"Is it Lailah?"    Ja called at Loe who was quite faster than the three of them. Loe had caught up with the warriors as soon as they all alighted from the chariot.    There were few other warriors already circling the lady who was threatening to hurl the Helmet of Jin inside the water. She was quite close to the lapping waves.     Majority of the warriors had their legs dipped into the waves without looking behind.   Even if the crazy lady hurl the helmet, some of them would make sure to catch.    Ja and his siblings, alongside the other fellows got to Loe who was staring blankly at the lady.    Ja looked at Loe's face before looking away to the lady. Twas the look of surprise on his face.    He looked towards the lady, twasnt Lailah. That was a relief, but twas that lady Loe had been betrothed to in Ikpala. Twas

     "We've searched all through the waters as much as we could, yet nothing to show for."   The leader of the warriors who was bowing before the Emperor said. His face was down, but you could tell that he was very sensitive to any call about to be made by the ruler.     "To what depth of the waters did you delve?"    The Emperor asked. The fellow hesitated for a while then said,     "I can't be sure. We didn't have a means of measuring it, but we did all we could."   He kept emphasizing that point. He knew quite well that the Emperor was never satisfied.  He always would find an excuse to owe their incompetence to. Well, they weren't incompetent, twas simply that, the Emperor was never satisfied.       "Did you go over to the other side of the sea? That which we came through?"     The Emperor's voice was becoming stiffen

     "What's this place?"   Ja Lia muttered. Twas more of a statement than a question. He had been there before, some whiles ago. Okay! Probably some weeks or probably month back. That was where he had met Loe in the first place.    That same place had the Raven led him too. Since he didn't have the guts to return empty handed to the Emperor, thus had the persistence been supplanted. He either got the bird or remained a wanderer.    Though the fear of being killed immediately by the strange Emperor who surely had no regards for life, prevented him from manning up to go and tell the Emperor that he couldn't catch the bird.    "Okay, now! Raven, enough of the hide and seek. Come out already. I do not have the strength for this drama."   He said, standing few metres away from the door of the hut. The hut was in no good shape. But that wasn't really the point. The point was

      "Please ask him again, he sure doesn't know what he is doing."    Ja's voice broke into confetti as tears swelled in his throat. He would be so glad if he was woken up and told that all was just a dream. Because that was all it seemed to him. He couldn't make a sane meaning out of it.     He was tied to a pillar outside the palace. Two warriors were standing before him. He had been beaten to pulp firstly and one of the warriors with a spear in hand was wearing him out with an odd ogle.     "I know deep down, you do not want to do this. I'm as helpless as you are."   He paused. He was panting, there were shots of blood in the swells all around his face. There were tracks of blood all over his body too. The robe he was putting did less in holding the pain back.     He continued,      "Come to think of it."    He was struggling

      Havila.      "Whooshh!!"     The signal sent by the clapping waves collided with the whooshing winds and all met on the lone hut. The hut beaten by the wiles of nature had all its wooden covering faded. But twas still very much intact. There was no loophole, even for a snake to crawl in. If there was anything as such by the shore.     There was a wooden bench before the hut, few metres away from its creaking door. The fact that the door looked like what would fall at the slightest push, didn't give its content away.    Surrounding the hut were several roots and leaves you couldn't be sure where they came from. A thought might toss to you the idea of the waves sweeping them by, but the position of the hut was very much far away from the wings of the waves.    Only if the borders of the sea were broken would the waves swallow the hut up. &