Nomvula

57. Son of Kani

"Something must always bleed." Dumani leaned forward. "But why does it have to be either of us? You know my quarrel isn't with you. Destroy Ndlovu to protect your resources, lend your ships to my aid, and you and I can have that cup of coffee as friends."

"General, I feed your armies, I don't fight their battles."

"And what a waste that is."

"Lost life is a waste."

"The Spears would disagree," he said. "Imagine being born into the most legendary line of war chiefs the South has ever known, only to die a breadmaker."

Nomvula sighed. "The dead all feed something, but bread is sweeter than carrion."

"How do you know what vultures taste?"

"Are we vultures, Dumani?"

He threw his weight forward and pushed off his feet, every muscle in his shoulders and back bunching and twisting as he ate up the distance between them in one long stride. In one moment, the iron spearhead glinted as it arced down towards Nomvula's arm. In the next, the fireglass tip of her own cracked through the haft of Dumani's spear, just above his thumb. Nomvula found herself on one knee, eye to eye with the General as the iron head thunked onto the grass and a rain of splinters floated between them.

"To our bones," Dumani said, stepping back. "Someone hand me another spear, heavier wood this time. The bronze one will do."

Nomvula rose halfway before the muscles along her spine tied a knot and yanked. A pulse of warmth rocked her and expelled the pain through the closest source, just as a guard touched her shoulder and tried to help her up. She waved him away as the Sunspear settled back into its half-sleep, and she was grateful enough that all eyes were on her and Dumani, or someone might have wondered why the guard walking back to the edge of the circle was rubbing his lower back. Or why four of the closest onlookers rubbed their temples all at once.

Dumani had both spear and shield now, and his stance paid a great deal more respect to the spear in her hand than it had a moment before. 

"You missed my hand," he said.

"You haven't accepted the challenge yet. A skirmish before consent is just open violence."

"You're not playing it as smart as your daughter," he said, licking the edge of his sneer. "She took a tap to the face and got me jailed on the testimony of one guard -- how much more if I personally made the Queen bleed?"

If I bleed, it will be the land that grows a scab. "Accept the challenge, General."

"To the victor first blood," he said.

Nomvula's glass spear cut the sunlight to ribbons of red, gold, and indigo as she tucked it defensively. "Be it a drop or a river."

"So long as it is the first and the last." The humour burned itself from his visage. "If any of you heartless farmers brought a horn, now's the time to sound it."

**

Asanda froze at the foot of Third Hill as the blare of a horn rolled down the slope. 

"No." She took a step back and bumped into a solid body. "Not now, not today."

"Well," Khaya said. "That's ominous."

Ndoda sprinted past her, though his limp had worsened. "Hurry up."

It was a long climb to the manse crowning the hill, and halfway up, Asanda felt a light pressure at the base of her skull. In her mind, she rolled the shard of bone that Ndlovu had given her between trembling fingers. She reigned that part of her spirit in before it could hide itself in the ancestral plane again. Right now, she needed every drop of her consciousness here, in the physical plane, where gravel bit into her heels and a horn rode the breeze like a lament.