Ras stood up, somewhat shakily, and walked along the wall until he came to the south gate, which was still open. He peeked around its corner. Wuwufa's hut was completely on fire; its flames enfolded the branch above it. No one was in sight except Wuwufa, who sat on the ground and stared at the blaze. Even the babies were at the river.
Ras came up behind the old man and tapped him on the shoulder. Wuwufa jerked and gasped and then looked up. His eyes became huge; his jaw dropped.
"You caused Wilida to be burned," Ras said.
Wuwufa quivered and tried to get off his haunches. Ras struck him on the jaw with his foot, the sole of which was so deeply callused that it was like iron. Unconscious, Wuwufa fell backward. His jaw was askew, and blood ran from his mouth. Ras put his knife back in its sheath and picked the old man up. He raised him above his head, walked as close to the doorway of the hut as the heat would permit, and hurled Wuwufa through the flaming entrance. A few seconds later, the roof fell in and then the walls.
Ras looked into the Great House first. The only occupants were the corpses and Gubado's head. There was no sign of Yusufu nor any indication that he had ever been in the Great House. Ras took a torch from a pile against the wall and touched it off against the low fire in a large, shallow, stone bowl. He upset the bowl against the wall and then set fire to the wall and hanging mats at several places.
Thereafter, as he searched each house, he kicked over the fire-bowls and applied the torch. He worked swiftly, because the Wantso would soon see the fires. If Bigagi was as intelligent as he thought, Bigagi would send men around to the other gates before entering the north gate.
The chickens and goats and hogs were terrified. The chickens were running and squawking every which way except that which would have led them to safety, out through the gates. After huddling together near a hut that was as yet unburning, the goats followed an old billy out the south gate. The hogs hurled themselves against the sides of the pens. Ras considered for a second releasing them, then decided that it would take too long. He did not have much time left. Even above the bedlam of the animals, he could hear a change in the voices of the Wantso by the river. They had suddenly found out that their village was burning down. He did not have much time left.
Three houses were still not touched off. He ran into one and, seeing a bow and quiver of arrows, remembered that he had ditched his in the river. He strung the bow, and slid the quiver over one shoulder and the bow over the other. He held the torch with his left hand and the knife in his right. And, as he started to leave the hut, he just had time to get into a knife-throwing position. A man, screaming with insane fury, burst into the hut and launched his spear at Ras.
There was not much room to dodge inside the hut. Ras threw the knife and at the same time began his forward fall. The knife hurtled into the solar plexus of Pathapi, and the spear struck Ras on the top of his head. Its point slid along his scalp; its butt came down and rapped him sharply. Ras jumped up, jerked the knife out of Pathapi, and then wiped the blood away from his eyes. It was streaming down blindingly.
Pathapi must have been so eager because he was trying to show his fellows that he was not a coward, even if he had deserted his post earlier in the evening. Also, this was Pathapi's hut, and almost any man will become a lion when he defends his home. Or so it seemed to Ras. But Pathapi had worked his courage into a frenzy and so had attacked Ras stupidly, when he should have waited outside and speared Ras as he stepped through the doorway. Ras wiped some more blood away, fitted an arrow to his bow, and ran out. The fire by this time was so hot that he could not have stayed in a second longer, even if he had wished to. Outside, the smoke had filled the space between the walls, and he could see nothing except the flames of the huts. His eyes burned, and he began coughing. He got down on all fours to crawl under the cloud, and as he did so, he saw the legs of men coming through the south gateway.
The blood blinded him again, and he scooped up mud where an overturned pot had fallen on the dirt and plastered this on his head to stop the flow of blood. Then he refitted the bow with an arrow and, though his eyes watered, aimed at a point above the nearest of the approaching legs. There was a screech, the legs moved backward, and the body of a man, the arrow sticking from his chest, was on the ground. The other legs turned and ran through the gateway. The gate swung shut. Although the smoke was too thick for him to see the other gates, he supposed that they, too, would be closed. He was trapped inside the village, the heat increasing, the smoke sinking toward the ground.
