Bomani stepped in front of the two ogres and pulled out his shield. His posture was threatening. He knew that he was not about to let them take her again.
The ogres were a bit confused at this point. “I thought him was our friend now,” said one of them.
“Yeah, me too,” said the other.
“Don’t think.” Hatari’s voice echoed. “Things have changed. Kill the boy and the girl!”
Bomani rushed toward the ogres. One ogre carried a large club, and the other held a rusty, jagged piece of metal. They both charged him at once.
Bomani put his shield up to block the blows. One of the ogres pushed Bomani to the ground, but Bomani was clever and swift. He allowed his momentum to work on his behalf and rolled backwards onto his feet. He charged them, and again they swung at him; again he blocked them with his shield. He swung around swiftly and sliced one of the ogres in the chest with his blade, raising his shield again as he anticipated the next blow. He blocked again, and this time, like lightning, he moved around the ogre, lunged forward and stabbed the half-beast in the back with his spear. He immediately yanked his spear out of the ogre’s flesh and stabbed him again.
In the next moment, Bomani looked for Farra. She and Pupa had run off. In the distance he could barely make her out, as she fled. He wanted to run after her, but he still had this ogre problem.
The other ogre got back on his feet, apparently ready to resume the fight. He looked at his chest and blood oozed from the gash that Bomani made. He wiped at it with his hand, flinging blood toward Bomani and snarled.
Bomani flinched when the blood hit his face, but he did not wipe if off. He glared at the ogre, as the ogre glared at him. For a moment they just stared at one another with nothing but hate in their eyes. The ogre roared and pounded his fist onto his chest, as if he were insensitive to the gash there.
Bomani threw down his shield confidently and stood before this insensible beast, with his blade poised in his hand. He was not going to flinch. However intimidating the ogre seemed to be, Bomani was not going to move. He would wait for the ogre to make his move first, and then react.
When the ogre charged, Bomani jumped back, dodging the ogre’s awkward lunge. The ogre swung at Bomani with his makeshift weapon again and again, but Bomani’s feet reacted faster than the ogre could attack. He jumped back and then swung his blade at the ogre, knocking his weapon out of his hand.
Their motion continued as they both turned into each other. Moving back to back, Bomani grabbed the ogre’s arm, flipped his blade around and jabbed it upward into the ogre’s side. They both stood with their backs together, Bomani holding the ogre’s arm back while gripping his blade, which was lodged into the ogre’s side piercing upward under his rib cage. Bomani finished him by pulling his blade out and giving one last plunge of his weapon into the ogre’s chest. The ogre fell to the ground.
Bomani stood over him, his chest heaving deeply, his mind temporarily in the intoxicating state of a warrior’s triumph. He took a moment to relish his opponent’s defeat until he remembered his friend.
“Farra,” he gasped, and ran after her.
Just as he was leaving, the rest of the ogre horde appeared from out of the fog. He did not know if they had been lost all of this time, or if Hatari had held them back as part of their bargain —the bargain that he had broken.
Farra’s tracks were hard to follow in the night, but he had a pretty good fix on her direction. She had entered a ravine with walls of rock, at least forty feet high. They created a pathway in one direction. Then, far ahead of him, he saw a faint glow. She was using her staff to light her way. He followed.
The light moved back and forth, and then it came toward him until they met.
“No, Farra. You can’t go that way. The ogres are coming.”
“Did you send them?” she asked in distrust.
“What? No, Farra, come on!”
“Who are you?” she asked in a fearful voice.
“I’m Bomani. Farra, it’s me.”
“At least I know where I stand with the stinky ogres. I don’t know who you are.”
“I…am…with… you… We… have…to…. go!”
Farra just looked at him, scowling in distrust. “Well we can’t go that way,” she said. “It’s blocked.”
“We have to try, there are too many ogres. C’mon.”
He led, with Farra reluctantly following him back the way she had come until the two walls of the ravine circled and converged.”
“See,” Farra said. “I told you, it’s blocked!”
