Imaro: Book I Read online

  Imaro knew that when he finally caught up with his ngombe, he would have to immobilize her, then scrape the flame ants out of her snout and eyes. The task would not be easy, for in her pain, Kulu would be dangerous; she might not even realize who Imaro was.

  When he had first seen Kulu, the ngombe had been only a sickly calf, not expected to survive more than a single rain. That, perhaps, was why Masadu had chosen Imaro to care for her. With painstaking effort, the boy had nurtured the ngombe to health. He remembered the naming-day, when he drank blood tapped from the ngombe’s veins and they had become part of one another, as were all Ilyassai with their cattle. He had given her the name “Kulu,” meaning “friend.”

  And Kulu was indeed his friend, the only one he had in all the huge reach of the Tamburure, the plain that seemed the entire world to him. But that bond would be tested before the day was done. He had once seen a ngombe bull outduel Mboa the buffalo for a spot at a waterhole during the dry season. Kulu would be no less formidable if she were maddened by pain.

  Thinking sorrowfully of the pain his friend was enduring, Imaro inadvertently allowed the resulting hatred for Kanoko to seethe like a fire-coal in his mind. Momentarily, he lost his kufahuma – the attunement of his senses, the melding of all his faculties into one, making his awareness at one with the Tamburure. This awareness was one of the first skills Masadu had taught him. Now, he was allowing his rage to rob him of the gift of kufahuma.

  Thus, he remained unaware of the menace hidden in the yellow grass, pacing him easily, stride for stride…

  The leopard had but recently wandered into the Tamburure from the lands beyond. Man had driven him here; he knew the hated smell of humankind only too well. But humans were easy prey when they were alone. This leopard had not yet learned to fear the smell of the Ilyassai. It knew only that the rasp of grass-stems against the moving legs of the human it stalked was loud enough to mask its stealthy approach. Baring its fangs, Chui the leopard moved closer to the running youth, and prepared to spring...

  Then a ground-squirrel, panicked by the scent of Chui so close to its burrow, darted in a brown blur across Imaro’s path. A warning. Screeching in frustration, the leopard sprang toward Imaro, raking its deadly claws like curved knives through the air, striking – nothing!

  Imaro had reacted instantly to the ground-squirrel’s flight. With a twist of his body, he sidestepped the leopard’s claws. Then he crouched, gripping his arem tightly, facing the baffled and enraged leopard.

  “Chui,” Imaro called to the spotted cat. “Go your way, Chui. Ilyassai meat is not for the likes of you.”

  Without so much as a growl of warning, the leopard sprang forward. Its paws moved faster than the eye could follow – yet the shaft of Imaro’s arem was there to deflect Chui’s talons.

  Snarling in fury, the leopard half-reared on its hind legs and again struck at Imaro with its forepaws, blows flickering like black-flecked lightning. Imaro, wielding his arem as though it were light as a wand, parried Chui’s paws. The sharp impact of wood and iron against cat-flesh resounded across the plain.

  Not once had Imaro used the point of his weapon. Not once had Chui’s talons touched his flesh. Even though the great cat retreated now, half-limping on bruised forepaws, Imaro knew that Chui would not abandon the fight. The leopard was feigning retreat; the lashing of its tail revealed its true intentions…

  Again, Chui sprang. Imaro evaded its claws. But this time, when the leopard landed on the ground, Imaro lunged forward with his arem. The iron point of the spear plunged through Chui’s spotted hide; deeper, ever deeper; not halting its momentum until the leopard was pinned to the soil of the Tamburure.

  Impaled by the awesome force of Imaro’s thrust, Chui shrieked a death-cry. Its limbs thrashed in a paroxysm of reflexes out of control. Releasing his grip on the spear shaft, Imaro jumped out of the reach of slashes that, undirected though they were, could still wound him seriously if they chanced to land.

  Finally, Chui’s spasms ceased, and the great cat fell silent, its blood crimsoning the yellow grass. Imaro’s heart soared in triumph. If only Masadu were here, he thought. Even he would find no fault with this kill!

