“Stop this madness! Are you all fools, to be swayed by the ravings of a madman?”
Almost as one, the Bagara turned their attention to the new speaker: Mkimba the rootman, who had survived the stampede despite his aged limbs.
“Is this who you truly want to be diop?” Mkimba said scornfully. “Look at him ... a dweller among beasts who claims to speak with the voice of Ngai. How do we know he did not have something to do with the stampede of the piobo?”
With his peculiar cunning, Ajoola knew Mkimba was the only one who could sway the Bagara from his own influence ... and open their eyes to the truth. He knew what he had to do.
“People of Bagara!” he cried. “You have said with words that I, Ajoola, am diop. Now, show it with a deed. Kill the unbeliever!”
Before a single voice could rise, Mkimba went down as daggers from a dozen hands pierced his body. Ajoola’s followers stood grimly over the fallen rootman. As his blood flowed out of him, Mkimba gazed in disbelief at the faces of his murderers. He had cured their sicknesses and healed their wounds. Now, they stared impassively down at him, their blades dripping blood. Eyes misting in sorrow, the rootman died.
Ajoola was not yet done. He turned to Zuriye, who had remained at the side of the piobo during the coming of Ajoola and the slaying of Mkimba. She had retreated into an insensate void of shock, and did not resist when strong hands seized her and pulled her to her feet.
Another hand grasped her chin and jerked her head upright. The glaze of tears in her eyes cleared, and she found herself looking directly into the face of Ajoola. His words beat like hammers on the anvil of her numbed mind. As her awareness sharpened, fear quivered in her limbs and constricted her throat.
“Let the flames of Ngai devour the mganga,” Ajoola intoned, his jaws champing in unholy glee. “It was the mganga who brought the piobo among us. We must burn her, so that Ngai will no longer be angry at us for having allowed her to live. Burn her, as well as this carcass of the piobo. Burn them both, and let Ngai smell their flesh, and be once again pleased with the Bagara!”
Shouting approval of Ajoola’s edict, the same men who had stabbed Mkimba set about pounding a huge stake into the body of the piobo. Others – men, women and children alike – gathered handfuls of timber and thatch from their ruined homes and piled the flammable debris onto the carcass until it was covered completely.
They could do nothing to restore the hundreds of their dead to life, or rebuild their ruined town, or replant their ravaged fields. But they could burn the witch their new diop blamed for the death and destruction ...
Zuriye struggled frantically as two Baraga men dragged her toward the gigantic pyre. Then a heavy hand crashed against her skull, knocking her nearly unconscious. She hung limply while they climbed the woodpile and tied her to the thick stake. They tore the shuka from her body and the turban from her head, leaving her naked to face the flames. Grass ropes cut cruelly into her flesh.
Head aching, she recovered her senses and began to struggle again. Then, abruptly, she stopped; realizing that life meant nothing to her now. Never again would she see her people, and the man she loved lay lifeless beneath the carcass of a beast that was now to be her death-pyre.
“Bring fire!” Ajoola commanded.
A mad-eyed youth appeared with a fire-making device of flint and iron. The Witch Smeller smiled balefully as the youth struck flame to a large number of improvised torches. Taking the first brand, Ajoola lifted it aloft and compared the color of the flame to the crimson of Zuriye’s hair. Soon, all of Zuriye would be that color ... the thought gave much pleasure to the Witch Smeller.
Ajoola waved his torch in circles as the other Bagara clamored for the fire-maker to light even more brands. Then the Witch Smeller stood statue-still, his flame held high above his head. His sores, grime and rags rendered him a figure from some demonic nightmare.
“Death to the mganga!” Ajoola cried triumphantly as he drew back his arm to hurl the first flame onto the pyre.
The torch never left his hand. With a choking scream, Ajoola pitched forward onto his face. From his back, a slim arrow protruded, buried almost to its feathered nock. Like the madman’s life, the torch guttered and died as if fell just short of the tinder. The fallen staff of the diop lay at Ajoola’s side.
Other silent messengers of death sped through the stunned ranks of the Bagara. Each arrow plunged unerringly into the body of a flame-bearer. In the space of an instant, no Bagara bearing a torch remained alive.
A new invasion of the town began then – one that was, in its own way, more terrible than the stampede of the piobo. So involved were the Bagara in the imminent execution of Zuriye that they had no awareness of the small army of warriors that now surrounded them.
Though they fired no more arrows, the intruders advanced in disciplined ranks: several hundred fighting men, clad in war-gear unknown to the Bagara. Conical iron helmets protected the warriors’ heads. Wide, iron-studded bands of leather crossed their chests. Their legs were swathed in loose white trousers. Along with their bows, they carried spears, curved swords and large oval shields. Their faces were as expressionless as masks carved from jet.
Some of the Bagara snatched up weapons and attempted to engage the strangers in battle, only to be quickly overcome, for their spears and daggers could not penetrate the thick shields of their adversaries. The resisters were not slain; only disarmed and prodded back to the press of their people.
From the mass of frightened Bagara survivors and the warriors who surrounded them, two distinctive figures emerged.
