CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The men that held Jahnu by his arms lifted him slightly, tightening their grip since he’d woken up.
His head throbbed, his vision compromised by the loss of eyesight in one eye and the shadows that danced in the flickering light of the torches held by Mimbeck’s men—men who were once Jahnu’s men.
Hundi brothers turned against their Chief, against their clan—and for what?
Jealousy? Control? Power? He sighed, hitching his breath against the pain in his ribs.
They had come on him while he slept. How had he not heard their approach?
Of course, he knew Hundi warriors were stealthy.
He’d trained a few of these young men himself—how to tread as shadows so as not to make noise and alert the enemy at their approach.
He just never thought he’d be considered as the enemy to the very ones he’d trained to fight.
“So this is what it has come to, Uncle?” Jahnu said slowly, speaking in their native Hundi tongue.
Mimbeck’s eyes narrowed to slits. “I am tired of waiting for you to decide our fate.”
“So you have appointed yourself to decide for us, and not even challenged me properly?”
“Talmu is dead! You are childless. The chiefdom ends with you, anyway. Where would it settle if I did not decide?”
“So your need for power has outweighed your need for revenge? You join forces with our enemy and come against me?”
Mimbeck was silent, and then, “I saw an opportunity and I took it.”
“How do you think you will pass it off to the rest of the tribe? The chiefdom passes only by vote, or to the victor of the challenge amongst many witnesses.”
“I have my witnesses here,” Mimbeck gestured to his handful of men around him. Hani shifted with nervous energy.
“And yet, you did not want to do your own killing. Is that because you did not want to kill your own nephew? Or because you were afraid I’d kill you first?”
Mimbeck growled and threw a punch in Jahnu’s stomach, knocking the breath from him in a dizzying huff of air.
Sidney shrieked from somewhere in his mind, and as he regained his breath, he searched for her.
His heart squeezed. Her white man, Greg, the tall one with the gun, held her back by her arm.
Jahnu was glad Sidney had someone to protect her if he couldn’t.
She shouldn’t be here. Not when violence threatened to burst at any moment.
Jahnu twitched his hand in a signal. His men hid in the bushes around the canopy, waiting for his communication. He could feel their anxious restraint, ready to break loose at Mimbeck’s blow, but he signaled them off.
Not yet. It wasn’t time. He was still hoping he could use words to persuade his uncle and he didn’t know what this white man would do with the gun. It didn’t seem to fit comfortably in his long-fingered hands.
“Are your choices for the good of the whole tribe, Mimbeck, or only good for you?”
“Do not school me, boy! Much of what you know has come from me!” he growled.
“And I am indebted to you, but your anger has given way to control, control to the need for power…and it will never be enough. Think of Simui…think of your wife. What do you think she would want?”
“She would want to still be alive!” he yelled. Mimbeck turned to Hani with a snarl. “Tell him to get on with it! A bargain is a bargain!”
Hani again repeated Mimbeck’s words toward Greg, who stood aghast, the blood draining from his face.
Sidney turned to him, “Greg, look at me. Greg…you cannot kill him.”
“I made an agreement, Sid. You for him,” he said, gesturing to Jahnu.
“No! You don’t know what you are saying!
Look, I’m right here. I’m safe,” she held his face in her hands.
“The Hundi are not the enemy, Greg! They aren’t even the ones responsible for the conflict!
I’ve learned so much since being here. You can’t do this.
You are not a killer. You are a doctor. You took an oath, remember? Do no harm.”
Greg’s gaze on Jahnu seemed to falter as he finally looked at Sidney, taking her in, remembering who he was.
He seemed to understand. He reached a hand to her face, “I missed you so much.” The unfamiliar rise of jealousy caught Jahnu by surprise at the intimate gesture.
Sidney was not his. The reminder was sharp.
Greg nodded to Sidney and turned to Mimbeck. “I’m not a killer,” he said, softly. “I’m not a killer. I won’t be a part of this feud,” and then he dropped the gun on the ground with a clatter.
