Tales of Fabulous Namu Pt. 04

Author's Note: This is the last installment of Zhura's second novella. All comments and feedback are most welcome!

At midday the next day, Zhura's mind was still foggy, which seemed fitting under a hazy, cloud-studded sky. She'd had only a few hours to sleep before discussing strategies with her companions for raising coin to pay off House San. Then she returned alone to the Hazard, to meet with Shana.

Finding the right compound in the vast slum was like searching for an individual tree in the forest. Most of the homes looked similar. There were no symbols on the roads and buildings as there were in the districts. There were hardly roads at all. Instead, crooked pathways snaked between compounds, split around huts planted squarely in their middle, and ran blankly into walls.

The alleys were often choked with offal or flooded with fouled water. But the denizens of the Hazard somehow knew exactly where they were going.

Zhura could identify trees and shrubs -- at least, the ones that grew in the Sung valley, and those she had come to know in the months she'd lived in Namu. From the directions she had, she was able to get close to the compound, in part by spotting a stand of red-fruited waterberry trees. She gave Shana's father's name to a few locals before someone pointed her to the right compound. The gate was open.

It was hard to believe that the woman who had rutted Zhura into oblivion the night before was the same one pounding sorghum with mortar and pestle in the yard. Now Shana wore a calf-length dress with a side wrap, though the shape of her large breasts and wide hips could not be denied. When she saw Zhura, Shana offered a sweaty smile, and shooed away her sisters and the children who played nearby.

Without the kohl that had painted her eyes, Shana had a somewhat ordinary face, broad and honest. Nonetheless, she exuded a subtle strength -- both physical and spiritual -- that enthralled Zhura.

The herb-witch took up the abandoned wooden pestle next to Shana. She began to help with the work. It was a bond, it seemed, that women shared everywhere. In the Sung Valley, they prepared yams much the same way.

"When do you sleep?" Zhura quipped.

"In the morning," Shana replied. She brushed shoulder-length braids from her face. "In the afternoon before the Orchid opens. For the other women, it is much the same. My brother and I are the only ones earning coin in this house. We do what must be done."

Zhura nodded in empathy. If her budding plan was to have a chance, she would have to track down the green-haired woman, and meet with her sanju demon. She would spend hours today just traveling through the city.

"My father and his brothers built this house," Shana said, glancing around at the compound. "It is up to us to keep it running."

"I never knew my father." Nor could Zhura recall her mother. "You should always honor what yours did for you."

"If you truly want to do this work, there are safer places than the Orchid," Shana said in a lower voice. "We lost two of our number recently. One is dead. The other disappeared. With each loss, we become more afraid, and have to work that much harder. I cannot ask you to join us in that."

"Is there a way to make things better?" Zhura asked.

"It is the way of life in the Hazard. You might as well ask if there is a way to make storms gentler."

Zhura had no ready answer. Instead, she ground the sorghum beside Shana, losing herself for a few minutes in a familiar rhythm of village life. For that moment it was if she was home, listening to birdsong and the rush of the Little Mongoose. The two women worked to their own steady drumbeat, adding more flour and water, getting the consistency of the ugali dough just right.

"One of those women you lost was sold to slavers. Now those slavers are dead or captured, and she is safe."

Shana stopped pounding and gaped at Zhura. "What is her name?"

"Hani. She is alive and well."

"By the grace of the ancestors, is this true?"

Zhura leaned on the pestle, the smoothly worn wood feeling much like a staff in her practiced hands. "Shana, if there were a way to make things better at the Orchid, would you help to do it?"

"Who are you?"

"Someone who hopes we can help each other, Shana."

Shana went quiet. She knelt and rubbed the grainy brown dough between two callused fingers, as if she were passing judgment upon it. She eyed the huts where her nieces and nephews played, then turned back to Zhura.

"Tell me what can be done," she said.

"Just so. If you tell me where I can get one of those love potions."

*

"Shana is a leader," Hani said. "She will join us if she believes we can win, and she will pull others to our side."

Zhura could hardly think of Shana without recalling the thorough rutting the woman had given her the previous night. Her cunt throbbed with the memory. When all this was over, she hoped for a second turn with Shana and that halter.

"What changed her mind was you," Zhura said. "Knowing that you lived, and that the gang could be defeated."

