Zulu Heart

by Steven Barnes

  East of their position, another building’s brick wall simply exploded, gouting flame out into the street. To her horror, Nandi actually watched as a pair of concert patrons were engulfed in fire and fragments of obliterated brick.

  The walls of the Lion’s Blood holding company rattled as the neighboring building burst a wall. The children wailed and wept, clinging to each other for dear life. Twenty terrified children, each more certain than the others that death and doom had come for them all.

  “Cowards!” cried Nandi. “No Zulu fights children.”

  “They don’t even know we’re here,” said Lamiya.

  The accountant’s eyes widened. “What is that?”

  There was a creaking sound as a floor grille rose up, revealing a blessedly familiar face.

  “Fodjour!” Lamiya screamed.

  “Help us! Kebwe is badly wounded.”

  “Quickly!”

  But Nandi was already moving. Kai appeared, groaning as his wounded arm was ground against the side of the trapdoor, and as the building lurched to the shock of yet another explosion.

  A bank of cannon roared on the ships, and a horrific moment later a series of shells impacted in the streets of New Djibouti, disintegrating a fleeing merchant in a single hellish instant, and triggering a shock wave that collapsed a corner of the holding company’s roof.

  “I thought you said they wouldn’t attack Lion’s Blood,” Lamiya said.

  “I don’t believe they are,” Kai replied, grimacing with pain. “Those shots are off-target—”

  With a thunderous roar, a neighboring building exploded. The children screamed again, and then began to sob.

  “Barricade that hatch,” Makur said. “The men who attacked the Governor won’t give him up so easily.”

  “Kebwe is dying, Kai,” Babatunde said. “I have no medicine to stop it. Pressure points can ease his pain.… I can postpone but not prevent the inevitable.”

  Kai closed his eyes, pained. He came to Kebwe, and cradled his head.

  Kebwe looked up at Kai, his eyes bloodshot. He trembled, and his teeth chattered. “Fire in my veins. Oh, Allah, I did not know …”

  “What, my friend?”

  “I have seen many men die. But I did not know.”

  “Know what?”

  The white of Kebwe’s eyes darkened with blood as capillaries burst. “What there are no words for. Kai, be not afraid. It is nothing to fear. Death is more natural than life….”

  His crimson eyes suddenly grew frantic, and he looked around the room, relaxing when he saw Makur.

  “I … I cannot be taken,” said Governor Pili. He hunched on the floor, wrapping his arms around his knees. Although the night was warm, he shivered. “They will torture me.” And then added, almost as an afterthought: “And my wife.”

  Kai laid his friend’s head on the ground, and fought his urge to break Pili’s jaw. “We will do our best to protect you,” he said.

  “It is not enough!” said the Governor.

  Kai’s eyes grew cold. “You are not yourself. Find courage, man!”

  Madame Pili glared down on her husband. “The Wakil is right. Be a man, can you not? If not in our bed, then on the threshold of death.” Her scorn was searing, and enough to deflect Kai’s wrath.

  “He might prefer the grave to a life with that one,” Makur whispered.

  “Cowardice has infinite variety,” Kai replied.

  Pili Hamam approached them, and lowered her voice. “My husband is not well,” she said, “but in one thing he is correct: the people who planned this will do anything to complete their plans. If my husband falls into their hands, many will suffer. Make no mistake: he will sign anything, do anything to avoid pain.”

  Although a whisper, those last words dropped like acid. Shrew she might have been, but also a feder näf, with all of the iron discipline that that implied.

  “What would you suggest?” asked Nandi, looking back at the Governor. He seemed to be lost in his own world of ego and mortal fear.

  Pili Hamam locked her gaze on Nandi, and then Lamiya. The three women stood as the three points of a triangle, as if the men were not present at all. “That he not fall living into the hands of the Hashassin.” Pili Hamam’s voice was arctic.

  Kai and Makur exchanged a startled expression.

  “And you?” Lamiya asked.

  “Let them do their worst.”

  Makur whispered to Kai, “I think Allah gave this one the balls of a camel.”

  Kai nodded. “And her husband those of a mouse.”

