MERMAIDS

They got to the river and quickly built a raft from the woods they found in the surrounding. They used their ax to fell and cut trees into logs, they use grasses as ropes to tie these logs of wood together.

They have already wasted 4 days in the dungeon of the Bushbabies, and an extra 1 building a raft to cross the river believed to be filled with mermaids.

They built 3 rafts, each raft carries 10 of them.

They needed to cross the vast river before evening when the mermaids come out, but the river was so vast, so while they resting after a log paddle, they noticed a very beautiful lady hanging on one of their rafts, her face was so beautiful and so innocent. You can only see from her head to the top of her chest as the other parts of her body were covered in water.

She seems like a helpless lady seeking help, one of the warriors forgot that he shouldn’t engage them for any reason as their intentions aren’t pure.

He was moved by the beauty and innocence and tried to pull her into the raft, as he was about to touch her, outstretching his hands to her, Dike shouted ‘Don’t touch her! Don’t touch her!!’ but it was too late because immediately he touched her, she pulled him into the river.

Two of the warriors on his raft jumped immediately to save him, as more wanted to jump, Dike shouted, ‘don’t jump into the river! Don’t jump!’

That was how they lost three more warriors. The one who stretched his hands to pull the mermaids into the river and the two who jumped into the river to save him were all gone, pulled down to the bottom of the river never to be seen again.

The journey hasn’t begun; they’ve lost 7 valiant warriors already.

While they were still crossing the river, they noticed the cry of a baby, it seems as though this baby was abandoned by her parents and left to float freely on the river on a small raft.

Dike was so touched by the cries of the baby and was trying to pull her into his bigger raft when another hand caught his hand from the river to pull him in, with his spear; he speared the mermaid that was trying to pull him into the river and he killed the mermaids instantly, this made other mermaids jump out of the river to fight. You could see the down part of them hidden below the waters, from the belly downward has scales, fines and shaped like that of a fish.

These mermaids have human bodies and the tails of fish. The mermaids were jumping over the rafts of these warriors as they stood their ground but sadly, two more warriors fell into the river and were gone.

And about 10 Mermaids were killed.

They continued paddling their rafts in watchfulness; they had no time to mourn the loss of the fallen warriors. the baby they saw on the raft was suddenly gone also, perhaps it’s a baby mermaid set as a trap to lure the warriors into making contact with the mermaids first.

Dike Stood up from his Raft and addressed the rest of the warriors

‘The mermaids do not attack humans unless humans first make contact with them, so they lure humans into making contacts then they strike. We’ve seen this from the two attacks we received from them, the lured us into making contacts using various means. So we need to be careful not to make any contact with them despite how they try to lure us.

Stay alert and don’t touch anything out of curiosity, don’t save anyone out of pity, and don’t converse with any beautiful lady, they all have one intention, to pull us down to the river, forever separating us from our fellow humans.

If you want to return to your wives and children, you must be vigilant.

The next land we are entering is even more sinister and greater vigilance is needed; it’s called the Land of Silence. No matter what you see, don’t talk and don’t scream. Use your hands to gesture whatsoever you may want to say but do not break the silence. As long as you stay quiet, nothing we see no matter how evil-looking will attack or kill us ’.

Dike after addressing the rest of the warriors from his raft, looked at Obiokwu and wondered why he hasn’t died, in his heart he thought, he would be the first warrior for fall but now he has outlasted 7 braver and stronger warriors.

Obiukwu could feel the doubt from Dike the chief warrior but that made him only wanting to prove himself more.