Imaro: Book I Page 4

  Strength… long had he known that he was far stronger than other boys of his rains, as well as many who were older. But his strength had never before been tested as it had this day. He recalled N’tu-mwaa’s words: The one Kupigana says will be the greatest warrior of all…

  Imaro spat into the grass. He would not be duped by the lies of a madman, or of another tribe’s god. He was who he was: Imaro, the son-of-no-father.

  Yet the words lingered, despite the harsh inner voice that reminded him that he had done nothing more than slay one who meant to slay him. It was the same voice that told him he had lost Kulu…

  Eyes still on N’tu-mwaa, Imaro murmured: “I told you, Turkhana, your life is mine.”

  Now, he became aware that he was ravenous, not having eaten since the rising of the sun. With no other food available, he used N’tu-mwaa’s dagger to cut strips of flesh from the carcass of Matisho. Then he burned the strips in the flame of N’tu-mwaa’s torch, and began to eat. As he chewed on the rank meat of the hunting-hyena, Imaro looked toward the encampment of the Turkhana. Its night-fire blazed like a beacon against the night sky.

  Despite the slaying of N’tu-mwaa, Imaro still needed a reckoning with the Turkhana who remained. Kulu’s death demanded more than one life in return…

  Imaro was well aware that death was the fate of an Ilyassai who lost his ngombe. Yet he also knew he could turn his back on his mother’s clan now. In this vast, uninhabited stretch of the Tamburure, he could live alone and free, a predator among predators, battling Ngatun and Chui and Matisho for better meat than the half-charred hyena flesh he forced down his throat.

  Freedom from the ongoing ordeal of life among the Ilyassai – it could be his, once he exacted final retribution from the Turkhana.

  He thrust that notion from his mind. He could not… would not… run away. His only thoughts now were for Kulu.

  Kulu was dead… yet in the pitiless code of the Ilyassai, there was a way to balance that death, even to the satisfaction of Masadu. He would still face a flogging at the scarred warrior’s hands for having allowed Kulu to die. He had endured floggings before, though, and he knew the pain would pass. And he knew why he chose to bear this, and any other, torments the Ilyassai could inflict.

  I leave a warrior behind, Katisa had said. But only by the slaying of Ngatun on olmaiyo would the Kitoko clan be forced to accept the truth of those words. And only then would Imaro himself believe it.

  The promise of fulfilling Katisa’s prophecy was the only link that remained between Imaro and the fading memories that were all he had left of his long-departed mother. Those memories could sustain him no longer. His own determination would. The day he slew Ngatun would be the day of his freedom.

  He swallowed another hunk of Matisho’s flesh. Then he rose to his feet. Gripping the torch in one hand and N’tu-mwaa’s dagger in the other, he stalked toward the encampment like a blood-spattered harbinger of destruction.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Spotting a bobbing point of fire approaching in the night, the Turkhana sentries assumed that N’tu-mwaa was returning to them. Unnerved, as were all who were in the war band after N’tu-mwaa’s frenzied slaughter of the lion and the ngombe, the sentries were slow to notice that the silhouette of the figure bearing the brand was not the horned, maned apparition N’tu-mwaa had become.

  The figure halted. The fire-point drew back – then streaked like a comet toward the thornbush barrier!

  Caught completely off-guard, the sentries could only stare blankly while the flaming missile struck the dry thornbush, scattering sparks like drops of fiery rain. Immediately, the barrier ignited.

  Shrill cries of alarm rose from the throats of the sentries. Rushing from the interior of the thornbush circle, the other warriors helped the sentries beat madly at the flames with long strips of cured leather. If the flames spread to the grass surrounding the encampment, the entire plain could become a burning maelstrom, cutting them off from their own country.

  Then the dreaded war cry of the Ilyassai smote their ears. And a fear even greater than that caused by what N’tu-mwaa had done, was realized.

  “It’s an attack!” the war leader cried. “The Ilyassai have found us! See to your weapons! And get that fire out!”