  Concealed in the grass, keen eyes had witnessed the young warrior’s feat. Those eyes did not belong to Masadu, or any other Ilyassai…

  CHAPTER TWO

  The watchers crouched like shadows in the cover of the grass. They numbered a dozen: warriors all, armed with long spears, short swords, and knob-ended throwing-clubs. On their left wrists, they wore bracelets with raised, sharpened edges of iron. Circular sleeves of leather sheathed the edges to prevent the blades from accidentally damaging their wielders when the weapons were not in use.

  Coils of woven grass circled the waists of some of the strange warriors. To a man, their heads were shaved except for a topknot thick with feathers. Attracted by the noise of the conflict between Imaro and the leopard, the intruders had seen the youth transfix the beast to the plain.

  Hand signs denoting excitement and purpose passed swiftly among them while Imaro set his foot to the carcass and bent to wrench his arem free. Alive, the hand signals said. We must capture this one alive. The intruders crept closer, unslinging the knobbed clubs from their belts…

  Imaro was thinking of Kulu when a whir of wood through the air alerted him to new danger. He jerked his head aside, averting the full impact of the throwing-club. Still, the knobbed end glanced from his temple. Pain jolted through his skull.

  He staggered three steps away from his arem. His hand reached toward the hilt of his simi. But he was stunned; his motion was a fraction of a second too slow, giving his attackers time to swarm like a pack of wild dogs through the grass.

  Hands clutched at Imaro’s limbs. Bodies pressed heavily upon his, forcing him to the ground. The intruders kept their wrist-knives sheathed; they sought not to slay but to restrain the Ilyassai youth long enough to loop their grass ropes around him.

  Imaro’s head cleared, and he responded to the assault with as much fury as would the leopard he had just slain. Bellowing the Ilyassai war cry, he uncoiled his body and surged to his feet, hurling his surprised attackers from him as if they were children.

  The intruders looked at each other in confusion as they regained their balance. This was only a youth, but he had the strength of a man, and perhaps more – how was that possible?

  For their moment of uncertainty, they paid dearly. Again, Imaro’s hand sought his simi. This time, the hilt smacked solidly into his palm. The iron blade sang from its sheath and buried itself in the abdomen of Imaro’s nearest foe. The warrior shrieked once, then sank to the ground.

  Imaro now knew who his attackers were. A quick glance had taken in the topknots and wrist-knives, and identified their wearers. These warriors were of the Turkhana, the only tribe that dared to dispute Ilyassai dominance of the Tamburure. They had come from the same direction in which Kulu had fled. And Imaro could no longer hear her cries…

  He knew then that the Turkhana had taken his ngombe. He snarled a curse at the warriors. If they wanted Kulu, they would have to pay for her in blood.

  The Turkhana surrounded Imaro warily. They had seen him slay Chui; they had seen the swiftness with which he had cut down one of their own; they had felt the strength in his youthful thews. But the Turkhana were brave men: warriors, as much so as the Ilyassai. And they had a mission they dared not fail to accomplish. As one, they leaped toward Imaro.

  The first Turkhana to reach him was spitted on the young warrior’s blade. The simi caught in the Turkhana’s ribcage; while Imaro struggled to tear the blade free, a knob-club smashed viciously against the side of his skull. He fought the explosion of pain, but his fingers still loosened. The Turkhana he had struck threw himself backward in a dying act of defiance, tearing the simi-hilt out of Imaro’s hand as he fell.

  Imaro was now weaponless, and the Turkhana lashed at him with their knob-clubs. Red arems of pain lanced through the youth’s brain, and a black curtain f
olded over the yellow glare of the sun. Still, in a phenomenal display of tenacity, Imaro’s hands found the throat of one of the Turkhana. Only when he felt the bones of the Turkhana’s neck snap in his grasp did Imaro finally succumb to the scarlet hammers that pounded consciousness from him.

  CHAPTER THREE

  When he awakened, Imaro was walking. It was an unusual transition – from blank oblivion to instant awareness, with no gray state of semi-consciousness intervening.

  Pain was a drummer, pounding a steady rhythm behind his eyes. None of the beatings Masadu had given him had been as severe as this one, but Masadu had, unknowingly, prepared him well for the Turkhanas’ assault.

  He blinked eyes that were already open. The lowering of Jua toward the flat Tamburure horizon told him that many hours had passed since the Turkhana had ambushed him. He flicked his gaze from left to right. Two Turkhana flanked him, gripping his arms tightly just beneath his shoulders. His forearms were bound with so many coils of grass, he couldn’t see his own skin. Dried blood – not his own – caked his hands and feet.

