by Karen Prince
Momentarily distracted by the bright halogen beam, a lion, barely ten metres away, let go of Tariro’s leg and dropped into a crouch beside him, ears flattening against his head as he snarled at the source of the light.
“Voetsek!” yelled Jimoh, shooting the animal on his nose. He nocked a second stone into his slingshot, ready for the next shot.
The animal flinched, but stood his ground, his nose wrinkling back into a snarl so loud and angry, Ethan could almost feel the ground vibrate beneath his feet. It sent ripples through the dark ochre fringe around the beast’s cheeks. The lion bent his enormous head down to pick Tariro up once more but then flinched and shook out his thick black and tan mane. By the light of the headlamp Ethan could see several of the Tokoloshes’ little sleeping arrows sticking out of the short hairs of the cat’s upper belly, where his mane ended.
Jimoh’s second pebble hit the lion right between the eyes. He reared sideways, backing away from Tariro a little and another volley of arrows found a target where his mane covered his shoulders.
“The arrows are not strong enough to pass through his hair,” Jimoh gasped. “I have no more stones to shoot! Look! Ethan! More are coming.”
Ethan peered through the darkness. Sure enough, dark shadows moved in the forest beyond the clearing, just outside the beam of his headlamp.
Oh, man! The only thing he could think of vaguely resembling slingshot ammunition was Joe’s ransom. They were going to have to use the gems if Jimoh was going to keep the lions off Tariro. Ethan hesitated for only a moment before withdrawing them from his pockets, and handing them to Jimoh. He would worry about how to rescue Joe later. Right now, they had to save Tariro!
Almost immediately, the lion yelped and backed off further, bringing one giant paw up to its face.
“I got him in eye!” Jimoh yelled excitedly, and kept up a steady stream of priceless shots, but it was no use. The lion stood his ground, snarling. Two females slunk forward and hunkered down on either side of the giant male, emitting a low rumble, their heads lowered, eyes fixed on Ethan’s headlamp.
A group of Tokoloshe dashed forwards, waving their arms in the air, shouting. Rafiki beat a stick against the sweet tin lid, but did not get too close. Akin got hit by a stray arrow from behind and stumbled sleepily back into the cave. Ethan wished the sleeping draught would affect the lions that fast but instead a lioness inched slowly towards Tariro.
“The one on the left!” Ethan yelled to Jimoh just before the boy smacked her on the nose with a diamond. She backed off, snarling angrily, but turned straight around and advanced once more on Tariro, who lay writhing and screaming on the ground.
“Tariro! Try and get up!” Ethan shouted but he didn’t think Tariro even heard him.
Rafiki, Jelani and Manu edged forward to within a metre of grabbing Tariro when a cry went up.
“Adze!”
Everyone scattered. Rafiki, Jelani and Manu dashed back to the cave empty handed. They struggled to pick up the fallen nets, to scramble back underneath them, while the forest filled with the high-pitched battle cry and the iridescent glow of the little vampires advancing.
Ethan ran towards Tariro, panicked now, beyond any thought for his own safety. If the lions did not get Tariro, the Adze certainly would. No amount of stone throwing would protect the boy from them. Jimoh, who jumped forward almost at the same time as Ethan, grabbed the sweet tin lid and stood over Tariro, banging on it and waving his arms in the air in an attempt to look frightening.
“Voetsek!” he screamed at them again, whirling around as something struck him from behind. Some of the Tokoloshe shouted advice and encouragement from behind the safety of the nets, and some lifted the net for short bursts of throwing things in the general direction of the lions. Dembi shrugged sheepishly at Jimoh, then hefted another rat scull from hand to hand in preparation for another shot at the lions.
Ethan also waved his arms about, but it was more like swatting at the Adze who slowly circled his head. It was difficult to keep track of them, and the lions at the same time. The lion and both lionesses crouched low in front of him with their ears flattened against their heads, the black tips of their tails flicking back and forth. Ethan noticed out of the corner of his eye, just beyond the beam of his torchlight, more dark shapes slinking in the shadows. He swayed, more frightened than he had ever been in his life.
