Blue Horizon c-3

by Wilbur Smith

  Tell me everything that happened," Jim ordered. "Where and when did Xhia attack you?" He listened intently to Bakkat's account. By the time the little man had finished, Jim's complacency had been shaken, oakkat, if Keyset's men are after us, you must find them. Can you backtrack Xhia and find where he came from?"

  "That I know already. Yesterday, while Letee and I were on our way back to you, I came upon Xhia's old spoor. He had been following me for days. Ever since I left the wagons to follow a honey-guide I found."

  "Before that?" Jim demanded. "Where did he come from before he began to follow you?"

  That way." Bakkat pointed back at the escarpment, which was now only a faint, hazy line against the sky. "He came along our wagon tracks, as though he had been shadowing us all the way from the Gariep river."

  "Go back!" Jim ordered. "Find out if Keyset and Koots were with him. If they were, I want to know where they are now."

  It is eight days since Xhia left," said Captain Herminius Koots bitterly. "I truly believe he has made a run for it." "Why would he do that?" Oudeman asked reasonably. "Why now, when we are on the very brink of success, after all these hard and bitter months? The reward you promised him is almost in his hands." A crafty look came into Oudeman's eyes. It was time to remind Koots about the reward once again. "All of us have earned our share of the reward. Surely Xhia would not desert at this point, and forfeit his share?"

  Koots frowned. He did not enjoy discussing the reward. These last months he had been pondering every possible expedient to avoid having to make good his promises in that regard. He turned to Kadem. "We cannot wait here longer. The fugitives will get clean away from us. We must go on after them without Xhia. Do you not agree?" Since their first meeting the two had swiftly forged an alliance of convenience. Koots had in the front of his mind Kadem's promise to open the way for him into the favoured service of the Caliph of Oman, the power and riches that would spring from that position.

  Kadem knew that Koots was his only chance of finding Dorian Courtney again. "I think you are right, Captain. We no longer need the little barbarian. We have found the enemy. Let us go forward and attack them."

  "Then we are in accord," Koots said. "We will ride hard and get well ahead of Jim Courtney. We will lay an ambush for them on ground where we have the advantage."

  It was a simple matter for Koots to keep track of Jim's caravan without closing in on him and disclosing his own presence. The dust kicked up by the cattle herds could be seen from leagues away. Having convinced himself that he no longer needed Xhia, Koots led his troop down the escarpment, then made a wide, cautious detour into the south

  to come out ten leagues ahead of the caravan. Now they started back to intercept it head-on. This way they would leave no tracks for Jim Courtney's Bushman tracker to pick up before they had a chance to spring their ambush.

  The ground was favourable to them. It was evident that Jim Courtney was following a river valley down towards the ocean. There was grazing and good water for his herds along this way. However, at one point the river was pinched into a narrow gorge where it ran through a line of rugged hills. Koots and Kadem surveyed the bottleneck from the height of the hills above.

  They will have to come through here with the wagons," Koots said, with satisfaction. The only other passage through these hills is four days' travel to the south."

  "It will take them days to traverse the gorge, which means that they must laager the wagons for at least one night in its confines," Kadem agreed. "We will be able to make a night attack. They will not be expecting that. The Nguni warriors they have with them will not fight in the dark. We will be the foxes in the hen coop, it will all be over before dawn breaks."

  They waited on the high ground, and at last watched the slow line of wagons enter the mouth of the gorge below them and follow the bank of the river deeper into the narrow way. Koots recognized Jim Courtney and his woman riding ahead of the lead wagon, and his smile was savage. He watched them make camp and out span in the gut of the gorge. Koots was relieved to see that they made no attempt to laager the wagons, but merely parked them casually among the trees on the river bank, widely separated from each other. Behind the wagons the herds of cattle flowed into the mouth of the gorge. They watered at the river and the Nguni herders began to unload the ivory tusks each beast carried on its back.

  This was the first time that Koots had been close enough to the caravan to see the quantity of the booty. He tried to count the cattle, but in the dust and confusion that was not possible. It was like trying to count the individual fish in a shoal of sardines. He turned his spyglass on the mounds of ivory piled up on the bank of the river. Here was a treasure greater than he had allowed himself to imagine.

  He watched as the cattle settled down for the night, guarded by their Nguni herders. Then, as the sun sank and the light began to fade, Koots and Kadem left their hiding-place on the high ground and sneaked back from the skyline to where Sergeant Oudeman was holding the horses.

  "Good, so, Oudeman," Koots told him as he mounted. They are in a Perfect position for the attack. We will go back now to join the others."

  They crossed the next ridgeline, then dropped down a steep game trail into the river gorge.

  Bakkat watched them go. Even then he waited until the bottom limb of the sun touched the horizon before he stirred from his own place of concealment on the higher hilltop across the gorge. He was taking no chance on Koots doubling back. In the dusk he dropped swiftly and silently down the steep side of the gorge to report to Jim.

