The Legend of Hombarume (Legends Series, #1)

74.

Ushe was very much conflicted about what to do, on one hand, he wanted so badly to go to Makura, to find Hombarume and have an honest conversation with him about what was happening. He wanted to be by his friend's side through the trying times because the truth of the matter was that Hombarume was the only person he had been sure he knew very well and it scared him to finally embrace the fact that there were dark parts of him, parts that were hidden well inside that where beginning to come out.

Before now, he had been sure that his friend was a victim of circumstance, someone who was being punished by the gods for crimes he knew nothing about, just as Tafuma had warned him about what was to happen to him if he decided to stay? That moment with Dererai and Tapfuma had given him hope, made him optimistic about Hombarme's innocence in the matter, but everything else that happened afterwards, him fleeing the village, his father talking about the darkness he saw in him, made him terrified because it made Hombarume seem completely unpredictable.

Ushe had a lingering sense that there was more that young Tapfuma was hiding from him, but his efforts of prying it out of him had proven to be fruitless. No matter how hard he tried to convince himself to just leave, a part off him kept worrying, kept telling him to stay and embrace what was to come, but he also realized that he would be no use to anyone if he just waited for the inevitable fate that had been vaguely described to him.

He had heard about such a thing only one other time in his life, in a story that his uncle had once told him. He told him about how the gods of old used to seal people's fates to punish them for their wrong doings, but Ushe could not think of any such thing that he could have done to warrant such anger from the gods.

While he was still deciding on what to do, he had wanted his final stop to be at Dererai's household. Ever since Hombarume had escaped and their plan to get the truth out of him before his trial had been thwarted, he hadn't yet found the chance to talk to Dererai, perhaps if he received input from him on the matter, he would be able to make an informed decision.

That meant he would have to hide Tapfuma's part of the story, which made things all too complicated to explain, because those parts were integral to the story. There was no telling how Dererai would react to such a tale, let alone believe it. He knew Dererai as a man of strong opinion, but he did not know where that opinion would fall in terms of all things supernatural, he needed to go to him with facts and things that could be proven, but facts he did not have.

All these thoughts were doing was making him more conflicted about what he was doing and less sure of why he was doing it, thus he steered away and decided to leave the village with the utmost stealth.

The road towards Chikuni village was one that was perpetually deserted as most of the people opted for visiting Makura for all their needs because it was much closer and at the center of activity within the kingdom. Makura had the biggest marketplace and variety of goods that most of the people in the kingdom required, thus it was the bustle of activity that it was.

Chikuni on the other hand, was a village that lay farther downstream of the Rujeko River and was known mostly as the fishing village. Most of the people there relied on the abundance of fish within the waters and the assorted variety of it that the small population of the village could make a living off of by selling far and wide. The village was almost similar in size to Rujeko, though bigger, but everything else differed greatly. For example, their leadership comprised of only the elders, which were a small group of ten men that were selected by the people at large in a decade ritual. They had never had a chief since the great battle of Blood River and they vowed to never need one in all their lives.

The road to Chikuni village passed through the Mashonganyika forest, which, like the Gomoguru mountains, was fabled as a place so sacred and mysterious that people mostly avoided it by taking a longer route around it, thus the village was farther than it was supposed to be.

Because of these superstitions, the Mashonganyika forest was diverse in wildlife and plant species, never tainted by those that sought to hunt. Those who did not believe in old wives tales, would simply pass through, but most did not because of the fear of having their greatest terrors come true. The movement from Rujeko to Chikuni felt like a great descent as you could see the great Gomoguru mountain towering behind you and much farther off in the distance, you could catch a glimpse of the peaks of the two mountains in Makura village.

Earlier on, Ushe would have had no problem with passing through the mysterious forest, but after everything he had learnt in the previous few days, he immediately took the path that spun round the forest so that he could avoid the evil forest. There were stories told about the forest, one of the most famous ones, the one his babamudiki whom was his only relative in Chikuni village had told him. It was when he was younger and his parents' death was still fresh, he visited a lot of relatives for a short stay before he found his permanent home.

At the time, he had asked his uncle why they always avoided the forest and he told him of a boy, a young fishmonger who sold his catch in Rujeko and travelled every 5 days to and fro. He had no problem with using the route that cut through the forest; in fact, it was convenient for him as he made the trip frequently. On one particular day, he could not catch much fish, but he desperately needed the cowries from his customers, so he stole his neighbor's fish and went on his ritual trip. On his way back from Rujeko village, he was met with a terrible omen in the Mashonganyika forest. His body was ravaged by a rare illness and his skin was suddenly scaled like that of a bream and he went blind before he died.

It was a terrible story to tell a child, but it stayed with him for as long as he traversed the distance between Rujeko and Chikuni as a child, when he became older, however, he dismissed it as one of the many folktales that were used to scare children into obedience. Now, he was again, not so sure. After everything that had happened in the past few days, he was more open-minded and after the fate that Tapfuma told him awaited him in any other direction he went in, he had to be careful.

Taking the longer route also meant that he would possibly be traveling the night as the sun had already started to take its great descent and disappear into the trees. There were a few other people in front of him and he could hear murmurs and laughter behind him luckily, so there was no real need to be too worried so far.

The road that went around the forest was winding and at some point cut through tall grass and large trees adjacent to the forest, highs and lows and somewhere in-between, the chatter in front of him became weaker as the people moved farther ahead than him, but he could still hear and clearly see those behind him when he looked back. There was still a small streak of weak sunlight that broke through the thick trees and gave off light on the way. He had saved some time by not resting as much as he usually did when on long journeys but now, he could feel the pain transferring to his thighs and feet.

Now he was only a short distance away from clearing the route, the murmurs had completely stopped and in the golden light of the sunset, he could not find the people that were behind him at all. He stopped and waited for them to catch up to him, but nothing more came than just mere silence. He was starting to panic, so he called out, thinking that someone on the path would hear his voice and call back, but all he heard was the shallow echo of his own voice. He kept walking, trying to get ahead as fast as he could because he knew that after the route that spun around the forest, there were fields and clearings just outside of Chikuni village where there was a greater possibility of being in the presence of other people.

At first he was walking in a fast paced manner, and then he switched to a panicked run. After a while of running and getting more and more tired, he started to slowly come to the realization that he had been walking on the same stretch of path the entire time. There was no one behind him and no one ahead of him. All attempts of reaching his destination were futile and he felt disoriented. He had always heard about this phenomenon he was experiencing called chadzimira, but never for someone on an open road where someone could totally see them.

His head was spinning and it seemed as though the trees weren't were they had been before or steady either, the ground seemed to be moving as well while he tried to get himself to sit down for stability, but before he could do that, he felt a sharp strong pain at his temple, he had been hit by something strong and as he started to feel lightheaded, he could faintly feel blood starting to trickle down his nostrils and light slowly leave his eyes before everything became a never ending darkness.

Glossary

Babamudiki - Uncle, father's  younger sibling

Chadzimira - a state of being lost and confused