by Marc Secchia
“What?” squeaked Zi.
Thunder staring accusingly across the volcanic pipe, ‘I felt that! Praying does not push a horse’s backside!’ I say, ‘Thunder has a wild idea I pushed him up that slope with a wish and a prayer’. I willed him to find his grip, that’s all…
And he had. Just as he had beaten Talaku in their race to the juniper tree. Just as, when she was drowning in the pool, she had been able to summon all manner of beasts to her aid. Dusky could have been killed. And she might have more success trying to bridle a runaway rhinoceros than control her powers. Suddenly, Shioni found she had lost her appetite.
Talaku waved the hunk of meat at her again. “Perhaps you didn’t mean to cheat?”
“Oh, vulture-droppings to that!” Shioni sprang to her feet, unwilling to give her fears any more reign than they already enjoyed. “Are you with us or not?”
Azurelle’s tongue–her tubular proboscis, for sucking nectar out of flowers, Shuba had informed them in her unsmiling way–had half-unrolled from her mouth in amazement. Even as she watched, it flipped back into place like a tiny spring. Shioni tore her gaze away from the Fiuri and fixed the most ferocious glower she could summon upon the giant.
Talaku rose deliberately, a man-mountain in motion. He had grown much bulkier, Shioni saw, shrinking within herself as he towered above her. He had the shoulders of a bull and the girth of a fully grown ox. He had to be a head taller than when he had abducted the Princess. He could pulverise her like he had pulverised that stone. He could snap her like a twig or tear her limb from limb, she thought, as he raised his arm above her.
His hand descended upon her shoulder, nearly pounding her to her knees.
“For you, I would do this,” he rumbled. “For Sheba and for my friends. But if Captain Dabir dares cross me–or you–I will personally trim his beard with my little shaver here.”
And, smiling a lion’s smile, he patted Siltam. Shioni smiled back. “Thank you, Talaku.”
“Now, a gift of my own.” He stepped across the room in three earth-shaking strides and bent to pick up a small gourd. Talaku had to grasp it gingerly between thumb and forefinger, but the gourd filled the palm of Shioni’s hand. “Mama Nomuula’s best. You need it more than I–for I heal fast. Look, even the scratch you gave me is already whole.” And he showed her his arm, which indeed, had only a finger-long white scar to prove where Shioni had pierced him with her dagger.
“A sip only, three times a day,” he instructed.
Shioni twisted the cork out the gourd’s mouth and sniffed the contents cautiously. Her head jerked backward automatically as the smell assaulted her nostrils. Oh yes, that was Mama’s brew alright. Medicinal, acrid, it could probably be used for scouring rust off armour. It would turn her insides inside out. Pinching her nose shut with her free hand, she glugged a healthy dose.
“Ugh! That was revolting!”
“Something that revolting can only be good for you,” Zi said primly.
“Watch your tongue or I’ll stuff you in my pocket!”
“Good thing I don’t have a tongue to watch then, isn’t it?”
Shioni rolled her eyes at the roof of the cave.
Talaku’s packing was simple. He found a leather strap to bind Siltam to his back, tucked two swords into his belt, left side and right, and dropped the remains of the goat into a canvas sack. “I’m ready.”
“Can’t fight on an empty stomach, eh?”
“I’ll weaken,” Talaku grinned, flexing his biceps.
“Oh, are those hills or are they muscles?” said Zi, pretending to be overcome as she fanned herself with one hand. “Pack them away!”
Shioni chuckled quietly, grateful at least for a moment’s peace from thinking about what they might find when they caught up with the Sheban forces.
After exiting the cave, Talaku led them beneath the waterfall and out to where Thunder awaited them, patiently cropping the lush riverine grass to fill his belly. The giant abruptly picked Shioni up as if she weighed no more than a leaf, and dropped her in the saddle.
“I’ll lead, as I know the trail,” he said. “Keep your horse close to me, right?”
“I will.”
Shioni peered at his face in the darkness. His pupils had grown as enormous as a cat’s. He could probably see in the dark far better than any ordinary human.
