The Quest

by Wilbur Smith

  ‘Is this the Semliki?’ Taita demanded of Imbali.

  ‘I have never ventured so far east before. I cannot tell,’ she answered.

  ‘I must be certain of it. We must find some of the people who live here.’ The inhabitants of the villages along the banks had also fled as soon as they saw the boat, but at last they spotted a decrepit dugout canoe far out in the lake. The two old men on board were so busy that they did not see the boat until it was upon them. Then they abandoned their net and tried to make a dash for the beach, but they had no chance of outrunning the galley. They gave up in despair and resigned themselves to the cooking pot.

  Once the two greybeards had realized they were not to be eaten, they became garrulous with relief. When Imbali questioned them, they confirmed readily that this river was indeed the Semliki and that until very recently it had been dry. They described the miraculous manner of its resuscitation. At a time when the earth and the mountains shivered and rocked and the lake waters were tossed by waves as high as the skies, the river had come down in full spate and was now running as high as it had done many years ago. Taita rewarded them with a gift of beads and copper spearheads, then sent the two old fishermen on their way, astonished by the extent of their good fortune.

  ‘Our work here is done,’ Taita told Fenn. ‘Now we can return to Egypt.’

  When they arrived back at the encampment at the mouth of the Nile, they found that Meren and That had completed the repairs to the damaged hulls and the flotilla was seaworthy once more. Taita waited for the rise of the noon wind before he gave the order to weigh anchor.

  Hoisting the lateen sails and running out the oars, they bore away across the open waters of the lake. With the wind on their best point of sailing they reached the northern shore before sunset and sailed into the branch of the Nile that was augmented with the waters of the two mighty lakes, Nalubaale and Semliki Nianzu. It took them northwards through the territory they had traversed on their journey south.

  The next impediment to their voyage was the deadly belt of tsetse fly.

  They had long ago used up the last of the Tolas cakes, that sovereign cure for the horse sickness, so as soon as the first fly flitted from the near bank to land on the deck of the leading boat, Taita ordered a change of course and took the flotilla into the centre of the river. They ran down in line astern, and it soon became clear that his instinct had been accurate. The fly would not cross open water to reach the boats in the middle, so they sailed on unmolested. At nightfall Taita would not allow any of the boats to approach the bank, let alone land upon it, and they sailed on in darkness, lit by a gibbous moon.

  For two more days and three nights they kept strictly to the middle of the current. At last they made out in the distance the hills shaped like a virgin’s breasts, which marked the northern boundary of the fly belt. Still Taita would not place the horses at risk, and they sailed on for many more leagues before he ordered the first tentative approach to the bank.

  To his relief they found no sign of the fly, and the run to Fort Adari was clear.

  Colonel That was particularly anxious to discover what had become of the garrison he had left at the fort almost eleven years previously. It was his duty, he felt, to rescue the exiles and take them back to their homeland. When the flotilla was level with the hills on which the fort stood, they moored the boats to the bank and offloaded the horses.

  It was good to be released for a while from the tedium of river travel and to have good horses under them again, so Taita, Fenn and That were in high spirits as they rode with a group of mounted men through the pass and were able to look down on the grassy plateau that surrounded the fort.

  ‘Do you remember Tolas, the horse surgeon?’ Fenn asked. ‘I look forward to seeing him again. He taught me so much.’

  ‘He was a wonder with horses,’ Taita agreed. ‘He coveted Windsmoke, and could certainly recognize a good mount when he saw one.’ He patted the mare’s neck and she twitched her ears back to listen to his voice. ‘He wanted to steal you from me, didn’t he?’ She blew through her nose, and nodded. ‘You would probably have gone with him willingly, too, you unfaithful old strumpet.’

  They rode on towards the fort, but before they had gone much further they had the first inkling that something was seriously wrong. There were no horses or cattle in the pastures, no smoke rose from within the walls and no banners flew above the parapets.

  ‘Where are all my people?’ That fretted. ‘Rabat is a reliable man. I expected him to have spotted us by now … if he is still here.’ They trotted on anxiously, until Taita exclaimed, ‘The walls are in a sad state of repair. The whole place seems deserted.’

