Urenma (The River Goddess) - Episode 6

 

The atmosphere was tense; the crowd was terrified for Obinze. Some females admires covered their faces, they didn’t want to see Obinze beaten black and blue. Uzokwe a man of much anger was the first to attack Obinze. When Uzokwe menacingly drew closer, Obinze applied the Ife oko technique and slammed Uzokwe’s back on the ground. Like a cat Uzokwe bounced back to his feet and aimed for Obinze’s legs, swiftly he grabbed Obinze’s left leg . Obinze didn’t expect him to recover that quickly and so was caught unawares. When Ikemefuna saw that Uzokwe had gained an advantage over Obinze he ran to sweep off Obinze’s only leg on the ground. But alas, Ikemefuna could not move Obinze’s right leg. Obinze had it dug deep into the ground as he tried to maneover Uzokwe.

To wriggle out of his fix, Obinze did the unthinkable; he grabbed Ikemefuna, the reigning champion, by his waist and took him high into the air, while he resisted Uzokwe with only one foot he had on the ground. He swung Ikemefuna around and slammed him on Uzokwe’s back; even a deaf man would have heard the sound of snapping bones. The crowd shouted rapturously at the unbelievable slunt which Obinze pulled off. Both Uzokwe and Ikemefuna wailed in excruciating pain

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. Ikemefuna tried to spring to his feet but collapsed. Ezenwa, a very proud man then entered the fight. He had purposely allowed Ikemefuna and Uzokwe to wrestle against Obinze because he could not want to share the glory of defeating Obinze with them. Seeing Obinze had disarmed them, he saw it as his opportunity to take out Obinze and claim the glory to himself. But he was wrong, Obinze was not his ilk. No charm or voodoo could stop him, and not while Urenma watched the fight. Obinze threw himself at the oncoming Ezenwa and knocked him to the ground by crashing his forehead into his chest. He looked behind to make sure Uzokwe and Ikemefuna were still on the ground and then sat on Ezenwa and began to land his trademark punches on his face. Some elders had to run into the wrestling ground to get Obinze off Ezenwa because they feared he was going to kill him. Obinze turned and saw Ikemefuna hobbling on one foot; he ran to meet him and swept him off his foot. Ikemefuna was his prime target as the reigning champion. His intention was to humiliate him before all present.

While Ikemefun lay on the ground, Obinze began to slap his face rapidly with both hands. By now the crowd was beside itself with excitement, they were certain they had all seen what was, until that day, thought impossible. When he felt he had given Ikemefuna enough dosage of slaps he stood him to his feet and asked him to fight, lamely Ikemefuna attacked him; Obinze gave him no chance and knocked him down again seeing none of Uzokwe or Ezenwa was getting up, he sat comfortably on Ikemefuna and gave him a taste of his punches. Just four punches to his face, he heard Ikemefuna’s neck snap. Ikemefuna began to vomit blood and went into spasm. The crowd and the elders present were in shock, Ikemefuna was dying and they didn’t know what to do. Urenma ran into the wrestling ground and touched Ikemefuna. No one knew what she did when she touched Ikemefuna, as soon as her hand touched him, he stopped jerking and vomiting blood. Had Urenma not used her power to heal him, he would have died that day on the wrestling ground. Obinze was not one to boast; he went to each of his three opponents and congratuled them before they were bore on Nkpoko to the local orthopedist. Back at the wrestling ground Obinze asked for more fight, instead of accepting his challenge, the other wrestlers came and knelt at his feets. According to custom he poured sand on their backs as they lay on the ground and walked on their backs. That day Obinze ended that year’s wrestling festival prematurely. He had beaten the best wrestlers in the land and those left to fight him would not accept his challenge. His kinsmen bore him on their shoulders to his father’s house and so from that day the legend of Obinze began.

The next day, in farms, in the streets and at the river, men, women and children sang, “Obinze has defeated the mighty, walked on the back of the weak and fearful and has shown why the finest woman in Ukeh chose him to be her lover”. While every one praised Obinze as a hero and sang his name, every night Urenma cried herself to sleep. Her deep pain in her heart had made her stop her nightly visit to the river world. Her heart had become nit with Obinze’s heart; they were every day growing in love and everyone was expecting them to announce their wedding. It no doubt, would bring the high and mighty to Ukeh, but the problem was Urenma was running out of time.

