Chapter 9
A distant scream pierced the air. He caught sight of Luo warriors doing battle at the base of the hill. Their ostrich-feathered headdresses gleamed in the sun. They swung their short stabbing swords at hordes of tall, war-painted fighters. The Lang’o troops. Heads clean shaven. Teeth sharpened. Skins coated in pale grey-white ash. They looked like lanky ghosts walking abroad in the daytime. And, like ghosts, they seemed unafraid of death.
His frustration mounted as he watched. The Luo warriors crouched beneath tall, wide buffalo shields. Their levelled spears met and repulsed wave after wave of Lang’o fury. He felt helpless. He itched to go down there. Where the fighting was most fierce. That was where he belonged. His closest friends were dying in battle while he stood watching. But he knew that those were not his orders. His orders were to stand at the top of the hill and protect the archers. He felt the weight of the two buffalo-hide-covered screens that he held in either hand. He wasn’t used to bearing shields. He’d never needed them before. But they were not for him. They were for the archers that crouched behind him.
There were seven of them. Expert marksmen. Each one of them carried a hardwood bow. Small quivers were strung around their waists. Poison-tipped arrows rested on the bowstrings. They all huddled behind Luyanda and his shields. These seven were at the heart of the afternoon’s proceedings. They were the reason he was standing still and not engaging the enemy, like the rest of his unit.
“Magere!”
He spun around. Somehow he knew that the name called out was his. A familiar whistling noise caught his attention. The fresh-faced young lad crouching behind him pointed at the sky. Magere’s eyes flicked upwards. A dark cloud whizzed towards them. It was a salvo of Lang’o arrows.
“Cover!” Magere bellowed.
He stretched out his arms crosswise. With his long arms held wide apart, the edge of each screen touched his sides. The seven archers huddled together within the shadow of Magere and his twin shields. They made it by a hair’s breadth. Dozens of arrows smashed into the tough buffalo hide. They smashed into Magere’s chest. They rammed into his face. They slammed into his legs. Each arrow bounced off. Some of them snapped. A few embedded themselves in the shields. None of them penetrated Magere’s skin.
Magere looked in the direction that the volley had come from. The Lang’o bowmen stood some distance away from the hill. They had kept up a steady barrage of arrows against him and the Luo marksmen huddled behind him. His eyes moved across the battlefield, seeking his unit. He spotted them. They were closer to him now. At the base of the hill there was a narrow ravine. It was the only point where the shrubs were thin enough to allow a rapid passage to the top. The Lang’o army congregated there, like ants drawn to a carcass. Magere’s unit formed a wall of shields and held them off.
“Okello, are you ready?” he asked.
“Not yet,” the fresh-faced lad replied. He was short and well-built. He looked about the same age as Magere. Nineteen.
“Swap arrows. Use the Lang’o ones. Save yours,” Okello ordered the marksmen. The seven archers with him scrambled over the rough rocks and patches of grass around them. They gathered up the Lango’s arrows and fanned out in a straight line.
“Marksmen!” Okello called out. “Ready!”
Their movements were swift. Each archer fitted an arrow onto their sinew-stringed hardwood bows.
“I count ten officers still standing,” Okello shouted. “Choose your targets.” The Luo archers took aim. Magere’s eyes swept across the battlefield below them. The Lang’o officers wore thin, cowrie-shell necklaces. Nothing else distinguished them. He wondered how the marksmen could make them out amid all the bedlam. But, then again, they were the best of the best.
“Fire!”
Seven hardwood bows sang. Seven Lang’o officers fell. Arrows sticking out of their chests, they fell where they stood. No throes. No shouts. No screams of anguish. Only quick and quiet death. Magere marvelled at how well trained the Luo snipers were. They were outstanding for their accuracy and their vision. The best of the best.
“Defence!” Okello barked.
The Luo marksmen bunched together. Magere raised his shields. They cast a long shadow behind him. The marksmen huddled within it.
“Magere,” Okello said, “we need your eyes.”
Magere peered out at the bottom of the hill. “They’ve regrouped,” he said.
“And their officers?”
“Forget their officers,” Magere answered. “They need us at the wall.”
“The wall will hold,” Okello answered. “We have our orders.”
“But they’re being overrun!”
“Cover us,” Okello answered. He spun around. “Archers, load!”
There was a loud crash from the base of the hill. Magere froze in horror. He peered down the ravine. Lang’o warriors swarmed up the hill like ants.
They had breached the wall.