Imaro: Book I

by Charles R. Saunders

  The garments in which these people were clad were bewildering in their variety. Some wore trousers, called suruali, of white or black cotton; others wore loin-wraps. Some went naked above the waist; others wore vests of cloth, or leather harnesses studded with silver and gold. Turbans covered the heads of some; others wore their hair bushy or in rows of braids. Imaro was astonished to see that some of the men shaved their scalps as bare as those of the women of the Tamburure tribes.

  There were women among these people, as well. Most wore only long, colorful skirts, with their upper bodies bare except for ornaments of beads and metal. A few, though, were clad in the garb of warriors.

  All of the people who surrounded Imaro were armed. They carried swords, which to Imaro resembled oversized simis, as well as spears, daggers, cudgels and bows – a weapon Imaro was seeing for the first time.

  For all their diversity, the people among whom Imaro now found himself had one element in common. The eyes of each of them were cold and pitiless – like those of the Ilyassai and the other warrior-tribes of the Tamburure.

  Beyond the crowd of people, Imaro could see what looked like a boma made from wood. In it were animals that resembled large zebras without stripes. He blinked to make certain the creatures were real rather than illusionary. Then he returned his attention to the people.

  As the focus of Imaro’s vision became clearer, certain individuals among the haramia made an impression upon him beyond the others, who became part of the background.

  Directly in front of him stood a squat, extremely dark-skinned, heavy-set man who was a head shorter than Imaro, but whose shoulders were nearly as wide as the Ilyassai’s. Even though he was looking up, Kongolo’s gaze locked onto Imaro’s as though he were attempting to determine his measure as a man.

  Angulu stood to one side of Kongolo. At the sight of the tall wa-nyanume, Imaro stiffened, for he could sense that this man was a user of sorcery. Although the evil of mchawi did not exude from Angulu as it had from Chitendu, Imaro was immediately wary of the wa-nyanume, in no small part because the Afua lay in a litter at Angulu’s feet.

  Imaro’s gaze was then drawn to the tallest man he had ever seen – a man who overtopped him by as many inches as Imaro stood above Kongolo. The man’s height was emphasized by his lean, almost cadaverous physique, the way he wore his hair – swept upward into a wooly peak like the crown of a king. His skin was as dark as charcoal, and the features on his long face were sharply chiseled, like those of the Ilyassai and the other tribes of the Tamburure. His long, red-and-white garment left one bony shoulder bare, again reminiscent of the Ilyassai.

  Sympathy glimmered momentarily in the man’s eyes as he looked at Imaro. His name was Ngodire, and he was an exile from the Ndashikuya, a people whose very existence was half legend and half reality.

  As Imaro’s gaze shifted, the peacock-like garb of another of the haramia caught his attention. The man stood only slightly above medium height, but carried himself as though he were much taller. Patterns woven in brilliant colors festooned his suruali, as well as his embroidered vest. A long, scarlet feather was set in a jewel at the front of his turban. His skin was sienna-colored, and his handsome features were highlighted by a thick, black moustache – a sight that disconcerted Imaro, for among the Ilyassai, facial hair was as frowned upon among men as head hair on women.

  This was Bomunu, a minor nobleman from the coastal city of Zanj, whose underhanded plans to climb higher in the aristocracy had gone so badly awry that the haramia had been his only possible refuge. Among them, he had risen, standing second only to Rumanzila himself.

  Then Imaro saw a man who was more than his match in girth, rather than height, although he was the Ilyassai’s equal in the latter regard. A leather loincloth was the man’s only garment; otherwise, his elephantine bulk was fully exposed. Rolls of cocoa-colored flesh spilled across his torso and limbs, but Imaro surmised that hard muscle lay buried beneath the flab.

  The huge man’s head seemed to grow directly out of his shoulders. The dark moon of his face was devoid of expression, and his small eyes stared vacantly. In his right hand, he held a whip as thick as a python. He carried no other weapon – he needed none.

  His name was Mbuto. His wits were as small as his body was large, but he was as loyal as a dog to Rumanzila, whose side he seldom left. Mbuto could not speak, but he could hear and understand simple commands, such as “beat” and “kill.”

