Zulu Heart

by Steven Barnes

  Aidan nodded, trying to find words, but the little man gave him no time. “Go,” he said.

  And finally, Aidan did.

  As he ascended the turret ladder the sea broke over the ship and came pouring down the hatchway with so much force that it took him off his feet. At the same time the steam broke from the boiler room as the water finally reached the fires. At last it became viscerally clear that the Tortoise was actually going down.

  As Aidan reached the top of the turret he saw a boat thrashing in the waves off the port bow, filled with men and women. Three others stood on deck trying to get on board. One woman was floating leeward, shouting in vain for help. Another woman hurriedly climbed the ladder and jumped down from the turret. She slipped, was swept off by a breaking wave and never rose.

  The ladder had been washed away, so Aidan made a loose line fast to one of the stanchions, and let himself down from the turret. The moment he struck the deck the sea broke over it and swept him as he had seen it sweep his shipmates. He grasped one of the smokestack braces and, hand over hand, ascended to keep his head above water. It required all his strength to keep the sea from tearing him away. As waves swept from the vessel he found himself dangling in the air nearly at the top of the smokestack. He let himself fall, and succeeded in reaching a lifeline that encircled the deck by means of short stanchions, and to which the rescue boat was attached. Again the sea broke over the deck, lifting him feet upward as he still clung to the lifeline.

  The Irishman thought he had nearly measured the depth of the ocean when he felt the turn, and as his head rose above the water he was somewhat dazed from being so nearly drowned. He vomited up what seemed a cubic cubit of water that had found its way into his lungs. He was then about ten cubits from the others, who he found to be Chifi and Tala, Ganne had been washed overboard and now struggled in the water. The men in the boat were pushing back on their oars to keep the boat from being washed onto the Tortoise’s deck.

  Evidently, the rescue boat was from one of the foundering ships. The leader in this one wore the emblem of first lieutenant, but Aidan didn’t recognize him at all. “Is the captain on board?” the officer called, struggling to have his voice heard above the roar of the wind and sea.

  “I am she,” Chifi called. “Throw a line to Ganne!”

  Sailors scrambled to comply. The captain of the rescue boat helped Chifi across. “Women? All women?”

  “Not all, but most,” she screamed above the crashing waves. “Permission to come aboard.”

  “Granted.”

  The moment she was over the bows of the boat one of the Dahomy, eyes wide with terror, cried, “Cut the line! Cut the line!”

  As the sailors bent to sever the connection, Aidan saw several Dahomy standing on top of the turret, apparently afraid to venture down upon deck, and it may have been that they were deterred by seeing others washed overboard while they were getting into the boat.

  Chifi tried to reach them with a line, seeing that their grips were weakening. All on the lifeboat held their breaths, stunned by her courage, and were dismayed as another wave struck the Tortoise, tearing her feet from beneath her. She slipped a foot, caught again, and with her last prayer—“Allah forgive me!”—she fell back to the far side of the Tortoise, where he could no longer see her.

  “Get around! Get around!” Ganne shrieked, the wind drowning her voice.

  As they began to row, the ship rolled, and rose upon the sea, sometimes with her keel out of water, so that he was hanging twenty cubits above the sea, crashing down again with bone-crushing force.

  Hands ripped and raw, Aidan still clung to the rope with aching hands, calling in vain for help. But he could not be heard, for the wind shrieked far above his voice. For the first time in his life, Aidan gave up all hope. He thought of Sophia, who had blessedly told him to seek his sister, and of Nessa, who, at least, he had delivered unto freedom. His children, who would grow strong and safe in Donough’s weathered hands …

  While he was in this state, within a few seconds of letting go, the sea rolled forward, bringing with it the boat. When he would have fallen into the sea, it was there.

  He could only recollect hearing someone say, as he fell into the bottom of the boat, “Where in hell did he come from?”

