by Cassie Wolf
As the skies turned the peachy pink of dawn, everything became clear, except for his head, which was pounding. There were fruits up high in the trees, berries in the bushes not too far away, and vigorous vines to create his own equipment.
“You really didn’t think this through, Jasari,” Zaki whispered. He looked around the area as it lit up like its own paradise. The weapon didn’t seem to be nearby; even in the piles of leaves, there was no sign of it. In fact, the only thing anything like a weapon was the stick which he had used to remove the shards of glass.
After attempting to clear his head, he used the stick again to lift himself from the ground. His feet stung as the fresh cuts slid over the harsh, dry grass but he managed to keep his balance. Stumbling a couple of times, he leaned against the trunk of a nearby tree to catch his breath.
Glancing towards the sun, Zaki smiled weakly and brought his beaded necklace up to his lips. “Don’t worry, Masika. I’ll be home soon.” He kissed the white painted bead.
- CHAPTER FIVE -
With her cackle turning into hysteria, Masika found herself frozen. Her thoughts had turned into nothing, her ability to walk was nonexistent and her acceptance of her coming death was clear.
Heavyset warriors ran over as she lay cold and soaked on the floor, covered in crimson fluids and water dripping from her rags. She had completely lost her mind. Every time Gugu screeched in agony, another new set of tears rolled down the side of Masika’s face and dampened the ground beneath while her laughter went deeper into the uncontrollable.
“Go get the witch doctor!” a voice bellowed from behind a scarfed face.
She stared into the eyes behind the mask without a single shred of regret. She was done. The male tilted his head and reached along his belt, swiftly taking it off with a smooth motion. He whistled over a couple more warriors who knelt beside her and pinned her firmly to the ground with their rough hands while the first bound her hands together.
Out of the corner of Masika’s eye, she saw bright violet robes bustling in their direction. Inari had arrived on the scene, while Gugu was still screaming, covered in her own blood and trying to shakily keep a clutch on her ear.
“What the hell happened here?” Inari bellowed behind the mask. He scurried over the sandy ground, trailing dust in his wake as he sat in front of Gugu.
“This one decided she was hungry,” the one who had removed his belt said. “I am waiting for the order to kill her.”
Inari tried to console Gugu, who was yelling incoherently and shivering as if her huge weight was about to topple over.
“Don’t kill her. Send her to Jasari and tell him not to do anything until I am there,” the witch doctor shouted over the noise. He pulled his mask up over his dreadlocks and rummaged through his pockets for his bundles of cloth and herbs.
The warriors grunted in response and scooped Masika to her feet by her arms. She felt entirely limp in their grasp, but something clicked with Inari being there. He had been like a father to her and Zaki for years and now he had to clean up her mess. It was quickly dawning on her what she done and the adrenaline faded into a different type of hysteria and despair.
“Inari! Inari!” she screamed. Her weak frame was no match for the guards as they strode away. “Inari! Please! I just want my brother back!”
The tribespeople whispered and gasped as she was dragged up the hill towards the hut past the mating couples, chained mate-sisters and the workers in their stalls. The belt around her wrists was burning her skin.
Masika had dreaded this day; they weren’t going to let her go. She gave the warrior to her left a pleading look. “Where… where is my brother?”
He remained silent, his eyes straight ahead, and tightened his grip on her upper arm.
“I want my brother!” she screamed once more. The tears felt real this time as they poured down her blood-speckled face.
The doors to the hut were thrown open and the men urged Masika inside towards the throne where they cast her to the ground before Jasari.
Jasari peered past his cup at the young girl and licked his bottom lip. Eyeing the warrior at her side, he furrowed his brow and cleared his throat. “What is this?”
“Witch Doctor Inari ordered me to tell you not to kill her or do anything until he has arrived,” the soldier responded, almost as if rehearsed.
Jasari lifted from the bone seat and took a few steps forward. His beady black eyes glared down his large, hooked nose to Masika as she mumbled prayers beneath her breath.