  Rumanzila was also a large man, standing nearly as tall as Imaro and Mbuto. But he was leaner in physique, like the people of the Tamburure. He was clad in the garments of a wealthy city-dweller, with suruali made from ivory-colored silk and an overshirt, or shati, and turban of the same fabric. A multitude of jewelled ornaments sewn into the cloth winked in the sunlight.

  Rumanzila’s skin was the color of umber, like Imaro’s. A full beard covered the bottom of his face, and his hawkish features bespoke the blood of the foreigners who came from across the sea to trade in the coastal cities. But Rumanzila never discussed his origins, and none of the haramia dared to ask him about his parentage.

  The bandit chief eyed Imaro appraisingly, as though assessing a livestock specimen or a piece of merchandise. Kongolo was not yet certain that Rumanzila would approve of his deviation from the orders he had been given. He had explained to Rumanzila why he thought the huge outlander would be valuable – there were many in the coastal cities that would pay huge sums of gold for a slave of such obvious strength and vitality.

  Rumanzila remained noncommittal. At least, Kongolo thought, his leader had not, as yet, commanded Mbuto to kill him …

  Then Rumanzila spoke. Imaro did not understand what the bandit leader was saying, but Kongolo translated, speaking in a garbled version of the river people’s language that Imaro could barely understand.

  “Who are you?” Kongolo translated. “Where do you come from?”

  “I am Imaro,” the warrior replied. “I come from… the Tamburure.”

  The word “Tamburure” caused a ripple of whispers to run through the haramia. Some of the bandits had quizzical looks on their faces; others were incredulous, disbelieving.

  Imaro spoke again, looking directly at Rumanzila rather than Kongolo.

  “Who are you?” he demanded. “Why have you brought me here? Why did you steal the Afua from the Mtumwe?”

  In reply, Kongolo drove his balled fist into Imaro’s abdomen.

  “We ask the questions here, not you,” the haramia said. “Got it?”

  Imaro said nothing, and betrayed no reaction to the blow he had received. Kongolo’s first impulse was to hit him again. But he thought better of it, for his hand felt as though it had struck stone instead of flesh.

  Rumanzila spoke again, at greater length this time.

  “You are among the haramia of Rumanzila,” Kongolo translated. “This is our country. Everything that is here belongs to us, including you – and that.”

  Kongolo’s eyes strayed toward the Afua as he spoke.

  “Do you understand?” the haramia asked.

  Imaro did not reply. He was still disoriented. One moment, he was with the Mtumwe, among whom he had found the first friends he had ever known; the next, he had awakened among strangers – strangers who behaved like enemies, not friends. Strangers who behaved like the Ilyassai.

  Mistaking Imaro’s silence for insolence, Kongolo struck him again, this time with an open hand across the face.

  “I said, do you understand?” Kongolo shouted, trying not to show the extent to which his hand stung from the impact of blow.

  Imaro did not reply, and the expression on his face did not change. In the meantime, Bomunu had sidled over to Rumanzila, and now he was whispering urgently into the haramia leader’s ear. Rumanzila frowned, as though he was about to dismiss what his underling was saying. Finally, and grudgingly, Rumanzila nodded.

  Then the bandit chieftain spoke at length, forcing Kongolo to struggle to keep pace with his translation.

  “I, R
umanzila, offer you a choice, outlander: join my haramia, or be sold as a slave. To join us, you must prove yourself worthy. And to prove yourself, you must endure twenty lashes on your back from the whip of Mbuto – with no outcry.”

  Kongolo then pointed in Mbuto’s direction, to emphasize the stark nature of the choice Rumanzila offered.

  Imaro frowned.

  “This word, ‘slave’,” he said haltingly. “What does it mean?”

  For a moment, Kongolo was taken aback. When he translated Imaro’s response to Rumanzila, a chorus of bitter laughter rose from the haramia – but not from Rumanzila.

  “Explain it to him,” Rumanzila said.

  As Kongolo tried to define the concept of slavery with the few words of the river-people’s speech he knew, Imaro’s eyes widened in incredulity. He could never have conceived, or dreamed of the notion of one man belonging to another, like a weapon or piece of clothing. In the Tamburure, such a practice was unknown. But since his departure from the savanna, however, Imaro had encountered much that was unknown, and even unthinkable, to the people he had left behind.

