Abengoni

by Charles R. Saunders

  Still, a sound reached his ears – a sound that rose above the roar of the flames. It was shouting – and a clash of weapons. The other Uloans could hear it as well. They looked at Bujiji, waiting for his command.

  “Follow I,” Bujiji said.

  The Uloans sprinted toward the sounds. Blood dripped from their weapons, leaving a crimson trail on the street. The shouting became louder as they drew closer to its source. So did the clangor of weapons and the cries of the wounded and dying.

  Bujiji frowned in puzzlement. As far as he knew, no other Uloans had penetrated this part of Khambawe. And he had no idea whom any Uloans might be fighting – the Matile soldiers should still be trapped on the docks by the jhumbis, and most of the other city-dwellers his band had encountered had been weaponless.

  Still, if other Uloans were involved in this fighting, they could combine forces, Bujiji thought. And they could inflict even more Retribution Time destruction. That thought brought a smile to Bujiji’s face.

  They turned a corner – and nearly ran into a maelstrom of swinging weapons.

  Even in the firelit darkness, a quick glance was sufficient to show the Uloans that none of the combatants was a fellow Islander, even though the fighters did not resemble any other Matile they had seen – and slain – so far. Still, they were all blankskins – the enemy.

  Bujiji shook his head in amazement. Matile were fighting other Matile even as their city was being overrun by invaders. The battle was so intense that the Matile, all of whom appeared to be youthful, were not even aware of the Uloans’ presence.

  Them blankskins crazy, he thought.

  Combined, the Matile combatants outnumbered Bujiji’s band. But those numbers meant nothing; the mainlanders were fighting each other. Bujiji exchanged a glance with his marauders. They reached a quick, silent agreement that the risk they were about to take was worthwhile if it meant more dead blankskins. Then they charged into the thick of the fighting and plunged their weapons into anyone who stood in front of them.

  3

  Jass Mofo swung his tirss. Its tips tore through the face of the Hafar tsotsi in front of him. Strips of skin and an eyeball flew through the air as the screaming Hafar went down, hands clutching his ruined face.

  Mofo’s eyes darted left and right. No one else dared to come near him. His Ashakis and the Hafars were battling in a mutual frenzy. The bags of booty the Hafars had been carrying lay unattended, for now, in the street.

  The Ashaki leader could not determine which side was winning. There was no time to consider the circumstances; he could sense another Hafar attacking him from behind.

  With the quickness of a cobra, Mofo ducked and whirled. The hooked tips of the Hafar’s tirss passed less than an inch from his face. Continuing his spin, Mofo struck at the Hafar’s midsection. His weapon’s spikes shredded lean abdominal muscles and left wounds like those of a leopard’s claws.

  Howling in pain, the Hafar doubled over. Mofo landed a contemptuous kick to his foe’s head, and the Hafar fell to the ground, where he writhed in agony before Mofo dispatched him with another vicious strike, then kicked him again for good measure. He turned, expecting another attack. But no one else approached him.

  Again, Mofo scanned the scene of battle. His gaze caught the Fidi, Athir, who looked as though he was attempting to sneak away from the fighting. The foreigner was holding his dagger as if he thought it could ward off a blow from a tirss. Mofo had tried to teach Athir the use of the tirss, but the Fidi proved to be a poor pupil.

  Mofo opened his mouth to shout at Athir. Then he closed it at the sight of a group of strangers suddenly joining the battle, cutting down Hafar and Ashaki alike.

  The newcomers had struck silently, without warning, doing a great deal of damage before their presence was known. Now they shouted as one: “Retribution Time!”

  At first, Mofo thought the intruders were some previously unknown set of tsotsis. A closer look, even in the firelit darkness, revealed their shaven heads and the spider-shaped scars on their bodies, and the madness blazing in their eyes; a vehemence that easily matched the inchoate fury that drove the tsotsis.

  Mofo had never before laid eyes on an Uloan. But who else could these interlopers be? They certainly weren’t Fidi; their skins were dark, not light like Athir’s.