  Damn fine question, he thought. Damned fine question indeed …

  And then he remembered nothing more.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE

  Within the shadowed confines of the Lion’s Blood holding company, the drama’s final act was taking place. Seeing that Governor Pili threatened to elude them, and that the blockade was broken, the Hashassin had clawed their way up from under the street, girding themselves for one last all-out attempt.

  “Kai of Dar Kush,” rasped the Hashassin leader. His eyes gleamed behind his scarf.

  “Your name,” asked Kai, hoping that his voice sounded steady.

  “Omar Pavlavi.” His eyes darted to Kai’s bloody arm. “You are wounded.” There seemed genuine regret in the observation. “I am sorry—I wished you whole for the killing.”

  Kai managed to push aside both pain and fatigue. “What remains of me is still more than enough for the likes of you.”

  “Good,” said the pale man, his smile a skull’s. “Good. Let the dance begin.”

  And with a slight, respectful bow, never allowing his eyes to leave Kai’s, Omar raised his sword and attacked.

  Kai was wedged in, small battles raging to either side, no room to bring rifles into play even if they were so possessed. Kai fought against a rising tide of despair. He was exhausted in all but spirit, and mortal fear hammered at the door of his resolve. This place, a palace of gold and power, now threatened to become his tomb. The Hashassin leader engaged with him, and Kai immediately knew that his assessment of Omar upon the bridge had been accurate, and perhaps even overly optimistic.

  Omar was a brilliant swordsman, and in the first ringing clash of their blades, Kai knew that Malik himself would have been sorely pressed. Malik was not here, and the man who held the breach was both wounded and exhausted.

  Only the left arm could come into play, and if this was a disadvantage, at least Babatunde had urged Kai to practice on this side more extensively, claiming that it was a way to train his mind. There was an advantage to using the left hand: it was completely natural for Omar to have trained and fought primarily against the right-handed, who were infinitely more common in the Islamic world. A blade held in the left approaches from a fractionally different angle, and a man could easily make miscues attempting compensation. This placed Omar at a bit of a disadvantage, as well.

  Still, the current situation was more than trouble. This was almost certain disaster.

  But where Malik had taught Kai to be strong, to think of his mighty ancestors, to revel in the opportunity to expose himself to fortune and fate, Babatunde had prepared his mind for fear in another way: anxiety triggered the reintegration process, an increase in precision, a more intense awareness of angles and degrees, distance and cadence.

  Fear triggered a deeper descent into the realm of the intellectual, where calculation replaced emotion as survival became more and more uncertain.

  All emotion was quashed. No sentiment could rise through that, except …

  Kai caught each blow, made each careful parry using the barest minimum of motion. Even now, his shoulder ached abominably. But something else lived beneath the fear, something even now beginning to shoulder aside the other emotions.

  Your wives …

  Omar’s blade lunged for his heart, and surprising even himself, Kai effected a hairline deflection.

  Your children were home when the bastards attacked….

  Kai’s mind seemed to expand the moment, so that although he too was caught in the same torpid vortex, he saw everything with crystal clarity, and was able to make the proper choices, allowing a fractional tilt of blade to deflect a lethal thrust….

  They would endanger all that your father and father s father built
….

  Omar grunted with pain as Kai found an opening and slammed his shoulder into the center of his enemy’s chest, as Malik had taught him since childhood.

  They kill for money.

  And there it was, the thing that triggered Kai’s deepest revulsion. To kill for self-defense was the right of any animal. To kill in defense of home and family was an obligation understood by all the world’s peoples. To slay and die for one’s country was the duty of any civilized man who would hold his head high in the company of citizen-warriors.

  But to kill and die for coin? To skulk and strike from darkness? To rip apart families, endanger children for gold, and gold alone?

  For the second time in a twelvemonth, Kai of Dar Kush went berserk.

  Pain did not matter. Fear existed no more, all emotions dissolved to a magma driving the skill spent a lifetime in attaining, and despite his injuries and weakness, despite using his left hand, Kai pushed his opponent back.

  Omar’s eyes displayed shock as he found himself repulsed by a blur of thrust and parry, Kai’s shamshir dancing like a willow-wand in a windstorm, something not wholly human impelling its quest for the Hashassin’s heart and throat.

