18. REVENGE

All bad people will hopefully come to an unpleasant end...

“That’s done it!” snapped Owongo when he had almost recovered from news of the murder of Mirumda’s father at the hands of the despicable Fart-fart.

Mirumda was weeping and holding Owongo Junior close to her, needing to protect him even though their grotesque enemy didn’t seem to be anywhere near.

“What are you going to do, man of mine?” asked Mirumda, wiping a stream of tears from her cheeks.

“I am going to get rid of him once and for all!” snapped Owongo, then, “I’m sorry, Mirumda, I’m not shouting at you but I’m so angry. We should have dealt with him when we had him at our spear-tips, but instead of doing the right thing then we left him to recover some strength and go about the world killing and maiming others! Well, Owongo was amongst those who made the mistake, so Owongo must go and put it right!”

And without waiting for further debate with his lovely Mirumda he picked up his trusty spear and crossed the river, stepping from stone to stone with angry ease, and then slipped into the forest beyond Beth-with’s cave.

The hysterical Beth-with had given him some idea where the murder had been committed, though she was in no state to be precise, but he got the general drift.

He was an effective hunter of prey for food and that made him an effective hunter of men for punishment, and he clenched his teeth grimly as he almost invisibly and certainly silently moved through the forest.

He had been doing that for less tour when he came upon his first clue.

There was an area of grass that was matted with blood, and although it might have been the blood of any animal that had been wounded, it seemed to Owongo that it was human blood, probably because he wanted his search to end so that he could return to Mirumda with news of the death of a killer.

But seeing the blood, and sticking one finger in and sniffing it, and then looking furtively around, he was certain that this sad red patch was where Pipe-short had lost his life.

So he looked round for more clues, and before long he saw a fading trail that looked as if it might well be where a heavy body had been dragged through the woodland. The blood was drying, but then the killing must have occurred several hours earlier and the sun beat down hot, even finding its way here and there, pushing fingers of brightness between the branches that formed the canopy high above his head.

He was able to move swiftly, though, for whoever had dragged the bleeding corpse, most likely that of Pipe-short, had shown very little care, not bothering to make his blustering way at all hidden. And there were signs where he had obviously paused, lay the body down and taken a break, and from that Owongo concluded that he himself must be wounded. He remembered the spear that had been thrust through his shoulder and wondered if that could possibly have healed in the time that had elapsed since then, and doubted it very much. It had been a vicious spear and it had been thrust with anger and strength by a nameless savage.

As Owongo stared grimly at one of the places where his foe had stopped he remembered that nameless savage, and grinned mirthlessly to himself. They had celebrated his success with him and then, at the very end of the day when he had wounded Fart-fart, he had slipped away to return to his own people. He had indicated that the two groups, the River Bank folk and his tribe, would henceforth be friends.

And Owongo had thought that was a mighty good idea. Life was hard enough back then, hunting and failing for day after day with a rumbling stomach and knowing that he might be tracking a wild beast but that another, bigger wild beast might equally be tracking him. They didn’t need unnecessary enemies.

He followed the trail further. He could almost smell the way, for even dried blood offers enough of a scent for a skilled hunter to follow, and amongst a lot of other things Owongo was a skilled hunter.

He didn’t have to go an enormous distance, thankfully, when a nasty, bone-snapping gnawing sound indicated that some creature was consuming its prey.

For a moment Owongo’s heart sank as it crossed his mind that he might have been following the wrong trail, but then he shook his head. No … it was the right trail. The blood was human. He knew that from its very fragrance.

And then he almost vomited when he saw what was making the noises.

Round a bend and close to the entrance of what looked like the lair of some beast crouched Fart-fart, and he was hacking at the still recognisable body of Mirumda’s father with a blunt flint knife and slurping the strips of flesh that he gouged from the corpse into his greedy, blood-stained mouth.

Owongo was sickened. His people didn’t consume human flesh. Oh no: the dead were taken solemnly up the Mount of the Dead with respect and quiet reflection by those left behind, not eaten so brazenly and savagely.

“You beast!” he snarled at Fart-fart.

And that creature, that orange-painted demon, though most of the orange had washed off by then, looked up and smiled, his blood-stained teeth like an invitation to some gaudy and gross banquet that Owongo didn’t even want to think about.

Owongo took several steps closer to his enemy, his spear shaking as he kept its business end firmly aimed at the chest of Fart-fart, though that chest was clothed in the filthiest, grimiest skin that Owongo had ever seen.

“You might see that I’m not at my best,” whimpered Fart-fart, “I have been unwell of late after I was worsted by a savage man with an evil heart. but that’s the way of the world, how they treat one who might offer them freedom and wealth! I dared say that might be what’s brought you to me… to beg for freedom from the one who can offer it to you, and to gain his wealth without the need for battle? Is that so? You want my goodness, everything I can bestow upon you. Or do you want this?”

And he pulled from beneath his skins his blowpipe. Owongo had seen what it could do, and as Fart-fart raised it to his lips, weakly for he clearly had little strength in his body, ravaged as it had been by infection and hunger, Owongo flung his spear with blistering might at the horrible pretentious man.

And his enemy felt it for a moment, the least of moments if the truth is to be told, as it sliced through his flesh, severing at least one rib and piercing his heart. And almost instantly Fart-fart lay dead.

Owongo looked at what remained of Pipe-short, and sighed. This was the man who had fathered his lovely Mirumda. He needed to do something by which he could be remembered, and he certainly needed to take him to the Mount of the Dead where he could seek his ancestors and lie, for eternity, under the brightest blue sky there ever was.

In the end he managed to bind a few saplings together, having felled them, using the blade on his spear as a knife, and created a rough stretcher on which he lay the body of the dead man. Then he did something he’d never dreamed of doing before, and using the blade of that same spear he severed the orange head with its flaccid hair of the gross Fart-fart, and carrying the one death for mourning and the other as a trophy, he set off back home to the river bank.

TO BE CONTINUED…

© Peter Rogerson 28.04.17