My heart stopped.
My home. My family…
I wanted to run ahead. To go hurtling through the blackness to save the closest one to me. I imagined myself disappearing into the dark. I could outpace this dreadfully slow column.
But I didn’t move.
I looked at my hands, painted white.
I was meant to be on the path to manhood by now.
But I was still a boy.
A drop of rain fell, pelting into my hand and washing off the white paint, revealing my dark skin beneath. More water droplets pelted down, soon coming in droves. A flash. Followed by a boom, as real lightning and thunder rose.
In seconds, we were drenched.
“We must go inside!” Themba shouted to the impi, a bit of his shell shock disappearing. “The Impundulu will strike us and drink our blood if we stay outside.”
The impi closest to him only laughed. His sodden friend wasn’t too amused.
“We’re used to bloodsuckers. Don’t fear the storm or the lightning bird. You’ll have a roof over your heads soon.”
These men didn’t seem afraid of the Impundulu. Foolishness! Many shepherds and herdsmen had lost their flocks and herds because they’d refused to bring their charges in for the night. The lightning bird had drained them dry, using their blood to power the storms.
The Xhosa boys looked at the Zulu impi sceptically. They had to know of Impundulu. My mother had told me once that, when she was a child, the bird was just a myth. But, after the rifts opened, the storms became much more menacing. I peered into the horizon, towards a bolt of lightning, impacting the ground far away.
The Xhosa boys huddled closer. Themba stood between me and the impi.
“Do not be frightened,” he whispered. “Commander Bhengani is a good man. He will set things straight.”
I didn’t stop staring into the darkness, averting my eyes from the fires of my home.
“I’m not afraid of the impi,” I whispered. “I’m afraid of what’s in the dark.”
Themba inclined his head towards the impi. They weren’t chatting as they were before. The procession moved at a ponderous pace and trudging along became harder as the dirt turned to mud. At least there were no thorns. We all had had to leave our shoes back in Mqanduli.
“They are as well,” Themba said. He nodded towards an impi that could have only been a year or two older than I was. He was muttering a prayer, to the Christian God, to Unkulunkulu or to his ancestors, I did not know. But his knuckles were tense and his finger rested anxiously on the trigger of his rifle.
The impi behind him put something in his mouth and chewed, hastily. He spat a globule of red goo towards the darkness, just as another bolt of lightning struck, illuminating the frightened faces of the drenched convoy.
“He curses the enemy,” Themba explained.
“What enemy?” Wisdom asked, eavesdropping. “There’s nothing there.”
“Nothing there that we can see,” I corrected.
Wisdom audibly gulped and fell back in line.
I caught Themba’s concerned gaze as I looked back towards the darkness.
There was something there. Something even the impi feared. Did I? I wasn’t sure.
I felt eyes upon me as we marched through the mud and torrents, until finally we felt the heat of a village on fire.
Not all of Mqanduli burned, but sufficient houses were ablaze that the village was lit up with a violent orange glow. Casspirs and buffels were parked haphazardly around the village, and impi grappled men and women. There were more dead on the ground. I didn’t look at their faces. I didn’t want to look at their faces. I knew almost everyone in Mqanduli.
“Mama!” one of the boys screamed, dashing towards a woman lying in a heap by a burning hovel. An impi clubbed him in the stomach with the butt of his rifle and the boy fell to the ground, sobbing and gagging.
The air smelled like burning rubber, timber and flesh. Like someone had overcooked meat on the fire.
“Why?” Themba muttered, his eyes wide. Disbelieving, as he watched impi direct a group of people we knew to a wall, where they were searched. Thoroughly. An impi groped one of the women in the group and her husband raised his voice. The impi beat him till he fell to the ground.
Everyone in the procession looked around hastily, trying to find family members or friends. I did not. I didn’t want to check. There was too much blood. Too much death. I didn’t want to know who had died.
I clenched my fists and looked straight, at the bumper of the casspir, slowly pulling into the town square.
