Assegai

He felt Manyoro stir on his back, and then, incredibly, the Masai began to sing. At first Leon could not recognize the words, for Manyoro’s voice was a wispy breath, light as the dawn breeze in the savannah grass. Then his fatigue-dulled mind echoed the words of the Lion Song. Leon’s grasp of Maa, the language of the Masai, was rudimentary – Manyoro had taught him the little he knew. It was a difficult language, subtle and complicated, unlike any other. However, Manyoro had been patient and Leon had a gift for languages.

The Lion Song was taught to the young Masai morani at his circumcision class. The initiates accompanied it with a stiff-legged dance, bounding high into the air, as effortlessly as a flock of birds taking flight, their red toga-like shuka cloaks spreading like wings around them.

We are the young lions.
When we roar the earth shivers.
Our spears are our fangs.
Our spears are our claws.
Fear us, O ye beasts.
Fear us, O ye strangers.
Turn your eyes away from our faces, you women.
You dare not look upon the beauty of our faces.
We are the brothers of the lion pride.
We are the young lions.
We are the Masai

.

It was the song the Masai sang when they went out to plunder the cattle and women of lesser tribes. It was the song they sang when they went out to prove their valour by hunting the lion with nothing but the stabbing assegai in their hands. It was the song that gave them stomach for battle. It was the battle hymn of the Masai. Manyoro began the chorus again and this time Leon joined in, humming under his breath when he could not recall the words. Manyoro squeezed his shoulder and whispered in his ear, ‘Sing! You are one of us. You have the heart of the lion and the strength of a great black mane. You have the stomach and heart of a Masai. Sing!’

They staggered on towards the south. Leon’s legs kept moving, for the song’s chorus was mesmerizing. His mind veered wildly between reality and fantasy. On his back he felt Manyoro slump into coma. He stumbled on but now he was not alone. Beloved and well-remembered faces appeared out of the darkness. His father and four brothers were there, egging him onwards, but as he drew closer to them they receded and their voices faded. Each slow, heavy pace reverberated through his skull, and sometimes that was the only sound. At others he heard myriad voices shouting and ululating, the music of drums and violins. He tried to ignore the cacophony, for it was pushing him to the edge of sanity.

He shouted to drive away the phantoms: ‘Leave me alone. Let me pass!’ They sank away, and he went onwards until the rim of the rising sun broke clear of the escarpment. Abruptly his legs went from under him and he collapsed as though he had been shot in the head.

The heat of the sun on the back of his shirt goaded him awake, but when he tried to lift his head he dissolved into vertigo, and could not remember where he was or how he had got there. His sense of smell and his hearing were tricking him now: he thought he could detect the odour of domestic cattle and their hoofs plodding over the hard ground, their mournful lowing. Then he heard voices – children’s – calling shrilly to each other. When one laughed, the sound was too real to have been fantasy. He rolled away from Manyoro and, with a huge effort, raised himself on one elbow. He gazed around with bleary eyes, squinting in the glare of bright sunlight and dust.

He saw a large herd of multi-hued and humpbacked cattle with spreading horns. They were streaming past the spot where he and Manyoro lay. The children were real too: three naked boys, carrying only the sticks with which they were herding the cattle towards the waterhole. He saw that they were circumcised, so they were older than they appeared, probably between thirteen and fifteen. They were calling to each other in Maa, but he could not understand what they were saying. With another huge effort Leon forced his aching frame into a sitting position. The tallest boy saw that movement and stopped abruptly. He stared at Leon in consternation, clearly on the point of flight but controlling his fear as a Masai who was almost a morani was duty-bound to do.

‘Who are you?’ He brandished his stick in a threatening gesture but his voice quavered and broke.

Leon understood the simple words and the challenge. ‘I am not an enemy,’ he called back hoarsely. ‘I am a friend who needs your help.’