Outpost
Thank you for reading my new science fiction story. It includes "BDSM" content, and future sections will be more unequivocally "non-com", but the site only allows one heading. This is the beginning of a short series, during which I hope to establish a set of assumptions that will underpin other science fiction stories.
Chapter One -Rite of Passage
Ha-Lee was very damp and very dirty, almost buried in mud and wet leaves in marshy ground between two patches of scrubby bushes, very close to the strip of firmer ground that led from the denser woodland to the lakeside. He was naked except for a loincloth and belt, but warm enough, for 'walkabouts' always took place during the hot monsoon season. He had turned nineteen just three months earlier, and had to wait, frustrated, until the rains came and the village's water meadows received their annual covering of the fresh mud that would grow the grass to make hay for winter fodder. Now he had ten days to prove that he was ready to become a man of the tribe.
He had to survive, finding food and shelter, and return with game for his people. Something as easy as the equivalent of a rabbit would do, but deer or buffalo would establish his reputation as a hunter and give him a better choice of females to take his first seed. The ultimate success was to capture a human, and bring him or her home to become the tribe's slave. That was hardly ever done, but he intended to try.
This was the first time in his life that Ha-Lee had left the immediate environs of his village unaccompanied by adults. Like all the youngsters he'd been raised very strictly, forbidden any sexual contact, while knowing that the adults made free and frequent use of their many sex-slaves. At eighteen the adolescents were allowed to mix under supervision, and a blind eye was turned to very limited experimentation. The population being very small, only two or three 'graduated' in any year, and they were sent out for their "walkabouts" one at a time. The boys and girls were treated exactly alike.
Ha-Lee had excelled in bowmanship and other fighting skills, and when his time came, he had felt quite confident. He had resolved to range very widely, hoping to reach areas that were rich in game but not exploited by the hunters of his community. He was now three days walk from home. His village was in a comparatively dry, upland area, well protected by rocky outcrops, small tarns and stands of evergreens. He knew nothing else, for youngsters were not allowed more than a few hundred yards from home without adult company, and he had only been taken on a few local hunting trips.
The variety of landscapes through which he had walked were a source of wonder to him; especially the area of deciduous woodland and large, mirror-calm lakes in which he now found himself. He'd been taught about the snakes and carnivorous reptiles that infested such areas, but so far he'd seen none at close quarters. That might not mean that that he was safer; it might indicate intensive hunting. He was hiding for a reason.
It was getting late in the afternoon, and since mid-morning he'd been seeing signs of human activity; cut trees, an abandoned camp with stone circles for fires, and even footprints in damp ground. He'd watched carefully for traps and deadfalls, sticking as much as possible to firm, rocky ground. He'd been shown a very rudimentary map that purported to include all the known human settlements, and unless his efforts to navigate by the sun and stars had miscarried hopelessly, he was nowhere near any of them. Either he had stumbled across a temporary hunting camp, or it was a group of escaped and feral slaves. The latter was the more dangerous possibility.
The number of slaves owned by the various settlements had increased rapidly with the population of the continent. While that was in most respects a very good thing, it caused a major security problem. The villages- or some of them- were only just beginning to re-learn the basics of copper, bronze and iron working, so the supply of cuffs, manacles, leg-irons, chains and padlocks had long been outstripped. Timber cages, wooden stocks and woven ropes were poor substitutes, and occasional escapes were inevitable. Ha-Lee's community did not lose many; the slaves there were well-fed and not overworked, and the penalties for absconding were ferocious. The carrot-and-stick approach generally worked, but a few rebelled against sexual demands from both genders, and in the case of the females, the repeated pregnancies. The festivals and frequent ceremonies usually involved numerous slaves undergoing nights of gang-banging, while others were bound for display in contorted and stressful positions.
A few from each generation made a run for it, and some got away. They were joined by small numbers of free males and females who failed their rites of passage, or found their societies too regulated, and sought out the feral bands instead of returning home. Those who failed the rite of passage were enslaved, so there was little to lose. But these nomadic bands were the most dangerous people on the continent. The settled tribesmen rarely killed one another, preferring to ransom or enslave captives. The feral slaves usually slaughtered anyone they perceived as a threat.
That was why Ha-Lee had hidden himself so thoroughly, risking any stinging insects or burrowing snakes that might find him half-buried in the leaf mould. Moving carefully through the forest, he had heard what he thought was a group of women not far away, coming towards him. He was in a shallow valley with dense undergrowth on the sides, and they would have heard him if he'd tried to work his way to one side and let them pass. He had no choice but to retreat, careful not to leave signs, but moving quickly enough to give himself a healthy lead. Too late, he realised that he was headed for the lake, impassable marshland on each side. He had no choice but to hide as best he could, assuming that they would pass him by, intent on what was probably a fishing expedition.
