6. BLOODSHED

Owongo needs to wage a war from the shadows against Fart-fart

With uncanny silence and seeming not to move as they covered the ground, Owongo and Binflo melted well out of sight though to a vantage point where they could still see what was going on, and stared at the little scene that was slowly breaking Owongo’s heart.

Binflo pushed one finger gently against Owongo’s lips and indicated with a frown that he should do his damnedest to be silent.

“No sound!” he hissed, “but listen!”

They could hear what was going on now that the gang of savages with their captured women had halted before the grotesque figure of the flaxen-haired orange Fart-fart.

There was an ominous silence. Not even the savages, it seemed, were prepared to speak but stood there like mute statues whilst Fart-fart nodded his head slowly. The air seemed to grow tense as one of the women … not Mirumda … cried out and was rewarded with a vicious slap across the face from the crude barbarian closest to her. The rest of the women stood absolutely still whilst she wept quietly to herself.

Then Fart-fart spoke. He had an oily, greasy voice and the look of one who didn’t understand what he was saying but said it anyway.

“I have ordered you womenfolk for my brothel,” he said, “for I get lonely at nights and my own woman is rapidly getting past it, being two tens and five years old. I am a virile man, as you will find out if you are fortunate, and besides being master of all the lands round here, even that pathetic little colony down by the river bank (as they will find out sooner or later), I am constantly in need of a woman for my night-time sleeping, and she must be young. I choose them myself, they have absolutely no say as to whether they lie with me and let me do romantic things with them, all I ask is they lie back and think of my glory while I go about it and have my fun.”

Owongo watched, his heart boiling over with hatred and anger, and Binflo once again placed a restraining hand on him.

“We rescue women, but when we can and not now,” he hissed.

Owongo knew it was sensible and nodded, but the strain was becoming too much for him and all he wanted to do was leap forward with a battle cry on his lips, and throw himself on to death or glory. But he had enough sense to realise that if he did any such thing it would more likely be death than glory, and then where would Mirumda be?

Fart-fart continued, his smile vertical rather than horizontal, and his words to Owongo were the weasel-words of a maniac.

“This young woman is my first choice,” he shouted, holding Mirumda by her lovely hair and tugging on it cruelly. “She will lie with me until I tire of her, and then, if I feel generous, I will return what will be her worn-out husk to the people by the river bank. Now you will come with me, and any who lag or try to get away will be beaten to within a thumb’s length of their lives before I leap upon their battered flesh and have my joy with it!”

Then the little part lumbered on.

Binflo pulled Owongo close to him and grinned. “Now hunting is,” he whispered, “Now spear-time, now death to our foes … but quietly, for we are outnumbered and must still take care.”

Owongo nodded, and looked around himself for inspiration.

The part of the forest they were in consisted of an interweaving mass of young, strong trees and the canopy above their heads almost completely blotted out the sunlight … and this gave him his first inspiration.

He signalled to Binflo to move furtively onwards whist he himself seemed to be drawn without any effort on his part up to the higher branches of the nearest tree, his sure-footed climbing apparently needing no effort. Within little more than moments he was high amongst the lower canopy of the tree, and almost leaping from branch to branch until he was above the group of women and their savage guards. But more important than that clandestine movement was the simple fact the he carried his spear.

That weapon was an old faithful piece of essential equipment, and he had launched it at many careless deer or wandering prey on his forays into the forest after food for himself and Mirumda. He had made it himself, had carefully selected the right length of sapling wood, green and fresh, for its shaft and then had chipped away at the right piece of flint until he had created a tip that was sharp as a blade and strong as the Earth itself. Then he had bound the two together with thongs of tough leather and had created a weapon that would see him, on the hunt, through more than one season.

“Binflo watch Owongo,” he hissed, and, settling himself comfortably in the fork where two great branches met, he took careful aim. He knew full well that he must take real care, for deadly accuracy would ensure that his spear struck a savage rather than one of the women that had been captured from his settlement.

The vicious looking creature that he selected had no idea that he was there, was totally unaware that any kind of danger lurked mere feet above his head, and when the spear hissed through the air and plunged into his neck and down, down, down into his torso, taking in his heart on its way, had no idea that one instant he was alive and the next he was dead. And such was the skill demonstrated by Owongo that only the dead man might have known anything was amiss, if dead men can know anything, that is.

Like a shadow Owongo slipped from the tree and retrieved his spear. It had taken him long enough to create and he wasn’t going to lose it now! And like that same shadow he melted away when one of the two remaining guards glanced round to see that all was well and simply didn’t notice that one of his kin was lying on the ground. But maybe he should have done more than glance. Maybe he should have concentrated on the shadows. Maybe he should have caught the least glimpse of the light of battle shining in Owongo’s eyes. But he did neither of those things, and he had no longer turned back to face where he was going than the same spear, hurtled with a mixture of anger and deadly accuracy, severed his spine from behind and emerged, flint-tip first, from his chest.

By this time the women had noticed that three had become one, and were starting to flee back the way they had been driven.

“Whoa!” grunted the remaining savage, and he might have gone on to grunt a great deal of a more philosophical nature but Binflo’s own spear sought him out and felled him, killing him with the same thoroughness that Owngo had dismissed his companions.

And it was Owongo who stood, spear retrieved a second time, facing Fart-fart, who had Mirumda’s hair tightly in his grip.

“Orange man evil,” he said, “And orange man soon dead! Owongo take Owongo’s bride and then Owongo take orange man’s life!”

But Fart-fart, though wrong in most things, was strong when it came to self-preservation.

He thrust Mirumda towards Owongo with a viciousness that Owongo knew he would have to pay for before too much time elapsed, and turned and fled.

“I’ll get you!” he roared, his greasy voice threatening, “I’ll send the mother of all weapons upon you, and you will rue this moment for the rest of your lives!”

TO BE CONTINUED…

© Peter Rogerson 15.04.17