Before long, the riders arrived – armed men, clad in leather armor decorated with beads and cowrie shells. Plumes sprouted from the helmets that protected their heads.
Peacocks, Imaro thought. Like Bomunu.
The Zanjian was courteous enough to Imaro on the surface, and had taught the warrior a great deal during the days that followed his acceptance into the ranks of the haramia. But he detected a different undercurrent in Bomunu’s attitude toward him: a touch of disdain and condescension.
However, Bomunu had been away from the haramia for a time, in the faraway kingdom of Kundwa, negotiating payment for the Afua with the rogue sorcerer who had hired Rumanzila’s bandits to steal it for him. Rumanzila had raised the price, knowing that the sorcerer’s lust for the effigy would overcome his outrage over the prospect of giving up more gold in return.
Focusing on the riders now, Imaro noticed one who was different from the rest – covered from head to foot in a dusty, white garment, called a kuva, that left only a slit for the rider’s eyes. The hands of this closely guarded rider were tied securely to the front of the saddle. Armed men flanked the mysterious figure.
The shrouded rider was the target of the haramia. Rumanzila’s spies had told him that a nobleman of Bomunu’s home kingdom, Zanj, had bought a woman from the Shikaza, a remote people renowned for the beauty of its female members and the timidity of its males, for his seraglio. But another noble from the neighboring kingdom of Azania had offered a huge bounty for anyone who could obtain the Shikaza woman for him – and that was a bounty Rumanzila was determined to win.
Kongolo counted the Zanjian soldiers as they clattered past. Some of them looked toward the opening of the defile, but between the shadows cast by the rocky outcrops and the dust the soldiers’ mounts raised, the bandits were all but invisible.
After the last soldier went by, Kongolo turned to Imaro.
“Not very many of them, are there?”
Imaro nodded agreement. In truth, however, the soldiers escorting the Shikaza woman outnumbered the haramia by nearly two to one. But the haramias’ advantage of surprise would outweigh those odds – or so they hoped.
Quietly, the bandits emerged from concealment and rode behind the Zanjians. The hoof-beats of the haramias’ horses blended with those of the soldiers’ mounts. The haramia quickly closed the gap between them and the Zanjians, and only the sudden sound of bodies falling to the ground after swords pierced through flesh alerted the Zanjians that they were under attack.
Then the chaotic sounds of combat overwhelmed the clatter of hoofbeats. Steel clanged against steel; haramia and soldiers alike cursed and cried out as blades struck their targets; horses neighed in fright and fury; and more bodies crumpled to the ground to be trampled by flying hooves.
The Zanjians’ numerical superiority over the bandits vanished with startling swiftness. Before the soldiers could defend themselves effectively, nearly half of them were cut down. To the greater disadvantage of the Zanjians, a number of them were needed to guard the Shikaza woman, and to prevent her horse from bolting with her bound helplessly to the saddle. The woman’s mount danced nervously as the fighting raged around her.
Imaro accounted for more Zanjians than anyone else in the raiding party. The Ilyassai’s sword streaked like a steel lightning bolt, shattering the weapons of his adversaries and slashing through the leather of their armor as though it were mere cloth. The other haramia followed his lead more than they did Kongolo’s, but Kongolo took no offense, for he knew no slight was intended. Like all the haramia, he was well aware that the best place to be in a battle was at Imaro’s side – and the worst place to be was in front of him.
Before long, only the Zanjians who were guarding the shrouded woman remained alive. It was time then for Kongolo to assume his position of leadership for the raid. Riding slowly toward the Zanjians, he spoke to the one who appeared to in charge of the remnant of the escorts.
“Throw down your weapons, and we will allow you to live,” he said in passable Zanjian. “It is the woman we want, not you.”
The Zanjian leader, a lean man whose mustache bristled like the quills of a hedgehog, let out a short bark of mirthless laughter.
“You know full well, bandit, that if we return to Zanj without the Shikaza woman, we will pay for that failure with our lives,” he said.
“Then don’t go back,” said Kongolo. “Join us, and live in freedom.”
