24 - Lone survivors

Chapter 24 (Lone Survivors)

Tsote did not move. He could not leave. He needed to wait a little longer to be sure. Fortunately, a figure of a tattered man with scratches and an empty pack of bows, the last in his hand staggers out from the fog.  Tsote squinted just to be sure one of the guards survived if it was not Renso himself. 

He walked a bit closer in confusion only to make out the figure of Renso his trainer! The man was wounded and unable to make it all the way out of the fog. In the depth of the fog, the ghost Kurota still grumbled for the loss. The snout and snarling, Tsote could hear. Renso was running but weak and unable to stay on his feet. Tsote saw him stumble and fall a few feet away from him. 

The arrow fell out from his hands and he had black owl feather pierced here and there across his arms and back. Tsote reaches to his sides and loosens the leather water bag he carried off his waist. He runs to him and hands him the leather bag. Renso recognized him and took it. He emptied the bag o the last few gulps but this he did not drop. Tsote picks him up. 

“What are you still here for?” Renso asked the moment he found his breath but this came with such bitterness. “You must be very far away from here by now…!”

“I, I couldn’t leave you…” Tsote stammered under his weight.

“Fool…” Renso Vangi replied spitting blood and pulling himself up properly to avoid his support. He always wanted to show those he trained he had no weakness but he did like every other human. He turned to him with a frown.

“You wore the beads and I thought I was clear…”

This is when Tsote looks down at his chest and sees the bead. He had forgotten how serious Renso was when he was trying to defend him. He recalled the beads attracted the ghost Kurota to him. And they were still glowing around his neck. Before he knew it, Renso reached out and tried to pull them off his neck but they burned his hand.

 “Please don’t…” Tsote told Renso when his hands took hold of the beads “Oh sorry-“

“What does he want with us…!” The beads asked Tsote.

“Don’t do that again…” Tsote barked at the beads.

“Renso stepped back terrifically dropping the empty leather bag of water. He thought Tsote was talking to him.

“No, no no…” Came Tsote stepping towards him. 

“Stop there-!” Renso interrupted lifting a hand to stop him from getting any nearer. “That thing…”

“I did not intend to-“

“No, he cannot touch us…!” came the beads to Tsote’s mind but he tried his best to ignore them. They grumbled the more while him though in response to them.

“They, they are just magical and only did that for my safety. Mama Erusa said-” Tsote told Renso quickly.

Renso staggers back but before he could fall, Tsote rushed forwards and grabbed him again. He did not resist Tsote again. “It’s too cold…!” is all Tsote heard Renso utter while he led him back from the fog to an open ground with trees seemingly grown in a circle. He let him down and unwrapped his scarf from his neck. Placed it around him and there after turned away in a hurry. 

“Return to Marakusha at once…”

“I’m not leaving without you…”

“It’s an order boy…!” Renso spoke strongly. 

“Not any more… training ended. The games are on.”

”I only listen to my beads now…” Tsote responded with his back on Renso. 

“What do you mean?” Renso asked shivering and his lips chattering. Tsote saw him and immediately started away again with a simple conclusion

“It’s complicated then…” Tsote responded walking away again. “I thought you knew earlier.”

“Where to then…?”

“We need to light a fire for you to stay warm! Then we shall wait until you can walk…” He 

“Here…!” came Renso. “-we can’t risk the spread of the fog.”

“The fog doesn’t grow in the night when there is no moon light it stops with the glow of day light…” He told Renso after the beads.

Renso looked dumb from what the boy just told him. Before he could reply, Tsote was gone. It was dusk and the light was almost gone totally. Tsote checked the edges of the forest two yards in three directions around the spot; they would camp exactly as Renso trained them. While he collected, dry twigs he would use for a fire came to stream of water. He took out the leather water bag and filled it.

