Tribal Dawn: Mordufa: Volume Three Read online

  His son, Baako, was someone everybody disliked but nobody said a thing out of fear. His parents struggled to give him orders. Baako had a similar shape to his father, but instead of the result of gluttony, it was pure muscle. His teeth were permanently clenched as if he would fly off the handle at any given moment. Around his neck, three skeletal fingers lay on his collarbone, ruby jewelled rings attached. It was against their law to talk about them. When Masika had asked Preye, he launched into a heated row until she stopped asking questions.

  In her olive-green straight dress and with her hair roughly tied back, Masika craned her neck over shoulders to see if there was any movement. The sweet smell of ale drifted past with the aroma of meat grilling on the smaller bonfires, but still there was no sign of the masterpiece roasted deer in the centre.

  “They’ll be on soon,” Preye said, pulling her back. “We’re not going to miss it.”

  “I know.” She smiled. “I want to make sure. Where is Nuru?”

  “Think he’s over there.” Preye motioned to a group of young warriors in training, chiming full mugs together. “Told him be better to spend time taking advice from trainees while they’re together. Thought it better than spending time with that group of little shits.”

  “Good. Those fights are getting out of hand. He’s coming back with more blood on him each time. The other day, he had his hands wrapped around the neck of another boy, and to be honest, I don’t think he would’ve let go if I hadn’t arrived when I did.”

  Preye shrugged and clasped her hand, grinning. “He’s growing up. Brothers get protective. Before my sister died, she had all kinds calling to her.” He pulled back his lip to reveal a fleshy gap. “How I lost those teeth. Nuru will get into training and love it.”

  When they were young, Atsu had been involved in numerous carnal, vicious fights over her. Fiercely protective and short-tempered, it wasn’t difficult to see the blood relation between Atsu and Nuru. Physically, Nuru resembled his uncle uncannily in his youthful days, except his hair and dimples. Masika held Preye’s hand for a moment and brushed it away, pretending something was in her hair. As much as they had accidentally come to live together, motions like that made her uncomfortable. They shared a bed only out of a physical need on rare occasions.

  The tribe drunkenly sang songs and yelled to other families or called out binding offers to females. The food was served on plates and dishes, and guards paraded around, enjoying some of the fun too.

  A drum sounded out three heavy beats. Suddenly, all the chatter and the laughter stopped. People hurried to chew in silence and children were hushed of their needs. One dancer emerged, dressed in grass clothes and beads, a young woman. Her face was covered by a delicate wooden mask, painted with a smiling face and over-emphasised eyelashes to represent the femininity of the night. She held an unlit torch in one hand and leant forward. In a smooth motion, she drew across the air, everyone watching in awe. Some of the newcomers and arrivals were confused.

  She threw the top half of her body forward. Coughing, she fell to her knees. People gasped and asked for a healer. Another pair of dancers arrived at her side and grasped her by the arms and dragged her to her feet. She inhaled and released a streak of fire, lighting three torches at once. Everyone cheered and the drums broke out into a pace to begin the night.

  Preye nudged a couple of drunken families out of the way and managed to get them a space near the front. As a woman went past carrying a tray of ale, Masika caught him giving it a hungering gaze.

  “You can have one, you know.” She smiled.

  “Rather not. Took years to kick it,” he said and pointed to the corner where Karasi and Subira’s groups waited in the wings. “Looks like they’re going to be out in a moment.”

  “I hope so. I don’t like the idea of them dancing well into the night with the drunks, let alone Nuru possibly already under the influence over there.” They patiently waited while the opening act swirled fire and lit the bonfire until it brought a healthy, warm glow to fight the autumn air.

  “Excuse me,” a gruff guard said, tapping Masika on the shoulder, “are you Maha?”

