Desert nights are never a particularly pleasant thing to endure. Few there were who could endure them such was the chill that seeped into one’s bones, during desert evenings. It was not so much the matter of starting a fire, or avoiding scorpions or snakes but a matter of loneliness. There was an oppressive darkness that so often entered one’s soul, when one was made to endure them. The wind howling in mourning of lost empires and lives, screaming of pain as though in mockery of men’s darkest melancholies.
Added to this was the fact that rarely did any who lived, in such places enjoy a full meal. Hunger could only aggravate one’s misery and unhappiness. This is something we all know, and none better who have the misfortune of living in the poorest of places, such as those who must endure the deserts of Ifriquya.
The sand dunes that stretched for kilometres without compare all about Kolwé’s keep were incomparable in the eyes of most from his locality. Many of the merchants who came to this locality, often keener than those from other regions, to complain about the heat endured, and the distance that separated them from the nearest oasis in those two directions. The vivid brown, almost golden colour of most of these dunes, were dark now. They appeared more akin to glowering, menacing devils than any harmless bodies of sand.
Nature in her own way could comfort, as no mother could, just as she could haunt, and frighten unlike any maddened crone could.
Never before, in all the years of life, that the sorcerer had endured had Kolwé been more acutely aware of this fact and never before, had he felt so full of bitterness. To have been spurned by the woman he loved, was something that he could not stomach. Especially, since it carried with it the loss of his men. Most had died by the hands of the fearsome Aganyú, some small number of them had fled, fearful of the dusky-skinned prince and that to continue to serve Kolwé would evoke the prince’s wroth once more.
“How could we follow you still, if you persist in your madness for his woman?” One of them had demanded of the Bandit-Lord, after a heated argument some hours after the massacre in the fort.
It was a valid argument.
But not so, in the eyes of the obstinate sorcerer who continued, to remain resolute in his conviction that Aganyú had stolen from him, and that his men had to be avenged. A sentiment his former followers evidently did not much support.
Hence, why, he was alone in his castle. Alone, save for a bottle of old wine, he had hoped to enjoy for the wedding but that he now used to drown away his sorrows. He wished for some means by which he might achieve vengeance, hoped for some clever scheme to enter his mind but in its stead he drank.
The bottle was of the finest wine one could find in this part of the world, it was from the vineyards of the Orissians. Made from their grapes that they grew by the sea to the north of their lands, the very sea that they were so very obsessed with and always keen to fight against Amazonian pirates and Theodosianople attempts to retake, none could make wine like this. Saving perhaps the people of distant Aguiane to the far north, in North-Agenor, but that was to most folk a whole world away.
“Once I was, one of the most gifted students of the Tower of Balba,” Kolwé complained a goblet of wine held up in one of his dark hands. The Tower located in Orissia was the mightiest of all the monuments to magic in the Empire to the north, “I should have stayed.”
He sloshed some wine unto his robes, well and truly drunk by this time, having drunk more than one bottle by this time.
There was much more grumbling and complaining on his part, for many more hours. The more he drank, the more morose Kolwé became. Unhappy with his lot in life, how far he had fallen since his time in the Tower, he stared down at his goblet mournfully.
Startled from his depressed musings and bleak humours by a great ‘Boom’ that echoed throughout the whole of the castle, as had happened days before.
Kolwé gaped open-mouthed at the looming figure standing before him in the doorway.
“Kolwé the Brigand,” Aganyú hissed full of fury and hatred, blades in hand and eyes almost crimson, such was the fervour in them.
“Y-y-yes?” Kolwé stuttered afraid.
A part of him prayed that the man before him was but a figment of his imagination.
The fist, to his face that knocked him from the chair he was almost resting upon, so that Kolwé saw stars. The next blow left his vision darkened, so that the stars blinked out from above him.
“You spineless weasel!” Aganyú growled at him, striking him another several times.
Stricken by agony, the sorcerer squealed as might a pig being whipped, tears of pain streaming from his eyes shortly thereafter. When the warrior above him ceased, raining down the worst blows, his victim had ever suffered since he was a child.
Left groaning on the ground, he could do little more than wonder why Aganyú had taken to beating him.
“You dare to beg for your life, after what you have done?” Aganyú demanded of him, face purpling with rage.
“What have I done? I have been here for three days, since you departed doing naught more than drinking,” replied Kolwé coughing and spitting blood from his split lip.
“You know what you have done.”
“No I do not,” grunted the brigand, pushing himself up into a sitting position, with many whimpers. “I did nothing.”
“You have stolen Charáji away,” was the answer.
“Stolen her away? She was taken from you?” Kolwé questioned confused, hardly believing his ears.
Aganyú reluctantly threw himself into the tale, of how it had come about that his lover had been taken from him. At a loss to what to do, other than to rage at Kolwé, he began to explain what had come about at first reluctantly, then later it seemed as though he could not stop the outpouring of the tale.
It had come about that when the two had returned to the oasis; they had taken to once more making love, wherefore they had rested. Both wearied from the journey, and the labour into which they had thrown into themselves with all the vigour they had in them.
