The flames expanded outward like emerald wings, stopping only inches short of Muburi’s face. For the first time, the oibonok shut his eyes against the fierce glare. Perspiration trickled into the corners of his mouth.
“Why did it fail: my plan, my vengeance?” the face howled. “The deception during the olmaiyo; the Shaming – you had no trouble carrying out that much of what needed to be done. After he was driven in disgrace from the manyattas, it would have been so simple for you to cast the spell that would send him to me for my vengeance. So simple – yet he escaped! Escaped, and remains alive!”
The voice gave way to a wordless shriek. In a land that had never felt the breath of frost, Muburi shivered. The fiendish rage that twisted the features of the face hovering before him engendered a fear that even his warrior’s pride – for he, too, had won a shingona when he was younger, before he had become the oibonok – could not quell. Still, he summoned the courage to ask a question of his own after the echoes of the outcry faded.
“But how can you know the ilmonek lives? The warriors have spent weeks searching for him, and have found nothing. How could one man evade the warriors of the Ilyassai for so long?”
“Fool!” the apparition shouted. “He is more than any Ilyassai could ever be! He’s – by all the Mashataan! He’s here!”
The face in the flame shifted its eyes to look past Muburi, focusing on the brush behind the oibonok. Muburi half-turned to follow the apparition’s gaze – then he hurled himself backward to avoid the point of an arem that flashed toward him from the foliage.
But the cast had not been meant for the oibonok. Unerringly, the iron point flew directly into the face that writhed in the green flames. The moment metal touched fire, the entire spear shaft burst into blinding combustion. The weapon did not pass through the fire; it hung in mid-air, transfixing the face as though its point had pierced flesh rather than flame. Screams of inhuman agony poured from the mouth of the apparition. Then, with a final flare of brilliance, the green fire vanished, leaving behind only the charred, smoking remnant of the weapon that had struck it.
Nearly blinded by the final discharge of the flames, Muburi barely made out the huge, dark shape that hurtled toward him. Rising to his feet, the oibonok dragged his simi from its leather scabbard. His assailant’s reaction was swifter – far swifter. One sweep of a polished iron blade, and Muburi’s weapon flew from his hand. Then Muburi stood very still, as the point of Imaro’s simi dented the flesh at the base of the oibonok’s throat.
For the second time that night, Muburi knew fear as he stared at the figure looming before him. Imaro’s pate, shaven woman-smooth weeks ago, was now covered with a short mat of wooly, unbraided hair. He was no longer naked; a makeshift garment covered his loins. Broad bands of muscle rippled catlike beneath his bare, umber skin. The red ocher that had once decorated his body was gone. There was nothing left of the Ilyassai in his appearance.
In their own way, Imaro’s eyes were as merciless as those of the face in the flames. Those eyes now burned unwaveringly, unnervingly, into Muburi’s. And Imaro’s free hand clamped onto Muburi’s arm in a crushing grasp.
This was not the Imaro Muburi had known, stalwart though the young warrior had been since they days of his boyhood. This was an Imaro unrestrained even by the blood-code of the Ilyassai; an Imaro as feral as the predators that stalked the Tamburure at night. Muburi shuddered again. The slight movement pushed the simi’s point deeper into his skin…
Hidden near the clan’s manyattas, Imaro had observed Muburi’s departure and stealthy progress toward the copse of trees. He had planned to slay Muburi as soon as the oibonok had passed beyond the earshot of the people in the manyattas. It was Muburi’s sorcerous deception that had caused the other warriors to brand him ilmonek; therefore, Muburi would be the first to die.
But curiosity had stayed Imaro’s hand. Muburi’s furtive and odd preparations once he had reached the trees had at first puzzled Imaro, and then aroused his interest. And so he waited to see what would happen. Crouching undetected in the brush, he had watched the malevolent face form in the midst of the green flame. He had listened with increasing interest to the colloquy between Muburi and the disembodied entity that appeared to be the oibonok’s master.
The words the face had spoken beat against his ears like hammers of truth – the truth about his olmaiyo, and the deceit and treachery that had followed his slaying of Ngatun ….
