I Bleed For You

Chapter 12

In the land of Akozo, the ruins caused by the dragon were still fresh but already Samata was seated on the throne which stood in the throne room with no roof to cover it. There she sat until she began to hear the footsteps coming towards the hall. Standing by her sides were her most trusted soldiers whereas outside the dragon was flying about. She looked up and saw that the person coming in was her son Akiza. She sighed. It still disturbed her greatly whenever she set her eyes on her son, her slave whose will was no longer his but here. 

"Mother" he bent with one knee before her and rose only when he heard her ask him to. While he stood before her he said, "I am sorry that I failed to capture his wife and some of the palace officials who sneaked her out of this palace"

"You do not need to blame yourself son. We were at war and everything happened so fast. You did exactly what I told you to do and you led the army of Dodo well. They will always remember you for this" The mother then stood up and asked the soldiers standing by her sides to leave them and they did. She then walked closer to her son and standing before him she held his and put his palm into hers, smooching it and looking at those palms. There was tears in her eyes and Akiza could not understand why. He tried to help her clean those tears but the woman wanted to keep crying. It broke her heart to see her son acting the way he did and she wished her friend Aromo never did what she did with her son. 

"Mother why are you crying?"

"I am okay son" she wiped her tears.

"No you are not. Are you worried about me? You should not be. I promised to stand by you and that is what it will always be" he assured her.

"You don't understand son. I did what I did because I needed you to stay on cause and not be taken away from me. I know you don't understand what I am saying but I mean it when I tell you I love you. All these that happened here today I did it for you, that you may take your rightful place on the throne your late father left you. It is yours to assume" she blinked her teary eyes as she looked up at his face.

"Is that what you want me to do mother? Whatever you wish that is my command. If you wish that I take the throne then I will take it" He said and smiled. Samata nodded.

"I need to rest now" she disengaged her hands from his and walked away. Akiza stood there confused, wondering if he had done anything wrong. 

That evening Samata walked outside and then addressed the large army that survived the battle. 

"I know what it would seem now that we are in charge here. We have taken this great land and we must keep it, we must also send a word to Dodo to inform the people of our victory here and also inform the Prophetess of Dodo to come over and dedicate this land to the gods of Dodo. We are not going to slumber but we will be sober for we know that having taken this land the wife of the demised King is nowhere to be found. We do not know if Akozo has any allies and if they do it can be possible that the wife escaped to call for her supporters. If that becomes the case then we have another battle to fight, we keep fighting until we are victorious. Now, I will send some men among you to Dodo and take this message to them" 

Few days later the men sent to Dodo arrived and they headed to the shrine of the Prophetess of Dodo. Having told her of their victory she did not smile but nodded, stood up and announced that she would announce to the people about the victory and would be in Akozo in four days time. The messengers left.

*****

Ralf was back to his men who thought it wise to leave the bar and return to their base and there wait for their Master who was taking long inside the room offered to him and Aromo inside the bar. When the bandits returned to the base the Second In Command after Ralf inquired of Ralf but was told he was still at the bar. He suspicious but decided to wait. After few hours Ralf returned and called for an urgent meeting and when the bandits came together he let the cat out the back, revealing to them the reason for the meeting.

"We are no longer going to continue like this. There is always a time when things must change and the question is what does it change to? Now, we have a new leader that we must follow and she is the one who will expose us to the very thing we have always desired; taking our pound of flesh; avenging the death of our over four hundred brothers who were murdered by the King of Abumu in one night, that way we will not only kill the King of Abumu but somehow take over his Kingdom" His men found his words unconvincing and they needed more explanations.

Princess Damina walked out of her hut and headed to the forest to hunt, it was while she was there that she got bursted by the men belonging to Ralf and one of them recognised her to be the same lady that there leader got insulted by and ran off with someone's horse. At that moment it was clear to them that if they capture her and take her back to base their leader Ralf would be pleased with them. They got hold of her and while she struggled with them they forced her out of the forest and headed back to base with her. 

Back in the base they learnt that their leader had gone to bring with him the lady that she spoke would become their leader which all of them had come to agree with. They then tied Princess Damina to a tree and waited. Shortly Ralph came back with Aromo who walked briskly towards the tent she was being ushered in. Princess Damina who was tied to a tree saw and recognized Aromo but Aromo did not recognize her for she didn't look towards her direction. Inside the tent Ralf proposed to offer Aromo some meat they hunted but she declined and looked around her.

