Heng I

PA 0

When Heng had first arrived in this world, he’d been terrified. He’d also been a little excited—after all, he was going to become a king in a brand-new world! How could he not be excited about that!?

In the beginning, he threw himself into his new duties with gusto, powered by an enthusiasm only fear and exhilaration could produce. For a while, he felt like he was on top of the world.

That excitement slowly began to fade, as the new and exciting became old hat, and what was once fulfilling work turned into the new daily grind.

Damn, who new being a King could be so boring?

Nothing big had happened. There was some family drama, some minor fights, and one couple even eloped! But nothing much else had happened.

Still, all that being said… this was all pretty relaxing.

Back in his previous life, Heng had been nobody special. Just a middle-aged office worker in Qingdao, China. Just one insignificant man among millions. He got up in the morning, ate breakfast, watched the news, went to work, came back home, ate dinner, watched some TV, then went to bed. Rinse, repeat, recycle.

He didn’t realize how soul crushing that life was until he arrived here.

Now that he was freed from all that, it felt like a weight had been lifted from his soul. No, not a weight, but a clamp. That something that had been slowly crushing him all his life was suddenly gone. He felt free in a way he had never felt back on earth. He felt—not alive, but at peace.

But that didn’t mean he lacked problems in this new world, either.

The people here were nomadic. They lived in tepees, which they folded up and carried around on sleds when it was time to move—apparently they didn’t have horses, which was weird. Whenever he thought of nomadic peoples, he always thought of the Mongols and their horses, so a nomadic tribe lacking horses was strange. They lived on a seemingly endless prairie, an endless sea of grass surrounding them on all sides. They lived in a tightknit familial group with the eldest man being in charge. When they got too big, they spit up. And if they got too small, they fused together. People transferring between tribal groups was common, and could even be seen as a type of diplomacy, tying the two tribes together.

Heng’s arrival had messed up that dynamic. He was an outsider, someone who wasn’t a part of the family who was now suddenly in charge. And that had caused friction between him and the rest—they were willing to follow his rule and acknowledge his word, but they hadn’t truly accepted him as one of their own. Honestly, they might never do so.

He’d wanted to try and figure out what to do about that, but he didn’t have anyone to talk to about this. No one he could bounce ideas off of. While he’d seen two other tribes since, neither of them had had God-Kings of their own, and so he wasn’t sure if this was a common issue.

Actually, he hadn’t met any other God-Kings at all. He was pretty sure they existed, possibly even close by, but he hadn’t seen a single one since he arrived almost two months ago.

And honestly, considering the number that was slowly going down in the back of his mind, that might have been a good thing. ‘May you live in interesting times,’ and all that.

Maybe he was lucky, being so isolated. Maybe. A man could hope.

--

Heng stared out at the storm in the distance with worry.

At first, the storm had begun like any other. Black rolling clouds, dark skies, lightning, the like. It was much scarier now that he didn’t have modern technology to protect him, but in the end it was just a thunderstorm. He’d lived through dozens, if not hundreds of them.

Then, off in the distance, the clouds had started to… move.

“Oh, shit,” he whispered, staring out at the clouds with wide eyes.

As he watched, the clouds slowly began to descend. Twisting in circles, the black sky fell to the earth, crashing into the ground.

In the distance, a tornado touched down.

Heng had never really considered the idea of worshiping the gods. After all, why would he? He’d grown up in the modern era, where such superstitions were seen as primitive thinking. Sure, there were people who were still religious, but they often learned science and math alongside theology. Even if they were told that God created the universe or that the world was on the back of a giant turtle, they also learned that the universe was born through the big bang and that the earth was a 4.5 billion year old rock floating in space.

The idea of praying to the gods to stop a tornado from destroying your house would be seen as superstitious nonsense back home.

Heng prayed to any gods that were listening that that tornado wouldn’t hit them.

The tribe started disassembling the village with a terrified efficiency. Tepees were taken down and any supplies were packed up in minutes. The winds were brutal, and some of the tepees were blown away in the storm. They let them go—they could be replaced later. Within ten minutes of seeing the tornado, everything that remained had been packed up and put on the sled, and the village started moving away from the black pillar of death.

One of the elders started preforming rituals as they moved in a vain attempt to appease the gods. Above them, lightning arced across the sky. Some of the children started crying, forcing their mothers to try and comfort them as they sped across the plains.