  His ankles were hobbled with a length of rope that allowed him to walk with only an awkward, shortened stride.

  He heard the sound of hoofs shuffling in the grass. Kulu! he thought. He turned his head to the sound and saw his ngombe. Like Imaro, Kulu was hobbled; she walked with an ungainly, hopping gait. A length of tanned leather torn from a Turkhana’s garment had been wrapped her head, covering her eyes. Only such blinding could render an Ilyassai ngombe tractable to an outsider.

  What the Turkhana had done to relieve Kulu from the pain of the flame-ants’ bites, Imaro did not know. But whatever it was, they had paid a price to subdue her. Blood reddened her horns, and one of the Turkhana walked with one arm dangling uselessly at his side. For a moment, pride surged through Imaro’s heart. He knew what other tribes of the Tamburure said about the Ilyassai: Even their cattle are warriors…

  Then Imaro’s thoughts became clouded with confusion. For the second time that day, the word “why” whirled through his mind. Why was he still alive?

  That Kulu still lived, Imaro readily understood. The Turkhana stole Ilyassai cattle whenever they could; on the Tamburure, stealing the cattle of other tribes as simply another form of warfare. But from the Ilyassai themselves, the Turkhana valued only their clay-caked braids of hair, flayed fresh from the scalp. The wrist-knives of the Turkhana had equal value for the Ilyassai, preferably still attached to the severed hands of their wearers.

  Rarely did the Turkhana dare to venture so deeply into Ilyassai territory. Never had the Turkhana taken captives in their conflicts with the Ilyassai – a practice the Ilyassai reciprocated.

  Why had that changed now?

  Imaro knew he would learn little from his captors, who exchanged a few words in their dialect of the root-tongue of the Tamburure. Although Imaro understood what the Turkhana were saying, their sparse conversation told him little. He knew better than to question the warriors, for the Ilyassai and Turkhana spoke to each other only with weapons and curses.

  Bitterness festered in the youth’s dark eyes. Ajunge, Spear God of the Ilyassai, had truly turned his back on him – as, in any case, Imaro had ample reason to suspect the god had done long ago. However harsh his existence among the Ilyassai had been, he could expect only worse – far worse – from the Turkhana.

  Despair, an emotion against which he had always struggled fiercely, whispered subtly in his soul. Masadu, Kanoko and all the others… perhaps they had not been mistaken in their scorn for him. He had failed Kulu; failed Katisa…

  Then, before the youth’s morose broodings claimed him entirely, a scene born of memory long-suppressed suddenly appeared, superimposing itself with sharp clarity over the vista of the Tamburure. Again, he was a boy of five rains; again he stood in the midst of the Kitoko clan’s manyattas, gazing upward into the proud face of Katisa. Again, he heard his mother’s final words to him: I go – but I leave a warrior behind.

  Those words had sustained Imaro as memories of lost love never could have done through rain after cheerless rain of striving to earn the respect of a people who despised him.

  I leave a warrior behind… the vision faded with the last echo of Katisa’s words. Imaro shook himself like a lion bestriding a new kill. Startled, his captors tightened their grip on his arms. One Turkhana unslung his knob-club and shook it menacingly under Imaro’s nose.

  The youth smiled. It was a smile totally devoid of anything resembling human mirth, frightening on the face of one who had seen so few rains.

  Imaro could not guess what fate the Turkhana planned for Kulu and him. But he knew that whatever the outcome, the Turkhana would learn the truth of Katisa’s promise.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Sunset spread like a bloodstain across the sky as Imaro’s captors reached their destination. Thick herds of grass-eaters huddled nervously, knowing that when Jua finally disappeared from the sky, the night would belong to the predators. Already, Ngatun’s roar and Chui’s cough and the eerie, laughing bark of Matisho rolled across the plain.

  Imaro knew he was now in The Land of No One, a wild, uninhabited stretch of territory that served as a borderland between the realms claimed by the Turkhana and the Ilyassai. It was not uninhabited now. A band of Turkhana had set up a small encampment, consisting of a fresh-dug firepit and a circular barrier of spiky thornbush. It was the encampment of a hunting party or a war-band, quickly erected and easy to dismantle.

