Assegai

by Wilbur Smith

  ‘I will go back to keep watch on my lion,’ Loikot volunteered. ‘When it is dark, he might move a great distance. I will return early tomorrow morning.’

  It was still two hours from sunset when they heard singing and saw the people coming through the open forest towards where they were camped on the edge of the pan. Manyoro was leading them, and he was followed by the long file of armed morani decked out in full hunting regalia, carrying shields and assegais.

  Behind them came hundreds of men, women and children. They had gathered from every manyatta for fifty miles around. Like a flock of gorgeous sunbirds, the unmarried girls fluttered behind the regiment of eligible morani. By the time the sun had set, this agglomeration of humanity was encamped around the Butterfly, and the night air was redolent with the aromas from the cooking fires. Excitement was running at fever pitch and the singing and happy laughter of young people went on throughout the night.

  The next morning, before it was light, Loikot returned from his scouting expedition. He reported that, by the light of the moon, the lion had taken a young kudu cow and was still feeding on the carcass. ‘He will not leave his kill,’ Loikot said with conviction.

  The hunters waited for the sun with mounting anticipation. They sat around the fires preening and dressing their hair, sharpening their assegais and tightening the sinews of their shields. When the first rays of the sun struck the cliffs of the escarpment, the master of the hunt blew a blast on his whistle to signal the start. They sprang up from their sleeping mats and formed up on the white salt plain in their ranks. They began to dance and sing, softly at first but with increasing abandon as the excitement built up.

  The young girls formed a ring around them. They started to ululate, to stamp their feet and jerk their hips, to clap their hands and bob their heads. They joggled their breasts and oscillated their plump round buttocks for the men, egging them on. The morani began to sweat as they danced. Their eyes glazed over with a ferment of blood-lust and arousal.

  Suddenly Graf Otto appeared from the tent that had been erected in the shadow of the Butterfly’s wide wings and marched on to the white pan. A roar went up from the morani ranks when they saw him. He was dressed in a red tribal shuka. The skirt was belted around his waist and the tail was thrown back over one shoulder. The skin of his upper torso and limbs was exposed, white as an egret’s wing. The hair on his chest and forearms was as bright as copper wire. His shoulders were wide, his chest was broad and his limbs were hard and muscled, but his belly was full, beginning to bulge and soften with age and good living.

  The young girls shrieked with laughter, and clung to each other in raptures of mirth. They had never imagined a mzungu to dress in tribal costume. They flocked to him and gathered around him, still giggling. They touched his milky skin, and stroked his red-gold body hair in wonder. Then Graf Otto began to dance. The girls backed away, and soon they were no longer giggling. They clapped the rhythm for him and urged him on with shrill, excited cries.

  Graf Otto danced with extraordinary grace for such a big man. He leaped high, spun, stamped and stabbed at the air with the assegai in his right hand. He flourished the rawhide shield that he carried on his left shoulder. The prettiest and more daring of the girls took it in turns to come forward and dance face to face with him. They shot out their long, crane-like necks and rattled the collars of beadwork that festooned them. Their breasts were polished with fat and red ochre, and with each stiff-legged jump they bounced tantalizingly. The air was thick with the dust raised by their flying bare feet, musky with the smell of their sweat, and charged with the prospect of blood, death and carnality.

  Leon leaned against the fuselage of the Butterfly and seemed to give his full attention to this display of primeval abandon. However, almost within arm’s length of where he stood Eva was perched on the leading edge of the Butterfly’s wing, legs dangling. From this angle he was able to study her face without seeming to do so. Eva showed no emotion at the display other than mild amusement. Once again, Leon wondered at her ability to hide her true feelings so completely.

  Graf Otto was her man, and ostensibly she was his woman, yet he was participating in a blatantly sexual ritual with dozens of nubile, half-naked and frenzied young females. If she felt demeaned and insulted by his boorish behaviour, she did not show it, but Leon seethed on her behalf.