Hani pursed her lips in thought. The Ikanjan woman had a certain devious charm, and her almond-shaped eyes belied a quick mind.

They all sat around the fire at Amina and Kaj's, finishing coconut rice and roasted meat that the smith had bought from street vendors.

"It is the green-haired woman we must find," Zhura said. "Shana said her name was Nyoki. We need to know what ships she was telling Maiko about, and where they are now."

"Nyoki will not be easy. She is aloof, and independent-minded." Hani said. "Her father was Bhataguran. She speaks the tongue fluently, and is popular with their sailors and traders. I know where to find her -- at her home in Tanga District."

"Can we do that today?"

Hani glanced up at the sky. The sun had already disappeared over the slope and spires of Gold City. "We'll need to move fast," she said. "But I have an idea of how to convince her."

"So we convince the girl, find the ships, nab the thieves, deal with Maiko, and grab the gold," Ngo said cheerfully. He snapped a bone and sucked the marrow. "Simple as mother's milk."

"There's so much that can go wrong," Amina said, shaking her head. "And what if everything goes right? If another gang sees a chance, they will move in on the Orchid next."

Everyone looked to Hani.

"If whoever comes next isn't getting us kidnapped and murdered, it will be an improvement," she said. "We whores will do what we have to, in order to protect ourselves."

"We have one advantage," Bayati said. "We know something about Maiko's gang. They know nothing about us. If it all works, they'll never know what got them. Just like the slavers on the beach."

"That could all fall apart once you talk to Nyoki," Kaj said.

"Let me go with Hani," Bayati offered. "She hasn't seen me yet."

Zhura eyed the Kichinka woman's arm. She had examined the wound each day. It was healing cleanly, faster than Zhura would have expected. Even so, it was her good arm, and she wouldn't be able to fight without reopening the torn flesh.

"Then we should go, and fast," Zhura said.

Later, Zhura, Bayati and Hani hastened through dusty streets, knowing Nyoki was due at the Orchid at nightfall. The main byways were lightly used now, with markets thinning out, and day laborers finishing their work.

"How will you convince her?" Zhura asked Hani as they walked.

"It was something you said, actually. The fact that I am free is proof that we can defy Maiko's gang."

"That's why you wanted to bring Bluejar's mask."

"Yes," Hani said.

"We should consider what we will do," Bayati said, "if she says no."

Zhura hadn't wanted to think about that. They couldn't threaten or hurt the girl. Not only would it make them no better than the gang, it would surely alert Maiko that something was wrong.

"I just won't let her refuse," Hani said.

They had to get the information they needed tonight. If they didn't know where the thieves would strike, they couldn't enlist the aid of the Goldshields -- especially the guards back at Dugong Marsh. They had gifted Bluejar and his slavers to that post, and hoped those guardsmen wouldn't pass up another chance to capture criminals in the act.

As they climbed their way up the uneven road that led to the east end of Tanga District, Zhura squirmed under the robe she wore over her regular halter and skirt. It chafed and confined her flesh, so accustomed was she to the breath of open air. Her staff, however, felt like it belonged in her hands. It was comforting to be armed again.

Late afternoon sun glinted off the spear points and pot-shaped helmets of the Goldshields, as the guards let them through the district gate. The inhabitants of the eastern tip of Tanga would have had a commanding view over the bay, if not for the high walls, which looked to have been built to withstand an assault from the sea. However, now the stones appeared aged, pockmarked and blanched by the salt spray.

The women entered a market. Traders were closing their stalls, packing up their wares of cheap fabrics and hand tools. An empty stage was constructed at the center of the market, much like others where Zhura had witnessed actors performing plays.

"We can see Nyoki's place from here," Hani said, nodding towards a cluster of modest mud-brick homes.

The houses were free standing, without compound walls, though many had tiny gardens of vegetables and herbs adjacent to them. Zhura pulled up her cowl to cover her braids and shadow her face, as Hani scanned the sky. This eastern stretch of Namu already dipped into shadow, as the sun dropped beyond the hill and city walls.

"I will tell her," Hani said, "that I have joined the Shadow Jackals."

Zhura, scanning the street for a glimpse of green hair, turned back to Hani. "What?!"