Bomani started to climb the wall. “Maybe…” he said grunting as he hoisted himself up. “Maybe we can climb it.”
“I can climb, but I can’t climb that,” Farra assured him. “Are you crazy?”
Bomani lost his grip and slid down to the ground. He immediately jumped up and tried again. “We have to try,” he said, again grunting between each word as he strained. He was trying to move so fast that every inch of him was shaking.
But, Farra was right; the wall was too smooth – not enough cracks or crevices to hold on to. Bomani fell to the ground.
“Are you okay?” Farra asked.
“It’s useless. You’re right, we can’t climb it,” Bomani said, and his ears focused on the sound of ogre feet trotting through the ravine toward them. Farra heard them too, and yet in the night neither of them could see them coming.
They backed up against the wall behind them. The sound of ogre movement came closer. Just when Bomani could make out a faint image, Farra surprised him by making the first strike. With the shake of her staff, Farra shouted, “Moon glow!” The staff let off a brilliant light, blinding the ogres closest to them and repelling the others.
Bomani attacked as many of the disoriented ogres as he could, and Farra followed, striking a few of them with her staff, but it was useless. There were too many of them. “Air or earth?” Farra shouted, trying to be heard over the growls and snarls of the chaotic brood.
“What?” Bomani answered as he was tossed to the ground.
“The runes — air or earth?
“I don’t care, earth.”
Farra tossed the earth rune in front of her and quickly covered it with dirt.
“What happened?” Bomani asked.
“It’s gone.” Farra said, sounding puzzled.
“What do you mean, it’s gone?”
Before she could elaborate, the ground began to rumble. Little specs of light twinkled through the soil, and suddenly out of the sparkles of light, small plants sprouted up and grew. Then large, giant leaves emerged, creating a barrier between the children and the ogres.
The ogres desperately tore at the leaves to break through, and just as it seemed to Bomani that they were making progress, a tree shot up from the ground directly under them and began to grow rapidly. As the incredible tree sprouted, it picked up the children and carried them skyward. It grew taller and wider as it shot upward. Bomani and Farra held on tightly to its branches as they watched in astonishment; rising toward the sky.
When the tree finished growing, it had reached the top of the wall and the children were able to climb from the treetop onto the cliff. They looked back down at the bottom of the ravine. The ogres had begun to climb up the tree.
“Whoa,” Farra said. She let out deep sigh.
“Yeah, I know.”
“Let’s go before they get up here.”
“No, this way. We can attack them one at a time, as they get off of the tree. Otherwise, they will eventually catch us,” Bomani suggested.
They waited as the ogres climbed the thick, strong tree and they braced themselves to attack. It did not take the ogres long to make their way up the tree. Although they were large, clumsy creatures, they were quite arboreal, and they climbed the tree with ease.
Suddenly they heard a loud cracking sound. Even the ogres stopped for a moment to
tune into what was happening. The tree began to wither and was becoming brittle. The leaves fell apart as they all turned began turning brown. In a matter of seconds, the tree was dying and had become so frail that it could no longer support itself. It surely could not support the weight of the ogres. The tree crumbled, and the ogres fell with it. Its pieces scattered to the ground and dissolved into a pile of splinters as quickly as it had appeared. The children were safe.
“Whew,” Bomani said, looking over the cliff. “I wonder how long it will take them to make their way around.” He looked over to see Farra and Pupa were already walking away from him. “Farra, wait. You can’t go off alone.”
“Just give me one good reason why I should trust you!”
“I’m sorry. Really I am.” Bomani said, dropping his head in shame. “I wasn’t thinking straight, Hatari said he just wanted the staff and…”
“Well I’ve got news for you Bomani. When an evil, frightening, powerful man wants something that gives him more power, you don’t give it to him.”
“I know, and I’m sorry. He said he wasn’t going to hurt you. I just wanted you to be safe.”
