The Quest

by Wilbur Smith

  Their headdresses nodded and waved in the breeze of their passage, and their columns wound like long black serpents through the forest.

  They were singing again, a deep repetitive chant that chilled the blood of the defenders and made their skin crawl. Taita turned to look along the parapet. Their entire active strength was assembled there, and he was sobered by how few they were.

  ‘Thirty-two of us,’ he said softly, ‘and at least six hundred of them.’

  ‘Then we are evenly matched, Magus, and we are in for some rich sport, I wager,’ Meren averred. Taita shook his head in mock-disbelief at such phlegm in the face of the storm that was about to break over them.

  Nakonto stood with the Imbali and her women at the far end of the parapet. Taita walked over to them. As always, Imbali’s noble Nilotic features were calm and remote.

  ‘You know these people, Imbali. How will they attack?’ he asked.

  ‘First they will count our numbers and test our mettle,’ she replied, without hesitation.

  ‘How will they do that?’

  ‘They will rush directly at the wall to make us show ourselves.’

  ‘Will they try to set fire to the stockade?’

  ‘No, Shaman. This is their own town. Their ancestors are buried here. They would never burn their graves.’

  Taita returned to Meren’s side. ‘It is time for you to set up the dummies along the parapet,’ he said, and Meren passed the order to the Shilluk wives. They had already placed the dummies in position below the parapet. Now they scampered along the stockade lifting them so that the false heads were visible to the Basmara over the top of the wall.

  ‘We have seemingly double the strength of our garrison at a single stroke,’ Taita remarked. ‘It should make the Basmara treat us with a little more respect.’

  They watched the formations of spearmen manoeuvre across the ash strewn ground on which the huts had burnt. The Basmara massed their three regiments in distinct columns, captains at the front.

  ‘Their drill is sloppy and their formations are untidy and confused.’

  Meren’s tone was scornful. ‘This is a rabble, not an army.’

  ‘But a large rabble, while we are a very small army,’ Taita pointed out.

  ‘Let us delay our celebrations until after the victory.’ The singing ceased, and a heavy silence fell over the field. A single figure left the Basmara ranks and advanced half-way to the stockade. He wore the tall pink flamingo headdress. He posed in front of his men to let them admire his warlike appearance, then harangued them in a high pitched shriek, punctuating each statement with a leap high in the air and a clash of spear against war shield.

  ‘What is he saying?’ Meren was puzzled.

  ‘I can only guess that he is not being friendly to us.’ Taita smiled.

  ‘I will encourage him with an arrow.’

  ‘He is seventy paces beyond your longest shot.’ Taita restrained him.

  ‘We have no arrows to waste.’

  They watched Basma, the paramount chief of the Basmara, strut back to his waiting regiments. This time he took up a command position behind the rear ranks. Another silence fell over the field. There was no movement. Even the wind had died away. The tension was as oppressive as the lull before a tropical thunderstorm. Then Chief Basma screeched, ‘Haul Haul’ and his regiments started forward.

  ‘Steady!’ Meren cautioned his men. ‘Let them get in close. Hold your arrows!’

  The massed ranks of the Basmara swept past the outer markers and they began to chant their war-cry. The spears drummed on the shields.

  At every fifth pace they stamped their bare feet in unison. The rattles on their ankles clashed, and the ground jumped at the impact. The fine dust from the ashes of the burned city rose waist high around them so they seemed to wade through water. They came up to the one-hundred-pace markers. The chanting and drumming swelled into a frenzy.

  ‘Steady!’ Meren bellowed, so that his voice carried above the din.

  ‘Hold hard!’ The front rank was coming up to the fifty-pace marker.

  They could see every detail of the weird patterns painted on the Basmara faces. The leaders were past the markers now; and were so close that the archers on the stockade were looking down upon them.

  ‘Nock and aim!’ Meren roared. Up came the bows. They arced as the archers drew. Their eyes narrowed as they aimed along the shafts. Meren knew better than to let them hold the draw, until their arms began to judder. His next command came only a breath behind the last. At that precise moment the dense ranks reached the thirty-pace markers.