He crawled to the wall and pressed his face against the earth and lay there the rest of the night, waiting. The smoke never quite entirely encoiled him, nor did the heat become unendurable. The huts burned swiftly, and the walls did not catch fire. The top of his head felt as if it had caught fire under the mud, but he ground his teeth together and did not cry out. He became very thirsty; his mouth felt as if a river of ants was drinking every particle of moisture within his pores.
The sun rose. The smoke was gone, except for pale phantoms rising from the mounds of ashes that had been the huts and the Great House. His body was gray-black with smoke; his eyes felt as hot as the ashes looked. He rubbed off some of the dried mud on top of his head. It was reddish-black with blood under the gray ash covering.
The sun rose higher. His thirst increased. The odor of smoke and of burned flesh hung like the breath of Death over the charred walls. The man he had shot had been unrecognizable because of the smoke, but the sun did not enlighten Ras. The face was a gray mask.
Ras barred the gates, one by one. If the Wantso wished to come in after him, they would have to scale the walls now. There were shouts outside, and then the sound of wood being piled against the walls, and the crack of axes. At first, he thought that they meant to burn down the walls, but presently he saw Bigagi's head thrust above the south gate, and he knew that they had piled wood to climb up on.
Ras, standing in the exact center of the village, the blackened chief 's chair behind him, pointed an arrow at Bigagi. Bigagi withdrew his head. There were more shouts. Ras sat down in the chair and waited. Soon enough, they would attack from four points. He would kill a few, and then they would kill him.
How many men survived? He counted the dead again in his mind, and then he grinned. They had five left. These five would come over the wall after him, and, unless they were quick, they would not live to mutilate his corpse. Perhaps the women would come after him then.
The sun rose higher. He became thirstier. Noon came. The Wantso talked loudly outside the walls but no one called to him. He thought of the river and became even thirstier. Bigagi and two men climbed into trees to watch him. He yelled taunts at them until his throat closed up in dryness. He showed them the two spears, the axe, and the extra bow and arrows that he had taken from the man he had killed.
Presently, the three left the trees. Women, armed with bows, appeared in trees and shot at him. He did not move from his chair. The women were unused to bows; their arrows went wide. And for every arrow shot now, he had one more and they one less.
Then Bigagi's head arose above the south gate. Thaigulo's appeared at the west; Jabubi, Wilida's father, was at the north gate. Wakuba, a white-haired old man, was at the east. Ziipagu was climbing a tree, a bow and arrow strapped to his back, and cursing the women because they were useless.
Ras stood up and shot at Ziipagu. Because his hand shook from weariness and thirst, the arrow struck a foot above Ziipagu's head. Ziipagu yelled and dropped out of sight. Kanathi, the woman in the tree, dropped her bow and hid on the other side of the trunk.
Bigagi and the other men stood up, each with a bow ready to launch an arrow.
Ras shot first and then dropped onto the ground by the chair as soon as the arrow was well sent. His target had been Wakuba, the old man, because he thought that the old man would not be as swift as the others to duck. He thought correctly. Wakuba's arrow, like the others, missed, though two plunged into the ground a few feet from his legs and one struck t
he chair a glancing blow and slid off elsewhere. Wakuba was hit in the shoulder, and he spun around and fell back. The others fitted arrows again, but this time they did not shoot in unison. Ras dropped his bow and rolled across the ground away from the chair, then leaped up and dived back at the bow. The second volley had missed him, and now it was his turn by a few seconds.
Ziipagu's head appeared just in time to draw Ras's aim from Thaigulo. He spun and released the arrow with the unthinking smoothness and accuracy born of many, many long days of practice under Yusufu's unrelenting discipline. The arrow went through Ziipagu's throat to the feathers, and Ziipagu dropped.
The arrows missed Ras, although one buried its head into the ground so close that the shaft quivered against the inside of his calf. The men yelled with dismay; some of the women screamed. Bigagi raved, when he should have been shooting. Ras shook the arrow that he had saved for Bigagi and managed, despite his dry throat, to tell him that it was intended for him and him alone.
