Imaro: Book I

by Charles R. Saunders

  The bandits’ numbers had decreased since their last victory over the soldiers, for Imaro had given them the choice to follow him to the Kakassa, or fend for themselves. A small, but not insignificant, number chose to remain in the borderlands in the hope that they could continue their lawless ways after the alliance between Zanj and Azania ended.

  And there was another reason the haramias’ ranks had thinned …

  Shouts and curses emanating from the rear of the haramias’ line alerted Imaro, and he waited for news that had become far too familiar.

  “Halt!” he commanded.

  Then, he waited. Soon enough, a runner came from the rear. Breathing in ragged gasps, the runner, who was barely beyond boyhood, looked up at the Ilyassai.

  “They got another one,” the youth said.

  Imaro did not have to ask who “they” were. Not long after the haramia had ventured into this unknown territory, unseen assailants had begun to pick off single bandits in stealthy attacks. Arrows and poisoned daggers were the attackers’ weapons of choice, and they left no sign of their coming or going. The killings were random; they could occur at night, or in the middle of the day. Despite the haramias’ efforts at tracking, the assailants remained elusive. It was as though they were wraiths rather than humans.

  Imaro turned to Chimba, who marched with him at the head of the haramia column, leading the way to the Kakassa and its crossing. Tanisha was also at Imaro’s side, as was Busa. Ngodire and Kongolo were farther down the line, helping to keep the march in order.

  “You said no one lives in this land,” Imaro said to Chimba, not for the first time.

  “No one did, last time I was here,” Chimba retorted.

  Tanisha spoke then.

  “Well, you’re wrong now,” she said. “And if you were wrong about that, what else might you be wrong about?”

  Before Chimba could respond, Busa spoke.

  “This one is a snake,” he said in the Mtumwe language. “You should have killed him long ago.”

  Imaro was the only one who understood all of Busa’s words, for the river peoples’ language was only distantly related to the Kiswa the coastal people spoke. Chimba, however, understood the gist of what Busa had said. The scrawny bandit laid his hand on his swordhilt.

  “Why don’t you try it yourself, scar-skin?” he sneered.

  Busa put his hand on the hilt of his panga, the chopping weapon he had retained since his departure from the Kajua forest.

  “Enough,” Imaro said, the impatience in his tone unmistakable.

  Both men moved their hands away from their weapons. However, their mutual dislike remained clear on their faces.

  Imaro was about to send some of the haramia to search for the attacker when a new disturbance claimed his attention – more shouts from the rear of the bandits’ formation.

  Another killing? Imaro thought. They have become bolder.

  But this time, the haramias’ cries had a different tone. They weren’t shouting in surprise or panic. Instead, Imaro heard taunts and jeers, and the sharp sound of blows struck by fists and spear butts. The sounds grew louder as more people joined in the beating.

  A large group of haramia approached Imaro now. Eschewing even the limited discipline the bandits were willing to accept, others broke ranks and joined the crowd that was surging toward their leader. When they reached Imaro, the haramia at the forefront stepped aside.

  Standing in their midst was Kongolo. Another haramia was with him. Between them, they held a captive who could barely stand unaided. Blood dripped from wounds caused by the many blows the captive had received while the haramia dragged him to Imaro. Now, he was barely clinging to consciousness.

  “We finally got one of these sneaky dogs, thanks to Mtobo, here,” Kongolo said, a wide grin splitting his ebony face.

  The young haramia on the other side of the captive grinned as well.

  “I was lucky,” Mtobo admitted. “But it’s better to be lucky than it is to be dead.”

  The other haramia roared with laughter, expressing their relief after so many days of facing death from the shadows.

  With a single heave of his huge hand, Kongolo forced the captive’s head upward, so that he was looking at Imaro. Outwardly, the man looked no different from the other people of the East Coast: brown-skinned, lean, taller than average, and long-faced, with protruding front teeth. Instead of shati and suruali, however, he was clad only in a bark-cloth garment that covered him from waist to knees. His only other accouterment was a quiver, from which all the arrows had been removed. In his other hand, Kongolo carried the pieces of a broken bow.