  Brave men were the Turkhana: warriors second only to the Ilyassai. But on this night, they had witnessed horrors that had shaken the souls of even the most fearless among them. When N’tu-mwaa had changed, brave men had wept like infants…

  Imaro hurdled the flaming thornbush, and drove his blade into the throat of the war-leader. As blood spewed from the Turkhana’s neck, the iron hand of panic crushed the courage from the rest of the warriors. To their terror-stricken minds, Imaro was a ghost returned for vengeance, for they could not believe that a bound man or boy could have survived the Tamburure at night. Shrieking prayers to their gods and ancestors, the Turkhana broke and fled. And Imaro ravened among them like Ngatun himself.

  In the crimson glare of the blazing thornbush, the dagger of N’tu-mwaa flashed again and again in Imaro’s hand. It was as if the blade were still thirsty for sacrificial blood, regardless of its source.

  Had the Turkhana retained sufficient presence of mind to retaliate, their sheer advantage in numbers would have enabled them to cut Imaro down. But they believed he was only the first of a horde of vengeful Ilyassai demons, and they fled like a herd of impala, leaving weapons, mortally wounded comrades, and the burning encampment behind them. Five Turkhana lay motionless in widening pools of gore.

  Blood madness still lit Imaro’s eyes as he watched the surviving Turkhana disappear into the darkness. He did not pursue them. His arms were becoming heavy, and his breath burned inside his aching chest. His body was beginning to beg for relief from the demands he had placed on it this day.

  Yet he lifted his arms high, threw back his head, and shouted in exultation. The shout had nothing of the Ilyassai in it – it was a cry of personal triumph, and he did not care that no one else heard it.

  The flush of victory was short-lived. For in the flickering glow of the fire, Imaro saw the butchered carcass of Kulu. For he knew, then, that his tasks were not yet completed.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The morning sun painted the Tamburure in tints of saffron and gold. Ten Ilyassai of the Kitoko clan, fully armed, marched purposefully across the plain. At dawn, they had left the manyattas to search for Imaro and his ngombe. The Ilyassai always allowed a herd-boy the opportunity to recover a lost ngombe himself – or to slay whatever had caused the ngombe’s death, and return with evidence of the deed. Imaro had not returned, so the hunt for him and his ngombe had begun. Kanoko was among the searchers. So was Masadu.

  The trail left by the fleeing Kulu was still easy to follow; the story told by broken grass, easily read. They came to the site of Imaro’s first encounter with the intruders. A fallen feather resting between strands of grass caught their attention. Turkhana, it all but shouted.

  Dark hands tightened on spearshafts; simis were loosened in their sheaths. Masadu sent a runner back to the manyattas to summon more fighting men. The warriors seethed with indignation, Imaro and Kulu momentarily forgotten. The Turkhana had dared to venture past the Land of No One. For that, the befeathered wrist-knife wielders must be punished…

  Kanoko’s spirits soared. His ploy had turned out better than he had ever hoped. He fought to suppress outward expression of the glee the prospect of Imaro’s having fallen into Turkhana hands roused in his soul.

  Then he saw Imaro, striding through the grass toward him and the others. He came to them like a conqueror: in appearance, still a boy, but in reality, much more.

  For not even Kanoko could deny that Imaro had done what Ilyassai tradition demanded. That Kulu was dead, they would soon learn. But the loss was well-atoned. For with him, Imaro carried half-a-dozen wrist-knives – still attached to the stumps of hands skewered on the blade of a captured spear. On the topmost hand, pale blotches showed through the blood-smears.
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br />   The weapon was still in the crucible, and was not found wanting…

  THE PLACE OF STONES

  Where the Ilyassai walk,

  Ngatun roars softly.

  -- Tamburure proverb

  Jua’s light danced across the points of twenty Ilyassai arems. Twenty Ilyassai warriors of the Kitoko clan stalked soundlessly through the yellow grass. Besides their spears, they carried painted oval shields made from the hide of Kifaru, the rhinoceros. Their faces were grim and alert – the faces of men who knew they were masters of the Tamburure.

  With the bright ocher that bedaubed their limbs, the warriors looked like crimson spectres of death. Zebra, gazelle, and even the rhinoceros and Tembo, the elephant, raised their heads sharply at the scent of Ilyassai iron reaching their nostrils. For the Ilyassai were predators no less fearsome than Chui or Ngatun or Matisho. The grass-eaters observed the warriors closely, muscles were tensed for instant flight should the Ilyassai come too near to them.

