Odwar vs. the Shadow Queen E-Book

Shiko Nguru

• Herausgeber: Lantana Publishing
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Serie: The Intasimi Warriors
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 200

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

After their spectacular showdown against the Red Oloibon, Odwar and his friends are hoping for a bit of a breather. But Odwar has to find his Entasim – the powerful heirloom inherited from his warrior ancestor – and he has to find it now. The Shadow Queen, raging with anger at having been trapped in the shadow world for so long, has a new target in her sights. Can Odwar and his friends stop her from feeding on humanity's darkest emotions and breaking into the light? An action-packed story of bravery and determination in which physical strength fails but strength of heart conquers all.

Leseprobe

First published in the United Kingdom in 2023 by Lantana Publishing Ltd.

Clavier House, 21 Fifth Road, Newbury RG14 6DN, UK

www.lantanapublishing.com | [email protected]

Text © Shiko Nguru, 2023

Artwork & Design © Lantana Publishing, 2023

Cover and internal illustrations by Melissa McIndoe.

The moral rights of the author and artist have been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-915244-40-6

PDF ISBN: 978-1-915244-41-3

ePub3 ISBN: 978-1-915244-42-0

Printed and bound in China using plant-based inks on sustainably sourced paper.

For my children,

Ella, Lamu and Tawi

You give me the strength to keep going.

Prologue

The air was stale, thin, cold.

Odwar felt like he was stuck in a pitch-black freezer that reeked of mouldy bread and spoilt milk. His nose burned with every short, sharp breath.

Something stirred up ahead. Twin pairs of glowing eyes flashed at him as they zoomed by, faster than a speeding car on a deserted road.

Odwar squinted into the darkness, his skin prickling at the thought of the creatures out there. As much as he tried to make out their shapes and track their movements, he couldn’t. They were formless wraiths. Wisps of shadows against a backdrop of blackness.

Hellish moans and scratchy whispers called out from every side.

He blinked.

Skreeek.

It sounded like a metal rake dragging across a chalkboard. He rubbed his eyes to gain a better view and—

Skreeek!

It was louder now. All around him. Moving in closer every time he closed his eyes.

He blinked again.

SKREEEK!

Odwar spun around feverishly, terror mounting in his chest. Whatever was once out there, was now here. With him.

He couldn’t dare blink. One more and who knew what would happen. That thing was already on top of him. Although he couldn’t see it, he could feel its puffs of rank, icy breath blowing over his head.

He fought to keep his eyelids open. His eyes stung and watered, but he held on, struggling against the itchy, burning sensation for as long as he could. Until…

Blink.

The Bull vs. the Housekeeper

Odwar fought to hold back the yawn ballooning in his chest. He clenched his jaw, sealed his lips shut, and tried to force his body to stop drawing in air. But his lungs continued to fill up. Loudly. His nostrils flared and hissed like two mini hoovers, trying to suck up all the air in the room.

Hoping to muffle the sound, he raised a balled fist to his mouth and pressed it up against his nose. But that didn’t work. In fact, it made things even worse. With his airways partly blocked, the hiss turned into a loud, high-pitched, nasally whistle.

He quickly dropped his hand and ping-ponged his eyes nervously between the two other people seated at the dining table that morning. With Mum being away for work, it was just three of them at breakfast: his dad, seated at the head of the table, with his brother Gor next to him on the right, and then Odwar, several empty seats away from them both.

Two sets of eyebrows — one raised in surprise, the other wrinkled in disapproval — met his darting eyes. And in that moment, it struck Odwar how identical the faces at that table actually were, including his own.

How they could look so similar and yet be so different baffled him. Like his dad and Gor, he had smooth, dark skin and a chiselled face, and he wore his hair in a neat fade. Like them, he had an athletic build and stood almost a foot taller than his mates. The three also shared the same magnetic personality, the kind that made them wildly popular in school, or in the case of their father, popular in the Kenyan government.