If the Adze took his soul, he wondered, would they leave any of himself behind? Would he be him, or them? Would his body just walk around without a soul? Would it have the sense to avoid being mauled by the lions? And eaten! Urine trickled down his leg.
He tried to think of crystals, icicles, anything that would reflect, but nothing came. It was no use. One way or another, they were going to die.
An Adze flew so close to Ethan, it brushed against his hair. Without meaning to, probably because they grew tired, Ethan’s jerking arms slowed down, but they did not stop. They continued to wave in a strange pattern, as if someone else was controlling them. Mentally squaring his shoulders, Ethan slowly regained control of himself. He almost forgot about the lions as his arms wove the pattern above his head. Such a lot of adrenalin pumped through his body, he felt as if he would explode, until, amazingly, he did.
A powerful wave of air shot out of Ethan, as fast and as unstoppable as a giant sneeze. He could almost see it as it washed outwards like a mini-nuclear explosion. Jimoh staggered back from it. It sent ripples through the dark mane of the lion, who looked for a split second as if he would bolt. The Adze were like illuminated dandelions, scattered to the wind. The jungle grew quiet. Or were his ears blocked?
“Oh my...” Ethan said, as he closed his eyes and slumped onto the ground. He could almost feel the lions drag Tariro and Jimoh away from beside him, but he was too drained and paralysed by fear at the enormity of what he had done to move.
Then suddenly he was swept off his feet by someone who smelled as bad as Fisi. His eyes shot open. It was Fisi! The young man threw Ethan over his shoulder, and carried him back into the cave, depositing him in a heap beside the other two boys.
“We were tracking you when we heard the noise. I had gone to fetch those hyenas we saw from the waterfall,” Fisi explained, indicating a pack of seven hyenas who sat panting by the fire. A dirty young girl in a skin skirt was propped up between two of them, fast asleep. The rest wore the same skirt-like garment as a bandana around their necks. It looked very much like their own hyena pelts. Ethan shuddered. Yussy! Were they wearing their dead comrades or something? The Tokoloshe pushed themselves as far back against the cave wall as they could go, eyeing the hyenas nervously.
“What were you doing, Ethan? You cannot just stand in front of a lion with your eyes closed like that. The thing will eat you. And what the hell happened to those Adze?” Fisi added. “They were tracking you too. We could not pass through them to chase off the lion and then suddenly they were scattering everywhere, screaming. They took off.”
“Um, that was me,” Salih said, dropping into a crouch beside Fisi. “I chased them.”
Ethan whipped around to confront the leopard. He knew whatever had happened had come from himself. He could still remember the sharp after-pain in his head. Ears wickedly cocked, Salih shook his head almost imperceptibly, reminding Ethan that he did not trust the hyena youth. Perhaps Salih and Tariro were right. There was something a bit furtive about the hyena, even if he had come back and saved their lives. He’d caught Fisi staring at him in a contemplative way once or twice after the incident with Jimoh’s hat. The hyena already suspected Ethan of some sort of mind manipulation. He would have to remember to warn Tariro not to tell the hyenas about the night he chased the Adze.
“You are lucky I got back in time,” Salih said smoothly.
Jimoh got up from fussing over Tariro and tugged at Ethan’s T-shirt sleeve. “Come, Ethan, Tariro not so good,” he said with an imploring look on his face. “He has fainted now. He has big bite and lots of scratches.”
“Yes! See what you
can do for the boy, Ethan,” Salih said, his meaning clear. Which was all very well, but apart from the cave full of witnesses, Ethan was not looking forward to the awful feeling afterwards. He wished the cat would make up his mind. One minute he was warning Ethan not to give blood too often, and the next he was telling him to give it.
Salih seemed to have the witnesses covered, though. “Well done for chasing off the lionesses,” he said to Fisi’s pack, “but the danger has not passed. The lion has fallen asleep from the effects of the Tokoloshe arrows at last, but it is too close. Could I impose upon you to help move the beast to a further location?”
“I know just the place to leave him,” Fisi said. Ethan wondered if he knew what was going on, and was being tactful. He signalled for his hyenas and six of them got up and followed him into the night, leaving the seventh to look after the sleeping girl.