  Almost as though she could feel his eyes on her, she looked down at him from her perch on the wing. Her expression was calm and her eyes were secretive, betraying nothing. Then, as their gazes locked, she allowed him to see into the secret, well-guarded places of her soul. Such manifest love for him shone forth from her violet eyes that he caught his breath. All at once he was aware of the depth of the change that had overtaken them. No matter what had gone before, they were now committed to each other. Nothing and nobody else counted. Looking into each other’s eyes they exchanged vows that were silent but irrevocable.

  The moment was shattered by the blast of a whistle and a great shout from the morani. The hunters formed up in column. Loikot took his place in the front rank to guide them to where the quarry was lying up. Still singing the Lion Song, the morani followed him, winding through the trees, with the gleaming white body of Graf Otto in their midst. The spectators trooped after them. Gustav and Hennie were swallowed up in the crowd and borne away with it.

  Leon and Eva were left alone. He went to where she sat on the wing. ‘If we are to be in at the death, we must hurry.’

  ‘Help me down,’ she replied. She lifted her arms and leaned towards him. He reached up, placed his hands around her narrow waist, and when he set her on her feet she pressed against him for a brief moment. He smelled her particular perfume and felt the warmth of her belly against his. She read his eyes, and felt the stiffening of his loins through their clothing. ‘I know, Badger. I know so well how you feel. I feel it too. But we must be patient a little longer. Soon! Soon, I promise.’

  ‘Oh, God!’ He groaned. ‘I wish... Otto... the lion. If only...’

  Her eyes quickened with real fear. ‘No, don’t say it!’ She placed a finger on his lips. ‘Don’t wish for that to happen. It would bring us the worst possible luck.’ She dropped her hand from his face, and he saw that Manyoro had come silently and was standing at his shoulder. He had the Holland rifle in one hand and the ammunition bandolier in the other.

  ‘Thank you, my brother,’ Leon said, as he took them.

  ‘Graf Otto said there were to be no guns on this hunt,’ Eva reminded him.

  ‘Can you imagine what might happen if he wounds that lion and it gets in among all those people?’ Leon asked grimly. ‘It’s one thing for him to have a pact with the devil, but quite another if he intends to include a dozen women and children in the bargain.’ He opened the breech of the rifle, and while he loaded it with two fat brass cartridges, he asked, ‘Can you run in that skirt and those boots?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then let’s see you do it.’ He took her arm and they raced after the column of morani, which was drawing away rapidly from the rabble of spectators.

  Leon was surprised by how well Eva kept up. She lifted her long gabardine skirts to the tops of her knee-high boots and ran with the grace and lightness of a newly roused doe. He took her arm to steady her over the rougher footing, and boosted her up the steep bank of a ravine. They passed the stragglers and caught up with the main body of hunters, and were not far behind the leading warriors when the hunt master blew his whistle again. The morani evolved smoothly into their twin-horned battle formation.

  ‘They have caught up with the lion.’ Leon was breathing heavily with exertion.

  ‘How do you know? Can you see it?’ she panted.

  ‘Not from here, but they can. Judging from the way they’re moving, it must be lying up in that dense scrub at the foot of the kopje.’ He pointed ahead at a jumble of rocks and silver-leaf scrub.

  ‘Where is Otto?’ She gasped to catch her breath and leaned against him for a moment to rest. Her fore
head was damp and shining with perspiration, and he delighted in her warm, womanly odour.

  ‘He’s right in the thick of it. Where else would we expect him to be?’ Leon pointed, and she saw his pale form standing out clearly in the first rank of dark warriors that was closing like a mailed fist around the rocky prominence of the hillock.

  ‘Can you see the lion yet?’ Her tone was agonized.

  ‘No. We’ll have to get closer.’ He took her arm and they began to run again. The first line of morani was no more than a hundred and fifty paces ahead of them when Leon stopped abruptly. ‘Oh, sweet God! There he is! There is the lion.’ He pointed.

  ‘Where? I can’t see it.’

  ‘There, on the high ground.’ He put an arm around her shoulders and turned her to face it. ‘That huge black thing on top of the highest rock. That’s him. Listen! The morani are challenging him.’

  ‘I can’t see...’ But then the lion raised and fluffed out his mane, and she gasped. ‘I was looking right at it. I never realized it would be so big. I thought it was a gigantic boulder.’