  ‘Let fly!’ he shouted, and they loosed as one man. At that range not a single arrow missed. They flew in a massed, silent cloud. It was a mark of their mettle that no two archers aimed at the same Basmara warrior. The first rank went down as though they had fallen into a pit in the earth.

  ‘Loose at will!’ Meren howled. His archers nocked the second arrow with practised dexterity. They threw up, drew and released in one movement, making it appear easy and unhurried. The next rank of Basmara went down, and moments later, the next fell on top of them.

  Those that followed stumbled over growing mounds of corpses.

  ‘Arrows here!’ The cry went up along the top of the parapet, and the Shilluk women scurried forward, bowed under the bundles they carried on their shoulders. The Basmara kept coming, and the archers shot at them until at last they milled about below the stockade trying for a handhold on the poles of the wall to hoist themselves up. Some reached the top, but Nakonto, Imbali and her women were waiting for them.

  The battleaxes rose and fell as though they were chopping firewood.

  Nakonto’s cries were murderous as he plied his stabbing spear.

  At last a shrill piping of ivory whistles brought the carnage to an abrupt end. The regiments melted away across the ash-dusted field to where Basma waited to regroup the survivors.

  Meren strode along the parapet. ‘Is anyone wounded? No? Good. When you go out to pick up your arrows, watch out for those who are feigning dead. It’s a favourite trick of such devils.’

  They opened the gates and rushed out to gather up the arrows. The barbs of many were buried in the dead flesh and had to be chopped out with sword or axe. It was grisly work and they were soon as blood spattered as a gang of butchers. Once they had the arrows they collected the spears of the fallen Basmara. Then they ran back into the stockade and slammed the gates.

  The women brought up the waterskins with baskets of dried fish and dhurra cakes. While most of the men were still chewing, the chanting began again and their captains called them back to the parapet: ‘Stand to your arms!’

  The Basmara came again in a tight phalanx, but this time the leaders carried long poles they had cut in the forest. When they were shot down by the archers on the wall, the men that followed picked up the poles they had dropped and carried them forward. Fifty or more men died before the poles reached the outer wall of the stockade. The Basmara crowded forward to lift one end of a pole and prop it against the top of the wall. Immediately they swarmed up it, their short stabbing spears clamped in their teeth.

  Once their weight was on the pole it was impossible for the defenders to dislodge it. They had to meet the warriors hand to hand when they reached the top of the wall. Imbali and her women stood in the line with the men, and dealt out deadly execution with their battleaxes. But the Basmara seemed impervious to their losses. They clambered over the corpses of their comrades, and rushed into the fray, eager and undaunted.

  At last a small bunch had fought their way on to the parapet. It took hard and bitter fighting before the last was hurled back. However, fresh waves swarmed to take their places. Just when it seemed that the exhausted defenders were about to be overwhelmed by the sheer weight of painted bodies, the whistles shrilled again and the attackers melted away.

  They drank, dressed their wounds and changed their blunted swords for new ones with keener edges, but the respite was short-lived before the
cry went up once more: ‘Stand to your arms! They are coming again.’

  Meren’s men met two more rushes before sunset, but the last was costly. Eight men and two of Imbali’s companions had been speared or clubbed to death on the parapet before the Basmara were thrown back.

  Few of the troopers had survived the day unscathed. Some had only light cuts or bruises. Two had broken bones from blows of the heavy Basmara clubs. Two more would not see out the night: a spear thrust through the guts and another through the lungs would carry them off before dawn. Many were too weary to eat or even to drag themselves to the shelter of the huts. As soon as they had quenched their thirst they threw themselves down on the parapet and fell asleep in their sweat soaked armour and bloody bandages.

  ‘We will not hold out here another day,’ Meren told Taita. ‘This village has become a death-trap. I had not thought the Basmara could be so tenacious. We will have to kill every one before we can get away.’

  He looked tired and despondent. His eye cavity was hurting — he kept lifting the patch and rubbing it with his knuckles.