“That didn’t answer my question. This girl is not a hunter, she is not a warrior and yet you throw her at my feet covered in blood.”
The warrior shifted his feet on the spot. “She bit off Gugu’s ear while waiting in the line for water.”
Jasari’s sockets seemed to widen to his eyebrows, the whites of his eyes were actually visible and the veins on his neck swelled with anger. He gave a grunt and waved the man back from Masika.
“Why should I wait for Inari when you have attacked a fellow - actually no - attacked the Chieftain’s family, a woman worth far more than you?”
Masika rocked back and forth. The words went through one ear and right out of the other. Her fingertips slipped across the smooth beads in her grip while her lip quivered with fear. “Because… she is not worth more than me.”
Jasari gave a raspy chuckle before his face burned red with anger once more. He lifted his booted foot and kicked her in the ribs as hard as he possibly could. Masika bit back her screams as she collapsed to her side.
“Wrong answer, Masi. She is worth more than you. Tell me again, why should I wait for Inari?”
She dragged her hands across the dirty ground and kept her eyes closed. She saw the image of her father when she was young. The warriors had dragged him into the centre of the village to beat him before her mother. By the time they were finished, he was covered in cuts and bruises, but still kept his bloody grin.
“Then don’t wait. It doesn’t change my mind. I am equal to her; I am equal to you.” Masika clung to her ribs and peered at the Chief. She could taste blood on her teeth as she smiled.
Jasari was almost purple in the face as he kicked her again. This time, the thick leather boot cracked into her fingers.
Masika keeled over and screamed. She saw them ruined, the bones jutting out. With her ribs still throbbing in agony, her stomach gave a sudden twist and the pressure was too much. She vomited across the floor.
“You still believe you are equal to my great family?” Jasari knelt down a short distance from her, grimacing at the smell of vomit.
“We were all born the same, whether you like it or not,” Masika whispered. Weakly, she met Jasari’s gaze and gave him a smirk.
The Chief threw his hand down into her curled locks and gripped them as close to her scalp as he possibly could. He dragged her up to her feet as she felt the sniggering building through her bloodstained lips once more. Jasari snatched out his dagger and forced her to face the warriors.
“You are nothing. You are fucking nothing but a breeding female,” the Chief spat. He pulled her hair back to expose her neck and brought the sharp blade to her throat.
Masika didn’t resist but cackled, the pressure of the cold blade on her flesh making her heart race. She should have been terrified. She should have had regrets but she didn’t. The weight was slumping from her shoulders at the thought of a blissful heaven with her family.
Jasari teased the blade across her neck. With the smile on her face and her eyes closed, maybe he realised this was what she wanted. That if he slit her throat and ended her life here and now, he was giving her exactly what she desired. But then again, she knew if he didn’t then others might revolt against him too. His family history, the generations of sitting on the trokhosi, disappearing into the night because of a single orphan.
“Chief! Put down that blade!” Inari rushed through the doors in a swirl of violet with a small entourage of men lugging the heavy weight of a collapsed Gugu in
their grip.
Masika gave Jasari a smirk as he tossed the blade to the side and threw the girl into the arms of the beltless warrior.
Jasari ran towards his lifeless daughter, pushed past the armoured figures to be by her side. He snarled at the witch doctor, “Make sure she is out of my sight by the time I return.”
Inari nodded and looked at Masika. He must have known this day would come for one of the siblings, but probably never thought it would be from her. Shaking his head, he approached her. Her laughter came to a halt as the wooden mask drew near.
“Send her to the cages,” Inari said coldly, voice tinged with disappointment. Masika didn’t say a word while the warriors dragged her through to the back of the hut, just let her quiet tears dampen her weary cheeks.
