DANUSHIKI

CHAPTER TEN

He walked past Danushiki, and suddenly without warning threw a punch at Danushiki, who blocked it with his left arm. They paused for a moment, smiled at each other before releasing themselves from each other’s grip.

“You’ve learnt well,” the instructor whispered to him with a pat on his back.

“One more thing,” he smiled as he chewed both sides of his mouth, when he saw Danushiki’s pose, like one expecting another surprise attack.

“Show no mercy to your enemies.” He walked away briskly before Danushiki could respond. He clutched his battle-axe firmly by the handle and kept on admiring the glinting blade, like a child with a new toy. Nobody in his unit loved his weapon like Danushiki did, and he himself could not understand why. Maybe it was caused by the gods and goddesses, he thought, but the most important thing was when he was going to make ‘good’ use of it.

Moments later, Danushiki and the rest of his unit walked to a statue of a king cobra, where they were soon joined by the other nine hundred and fifty recruits to ‘pray’ before it. The recruits felt a strange chill within them in the hot weather the moment some spirits began to move in their midst. They began to feel as if they’d been warriors before in a former life with fighting, killing and endurance skills, until Karugo appeared and walked towards the statue. He raised both arms to the sky before placing his palms on his chest. He did this three times before kneeling down to the statue, and bowing to it. There was a loud clatter of all the weapons held by the recruits falling to the ground, the moment Karugo’s forehead touched the ground the third time.

Danushiki and the other recruits weren’t surprised when he disappeared, but rather proceeded to raise their arms to the sky and place both palms on their chest. They later proceeded to kneel and bow to the statue, before standing up and walking away to their respective instructors.

The entire ‘event’ had taken less than five minutes, and caused a strange kind of refreshment after the initiation and possession exercises were over. The battle-axe even felt lighter in Danushiki’s grip when he hurried away to his instructor to continue the exercises and drills that were carried out the previous day. It wasn’t surprising to the recruits (after they later became warriors), to hear and feel strange movements in their bodies and have strange dreams involving king cobras.

For Danushiki, he knew the initiation and possession exercises were a form of transformation from being a mortal to an immortal. This fact, as far as he was concerned, was ‘corroborated’ by Karugo’s comment about loving pain and abhorring pleasure. Of course it all made sense, because only an immortal could withstand a high degree of pain, discomfort, anguish and terror on the battlefield without showing the slightest effect thereof upon him.

The rest of the day’s training went on smoothly for Danushiki and the other recruits in his unit, who were taught several skills in attacking with a battle-axe, swiftness with a battle-axe and points on the body which will result in death once it was applied with appropriate force with a battle-axe. The sun began to go down hours later and the recruits began to find their way to their respective huts, when their instructor suddenly stopped them. He walked a few feet from the last field they’d been training on and ordered them to listen attentively to what he had to say.

“That weapon you have in your grip is useless and worthless if it’s blunt. You must ensure it is honed at all times.”

The moment he said this, he picked up a large smooth stone on the ground and sat down with his chin resting on his left knee and the end of the battle-axe on his left shoulder. Slowly, he went to work sharpening the blade, while the recruits watched him closely. Suddenly, he used the stone to crush the head of a small lizard and instructed them to watch closely. He got up and walked fifteen meters from where he’d been sitting to the bark of a tree, and made a cross with the lizard’s blood, before walking back to where the recruits stood waiting anxiously. He dropped his own battle-axe on the ground and collected one from a recruit of average height, while a thin smile slowly appeared on his hard face. Holding the weapon firmly, he threw it with all his might in the direction of the cross, and stood erect facing the tree.

The owner of the battle-axe walked towards the tree and was astonished to see the head of the battle-axe buried on the intersection of the two lines.

 “You are to love and care for it as if it’s your woman, because when it is sharp it can, and would always have the power to kill even its owner.”

There were murmurings from some recruits while their instructor maintained his gaze on the dried blood on the tree.

“Dismissed,” he said, picking up his weapon and walking away. Danushiki knew henceforth, the drills and exercises would be more hectic and intensive. He waited until they’d all retired to their respective huts, before picking up the same stone that’d been used by their instructor, and began to sharpen his own battle-axe. It was five hours to midnight, when Danushiki dropped the stone and battle-axe on the ground inside his hut, and lay on the ground fondling the necklace his father had made for him. 

He began to think of his father and his walking stick, his mother’s nagging and his younger sisters’ restlessness… the days of hunting, fishing, and watching girls walk to the farm, streams and rivers. Such thoughts ‘evaded’ his mind during training because all recruits were discouraged by their respective instructors from engaging in any form of conversation among themselves. Inhaling deeply as his eyelids began to close, while he recollected all the activities during the past two days before he finally thought of Sarme.