Why? I asked myself. Why do this? We were a small village. A loyal village. We paid our taxes, reported malcontents. Mqanduli auxiliaries even served to assault the Three Point Line in the last Glorious Reunification War. They had all died, but they had died for the Empire!
Why burn our homes? Why burn my home?
I wanted to feel rage at what they had done. But it was too sudden. The somagwaza’s head oozing blood and brain matter. The chill numbing me to my bones. And the corpses…
I was not even one step down the path to manhood. How could I understand this? How could I cope?
I looked up to Themba. But, despite being older, he was only muttering to himself, equally disbelieving.
“Commander Bhengani will save us. He’s a good man. He has his reasons. He’ll save us.”
The convoy pulled into the town square, where a group of older impi with scars and wrinkles stood at attention, surrounding a younger officer standing on top of a casspir. While the soldiers with us had black outlined shields on their arms, these older men had white outlines, and many wore necklaces with monster horns and burnt wood. These were killers. Veterans. The White Impi. They would lead the assault on the Magocracy to the north or over the Three Point Line to the west.
But, why then were they here? We were a part of the Empire. Why attack us? Why were they burning my home?
The officer spoke into a megaphone, with the exasperated tone of one who was repeating a message for the umpteenth time.
“For crimes against the Emperor and the harbouring of separatists, the settlement of Mqanduli will be put under the protection of Nkosi Kuzalwa Igazi of the Izingane Zegazi.”
I didn’t hear the rest of the proclamation. All I heard was buzzing. The numbness disappeared, and all I could hear was the drumming of my own heart, and the thousand buzzing of bees.
The Izingane Zegazi. Children of Blood.
Vampires.
Chapter 3. Fires
Vampires?! Here! I had grown up learning about vampires. But, they had all been far away. Besides the Impundulu and the occasional nightkin, we didn’t get blood-drinkers near Mqanduli. But, I knew that the Empire had vampires among them. They were infamous.
The Izingane Zegazi. A bloodline of vampiric warlords, answerable to no one but that Zulu Emperor himself. And if rumours were to be believed, not even him.
Wisdom told stories about them to scare me. Sure, I’d known they were real. There were towns owned by them all along the western border. But those were military zones, meant to stand against the invaders from Hope City.
Why, then, were they here?
Wisdom shoved me forward, and my senses were suddenly overwhelmed with the smell of burning and the orange haze of fire. The march hadn’t stopped, even if I had been stunned by the realisation that my village had been given to vampires.
I bit my lower lip, tasting blood, as I put one foot ahead of the other. My village was hot. Too hot. I had begun to miss the chill of the night already. Anything but this…
“Please! Don’t! My baby!” a woman screamed, flailing at two impis as a third dragged away a boy of barely five. He was another cousin. Abongile. I’d looked after him on occasion. He liked cows. And now he was being dragged away by an impi, screaming and reaching out for his mother.
I felt shame then. Because I did not even consider helping. How could I? Impi all around. Fire. Armoured cars. And…vampires.
I had no chance.
But I didn’t even contemplate it.
What did that make me?
I looked to Themba, expecting rage in his eyes. He had always been the hero. The one who defended the herd from bandits and zombies. He’d wanted to be an impi. Perhaps…not anymore.
Themba’s eyes were dull. Greyed out. The eyes of a man who’d seen too much in too little time.
“Themba,” I whispered, just to break him out of his reverie. Some life returned to his eyes and he looked at me, wincing as we heard the crack of a gunshot.
“Will we see our parents again?” I asked.
I wanted to hit myself for asking it. And for the sob in my voice. But…I couldn’t just leave it. I couldn’t leave her…she was all I had left.
Themba just stared at me, and I saw moisture in his eyes, glistening in the firelight. He looked away and I felt my heart sting.
“Where are you taking us?” a boy from an outlying homestead asked one of the impis. I expected him to get belted in response, but the impi didn’t sound angry when he spoke.
“You’re safe. We’re taking you to where you’ll be fed and warmed,” the impi said, and was that concern in his eyes? Guilt?
