DANUSHIKI

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Although the structures were still made out of wood, they were far better than the part for the Shaingwans. He gave up on trying fathoming the multi-coloured cloth as anger began to take over his entire being. While the cool night breeze blew the multi-coloured cloth intermittently, Danushiki’s heartbeat and the horse’s grunt seemed to occur at the same pace.

Unknown to Danushiki, men like Sharkoti and his father were kept ‘secure’ in the working sections, with their wrists bound in twos, even while asleep. The only males exempted from this sort of treatment were those who had one ailment or the other. An adult male who possessed a visible bodily defect which would prevent him from engaging in hard or physical labour was also exempted from such treatment. 

“Who are you and why are you not in your section?” a hoarse voice asked behind Danushiki.

 Danushiki turned his head slowly and tried to reach for his battle-axe. The fair man was faster, as he grabbed the weapon first and foolishly threw it away. Danushiki didn’t panic as he heard the laughter inside the fortress in the distance. Suddenly, he leapt at the man, got hold of his rifle and flung it away, before snowballing about seven feet away from him. 

The fair soldier looked surprised and did nothing. The battle-axe was on the ground some metres away, but Danushiki didn’t bother to reach for it as he stared angrily at the man. He observed the fair man for a moment, while they circled each other. He was over six feet tall, with broad shoulders and smelt of something strong and strange. He wore a white inner shirt and a black jacket over it. His legs were covered in a strange kind of black footwear. There wasn’t much difference in his appearance, when compared with the ten others, whose bodies were somewhere rotting away, except his bloodshot eyes.

“If you’re drunk, you better snap out of it and return to camp before I s***k your behind”. Nigel Ross snarled at Danushiki, while clenching his fists. 

If anyone had told him he was going to be killed that early morning after urinating in the nearby bushes outside the fortress, he would’ve just scoffed. 

“There’s no need for a dead man to know my identity”, replied Danushiki in a calm voice, as his eyes darted around to make sure no other fair man was nearby. Both men heard the sounds of crickets around them, and knew their duelt was going to be to the death. On his part, Danushiki, for some ‘strange reasons’ had begun to enjoy the killings, barely three hours out of Cobra Land. From the corner of his eye, Danushiki saw the tipsy look on the fair soldier being replaced by a frown, as he rushed towards him. Danushiki seemed prepared to kill by any means necessary, while trying to maintain his balance. 

The fair man soon rushed forward and rammed him into the perimeter posts. This was followed by two punches he subsequently threw at the same time. They were easily blocked by the warrior commander, who’d had discovered his opponents weakness. He was unsteady due to drunkenness and the weight of his sword hanging from his waist inhibited his swift movement. When he walked out of the fortress minutes ago, Nigel Ross had made up his mind to sleep with two Shaingwan maidens, his drunkenness notwithstanding. Little did he know that he wouldn’t live to see their naked bodies.

“So that’s how they taught you to fight?” Danushiki asked with a smile while the fair man panted heavily. His breath had a stronger smell of alcohol as he rubbed his knuckles which had grazed the wooden posts. 

“Now it’s my turn”, Danushiki whispered to him, as he began to rush again towards Danushiki. Danushiki moved his right foot forward, and without warning landed a punch on the man’s left eye, which smashed it immediately, and left him in excruciating pain. The fair man knelt down and grunted in agony, while his alcohol-infested brain contemplated drawing the sword from its sheath, which hung from his belt. Danushiki seemed anxious to ‘finish the job’ he’d started and disappear from the scene. More crickets seemed to be chirping while he walked to the fair man and sent him to the ground with one kick to his jaw.

The fair man, ignored the bleeding from his left eye socket, frantically began to crawl towards his rifle. Danushiki guessed this and walked up to the man, while thinking of how quickly he could send him to his maker. 

“Are you okay?” Danushiki asked the fair man whose face now resembled one upon which a cup of red liquid had been spilled on the left side. All of a sudden, the fair and soldier saw himself flat on the ground, as consecutive blows rained down his tipsy face until it was shattered. A close observation on the left side of his head revealed a cracked skull, which revealed part of his brain. Danushiki rose to his feet after he was satisfied the man was dead. He took his rifle and a dagger he noticed on his right boot. He also pulled off the jacket of the fair soldier, and used it to wrap his battle-axe before heading for the horse.

He untied the horse he’d ridden moments agoand watched for some seconds as it trotted away, with the headless man on its back. Next, he knelt near a marked spot, dug a hole and buried the battle-axe inside the hole. The noise and laughter of several fair soldiers was audible inside the fortress, while Danushiki kept looking around cautiously. He concealed the dagger he’d taken from the fair soldier inside his attire, while trying to wipe off bloodstains on his hands. The next moment he left the one-eyed corpse and moved stealthily back to the section which housed the Shaingwans. He managed to scale the twelve foot wooden posts and crawled to where Shaingwans lay sleeping. He was about to lean his back on a wooden surface when a drunk fair soldier staggered in his direction with fresh vomit reeking all over him. 