  ‘The watch-tower has been damaged by fire,’ That observed, and they urged the horses into a canter.

  When they reached the gates of the fort they found them standing open. They paused at the entrance and looked through into the interior.

  The walls were blackened by fire. That rose in the stirrups and hailed the deserted parapet in a stentorian bellow. He received no reply and they drew their weapons, but they were many months too late to be of assistance to the garrison. When they rode through the gates, they found their pathetic remains scattered around the cooking fires in the central courtyard.

  ‘Chima!’ Taita said, as they looked down at the evidence of the cannibal banquet. To get at the marrow, the Chima had roasted the long bones of the arms and legs on the open fires, then cracked them open between large stones. The shattered fragments were scattered all about.

  They had treated the severed heads of their victims in the same way, throwing them into the flames until they were scorched and blackened, then chopping them open as though they were boiled ostrich eggs. Taita imagined them sitting in a ring, passing round the open skulls, scooping out the half-cooked brains with their fingers and cramming them into their mouths.

  Taita made an approximate count of the skulls. ‘It seems that none of the garrison escaped. The Chima had them all, men, women and children.’

  There were no words to express their horror and revulsion.

  ‘Look!’ Fenn whispered. ‘That must have been a tiny baby. The skull is not much larger than a ripe pomegranate.’ Her eyes were bright with tears.

  ‘Gather up the remains,’ Taita ordered. ‘We must bury them before we go back to the boats.’

  They dug a small communal grave outside the walls, for there was little to lay to rest.

  ‘We have still to pass through the land of the Chima.’ Tinat’s face was cold and set. ‘If the gods are kind they will allow me a chance to settle the score with those murderous dogs.’

  Before they left they searched the fort and the forest around it, hoping for some sign of survivors, but there was none. ‘They must have been taken unawares,’ That said. ‘There is no evidence of any fighting.’

  They rode back to the river in sombre silence, and on the following day resumed the journey. When they reached the territory of the Chima, Taita ordered two small detachments of mounted scouts to be landed, one on either bank.

  ‘Ride ahead and keep a sharp eye open. We will stay well behind you so that we do not alarm the Chima. If you find any sign of them you must ride back at once to give us warning.’

  On the fourth day Taita was granted his wish. They rounded another wide bend of the river and saw Hilto, with his scouts, waving to them from the bank. Hilto jumped aboard as the leading boat grounded and hurried to salute Taita. ‘Magus, there is a large village of Chima on the riverbank not far ahead. Two or three hundred of the savages are gathered there.’

  ‘Did any spot you?’ Taita demanded.

  ‘No. They suspect nothing amiss,’ Hilto replied.

  ‘Good.’ Taita summoned That and Meren from the other boats and quickly explained his plan of attack. ‘It was the men under Colonel Tinat’s command who were massacred, so he has the right and obligation to vengeance. Colonel, this evening you will take a strong force ashore to avoid being seen by the Chima you must mak
e a night march. Under cover of darkness, take up a position between the village and the edge of the forest. At first light we will bring the boats to the village, then flush the Chima from their huts with a blast on the trumpets and a volley or two of arrows. They will almost certainly bolt for the trees and will be looking over their shoulders when they run into your men. Have you any questions?’

  ‘It is a good, simple plan,’ Meren said, and That nodded agreement.

  Taita went on, ‘As soon as the Chima run, Meren and I will land the rest of our men and go after them. We should be able to catch them between us in a pincer movement. Now, remember what we found inside the walls of Fort Adari. We will take no slaves or captives. Kill every last one.’

  At dusk Hilto, who had studied the location and layout of the village, led Tinat’s column down the riverbank. The boats remained moored to the bank for the night. Taita and Fenn spread their sleeping mat on the foredeck and lay gazing up at the night sky. Fenn loved to listen to his discourse on the heavenly bodies, the legend and myths of the constellations.