Yup, they were alike in many ways, but now, all that seemed to matter was the one thing that made Odwar different from the two of them: his newly acquired gift.

This gift had created an invisible wall, separating him from the men in his family. A wall that seemed to grow wider and taller with each passing moment. It made every situation tense, awkward, painful.

And so, in the room filled with dark elegant woods, surrounded by richly-coloured drapery and with a dazzling chandelier overhead, the only sounds to be heard were the clinking of metal against porcelain as the three ate in rigid silence.

Then came The Yawn.

One shrill, oxygen-sapping breath in.

One long, ear-popping breath out.

Odwar froze.

Maybe it wasn’t that loud. Maybe Dad hadn’t heard. Maybe he’d be grateful the air had come out of one end and not the other.

“Do you know what yawns are?” Dad’s voice boomed across the table.

Maybe not.

Odwar winced as he sank deep into the cushioned dining chair, wishing the plush velvet would swallow him whole. He knew what was coming next: one of Dad’s lectures.

“I asked you a question,” Dad rumbled, impatience etched into his voice.

Odwar swallowed hard on a spoonful of millet porridge.

“Y-yes, sir. Yawns are a sign of laziness,” he answered. Gluing his eyes to the porridge in front of him, Odwar sighed inwardly. He’d heard his father give this particular speech more than a few times in his twelve years of life.

“Correct. They’re a sign of laziness. Laziness of the mind or of the body. Which one of those are you suffering from, son?”

Dad smoothed the corners of his raven-black moustache, then planted his palms on the table and leaned forward. He turned his head to one side and pointed at his right ear, a gesture that always prompted quick replies from those it was directed at.

Odwar scrambled to think of an answer that would put an end to the scolding, or at least not make things any worse. But nothing came. Even though he had been in this situation more times than he could remember, his mind was completely blank. His friend Maina called moments of utter confusion like these brain farts, always seeming to get them when teachers called on him in class. This was Odwar’s biggest brain fart of all time.

Desperate, he sent a pleading look in his brother’s direction, but Gor kept his eyes fixed on the table. No surprises there. Nothing had been the same between them since Odwar had acquired the one thing Gor had wanted all his life — a superpower.

Only one of them could get it. Only one child in a generation could inherit the superpowers of their legendary ancestor, Lwanda Magere. Everyone thought it would be Gor. Even the name given to him at birth was special: Gor, named after Gor Mahia, the most powerful magician to ever live amongst the Luo people. It was the perfect name for the boy who everyone thought would be the superhero of the family.

Except, he wasn’t. It was Odwar who was gifted with supernatural powers. Odwar: the younger, smaller, far-from-perfect brother.

Everything had changed once it was clear that he was the chosen one, and Gor wasn’t.

There was a time when Gor, who was eighteen years old and looked like Odwar’s taller twin, would have jumped to his rescue at that table. He would have come up with some way to distract Dad and ease the tension. Afterwards, when they were alone, Odwar would have thanked him, and his brother would have slapped him on the back and told him that that was what brothers were for.

But that was then. Now? Now, Gor didn’t even spare him a look.

“I asked you a question,” Dad said, raising his voice. “Is it your mind that’s lazy or your body?”

Odwar dared to look up at him. “Neither, sir. Sorry, it won’t happen again.”

Father and son held eye contact for one more painful second, before the former blew out an exasperated sigh and returned to reading the newspaper in his hands.

Odwar slouched back into his seat and brooded as he gulped down almost-cold porridge. Dad was always picking on him, like it was his fault that fate had chosen him instead of Gor. His fault that he was the gifted one. His fault that his superpower had manifested at the same time as three other kids’, something that had never happened before.

Dad had been harder on him ever since he and his friends had discovered just how special they were. All four of them were Intasimi, a word meaning magical charm. They were the chosen ones, the ones who would carry on the magical legacies of their legendary ancestors. What was more, Odwar and his friends weren’t just a bunch of kids with powers. They weren’t just Intasimi descendants. They were Intasimi Warriors, a group of kids with magical strengths who were all exactly the same age. Together, they were destined to use their powers to protect the world from evil.