  But the warriors paid the grass-eaters no heed. For on this day, they were not hunting for food. This was the day of olmaiyo, the end of mafundishu-ya-muran for an Ilyassai youth about to enter manhood. For olmaiyo, the prey was Ngatun, the lion.

  A sudden break in the flatness of the plain signaled the end of the warriors’ march. Fanning out in a long, straight rank, the Ilyassai gazed down into a shallow, cup-like depression, the bed of an ancient lake that had long ago been dried out by the heat of Jua.

  While the rest of the warriors stood still as statues carved from mahogany, two broke the rank and strode down the grassy slope to the bottom of the lake-bed. Along with his weapons, one of them carried the long, spiraled horn of an oryx. This was Muburi, the oibonok who had succeeded the disgraced Chitendu. The other, the only one who did not wear a shingona – headgear made from Ngatun’s mane – was Imaro. The olmaiyo was his; on this day, he would earn a shingona of his own – or die.

  In the four rains that had passed since the death of Kulu, Imaro had fulfilled his promise of physical splendor. There were other Ilyassai who equaled his height of six-and-a-half feet, but none of them could match the formidable thews that rolled across his lion-like frame. Yet for all his massive musculature, the young warrior moved with a loose, feline litheness.

  Fierce determination was stamped in his heavy features, and a sullen defiance stoked by a lifetime of mistreatment burned in his eyes. Still, a flicker of hope half hid beneath the interplay of suppressed resentment and mounting anticipation of the battle to come.

  Imaro knew his deeds over the past few rains had earned him a measure of reluctant respect within the clan, for all that they continued to look askance at his ambiguous parentage and scorn the memory of his mother. Imaro’s was the arem that had brought down a maddened bush-pig that had threatened the wife of the ol-arem of a neighboring clan, the Enyoka. And he had washed his simi in the blood of battle against the Zamburu, a tribe whose hunters had dared to encroach on Ilyassai territory.

  Deep into the land of the Zamburu the Kitoko clan had raided: burning, killing, and taking cattle and women. Imaro acquired five new cattle for his small herd during that raid, along with a young Zamburu woman named Keteke.

  Although his mother’s mating with a man who was not Ilyassai was the cause of Imaro’s persecution, Ilyassai men were free to mate with, and even take as wives, women they stole during raids and wars. The irony of that inconsistent standard was not lost on Imaro. But he did not vent his anger on Keteke. To her, he had finally opened a heart that had remained inviolate since the slaying of Kulu. And Keteke had responded in kind.

  But, since Imaro had not yet fulfilled the obligation of olmaiyo, Keteke was still a captive, belonging to the clan as a whole. Once Imaro slew Ngatun, she would belong to him alone, and they would be able to wed.

  Imaro and Muburi reached the bottom of the depression. The unpleasant smile on Muburi’s lips reminded Imaro that for all the grudging acceptance some of the Ilyassai now accorded him, there were others who still spurned him. Muburi was one. Masadu, who stood with the others, high up on the slope, was another.

  Kanoko was there too, his eyes staring spitefully from beneath the shingona he had recently earned. Imaro had told no one about Kanoko’s part in the fate of Kulu, but Kanoko had shown no gratitude. The animosity between the two young warriors had increased over the ensuing rains.

  “You are prepared?” Muburi demanded gruffly.

  A curt nod was Imaro’s reply. His opinion of sorcerers had not changed since he had slain N’tu-mwaa; he spoke to the oibonok only as necessity dictated.

  Muburi raised the oryx horn to his lips and puffed into a small opening at its point. A startling sound resulted: more like the growl of a beast than a musical tone. Its challenge echoed across the dry lake-bottom – and was answered by a deep, rumbling roar. Then Muburi climbed back up the slope, leaving Imaro to face the ultimate trial of an Ilyassai warrior.

  From the opposite side of the depression, the roars rumbled like rainy-season thunder. Imaro could feel their vibrations rising through the shaft of his arem. He remembered the elders’ stories about how Ajunge himself had placed an oryx-horn in the hands of the first oibonok of the Ilyassai, to summon Ngatun to test the valor of the warriors. He knew that if he slew Ngatun, he would be freeing an ancestor’s soul to be human again. He wondered if this ancestor would disdain him as much as his contemporaries did…

  The roaring grew louder. A huge, tawny, black-maned shape appeared on the lip of the far side of the lake-bed. With an easy bound, Ngatun entered the natural arena. As much a giant of his own kind as Imaro was of his, the lion padded purposefully toward the waiting warrior. Its tufted tail twitched in anticipation of the bloodshed to come.

