13 - Just run!

Chapter 13 (Just run!)

“But…” Tsote doubted just when he saw everyone’s gaze change. They pulled back a step. 

“Just run…”

Before he could even turn to run uphill, the dog pounced. They landed on nothingness but distorted river sands. The boy had disappeared in thin air. Meanwhile an iron sky tainted grey and foggy started engulfing the rest of the hill further higher. 

“You wouldn’t want to run into your father…!” the voice warned. “Turn off to your left.” 

“I need to speak to him…”

“He will order for your extermination on spot whether you’re his son or not.”

“How do you know…?”

“Turn now …” but Tsote did not turn. His stubbornness had the best of him. He needed to run straight to his father who just turned away from the edge of the slop above. The guards along the towering tree branches turned their mechanical arrows the size of spears in his direction. Nevertheless, they could see no one. Tsote continued towards them but the beads swayed him out of the way. He slid down through ferns and undergrowth. 

Nevertheless, where he landed there was a strange figure of a man covered in twinning and algae. He sat between two dead stamps and some Yakunko spear ran through his back. Tsote could see its metallic tip on from the front. It’s clear he died in agony while trying to race up the hill. Tsote looked confused and terrified. Just from where he lay with rubbish in his mouth.

He spat the rubbish out but his fall and landing was noisy indeed. The king’s guard dog were able to relocate him. They immediately started down the path leaping wildly. Tsote’s heart thumped. This is when he felt the beads moving along his chest like sweat. He looked down and to his surprise; they were melting into some sort of strange pattern across his chest.

“Shall I help?”

“I don’t know… what should I do now?”

“I can help you if you let me…?”

“Help…” He yelled just as the Basha dogs closed in. He could not get to his feet in terror. He was crawling backwards. Just then, he felt his arms move! His hand clutched a nearby log and with such a might blow swayed it at the first Basha Dog’s head. The log splintered to pieces for age, its force sending the dog crushing into a tree to his fight. Another dog leaped at him just when he fell back blocking it with the remaining piece of the log in its mouth. He kicked it over him. 

Before the others could reach him, he jumped out of the way from a low hanging branch! Which curved back uphill twinning and twisting through a network of other branches. He swung up onto the branch and the dogs remained on the ground barking. He started uphill again using a pace he knew he could not have used alone.

“Beads, where does my strength and steadiness come from!” eh asked the beads while he swung through a network of watch bridges and yet the men weren’t seeing anyone. He could see the confusion on their faces. A horn hooted and they all had to focus their arms and bows towards him but he was not there. Soon he was running along the main bridge to the upper slopes of the hill.

He landed on the bridge and it shook slightly. He was having fun. The patterns on his chest glowed! He did not pay much attention to this. All he felt was a surge of strength flowing from the patterns to the rest of his body. The moment he landed on the wooden beams of the bridge, every guard on the other side turned. This is where the captain of the guards stood. He had the rest in front of him. And the moment he landed. They searched the fog on the other side of the bridge but they could see nothing but a boy. A mere boy of fourteen or thirteen. The men looked at each other. Nevertheless, the moment they looked back at him, he was gone. They stayed aiming. 

“Are you lost boy?” came the voice of the captain from the other side of the bridge. He was slightly Kurotaling and walking through his men to the front, he lowered his spear ready to attack just when he heard the footprints, the captain’s Kurota manifested and this is when he saw the boy rushing towards him. He lunged forwards but the boy slid right through under him to the other side where the rest of the men could not see him. He made for a jump. He would run down some tree branch he had spotted running ten feet below the bridge. The men did not see him!

He ran along this branch for around forty feet downwards curving and turning until his feet touched the ground. This is when he realized there were more trees all around him and that it was a little darker down here and concealed by fog the rest of the guards men could not penetrate. Each of the men’s Kurota were manifesting so skillfully wherever and whenever they needed them! Between the transformations, the guards were reforming and kroting while thrusting axes and spears at him and missing him by mere inches.