The two had taken to a quiet life together, with Aganyú taking to fishing and exploring the local area out of curiosity of the region he had come to inhabit. He had noted with quite some measure of fascination that the people of this land spoke a rather different tongue to his own.
The Prince had understood, however, some of what they said as there were some similarities between the tongue, of the Ifriyan tongue he had learnt and that of the west.
The lady Charáji for her part spoke all tongues, he had noticed. It was thus that she had begun to teach him the local language, with Kolwé who spoke the eastern language of the Banto people with some difficulty, pleased with this part of the story.
“How much did you learn?” He asked, interrupting the narrative, only to fall silent, when the barbaric Prince glowered once more at him.
Returning to his narrative, Aganyú explained at some length of how he had struggled with his lessons. On the third day, he lost his temper irritated at his own difficulty with the particulars of the grammar (Kolwé shook his head scornfully at this admission, really to struggle with grammar!).
“I cannot abide any further lessons, and shall go whither to explore the local village to the west, that of Yongu and see if any of their merchants should require a guard.” Aganyú had said in a fit of frustration.
“And how do you intend to communicate with them, if you shan’t properly understand their tongue?” Charáji asked of him sardonically, impatient with his lack of ability to learn the language at once.
Neither student nor teacher, were willing to cede a single millimetre, regarding the matter of his ability or rather inability to communicate in the local tongue. Never one to be deterred by the disapproval of another, Aganyú departed with a scowl on his face.
Much as he adored her, he could not stomach such a fierce disagreement from even one that he loved. His impatience towards her irritated her in turn for she knew herself to be a goddess, so that she found him to be childish.
It was when he had left to visit the local village that someone had come along, to entrap her. It had happened that shortly after the oasis climbed back, into notice hours later, when he was en route back that he heard her shriek.
Crying out for Aganyú as she had done days hence, Charáji was taken into the bottle that had been utilized previously to steal her away.
Arriving too late, as the kidnapper of the goddess had disappeared far away to the north, in the shape of a large bird, before he eventually disappeared from view. The prince had followed as best he could, six and a half feet tall the long legs of the great royal had carried him along swiftly, though not quick enough.
His deep voice manly, as it was could not shatter the bottle that contained his great love, nor could it work to convince he who had stolen her away, to return her. Stricken and filled with hatred for Kolwé, whom he knew to be the only man who could have accomplished such a misdeed, he had made for the castle.
It lay, after all to the north, with the sorcerer the only man he could think of, who might have the motivation to take the goddess away in so cruel a fashion.
Listening to the man he had not heard from in nigh on a month, Kolwé found the tale fascinating and bizarre in nature. He had never known a man to have taken up life, by the side of Charáji and there was no small amount of envy that wormed its way into his heart.
But it was surpassed only by his fury, to hear that the maiden he had treasured for so long, had abandoned his Order for, was missing now.
“Who could have stolen her away?” He asked almost more to himself, by this time sitting with his back against the wall while Aganyú paced the floor restlessly as might a caged lion.
“I do not know! You are the one who trapped her before; therefore I know it to have been you that stole her away from me!”
“But I have been here, all month long scheming and drinking,” Kolwé confessed helplessly, trying to force himself to think.
After all, how could anyone have stolen her away, with Aganyú’s sword to guard her? It was not simply anyone who might risk the warrior’s wroth, or Kolwé’s own cold fury. The sorcerer would gladly feed anyone who might take away the Nereid, from him to any beast he might summon to him.
It was unlikely, but he had a sudden realization who it must have been that had captured and stolen away the loveliest of all the maidens of the desert.
Trying on his cloak, he was filled with coldness when he did not assume the shape, of a vulture. Turning now to Aganyú he spoke suddenly throwing a key he kept in one of the folds of his robes, “Here, take this to the chest in the corner by the mahogany desk there.”
This Aganyú did, if reluctantly so. The lock on the chest clicked open; the loudness of the clicking noise startled both and drew both their stares to the chest. One was a dull one from the magi, and the other was a heated, expectant one.
The chest was empty.
Staring down into it, bewildered and stunned, Aganyú could only open and close his mouth. At that moment, he bore a fierce resemblance to a fish, one which had been plucked from the waters that birthed it.
“My bottle, as I suspected, has gone missing,” Said Kolwé troubled by this observation, his brow knitting together in consternation.
“How could it happen? Who could have stolen it?”
Kolwé thought about this question, genuinely searching his memory. His head still throbbing from a combination of alcohol and the severe beating, he had endured made it difficult to think. Near to the end of several minutes, it occurred to him the only one of his former followers who had remained, to care for him was Nibilan. “Nibilan!”
“Who?”
“It was he whom I gave over my jackal cloak to; he behaved oddly when he had returned just before my planned wedding to Charáji!” Kolwé confessed with a gasp, “I had thought little of it, and he remained with me to cater to me, claiming that he could not leave me alone in such a dire state of melancholy.”
“And you trust him?”