  The Uloans’ initial rush had cut a bloody swath through the tsotsis. Then Ashaki and Hafar alike turned their attention to the islanders while at the same time continuing to slash away at each other. It didn’t take long for Mofo to understand that neither tsotsi set could survive such a three-way conflict – not with the Uloans fighting only one foe, while the tsotsis battled two.

  Mofo came to a quick conclusion. Then he fought his way toward Jass Nunu, the leader of the Hafars. When he found his counterpart, their eyes met across the storm of slaughter that roiled between them. Jass Nunu was a little older than Mofo, but in many ways not as cunning.

  At least, not until this night, considering that the Hafars were the first to take advantage of the unforeseen pandemonium unleashed by the hordes of screaming, scarred invaders.

  “Nunu!” Mofo cried. “Truce! Heard?”

  As Mofo had anticipated, his rival shared his conclusions.

  “Heard!” Jass Nunu shouted in reply.

  “Ashaki! Truce!” Mofo bellowed in the general direction of the members of his set.

  “Hafar! Truce!” Nunu echoed.

  Until later, both tsotsi leaders thought.

  The moment they heard their leaders’ commands, the tsotsis stopped fighting among themselves and turned their full attention – and wrath – on the Uloans. Taken aback by the sudden shift in the flow of the battle, the islanders fell back in confusion, and all the surviving tsotsis’ weapons tore savagely into their ranks, forcing them to retreat.

  Then a voice rose from the ranks of the Uloans.

  “Retribution time!” Bujiji bellowed.

  Immediately the intruders echoed the cry, then surged forward again, weapons swinging and mouths distended.

  4

  As their combat raged on, neither the Uloans nor the tsotsis could gain an advantage. The tsotsi’ nihilistic viciousness was more than matched by the Uloans’ fanatical frenzy. Mangled bodies lay sprawled in the street; gore slid across stone, but battle-rage on all sides was unabated, and blood-lust was not yet slaked.

  Hyenas from a pack that had followed the tsotsis out of the Maim were already dragging some of the corpses away. The fires the Uloans had started crept closer to closer to the scene of the battle. But the combatants didn’t feel the heat from the approaching flames, and they paid no heed to the hyenas.

  Jass Nunu had gone down. His head and body lay several feet from each other. For now, the surviving members of the Hafar set were content to obey Jass Mofo’s commands. They would name a new Jass later – if any of them survived the invasion.

  Gore covered Mofo’s leather battle-gear. Weariness seeped into his muscles as he struck, backed away, then struck again. His tirss was growing heavy in his hand. His speed was diminishing, and that loss was bringing him closer to death.

  Never before had he and the other tsotsis been forced to engage in such sustained battle. Tsotsi fights tended to be fierce but short, with the losing side fleeing down the nearest alley once its cause appeared hopeless. But the Uloans fought to the death; even the gravely wounded in their ranks continued to swing their weapons until loss of blood or limbs brought them down. Slowly, the tide was turning against the tsotsis.

  Had only one set of tsotsis been involved in the fray, it would have long since cut its losses and escaped. But there were two. If one fled, the other would quickly spread word of its lack of courage throughout the Maim, and that would be the end of the reputation the set needed to ensure its survival in the streets. Thus, the tsotsis stood, fought – and died, even as they dealt death in return.

  During a brief respite, Mofo spotted the Uloan who appeared to be leading the others. As he looked at the muscular Islander
, he realized he had only one chance to win the battle and save his set. He took it.

  “You! Scar-head!” he called. “You and me! We fight for all! Heard?”

  The common tongue of the Matile and Uloans had diverged greatly during their long period of hostilities, and the tsotsis spoke a variation of the language that was unique to them. Still, Bujiji understood Mofo’s meaning well enough. It was a challenge he could not resist.

  “Die, blankskin!” the islander replied.

  The rest of the fighting subsided as the leaders approached each other on the blood-spattered street like gladiators in an arena. Bujiji was the larger and stronger of the two; Mofo the quicker and more agile. Both warriors were battle-weary, but the killing lust flared unabated in their eyes. Bujiji carried a curved sword to oppose Mofo’s tirss. Blood dripped copiously from each man’s weapon.

