Chapter 10 — The Mountains of Mwari

Dande and Luba were at Zugudini's side in an instant. Luba slapped her cheek gently, calling out her name.

“What happened?” Chenzira asked, drawing up on his horse and leaping to the ground with unexpected agility.

“She fainted,” Luba said, as Zugudini groaned and came to.

“What happened?” Zugudini murmured.

“Let’s get her out of the sun,” Chenzira said.

Chenzira and Dande carried her into the shade of a nearby tree and sat her up against its trunk. Luba gave her some water to drink. She tried to stand up, but Chenzira pushed her gently back down again.

“Rest,” he said.

“No,” she said. “Let’s go.”

“We’re not going anywhere, Zugi,” Luba said. “We’re stopping here for the day.”

“But the Thief is-?” Dande asked.

“We are stopping here until Zugi is better,” Luba said, firmly.

“We all need to rest,” Chenzira said. “Let’s make camp here.”

“That’s a whole day wasted,” Dande muttered.

“Either we stop, or you continue by yourselves,” Luba said.

Chenzira lay his hand on Dande’s shoulder and nodded. Dande frowned, then shrugged.

“Mwari help us,” he said, and started to unpack his horse.

“Stay here with her,” Chenzira said to Luba. “Let me look for some herbs that could help her recover. Dande, come with me.”

They tramped off the path and into the bush together.

***

“What exactly are we looking for?” Dande asked. They were out of earshot of the two women now and were pushing their way through the shrubbery.

“Nothing.” Chenzira stopped and faced Dande. “What did you say to her? Did you tell her about the drum?”

Dande did not need to reply. His downcast face said it all.

“You should not have done that.”

“She didn’t give me a choice.”

“You may have compromised the entire mission.”

“What does she care about the drum?”

“Don’t you remember?”

“Remember what?”

“Ten harvests ago. Her mother was killed because of that drum. Your father was helping her mother return it to its true owners. That was why Hondo killed her mother. And that was why she could never return.”

Dande stared at him with his mouth agape, like a fish in the Zambezi. Chenzira spun around and stalked back to their camp.

***

“I think I can ride now,” Zugudini said, standing up.

“We’re not going any further today,” Luba said.

“I’m not going to make us lose any more time.”

“We will make it up somehow.”

Zugi ignored her, walked to her horse and tried to climb on. Chenzira and Dande arrived in time to see her struggling to get her leg up over its side and failing.

“You’re not strong enough yet,” Chenzira said.

Zugudini ignored him and tried a few more times. Each attempt made her more exhausted. The rest watched in silence. Finally, she gave up, shoved her horse roughly away, stomped back to the shade of the tree, sat down and stared at the ground.

“Did you find any herbs?” Luba asked.

“No,” Chenzira said. “I don’t think she needs them. She just needs to rest a while.”

Luba nodded. She sat beside Zugudini and relaxed her back against the tree trunk. Zugudini said nothing.

“Let’s hitch the horses over there.” Chenzira nodded at a shady tree about a stone’s throw away. “Keep the flies far from her.”

Chenzira and Dande tied the four horses up beneath the shade of the tree, then sat down beside them in silence.

Luba glanced at Zugudini. She was trying to look calm, but Luba could see through the mask. She was deeply troubled, and that made Luba worry.

The last time she had seen Zugi so disturbed by a job was when they were hired to guide some Arab traders into Butua territory, no questions asked. The Arabs had assured them that slaves were not their quarry. It turned out that they were after gold buried in ancestral graves. Luba had no qualms of conscience with helping them find the ancestral burial grounds. She wasn't given to superstition. If the ancestors needed the gold in the next life, they wouldn't have left it in this one. Her pragmatic view didn't quite align with Zugudini's. The two had quarreled about doing the job once they discovered what their clients were truly after, and Zugudini had been so unhappy that Luba agreed to walk away from the Arabs. They had just gotten up in the middle of the night and made tracks without saying a word of farewell. Of course, they did help themselves to some ivory pendants and knife hilts by way of payment.

Luba wondered if the same thing would happen now. Zugudini was even more upset this time than she had been with the Butua burial grounds job. But back then, at least she was willing to argue about it. This time, she just stalked off and went and sat alone, brooding. Luba didn't like it when Zugudini brooded. It always meant trouble. Zugudini never liked to speak about what she was brooding about until she had come to a conclusion. That only made things worse. Then, there was no changing her mind. Luba had never liked that side of Zugudini's. They worked as a team, and team decisions were meant to be taken together.