“I had never had reason to doubt him, regardless it happened that I have but rarely been sober this past month.” Kolwé protested, rather more reasonably than he might otherwise have liked his mien, dark and melancholic.
“It was he who stole away my Charáji?”
“I suspect so.”
“We must be away, then, to find him and punish him for what he has done!” Aganyú proclaimed with all the grandness of a sitting King.
“What? You shan’t be serious! Why must I accompany you to rescue her?” Kolwé objected at once, stunned that the other man might volunteer him for such a duty.
“Because it was by thy hand, Nibilan claimed the means by which he might steal her away, which incriminates you. I am not entirely convinced of your innocence, therefore, I say to you that it is for you to clear your name by your own efforts and to assist me in this.” Aganyú then added whilst waving his still bared steel before the face, of the man at his feet, “Unless you should prefer a different choice to that which, I presented before you.”
A King and a royal though he was by birth, Aganyú had spent far more time in the wilderness, in the villages of his people and as a blacksmith, than in any castle or royal-citadel. Though, he retained the self-importance of a royal, he had developed a certain self-sufficiency that made it so that he could take to the road with minimal preparation. Kolwé for his part was a different sort of man. A brigand he may have been, but he fancied himself a noble in all ways, saving perhaps birth.
One could hardly blame Aganyú for being annoyed, as the hours stretched on and still Kolwé was unprepared to leave. His reluctance to leave without every little article of clothes, or baubles, or without feeding his pet birds ere he let the half-wild creatures go could have tested the patience of anyone. Even the god Horus the Elder, whom Kolwé revered so much, would have found his patience lacking.
In time, he lost patience, deciding that Kolwé had to cease tarrying, “Do come along, lest I sever thy head from the shoulders that could hardly support it!”
“But I really must, ensure that I also have the correct books for the journey-” With a roar, Aganyú seized him by the arm to drag him along.
Resistant, the older of the two men was to almost throw himself upon the ground, in a fit to resist the efforts by his captor to drag him along, on his mad-quest. It was not until the castle had faded from sight that, he at last regained his senses as Aganyú put it, and was willing to do as he was told.
“You truly are the worst of men,” Kolwé complained, still upset about having to leave a great many of his books behind, in a sealed room in the second highest of the towers of his keep.
“Never you mind your books, they will still be there upon your return,” Grunted the other man with an irritated roll of his eyes.
This hardly appeased him. To have lost the love of his life to this brute, was bad enough, but to now have lost her to Nibilan and to be forced to serve the man who won her over in the first part irritated him.
How could the fates be so cruel to him, to subject him to such a humiliation? It was not as though Kolwé had done anything, too, wrong.
Miserable, he allowed himself to be forced onto one of the few camels that still remained, in the stables attached to his home. Though, he tried his best to load down the camels with food, and canteens of water and wine, Aganyú soon grumbled once he realized that all that he loaded onto them was all that there was left.
“How could there be so few provisions?” He demanded of Kolwé who shrugged his shoulders, in response.
“It has been left to Nibilan to restock our supplies,” Said the sorcerer-bandit indifferently. “I had little interest in aught else than drink, over the past month.”
“You truly are the most pitiful sort of man,” Aganyú sneered scornfully, “You ought to have sought to repent of thy sins.”
Kolwé shrugged his shoulders. Still his hands were chained with the end of the chain held tightly by Aganyú, who encouraged his own mount ahead. “West is to the nearest village?”
“Yes,” the brigand confirmed with a miserable nod of his head.
The two would not speak again for quite some time, at least not until the first of the village houses loomed into view on the distant horizon. The suns by this time had begun to climb into view, Aganyú was immensely relieved to see the first of the mud-brick and thatch roofed houses.
“This is the village of Kolwandar, it is little known and was once by a river,” Kolwé explained when prompted by his travelling companion.
“We must see if any of them saw Charáji,” Said Aganyú with far more enthusiasm than he truly felt, as he strove not to let any of his despair show.
The further they moved through the village, the more he felt uncomfortable as Kolwé queried this merchant or that man, or this farmer’s wife or that one about Nibilan. The local people were to answer in their western-tongue that they had not seen such a maiden.
But when questioned whether they had seen Nibilan, they paused. More than one refused to answer, and more than a few pointed them towards another of the villagers, which perplexed Kolwé as much as Aganyú.
“What is the matter with them?” He was to ask of his captive, who shrugged his shoulders helplessly.
“I do not know,” Kolwé replied troubled, “One moment, I will see if old Yalla, will answer my questions rather more honestly than the others have.”
Yalla happened to be an old woman, with but a few teeth left and little to no hair, her dark eyes glaring through Aganyú with such hatred as to make him reluctant to approach her. Bent over a walking staff, she stood just outside a large farm-house, while a small army of twelve young boys and women tilled the fields.
“Yalla!” Kolwé greeted her with his companion convinced that he said next, “How goes the day” though he was not certain.
The old woman glared at the brigand with blood-shot, sharp eyes that could have cut through stone as easily as flesh. Her voice was raspy and hoarse from grief, and barely repressed rage when she did answer him, “Kolwé, you dare to come here after all that has been done, to our village?”