  He glanced at Mbuto, and at the thick whip in the haramia’s hand. Then the warrior looked directly at Rumanzila.

  “I will join your haramia,” the Ilyassai said.

  A murmur rose from the crowd after Kongolo translated Imaro’s words. This was not the first time the challenge had been accepted – but no one who had done so had lasted longer than ten lashes before shrieking in agony and begging Mbuto to stop.

  “You mean, you will try to join us,” Rumanzila said, amusement edging into his tone.

  Kongolo repeated those words. Imaro’s expression did not change.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  As the assembled haramia looked on, the two who had been holding Imaro untied the ropes that bound him, while a third stood in front of him, with a sword pointed directly at the warrior’s abdomen. Then the other two secured him to the slab of basalt in the encampment. His arms were spread wide and manacled to iron rings sunk deeply into the sides of the stone. He faced the black stone, and his broad back was exposed to offer the best target for the swings of Mbuto’s whip.

  Mbuto stood behind Imaro, stolid and inert as the stone of the whipping-block. His eyes were no longer vacant; they gleamed avidly as he gazed at Imaro’s back. Then Rumanzila’s voice cut through the chatter of the crowd.

  “Begin,” he said.

  Mbuto’s massive arm rose high above his head. The thick whip wriggled as though it were alive in the harsh glare of the sun. Then, with deceptive speed, Mbuto’s arm levered forward. His whip cracked loudly against Imaro’s back and rebounded as though it had struck the trunk of an ironwood tree. Imaro neither moved nor cried out. But this was only the first lash.

  Again and again, Mbuto’s whip fell. By the tenth lash, the haramia began to murmur in disbelief, for no one else had lasted this long without crying out. Yet Imaro remained silent and motionless. The rigid thews of the warrior’s back seemed to deflect the lashes, rather than absorb them.

  Imaro’s skin remained unbroken, for Mbuto’s whip was not designed to inflict cutting blows. But thick welts were beginning to form on Imaro’s back, and the smash of the whip against those swellings had to be agonizing. Yet Imaro remained silent. The only sound the crowd heard was the repeated smack of leather against flesh.

  When the fifteenth lash landed, a recognizable expression appeared on Mbuto’s face – a frown. By now, this stranger should have been a writhing, shrieking travesty of a man – or dead. But he was neither. It was as though the punisher were whipping the stone slab, rather than the man who was bound there.

  Sweat dripped copiously from Mbuto’s massive frame as he applied the whip with renewed fervor, grunting with the effort he exerted with each blow. When the twentieth lash landed with no outcry from Imaro, a spontaneous cheer erupted from the haramia. For they feared Mbuto no less than they did Rumanzila himself. The mute giant was a weapon their leader could turn against them at any time he desired.

  “Stop,” Rumanzila said sharply. He was speaking not only to Mbuto, but to the rest of the haramia as well, to quiet their cheers.

  Mbuto’s arm dropped, and the end of his whip dangled in the dust. His mouth hung open in disbelief, and his eyes seemed to bulge from his round face. The haramia fell silent.

  “Free him,” Rumanzila commanded.

  The two haramia who had been guarding Imaro unlocked the manacles that bound the warrior to the stone. As they turned him to face the others, his knees sagged momentarily. Then he shook off the outlaws’ grasp and stood erect. The price he had paid for his silence under Mbuto’s lashes showed plainly on his face, for blood dripped from his lips, which he had bitten brutally to stifle any outcry – a tactic he had learned during mafundishu-ya-muran.

  He looked first at Mbuto, then at Rumanzila. He spoke in a clear, strong voice. Then his legs would no longer support him, and the haramia beside him caught him before he fell.

  “What did he say?” Rumanzila asked Kongolo.

  The squat bandit shook his head in disbelief before replying.

  “He said: ‘Was that supposed to hurt?’”

  Murmurs of astonishment and admiration rose from the crowd, and they continued even after Rumanzila glared angrily at his followers. Then he turned and vented his ire on the closest target: Bomunu.

  “You had to insist that he be offered the Choice,” Rumanzila said harshly. “Now, he is one of us, and we’ve lost the profit we would have made by dealing him to the slave markets!”