  But in the end she always came back to the same subject: ‘Tell me again about my own star, Magus, the Star of Lostris that I became after my death in the other life. But start at the beginning. Tell me how I died and how you embalmed me and decorated my tomb.’ She allowed him to omit not a single detail. As she always did, she wept quietly when he reached the part of the story where he cut the lock of her hair, then made the Periapt of Lostris. She reached across and cupped the talisman in her palm. ‘Did you always believe that I would come back to you?’ she asked.

  ‘Always. Every night I watched for the rise of your star and waited for the time when it would disappear from the firmament. I knew that that would be the sign that you were returning to me.’

  ‘You must have been very sad and lonely.’

  ‘Without you my life was an empty desert,’ he said, and she wept again.

  ‘Oh, my Taita, that is the most sad and beautiful story ever told. Please make love to me now. I ache for you with all my body and all my soul. I want to feel you inside me, touching my core. We must never be parted from each other again.’

  With the dawn light and the river mist drifting across the water, the flotilla pulled downstream in line ahead. The oars were muffled and the silence was eerie. The archers lined the gunwales with their arrows nocked. Thatched roofs appeared out of the mist, and Taita signalled to Meren at the helm to steer in closer to the bank.

  From the shore a dog whined and barked, but apart from that the silence was complete. The mist stirred with the morning breeze, then drew aside like a veil to reveal the crowded squalor of the Chima village.

  Taita lifted his sword high, then brought it down sharply. It was the signal, and the trumpeters blew a ringing blast on their curling kudu horns. At the sound, hundreds of naked Chima came out of the huts to gape at the oncoming boats. A wail of despair went up, and in wild panic they scattered and ran. Few had armed themselves and most were still more than half asleep, stumbling and falling about like drunkards as they ran for the shelter of the trees. Taita raised his sword arm again and as he dropped it the archers let a cloud of arrows fly into them. Taita saw an arrow transfix an infant strapped to the back of a running woman, then kill the mother cleanly.

  ‘Take us to the bank!’ As the prow touched the shoreline he led the rush.

  Spearmen and axemen raced after the routed Chima. From ahead there rose another wail of terror and despair as they ran into Hilto’s ambush. The swords of Tinat’s men thumped into living flesh, and made a wet sucking sound as they were pulled free. A naked Chima ran back towards Taita with one of his arms lopped off at the elbow. He was squealing shrilly as the blood from the stump sprayed over his own body, painting him a glistening scarlet. Taita cut him down with a stroke that took away the top half of his skull. Then he killed the naked woman who followed him with a single thrust between her dangling dugs. In the rage of battle he felt no pity or remorse. The next man held up his bare hands in a despairing attempt to divert the blade. Taita cut him down with as little compunction as he would have crushed a tsetse fly crawling on his skin.

  Trapped between the two lines of armed men, the Chima darted about like a shoal of fish in a net. Retribution was cold and ruthless, the slaughter furious and sanguinary. A few of the Chima managed to break through the closing ring of bronze and reach the river. But the archers were waiting for those who did, and so were the crocodiles.

  ‘Did any escape?’ Taita demanded of That, when they met in the middle of the field strewn with the dead and dying.

  ‘I saw some run back into the huts. Shall we go after them?’

  ‘No. By now they will have armed themselves, and will be as dangerous as cornered leopards. I will not risk any more of our people. Put fire into the thatch of the huts and smoke them out.’

  By the time the sun had risen above the trees it was all over. Two of Tinat’s men had been lightly wounded, but the Chima were annihilated.

  They left the corpses lying where they had fallen for the hyenas to deal with, and were back on board, sailing northwards again, before the sun had made its noon.

  ‘Now only the swamps of the Great Sud stand in our way,’ Taita told Fenn, as they sat together on the foredeck, ‘the swamps in which I found you. You were a little wild savage, running with a tribe of them.’

  ‘It all seems so long ago,’ she murmured. ‘The memory is pale and faded. I remember my other life more clearly than that one. I hope we do not encounter any of the bestial Luo. I would like to forget it all completely.’ She tossed her head to throw the dancing golden tresses back over her shoulder. ‘Let us talk of more pleasant things,’ she suggested. ‘Did you know that Imbali has a baby growing inside her?’

