The Hammerhead War

The place had not been easy on anyone. Its people had been hostile towards the pregnant soil, thus the surrounding world had become unbearable for life to grow. It was soaked in blood and rich in vengeance and many had turned their backs to their country with the thought of never setting foot in it again. Old people and young children were left behind. Their lamentation songs could be heard in every village, from sunrise to sunset. Nobody loved the old people. They had formed the beginning of the downfall. Nobody cared for the children. They were born from broken souls and cringing minds.

The sea flogged the shore with the rage of someone who had given so much love only to be ridiculed in return. Nevertheless, it had helped thousands of the forlorn humans to escape the prison they had built with their own hands. Hundreds, it had drowned as offerings for the aggrieved gods and goddesses. The deities had created the most magnificent landscape and the richest soil, but the leader of the hammerhead people had stepped on the rainbow heads of young flowers for amusement. The hammerhead people with pierced hearts and iron hands had killed the healers of the mountains and the wise, white-haired women of the islands. They had tortured the holy spirits of mothers with children, so that they would give breath to little red beelzebubs who would die for them in battles of mass destruction.

The brave village people who would rise against the bloodthirsty creatures were murdered by rupture of the skull in front of the eyes of their children, who were immediately enslaved. None of those children could remember how their mothers had died. Pain, worries and cold fear dried the other villages out. The strongest and healthiest men and women fled like armies of locusts towards the country gates. Half of them flew directly into the hammerhead people’s mouths; only the other half arrived safely at the shore. They pulled out all the boats and navigated with glassy eyes towards the scorching sun. Some lost their minds on mid-voyage and jumped into the merciless sea to swim back to their children. Others lost their breath facing the sun. Those who survived would never touch meat again.

The first survivors were welcomed into a wealthy village of the prospering country at the other side of the sea. Their hearts nearly stopped at the sight of some hammerhead people, who seemed to help with the chores of the families around them. One of the surviving women, who spoke the local language, was sent to ask the leader of the village about the peaceful existence of the monsters on that side of the world. The village leader was surprised at the question. He narrated the story of the creation of the hammerheads by the people of the prospering country. The hammerheads had the status of the human slaves that they had taken from various strange countries they had plundered. In times of war they were irreplaceable soldiers.

Then he asked the woman if she was aware of the story of her country. The woman responded that she had been a village leader in her country. The villages had been peaceful and quiet, but up at the northernmost point and down at the southernmost point of the country lived the legendary tribes that were in a perpetual war over a dispute that had started thousands of years before. None of them knew the reasons for the dispute anymore, but every parent in those tribes would pass on to their child the hate for the other tribe and the necessity to destroy them all. Those who would not comply with the rules were beaten, branded and banned from the tribe. She had accepted some of them into her village. They had been brave and loyal people. One day she had heard of hammerhead monsters that destroyed every village they had encountered.

The village leader smiled. He lit a silver pipe and the smoke formed the death mask that was branded on the tribe deserters’ hand palms. The woman shivered. The village leader could see the terror, the fire, the murders and the tortures mirrored in her big, black eyes. He nodded at her thoughts. The two tribes had sought help from benevolent neighbouring tribes for their quest of destroying the other one, he explained to her in a dreamy voice. The southern tribe had come to them, the prosperous people, with whom they had traded goods in the last decades. Meanwhile, the northern tribe had returned to their country with poisonous gigantic snakes with emerald eyes. The snakes wiped out half of the southern tribe’s population before its soldiers could eliminate them.

So, the southern tribe’s mighty leader had come for the ultimate weapon. The prosperous people promised him a small army of hammerheads and taught the southern tribe how to command them in their favour. The southern people’s extraordinary longing for blood and death had multiplied the hammerhead people’s strength and made them nearly uncontrollable. The prosperous people had given away the hammerheads not only to support the southern people, but also to test the creatures’ abilities and behaviour in war situations. Unfortunately, the village leader concluded, the creatures could apparently not be controlled by thoughtless people who were not able to control themselves. The hammerheads were soldiers, he explained to the woman, so their leaders must be humans. Somebody from one of the tribes was leading them to achieve the overall power upon the whole country.