"Your people agreed to make me their leader yet I could see in the eyes of some of them; they don't think it would be appropriate for a woman to be their leader. You will have to make them understand that you have made your decision and your decision is final. I am counting on you to make this easy for me"

"Definitely my Mistress" Ralf then stepped outside and standing for second called for the gathering of the brothers and they soon gathered before him. He began, "Well, some of you have seen the woman I came back with" as he spoke Aromo stepped out and stood beside him. "We all know why she is here, as we discussed she is our leader from now on, it means she answers to no one but everyone of us answers to her. But then I have decided even then I already concluded that it would be wiser to pay attention to what you have to say and probably make my decision based on your opinions. So I am here to ask, if any of you do not agree with this new development the person can come to my left side while the ones that agree with me can come to the right side of mine" 

The group stared at one another and even though some who disagreed with Ralf perceived danger they still stubbornly chose to stand at his left side to show their disagreement. When it was clear to Ralf that the two divided groups have made their decisions he counted the number of those that disagree with him and they were up to twenty and the number of the ones that agreed with him were up to three hundred and fifty. He then spoke to those who were against him.

"I would have pardoned you and probably would have listened to you but you see, I am under a curse to obey this woman standing before me here and whatever she says is what it is. So I am going to have to ask her what she thinks of you lot" When Ralf turned to face Aromo she did not say a word immediately but looked at the twenty men for a while then spoke, "I would have pardoned them and probably I would have decided to make them understand me but having disagreed and disapproved of me at first it would be so foolish of me to now welcome them into my space. Well, here is the thing, I want them dead" Immediately she said these words Ralf drew his sword and the over three hundred and fifty men drew their own swords. The twenty men having seen that they were going to be slaughtered like animals drew their own swords and chose to die fighting instead. The over three hundred and fifty men pounced on them and before king the twenty men were on the floor, bleeding and dying. Only five of the other group lost their lives. Ralf turned again to face Aromo and he asked, "Have I pleased you my lady?" 

"Yes, you have pleased me real well" She responded and walked back into the tent.

That night Princess Damina was brought to face Aromo who was to decide what becomes of her. When Aromo looked up at her standing there before her she spoke, "Are you still angry with me?"

"I don't know what you are talking about but you should be careful how you use words" Said Princess Damina. Aromo smiled at her courage and then asked, "Won't you beg for your life? the last time I checked I have the right to either set you free or sentence you to death"

"I know what you did; you did to him what you Sisters Of Magic in Dodo are good at" said the Princess.

"When you talk about the Sisters of Magic in the land of Dodo you talk about them with so much ignorance and disrespect. You do know that not even the Prophetess of Dodo can tell where the Sisters Of Magic are dwelling. When you call them Sister Of Magic in Dodo you limit them. My Sisters are not only in Dodo but everywhere. Your mother inlaw is still one of us"

"Stop calling her my mother in-law. A woman that killed my own father can't be the mother of a man who marries me" angrily said Princess Damina.

"Are you saying now that Akiza will never marry you?" asked Aromo. There was no answer from the Princess who thought it would be childish of her to respond to that question; no matter how much she loved Akiza she was never going to get back with him again. All she wanted was to survive. Now that it was clear to Aromo that Princess Damina hated Akiza she was now ready to tell her the real truth.

"When Akiza's mother came to your father's palace riding that ancient creature you did not see her son with her right? Well, that was because she left her son with me in my own house. You know what I did with and to her son before she returned after taking your father hostage? I had him inbetween my legs and she felt the sweetness of my body, that way she became my slave" After she had said this she waited to see the reaction of the Princess but it appeared the Princess wasn't ready to loose her cool or she wasn't ready to betray herself and reveal the fact that she still loved Akiza and that what the woman was saying was itching in her ears. Aromo then stood up and continued, "You see my dear, your mother took her son knowing fully well of what I did to him, well, I'm not sure if she knew what I did to him at first but I know she must have found out by now and when she did there was only one way she would have restored the sanity of her son, to himself? no, but either to herself or to another sister like us. It means that if your mother in-law decided to restore the sanity of Akiza and to still keep him by her side the only way for her to achieve that is by making love with her own son" 

"Why are you telling me all of these things?" Princess Damina who was boiling with anger needed to know. She had been feeling like punching Aromo on the face all the while she had been speaking but somehow she managed her anger. 

"You have always been the Daddy's pet and so your father the late King of Dodo never told you that he was having an affair with the Prophetess of Dodo and that actually was where his downfall started. You would like to ask me how I know these things but I had to know them and that was before I left the land of Dodo under banishment" 

"I am not going to beg you for my live Aromo, no I'm not. I would hate to stay here with you or to leave here knowing that you did this to a man that I loved. He was never my enemy but his mother. Whatever you and his mother are has nothing to do with his innocence. I stayed with that man and I knew him very well, he was a lovely man, who needed my happiness. I thank the gods for the times I spent with him. He will always be the only man I ever loved. You can go ahead and order your men to have me killed, I'm now waiting"

"I can't kill you my dear, I'm not going to do that, atleast not yet, then this is what will happen to you then, you will have to allow Ralf to make love to you and should I tell you what happens to you after you allow him in-between your legs? you will loose your will to him and if you loose your will to him and he has lost his will to me what do you think will become of you? You will then become my pet just as you were your father's" This was too much for Princess Damina and she went down on her knees and begged Aromo.