None of it was his fault, and yet it seemed like Dad punished him for it every day.

He was still stewing in the unfairness of it all when the housekeeper shuffled through the large French doors that led into the dining room. She was a petite woman with tight cornrows in her hair and wore a standard black housekeeping dress with a starchy white apron tied at the waist. In her hands, she held a silver platter with Dad’s porridge bowl on it. His breakfast was always the last to be served, straight from the cooker and lava-hot, just the way he liked it.

It must have been this housekeeper’s first day of work because Odwar had never seen her before. And judging from the way her hands trembled as she gripped the dish, she had already heard about Dad’s quick temper.

The other house staff called dad “The Bull”. And although nobody would dare call him that to his face, Odwar found the nickname to be remarkably accurate. Just like a bull, Dad raged when he was mad, mauling everyone in sight with the brutality of his words.

Beads of sweat dribbled down the housekeeper’s forehead, sliding past her lips which she licked nervously. Her approach towards the table was painfully slow while still managing to be devastatingly wobbly, like the worst possible contestant in an egg and spoon race.

Odwar noticed that the bowl she carried was far too full of porridge. She, far too nervous. There was absolutely no way she was going to stick the landing without a disastrous spill.

He watched as his father folded away his newspaper and then rapped his fingertips impatiently against the table, eyes flicking from the housekeeper’s pinched face to the tray she held out in front of her.

And then it happened. She took one final, jerky step, hesitated for a brief moment and then, seeming to make the decision to get it over with as quickly as possible, lurched forward and slammed the tray onto the table.

The result was, as Odwar had predicted, a complete catastrophe. The silver dish clattered onto the table, causing the bowl atop to bounce and spin on its base. With each whirl, heavy dollops of porridge splashed into the air and landed on every surface, including all over Dad’s shiny suit. After what felt like hours, the clamorous spinning mercifully came to an end, leaving behind stunned, pin-drop silence in the room. It was so quiet that when a glob of porridge dripped from Dad’s nose and landed on the table with a splat, it sounded like someone had just been slapped on the cheek with a fish.

The wide-eyed confusion on Dad’s face was priceless and Odwar had to purse his lips as a bubble of laughter floated up his throat. He would have burst into a fit of uncontrollable giggles if, just then, the housekeeper hadn’t let out a terrified whimper and slapped a trembling hand over her mouth. Her eyes were frozen open and she was shaking like a tattered flag in a storm.

Odwar’s amusement was quickly snuffed out. He knew he had to act. Dad’s face was already twisting, making him look so much like a raging bull that horns were likely to sprout from his head at any moment. His chest was heaving and his porridge-smeared nose flared as he glowered at the petrified woman.

No matter what consequences might befall him, Odwar knew that he had to do something, anything, to protect this housekeeper from The Bull.

“I know where my Entasim is,” he blurted out.

Dad’s head snapped towards him.

That’s right, Odwar thought, focus on me. He felt like a matador, waving a giant red cape in front of a bull. The giant red cape in this case, of course, was his Entasim — a magical object that intensified superpowers. Every Intasimi bloodline had one, and every Intasimi descendant longed to get their hands on it. The only problem was that most of these special heirlooms had been lost, stolen or destroyed over the centuries.

An Entasim was a hard thing to find, and Odwar had just lied to his father that he had all but found his.

Knowing full well that it was a dangerous thing to do, he went a step further, doubling down on the fib when he saw the housekeeper slowly start to slop up the mess she had made.

“Yeah, I figured it out,” he declared, the words — no, the lies — rushing out of him like air out of a whoopee cushion.

 “My Entasim is hidden near Kisumu town, buried inside the Kit-Mikayi rocks.”

