13. ARMY

War is brewing in the early stone age.

“What wrong with friends, neighbours?” spluttered Owongo when it was clear that there was trouble in the village that lined the river bank brewing. He’d never known trouble like this before but however hard he tried to make the majority of the people of the tribe see sense when he spoke to them, they seemed to be convinced that they would be subjected to an imminent attack from the mysterious people from the other side of the mountain that bordered their village of caves and a few rather tumbledown but homely shacks.
“It that Susu creature woman” Mirumda told him, though he knew full well what lay behind his troubled thoughts. The woman was poison and yet quite capable of sounding convincing when she elaborated what she claimed to be her beliefs.
“Owongo know truth, yet people believe her,” he sighed, “and when I speak out and explain what is like on the other side of the mountain they call me a liar! Me, Owongo, their friends for ages, but a liar!”
“I know, man of mine,” sighed Mirumda, “but you and I must not fall to her honeyed words, must not see any credit in them, for Coo-coo and Brava if not for ourselves. I try to keep their ears free from lies and deceit, but not easy, when so many speak bad words, and they hear.”
Owongo wasn’t used to being on the losing side in a debate, but this time he was. The truth probably was he’d becomes popular in the ordinary run of things in the village that Prince Dickory and Susu were both frightened he might win more than the opinion of his fellow man, they were of the opinion that he might challenge them for power. They knew that his experiment with democracy hadn’t worked and his promise of a second election, though still in his mind, had actually withered away. He knew that whatever he said Prince Dickory and like men would win because they always did, and now he had the care of four youngsters on his mind, his own twins and the two from the devastated land he had looked down on from high on the mountain pass.
He was about to make his way out of the cave and see if he could find some meat for the family when he was disturbed by the sound of voices raised in some kind of almost tuneless song.
“I’m afraid,..” stammered Mirumda, “that noise, those people.”
Owongo knew her fear and understood the way she felt. With the four children huddled close to her he was certain that he could make out tears in her eyes. He put one arm round the little group, reaching for as far as he could, and suddenly Prince Dickory poked his head into the Owongo family cave.
“So this is where you are skulking, Wongoi” he snarled, “while better men than you are preparing for battle! Yes they are! Led by Crackhead, my powerful comrade, they are going to march all the way up the mountain and down the other side, and put any man or woman that they find to the club!” (He couldn’t have threatened about putting them to the sword because swords had yet to be invented.)
“And when you have entered the devastation and found a few walking skeletons, what then?” asked Owongo, “search out the skeletons that can no longer walk? Have a mighty victory over those with broken limbs or even those that are dead?”
“You may mock me, but you will see that I am right!” snarled the Prince, “I am a man who thinks things out, Wongo, and what I think is always true! You will see! Now, Crackhead, lead on!” That last sentence he shouted over his shoulders, and one of the two bully boys that Owongo had seen when he caught the fawn recently came into sight, with a deerskin draped over him. Owongo could smell it from where he still remained with Mirumda and the children. It had abput it the foul stench he associated with rotting flesh.
Now, brave men, march!” shouted Crackhead, and to Owongo’s huge surprise a long line which must have contained most of the male villagers as well as a few of the females, started marching in some sort of ragged order past his cave entrance.
“This is madness,” he whispered to Mirumda, “what do they hope to achieve? The land beyond the mountain is bleak, devastated, burned, and will not grow green again for years! There is nothing there than any man might want.”
Mirumda shook her head. “He knows that,” she sighed, “he is the man who is only brave when his enemy lies dying.Then he feels he earns some glory.”
“As do those he seeks to destroy now,” agreed Owongo, “and if any of the poor souls I saw when I went to look and rescued Coo-coo are still alive they will be easy prey for a fool like that and all the idiots following him. What the exploding mountain didn’t destroy then he will, and he won’t see if for the cowardly attack that it is, but his diseased mind will conclude that it is a mighty victory, and he will tell tales about what he has done this day for the remainder of his days.”
“Every word you say is true, Owongo, man of mine,” whispered Mirumda and she took one of his hands into one of hers and squeezed it gently.
When the marching villagers had passed he looked out, and sighed. He could see the trail of them, singing and calling as if they were surrounded by the spirits of their ancestors in some kind of powerful glory, and they were already on the skirts of the mountain.
A gentle voice interrupted his thoughts, and Peri Winkle paused as he made his solitary way passed. “You think as I think, friend Owongo,” he said quietly, “and I have even cast a spell to slow the idiots down, but not even my magic will save them from humiliation. I heard what you said about what they will find when they reach the high point of the pass and see the lands beyond. But no words of mine could allay the stupidity that Prince Dickory has created with his weasel words.”
“I heard that!” rapped the familiar voice of the Prince, and when he appeared he was accompanied by the dreadful Susu.
“Cast whatever spells you choose to cast, Mr Spellmaster, my men will return in victory and glory and you will be made to look the fool you ruuly are! And you, Wongo, you are a fool, too!”
“His name, Dickhead, is Owongo as you truly know,” came Mirumda’s voice from where she sat deep in the cave with the four children. “And you will taste your glory and we will see it as cowardice” she added.
© Peter Rogerson, 19.11.23
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