Talaku led them by a narrow goat track up above the waterfall, where they rejoined the river’s main flow. As he broke into a trot, they discussed how far upriver the Sheban warriors might be. Talaku was of the opinion the Sheban forces might be ambushed at the bridge, a good three to four hours beyond where he, Shioni and Tariku had previously explored; beyond the stockade where the rebels had attempted to sell him to the Wasabi.
“I burned that place to a cinder,” he said. “I’d fancy nothing more than to give Kalcha a bloody nose, after what she did to us. Did I tell you the Wasabi have a new name for me? They call me Metfo Dimmena, the evil cloud, because of how I stalk and kill them. Metfo Dimmena! Ha ha ha!”
Beneath the wild paroxysms of his laughter, Shioni heard an iron edge of bloodthirsty passion and madness. She winced.
Chapter 22: To the Rescue
The stars wheeled steadily through the sky as the mismatched cavalcade raced northward up the Mesheha River, deeper and deeper into the fractured volcanic wilderness of the Simien Mountains. Talaku’s trot was a steady canter for Thunder. In places, where the going was easy and the ground firm, they accelerated even to a gallop. When he ran, the giant’s footsteps shook the ground as if an angry elephant were stamping its feet, and when Shioni caught a glimpse of his face in the moonlight, it was sometimes straining, sometimes serene, and sometimes seemed twisted from within by diabolical emotions.
She shuddered. His madness was flourishing.
Around midnight, they forded the Mesheha at the place where the stele loomed in shadowed majesty. The river was much higher than she remembered, so high that they had to swim the deepest part, and they were swept a considerable distance downstream before Talaku’s feet found the bottom again and he could drag Thunder to a firm footing by his reins.
After that, they plunged into the gloom of the giant fig-tree jungle, a place redolent of damp leaves and acrid, rotting fruit underfoot; of colobus monkeys and pythons dozing in the treetops; where yawning black pits lurked to snare an unwary foot or snap an ankle. Shioni was startled by an owl whispering overhead, which after a tiny yelp, she recognised as an Abyssinian long-eared owl from a scroll Hakim Isoke had recently set Annakiya to study. And later, both Azurelle and Talaku said they had seen a lioness prowling in the undergrowth. Shioni saw nothing. But with the help of Talaku’s extraordinary eyesight, they made safe and swift progress upriver.
They passed the burned-out stockade in the early hours, which had been razed by Talaku. Shioni eyed the piles of ash and charcoal pensively. In her memory she saw two bound Sheban warriors lying between the feet of Kalcha’s hyena-warriors and Desta’s rebels. Her blade, spinning out into the twilight… and two warriors had been saved. Now she was on the trail of hundreds. How exactly did she plan to save them? Shioni realised she had bolted from the castle without any plan. Simply arrive and–persuade them? Hope that her presence released a miracle? She pursed her lips grimly. She had several hours left of the night to think of… something.
After passing the stockade, the companions faced a steep climb into a narrow gorge, where the Mesheha changed character. Before, the flow had been staid and majestic; now the river leaped and frothed and raced along with hidden urgency, as though the dark waves and oily, racing swells were hands eager to ensnare a careless traveller and sweep them away to their doom.
The trail rose steadily into the gorge above the main flow, loose underfoot and precarious. Shioni’s knees and thighs began to ache from the effort of holding her upon Thunder’s swaying back. Still they maintained a dangerous pace, urged on by a common, unspoken understanding between them; perhaps fear of the Sheban warriors’ fa
te, or anticipation of a battle to come. Could they reach the Shebans before they were ambushed, Shioni wondered? But they were forced to detour to cross two frothing tributaries of the Mesheha, and by false dawn, were still an hour or more from the bridge.
“We need to stop, Talaku,” Shioni said. “Thunder’s picked up a stone in his hoof.”
“Good,” said Talaku. “I’m hungry.”
“You are a stomach on legs,” said Zi. “I could do with some nectar, but the pickings are a bit thin around here.”
“Will Abyssinian rose suffice?”
Shioni paused picking at Thunder’s hoof with the point of her dagger to chuckle at the incongruous sight of Talaku holding the Fiuri up to a rose bush with one hand, while he used the other to apply the entire roast goat to his ever-hungry maw.
“Gently with the royal hoof, urchin.”
“Here it is,” said Shioni, holding a splinter of shale up to his nose. “Jammed right beneath your shoe. Remind me to have you visit the blacksmith when we return. And what is all this royal double-talk?”