  “Who are you?” Imaro demanded. “Why are you attacking us?”

  When the captive opened his bleeding mouth, broken teeth were revealed. Instead of replying, he spat on the ground at Imaro’s feet.

  Kongolo raised his fist to strike the captive for his effrontery. But Imaro lifted his hand to forestall the blow. Then he motioned to Kongolo to give him the halves of the stranger’s bow.

  The weapon was fashioned from hard, resilient wood. Imaro squeezed his hand on the pieces, and the wood cracked loudly. When Imaro opened his hand, splintered pieces of the bow fell to the ground. Wide-eyed, the captive stared at Imaro. He did not spit a second time.

  “Who are you?” the warrior asked again.

  The captive spoke then. His words flowed in a torrent, only barely recognizable as Kiswa. Imaro and the others could not follow what he was saying, but the outrage in his tone was evident.

  “Speak slowly,” Imaro said.

  The stranger obeyed, and now the haramia were able to make out enough of his words to understand him.

  “I… Kulutu,” he said. “My people… Umtala. Strangers come… to Umtala. Strangers kill… take many away. Strangers say they… haramia. You… come. Strangers… too. Look like… haramia. Haramia… kill Umtala. Umtala… kill haramia.”

  Several of the bandits raised their voices in anger and disbelief, and Imaro scowled in disgust. He did not allow the haramia under his command to steal people for the purpose of selling them to the slave markets. The tribes of the Tamburure sometimes took captives during their wars, but they were treated as prisoners, not slaves. Imaro himself would have been sold into slavery, had he not withstood a brutal initiation into the haramias’ ranks – an experience he had never forgotten.

  When he spoke to Kulutu, Imaro pronounced his words slowly and carefully, so that he could be certain he was not misunderstood.

  “We are not the ones who attacked you, and took your people away,” he said. “If you stop hunting and killing my people, we will help you to recover yours.”

  The haramias’ reaction to Imaro’s pledge were varied. Tanisha looked at him in admiration. Chimba’s lips curled in contempt; then he quickly neutralized his expression. Kongolo and Mtobo shook their heads in disbelief, a sentiment Kulutu shared.

  “You do this… even after… we kill yours?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Imaro said.

  “Are you sure this is wise?”

  Ngodire was the one who asked that question. He had joined the others in the group surrounding the captive. Before Imaro could answer the question, Chimba spoke.

  “Why should we delay crossing the Kakassa to help a dog like him?” he demanded. “Even now, the soldiers could be gaining on us. We have no time to lose.”

  “They may not be coming after us at all,” said Ngodire. “Our back-scouts have not reported anyone on our trail. Maybe the Zanjians and Azanians believe their work is done; that they have driven us out of the borderlands, and there is no longer any reason for people who can’t stand the sight of each other to continue to fight on the same side.”

  “You wish,” said Chimba.

  “We will help Kulutu’s people,” Imaro said. “Then Chimba will lead us to the Kakassa.”

  From the tone of Imaro’s voice, the haramia knew he would not tolerate further discussion.

  “Let him go,” he said to Kongolo and
Mtobo.

  The two haramia released their grasp on the Umtala’s arms. He almost fell forward, but he managed to maintain his balance and his dignity.

  “Did your warriors try to follow the ones who stole your people?” Imaro asked.

  “Yes. Some follow… none come back.”

  “Are there any more – hunters, like you?”

  “Yes… some.”

  “Call them off,” Imaro said. “Then show us the way the people-stealers went with your youths.”

  Imaro turned to Mtobo.

  “You go with him.”

  The face of the young haramia no longer bore a smile. N’tu-nje was asking him to place himself in the hands of people who could still be enemies. Yet he also understood his presence would be a gesture of good faith that the Umtala could not fail to recognize.

  Mtobo nodded. A moment later, he and Kulutu trotted past the bandits who, only moments before, had wanted to kill the stranger.