  Taita had seldom seen him in such a reduced state. ‘We do not have enough men to hold this perimeter,’ he agreed. ‘We will have to pull back to the inner line.’ They looked across at the final ring of defences around the well. ‘We can do that under cover of night. Then we will set fire to the stockade at the first enemy charge in the morning. That will hold them for a few hours until the flames burn down.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘We will keep the horses saddled, and wait for our chance to break out of the town and escape.’

  ‘To where?’

  ‘I will tell you when I know,’ Taita promised, and stood up stiffly.

  ‘Make sure the men holding the stockade have fire-pots. I am going to Fenn.’

  She was asleep when he entered the hut. He did not want to wake her to examine her leg, but when he touched her cheek it was cool, not flushed or feverish. The wound has not mortified, he reassured himself.

  He sent Lala away, and lay down at Fenn’s side. Before he had taken more than three breaths, he had dropped into a deep, dark sleep.

  He awoke in the uncertain light of dawn. Fenn was sitting over him anxiously. ‘I thought you were dead,’ she exclaimed, as he opened his eyes.

  ‘So did I.’ Taita sat up. ‘Let me see your leg.’ He unwrapped the bandage and found the wound only slightly inflamed, but no hotter than his own hand. He leant close and sniffed at the stitches. There were no putrescent odours. ‘You must get dressed. We may have to move quickly.’ While he helped her into her tunic and loincloth, he told her, ‘I am going to make a crutch for you, but you will have little opportunity to learn to use it. The Basmara will certainly attack again at sunrise.’ Quickly he fashioned it from a light staff and a carved crosspiece, which he padded with bark cloth. She leant on it heavily as he helped her hobble out to the horse lines. Between them, they put the bridle and saddle on Whirlwind. There was a warning shout from the outer stockade.

  ‘Stay with Whirlwind,’ Taita told her. ‘I will come back to find you.’

  He hurried to the stockade, where Meren was waiting for him.

  ‘Fenn - how is she?’ were his first words.

  ‘She will be able to ride and is waiting with the horses,’ Taita told him. ‘What is happening here?’

  Meren pointed across the open ground. Two hundred paces away, the Basmara regiments were mustering at the edge of the forest.

  ‘So few,’ Taita observed. ‘Half as many as there were last evening.’

  ‘Look to the south wall,’ Meren told him.

  Taita swivelled around to gaze in the direction of the great lake.

  ‘So! They are doing what they should have done yesterday,’ he remarked drily. ‘They will make a double-pronged assault.’ He pondered a moment, then asked, ‘How many men are fit enough to hold a weapon this morning?’

  ‘Three died during the night, and four of our troopers took their Shilluk whores and brats and deserted in the darkness. I doubt they will get far before the Basmara find them. That leaves sixteen of us, including Nakonto, Imbali and her tribe-sister, Aoka.’

  ‘We have fifteen horses strong enough to carry a man and his baggage,’ Taita said.

  ‘Do we stand to meet another Basmara charge or set fire to the outer stockade and try to escape on the horses in the smoke?’

  Taita did not take long to decide. ‘To stay here will only delay the inevitable,’ he said. ‘We will take our chance on the horses and make a run for it. Warn the men of what we intend.’

  Meren went down the line with the order and returned swiftly. ‘They all know what to do, Magus. The fire-pots are ready. The dice of hazard are in the cup and ready for the throw.’ Taita was silent, watching the enemy regiments. They heard the familiar war chant begin, the drumming of the shields and the stamp of hundreds of bare feet.

  ‘They are coming,’ said Meren softly.

  ‘Fire the stockade,’ Taita ordered. The men at the piles of dry kindling dashed on to them the smouldering contents of the fire-pots and fanned them with their sleeping mats. The flames leapt up instantly.

  ‘Fall back!’ Meren bellowed, and the survivors jumped down from the burning parapet. Some ran, while others hobbled or limped, supporting each other painfully. Watching them go, Taita felt suddenly tired, frail and old. Was it all to end here in this remote, wild corner of the earth?

  Was so much endeavour, suffering and death to be of no consequence?

  Meren was watching him. He straightened his shoulders and stood to his full height. He could not falter now: he had his duty to Meren and the remaining men, but even more so to Fenn.

