Women Of Steel | ✔

XXI: TADENIKAWO

Long rant ahead!
Okay,I owe everyone reading this an apology for taking so long to update, I've been busy with exams and some uni related stuff. I'm a bit freer now but it took a while to get down and pen this chapter.
So, I entered some competition some months back for this book and the shortlist was released a day or so ago, I didn't make it and I felt a bit down, I felt like my writing wasn't good enough and that I'd be better off doing something other than writing. I still do.

I did realise though, that was my first competition and I later came to think of it as a practice for winning rather than a loss. So if there's any of you writing and thinking it isn't good because of something someone said, I'd like to tell you that you aren't alone, losses doesn't mean the book isn't good enough or something, I think it's a room for improvement, a chance to make it better. Let's never give up.

Enough of my rant now, let's get on with this chapter, I hope you enjoy it. Don't forget to leave a comment or vote!

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Tadenikawo is furious, heat and anger boils in him and threatens to swallow him whole. The way his chest thrums hard in his chest feels to him like it could rip out of his chest and appear in his hands like a ball of fire from the god of war.

He tries and fails to banish the anger, anger makes the ordinary vulnerable, it clouds the emotions of the ordinary but anger makes him mad, anger makes him a monster and anybody that dares stand in his own way will be ripped to shreds.

When he is angry, he is his worst enemy.

His stallion charges ahead, he can barely sense the others galloping at a safe distance behind him, and he can barely feel the wind on his face, all he sees is blood. Tadenikawo isn't riding too quick to be caught up with but the Prince and his guards ride behind, afraid of what they may see when they look into his eyes. Tadenikawo is almost disappointed that his wife is not taunting him, he craves the fight, the need to do bodily harm to something or someone.

They have been riding for three days straight, not resting once. Just when his wife woke from the strange trance, just when her eyes started to roll to the back of her head and just when he thought the light would leave her body, she jolted awake with a scream and the most haunted look he has ever seen on a human being. She had not uttered a word when a haggard looking messenger from his kingdom had arrived and choked out the bad news.

His kingdom is on fire. The forest king has finally decided not to wait anymore or maybe he has decided that his promised bride was not worth waiting for anymore. Either way, Tadenikawo is prepared to destroy, to rip heads from bodies and to feel blood seep between his fingers and teeth.

As much as he hates the anger, he also craves it and he revels in it. Without the all consuming rage, all that would be left is a weary man, a weary king with the evening dust caking his body and feet and the sweat dripping down his body. With the anger, he is a raging inferno, a fiery sun and without it, he is like the dull evening sun.

His own father taught him that a man without anger is a man without passion and mission.

So he rides on, until they enter the outskirts of Ile Wura, until they ride past the empty farm lands and forests, until they can smell war and blood heavy in the air. The cries of war reach their ears and the corpses begin to line the familiar path to the palace compound. Bodies of able bodied men, women and very few children.

As he looks briefly into their lifeless eyes, he feels his fury grow and his hand leaves the horse's reigns briefly to grip the comforting hilt of his sword.

Blood will spill.

The cries of battle draw nearer and Tadenikawo can tell that the fight is in the palace compound.