***

The sun was setting. Dande and Chenzira had set out a few hours earlier to hunt their dinner. Now they returned carrying a small gazelle. Dande quickly skinned it, as Chenzira got a fire going beside Luba and Zugudini. In a few minutes, they had some choice pieces of gazelle roasting beside the flames. Chenzira cut off a large, juicy steak, and offered it to Luba and Zugudini. Luba cut it in two with her dagger and gave half to Zugudini.

"Eat. Before I finish it all."

Zugudini nodded her thanks and took the meat. She took a small bite and chewed slowly, absentmindedly. Their horses neighed in the dark.

“Let’s bring the horses closer,” Chenzira said. “And load up what we won’t eat.”

Dande nodded and stood up. They walked off together into the gathering gloom.

"We need to talk about this drum,” Luba said.

"What about it?"

"Why is it such a big deal?”

Zugudini stopped chewing and stared off into the night. "You'll never understand," she said finally.

"Try me."

Zugudini sat in silence, hoping that Luba would eventually get tired and leave things be. But Luba just crossed her legs, cupped her chin in her hands and stared at Zugudini. She was going to wait as long as it took. Zugudini cast a glance over her shoulder to make sure that the men were out of earshot. They were.

"Do you remember I once told you that when I was a little girl, my mother was murdered before my eyes?"

"Yes. Ten harvests ago."

“She was murdered because of the drum that we are seeking."

Zugudini recounted the visit from Banga that she and her mother had received on the day that her mother died. Her voice was hollow as she spoke, as though she were describing a part of her that had died many harvests before. It was how she coped with the grief. She cut it off and never gave it any chance to have a hold of her. Luba was quiet for a long time once she was done speaking.

"I wish you could have told me sooner," she said.

"There was never any need. We all have things in our past that we would rather forget, right?"

Luba nodded. She had her own fair share of sadness from her past that she would rather not remember. "So what do you want to do?" she asked.

"I'm not sure yet."

"I think we should quit this job. We should just tell them we're no longer interested in it and walk away."

Zugudini didn't say anything, but from the way that she stiffened and pulled her legs in, Luba knew that she didn't agree. She pressed her point.

"The job is too personal, Zugi. You know our rules about personal jobs. You won't be able to think straight."

"That's why I have you."

"You could end up getting us killed. Remember the job in Sofala?"

Zugudini shuddered at the thought. They had been hired to intercept a convoy of gold traders headed to the coastal town of Sofala. It turned out that one of the men escorting the convoy was Karama's kinsman. In a moment of weakness, Karama had let his kinsman go. When faced with the threat of being put to death as their accomplice, the man reported them to the authorities. After that, they had always been on the run from the law.

"Karama's an emotional fool," Zugudini said. "I'm not like that."

"Look at how long you've sat here brooding. I have a bad feeling about this job. This could end us. It's too big. We should call it off."

"There's something that I haven't told you."

"What?"

"When that man, Banga, told my mother about the drum…” She paused. Luba waited. “He said that I was its heir. He said it was my destiny to beat the drum and bring in a new dawn.”

“He said that to a little girl?”

“He told my mother. I overheard them. They didn’t know I was there.”

"That drum doesn’t work, Zugi. Look around you."

"For ten harvests, I hoped and prayed the same thing. For ten harvests, I tried to forget about it and run away from those words. But they've haunted me in my dreams many nights. And now the drum has come to me."

"Zugudini, you're not making much sense right now."

"If I walk away from this job, there's a part of me that will always wonder whether or not I defied the ancestors. What if they are giving me one last chance?"

"One last chance to do what?"

"To have peace in my heart. This life that we lead? Sure, we are trying to make a difference. I thought that it would fill up the hole I have in my heart. But it hasn't."

Luba didn't quite know how to respond to that. "I can't tell you what to do," she began. "All I can say is that whenever we break our own rules, things don't turn out well."

They fell silent as Dande and Chenzira returned to the camp with the horses. They tied them to the tree beside the fire and loaded them up with the game meat. The men sensed the tension between the two women, and also sensed it was better not to ask any questions. Luba went up to her horse and took her sleeping mat. She rolled it out on the bare earth, lay on her back, and looked at the crescent moon lighting up the sky overhead.