  ‘It is time to go, Magus,’ Meren said gently, and took his arm to help him down the ladder. By the time they reached the horses the entire length of the outer stockade was enveloped in a roaring, leaping wall of flame. They shrank away from the fierce, blistering heat.

  The troopers led out the horses. Meren went down the column assigning the mounts. Of course, Fenn would ride Whirlwind and take Imbali on her stirrup to guard her. Taita would have Windsmoke, with Nakonto hanging on to his stirrup ropes. Meren would be on his bay with Aoka covering his blind side. All the other troopers would ride their own mounts. Now that no mules were left alive the two spare horses were loaded with food and baggage. Hilto and Shabako took them on lead reins.

  Under cover of the flaming stockade they mounted, facing the outer gateway. Taita raised high the golden Periapt of Lostris, and cast the spell of concealment over them, shielding them from the eyes of the enemy. He was well aware of the difficulty in cloaking such a large group of horses and men, but the primitive Basmara would be readily susceptible to the illusions he wove.

  The Basmara made no effort to break through the burning stockade.

  Evidently they believed that their victims were trapped within and were waiting their chance to finish them. They were chanting and shouting on the far side of the blaze. Taita waited until the flames had burnt through the outer gates and sent them crashing to earth.

  ‘Now!’ he ordered. Habari and Shabako galloped into the smoke and threw loops of rope over the fallen gates. Before the fire could burn through the ropes, they dragged them aside. Now the way was open and the two men galloped back to the others.

  ‘Keep together, the closer the better, and follow me,’ Taita said. The spell’s efficacy would be revealed once they were through the gates and out on the open ground beyond. The gateway was framed with fire and they had to get through quickly, before they were roasted alive.

  ‘Forward at the gallop,’ Taita ordered quietly, but he used the voice of power, which carried clearly to every man in the line. They charged to the flaming gate. The heat struck them like a wall and some of the horses balked, but their riders forced them on with spurs and whips, the heat singing coats and manes. It scorched the men’s faces too and stung their eyes before, still in a tight group, they were on open ground.

 
Basmara were prancing and howling all around them. Although some looked at them their eyes passed blankly over them, then lifted to the top of the burning stockade. Taita’s spell was holding.

  ‘Quietly, slowly,’ Taita warned. ‘Keep close together. Make no sudden movement.’ He kept the Periapt held high. Beside him, Fenn followed his example. She lifted her own gold talisman and her lips moved as she recited the words he had taught her. She was assisting Taita, reinforcing the spell. They moved across the open ground until they were almost clear. The edge of the forest was less than two hundred paces ahead, and still their presence had not been detected by the tribesmen. Then Taita felt a cold draught on the back of his neck. Beside him, Fenn gasped and dropped her talisman on its chain. ‘It burnt me!’ she exclaimed, and stared at the red mark on her fingertips. Then she turned, with a stricken expression, to Taita. ‘Something is breaking our spell.’ She was right. Taita felt it tear and shred, like a perished sail in a blast of wind.

  They were being stripped of their concealing cloak. Another influence was working on them, and he could not deflect or divert it.; ‘Forward at the gallop!’ he shouted, and the horses headed for the edge of the forest. A great shout went up from the Basmara legions.

  Every painted face turned in their direction, every eye lit with bloodlust.

  They swarmed towards the little band of riders from every quarter of the field.

  ‘Run!’ Taita urged Windsmoke, but she was carrying two big men.

  Everything seemed to happen with dreamlike slowness. Although they were pulling ahead of the warriors that followed them, another formation of spearmen was running in from the right flank.

  ‘Come on! Fast as you can!’ Taita urged. He saw that Basma was leading the race to cut them off. He bounded across their front with his spear balanced on his right shoulder, ready for a clean throw. His men were baying like hounds on a hot scent.

  ‘Come on!’ Taita yelled. He judged the angles and speeds. ‘We’re going to get through.’

  Basma made the same calculation as the band of horsemen swept past him, thirty paces clear. Basma used the impetus of his run and the strength of his frustration to hurl the spear after them. He launched it high and it dropped towards Meren’s heavily laden bay gelding.