This startled Kolwé, who had never been addressed so rudely by the old woman (or the other villagers for that matter), asked her bewildered. “What is the matter, Yalla? In my time as lord of the keep, your village never truly came to harm.”
“Certainly, until the last days of your lordship,” She retorted, wherefore she pointed at the man standing a short distance behind him. “You have broken trust with us all for him.”
“How so?”
“He butchered our men-folk,” She hissed at him, with Kolwé taking notice only now of a gathering number of people all about him.
The village was not a terribly large one, at two hundred and fifty or so people, with a great number of their men-folk missing they still had the advantage of having numbers over them. The hard eyed stares, the hatred in their souls was such that the brigand felt his breath catch and his heart stop, at the sight of more than forty villagers all surrounding them.
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Not being particularly blind, especially to the very real dangers of an angry mob, Aganyú grew ever more agitated, the nearer the locals came to him and the greater their numbers became. “Why,” he said slowly with visible suspicion, “Are they gathering all about us, in so hostile a manner?”
Unable to fully understand the tongue of the village, he could not quite grasp why it was that the people were so hostile towards him. His inability to comprehend their plight, was one that only served to aggravate their sense of outrage against him, for it seemed to them to be indifference rather than the remorse they hungered for from him.
“That I am not so certain of,” Kolwé replied with no less apprehension than he, turning once more to speak to the old woman in the strange, western language he was so adept at. “Yalla, what do you mean he butchered your men-folk?”
“He has murdered our loved ones, and you dare to bring him hither?” Yalla asked of him, “If you choose to accompany him, anywhere, you will share in his fate.”
Swallowing, the sorcerer-bandit backed away a few steps, eyes darting all about him to those he had either once command, or once upon a time taken coin or food from.
“What has happened? What did she say?” Aganyú asked no less afraid of those who had them surrounded, at that moment.
Kolwé full of terror had but a few seconds to decide, what it was that he ought to do. In the following seconds, he had to decide whether he wished to come to the rescue of his captor, so that he pulled his vulture-cloak all the tighter about his shoulders.
The transformation of the sorcerer into a vulture startled everyone present, with the sorcerer taking to the air with a flap of his wings with a squawk that alarmed his companion.
“Kolwé you coward! How dare you abandon me?” Aganyú roared waving his fist in the air after the bird that had deserted him to his fate. Looking away from him, to those who surrounded, him Aganyú pulled his sword free from its scabbard, eyes darting from one man to the next. His attention turned now to them, he was to say to them, “The first man to strike, or to come nearer to me shall die.”
His promise of death was one that sane men would have paid heed to. If only out of fear of the sundering blade they had seen him wield with such fury as to split the seas themselves, one month prior. Those who did not bear witness, to this dark event, ought to have learnt to fear him due to how his reputation had spread among them. Or so, one would suppose, but the sense of loss that had come to dominate their senses had made it so that they had no ability for strategy or reason.
It was for this reason that when the blade flashed through one man, splitting him in half, this act hardly slowed the wrath of the rest.
Muscular in such a way few men could imagine, with his muscles tensing and moving with lightning speed, Aganyú was to hew down another man, then another. Lo, he slew in total three men, ere they could properly lay a single hand upon him with the sense of triumph that might otherwise have dominated his senses at once forgotten.
“Ha! First blood!” He boasted foolishly, thereupon the steps to the house of Yalla, where no man in seventy years had shed blood.
The ground tainted now, it drove every member of her village mad, so that they charged him all at once. The flashing steel blade was to almost be knocked from his hand, even as they pounded him with their fists, their feet, what rocks they could find and came near to crushing him beneath them. Tearing now cries of pain from his own lips, he came very near to being driven down and slain.
Realizing that were he to be knocked to the ground, it would be the end of him, Aganyú was to bellow with rage, and to attempt to carve a path forward. Drawing a dirk taken from Kolwé’s fortress, he was to cut his way through one man, then another as they sought to grab at his arms. Fast as a jungle-cat, Aganyú moved with all the ferocity of one, so that the ground was littered with half a dozen corpses, before a single cut had been delivered unto the Prince.
Thinking rapidly as he moved to the outer-circle of assailants against him, those nearer to the lady Yalla and the mud-brick and thatch roofed home.
“Kill him! Grab his legs!” Yalla shrieked with all the fury she could summon.
The men, all about him, attempted to seize a-hold of the warrior, who heard her words and reacted accordingly so that he leapt away from the nearest of those around him. As he leapt, he drew up his legs so that he might not have them seized mid-leap.
When his bound came to an end, Aganyú was to slash at those who continued to hold themselves before him. Those behind him did not let his amazing leap stun them for long, with more than three of the men throwing themselves forward, so that they tackled him.
Hitting the wall hard, the startled warrior struggled and kicking with one leg even as his foes sought to bind it with their arms, his first blow did not win him much yield. It was the second and third blow that caused the man above him, to cede several inches and loosen his hold ever so slightly. Encouraged by this, he struck them several more times so that second by second, he was to gain ever more ground, so to speak.