Heng hissed, trudging through the mud alongside everyone else. The pouring rain was brutally cold, and the wind was strong enough to knock people down if they weren’t careful. They’d had to put the weaker people on the sleds, both to let them rest and to keep the sleds from overturning.

No doubt, many people would get sick following this storm.

The tornado was a black pillar far in the distance, and yet merely being in proximity with it was enough to threaten to destroy his tribe.

Heng had no idea how ancient people survived. Just this was harrowing enough!

But the gods were kind today. The tornado went east, perpendicular to the direction they fled. Within hours, the rain began to peter out into a calm deluge, and lightning no longer struck every five minutes. The tornado was nothing more than a hazy line in the distance.

Heng couldn’t help but laugh hysterically once they were in the clear. The indifference of the universe sure was something, huh?

--

A week later, the storm was but an unpleasant memory. Some of the older and weaker members of the tribe passed away due to sickness, and many people had to cram together in their remaining tepees, but they survived.

They mourned their dead, repaired what was broken, and life moved on.

Today he had joined up with a bunch of his hunters to look for food. Most of the meat they got was from bison—they followed the herds at a distance, and picked off stragglers when they could. It gave them a steady supply of meat, bones, and hide to use.

Unfortunately, due to the recent storm, the tribe lost the herd. Currently they were utilizing all of their tracking skills to find them again, but it was taking longer than expected.

So now the hunters had set out to look for prey.

They weren’t expecting a lot—a hare or two, maybe some other rodents. A big haul was just a pipe dream for them.

Which was why they were so surprised to see a large beast in the distance.

“What is that?” Heng asked Lakota, one of the older hunters.

“A tusk-beast,” he grunted in reply, narrowing his eyes. “They’re rare around these parts. This one must be a baby that got lost—it’s far to small to be a true tusk-beast.”

“This is small!?” Tȟatȟáŋka, a boy just on the cusp of manhood, hissed in fear. “It’s bigger than me!”

“So are the bison,” Lakota grunted. “And yet we hunt them just the same. Remember that, brat—even the most powerful beast can be felled by the cunning of a hare.”

The young acknowledged the wisdom of the elder, and they began to slowly move closer to the beast.

As they got closer to the creature, Heng realized how odd the animal looked, with fluffy brown fur, tiny tusks, and a trunk that…

That…! That was a goddammed Wooly Mammoth. What the fuck!?

Weren’t those extinct!?

Heng paused as he remembered that this wasn’t his home world. It was entirely possible for wooly mammoths to still be alive in this world. And if that was the case, were there other things as well? Was he going to run into a T-rex at some point!?

The animal seemed to be wounded—it had a big gash in its side, and it was on its knees panting heavily. In front of him, the hunters slowly moved closer, spears pointed ahead, ready to finish it off. And Heng…

Well, he wasn’t really comfortable with this.

For one thing, this was killing an extinct animal. Not just any extinct animal, but arguably the extinct animal, the one everyone brought up when talking about how humans caused mass extinctions. Combined with that, this was obviously a baby, not an adult. And weren’t elephants one of those animals with near human-like intelligence?

Heng understood that this was a kill or be killed world. That his people needed food, and here was a big slab of meat served on a silver platter. There was being kind, and there was being stupid.

But even so…

“Stop!” he commanded as loudly as he dared, raising a hand.

His men stopped, looking back at him in confusion. After all, why would he stop them from securing their kill?

Truthfully, Heng wasn’t sure either. He’d just shouted without thinking. He flushed, and almost instinctively told them to continue, before a thought occurred to him.

Didn’t the Indians tame elephants?

War elephants were a thing, after all. And they had to have been used for other things as well, right? Travel was obvious, but surely they’d used them for transporting heavy stuff around as well, right? Heavy stuff like tepees?

So, could he do the same with wooly mammoths?

“I… have had a revelation…” Heng told his hunters slowly, the thought becoming more and more appealing to him. After all, even if they didn’t have horses, elephants might be able to work as a substitute!

“Lakota,” he asked the elder as calmly as possible. “You said that the tusk-beasts are rare in these lands, right?”

The old hunter stared at him in confusion, unsure what he was getting at. “Aye, they are. Normally they’re seen further north, and even that is rare. Why?”

“Well…” Heng started bullshitting like his life depended on it. “Why would a single tusk-beast appear here, all alone? And after such a brutal storm descended on the earth? The storm must have been a message from the gods—and so, what would that make this?”