The Tokoloshe trailed out after them, carrying scraps of leather rope in a very professional way, as if they had done this before. They whispered and elbowed each other, but did not look like they were going to let a couple of hyenas ruin the opportunity of handling a sleeping lion.
“Why don’t they just kill it?” Ethan mumbled half to himself.
“No, Ethan. Is not good to kill lion. He only protecting his area,” Jimoh explained. “We are ones who should not be here. Also, if we kill him next leader of pack will kill all young from this lion. Upset balance.” He took his Swiss Army knife out of his pocket and handed it to Ethan.
“What if the girl by the fire and the other hyena see?” Ethan said.
“No. She get hit by arrow for Tokoloshe. That is why she change. She will sleep a long time now. Other one is not looking,” Jimoh said.
“I am afraid to give him blood, Jimoh. If he knows about the blood he might tell someone else and I might end up getting drained for it. Salih said I could also use spit.” Ethan took off his T-shirt and spat on it, and then groaned. Tariro had two large puncture wounds where the lion’s teeth had gripped his calf and several deep scratches on his ankle. He could see spit wasn’t going to be any use even before he wiped the T-shirt along the worst of the scratches. All it did was relieve Tariro’s pain enough for him to wake up and scream.
“Ethan!” Jimoh said, his hands on his hips in exasperation, “This is boy you have just faced lion for. Are you going to let him die now?” Then he glanced furtively towards the remaining hyena, but she continued to lie with her back towards them, licking the sleeping girl.
Jimoh grinned as if the idea came to him out of nowhere. “Maybe we cut him little bit with sleeping arrow?” he said. “Then he will not wake up and scream and also maybe not know about blood.”
21
An Irresponsible Owner
Joe woke at sunrise. He had slept on the bare marble floor at the foot of Kitoko’s sleeping pallet. Kitoko could have given him a pallet of his own – Joe could see a pile of them against the back wall of the room. There was a massive ornately carved chest holding plenty of linen, too, but Kitoko wouldn’t let Joe touch it. Kitoko said if he chose that Joe sleep on the floor without a blanket, Joe had to do it.
Joe wondered at the heir’s spectacular room. It was at least thirty paces long and twenty paces wide. Huge tapestries, depicting hunting scenes, hung down from the six-metre high ceilings to the floor on three sides. The fourth side opened onto a vast balcony overlooking the rift valley. Kitoko had a bird’s eye view of the wildlife activity in the jungle between the escarpment and the river, and beyond. Joe looked yearningly at the countryside beyond. He could imagine sailboats drifting up or down the river in the far distance. He wished he could be over there. No, he corrected himself, he wished he could be snug in his own bedroom at home.
At the thought of Kitoko sleeping, dead to the world in sumptuous comfort, Joe’s hands coiled into fists. He realised with wonder that his finger hardly hurt at all. He removed the bandage, marvelling at how quickly the wound was healing, when he felt a soft nudge and jumped, his hand flying to his throat. But it was only Hajiri.
“Quiet, boy,” the tiger whispered. He cocked his head to indicate Kitoko. “He’s a heavy sleeper, and there’s not much danger of him rising before noon, but we don’t want to wake him up until we’ve shown you around and explained a little about how everything works. I did not expect to be brushed aside for the revolting youth yesterday. You can be assured, there will be a reckoning, but in the meantime, come, we will do our best to prepare you to make things easier with him.”
Joe wondered who Hajiri meant by “we” until he saw Nandi waiting for them around the corner. She was still in her pyjamas.
“I thought you would never wake up,” she said, grabbing Joe by the hand and dragging him down the passage. “Come on! If we hurry, you will have just enough time to bath and have something to eat. Once Kitoko wakes up, we will not be able to interfere with his wishes.”
After handing him a loofah and a towel, Nandi lead Joe down some steps, where she split off from him and Hajiri to go to the ladies’ baths, and Hajiri took him to the men’s. “Come to the kitchen when you are done,” she called after them.
The bath was a swimming pool carved out of the rocks, and at this time of the morning Joe and the tiger were the only ones there. Joe was a bit taken aback when Hajiri jumped in, sending the water cascading down the outlet.
“Come on in, exposure to the water will help the healing,” he told Joe.
