by Archer Swift
Chapter 34
We submitted our weapons on arrival, and were told to sit in rows by clans as a head count was made. I looked around the assembled crowd; it seemed all the clans, but one had now arrived. The southernmost clan, along with Ruzzell, Shawz, Brucie and Cartyr and the three messengers, were still en route.
I cast my eyes on the Mzees seated on the ground in front of us; four were present: Matthew, Deborah, Shino Matsu and Lee Chan; all looking haggard and careworn. Three were not yet in their place: Scott, Dylain and Sarah.
Sarah lived at the main camp, and Scott was, of course, from the first camp just north of main camp. They would both certainly be around. Even though Dylain was from farther north, he was also surely here already. I recognised his clan members in the crowd.
The air was thick with tension. No one knew what was going on. Conspiracy theories and counterplot rumours bounced dangerously around the jittery crowd. Gossip, hunches, prattle and scandal. I filtered out the noise as I looked for the one man who could bring calm to a twitchy audience, the man whose mere presence would give us a measure of assurance.
Where’s Scott?
Then a nagging thought poked at me. It didn’t appear as though any of the other clans had experienced quite so much upheaval as ours had. There was no talk of ‘new day’ proclamations or iconoclastic ‘down with the old’ threats in the gossip flying around.
Had Ruzzell taken matters into his own hands? Had he jumped the gun, or just hurtled off on a wild tangent of his own? Ruzzell gone rogue was a distinct possibility. Perhaps I was wrong, horribly wrong … wonderfully wrong. Maybe Dylain didn’t give any order to have me killed. Could it be that Ruzzell simply went bush-bashing with the boys yesterday? And it just may be that the Mzees had called the emergency assembly and were going to expose Dylain now, before he was even able to kick-start his uprising.
Where is Scott?
Sarah and … Dylain now appeared from where I wasn’t quite sure, and joined the other four Mzees who were already seated in front of us. They were all dreadfully troubled and tense—except Dylain. Well, he looked troubled and tense, and that was what made me so jumpy. He looked like he was trying to look troubled and tense. But I wasn’t convinced; his acting skills were limited to hype and bravado.
With every passing second, the apprehension grew thicker. I trawled around for Scott; surely, he would pitch up at any moment now.
Where are you?
It was then that I noticed the last clan had arrived, and I realised that Ruzzell, Shawz, Cartyr and Brucie had plonked down at the end of our clan’s row. Ruzzell looked a bit better, but the bruising on his face was already visible, and his nose was definitely broken, plugged up with a thick gout of dark blood. Dabbing at his bulbous snout with a red-stained rag, he cranked his head to the side, and glanced at me askance. Glared at me. If he could have shot fireballs from his eyes, I’d be incinerated. Vaporised.
Then a disturbing, wicked grin crept over his swollen face. He shaped his pointing-finger like a knife and feigned slitting the throat, screwing his tongue out of the corner of his mouth, deriving an obscene amount of pleasure in threatening me. Chuckling with a menacing scowl, he mouthed: “Days are numbered, punk.” He then dragged his eyes off me, and wiped his beak, but the smirk didn’t leave his face. His sense of assuredness; the air of cocksure certainty with which he tittered … his confident stare forward seemingly in the know, wise to what was unfolding, rattled the cage I felt tightening around me. Suffocating, claustrophobic.
Had Dylain been waiting for him to arrive to consult together? Is that where Dylain was? Come Scott, where are you? My stomach twisted and coiled into a tight, painful knot.
Of course, I wasn’t the only one who was troubled by his absence. I now heard his name in every rumour and in every question bobbing around the distressed crowd. “Where’s Scott?” someone shouted out loud unable to contain his brimming consternation.
After what looked like a final discussion between the Mzees, my heart sank when Dylain rose to address us. For me, he was just a party-piece, the one to amuse us and keep the celebratory vibe alive at our annual Gatherings. Surely, he wasn’t the one to address us at what was an Emergency Gathering? If they were going to unmask him, why would they let him speak? I struggled to swallow, and anxiously chaffed at the painful welts on my left arm.