Once his limbs were liberated, from the hold, of those around him, he was to sweep them away with his blade. Sword in hand, he threw himself thither in the direction of the fields seeking to escape in that direction, his heart aflutter with panic.
Some struck at him as Yalla shouted after him, with wooden pikes, pitchforks, and what other sharpened implements that they could find. Aganyú scared and disgusted, hewed what men threw themselves nearest at him, at which time he veered eastwards.
It was into that direction that he fled, with all his strength, glancing continuously over his shoulder at those giving chase after him.
The mad crowds of the village eventually fell back behind him; still, he remained frightened that they might still give chase. It happened that in the distance some few of the men-folk were still in hot pursuit. Terrified, he was to throw himself behind the gates of the castle, wherefore he threw the gates closed.
Once this done, he barred the gates and left to take stock of the reserves of the castle, down below in the depths of the estate once ruled over by Kolwé. He was disappointed to find them severely lacking, and not having been restocked in some time, so that Aganyú came near to leaping several yards into the air, just as he emerged from the depths of the tunnels below of the keep. The cause for his sudden fright was the sudden sensation of Kolwé’s hand upon his shoulder, and calling to him.
“Where have you been? Why did you turn those people against me?” Aganyú demanded of his captive, thrusting the man’s back against the wall.
“I did not turn them against you.”
“How, then, do you explain the madness that have overtaken the crowds who near your gates?” The Prince insisted, maddened by the denial of the elder man.
“They turned upon you, by virtue of thy own actions a month hence.”
“How so?”
“They turned upon you, because of the murder of their loved ones,” Proclaimed Kolwé with a worried glance outside their gates.
“Why did you not tell me so?” Aganyú demanded impatiently, disgusted by the abandonment of his travelling companion.
The other man stared at him, as though he were the dullest man in the whole of the earth. Aganyú took umbrage with this glare, so that he might have liked to strike the other man, yet had to restrain himself. Aganyú distracted from his anger, in the next heartbeat at the suddenness of a loud explosive sound as the gates were thrown open, with Kolwé and Aganyú exchanging a worried glance over this.
Kolwé would have escaped at that exact moment by himself, were it not for Aganyú grabbing at him. Shrieking, he sought to push the Prince away from himself, “What are you doing? Why will you not let me fly away?”
“Not without me,” Aganyú snapped exasperatedly, “I must escape with you, we shall take flight on foot via the northern gates, rather than you abandoning me again!”
Kolwé should very much have liked to abandon him; however, the other man would not release him, to the irritation of the dusky skinned sorcerer. “Release me! Release me!”
“Not for all the wealth in the world!” Aganyú growled at once, refusing to cede a single inch to the man whom he had grabbed hold of.
Kolwé prevented from being able to escape, was made to against his will to leave with him out of the northern-gate. It was through these gates which, the two of them escaped through moving as might shadows even as torches lit every inch of the once glorious keep. The people of the local village, laid waste to all they could find or otherwise seizing what was not destroyed, in the hopes that what they found might prove valuable.
Slipping out as might a shadow, the two men fled north across the desert whereupon, they turned west at the suggestion of Kolwé. It was in that direction that they might find a village by the name of Pupata or ‘Red-Stone Village’, as translated by Kolwé for Aganyú. The village as he soon discovered was less of a village, and more of a large town. Startled to discover a large citadel at the centre of the town, one built of finer stone than that which Kolwé had previously lived in, and they had left behind them. Built of fine mud-brick and solid stone, using techniques taught by the Orissians who lived far to the north, with the keep remarkable for its six towers and high-walls that separated it from the equally ten meter high walls which were five meters thick.
“There are more than three thousand people, in this city,” Kolwé explained proudly, “It is here where I was born.”
“I was born in a city with ten times that number,” Replied Aganyú coldly, with his guide quick to become red-faced in response.
“Size is not all, in regards, to such places,” Kolwé remarked with a slight stutter, “What is most important is not the size, but rather, the quality of the spiritual centres and the scholarship that has come to inhabit the city.”
“Nonsense,” Aganyú snorted disdainfully, with the other man shaking his head in response.
“How can you call yourself a King in any true capacity, if you have no great affection for architecture, the spirit of thy people or scholarship?” Kolwé asked incredulously of the Prince, who glared at him, indignant at his questioning his worthiness of his titles.
“Such things ought to be built up at the pleasure of the King, not for him to serve as though he were little more than a slave.” Aganyú growled impatiently, casting dark glances in the direction of his newfound travelling companion.
“But a King ought to be as a servant to his people,” Countered the sorcerer, with a gusty sigh that shook the whole of his frame. “If you ask me, the greatest of Kings have always known this, and only the very worst have ever thought or believed otherwise.”
“Well, it is good I think if such be the case that you are not King,” Aganyú concluded with far more disdain than ever before.