I didn’t sense a lie, but I couldn’t help but feel the acidic and burning sensation of rage rising within me.
Safe?! He comes into my home, slaughters my people, and then feels bad for us?
I didn’t want safety, I realised. I wanted answers. I needed them. And I needed to make these impi pay.
That’s when I saw them. My rage ebbed away like ice melting in a microwave, and all my instincts told me to run. To flee. To hide. Anything but face this creature.
They wore black leather coats adorned with Nguni patterns, dominantly in red and black. Their hair was natural. Curly. No weaves or wigs. And they were impeccably youthful. Their eyes were the colour of blood.
In a way, they were human. Too human. And they were the most terrifying things I had ever seen.
They stood outside the husk of the old shebeen. A woman and man stood with hands in their pockets, looking bored, while a coal-dark man with a short black goatee spoke to an impi officer. The man was so eerily human that it made his red eyes even starker. And he exuded a menace that was indescribable. I felt like a zebra faced with a lion just looking at him.
Past the buildings, I heard the scuffling of feet. In a flash, a group of grey figures rushed past, disappearing into the black. A bone breaking crunch followed.
I gasped as someone grabbed my shoulders. I realised I had stopped walking, and the convoy had passed me. I felt tears of shame well up in my eyes. Of all the times to be stuck in reverie!
“You’ll walk off a cliff with how little attention you pay, Guy Mgebe!” my mom had told me. Oh, how wrong she was. I was going to be eaten by vampires because of my dreaminess.
“Guy!” Themba whispered, anxiously. I turned to face my cousin with palpable relief.
“I’m sorry…” I started, until he covered my mouth.
“Listen to me, Guy. You have to run. When we run to catch up with the others, we have to split up and run into the darkness. As far away from the village as we can. And don’t stop until sunrise…”
“What? Why? You said Bhengani would keep us safe…”
“Bhengani is a ghoul. I saw him in the alley. They turned the garrison commander into a blood-sucking servant.”
I was too stunned to respond. I had never known Bhengani. The Zulu impi had stuck to themselves most of the time. But Themba had believed in the man’s integrity. And now he was dead. Or worse.
Just like the others.
“Mqanduli is doomed,” Themba continued, pulling me along in the direction of the convoy. “These aren’t just impi. They’re Izingane Zegazi. They’re vampires of the Blood. Bhengani told me they only serve themselves. They care not for Empire or Emperor. They only seek to feed…”
“Humans,” a man spoke in Zulu. Themba and I turned, and my eyes couldn’t help but widen. One of the vampires had spotted us and effortlessly strode to our position.
Themba pulled me behind him, as I stared at the human-looking creature. The vampire looked amused. He smiled, revealing fangs.
“Come now, boys. You look cold with just a blanket. Come inside…” the vampire didn’t even try to hide the hunger in his voice.
A man stepped between us. He had a rifle slung over his back.
“These men are not for eating, lord. They’re recruits for the new auxiliaries.”
I recognised that voice. It was the sergeant who had killed the somagwaza!
“Out of the way, impi.” The vampire spat the title like it was an insult. “These are our lands now. The blood that flows through Transkei belongs to the Izingane Zegazi. Unless, you’d like to take their place…”
The sergeant didn’t make a move towards his revolver or rifle. He only repeated himself.
“They are recruits. They belong to the Emperor.”
The vampire clicked his tongue, irritably and took a step forward, just as another black clothed figure entered the fray. He seemed to appear out of nowhere and, while it could be my addled brain, I could not help but see the shadows warp around him. The goateed vampire.
“Nkosi!” the previous vampire said, fearful and reverent.
“Why are you troubling this foot soldier, fledgling?” Nkosi Igazi’s voice was authoritative. Not demanding. Not pleading. He expected to be obeyed without trouble. Always.
“He stands between a vampire and his meal,” the vampire answered.
