This is an excerpt of the upcoming West African historical-fiction novel, THE LEOPARD KILLER, as written by D-C-A. For more excerpts or additional stories/series, please visit www.naijakana.com.

PROLOGUE: STRUGGLE OF LIFE AND DEATH

It was just another day at Gbagbe.

The small, tiny town was located at the southernmost fringes of Yorubaland, strewn with red mud huts, sprinkled with majestically tall palm and coconut trees, and surrounded by an incredibly vast forest. And as usual, Gbagbe was enjoying the typical daily aura of harmony.

Enhancing the atmosphere was the sun. Considering that it was the month of December, during the harmattan season, the day had started out as foggy, gloomy, and dry. But now, as the day neared the halfway mark, the ominous star of the sky was trying to attain the peak of its powers: chastising yet blessing the earth below with a golden-brown glow.

A young man emerging from one of the huts must have felt that the sun shone the brightest upon him. The widest of grins adorned his face. He had his bow in hand and his leather quiver of arrows slung over his shoulder. He wore the customary hunter jacket with all sorts of medicines and charms clinging to it. His machete and dagger danced slightly by his thighs as he lurched towards the bushes.

He had every reason to be jubilant. Just a few moments ago, his marriage, now in its second year, had produced his first child.

With the customary naming ceremony nine days away, the young hunter was thinking of what he should name the child. His anticipation had received quite a boost when one of the midwives had told him of the baby’s unusual quietness when he arrived into this world, umbilical cord and all.

The bafflement of the young hunter grew as the midwife continued with her report. The newly-born baby had seen the long loose end of her head scarf hanging down her left shoulder as she cuddled him close to her bosom, and he grabbed and began to pull at it. Initially startled, but then quite amused, the midwife watched as the baby, within such a small period of time, managed to pull off the piece of cloth from her head—with one hand.

The young hunter thought of the incident that the midwife had told him. Was that a sign of things to come? Was he destined to be a great warrior, a great hero, a great man? A person who will always beat the odds, a person who will be forever remembered in the legends of time?

He thought himself reasonable in dreaming such lofty aspirations. After all, it would be a welcome change to a people uniformly characterized as serene and unshowy. Besides, the new father could not stop marveling at the thought of the baby being able to channel the incredibly little strength it had into one hand and pull off a head scarf. It was then that he thought of a name he thought befitting:

Ajani. “One who possesses after a struggle.”

That’s it! He liked the name—a lot.

The screams heard around the village rudely interrupted his merry thoughts, regardless of how well-intentioned and painfully urgent they were. The two women who had instigated the mayhem had assumed the role of witnesses and informants. Their words were virtually inaudible because of their extreme fright, although eventually everyone present picked up enough information to send the entire town into an uncontrollable, unstoppable frenzy. An army from a neighboring town was fast approaching to attack them. Gbagbe, long accustomed to tranquility and self-imposed ignorance of the possibility of any military attacks from outsiders, was now left virtually defenseless.

The hunter drew out one of the arrows from his quiver with a slight growl, ready to drive one of his long poisoned darts into the heart of the first intruder unlucky enough to approach him. He was not about to surrender his home and his life to anyone—disruptive, harm-wishing neighbors included.

He could see some of the invaders from a significant distance: emerging from the thick forest, already cutting down any living human form in sight with their cutlasses. Some of them were already touching the huts with their torches, which unleashed wild tongues of fire upon the thatched roofing.

The young hunter decided that the bow and arrow might not be efficient for the occasion. So, he quickly discarded them, pulled out his machete, and began to stride towards the muscular and balding man approaching him with a cutlass.

***

The soldier moved with leaping strides. His huge body heaved with excitement. His eyebrows dipped with anticipation. And his blade was streaked and speckled with fresh blood.

The hunter was already in combat stance: machete drawn, grip tightened, back slightly bent forward, legs stretched apart and aligned. He was not going anywhere. He was going to fight.

