They were singing again, a deep repetitive chant that chilled the blood of the defenders and made their skin crawl. Taita turned to look along the parapet. Their entire active strength was assembled there, and he was sobered by how few they were.
'Thirty-two of us,' he said softly, 'and at least six hundred of them.'
'Then we are evenly matched, Magus, and we are in for some rich sport, I wager,' Meren averred. Taita shook his head in mock-disbelief at such phlegm in the face of the storm that was about to break over them.
Nakonto stood with the Imbali and her women at the far end of the parapet. Taita walked over to them. As always, Imbali's noble Nilotic features were calm and remote.
'You know these people, Imbali. How will they attack?' he asked.
'First they will count our numbers and test our mettle,' she replied, without hesitation.
'How will they do that?'
'They will rush directly at the wall to make us show ourselves.'
'Will they try to set fire to the stockade?'
'No, Shaman. This is their own town. Their ancestors are buried here.
They would never burn their graves.'
Taita returned to Meren's side. 'It is time for you to set up the dummies along the parapet,' he said, and Meren passed the order to the Shilluk wives. They had already placed the dummies in position below the parapet. Now they scampered along the stockade lifting them so that the false heads were visible to the Basmara over the top of the wall.
'We have seemingly double the strength of our garrison at a single stroke,' Taita remarked. 'It should make the Basmara treat us with a little more respect.'
They watched the formations of spearmen manoeuvre across the ash strewn ground on which the huts had burnt. The Basmara massed their three regiments in distinct columns, captains at the front.
'Their drill is sloppy and their formations are untidy and confused.'
Meren's tone was scornful. 'This is a rabble, not an army.'
'But a large rabble, while we are a very small army,' Taita pointed'out.
'Let us delay our celebrations until after the victory.'; The singing ceased, and a heavy silence fell over the field. A single figure left the Basmara ranks and advanced half-way to the stockade. He wore the tall pink flamingo headdress. He posed in front of his men to let them admire his warlike appearance, then harangued them in a high pitched shriek, punctuating each statement with a leap high in the air and a clash of spear against war shield.
'What is he saying?' Meren was puzzled.
'I can only guess that he is not being friendly to us.' Taita smiled.
'I will encourage him with an arrow.'
'He is seventy paces beyond your longest shot.' Taita restrained him.
'We have no arrows to waste.'
They watched Basma, the paramount chief of the Basmara, strut back to his waiting regiments. This time he took up a command position behind the rear ranks. Another silence fell over the field. There was no movement. Even the wind had died away. The tension was as oppressive as the lull before a tropical thunderstorm. Then Chief Basma screeched, 'Haul Haul' and his regiments started forward.
'Steady!' Meren cautioned his men. 'Let them get in close. Hold your arrows!'
The massed ranks of the Basmara swept past the outer markers and they began to chant their war-cry. The spears drummed on the shields.
At every fifth pace they stamped their bare feet in unison. The rattles on their ankles clashed, and the ground jumped at the impact. The fine dust from the ashes of the burned city rose waist high around them so they seemed to wade through water. They came up to the one-hundred-pace markers. The chanting and drumming swelled into a frenzy.
'Steady!' Meren bellowed, so that his voice carried above the din.
'Hold hard!' The front rank was coming up to the fifty-pace marker.
They could see every detail of the weird patterns painted on the Basmara faces. The leaders were past the markers now; and were so close that the archers on the stockade were looking down upon them.
'Nock and aim!' Meren roared. Up came the bows. They arced as the archers drew. Their eyes narrowed as they aimed along the shafts. Meren knew better than to let them hold the draw, until their arms began to judder. His next command came only a breath behind the last. At that precise moment the dense ranks reached the thirty-pace markers.
'Let fly!' he shouted, and they loosed as one man. At that range not a single arrow missed. They flew in a massed, silent cloud. It was a mark of
236 I
their mettle that no two archers aimed at the same Basmara warrior. The first rank went down as though they had fallen into a pit in the earth.
'Loose at will!' Meren howled. His archers nocked the second arrow with practised dexterity. They threw up, drew and released in one movement, making it appear easy and unhurried. The next rank of Basmara went down, and moments later, the next fell on top of them.
Those that followed stumbled over growing mounds of corpses.
'Arrows here!' The cry went up along the top of the parapet, and the Shilluk women scurried forward, bowed under the bundles they carried on their shoulders. The Basmara kept coming, and the archers shot at them until at last they milled about below the stockade trying for a handhold on the poles of the wall to hoist themselves up. Some reached the top, but Nakonto, Imbali and her women were waiting for them.
The battleaxes rose and fell as though they were chopping firewood.
Nakonto's cries were murderous as he plied his stabbing spear.
At last a shrill piping of ivory whistles brought the carnage to an abrupt end. The regiments melted away across the ash-dusted field to where Basma waited to regroup the survivors.
Meren strode along the parapet. 'Is anyone wounded? No? Good.
When you go out to pick up your arrows, watch out for those who are feigning dead. It's a favourite trick of such devils.'
They opened the gates and rushed out to gather up the arrows. The barbs of many were buried in the dead flesh and had to be chopped out with sword or axe. It was grisly work and they were soon as blood spattered as a gang of butchers. Once they had the arrows they collected the spears of the fallen Basmara. Then they ran back into the stockade and slammed the gates.
The women brought up the waterskins with baskets of dried fish and dhurra cakes. While most of the men were still chewing, the chanting began again and their captains called them back to the parapet: 'Stand to your arms!'
The Basmara came again in a tight phalanx, but this time the leaders carried long poles they had cut in the forest. When they were shot down by the archers on the wall, the men that followed picked up the poles they had dropped and carried them forward. Fifty or more men died before the poles reached the outer wall of the stockade. The Basmara crowded forward to lift one end of a pole and prop it against the top of the wall. Immediately they swarmed up it, their short stabbing spears clamped in their teeth.
Once their weight was on the pole it was impossible for the defenders
to dislodge it. They had to meet the warriors hand to hand when they reached the top of the wall. Imbali and her women stood in the line with the men, and dealt out deadly execution with their battleaxes. But the Basmara seemed impervious to their losses. They clambered over the corpses of their comrades, and rushed into the fray, eager and undaunted.
At last a small bunch had fought their way on to the parapet. It took hard and bitter fighting before the last was hurled back. However, fresh waves swarmed to take their places. Just when it seemed that the exhausted defenders were about to be overwhelmed by the sheer weight of painted bodies, the whistles shrilled again and the attackers melted away.