He smiled at the woman in midst of the thick smoke and proposed that if she were to marry him, for it was clear that she was bright and visionary, the prosperous people would be helping them destroy the hammerheads and form the suffering country into a successful enclave of the prosperous country. The woman declined gracefully as she was of the opinion that the survivors should go back and fight the hammerheads themselves, to later rebuild their beautiful place and live in dignity in their own country. The village leader’s thick lips turned into a thin line at the refusal, but the woman sat straight in front of him without a blink of an eye. All she needed to know, she enunciated, was if there was a possibility to destroy the hammerheads. The smoke disappeared into thin air. Seawater, he muttered. Seawater made them immovable.

Enlightened by this piece of information and rekindled by the healing hope, the small group of survivors embarked on a ship, which the prosperous people had donated to them, and prepared their minds and bodies for the final battle with the hammerheads. They all had slender, elastic physiques and were of a fiercely loyal disposition. None of them was a trained fighter but they valued their freedom above all, thus they all approached the shore willing to die in order to protect it. They blew into gigantic war horns that were installed on the ship to catch the hammerhead people’s attention. The metallic march of iron-footed creatures troubled the sea and clouds of white sand rose into the grey sky. The humans wondered at the small number of the hammerheads. There were no more than ten of them and yet, they had stamped out a whole country. The survivors felt their blood boil at the sight of the murderers of their families and friends.

The hammerheads stopped and built a line at the outskirts of the woods that encircled the shore. They felt that the salty air was not to their advantage. The survivors noticed that they would have to lure them on land. They jumped into the angry sea and swam to the shore. The creatures moved forward and their perforated hearts beat like slow drums for fresh blood. A few of the survivors rose out of the sea, while the others waited behind. The first hammerheads ran towards the humans, but as soon as they got close, the survivors bespattered them with seawater that they had accumulated in their mouths. Then, they turned around and ran into the sea with all the hammerheads at their heels. The creatures ran fast and one of them could grasp the foot of one survivor before he could complete his jump into the water. His piercing cries were silenced by the loud thumps of iron bodies fighting with the salty waves.

At a safe distance, the floating heads of the rest of the survivors watched with paralysing fear how the hammerheads remained dangerous predators until the seawater immobilised every limb of their heavy bodies and they looked like parts of a wrecked ship riding the waves. The fighters reappeared beside them and they all recognised with pain three lifeless human bodies of their friends gliding among the hammerheads. They swam slowly to the shore, avoiding the muted creatures. The group stranded saddened and tired from the excruciating battle, but soon they breathed in the lifesaving salty air and their hearts filled with joy at their victory. Suddenly everything became silent. The wind changed direction and the leaves of the trees rustled impatiently. The survivors looked at one another and pricked their ears with suspense.

The forest filled with noises and a small army of humans materialised out of nowhere right in front of the group of survivors that immediately formed a tight circle and took fighting positions. With unbelieving eyes, they followed the rows of well-built men and women, who were approaching them slowly, some on foot, some on horses. Their leader was a colossus, armed up to his teeth with axes and knives. The village leader gasped as she recognised one of the branded traitors she had accepted into her village. He waved at her and shouted that they had come to support them. The hammerheads had not killed any of the traitors for unknown reasons. Then he pointed in the direction of the sea. The survivors turned around and the sinking sun was overshadowed by hundreds of ships with colourful sails.

They were ships of the prosperous people. It dawned on the village leader that the prosperous village leader had sent them to their possible deaths for mere entertainment, well knowing that the prosperous people were on the hunt for their land. They had skilfully used the tribe leaders’ death wishes to destroy the country and form armies of lone, wild children who were now scattered around the place, waiting to be trained as soldiers. With the tribe leaders dead and a handful of survivors, the country was ready to receive them. She turned to the tribe traitors. The prosperous people had probably thought that the traitors had been hiding in the bushes, as nobody had wanted them. Obviously, they were slave and soldier material, with their strong fighter bodies and violated souls, but as most of them had been treated well in the villages, they were willing to help the villagers in the decisive, upcoming battle. The branded people stopped and waited till the villagers had risen to their feet and they watched together how the ships were approaching the shore under the blood red sunset. It was time to retreat to the forest.