  The killer’s black eyes widened, and then narrowed, and the icy touch of terror filmed them. “To me!” he cried, and one of his men broke off his efforts to flank Makur and joined with Omar, turning aside a high-line thrust that might have torn his leader’s throat.

  The odds were now two to one, two blades against Kai’s left. One step at a time he was forced to retreat, and under this stress his mind cleared and madness passed. Kai’s carefully maintained focus fled, and the sheer overwhelming impossibility of his situation flooded over him.

  There was a thump at the door of the depository, men shouting, and a gunshot as the Djibouti militia challenged the lock.

  Omar backed up a step, his eyes bright. “We conclude our game another time. Good-bye, Wakil.” He whistled an earsplitting shriek, a sound Kai seemed to hear with his brain rather than his ears. His men broke contact and scrambled back through the floor as if they had practiced the maneuver a hundred times.

  And indeed, perhaps they had.

  Kai slumped back in utter exhaustion. “It is not a game. It was never a game,” he said.

  And collapsed, trembling so hard that his sword dropped from his numbed fingers.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR

  Smoke and storm clouds roiled the sky above Djibouti Harbor, but amid the large-scale disaster, the human toll was revealed as less devastating. The rain began to temper its wrath, washing down upon them in waves rather than a steady wall.

  Smoldering fires attempted to leap back to life, only to be repressed again, and finally, to die beneath the dual ministrations of man and nature.

  Kai and the others were being treated for wounds and exhaustion. Slowly, the population of Djibouti Harbor emerged from the night-long bombardment. Anger supplanted fear as the survivors surveyed the devastation. Bilal’s ruined visage loomed down on them, gazing through a single bright baleful eye. Whenever exhaustion or thankfulness muted Djiboutan wrath, a single seaward glance was all that was required to trigger it once again.

  “Hold still, please,” said Doctor Jimuyu.

  Kai flinched as a bitter salve was slicked over his wounded right arm. “I … ow! Have you seen to the children?”

  “Yes, Wakil,” the Kikuyu healer said placidly. “As you ordered.”

  “And my wives?”

  “Of course,” the doctor said.

  “And—”

  “Will you please lie back? With wounds such as this, one has two choices only: medication or amputation. Might I respectfully suggest the former?”

  Kai settled back. The door of the depository was open, and the shocked inhabitants wandered past, glancing in with glazed eyes. “Look at them,” he muttered. “They never imagined.”

  The doctor paused in his ministrations to follow the Wakil’s gaze. “They have not seen war.”

  For the first time, Kai fully appreciated the thin white line of a scar along Jimuyu’s jaw, and needed no further clarification. From where he sat, he could just make out the bay, and smoke from Bilal’s statue streamed to the sky.

  “Great Bilal,” said Kai.

  “There will be blood, Wakil,” said the doctor. “There is no avoiding it now. North against south. Pharaoh against Empress. Look at the children.”

  He had no wish to do so, but it was unavoidable. The young ones seemed completely shell-shocked. One small body was draped by a blanket.

  “I can’t believe that they intended this,” Kai said.

  “It matters not. Already, I have heard men speak of the ‘Orphan War.’”

  “Labels are not things,” said Kai. “Men exploit tragedy for their own purposes. They would not act to protect the children, but will happily turn their tears into gunpowder. This grows worse every moment.”

  Governor Pili was, if possible, even more disoriented than the children. He had emerged from the vault round-eyed and shaken, possessed of a new nervous habit: the tendency to wipe at his face with the cuff of his coat again and again, as if trying to smear away imaginary blood. “I didn’t … I really didn’t think they would dare. I thought our interests were theirs. I see now. I see.” Phil looked up at Kai. “Months ago, you warned me not to lower my sword. I reacted shamefully. How can I make amends?”

