TRIBAL

Kamau comes back from exile only to learn there is a new shift in power and his people are longing for a new leader...

CHAPTER FOUR

The Jangili dessert

The sun was hot and torrid and seemed to follow Kamau everywhere he went like a shadow. He had been exiled by his own people for abandoning them, as he went looking for answers from the gods and ancestors, when he went to the Mount Mirima to get counsel from the ancestors. 

Beads of perspiration filled his body as he traversed the dessert, a raging vagabond, an exile prisoner of the Agikuyu tribe, a fallen King. Here in the dessert the days were long but the nights were longer, creatures from the crevices and fissures would emerge from the pit of darkness to terrorize him threatening to kill him. His spear, was confiscated by the Usurper Buntu and his legion of cult following. All was lost.

The sun hung high casting a spell on him which made him delirious and senile, there was a time where he saw a lagoon in plain sight and started drinking its water but to his surprise it was a mirage and all he drank was the nail biting sand that he stood upon. At night, armed with a small bone like knife, dessert snakes and scorpions hunted him and sought him for game but Kamau was no match for the crawling insects for he was a fierce warrior.

It has been forty days in the dessert and all he could eat was cacti and small armadillos that roamed beneath the surface of the earth. He missed his home but most of all he missed his throne. His power, that was so rightfully his. The night was chilled and his clothes were now in tatters and completely worn off, which could not protect him from the cold winds of the dessert that cut through him sharp as ice. Oftenly, he would find a huge bolder, make a small fire and dream of his land back home.

The price I have to pay for protecting my people he thought.

Desert lions could be seen from a distance but did not interfere with Kamau. As they were exiled just like Kamau, failing to protect their pride and been cast out into the dessert for banishment a tale he knew all too well. Vultures circled his body like a corpse from above like a dead corpse, their wings long and angelic and their beaks sharp and jaded like a razor.

He had to fight them off with a long bone he had acquired from a dead stray elephant that he now used as a walking stick. The vultures would follow him everywhere he went and try to steal his prize. Only for Kamau to feign them off.

Whenever he would not find enough water from wandering streams, he would fall into a dessert like madness, deprived of hydration, he would see things that were not entirely there. He would see the face of Buntu filled with rage and anger banishing him again and again then he would see a beautiful lady holding a calabash of water on top of her head, her words sweet but it was only the dessert madness. He had heard about it but now he was living it.

Days passed he grew weaker and weaker until he saw a ghastly sight. Two men wearing the red and yellow gowns of his tribes walked towards him with spears as long as trees coming to his rescue. What is the meaning of this? Another trick of the dessert? He thought.

"Brother we have come to find you" said one of them with a booming sound.

"Our people suffer in the hands of the pale skinned man!" said the other hovering his hands back and forth.

"Did you not think so after your false King the Usurper Buntu banished me here in the wastelands?" said Kamau his feet trembling on the ground on which he stood.

"My King Buntu is dead slayed by the hands of the white man... we have no King!" said the tall man his face was covered in war beads each bead represented a kill and he had one too many of them.

"So now is when you seek my counsel" said Kamau. "When there is no one to protect your families, you crawl back to me!" he shouted now, every tone filled with rage and despair.

"My King what angers you so?" added the other warrior.

"I shall abandon you, as you did me! Now leave, my supper is getting cold!" said Kamau in cacophony.

"Please Dessert King your place is with us do you not wish to see your people? The beautiful lands of us the Agikuyu? The lush green fauna of your tribe?" pleaded the second one.

"I will reclaim my throne back but know this, I have much thought my fate...After I defeat this beast of the white man and there magic, I will have my own tribe and new blood where I shall rule to my days old!" declared the mad King Kamau. 

Taken aback by his proposal they agreed and off they went to start the long journey to Mount Mirima.

Mount Mirima

His people looked at him with great reverence as he walked through the village, some their faces lit up like embers of a fire. They all rejoiced in great happiness and splendor.

"All hail Kamau!"

"All hail Kamau!"

They sang with benevolence. There at the foot of the mountain, mothers would come bearing gifts from the great harvest and men would bring game to the Kings' court. The council of elders were paraded from left to right applauding him. These people, have I become weary of them? They betrayed me, is it not? And now they welcome me like the prodigal son. 

His servants came to the throne adorning him with the Kings garments and putting the Antler throne on his head christening his position as the new King of the Agikuyu tribe. The council men cheered him on as he sat on his throne slowly. His body was frail and lithe and needed help atop the throne. But he managed passively.

Him and his council of elders discussed various matters, the advancement of the pale skinned people, the raids from the Bukusu and last of all the death of Buntu. It was now common knowledge that Buntu had formed an alliance with the white man to hand over his own people to their new regimen. But, thankfully the council had heard wind of this heresy and was sought to the guillotine for his betrayal. 

Now the true and noble King had returned and all the people were in awe of him having survived the great Jangili dessert known to harbor demons in the night and day.

The prodigal son returns thought Kamau as he sat on the throne brooding...