Necropolis (Book One of Book One), Penn Fawn [e book reader android .TXT] 📗

was when the skies turned orange. This meant it was likely a certain kind of rain was going to fall. Just like within the Valley of Death, it rained blood when it rained under orange skies there.

Nyeusi was also pleased to learn their life was one in which the immortals lived in the caves of the hills and mountains.

There was no luscious green forest to soothe one’s eyes anywhere near the location. Nyeusi felt this suited a creature who in the main, and if the truth be told, did not value such things, to begin with. It only purported to.

There were no sounds of birds chirping merrily, no sound of crickets making a racket, or any sound that suggested proximity to living things.

Those who first witnessed the orange skies, then the falling rain, always dreaded whether any tinge of that color was as a sign of what none liked to see. The entire sky later becoming blanketed in orange, then the ensuing red rain.

There were no beautiful rivers or running streams, or anything that suggested a thriving, vibrant ecosystem, features he felt were befitting, given the penchant of its inhabitants for destruction.

He considered the sheer barren, dark, and desolate nature of the surroundings must have been a contributing factor to why so many there took their lives with such frequency. Yagan, he concluded, was not too bad a place for them after all.

Alpha took the floor next.

“My constituents are divided,” he said. “I was not personally assured of what position to take, but right now I feel inclined to side with Dalia,” he said.

“Yagan has never been the subject of an attack, and I don’t suppose it ever will. Nyeusi, or so I assume, is happy to have us be where there is nothing to endanger or destroy,” he added.

“This isn’t saying anything you don’t already know. What’s new is my telling you it appears the time has come to do not what we would like to do but have to. The time has come to go, not where we would like to be, but have to be. That is, provided we want to survive.

“Are these your sentiments, Dalia?” he asked.

“They are, and I couldn’t have expressed them any better,” she replied.

A familiar sound only a crow could make was heard. They looked up at the sky with a mixture of emotions. All there knew their chief long-distance messenger had been dispatched to Yagan. Was it Jogoo, and if so, what message was he bringing?

The crow flew as purposefully as any bird does when on a mission. He headed directly toward the assembly and flopped down right near Oba, his owner, and trainer, who quickly removed the message tied around his leg.

The curiosity became near unbearable. “What does it say?” an exceedingly curious Zaeim asked.

“In a word, they want us to join them,” Oba replied with a stone-faced expression, and the bird sang or uttered a couple of phrases in that harsh tone only a crow can make, then it flew away.

Oluso was also stone-faced. “I’ll die here,” he said. “I’m not going to live a life on the run.”

“If you’re patient, there will be better days in which to fight, Oluso,” Dalia said. “And, that could perhaps mean a return to reclaim here.”

“You want to go, so go then. Your mind is made up, and so is mine. I will not live like a rat within the confines of a dark hole or burrow. For us, that is called a cave, and Nyeusi would have us live like that if you let him.

“If you are to believe what has been said, that is what he and his kind fancy for our brethren in those mountainous regions where they hold so many captive and will fancy for us. I am a man, not a beast or vermin or a plague, and I will strive to live like a man. I have made my case and will say no more,” he replied.

WHILE ON THEIR WAY to where they were to be trained, Ossouna, Aswad, and Keita informed Akua they were skilled at using the bow and arrow. Therefore, he thought it was best to give them close combat training and teach them how to fight using the swords his men used out on the plains.

He had them begin by using slim poles, which were about the length of the swords they used, then he had them apply the offensive and defensive measures they were taught using the blades.

At the end of that session, curiosity got the better of him.

“So, you’re archers, eh?” he asked.

“Never thought of myself as that,” Ossouna replied. “But, like I told you earlier, I or we are very comfortable using the bow. All of the men where we come from are.”

“I hear that,” Akua replied, “but I’ll tell you this, why don’t you show me what you can do?” he added, and a broad smile appeared on his face.

Ossouna looked at him, and a smile appeared on his face, although he was not sure what Akua was grinning about.

“Who do you mean?” Aswad interjected. “Just him or all of us?”

“All of you,” Akua replied, still grinning.

Aswad looked at Keita then at Ossouna.

“No problem,” Aswad replied. “I’ll show you.”

“What do you want to see?” Ossouna asked.

“I want to see how good your marksmanship is,” he replied. “Come with me.”

“Okay,” Ossouna said, and Akua took them to an area well known for its traveling wildebeest population.

Once there, Akua bid them crouch and hide in the grass.

They focused on stragglers, those animals that strayed from the thick of the herd.

It was a situation with which his guests were well familiar. The chief difference was they used to go on this kind of adventure when they desired meat.

Akua bid Ossouna take the first go.

“You first,” he said. “Let’s see what you can do.”

Ossouna stealthily rose from a crouched position and released a poison arrow that lodged into a straggler wildebeest’s neck.

The unsuspecting creature ran for a bit