4 - Sambura city

Chapter 4 (Sambura City.)

The rest followed. The sun was glowing orange and warm against Tsote’s flesh from the west. Its light cast the caravan shadows away to their right where the crop fields began. Homestead women were already busy out into the fields working. Most of these were workers the king captured as criminals from other tribes. Thalko provided them a simple cluster of shelters long the edges of the fields a little away from the main homestead shelters.

The warmth of the early morning sun burnt life within his flesh making him feel so energized this early morning and the breeze swept across the fields into their sides taking the warriors dreads along like they were strand of light cloth. We had to make it across some bridge Renso Vangi said Thalko’s grandfather built so many years ago when they had just come into these parts. 

From there we started around The Olko hill. For the first time I, saw three outposts and they were sure unpassable. 

Beyond the Olko hill, the world opened up to reveal Moshuno plains. We were still up hill and the plains looked green and lively with cranes seated upon several dry tree of some sort scattered here and there. Nevertheless, the green was visible through a thin shade of grey fog he said was blown towards the plain from the hill causing a complication of imagery different from the reality.

“What’s the reality?”

“Wait until we get to the Moshuno plains.”

Soon the sound of the river was no longer in earshot…! And he slope grew flat. When a clearing came, we could no longer see the grey shade of mist. It was as if they had entered another completely different world. Because here, there sun did not shine and it could not be seen no more or its glow. The plain stretched out before them in grey unlike from the Olko hill’s slope. 

All of a sudden, everyone came to a halt with the sound of a horn from the head. Thalko and everyone stopped the caravan for a reason he had not seen yet. Before he could ask, Renso hurried and placed a finger against his lips hard. Silence! Why is the question he asked later but in a few seconds a school of eleven elephants ten with strange very dark skinned riders started though before them? The elephants were huge and their ivory tasks were ruined with paste. The riders were females and males and their bodies were composed of golden patches their eyes inclusive.

And they looked down at the Yakunko caravan towards them but then away at such a very slow pace and no word. They moved slowly. So no one moved for what seemed like years… 

“Are they the Shorango people?” Tsote asked in a whisper

“Yes…” Renso Vangi replied in a whisper. “They are the guardians of the mythical wall of Adeni.”

“The wall? No one else apart from mama Erusa, moreover a blind woman says she seen the wall.”

“Neither do I believe her. However, she says many honest things. In addition, her stories, no other taleteller can retell as perfectly as she can… So…” Renso Vangi replied.

“What lies on the other side of the wall?”

“I don’t know for certain because it’s hovered by an enchanted fog… but some say Vulko people live on that other side guarding something too.”

“What?”

“Shhh!” Renso Vangi replied. “I’m not one of them to know.”

“Does mama Erusa know…?”

“Don’t even think about it. You are not supposed to get anywhere in contact with her. Remember your rules! Now be silent.”

It was Tsote’s very first time to see them but the tales said they were very powerful. What confused Tsote is the way they seemed to eye him like they knew him! He, on the other hand knew so little about who they were and where they came from or where they were headed. They were eleven elephants in number but one had no rider. Soon they started to fade away in the fog eastwards. When they crossed, the horn sounded again and they started forwards again.

We started forwards. Further, out, there were several currents of wind, which whirled through the plains. However, whenever the winds blew they seemed to pick up a cloud of brown dust, which revealed pools of glassy water here and there. However, whenever the whirling dust settled again, the pools faded away appearing elsewhere in phases.

And from low grounds, the Moshuno plains looked a lot drier and brown grassed. Nevertheless, what he saw earlier from the hill’s slope was the winding road that went through the square Moshuno plains from one side to their left a little northward. The path was no longer visible and the air was filled with dust ahead of them. The dust went in his eyes and he had to cover his nostrils with some light cloth the way everybody did.

They started across but Tsote looked worried about the pools appearing here and there and disappearing all of a sudden. How were they going to avoid them? And what exactly were the pool? Thalko led the way. At some point he took out a little cage with three strange birds, a species Tsote has never seen before. The moment the light touched them they started to chirp. The cry they made was ultrasonic. Tsote watched as he opened cage and whistled them out. The birds swooped out staying close to the ground as if they knew their purpose. They stayed close to the ground seemingly causing the rise of dust. 

The cries they made caused the butterflies to rise in fright swarming away in whirlwinds and trying to avoid the sound the birds made. In addition to this hundreds of glassy still pools appeared across the pains as far as they could look. The other thing he realized is that the dust was alive. What he though was dust was actually moths the color of grass. This however, is when the path he saw earlier came visible and clear again before them. They followed this Thalko in lead.

Renso told him later that the pools were filled with the Urine of the gods. They never dried up and never were filled up or to over flow during heavy rains. Tsote never saw any reflection of the caravan in the pools they passed, which was very strange indeed. Nevertheless, nothing was weirder than the Untu tree and its tales. There was a folk tale about the plains but I heard it later while I was growing older and need not be told right here.

As they came to the center, M’boguku called out.

“Father… look, smoke.” He called out pointing towards the distant east. Thalko saw and called Renso over. He asked him to ride east until he reached three hills bordering the edge of the plains. Upon each of these hills sat a village one of which belonged to the Yakunko Military that supplied the border guard with supplies. He asked him to check on the situation but to find the caravan in Nyathiku, a village they were headed for just an hour’s journey ahead from here. M’boguku immediately asked his father if he could go along. The king refused. M’boguku looked dissatisfied and annoyed. He insisted and when he did. His father responded with bitterness, which silenced M’boguku.