  She turned, startled, and looked at the folded piece of paper in his hand. “Yes, I am.” She never got messages. The people from her past, Witch Doctor Inari and her closest and only friend in the Blood-and-Shadow tribe, Kanzi, had been murdered. The other person was Atsu, but as rumours went, he didn’t take whispers that his sister was alive well. The messages she received were from Chief Yissia, and they were general announcements or requests for her children’s training and future bind possibilities. She took the scroll reluctantly. The way it was wrapped, it wasn’t from this village.

  The guard looked her sternly in the eyes. “We were told it is urgent,” he said as she went to place it in her pocket.

  Preye gave her a glance and knotted his brow. “What’s that?”

  She uncurled the piece. Angst she hadn’t felt in years fluttered her gut. There were no markings on the front to say who it came from, just a thin piece of string tying it together. As she went to read, the drumming rose into a quickened rhythm, and Preye yanked her arm. “It’s their turn, Maha. It can wait.”

  She feigned a smile and placed it in her pouch. The young girls each came out in cartwheels and twists. They circled a short distance away from the fire, ribbons tied around their wrists, as the drum pounded across. The supportive parents shouted, and some laughed at a couple of children out of place. The dancers were having fun behind painted white masks.

  Karasi put little effort in her moves and did at most, a couple of impressive motions. Subira had been given the lead. The other girls were out of time and awkward, but she took every step perfectly and shone in the light. The girls gave her looks of envy and attempted to ridicule her. Their meanness was transparent as she flawlessly flipped over their attempts and lit the final part of the bonfires.

  Masika grinned. Everyone applauded as it came to an end. While everyone else’s clapping was dying out, she couldn’t stop. A strange sensation filled her and not of pride. Something wasn’t right. Her eyes burnt. They wanted to cry but the heat from the fires dried anything that leaked from the corner of her eyes. Preye pulled her to sit down, snapping her out of it.

  Instead of falling beside him, she stepped away. As the drums continued for the next performers, it echoed the racing inside. The adrenaline in her legs she hadn’t had for ten years. She couldn’t hear a word Preye said over the crowd. She indicated to the stalls, signalling she would be back in a moment.

  Pushing through the sweat and cheers, she was churning. She had to get out now. She needed air, not the bitter breath of strangers filling her lungs. Shoving through, the tears fell. She couldn’t control them as she burst out of the back of the pack.

  Trembling, she grabbed the scroll. Taking a deep breath, she looked to Luaani, praying internally. She spread it across her hands and looked down. As she read each word, the battering against her ribcage overtook all sounds of nearby laughter. There was no joke to this, and if there was, it had to be a sadistic one.

  Trembling, she brought her fingers to her lips, reading:

  I know where you are. You need to come home before you end up like Inari. Don’t take this as an idle threat, it is an order from your true Chief, from your mate. I have eyes watching you. Make haste, little Masi.

  She crouched to the ground, shaking her head. There was no address, not that she needed the name. It wasn’t Atsu inviting her to his home. No. He had found her. She’d dared live in the hope he wouldn’t. Ten years she had been free of that life.

  When she was a teenager and dragged into Dia’s hut on the orders of his father, she’d screamed, cried and battled to stop them taking away any part of her. The women who became victims of beatings and forced upon in the night by the guards or the then Chief Jasari were enough to fill her with pure fear. Jasari sneaked into her room when she was carrying Atsu’s child, believing her to have the soul of her mother inside her, a beau
tiful woman he had become besotted with in his younger years.

  A spare mate locked in a room ordered and demanded to breed, she dared to escape to give her family a better life. She couldn’t drag Karasi or Nuru back to that. And what of Subira? She had never known that life at all. Her daughters would be locked up to breed, one of them expected to bind to Nuru. If not him, one of Dia’s sons he had with his sisters, monstrous, torturous blood flowing in their veins.

  A passer-by gave her funny looks. She hid her concerns behind a painful smile. Yissia told her what to do if she got a note. Edging back to the crowds, she dried any signs of crying and rammed her way to the Chief. His guards wouldn’t let her through. She mouthed to them, waving the letter.

