Osa and the Orangemen
Copyright© 2025 by Osa Oladapo
Chapter 23: The Magic War, Part 10: The Fall of Pride, Pt1
Having swum under the wall, Quivina and her archers take the ramparts of the city wall and provide cover and support to Vulkarias and his men. Vulkarias leads the group taking the main gate, while 2 smaller groups split off to take the two smaller gates.
Outside, the other groups are also getting into place. Amy, with her tree, the beast man, and 200 troops, arrives at the locale and waits for it to open. At the same time, Osa and 200 troops arrive at the merchants’, while John and 600 soldiers are in front of the main gate. Finally, Adunbi and his men are being carried in by Ekina in her dragon form, landing on the highest part of the palace.
After dropping off her brother and his warriors, Ekina returns to her normal form. As she and Adunbi are speaking about how to enter, two people step out from a door on one of the towers: a very large, almost naked northern man with thick brown body hair and a small, attractive eastern woman in a red and gold silk robe and black hair so long that it nearly touches the floor. She speaks with a heavy accent, “Welcome, but your journey ends here. Turn back now or suffer your fate.”
The large man then transforms into an even larger bear and begins charging across the roof, while the small woman starts waving her hands in front of her, and hypnotic lights start to flicker and flow out in front of Adunbi and his men, captivating them.
Ekina pulls out the pack of sleep pollen that Amy gave her and summons a magic breath to carry it across to the eastern woman who has charmed her brother and his warriors. The eastern woman collapses into sleep, just as the bear plows into Adunbi and five of his men, tossing them up into the air and off the top of the palace roof. The rest of the warriors on the roof perform a warriors’’ dance to draw the attention of the bear to themselves and form a defensive line.
From behind, the man-bear Ekina transforms into an elephant and gores him with her tusks, then she flips him up into the air. When he lands, he reverts back to his human form, and the warriors run up and stab him with their spears until they kill him.
Ekina returns to her natural form and looks over the edge to check on her brother and the men that were tossed over the edge. She sees them in the palace courtyard fourteen meters below her. Adunbi and two of his men are moving slowly to stand up, protected from the worst injuries by their stone skin amulets; the other three are either dead or unconscious, but they are also being surrounded by dozens of palace soldiers. Ekina turns around and gives orders to bind and gag the eastern sorceress and then throw her down the stairs.
At the local gate, Amy and her forces are waiting; then the gate opens up, a single person steps through, and the door shuts. An otherwise ordinary-looking northern man, in a black cloak, raises his hands and says, “Drop your weapons and surrender.”
In unison, Amy and all the soldiers with her dropped their weapons and put their hands on top of their heads. The man then approaches Amy, still sitting in her tree, and says, “Come down and kneel in front of me.”
Amy seems to struggle with the command at first but climbs down and kneels in front of him. The man then pulls out a long dagger and raises it over his head, then a black figure leaps from the tree, tackling the man and disrupting his concentration.
When Amy realizes what is going on, she sees the beast man clawing and ripping at the man who had taken control of her mind and the minds of her men. Quickly the beast man has turned this mind sorcerer into a bloody mess. Amy rallies her men and orders them to move inside. Amy then calms the beast man and gets him inside with her. Passing through the door, she discovers all the sailors who were sent to capture the door had killed themselves, most likely at the command of the mind sorcerer. Amy guesses that since the beast man is so feral, he has some resistance to mind magic.
At the merchants’ gate, the soldiers report to Osa that they hear combat on the other side of the wooden doors. Osa rides to the front of the formation and listens. She hears the clanging of a lot of swords, more than what should have been on the other side. This gate had reinforcements when it should have only had a half dozen guards. Osa steps back and yells to her men to move back. She summons the power of fire and hurls a torrent of flame at the double doors. When she lets up, the doors are blazing, but before they burn through, a cauldron of water is poured over the wall to douse the fire. Surprised, she thinks to herself, ‘How did they know to put extra guards on this gate and to bring a cauldron of water?’
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