Then, somehow, the apparition had seen him, despite the darkness and the concealing foliage. And the amber eyes had launched a spear of eldritch energy that seemed to burn directly into his brain, as though it were attacking his very thoughts. In a purely reflexive action, Imaro had hurled his own spear at his spectral tormenter instead of succumbing to the attack. When the face in the flame disappeared, so did the pain inside Imaro’s skull.
Now, Imaro held Muburi at bay. And he wanted more than the oibonok’s death. He wanted answers. He pressed his simi deeper against Muburi’s skin, drawing blood.
“Who was that face in the fire?” he demanded, his voice hoarse, as though he had not used it for a long period of time.
Muburi remained silent.
“Why did you and that… thing… betray my olmaiyo?” Imaro asked. “Speak!”
In response, Muburi… changed. Instead of Muburi, Imaro was suddenly holding a gigantic, writhing serpent, long and thick as a python, covered with unpatterned scales the color of human skin. Cold, ophidian eyes met Imaro’s startled gaze, and a black, forked tongue flicked from an open, lipless mouth.
Before Imaro could react, the serpent plunged its fangs into the warrior’s sword-hand. Imaro’s hand opened involuntarily, and the blade dropped. The fangs sank deeper, but Imaro managed to tear his hand out of the serpent’s jaws. Blood welled in the puncture-marks on his skin.
Imaro reached for his fallen simi. Before he could get to it, coil after coil of sinuous serpent-muscle whipped around his body, then constricted in a deadly embrace. Somehow, Imaro was still able to seize the serpent’s throat in a grip of iron. Then the contest for survival began.
Whether Muburi had actually transformed himself into a thigh-thick reptile, or had only cast an illusion like the one that had convinced the Ilyassai that Imaro had shown cowardice during his olmaiyo, the serpent was a deadly, all-too-real foe; a foe that inexorably forcing the breath from Imaro’s lungs and beginning to bend his ribs as if they were twigs…
Glaring his hatred into the serpent’s lidless eyes, Imaro swayed precariously. But he did not fall, despite the weight of the scaled loops that enveloped him. His breathing grew labored, and pain splintered through his upper body. The pain was a prelude to a death that would leave him limp and broken in the clutch of those terrible coils if the constriction continued much longer.
Yet the rage that fuelled Imaro’s strength was limitless. He redoubled his efforts to crush the serpent’s neck, and he began to feel its scaly flesh yielding beneath his hands.
Abruptly, the coils relaxed their grasp. Then the serpent began to twist and jerk in spasmodic convulsions, and Imaro felt the terrible pressure on his ribcage slacken. The cold glare in the serpent’s eyes dimmed, and a faint hiss that bore a disquieting resemblance to a strangled human scream wheezed from slack, gaping jaws. When Imaro finally released his hold, the serpent’s thick coils fell away from him like a discarded rope.
Closing his eyes and exhaling heavily, the warrior sank slowly to his knees. When he inhaled, he welcomed the infusion of humid night air into his aching chest and depleted lungs. Slowly, the snarling set of his features relaxed, and the pain in his rib cage subsided.
Then Imaro opened his eyes – and his skin crawled as he stared wide-eyed at the sprawled corpse of Muburi, lit eerily by Mwesu’s glow. The oibonok’s limbs seemed almost boneless, and his neck was bent at an unnatural angle, attesting to the force of Imaro’s final surge of power.
Shifting his gaze to his wounded hand, Imaro saw that the blood-rimmed teeth-marks on
his skin were human. There had been no serpent; Muburi’s sorcery had deceived him as thoroughly and effectively as it had the warriors on his olmaiyo. Illusion or not, though, Imaro could still feel the crushing of the serpent’s coils.
Rising to his feet, the young warrior looked down at the corpse of the oibonok. He uttered a bitter curse, for he had just killed the man who could have answered the questions that had plagued him since the day of his olmaiyo.
Yet he could not discount the enigmatic face in the green flames…
Imaro now realized that the apparition was his true nemesis, much more than the warriors of the Kitoko clan, and others, who still hunted him. With dreadful clarity, the demonic visage of Muburi’s master was graven in his mind.
He knew – and cared to know – little about the workings of mchawi. But still, he realized that the sorcery of Muburi was as nothing next to that of a being that could project its face and voice into a fire. And he remembered the spear-like bolt of power the apparition had driven into his brain.