He returned to where Renso was but still confused and unsure if they would locate their way out from this place. The path was lost starting from the moment they exited the fog. Whatever happened, he had no idea. When he asked the beads they told him where the fog passes human paths tend to fade in the nights when there is no moon light compared to when the moon shines.

“When the sun rises, the fog rises into a cloud over the forest and the paths will be visible again,” They told him as he made his way back to Renso.

He lit the fire without saying a word to Renso. Renso did not say anything too. Renso took a piece of the twigs in his hands and lit by rubbing the tips of his fingers and which glowed like amber setting the piece of wood ablaze. Tsote did not expect this. He looked puzzled. 

“How did you do that…?”

“Mama Erusa taught me…”

“Mama Erusa…”

“You and Mama Erusa…?” came Tsote cupping his knees with his arms close to the fire. “I never saw the two of you talking. Even once!

“There is a lot you don’t know.”

“How much… She told me the beads knew everything and yet…?” came Tsote changing his statement into a question to the beads. “Why. You never told me he knew magic.”

Renso looked puzzled…

“Who…?”

“Oh. The beads.” came Tsote. 

“We knew the moment he touched us. But I found no threat in him and I only answer to what is directly asked of me.”

“So you talk to your mother’s beads…?”

“They are mine now…” came Tsote his stomach grumbling.

“I lost all our food reserves on the animal…” came Renso. “Maybe when the fog rises tomorrow morning, we shall find something.”

“I’m fine…” came Tsote even though clearly was not. “I just need to know-“

“What did Mama Erusa tell you? And how did you find her trust to teach you magic.”

“She was a very confidential person but when two broken people meet, experiences tend to bond them…” Renso told him. Tsote believed this. However, he took up his leather water sack and tearing a piece of cloth from his clothes started washing it. 

“Father told me you had an accident… which caused the loss of your talent.”

“I don’t want to talk about that…?”

“Okay well, he said you commanded the King’s she Kurota Hunters while you still possessed your talent and control over your Kurota….”

“Yes I did…”

“Mama Erusa possessed her Kurota to her death day. How you and she were friends in secret s very hard to understand…”

“Did Thalko say that?” Came Tsote wringing the cloth of the remaining water in it.

“No this way.” Tsote responded adding with a stammer. “-but whoever knows what you were the past and who she was or what she had within her, anyone would have wonder about your relationship with her I tell you…”

“I did not hunt for the young girls in possession of their Kurotas because I wanted to but because it was my duty and I needed to gain ranking in the army which I did attain. Unfortunately I did not last long as chief commander of the King’s archery army.” Renso told him.

“Why…”

“The accident happened and…” he spoke with pain. The night was on them by now and Tsote prayed nothing sneaked up on them while they slept in the night. He trusted the beads though. Beside that, he felt strong with Renso and as he listened, the fire chuckled on and bits of sparks rose into the trees above. Renso added. “I had to leave to find healing. The loss of control of my Kurota was going to become my greatest shame.”

“You needed Olko magic.” Came Tsote pausing for a moment to listen to whatever he had to say next.

“I needed the Shorango people’s assistance… but they weren’t a people easy to find in those days and we had many differences with them. I moved from village to village in search for them. Days became nights, nights turned into months and seasons. Until I met young, Lady in a village west of Mountain Kirimanjo who knew informed a medicine woman. She led me to the shelter of a strange blind Yakunko storyteller of the edges of the village.”

 “Who was she…? Mama Erusa?” Came Tsote now wetting the cloth again and picking up his leather water pack, started towards Renso.

“Exactly…And the girl that led me to her was her daughter. Sakitha.”

“So you did not kill her as the rules were required because she had child…” Tsote concluded before Renso even could.

“I could not… but I was glad to meet Sakitha. But she could not believe I was her father until later as I taught her the secrets of the bow and arrow.” Came Renso just when he saw Tsote standing up and shifting towards him with the wet cloth. He just washed with half the water he had in his leather water bag. “Wait, what are you up to?”