  Sword and tirss flicked out in a few exploratory passes. Then Bujiji swung his sword. Instead of parrying with his own weapon, Mofo leaped backward to avoid the sword’s deadly arc. He didn’t want to catch his tirss on the edge of the sword.

  Not yet ....

  Mofo feinted, then jabbed his tirss at Bujiji’s face. Bujiji swung in return and struck off one of the tirss’s spikes, which pinged against a wall on the side of the street. The Uloan laughed when he heard the sound. He anticipated hearing it again.

  Bujiji pressed forward. Mofo retreated, staying out of the bigger man’s range, jabbing with his tirss to keep his foe at a distance.

  “Why you run, blankskin?” Bujiji taunted. “I and I catch you soon enough.”

  Mofo did not reply. He kept moving.

  Suddenly, Bujiji leaped forward and slashed at the tsotsi’s head in an effort to open the tsotsi’s defenses. But it was Mofo who saw the chance for which he had been waiting as he reached out with his tirss to parry the blow. The spikes of his weapon caught the Uloan’s sword in mid-swing. With a practiced twist of his arms, Mofo yanked the trapped sword out of Bujiji’s hand. The blade clattered to the street. And Bujiji stood defenseless.

  Mofo did not pause to savor his triumph. The moment the Uloan’s sword fell away from the tirss, Mofo swung with all his remaining strength. The spikes of the tirss bit deep into the side of Bujiji’s head. Their tips punctured the Uloan’s skull and lacerated his brain. Bujiji died instantly, a stare of astonishment frozen on his face. He was dead before any outcry could escape his throat

  Still holding the shaft of his tirss, Mofo refused to allow Bujiji to fall. He glared at the other Uloans and called out, mockingly, “Retribution time!”

  Then he released his hold on his weapon. Bujiji’s corpse crumpled to the street. And the rest of the tsotsis, Ashaki and Hafar alike, descended on the suddenly demoralized Uloans with redoubled fury, their bone-weariness forgotten.

  When the slaughter ceased, all the Uloans were dead; none of them had fled even though their leader had fallen and the tide had quickly turned against them. Most of the tsotsis were dead as well. Of the handful who survived, some were Hafar, a few more Ashaki. The difference didn’t seem to mean much of anything anymore. The Ashakis’ triumph over the Hafars and Uloans was hollow; only continued existence mattered to the victors.

  The fires were still approaching, the flames so close now that the hyenas had ceased their scavenging and slunk back into the shadows. By the flames’ increasingly lurid light, Mofo searched again for the Fidi, Athir. But the Ship’s Rat was nowhere in sight.

  Neither were the bags of loot over which the Ashaki and Hafar had been fighting before the Uloans intervened.

  5

  In a place that was a safe distance from the fires, Athir emerged from the sewer in which he had hidden the tsotsis’ booty. He took a deep breath of night air, and coughed as a whiff of smoke entered his lungs. The last of the sacks was safely concealed; he had no need to endure the dank, fetid floor of the sewer beneath his feet any longer. Even the smoke smelled better than the waste-tunnel.

  While the combat between the tsotsis and Uloans raged, Athir had found it a simple matter to remove the booty while avoiding fighters on both sides. No one had noticed him, and he hadn’t been forced to kill anyone while he stole the loot behind their backs.

  Although Jass Mofo had forced him into becoming an Ashaki, Athir didn’t much care which side won the fight. The entire city seemed to be locked in a mad death-struggle that would end in great destruction. But Athir had survived many battles – even long wars. He knew that sooner or later the fighting would end, and life would continue, and people like him would always be around to take advantage of the aftermath of destruction.

