The Ancient Beast (Adere's Mission)

Chapter 13

The wind had stopped blowing and it was time for Edu to get up but he looked behind him from where he was seated on the ground and saw what he had expected; the Abah Watchers were approaching him. The Abah watchers were known to be the most dangerous set, they were from the land of Abah and legend had it that they traveled by the wind. Edu got up and one of them who seemed to be their leader asked,

"Where is the one with you?" the man asked but Edu did not know whom he was talking about. He could not tell why he suddenly started talking about someone with him.

"You know of who I speak of. You are from this land of Akuzu are you not?" asked the man further and Edu nodded, this time he was about to stand on his feet but one of the watchers of Abah raised his staff and he sat back on the ground. He did not want to be the reason things happen the way that they happen. The leader of the watchers then walked closer to where Edu was seated and stooped before him, asking him; "Would you want me to use my powers to make you tell me what I need to know or you would rather I force words out of your mouth the way that will not please the gods of the land of Akuzu?"

"You are speaking in a language that I can not understand. What you have failed to understand is that actually I am not ready to die yet but I when I brought those lot out from the land of Zinu I did that genuinely to save them but they were many and so I can not tell right now which of them that you are referring to. Tell me that I may know and reply you well" Edu said intelligently and the leader of the watchers stood upright and then said to him, "I would have thought by now that you are aware of what is happening. I would have decided to say that things re not the way that they are supposed to be but who am I to say that. We are here under the order of the one that sent us. You have heard of the strange beast have you not, we heard in the land of Abah that the one destined to be the killer of the beast is the one that will come out of the land of Zinu and to this land of Akuzu. We have come looking for the one by name Adere. He was here"

"If you are here to look for him then you already scared him off with your wind. They were many with me but they had to escape when you arrived with the wind" said Edu. The watches stood there for a while and then asked further, "Do you side with him or with your people?"

"I do not have enough knowledge about the beast that you speak of but I know that the beast will be a terror to all. In the time of war and destruction and even though my own father disowned me I will surely side with my people and if you have said that the one here with me before now is the one destined to put to an end the beast, the ancient beast that has tormented the world for ages then I will gladly make sure that he does it"

"And how are you going to get that done since you have said that you do not know where he has gone to?" asked the watcher leader.

"If I do not know where he is perhaps I must know where his mother is. He wanted to get back to his mother and so I will look for the mother and find her because I know that if I find her I have found him"

The watchers left by the wind and Edu stood up, wondering if he had just dreamt. He decided to go back to the place where he and Adere with the rest left Adere's mother and the rest of the old ones. He was able to reach there but he did not find anybody. He stood there for a while and decided to go back to his father's house.

Edu's father had just returned from the palace of the king of Akuzu and there was no happiness in his face. He looked so disturbed because the discussion that he had with the king presented another trouble. The king of Akuzu having had to tell him that the land of Abah needed their support to help them with the fight against the beast, the ancient beast and right beside the king of Akuzu stood the Priest who made it known that if they did not answer the call of the Abah king there would be a terrible thing in the land of Akuzu because he would be sending the greatest number of soldiers to the land of Akuzu and the land of Akuzu will face worse than what the land of Zinu faced in the hands of the people of Agori when Aboro had to unleash terror on them.

The man was still seated and full of thoughts when the son came back. He looked up and seeing his son returning he no longer wanted to react because he could not tell why things looked the way that they looked. He simply wanted a situation whereby things would look more of a situation like than what was said before then.

The man kept sitting until Edu was there before him and said,

"Father I am not going to say just sorry that I had to do what I did but then it seems I did the right thing. In the economy of the gods things don't just happen coincidentally. I met with Adere in the land of Zinu while he was trying to escape from the killing hands of the soldiers from the land of Agori. You know of what happens when the king of Agori decides to invade a land. I did what I had to do because Adere is like a brother to me. You know quite alright that there are things that are not supposed to happen but because they happen the way that they do happen the gods have the direction for it all. I did not want to be the bad friend and since I was already hunting there all I needed to do was to get my hands on the very person that I called my friend and saved him from the grip hand of death. I brought him into this land and when I brought him to you so that you can help me give them shelter you said that you did not need them and in the process of angrily sending them off you disowned me your only son. You know already of how I must have felt during the time that it happened. I could have decided not to do what I did but instead I insisted that as long as I had helped them to the extent that I had helped it would be better to do what needed to be done and get my hands on it. This is what happened and I took my friend with his mother and the rest of the people that he brought with him to the nearby forest where we planned to have them camp until it was time for them to make another move to where they would get a permanent help. On that process we tried to build a camp with woods and thatches but that was the end of the plan, something very strange happened and the watchers of the land of Abah came crashing on us. I did not want to escape because I did not know if I would be able to. I remained there until they appeared before me but before then it was obvious that Adere and his people had escaped. I listened to all that the watchers had to say and then it downed on me that truly to say there is something wrong somewhere. I did not only go to the land of Zinu because I wanted to go for a hunt, the gods must have taken me to that place because I had something that I was supposed to do there. You know of what the watchers said to me? They said that the person with me who happened to be Adere was actually the very person that was going to do what needed to be done for the land of Abah to be free from the looming danger that the ancient beast brings to their land. You know quite alright of what I mean and we must do something about it. Please kindly see for yourself of what I mean. If the watchers asked for Adere and said that he was going to be the one to defeat the ancient beast then it means that I must have to find him. Father you once said that I am useless and that my destiny is nothing. Maybe I was not born to kill lions, may be I was not born to chase off things that torment our family, may be I was not born to be the one that bring about the existence of a lasting name in our house but then I am sure that the gods have something great in store for me and I am going to do whatever needs to be done in order to get my hands to fulfiling the destiny that the gods have given me. What else am I going to say except that it does not go down well with the way things are now but later on it is going to be worth it. All that I need right now father is not your anger but your support. If the watchers of the land of Abah appeared to me then there is something special about me no matter how I am made to believe that there is nothing special about mr."

The father who had kept looking at his son as he said the things he said sighed and nodded severally before he said to him, "You have spoken well my son. The reason I remained seated there and listened to all that you had to say is because somehow I do believe you. You are right about the Abah land and their quest to invite the one chosen to come to their land and do what needs to be done. You are not also lying when you spoke about the watchers appearing to you because right now I had just returned from the palace of our king and he and the Priest have confirmed it to me of the desire of the king of Abah to have the king of Akuzu bring in his men to support in the hunt for the beast that had lived for thousands of years. What else are we going to do except to do exactly what the king of Abah has asked of us. You have claimed that you saw what you said that you saw but the issue is how will you go about fulfilling that destiny. Do you not think that if by any chance Adere as you called him get to know about his destiny that he would not run deeper and deeper away from the land of Abah? I saw his look and i watched how he spoke, the only thing that would matter to a young man like that would be to have his own mother kept safe and also to have the very thing that looks like securing the remaining people of the land of Zinu kept safe. That is all that would matter to a man in his position"