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Keregbe stole a glance at his side to find Kamoru a little behind him. Kamoru was afraid but he Keregbe would definitely bring this man's head to Jogbobioro. With all those fortifications and that wicked concoction he ate, he was definitely untouchable. He climbed on his horse as he crouched on his saddle ready to spring into attack. He was going all in.
Kamoru watched as Keregbe stood on his moving horse rein in one hand machete in the other. As he neared the Ibadan warrior he jumped from his horse towards Sanogo machete raised high over his head as he uttered a savage war cry. Sanogo raised his left hand towards Keregbe squeezed and yanked it to the left. A loud crack of thunder sounded as Keregbe still in the air was propelled backwards. He soared for a couple of metres before hitting the ground with a thud, he landed on his neck as his spinal cord broke into two. Blood slowly seeped out of his neck as he lay still never to walk again.
Sanogo turned to Kamoru then stretched his hand squeezed again and pulled upwards. The ground in front of Kamoru exploded as jets of sand shot upwards. Kamoru pulled on the reins of his horse as he made to cover his face with his hand. As he dropped his hand the last thing he saw living was Sanogo galloping towards him with his machete swinging at his head.
Sanogo's machete removed his hands from the way permanently and proceeded to its intended destination as Kamoru's neck left his body and did a three sixty spin in the air spurting blood as it obeyed the laws of gravity and landed on the floor his eyes still opened and staring in shock into the distant blue sky.
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Jogbobioro's heart shattered in a hundred pieces as his mind processed what he just  saw. No man had such control over the elements of nature, and as Sanogo approached he knew that he too would not he eating roasted yam and bush meat this night. He just wished at least hell wasn't real because if it was, he was going to have a hell of an afterlife.




this is the first of three short stories that I have written. I will be posting the next story tomorrow. pls drop a word about what you think. it means a lot to me. thanks.

Jogbobioro chewed on kolanut as he watched the battle, his men were doing him proud. Four days ago he had taken them to Eşulå, the most powerful babalawo in Sekidi for fortification. Fourty-nine hunch-backs, twenty-one virgins and seven albinos had lost their lives for it. Their blood was mixed with other herbs and concoctions and poured in a large cauldron that cackled and sparkled. His men got into the pot. The herbalist spoke some powerful incantations and a purple like flame materialized under the pot. His men were literally cooked in the cauldron till the next morning. Then there were made to eat a concoction that contained the heart and liver of the albinos and the hunches of the hunch-backs.
That mammoth atonement had made his men invincible on the battlefield.
"Agbonmiregun what did you say Ifa said"?
"Balogun Jogbobioro, Ifa said we would win this ijaye miscreants easily"
"Good, because if I lose more than fifty-men your head would be used for suwe by my children"
Agbonmireguns eyes contracted like a chickens anus that had just excreted. Shock and regret mixed with hate showed in them as he took his eyes of Jogbobioro. He hadn't said they wouldn't lose men. Ifa said they would win. He mentally checked if he had made atonements before he had made that enquiry. He had. He had sacrificed two white chickens and a sixty-six year old tortoise.
"Ifa doesn't lie" he thought to himself, except....
He was jarred from his reverie as a wounded warrior approached them on a horse at full gallop.
Balogun!! Balogun!! Balogun!!
"Balogun someone is approaching and he is deadly Balogun, he just made mincemeat of Ijadunmininu and his men".
Agbonmiregun's ears pricked as he heard the last thing the soldier had just said.
"Ijadunmininu? Ijadunmininu and his seven trusted warriors that had levelled a whole village. Ijadunmininu that had wrestled kinga konga, a gorilla that had terrorized their village stealing children and destroying farmlands".
Agbonmiregun shoke his head as if to dispel what the warrior had just said. Ijadunmininu dead? It couldn't be.
"How many men did you say besieged Ijadunmininu and his men"?
" Not men sir, it's just one man that killed all of them".
"That's not possible", Agbonmiregun retorted.
"What did he look like"?
"Balogun I couldn't get a closer look at his face but his cloth had an emblem on it, a black two edged axe was on his left chest, and a tribal mark though it looked like a scar, like a lightning bolt was on his right cheek.
Jogbobioro's jaw clenched as he heared the soldiers report. The emblem. The mark of Sango's descendants. They only meant one thing. This mysterious man who had just killed his best warrior was a descendent of Sango. Jogbobioro had heard of the legend that Sango would incarnate in one of his descendants, blah blah blah and all that jargons. He didn't believe it, but if what this warrior said was anything to go by then that means the man heading towards him was Sango howbeit in another man's body.
Jogbobioro's brow creased as he thought of how many times Ijadunmininu's charms had been tested. The other night Ijadunmininu had called three of his soldiers to check how sharp their machetes were. The three men had surrounded Ijadunmininu and began striking at him with their machetes. Not one mark appeared on his body when the men stopped. After slashing for about five minutes with all their strengths they had given up and gone back to their business. Or was it this morning when he Jogbobiorohad shot him at close range and instead of a bullet it was a sprout of water that had landed on Ijadunmininu's chest.
If this Sango's son had just killed Ijadunmininu and his men then they were in a lot of trouble. A whole lot. He couldn't even begin to fathom the types of charms he had on him.
"Balogun someone is approaching"
Jogbobioro looked towards the cloud of dust that was approaching, a man on horseback was leading, digging his legs into the horse further spurring it on despite its break neck speed. The beast's mouth foamed as it galloped with all its strength.
"Kamorú, Keregbè bring that man's head for me"
Kamoru and Keregbe spurred their horses forward as they galloped towards the oncoming threat. Jogbobioro adjusted himself on the saddle as his men moved to accost the deadly descendant of Sango. If this man had killed Ijadunmininu then he was sure Kamoru and Keregbe wouldn't be eating roasted yam and palm oil this night. Who knows, he might not be alive too but he wanted to see the capabilities of this man and he had used Kamoru and Keregbe as cannon fodder. "Well, we all would die one day" he thought to himself as he trained his eyes on the men running to their doom.

