The Quest - Smith Wilbur - Страница 68

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'Hail, mighty Basma,' Kalulu said respectfully. 'I am your dog.' I Basma was his bitter rival and enemy. Until this time Kalulu had been protected by his reputation and status. Even the chief of the Bslsmara had not dared to harm a shaman of his power and influence. However, Kalulu knew that ever since the damming of the Nile, Basma had been waiting for his opportunity.

'I have been watching you, wizard,' Basma said coldly.

'I am honoured that such a mighty chief would even notice my humble existence,' Kalulu murmured. Ten Basmara warriors stepped out of the thicket and formed up behind their chief.

'You have led these enemies of the tribe to Tamafupa. They have taken over my town.'

'They are not enemies,' Kalulu replied. 'They are our friends and allies.

Their leader is a great shaman, much more learned and powerful than I am. He has been sent here to destroy the Red Stones and to make the Nile flow again.'

'What feeble lies are these, you pathetic legless thing? Those men are the same sorcerers who built the temple at the mouth of the river, the same wizards who called up the wrath of the dark spirits, who caused the lake waters to boil and the earth to burst open. They are the ones who conjured up the rocks from the depths, and blocked off the great river, which is our mother and our father.'

'That is not so.' Kalulu hopped off his litter and balanced on his stumps to confront Basma. 'Those people are our friends.'

Slowly Basma raised his spear and pointed it at the dwarf. This was a gesture of condemnation. Kalulu looked at his bodyguards. They were not members of a tribe subservient to Basma, one of the many reasons he had selected them. They came from a warrior tribe far to the north.

However, when it came to a choice between himself and Basma he could not be certain in which direction their loyalty would sway. As if in answer to his unspoken question, the eight women tightened their ranks around him. Imbali, the flower, was their leader. Her body might have been carved from anthracite. Her jet skin was anointed with oil so that it glowed in the sunlight. Her arms and legs were sleek with fine flat muscle. Her breasts were high and hard, decorated with an intricate pattern of ritual scarification. Her neck was long and proud. Her eyes were fierce. She loosened the battleaxe from the loop at her waist. The others followed her example.

'Your whores will not save you now, Kalulu,' Basma sneered disdain

fully. 'Kill the wizard,' he shouted at his warriors, and hurled his spear at Kalulu.

Imbali anticipated the throw. She jumped forward, swung the battle axe in her right hand and hit the spear in mid-air, knocking it straight upwards. As it fell back she caught it neatly in her left hand and raised the point to meet the rush of warriors. The first man ran on to it, transfixing himself just below the sternum. He reeled backwards into the man coming up behind him, knocking him off balance. Then he dropped on to his back and lay kicking with the shaft of the spear standing out of his belly. Imbali leapt gracefully over his corpse, and caught the man behind him before he could recover. She swung the axe in a rising stroke that lopped off his spear-arm neatly at the elbow. She pirouetted and used the momentum to decapitate a third man as he rushed forward. The headless corpse dropped into a sitting position, the open arteries sending up a tall fountain of bright red, then flopped over and bled into the earth.

Shielding Kalulu, Imbali and the other women fell back quickly and picked up the litter by its rawhide carrying straps. Then using it as a battering ram, they charged into the Basmara. Their war-cry was a shrill ululation as the axe blades whistled and fluted, then thudded into flesh and bone.

Basma's men rallied swiftly. They met the women with a wall of locked shields and threw their long spears at their heads. One went down, killed outright with a flint point through her throat. The others raised the litter and hammered it into the line of shields. Both sides heaved against each other. One of the Basmara dropped to his knees and stabbed up under the bottom edge of the litter into the belly of the girl at the centre of the line. She released her grip and reeled backwards. She tried to turn away but her assailant jerked his spear free and stabbed again, aiming for her kidneys. The blow went in deep and the girl screamed as the blade slipped alongside her spine crippling her instantly.

Kalulu's bodyguards retreated a few steps, filled the gap left by the wounded girl and held the litter steady. The Basmara raised their shields and, once more, charged shoulder to shoulder. As they crashed into the litter they stabbed up under the bottom edge of the shields, aiming for groins and bellies. The line of shields swayed back and forth. Two more girls went down, one hit in the upper thigh so that the femoral artery erupted. She fell back and tried to stem the bleeding by pushing her fingers into the wound to pinch the artery closed. While she was bowed

over her back was exposed and a Basmara stabbed her in the spine. The spearhead found the joint between her vertebrae, and her paralysed legs gave way. The man stabbed her again, but while he was concentrating on killing her, Imbali ducked under the litter and chopped deep into his skull.

The uneven pressure on the litter slewed it round. Kalulu was left unprotected on one flank. Chief Basma seized the moment: he darted out of the wall of shields, dodged around the litter and ran at him. Kalulu saw him coming and swung himself into a handstand. With amazing agility he shot towards the shelter of the nearby thicket of kittar thorns.

He had almost reached it when Basma overhauled him and stabbed him twice. 'Traitor!' the chief screamed, and the spearhead hit Kalulu in thej centre of the back. With a huge effort he managed to stay balanced on his hands. He bounced along, but Basma caught up with him again.

'Witchmonger!' he yelled and thrust again, deeply through the little man's inverted crotch and into his belly. Kalulu howled and tumbled into the thicket. Basma tried to follow up his attack, but from the corner of his eye he saw Imbali rushing at him with her axe above her head. He ducked and when her blade hissed past his ear, he swerved away from her return stroke and ran. His men saw him go and followed, pelting away down the slope.

'The sorcerer is dead!' Basma shouted.

His warriors took up the chant: 'Kalulu is dead! The familiar of devils and demons is slain!'

'Leave them to run back to the bitches that whelped them.' Imbali stopped her girls chasing them. 'We must save our master.'

By the time they found him in the thicket Kalulu was curled into a ball, whimpering with pain. Tenderly they extricated him from the hooked thorn branches and placed him on his litter. At that moment a shout from further down the slope checked them.

'It is the voice of the old man.' Imbali had recognized Taita, and ululated to direct them.

Soon Taita and Fenn came into view, followed closely by the party carrying Meren on his litter.

'Kalulu, you are wounded grievously,' Taita said gently.

'Nay, Magus, not wounded.' Kalulu shook his head painfully. 'I fear I am slain.'

'Swiftly. Take him to the camp!' Taita told Imbali and her three surviving companions. 'And you men!' He picked out four following Meren's litter. 'Your help is needed here!'

222 I

'Wait!' Kalulu seized Taita's hand to prevent him leaving. 'The man who did this is Basma, the paramount chief of Basmara.'

'Why did he attack you? You are his subject, surely?'

'Basma believes that you are of the same tribe who built the temple, and that you have come here to instigate further calamity and catastrophe.

He thinks I have joined with you to destroy the land, the rivers, the lakes and to kill all the Basmara.'

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