Yet Imaro had bested the thing in the fire’s mchawi with a single cast of his arem, though despite the shriek of agony the apparition had uttered when the iron point pierced its face, Imaro sensed that he had not slain it.
Imaro looked to the north. He knew that beyond the horizon, beyond the borders of the Ilyassai range, lay an ancient ruin known as the Place of Stones. Even when the First Ancestors of the Ilyassai came to the Tamburure hundreds of rains ago, the Place of Stones had long been deserted.
In the tales handed down from generation to generation of elders, the First Ancestors had sensed an aura of archaic, slumbering evil about the moldering pile. The beasts of the Tamburure avoided it as they would a stretch of quicksand or a poisoned water hole. The First Ancestors had acknowledged the wisdom of the beasts, and forbade their people to approach the tumbled stones. This long-held taboo was the closest the Ilyassai had ever come to an acknowledgement of fear.
Imaro decided that he would break yet another tribal taboo, and go to the Place of Stones. He was certain that his enemy, the apparition in the flames, was hidden in the one place the Ilyassai shunned.
But there was one more debt of blood to be collected; one more draught to be swallowed from the cup of vengeance.
He stared northward a while longer. Then he bent to relieve Muburi’s cadaver of clothing and weapons. He pitied the lion whose body the oibonok’s soul would inhabit. Then he turned his gaze southward again, to the land the Kitoko clan now occupied. As he thought about what he would do there, his hands clenched tightly around the shaft of Muburi’s arem.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Keteke stood waist-deep in a warm Tamburure pool. Jua’s light burnished her sleek mahogany skin and flashed diamond-bright in the droplets of water that clung to her slender body. Her fine-boned face held an enigmatic expression as a stream of water rilled from her cupped hands onto her high, pointed breasts.
Earlier in the day, she had come to the pool, which was located in a small patch of woodland not far from the pastures in which the ngombe grazed. She knew Kanoko would follow her there, and that she would see him before long. The pool, with its natural screen of trees and brush, was a favored spot for couples seeking privacy for their lovemaking. That the others in the manyattas would have noticed her departure, she was sure; and they would notice Kanoko’s soon after. Even now, they would be enjoying crude jests about the pairing of the former mate of the ilmonek Imaro with his greatest rival.
Her lips curved in a mirthless smile at that thought.
A rustle from the bushes brought her hairless head up quickly. She knew that few dangerous beasts dared to come close to the manyattas of the Ilyassai. But sometimes, Chui the leopard was bolder even than Ngatun the lion. Still, she had neither seen nor heard signs of Chui, and Kanoko had to be near, though it was taking him longer to reach the pool than she had expected. The rustling seemed too hesitant to herald Kanoko’s presence – yet it was, indeed, he who stepped from the concealment of the brush.
Weapons in hand, Kanoko stared wordlessly at the woman in the pool, absorbing very facet of her unclad body, from her smooth-shaven head to the slim, boyish hips half-hidden beneath the surface of the water.
She is beautiful, even though she is Zamburu, Kanoko thought. And she was Imaro’s…
“It took you so long to get here,” Keteke said. “Why?”
“Before I left, Mubaku stopped me and asked me if I had seen the oibonok,” Kanoko replied. “Muburi has not been seen for two days now. Mubaku thought I might have come across some sign of him while I was hunting for the ilmonek.”
He touched his broken nose. Then he laid his oval shield aside, and began to strip off his garment.
“Why don’t you stop searching, Kanoko?” Keteke asked. “Imaro has to be dead by now, or gone far from the land of the Ilyassai.”
“Don’t say his name!” Kanoko snapped, raising his hand as though to strike her.
Keteke shrank away from him, and he caught himself before he could act on his impulse. Masadu had always taught that a warrior was the master of his own anger, but too often, Kanoko’s anger was mastering him.
“I know he’s still out there,” he continued, lowering his hand. “I can smell him in the grass. I will find him, kill him and bring his head to Mubaku!”
Then another voice spoke.
“Want to try it now?”
Kanoko whirled toward the brush behind him. And Keteke’s hands shot to her mouth to stifle a cry of terror.
Imaro had slipped through the brush soundlessly after trailing Kanoko to the tree-girt pool. Easily, so easily, he could have cut Kanoko down from behind. But that was not the way he wanted to end their feud. He wanted vengeance, not slaughter.