The officer spat on the ground, as did the rest of the surviving soldiers.
“Better to die with honor than to live as a thief,” he said.
And with a cry that could have been a prayer or a curse, the Zanjian spurred his horse forward and swung his bloodied blade at Kongolo’s head. The haramia barely had time to lift his own weapon in time to parry a stroke that would have separated his head from his shoulders. Following their commander’s lead, the other soldiers charged into the bandits, slashing in a blind frenzy as though madness had claimed them.
The ensuing combat was short but savage, with the haramia prevailing in the end. But another haramia fell before the last of the Zanjians died. That brought the bandits’ death toll to four, and Kongolo knew he would have to answer to Rumanzila for that loss. He also knew, however, that even more haramia would have been killed had Imaro not been among them.
In the meantime, some of the bandits had surrounded the Shikaza woman. The hand of one was clamped firmly on the bridle of her horse. With her hands bound, the woman could not have escaped, but the haramia wanted to make certain that her horse did not bolt after the Zanjians had abandoned her. Through the eye-slit of her kuva, the woman’s gaze was unreadable.
Kongolo addressed her in a harsh, peremptory tone.
“You are going to a different destination,” he said. “If you do not give us any trouble, there will be no trouble for you. Understood?”
“Understood,” said the woman, her voice muffled by the cloth that covered her mouth.
She spoke to Kongolo – but she was looking at Imaro. If the warrior noticed the direction of her gaze, he gave no sign. In truth, he was thinking not of the captive, but of a word the Zanjian officer had spoken, a word he had not heard before: honor. He wondered if its meaning of it was the same as the Way of the Warrior, the stiff-necked integrity of the Ilyassai.
At a word from Kongolo, the haramia rode back up the defile, with the Shikaza woman in tow. They left their dead companions behind, along with the corpses of the proud Zanjians.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Jua hung low in the sky as the bandits returned to Rumanzila’s latest hideout. It was, as always, located in an area that would be difficult for rival haramia bands, or the authorities of the kingdoms on which they preyed, to locate. The current encampment was in a wooded area, in territory that was part of the disputed borderland between Zanj and Azania. However, the remote area was so unsuitable for farming or herding that neither kingdom made much of an effort to enforce its claim. Few people dwelled in the region, and those who did gave the bandits a wide berth.
Even though darkness had not yet fallen, some of the haramia were already erecting their sleeping-shelters, which consisted of lengths of cloth draped over a framework of poles lashed together with twine.
As Kongolo and his riders clattered into the encampment, a cheer rose from the haramia who had remained behind, for the sight of the shrouded Shikaza woman signalled that the raid had been successful. At the sight of the four riderless horses led by the bandits at the rear of the column, however, the celebration wavered. Four comrades had been lost … rivals and competitors in the sharing of the loot, but comrades, nonetheless.
As their fellow bandits gathered around them, the raiders dismounted. Kongolo untied the hands of the Shikaza, and helped her down from her horse. Then, while the raiders boasted of their prowess in overcoming a far larger number of Zanjian soldiers than they had actually confronted, Rumanzila approached them. And all conversation ceased.
Mbuto was at Rumanzila’s sid
e, a place from which he seldom strayed. The big man’s face remained impassive, and the ever-present whip hung motionless in his hand. When Mbuto looked at Imaro, however, the whip moved in a slight twitch that only those who were sharp of vision could detect.
Imaro saw it. And he touched the hilt of his sword lightly in response. If Rumanzila was aware of the subtle exchange between Imaro and Mbuto, he gave no indication.
“You have the woman,” Rumanzila said to Kongolo. “That’s good.”
Then he turned his attention to the four riderless horses, and a frown creased his brow.
“But you lost four men. That’s not good.”
“One of them was Mwenze,” Kongolo said.
A glimmer of sympathy appeared for a moment in Rumanzila’s eyes. Mwenze, who had been with Kongolo during the journey to steal the Afua, had been Kongolo’s best friend, and among the haramia, such friendships were difficult to find. Then Rumanzila’s eyes hardened again.