  ‘Ah! So that is it. I have seen Nakonto looking at her in a peculiar way. But how do you know that this is so?’

  ‘Imbali told me. She is very proud. She says the babe will be a great warrior, like Nakonto.’

  ‘What if it should be a girl?’

  ‘No doubt it will be a great warrior like Imbali.’ She laughed.

  ‘It is good tidings for them, but sad for us.’

  ‘Why sad?’ she demanded.

  ‘I fear we shall soon lose them. Now that he is to be a father, Nakonto’s days as a roving warrior are numbered. He will want to take Imbali and his child back to his own village. That will be soon, for we are nearing the land of the Shilluk.”

  The terrain along the banks changed its nature as they left behind the forests and the elephant country to enter a wide savannah dotted with flat-topped acacia trees. Towering giraffe, with reticulated white markings on their coffee-coloured bodies, fed on the high branches and below them, grazing on the sweet savannah grasses, herds of antelope, kob, topi, eland, mingled with herds of fat striped zebra. The resuscitated Nile had brought them flocking back to partake of her bounty.

  Two days’ further sailing, and they sighted a herd of several hundred humped cattle, with long swept-back horns, grazing close to the edge of the reed banks. Young boys were herding them. ‘I doubt not that they are Shilluk,’ Taita told Fenn. ‘Nakonto has come home.’

  ‘How can you be sure of it?’

  ‘See how tall and slender they are, and the manner in which they stand, like roosting storks, balanced on one long leg with the other foot resting on the calf. They can be none other than Shilluk.’

  Nakonto had seen them too, and his usually aloof, disdainful manner evaporated. He broke into a stamping, prancing war-dance that shook the deck, and hallooed in a high-pitched tone that carried clearly over the reeds. Imbali laughed at his antics, clapped her hands and ululated to encourage him to greater efforts.

  The herders heard someone calling to them in their own language from the boat, and ran to the bank to stare at the visitors in amazement.

  Nakonto recognized two and hailed them across the water: ‘Sikunela! Timbai!’

  The lads responded with astonishment: ‘Stranger
, who are you?’

  ‘I am no stranger. I am your uncle Nakonto, the famous spearman!’ he shouted back.

  The boys whooped with excitement, and raced away to the village to call their elders. Before long several hundred Shilluk were gathered on the riverbank, gabbling at Nakonto in amazement. Then came Nontu the Short, all four and a half cubits of him, followed by his wives and their multitudinous offspring.

  Nakonto and Nontu embraced rapturously. Then Nontu shouted instructions at the women, who trooped away to the village. They returned presently balancing on their heads enormous pots of bubbling beer.

  The celebration on the riverbank lasted several days, but at last Nakonto came to Taita. ‘I have travelled far with you, great one who is no longer ancient,’ he said. ‘It has been good, especially the fighting, but this is the end of our road together. You are returning to your own people, and I must go back to mine.’

  ‘This I understand. You have found a good woman who can put up with your ways, and you wish to see your sons grow as tall as you. Perchance you can teach them to handle a stabbing spear with the same skill as their father.’

  ‘This is true, old father who is younger than me. But how will you find your way back through the great swamps without me to guide you?’

  ‘You will choose two young men of your tribe who are now as you were when I met you, hungry for fighting and adventure. You will send them with me to show me the way.’ Nakonto chose two of his nephews to guide them through the Great Sud.

  ‘They are very young.’ Taita looked them over. ‘Will they know the channels?’

  ‘Does a baby know how to find its mother’s teat?’ Nakonto laughed.

  ‘Go now. I shall think of you often as I grow older, and always it will be with pleasure.’

  ‘Take as many beads from the ship’s stores as will buy you five hundred head of fine cattle.’ A Shilluk measured his wealth in terms of the cattle he owned and the sons he had fathered. ‘Take also a hundred bronze spearheads so that your sons will always be well armed.’