- CHAPTER SIX -
When he finally mustered some strength, Zaki forced himself to climb a nearby tree to gather a couple of the ripened fruits and the hanging vines to make a weapon of his own. After combining a couple of stone shards and vibrant feathers from the chirpy parrots, he was able to craft himself a bow and arrow to hunt with.
Now, after four days in the jungle, his only problem was finding something that would give him enough substance for a meal. Every once in a while as his feet hit the ground, the glass cuts would peel open and bleed again. While it wasn’t the worse pain he had ever felt, it was certainly a hindrance when trying to hunt. The only animals he had seen so far were the birds, but they would fly away before he could even line up a decent shot.
Zaki had managed to find some thick green leaves to wrap around the holes in the water pouch. He had been lucky with the rainstorms which hit in the night, filling the flask enough to prevent his lips from becoming cracked.
By now, though, it was clear that the soft slices of fruit wouldn’t be enough to live by. The dizziness was returning and his stomach ached and rumbled. Beneath a canopy of leaves, he removed the pouch from his neck and placed it stacked on top of rocks to catch the rain overnight. In nothing but his rags, he lay down with the smell of the fresh earth and dirt in his nostrils. There was only one thing he couldn’t bring himself to do out in the wild: make his own fire. The demons of flame haunted his mind as if the death of his parents had happened a matter of hours ago. Even while freezing cold with his nose starting to run, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. In their own household, Inari had to teach Masika to build the cooking fires and it had only been this year that Zaki had forced himself to build his own.
Out in the wilds, it was different. Even as the rain poured down, he didn’t believe the fire wouldn’t envelope him and turn him into a pile of black ash. There were no wells nearby if the rain was to stop and the last thing he wanted to attract was predators, or even hunters from other tribes, to the amber glow.
Zaki shivered under the taut green leaves and shielded himself as much as he could when the raindrops battered the ground. Tomorrow he would have to find food, even if it was a wildcat. But to cook it he would have to make a fire too.
After a few hours of wriggling in the foliage, his body reached a point of exhaustion were it didn’t care how cold he was. Closing his eyes, he eventually dropped off to sleep.
Awakening to the fifth day, the young tribesman scooped up his pouch and brushed off the dirt sticking to his skin. He picked up his bow and his few arrows before trudging out into the sloppy mud. With each step he took, the cold beneath his cut-open soles felt refreshing, although sometimes a stick or another piece of random debris would stab into one of the slices and make it worse.
As he walked, Zaki peeled and ripped apart a piece of fruit, teeth tearing at the fleshy segments and juice dripping down the sides of chin until it was gone. He threw the peel into the bushes and took a sip of his water, when there was a low growl from close at hand.
He spun around and made sure he was making himself appear as big as possible. If it was a wildcat, he had always been taught never to run away. The moment you do, they would hunt you down and rip your body into shreds. Instead, it was best to stand your ground and throw your arms about, to make yourself a threat.
The low growl came once more. He quietly trod in its direction. If there were animals nearby, they should have meat, even if it was just the remains of whatever they had hunted. He parted the branches, keeping a close ear out for anything which might approach from behind. It seemed that the animal in question was a feline and clearly wasn’t worried about hunting. It must have been one that had recently eaten, Zaki thought. That meant there would probably be scraps lying about somewhere.
His feet slipped slightly on the soggy ground, making a sloppy, squelching noise. In that moment, the cat stopped. He stood balanced between trees, attempting to hold his breath as his heart battered against his ribcage. A fleeting thought told him to run away. But then the sounds of the wildcat’s satisfaction resumed once more.
Just as he was about to take another step, a stray piece of leather on the ground caught his eye. Furrowing his brow, he carefully knelt between the bushes and inspected the piece. Tattered and covered in brown stains, he recognised the use of different animal teeth to create the illusion of an open jaw straight away.
There was a cave just beyond the greenery where the purring and grunting was coming from. Daring to take a few steps further, Zaki held his breath and swam through the grasses as carefully as he possibly could.
