The Giant of Africa Lives On!!!

The heated iron rod seared through the socket that was meant to hold her left eye, the guttural sound that escaped her patched throat was devoid of anything human. She wasn't pleading, would never be reduced to that, her soul only regretted her capture.

When she sneaked out of the clan a forth night ago determined to return with the 'KONTIMBE' egg, she hadn't of course understood why for centuries preceding theirs, the ancestors had rather writhed under the curse that had sent the clan into extinction. 

The 'MALUMKWE' clan was dreaded. The story went that even Zemku, the fearless Kizahr, never mentioned their name even when drunk. 

"But how could 'MASHANKWU', the clan of the warring lords, just go into extinction because the 'MALUMKWEs' had carried of the 'egg' and cursed them?! At least, somebody should have tried!"

She looted her clan for this! 

"But who was she to voice her thoughts? The 'manless' Wadimbe's daughter, whose love for younger 'Dwualas' had cost her mother countless babies?!"

She wished she mentioned it to Zehmul, the legendry tale bearer. News told him always went round before he even got to the next 'Izhaku'. However they became friends, was not her worry now. The only thing that killed her soul, was not even her left eye that had been seared out, nor her feet that had been boiled in Qwili's poison. The fact that she had been captured and was being turtured to a cruel death infront the 'KONTIMBE' egg killed her twice.

The guttural sound came again, she barely caught the taken-aback reaction of her chief captor as her blood spurted on his 'Iwanda' portion stripped chest. That was all the reaction she needed. She leaped as one possessed by 'Mankhur', the wounded Tigress. Before her captors could fully grasp how one so feminine could survive this long, the 'egg' was in her hand and her sprint was deadly. She ran the race of the soon-departing, the iron rod still fixed in her left eye socket.

She knew she was past the border of the living, but her spirit felt more life than the entire clan had witnessed. As the expert sprinting feet of her captors sounded closer, her feet found gait in her flight. She went completely blind as her 'rodded-eye-socket' spurted and gushed with blackened blood, of course the poison had gotten to her head.

She knew she was close to her clan border, and she had less than two counts to breathe her last, the death arrow of her pursuers had just pierced her neck, she could never outwitt them. Yet she fled on, if her captors knew her soul had crossed the living's border, they would have relented, but as they gave chase, she found strenght.

She suddenly gave a nasal cry so deep and threw the 'egg' across the clan's border, she collapsed onto the earth, oblivious of the egg's destination. 

Her chief captor, pulled his 'kwero' sword and cut off her arms. Twas better she died the cruel death still, he heaved, his massive chest beating as the 'Kutum' drums.

*******

As the KONTIMBE egg was solemnly cracked open a moon after, and the eagle released into the sky, 'NIMANJE's dying words echoed in the hearts of the MASHANKWU clan, "Our Freedom Now Rests in Our Hands!"