Men of Men by Wilbur Smith Page A

their heads, and they had bunched into a defensive circle shoulder to
shoulder, war shield overlapping war shield, while above them the steel of their assegais flicked little pinpricks of sunlight.
    They did not wear the full regalia of their fighting regiments, the kilts of monkey tails, the cloaks of desert fox furs, the tall headdress of ostrich and widow-bird feathers, they were
travelling with weapons only; but the shields they presented to the approaching horseman and the glint of steel told Zouga all he wanted to know. The shields gave the tribe its name, the Matabele
– the people of the long shields.
    The little group of men who stood impassively in the sunlight and watched Zouga ride up were the finest warriors that Africa had ever spawned. Yet they were almost five hundred miles south of
the borders of Matabeleland.
    ‘I set for a covey of partridge,’ Zouga smiled to himself, ‘and I have trapped a brood of eagles.’
    A hundred yards from the ring of shields, Zouga reined in; but the gelding, infected by the tension, fidgeted under him.
    The long shields were made of dappled black and white oxhide, every regiment of the Matabele carried a distinctive shield.
    Zouga knew that black dappled with white was the regimental colour of the Inyati, the Buffaloes Regiment, and again he felt a twist of nostalgia.
    Once the induna who commanded the Inyati had been a friend; they had travelled together across the mimosa-clad plains of Matabeleland; they had hunted together and shared the comfort of the same
camp fires. It was all so long ago, on his first visit to the land below the Zambezi river, but Zouga was carried back so vividly that it required an effort of will to shake off the memory.
    He lifted his right hand, fingers spread in the universal gesture of goodwill.
    ‘Warriors of Matabele, I see you,’ he called to them, speaking their language as fluently as one of them, the words returning to his tongue readily.
    He saw the small stir behind the war-shields, the shift of heads with which they greeted his words.
    ‘Jordan!’ Zouga called, and the child circled out and reined in his pony at Zouga’s side. Now the difference in size between man and boy was apparent.
    ‘See, warriors of King Lobengula, my son rides with me.’ No man took his children to war. The ring of shields sank a few inches so Zouga could see the dark and watchful eyes of the
men behind them; but as Zouga pushed the gelding a few paces forward, the shields were immediately lifted again defensively.
    ‘What news of Gandang, induna of the Inyati Regiment, Gandang who is as my brother?’ Zouga called again persuasively.
    At the mention of the name one of the warriors could no longer contain himself, swept aside his shield and stepped from the ring of spears.
    ‘Who calls Gandang brother?’ he demanded in a clear firm voice, a young voice, yet with the timbre and inflection of one used to authority.
    ‘I am Bakela, the Fist,’ Zouga gave his Matabele name, and he realized that the warrior facing him was still a youth, barely older than Ralph. But he was lean and straight, narrow in
the hips and with muscle in the shoulder and arms built up in the games of war. Zouga guessed he had probably already killed his man, washed his spear in blood.
    Now he crossed the open ground towards Zouga, his stride lithe, his legs long and shapely beneath the short leather kilt.
    ‘Bakela,’ he said, as he stopped a dozen paces from the gelding’s head. ‘Bakela.’ He smiled, a brilliant show of white even teeth in the broad and handsome Nguni
face. ‘That is a name I took with the first draught of my mother’s milk, for I am Bazo, the Axe, son of the same Gandang whom you call brother, and who remembers you as an old and
trusted friend. I know you by the scar on your cheek and the gold in your beard. I greet you, Bakela.’
    Zouga swung down off the gelding, leaving the rifle in the saddle scabbard, and, grinning broadly, went to clasp the