Hani’s eyes grew wide as he relayed the message to Mimbeck, and suddenly, with a growl of anger and quick movement, Mimbeck grabbed Sidney around her arm, dragging her like a handful of reeds.
He crushed her against his broad chest, pulled a knife from the sheath at his side and brought it to her throat.
She screamed, but quickly quieted, her tears a silent witness to the fear she felt underneath.
Jahnu roared with a guttural growl as he tried to lurch for his uncle, but the men held him fast.
Mimbeck began to chuckle, his knife held firmly against the soft skin of Sidney’s neck. Her sweet neck. The place Jahnu had lost himself in, just hours before.
“It seems our chief has been busy,” he said, mockingly. “No wonder you haven’t done your job. You have been distracted.”
“Let her go!” Greg said, the fear evident in his voice.
Hani relayed the message to Mimbeck. But Mimbeck only shook his head.
“What do you always say, Jahnu? ‘Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay.’? I like that. It is from that little book of yours you’re always reading?
Hundi men are men of their word. I have kept my word.
You must keep yours, or I will kill her. ”
He tightened his grip on Sidney’s chest and dug the knife into her, nicking her skin until a drop of blood became visible.
It rolled down the soft white tower of her neck.
It looked like black ink in the feeble light.
Hani interpreted Mimbeck’s words in English.
Sidney whimpered slightly, but found her voice. “Don’t do it, Greg.”
Mimbeck squeezed tighter, eliciting a painful whimper from her. Jahnu’s blood boiled. He would kill him. He would kill his uncle for this.
Greg reached for the gun slowly, cautiously.
“Ok, ok…just don’t hurt her.” He picked up the gun with shaking hands and slowly raised it until it was pointed at Jahnu.
Jahnu held Greg’s gaze. The two faced off for what seemed an eternity, until Mimbeck’s angry words pierced through the silence.
“God, forgive me,” Greg said in a sob, and suddenly many things happened at once.
Jahnu gave the signal to his men to attack.
Sidney’s voice screamed into the chaos. A gunshot cracked through the din.
A skin-raising tribal call of a dozen or more Hundi men shrieked through the canopy, exploding the scene into a chaotic melting pot of half-clad bodies, bows and arrows, fists and grunts as knuckles cracked over chins and bodies rolled around on the floor in a tangled mess of rivalry.
The men who had held Jahnu were overtaken by the surprise attack, freeing Jahnu to pounce on his uncle who was spinning, confused in the fray. Sidney was missing from his grasp.
Jahnu jumped on Mimbeck’s massive back wrapping his arm around his thick neck, the crook of Jahnu’s inner elbow squeezing his throat like a vise.
The big man spun wildly, desperately trying to fling Jahnu off, but Jahnu wrapped his legs around Mimbeck’s torso, crossing his ankles at Mimbeck’s chest and began squeezing the life from his uncle.
Every muscle on Jahnu’s body quivered with adrenaline.
Arrows whizzed, their thunk indicating they had hit their mark as many of Mimbeck’s pack collapsed in rapid succession. Somewhere, the white man, Greg, shrieked in panic.
Then just as quickly as it had started, it was over. Mimbeck fell to one knee, his hands grasping wildly at his throat, his face a contorted tangle of red and then blue until finally he collapsed face down amongst the men whom he’d convinced to follow him to their own deaths.
Jahnu’s breath was rapid with the force of prevailing adrenaline as he slid off his uncle’s dead body.
He scanned the area, making sure the threat was truly gone when he saw the mass of golden, blonde hair.
The same golden blond hair that reminded him of the sun, or the thatch roof of his hut as he lay in bed at night.
The same golden, blond hair that had run silky in his hands as he kissed her just yesterday.
Hair so smooth, beautiful, long, and shiny.
Hair so unlike any of the women in his tribe.
It splayed out on the ground covering her face, a pool of crimson red blood growing underneath her as the pale light of dawn began to chase away the shadows.