by Wilbur Smith
"It is the son of al-Salil," one cried. "Yield to him!"
"He is the spawn of the traitor! Kill him!" a pot-bellied rogue bellowed, and forced his way through their ranks. Zaufar turned and sent a thrust deeply into his bulging gut. In a moment the enemy was divided against each other. Mansur's men rushed forward to take advantage of the confusion.
"Al-Salil!" they shouted, and some of the dhow's crew took up the cry, while the others yelled back defiantly, "Zayn al-Din!"
With so many of Kadem's men changing sides, those still loyal to him were outnumbered and they were swept back down the deck. Mansur led the charge, his face and robe splattered by the blood of his victims,
his eyes ferocious. He searched for Kadem in the rabble. As he fought his way forward more of the enemy recognized him. They threw down their weapons and grovelled on the deck.
"Mercy in the name of al-Salil!" they screamed.
At last Kadem ibn Abubaker stood alone at the stern rail of the dhow. He stared across at Mansur.
"I have come for retribution," Mansur called to him. "I have come to purge your evil soul with steel." He started forward again and the men between them shrank out of his way. "Come, Kadem ibn Abubaker, meet me now."
Kadem reared back, then swung forward and hurled his scimitar at Mansur's head. The curved blade, clotted with the blood of his victims, cartwheeled through the air with a vicious whirring sound. Mansur ducked under it and it went on to thud into the base of the mast.
"Not now, puppy. First I will kill your dog-sire, then only will I have time to deal with you."
Before Mansur realized what he was about, Kadem pulled his robe over his head and threw it to the deck. He wore only a loincloth round his waist. His torso was lean and hard. Under his arm was the raised purple scar of the sword-thrust that Mansur had inflicted on him on the quay at Muscat harbour. Kadem turned to the rail and leaped far out. He hit the water, went under, then surfaced and struck out strongly for the beach.
Mansur ran down the deck to the stern, stripping off his own clothing as he went. He dropped his sword, but thrust the curved dagger still in its gold and silver sheath into the back of his loincloth where it would not hamper his swimming stroke. He knotted it there securely. Then, with hardly a check, he dived head first over the rail. Both Mansur and Jim had learned to swim in the turbulent waters of the Benguela current that sweep the shores of Good Hope. As mere lads the two had kept the household of High Weald supplied with abalone and giant crayfish. They took these not by pot or net, but dived for them in the deep waters of the reef. At the end of many hours spent in the icy waters they would race each other back to the shore dragging the bulging sacks of their catch through the water with them.
Mansur came to the surface and, with a shake of his head, flicked his sodden mane out of his eyes. He saw Kadem fifty yards ahead of him. From experience, he knew that, even though they were accomplished seamen, few Arabs learned to swim, so he was surprised by how strongly Kadem forged through the water. Mansur struck out after him, swinging into a powerful overhead rhythm.
He heard the cries of encouragement from his men on the dhow, but
he ignored them and put all his heart, sinew and muscle into the effort. Every dozen strokes he snatched a glance ahead and saw that he was slowly closing in on Kadem.
As they drew nearer to the beach the swells started to hump under them. Kadem reached the break-line first. The tumbling white surf caught and smothered him, then threw him up again, coughing and disoriented. Now, instead of going with the current, he fought against it.
Mansur looked behind him, and saw the next set of waves rearing their backs against the blue of the sky. He stopped swimming and hung in the water, treading gently and paddling with his hands. He watched the first wave come down to him, then let it pass under him. It lifted him so that he had a clear view of Kadem only thirty yards ahead. The wave went on and dropped Mansur into its trough. The next wave came at him, taller and more powerful.
The first a piddle, the second a fountain, the third will wash you up the mountain." He almost heard Jim call the doggerel to him as he had so often before while they played together in the surf. "Wait for the third wave!"
Mansur let the second lift him even higher than the first. From the top he saw Kadem tumble end over end in the boil of the leading wave, his legs and then his flailing arms flashing out of the creaming surf. The wave sped on and left him struggling in its wake. Mansur looked back and saw the third wave bearing down on him. It arched up like the portals of the sky, its crest trembled, translucent green.
He turned with it and began to swim again, kicking hard and tearing at the water with both hands, building up his momentum. The wave picked him up and he found himself caught in its high frontal wall, racing onwards with his head and the top half of his body free.
Kadem was still floundering in the break and Mansur steered towards him with arms and legs, cutting across the face of the wave. At the last moment Kadem saw him and his eyes flew wide with astonishment. Mansur filled his own lungs with air and crashed into him. He locked his arms and legs around Kadem's body, as both of them were swallowed by the wave and carried deep beneath the surface.
Mansur felt his eardrums creak with the pressure and the pain was like a skewer being driven through his skull. He did not release his grip on Kadem, but he swallowed extravagantly and his eardrums made a popping sound as the pressure released. They were driven still deeper and he touched the bottom with one foot. All the time he was tightening his grip around Kadem's chest like the coils of a python.