  “What do we do?”

  Kai looked back at the vault door. He and Makur nodded grimly, understanding each other in an instant.

  As primary shareholder, Kai possessed the combination opening one of the vault door’s locks. The old caretaker provided a hidden key that opened the second, and the door yawned wide as the Governor, orphans, Babatunde, and both Kai’s wives were ushered inside.

  “There is air for some hours,” said Kai. “Be quiet, that it not be too swiftly consumed.”

  Nandi shivered. “I do not like confined spaces,” she said.

  “I empathize more than you know, but cannot have you here, now. It would distract me.” He kissed each of his wives, quickly. “Keep the children well. You and Lamiya protect each other. And if that idiot of a governor grows too obnoxious”—he shrugged—“strangle him.”

  He closed the door. Kai, Makur, and Fodjour put their backs to the vault door and waited.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO

  At ten miles per hour, it had taken almost seven hours for the Tortoise to enter the bay. As it did, the sea rolled over them as if their ship were a rock in the ocean, floating only a few digits above the water. Several times Aidan swore that they must sink and miserably drown.

  The wheel had been temporarily rigged on top of the turret, where Chifi and the sisters now stood. From below he performed whatever tasks were directed of him: loading shells, stoking the boilers, or manning the pumps. Through a hollow copper tube he could hear the commands from up top, and every few minutes one or the other of them would climb below or back up again on one errand or another. Despite his fear, he exalted, as if after a lifetime of wandering he had finally found a home.

  The Tortoise entered into the burning bay, so low to the water that in the early morning’s darkness, the combating vessels on both sides failed to detect them.

  They skirted the harbor, Chifi thinking to come in from the south, behind the crafts, trusting in the night, smoke, and storm clouds to conceal them.

  When they reached open sea, the Tortoise was making very heavy weather, riding one huge wave, plunging through the next as if shooting straight for the ocean floor, and splashing down upon another. Her hull trembled with such shock that the crew was sometimes shaken from their feet. A wave would leap upon them and break far above the turret, so that if they had not been protected by a rifle-armor that was securely fastened and rose to the height of a man’s chest, Chifi and the Dahomy might have been washed away.

  When the pounding was at its worst, Aidan tried to remember that he had volunteered for this, and remembered something that a veteran had said to him at the Mosque Al’Amu a man always gets into trouble if he volunteers.

  Words to live by. If, indeed, he and his black companions were not all headed for the bottom of Djibouti Bay.

  For a moment his mind had drifted to thoughts of the Ouachita crannog, of Sophia and Mahon … but then his attention was ripped away from such pleasant thoughts as he watched the water gush in through the coal bunkers in sudden volumes as it swept over the deck above.

  In the engine room behind him, Sallah Mubutu screamed, “Coal’s too wet to keep up steam! Pressure’s dropped from a hundred debens to thirty!”

  The water in the vessel was gaining rapidly over the small drainage devices. Chifi screamed for the engineer to start the hot-air pump. When the pumps began to churn, a stream of water eight digits in diameter spouted up from beneath the waves.
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  The Tortoise steamed ahead again with renewed difficulties. “Leave the wheel!” Sallah called. “The tube’s blocked—need you to run messages up to Chifi!

  “Tell her it’s too wet. The coal’s too wet,” Sallah called again. The little man’s warning had become a liturgy. “I won’t be able to keep up steam.”

  Aidan climbed the ladder. Up top, the spray and the rain made the Tortoise’s rolling more stomach-churning. Despite nausea, he related his message.

  “Slow down,” Chifi called in return. “Tell him to put all the steam he can spare into the pumps.”

  A heavy wave crashed against the deck, carrying away one of the Dahomy. To her credit, she screamed not a single time, as if concerned that, even in the midst of such a storm, she might be heard, and the element of surprise lost.

  The fires began to die, and the small siphons choked up with water. “The pumps are drowned,” Sallah reported. “The main pump has almost stopped working for lack of power.”

  Chifi climbed down to see for herself, and then turned to Aidan: “See if there is any water in the wardroom.”