  He scraped as much of the sewer-offal as he could from his skin and clothes. He would wash the rest of it away later. For now, he needed to find a place to wait out the tide of devastation that was rapidly engulfing Khambawe. Whoever won in the end, the Ship’s Rat would be there to seek new advantages in the aftermath.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Spiderwebs

  1

  The Gebbi Senafa was enveloped in an illumination that had not been caused by the fires that were ravaging so many other parts of Khambawe. Light from inside the building blazed from its windows and transformed the jewels embedded in its front door into constellations of multicolored stars. Ranks of soldiers patrolled the walls. The troops were positioned in a way that suggested greater numbers than were actually present, for Jass Eshana had ordered his men to give the impression that the Palace was to be defended at all costs to ensure the safety of the Emperor.

  But, as planned, the Emperor was already elsewhere.

  The Uloans had, indeed, attacked the Gebbi Senafa. However, the force that attempted to scale the walls and break down the bejeweled gates was smaller than the defenders had expected. And loud as their cries of “Retribution Time” had echoed, and intense as the efforts of the jhumbis had been to batter their way through the doors had been, the islanders’ attack had been less furious than an attempt to slay an Emperor would have warranted.

  But the defenders had no time to ponder the nature of the Uloans’ attack. They were far too occupied with shooting volleys of arrows into the ranks of their foes and extinguishing the fires the Uloans attempted to set. The defenders were satisfied that they were diverting their foes from the Emperor’s true location. Never did it occur to the Matile that they, in turn, were being distracted from the Uloans’ true intentions, which took some of the intruders away from the Gebbi Senafa.

  Even as fire and slaughter threatened to engulf the whole of Khambawe, a segment of the Uloan invasion force had, toward the beginning of the battle, detached itself from the main body of attackers and drifted from them like a shadow cast by some gigantic winged creature hovering high above the scene of carnage. At first, the glare of fires from the city’s streets illuminated the invaders’ way as they moved away from the city – and the Gebbi Senafa. That light faded as its all-devouring source grew more distant.

  These Uloans were silent. No cries of “Retribution Time” resounded from their throats. There were no shouts of triumph, or hatred, or bloodlust. Only the shuffle of many moving feet could be heard above the crackle of flames and the cacophonic din of the battle raging behind them.

  The group encountered only a few people along its route, along which they travelled purposefully, as if they were absolutely certain of where they were going, even though none of them had ever before been in Khambawe. The luckless few city-dwellers who caught sight of them were dispatched immediately. However, the Uloans involved in this offshoot of the invasion did not venture to seek out other Matile to slay. And the buildings they passed remained unscathed, for these Uloans carried no torches for purposes of either illumination or destruction. Yet despite the darkness of the smoke-shrouded sky, they travelled unerringly, slowed only by the ponderous pace of the jhumbis that accompanied them. It was as though some unseen guide were unerringly leading them to their goal.

  Soon they left the burning city behind. The smoke in the sky dissipated, an
d the light of the Moon Stars and the lesser stars illuminated the route ahead of the invaders. They continued in a near-silence that was even more ominous than the loud war-cries of the comrades they left behind.

  The houses they passed now were deserted. Once they learned of the Uloans’ attack, the inhabitants of Khambawe’s outskirts either rushed into the city to aid in its defense, or gathered their belongings and fled into the countryside. Most of those who stayed behind managed to avoid death by hiding in cellars, or groves of trees. The Uloans made no efforts to root them out. Only a few more were luckless enough to be seen and killed by the invaders.

  After the Uloans passed, the survivors left their hiding-places and scattered, leaving no one to tell the tale of what they had witnessed. As it was, none of them knew the invaders’ destination.

  The Uloans moved on, heeding the directions given to them by their unseen guide, who spoke in the voice of Jass Imbiah to the feathered huangi who led them. It pushed them forward, tramping through a field of flowers toward an immense, ancient edifice that had stood since the days before the destinies of the Matile and Uloans had diverged.

  At the end of the field, the Uloans came to a halt. The voice that guided the huangi spoke a final time, ensuring that the invaders knew what they had to do. Once the voice was satisfied, it again urged the Uloans onward.

  And as they moved forward, the Uloans continued to keep their “Retribution Time” chant in abeyance. They would shout it to the skies later, after they finished what they had been told to do: an act that would bring Retribution Time closer to its ultimate fulfillment ....