They sank to the bottom and rolled together along the sandy floor.
Mansur opened his eyes and looked upwards. His vision was blurred, and the surface seemed as remote as the stars. He gathered all his strength and squeezed again. He felt Kadem's ribs creaking and bending in the circle of his arms. Then suddenly Kadem opened his mouth wide with the agony of it, and there was an explosive rush of air out of his throat.
Drown, you swine! Mansur thought, as he watched the silver bubbles of expelled wind racing up towards the surface. But he should have been ready for the last extremes of a dying animal. Somehow Kadem planted both feet on the sandy bottom, and thrust with all the strength of his legs. Still locked together they shot upwards, and the speed of their ascent increased as they approached the surface.
They broke out, and Kadem sucked in air. It gave him new strength, and he twisted in Mansur's arms and reached for his face with hooked fingers. His nails were sharp as augers and they raked Mansur's forehead and cheeks, groping for his eyes.
Mansur felt one hard fingertip force aside his tightly closed eyelid, and slip deeply into the socket. The pain was beyond belief as the nail scored his eyeball and Kadem began to prise it out of Mansur's skull. Mansur released his grip and jerked his head away just before the eyeball popped clean out. He was half blinded by the blood that welled up out of the wound. He emptied his lungs in a scream of agony. With renewed strength Kadem heaved himself on top of Mansur. He locked one arm around his throat in a strangler's grip and forced him under. He was kicking and driving his knees into Mansur's lower body, smothering him with blows and holding his head below the surface. Mansur's lungs were empty, and the urge to breathe was as powerful as the will for.|j life. Kadem's arm was an iron band around his neck. He knew that he would waste the last of his strength if he continued to grapple with him.
He reached behind his back with one hand and drew his dagger from its scabbard. With his left hand he groped under the edge of Kadem's ribcage seeking the lethal point. With all his remaining strength he drove the dagger into the indentation below the sternum. The knife maker had curved the steel to facilitate just this kind of disembowelling stroke, and the edge was so sharp that Kadem's tensed stomach muscles could offer little resistance to it. The steel ran into its full length, until Mansur felt the hilt strike against Kadem's lowest rib. Then he drew the razor edge down and like a purse opened Kadem's belly from his ribs to his
pelvic bone.
With a massive convulsion of his whole body Kadem released his strangling grip, and broke away, rolling on to his back. He floundered
on the surface and with both hands tried to stuff his bulging entrails back into the gaping wound. In blue and slippery ropes they kept pouring out and unwinding, until they tangled in his legs as he kicked to stay afloat. His face pointed to the sky and his mouth gaped in a silent cry of anger and despair.
Mansur looked around for him, but his injured eye was blurred and the image of Kadem's face was faceted, like the multiple reflections in a cracked mirror. Pain filled Mansur's skull so that it felt as though it was about to burst. With dread of what he might find, he touched his face. His relief was immense when he found that his eye was still in its socket, not hanging out on his cheek.
Another wave broke over Mansur's head and when he surfaced again he had lost sight of Kadem. He saw something more horrifying. The mouths of these African rivers that poured effluent and offal into the sea were the natural feeding grounds of the Zambezi shark. Mansur knew them well, and instantly recognized the distinctive blunt dorsal fin that sliced towards him, drawn by the taint of blood and split intestines. The next wave lifted the beast high, and for a moment Mansur saw its shape clearly outlined in the window of green water. It seemed to stare at him with an implacable dark eye. There was a kind of obscene beauty in the hard, sculpted lines of its body, and the sleek coppery hide. Its tail and fins were shaped like giant blades, and its mouth seemed set in a cruel, calculating sneer.
With a flick of its tail it shot past Mansur, brushing lightly against his legs. Then it was gone. Its disappearance was even more terrifying than its presence. He knew it was circling under him. This was the prelude to an attack. He had spoken to a few survivors of encounters with these ferocious animals, all missing limbs or bearing other hideous mutilations, and they had all told the same tale. "They touch you first, and then they hit you."
Mansur rolled on to his belly, ignoring the pain in his eye socket. Fortuitously another wave rolled down upon him and he swam with it until he felt it lift him, carry him in its arms like an infant, and bear him swiftly in towards the beach. He felt the sand under his feet and staggered up the slope with successive waves crashing into him.
He was cupping one hand over his eye, grunting with the pain, and as soon as he was above the high-water line he dropped to his knees. He ripped a strip from his loincloth and wrapped it round his head, knotting it tightly over the eye to try to ease the agony.
Then he peered back into the churning surf. Fifty yards out, he saw something pale break through the surface and realized it was an arm. There was a disturbance under it, a ponderous, weighty movement in
the discoloured waters. The arm vanished again, seeming to be plucked under.