“Mwenze and the others were your responsibility, Kongolo,” he said. “When the Azanian pays our price for this woman, your share will be – nothing.”
Kongolo nodded acceptance. His punishment could have been far worse. Rumanzila could have decided that Mbuto’s whip was necessary to remind Kongolo, and the others, of the consequences of failure.
Rumanzila turned his attention to the Shikaza woman, who stood before him like a dust-shrouded apparition from the Bush of Ghosts – the afterlife.
“What’s your name?” he demanded.
“Tanisha,” a muffled voice replied.
“Well, Tanisha, you are a very valuable woman,” Rumanzila said. “So valuable, in fact, that a certain nobleman of Azania is willing to pay more for you than the Zanjian who bought you in the first place. The Azanian hired us to … secure the transaction.”
A sound that might have been either a gasp or a snort of laughter came from beneath the kuva. Rumanzila frowned, then continued.
“Zanjians can be clever, though,” he said. And he shot a glance at Chimba, who smiled in return.
“How am I to know that you are truly the Shikaza woman who is so much desired by both the Zanjian and the Azanian?” Rumanzila continued. “You could be a decoy, and the actual woman of the Shikaza could be safely in Zanj by now.”
Now a sardonic grin replaced his previous scowl.
“I am, of course, well aware that according to the customs of your people, no one is permitted to look upon you before you are delivered to the one who has bought you. But surely, you can understand why that custom must be broken now, so that we can be certain you really are a woman of the Shikaza.”
Tanisha said nothing in response. Rumanzila’s scowl returned.
“Remove your kuva,” he said, a dangerous edge creeping into his tone. “Or we will remove it for you.”
“As you wish,” Tanisha said.
Bending forward, she took the hem of her garment in both hands. Then, in a single, deft motion, she stood upright, pulled the kuva over her head, and let it fall to the ground behind her.
Sharp intakes of breath greeted the sight of what the all-enveloping garment had concealed.
Tanisha was tall for a woman. Her obsidian-black skin gleamed in the sunlight. Two long, narrow rectangles of pale-yellow silk hung from a chain of gold looped low around her waist: one in front of her, the other behind. The translucent rectangles were her only garment, other than the strands of gold that circled her neck, arms, and ankles. Golden hoops hung from her ears, and studs of the same metal pierced her navel and the tips of her large, round breasts.
Her waist was so narrow that Imaro could have circled it with both his hands. So could Mbuto. Her hips, however, were far from narrow, arcing from both sides of her scanty garment.
A cloud of wooly, black hair framed Tanisha’s face. Full lips parted beneath her nose, showing a flash of white teeth. Her midnight eyes gazed with amusement at the dozens of wide haramia eyes that goggled back at her.
After seeing her, the haramia knew that the tales of the beauty of Shikaza women were true. Only the snorts of the horses and the shuffle of feet and hooves against the ground broke the silence that had descended after Tanisha removed her kuva.
It was Tanisha who ended the moment.
“Have you seen enough?” she asked Rumanzila.
“Yes,” the bandit chieftain replied. “Put your kuva back on.”
Tanisha smiled again – a dazzle of teeth that captured the sunlight. Then she shook the dust from her kuva and shrugged it back over her head, again in a single motion.
“Chimba,” Rumanzila said, turning to the small, yellowish man. “Go and tell the Azanian we have what he wants. And because we lost four men in obtaining the Shikaza for him, the price has now doubled.”
Nodding his acknowledgement of the command, Chimba mounted his horse and rode out of the encampment.
Rumanzila then rattled off a series of other orders. Tanisha was to be given her own shelter, and would be guarded at all times. No haramia, man or woman, was to touch her until she was delivered to the Azanian – unless it was to prevent her from escaping from the hideout. No harm was to come to her while she was among the haramia.
“Anyone who disobeys will answer to Mbuto,” Rumanzila concluded.
The mountainous man beside him twitched his whip. All the rest of the bandits – except Imaro – trembled inwardly at the thought of Mbuto’s lashes thudding into their flesh. Quickly, they dispersed, two of them leading Tanisha away.