  Jim listened until Bakkat had concluded. "That does it," he said, with satisfaction. "Koots will attack tonight. Now that he has seen the cattle and the ivory, he will not be able to contain his greed. Follow them, Bakkat. Watch their every move. I will listen for your signals."

  As soon as it was dark enough to hide them from any watcher on the hilltops, Jim in spanned the wagons again and moved them into a narrow re-entrant at the foot of the hills, with steep cliffs on three sides. They worked as silently as possible, without whip cracking or shouting. In this readily defensible position they laagered the wagons securely and lashed them wheel to wheel. They drove the herd of spare horses into the centre of the square. The horses they would ride tonight were hitched to the outside of the wagons, saddled and with muskets and cutlasses in the scabbards, ready for an instant sortie.

  Then Jim went out to where Inkunzi, the head herdsman, and his Nguni waited. Under Jim's orders they bunched up the cattle and moved them quietly another three cables' length up the gorge from the bedding ground Koots had spied out at sundown. Jim spoke to the herders and explained exactly what he wanted of them. There was some muttered protest from these men, who looked upon the cattle as their children and were highly solicitous of their welfare, but Jim snarled at them and their protests subsided.

  The cattle had sensed the mood of their herders, and they were restless and fretful. Inkunzi moved among them and played them a lullaby on his reed flute. They began to settle and some couched for the night. However, they kept bunched up together; in these nervous hours they needed the mutual assurance of the herd.

  Jim went back to the wagons and made sure that all his men had eaten their dinner, and that they were booted and armed, ready to ride. Then he and Louisa climbed a short way up the cliff above the laager. From there they would be able to hear Bakkat's signals. They sat close

  together, sharing a woollen cape against the sudden night chill and talked quietly.

  They won't come before moonrise," Jim predicted.

  "When is that?" Louisa asked. Earlier in the evening they had consulted the almanac together, but she asked again mainly to hear his voice.

  "A few minutes before ten of the clock. We are seven days from full moon. Just enough light for it."

  At last the moonrise lightened the eastern horizon. Jim stiffened and threw off the cape. On the hills on the far side of the gorge an eagle owl hooted twice. An eagle owl never hoots twice. "That is Bakkat," Jim s
aid quietly. They are coming."

  "Which side of the river?" Louisa asked, as she stood up beside him.

  They will come to where they saw the wagons at sunset, on this side of the river." The eagle owl hooted again, much closer.

  "Koots is coming on fast." Jim turned to the path down to the laager. Time to mount up."

  The men were waiting beside the horses, darkly muffled figures. Jim spoke a few words to each quietly. Some of the herd-boys had grown enough to be able to ride and handle a musket. The smallest, led by Izeze, the flea, would bring up the pack-horses with spare powder, shot and the waterbags, in case there was heavy fighting. Tegwane had twenty of the Nguni warriors under his command and he would stay to guard the wagons.

  Intepe, Tegwane's granddaughter, was standing beside Zama, helping him secure his equipment on Crow's back. These days, the two spent much of their time together. Jim went to him now, and spoke low: "Zama, you are my other arm. One of us must ride beside Welanga every minute. Do not become separated from her."

  "Welanga should stay in the laager with the other women," Zama replied.

  "You are right, old friend." Jim grinned. "She should do as I tell her, but I have never been able to find the words to convince her of that."

  The eagle owl hooted again, three times. They are close now." Jim looked at the gibbous moon sailing above the hills.

  "Mount!" he ordered. Every man knew what he had to do. Quietly they swung up on to the horses' backs. On Drumfire and Trueheart, Jim and Louisa led them to where Inkunzi waited with his warriors, guarding the bedded herds.

  "Are you ready?" Jim asked, as he rode up. Inkunzi's shield was on his

  shoulder, and his assegai glinted in the moonlight. His men pressed up close behind him.

  "I will lay a feast for your hungry blades tonight. Let them eat and drink their fill," Jim told them. "Now you know what you have to do. Let us begin."

  Quickly and silently, in an orderly, disciplined evolution, the warriors formed into an extended double rank across the breadth of the gorge, from river bank to cliff wall. The horsemen drew up behind them.

  "We are ready, great lord!" Inkunzi sang out. Jim drew his pistol from the holster on the front of his saddle and fired a shot into the air. Immediately the still night was plunged into hubbub and uproar. The Nguni drummed on their shield with the blades of their assegais and shouted their war-cries. The horsemen fired their muskets and yelled like banshees. They surged forward down the gorge, and the cattle lumbered to their feet. The bulls bellowed in alarm for they were sensitive to the temper and mood of their herders. The breeding cows lowed plaintively, but when the ranks of yelling, drumming warriors bore down on them they panicked and whirled away before them.

  These were all heavy beasts with great humps and swinging dewlaps. The span of their horns was twice the reach of a man's spread arms. Over the centuries the Nguni had bred them for this attribute, so that the cattle might better defend themselves against lions and other predators. They could run like wild antelope and when threatened they would defend themselves with those great racks of horn. In a dark and solid mass they stampeded down the valley. The running warriors and galloping horsemen pressed close behind them.