The season that allowed her to dwell amongst men was coming to an end, and also she was forbidden to marry any mortal by the gods, and there was no way she was going to tell Obinze that she won’t marry him; Obinze would simply commit suicide. She had not yet revealed to Obinze that she was a child of the gods and a princess at that. To Obinze he had found his wife, in the night as he lay on his mat, he would thank the gods who gave a poor, orphan and rejected boy like him a woman like Urenma. Though there was a few riddles he could not slove about her, like how she was able to inspire him to do impossible things. Though the people saw him as a hero and a fearless man, he knew it was all down to Urenma. He could not fathom how he was able to do things he did at the village square during the wrestling festival. He was certain there was something about Urenma that set her apart from other humans, but he could not get his hands on it. He hoped that when they must have married each other, she would explain her mysterious nature to him.

As the year wore on and the hunting competition came, everyone knew without doubt who would come out tops. The hunting festival was a three day hunting expedition, with bows, arrows, traps and machetes, the hunters would go into the forest to hunt the biggest games. At this time the white man’s gun had not been brought down to Africa. After three days, all the hunters would come out of the forest with their kills and display them at the village square. The expedition was quite a risky one; sometimes hunters would be gored or eaten alive by beasts in the forests. To forstall such happenstance, hunters would wear amulets into the forests. Before Obinze went into the forest to hunt he went to see Urenma, who for reasons he could not make out, had become very with drawn and sullen. Urenma told him which part of the forest to hunt in and assured him the gods could watch over him and that she would also be watching over him. When Obinze stood to leave she began to cry bitterly, no one had seen her cry like that before. Even her parents came out to console her, but she would not stop crying nor would she tell anyone the reason for her cry. To make her stop crying, Obinze decided not to take part in the hunting festival. However later in the night, Urenma persuaded him to enter the forest; she wanted him to be the best in all things. Already she had helped him acquire cows, goats, sheep and chicken and had commanded his lands to yield large produce to him. In all things Obinze was prospering and all could see it. When Obinze saw that she was determined to have him go hunt, he took off hunting implements and entered the forest. Before he left, she kissed him so passionately and for long that Obinze wondered if she was going to let him go eventually.

When Obinze arrived at the forest he went to the part Urenma had told him to hunt. However unknown to Obinze, a few men had conspired to kill him in the forest so to stop him from claiming the best hunter trophy. For three days they watched him killing huge game after another. He killed Antelopes, Boars and two Lions and for a show threw in a corcodile into the mix.

In the evening he would cut the animals open, make fire and roast them to keep them from getting rotten. His plan was to raise very early on the fourth day and go into the village to get some young men who would help him carry his kills to the village square. That morning he applied salt on the animals he had roasted whole and covered them with leaves and left for the village.

Read " Deba Ezodo (The Tale Of An African Princess) " by the same author ( Ifeoma Isabella Okeke )

. On his way six hunters whom he knew very well attacked him with razor sharp machetes. He was not expecting no resistance, his heart was filled with joy, he knew no one would come close to matching the size of the games he had killed; they were too large to be true. From behind him he was attacked, he had heard nothing or seen anything suspicious, all he felt was pain as machetes cut into his back. He turned to face them and could only lump off two heads before blows from the machetes of the other four hunters sent him to the ground. They must have stabbed him a hundred times to make sure he was dead. They took his body and left it where animals would see it to feed on it and went to share his kills amongst themselves.

While they cast lot to know who would take each of Obinze kills, Urenma came like a crowd of light and overshadowed Obinze. Life returned to his body and he stood to his feet healed. He took his machete and ran to meet with his killers. They were happily laughing when they heard footsteps coming behind and turned to see who it was.

There he was, looking like he had not tasted death before. They were terrified; Obinze moved swiftly giving them no chance, one after another he lumped off their heads. When he was done he cast their bodies into a swamp and went into the village to get people to help him carry his kills to the village square.