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She felt the throbbing presence of his drumming heart, beating steadily. warm hard flesh in contact with hers.
an alien smell in the cool morning air, seem to dispell the silent night music by that of day.
to be sure it's not a dream, Dreeda pop one eye open, "What on earth…" she murmured and sat up on top of Jhanka.
The next thing she saw send her into a shock. a shrill escaped her like a cry of a trapped witch.
the Npunga stepped back a abruptly, into a warrior stance ready to fight white creature. some of them where already filled with a superstitious dread.
Jhanka woke up slowly. the frighten shriek from the woman is scarier than the sight of this Npunga scum.
He sat up cuddling Dreeda like a baby on his laps. Dreeda placed her head on his chest, aftershocks still rippling through her body.
Jhanka didn't pay any attention to the Npunga warriors surrounding them, he did be expecting them, he is not scared of them.
But he knows he should be. For the life of this woman he should be scared. they out numbered him hundred against one.
He run his hands through Dreeda's hair, crooning and soothing, reassuring her of his presence and sworn protection.
Jhanka shifts his full attention to the naked brown savages in breechcloths.
"Ghandaa; where are you? don't you hide now coward, come out and face the prey, or has the predator now become prey? Oh! Filthy bastard of Npunga do not hide now show your face, tell your men the truth about your enmity towards me; tell them about the battle of Wagara where I got you right under my sword but speared your life….tell them why you hate me so".
The Npunga warriors have their dark eyes zoom in on Dreeda. still gawking a her in sheer amazement.
Part of the circle of men parted and gave way to a tall huge bulk of a man with a prominent belly, his thick bald head reflecting the faint morning sunlight like a mirror, in between his two small poky red eyes without lashes molded a large flat nose barely touching his thick dark lips. His ears were so small; you could barely see any, the man wreak of death and terror, a package his prowess thrive.
He walked into the circle and stood right in front of Dreeda and Jhanka, fixating his eyes on Dreeda in pure fascination, "wonders do exist in the world" he beamed in his heart. Jhanka whispered to Dreeda "hold yourself together, we are in the hands of the enemy now, but do remember they will not do you no harm as long as I am alive.
Ghandaa signaled to some of his men to come and take the woman from Jhanka. Jhanka didn't fight back, he simply let go of Dreeda. The men put Dreeda on a comfortable makeshift gun carriage and carry her up, each man holding one edge. Some of them came closer and robbed their hands on Dreedas skin to be sure it's no coated with a white coloring but realized her complexion is quite natural.
Ghandaa looked down at Jhanka and kick him hard in the face, "you! swine, I have more important plans for you at Npunga, for that I shall be patient, ah! Slow pain inflects on the enemy taste the sweetest, and time is all I have, oh! Accursed prince, thou will prefer the flames of the hellish cave to what I have to offer" Ghandaa said in a wicked smile, his sinister tiny dull eyes locking gazes with Jhanka as he signaled different set of his men to seize the him. The men hesitated before lifting Jhanka from the ground, helping him to stand up. Jhanka wiped his bleeding nose quietly and they started their journey towards Npunga.
Left on to Ghandaa; he would have killed the man right there by the river, but that will be dangerous for his ambition of becoming king. Bondaa came and spilled the beans right in front of everyone. Had the man communicated to only him, he will have find a way to eliminate him and come and finish off Jhanka…. And since Jhanka was already a dead man, who will bother looking for him.
But things have become so complicated, his own men admire the crown prince of Zanka, a man with the reputation of uniting the four tribes of Cygon, something even his predecessors couldn't do, not even Tygon. And the only way to kill the man will be to defeat him in a fixed hand to hand battle he can never win, after which he will send him to his grave. But, before all that he had to torture, and drain from him all power, les he still dies a reigning hero.
Dreeda begun to relax her tense muscles on the way to Npunga; she was grateful she is not walking because she couldn't, she felt bruised all over, her swollen feet dangling at the edge of the gun carriage. Jhanka was close by, surrounded by the Npunga warriors in all direction, assegai ready to attack in case he makes any unexpected move. So many was their number, Dreeda couldn't tell how many.
Jhanka stood tall among them; his look serene and distant, his well refine features a sharp contrast to the dishevel plumb features of the slime Npunga scum, with face painted in grotesque disarray of voodoo cartoonish features. Are they even human? Dreeda wondered, she had read about savage tribes in Africa, but nothing as bizarre as this, extra ordinary is the summery of her whole experience.
They were passing through thick dark forests, caves and under groves, crossing streams and rivers running through valleys as they climb and descend hills and mountains. There were Few settlements here and there, and the grey sky turned gloomy shielding all traces of the sun rays so that one couldn't guess the time of the day.
