“Gbo—stop,” she commanded when the war-bull came to the edge of the river. At the sight of the huge, horned mount, the birds fled in multicolored clouds and the waterbucks stampeded for the protection of the trees.
The war-bull halted. Dossouye gazed across the lazily flowing river.
“What do we do now, Gbo?” she murmured. “Cross the river, or continue along the bank?”
The war-bull snorted and shook its curving horns. In size and form, Dossouye’s mount differed little from the wild buffalo from which its ancestors had been bred generations ago. Although the savage disposition of its forebears was controllable now, a war-bull was still as much weapon as mount. Dossouye had named hers “Gbo,” meaning “protection.”
With a fluid motion, the ahosi dismounted. Her light leather armor stuck uncomfortably to her skin. Days had passed since her last opportunity to bathe. Glancing along the banks of the Kambi, she saw no creature larger than a dragonfly. The prospect of immersing herself in the warm depths of the Kambi hastened her decision.
“We will cross the river, Gbo,” she said, speaking as though the beast could understand her words. “But first, we’ll enjoy ourselves!”
So saying, she peeled the leather armor from her tall, lean frame and laid it on the riverbank alongside her sword, shield, and spear. Knowing Gbo would also prefer to swim unencumbered, she removed the war-bull’s saddle and bridle.
Naked, she was all sinew and bone, with only a suggestion of breast and hip. Her skin gleamed like indigo satin, black as the hide of her war-bull: When she pulled off her close-fitting helmet, her hair sprung outward in a kinky mane.
She waded into the warm water. Gbo plunged in ahead of her, sending spumes of the Kambi splashing into her face. Laughing, Dossouye dove deeper into the river. The water flowed clear enough for her to see the silvery scales of fish darting away from her sudden intrusion. Dossouye surfaced, gulped air, and resubmerged, diving toward the weed-carpeted floor of the Kambi. When her feet touched bottom, she kicked upward to the bright surface. Suddenly she felt a nudge at her shoulder, gentle yet possessed of sufficient force to send her spinning sideways.
For a moment, Dossouye panicked, her lungs growing empty of air. Then she saw a huge, dark bulk floating at her side. Gbo! she realized. Shifting in the water, she hovered over the war-bull’s back. Then she grasped his horns and urged him toward the surface. With an immense surge of power, Gbo shot upward, nearly tearing his horns from Dossouye’s grip.
In a sun-dazzling cascade, they broke the surface. Still clinging to the war-bull’s horns, Dossouye laughed. For the first time, she felt free of the burden of melancholy she had borne since her bittter departure from Abomey. Lazily she stretched across the length of Gbo’s back as the war-bull began to wade shoreward.
Abruptly Gbo stiffened. Dossouye felt a warning tremor course through the giant muscles beneath her. Blinking water from her eyes, she looked toward the bank—and her own thews tensed as tautly as Gbo’s.
There were two men in the riverbank. Armed men, mounted on horses. The spears of the intruders were leveled at Dossouye and Gbo. The men were clad in flowing trousers of black silk-cotton. Turbans of the same material capped their heads. Above the waist, they wore only brass-studded baldrics to which curved Mossi swords were sheathed. Along with their swords, they carried long-bladed spears and round shields of rhinoceros hide bossed with iron.
One rider was bearded, the other smooth-chinned. In their narrow, umber faces, Dossouye discerned few other differences. Their dark eyes stared directly into hers. They sat poised in their saddles like beasts of prey regarding a victim.
Dossouye knew the horsemen for what they were: daju, footloose armsmen who sometimes served as mercenaries, though they were more often marauding thieves. The daju roamed like packs of wild dogs through the empty lands between the insular Mossi cities.
Through luck and skill, Dossouye had until now managed to avoid unwelcome encounters with the daju. Now… she had run out of luck. Her weapons and armor lay piled behind the horsemen.
Her face framed by Gbo’s horns, Dossouye lay motionless, sunlight gemming the water beaded on her bare skin. The two daju smiled.…
Dossouye pressed her knees against Gbo’s back. Slowly the war-bull waded up the incline of the riverbottom. The bearded daju spoke sharply, his Mossi words meaningless to Dossouye. But the eloquence of the accompanying gesture he made with his spear was compelling. His companion raised his own weapon, cocking his elbow for an instant cast.