Suddenly, Ras dropped the bow, bent down, scooped up a spear, and ran at Jabubi. Jabubi stared at him for a while; his eyes were so wide that Ras could see the whites. Then Jabubi seemed to come out of his amazement, and he aimed an arrow. Ras ran straight at him until Jabubi released the shaft, and then he leaped to one side. Jabubi's arrow went wide, but two shot by others missed Ras by an inch and by two feet. Ras resumed his charge at Jabubi, who had time to draw another arrow and fit it to his bow. But he seemed clumsy. Perhaps the thought that the Ghost-Boy was intent on him, that the Ghost-Boy had so far managed to live and to burn down the village and kill most of the men made him shake. He dropped the arrow and stooped to pick it up, disappearing for a moment. When he straightened up, he saw the spear rushing along the downward leg of the arc at him.
He yelled and dropped the bow and arrow down along the wall into the village. He turned as if to run back down the pile of wood when he should have let his knees loose and slumped back down behind the wall. Thus, the spearhead entered through the muscle above the collarbone, and he slid on down the wood.
Ras picked up the bow and the arrow dropped by Jabubi, and he shot at Thaigulo. Thaigulo ducked. The arrow drove into the top of the pole, and its shaft broke off. Ras was breathing so heavily and his legs were so tired that he could only walk back to the chair and the weapons by its side. Bigagi shot twice at him; Ras continued to walk straight ahead. Both arrows whispered near him, but by this time he felt that he could not be stopped. Not, at least, by the Wantso. Perhaps by his own hunger, thirst, and exhaustion.
Thaigulo reappeared and shot twice also, and did not even come near Ras. Perhaps he felt as Ras did, that Ras was going to win. There was only himself and Bigagi left to fight the Ghost-Boy, and he may suddenly have felt deserted.
At that moment, the chop-chop-chop of the wings of the Bird of God came from the distance. Bigagi, Thaigulo, and Ras looked up into the sky. Then Ras looked away and took the arrow that had killed Mariyam and placed its nock on the string. He took careful aim at Bigagi, but Bigagi must have seen him out of the corner of his eye. He suddenly ceased to be a still target against the sky framed between two trees. He was gone behind the wall. Ras growled with disappointment, but waited for him to reappear.
Then the Bird was there. It flew just above the treetops and came over the river. It rose higher, stopped, and hovered. The Wantso screamed. Bigagi rose from behind the wall and shot quickly at Ras and dodged behind the wall. His arrow, too hastily launched, angled upward several feet above Ras's head.
There was a strange noise, a chatter-chatter. Chips flew from the tops of the poles behind which Bigagi had been standing. The Bird sank down, and Ras could see one of the masked angels clutching the end of two cylindrical contrivances. Fire spurted out of the end of each.
The Bird swung past the walls and then circled above the village. The chatter-chatter continued; the twin cylinders blew flame.
The Wantso women and children screamed and screamed.
Presently, there was silence. The Bird of God rose, and, flying only a few feet above the trees, which whipped in the air driven by its wings, disappeared. The chop-chop and the roar became fainter and then were gone.
Ras waited a while before opening the west gate. He swung the gates out slowly and looked out. The bodies of three women were outside the gate. They had great holes in their flesh. Blood was over them and the ground around them. The head of one woman was a shatter of bone and of flesh splashed with blood.
He stepped over and through the bodies to get to the river for a drink. By then, several large bodies of blood, like misshapen rafts, were drifting down the stream. A child, face down, floated by him as he scooped up water in his palm. His thirst washed away, he rose and painfully circled the village, starting along the south wall. Some of the Wantso lay on the ground where the invisible stones hurled from the cylindrical weapon of the Bird had caught them as they ran for the trees; the rest floated away down the river.
While he was going by the east gate, he saw a man slip from the bushes by the river about two hundred yards away. The man was Bigagi. He shoved a dugout from the bank, jumped in, and began paddling furiously down-river, his body bent forward against the winds of terror.
Ras watched him until he was out of sight. He felt nothing at this moment except a numbed wonder that Bigagi, who was responsible for all this, should escape. And after he had searched all around the village, he was sure that Bigagi was the only Wantso not dead.