"It is perfect. Nyoki knew I was trying to enlist the Jackals to help us before. How else could I have won free of Bluejar -- and beat him? I will tell her the Jackals already know about the heist. They know where the gang's lair is, and they'll grab Maiko himself within a couple of days. All they want from her is details about the ships. This is her only chance to be on the winning side. The same thing that happened to Bluejar will happen to Maiko's gang, whether she helps or not."

"And when the real Shadow Jackals find out that you're pretending to be them?" Bayati asked.

Hani shrugged. "I'm doing them a favor. If rumor says it was them that won back the Orchid, their reputation grows. You all remain safely unknown."

"There she is," Zhura whispered.

The slight woman exited the house. Her robe and side wrap, the colors of ochre and honey, contrasted strikingly with the bright plaited hair within her cowl. She set a basket atop her head and hurried... east.

"She's going the wrong way," Bayati observed. The three women trailed Nyoki, with Zhura hanging back to make sure they weren't being followed.

A bizarre building of coral ragstone towered over the eastern wall of the district. It was shaped roughly like joined termite mounds, or conical spires, with steps that climbed to entrances halfway up the steep slope of the edifice. A paved courtyard and low, ornamental wall surrounded the building. Statues of human figures in dancing and cross-legged seated poses perched upon the wall. Grass and shrubs sprouted between the stones, giving an appearance of age and infrequent use.

"It is a Bhataguran temple," Hani said, as they slowed.

Nyoki entered the empty courtyard, set down her basket, and kneeled. She seemed to be praying. Zhura wondered if the girl was tormented by the thought that she was helping thieves to rob her friends. Zhura nodded to the others, remaining behind. She concealed herself near the pillars of a public bath, where a group of fat, graying men relaxed in the steaming pool.

Her two friends enter the temple yard. Nyoki looked up in surprise to see Hani, and the three women began to talk. Before long, Nyoki was shaking her head in denial. Hani pressed on. She and Bayati had artfully positioned themselves to block Nyoki's exit.

Bayati held up Bluejar's mask. The once meek Kichinka woman had a surprising resolve. Was it months of facing danger and hardship that had toughened Bayati? Or had there always been more to the woman?

Nyoki shrank, like an antelope cornered by hunters. The sag in the woman's posture was apparent even from a distance. Finally, she stopped shaking her head, and began to talk at length. They conversed a bit more. Then Hani and Bayati let the woman hurry away.

When Nyoki was gone, Zhura met the other women outside the temple.

"It's done," Hani said, rehashing the encounter. "She told us the ship names, everything."

"How sure is she that the gang will actually attempt the heist?"

"Sure. Maiko told her to invite all of her friends to the Orchid on the night of Jumanne. That's when the gang will strike. The night before the ships are set to sail."

Relief soothed Zhura's weary mind. But it was already nightfall. "Good. Go back to the house, and pass the information to Ngo, so that he can take it to Dugong Marsh.

"Now," Zhura sighed, eyeing the darkening sky, "I have to meet a demon."

*

The next night, Zhura rolled over, yet again, willing herself to sleep. Next to her in the bed, Kaj and Amina snored softly. Both of them had been exhausted lately, and Zhura was loathe to wake them.

Kaj, in particular, had been frustrated by his approaches to the other Houses to raise funds. Thus far, no noble House was willing to offer them more than one hundred shujaa in the six days that they had remaining. Worse, he didn't like the obligation to his forge that came with that proposed loan.

Life in the city was much like sharing this new bed with her expecting friends. Beyond doubt, it was exciting. She had seen wonders beyond imagination, and met one intriguing person after another.

And yet, none of it was comforting. None of it felt secure.

Just as Amina had said, this plan of taking down a gang of thieves could go wrong in so many ways. Who could be trusted? Would the Shadow Jackals become their new foes? Was Hani manipulating Zhura and her friends for her own ends?

It was a wonder anyone got a good night's sleep in Namu.

And Zhura needed a night's sleep. Tomorrow -- Jumanne -- the two ships would be loaded in port, and then moved away from the docks to prepare to set sail the following day. Hani guessed the heist would take place sometime during the evening or night, while the dhows were at anchor away from the docks. Most of the crew would still be on shore, enjoying their last night in the city, and it would be difficult for anyone to see the theft or aid to the guards that remained on board.