  The lion swung his massive head from side to side, surveying the host of enemies that surrounded him. He snarled and bared his teeth. Even at that distance Leon and Eva could clearly see the ivory flash of his fangs and hear the furious crackling growls. Then he lowered his head and flattened his ears against his skull as he picked out the moon-pale flash of Otto von Meerbach’s body in the centre of the ranks. He had been driven off his kill and he was angry. He needed no further provocation than the sight of that alien body. He growled again, then launched his charge, bounding down the side of the kopje straight at Graf Otto.

  A challenging shout went up from the morani ranks and they drummed on their shields, goading the lion. As he reached level ground at the foot of the slope he flattened out with the speed and power of his rush, snaking low to the earth, the dust spurting up from under the massive paws, grunting with every stride.

  Without a moment’s hesitation Graf Otto lifted his shield and held it high as he charged forward to meet the great beast. Leon and Eva came up short and, with a sense of inevitability, watched it happen. Eva was clinging to Leon’s hand and he felt her finger-nails sink into his flesh, drawing blood. ‘It’s going to kill him!’ she whispered, but at the last possible instant Graf Otto moved with the timing and co-ordination of a consummate athlete. He dropped to one knee and covered himself with the rawhide war-shield. At the same time he brought up the assegai in his right hand and presented the point to the charging lion. The beast took it in the centre of his chest, and it went in full length, so deep that Graf Otto’s right hand, which held the haft, was buried in the coarse black fleece of the mane, and the lion’s heart was spitted cleanly by the razor steel. His jaws gaped wide as he roared, and from his throat shot a fountain of bright blood that sprayed over Otto von Meerbach’s head and shoulders. The lion reeled back with the spear still buried in his heart, staggered in a circle and collapsed into the grass, all four legs kicking in the air. It was a perfect kill.

  Graf Otto threw aside the shield and bounded to his feet, bellowing triumphantly, whirling in a dervish dance, his face contorted under the glistening coating of the lion’s blood. A dozen morani rushed forward to stab the blades of their assegais into the corpse. The Graf confronted them, bellowing possessively, keeping them away from his kill. He ripped his own spear from the lion’s chest and shook it at the warriors as they crowded forward, driving them back, shouting in their faces, beating his chest with his fists in a berserker rage, threatening them with his raised spear. They yelled back furiously at him, drumming on their shields with their own blades. They were demanding to share the glory, their entitlement to wash their spears in the blood of the lion. Graf Otto lunged at one, and the morani was only just quick enough to deflect the thrust with his shield. Graf Otto screamed with rage and hurled the assegai at him, like a javelin. The warrior raised his shield but the blade cut through the rawhide targe and slashed open the blood vessels in his wrist. His companions roared with fury.

  ‘Dear God! The madness is on him,’ Eva panted. ‘Someone will be killed, either himself or the Masai. I must stop him.’ She started forward.

  ‘No, Eva. They’re all mad with blood rage. You cannot stop them. You will only be hurt.’ He seized her arm.

  She tugged against his grip. ‘I’ve been able to quiet him before. He will listen to me...’ Again she tried to pull away, but now he grabbed her shoulders with his left arm, and hefted the rifle in his right hand. Strong as she was, and no matter how she struggled, she was helpless in his grip.

  ‘It’s too late, Eva,’ he hissed into her ear and, holding the heavy rifle as though it were a pistol, he pointed with the barrel over the heads of Graf Otto and the wounded morani. ‘Look up there, on top of the kopje.’

  She looked as he directed, and saw the second lion, the missing twin. He was standing on the crest of the hillock, a huge creature, bigger even than the one Graf Otto had killed, but his mane was fully erect with rage so he seemed to double in size. He hunched his back, opened his jaws wide and held them close to the ground as he roared, a full-throated earth-splitting blast. The hubbub of the watchers, the tumult of Graf Otto and the embattled warriors died away into a deathly silence. Every head was turned to the summit of the kopje and the beast that stood there.

