WITCHES AND WIZARDS TERRITORY

‘you’ll see them flying on broomsticks, putting on black hoods, with protruded caps, they are very wicked and seeks to harvest our blood if we let them, but we can resist them’ Dike said as they approach to cross the territory of witches.

He then asked everyone to bring out from their bags the portion given to them by the Oracles, ‘don’t waste it, when a witch approaches you, stay composed and make sure it gets close enough then you pour this portion on the witch and it will dematerialize before your eyes, but remember, don’t waste it and don’t use it unless it’s necessary. If you waste yours, you are gone’ he added.

While they were threading quietly through the path, the witches were watching them from their covens. They laughed hysterically that they just have food walk into their lands.

They usually travel to the villages at night to hunt for blood, they turn into birds, or rats and penetrate people’s Huts to suck their blood.

The witches need human blood to survive, they’ll travel a very long distance in search of someone who doesn’t know how to fend them off whom they can suck his/her blood.

They don’t suck the blood of albinos; they avoid their blood like plagues.

One of the witches who took the blood of albino mistakenly fell from the sky while flying like a bird and turned into an old woman and the people gathered to see and shame her, she eventually died because she lost all her powers not before confessing that she was responsible for several deaths and certain curses affect the Afugiri People. She also revealed that a fellow witch has deceived her into licking the blood of an albino because they were fighting for a position in the coven of the witches and she was a more favorable candidate because she has completed her assignment by donating most blood to the coven.

Because the blood of Albinos is very powerful against witchcraft, many hunts for these albinos for their blood. And some of these albinos extract their blood and sell it to those who want it who seek it because of the problem of witchcraft.

As a mother, if one of your children is an albino, your family is safe from witchcraft attacks because witches dread the place where an albino can be found. But this also puts the albino at risk because some who hunt for them for the sake of their blood may get hold of them if they move around carelessly. 

In Afugiri, there is a common practice that prevents witches from entering into anyone’s Hut. They call the seed “Ukpotoro’, they place this seed at every corner of their house and wherever this seed is, witches cannot enter. So everyone has this seed in their house.

They are also particular about the blood of newborn babies; it makes them more powerful this is why newborn babies are carefully watched over in the land of Afugiri to protect them against witches.

Their cream is made up is made from ‘Ukpotoro’ seed so that they can always wear the smell that fends of witches and wizards.

This has made it difficult for the witches to penetrate anyone’s house in search of blood and it left the witches starved as the practice of keeping ‘Ukpotoro’ seed has become common in Afugiri and its neighboring communities.

The portions that the Oracle gave the warriors were also made from the ‘Ukpotoro’ seed and the blood from Albinos. Witches easily dematerialize when they come in contact with this portion. The portion is also used to hunt out witches and wizards living within the community.

If you suspect that anyone is a witch or wizard, all you have to do is pour portions made from ‘Ukpotoro’ seed and the blood of an Albino the person, if the person is a witch or wizard, he/she will manifest and begin to fidget instantly.

While observing these warriors from their mystic mirrors, they waited in excitement for them to walk into the middle of their territory before launching a random attack. They thought the warriors would be easy meat for them like when some hunters mistakenly wandered in their territory years back.

They easily made a meal out of the hunters.

The hunters were aiming their Den-Guns on them as they attacked them, of course, the bullets from these guns couldn’t hit the witches and wizards as the hunters were easily whisked away and made a meal of; they were sucked till they turned white by these witches and wizard who needed just their blood.

 Some of the fat-looking ones were kept alive and fed so that they could be producing blood for the witches and wizards but they died due to malnutrition and diseases that they suffered while in the captivity of these witches and wizards.

When these hunters got missing, their communities organized a search party but they were unsuccessful. The community was a neighbor to Afugiri who mourned the loss of their valiant hunters for 7 days at their ‘Ama’ (village square).

The women would visit the wives of these warriors in turns for 7 days to comfort and help them with their domestic and farm works.

The men would help the widows of these hunters with masculine jobs like cut down their ripe palm fruits, harvest their yams and cassavas, and split their firewood.

You could hear the excitement in each of the witches or wizards as they lick their tongues in hope that they just got another easy meal because of how easy it was for them to hunt the hunters that strayed into their territory and fought them with guns and in addition to their luck, there is no albino amongst the warriors so they felt confident of making an easy meal of these warriors but they were about to be surprised.

Meanwhile, Dike and the rest of the warriors were very watchful as they take each step. They knew that the witches and wizard’s attacks were imminent but hoped the attack won’t happen soon as they tried to be mentally ready for them.

Suddenly, they heard a strange noise as an ugly long-nosed dwarfish wizard charges towards Dike, it was easy, he allowed him to get so close and he used the portion on him and the wizard dematerialized before them.

After few seconds, you could hear strange noises everywhere as other witches were charging towards them, but as they got close, the warriors used the portion on each of them and they dematerialized instantly.

One of the warriors called Chukwuebuka was so traumatized by the look of these witches and wizards because of his childhood experience with a witch that he has kept to himself over the years.

He has once witnessed a wizard turn into a human and it scared him. He never spoke about it to anyone and hence he couldn’t deal with the trauma he had that night he witnessed that. So he was hiding behind other warriors during the charges from these witches and wizards.

One of the witches noticed that he had feared so she targeted him, as the warriors were regrouping after fending off the first attacks from the witches and wizards and defeating most of them, one witch charged towards Chukwuebuka and he was so scared that he brought out his portion and poured away in fear before the witch could even get close thereby wasting it and by the time the witch got close, he had nothing to fight with and the witch took him away on her flying broom.

The rest of the warriors were able to make it through the land of witches and Obiokwu made it alive again.

At this time most of the warriors began to respect him; their view of him began to change gradually as he continued to survive each attack.

He killed more witches and wizards than every other person but Dike. He just followed instructions, stayed calm, and used the portion when the witches or wizards get close enough.

The Warriors have now lost 11 warriors but they’ve not lost their faith in their mission but for one. One of them has begun questioning the risk of the entire mission if it’s worth it.

He has lost all hopes of surviving, he felt like he’ll be the next warrior to die because most of those who looked up to have died but something continued to inspire him, the fortitude of Obiokwu the supposed weaklings amongst them, how he has been calm, focused and dogged.

Now they are about to go through the next strange and more fierce land.