As the exiled monarch took up this air of superiority, you can well imagine Kolwé’s disillusion towards him. Not that he had been particularly taken with the easterner to begin with, but at present he wondered very seriously if mayhap that eastern kingdom that had banished Aganyú, had not done itself the greatest of favours. To have retained him as monarch would have surely been a sure sign of decline and daftness, after all.
Impressed by the size of the citadel, the quality of the stones, Aganyú soon preferred to pour his attention upon it, remarking to himself. “When I sweep back east of the great desert, I shall have to be certain to bring back such stone-masonry and the knowledge of it with me.”
Kolwé made a non-committal noise, hardly impressed by this statement on his captor’s part. He encouraged the prince not towards the citadel but a local tavern.
Seeing this, the annoyed prince was to ask of him, “Why are you entering the pub, when we ought to be pressing to enter the citadel?”
“Because O Prince of the East, the local lord does not much care for my person as I am but a lowly bandit. My friend Abiodun though, is a merchant of some respectability, whom I have given many of my ‘goods’ to in order for him to sell them in more respectable markets. Among his most frequent customers, is the local lord, Olaoluwa who likes to buy rubies and emeralds, for his daughters,” Kolwé explained to him through gritted teeth. “More than once, Abiodun has intervened on my behalf, to assist in securing freedom for my men.”
“How did you succeed in this?”
“His brother acted as a sort of in between man, one who would represent his interests to myself, and mine to him.” Kolwé answered discomfited, only to add softly, “I rather like him, a loyal sort with a pretty wife and a subtle mind.”
“Good for him,” Aganyú muttered indifferently.
Kolwé though, did not speak up about one detail that had him worried. He had thought he had seen Abiodun’s brother in the village, among those who had sought to assault Aganyú for Yala. There was the possibility he knew that the merchant was counted among those, who had fallen to the Prince’s blade.
The tavern interior was simply built. A small two-storey building, with the master living in the upper-tiered floor while the lower floor had a simple bar, behind which the tavern-master could be found. There were tables to be sure, but they were in shoddy condition with equally poorly maintained black-wood chairs before them (ordinarily three). Past the two tables to the far back of the bar was a small-elevated corner with straw thrown on it, with a similar corner to the left of the doorway, with there being smaller more rounded tables in these corners.
Aganyú took in the sight of the sloppy building interior with a disdainful grimace; he had seen similar establishments in his own kingdom far to the east, but it had been some time. The men inside nursed their drinks in clay goblets, with sullen expressions, few of them being in much of a joyful mood.
Most of the men, he could see, recognized Kolwé though they did not say anything to him. This was a fact that caused some alarm, in Aganyú who had thought that he had operated in the city, through agents and merchants. The down-playing of his own experience in the city, made him wonder what else the brigand was hiding from him.
Near the rear of the tavern, sat a short-haired man with a long beard, the man was dressed in a loose white tunic and trousers and wore a shadowed, melancholic expression on his face.
“Abiodun, I knew that I might find you here,” Kolwé said loudly, pleased to see his friend, who leapt at the sudden sound of his voice.
Abiodun’s wild dark eyes stared up as he came near to dropping his goblet, “Kolwé! When did you arrive herein, Pupata?” He asked of the sorcerer, who took a seat opposite of him.
“A short time ago,” Kolwé replied evasively, “How have you been, my friend?”
“Terrible,” Abiodun murmured sorrowfully, “You are not the first I have spoken to, from the east this past week.”
“Oh?”
“News has come from the village, to tell me that my brother has been murdered,” Abiodun bemoaned full of grief, at which time he in a burst of self-pity threw back his head and emptied his goblet.
While the merchant reached for the nearby jug of beer, keen to slake his thirst and soothe his broken heart, Aganyú slid into a seated position a short distance behind Kolwé. His back against the wall, he thus made certain that he could observe all within the tavern. His companion hoped that that was he intended to do.
It might have been hours that they sat there for; doing little else than drinking and listening to Abiodun many sighs and grumbled comments beneath his breath. His grief seemed almost a living thing that was choking him. Kolwé was very visibly affected and filled with pity for him, while Aganyú felt little beyond irritation. He only wished to find his beloved Charáji, and to return east to reclaim his kingdoms.
“Kolwé who is the man by your side?” Abiodun inquired curiously, once he had calmed down.
Kolwé was hesitant to answer, yet when pressed he was to answer if quietly so, “His name is Aganyú.”
“Who?”
“My name is Aganyú, now can you help us gain entry into the citadel of the local lord? I have need of his help to find my Charáji.” Aganyú answered, losing patience at this time with the drunk before them.
“Aganyú, let me speak for us!”
“No, Kolwé I have no further wish to hear of his brother, the man dealt in ill-gotten gains, and I am supposed to feign sympathy for either of them?”
“Who are you to judge my brother?” Abiodun asked bristling, his temper beginning to awaken, wherefore he stared at the two of them with a great deal more interest than Kolwé felt comfortable with.
The sorcerer might have been highly conscious, of what had taken place to the east, but Aganyú did not seem terribly bothered, when he glanced in his direction.