Gbo continued to advance. Dossouye flattened on his back, tension visible in the long, smooth muscles of her back and thighs. As the war-bull drew closer, the bearded daju repeated his gesture. This time he spoke in slurred but recognizable Abomean, demanding that Dossouye dismount immediately.
Whispering a command, Dossouye poked a toe into Gbo’s right flank. Together they moved with an explosive swiftness that bewildered even the cunning daju.
Hoofs churning in the mud of the bank the war-bull shouldered between the startled horses. Then Gbo whirled to the left, horned head swinging like a giant’s bludgeon and smashing full into the flank of the bearded daju’s mount. Shrieking in an almost human tone, the horse collapsed, blood spouting from a pair of widely spaced punctures. Though the daju hurled himself clear when his horse fell, he landed clumsily and lay half-stunned while Gbo gored his screaming, kicking steed.
At the beginning of Gbo’s charge, Dossouye had slid downward from the war-bull’s back. When Gbo hit the daju’s horse, she clung briefly to her mount’s flank, fingers and toes her only purchase against water-slick hide. Dossouye was gambling, hoping the unexpected attack would unnerve the daju sufficiently long for her to reach a weapon.
When the horse crashed to the ground, Dossouye leaped free, hitting the riverbank lightly like a cat pouncing from a tree. Her luck returned; the second daju’s horse was rearing and pawing the air uncontrollably, its rider cursing as he hauled savagely on the reins. A swift scan showed Dossouye that nothing stood between her and her weapons. As she darted toward them, she shouted another command over her shoulder to Gbo.
Hoofbeats drummed behind her. Still running, Dossouye snatched up her spear. Then she whirled to face the onrushing daju.
The beardless warrior charged recklessly, Mossi oaths spilling from his lips. Without hesitation, Dossouye drew back her arm and hurled her weapon full into the breast of the oncoming horse. Though the distance of the cast was not great, the power of the ahosi’s whiplike arm drove the spearpoint deep into the flesh of the daju’s steed. In the fraction of a moment she’d had to decide, Dossouye had chosen the larger target. Had she aimed at the man, he could have dodged or deflected the spear, then easily slain her.
With a shrill neigh of pain, the horse pitched to its knees. The sudden stop sent the daju hurtling through the air. He landed only a few paces from Dossouye. As the ahosi bent to retrieve her sword, she thought she saw a bright yellow flash, a spark of sunlight from something that flew from the daju’s body when he fell.
Dossouye’s curiosity concerning that flash was only momentary. To save her life now, she must move as swiftly as ever on an Abomean battlefield. Sword hilt firmly in hand, she reached the fallen daju in two catlike bounds. His spear had flown from his hand—he was struggling frantically to pull his sword from its scabbard when Dossouye’s point penetrated the base of his skull, killing him instantly.
Turning from the daju’s corpse, Dossouye surveyed the scene of sudden slaughter. The horse she’d speared had joined its rider in death. Its own fall had driven Dossouye’s spearpoint into its heart. The bearded daju’s steed was also dead, blood still leaking from gaping horn wounds.
The bearded daju lay face-down in the mud. Gbo stood over him, one red-smeared horn pressing against the marauder’s back. The daju trembled visibly, as if he realized he lived only because of the command Dossouye had earlier flung at the war-bull. Because the daju spoke Abomean Dossouye wished to question him. Without the a
hosi’s word, Gbo would have trampled the man into an unrecognizable pulp.
Like a great, lean panther, Dossouye stalked toward the prone daju. Anger burned hot within her; the high spirits she had allowed herself earlier were gone now, leaving her emotions as naked as her body. Reaching Gbo, Dossouye stroked his side and murmured words of praise in his ear. Once again, the war-bull had lived up to the meaning of his name. Dossouye spoke another command, and Gbo lifted his horn from the daju’s back… but only slightly. When the man attempted to rise, his spine bumped against Gbo’s horn. Instantly he dropped back into the mire. He managed to turn his head sufficiently far to gaze one-eyed at the ahosi standing grimly at the side of her mount.
“Spare… me,” the daju croaked.
Snorting in contempt, Dossouye knelt next to the daju’s head.