Nyathiku village was the largest Yakunko village in the Yakunko Empire and was surrounded by the highest trees in the Yakunko territory. In the past, it was the home of all the Yakunko before they dispersed to control other tribes. They would wait for him there. Renso broke away with speed. 

“Tsote?” Thalko called back at him. “

“Yes father?”

“Come over and ride with me here…”

“Father?” Came M’boguku in surprise. His father eyed him in question. Tsote started forwards. Tsote ran over and Thalko gave him a hand. He would travel with Thalko for the rest of the journey to Sambura. This was different now and Tsote was very sure this did not please his son M’boguku!

Tsote did not utter much for the rest of the journey until they exited the Moshuno plains into a cluster village shelters. 

“This is Nyathiku village…” Thalko began.

It was an expansive village but what Thalko saw today wasn’t what he knew. There were more people than ever before. Something wasn’t right and Tsote saw it from his gazes. The village guard rushed up to welcome him and his caravan. They would lead them to the elders of the village.

They were shown to a shelter where they would be refreshed and served by the village guards that was tending to the people flowing into the village from all directions with property and animals including many wounded ones. Since the people here were Yakunko he saw why they welcomed Thalko like a savoir come their way. Women most especially those pregnant with Yakunko Halfling children brought him gifts before a head guard fetched him and he had to leave to meet the elder. They needed to report to him about something very crucial. It was visible all around them as they arrived.

He went off to meet chiefs and elders. Still M’boguku wanted to go along with his father without even having asked. His father spoke once saying 

“Stay!”

This embarrassed M’boguku before Tsote who remained silent receiving food from a female servant. Thirty minutes later Renso arrived too but  M’boguku Iteti was no longer around. Tsote was the first to realize. Renso did not ask any more about M’boguku while they led him away to meet Thalko. When they returned, Thalko said they had to make haste. They started out again. Tsote was to get back to Renso but Thalko requested that he remained. Why? He did not ask but waited in silence. 

Thalko was given food supplies for his Yakunko warriors and female servants as well as gifts from the different chief he had met in Lobo Village. And as they headed out of Nyathiku village they had an three elephants carrying litters of gifts they wished to deliver to their king in Sambura. This is when Tsote realized the love the Yakunko tribe elders and their peoples had for their king, which he would not have found anywhere else among other tribes. There was a problem and Thalko had not talked about it. However why there were more people here today compared to any other day.

M’boguku appeared later. His father immediately asked him to ride with Renso and not to part from his side even a second. From Nyathiku M’boguku spoke to no one else. The caravan soon entered a jungle. We were heading up hill along the some hill’s eastern slopes. The place flowing with many streams and a waterfall rushing around the foot. We crossed the shallow river but just as we exited onto an open and wider road Renso called the main highway to Sambura city, I looked out up north only to see what kind of city Sambura was. 

They were organized but built out of mud painted with a strange paste that smothered the walls. The rest was rocks and wood and thatched shelter tops. The first belonged to the warriors and their wives as well as the commoner or traders from far and beyond the edges of the empire. Many distant tribes having relations with the king did business within the first section of the city. The second section was divided from the commoner’s section…

The second section of the city belonged to the servants of the king and other officials of the empire. The deeper you went into the city the more it became splendid. The shelters in the second section resembled Thalko’s very shelter. But in greater numbers. The servant’s section was constructed behind a thick wall of spiky logs arranged pointing outwards. The spiky wall of logs were divided into sections by thick buttress trees with low hanging branches. 

The trees stood on both sides of the entrance to the servant’s section. Tsote saw two high monumental statues curved out of very old strange rocks that were fit with pure gold and standing on a seven-foot high square block of rocks. The statues were depicting Yakunko supremacy from age to age stood erected on top these black blocks while the original statues lay in waste on the outer edge of the walls. 

Half way up these huge trees, there were watch spots for the city guards. And the branches bridged these watch towers. While some reached out to hang right above the servants shelters that were as sophisticated as Thalko’s. Much of the shelters and homesteads made out of rocks and pure white clay with traditional design patterns engraved in the walls.

When they entered the servants section, the walkway was arranged with black stone plates for three hundred yard up to the royal section. Servants approached them and collected the elephants carrying gifts for the king leading them away to the left. Tsote looked somewhat puzzled. He wanted to ask just when Thalko told him the servants were going to offload the gifts and they would bring them around by the time they got to the king’s courts. The ground was rising slightly and water rushed. 

As they neared the walls of the royal section, Tsote saw wide waterfalls pouring from the royal grounds from both sides of the entrance. Two leafless trees with red and orange leaves stood on both side of the entrance. Hundreds of fiery rocks lined the edge of the waterfalls as far as the royal ground stretched. They surrounded the base of the two trees. The trees’ roots grew deep and were exposed bending back into the earth from the edge of the waterfalls. Being that the colored rocks looked somewhat familiar to Tsote, he was curious... 

“The rocks…?”

“Yes the rocks. The kings’ crafts men have extracted the rocks for the last 1300 years... dragging them across the Moshuno plains this far for a purpose I don’t think you will need to know yet…”

“But the rocks are known to be of bad, bad…” He stammered.

“It’s a lie we have taught the rest of tribes to believe through tales and folklores…”

“A lie…?”

“The kings have used these rocks to …..” Tsote did not believe this or even understand why they had to teach everyone a lie. So now, how many things have we been deceaved about for the sake of the Kings.”

“How much is truth and how much is lies…” Tsote almost uttered to himself as quietly. Thalko seems to hear everything.

“You will ask him when you meet him… everything you wish to know…”

“Who…”

“Oh I did not mention. Sorry but we are here to see you father.”