  The two lions had separated three days previously when the elder had been lured away by an irresistible perfume on the cool pre-dawn breeze. It was the odour of a mature lioness in full oestrus. He had left his younger twin and hurried to answer the wind-borne invitation.

  He found the lioness an hour after sunrise, but another lion was already mating with her, a younger, stronger and more determined suitor. The two had fought, roaring, slashing and ripping at each other with fangs and bared claws. The older lion had been injured, driven off with a deep gash across the ribs and a bite in the shoulder that had cut down to the bone. He had come back to join his twin, limping with pain and aching with humiliation. The two lions had been reunited a little after moonrise and the wounded one had fed on the carcass of the kudu killed by his twin, then retreated to a rocky overhang in the side of the hill where he had lain up to rest and lick his wounds.

  He had been too sore and stiff to take any part in the attack by the morani hunters, but the angry roaring and the death throes of his twin had brought him out of his hiding place. Now he looked down on the killing ground where the corpse of his sibling lay. He did not know the human feelings of grief, sorrow or loss, but he knew rage, a terrible consuming rage against the world and especially against the puny creatures in front of him. The figure of Graf Otto was closest, and the pale colour of his body acted as a focal point for the lion’s anger. He sprang forward and charged down the slope.

  A dreadful wail went up from the women, who scattered like a flock of chickens before the stoop of a peregrine. The morani were taken completely off-guard: one minute they had been brawling with Graf Otto and then the lion had appeared, as if by virtue of his magical powers.

  By the time they had rallied to face this new threat the beast had covered most of the ground to reach Graf Otto. Leon thrust Eva behind him and shouted at her, ‘Stay here. Don’t come any closer!’ Then he raced forward in an attempt to protect his client. He and the morani were far too late.

  At the last instant Graf Otto threw up his arms in a futile effort to protect himself, but the lion smashed into him with all its speed and massive weight. He was bowled over backwards with the beast on top of him. It enfolded him in the crushing embrace of its forelegs, and drove its claws like butcher’s meat-hooks deep into the flesh of his back. At the same time its back legs raked the front of his lower body and thighs, cutting deep gouges into his flesh and slicing open his belly. Now it was crouched on top of him and went for his face and throat, but Graf Otto thrust his forearm into the gaping jaws in an effort to keep it away. The lion bit down, and as Leon ran up he heard the bones splinter. The lion bit again, this
time crushing Graf Otto’s right shoulder. Like a kitten worrying a ball of wool, its back legs were busy, ripping long yellow claws through Graf Otto’s thighs and belly.

  Leon slipped the safety catch off the rifle and rammed the muzzles into the lion’s ear. At the same instant he pulled both triggers. The bullets tore through the skull and blew out through the opposite ear, taking most of the brains with them. The lion flopped on to its side and rolled off Graf Otto.

  Leon stood over the man, ears singing from the blast of the rifle, and stared in horrified disbelief at the damage the animal had inflicted in just a few seconds. For the moment he could not bring himself to touch Graf Otto: he was awash with blood, and more spurted from the hideous wounds in his arm and shoulder. It poured, too, from the deep gouges in the front of his thighs and from the slashes in his belly.

  ‘Is he still alive?’ Eva had ignored his instruction to stay back. ‘Is he alive or dead?’

  ‘A little of each, I think,’ Leon told her grimly, but her voice had snapped him out of the inertia of horror that had gripped him. He handed the rifle to Manyoro as he ran up, then dropped to his knees beside his client’s body, drew his hunting knife from its sheath and started to cut away the blood-soaked shuka.

  ‘Sweet God, it’s torn him to shreds. You’ll have to help me. Do you know anything about first aid?’ he asked Eva.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, as she knelt beside him. ‘I’ve had training.’ Her tone was calm and businesslike. ‘First we must stop the bleeding.’

  Leon stripped away the last of Graf Otto’s tattered shuka and cut it into strips as bandages. Between them they placed tourniquets on the shattered arm and the torn thighs. Then they strapped pressure pads to the other deep punctures left by the lion’s fangs.

  Leon watched Eva’s hands as she worked quickly and neatly. She showed no repugnance although she was bloodied to the elbows. ‘You know what you’re doing. Where did you learn?’