And so was the soldier, who sped up his approach to a climaxing sprint and raised cutlass, intoxicated by bloodlust, underestimating the hunter’s fighting skill, and consequently abandoning caution. Luckily for him, though, the hunter simply moved his upper body while extending his leg, letting the soldier dive into the dirt, just before he had the chance to let his blade descend with potentially death-dealing force.

The hunter took a few paces back, refusing to revel in the humorous sight of his opponent’s dirt-powdered face. His town was in danger. His family was in danger. He was in danger.

“Get up!” yelled the hunter, shaking his machete. “Unlike you, I attack my opponent when he’s ready!”

The soldier allowed himself a chuckle as he emerged from the ground and spat out the small amount of sand that had entered his mouth. “A jester you are, indeed! It’s a pity I can’t take you to my Oba to offer your services. But perhaps, you’d be better off entertaining your ancestors!”

Those words were enough for the hunter—not to lose his composure, but to spur him to attack. He lunged at the soldier, who responded with a repelling swipe. The swing was shortened by the attack, but it was powerful—powerful enough, in fact, to push back the hunter.

The fight had barely begun, but already the hunter began to feel defeated. He’s very strong, he thought.

The soldier sensed it, and it fed his confidence. Wiping away some of the sand from his face, he took giant steps towards the hunter. Now he was on the offense, repeatedly raining down strikes that began at his shoulder, leaving the hunter, at least for a short while, no choice but to fend them off. Then he suddenly moved to his right, letting the soldier’s blade eat nothing but air. The soldier tried to quickly recover with a horizontal swipe, but the hunter had already skipped out of danger.

The soldier was frustrated. He’s rather fast, he thought.

“Look here!” he thundered, pointing at the hunter with his cutlass. “I came to fight, not to dance with a masquerade!”

“Fight for what, exactly?” came the reply, squeezed out of short, quick breaths. The hunter had a decade of experience pursuing and killing wild animals. But nothing in his background had prepared him for this type and level of exertion. “What are you doing in my hometown?”

“I don’t answer to you! I answer to my Oba, who gave me the order to attack this town!”

“And what have we done to your Oba to warrant this attack?”

To the hunter, his questioning was a genuine quest to discover the reason for such an unwelcome intrusion. But to the soldier, the hunter’s questioning was merely a stalling tactic, an attempt to recuperate. An attempt that was about to fail.

“Enough talk!”

The soldier was on the offense again, determined to find an opening to exploit. Up, down, left, right: the strikes came from all directions. The soldier channeled all his frustration into his advance, and that advance—unfettered, unabated, and persistent—was beginning to wear out the hunter. He could not seem to find a crack in the soldier’s façade, no pauses long enough to let him catch a breath, let alone launch his own charge. Worse, he felt as though the midday sun was burning into his face. Perspiration, once represented by small beads standing at his hairline, now transformed into cascades of sweat. The energetic deflections were now reduced to feeble parrying, and the torso twists of evasion were now seguing into a full-fledged retreat.

Sensing his opponent weaken, the soldier decided to try something different, something that would certainly catch him off guard and expose his opponent to the full impact of his attack.

The hunter flew to the ground, stunned and hurt, the machete released from his hands. He definitely did not see that coming. That kick. Long and high, with a sudden forward thrust, to the gut, powerful beyond anything he had ever experienced in his young life.

Coughing, the hunter began to crawl, towards the weapon lying in the dirt a pace or two away. He could feel the hurried approach, the footsteps hard and heavy, as though motivated by lethal purpose.

The hunter turned around, now reunited with his machete and prepared for one more parry. And by now, the soldier was towering above him, with his impressive size, a piercing glare, and a blade ready to be decorated in more blood.

Such a sight would have conquered lesser men, terrifying them with thoughts of their imminent end, reducing them to sobbing pleas. But not this man, this hunter. As the cutlass began its dive towards him, he was already resigned to his fate—with a defiant spirit:

If he was destined to die, at least he will die fighting.

COPYRIGHT 2015 D-C-A/NAIJAKANA