I have had this story in my head for quite a while, with some existing on paper patches as rough drafts. Then at a point, I thought 'why don't you just make this a novel dude?'
And then, The Justice Creed was born!

This is actually my first novel, and working on it has been fun; with a few friends who are Nairalanders themselves that have helped me with the editing and the Novel's cover page.

You'll want to know what The Justice Creed is all about, I guess?

Okay. This is the description:

"In Umueze, strange things started happening, including the death of the chief priest.

The gods had remained quiet as an unprecedented protracted drought, strange deaths and witchcraft took over the land.

The delegates of elders on a mission to bring a solution to the ordeal of the land were massacred. One of two assassins was killed, and a search for the second assassin and the missing Ikemefuna lead to the discovery of more horrifying secrets.

Meanwhile, a strange religion led by reverend father Francis is progressively making it's way into the land of Umueze.
In a bid to frustrate the new religion, the elders taunting them gave them the forest of the haunted to settle in; a land where even the spirits dared not trespass.

But there was a strange twist on the day the gods came to judge, and the tide of the land was turned."

You could really download a copy and read it up through this link: http://okadabooks.com/book/about/10532

Let me know what you think about it before I drop the second novel I am working on.

Here is an excerpt from The Justice Creed though;

It's a long read.

"By the time they entered the pathway, Okoro had instantly realized what wise a decision it was to have asked Akaji to join them on this trip. It was darker in the path, the trees more grotesque and the shapes and figures made out by the trees in the darkness more unsettling. And he started to wonder why Akaji eventually had failed to make it to the village square. What could have happened? For it was quite unlike Akaji not to keep his words; at least from what he has known of him for years now. 'Well, things happen and people change', he thought. Probably someone had convinced him on not to accompany them on the trip to Ohiagu; but he had promised not to discuss the trip with anyone else. For as far as the land of Umueze was concerned, the delegation to the town of Ohiagu was top secret apart from within the confines and circle of the ichies of the land. Uchendu was at the very front of the party as they filed along the track. Intermittently he let our a burst of dazzling light beam from his torch; certified that the track was clear he would switch it off and would lead a calculated march for a little distance before shining the torch light ahead of them once more. And so they went with few words said inbetween them.
Then suddenly there was a faint rustling of leaves behind them and Okoro turned. When your senses of sight is limited in function, the other of your senses become more alive. It would have gone unnoticed in the broad day light, but in the darkness the rustling rang in the ears of the little party, and they had paused. Slowly but surely a figure gradually appeared from the grey darkness like a phantom; tall, powerfully built and armed with a cutlass. Okoro was at the rear of the file as they progressed through the track and Ikemefuna was directly in front of him. As Okoro paused, he tensed in apprehension of who it could be, his breadth caught in the middle as his adrenaline shot into his blood. In the dark, his pupils dilated as his mouth went dry. Immobilized and seemingly helpless, he waited. Uchendu had heard the rustling too but had assumed it to have come from Okoro or the young lad with him for they were the ones bringing the rear. When he felt that he was not hearing enough of the footsteps he somehow had become accustomed to in the short distance of their walk in the dark, he turned around and let the beam of the light hit the rear of the file.
The figure was Akaji.
'You scared the life out of me!', Okoro shouted at him, his voice had a hint of a tremble in it.
'How come you're sneaking up on us like a ghost?', he asked.
The other members of the party exhaled in relaxation. So it had been Akaji that they had been made to wait for at the village square.
'Akaji, you should had said something rather than sneak upon us like that', Erodika said. He could now relax more, he thought. Wise move on the part of Okoro to had thought that out.
Akaji was chuckling. The old men had panicked, the young lad impressed at his 'magical' appearance. Akaji had known the late chief priest, and knew Ikemefuna right from the time he was born. He liked the lad; young, promising, obedient and respectful. He only wished Ikemefuna had grown much older to have been able to take over the position of his late father in the land.
The inclusion of Akaji into the party and how he joined them brought up a steady stream of conversation. On and on they walked and talked, veering from one topic of discussion into another in their conversation; more relaxed, more at ease.
The light of dawn was gradually creeping up in the sky, although the bush track remained dark due to the cluster of trees, tree branches, and thick shrubbery.