Mansur stood up unsteadily and saw that there were now two sharks feeding on Kadem's corpse. They fought over it like a pair of dogs with a bone. As they worried it, they drove themselves with thrashing tails into the shallow water. At last a larger wave threw the lump of tattered flesh that was all that remained of Kadem Abubaker high up the beach, and left it stranded. The sharks prowled along the edge of the surf for a while then dived and vanished again.
Mansur went down to gaze upon the remains of his enemy. Great half-moons of flesh had been bitten out of his body. The seawater had washed away the blood, so that his stomach cavity was a clean pink pit, his dangling entrails pale and shining. Even in death his eyes were fixed in a malevolent stare, and his mouth in a snarl of hatred.
"I have fulfilled my duty," Mansur whispered. "Perhaps now my mother's shade can find peace." He prodded the mutilated corpse with his foot. "As for you, Kadem ibn Abubaker, half your flesh is in the belly of the beast. You can never find peace. May your suffering last through all eternity."
He turned away and looked out to sea. The battle was almost over. Three of the war-dhows had been captured, and the blue banners of al Salil flew at their mastheads. The wreckage of one more was mingled with that of the transports, being battered to kindling in the surf. Arcturus was pursuing the remaining war-dhow out to sea, and her.J cannons boomed out as she overtook it. The Revenge was following the fleeing transports, but they were already scattered over a wide swathe of , ocean.
Then he saw the Sprite hovering off the mouth of the river, and | waved to it. He knew good, faithful Kumrah was searching for him, and J that even from this distance he would recognize the colour of his hair. Almost at once he was proved right as he saw the Sprite lower a boat and send it in through the surf to pick him up. His vision was still blurred, but he thought he recognized Kumrah himself in the bows.
Mansur looked from the approaching boat back along the beach. Thrown upon the sands, scattered over a mile at the water's edge, were the carcasses of drowned men and horses from the destroyed dhows. Some of the enemy had survived. Men squatted singly or stood in small; disconsolate groups along the shore, but it was clear that there was no fight left in them. Stray horses wandered about at the edge of the jungle. |j
He had lost his dagger in the surf. He felt utterly vulnerable, half blind, naked and unarmed. Trying to ignore the pain in his eye, Mansur ran to one of the nearest corpses. It still wore a short robe and a weapon
was strapped around its waist. Mansur stripped off these pathetic relics and pulled the robe over his head. Then he drew the scimitar from its sheath and tested the blade. It was of fine Damascus steel. To test the edge he shaved a few hairs from his wrist before he ran the blade back into its scabbard. For the first time he became aware of a distant hubbub of voices. These came from the depths of the vegetation above the beach.
It's not over yet! he realized. Just then a rabble of running men burst out of the jungle. They were almost a furlong further up the beach, between him and the river mouth, but he saw that they were a mixed bunch of Arabs and Turks. They were being driven down towards the water's edge by a pack of Beshwayo's warriors. The stabbing spears flashed, then were buried in living flesh, and the triumphant shouts of the warriors mingled with the screams and desperate cries of the enemy.
"Ngi dhla I have eaten!"
Mansur realized the fresh danger he was in. Beshwayo's forces were in a killing frenzy. None would recognize him as friendly: he was just another pale, bearded face and they would stab him with as much glee as they would any one of the Omani.
The wet sand along the edge of the water was hard and compacted. He ran along it towards the river mouth. The Arab survivors of the battle realized they were being driven into the sea and they turned at bay. In a last bitter stand they faced Beshwayo's men. There was only a narrow gap behind them but Mansur raced through it, although the pain in his eye made him grunt at each pace. He was almost clear, and the boat from the Sprite was through the surf and into the calm water. It would be on the beach before he reached it.
Then there was a shout behind him and he glanced back. Three of the black warriors had spotted him. They had left the surrounded Arabs to their comrades, and they were racing after him, yelping with excitement, hounds on the scent of the hare.
From ahead there were shouts of encouragement: "We are here, Highness. Run, in the Name of God!" He recognized the voice and saw Kumrah in the bows of the boat.
Mansur ran, but his ordeal in the surf and the agony in his eye weakened him, and he could hear bare feet slapping on the wet sand close behind him. He could almost feel the glide of the steel through his flesh as an assegai stabbed between his shoulder-blades. Kumrah, in the boat, was thirty paces ahead, but that might just as well have been thirty leagues. He could hear the hoarse breathing of one man close behind his shoulder. He had to turn to face them and defend himself. He drew the scimitar from its scabbard and spun round.
The leading warrior was so close that he had already drawn back his assegai, low underhand, for the killing stroke. But with Mansur at bay he checked his rush, and called softly to his two companions, "The horns of the bull!" This was their favourite
tactic. They fanned out on each side of him, and in that instant Mansur was surrounded. Whichever way he turned his back would be exposed to a long blade. He knew he was a dead man, but he rushed at the man before him. Before he could cross blades with him he heard Kumrah shout behind him: "Down, Highness!" Mansur did not hesitate but threw himself flat on the sand.
His adversary stood over him and lifted the assegai high. "Ngi dhlal' he screamed.