I Bleed For You

Chapter 13

Queen Lume allowed herself some rest as the officials with her went into the inner forest to hunt for some meat. The Chief Guard stood beside her and waited for her. She raised her head to look at him, "You should rest your tired head too"

"I'm okay my Queen. I would prefer to stand" he said and adjusted his sword.

"That isn't my name. I am not "My Queen" any longer. You can call me by my name, meanwhile I insist that you sit and have rest" She adjusted herself and then the Chief Guard slowly sat beside her.

"You are unusually quite. Your wife..."

"She died, her corpse laid just beside the Dodo soldier that killed her. She might her died fighting the one that killed her" The Child Guard spoke and removed his face from her glare to avoid exposing his weakness and revealing his tears. The Queen was so sympathetic towards him and she begged him to take heart. 

"I know how you must feel. If I were you I would have left me behind to look for my wife but you stuck with me and your loyalty shocked me. Your wife died because you decided to choose to protect me over her" Queen Lume was so pitiful towards him but the Chief Guard wasn't regretting what he did for he knew he had only one choice to make and that choice was to ensure the safety of the royal family. Having failed to protect his King he wasn't ready to loose the Queen too. As he sat there he thought of his wife and the things she said to him few days before the attack on Akozo palace;

That night he had just spoken to the one that was to take over his guarding post for that night and retired to his room which was located at the third floor of the palace building. When he entered his room he sank on the bed and his wife who just finished cooking walked up to him and began to help him remove his armour. 

"This new armour looks good on you. If I were you i would not think of removing it. I would rather wear it to bed" she joked and the husband laughed. One thing he would not stop loving his wife for was her sense of humour and whenever she made him laugh like this he would remember the first day he met with her. Wasn't it her jokes that attracted him to her in the first place. He turned and held her hands as she was removing the armour and spoke softly to her, "Does it not bother you the kind of work that I do? Most times when I come home wearing this heavy armour I always searched your face to make sure you weren't sad. I mean you are married to a man that is hardly yours instead he belongs to the royal household and will always choose the royal household over his own home. So I ask you; does it not bother you?" The wife smiled and then continued to remove the armour.

"If there was something I knew before accepting while knowing how hard it would be for me then it was your work. You are not just a soldier neither are you just a guard, you are the Chief Gaurd and your duty was assigned you by the gods. I still will not and can not see myself countering the decision of the gods. The day they chose you to stand for the royal household they knew what they were doing and so the answer to your question is simply yes, It does not bother me and I am here to support you" She flashed him a smile once again. He took hold of her and as she tried to keep removing his armour he continued to go for her neck, tickling her and eating her chest. She laughed and fell on the bed and he fell there with her.

"Are you still here with me?" Queen Lume asked the Chief Guard and he regained himself from his deep thoughts filled with the remembrance of his late wife. "I know how you feel about her. I can understand" She concluded.

****

When the Prophetess of Dodo stepped out after having invited the people of Dodo to inform them of the great news from the land of Akozo and from their Queen she realised that most of the people were not comfortable with her. She cleared her throat but before she could say a word the people began to throw stones at her. It was her subordinates who helped her back into her shrine and there they told her to hide until people became calm but that wasn't the case for the people's threatening noise was escalating and just then it downed on the Prophetess that the people did not answer her invitation to hear what she had to tell them but that they answered her call in order to have her killed. She could hear some of them commanding her subordinates who later stepped outside to calm  them down after they had already hid the Prophetess in her inner chamber in the shrine. Shortly she started hearing one of her subordinates screaming and it was clear she had to do something about her escape else she would be killed by the angry people of Dodo. She stepped back and forth and just then she heard the sound of a broken pot inside the shrine and knew that they would soon enter the inner chamber where she was. She hurried with her incantations, moving back and forth and just before the angry youths of Dodo could tear open the curtains that demarcated the inner chamber and the shrine she disappeared into thin air. They looked for her in the inner chamber but could not find her. They began to move to burn the whole shrine to the ground and that was what they did that day; they burnt the shrine to the very last wood.

The Prophetess appeared in a lonely place and looked around to ensure she was safe and when she checked carefully she recognized where she was. The gods had transported her to a place called Abo where she was once when she was looking for a particular leafs demanded by the gods. She sat down and wondered what must have become of the shrine. Just then a man walked up to her and she sprang up. The man was dark and he had dreaded hair which washed down behind him. He was holding a long staff taller than he was, with white beards that looked rough on his face, with his white garment that covered his bare feet. It appeared to the Prophetess that the person standing before her was not an ordinary human being but one of the gods, so she knelt before him, bowing her head low.

"You did well to escape from them" said the man.

"You were the one that helped me with my escape. Most of the times when I tried to use the gift of disappearing and appearing it doesn't work but you knew how important it was for me to leave that place and you took hold of me by the hand and led me out of the inner chamber of the shrine" 

"It is good that you admit that your help came from me but I'm not one of the gods you serve because I'm not a god that is limited to one territory. I am for all and all is for me. My name is Chi, the god of the earth. Now its a good thing you left that land because your work there is finished and because it's finished you will be made to jouney to another land where I will make use of you"

****

When it was time for Queen Lume to stand on her feet she realised that the officials were yet to come back from the inner forest where they had gone to get some meat. She then called on the Chief Guard who was already up and standing on a hill infront of her. 