Odwar’s only comfort was that this wasn’t a complete lie. More like…a very good guess. Something that could very well be true, only he didn’t have the proof that it was. Yet. Although he and his friends had already agreed to go on an adventure to look for his Entasim, that was not to be for several more weeks.

“Mr Lemayian thinks me and the others should go and check it out,” he continued.

Now, that was a total lie. In fact, Mr Lemayian — the Intasimi Warriors’ mentor and recently appointed school headmaster — had specifically told Odwar and his friends not to go out looking for any Entasim. It was too dangerous. He had warned that people who had an Entasim in their possession would do anything not to lose it, including hurting those that tried to take the prized objects away.

Odwar felt a little less guilty about the lie when the housekeeper flashed him a grateful smile before scurrying backwards out of the dining room.

“Interesting,” Dad said, using a napkin to dab at the brownish-white stains on his face and suit. “Do you have any idea what it is?”

Odwar relaxed a little. The conversation was steering closer to things he could actually be truthful about. “I’m thinking that it could be a spear or…or maybe a shield?”

Both he and his father knew that the Entasim could be anything. No Intasimi descendant knew what form their family’s magical heirloom would take. Only a few weeks ago, Mwikali — one of the other kid warriors — had found her Entasim, which had turned out to be a twisted horn. It had upped her intuitive abilities, giving her crazy spidey-senses in addition to her already cool power of being able to see into the future and the past. Odwar could only hope that his Entasim gave him such an amazing power boost.

“And what’s your strategy? How do you intend to secure the Entasim?” Dad prodded.

Strategy? Odwar squirmed in his seat. All he had was a hunch about where the Entasim could be and a very vague idea as to how to get it.

Another brain fart. He bought time before answering by taking five consecutive gulps of porridge. “Well…first we need to plan a trip to Kisumu, of course. Then…once we get there…we…will…”

Dad silenced him with a sharp look and an even sharper click of the tongue. “You have no strategy. No plan at all. And what happens when you fail to plan?”

“You plan to fail,” Odwar replied, tiredly. Did parents know how mind-numbingly boring their catchphrases were?

“And I don’t tolerate failure. Come up with a plan, because you and the other Intasimi Warriors are heading to Kit-Mikayi this week, during your half term break.”

Odwar’s heart hammered in his chest. This had gone further than he had intended it to. He had no idea if his Entasim was actually at Kit-Mikayi.

“I don’t know, Dad. I mean, it’s a long trip to Kisumu… The others need time to ask for permission, and besides, they might already have plans for the break—”

“Nonsense. I’ll clear it with the parents. You and your friends will leave for Kisumu the day after school closes — first thing Thursday morning. You’ll head straight to Kit-Mikayi to retrieve the Entasim. I’ll be in Kisumu as well so I’ll meet you afterwards.”

Dad pushed up from the dining table and strode towards the double doors, pausing briefly before throwing them open. “And Odwar? You better have your Entasim by the time I see you.”

Half Term Monday vs. Mummy Monday

Odwar’s feet begged him to stop pacing. They ached terribly from all the walking he had done through the night. Still, he continued the steady plod, dragging himself from the bedroom door to the football-adorned accent wall, over to the multi-screen gaming setup near the window, on to the adjacent bed and then back to the door. He’d completed the circuit so many times that he’d created a distinct beaten path along the carpet, all but wearing it out in the places his feet had trudged through.

While tiresome, the endless pacing had done two important things: given him a chance to come up with some sort of plan to get his Entasim and, more importantly, kept him awake. Away from the recurring nightmare that haunted his sleep.

He paused to rub the sleeves of his school blazer, wincing at the pain that seared up his arms where the scratchy fabric brushed his bruised skin.

That was no ordinary dream, he realised with a shudder. Ordinary dreams didn’t leave you with a rotten smell in your nose and a foul taste on your tongue. They didn’t leave you gasping for air. Ordinary dreams didn’t leave you with scars.