***

When she woke up the next day, she found Zugudini tramping into the camp, wearing a frown on her face. Dande and Chenzira were already awake and chewing away at dry chunks of meat.

"I've picked up his trail again," she announced. “Not far from here. But he’ll be harder to track once he gets to the rocks.”

Luba sat up, wondering at the sudden change that had come over Zugudini. It seemed as though she had made up her mind to continue. Luba stared hard at her, perplexed, but Zugudini ignored her and started packing up her horse.

"Let's hope he doesn't go that far," Dande said. “But maybe before we start, we should have a brief discussion?”

“There’s nothing to discuss,” Zugudini said as she mounted her horse. “Let’s go.”

Chenzira said nothing. He rolled up his mat, tied it to his horse's saddle, and mounted. So did Dande. Luba was the last to leave camp. She couldn’t shake off the foreboding that crept up her spine.

***

They broke out of the forest cover and into patches of tall grass. Up ahead of them, the fang-like peaks of the Mountains of Mwari punched into the clear blue sky, a ring of mist covering them. Even from a distance, the sacred silence of the mountains settled down on the group like a hand stretching over their heads, bidding them to be still and acknowledge the power of Mwari their Creator.

They rode on in silence, each one busied with their own thoughts. Dande's turned to the conversation that they had had the day before. He’d had no idea just how much Hondo had cost him. The man had taken away his father, his name and also his best friend. He had been wrong to judge Zugudini. Wrong to be so hard on her. He thought of all the harvests that had gone by during which Zugudini had had to eke out a living. There were worse ways that she could have done it. He shuddered at the thought. And here she was now, acting as though nothing had happened. Yet there were going after the very thing that had changed her entire life. He wished he had never left his comfortable meadow in the forest. He imagined himself lazing under the trees, finally free and without a care in the world. But he was being silly. He owed Zugudini an apology. He meant to make good on it, no matter how hard it was.

He maneuvered his horse past Luba and Chenzira and drew neck and neck with Zugudini.

"I wanted to apologize," he started.

"For what?"

"For holding a grudge against you these ten harvests. I always thought that you'd just run away from me and forgot about me. But now I see that I was wrong. I am sorry."

She didn't say anything but kept on riding, her face fixed firmly forward. He rode beside her. At least he'd gotten what he wanted to say off his chest, and even though he wasn't sure what it did for her, he knew that he felt as though a great weight had been lifted off his shoulders. Zugudini was the only woman he'd ever loved, and the thought that she had just abandoned him had weighed on him for so long. He thought he felt his horse pick up its pace underneath him as if he'd suddenly become lighter.

"I'm also sorry," Zugudini said after a while.

Dande glanced at her, confused. What did she have to be sorry about?

"I'm sorry I didn't try to find you and let you know that I was still alive... and that..." She paused, trying to stop the words from coming out of her mouth, but it was too late already. "And that I still cared."

"You were ten harvests old. You were scared."

"I should've come back. Maybe..."

She didn't finish her thought. Her hands grew cold and clammy on the horse reins, and her throat tightened up. Here she was, about to bare her soul to a person who might be very different from the one that she knew as a child. What on earth was she doing?

"Do you remember the amulet that I gave you?" Dande asked.

"Which one?" she asked, pretending not to know what he was talking about.

"The one that I gave you the last time I saw you."

"Oh," she said.

She was torn between telling him the truth, that she had taken it off and it was in her bag right at that very moment, or lying to him. If she did tell him the truth, it could complicate things between them. It had been such a long time since they had had that special friendship between the two of them. They had been children and innocent and hadn't yet faced the challenges of the real world. The boy who had given her the amulet was not the man who was asking her about it. But what if a part of that boy remained in him? She needed more time to find out, maybe after the job. Maybe if they made it out alive. Her memory of the drum flitted before her eyes, a massive mountain between the two of them. Bigger than the Mountains of Mwari up ahead in the distance.

"I lost it," she said. "Many harvests ago, when I was still a child. I'm sorry."

Dande's face fell. He was quiet for a long moment.

"It belonged to my mother," he finally said.

After that, he said nothing. He slowed down and fell to the back of the line, where he rode on in silence.