“I had heard that you were therein the village, when it happened, and that there was a brutal Ogre who had come into the village, and murdered him. I had hoped you might not be connected, as Athun suggested you were, but…” Abiodun hissed from between clenched teeth.
Sensing danger, Kolwé attempted to sooth him, “Abiodun wait, peace my friend!”
“He, it was that, slew my brother!” Abiodun shouted infuriated, on his feet, indignant at the knowledge that it was Aganyú who was responsible for the massacre in the village between the brigand’s castle and their present location. “Why should I aid him?”
“Do not shout so loudly,” Kolwé pleaded, attempting to seize him by the shoulder, to force him back into a sitting position.
But Abiodun refused to calm down and was to bellow, “Why must I quiet myself, when it was he who slew my brother? He slew my kin, and you would dishonour me by having me help him?”
“It is not as though, I have much choice,” Kolwé hissed back, only to catch himself and throw a fearful glance in the direction of the Prince.
“Do shut up, the both of you,” Aganyú growled irritably, from where he sat cross-legged to one side of the sorcerer. “How might we speak with the local lord?”
“You do not,” Abiodun growled at him wrathfully.
“What if I were to say that I have much coin that could easily fall into your hands, if you were to assist us?” Aganyú asked impatiently.
“Aganyú…”
“Shush, Kolwé do you not see that I am doing business here?”
Kolwé prayed that Abiodun might strike the Prince dead. In fact, he prayed for it to all the gods of magic and wisdom, from Othinn of the far-flung north-lands, to the goddess Roma, to Thoth of the Kemetians at last to Amun-Re (his favourite god).
But as always, where the art of steel was concerned, none were abler than the mighty Aganyú, who made short work of his offending foe.
So it was that Aganyú hewed down Abiodun, painted the walls crimson with his blood, and decorated his blade with the blood of the man.
The locals present for this outrageous scene, of utter brutality, hardly took to it with much enthusiasm. To the contrary, Abiodun had been one of their own, and as such they had every intention to treat his murder as one might that of their own brother. It was for this reason that a number of them fled to go alert the guards, without preamble or needing to be told to do so.
Aganyú may not have realized at once the gravity of his crime at that moment, however Kolwé was to immediately see it for the injustice it was and sought to reason with the Prince. “You fool! You utter and complete fool, have you any notion what you have just done?! We are but a single heartbeat from the citadel of the lord!”
“It hardly matters, had I not done so he might well have slain me, now out of my way that I might escape this hell-hole and take refuge, where I could in order to regroup and plan how I might rescue Charáji!” Aganyú bellowed at him, determined to break through the wall of men who had begun to gather before him.
“You might say you wish to save her, but you may as well have damned her, you fool!” Kolwé objected furiously, seeking to grab at the Prince.
He was unsuccessful in his attempts to dissuade the man from the east, from this most recent series of madness.
The guards’, who arrived to capture the Prince, did not do so without any sort of stratagem. The reason for this was simple; the man who had been sent by the tavern-master arrived before the gates in order to inform one of the guards, who hurried when he heard the noise indoors. Deep within the gargantuan citadel, he discovered the local lord in the midst of a discussion with one of the most important men within the realm.
The vizier was currently visiting out of concern for administrative reasons, as the citadel of Pupata and its neighbouring eastern-villages lay at the very limits of the kingdom, of Hausa. It was his view that there were taxes owed, by the outlying region and that what was needed, was ever more rigorous control. The fact that the lord Teleayo was always eager to express his loyalty, and had time and again gone to war for the kingdom was hardly paid any mind by Tiwalade.
Nervous, the longer the dinner-meeting between the two went on for, as Teleayo assured him. “I can assure you, milord that, while the brigands seem to have ruled previously in days past, they are incredibly difficult to extricate from their fortress.”
“That is no excuse, for not having removed them by this time,” Tiwalade reprimanded the local lord, his hand stroking his thick beard as he studied the lord with dark eyes.
To Teleayo, it was as though the vizier could see into the darkest recesses of his very soul, into every mistake he had ever made and every dream he had imagined since childhood. To say, he disliked the king’s new favourite was to make a statement comparable to commenting on the dryness of the desert.
He opened his mouth then to assure the man that according to his tax-collectors, and the mayor of the village nearest to the brigands, had informed him of the fall of Kolwé’s bandits. Teleayo was however interrupted by the sudden arrival of one of his guards, who burst into the room to his immense displeasure. “What is it? I said I was not to be interrupted!”
“It is an emergency, lordship!” The guard retorted from near the doorway, drawing a confused glance from both men. “Fighting has broken out within sight of the citadel, and threatens to expand.”
“What?”
“How many men are participating in this act of revolt?” Tiwalade snapped, not unaccustomed himself to violence and such irregular situations.
“One.”
“What?” Now the vizier was as dumbfounded as the lord was.
“Only one man? Why has he not been apprehended, yet?” The lord demanded impatiently, his dusky brow furrowing in consternation and anger.
“Um, that is to say he is uh, quite fierce lord,” the guard stuttered, unable to tell his liege that they were incapable of handling the problem as it was.
