Imaro: Book I Read online

  Before either warrior could move, Keteke screamed. And with a desperate effort, Kanoko wrenched his hand from beneath Imaro’s foot, nearly toppling him. While Imaro struggled to keep his balance, Kanoko again dove for his simi. But Imaro recovered quickly. By the time Kanoko reached for the simi’s hilt, Imaro’s full weight crashed heavily onto the smaller man’s back, driving the breath from his lungs and flattening him to the ground.

  Even as Kanoko struggled beneath him, Imaro snatched the fallen simi and rose to his feet. Not only was he free; now, he had a weapon. He looked down at Kanoko. One slash of the simi would forever silence his tormentor’s sharp tongue…

  Then Imaro remembered Keteke and her cry – a cry that must have been heard by half the Ilyassai. He had time only for flight now. Vengeance must wait.

  He whirled toward the entrance of the manyatta. Keteke was no longer there. Betrayer, Imaro reflected bitterly as he moved toward the opening – and nearly fell when a hand clutched hard at his ankle.

  It was Kanoko, driven beyond pain by a hatred that equaled Imaro’s own. With a roaring curse, Imaro kicked free, his foot crashing against Kanoko’s face. With a crack of breaking bone, Kanoko released his grip from Imaro’s leg. Then Imaro bent and wriggled through the opening.

  Already, the warriors of the night-guard were racing toward the source of the outcry that had aroused them. Others, alert even in sleep, poured from their manyattas. The weapons that never left their hands sprouted like iron thorns. When they spotted Imaro, the cry went out:

  “The ilmonek is loose! Get him! Take him alive!”

  Imaro knew he was trapped. He could outrun any Ilyassai, but he could not outrun an arem. They would aim at his legs…

  His muscles bunched like those of a lion about to spring. He would not allow his mother’s people to banish him under the custom of Shaming; he would slay them until they were forced to slay him. He cursed himself for failing to kill Kanoko when he had the chance ….

  It was when the warriors were almost upon him that an alternative occurred to him – an act that, more than any other, would express his ultimate repudiation of the Ilyassai. Snarling in defiance, he turned and fled from the manyatta that had housed him during the Shaming.

  “The ilmonek flees!” the warriors shouted. “Get him!”

  Keeping to the shadows, Imaro wove his way through the manyattas. Caught up in the frenzy of their chase, the warriors failed to notice that Imaro was running not toward the open plain, but toward the great thornbush boma in which the ngombes were penned for the night.

  A short stretch of open ground separated the boma from the manyattas. Torches positioned at regular intervals cast a flickering glare across the gap. The ten youths designated to guard the ngombes shifted the arems in their hands. Alerted by the clamor rising from the manyattas, they were prepared to use their spears to defend the cattle in their charge.

  Nothing, however, could have prepared them for Imaro’s headlong rush into their midst. One moment, the herd-boys saw him leap from between two manyattas; then he was upon them, striking down the first youth he encountered with a blow of his fist.

  Another young warrior challenged him with a thrust of his arem. Dodging the deadly point, Imaro lashed out with his stolen simi. The youth fell back, blood welling from a deep slash across his chest. The cut was not lethal; Imaro was reluctant to kill any of his mother’s people, other than Kanoko and Muburi, now that his onslaught of hopeless rage had passed.

  Shouting in consternation, the remaining herd-boys converged on Imaro. At any moment now, his other pursuers would be upon him. Already, the swiftest of them were racing toward the boma.

  With his weaponless hand, Imaro tore the torch nearest him from the ground and thrust its lit end into the wall of thornbush. The resulting flames spread with frightening rapidity.

  Another lesson from N’tu-mwaa, Imaro reflected ironically, remembering how he had used fire as a weapon against the Turkhana.

  On the other side of the boma, the soft, musical lowing of the ngombe quickly changed to bellows of panic; among the few things that frightened Ilyassai cattle, fire was foremost.

  As the blaze engulfed the thornbush, the warriors – men and youths alike – stopped short, shock graven on their faces. If Imaro had shoved the simi he was carrying into his own heart, they would have been scarcely less astounded. To set fire to the boma of the ngombe was an act so unthinkable that for an interminable moment, they could do nothing more than stand agape while their minds attempted to absorb the reality of Imaro’s act of apostasy.

