Legacy Pt. 02

Dumisane examined her from a distance. Then he nodded, and opened the gate.

The four bajari waited outside. Instantly, their eyes fell upon her. They stared hungrily. The demons still could not enter, kept at bay by the warding stones.

"Bring her out," one growled.

Dumisane fetched a pick and mallet that he had found in the storage and set next to the gate beside her club and his throwing spears and shield. He stood in front of the gate and peered outside, alert for any sign of the hyenas. Then held up the tools to the bajari.

"I will do even better," he said. "I will break the wards, so that you can enter."

The demons crowded, as close as they dared, watching her. They looked haggard, their fur bunched up and matted after a night in the rain. Dumisane went to the stone to the left of the gate. Even built into the inner wall, its markings were clear and pristine. He took the pick and hammer to the stone. Flecks of clay shattered and chipped off as he picked away at it. When Dumisane had defaced the markings, he went to the closest stone on the right of the gate and did the same.

The bajari gingerly stepped forward, testing to see if they felt the sear of the wards. When they did not, they stepped cautiously into the gate.

They were wary at first. The bajari eyed Dumisane as they passed him, and then they fanned out, gaze fixed upon Nandi. Dumisane paced over to where he had left his weapons.

"Sacred ancestors," Dumisane swore. "That woman is a fine rut! I took her last night, and bound her while she slept."

The hyenoid demons circled Nandi as she sat in the mud, sniffing at her like she was prey. But Nandi knew the glimmer in their eyes was not hunger for food. Their black tongues lolled from their mouths. The piece armor they wore didn't cover long black cocks that swelled even as she looked, sprouting stiffly and bobbing as they prowled.

These were demons after all.

Nandi, though she was afraid, felt a shameful lust still blazing within her. She turned, watching them, making sure they saw her wrapped wrists, showing them fear, even as she spread her legs in the muck. She smelled the pungent scent that wafted from the demons. Part of her yearned for these creatures to rut her, to take her right there in the mud, and flood her with boiling seed.

The demons had forgotten Dumisane entirely in their fixation. One of them threw down its ikwa.

Dumisane grunted, and the steel head of a throwing spear sprouted from the demon's chest. It dropped to its knees and collapsed.

The other bajari, for an instant, stared at Dumisane in shock. Too long. The kukuru came charging from the entrance to the hut and speared another in the back. The spiral horns pierced the hyenoid through. Impaled on the kukuru's horns, the demon was lifted and tossed through the air to the side. Its broken body crumpled, splashing on the ground.

The two bajari left standing turned towards their attackers, roaring their defiance. Dumisane threw Nandi her club. She shook the sisal from her wrists. Somewhere, the feral was barking.

The kukuru needed little help from her. The bajari wailed, almost like the squall of a human infant, as it scrambled away from sweeping blows of the kukuru's axe. The other bajari launched itself against Dumisane, a flurry of spear thrusts gouging the face of his shield.

Nandi gathered herself, finding her footing in the slippery muck. Witch-blood coursed through her veins. She charged the bajari attacking Dumisane, swinging her club to smash the demon's knee from behind. The leg collapsed under it. Dumisane bulled it flat with his shield and stabbed it through the throat with a spear. Black blood pulsed from the wound, staining the muddy earth as the glimmer faded from the demon's eyes.

The first bajari was still trying to crawl away, and Dumisane went to finish it off. The kukuru planted a massive, plate-sized foot on the corpse of the bajari it had fought, wrenching its axe from the hyenoid's skull. Nandi went to close the gate. Her one fear was that the cackle of hyenas might come back.

She heard footfalls, and a choking sound behind her.

Nandi turned. Her heart stopped with what she saw.

The kukuru had charged Dumisane as he slew the remaining bajari, impaling her lover from the side on its twisting horns. The sable skinned demon thrust him away, where he fell into the mud. Dumisane clenched his side, his hands already staining crimson.

Nandi tried to speak as she looked on in shock. Her voice broke. Her gaze slid towards the kukuru. It strode towards her, its face like stone.

"You are mine," it rumbled.

Dumisane bawled wordlessly, trying to get his legs under him. The demon ignored him entirely, as he stumbled to the muck again.

Nandi sank to her knees. They had won. How could this have happened?

The kukuru loomed over her.

Nandi stared at Dumisane lying in the rain. One word came to her mind, and at first she struggled to say it.

"Babalanotswe," she rasped.

"Babalanotswe! Babalanotswe!" She shrieked the name again and again, doubled over on the ground, sobbing until her voice was hoarse.

Dimly, Nandi was aware of the demon melting away in oily smoke before her. She got up and staggered over to where Dumisane lay.

She turned him over. The wound was dreadful, piercing him through the side near his waist. In the steady rain, the mud around in took on a reddish hue. He looked up at her, white teeth tainted with blood, a trickle on his lips.

Nandi kissed him.

"Live a life... of your own... choosing." He stuttered, showing her an awful smile. "Both of us... free."

His fingers intertwined with hers, and she held him, tight as a weave. The light was already fading from his eyes.

"I carry a part of you, Dumisane," she whispered.

"Your legacy lives here," she said, touching her heart. "Always, my love."

**

The Bezi city of Hwangi perched on a ridge of folded, patterned rock. Gold-painted towers and pointed domes reared above walls of rounded stones, and the mud huts of farming villages stretched down slopes that overlooked deep gorges. Twisted trees and verdant grass seemed to sprout from the dark rock itself.

Nandi paused in her climb up the mountain road, looking up at the city, letting a boy leading reddish brown goats pass her by. The orange dog trotted to her side and stopped.

She set her basket down to rest for a bit. It had taken months to get this far. Nandi had traveled through countless Swaga towns and into the Bezi kingdom, working for small herders and farming families along the way. Rumors raced past her, of the union of the Swaga and Sizwe kingdoms, and of armies gathering in the south.

Her hand came to rest on her swelling belly. Dumisane's child. It had to be. That was what she would always tell herself. The child would only be born of his courage and sacrifice, after all.

Somehow, Nandi knew it was a girl. She would name after the grandmother who'd bestowed Nandi with a loving heart.

Nandi patted the orange feral on the head. She picked up her basket, and continued to climb.