“Where are the rest of your dogs?” she demanded. “From what I’ve heard, you daju travel in packs.”
“Only… Mahadu and me,” the daju replied haltingly. “Please… where is the moso? Mahadu had it.…”
“What is a ‘moso’?”
“Moso is… small figure… cast from brass. Very valuable… will share… with you.”
“I know exactly what you wanted to ‘share’ with me!” snapped Dossouye. Then she remembered the bright reflection she had spotted when the beardless daju fell from his horse. Valuable?
“I saw no ‘moso,’” she said. “Now I’m going to tell my war-bull to step away from you. Then I want you to get up and run. Do not look back; do not even think about recovering your weapons. I want you out of my sight very quickly. Understand?”
The daju nodded vigorously. At a word from Dossouye, Gbo backed away from the prone man. Without further speech, the daju scrambled to his feet and fled, not looking back. Swiftly he disappeared in a copse of mist-clad trees.
Gbo strained against Dossouye’s command as though it were a tether immobilizing him. Dossouye trailed her hand along his neck and ears, gentling him. She could not have explained why she spared the daju. In the Abomean army, she had slain on command, as well-trained as Gbo. Now, she killed only to protect herself. She felt no compunctions at having dispatched the daju named Mahadu from behind. Yet she had just allowed an equally dangerous foe to live. Perhaps she had grown weary of dealing death.
Impatiently she shook aside her mood. Again she recalled the fleeting reflection she had seen only moments ago. A moso, the daju had said. Valuable.…
It was then that she heard four sharp, clear musical notes sound behind her.
As one, Dossouye and Gbo spun to confront the latest intruder. A lone man stood near the bodies of Mahadu and his horse. But this one did not look like a daju. Indeed, never before had Dossouye encountered anyone quite like him. He was a composition in brown: skin the rich hue of tobacco; trousers and open robe a lighter, almost russet shade; eyes the deep color of fresh-turned loam. His hair was plaited into numerous braids of shoulder length, each one sectioned with beads strung in colorful patterns. Beneath the braids, his oval face appeared open, friendly, dominated by warm eyes and a quick, sincere smile. A black mustache grew on his upper lip; wisps of beard clung to his chin and cheeks. His was a young face; he could not have been much older than Dossouye’s twenty rains. He was as lean in build as Dossouye, though not quite as tall.
In his hand, the stranger bore the instrument that had sounded the four notes. It was a kalimba, a hollow wooden soundbox fitted with eight keys that resonated against a raised metal rim. Held in both hands, the small instrument’s music was made by the flicking of the player’s thumbs across the keys.
No weapons were evident to Dossouye’s practiced gaze. More than one blade, however, could lie hidden in the folds of the stranger’s robe. As if divining that thought, the stranger smiled gently.
“I did not mean to alarm you, ahosi,” he said in a smooth, soft voice. His Abomean was heavily accented, but his speech was like music.
“I heard the sounds of fighting as I passed by,” he continued. His thumb flicked one of the middle keys of the kalimba. A deep note arrowed across the riverbank—blood, death.
Gbo bellowed and shook his blood-washed horns. Dossouye’s hand tightened on the hilt of her carmined sword.
“Now I see the battle is over. And you certainly have nothing to fear from me.”
He touched another key. A high, lilting note floated skyward like a bird—peace, joy. Gbo lowed softly as a steer in a pasture. Dossouye smiled and lowered her blade. Rains had passed since she had last known the serenity embodied in that single note.
But she had been deceived before.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
“I am Gimmile, a bela—a song-teller,” he replied, still smiling. “You can put down your sword and get dressed, you know. I will not harm you. Even if I wanted to, I don’t think I could. One Abomean ahosi, it seems, is worth at least two daju—and I am certainly no daju.”
Dossouye felt his eyes appraising her unclad form. She knew she was bony, awkward… but that was not what Gimmile saw. He had watched her move, lithe and deadly as a great cat. He noted the strong planes of her face, the troubled depths of her eyes.
Dossouye did not trust Gimmile. Still, he had spoken truth when he said he could not harm her. Not while she had a sword in her hand and Gbo at her side.
“Watch him,” she told the war-bull.
As Dossouye walked to her pile of armor, Gbo confronted the bela. Gimmile did not flinch at the size and ferocity of Dossouye’s mount. Instead, he reached out and touched the snout of the war-bull.