“Is this true, impi?” Nkosi Igazi asked of the sergeant. A small part of me hoped that the sergeant would be hurt, for what he had done to the somagwaza. But he had stood up for us…
“My lord,” the sergeant said, and I heard the unmistakable waver of trepidation in his voice. “We need men to replace our losses. The next assault requires as many able-bodied men as we can muster.”
Nkosi Igazi considered the words, his gaze slowly drifting over Themba and me.
“Yet, sergeant, only one of them is a man…”
“By their customs,” the sergeant replied. “Not ours. They will both fight.”
Nkosi Igazi rubbed his chin, and finally nodded.
“Fledgling, there is plenty traitor blood within this village.”
The vampire inclined his head in respect but sulked as he skulked away.
The sergeant didn’t move.
“Sergeant,” Nkosi Igazi said, sternly. “This time I see the need for bolstering the imperial forces but, in the future, it would be wise not to disobey the orders of your superiors. Even a fledgling is higher than an impi. Now…”
He stopped, as his vision fell on me. I tried not to flinch, as his red eyes changed shape. Like a cat. His sharp tongue poked gently out of his lips, as if he was tasting the air.
I felt Themba move. Slowly. His hand reaching for the sergeant’s belt knife.
No… I thought to myself, not daring to vocalise my dismay. You’ll die!
A scream caused all of us to turn towards the alleyway, where a mob of grey skinned and red-eyed creatures pursued a woman, tackling her to the ground and tearing off her limbs.
“Whose ghouls are these?!” Nkosi Igazi yelled, irritable, as he broke away and strode towards the mess of bloodsuckers.
I had barely let out a sigh of relief when the sergeant belted Themba and me on the back of our heads.
“You idiots!” he said in Zulu, before changing to Xhosa. “You want to get drained? Stay with the convoy!”
He shoved us forward and, at a jogging pace, we headed down the streets, out of the village. Further away from the overwhelming stench of burning, I smelled piss – coming from the sergeant’s pants.
“The convoy is meant to protect you,” the sergeant sighed, finally out of range of the vampires. This part of the village was darker, the fires now behind us. “These monsters will drain anything that moves if given the chance.”
“Yet, you serve t
hem,” Themba mumbled.
The sergeant winced but didn’t reply.
I turned my head towards the slaughter. My house was on the other side of the village. We were heading away from it. I couldn’t just leave like this…
“Please, sir…” I pleaded, tasting bile as I did so. “Can we see our families before we leave?”
The sergeant tensed. Hesitated, before looking away into the darkness.
“You have no family left. This land is theirs now. Drained already. I am sorry.”
Silence followed that proclamation as the three of us walked through the darkness. The sergeant broke it.
“You two will serve in the Transkei Auxiliaries. It is an honour to serve the Empire. You will not miss your village or families, in time. The Empire is your family now…”
“Will he have to fight, sergeant?” Themba asked, and I heard strain in his voice. He hated this man, but also was thankful for what he had done for us.
The sergeant nodded. “Both of you will. In the Emperor’s name. War comes again, and another opportunity to re-take the Cape from the white man.”
“He cannot fight,” Themba said, referring to me. I nodded my agreement.
“I am inkwenkwe.”
“Meaning?” the sergeant asked, incredulous.
“He is not initiated,” Themba replied, slowly, as if explaining basic math to an imbecile. “He cannot marry or fight for his country.”
The sergeant looked at Themba, wondering if he was joking, before sighing. Heavily.
“This is why we defeated you. And this is why the white man controlled us for so long. Superstition only serves you if it lets you survive. To thrive. Traditions that hold you back should be destroyed.”
“Tradition is what makes us,” Themba replied, gritting his teeth and clenching his fists.
“And that is why there are so few of the amaXhosa left, shepherd.”
Themba stopped and the sergeant and I took a few more steps before realising that he was no longer following.
“Do you have a problem, Xhosa man?” the sergeant said, reaching for his revolver.
Blood Hunter: An Urban Fantasy Vampire Hunting Novel Page 2