It was all becoming clearer the closer he got. The leather pieces on the floor which formed the whole upper armour of his tribe’s warriors had been torn and blood coloured the emerald leaves around, so it appeared one of them had been dragged through. The dirt was strewn with decorative teeth and bits of metal. There was one thing which still stood unharmed among it all though: an engraved silver sword.
Zaki’s dark eyes widened the instant he caught the shining glimmer of the sun on the blade. Without even thinking, his feet knew where they wanted to go. With every slight crunch of sticks and flowers beneath his feet, he stopped until he was sure the cats were still eating. Heart pounding and head spinning with dizziness, he inched forward on tiptoes. His cuts were near bursting from the pressure and his head was telling him to collapse onto the ground, but there in front of him was his treasure. That treasure was worth his life; if he didn’t have it, he would die searching for sustenance in the wild jungle.
He reached out. The sword scraped against the rock it was resting on and he winced at the sound. He pulled it away as quick as he could and stumbled back into the grasses behind.
The lions residing in the cave soon stirred. They knew there was an intruder. He kept his grip on the sword and didn’t take his eyes away from the cave mouth while he backed away, heavy paws echoing as they came to investigate.
Pulling slowly back through the grasses, he kept himself down out of view and prayed to the Gods they wouldn’t come after him. Luckily, the floor was still soaked from the night’s rain and depending on how much of a threat they thought he was, he hoped they wouldn’t believe he was worth the hassle.
When it was safe enough, he stood back up on his aching feet, his heart slowing back to its usual pace. With a nervous grin, he lifted the sword and inspected his new weapon. It had a long, thick, jagged blade and a grip of dark brown deer leather. It was a simple piece of equipment with no decorations or engravings to mark its previous owner. In fact, the only marks were scuffs and scratches from wear and tear over the years.
For a moment, he glanced back over to the cave and nodded his head to say a small prayer for the warriors. As much as he hated them, it was only right to bless souls as lost as theirs.
“Jasari, you have killed your own men in an attempt to kill me,” he whispered and tied the sword around his waist with a strong vine.
After a couple of hours following the sun, the sudden buzz from bees nearby made his stomach flutter. Wherever bees made their nest, there was water nearby.
He scoured among the brambles until he could see in the distance, a cloud of insects beneath a fruit tree. Zaki
couldn’t help but smile with relief and broke into an agonising run down the hill. The cuts on his soles were ripping open once more and the dizziness was near overpowering. It wasn’t long until a beautiful lake spread out through the trees before him. The trickle of water against rocks was the sound of heaven as he battled through the jungle to his second prize of the day.
The ground beneath had turned into oddly-clustered blocks of mud mixed with stray bits of grass. The hoof marks of the different wildlife feeding from the water reached as far as he could see. Even the fish in the lake seemed fat and filling while they swam carefree in the glorious basking rays of the sun.
Zaki laughed as he threw himself down by the water’s edge and cupped as much of it as he could to his lips. He soaked his face and cleaned off some of the previous day’s dirt and dust as well as washing the cuts in his feet.
When he finally felt refreshed, he took his new sword into the waters and waited patiently for fish to come to the surface. With no bait, nor anything to hang it from if he had, it was down to his own handiwork to catch a meal. It was a couple of hours before he finally drove the blade into the lake and pierced a plump fish for his meal.
“Now, a cooking fire…” he whispered. He placed the fish on top of a broad leaf while he gathered together suitable stones and sticks.
His hands shook when he tried to make the light. The first few attempts, he would jump and growl when the sparks started to appear, making him throw the kindling to the ground.
“I am next to water, it cannot hurt me next to water.” Zaki exhaled and tried again. Keeping his calm, he worked the fire bow again. After a few sparks the orange glow appeared between his feet. Suddenly, his muscles tensed. The heat was rising and he could feel it burning against his flesh. Shaking his head, he tried to combat the thoughts. The screams. The bodies.
