DANUSHIKI

CHAPTER EIGHT

They were clearly showing their disapproval to what was happening on their backs. Danushiki balanced himself on two crocodiles while contemplating what to do to retain his lead position. Suddenly he began to run atop them and only stopped when he felt his feet on the soft soil. He smiled in Mahar’s direction and proceeded until he came face to face with Karugo, who without congratulating him, simply reminded him to suspend his stretching and get something to eat.

He chewed on a large piece of guava as the other men in his unit began to arrive with looks of fear as they watched Karugo walk away without a sound.

“That Karugo of a man,” he heard someone say, “he’s just like a ghost, I’m certain he appears to the other units in the same manner.” Danushiki continued with the guava and did not attempt to doubt what the man said, after all, neither Karugo nor any of the instructors were human beings, one look at their eyes buttressed that fact.

The other recruits settled down to eat while Danushiki picked up a ripe orange and began to devour it. It wasn’t a bad lunch after all, he thought to himself thinking of his mother’s reaction if she saw or heard her dear son was eating coconuts, guavas and oranges in the afternoon. He paused to look at the heaps of rocks and stones, which were going to be their close companions for the next three years. He sighed and wondered whether he was ever going to use all these skills in any battle after they were through with their three year training. While he was on the fifth fruit, he looked at his bruised body and imagined what it would look like at the end of three years. Would Sarme still recognize it?

“Get up you lazy bastards... press up begins immediately.”

They were soon led by their shouting instructor to a large field for the next exercise, stunned by a fourteen feet snake which slithered lazily out of the field with a bulging stomach. The green creature stopped and maintained eye contact with Danushiki for three seconds, flicked its tongue before it disappeared through a narrow space. They were soon made to lie down, while a stone slab, which looked as if it had been sculpted for this particular purpose was placed on their backs. When all fifty men had their stone slabs balanced on their backs, their instructor simply told them they could stand up when they went up and down one hundred and fifty times.

The exercise seemed easy when he started, ignoring the instructor’s whip cracking in the air, while he walked round the perspiring men, Danushiki felt his entire waist go numb when he reached the seventieth count. There were wet spots on the ground around each recruit as a sadistic smile adorned their instructor’s face. The sun scorched the parts of their bodies which were not covered by their ‘skirts’ or the stony slab, as they all bore painful expressions on their faces.

Ninety-eight, ninety-nine…his entire body was drenched in sweat, while his arms were taut and strained. Several seconds later, he imagined his father sweating it out years ago, perhaps on the same field. One hundred and nineteen, one hundred and twenty, he pictured Harshiri’s face while she nagged at her husband, one hundred and forty…he felt his vision blurring while remembering the prophecy inside the sacred grove. He knew he had a little more to go when he heard a sound behind him like someone crying. One hundred and forty eight, one hundred and forty nine, he pictured Sarme wiping his brow with a linen cloth, while he felt his fists go numb. The one hundred and fiftieth count saw him collapse to the ground as the stony slab ‘maintained its balance on his back.

Lying on the ground, he heard the faint sound of his instructor’s whip which seemed more audible than his heartbeat, while thinking his soul was finding its way to the sacred grove soon after his demise. He opened his eyes when the instructor hung his whip on his neck, lifted the stony slab and dropped it on the ground. It was two and half minutes before another man completed the one hundred and fifty press-ups, as Danushiki lay for some minutes on his back. He felt like a paraplegic for a moment, while the instructor waited impatiently for the remaining forty-eight men to complete their press ups. Once in a while he Danushiki of his mother’s reaction if she’d witnessed any stage of their ‘exercises,’ and her subsequent reaction afterwards, which would undoubtedly include nagging. A while later their instructor sent them back to continue with their lunch, while they waited for the others to conclude their press-ups.

The remaining fruits Danushiki and his fellow recruits ate had barely digested, when they began their boxing exercise. It was not only painful, but led to bleeding of their fists and knuckles, the leafy wrapping around their fists notwithstanding. They were required to punch wooden and stony surfaces which were interchanged at intervals. The instructor informed them in a mocking tone that they could kill any of the numerous king cobras, tear off its skin and use same to wrap their aching fists. This seemed like a quicker avenue for a recruit to get killed, because if these venomous creatures for any mysterious reason, ignored the presence of the humans ‘sharing’ their habitat with them, it’d have been very foolish of the recruits to think of attacking, or make use of their skin.

This first part of the boxing exercise involved interchanging the surfaces fourteen times, before proceeding to learn boxing techniques. Danushiki’s knuckles felt numb and he didn’t even care about the blisters and streaks of blood which were now visible. Though Karugo made no mention of it, he knew that in a place like Cobra Land – it was everyone for himself.