  “If we had not offered him the Choice, the others would have noticed, and wondered why we didn’t,” Bomunu said calmly. “How was I to know this man would prove to be stronger than Mbuto’s whip?”

  Rumanzila eyed the Zanjian for a long moment.

  “This Imaro is your responsibility now,” the bandit chieftain said. “Teach him how to speak our language, show him what he needs to know to be a haramia. And do it fast.”

  “As you wish,” Bomunu said.

  But as Bomunu approached the semiconscious Ilyassai, he allowed himself a brief, secretive smile. For events had turned out almost exactly as he, not Rumanzila, had desired.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Imaro’s hand tightened on the hilt of his sword. His horse snorted and shook its head. Imaro leaned forward and spoke soothingly to his mount, much as he would have spoken to a restive ngombe. Immediately, the horse calmed. Then Imaro sat erect in his saddle, and scanned the horizon of the rocky landscape before him. In the distance, he could discern a tiny puff of dust.

  “They come,” he said.

  The haramia who were with him looked in the same direction, using their hands to shade the sun from their eyes.

  “Where are they?” demanded Chimba, who had been among the haramia who had brought Imaro out of the Kajua. The yellowish man had taken an active dislike to the outlander, and he did not bother to conceal it.

  Imaro didn’t answer him.

  “I see nothing,” Chimba grumbled, his face set in a scowl.

  “If Imaro says it’s there, it’s there,” said Kongolo.

  Chimba responded with a wordless snort.

  Kongolo looked at Imaro and shrugged, a gesture Imaro did not return. Unlike Chimba, Kongolo had come to admire the Ilyassai, as did most of the rest of the outlaw band. Imaro had first earned their respect by enduring Mbuto’s blows without any outcry, and later by his quickness at mastering the speech of the eastern people, as well as the ways of the haramia and new skills, such as riding a horse. And the outlander’s ferocity in battle had won their awe. The loot they had gathered since Imaro had joined their ranks more than compensated for the loss of the price he would have brought from the slavers.

  Other than Chimba, the only haramia who genuinely disliked Imaro were the sorcerer, Angulu, who was in turn disliked by Imaro; Mbuto, whose normally blank expression turned into a scowl whenever Imaro went near him, and Rumanzila, who hated Imaro because he knew the wa
rrior was the only one among the haramia who did not fear him. And that lack of fear made Imaro dangerous.

  “I see them too,” said Ngodire, the Ndashikuya, whose vision was nearly as keen as Imaro’s.

  Moments later, all of the haramia saw the growing cloud of dust that approached the valley in which they were concealed. Kongolo, who was in charge of the bandits’ latest raid, gave them a signal with his hand. Steel sang as the haramia drew their weapons from sheaths and scabbards.

  Imaro eyed the blade of his sword. The metal from which it was made was much sharper than the iron smelted by the people of the Tamburure. So much was different … Had anyone among the Ilyassai or the Mtumwe seen him as he was now, they would have had difficulty recognizing him. Indeed, Imaro would have had trouble recognizing himself.

  Bright crimson suruali encased his legs. Above the waist, he wore nothing other than a leather strap that held the sheath of his sword. His hair was cropped close to his head. His eyes smoldered with dark intensity, as they had when he began his olmaiyo.

  Imaro never thought he would one day ride the back of a beast like a tick-bird perching on a rhinoceros. Nor did he imagine he would live among outlaws, plundering the wealth and property of others in the same way that the Ilyassai stole the cattle of neighboring tribes. Cattle were the only objects of value he had ever known. Now, he was discovering there was more that people treasured – much more.

  What satisfied him most about his life among the bandits was that when he rode on raids, or battles against rival haramia bands, he could forget the words Chitendu had spoken in the Place of Stones; and he could forget the presence of malign, unseen foes; and forget that he did not know where, or how, to seek out those enemies and deal death to them.

  Imaro concentrated on the dust-cloud, which was drawing closer. Shapes could now be seen in its swirls – the shapes of riders.

  The haramia were at the top of a defile that cut into a valley of stone. Multicolored strata brightened the sides of the valley, as though the stone had been painted by the brush of a god. At Kongolo’s command, the bandits began to descend the defile. When they reached the bottom, they remained hidden by outcrops of rock. There, they awaited their prey.