Seeing the bela’s danger, Dossouye opened her mouth to shout the command that would spare Gimmile from the goring he unwittingly courted. But Gbo did nothing more than snort softly and allow Gimmile to stroke him.
Never in Dossouye’s memory had a war-bull commanded to guard allowed itself to be touched by a stranger. She closed her mouth and began to don her armor.
“Were you about to cross the Kambi when the daju attacked, ahosi?” Gimmile asked, his hands pulling gently at Gbo’s ears.
“The name is Dossouye. And the answer is ‘Yes.’ ”
“Well, Dossouye, it seems I owe you a debt. I think those daju might have been a danger to me had you not come along.”
“Why a danger?” Dossouye asked, looking sharply at him while she laced her leather cuirass.
“A bela’s songs can be… valuable,” Gimmile replied enigmatically. “Indirectly, you may have saved my life. My dwelling is not far from here. I would like to share my songs with you. I also have food. I—I have been alone for a long time.”
He plucked another key on his kalimba… a haunting, lonely sound. And Dossouye knew then that her feeling echoed Gimmile’s. Her avoidance of human contact since she had left Abomey had worn a cavity of loneliness deep within her. Her soul was silent, empty.
She looked at the bela; watched Gbo nuzzle his palm. Gbo trusted Gimmile. But suspicion still prowled restlessly in Dossouye’s mind. Why was Gimmile alone? Would not a song-teller need an audience in the same way a soldier needed battle? And what could Gimmile possess that would be of value to thieves? Surely not his songs or his kalimba, she told herself.
Suddenly Dossouye wanted very badly to hear Gimmile’s songs, to talk with him, to touch him. Weeks had passed since she last met a person who was not a direct threat to her life. Her suspicions persisted. But she decided to pay them no heed.
“I will come with you,” she decided. “But not for long.”
Gimmile removed his hand from Gbo’s muzzle and played a joyous chorus on the kalimba. He sang while Dossouye cinched the saddle about the massive girth of the war-bull. She did not understand the Mossi words of the song, but the sound of his voice soothed her as she cleaned daju blood from her sword and Gbo’s horns.
Then she mounted her war-bull. Looking down at Gimmile, who had stopped singing, Dossouye experienced a short-lived urge to dig her heels into Gbo’s flanks and rush across the river.…
Gimm
ile lifted his hand, waiting for Dossouye to help him onto the war-bull’s back. There was tranquility in his eyes and a promise of solace in his smile. Taking his hand, Dossouye pulled him upward. He settled in front of her. So lean were the two of them that there was room in the saddle for both. His touch, the pressure of his back against her breast, the way he fit in the circle of her arms as she held Gbo’s reins—the bela’s presence was filling an emptiness of which Dossouye had forced herself to remain unaware, until now.
“Which way?” she asked.
“Along the bank toward the setting of the sun,” Gimmile directed.
For all the emotions resurging within her, Dossouye remained aware that the bela had indicated a direction opposite the one the fleeing daju had taken. Yet as she urged Gbo onward, her suspicions waned. And the memory of the flashing thing the beardless daju had dropped faded like morning mist from her mind.
A single pinnacle of stone rose high and incongruous above the treetops. It was as though the crag had been snatched by a playful god from the rocky wastes of Axum and randomly deposited in the midst of the Mossi rain forest. Creepers and lianas festooned the granite-gray peak with traceries of green.
This was Gimmile’s dwelling.
Dossouye sat in a cloth-padded stone chair in a chamber that had been hollowed from the center of the pinnacle. Its furnishings were cut from stone. Intricately woven hangings relieved the grayness of the walls. Earlier, Dossouye had marveled at the halls and stairwells honeycombing the rock.
As she finished the meal of boiled plantains Gimmile had prepared, Dossouye recalled stories she had heard concerning the cliff-cities of the Dogon. But Dogon was desert country; in a land of trees like Mossi, a spur of stone such as Gimmile’s tower was anomalous.
Little speech had passed during the meal. Gimmile seemed to communicate best with his kalimba. The melodies that wafted from the eight keys had allayed her misgivings, which had been aroused again when the bela had insisted Gbo be penned in a stone corral at the foot of the pinnacle.
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