SOMALINZE: THE GREAT RIVERS

*WARRIORS AND THEIR BATTLES 5

THUNDER AND SOUNDS LIKE IT

As the soldiers rode away to battle. Okam watched them with an angered heart and with fearful eyes. His  king wanted him dead. Not only was he in danger, his family, his friends also were. The battle had already begun in the distance, Suddenly, a loud thunder sounded. It was coming from the west. It shook the ground. The earth began cracking. They were terrified. Everyone was looking west, including okam.

The earthquake scared him. He had never felt one. The thunder became even louder. Many soldiers wanted to desert in fear. There was thunder but the skies were clear. Okam thought it sounded a lot like waves hitting the rocks.

And as suddenly as it had come. It stopped. The soldiers looked at one another. They had to be strong. But truly they didn't know what had just happened.
"Just a little tremor, the gods must be feasting." The ucheki king said to his soldiers.

"Enough!" Ali udi screamed after the tremor stopped, "...signal our men."
They immediately began hitting the wardrums. The gendrian soldiers pulled back from the rear.
Okam knew something was coming. From far behind he could see the retreating gendrians. As he walked slowly forwards he noticed movement on the stone towers. Okam ignored the pain in his side as he ran towards the battle.
The ucheki army pushed forwards as the gendrians retreated. Deeper into gendrian grounds. Okam ran faster and faster. As he got closer, he remembered the archers on the hills and knew he was a begging target, a stray in an open field. So he ran left, flanking the left towers, picking up an a sword as he did.

As the soldiers got closer and closer, the gendrian army pulled back quickly. The ucheki shouted victory. But it was far from victory.
Okam from behind could see the men and women on the mounds, they were preparing for something. The two soldiers bent low and gripped the rocks below them firmly.

Okam was still running and the young men still standing. They inhaled deeply. Then they opened their mouths and screamed.

The ucheki soldiers stopped, covering their ears.

***

In ten seconds a hundred soldiers were dead, in thirty over three hundred. Okam stopped covering his ears, he fell to his knees. As he screamed in pain, he could see his brothers and sisters on the floor dead with bleeding ears, noses and eyes. Blood dripped from Okams orifices as well.
The earth ground to dust in their screams. Everything before them was destroyed.
The ucheki king and generals fled in terror, the army scattered ranks, and attempted to flee. But as all who were within hearing range and before the gaze of the men, dropped dead.
okam looked at these men from behind, in terror and fear. He looked down searching for a bow and an arrow or any weapon. Though he wasn't in the front of the men. The screams hurt. He felt like his skull would split open. Blood dripped from his eyes.
But being okam, he continued searching, trying to save his people. When he looked back up, one of the men was looking down at him. In fear he took a quick few steps back. "Ah! " he screamed as he hit the sole of his foot on a nearby rock. Still trembling he tried to run, but found out there was a lake in front of him. Okam turned back shaking. His wound sending surges of pains throughout his body. He fell in pains. The man on the tower smiled and opened his mouth. More than anything okam wanted to turn turn away, to die without knowing but, he stood up, ignoring the pain, he looked straight at the man. "Abúm Okam Ikechi! Aha nnam bu Okam Nze! Aha alam bu... " he stopped realizing he wasn't dead yet. 'Why am I still alive? ' he thought. The man just stood there, his mouth open, his head up, his arms spread. He looked closer. He saw water coming up from the bodies of the dead ucheki soldiers. At least he thought it was water. It was a fluid of sorts, part black, part white or something. It wasn't quite clear. But what was clear as the fires of the night was that the fluid was entering the mouth of the man on the tower. Everything. He trembled as he saw this abomination.
The man closed his mouth, brought down his hands and looked down. There were no bars on this side of the chamber. He could see Okam clearly. Okam jumped into the lake. He was scared to die like that. As he fell into it, he hit his head against a rock and was knocked out. He sank slowly to the bottom. The man standing on the tower watched for about forty seconds. And when he didn't come back up, he turned away.

A god's double cross

As the uchekis fell before the towers. Something rose up from behind. It had the apearance of smoke, it spread across the towers seeping into the upper chamber. It entered the men through their mouths. Suddenly their eyes turned black and black veins spread across their eyes and arms. As the soldiers present in the room noticed this what was happening, They tried to save the men. As they did, a figure took form in the smoke, it had a scythe. It attacked the soldiers, slaughtering them.

Far away. Ali udi's son who tried as best to stay away from the battle heard a faint cry in the distance from the stone towers. He rode a little forward, looking deeper. He grabbed a scouts magnifier and focused on the towers. He saw the dark figure ripping the soldiers apart and then he saw the possessed men. "de...demons..." he said under his breath. " demons!" he screamed. Ali udi turned towards him, and turned his magnifier as his son pointed. Ali udi was lost, the soldiers also were. but his son knew to act. His son Achor in accordance with his children jumped quickly off his horse, grabbed his bow and an arrow, he lit the arrow and shot it at barrels of explosive oil hidden within the towers at the base. He did so through a hole the width of a very small branch.

It was the gendrian failsafe, if the towers were attacked before the battle. And only one person could make the shot. Achor.

As Achor readied his arrow, the god knew what would happen, "Enough! I wanted to savour this, but..." he stopped disappointed. The smoke turned white. The men's eyes turned white, their veins grew bigger, their screams louder and louder. finally their souls left their bodies and they fell lifeless. They were dropping one after another when Achor fired his arrow.
The explosion brought down the towers. out of the six men infected by the god, four had died. The explosion ended the ritual and freed the remaining two. But the questions remained, what had attacked the most powerful beings in the battlefield? What was powerful enough to kill them at the peak of their powers? and by so doing, had it declared another war on gendri?