  His opportunity won, Imaro bent and snatched up an arem dropped by one of the herd-boys. As he straightened, he heard a rending crash rise above the frantic bawling of the ngombe. Maddened by the sight and the heat of the flames, the long-horned cattle were smashing through the sections of the boma still untouched by the flames. The thorns that ripped painfully into their hides and pieced the flesh between their cloven hooves were as nothing in the face of their primordial urge to escape the bright, devouring flames.

  In a vast tide of hooves and horns, the ngombe herd swept toward the savanna, stampeding away from the fire, the warriors and the manyattas. Alone and free, Imaro fled in another direction, also headed for the open Tamburure. His desperate gamble had succeeded. He knew the clan would spend days, if necessary, to recapture their scattered ngombe, for cattle were the source of wealth, food, shelter and life itself for the people of the plains. The clan members would not stop their search until the last ngombe was recovered.

  And once that task was done, the Kitoko clan warriors would hunt Imaro as they would a beast that was a threat to the herds. Imaro had committed an act that was of far greater profanation against the rigid code of the Ilyassai than the one of which he had been falsely accused. The knowledge that some of the stampeding ngombes would fall to predators before they could be recaptured caused a twinge of remorse in Imaro’s heart.

  Then he remembered his own ngombe, unjustly claimed by the hated Kanoko. He remembered Kulu, slain by a wielder of mchawi – sorcery, foul magic of the same kind that had planted lies in the minds of the warriors who had accompanied him on his olmaiyo.

  He scowled – a harsh, unyielding expression. Visions of vengeance swirled in red whirlpools in his mind as the night, and the Tamburure, swallowed him. He was naked, and his head shaven woman-bald. But he had a simi and an arem. He knew he would now be hunted. But he also knew that he, too, would hunt…

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Amid a flurry of purposeful activity, the ol-arem and the oibonok of Imaro’s former clan sat in conclave. Around them, manyattas were being dismantled and loaded onto ngombe. Likewise, cooking-pots, wooden bowls and other women’s utensils were bundled and strapped onto broad bovine backs. Warriors gathered their weapons and garments, and directed their children to take their positions in the long, snakelike concourse of people and ngombes preparing to migrate to other pastures.

  Although the Ilyassai were a nomadic people, their wanderings followed a pattern that had been set in ancient times. When the season changed from dry to wet, they traveled to the extreme northern boundary of their realm to wait out the rains.

  Shouts and admonitions filled the humid air while final preparations for the journey progressed. But Mubaku and Muburi paid scant heed to the turmoil that surrounded them.

  “I still say it is bad to move onward while the ilmonek still lives,” said Muburi, his face set in stubborn lines. “A person who is at once ilmonek and an abuser of ngombes should not be left alive.”

  Mubaku frowned in recollection of how long it had taken his warriors to recover the ngombes after Imaro had stampeded them – the better part of a week. Some of the cattle had fallen to Ngatun and Chui and Matisho, as well as packs of wild dogs. One group of blindly fleeing ngombes had blundered into a small cluster of rhinoceros. The ensuing carnage had left the Tamburure littered with the gored carcasses of cattle and Kifaru alike. It was a badly depleted herd that the Kitoko clan
finally gathered into a new boma.

  Each missing ngombe was a blood-debt that Imaro owed the clan. The bands of warriors that stalked him through the vast sea of grass were at once hunters and executioners.

  Yet as the days passed, no trace of the fugitive had been found. And as the time for migration had drawn inexorably forward, the ol-arem could not delay his clan’s departure much longer.

  Ten clans comprised the Ilyassai tribe, and the north-to-south, south-to-north cycle of roving they followed had been planned long ago to allow each clan ample pasturage all year long for its herds. When one clan’s area was sufficiently grazed, it moved on, and the area was left undisturbed until the grass had re-grown tall enough to provide pasturage for the next clan in the cycle.

  The success of the pattern depended on intricate timing. If one clan lingered overlong in its area, there would be diminished pasturage for the one that followed. In bygone rains, blood-feuds had resulted from incidents of neglect, and when the Ilyassai fought among themselves, rival tribes gathered like packs of jackals around a conflict among lions.