***

They were now going through tall clumps of grass, and gravelly soil crunched beneath their horses’ hooves. They were riding in single file. Zugudini had taken the lead, keeping her eyes peeled on the track ahead of them. Luba and Chenzira followed, and Dande brought up the rear, lost in his own thoughts. Luba had seen the exchange between him and Zugudini and their two reactions. She didn’t know what to make of it. At that moment, Zugudini suddenly stopped, and leapt off her horse.

“What is it?” Luba asked, drawing level with her.

“Look at these tracks.”

She pointed at the path, and Luba inspect the hoof prints that Zugudini pointed at.

“The same horse came this way three times,” Luba said.

“You know what that means?”

“Mwari be praised!”

“What is it?” Chenzira asked, looking down from his horse.

Zugudini leapt back onto her horse and got back onto the path.

“It means that he got lost,” Luba said, following suit. “He saved us the time we lost.”

***

They rode on through the hot day. They were approaching the foothills of the mountains now, and a cool breeze gave them some respite from the heat. They had ridden in silence for a long time. Luba watched Zugudini riding at the front, and glanced at Dande, bringing up the rear. Though the ancestors were on their side and had helped them catch up with the thief, Luba was worried about the problems they faced amongst themselves.

She slowed down her horse and allowed Chenzira to catch up with her.

"I wanted to ask you something," she said.

"Yes?"

"This drum. Why is it so important?"

Chenzira gave her a surprised look. "It's ngomalungundu," he said. "What could be more important than that?”

"I'm not trying to start a fight. I respect people's beliefs, even though I don't hold them myself. But when you look around at the drought that we're in, and when you think of how many times the Mutapas have beaten that drum..."

"It makes you wonder why people would be so superstitious?" Chenzira asked, finishing her sentence for her.

"Exactly. I would have stopped believing a long time ago."

"The drum can only work under the right circumstances."

"Which are?"

"When the prophecy is fulfilled."

"What prophecy?"

"The prophecy about Shabaka's true heir."

"Who is Shabaka?”

"You really don't know anything about this?"

"I'm not from around here, remember?"

"Shabaka was a king who ruled an empire far in the North."

"How far north?"

"Really far north. Ever heard of Misria?"

"Yes, that's beyond Nubia. The land near the great river?"

"That's where Shabaka was from. He was the last of his dynasty. When he saw that his generals and nobles were bent on bringing the entire world under their dominion, he decided he wanted nothing to do with it. He wanted freedom, not bondage. He set sail and traveled south, coming to these lands, where he established a new dynasty and brought with him enough people to begin a new nation. Just before he was gathered up to his fathers, he called his sons together and prophesied a great drought that would destroy everything they had worked to achieve and would force them to leave the land. But he had obtained a great favor from the gods. If they took his bones and encased them in a drum made of the shoe tree, then every time they beat it, the rain would come. That was how his descendants were able to prosper and build a great nation, even in times of great drought and famine. Soon, people from the neighboring nations heard of the power of the drum and would travel great distances, bearing great gifts, with the request of the drum being beaten on their behalf and bringing rain to their lands.”

“Yes, I remember our elders wanted to make that trip, growing up,” Luba interjected. “But we didn’t have enough cattle to offer.”

“That was the problem,” Chenzira continued. “Greed. The descendants of Shabaka grew greedy, seeing this as a chance to gain wealth and power. But greed begets greed, and ambition destroys. It wasn't long before the line of Shabaka was wiped out, and a new king, who claimed to be descended from Shabaka but was not, assumed the throne, as well as the drum that came along with it. The rains also grew less and less. The people were hungry. Then the Mutapas discovered that gold was needed in vast amounts across the sea to the east. They enslaved thousands and got them to work in the gold mines, reducing the reliance on rain because they could now buy food from far away. Merchants came with food and left with gold. But that arrangement only suited the nobility and wealthy. The poor and the enslaved wept and wailed daily for deliverance. It was around this time that the prophecy of Shabaka's heir was made."

"I've heard about that prophecy,” Luba said.

"What did you hear?"

“Just the songs. That Shabaka's heir would return and beat the drum and make it rain again."

"Yes, that's the gist of it."

Luba remembered what Zugudini had told her the night before. "But are there none that have Shabaka's blood left? Isn't it just a straightforward matter of finding someone that's descended from him and getting that person to beat the drum?"