Whenever a recruit faced the instructor during the boxing exercise, they all hesitated before throwing three punches at their instructor who easily dodged them. When Danushiki faced his instructor it didn’t take long before he saw himself on the ground, while he kept reminding the recruits of the importance of balance in physical combat. Their instructor soon moved on to another recruit while Danushiki paused to examine the leaf wrappings around his fists, with dried blood on it. He turned and looked at Mahar who was now on the floor in a daze, while their instructor quickly switched to another recruit.

“You must never take your eye off your opponent,” he shouted, before helping the fiftieth recruit to get up. He didn’t look tired, and perspiration only appeared on his body because he was under the hot sun, and not because he was engaged in any form of exercise. Above all, he seemed to enjoy everything he did to the recruits.

“I hope you’ve all learnt something about boxing today?” Danushiki and his fellow recruits thought they were done with the boxing exercise when their instructor began to arrange them for another ‘bout.’

To his surprise, Danushiki was pointed out to be the first person to commence the second ‘bout’ with their instructor. He watched the man’s shoulders carefully, before tightening the leaf wrappings around both fists firmly. He didn’t need anybody to tell him that he’d learnt his lesson the first time, and it was time to pay the instructor back in his right coin. When they began to box, Danushiki managed to dodge three consecutive punches, followed by a painful sensation on his spine. This was due to the heavy stone slab which had been on his back while he did a hundred and fifty press-ups a while ago. The fourth punch from the instructor was blocked by Danushiki’s elbow, before the latter landed a punch with his right fist on the former. All the recruits were shocked to see their instructor flat on the ground while Danushiki looked on in horror, surprised at his own ‘skill.’

“You’re too fast,” their instructor dusted his behind after springing to his feet, with his eyes trained on Danushiki.

“How do you mean?” Danushiki mumbled while the rest of their unit watched them closely. “What I’m trying to say is that you fight with passion the way every Shaingwan warrior is expected to fight…to the death if necessary.”

He placed a firm hand on Danushiki’s shoulder and nodded his head in approval of the young man’s ability to learn fast.

“I’ll go with you again… let’s see what you’ve learnt so far. Give me twenty punches on my face.”

He began to walk backwards while preparing to defend himself.

“I’ll show him fast,” Danushiki thought as he clenched his fists and began to circle the instructor, who was maintaining an “X” defence over his face with his arms. The next moment, Danushiki rained twenty punches on the man who continued to maintain his defence without giving one retaliatory punch in return. In the process when he reached the sixteenth punch, frustrated by his inability to hit the man’s face, he directed the rest to his lower jaw, which resulted in the instructor staggering a few steps backward, while Danushiki panted heavily when he was through.

 Surprisingly, the instructor showed no form of strain or weakness while repeating the same ‘exercise’ with the other forty-nine men in his unit. Afterwards, he grouped them into fives and selected a recruit from each group to wrestle and throw the other four on the ground. The other recruits in the group also took turns to wrestle and throw each opponent to the ground with as little time as possible. Later in the afternoon while sitting on a small rock, Danushiki watched two king cobras mating a few meters in front of him, and allowed his mind to stray towards Sarme.

“You’ve all done well,” their instructor informed them as he walked in their midst ‘inspecting’ their knuckles and shoulders.

“You’d all be done for the day after the final exercise.”

He began to trudge away while the recruits hurried after him.

“You all think you’re very fast…” He suddenly stopped and inhaled deeply when they reached a marshy place. A recruit was made to stand under a large tree with swinging coconuts suspended by ropes from the tree’s branches. This particular exercise required a recruit to stand under the tree and catch the coconuts. He was required to pull them from the ropes which held them, and place them on the ground one after the other without allowing it to touch any part of his body, except his palms with which he was to grab them.

It was not long before Danushiki realized that the ‘coconut exercise’ was meant to ensure the swiftness of the body at all times, especially during combat. The coconuts were unusually large and heavy, and could fall an average adult on the ground if hit him with sufficient force on the right spot. Danushiki knew that coconut tree trunks weren’t as large as the ones under which he now stood, but in Cobra Land unusual things became usual, while unbelievable things became reality. As a strange wind began to blow, the suspended coconuts began to swing in different directions, sometimes hitting each other in the process.

Danushiki was still standing with his eyes darting rapidly when two coconuts swung in the direction of his face, and another towards is groin. He dodged three of them and realized the ‘trouble’ had only begun the moment he tilted his back and caught two coconuts in both hands, before placing them on the ground. The moment he stood erect another coconut swung toward his knee, which he prevented from touching him by moving a foot forward.

Before he could ‘recover’, another swung towards his left shoulder and he dodged it by a space of fifteen centimeters while avoiding the tree trunk. After half an hour of dodging, swaying, tilting and crouching, he knelt down among forty-five coconuts and tried to catch his breath.

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