Puddles of a sticky, oily substance floated on the surface of the water, smelling like strawberry, or watermelon, but Joe washed himself in it anyway.
Afterwards, Hajiri led him into the bustling kitchen where they found Nandi, already sitting at a communal table on the far side of an immense cooking range, eating something out of a bowl. The aroma of baking bread wafted up from several ovens to mingle with the smells of exotic spices and a wood fire that burned in a compartment beside the ovens.
Joe felt self-conscious as he slipped onto the bench opposite Nandi. He wished he could have hung on to the pyjama-like kurta the healer had given him. Now that he was clean, the hyena pelt felt dirty and awkward. Nandi, dressed in a richly embroidered tunic over lustrous silky pantaloons, looking every bit a princess, did not seem to care what he wore. She pushed a bowl towards him; it smelled like curry. Strange choice for breakfast, Joe thought, but he was worried that Kitoko would come in at any moment and take even that away from him, so he tucked in, stopping from time to time to fan his good hand in front of his mouth to dissipate some of the heat.
Hajiri hunkered down on the mosaic floor besides them, and tore chunks out of a small antelope he had grasped between his enormous paws. Several people interrupted their chores to give the tiger a scratch behind the ears on their way past.
“Where do all the servants come from?” Joe asked Nandi between mouthfuls.
“From across the river,” she said.
“I thought you didn’t allow people over from the other side of the river.”
Nandi looked a little guiltily at Hajiri, who cleaned his face with a paw and then licked it.
“Oh, they allow people to cross over if they dare, dear boy, it’s the going back that they are a bit fuzzy over. Now, these people,” he swept a paw around the room. “These people are all carefully chosen captives. The Almoha have raiding parties that go over the river and blend in with the locals. They find suitable candidates to do all the things the Almohad don’t want to do themselves.”
Hajiri clucked at the look of shock on Joe’s face. “Now don’t take on so, dear boy, they are lucky to be here. They live in abject poverty over there, and appalling squalor. The scouts only choose people who are unlikely to be missed.”
Joe stared around the room. “I suppose they don’t look unhappy...” He guessed there was no point in escaping, only to go back to a horrible place, but he knew he could never get used to this life – he promised himself he would strive to get home until the day he died.
“You see those two over there?” Nandi pointed at a
couple tasting dishes behind what looked like a spice shop counter. “They keep everyone happy.”
“Over the last two millennia or so the Almohad have developed their ability to persuade people to do what they want,” Hajiri explained. “Their other trick is to convince people that they are happy to oblige.”
Joe glanced over at the couple. Both wore simple cotton tunics over comfortable baggy black trousers, and both were radiantly beautiful. The man was tall and muscular. He had dark skin with very thick long hair, worn in a ponytail hanging down his back. The woman was willowy and doe-like. She reached up and pulled a bottle from the shelf behind her, twisting the top off as she turned. Her eyes fell on Joe, staring at her from across the room. They were the most beguiling eyes he had ever seen – soft, and deep brown, almost violet. Her lids lowered languorously and Joe relaxed, his vow to get home already forgotten. He rose to go over to her because he just knew she would be so happy if he did...
Hajiri directed a low rumble at her, and, after a moment of disorientation, Joe sat down with a jolt. What had just happened? She flashed him a wicked grin, her perfect teeth contrasting with her velvety bronze skin, and turned her attention back to her work.
“That was weird...” Joe shook his head to clear it. He felt a slightly desolate feeling at the loss of the woman’s approval. “Can you all do that?”
“Well, she has been practising for nearly fifty years,” Nandi said.
Joe was shocked. He was no expert but she barely looked thirty.
“Okay, this is how it works,” Nandi explained. “The magic in the water makes us strong and healthy, and we live for much longer than the people in the valley kingdoms, but some of us also study it really hard to get it to give us what we want–”
Nandi stopped speaking, eyes widening suddenly. The next thing Joe knew he lay sprawled on his back on the kitchen floor clutching his head.
Praxades’ face swam in front of his eyes. “Up, boy.” Her laugh was vicious. “I want a pear from the cliff garden for my breakfast. Kitoko says you can get it for me.”