  As ol-arem, it was Mubaku’s responsibility to ensure that the ancient cycle of migration continued. The most vehement arguments Muburi could muster for the clan to remain where it was until the hunt for Imaro was completed failed to forestall Mubaku’s final decision to dismantle the manyattas and begin the long trek northward.

  “The ilmonek is as good as dead,” Mubaku said flatly.

  No one among the Ilyassai referred to Imaro by his name anymore, or even as “son-of-no-father.”

  “If the beasts don’t get him, the next clan to use this land, the Itayok, will,” Mubaku continued. “I have sent runners to the ol-arems of all the clans, telling them that an ilmonek and harmer-of-cattle runs free – much to our clan’s dishonor.”

  “Then our clan should kill him,” Muburi persisted. “That way, we would regain our honor, and no young warrior would ever again think of doing what the son-of-no-father did.”

  He lowered his voice as he continued.

  “And there are some who say one who is ilmonek could never have escaped from all the warriors of the Kitoko…”

  “But you’ve already explained that the ilmonek’s cowardice maddened him,” Mubaku said. “The young men spit on the grass whenever he is mentioned. Why, then, should we risk war with the Itayok?”

  “I have seen the messages in the clouds, and studied the omens in the entrails of hyenas,” the oibonok replied darkly. “Ajunge may turn his back on us if we do not slay the ilmonek.”

  Mubaku considered those words before he spoke with finality.

  “Our clan must move,” he said. “But I will allow some of our warriors to stay in the area to hunt for the ilmonek. The ol-arem of the Itayok will understand.”

  Realizing that Mubaku would bend no further, Muburi nodded to signal his acquiescence. Without further conversation, both men rose from their squatting positions, and Muburi walked away.

  The preparations for departure continued. The heat of Jua pressed like a hot, heavy hand on the backs of the toiling Kitoko clan. Like countless generations before them, they welcomed the sun’s searing touch, and they soon completed their tasks. Then they began their northward march, stretched in a long line across the Tamburure.

  Huge herds of grass-eaters made way for the Ilyassai and their cattle. Predators resisted the smell of meat and remained hidden in the grass until the last of the clan went by. Then they resumed their pursuit of easier prey.

  There was one who followed the clan, however. This predator stalked on two legs. Stolen weapons were in his hands. And hatred was in his heart…

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The Tamburure was less open in the northern part of the Ilyassai range. Trees grew thicker there, and small lakes lay scattered like the teardrops of a giant across the edges of the yellow plain. Pasture was good and game plentiful. Distracted by the work involved in settling into their new area, the Kitoko clan spoke less and less about the curious circumstances of Imaro’s olmaiyo. The erecting of the manyattas and the parceling of grazing land became matters of far more importance than the fate of one who was both ilmonek and outlaw.

  But there were others who did not forget.

  Far from the manyattas, five young warriors, only two of whom had earned their shingonas, sat in a circle around a waning fire. They had hunted well this day, as the well-gnawed remnants of the buffalo they had speared attested. When the drums of war were silent, it was in hunts such as this that Ilyassai warriors slaked their thirst for conflict and maintained their weapons-skills.

  The youths had put up a small boma to keep scavengers away from their kill. They did not fear the packs of jackals, hyenas, and long-billed marabou storks that the smell of decaying meat would lure; the barrier simply saved them the effort of chasing off the more adventurous of the carrion-eaters. The hoots and barks of the scavengers furnished a background against which the boasts and jests of the hunters sounded even louder.

  Suddenly, the cries of the carrion-eaters changed, and a rustling of the grass signalled their sudden departure. Immediately, the warriors sprang to their feet, arems poised to strike swiftly. Over the jagged edge of the thornbush, they spotted a lone, armed figure passing close by.

  Then the tension broke as they recognized the solitary warrior as one of their own clan.

  “Easy, brothers; it’s only old ‘Bent-nose’ Kanoko out hunting for the ilmonek again,” said one of the wearers of the shingona. The others joined him in laughter.