The drunken soldier tried to talk as he hiccupped but stopped midway as three inches of the dagger in Danushiki’s grip was thrust into his forehead. He quickly dragged the corpse in the same direction he’d come. He reached the wooden posts and heaved the dead body over his shoulder. He was grateful to the gods and goddesses of Shaingwa, for the slim physique of the dead fair soldier. A final push saw the dead soldier’s body fall over to the other side with a thud. 

Minutes later, Danushiki crawled past sleeping Shaingwan individuals and families, who tried to squeeze themselves into any available space to sleep. He was thankful to the two torches that were available as he kept looking around, relieved that the fair beasts had not killed everyone on the island. Seconds later, he was shocked when he saw three men who were from respected families huddled on the floor like animals, with filthy rags on their bodies. His presence had woken some of them as they kept looking at him with a mixture of suspicion and awe. 

“What happened to all of you?” he asked in a whisper. 

No one was ready to answer him as they kept looking towards the entrance in the far corner, opposite the one Danushiki had sneaked through. Danushiki was returning the dagger to its former position in his attire when a little girl of about ten years tugged at his cloth.

“They came in very big canoes. Immediiately they came, they were faced with some resistance by our warriors…” 

One of the men soon interrupted her, and continued from where she stopped. Danushiki observed the man who now spoke. He walked with great difficulty, and looked like he was going to slump and die at any moment. There was a flicker of happiness on his face as he looked in the direction of the corpse of the fair soldier that was across the posts. 

“The High Chief had no choice but to tell them about the diamonds because they threatened to kill everybody if he didn’t. They came in large numbers and killed two thousand warriors around the coast and near the rivers on the island. They used some strange objects from their ‘large boats’ and used it to fire objects that looked like balls which exploded the moment they hit a surface in Shaingwa.” 

The man paused, gave a deep sigh and before he continued. 

“Everywhere was blasted to the ground and destroyed. Our warriors here tried to stop them but were defeated by strange weapons these men carried in their hands, which blasted fire and killed instantly…” 

He broke down and started crying. Danushiki turned to another adult and asked him why the man who’d been talking was crying.

“The girl who just spoke to you is his sixth child. Four off his sons were killed in an explosion when those fair men charged into Shaingwa. His last son is in the extreme part of the fortress”. 

He clenched his jaw in anger as he continued. “They never even had the chance to fight before they died…else they’d have hacked those fair bastards”.

“What happened to his left leg?” Danushiki, out of curiousity, asked the last man who just spoke.

“He was hurrying out of his farm when those fair demons fired him below his left thigh, with their strange weapon. It’s only our herbs that’ve been keeping him alive, though he sometimes experience excruciating pain”. 

For a moment, Danushiki seemed to forget the growling sounds of hunger in his stomach when thoughts of Sarme entered his mind.

“What about my parents and my sisters, do you have any idea where they might be?” He anxiously asked. 

The man hesitated before he answered, and Danushiki tried to guess why. They heard faint voices of some fair soldiers, as Danushiki clutched his glinting dagger tightly and kept thinking of everything that’d happened that night. Suddenly, he was not surprised, as he remembered vividly, the prophecy of the gods inside the sacred grove that fateful day with his father. He thought about the dead warriors and shook his head. They weren’t supposed to rush into battle like angry buffaloes without the necessary fortification rituals inside the sacred grove. But all that was history now, as he looked around the filth in which his people were being forced into. The whole story incensed him the more, while thinking of his ‘immortal’ comrades patiently waiting for him inside the sacred grove.

“Your parents…I’ve not set my eyes on them since I arrived here. Immediately our warriors were defeated, we were led down here and forced to work from dusk till dawn. We built these makeshift settlements inside the fortress, and their own residences. They plundered our homes for diamonds, in the personal chambers of each home on a daily basis. All the pretty and unmarried girls and ladies, including Sarme were carried to the main residences of these fair…” 

The mere mention of Sarme’s name sent volts through his spine. It was like a fable, hearing that Sarme was in the custody of these fair strangers. The thought of it made him angrier, and he swore to kill every one of them if they laid a finger on her. The dialogue had suddenly turned into a bad dream. He shuddered at the thought of a fair soldier attempting to do to Sarme, what only he was ‘allowed’ to do to her. 

“Where was she taken?” he asked the man with his body shaking all over.

“My son, you have to eat and rest before you think of doing anything. From what I heard, your mother is with the baby so he’s going to be okay”. He assured him. 

The girl who’d spoken first, brought out a dirty basket containing some stale looking groundnuts and dried fruits, and gave them to Danushiki. He gobbled up the ‘food’ and drank some water from a goatskin. He listened absent-mindedly to other people who corroborated the last man’s narration in whispers. Later, the man who’d been talking with Danushiki informed him in detail about how the island had been plundered and looted. He also told him how there were forced to make mass graves for the dead two thousand warriors.