  That night, dreams came to Chimba. But for the first time in many nights, none came to Imaro.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  The river to which Bomunu and Angulu took their captives was not the Kakassa. It was a tributary that flowed less furiously, and dangerously, than the River of Blood. Only a few of the soldiers in haramia guise accompanied them. There was no need for more; the Umtalas’ fear of Angulu was stronger than the yokes and ropes that bound them.

  Night had fallen. Although only half of Mwesu showed its face, the light was sufficient to show the captives the nameless river, which, until now, no Umtala had ever seen. Despite their youth, the faces of the captives showed signs of experiences that had aged them well beyond their rains. Their eyes stared vacantly, as though the captives’ spirits had already fled their bodies.

  “Untie them,” Angulu commanded. “They will not move.”

  Inwardly, Bomunu bristled at the wa-nyanume’s imperious tone. Outwardly, he showed no sign of discontent, for his fear of the sorcerer was in no way less than the fear the captives harbored.

  More than ever, he understood that this was not the same Angulu he had known before. If Angulu had been pursuing the same forbidden knowledge that had led to his exile from his native Azania, it had taken him to places no human was meant to go. Now, the wa-nyanume seemed hardly human at all …

  Bomunu and the other soldiers untied the yokes from the captives’ necks and removed the rest of their bonds. As Angulu had promised, none of the Umtala attempted to escape.

  “Strip them,” said Angulu.

  The captives had few garments to remove. The soldiers pulled them off and laid them in a pile beside the discarded ropes and yokes. Now, the Umtala stood naked in the mud of the riverbank. In a land that had never known the touch of cold, they shivered.

  “Step back now,” Angulu told the soldiers. “Your work is done.”

  The soldiers obeyed as though the command had come from Mkojo or Chuwumba. Bomunu was not the only one among them to have become wary of the sorcerer.

  As the Umtala stood unmoving, Angulu began to utter syllables in a language neither they nor their captors had heard before. The wa-nyanume’s voice changed into a serpentine hiss that caused Bomunu’s skin to crawl in revulsion.

  Angulu’s voice rose to a sibilant crescendo, and Bomunu fought an urge to cover his ears. Then the air stirred. The moonlit surface of the river rippled. Then, abruptly, Angulu’s incantation ended. But even though the alien syllables no longer issued from the sorcerer’s throat, the surface continued to roil as though lashed by the winds of a storm.

  Then the surface broke. And Bomunu and the soldiers flung their arms over their eyes to block the sight of what was emerging from the river. The captives cried out more loudly than the soldiers. But they could not cover their eyes. They were unable to move at all.

  Long after the screaming had stopped, and the furious splashing of the water ceased, and the soldiers and Bomunu uncovered their eyes to see the forlorn pile of clothing that was the only remnant of the Umtala captives, they would remember their single glimpse of what Angulu’s chant had summoned from the river.

  And when they returned to the kambi of the combined armies, bearing the news that they had accomplished their task, the memory remained, like a parasite that burrows beneath the skin.

  For they knew they would see that awful sight again. Even as they awaited the order to begin to march, they knew it.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  The pile of garments remained on the riverbank when Imaro and the haramia arrived several days later. Recognizing the sad relics of the people who had been stolen, Kulutu and the other Umtala guides, dropped to their knees and sent an ululating chorus of mourning into the sky.

  Respecting the Umtalas’ grief, the bandits stepped back from the riverbank. Before they did, however, they had seen the footprints of the captives in the mud. They also saw peculiar gouges and furrows at the river’s edge. And they saw red smears of blood, and other signs that hinted at the horror that had occurred in this desolate place.

  Imaro stood apart from the others, with only Tanisha at his side. Although his face showed no expression, his eyes had become as hard as onyx. But it was not what his eyes showed him that caused the tension in his stance, which was reminiscent of a great cat poised to spring.

