The Crusaders

The Crusaders 3

As the m******e of soldiers, guards and servants was going on, Zina sighted a young boy seated on a stone having a fearful expression on his face. He looked innocent, full of life and couldn't hot a fly. His face reminded her of when she was little, how she often got love and care then from adults, thus she couldn't bring herself to kill the innocent boy. She held him up and look straight into his eyes, "Be calm, it's going to be alright, be calm, I'm not going to harm you" Zina said tenderly, as though it was her child. She had love for children right from when she was growing up and as such: she hate to make one cry or see someone making any child cry let alone killing any of them. So in her heart she had decided to spear his life.

However, Gizza noticed that and matched forward and snatched the little boy from her. Before Zina could say a word, Gizza had pierced his stomach with her sword. The little boy screamed and died, which made Zina scream as well holding on to his lifeless body, sobbing, saying "Why, why, why, why did you kill him? He's just a little innocent harmless boy". Gizza then held Zina by the shoulder and shouted at the top of her voice, "Don't be a weakling, he will grow up and r**e your kind. Kill them all, no mercy!!!".

Zina looked at the lifeless body of the boy on the ground and said, "but he was just a boy, a little boy".

"He was a man, a real man with manhood in between his thighs and he was our real enemy". Gizza said, pointing at the lifeless body of the boy. Zina nodded in support. A kind of nod that says: "OK what will I do, he's already dead". But deep inside her, she wasn't happy. She didn't like the fact that the boy was killed by Gizza. She just believed his life should have been spared no matter what, at least before he become a man, it would take many years. But she just let bygone be bygone.

They continued to kill whoever they came across with in the palace. Anyone who tried to escape was killed brutally. The killing became very massive as the women who were held captives as slaves in the camp decided to join Gizza's team at the palace.

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In the cell, at the palace, Nabel was already in. She had found her way in when the guards on duty ran out to check what's generating the commotion all over the place. Prince Davi was shocked to see her opening the cell but what shocked him the most was the fact that Gizza was the one attacking the palace with her fellow slave ladies. judging by the commotion, he thought it was a large army of professionals. He looked at her again and still could not believe what she was saying. How could the Gizza who arrived Arika as a slave, who was sick, suffered from excess bleeding be leading a horde barely two months of her arrival? He saw it as something impossible, not even by a man let alone a sick lady slave. So the thought kept going through his mind, thought of disbelief.

As if Nabel read his mind, she said, "I planned the attack with her and the rest of the ladies but I changed my mind".

"Why did you change your mind?" He asked her, curiously.

"Because I need to keep you safe" she said.

"So what happened to my mother and father and the good people in this palace? You just want me to escape from here with you, isn't it? My mother will die tonight if I don't do something fast" he said.

"My prince, If I didn't come here in the first place you would have remained here and Gizza would come and finish you up, then your mother would have met the same fate. Allow me to help you to safety, my prince, the palace is under attack as we speak. If Gizza finds us here, she would kill the both of us" She said.

"A woman can not defeat me in a single combat" The prince replied, stubbornly.

"This one will. She has defeated many. Don't let pride blind the eyes of your reasoning, my prince" she said persuasively.

"But what about my mother, how can I leave her here?" He asked.

"There's possibility that she won't die but I can't guarantee same for your father" She responded.

"But why so?" He asked further.

"Because Gizza's target is the king and the entire male folk in Arika and the whole world" she replied as she helped the prince out from the cell, having agreed to allow her rescue him.

While going out, he saw two guards lying motionless on the ground just before the cell gate, so he asked, "What happened to them, did you kill them?".

"No, i just made them unconscious so I could gain access of the cell key" she responded. The Prince looked at her for a while and said, "You ladies really prepared for Arika". She looked at him, not knowing what he meant by that. She wondered in her heart how on earth she could suddenly fall for a man as they left the cell and secretly looked for a horse to use to escape out of the palace with. Luckily, they found a white one and Nabel said, "A white horse signifies good luck" but the Prince just looked at her and didn't say a word.