"I wish it were that simple. There are a few conditions that have to be met. The prophecy can only be fulfilled when Shabaka's comet appears in the sky. And that only happens once every ten harvests."

Luba glanced at the sky, at the blue green ball that seemed about to drop into the horizon. Over the past few weeks, the comet had steadily fallen in its path across the sky. “And now it’s appeared and it’s about to disappear for another ten harvests.”

“That is why the Thief moved quickly. His time is running out.”

“What will happen when he beats the drum?”

“He will fail.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“There are other oracles that only the priests know of.”

"Are you allowed to tell me?”

Chenzira shot her a glance.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’ll tell you. You won’t believe it anyway. The drum must be beaten at noon on the day of the summer solstice."

”What's that?"

"The longest day of the summer.”

“That's in about a week's time.”

“Correct. The Thief needs to beat the drum on the right day at the right place with the right person’s blood on the altar.”

"What altar?”

Chenzira shot her another glance.

“I’m sorry.”

“The altar of the Lost Temple of Shabaka.”

“How can a temple get lost?”

“It was buried underground by an earthquake, and its location has been forgotten.”

“Isn’t there a map?”

“Yes, but it was hidden in Inzalo Ye Langa."

Luba nodded. “That’s why the thief is heading to the Mountains of Mwari. He’s heading to Inzalo Ye Langa, right at the heart of them.”

"Correct."

"But isn't that a good thing? Isn't the thief merely trying to end this drought and usher in a new era? Why would anyone want to stop him?"

"Because of the last part of the prophecy. If anyone unworthy were to try to usurp the power of the rain from Shabaka's true heir, then they would call down punishment on themselves and on the land as well. The drum would be destroyed, along with its power to make rain, and the drought would last forever. Ever heard of the great desert in the north?"

Luba nodded. “Yes, in Misria. It used to be a jungle but now it’s a desert.”

“They suffered the curse after Shabaka left. An imposter tried to cheat the ancestors and the people.”

“Mwari, help us.”

"That is why it's better that we wait another ten harvests for the comet to appear again and for Shabaka's true heir to emerge rather than have someone unworthy plunge us all into unending misery."

Luba nodded, as she looked around at the vegetation around them. Years of drought had already made it all dry. But it was still far from being a desert. There was still hope.

"You said that the map to Shabaka's temple is hidden in Inzalo Ye Langa?"

"Yes.”

"Are you absolutely sure about that? That we are heading to Inzalo Ye Langa?"

"Yes," Chenzira nodded, wondering what Luba was getting at.

"You should have told me about that earlier. This whole secrecy policy is going to make us all waste a lot of time and lead to us failing."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because I know these mountains like the back of my hand. I know them better than Zugudini and that’s better than most people. If this thief is going to Inzalo Ye Langa, then he's going by the long route. It's the route that people know. But I know a far shorter route that will get us there before he will."

"Are you sure of this?"

"I told you, I know this mountain like the back of my hand."

They caught up to Zugudini, who was riding ahead of them, and explained their plan. Zugudini confirmed that Luba did indeed know those mountain paths better than most people. When she had first arrived in those lands from her homeland in Sao, she had spent a few harvests apprenticed to a healer who lived in the mountains. The healer's life didn't quite agree with her, and she moved on. The knowledge she picked up about herbs and animals, as well as the geography of the land, remained with her. That is what she brought to bear as she led them off the rugged mountain path and straight through the low tufts of grass that grew in between the rocks dotting the foothills of the Mountains of Mwari.

They twisted their way through crevices in the middle of high bluffs. The wind was stronger now and had a slight chill to it as they ascended higher and higher into the mountains. They came to an alpine forest consisting of proteas and mountain hard-pear trees. The forest came to an abrupt halt as a ring of stone pillars loomed up ahead of them.

"That's Inzalo Ye Langa," Luba announced. "I think we saved five hours.”

The ancient stones of Inzalo Ye Langa stood grey and imposing against the sky. Far to the left, they caught the silver glint of a tiny river that ran off the edge of a cliff.

"That goes to the Zambezi," Luba said. "There's a waterfall nearby. Listen.” Sure enough, they caught the distant roar of water plummeting down from a cliff to a canyon far below. "It's on the other side of this clearing."

Behind them, there was a clear view of the undulating grasslands with patches of forest in between. In the distance, a river ran down to the base of the mountains, widening out before it snaked away. Birds soared above, occasionally perching on the monoliths.