  Aidan went forward, and saw the water gushing in through the hawsepipe, through which the anchor chain ran. Aidan guessed that dropping anchor had torn away the insulation.

  He ran back up and reported his observations, and at the same time heard Mubutu report that the water had reached the ash pits and was gaining very rapidly. “Stop the main engine,” Chifi called. “All steam to the pumps.”

  Almost miraculously, the pumps began working once again.

  “Eight degrees right,” Chifi said.

  “I cannot breathe,” said Yala, hand at her dark throat.

  “It is your mind, Sister,” Ganne replied. “There is air. It is these confined spaces that convinces you there is not. Irish!” she called. “How goes it?”

  “I wish I could see better,” he said, peering through the mirror device Chifi had arranged for him. “This contraption leaves much to be desired.”

  She grinned savagely. “You talk strangely for a pigbelly.”

  “And you act strangely for a woman.”

  Despite, or perhaps because of the circumstances, both laughed.

  “Ready? Fire!”

  Aidan and Yala had loaded shell and a gunpowder cylinder into the cannon. Aidan took a moment to sight, and then heard the scream:

  “Thunder and lightning!”

  Recoil slammed the Tortoise like a gong, and Aidan’s ears felt as if they would rupture. The pumps continued to drain water, and for the moment, they were in the fight.

  Chifi was watching through the mirror device. “Two degrees left,” she said.

  “Two degrees left.” Aidan worked the turret’s hand-crank until Ganne, sighting, told him to stop.

  Again the ship shook.

  They held their breaths, waiting, and then they heard the distant sound of detonation. Chifi threw up her arms, and gave a savage shout of celebration. “Excellent!” she cried.

  Her hand cut the air again.

  “Fire!”

  The Tortoise fired again, and then again. Over the next hour they scored one hit for every three shots.

  Then Aidan was thrown from his feet, the Tortoise reverberating as if a giant had taken a sledge to its armor.

  “We’re hit!” Yala called.

  “Only a matter of time before they found us,” Chifi replied. “Fire!”

  “Dear Jesus!” screamed Aidan.

  “I thought you didn’t believe in the Yahudi,” said Yala.

  “I didn’t believe in metal boats either—ah!” Another shell slammed off the deck, rocking them.

  Water began seeping in through some of the weld cracks. Aidan and some of the Dahomy women were set to bailing—bailing out the ocean, as it seemed. He was kept employed most of the time taking the buckets from through the hatchway on top of the turret. They seldom would have more than a pint of water in them, however, the balance having been spilled out in passing from one person to another.

  Up on deck, he squinted through the rain, watching one of the damaged Djiboutan warships as it managed to return fire against the Alexandrians. The ball struck an enemy vessel amidships. In that instant it seemed their luck had changed, for the powder magazine leapt into flame and smoke with a roar that had to have been heard as far north as Dar Kush. A wall of flaming air rolled across the water, and Aidan dove back below before it reached the Tortoise.

  Entranced by the violence, he peered back up to see the result.

  The damaged steam-screw began to sink. As it did, its port cannon discharged.

  To Aidan’s horror, sparks and flame exploded from the side of Bilal’s head. The statue resounded with an ear-pounding note, like a giant bell. When the smoke had cleared, half that head had been sheared away, leaving but a single glowing eye to gaze balefully on the carnage below.

  “Captain!” Aidan called down. “They hit Bilal!” With an oath, Chifi took the scope, peering out through the smoke and flame to see for herself.

  “Muzawwars,” she muttered. “Unbelievable bastards.”

  “We’ll make them pay for that,” Ganne promised. “A hundredfold!”

  “They want war?” Chifi screamed. “Then war they will have. Father, guide my hand!”

  She turned the scope back over to Ganne, and walked with unsteady tread back to the captain’s station.

  “One of the ships is sinking!” Ganne called back. “They’re abandoning ship.”

  “If only we could kill them in the water,” Chifi muttered.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “Carry on.”

  For the next two hours the Tortoise took a horrific shelling, but despite the worst the Alexandrians could do, her armor held. Despite all odds or expectations, Chifi’s eye and nerve held, and they managed to sink two more ships.