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Meanwhile, inside the throne room, in the palace, the king was seated on his throne with his wife. He had made up his mind not to run away. How could he, a powerful king run away for a mere lady, a slave, he thought. The wife had pleaded with him to run away or at least do something to save their lives but he stubbornly refused, so she also resigned to fate, to die if death was calling.

They could still hear some screaming, screaming of some soldiers, screaming of fatal anguish in and outside the palace.

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When the rest of the ladies arrived from the camp, they made sure no male remained alive outside the palace. The guards that were bound at the gate were stripped naked and flogged on every part of their body, swelling up their faces and other parts, which resulted to their death due to severe pain.

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Inside the throne room, when the commotion was evidently coming closer, the queen looked at her husband and he returned the look with no word from him.

"This was unexpected" the queen said sadly.

"Don't worry, woman. I have connections here and there. World power will retaliate, Arika is not alone. Let them have their pleasure of destroying my kingdom this night. Before this time tomorrow, the rest of the kingdoms will avenge my death" The King said boastfully.

"Oh my son" the queen lamented.

"The cell is the safest place for him" He responded.

Just then the door of the throne room flew open and Gizza stormed in with Zina and some of the warrior ladies all covered with enemies blood. Gizza kept walking to the throne and the king was looking directly into her eyes. When she reached, she held the queen by the head and the king tried to protect his wife but Zina stabbed him at the side of his stomach and he fell on the ground. Immediately, blood began to gush out, flowing on the floor.

The queen was forced down from her seat and made to sit on the floor as she watched, with tears in her eyes, her husband dying. Gizza went closer to the dying king and declared, "My name is Gizza and my mission is to wipe out the male folk from the planet Earth and end tyranny, s*****y, maltreatment of women all over the world", and stabbed him again severally, then cut off his head. The king died leaving the queen, crying like a lost child.

There was a loud scream outside, Gizza and the rest of her ladies ran out to find out what was wrong and met the rest of the ladies at the mighty gate of the palace watching Nabel riding away on the white horse with prince of Arika.

Beholding this sight reminded Gizza the time with Nabel in Mobi and how she had always allowed men to fool her. She began to laugh wickedly and bitterly as she pointed her sword at them.

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During the time Nabel got her first boyfriend she had run to Gizza to inform her about it. The excitement on her face was radiating and Gizza was eager to hear what she had to say. Nabel began to explain, demonstrating with her hands and laughing most of the times. She had told Gizza of how she met a young man on her way to her father's maternal home and how he had made her so happy and even accompanied her to her father's maternal home and brought her back home. Gizza was so happy for her because she wanted Nabel to remain happy not because she was actually truly happy that Nabel was talking about a man again after all she warned her.

The warning had happened on the day the two best friends had gone to the market to price some goods and had met a young man who kept following Gizza around the market, refusing to be away from her until she revealed her name to him but Gizza hated that moment and wanted him away from her already. Nabel had asked her a question that made Gizza look up at her.

"Why don't you give a man a chance in your life Gizza, it is a sweet thing to be told how wonderful you are. All you have got to do is give a man a chance to love you and you will find yourself doing the same thing. Won't you get married, won't you give birth, won't you give your parents grand children? If you don't give a man a chance you may end up not getting married.

" And who says I care if I don't get married. Those set of people only know how to lie and to deceive and I'm not going to be part of that. I am not going to allow myself to be used by a man. He can stand there all he want and when he is done standing there he should go" Gizza said and Nabel had walked up to the young man and had told her bluntly that Gizza did not want to speak to him.

"But I mean no harm" The young man had said.

"and I know that but she says she doesn't care what you mean. She doesn't want to see you and she is angry already, something I don't like seeing her do. Please leave her so that she won't be angry with me too" Nabel had said and had left the young man standing there and glaring at them.