Two ravens floated down from a high branch and hopped cautiously toward a baby. Its ribs were torn away on one side, and it was half-covered by ants. The first raven began to tear at the edges of the wound; the second pecked at an open eye. Soon enough the vultures would see and would settle down out of the skies, and jackals and hyenas would come loping toward the scent. These would have a feast until the leopards arrived with night, and even then the lesser carrion eaters might continue, since surely there was enough for all, for once.
Ras sat down in the mud of the bank. Except for the croaking of ravens and occasional flapping of wings and the cries of far-off birds, it was silent. He felt as empty as the silence. The mouths of the Wantso would never speak again. The only sound in them would be the buzz of flies, and then after a while even the flies would be gone.
He remembered that he had listened to the Wantso with such delight, as he hid in the bushes. He remembered exciting and interesting and funny conversations with Wilida, Fuwitha, Bigagi, and others. What a noise the villagers had made, the voices of men, women, children, and babies spiraling up like smoke from the jungle to the sky! Surely, Igziyabher must have sniffed the smoke of human voices; surely, He must have savored it, just as His son, hidden in the bushes, savored it.
Now, he had no one to talk to except Bigagi, no one anywhere in the world. And he could not talk with Bigagi. He must kill Bigagi. His hatred was gone. He did not even hate Bigagi any more. But he would have to kill Bigagi. If the desire for vengeance seemed gone, duty still remained.
He thought of Igziyabher. He was protecting His son. He had seen the fire in the village and He had sent angels in the Bird to rescue His son. For this, Ras was not grateful. He could have taken care of the men by himself, even if he was wounded and surrounded. Moreover, Bigagi would not then have escaped. Nor would the women and children have been killed. He could have become chief of the Wantso, and, after he had explained to the women why he had had to kill their men, he would have taken the women as wives. They would have had to accept him as a man, not a ghost, because he would have been the only man left to protect them, hunt for them, and bed them.
Or was that a dream that would have quickly died when a woman stabbed him as he slept? Perhaps the women would never have forgiven him for what he did, even if he could have done nothing else and it was the fault of the men that he had had to kill them. Perhaps he dreamed falsely. He would never know.
He rose and drank again from the river. Now, as if the river water had given him fluid for tears, he
wept. He wept for Mariyam and Yusufu, for Wilida, for the dead women and children, and, even, though he did not understand why, for the dead men and for Bigagi.
Most of all, it seemed to him, he was weeping for himself.
The others, except Bigagi, were past grief and pain. Ras was the unlucky one, because only he could grieve, and he had nothing left but grief.
After a while, his sorrow-twisted body could squeeze out no more tears, and the gash in his head reminded him that he was alive. He wanted to get rid of the pain, but he did not wish to do it by dying. Not even in the bottommost pain of sorrow had he really wanted to join the dead.
He washed the wound in his head and then, seeing that the blood had started again, repacked the wound with mud. He picked up some arrows the Wantso had dropped and swam the river, holding the quiver and bow above the water. His goal was a tree nest, where he would sleep tonight, or try to sleep, and tomorrow he would hunt for food.
Halfway to the nest, he had to sit down to rest with his back against a tree trunk. His muscles were quivering, and he felt dizzy and weak. It was then that he heard a rustle in the bushes, and he saw a white face looking at him through leaves. Hair shone yellow in the sunlight.
10
THE YELLOW-HAIRED ANGEL--OR DEMON
The angel--or demon--from the stiff-winged bird had come out with empty hands from the bushes. She was smiling; her teeth were even and white. She looked eerie, she was so pale, and her nose was so thin and high-bridged and her lips were so thin! Her eyes were as gray as the blade of his knife. Her body was clothed much as the body of the angel that had fallen from the burning Bird of God. The soft, brown material was so loose that he would not have known she was a woman, except that it was tight enough around the chest to hint at large, well-rounded breasts. Her feet and legs from the calf down were covered with cured hide of an animal. She wore a belt with two sheaths. One held a knife and the other contained a device of iron.