When the first rays of light had finally peeked in that morning, he had welcomed them, feeling grateful for once that his parents insisted on 6am family breakfasts. He longed for some company — even his father’s. Because anything was better than the terror of being left alone in the aftermath of his nightmares.

Odwar pushed past his fears and tried to focus on another problem: finding his Entasim. The plan had always been for him and his friends to go up to Kit-Mikayi one day and look for it. But first, they would do enough research to be sure that it was actually there.

Now, thanks to Dad, the trip had been bumped up to just a couple of days away, leaving them with no time to dig for information. They just had to go and hope his Entasim was buried where they suspected it might be.

The thought of what would happen to him if he failed in this mission made Odwar’s stomach knot. His father would know that he had lied, and whatever punishment he received was sure to be awful. Maybe Dad would even follow through on his threats and send him to a school in a whole other city.

No, he had to succeed. And he would stick to a simple plan to do it — the only plan he had.

Odwar pulled back the curtains, allowing the yellow morning light to pour into the room. The warmth and brightness of it, even just the knowledge of what light meant — especially to him — calmed his nerves.

He was aware of its presence even before he looked, and when he finally dropped his eyes to the floor, he smiled. His shadow had already begun to move on its own, stretching and growing as he watched it, becoming longer, then wider, and finally lifting off the ground entirely. Right there in front of him, it transformed itself into a swirling cloud of black mist.

His shadow. That was his magical power. A supernatural strength inherited from his ancestor, Lwanda Magere.

And although Odwar’s magical shadow had only appeared months ago when his gift had emerged, it already felt like a part of him that he couldn’t live without. As long as there was light, it was with him. And when he needed protection, it blew where he needed it to go, blinding anyone unlucky enough to be trapped inside its opaque fog.

He smiled as the shadow encircled him, feeling braver than he had only minutes before. Just as it was with his warrior ancestor, Odwar’s shadow was his strength.

Unfortunately, his joy at seeing it was cut short by a throbbing in his arms, a painful reminder of last night’s dream. He still hadn’t told anyone that he’d been having frequent nightmares. Nightmares that kept getting more vicious and…real.

Besides the fear of Dad sending him away to school somewhere beyond Timbuktu, the nightmares were the other reason he was desperate to find his Entasim. He hoped that the magical object — whatever it turned out to be — would make him stronger, braver, less afraid of the terror he faced at night. Maybe it would even get rid of the nightmares altogether.

Perhaps it wasn’t so bad that the trip to Kit-Mikayi had been forced upon them so soon; not only had the nightmares been getting steadily worse, now they had crossed the line from spooky to downright terrifying. Now he was sure that they were more than just bad dreams. And he had proof.

With dread lining his stomach, he rubbed his sweaty hands against his school trousers before slowly sliding his blue blazer sleeves up to the elbows. The moment his forearms came into view, his shadow began to thrash around wildly. It was scared. And so was he.

He sucked in a breath as he took in the deep, angry scratches that raked across his skin from elbows to wrists. Scratches that weren’t there when he went to sleep the night before.

Odwar jumped when a knock sounded at the door, and hurriedly covered up his arms. He knew who it was just by the softness of the sound — it was Mum, freshly returned from her trip and coming to check on him before school, like she always did. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror that hung on the door right before it swung open, quickly noting that his tie — coloured in the vibrant shade of Savanna Academy red — was slightly askew against his white button up.

Mum poked her head in just as he wiggled his tie into place.

“Odwar? Oh good, you’re all dressed,” she said approvingly. Her warm smile brightened up the room even more than the sunlight had. Mum was good at that. She could light up the world just as fast as Dad could darken it.

His parents were living proof that opposites attract. Mum was a tiny woman with bronze skin, thick, brown hair and a gentle nature. If Dad was a bull then Mum was a dove, and the only thing they had in common was their belief that the sky was the limit to their dreams. Whereas Dad funnelled all his energy into politics, Mum put hers towards the non-profit organisation she had founded.