“I want to clean your wound…” 

“You aren’t a medicine man or woman boy. Stay back…!”

“We have to do this. You taught us how to…”

Renso looked at Tsote for a few seconds without showing any sign he would let him. Tsote paused and they looked at each other. Renso wondered!

“You don’t have to trust my skill but we both know I performed better in everything else where the Kurota wasn’t required…

It was true and Renso knew this. Why then not let the boy practice what he taught him? He thought to himself and in the end turned over to expose the wounded side of his back and ribs.

“Okay…” came Tsote.

There was a long moment of silence but this whole time, Tsote never saw a moment when the man flinched in pain. Nevertheless, Tsote did not dare to ask what he felt. He knew one thing from Thalko. That Renso was the bravest of team back then.

“How did you meet Mama Erusa?”

“Thalko’s father Mufaro had two children and did not wish to kill his daughter. My father was a hermit far away in the western jungles and few people rarely went there. He and Thalko’s father were good friends. Therefore, Thalko’s father Mufaro requested my father to train his daughter in secret knowing it was against the Yakunko customs. In exchange, Mufaro Promised to get me to the top of the warrior Ranks which he did.”

“Many times at the end of every season, I left the Kurotandi training and went home to see my father. That is how I meet Thalkona Erusa. With time, we became good friends. After all we were the same age.” Renso explained continuing. “However, Mama Erusa’s Kurota wasn’t allowing her control. She could not survive under direct day light by the time she turned fifteen. However, this did not stop our relationship. I loved her and she loved me back!”

“When the Kurotandi training ended, I returned home. Mufaro said he would summon for me. It was during that period, Mama Erusa got child. Nevertheless, I did not know until later. The news, I learned from my father but he was rebuking me for having got her pregnant. However, those Mufaro sent to fetch me saw her and that was the start of her troubles to survive.” 

“You did well, because her survival is what led to the discovery of the greatest story teller of this generation…I loved her.” Tsote said.

“She disappeared when I became captain of the King’s She Kurota hunting team. And it’s on the same day when I got this title that she disappeared from father’s place. When the elder’s heard that Thalko’s father Mufaro had a daughter raised with her Kurota, they voted him out from the position of commander in chief of the royal armies. All the same, he was ready to retire from service. Unfortunately, he never got back to Marakusha well because the Tzavoku attacked and murdered him using new comer’s fire arms.”

“Father never told me about Mufaro…” Tsote reveals.

“Well he prefers never to… because it still hurts him more than anything else till this day. However, when Erusa heard about her father’s death, she came to Sambura the very first and very last time I thought I spotted her. Later she said she did come.”

“I understand...” Tsote replied.

“Now my arms were rotting when I lifted them to hug her.”

“So she’s the one who bandaged your arms like that…” Tsote asked.

“Yes, Using M’zowa tree fruits peelings and some other herbs… -well, which stopped the rotting and the paralysis. I could feel nothing by the time I found her…”

“M’zowa Fruit? Mmm!” Tsote thought before he asked again. “And the magic you just did…?” came Tsote. “It’s unheard of for a Yakunko in possession of a Kurota to possess the ability to magic.”

“Our Kurota gifts no longer manifest.” Renso Vangi replied. “But she spent years looking for you. Telling stories became the technique to get you close. But found no success until she came to Marakusha.”

“How did she know I was in Marakusha if she could not see?”

“The beads. Your mother’s beads. The moment she placed them on the ground as she always does wherever she goes.”

“You never told me anything…” Tsote stated as though to blame him.

“I knew you were a Halfling child because Thalko told me and requested me to keep an eye on you for him…” Renso Vangi replied defensively. “Until Mama Erusa asked for a halfling child living in Marakusha. She said she knew your mother and that she had an inheritance to pass down to you.”

“Is that why you let me meet her before she died.?”

