held on tightly, and activated the staff.

Banon and his more than two hundred pounds of fish meat flew into the air in a madly flailing jumble.

He landed in a scramble almost three staff lengths away from the top edge where the upper mesa began, which he had not even been sure he would reach just the beginning of, instead only hoping to get his upper body just far enough over he could grapple the rest of the way up to safety. He had definitely underestimated its power.

Banon groaned before turning over on his back. “Goddess of the trees!” Banon gasped up at the tangled jungle-scape around him. “I almost shit myself…”