  Since the time of his encounter with Chitendu at the Place of Stones, the warrior had developed a sense that was akin to kufahuma, the affinity with his surroundings that often warned the warrior when danger was imminent. All who were raised in the Tamburure possessed kufahuma. The other sense was Imaro’s alone – an awareness of the presence of mchawi, the evil sorcery that Chitendu had practiced, and the power that had animated the Afua when Rumanzila had removed one of its golden spikes.

  If mchawi were an odor, it would smell like carrion … but the manner in which Imaro sensed it made it even more unpleasant. The taint was as powerful here as it had been at the Place of Stones, and the warrior’s lips involuntarily pulled back from his teeth in a silent snarl.

  Tanisha touched his arm. Her face bore an expression of concern as she looked up at him. He had seen him bare his teeth in this manner before: in the shadow of the night, when the dreams held him in their grasp. The dreams that made his nights a battleground had not affected him recently. Were they now plaguing him while he was awake?

  “Imaro?” she asked. “What is it? What is wrong?”

  The snarl faded from the warrior’s face. But his eyes remained hard as he answered her.

  “Mchawi,” he said, in a tone that reflected his loathing of that term, and all it implied.

  Tanisha nodded. The reach of Imaro’s foes was long. But why did they strike here, at people who had no involvement in the conflict? Why not strike directly at Imaro?

  The warrior turned and headed back to the group of Umtala, who had ceased their mourning and now stood quietly, staring at the slow-moving river as though its water could bring the captives back from its depths. Little more than half-a dozen of them had accompanied the haramia on the search for the captives, and they remained wary of the bandits, despite Kulutu’s assurances that the raid on their village had been the work of others.

  Tanisha was at Imaro’s side as he spoke to Kulutu. So was Busa. The other haramia remained in the background, muttering among themselves. Ngodire and Kongolo stood aside as well, for they knew that Kulutu, for reasons they could not understand, seemed more comfortable in the presence of the Ilyassai than anyone else among the bandits.

  Kulutu eyed the three people who stood before him. Imaro, with his huge stature; Busa, with his marked skin; Tanisha, with her uncommon beauty – all of them so different from the Umtala, who had remained secluded for so long that they had almost forgotten the existence of other people. They wished they could remain apart from all others… but that was no longer possible.

  “Do you know what happened here?” Imaro asked.

  Kulutu shook his head.

  “No,” he said. “We never come to this ri
ver. It leads to the River of Blood… and we never go there, either.”

  The Umtalas’ speech had become easier to understand during their time with the haramia. Even as he listened, Imaro’s eyes followed the flow of the river, which was not nearly as wide as the Damba Bolong, where Busa’s village was located. If the sight of the river caused stirrings of nostalgia for the Mtumwe in Busa’s heart, he kept them well hidden.

  “These marks,” Imaro said, indicating the gashes that were interspersed among the footprints. “Do you know what made them?”

  Kulutu and the other Umtala looked at each other, unease apparent in their expressions, and in the way they edged away from the riverbank. Finally, Kulutu spoke a single word, in a near-whisper:

  “Tuyabene.”

  “What does that mean?” Imaro asked.

  Again, the Umtala hesitated. Imaro waited them out.

  “Water-demons,” Kulutu finally said, as though the mere mention of their name could summon them.

  “Very evil,” said another of the Umtala.

  “So are the ones who brought your people to them,” said Tanisha.

  Kulutu looked at her with an expression that combined sorrow with incredulity.

  “We live far from the river to be away from the tuyabene,” he said.

  “Not far enough,” said Busa.

  Kulutu blinked in surprise. Busa spoke so seldom that the sound of his voice was startling.

  In the meantime, Imaro looked as though he wanted to dive into the river and confront the tuyabene single-handed. He was looking at the spoor of others who had been at this place, along with the captives. The tracks of a small number of people could be seen in the mud, following the flow of the river. From the distance between the tracks, Imaro could see that these others had departed quickly, and had stumbled in their haste to get away.

  The taint of mchawi was almost unbearable, but Imaro showed outward sign of its effects. He turned his attention back to Kulutu.