In a single, swift motion, Kanoko took up his arem and hurled it straight at Imaro. Imaro raised the shield he had taken from Muburi and deflected the hurtling weapon, sending it spinning into the brush.
Then Imaro flung his own arem at Kanoko’s feet.
“Try again, Bent-nose,” he said contemptuously.
Goaded by Imaro’s use of that despised sobriquet and his own obsessive animosity, Kanoko erupted into frenzied action. Snatching the proffered arem, he charged toward Imaro. He lunged forward and thrust its point toward Imaro’s abdomen. Again, Imaro deflected the thrust. As Kanoko pulled back his arm to strike again, Imaro drew his simi.
Three more times, Kanoko attempted to slide his spearpoint past the rim of Imaro’s shield. The first two times, Imaro blocked the thrusts by shifting the position of his shield. The third time, Kanoko’s point penetrated the thick hide covering, but not enough to pierce all the way through it.
Imaro jerked his shield-arm back. Still holding on to his arem, Kanoko was dragged within range of a vicious sweep of Imaro’s simi – the first blow Imaro had struck in the fight.
Only cat-quick reflexes saved Kanoko then. Releasing his grip on the spear shaft, he hurled himself backward, evading Imaro’s blade by a mere hair’s-breadth. Thrown off-balance, Kanoko fell heavily onto his back and lay momentarily vulnerable to a fatal thrust by Imaro.
But Imaro used that moment to discard his shield. With Kanoko’s arem lodged in its covering, the shield would only be an encumbrance now.
Scrambling quickly to his feet, Kanoko drew his simi from its scabbard. His own shield lay nearby. Taking a desperate chance, he leaped toward it and shoved his arm through its inside loops. Then he turned to face Imaro, who had simply stood and watched him.
It was then that Imaro decided it was time to stop toying with his life-long foe. With the speed that time and again belied his massive bulk, he sprang to the attack. A whirlwind of iron drove Kanoko back. Large chunks of leather flew from his shield. Occasionally, the smaller man’s blade rang against Imaro’s. But his fighting was strictly defensive, even though he had a shield and Imaro did not. He knew he had to do something to turn the tide of battle, or he would die…
With a quick snap of his arm, Kanoko flung
the ragged remnant of his shield into Imaro’s face. Stunned by the unexpected blow, Imaro stumbled, nearly dropping his simi. Kanoko’s point darted toward Imaro’s heart – only to be parried by Imaro’s own blade.
Now they circled each other with silent caution, shifting and feinting with their simis, each hoping to draw the other into making an impulsive mistake. Only the shuffle of their bare feet across the ground broke the deadly quiet of the duel, which was the culmination of their endless antagonism.
Then, tiring of the cat-dance, Imaro renewed his assault. Kanoko countered well, using skills that were superlative even among the Ilyassai. But quick though Kanoko was, Imaro was quicker. And even with a weapon in his hand, he could not offset Imaro’s superior strength. It was as though Imaro were wielding a hammer instead of a sword, crashing blows in a steady, unstoppable rain against Kanoko’s notched iron blade.
Blood seeped from a dozen small wounds on Kanoko’s body. He was wearying – and not once had his blade penetrated Imaro’s guard.
Kanoko had always known he could not match Imaro’s sheer strength. But with a weapon in his hand, he had been certain he was equal, if not superior, to his rival. Now, he realized that he was not.
Suddenly, Kanoko faltered, as though he had momentarily lost his footing. As he flailed his arms to recover his balance, Kanoko’s simi dipped low, leaving a broad expanse of flesh exposed for the killing stroke. It was an obvious trap, but Imaro trusted that his speed would overcome it.
Imaro lunged forward, aiming at Kanoko’s heart. Then he twisted his entire body sideways, nearly wrenching his spine in a desperate effort to elude Kanoko’s sudden counter-thrust, for Kanoko had moved faster than Imaro would have believed he could. Had Imaro moved an instant more slowly, his hand would have been severed at the wrist. As it was, Kanoko’s simi clanged loudly against Imaro’s, and sent it flying from his hand. Suddenly weaponless, Imaro was doomed – unless he moved faster than he ever had before.
Imaro: Book I Page 7