Arrows were hitting through the branches. Watchtower arrows were whizzing past him and missing him by mere inches. The men followed him swinging through the trees like charging apes. Nevertheless, the moment he landed on the bare earth with little or no undergrowth, they lost sight of him. What lay below was streams of flowing water downhill. 

The moment his feet touched the ground the pattern on his chest started fading slowly back to the beads and his strange strength fading so drastically back to normal. He was no longer running as fast or leap but stayed running at his usual pace dodging through the trees here and there! The strength, he had tasted, he still needed it!

“Why? Not yet, not yet…?” Tsote yelled at the beads while they took form once again. He collide and fell while many spears and arrows hit the trees and ground around him. He crouched down on the ground hoping none of the stray arrows spears hit him. Soon the raining down ceased! He glanced back and they were retreating to the fog-less zone!

There was silence all around him. The patterns had faded across his chest. He stood up only to realize all the trees around him had faces! And not a single chirping of a bird. The trees had seemed to have faces all around him but faces she could only see if he did not look at them directly! They stared down at him even though their eyes looked shut in a sleepy manner. 

Each one had two major branches, which looked like arms. Some hang and others reached out high into a foggy shade of grey. The rest were dead logs and ferns here and there. He looked confused and thought this another illusion he needed no take seriously.

“Where you are headed… there are hundreds of M’zowa trees and…” The voice told in a whisper. Tsote could barely could hear what the voice was saying.

“Is this the home of the M’zowa trees?” Tsote asked seeing so many trees with faces.

“They moved up here many thousands of years ago because the fog was under an enchantment. And the enchantment is their shield of survival from Yakunko activities.” The beads explained.

“I have not seen so many of them in one place like this before… and what’s that…?” Tsote asked openly adding. Tsote asked hearing creaking in the braches wherever they passed. Then the whispering turning to inaudible whispers.

“They are conversing… and don’t need interruption because they are very cautious about humans.”

“They see us…?” Tsote asked looking at one of the closest trees through the corner of his eyes and seeing its eye this time. They were not human and open but seemingly curved there like scars.

“Nothing’s hidden from them… nothing!” the voice informed him in another whisper.

Tsote started through towards the further end of the M’zowa forest. From the edge of the forest, the ground started rising and turning to rock here and there. the rocks rose little by little. The rocks had one shape. And they stuck out of the earth at a slanting angling. He continued up wards until what he could see behind him was the canopy of the M’zowa forest spreading out for miles they did not seem to spread when he was down among them. 

The rocks grew larger the higher he went until he came to the last two. This when the ground flattened again. The rocks were marked with strange language. He did not waste his time to read anything. There was the sound of flowing of water. There was a little lake evading to some rising steps resembling farm terraces. Water flowed down these terraces like streams. The terraces covered with moss here and there curved away to the right and left until he could not see the ends. He raised his eyes but could not see through the fog the top of the stairs. All he could see were the round stones levitating close above the little lake. popping out from the water to form a bridge.

 “What’s this place…?”

There was no response...

“Hei!”

Still no one responded. He halted on the very first terrace and glanced back. He touched the necklace and asked again…

“What’s wrong? Are you done talking, guiding me or…”

He started forwards again, his feet bare against the wet and cold parent rock. The steps were about fifteen feet wide and they faded away in the fog to his left and right. However, he could see rising owl figures on either side of the terraced stairs. The birds were curved out of white glassy rocks and fit with black runes just like the stairs… the birds stood facing downhill as if they guarded the passage uphill.

The ground, the runes, and the curved owls looked ancient and creepy to Tsote. Much of the rock was dead and clogged as well as twinning with strange twinning plants. There were clumps of rocks here and there as though the occurred some great battle in this place was once under attack. This could have been no other battle but that the Kobewa had against Oladiya, the first Yakunko emperor, he recalls from Mama Erusa’s last story in Marakusha. 

Having reached eighteen terrace high, one large owl heads appeared in the fog. The stairs grew smaller towards the entrance and when he reached, he halted to think…

“I need you to say something beads…! Please. Where does the tunnel lead? Am I going the right way…?”

However, nothing came from the beads still. The tunnel looked creepy and deep. Wherever it led, he could not imagine and neither was he ready to any further! 