“…You believe this is a sign?”

“Yes,” Heng smiled, using his fictional connection with the gods as his excuse. “I believe that this is not merely a sign, but a gift! The tusk beasts live for a hundred years, and grow to the size of mountains! Why would a baby arrive here, in front of us, after we only barely survived that storm? It’s obviously a gift!”

“So?” Lakota asked, confused. “That means we kill it, right? We eat its meat and turn its hide into a tepee, same as with the bison.”

“Not that kind of gift,” he corrected. “I do not believe the gods want us to kill this beast, but to tame it, like we once tamed the wolves!”

His hunters… didn’t look like they agreed. But they didn’t argue, which he was going to take as a win.

“Hand me some rope—enough to make a leash,” he told them. “I will go and tame this beast. Tȟatȟáŋka, you are a fast runner, right? You run back to the tribe. Tell them to bring medical supplies—enough for a mammoth!”

“Chieftain, are you sure?” Lakota asked, still looking wary.

“Think of it this way,” Heng nodded, turning the rope into a massive lasso. “Either we tame the beast, and can use it for the rest of our lives, or we fail, and eat it anyway. It’s a win-win scenario.”

That seemed to comfort the hunters enough to let him continue with his attempt.

Heng left his spear back with the hunters, turning to move towards the mammoth. He walked slowly and calmly, humming quietly under his breath. He didn’t look directly at the mammoth, and made a sort of circular, winding path as he walked. He made sure to stay within the beast’s line of sight at all times—the last thing he wanted to do was spook the creature into fleeing.

And slowly, finally, he was standing right next to the mammoth’s head.

And damn, it was a lot bigger up close. Puny compared to an adult elephant, but still.

“Hey there,” he whispered softly, raising his arm up slowly. The baby mammoth flinched back, raising it’s trunk with that loud ‘PFFFTTTTT’ sound that elephants make.

There were some shouts of surprise from the hunters, but Heng held up a hand to stop them.

At this point Heng had a gut instinct. This was an opportunity, one that he couldn’t afford to waste.

Once more, he slowly shuffled up to the mammoth and, with agonizing slowness, placed his hand on its head.

He froze, waiting for the mammoth to shake him off or attack him, but it stayed still, only its labored pants causing it to shift.

Maybe it had accepted its death. Maybe it understood he wasn’t trying to hurt it. Either way, it seemed to have accepted his touch. For now.

Slowly Heng started moving his hand back and forth, up and down. He rubbed the baby mammoth’s nose slowly, feeling some giddiness build up despite himself.

He was petting a mammoth! This was so cool!

He had to bite his lip to stop himself from laughing. The goal was to not scare away the fuzzy elephant, after all.

He continued petting the mammoth for a bit longer, so long he felt it was getting kind of awkward. But he wanted to make absolutely sure the mammoth knew he didn’t mean any harm. Then, slowly, he moved his other hand up, the one with the rope, and carefully looped it around its neck.

The rope was secured, and the mammoth was now leashed. Heng felt himself relax just a bit more, but now came the hard part—healing the mammoth.

As he was bonding with the baby, Tȟatȟáŋka had returned with Šóta, one of the elders of the village who knew the most about medicine.

Heng waved him over, gesturing that he should stay calm and quiet as he did. Slowly the medicine-man walked up to the mammoth, looking between it and him with confusion. “You want me too…” the man trailed off, gesturing vainly at the beast.

Heng nodded impatiently. “Hurry up,” he told him quietly, “I don’t want him to bleed out.”

Šóta looked at him one last time, as if this time he’d go ‘surprise, gotcha!’ and they’d all forget about the time he told him to heal a beast.

Heng just looked back impatiently.

The old man sighed, and got to work.

The mammoth was surprisingly docile throughout—maybe it had realized they were trying to help? Heng couldn’t help but grin, a childish glee overtaking him. “Well, you’re a pretty one, aren’t you?” he cooed, stroking the mammoth’s nose as the elder operated. “The mammoths aren’t going to go extinct in this world, mark my words! Ah, but you need a name, don’t you? How about… Mohu! Mohu the Mammoth! Yes, it suits you well, doesn’t it!”

The other people looked a bit put off by his bonding moment, but what did they know! He just got a pet mammoth! Their opinions were invalid!

Heng grinned, rubbing the mammoth’s nose. This was going to be the start of a beautiful friendship.

9,945 God-Kings Remain

End of Arc I