That day Gizza warned Nabel never to introduce her to any man who wanted her attention for anything that has to do with relationship or love or anything that has to do with men when it comes to relationship. This warning had remained with Nabel and she had tried to live by it but not until she encountered the man on her way to her father's maternal home and the words he said to her melted her heart. As she was busy describing him to Gizza Gizza paid little attention to her as she reminded her of the warning she gave to her concerning saying anything about relationship or men to her hearing.

"But why. This is becoming too serious. I don't want to have a friend that hates men. How then will you give me nephews and nieces" Nabel had teased and Gizza had forced a smile and walked out on her.

Gizza had gone home that day to let her mother know that she overheard her father beating her the day before and she warned her not to deny it this time. Gizza's mother had chuckled and had hidden her true emotional state as she begged Gizza to forget all that happened but Gizza refused to forget. She asked her mother to let her know the story of how she met her father but her mother refused to go into all that.

"I can't begin now to tell you the story of how I met your father but I met your father the day I married him and ever since then he has been beating me. I'm used to it so I can say you need to remove your mind from all that"

Gizza chuckled and just then her father arrived on his horse and demanded to know why Gizza left him in the forest where they were farming and went away without informing him. Meanwhile Gizza who already had a big hatred for her father in her heart refused to utter a word. The father had angrily advanced towards her to slap her but the mother shoved Gizza aside, pushing her husband aside at the same time. Gizza's father had become mad with anger as he began to hit Gizza's mother. Gizza was enraged by this and she seized a stick and hit her father on the head. The man fell and the wife was alarmed. She went down and cried. Gizza had ran off, thinking she had killed her own father.

Gizza's father did not die and he recovered days after to warn his wife never to allow Gizza back in his house again.

"She is still your daughter" Gizza's mother had said.

"A daughter who tried to kill me? She is not sorry for what she did for if she was she would have come home to know how I am fairing. She is an evil child whom I told you I have had series of dreams about, bad dreams not good ones. A child like that might grow to become something everybody will fear"

"Why are saying such evil things about your own daughter?" asked the wife.

"Should I tell you? Good, I will tell you" Gizza's father had sounded before he began to tell her the outcome of his visit to the shrine of the seer of Mobi, a man considered to be eating with the gods and sleeping with spirits. According to Gizza's father immediately he entered the shrine the seer had started laughing and pointing at him, calling him names.

"Names like what?" asked Gizza's mother.

"Names like; the bringer of death to the world of evil, the bringer of the one who would try to end all men, the evil that begets evil" Gizza's father said and shook his head on his sick bed.

"You can possible conclude that he was referring to our daughter". said Gizza's mother.

" I am sure that he was referring to our daughter because the dreams I had about her confirmed it and the dreams were the reason for my visit to the seer's shrine in the first place" said Gizza's father before he continued.

"You come into my shrine to seek an answer to the dream you had, dream about your daughter, but your daughter won't allow me speak to you because the wind of what she will become will not allow me say a word about her" the seer had laughed as he said this.

"Out with it Seer of Mobi. Whatever is the answer of the gods to my unanswered questions I am ready to hear. Tell me what it is that the gods have to say about my daughter who has tormented me plenty of times in my sleep" said Gizza's mother.

"Your daughter Gizza should be renamed to jahd (Which means Hatred For Men) She is the one that the men will fear and you won't be alive to witness these things when they will start to happen. You won't be there so you won't have to worry about anything concerning your daughter" the seer had said amidst laugher.

"Great seer of Mobi, my ears are open, ready to hear all that you have to say to me. Whatever you tell me to do I must do" he had told the seer.

"Kill her then. Yes, go now, back to your house and eliminate the evil weed growing in your compound for only when Gizza dies will this prophecy be averted but as long as she remains alive she will become something even she herself won't be proud of. Go now, kill her and you would have just saved the earth from a terrible calamity"