AT DEATH’S DOOR

"You think you are brave enough not to beg for it, you are mistaken, bandit. Am going to do this until you plead for mercy." Abu Bin Zayyid resolved in his heart.

Abu pressed down the dagger into the wound until it could go no further.

By now, Zamilu was sweating, bleeding, and shivering on the ground but not uttering a single word. He was resolved to endure the pain until his last breath, not giving this demon the satisfaction of having him beg. Even if he begged for mercy, he was not bound long for this world any longer, the shoulder wound was not one to easily heal even if he got the best physicians to treat it, and the stomach wound was already a death sentence he could not recover from, his intestines were already damaged or cut apart and he had never seen anyone recover from such a wound in his years in the army. The moment the spear is pulled out, he was going to bleed out to death. He was already, not feeling his legs, meaning he was now crippled.

Seeing the bandit, not saying even one word. Abu went to the non-injured hand of the bandit Zamilu and held it tightly in one hand despite the pain from his back.

He looked at the bandit and said, "you think you are very brave Zamilu."

Abu pressed down the dagger into the hand, and in one slice took off his index finger of Zamilu.

The finger detached from the hand fell in the hand, the finger wound reddened and then began bleeding.

This elicited an action from Zamilu. He began flaying around in the mud, trying to pull back his hand from Abu, however, Abu was not willing to let go.

"Did you say, you Zamilu son of Abdallah will never shy away from a challenge more so from a loudmouth like me?" While saying so, Zamilu cut off the second finger and proceeded to the third finger.

"Please, please please, please forgive me, forgive me. I take back all my words mister Abu Bin Zayyid." Zamilu could not take it anymore and began pleading.

"What did you say, I have not heard you properly Zamilu?" Abu said while pressing the dagger into the remaining fingers.

"I, I, I, am saying, please please, please forgive me, forgive me. I take back all my foolish words and thinking I could fight against a mighty warrior like you." Zamilu cried out in agony and wished for the suffering to be taken away.

"That's not enough to save you from me!" Abu shouted back before cutting off the remaining two-finger together in one slice.

"Remember what I told you?" Abu Bin Zayyid asked the suffering Zamilu. All the pride he exhibited earlier on had been tortured out of him and he just wished for a swift end.

Zamilu took a deep breath and spoke. "I spoke many foolish words which am not so proud of mister, please find it in your heart as a good Muslim to forgive me."

"Let me remind you properly, "I told you I can kill you hundred times with my eyes blindfolded. Who cursed such a pathetic dead dog like you to become a highway bandit? I think it could have been much better if they cursed you, to be a whore to these Sodomite Christians."

"Had you been wise, that could have been your time to run away, but since you thought you are the macho champion of highway bandits, let me send you to join your victims in hell."

Abu removed the dagger stuck in the bloody shoulder wound of the bandit, and casually wiped off the blood on it using Zamilu's robe before cruelly slicing the throat of Zamilu.

As Zamilu choked on his blood, Abu Bin Zayyid stood up and spoke, "send my regards to your friends in hell."

Abu Bin Zayyid was able to defeat and kill his ambushers but he was not left unscathed.

After killing Zamilu, there was an arrow that had impaled him from the back to the front. It may have missed his right lung and the internal organs but had broken a few ribs. The adrenaline for revenge and the desire to survive had kept him going on despite the unbearable pain and loss of blood he endured.

Now that he had vanquished his ambushers. He was feeling exhausted and reeling from the fiery pain of the wound.

He tried to pluck out the barbaric arrow but it had impaled him deeply in the flesh, the arrowhead needed to be separated from the shaft by breaking it otherwise the barbs could do more damage. This could be done best by someone helping him out. But now he was weak and faint from all the blood loss.

Abu Bin Zayyid tried to use the dagger to cut the front of his blood-soaked robe to expose the arrowhead. It was slow going, the dagger was heavy in his fingers. Each movement of his fingers, brought immeasurable pain to flare up from the back where the arrow entered, extending to the spine, and chest muscles. Breathing was painful, each breath taken caused the ribs to move, aggrieving the wound. With much difficulty, he cut away the robe exposing the arrow and the flesh wound beneath.

"These bastards nearly killed me, a few inches to the left, and my lungs could have been punctured. " Abu Bin Zayyid told himself as he looked at the bleeding wound with the arrow sticking out of it.

"Now, am going to be bedridden nursing this wound instead of chasing out of the Knight Templars. There's no way this wound will heal quickly, and I also won't be able to travel long distances; hoping an infection does not crop in. Shit! This is messed up.

How am I going to walk in this state to Jaffa, and which physician can I approach to treat this wound? How stupid it was of me to be distracted in such a suspicious corner (for god sake it's a good location for an ambush), all because am very consumed with catching up with the Knight Templar squad of Captain Gallo Francis. There's indeed something suspicious about the mission of that Knight Yosef but my hatred has got the better of me so I was not thinking things through properly."

All these thoughts ran through his mind as he thought of being distracted from his main mission.