'This seer, I heard he sees like a wizard', Akaji said, bringing up the matter at hand. They had just discussed Nwoku's outburst yesterday.
'If ever a wizard would see half of what he sees', said Erodika.
'The seer of Ohiagu is not just a human being. In his land they call him 'okara mmadu, okara mmuo'(half human, half spirit), he continued.
'Yes', Okoro confirmed.
'Apart from his spiritual feats at seeing into the heart of a man and seeing into the spirit realm; he can also do so much magic that no one dared challenge him', Okoro said.
'I once heard he fetched water with a basket placed on his head and the water never leaked a drop', said Uchendu.
'And the water did not leak out?' Piped ikemefuna, fascinated at the thought of meeting with a man capable of such feats.
'No, it did not leak a drop', confirmed Okoro.
'Woooow!', little Ikemefuna interjected.
'And he could even walk through the rain and not get soaked. He is that powerful. The rain would soak everybody when it rains, but whenever the seer steps into the rain, he remains dry as though there was an invisible covering for him shielding him from the rains'.
'It could be the spirits of his ancestors', Uchendu said.
'Then how come the spirits of your own ancestors can't shield you from the rains?', Ejiofor asked.
'It's not the spirit of his ancestors, it is the gods he serves'. Ejiofor concluded.
'What gods does he serve?', asked Erodika.
'Are you sure its not a foreign god? Like the one that reverend from Isiuzo wants to bring into our land?', Akaji asked.
And the conversation once more delved into the religion of the reverend father.
'They say his gods were crucified on a tree', Ejiofor said.
'How can a god crucified on a tree be a powerful god? If he can't keep himself from being crucified on a tree and free himself, then how can he save anyone?' Okoro wondered out loud.
'When I heard that, I thought exactly what you are thinking right now', said Uchendu.
They continued their discussion, relaxed in the approaching light of dawn.
Suddenly there was a rustling of leaves on the right side of the pathway. As the group turned by instinct to see what could have made the sound, there was a similar but more intense sound of rustling of leaves from the left side of the path.
There was no time to think.
As Uchendu whirled around to point his torch light to the left of the pathway, to where the rustling had come from, a figure of a man leapt from the shrubs by the side of the pathway straight onto him.
Before Uchendu could focus his torch light on the figure that was already mid air, it was too close and too late.
There was a heavy thud that muffled Uchendu's feeble yell, abruptly cutting it short. The torch light fell from his grasp first, hitting the dry solid earth of the bush path and launching itself onto a clump of shrubs by the side of the path, lodging itself in an array of twigs. Uchendu did not even have the time to unsheath his cutlass which fell of his hands flat on its side onto the path.
As Uchendu's body was falling, there was another thud on his head that was the sure unmistakable appalling sound of the crunching of bones. You could hear the sharp crackle as the solid mass of calcium protecting his brains gave in, with the impact eventually brought to rest on his brain mass with a resounding sickly thud.
By this time Akaji was already on the move.
Bounding like a hound in a grope, Akaji launched himself against the figure in a swift maneuver. When there is no time to think, reflexes become everything.
Okoro had turned as Akaji launched past him, grabbing Ikemefuna by the left arm he made a dash to the part of the bush not lit up by Uchendu's torch light. Okoro had his back as an open target.
In a flash, from the position of the first rustle another shape had already emerged and was armed with a cutlass that gleamed a flash.
With a few giant strides he brought down the cutlass with all his strength on Okoro.
There was a chump sound like a cleaver driving into meat as the cutlass caught Okoro across and at the back of his shoulders.
Okoro's shriek rang out in the lighting dawn like a tormented soul in the haunted forest. It was one filled with agony; but is did not last.
As Okoro fell, he stumbled over a stump and turned over, hitting the ground with his back. He felt the blood seep out of his back in little torrents.
It was at this point that the nightmare Okoro had some days ago flashed across his mind; the chief priest, ikemefuna, the monster vampire with the face of a lion! In that split second Okoro realized that the nightmare had been a warning, he had not heeded the warning and here comes the price, and the price was this death starring at him in the face.
Ikemefuna had withdrawn his hand from Okoro's grip as the cutlass landed across his back. Stumbling blindly in panic across the shrub, ikemefuna fell over a clump, stood up again almost immediately and in the semi darkness tripped over some entanglements of wiry weed and fell again.