  Yissia caught her attention and ushered her over. He dislodged himself from the bamboo chair and waddled a couple of paces. Walking to a quiet area, the pair came face to face beneath the shade of a hut that had seen better days.

  As another cheer broke across the crowd, he looked down at the piece of paper and cleared his throat. “I had a feeling this was going to happen,” he said in a fatigued tone.

  “You don’t even know what is in this letter.” She frowned and urged it forward. “I don’t fully understand it, Chief. There is no name.”

  “Well.” He cleared his throat and fumbled his fat fingers together. “Dia has been sending men this way recently to scout around. He asked again to search after a couple of sightings told of you residing here with children.”

  “You didn’t think to tell me this? I can’t go back to that life. Please, I beg of you. Let me and my children escape. I can’t take them back there. I won’t.”

  “I saw it as an empty threat. Dia has been making many of them lately. He’s going as insane as his father in his recent years… If you believe the whispers, of course.” He tapped the paper and shoved it back into her hands. “Unfortunately, we told you we wouldn’t lie if he wrote to you directly. Now he has, he knows you’re here. We can’t guarantee the safety of you and your children anymore, Maha.”

  As he went to turn, she grabbed him and the attention of a guard at the same time. “No! Please listen to me, my children can’t live there! They will die; I will die before them.” She urgently whispered, “What about Subira? You promised me she would be safe. She was born here as one of your people.”

  “And I will stick to my word on that.” He moved her arm away with disgust. “Subira is safe as long as she continues to believe Preye is her father. I can’t say the same for the other two.”

  “But Karasi was too young to remember. I’m begging you with everything I have to offer, Yissia, please let my children stay here, or at least give me some time to escape. You can pretend you never knew.”

  He frowned. The guard intervened. “I will give you a few days to get your belongings together. I said years ago what would happen if this occurred. Now it has, I’m in an awkward position and won’t put my tribe at risk against known torturers.” He dismissed her with a simple hand gesture.

  Masika stared at him in disbelief. She didn’t notice when the guard hooked her arm and took her back to Preye. He asked her questions. She stared straight ahead. Where could she go? She had no money. How could she do this? Maybe if she went on her own and left her children here, Yissia would be forced to protect them. There was no way Dia could have acquired an army in a decade. He had nothing of value to sell, nothing to buy the men he would need, and his people were in such awful health that infants barely survived in the disease-ridden tribe.

  “Maha?” Preye said once more, poking her arm.

  “Sorry. I’m not feeling too well,” she said and held her hand over her stomach. She wasn’t completely lying; her gut ached with worry.

  “What were you speaking to Yissia about?”

  “The letter I received.” She looked into his tired eyes. The words locked at the back of her throat. She blinked and said, “It was a name mix up about a working role.”

  “Another one?” He itched his chin. “Need to sort out messengers,” he said and sat beside her. “Nuru went home. He was tired.”

  “Where are the girls?”

  “They’re at the back, I think. We can go home now. Only women dancing left, and you look peaky.” He passed her a worn flask. “We’ll go when you’re ready.”

  Masika stared at the dirt and took a couple of sips of lukewarm water. Her head spun as she counted all the grains on the floor. People around were happy and celebrating with their families. When her legs didn’t wobble, she stood and made her way to where the dancers were changing.

  They were putting regular clothes back on, yawning and rubbing sleepy eyes. They had been harshly overworked in recent weeks for this one night and looked as though they would be curled up and passed out under blankets the moment they got to their dwellings.

  Masika grabbed Karasi and Subira and Preye went home to start the fire. As Karasi walked ahead speaking to friends, Masika looked at Subira as she hummed and gazed at the sky. Her dreamy daughter, always lost in her world of fantasies and things that never happened.

  Masika’s eyes glistened when they passed the torches. She cleared her throat. “You were amazing tonight, Subira. You really shone more than anyone else there.”

  “Hmm?” Subira asked. She shyly smiled and pushed the curls away from her eyes. “I did the same as everyone else. I’m nothing special.”