Abu Bin Zayyid had begun feeling weak in the whole body, the strength in his legs could not support him to stand up or kneel. He sat back in the mud, panting heavily. By now he did not mind that he is sitting in the mud. He rested on the ground for a while, it was already getting dark and visibility was not the best.

After a while, Abu regained some strength and picked up the dagger to try to cut away the arrow. Before he even started, cutting it. His vision became blurred, and he fainted from all the blood loss.

***

"KULUSUMU, KULUSUMU, KULUSUMU ANIFA! Where is this silly sister of mine?" She heard her brother Adam calling her name at the same time insulting her. This was at night in 72 Janna Promise.

"Brother Adam, it's ok to call me but do you have to shout like that, you will wake up all the people in the house at this late hour." "Calling my name Once is enough." She reprimanded her elder brother the proprietor of 72 Janna Promise.

"Shut up silly girl, there's a reason as to why am calling you like that. Get your physician bag and come to the empty guest room, a client of mine was ambushed on the road as he came returned from Jaffa and is in a critical condition. Why are you looking at me like that with those big eyes, I said go and get your physician bag immediately." Adam explained to her.

"Ok brother, let me hurry up to get the bag," Kulusumu replied while she rushed back to her room. Deep inside her heart, she was not happy that Adam had called her very rudely and on top of that he was insulting her.

"Just because am, a woman and your younger sister does not give you the right or authority to treat me like this. Am person and I deserve some respect and dignity." Kulusumu silently murmured under her breath as she opened the door to her room.

Despite her indignation at how Adam was treating her and not showing her any shred of respect. Kulusumu Anifa rushed to get her physician bag with the items and medicine needed to treat or mend a patient in critical condition. She opened it to verify that everything necessary was there before closing it up and running to the guest room where the patient who had been brought in critical condition was.

Rushing into the guest room. She saw a middle-aged Muslim man covered in blood, and mud with an arrow sticking from his back. He had been placed on his side on the floor mat. He was all deathly pale, looking stiff as a corpse. Seeing this man in this condition, Kulusumu Anifa began panicking.

"Brother Adam, are you sure this man is still alive, he looks dead to me, and with all the blood he has lost?" she asked while bending down to test whether the man had any pulse or body warmth. If he was dead, Adam could blame her for failing to save him. She was an upcoming physician, not a miracle worker like her brother Adam wanted.

"Allah is gracious, he is still alive but barely," she discovered when she tested his pulse.

"Adam, help me turn him to rest on the other side. We have to pluck out this arrow from his chest and back, it has affected his breathing and blood circulation as well as infected him with a fever. Those highway bandits have a habit of smearing their arrows in camel or hyena dung so that their victims die from infection even after the removal of the arrow." She added as she studied the arrowhead peeking out of the patient's chest.

"Can you please save him my sister Kulusumu?" Adam asked, in a worried tone.

"I will try my best, we shall know if he can be saved after I have removed this arrowhead from his chest. Hand me the surgical knife from the bag." Kulusumu answered.

"Who brought him to us at this late hour?" She asked Adam.

"His name is Abu Bin Zayyid, a wheat trader from Jaffa. He is a good client since last year. He was discovered a few hours ago on the road and passed out, by a fellow trader Habib Hussein. Habib says, he was surrounded by three corpses of bandits who attacked him. He must have fought them bitterly until he killed three of them."

As they spoke. Kulusumu Anifa began cutting out the arrow from the chest of Abu Bin Zayyid. She first cut out the arrow shaft sticking from Abu's back before proceeding to the arrowhead at the front.

"Adam, hold this part of the arrow so that I can cleanly cut it out without doing more harm to the wound. These barbed arrowheads are very dangerous, if you foolishly attempt to pull them out, they do more damage to the wound than the initial arrow impact." Kulusumu asked for a helping hand from her brother as she went on with her work.

"Oh no, he tried to pull the arrowhead out, making him lose a lot of blood from the wound, that's why he fainted. Had he removed the arrow, he could have bled out to death. " Kulusumu Anifa saw from the wound, Abu's failed efforts to pull out the arrowhead.

"Finished cutting it off. Let me pull out slowly from the front." She told him what she was doing. Lightly with her soft feminine hands, gracefully without panicking, Kulusumu pulled out the arrowhead from the chest of Abu Bin Zayyid having already cut off the arrow shaft. Having finished removing the arrowhead and arrow shaft, she continued to wash the wound, clean it, and stitch it up.

"The hardest part is over, we have to let him rest. He lost a lot of blood, and hope that the wound does not get infected or was not already infected. Tomorrow is when we shall know but you will have to change him from these wet and dirty clothes or he will not survive the fever".

"Thank you Kulusumu, as my younger sister. I can not allow you to change his clothes or wash him, will get someone to do it this night, or I will do it myself." Adam said.

"Ok, I will leave everything up to you. My beauty sleep was affected, let me go back to bed, call me in case his condition deteriorates. Sleep well brother." Kulusumu bided him goodnight as she returned to her room.

It was now a matter of waiting, waiting to see if Abu Bin Zayyid will make it through the night.