 Before he could think of turning back, he saw some old Kobewa magical runes engraved in the rock runes along the edges of the thirty feet high owl head. His gaze followed the rising rune up to the owl’s eyes but he could not understand. 

The owl’s eyes were made of some yellowish glowing stone but the eyes focused away into the greyness beyond! They looked grave and seemingly proud with a certain gesture of wisdom depicted across its solidness. He held out a hand to touch the lowest rune. The touch was as cold and sent a wave of goosebumps and fear down his whole body. He took his hand back quickly. The second his fingers met the rune, something moved behind him.

Tsote spun! At the same instant, hundreds of greyish figures shifted out of sight leaving a small pebble of stone tumbling down hill.

Something was following him and this worried him the more. He needed to turn back running downhill as fast as his feet could carry him but he wasn’t going to go head straight at whatever lurked behind the greyness at the foot of the terraced stairs. He remembered he had a helper.

“…talk to me beads. I can’t go any further and…,” He stated fearfully. The beads no longer spoke to him. He needed to think of his own way further! In addition to the falling pebble of stone, the owl statues which heads faced straight downhill, now looked inwards at him as if they were live and conscious of his intruding presence. The twinning plants he earlier saw were growing towards the entrance like and cutting through the rock as though it were normal dirty. This was indeed weird! Could this be another of his crazy dreams or something? However, he knew he was as sober here!

He steps back into the cave, and before he knew it, he was running and splashing his feet through shallow water just to get to the other side. He came to a junction. The tunnel led him to some split. Three other tunnels started away from here. He looked confused and to his judgement, straight seemed the best decision. He froze in step when he heard the flapping of wings, many wings behind him. Whatever pursued him, he was not going to wait!

What came to mind is, these tunnels led to three different mysterious place on top this hill top. He immediately started running straight ahead. The stairs rose. He could see the opening sixty feet higher on the rise.

On exiting, the earth flattened and the grey sky seemed less foggy but closer than ever before! Obviously, this was the top of The Olko hill but the hill’s top looked wider than he knew it from the foot of the hill. The trees here were short but twinning. They grew twinning around strange old pillars and the stairs where he stood were fading. The forest seemed to have a path leading away towards the largest clearing two yards ahead. There were strange ponds filled with stagnant water and shade with floating leaves that concealed certain portions of the still clogged water. A toad stared at him standing on top some floating waterweed. The sound it made almost made him leap out of his skin. However, before he could kick dust at it, it leaped away into the water to be seen no more.

From where he stood, the pillars rose high and then broke to leave rubble stuck high in the trees; some littered the ground away into the fog with a few other strange statues covered with clog. He started down some little path towards the opening caring not to step in the ponds. Strange birds chirped high the tree canopies but he could see none until one came and settled down on some twig, off to his left. It watched him. The bird was a rare one downhill but if there were many up there, Tsote wondered how Thalko ever came into his possession because this one resembled that which he released into the Moshuno plains while they made his first trip to Sambura. 

The bird was watching him but it was only a bird and nothing more, he thought to himself as he continued through the tinny trees towards the opening. The ground fell slowly and so slightly with strange trickling sounds of streams here and there until he reached the edge of some river like stream. He looked upstream and downstream but everything was musky and dull concealed in fog thicker than he knew!

He could see things as far as thirty feet away from him and in all directions. The streams were as visible as his feet under him and they flowed out from several hanging rock crevices scattered here and there amongst the trees. When he stepped forward into the water, the trickling and the coolness of it reminded him of how thirsty he was! 

Immediately, he squatted but before he could even drink, the bird chirped at him from a piece of rock at the center of the flowing stream! It surprisingly did follow him from branch to branch and he wondered why. The bird chirped at him repeatedly as though it were warning him. Whatever it was up to, he had nothing to give to it. He hence gulped down a few scoops, splashing a few others into his face to cool himself before he came to realize a change in the way he was seeing things around him! 

Everything around him cleared up like there had not been no fog! He looked straight ahead with wide eyes filled with surprise!