“Yes.” Renso Vangi replied. “But for the past years, I could not because Chief Thalko trusted me your safety. He also distrusted his sister when she returned. He said she wasn’t the same and smelt Shorango.”

“Life has been so uneasy for me. You knew and should have told me all this...” Tsote confessed emotionally.

“What would you have done about it?” Renso strongly asked him.

“I, I don’t know…” Tsote stammered.

“Nothing!” Renso repeated after him and added. “You were only five years old when I brought her back to Marakusha to see her Brother on last time… And I don’t think you understood much at that age.”

“I had many questions and no one was there to answer them.” Tsote said.

“You had rules to follow from your caretaker and these rules I Promised Thalko I would make sure you followed in honor of my position as New Master of the Kurotandi.”

Tsote pulled back to lean against a dead log behind him. He remained silent for a while because he was getting to figure out everything that has been there behind his back all these years. Renso looked at him speechlessly and said.

“I have told you everything… won’t you reveal anything about your adventure to the top of the Olko hill…?”

“I will when everything is fine…”

“My daughter Sakitha has attempted to cross the fog several times but she has always been threatened by the same monster Kurota but was always saved by the white owls. Did you not meet the owls? The Shorango people or Olkai the wise Owl? Anything?”

“It’s a long story and you need rest…”

“I’m worried...”

“About…”

“The Kurotandi game…” came Tsote. “How I shall I be recognized as a Yakunko without having participated?”

“Even if you do participate, there is a challenge that requires you your Kurota. We both know you have not superseded that stage from day one of training.” Renso told him adding. “However, I do not mean you are done for! You still got a few more hours.”

“But I have Olko beads and they…” came Tsote just when he came to a halt!

“Thalko will be annoyed to see you in the games without your Kurota. It’s attempting suicide…”

“You need to join the games…” came the beads. “It’s your best chance to accomplish your assignment master…”

“You have a plan…?” Tsote asked aloud.

“A plan?” came Renso adding “What plan? Don’t you dare think of returning there and joining the games? Tomorrow is the finals. The hardest stage of the games and you…?”

“Together we can…” came the beads. “You only need to get back to Marakusha. Also… there must be someone to assist us. Renso went quiet for a moment trying to understand whether Tsote was talking to him or not. Until he realized the boy was talking to his beads.

“I know but its pitch darkness out there and we cannot find our way…” Tsote replied with worry in his tone.

“You alone and I.” Came the beads strongly adding. “Besides that, we know the way out from here the moment you are ready…” 

“And my friend…?” came Tsote in surprise.

“Your friend?” came the beads. “Who exactly? Him…?”

“He can assist me…”

“Not him….” came the beads in disagreement. “-he is no longer capable with all those wounds.” The beads replied in his mind.

“I can’t leave him here…” Tsote replied in a whisper trying to ensure Renso did not tap the argument.

“What are you doing…?” came Tsote.

“Okay then, the moment he falls asleep, you leave!” The beads spoke adding. “We could have quickened this but you don’t what’s required…”

“Okay, yes … I can wait.” Tsote replied in a whisper.

“Wait…?” came Renso. The only word he heard. “Wait for what exactly?”

“Until you get fine.” 

What Tsote responded left little curiosity? And as the hours deepened into the night, Renso remained awake.  He was used to this. He stayed awake long into the night. And the beads were keen to warn Tsote not to move. Fortunately, some white owl appeared from the sky and perched on in the trees high above them. The owl resembled the Olko children. 

The owl hooted over them. Renso glanced up into the trees and saw it but he could not do anything about it. He disliked the sound they made but today he could not stand up or pick up a rock to hurl at the owl as he always did in Marakusha because an owl resembling this often came and perched on top Thalko’s Shelter after midnight.

The moment Renso tried awaking him to help chase the owl away, Tsote pretended to be in deep sleep. The owl hooted and hooted. This time its cries sent Renso into a drowse and before Tsote knew it, he was snoring!