Dreeda drifted between wakefulness and sleep, the air gave off a foreboding feeling of judgement day as the sound of drums mixed bizarre symphony of sounds field the thick air, hooting and whaling, cry of distress and misery, laughing; hysterical laughing and howling, the cry of babies and children, cry of women in labor copulated with the cry of ecstasy. Dreeda fixated her gaze in the gloomy sky seeking solace, scared to take a look around, for she is certain they have entered a vast settlement of some sort.
The smell of roasted flesh filled the air, the stench of blood and rotten flesh so strong; smoke emanating from different directions, as the hawks and vultures fly in the sky looking down predatory, scavenging for the next meal.
Dreeda looked around curiously for the first time and wish she hadn't, as naked men and women carrying children in hand come out from holes in the mountains enclosing the path on both sides, at the far end a distance away from the were piles of human skulls and bones, children using some of the jaw bones as swords to spar playfully, oh no; she must be dreaming, she will wake up on her bed back at home in Europe, and all this will be a nightmare, this is not real, her mind cannot register all that was happening around her, yet another scene caught her attention; she saw a man rush after a woman out in the open, catch up with her, and forcedly plug into her from behind and started pounding away furiously. Dreeda draws in breath sharply, quite stupefied.
...
Attach to the side of the mountains on either sides connects bamboo platforms. she saw tribes' men lean over a carcass to fetch something red with a calabash, then add another white liquid from a different pot, stood up and drink from it like wine; for the first time Dreeda managed to ask Jhanka an obvious question… "is that blood… are they drinking blood" Jhanka didn't respond, his silent answer so clear no explanation was needed. Dreeda couldn't help but throw up whatever remains she had in here stomach. If the Npunga notice this, they didn't pay her any attention, they simply walk on like zombies.
She couldn't believe what she was seeing…. It seems like she had travel back in time to a land out in space on a different planet.
The next thing happening send Dreeda into shock. In one of the wooden platforms attached to mountain heights, a man screams the most heinous scream, a stab on the belly by another man send him flying from the platform to the ground. Had the guards carrying her not acted quick, the falling man would've landed on Dreeda. Their sharp movement cause them to put Dreeda on the ground, and the fallen man landed hard on the ground right in front of Dreeda, his head smashed open and scattered all over like a water melon, some of the brain mass mixed with blood smear all over Dreeda's face and the middle of her head.
Now Dreeda didn't know where she was, her brain went numb and she forgot her own name. her body was shaking uncontrollably, what just happen? The foul smell of the warm brain mass filled her senses, overwhelming her nauseously, she threw up again this time bringing out green fluid. When she got the chance to breathe again she screamed and went into limbo; rocking back and forth in her sitting posture, her body convulsing as though to expel a monster from within her.
The incident causes the matching Npunga warriors to stop dead in their tracks; even Ghandaa couldn't believe what just happened. The signs were clear right before their eyes, the higher laws had spoken, not in words but gruesome pictures, a language well understood by these savages.
Jhanka wanted to attend to Dreeda; and wipe her face clean but he couldn't, he can't interfere with the higher laws. The woman is strong enough to fight her way through this; The evidence of her supremacy can't not be wiped clean. They are now in Npunga strongholds heading straight to heart of the clan itself, where the high priestess shall emerge from her long solitude in the caves with her four sages, who have gone into a long coma ever since the prophecy was foretold; what just happen now to the white one means the sages have awoken; and the priestess is aware of their coming. How Jhanka knew these things, he can't explain, he simply knows.
Now Ghandaa can't fight what was coming and he knows it; but he can't run away like the coward that he was either; finally, words of the mystic replayed in Jhankas mind "go hither into the flames, the goddess awaits you" this had been a mission all along, the mystic knew all this and probably what lays ahead. But Jhanka is not surprise; the mystic was the oracle in Zanka. No one knows where he comes from, he comes and goes as he pleased, and on his laps rested the ancient knowledge of this once great civilization, that is now corrupted and infested with so much filth the most of the people can't distinguish their left hand from the right one.
Jhanka close his eyes for a moment and experience the surge of energy wash through him filling every cell in the body. Then he felt like crying in submission; humility fills his heart, "I feel worthy to be nothing more than this." He thought, He will not preconceive anything beyond what he is experiencing right now, he will simply ride it all the way to the end wherever that is; he simply feels honored to be on this side of history. Honored to know things most men cannot know in their wildest dreams. Privy to the unknown in gest. Honored to have been chosen as a guardian for the white queen. A new light had dawn on Cygon, a great hope, who dares stop it now?
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