Chenzira got off his horse and examined the ground. "Do you see anything?" he asked. "Has the Thief been here?"

"There's no sign of anyone coming here," Zugudini said, peering at the ground.

"If he came," Luba said, "he would have come through there." She pointed at a narrow crag between the ring of rocks. "That's the usual path."

They examined the ground around the crag, but all they found were some animal droppings and tracks. No horses had come that way. They were the first people there in a long time.

"We need to lie in wait for our man," Chenzira said. He glanced at the sun in the sky. It was late afternoon.

“We should get out of the open,” Dande said, gazing about them. “He could show up at any time.”

“That would be lucky,” Luba said. “He could decide to come at night.”

“He has no reason to,” Chenzira said. “He needs daylight to find what he is seeking. If what I read all those harvests ago in the library of Zvongombe is correct, the map is buried beneath one of these pillars. Which one, I don't know. But he will know, that’s for sure.”

“Let’s get out of the open,” Dande repeated, "and surprise him when he comes."

Acting on Luba's suggestion, they descended back down the craggy mountainside and got to the edge of the forest. There, they tied their horses next to some healthy clumps of bushes and left them resting and eating. Then they made their way back again to the ring of rocks and the grass clearing. They positioned themselves in different spots across the clearing. Dande, being the best fighter, stationed himself near the point where they expected the Thief to make his entry. That way, he could cut off the man's escape. Chenzira was stationed at the opposite end from Dande, whilst Zugudini and Luba would lie in wait on the two flanks. Whoever spotted the Thief first would alert the others by making a birdcall. Luba suggested the call of the bee-eater, a bird that was native to those parts. But the others didn't know it. In the end, they decided that each one would make the birdcall that they were most comfortable with. They would wait for the Thief to enter the clearing to retrieve the map, and only after that would they spring on him and surprise him. They hoped to take him in alive but knew that that was wishful thinking. It would likely be a fight to the death. Before they spread out and took up their various positions, they shook hands and wished each other luck. The chances of one or two of them not seeing another sunrise were great.

They lay in wait. Dande listened to the distant roar of the waterfall. It was quiet and peaceful up there in the mountains. He stared at the sky. Not a cloud was in sight, and the blue was so deep that he felt as if there was an ocean floating above him. He stared at it for so long that he thought that he was going to drown.

Then he heard it. The steady clip-clop of horse hooves making their way up a rocky path. The blood froze in his veins. He suddenly became aware of his breathing, of his heart beating in his chest. He slowly flattened himself behind the bushes that he was hiding between, praying to his ancestors that no snakes or safari ants would decide to make their acquaintance with him at that moment.

He cupped his hands around his mouth and made the call of the hoopoe. He regretted making it as soon as he had. The hooves clipping along the rock had stopped. Dande peeked out from between the bushes. About fifty paces away from him, coming up the rocky path, was a man leading a horse by its reins. The man had paused and was scanning the horizon. Dande didn't dare breathe. The man resumed his trek up the path, passing as close as twenty paces to where Dande was hiding. He was still wearing his wooden mask. In one hand, he held a twin-tipped spear. In the other, a shovel. A medium-sized pouch was slung across his shoulder. Judging from its shape and size, Dande was dead sure it was ngomalungundu. It made sense that he would never take it off his person. Neither would Dande, were he in the Thief's shoes. The horse raised its head and sniffed the air loudly. Dande thanked the ancestors that the wind was blowing towards him. Otherwise, the man's horse would have smelled him and gotten nervous.

The man proceeded through the crag in the pillars and tied his horse to a tree stump. Dande crawled on his belly, inching his way on all fours to the base of one of the rock pillars, from where he kept his eyes peeled on the man.

The man unslung the pouch from around his shoulder and placed it carefully on the ground. He rummaged within and pulled out a brown piece of parchment. He studied the parchment carefully, holding it up to the sun as if trying to make out some faded writing. Turning this way and that, he traced his steps across the clearing, checking the parchment often. He finally came to a stone pillar, slightly smaller than the others, and tilted on one side as though the wind had tried to kick it over and failed.

He approached the base of the pillar and started shoveling. Dande kept his eyes peeled on the man as the man dug up a mound of soil and rocks around the base of the pillar. The digging echoed across the clearing. The man's breathing grew labored. Dande could hear it from where he watched. The man paused and wiped his brow and looked at the sun. Then, he carried on his task with renewed vigor.