“Talk to keep the fear at bay, I’ll readily admit.”
“You’re afraid?”
Thunder butted her shoulder so hard she staggered. “I don’t believe you humans have our animal sense. Except you, perhaps–no? Maybe you’re different. Today, I feel in my liver, there will be a battle.”
“In your liver?” Shioni said over her shoulder, as Talaku offered her a choice chunk of goat meat. “Thanks.”
“Surely you don’t believe the heart is the true seat of your feelings?”
“Well… I suppose not.”
Thunder nodded knowingly. “Come. We should move on.”
Led forth by Talaku, the foursome pressed on up the west bank of the Mesheha toward where the trail coming from the east, from the direction of Castle Hiwot and Takazze, descended in a series of dizzying switchbacks from the slopes of the huge peak called Ras Dejen, to intersect with the river. After crossing the bridge, the main trail crooked abruptly to the northwest, vanishing into the broad upper reaches and secretive folds of the Mesheha River valley. The glimmering morning light, rising almost behind Ras Dejen’s broad-backed silhouette, made the peak frown darkly over the river gorge.
Azurelle whispered, “This place looks ominous. I just hate open spaces, Shioni. I feel like a fly on a wall. Something could swat us any moment.”
“That isn’t likely, Zi!”
But even as she opened her mouth, a rush of air above them made Thunder shy, and a bearded vulture whooshed overhead. Talaku growled angrily, while Shioni quickly lifted her bow off her back and made to nock an arrow to the bowstring.
The vulture executed a fast turn, cupping the air with its wings until it stalled mid-air, just a few yards beyond them, and then flapped heavily to keep aloft. “Shioni!” it called. “Anbessa says, ‘Hurry to the bridge, for the battle is joined!’”
“Told you so,” said Thunder, and then harrumphed in amusement. “Don’t I sound pompous?”
Shioni lowered her bow. Furling its wings to gain speed, the vulture accelerated away over the river. In a low voice, she repeated Anbessa’s message.
“The bridge would be my choice location for an ambush,” said Talaku. “Plenty of cover both sides of the river, and anyone caught in the middle would be a fat buck in a lion’s jaws. You’d divide the Sheban force all too easily. And worse, there’s no cover on the bridge either.” He brought his hands together with a resounding smack. “Squish!”
Thunder flattened his ears in response and took a not-very-playful nip at Talaku, who dodged with catlike speed. “Mind your manners,” said the giant. “And more importantly, mind Shioni. That’s your job.”
The horse bared his teeth by way of reply.
“So, what’s the plan?” enquired Zi. “You charge in there swinging your axe and their archers fill your hide with arrows? You make a rather easy target, I hope you realise.”
“No, I thought I’d throw you at them,” Talaku retorted. “While you bedazzle them with your charms, they wouldn’t notice me chopping them into firewood.”
“Flattery with an axe?” Zi seemed torn between being insulted and amused. In the end, she descended into spluttering incoherence.
Talaku interlaced his fingers and popped his knuckles one by one, making a sound akin to bones snapping. “We must ambush the ambushers–it’s our only chance. We put Shioni up in a nice high place where she can pin anyone with an arrow before they pin me. The horse and I go in low and rout them.”
Shioni nodded. “If all at the bridge is as you said.”
“Trust me. I’m starting to learn how these Wasabi mongrels think. But we’ll scout it first.”
“And if I miss?”
Talaku was about to clap her on the shoulder in a comradely fashion, when he clearly remembered his strength and pulled the blow. He patted her on the head instead–which she hated! “I trust you’ll do your best. Who, after all, hit my backside with a dagger thrown at twilight over the stockade back there?”
A slow grin creased her cheeks. How improbable was it that she and the giant should have become friends? Unexpectedly, Talaku swept her up in his arms and held her to his chest for a moment. She returned his hug as hard as she could. The muscles of his neck and shoulders were bands of iron, as tough and unyielding as his skin. Sorrow burned in her heart. What was he becoming? What legacy would General Getu’s quest to find dragons bequeath his son?