Sensing something amiss in the words of his servant, the lord was to turn apologetically to the vizier, saying to him, “Apologies Eminence, do excuse me.”
“By all means, but I expect this matter sorted promptly,” The vizier snapped shortly so that the lord of Pupata bowed once rather swiftly before regaining his feet.
As the two had been seated before a table, sitting on cushions rather than chairs, there was no chair to move back into place or worry over as the lord rushed to his feet. This was supposed to be an ‘informal meeting’ and it had rapidly gone sour, so that the lord was grateful for the distraction.
Once outside, he was to survey the damage currently being inflicted, as the enraged Aganyú hewed his way through man after man. Teleayo was to rally together several of his guards, eager to have them form up once more while another group were dispatched because, “-We must not let this mad-man cut down any innocents! All within Pupata are under my protection, now to me men! To me!”
He, it was who devised in this way the means by which Aganyú’s trouble-making might be mitigated. What the lord did not was suspect that the criminal was hardly interested in harming any innocence, intent as he was on simply escaping from the city.
His own gaze shifted from Aganyú who was making to slip away from the tavern to the open fields to the south, to near the tavern where a robed figure was busy with trying to slip away. “You there! I know you, are you not Kolwé the Brigand!”
“Ulp!”
“You, Abios bring that man here,” Teleayo commanded the captain of his guards, who seized the other criminal, “I have need of thy services.”
“My humble services are as always at your disposal, milord,” Kolwé promised at once, if rather reluctantly, as he could feel in the pit of his stomach a certain nauseous feeling begin to take hold.
“Help to subdue him!” Teleayo hissed, motioning to the warrior with a bloody sword, cutting through another warrior who threw himself against him.
Aganyú did not know how it had happened. He did not expect to have to face the whole of the city, nor had he expected that he might soon be covered in blood. He had thrown himself forward against all who opposed him. Man after man threw himself against him, so that the warrior dashed, tumbled and leapt away, or otherwise parried, thrust, slashed and stabbed. His sword was alive, thrumming as though it were an extension of his heart itself.
He only knew that he had to escape back east, and regroup. He also had to reclaim Kolwé, to force the knave to aid him in his pursuit of Charáji, who was by far more precious than life to him. This was why he had to recover her, had to find Kolwé.
It was as he fought his way, wounded from one of the earlier guard he had decapitated, that he had come across and had inadvertently assumed was striking at his left-side. That had been a feint, with the actual strike being a stabbing thrust that had pierced his right-shoulder.
Blood seeping from his injury, Aganyú struck at another man, this one coming at him from one side, wherefore he was to hear a noise turn and move to slash at the foe in a horizontal slash. The blow might have slain any man near to his own height. But not a child of six, which was what stood before him, one of the short swords of one of the warriors in his hands.
The boy sought to defy him, and was glaring up at Aganyú full of seething rage. The prince was surprised. He had not expected to see a child come up behind him, with the infant’s mother racing over to grab at her son, no less terrified than the child deep down was.
Aganyú froze.
Kolwé’s ice spell struck. Just as the Prince moved to back away, unsure of how to really react to the child he had come very near to slaying, he slipped on the ground.
Hitting his wounded shoulder on the hard ice, beneath him so that a bellow of pain similar to that which tended to escape a lion when bitten by a hyena or rival. Before he could regain his footing, more than a dozen of the lord’s guards were upon him.
“Take his sword! His sword!” They cried out, making a grab at it.
“Well done Kolwé! Nicely done,” Teleayo praised, hurrying over just as Aganyú fought back with a great roar. “Restrain him! I want to know where he came from.”
“Why should you want to know that?” Tiwalade asked, as he appeared suddenly a short distance behind the lord of Pupata.
“To find out if there are any others-?”
“It is evident that he is acting alone, therefore you must punish him.” The vizier sneered at the lord, examining the trail of corpses left along the way to near the edge of the city where Aganyú had sought to escape from. “I count almost fifteen men dead. The fault is yours, Teleayo.”
“What? But I did not know he was here, until you did,” the lord objected at once, bewildered by the accusation.
“The fault is yours,” Tiwalade continued indifferently, “And for that reason, you shall have no say in how this man ought to be executed.”
“But, the proper way is to behead him, I am not certain that I follow.” Pupata replied confused, never quite at ease in the presence of the silk-dressed vizier who was always dressed in purple, and with his neck, ears and fingers covered in gold.
“Bind his wounds, captain.”
“But why?”
“Do not question me, unless you wish to share his fate,” The vizier hissed as sharply as might a serpent.
“What do you intend to do to him?” Teleayo asked, hardly noticing as Kolwé slipped away to one side, into an alleyway, even as Aganyú was bound with his arms behind his back.
The vizier eyed the captured man, studied him for several minutes, ere he declared with an eager gleam in his eyes. The gleam made all those around him, visibly discomfited, as did his next suggestion. “He shall be chained to the citadel walls, for all to see, and shall be left to perish, and his corpse left to the vultures. That is, if they do not start pecking at him, while he still lives…”