Zhura also needed sex. She had spent much of the day along the shore. She, Bayati and Hani had located the targeted dhows using Nyoki's information, and watched them pull into the port for loading the next day. Ngo had left for the Dugong Marsh farming settlement that morning. Mili was still in the Hazard, watching Maiko and the Orchid. The demon had been late to meet her the previous night, and when she parted ways with it, Mili had not demanded sex, or even seemed interested. What else did demons care about?

All of which left Zhura's needs neglected. Certainly, she could please herself, but...

She stiffened. A figure pushed aside the hanging hides that covered the doorway to the main yard. Once the dim light from the outside was cut off again, it was completely dark. Zhura detected the faint but familiar scent of hibiscus.

"Bayati?"

Her spirits leapt.

Ngo was away, leaving Bayati alone. She had been pensive and quiet all day. Was it possible that the Kichinka woman wished to explore something further? Zhura shivered at the thought. Finally...

"Shh." Bayati whispered. "There is someone on the wall next to the gate, watching us."

"What?" Zhura sat up.

"I noticed him when I went to the privy. I don't think he knows I saw him."

Zhura glanced at the couple in bed beside her. Kaj groaned and shifted, but it seemed they were both still asleep.

"I don't want to frighten him off, Zhura. I want to catch him. If someone is on to us, we need to know who."

Zhura nodded, though of course Bayati wouldn't be able to tell. "Stay here. Keep them safe. I will visit the privy."

Naked, she padded to the doorway and pushed through to the inner yard. Zhura stood on the lintel, rubbing her eyes and stretching as she scanned the walls. The yard was mostly dark shapes and shadow under the starlight. A few dim embers glowed in the firepit. She detected nothing out of place.

She walked across the yard to the hut they used as a privy. As her feet swished through the fresh reeds on the ground, she strained to hear or see any threat. A candle burned next to the hut. Zhura didn't look directly at it, to keep from being light-blinded.

She stepped into the little hut. Certain she was being watched, Zhura coughed and ducked behind the doorjamb. Then she peered out again and waited. She wondered how Bayati had seen anything in such gloom.

A couple of minutes passed before she saw it. An ooze of shadow, a blot of darkness that seemed to spread from the far corner of the yard, before Zhura recognized it as a human figure.

The person slunk past the firepit, across the yard, towards the doorway of Amina and Kaj's bedchamber. There it dropped down again, disappearing behind the woodpile against the wall to lie in wait.

The only other person in the compound was Hani, and she was in one of the small huts. Whoever this was, they appeared to be interested in someone or something in the bedroom. As much as Zhura wanted to find out what that was, she didn't want to put the others in more danger.

She cleared her throat and poured water from the cleansing pot, making sure the spatter of it was audible. There was a small jar of palm oil in the privy. She poured that out and clenched the pot in her fist. She walked back towards the bedroom. When the person sprang at her, she was ready for it.

She wasn't ready for the knife.

Zhura saw the blade at the last moment, when starlight glinted from its edge. She twisted away from the weapon. As the man lunged past her, she smashed the ceramic vessel against the hunch of his back. Unfortunately, she was aiming for his head. He slashed at her, slashed again backhand, forcing her away.

Zhura swore at herself. She was weak and slow. It had been too long since she'd had her vigor up; over a day since she'd been with Mili. Even so, with her staff, she was certain she'd be able to best this man. He was thin and wiry. Good with his blade, but it offered him little additional reach.

She scrambled back, feet light on the bare ground, looking for an opening. She needed a weapon.

She forgot the fire pit. As her heel knocked against the iron claw, the man lunged again. Zhura turned, hooking his arm as she fell. They both went down.

Side by side, they wrestled for the blade. She saw him now, snaggle-toothed, skin banded by black stripes of paint or charcoal. He smelled rank, unwashed. She grabbed his wrist in both hands, flinching away as he cuffed her on the side of the face.

Perhaps she lacked great strength or speed. But she was raised by a warrior and his two sons, and taught how to fight.

Zhura rolled towards him, pinning his knife arm underneath her. She drove her elbow into his ribs. She had to get the knife. She'd almost pried it from his fingers-

He froze. His muscles relaxed. Zhura snatched the knife away, and was about to put it to his throat when she realized that the beak of Bayati's mambele blade was already jabbing into that soft flesh. The Kichinka woman glared at him with pitiless eyes, lips twisted in a silent snarl.