  In that moment, Kai was too tired and disgusted to play the politician. This once, he would speak the truth. “I fear my father might wish me to answer such questions with platitudes. ‘Win the war,’ I might say. Or perhaps ‘Your friendship is all I crave.’ On this occasion I do not say that. We are entering pale times, and if you do not forget that which happened today, it may suit me well.”

  Pili had almost been overcome by his trembling. He gazed at his shaking hands and then back at Kai. His teeth clicked together nervously. Pili squared his shoulders and with an admirable effort, steadied himself. “I shall not.”

  “I have heard that the Governor’s word is his bond,” said Kai, taking the offered hand. It was not strong, but it was firm, and that was a beginning. “Let it be so.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE

  In twenty-four hours, things began to settle again. The harbor was dragged. Amid the wreckage and loss, dozens of bodies were recovered, but not Chifi’s, whom Aidan had seen pulled out to sea.

  “We have lost her,” Kai said to Babatunde.

  “There is still hope,” Nandi said. “I hear citizens have taken wounded into their own homes. She may be among them.”

  “I fear, young Wakil,” said his teacher, “that the days ahead will be perilous.”

  “As we have known. At least her efforts were not in vain. The Tortoise proved herself. Its schematics are drafted, and I can place them before the Senate.”

  Babatunde gazed out at the horizon, and he dropped his gaze. “I promised Maputo that I would protect his daughter. I failed.”

  Rarely had Kai seen Babatunde in such a sour, foul mood. He draped his arm around his teacher. “We have done the best we could with the resources Allah gave unto us,” he said. “More than that we cannot do.”

  “Perhaps not,” agreed Babatunde. “But we can try.”

  Days passed in which life around Dar Kush threatened to return to something approximating normal.

  Kebwe’s military janazah was conducted on his father’s estate east of Djibouti Harbor, attended by Kai’s regiment. He was buried with full honors, and the posthumous rank of grand sergeant.

  Kai had just returned from the funeral when bin Jeffar arrived, escorted by four members of Kai’s territorial guard.

  The Admiral was brought into the courtyard, and there Kai met him. The two men studied each other. Both were in formal military uniform, Kai’s the dress whites with gold trim of Djibouti Pride, the Admiral’s a deep blue-green coat with white pants and silver-trimmed black boots shiny enough to serve as a heliograph mirror.

  One of Kai’
s guards stepped forward.

  “Sidi, we have not searched this man, and were not certain of the protocol. If you wish—”

  “Until I have said otherwise,” said Kai, “he is to be treated as an honored guest.” He looked at the admiral sharply, and then back to his men again. “Until I say otherwise.”

  His men retreated, leaving the two statesmen alone. “I did not expect to see you here,” said the Wakil.

  “I was on … personal business,” said bin Jeffar, “but with the outbreak of hostilities, my trip assumed a more official flavor.”

  “I think it is best that you serve in that official capacity. Tempers are high. ‘Outbreak of hostilities.’ What a polite way to phrase an unprovoked attack on a peaceful population. I trust you are a mediator.”

  “So have I tried to be. We wish only harmony, Wakil.”

  Kai laughed heavily. “Your people have a strange way of showing it. Our harbor is in ruins. The statue of Bilal, our proudest accomplishment, lies in pieces. I would gladly deliver you to the torturer.”

  “I am under the protection of Governor Pili.”

  “Who owes me a favor. Be careful, and hope that I choose not to request it.”

  Bin Jeffar turned his empty palms upward. “May I speak candidly?”

  Kai nodded.

  “I want independence for Bilalistan as much as you—for different reasons, yes, but I am sincere, nonetheless.”

  “Why should I believe you?”

  The admiral sighed. “I understand. This is war, now, and no man can see the future. I offer you two tokens, which may convince you of my sincerity.”

  “And they are?” Despite himself, Kai was interested.

  “First, my word that your sister is safe.”

  Kai tensed. “You know of this?”

  “Of course. The Pharaoh crowed to the Caliph, and he could not wait to share the news with his circle. Egypt has done this before, and always the hostage is kept safe until all matters are concluded.”

  “Meaning war?”