The War General

Sanogo fired his dane gun behind him as he leapt over a large tree trunk that had fallen on the floor. He took cover behind it as he reloaded his gun. "This Ekiti kete warriors are savages, Obatala wà gba mi la" he chanted as he peered over the rotten tree trunk. The Ijaye men of Ibadan were at war with the barbarians of Ekiti, the cause of the war was simple. Land. The most important commodity in the whole of the earth. The Ibadan people had conquered the Jebusites and destroyed their whole kingdom and had expanded their territory from the south of the Niger river to the banks of the ocean all to the bakassi borders, the largest in the Western region of Africa. They were feared for their military strength, ferocious men who feared nothing, the general of the Ibadan warriors was never to lose a battle. If he did he was to kill himself honorably, just like the Samurai . Enough incentive to always win. The Ekiti kete men had begged not to be slaughtered and the Ibadans being noble people had obliged them and allowed them to continue living their lives. But not without paying royalties to the Alaafin of Oyo.
The Ijaye people shared borders with the people of Ekiti. An Ijaye farmer had encroached the farmland of a fellow farmer but he did it  on the wrong side. The Ekiti side. The Ekiti people already nursing hatred for the Ijaye people killed the farmer and his family. The matter got out of hand thanks to to the ineptitude of the village heads and now it was a full fledged war. Sanogo watched in pain as as his men ran towards him, running homeward. The crawling & wounded more than the running and fighting.
"Balogun, this men have reduced our numbers by almost half, we are losing the battle"
Sanogo gritted his teeth as he heard the news, anger welled in his stomach. Losing. If he lost it was death for him. A shameful death. A death that would destroy his family name. A death that would render him worse than an infidel. Never. It must not happen. They must not lose. He stood up to his full six feet five inches height. He looked at the battle field.
"Desperate times called for desperate measures. It was now or never"
He slapped his palm on the floor three times as he began chanting incantations.
"Ogun o"
"Ogun to ni omi ni Ilè ti on fi éjé wé"
"Ogun oba Iori irin"
"Ibán ti won ba yin fun mi ki o di ebu"
"Adá ti won ba fi şha mi ki o di omi"
"Oro ti Okètè ba ba Ilé so ni ilé gbo"
"Oro ti ekolo ba ba ilé so ni ilé gba"
"Oro ti mo ba so lori ilé éjé ko ma je bé"
(translation)
Ogun
Ogun that has water at home but prefers to bath with blood
Ogun the god of iron
Every gun shot at me should not have effect
Every slash of the sword should be like a splash of water
It's what the grasscutter tells the floor that the floor does
It's what the earthworm says to the floor that it accepts
Whatever I say on this ground of bloodshed should be so