  Masika frowned and stopped. She pulled Subira by the shoulders and knelt down to her level. “Don’t you ever think that.”

  “What? Why? I don’t ever want to believe I’m better than everyone else. Kara does it, and I don’t like it.”

  “Karasi does it differently. You are my beautiful little girl, and you are gifted and talented in many ways. Other children whisper and mock because they can’t do the things you do. I used to worry, but I see you don’t care about what they say.”

  “Why would I care about horrible people? They don’t help anyone, they only cause hurt.” Subira tilted her head, pressing her fingertips to her mother’s cheek. “Why are you crying? Has something happened?”

  Masika sniffed and shook her head. “It’s pride, that’s all. Nothing has happened. Just your mother being silly. I forget how quickly time goes by. Now you’re nearly grown.” She caught a guard eyeing her. A haunting chill travelled down her spine. She gripped Subira’s hand protectively and hurried her pace. “Let’s get home.”

  - CHAPTER EIGHT -

  When they found Vakaar, he had already brought on his bloody injuries. The storm arriving when it did was a bonus for his ‘lost’ self. The guards questioned and searched him, but his gear was well hidden beneath a tree root by that point.

  All he wore were the torn fur trousers and tunic he found on a dying man on the way, presumably from the Sky tribe. It was as if the plan was coming together perfectly, at least the journey and the elaborate fashion of his arrival.

  The men insisted that he saw the healer who, unfortunately for him, was in the Chief’s hut. He couldn’t say no if he wanted to earn his place. Jocelin, the one his master had warned him to avoid, was definitely going to be inside, sheltering from such dangerous weather.

  Vakaar had always stuck to northern tribes and a couple bordering the east if he fancied a change of scenery or if the weather took a turn for the worse under the winter goddess Invebusika.

  Down here, the people were reputed to be primitives. In the north, they used equipment to perform torture. Not in the south. They were men and using machines showed weakness or cowardice, though those traits could save your behind. That was not seen as a good thing here. If you believed in something, you died for it.

  Entering the hut, he didn’t expect the gifts, trophies and sharpened bones that illuminated the walls. Maybe a couple of tapestries and some animal carcases, but this was impressive. Some of the objects amused him; he cackled at a pair of eyes in a pickled jar. He’d have to have been deaf not to have heard the story of the green-eyed witch of the south. During the war,
she sucked the soul out of Chief Jasari until his eyes popped out.

  The trokhosi, strong in the middle, was empty and no one notable was in sight except for the guards. The bone chair covered in rare furs and decorated accomplishments had Vakaar mesmerised. Unlike the many he had seen that were made of metal or the few of bones, ready to crumble into dust, this one was well kept. At the top was a skull matching that over the main entrance, a magnificent feline creature with its jaws open, teeth gleaming. Ribbons hung from the larger fangs, adorned with painted beads and colourful feathers from tropical birds.

  Even though he could walk and had proved that by saving the Moduma’s life, they insisted on escorting him to the healer’s quarters. The self-induced injuries were to his face and arms: splits, grazes and cuts that were enough to need bandages but not so severe that they’d see him as a burden on resources.

  Outside the door, the warriors spluttered. Incense burnt strong and hit the back of the throat easily unless you were used to it. Of course, no one wanted to be accustomed to the odour of healers. Vakaar rocked back and forth. Strangers inspected the whip scars over his body, and a couple gave curious glances at his eye.

  “Yes?” A kindly, short woman in her middle forties opened the door. She had a plate-shaped face and round eyes. There was something intense about the green colouring in her sympathetic gaze. Vakaar was taken aback by her features. She was quite attractive considering her age and had a healthy flourish in her skin that leaders in the north and the Moon tribe lacked.

  “We found this stranger outside in the winds, Nyah. We thought we should bring him to you to be checked over,” one of the abrupt guards said. He pushed Vakaar forward. “He seems alright in health, but want to make sure.”

  She inspected him and nodded. “Put him on the bed.”