Dylain stood tall; his chest puffed out, and his voice carried well: “Please … can I have your attention!”
“Where’s Scott?” another voice sounded from behind me.
“All your questions will be answered soon,” said Dylain as he waved his hands in front of him like a magician enchanting his audience. “I know you are all concerned; everything will become clear now.” In fretful anticipation, the crowd grew quiet.
“First, thank you for answering our call to assemble today. In ten years, we’ve only called an Emergency Gathering on two other occasions, and we haven’t had one for three years. The reason we assemble in haste today is not a good one. These are dark and dangerous times.”
I hardly heard what he said, my eyes running over every face in the crowd.
Where’s Scott?
“I have bad news, terrible news, tragic news … the worst news,” Dylain dragged it out, the skittish crowd straining with suspense. He cleared his throat and held an unbearably long pause. “Scott ... our beloved leader…”— he drew quiet for a moment again and gestured with both hands before launching into his last two words—“...is dead!”
The collective gasp was immense, but not a sound escaped my lips. Fear shot through my mind and body like a bolt of lightning. Pure, jarring electricity. I felt dizzy and nauseous, and icy cold despite the warm weather. Did I hear right? I rubbed the sides of my head gingerly with both hands. A terrified silence followed the crowd’s expression of shock, and then … like an explosion; people started shouting and yelling and screaming and crying and…
Everything was now spinning; from side to side. And up and down. I vaguely saw Dylain try to calm the incontinent crowd, his mouth wide and his facial features animated—although I couldn’t hear what he was shouting.
Cold. I feel cold. Numb and cold.
I don’t know how long it took for him to rein in the throng, but at some point I became aware of a heavy hush that settled over us, still and eerie as a morgue, and then his voice rang out loud and clear.
“Yes, I’m so sorry to be the one who delivers the bad news; Scott is dead … and wait, wait…” he kept the group silent as they nearly erupted in more questions. “The answers to your questions are: no, it wasn’t at the hands of them and no; it wasn’t of natural causes…” I thought I was going to vomit; an unbearable pain, worse than the head-butt bruise, detonated inside my head like a grenade.
“Listen, please!” Dylain yelled. “Scott was murdered!”
I felt myself gag, although nothing came up; I hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday. Nobody would have noticed if I did spew since most of the crowd were now on their feet in a fever-pitch uproar. Anger, confusion, fists raised, feet stomping. Tears … a lot of tears.
In the next scene, which now played out in painstaking slow motion, people began to sit reluctantly, infuriated and distraught. I realised that all the Mzees were standing up, behind Dylain, urging the audience to settle down and restrain themselves. I tried to swallow and rid my mouth of the vile taste of stomach acid. I retched again.
“Hey! You’re making this very difficult,” said Dylain. “All your questions will be answered, but you’ve got to control yourselves. Hey, you; yes at the back, sit down! Clan leaders, come on, keep your clan under control.”
Once the multitude seemed reasonably restrained, I felt the nausea move to the top of my gullet, and I couldn’t think straight. A soft but unsettling guttural noise emanated from my throat as my chest and innards clamped up. It didn’t sound human. I didn’t feel human. Beyond bilious, I thought my torso and stomach might rupture and a beastly, alien creature would burst out.
; This can’t be happening. No. Please God.
“Yes, Scott was murdered very early this morning. When we found out, we immediately called this emergency assembly. The good news is we know who did it and why. Please, we ask you to allow us to deal with the perpetrator correctly; we do not need mob justice here. We have our way of dealing with this sort of thing, and Scott … Scott would have wanted us to follow this to the point of the rule.”
He, along with the Mzees, fought to calm the incensed assemblage one more time.
“Okay, okay!” Dylain finally bellowed over the now quietened but agitated crowd. “Scott Adam was murdered during the early hours of this morning,” he hesitated for effect. “In the dark! And the person responsible, the person who killed him in cold blood was…”—he paused again and reached for the final climax—“…was Ristan Abel!”