  Imaro relaxed into a fighting stance: arem-point outthrust, shield held closely to his body, protecting him from neck to ankle. He knew Ngatun could cover the distance remaining between them swifter than the eye could follow.

  The long years in mafundishu-ya-muran had drilled into him the things he must do to meet that deadly charge. When Ngatun made his final leap, Imaro must hurl his arem into the great cat’s breast. At no other time would Ngatun be so vulnerable. Then Imaro would fall under his shield even as Ngatun’s weight pressed onto him. Beneath the shield’s protection, he would draw his simi and stab it into Ngatun’s body until the beast died.

  If Ngatun survived long enough to rip through the thick rhinoceros-hide of the shield… at that moment in his teaching of mafundishu-ya-muran, Masadu would point silently at his own scarred face.

  Suddenly, there was no more time for reflection. With an earthshaking roar, Ngatun sprang at Imaro.

  The young warrior’s reaction was instantaneous. His arem shot with arrow-like speed from his hand. Its point, and half its long blade, burrowed deep into Ngatun’s chest. Imaro crouched, then fell backward beneath his shield.

  Ngatun crashed full into the barrier of rhinoceros hide. Squalling in pain, the spear embedded in its body, Ngatun still tore large strips of hide from the shield that was Imaro’s only defense. Blood pumped from the mortal wound the arem had inflicted. But Ngatun was always slow to die.

  Now was the time for Imaro to draw his simi. But he had something different in mind… something he had practiced by himself, away from the ever-watchful eyes of Masadu.

  He did not draw his short sword. And for a single, terrifying instant, with Ngatun’s tremendous weight crushing down on him, doubt penetrated his mind. Then he saw the white gleam of a claw punching through the hide of the shield.

  And he acted.

  With all the power of his massive arms and legs, Imaro heaved upward against Ngatun’s weight. And the thrust hurled both lion and shield away from him. The lion toppled onto its back, claws still embedded in the shield. At that moment, Ngatun lay helpless.

  With a speed rivaling that of the great cat itself, Imaro sprang to his feet, simi drawn and gripped tightly in both hands. Before the lion could tear its talons away from the rhinocero
s-hide, Imaro swing his simi downward. A lifetime’s frustration powered that stroke. Through Ngatun’s shaggy mane and thick-muscled throat Imaro’s blade sheared, not stopping until the bones of the lion’s spine were severed.

  Blood gushed from Ngatun’s gaping throat. A strangled wail; a pumping of clawed limbs in a final fury; then Ngatun lay still.

  Straddling the huge carcass, Imaro hacked viciously at the lion’s neck. Triumph coursed fiercely through his veins. He knew he had only narrowly escaped death himself; with only an eye-blink more time without the protection of his shield, his would have been the gore that now leaked onto the Tamburure.

  But he had won his gamble, and he had triumphed over Ngatun in a way no Ilyassai had ever done before. Ilyassai – so many times, he had cursed the very syllables of that name. Yet he was proud now, for he had won his olmaiyo, and his mother’s people would have to accept him now… whether they liked it or not. And they would, indeed, accept him. The Ilyassai were merciless, but they were also honorable.

  Finally, the simi cut completely through Ngatun’s neck. Imaro dropped the weapon and hooked strong, dark fingers into the lion’s mane. Effortlessly, he raised the huge, heavy head of the lion above his own. Blood from the stump of its neck showered like hot, salty rain onto his shoulders and upraised face. The taste of Ngatun’s blood was the taste of vindication…

  Then he heard a rustle in the grass.

  Imaro lowered his head, blinked the lion’s blood out of his eyes, and saw that the warriors had descended the slope. Now, they surrounded him. And the cry of joy with which he had meant to greet them curdled in his throat.

  The warriors remained silent, their red-daubed faces set like stone. Imaro’s euphoria faded like dawn mist at the first touch of Jua, the sun.