Then, he paused. He fell on his hands and knees and dug away with his hands, hurriedly, in a mad rash, energised by a wave of excitement. Carefully, he pulled something out, dug a little around it, pulled it out again, dug again, pulled again. After about ten minutes, he unearthed a tablet of stone. He rested on his haunches and examined it. He blew some dust off its edges and ran his finger over it. He opened his pouch and tried to shove the tablet inside, but it didn't fit. He tried again, but it was too big. The man stood up, tucked the tablet underneath his arm, slung the pouch across his shoulder, and stalked across the clearing back to his horse.

A wild yell rose up from the rock pillar to his right, and it was almost immediately followed by another. Zugudini rushed upon the man, her spear held aloft, ready to strike. The man let the tablet fall to the ground as he grasped his spear to meet the attack. At the same time, Luba, Chenzira and Dande emerged from their hiding places and rushed on the man. The man saw them approaching out of the corner of his eye and realized that he would soon be surrounded. Picking out Chenzira as the oldest and the weakest, he grabbed the stone tablet and made a mad dash at him, aiming to break past him and make a run for it. Zugudini's spear whistled through the air. The man raised the tablet just in time, using it as a shield. There was a sharp crack as a piece of the tablet broke off and fell to the ground. The man reached for it, but Luba, Dande, and Zugudini were upon him.

The man was skilled, strong, and fast. He held off their three, then four attacks, with incredible deftness – swinging, parrying, ducking, and stabbing. The odds were against him, though. Dande intensified his attack, distracting the man from the others. Luba sprinted up to him from behind and, before he could see her, swung her dagger at him. The man leaped out of the way with inches to spare, but the dagger was not meant for him. It was meant for the pouch slung across his shoulder. It cut through the strap, and the pouch fell to the ground. The man roared in fury and made a mad dash for it, but Luba picked it up and darted off. The man lunged after her, but Dande and Zugudini were upon him. Zugudini tripped him and sent him crashing to the ground. He leapt to his feet like a cat, only to find two spears leveled at his throat: Zugudini's and Dande's.

"Who are you?" Dande asked.

The man panted hard. His eyes were fixed on the pouch that Luba had now handed over to Chenzira. He took a step towards it. The two spear tips pressed against his neck, drawing a thin trickle of blood.

"Who are you?" Dande asked again.

The man glanced at the tablet that he still held in one hand and sized up Dande and Zugudini. He took one step back, then another. Zugudini saw what he was thinking.

"You've got nowhere to go. Surrender."

She tried to get around behind him, but the man was too quick. He hurled his spear at Zugudini, who threw herself to the ground as the spear whistled over her head. She looked up to see the man taking off at a dead sprint, with Dande close on his tail.

The man tore through the low bushes and tall wild grass, clutching tightly to the stone tablet in his hand. Dande followed, keenly aware that the spear he held in his hand gave him a slight disadvantage over the man. He took a deep breath and put on a sudden burst of speed, shortening the distance between himself and the man to a few paces. They were running uphill now, approaching the edge of a cliff. The steady rush of water came to his ears as he saw the man approach the cliff’s edge. Dande slowed down long enough to hurl his spear at the man's feet. He wanted the man alive, not dead. The spear clattered to the ground in between the man's legs, the shaft clashing against one shin then the other. The man crashed to the ground. Dande was upon him in a second, grappling with him, trying to wrest the tablet out of his grip. The man kicked him hard in the stomach. Dande groaned, then punched the man in the neck, sending him back down against the ground. The tablet flew out of the man’s hands. He winced in pain and reached for the tablet. Dande grabbed at him, caught hold of the mask, and yanked it off his head.

The man spun around and faced him. Dande staggered backwards, as he took in the familiar sneer, the cold eyes, and the scarred face.

There, kneeling on the ground before him, was Hondo.

END OF PART 1

PART 2

RISE OF THE RAIN QUEEN

They thought reclaiming the sacred drum was triumph—but it has only brought new dangers. Divisions fracture Dande, Zugudini, Luba, and Chenzira's partnership. Meanwhile Hondo, the enemy they once served, proves he is far from defeated. To save their land from drought and despair, the companions must uncover his true motives and decide whether they can still trust one another.

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