“I don’t know what they teach you in that warrior school of yours, but here is something to remember; wielding the power of another sorcerer’s staff is tricky business. You can’t just use the staff; you have to take the power out of it. I wouldn’t know how to do it, and there are only a handful of people in the entire world that do. But this part I know for certain. If you want to harness the power of a sorcerer’s staff, YOU HAVE TO KILL THE SORCERER FIRST!”
“Farra!” Bomani called to her as she continued to walk ahead of him. She didn’t answer. For the first time, he missed her chatty little voice. He wanted her to say something, anything. “Farra, you don’t even know where you are going. At least let’s use the compass rune to find our direction.”
He pulled out Hatari’s diamond and dropped it to the ground next to a heavy rock. He picked the rock up and smashed the diamond with it. It didn’t break. He tried again, and again. But the diamond did not break. He looked out to Farra and the growing distance between them.
“Farra!” he shouted. “I can’t break the diamond. If I don’t break it, Hatari will know where we are! He’ll find us!”
While on his knees, he looked down at the diamond and then he saw Hatari’s image materialize. “You should have listened to me the first time Bomani. Now do you see? Your friend is gone. There is still a chance for you to work with me. Keep the diamond. I will find you and have you brought here. You can have the Ifa Scepter of the Gods and return a hero. Your kingdom will prosper and you and I can forge a relationship that will strengthen all of Madunia.”
“I don’t believe you,” said Bomani. “You tried to kill Farra. That wasn’t part of the deal. She is innocent. I know now that you cannot be trusted. I was a fool to listen to you in the first place.”
“Step aside please, Bomani,” Farra’s soft voice drifted to his ears. He had not even seen her walk over to him.
“Farra?”
“Don’t ruin the chance I gave you boy! I won't give you another,” said Hatari.
“Move away from the diamond please,” she said.
Bomani moved to the side. She raised her staff up. The crystal at the top began to glow, and then she brought it down vertically and smashed the diamond with the base. There was a bright flash of light —the diamond had broken into several pieces. Hatari’s image faded.
“It’s a magical diamond,” she said in a calm and distant voice. “You can’t break it with a rock.”
“You came back,” said Bomani.
“Yes.”
For a moment, they just looked at each other. Bomani was trying to read her face, trying to figure out what she was thinking. But her face was blank. There was no emotion to it at all. He wasn’t sure what it meant. Only that it wasn’t good.
“Can I see the compass rune?” she asked calmly.
“Sure,” Bomani said as he handed it to her.
Farra studied it for a moment. Then she kneeled down and picked up one of the slivers of diamond and stared at it for a moment. She placed the compass rune down on the ground in the middle of the rest of the shattered fragments.
“Look,” said Bomani. “It’s doing something.”
The fragments began to orbit the rune in perfect circles, some in one direction, others in the opposite direction. Then, the rune started to spin slowly in place.
“It’s going to point the way,” said Farra.
Then, all of the movement stopped. The pieces had formed a straight line from the rune. A beam of light shot from the rune through the diamond pieces and pointed the way. The compass rune had worked. They had their new direction, southward — not back down the cliff.
“There,” said Farra. “That’s the way you need to go.”
“Me? Don’t you mean, WE?”
“I don’t know if I want to go with you.”
“What?”
“I still haven’t decided if I should trust you.”
“I’m sorry. What do you want me to say?”
“Sorry? Sorry is for stuff like, ‘oh, I’m sorry I ate your pudding.’ Or, ‘I’m sorry I didn’t get you a gift for your birthday.’ But you handed me over to an evil man and almost got me killed.”
“I know, but believe me when I say that I didn’t think he would hurt you. And I know that it was wrong, Farra. Really wrong.”
“Well, I want to know.”
“Know what.”
“I want to know why you’re out here. Why you, just you. Why not a whole army to go get the scepter to save your kingdom? Why not your brother, Mongo? Why is it just one boy? It doesn’t make sense.”
Bomani sighed. “Okay, but can we wait till we make camp for the night? Let’s just get somewhere safe and I’ll tell you all about it.”
Chapter 18
THE LIONS OF UFALME
The Ancient Lands: Warrior Quest, Search for the Ifa Scepter Page 24