One of Mama Nomuula’s homilies about friendship popped into her mind. ‘All people needs friends, Shioni. But you got to treat them right. Sure, Annakiya treated you wrong. But you also had wrong in your heart toward her. You was disrespectful. Friendship’s got a lot to do with respect. Like building a building. You have a foundation of respect, you’s got a strong building right there.’
Talaku set her down with exaggerated care. “Right,” he said. “Let’s go scare the evil right out of those beardless cowards!”
Chapter 23: The Battle at the Bridge
Clutching her recurve bow to her chest, Shioni crept around the shadow-side of a huge boulder, her heart pounding as though a blacksmith’s hammer was striking her ribcage from the inside. She was right above the fight. Right above the Wasabi, who had the Sheban Elites penned on the bridge like sheep in a shepherd’s enclosure, and were menacing them with ravenous, wolfish delight.
A wispy early morning mist hung over the river bridge, lending the battle an aura of mystery. Indeed, it was a morning of breathtaking beauty. But Shioni had no time to admire the quality of the sunlight radiating over the green hills of the Mesheha valley, or the red-hued highlights making the spectacular western cliff face beyond Chiro Leba, toward Imet Gogo, resemble coals glowing inside an oven.
Talaku had been right–and wrong.
The bridge sat low in the sheer gorge, about thirty or forty feet below the main trail, a solid wood-frame affair anchored either side by stone bridge posts as tall as a man. It meant that the Wasabi forces held the high ground either side. Talaku’s assessment? ‘That fool Dabir must have tried to bring his whole force over at once.’ There were bodies strewn all over the bridge. Many wounded men were groaning piteously and pulling themselves into the meagre cover offered by the bridge’s frame. Others lay unmoving.
On the far side of the Mesheha, still shadowed by the black wall of Ras Dejen, the larger mass of Shebans were besieged by a force of barbarically feathered Wasabi warriors. Kalcha’s favourite pets, her pony-sized giant hyenas, sly and intelligent, and an uncountable mass of smaller hyenas, were mixed in amongst the painted Wasabi hordes. Smoke rose from the scattered supply carts. On the near side a smaller, tight-knit cohort of Sheban warriors–perhaps a hundred strong–faced a boiling mass of Wasabi to the fore, and a troop of Gelada baboons to their rear.
Baboons! Had they climbed up the sheer sides of the gorge itself? Shaggy and hairy enough to seem comical at first glance, with distinctive red chests, the Gelada baboons were nevertheless strong, and i
n numbers, extremely dangerous. Even as she watched, three or four baboons overwhelmed a Sheban warrior from behind and strong-armed him over the edge of the river gorge. His screams rang even to her vantage point.
For Sheba, the situation was dire. The Wasabi could rain arrows and spears down upon them with impunity. Knots of men cowered beneath their shields, trying to shelter somehow from the withering crossfire. She spotted Tariku in the thick of the fighting, his lion’s-mane headdress bobbing about as he thrust with his spear and took blow after blow upon his shield.
She saw the giant leap up onto a boulder that stood the height of a man, in one smooth bound. He lifted Siltam from his back and raised the huge axe above his head. In the early sunlight his body seemed burnished to bronze, like a statue of an ancient warrior rather than a living man, and his corded muscles seemed to swell to impossible proportions.
“WASABI DOGS!” Talaku’s challenge thundered out over the din of battle, at a volume no ordinary man could have matched. “You whelp of scabby hyenas, born in a rubbish pit; you filth; you pus-licking worm-ridden sons of a camel’s lice!”
The effect of his entrance on the stage of battle was immediate. From the Sheban side rose a ragged cheer; from the massed Wasabi, a mortal groan. Now she knew how those Israelites must have felt when Goliath strode down into the valley to challenge them, she thought. How they must have quivered to face such a warrior! Shioni knelt on the edge of her rocky outcropping, laying out her store of fifty arrows with deft, economical movements.
“I am Metfo Dimmena, your nemesis! I am the right hand of Sheba, Champion of the King! I come to rain the sulphurous fires of hell itself upon your heathen heads!”
Talaku, she chuckled, seemed to be enjoying himself.
And with that, whirling Siltam above his head one-handed, Talaku leaped off the boulder he had been using for his speaking platform, and used three unfortunate Wasabi warriors to soften his landing. Rising, the storm that was Talaku broke upon the Wasabi forces.
