The Quest - Smith Wilbur (читать лучшие читаемые книги TXT) 📗

another rough soldier - and the Shilluk women were flighty creatures.

'Call Imbali,' he repeated, 'and make sure she washes her hands also.'

Although the red sheppen had sedated Fenn, she groaned and stirred when he disturbed the spearhead. Taita nodded at Meren. Between them they lifted Fenn into a sitting position, then Meren squatted behind her, folded her arms across her chest and pinioned them.

'Ready,' he said.

Taita glanced at Imbali, who was kneeling at Fenn's feet. 'Hold her legs straight. Make sure she does not move.' Imbali leant forward and gripped Fenn's ankles. Taita took a deep breath, and focused his mind.

While he flexed his long, bony fingers, he reviewed every move he must make. Speed and decisiveness were the keys to success. The longer the patient suffered, the more damage was inflicted on body and spirit, and the lower the chances of recovery. Quickly he cut the linen strip that held the spearhead, and gently lifted it into the vertical. Fenn groaned again. Meren had the leather gag ready and slipped it between her teeth to prevent her biting through her tongue.

'Make sure she does not spit it out,' Taita told him. He leant closer and studied the wound. The movements of the flint had already enlarged it considerably, but not enough to allow him to introduce the silver spoons into the gash. He palpated the swollen flesh and traced the regular pulsing of the great artery. He slipped his first and second finger into the wound to stretch it open, then ran them down into the warm raw flesh until he touched the sharp points of the barbs buried there.

Fenn screamed and struggled. Meren and Imbali tightened their grip.

Taita stretched the wound channel a little wider. Although his movements were so quick, they were controlled and precise: within seconds he had located the points of the barbs. Fenn's flesh and muscle fibres were clinging to them. With his free hand he took up the spoons, placed them over the shank and ran them into the wound, one on each side of the spearhead. He guided them over the sharp flint to mask it so that he could draw out the spearhead without it snagging.

'You are killing me!' Fenn screamed. Meren and Imbali were using all their strength, but they could hardly hold her as she wriggled and squirmed. Twice Taita managed to guide the spoons over the barbs, but each time she twisted them loose. At the next attempt, he felt them slide into place. He closed the polished metal over the barbs, and in the same movement drew them upwards. There was a clinging suction as the bloody lips of the wound resisted the movement. With his fingertips deep

in Fenn's flesh he could feel the artery thudding steadily. It seemed to reverberate through his soul. He concentrated on guiding the spoons past it. If even a sliver of the flint was protruding from the enclosing metal it might catch the artery and slice it open. Smoothly he applied more pressure. He felt the mouth of the wound begin to yield, and then, abruptly, the blood-smeared silver spoons and the flint spearhead came free. Quickly he withdrew his fingers from the wound, and pressed the gaping lips of raw flesh together. With his free hand he snatched the thick linen pad Meren handed to him and pressed it over the wound to staunch the bleeding. Fenn's head fell back. Her screams became soft moans, the tension went out of her limbs, and the rigid arch of her spine relaxed.

'Your skill never fails to astonish me,' Meren whispered. 'Each time I see you work like that I am in awe. You are the greatest surgeon who ever lived.'

'We can discuss that later,' Taita replied. 'Now you can help me to stitch her up.'

Taita was laying the final horsehair stitch when they heard a shout from the northern watch-tower. He did not look up at Meren as he tied the knot that closed the wound. 'I believe that the Basmara have arrived.

You must go to your duties now. You may take Imbali with you. Thank you for your help, good Meren. If the wound does not mortify, the child will have much to thank you for too.'

After he had bandaged Fenn's leg, Taita went to the door of the hut and called for Lala, the most reliable and sensible of the Shilluk wives.

She came with her naked baby on her hip. She and Fenn were close friends. They spent much time together, talking and playing with the infant. Lala burst into loud lamentations when she saw Fenn pale and blood-smeared. Taita took some time to calm her and rehearse her in her duties. Then he left her to watch over Fenn while she slept off the effects of the red sheppen.

Taita scrambled up the makeshift ladder to join Meren at the north wall of the stockade. Meren greeted him gravely and, without another word, pointed down the valley. The Basmara were advancing in three separate formations. They came at a steady trot.

Their headdresses nodded and waved in the breeze of their passage, and their columns wound like long black serpents through the forest.

They were singing again, a deep repetitive chant that chilled the blood of the defenders and made their skin crawl. Taita turned to look along the parapet. Their entire active strength was assembled there, and he was sobered by how few they were.

'Thirty-two of us,' he said softly, 'and at least six hundred of them.'

'Then we are evenly matched, Magus, and we are in for some rich sport, I wager,' Meren averred. Taita shook his head in mock-disbelief at such phlegm in the face of the storm that was about to break over them.

Nakonto stood with the Imbali and her women at the far end of the parapet. Taita walked over to them. As always, Imbali's noble Nilotic features were calm and remote.

'You know these people, Imbali. How will they attack?' he asked.

'First they will count our numbers and test our mettle,' she replied, without hesitation.

'How will they do that?'

'They will rush directly at the wall to make us show ourselves.'

'Will they try to set fire to the stockade?'

'No, Shaman. This is their own town. Their ancestors are buried here.

They would never burn their graves.'

Taita returned to Meren's side. 'It is time for you to set up the dummies along the parapet,' he said, and Meren passed the order to the Shilluk wives. They had already placed the dummies in position below the parapet. Now they scampered along the stockade lifting them so that the false heads were visible to the Basmara over the top of the wall.

'We have seemingly double the strength of our garrison at a single stroke,' Taita remarked. 'It should make the Basmara treat us with a little more respect.'

They watched the formations of spearmen manoeuvre across the ash strewn ground on which the huts had burnt. The Basmara massed their three regiments in distinct columns, captains at the front.

'Their drill is sloppy and their formations are untidy and confused.'

Meren's tone was scornful. 'This is a rabble, not an army.'

'But a large rabble, while we are a very small army,' Taita pointed'out.

'Let us delay our celebrations until after the victory.'; The singing ceased, and a heavy silence fell over the field. A single figure left the Basmara ranks and advanced half-way to the stockade. He wore the tall pink flamingo headdress. He posed in front of his men to let them admire his warlike appearance, then harangued them in a high pitched shriek, punctuating each statement with a leap high in the air and a clash of spear against war shield.

'What is he saying?' Meren was puzzled.

'I can only guess that he is not being friendly to us.' Taita smiled.

'I will encourage him with an arrow.'

'He is seventy paces beyond your longest shot.' Taita restrained him.

'We have no arrows to waste.'

They watched Basma, the paramount chief of the Basmara, strut back to his waiting regiments. This time he took up a command position behind the rear ranks. Another silence fell over the field. There was no movement. Even the wind had died away. The tension was as oppressive as the lull before a tropical thunderstorm. Then Chief Basma screeched, 'Haul Haul' and his regiments started forward.