Rumanzila had noticed something when the Shikaza woman had turned away. He had seen her looking at one person among the haramia, and it hadn’t been him. Through the eye-slit of her kuva, she had been gazing at Imaro.
Rumanzila’s scowl deepened…
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Night had fallen. In the encampment, everyone was asleep, except the sentries – and Rumanzila and the wa-nyanume, Angulu. They sat beside a small fire in front of Rumanzila’s shelter. Angulu’s face bore an expression of concern. Rumanzila’s did not. Both men sipped from cups of palm wine.
“I do not like this waiting,” the sorcerer said. “We’re going to be in one place for far too long a time.”
“The risk is high,” Rumanzila agreed. “But the reward will be worth it.”
“More loot to share with rogues?” Angulu asked.
Rumanzila stared at him a long moment before replying. Angulu hid his sudden discomfort. Of all the haramia, he was the only one who could speak to Rumanzila without deference. Because Rumanzila respected his skill at sorcery, Angulu could, with impunity, give the chieftain blunt advice and, sometimes, even contradict him. But perhaps he had now crossed a dangerous boundary.
“There’s more to it than that,” Rumanzila finally said. “And I thought you, of all people, would see it. Neither you nor I wish to spend the rest of our lives robbing caravans and sacking villages. With the gold we will receive for the Shikaza and the idol, we can begin the work of carving out our own kingdom in this wasteland – a kingdom that will one day cause Zanj and Azania and Kundwa to tremble at the sound of its name. It will be a kingdom worthy of my heritage, for it is the blood of the rajas from the Lands across the Sea that flows in my veins – not the blood of bandits and beggars!”
Firelight glinted in the bandit leader’s eyes – firelight, and the flame of ambition. For all his knowledge of the darkest sorcerous arts, Angulu feared Rumanzila at times such as this – moments when the man’s true face showed, rather than the impassive mask he wore most of the time.
Angulu knew Rumanzila’s father was no raja. He was a sailor on one of the ships that came from the Lands beyond the Sea to trade in the ports of the East Coast. After seducing a merchant’s daughter and leaving her with child, he had sailed away with his ship. The merchant had cast his daughter away, and as a child, Rumanzila had, indeed, been a beggar in the streets of Mugishu after his mother had died. He suffered many indignities before he became strong enough to repay them in kind. When the ships came f
rom across the sea, he haunted the docks, searching for the man who had sired him. But he never found him, and he was never certain what he would have done if he had.
When Rumanzila grew to manhood, he had joined the Azanian army. But he deserted after killing an officer who had disparaged Rumanzila’s half-caste ancestry. He became a haramia – a raja of outlaws.
Rumanzila had told none of this to the wa-nyanume, or any other haramia. But Angulu knew.
“Bomunu is taking a long time to return,” the sorcerer said, hoping to steer Rumanzila’s thoughts elsewhere. “Do you suppose he – ”
“Has betrayed us?” Rumanzila finished, letting out a short laugh.
“Would you put it past him?” Angulu asked.
“No,” Rumanzila said. “That one will betray me, one day. But not yet. He will wait until I have done all the work of building before claiming it for his own. I know his kind all too well, whether they’re from Azania or Zanj.”
Rumanzila spat into the fire. Then he took a long swallow of palm wine.
“Bomunu may believe he is the greatest threat to you,” Angulu said. “But he is wrong, as you know all too well.”
“Who is it, then, that I ‘know’ to be so dangerous?” Rumanzila asked, his tone deceptively soft.
“Imaro,” Angulu said.
Rumanzila’s eyes narrowed.
“That one?” he said scornfully. “He has no ambition to lead. All he wants to do is fight and kill – which he does better than most, I’ll grant you. But it takes more than that to make a leader.”
“Still,” Angulu said, “the men – and women – respect him. And there is also this to consider: among all the haramia who ride with us, only Imaro has no fear of Mbuto. And he is the only one who has no fear of you.”
“That’s still not enough to make him a leader,” Rumanzila said stubbornly.
Imaro: Book I Page 15