  The crew was cheering when the greatest impact yet exploded amidships, throwing everyone from their feet. A rivet blew out of the side of the Tortoise, striking Sallah Mubutu in the ribs with a bullet’s impact. He doubled over, crimson foaming from his lips as water gushed over his face. Yala and Aidan carried him to a bunk, the little toolmaker screaming and spitting blood every inch of the way. Aidan was uncertain what to do next. “Should one of us stay with you?”

  “Are you a fool, man?” Sallah said, eyes blazing. “Get back out there and kill them!”

  When Aidan returned to the main cabin, Chifi was on the verge of losing control, trembling as she screamed. “Do you like that? How does it feel? You murdered my father, you bastards! I’ll kill you all, kill you all—”

  Aidan was aghast, feeling that he was witnessing a human being abandoning sanity like a snake shedding its skin.

  “Chifi!” cried Yala. “Get hold of yourself!”

  Chifi turned. Aidan guessed that if she had held a sword, the inventor would have slain her friend.

  But she did not hold a sword, and the Dahomy woman gripped her shoulder, preventing her from turning or breaking eye contact. “A cool hand guides a steady spear,” she said. “Calm yourself.” Chifi struggled back to control, and clasped Yala’s hand in thanks. The air compressed as another massive blow shook the Tortoise: a cannonball glancing off the deck. Another rivet blew, and water sprayed into the main cabin.

  “We can’t take more of this,” said Aidan.

  Chifi replied. “We’ll take it until I say otherwise.”

  “We’ll sink!” Ganne screamed.

  “Do you know what this ship is capable of?” Chifi said fiercely. “Do you know the quality of her armor? What my father and I built the Tortoise to be? Do you?”

  “Chifi—we are your friends. Get hold of yourself. We will sink!”

  “No. No. I have to … I have to …”

  “Wait,” said Yala. “The smoke is clearing.”

  “What do you see?”

  “I see … more ships coming.”

  “From where?” The air was deadly still. New Alexandrian reinforcemen
ts would be the end of them. Chifi took the scope.

  “The flag … is Djiboutan! They’re our ships, returning from Azteca!”

  She swiveled the scope around as far as it would go. “The Alexandrian ships are in retreat!”

  They cheered, hugging each other madly.

  Another rivet blew, and now the water lapped about their feet. All eyes turned to Chifi.

  She scanned at the vessel’s iron walls, running her hand over it lovingly. “We’ll build you again,” she said, and then turned to her crew, speaking the two words they had prayed for:

  “Abandon ship.”

  Sallah Mubutu lay injured in his bunk, a bandage tight around his midsection. His face was ashen, a terrible contrast to the crimson bandages. He watched the water as it grew deeper and deeper, already aware of what his fate must be.

  “We have to get you to safety,” Aidan said, and slipped an arm around him. Surely they could move him up the ladder to the deck, and from there…

  Sallah screamed piteously, arching his back and clawing at Aidan. “Let me go! Ali’s wounds, you’re killing me!”

  Aidan backed away in alarm. “There has to be a way …”

  The toolmaker shook his head, and coughed blood. “No, Aidan,” he said. “Try to get me out, I’ll just drag you to the bottom with me. Let it be here, in this beautiful ship. Go tell your friend the Wakil ‘thank you.’” Despite his pain, the little man managed to twist his lips into a smile. “Get out, boy. Go live your life.”

  “But sir—”

  The toolmaker coughed up a trickle of crimson, and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. He looked up at the Irishman. “Get out! Or don’t you know how to obey your betters?”

  The flash of pain on Aidan’s face must have reached the old man, whose countenance softened. “Go on. We did good work, didn’t we?”

  “We did,” Aidan said. “They’re in retreat.”

  “Good. Drown them all. Go on now. It’s just me and the Tortoise, and that seems like the way it should be.”

  Still Aidan hesitated. Mubutu closed his eyes, a bright pink bubble foaming at his lips. The toolmaker gasped for air, then fumbled a hand under his coat, withdrawing a gold-plated pocket watch of Benin design. “Take this,” he whispered. “Give it to my eldest son.”