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    Abatwa
    Abatwa
    Abatwa
    Ebook102 pages1 hour

    Abatwa

    By Charles G. Dyer

    ()

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    About this ebook

    In days gone by, before man left footprints in the sands of Africa, there were tiny people called the Abatwa who lived with ants.

    It is a hard life filled with dangers and difficulties. There are enemies both above and below ground. For all we know, they may still share their lives with ants.

    Tola and his wife Noti are part of an expedition to another nest to exchange a party of marriageable youngsters. They are riding escort on soldier ants. On a journey filled with all sorts of hazards and death, Tola entertains the youths with folk tales...

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCharles G. Dyer
    Release dateSep 21, 2014
    ISBN9781311847461
    Abatwa
    Author

    Charles G. Dyer

    Charles Dyer is a consulting engineer, former senior lecturer and former technical magazine editor. He creates 3D models to help with visualisation and realism in his writing.

    Read more from Charles G. Dyer

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      Book preview

      Abatwa - Charles G. Dyer

      ABATWA

      A Little African Mythology

      Charles G. Dyer

      Copyright © 2013 Charles G Dyer

      All rights reserved.

      ISBN-13: 9781311847461

      Smashwords Edition

      License

      Thank you for purchasing this book. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters and incidents are products of the author's imagination. It remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to purchase their own copy at Smashwords.com, where they can also discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

      It would be greatly appreciated if you could post a review on the site where you purchased this book.

      CONTENTS

      Chapter_One

      Chapter_Two

      Chapter_Three

      Chapter_Four

      Chapter_Five

      Chapter_Six

      Chapter_Seven

      Chapter_Eight

      Notes

      Glossary

      About_The_Author

      CHAPTER ONE

      The tunnel guard leaned on his lance and tapped his bare brown foot in time to the stirring sounds of a tungkum and a gama. It had been some time since he had last heard singing. The gama drummer had stopped when the song ended but the tungkum player kept up a rhythmic beating through the scales of the instrument for a while longer and then all was quiet for a moment.

      He strained to hear the faint murmur of voices that drifted up the tunnel from the communal chamber. Most of the words were drowned out by the rustling sounds of ants scurrying past. Every so often, one of the workers would stop to chat. The guard used his arms to stroke and to gently tap their antennae. This was how he talked to them when they approached him. The ants could not understand his language but the Abatwa were taught from childhood how to speak to them.

      The tunnel was dark and cool but his eyes had adapted to the lack of light and the temperature was pleasant. Indeed it was fairly constant at this depth, being insulated from the heat of the days and the cold of the nights. The ants had formed the tunnels, chambers and passageways long before the Abatwa had joined them. Grain by grain, thousands of the tiny insects had laboured to excavate a secure underground home for their queen and future generations of their kind.

      Once as an exercise, the sentry had tried to work out just how much soil had been moved. He had started by counting the grains in measured a section of tunnel wall and given up. The mathematics was too complicated and the numbers were too great to bother with; he simply accepted that the tunnels were a marvel of nature.

      Absentmindedly, the guard took a sip of water from the hollowed out horn of a scarab beetle that was slung over his shoulder. The communicative odours that the ants made still remained somewhat of a mystery to him, although he could discern the smells with his sensitive nose. He wondered if he would ever be able to work out what all of the scents meant. One that he could recognise was the distinctive smell of fear or alarm that the ants emitted when the nest was endangered. Other telltale smells that he was able to interpret included the specific odour of all the ants in the nest, the pheromone trail that they laid to lead to food and the smells of anger and friendship.

      Apparently it was raining outside. That was good news as the Abatwa clan's water supply had dwindled somewhat in the past few weeks. For the last week they had been on short rations, for drinking purposes only. While the ants were happy to share food, they were miserly with their water, which was hard won and could only be carried in small quantities. Nobody had been allowed to waste water on simple washing. Given a small jarful each day, he doubted that anyone would be stupid enough to do anything but drink it.

      His companion broke into his reverie by nudging him with a gentle punch to the shoulder. What did the ant say Tola?

      Oh sorry Gula, I forgot that you don't speak ant. She said that it's raining outside. He touched his brown fingers to his temple and bowed in reverence to the Abatwa god, Tsui Goab. Thank Tsui for that. I hate it when I can't bathe myself. Tola replied, lifting his elbow to sniff under his armpit and wrinkle his nose.

      Hmm, I could do with a wash too. We must all smell like food to the ants by now. Gula laughed.

      We better remember to tell the chief about the rain when we go off duty. Tola frowned.

      Gula thought about it for a while before commenting. Yes, then he can double the surface expedition and they can take extra containers.

      Tola nodded and inwardly was surprised that Gula had managed to make such a reasonable statement.

      It had been some time since Tola had been on a surface expedition. Somehow he had been given tunnel sentry duty in the nest almost continuously for many cycles of the moon. He resolved to speak to the chief about that and the fact that he was so often thrust into the boring company of Gula. A long time ago, Tola had given up trying to teach Gula how to speak to the ants. Younger than Tola by several years, Gula either had a mental block or he was just plain stupid. After spending so much time with the man, Tola was inclined to think that the latter description was the more fitting of the two.

      Tola looked back down the egg-shaped tall tunnel towards the Abatwa communal chamber. All was quiet now. The other members of the clan must have packed it in and gone to bed. That meant that his shift was half done. He turned back to stare at the murky gloom of the smaller rounder tunnels that the ants used and the constant stream of busy female workers.

      He stopped a worker ant and by tapping on her mandible, he asked if he could have the grass seed she was carrying. She obligingly surrendered the food and turned around to fetch some more. Tola peeled the skin off and broke the seed in half and passed a piece to Gula. Here's something to chew on.

      Thanks. Gula said and started gnawing at the meal.

      Besides cadging food from the ants a few more times, the watch was as dull as it had been for the past ten days. Tola ran a brown hand through his short curly black hair and mused that an uneventful watch was something to be thankful for. He shuddered at the memory of the last time he had earned his keep.

      Half a moon cycle earlier, a blind snake had burst through the tunnel wall behind him, intent on stealing ant larvae. He and another guard had struggled with the snake for a long time before they killed it. The monstrous creature's body was twice as thick as his and almost ten times as long. By driving his lance through its dark scaly body, he had prevented the snake from making a quick getaway. However, in doing so he had endangered himself and his companion. The snake had lashed out, determined to avenge itself and hopefully get a meal into the bargain.

      While the other guard had repeatedly speared the snake, Tola had stabbed at it with his bone sword. The snake bit on his right shoulder and forced him to his knees. He managed to grab his sword with his left hand. Luckily the blind snake has no teeth in its bottom jaw but the large fangs at the top were enough to kill him. While the snake held him in its teeth he had managed to deliver the killing blow by shoving his sword into its head.

      If he had not been wearing armour, he most certainly would have been seriously injured. As it turned out, he came away from the encounter with several bruises and a few deep wounds in his shoulder, where the snake's teeth had penetrated his beetle carapace armour.

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