"Why are they yet to return?" she asked. The Chief Guard ran down and stood before her, "Why are they taking so long?" she asked again.

"I can't tell my Queen. I..

"Call me Lume please" she insisted and the Chief Guard had to ask for her permission to keep on referring to her as his Queen for he would not get used to referring to her by her name. "Since you are being stubborn about it go ahead and keep calling me "your Queen" yet you know too well that I am no no longer one"

"You will always be" he insisted and then volunteered to go Insearch of the palace officials but Lume insisted she must go with him for she was scared to be left all alone in the bush. When they had gone a little distance they began to hear sound of screaming emanating from the inner forest. They rushed only to find the ten palace officials all laid dead with their hands, legs and heads ripped off their bodies. It was at that instance that the Chief Guard saw the beasts that killed them as they were standing near the last official they killed and ripping him into pieces. The Chief Gaurd knew they had walked into a trap and there was no way for them to escape. The red lion looking beasts had rounded them up and were coming closer to them. 

"These must be creatures of magic, have nothing to do with reality, have never seen a beast like this in my life" confessed the Chief Guard before he drew his sword. He knew that even though they stood no chance of defeating the entire beasts he wasn't ready to go down with his Queen without a fight. Lume knew that they would be fighting to their death and so she stopped hiding behind him and picked a stick from the ground, readied to fight with it. The beast came coming closer to them and when they were almost upon them they stopped abruptly, turned and dispersed. The Chief Guard and Lume were both shocked as to what made them change their mind and scared them off. They turned behind them and saw a woman approaching them. They did not know who she was but they could tell that it was her presence that scared off the beasts. As the woman approached them Lume raised her stick and dared her to come closer.

"There is no need for that my lady, there is no need raising that up knowing fully well what my presence did for you" the woman then turned her head to look at the Chief Gaurd and she said to him, "You were right, those weren't ordinary animals, they were made with magic and I can tell that there are only few people on earth that can make such animals and they are the Sisters of Magic. You are curious to know me and why I saved your lives and I am curious to know you two better too, I mean personally not just what I was told about you. I was sent to you my lady, to ensure your safety and to help you and your unborn child" Said the woman. At that point Lume dropped the stick in her hand and was shocked at how she knew she was pregnant. The only human on earth whom she told of her pregnancy was her late husband. It was then that she realised the woman standing before them wasn't an ordinary woman. 

"Who are you?" she asked the woman.

"I am the Prophetess of the land of Dodo. You are familiar with that name, yes, that's the land from whence came the mother to Akiza, step mother to your late husband, Zakiza. I passed through your husband's kingdom in the spirit and I saw what happened there. You are on the run and probably you would like us to sit and talk more" The Prophetess smiled at the both of them. The Chief Guard lowered his sword and the Queen asked the Prophetess to come closer to them and she did.

*****

In the night Akiza could not sleep. He tossed from one side of the bed to the other side until he could not continue to force himself to sleep then he got off the bed and headed to his mother's chamber. When she knocked and the door was opened she saw that his mother wasn't there. She walked outside to see her seated with her dragon under the moon. He walked up to her and sat with her. She looked at his face.

"You couldn't sleep?" she asked.

"Yes, kept thinking" he responded.

"Thinking about what?" she wanted to know.

"About everything. Look at this palace, I keep imagining the bricks falling on me and it disturbs my sleep" he sighed.

"Words have been sent to Dodo, soon the people of Dodo will arrive and they are the ones to rebuild the ruins in this palace. This destruction was necessary else they would not take us serious. However you know too well that your late step brother was a stubborn type, yes, so stubborn he was he refused to die the day I killed his father, your father. I had to escape and what completes my joy is knowing that it was you my dear lovely son who had to finish that task by killing him"

"I did not kill him mother. My men had to help me and that was how we overpowered him, if not, he was so good with swords and was already about..."

"Quite you rat, you will not let any other ear hear about this. History will have it, history must have it on record that it was you Akiza, son of Samata, son of Agor who killed the usurper Zakiza and reclaimed what was yours. Do you hear me?" asked the angry mother.

"But mother, that would be telling a lie" he responded ignorantly.

"You are foolish are you not now? Do you know how many lies are buried in history books? You will not do otherwise. You must do what I tell you" the mother then was taken aback before she continued with a question, "Meanwhile when did you learn to argue with me?"

"I'm sorry mother, I'm just feeling strange" he admitted. The mother stood up and held his hand saying, "Let us go inside the room and on the bed, there we can have each other and then you will be alright" 

"Thank you" the son said and the mother's heart was broken. There was no other way to keep him enslaved to her and if she allowed the spell wear off his eyes he would return to desiring to worship Aromo and would go away looking for her wherever she was.