Meren urged the fever-racked men on: 'The sooner we escape from these terrible swamps and their poisonous mists, the sooner you will recover your health.' Then he confided to Taita, 'I worry ceaselessly that should we lose the Shilluk to the swamp-sickness or they desert us, we will be helpless. We will never escape from this dreary wilderness and shall all perish here.'
'These swamps are their home. They are shielded from the diseases that abound here,' Taita assured him. 'They will stay with us to the end.'
As they travelled on southwards, vast new expanses of papyrus opened before them, then closed behind them. They seemed trapped like insects in honey, never able to break free despite their violent struggles. The papyrus imprisoned them, ingested them and suffocated them. Its bland monotony wearied and dulled their minds. Then, on the thirty-sixth day of the march, there appeared at the limit of their forward vision a cluster of dark dots.
'Are those trees?' Taita called to the Shilluk. Nakonto sprang on to
Nontu's shoulders and stood to his full height, balancing easily. It was a position he often adopted when he needed to see over the reeds. ¦ 'Nay, ancient one,' he replied. 'Those are huts of the Luo.' i 'Who are the Luo?'
'They are hardly men. They are animals who live in these swamps, eating fish, snakes and crocodiles. They build their hovels on poles, such as those you see. They plaster their bodies with mud, ash and other filth to keep off the insects. They are savage and wild. We kill them when we find them for they steal our cattle. They drive the beasts they have stolen from us into this fastness of theirs and eat them. They are not true men but hyenas and jackals.' He spat in contempt.
Taita knew that the Shilluk were nomadic herders. They had a deep love for their cattle, and would never kill them. Instead they carefully punctured a vein in a beast's throat, caught the blood that flowed in a calabash, and when they had sufficient they sealed the tiny wound with a handful of clay. They mixed it with cow's milk and drank it. 'That is why we are so tall and strong, such mighty warriors. That is why the swamp-sickness never affects us,' the Shilluk would explain.
They reached the Luo encampment to find that the huts sitting high on their stilts were deserted. However, there were signs of recent occupation. Some of the fish heads and scales beside the rack on which they smoked their catch were quite fresh, and had not yet been eaten by fresh-water crabs or the buzzards that perched on the roofs, and live coals still glowed in the fluffy white ash of the fires. The area beyond the encampment that the Luo had used as a latrine was littered with fresh excrement. Nakonto stood by it. 'They were here this very morning.
They are still close by. Probably they are watching us from the reeds.'
They left the village and rode on for another seemingly interminable distance. Late in the afternoon Nakonto led them to an opening that was slightly higher than the surrounding mudbanks, a dry island in the wastes. They tethered the horses to wooden pegs driven into the earth, and fed them crushed dhurra meal in leather nosebags. Meanwhile Taita tended the sick troopers, and the men prepared their dinner. Soon after nightfall they were asleep around the fires. Only the sentries remained awake.
The fires had long burned out, and the troopers were deep in slumber when suddenly they were shocked awake. Pandemonium swept through the camp. There were shouts and screams, the thunder of galloping hoofs, and splashing from the pools around the island. Taita sprang up from his mat and ran to Windsmoke. She was rearing and plunging,
I
trying to pull the peg that held her out of the ground, as most of the other horses had. Taita grabbed her halter rope and held her down. With relief he saw that the foal, shivering with terror, was still at her side.
Strange dark shapes flitted around them, prancing, screaming and ululating shrilly, poking at the horses with spears, goading them to break away. The frenzied animals plunged and fought their ropes. One of the figures charged at Taita and thrust at him with his spear. Taita knocked it aside with his staff and drove the point into his assailant's throat. The man dropped and lay still.
Meren and his captains rallied their troops and rushed in with bared swords. They managed to cut down a few attackers before the others vanished into the night.
'Follow them! Don't let them get away with the horses!' Meren bellowed.
'Do not let your men go after them in the dark,' Nakonto called urgently to Taita. 'The Luo are treacherous. They will lead them into the pools and ambush them. We must wait for the light of day before we follow.'
Taita hurried to restrain Meren, who accepted the warning reluctantly for his fighting blood was up. He called his men back.
They assessed their losses. All four sentries' throats had been cut, and another legionary had received a spear wound in the thigh. Three Luo had been killed, and another was badly wounded. He lay groaning in his blood and the vile matter that dribbled from the stab wound through his guts.
'Finish him!' Meren ordered, and one of his men decapitated the man with a swing of his battleaxe. Eighteen horses were missing.
'We cannot afford to lose so many,' Taita said.
'We won't,' Meren promised grimly. 'We will retrieve them - on Isis's teats, I swear it.'
Taita examined one of the Luo corpses in the firelight. It was the body of a short, stocky man, with a brutal ape-like face. He had a sloping forehead, thick lips and small close-set eyes. He was naked, except for a leather belt round his waist from which hung a pouch. It contained a collection of magical charms, knuckle bones and teeth, some of which were human. Around his neck, on a lanyard of plaited bark, hung a flint knife caked with the blood of one of the sentries. It was crudely fashioned, but when Taita tested the edge on the dead man's shoulder it split the skin with little pressure. The Luo's body was coated with a thick plaster of ash and river clay. On his chest and face were traced primitive
designs in white clay and red ochre, spots, circles and wavy lines. He stank of woodsmoke, rotten fish and his own feral odour.j 'A repulsive creature,' Meren spat.I Taita moved to attend to the wounded trooper. The spear thrust was deep and he knew it would mortify. The man would be dead within hours, but Taita showed him a reassuring face.
In the meantime Meren was picking his strongest and fittest troopers for the punitive column to follow the thieves. The rest of the party would be left to guard the baggage, the remaining horses and the sick.
Before it was fully light the two Shilluk went out into the reedbeds to find the outward spoor of the raiders. They returned before sunrise.