By the time Okoro's back hit the shrubs the assailant's cutlass was onto him again, aimed for his throat. As another yell started up within Okoro's lungs, the cutlass came down on his neck with brute finality, smashing and slicing through his throat, terminating his scream in a bloody, bubbly, wheeze. Even as his head was set at an odd angle form his neck, held only by a few ligaments and fewer flesh tissues and his limbs jerked and thrashed about in protest to the life that was ebbing out of the body, the last sight he saw was a red fountain that seemed to erupt somewhere on his neck, pumping in fiery bursts into the sweet early morning dawn. Then slowly, his body relaxed into stillness.
As Akaji launched himself, the figure had feinted to the left to draw Akaji away from his weapon hand. It was a deft move, nicely done but Akaji had seen that move so many times and had known it. Landing on the shrubs, Akaji rolled over and bounded up all in one swift maneuver, facing the assailant figure in a combat stance.
When Okoro had screamed, Akaji's blood boiled. A chicken who claims to be mad [wild] has not
seen the drunken fox. With a deftly falsified dance-like move, he rushed at the assailant and wildly aimed for his head with the cutlass, a blow that seemed easy to dodge.
The assailant ducked, bringing his head squat on his chin and bringing his body down, but Akaji had anticipated that. Swinging wildly, he brought back the arc of the cutlass and with an incredible speed and sense of accuracy, he suddenly knelt on his right knee, bringing the cutlass in a swift wicked swing across the assailant's torso.
His entrails gushed out and the spiked club in his hands fell to the ground as he made a grab at his entrails. With one final savage blow Akaji aimed for the centre of his head which parted under the impact of his razor sharp cutlass like red and fluffy flower petals, as his body fell backwards in a topple.
Akaji whirled around.
The second assailant saw the fight and knew he had to make a quick decision without having the time to think it through and weigh the pros and the cons.
Jumping over the reddened body of Okoro he made a dash for ikemefuna who was struggling with the entanglement in utter panic. It was horror all around Ikemefuna and all he just wished was to open his eyes and be on his bed.
In the second assailant's mind, his thoughts were running as swift as a gazzele. He thought it was said there were going to be five people only?
How come the sixth man that fights like cornered tiger?
Erodika had taken off in the midst of the fight. He knew he could not fight any one of those assailants for they appeared strong, cold and brutal. And so he had ran off for his dear life.
Having seen the spiked club smash into Uchendu's head the first time, he did not have to wait to see if Uchendu would survive or not for he knew Uchendu's body would be dead already before it hit the ground.
And so he had taken off into the bush as Akaji charged and leapt towards the first assailant. Erodika ran blindly, away from Uchendu's torch light, deeper into the bush, with neither sight nor direction. His arms flailing wildly and clawing at twigs and branches that petered his face, he kept falling and rising and falling.
Panic can drive a man to an impossible extreme, and so Erodika was not thinking. All he wanted to do was get as far as possible from the mayhem, from the bloody carnage that had unfolded before him.
What Erodika did not know was that he was unfortunately precariously close to a pit that had been overgrown and covered by trees, shrubs and climbers. And so suddenly, he felt no earth beneath his feet. Destabilized, he tumbled over and let out a terrified cry, over and over he went; over leaves and branches, over grasses and thorns, rolling over, falling over loose stones and earth and clawing frantically against everything but into nothing.
Sometimes in life, what we do not want is what eventually comes to us. And so it was, that unfortunately as Erodika hit the bottom of the pit, already with a twisted arm and a broken leg, it was on a wicked looking broken stem of a tree which pierced through his belly, appearing on his back as a bloody spike.
Akaji whirled around just at about the time Erodika screamed, when he had tripped and had fallen into the emptiness. He had a fleeting glance at when Erodika had taken off into the bush somewhere to the part of the bush behind him, and he also was aware that Ikemefuna had broken free off Okoro when he was attacked.
A glance at Okoro's reddened body, his traditional native wear with designs of a head of a roaring lion head that had become soaked in thick dark frothing blood and he knew he was dead. There was nothing that could be done about him anymore. He made a dash to where ikemefuma might likely had ran into, there was nothing, no movement and no sign of life. But when he strained his ears, he could hear the snag of twigs and the sound of the bush being disturbed but he could not tell exactly where. It had all happened so fast that Akaji was a bit dazed, but Akaji was not one to give up easy. He slashed himself against the resistance of the tree branches, twigs, grasses and shrubbery after what he believed was a trail that would lead him to Ikemefuna and a the second assailant that must have kidnapped him. In no time he came to a end of the trail, it was futile; he had lost them".

http://okadabooks.com/book/about/10532

Thank you for your time. Comments are welcome.