He stamped his left leg on the floor three times. Then he jumped over the tree and ran straight into the thick of the battle.
Akanni stared at where the commander of the ijaye army was some seconds ago. Sanogo was the great grandson of Sango, the God of Thunder. The Oracle said that the power of Sango would come back and be transferred to one of his offspring but it didn't say the exact one so all of his sons were leaders in the army. The Oracle also said that when Oyo needed Sango most that was when the God of Thunder would show himself through that choosen son. Akanni hoped now was that time. He reloaded his gun as he prepared to join the battle he was almost deserting. Sanogo had given him hope that they could still win the battle.
Sanogo ran towards the battle his gun in his left hand and machete on the right. The whole battlefield was in chaos, men screaming guns going off, machetes clanging, gunpowder smoke everywhere but Sanogos mind was clear and at peace. It was like he was seeing the battlefield from another persons eyes.
He aimed his gun at an Ekiti man that was about to deal a killing strike and fired. The gun buckled in his hand and about 800 metres away brain matter, blood and an eyeball exploded out of the man's head. He aimed at another Ekiti warrior fired and without looking pointed the gun behind him and fired again. Both shots struck home as the two men fell to the floor like sacks of beans.
Sanogo turned to face eight men on horseback riding towards him. Sanogo smiled and fired five shots without breaking stride. He threw the gun away and ran to meet his assailants. His five shots were deadly accurate. Four heads jerked back as they received a bullet each. The fifth shot lodged itself in the chest of the leading horse. It neighed in pain as it crumpled on the floor. The horses without their riders stumbled on the dead horse and tumbled on the floor, the rest of the men reined their horses to a halt to avoid the carnage they were heading into.
Sanogo pulled out one of his daggers and threw it at the nearest horseman. He grunted as the dagger caught him straight in the heart. He removed another and threw it at the next man. The dagger dived straight into his stomach as it severed his left kidney. He died without making a sound. Sanogo leapt in the air and plunged his machete into one of the men's stomach and in that same instant spinned in the air to avoid an approaching swords edge. He grabbed the man's arm and pulled towards himself. He caught the man's head and twisted producing a loud crack as Sanogo landed behind the horses as the rest of the men joined their compatriots in heaven or hell.
He went over to the dead men and retrieved his daggers and sword. He looked behind him from where the men had come from. He saw what looked like the camp of the Ekiti army.
"Jogbobioro iku ré dé léni" he said as he mounted one of the horses and steered it towards the Ekiti warriors.
Akanni couldn't believe what he had just seen. Sanogo had killed over ten men in less than two minutes. He ducked behind a dying horse as he reloaded his gun. He tried to locate Sanogo behind the cloud of dust that the horse was raising. Sanogo was going after the Ekiti kete warriors. Akanni knew that was a mad thing to do, it was like a suicide mission for Sanogo but if there was anyboby that could even have a hope of evening the numbers it was Sanogo and with what Akanni had just seen, Sanogo was more than ten warriors combined. Akanni huddled over to where an Ibadan warrior lay wounded and helped him to a safe place. He just hoped Sanogo came back alive.

I am a blogger and I want to try my hands at writing so I've written three short stories. I would like you to read them and if you think I have a future in writing pls put a couple of encouraging words down. and if you feel It would be a disgrace to my family if I pick up a pen pls write a couple of words down too. don't forget pls read and review, its very important to a writer. thank you