Covered by the fire from the survivors of the first wave, a second Masai attack-wave erupted from the darkness, rushing against the palisades. Though another humming tornado of slingstones mowed into this wave, too. Men died horribly in the battle-torn night; they died as slingstones crashed through their skulls or thudded into their bodies. They fell screaming as stones, as large as fists and larger, shattered their arm bones and shins.
A group of Masai reached the stockade in one place and tried to climb it. A fierce hand-to-hand battle ensued. Spears of all descriptions were flourished – bone-tipped and stone-headed; heavy wooden clubs and maces with heads of stone or copper; axes with heads of bone or common granite – all these hacked, smashed and thrust pitilessly. Quite a few Wakambi found the massive jaws of hippopotami most useful, and amongst these was Mpushu the Cunning.
The battle raged till well past midnight while the storm crept nearer and nearer, adding its own senseless fury to the clamour of the fighting below.
Twice on that horrible night the son of Marimba hurled back single-handed groups of Masai climbing the stockade; he was wounded thrice in the fierce fighting.
The angry storm put an end to the battle. The wildly furious thunder crashed and boomed its anger at the struggling human creatures down below. Men were deafened and shocked by the loud peals of unearthly thunder. The ground shook and vibrated as the voice of the Thunder Demon tore through the very fibre of the earth and the rain-pregnant clouds seemed to burst into hideous flame as sheets of purplish-white lightning ripped them to shreds of billowing, whirling wool. Bolt after bolt of forked lightning split the heavens apart as an axe splits the head of a man. And then, with a flare of flame as bright as the midday sun and a crack that sent even the bravest of the brave cowering down like whimpering children, a bolt of lightning split a tall mopani tree from the crown to the very roots.
Rain had not yet started to fall, but the Masai broke away and fled. The Wakambi, too, ran like so many rabbits for the safety of their huts and caves. A roaring fire was started in the forest by the lightning that had struck the mopani tree and hungry flames leaped high with joy, like a Sunfish Maiden leaping and writhing at a kiss from her lover. Shrill screams were heard above the shattering anger of the storm as Masai, frightened out of their wits, ran through the burning forest to escape the deadly embrace of the flames. Many were caught by the grumbling wind-fanned fire and burnt to death, shrieking like insane women for their traitor god to save them.
Then hail came, as big as babies’ fists, in a howling curtain to scourge the dazed earth with insane mercilessness.
The storm thundered for the best part of the midnight hour and the Wakambi cringed and cowered in the darkness of their huts and caves. But gradually the storm spent its passion and the midnight winds of heaven carried the angry clouds away. A silence deeper than the deepest wells fell upon the dazed land. It was an eerie silence that was as ugly as it was frightening; it was the silence of Death.
‘Listen, Oh Kahawa,’ whispered the grizzled old witchdoctor Somojo. ‘Listen!’
‘I hear nothing, Oh Somojo,’ whispered Kahawa.
‘Yes, my prince, that is what I mean – the silence is unusual. And yet it is terribly familiar!’
‘It is like the silence that precedes an attack by the Night Howlers,’ said Mpushu soberly.
‘The Night Howlers only attack in early summer,’ argued Kahawa, ‘and now it is well into late summer.’
The frightened men lapsed once more into silence and the Great Silence seemed to deepen. Kahawa found his thoughts drifting towards his mother. He found himself wondering how she was faring in the dark cave in which he had imprisoned her. Heedless of his cruel throbbing wounds, he rose and made for the door of the hut. He never passed through it.
The hut was torn apart as though it were a ball of cobwebs, showering the petrified men inside with grass and broken twigs. Kahawa looked up and found himself staring into the great redly luminous eyes of a creature of unbelievable proportions whose dark silhouette obstructed the stars now peering through the clouds – a nightmare creature which had grasped the big hut in its vulture-like talons and was slowly and gloatingly tearing it apart to get at the men inside.
For a few moments the brave son of Marimba was paralysed with fear. He stared with hypnotic fascination deep into the huge eyes of the Night Howler – eyes that blazed like glowing embers, lined with veins that glowed like red-hot copper. The burning split pupils were the size of warriors’ shields.
Then Kahawa instinctively hurled his war club, landing it straight in one of the Night Howler’s eyes. The eye shattered and the glowing fluid poured down to the ground while the huge monstrosity let out a howl that split the night in two. Other Night Howlers descended upon their wounded comrade and quickly devoured him.
Others were still raising havoc amongst the huts. Most people managed to flee in wild terror into the caves, but quite a number were caught in the open and these were being driven into one area. Stray ones were promptly gobbled down. Many a warrior who had fought like a thousand lions, defending his wife and children against the alien Masai only a while earlier, ran like a rabbit, wetting his loinskin all the way and screaming like a mad girl, while a bloody-jawed Night Howler played havoc with those same wives and children.
Only Mpushu and his badly wounded friend Kahawa had the courage to fight, urged by their initial stroke of success. Already between them they could account for six of the hideous hell-monsters. They had accidentally discovered that the Night-Howlers’ eyes were most vulnerable and easy targets in the dark. And each time they succeeded in hitting the target the creature would cringe and fall and many others would settle upon it, giving the tribe a brief respite.
The newly invented slings turned out to be most formidable weapons and practice was making Kahawa and Mpushu quite expert in their aim.
The great settlement was already razed to the ground and all the people who could not reach the safety of the caves were concentrated by the Night Howlers into one panic-striken madly screaming mob, ready for an orgy of devouring. But they were waiting as though to commence on a particular command.
Mpushu and Kahawa knew they were fighting their last battle. Their arms were numb through handling the slings without pause and they knew it was now simply a matter of time before they too were overwhelmed. Finally, they decided they could do nothing about those already herded together and they made off to reach the safety of a cave. As Mpushu turned to flee, a strange manly voice halted him in blank astonishment:
‘My friends, I am with you.’
Kahawa, too, turned to look at their newly found friend and got the shock of his life. Running with them was the tall Masai whom they had captured earlier – Koma-Tembo.
This totally unexpected ally put new strength into the two young men and, standing together, the three of them took a heavy toll of the Night Howlers. They fought until a voice of no earthly origin rang out as though from the empty air above their heads:
‘Lay down your weapons, oh mortals, and yield yourselves into my mercy. I am Nangai and when I command I am obeyed.’
The three men dropped their slings to the blood-stained ground in paralysed amazement. They could vaguely discern a queer apparition in midair above them. They knew very well what Nangai wanted even before he spoke.
‘Where is the immortal female