  Koots was well satisfied that they had made a silent approach, and that they had not been detected by Jim Courtney's pickets. There was a good moon and, apart from the usual night sounds of birds and small nocturnal animals, all was silent and still.

  Koots and Kadem were riding stirrup to stirrup. They knew that they had still more than a mile to cover before they reached the spot on the river bank where they had seen the wagons out spanned All of the Hottentots and the three Arabs knew exactly what to do. Before the alarm went up, they must get among the wagons and shoot down Jim Courtney's people as they emerged. Then they could deal with the Ngunis. Even though they were greater in number, they were armed only with spears. They were the lesser threat. "No quarter," Koots had ordered. "Kill them all."

  "What about the women?" Oudeman asked. "I haven't had a taste of the honey-pot since we left the colony. You promised us a go at the blonde girl."

  "If you can catch yourself a bit of poesje, well and good. But make sure all of the men are dead before you drop your pants. If not, you might get a cutlass up your arse end to help you along while you're pumping cream." They had all laughed. At times Koots could show the common touch and speak to them in the language they understood best.

  Now the troopers pressed forward eagerly. Earlier that day, from the heights above the gorge, some had glimpsed the cattle, the ivory and the women. They had told their companions and all were fired by the promise of pillage and rape.

  Suddenly a single musket shot thudded out in the darkness ahead and, without waiting for the order, the column reined in. They peered ahead uneasily.

  "Son of the great whore!" Koots swore. "What was that?" He did not have long to wait for his answer. Abruptly the night was filled with uproar and clamour. None of them had ever heard before the sound of drumming on war-shields, and that made it more alarming. Moments later there was a fusillade of musket fire, wild shouts and screams, the bellowing and lowing of hundreds of cattle, then the rising thunder of hoofs bearing down on them out of the night.

  In the fallible light of the moon it seemed that the earth was moving, a flowing mass like black lava bearing down on them, stretching across the full breadth of the gorge from wall to cliff wall. The sound of hoofs was deafening, and they saw the humped backs of the monstrous herd looming closer and faster, the moonlight glinting on their horns.

  "Stampede!" Oudeman yelled in terror, and the others took up the cry. "Stampede!"

  The tight-knit group of riders whirled round, broke up and scattered away before the solid wall of great horned heads and pounding hoofs. Within a dozen strides GoffePs horse hit an ant bear burrow with his off fore. The leg snapped as the horse went down. Goffel was thrown forward to hit the earth with one shoulder. In terror he dragged himself to his feet with his arm dangling from the shattered bones, just as the front rank of cattle swept over him. One of the lead bulls hooked at him as it passed. The point of the horn slid in under his ribs and out of the small of his back at the level of his kidneys. The bull tossed its head and Goffel was thrown high, to drop back under the hoofs of the herd, then trampled and kicked to a boneless pulp. Three other troopers were trapped against an angle of the cliff. When they tried to turn back the herd engulfed them, and their mounts were gored by the enraged bulls.

  The frenzied horses reared, kicked and threw their riders, and men and horses were overwhelmed by the thrusting of horns and went down under the pounding hoofs.

  Habban and Rashood raced side by side, but when Habban's horse stepped in a hole and fell with a broken leg Rashood turned back and, right under the horns of the stampede, dragged him up behind his saddle. They rode on, but the double-loaded horse could not keep ahead of the cattle, and was swallowed up by a wave of swinging horns and bellowing beasts. Habban was gored deeply in the thigh and dragged from his perch behind his companion's saddle.

  "Ride on!" he screamed at Rashood, as he hit the ground. "I am lost. Save yourself!" But Rashood tried to turn back, and his horse was horned again and again until it also fell in a tangle of legs and loose equipment. On hands and knees Rashood crawled through the dust and flying hoofs. Though he was kicked repeatedly, felt muscle and sinew tear in his back and chest and his ribs snap, he reached his fallen comrade and dragged him behind the hole of one of the larger trees. They huddled there, choking and coughing in the dust clouds while the stampede thundered by.

  Even after the stampede had passed they could not leave their hiding place because a wave of howling Nguni spearmen followed hard on the heels of the herds. Just when it seemed that they would find the two ; Arabs, an unhorsed Hottentot trooper broke from cover and tried to make a run for it. Like hounds on the fox the Nguni went after him, and were drawn away from Rashood and Habban. They stabbed the ". trooper repeatedly, washing
their blades in his blood.

  Koots and Kadem spurred their horses at full gallop along the bank of the river to keep ahead of the stampede. Oudeman stuck close behind them. He knew that Koots had the animal instinct for survival, and trusted him to find an escape for them from this disaster. Suddenly the horses ran into stands of hook-thorn and were slowed by the dense thickets. The herd leaders coming on close behind them crashed through the thorn without check, and swiftly overhauled them. ;