  “Kanoko!” another gibed. “Why don’t you go look in the Place of Stones for the ilmonek? Maybe you’ll find him hiding under one of the rocks!”

  The laughter increased. Kanoko glared at the hunters, spat in the grass, and moved on. Unconsciously, he raised his hand to touch his flattened nose, which had not healed properly after Imaro’s foot had broken it during the night of his escape from the Shaming. Kanoko scowled at the memory that night…

  Mubaku and the other elders had questioned him relentlessly about his presence in the manyatta from which Imaro had escaped. Kanoko told them the truth: his purpose had been to torment Imaro one last time; to offer him a clean death as an alternative to the final degradation of the Shaming. He had hoped to bring Imaro to the point of begging for the bite of Kanoko’s simi, before withdrawing the offer in a final gesture of contempt and disdain.

  But by the time he arrived at the manyatta, Imaro had already broken his bonds, and what followed was known by everyone in the clan.

  The elders had been far harsher in their judgment of him than of Keteke, whose scream had alerted the night guards. She said she had awakened to relieve herself, and had spied Kanoko on his way to the manyatta in which Imaro was held, and had followed him there for no reason other than curiosity. The elders had accepted her explanation without question, or even much consideration.

  After inspecting Imaro’s bonds, which had been torn rather than cut, Mubaku and the elders agreed that Kanoko had not helped Imaro to free himself. But because he had failed to prevent Imaro’s escape, and thus had an indirect role in the stampeding of the ngombes, Kanoko had been stripped of all but one of the cattle in his sizable herd. And his resolve to seek vengeance against Imaro had hardened…

  Kanoko still possessed Imaro’s woman, Keteke. But now he found, to his dismay, that he had himself become an object of derision among the younger warriors, almost as much as Imaro had been.

  He did not respond to the taunts. But long after the other warriors had lost their fervor for the fruitless search for Imaro despite the urging of the oibonok, Kanoko persisted. He could not explain how he knew, but he was certain that Imaro still lived, hidden in the trackless reaches of the Tamburure.

  And as long as Imaro lived, Kanoko would hunt him. And he would not rest until Imaro was dead.

  Beyond the boma of the hunters, Kanoko scanned the grass, searching for even a slight sign of human passage. Finding nothing, he moved on, shutting his ears to the
laughter that followed him from the boma.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Cautiously, Muburi threaded his way through a thin clump of trees. Although he bore his arem and shield and simi, the oibonok still moved furtively, as if to hide his movements even from the blind eye of Mwesu the moon.

  Fully secluded by the trees now, Muburi laid down his shield and arem, then gathered a pile of fallen branches for kindling. He drew a fire-bow form his garment and twirled it rapidly. Soon, the tinder was ablaze. From a pouch belted at his waist, the oibonok extracted a handful of powder that glinted in the firelight. He tossed the powder into the dancing flames.

  The moment the crystalline grains touched the fire, the orange blaze was transformed into an inferno of emerald incandescence. Muburi sat cross-legged in front of the green flare, eyes unblinking. As he sat unmoving, he attempted to control a rising sense of dread as a shape began to form in the center of the conflagration.

  Rapidly, the shape assumed the outlines of a face that was human, yet eerily inhuman; a face of Ilyassai configuration, dominated by eyes that burned with an amber sheen that surpassed even the green glare that surrounded it.

  Suddenly, the spectral visage swelled outward from the flames and hovered over the upturned face of Muburi. Sweat that was not caused by the heat of the fire beaded on the oibonok’s brow. Yet Muburi neither moved nor blinked. He waited for the glowing apparition to speak.

  “You are a flawed tool, Muburi,” it said at last, its voice deep yet alien: unpleasant to the ear. “Yet I, too, am flawed, and a tool. Tell me, tool of a tool, what you have accomplished for me since I last spoke with you.”

  Muburi, knowing that the face in the fire was already aware that he had accomplished nothing, spoke nonetheless. It was as though something was physically dragging the words from his unwilling tongue.

  “The ilmonek has not been found,” Muburi said. “I do not know whether he is alive, or dead. I cannot find him with the mchawi you taught me, and the warriors have wearied of hunting him – all except Kanoko. There is no more to say.”