  Warriors, numbering perhaps twice those who had captured Imaro and Kulu, rushed out to greet their returning comrades. Fierce joy lit their faces at the sight of the Ilyassai youth and the ngombe. Imaro paid scant heed to the warriors’ hot-eyed glares, though. Something else had claimed his attention…

  Outside the thornbush barrier stood a cage fashioned from heavy poles lashed together with resilient vines. A lion was imprisoned within the cage, which was actually a trap into which live bait had been placed to lure Ngatun into tripping a rope mechanism that dropped the door of the trap behind him.

  Aroused by the scent of Kulu, Ngatun rose and lunged at the bars of his prison. The construction of the trap seemed so fragile the sound of the lion’s roar could shatter it. But the poles held firm as the lion strove to break through to attack the ngombe. Though she was blinded by the wrappings around her eyes, and her nose was deadened by the bites of the flame ants, Kulu heard Ngatun’s roar and bellowed a challenge of her own, tossing her horned head from side to side. Several Turkhana held on to her head, struggling to prevent her from bolting.

  The leader of Imaro’s captors pointed to a thick stake driven deep into the ground on the far side of the encampment.

  “Tie the ngombe there, and let N’tu-mwaa know we’ve returned with what he wants,” he said.

  Imaro stood freely now, with Turkhana warriors stationed close by. Their spears were poised to strike instantly if need be. Because the young Ilyassai was hobbled, they reasoned that he would not attempt to escape. But they also remembered what his capture had cost them, and they remained alert.

  As Kulu was led away to the pole, Imaro’s mind was occupied by more than his dim prospects for escape. The sight of Ngatun in a cage angered him; the Ilyassai believed that the souls of their dead occupied the bodies of before returning to animate a human of a succeeding generation. Thus was Ngatun the most honored of foes; only by slaying a lion and freeing an Ilyassai soul to become human again could an Ilyassai youth gain full status as a man and a warrior.

  To cage Ngatun like a hare or a ground-squirrel… That was as disconcerting to Imaro as his own capture.

  A figure emerged from an opening in the thornbush. The warriors stepped aside deferentially, almost fearfully, as the man approached.

  To Imaro, the man was obviously a n’tu-mchawi – a magic-man, like the oibonok of his own clan. Warriors did not don such elaborate accouterments as the buffalo skull that fitted the newcomer’s head like a helmet, or the long streamers of monkey-hair that hung from
copper bands encircling his arms and legs, or the mantle made from the spotted skins of hyenas that swathed his shoulders.

  Besides the ubiquitous wrist-knife, the n’tu-mchawi had a heavy, curved dagger hanging from a thong looped around his neck. Its blade was stained brown with old blood. Nearly a giant in height, the Turkhana was nonetheless so lank in build that the youthful Imaro easily outweighed him.

  When the Turkhana came closer to Imaro, the Ilyassai suddenly saw the thing that distinguished this man from all others. Most of his body was revealed by the open mantle: from head to foot, his skin was splotched with patches of a pale, almost white hue, as though it had been daubed with kaolin clay. But even in the muted light of sunset, Imaro saw clearly that the Turkhana’s markings were not decoration – they were as real as the color of his own skin.

  Imaro realized this was the “N’tu-mwaa” the Turkhana leader had mentioned earlier, for in the language of the Tamburure, those words meant “Blemished Man.”

  Imaro had never forgotten that a n’tu-mchawi had been the cause of his mother’s exile from the Ilyassai. For that reason, he hated sorcerers, including Muburi, the oibonok who had taken the place of Chitendu, the one Katisa had overcome many rains ago. Imaro’s eyes hardened in response to the intense stare he now received from N’tu-mwaa.

  “A lion, a ngombe, and an Ilyassai,” the Turkhana crooned, breaking the silence. His voice was high, singsong, as though were speaking to children rather than an assemblage of warriors.

  “And I,” he continued. “I – a man apart from all others. I, who will become all three.”

  He smiled at Imaro before continuing.

  “Ilyassai, hear my words: Through you, your ngombe, and the lion in the cage, our god, Kupigana, will triumph over your Spear God. And the Turkhana will become the masters of the Tamburure!”