'Make them stop! Make them stop!'
The flatbed truck skidded to a stop in the center of the
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village. As quickly as the gunfire had come and gone from the mine, the village was captured. The South Africans were dead. No one was left to protect them. Ahbeba sank to the ground, and tried to pull herself and Julius into the earth. This could not be happening to a princess waiting for a prince.
A muscular man in wraparound sunglasses and a ragged Tupac T-shirt clambered up onto the truck's bed to glare at the villagers. He wore a bone necklace that clattered against the amino belts slung from his neck. Other men stood beside him, one wearing a headband made of bullets; another, a net shirt sewn with small pouches made from the scrotums of warthogs. They were fierce and terrible warriors, and Ahbeba was very afraid.
The man with the bone necklace waved a sleek black rifle.
'I am Commander Blood! You will know this name and fear it! We are freedom fighters of the Revolutionary United Front, and you are traitors to the people of Sierra Leone! You dig our diamonds for outsiders who control the puppet government in Freetown! For this, you will die! We will kill everyone here!'
Commander Blood fired his rifle over the heads of the villagers and ordered his men to line everyone up to be shot.
The flame-haired man and another white man came around the side of the truck. The second man was taller and older than the first, wearing olive-green pants and a black T-shirt. His pale skin was burned from the sun.
He said, 'No one's killing anyone. There's a better way to do this. '
He spoke Krio like the flame-haired man.
The two white men were on the ground; Commander Blood stood on the truck's bed. The commander charged
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like a lion to the edge of the bed so that he towered over the men. He fired his weapon angrily.
''I have given the order! We will kill these traitors so that word will spread throughout the diamond fields! The miners must fear us! Line them up! Now!'
The man in the black shrt swung his arm as if throwing a punch and hooked Commander Blood's legs out from beneath him. The commander landed fiat on his back. The man jerked him from the truck to the ground and stomped his head. Three fierce warriors jumped from the truck to help their commander. Ahbeba had never seen men fight so fiercely nor in such strange ways--the man and his flame-haired friend twisted the warriors to the ground so quickly the fight ended in a heartbeat, with the two men defeating four. One of the warriors was left
screaming in pain; two others were unconscious or dead. Ramal edged close to her and whispered.
'They are demons. Look, he wears the mark of the damned!''
As the black-shirted man held Commander Blood by the neck, Ahbeba saw a triangle tattooed on the back of his hand. Ahbeba grew even more fearful. Ramal was wise and knew of such things.
The demon pulled Commander Blood to his feet, then ordered the others to bring the dead South African guards to the well at the center of the village. The commander was dazed and submissive; he did not object. The flamehaired man spoke into a small radio.
Ahbeba waited anxiously to see what would happen. She held Julius close and tried to calm him, fearing that his sobbing might draw the rebels' attention. Tvice she saw brief chances to escape, but she could not leave the boy. Ahbeba told herself that there was safety in numbers; that she and Julius would be safe within the crowd.
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As the rebels stacked the dead South Africans by the well, a second truck rumbled into the village. This truck was battered and misshapen ald cowled with black dust. Great winged fenders hooded the tires like a sorcerer's cloak, and broken headlamps stared crookedly over a grill like a hyena's snaggletoothed grin; the rust on its teeth was the color of dried blood. A dozen young men with glassy unblinking eyes squatted in the truck. Many had bloody bandages wrapped tightly around their upper arms. Those without bandages showed jagged scars cut into these same places.
Ramal, who had been to Freetown and knew of sch things, said, ''You see their arms? Their skin has been split so that cocaine and amphetamines can be packed into the
wounds. They do this to make themselves crazy. ' 'Why?'
''It makes them better fighters. Like this, they feel no pain.'
A tall warrior jumped down from the new truck and joined the two white men. He wore a sackcloth tunic and baggy trousers, but that is not what drew Ahbeba's eye; his face was as cut and planed as a finished diamond. His upper arms bore the same scars as his men, but, unlike the other& his face was also marked: three round scars were set like eyes along each cheek and a row of smaller scars lined his forehead. His eyes were fired with a heat that Ahbeba did not understand, but he was breathtakingly beautiful, as beautiful and as princely as any man that Ahbeba had ever seen. He held himself like a king.
The black-shirted man twisted Commander Blood
toward the stack of South African corpses.
He said, ''This is how you create fear.'
He glanced at the tall African warrior, who motioned his men from the truck. They jumped to the ground,
howling and hooting as if possessed. They were not armed with rifles and shotguns like the first group of rebels; they carried rusty machetes and axes.
They swarmed over the dead South African guards. The machetes rose and fell as the crazy-eyed rebels hacked