“Blood and honour,” he whispered to himself before falling asleep.

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Darjer watched his wife as she slept peacefully like a baby beside him. She knew nothing about what troubled him that he’d harboured in the innermost part of his mind all these years. He’d been unable to tell anyone except some men in his age group who made passing comments about it to him, to which he replied.

It all started on D-day the gods and goddesses of Shaingwa had instructed him and the other warriors to attack the pink-faced visitors. They fought into the night, killing anyone who did not resemble a Shaingwan citizen or possessing a caramel-coloured skin. Towards the end of the battle, they heard some sounds at the sea shore – the route, which they believed was the biggest to the outside world. Atop it was a large canoe with a lone occupant, with reddish stains at the end of the strange black footwear covering his legs. He watched the man slowly with the aid of torches carried by his fellow warriors around him. Although the man was pink-faced, he possessed some hair below his nose, which was dusty, stained with blood and had fear radiating all over him.

The battle had been won, but the issue at hand was what they’d do with the lone survivor a few meters in front of them. He was snapped out of his self-imposed trance when he saw Harshiri’s cousin, Ziali with a bloody spear in his right hand aiming at the pink-faced survivor. He grabbed him and pulled the spear out of his hand, before flinging it away. Seeing the anger brewing among the other warriors around him, he took a deep breath, sheathed his sword before addressing them.

“My fellow warriors and brothers, we’ve won the battle, and the only thing that should concern us right now is how to dispose the bodies of these corpses… we don’t know and we don’t care where they came from, but it’s best if we let that one go.”

He paused for a while and looked at Ziali who seemed to be in shock over Darjer’s action, and clenched his fists in anger.

Feeling justified by what he’d done, Darjer continued his ‘speech.

“None of us know where they came from, but we know they’re evil, and only have an interest in Shaingwa’s sacred treasures and nothing else.” Seeing the calmness on the faces of his fellow warriors, he walked slowly to the sea shore as he kept talking.

“This land has been hidden for many years by our gods and goddesses for a reason or several reasons, and I believe the safety and protection of the inhabitants of Shaingwa is one of these reasons. I’ve never known or met that man, but I’d wish he goes back to wherever he came from, tell his people what happened here today and warn them of what would befall them, should they attempt to near the shores of Shaingwa in the future…”

He’d barely finished the last sentence when the men around him cheered loudly. He spoke those words when he was three and a half years older than Danushiki and ever since, it’d remained evergreen in his memory. Even Ziali managed a smile the moment Darjer picked up his spear and handed it to him. The next activity was the burning of the large wooden ship, alongside weapons, clothing and other objects brought into Shaingwa by the pink-faced visitors. Darjer sat on a large rock and cast his gaze on the injured man in the canoe, and wondered if he’d done the right thing by sparing his life. He smiled and imagined Ziali telling Harshiri about his bloodthirsty courage, and how her lover had prevented him from bringing home the head of the last pink-faced visitor to her as a war souvenir. Adjusting his frame on the bed, he listened to some owls hooting in the distance, and tried not to believe that one singular act of kindness (and ‘disobedience’), was going to cost him his only heir and son. He began to snore gently when some crickets joined the hooting owls and began chirping outside the kitchen. Darjer didn’t hear them because he was already fast asleep. 

It’d been three months since Danushiki left for the sacred training at Cobra Land. His experience there could clearly be described as terrible, but he’d surely have preferred to be in the trouble currently brewing at home, as a result of the affair he had had on the eve of his departure to Cobra Land with his woman Sarme. He had just washed his face after a hard day’s work at the farm, in a bid to go home and rest. Like every other ‘retired’ warrior in Shaingwa, he’d decided to go into one vocation or the other like hunting, farming, fishing, pottery, weaving, tanning etc. He had chosen farming and had never regretted his decision. After all it was a known fact by his immediate family members that he naturally loathed the sight of human blood.

Choshi was a huge soft spoken man in his late fifties, with three sons, out of which two were married, and a daughter - Sarme. From the day she was born, Choshi knew that she was going to be different from her siblings, owing to the way she secluded herself from people most of the time. He had given her the name Sarme - meaning beautiful and strong. That coffee brown complexion of his late mother which made men run after her, and eventually led to her having eight suitors at a time, was now manifesting gradually in Sarme. She radiated nothing but beauty from head to toe, and whenever something bothered him, one look at the smile on his daughter’s face brought about peace which enveloped him.

Deep down, he believed Sarme was his own mother who’d reincarnated. This was the singular reason he treated Sarme like an adult from an early age. He’d indulge her at every opportunity he had, and take pains to answer all her numerous questions carefully and satisfactorily.