Duel

The fighting ground has been cleared of the high grass, and has been pounded hard and flat with a hundred pairs of feet. The sun is high, and so bright and hot, everyone is sitting in the shade under the fig trees. Everyone except the two people, on either side of the oval shaped ring.

One is a young woman, twenty years of age, her head freshly shaven. She is sitting on her haunches, her eyes closed, praying to her ancestors for strength. Her hands are resting in her lap, her sword resting in her upturned palms. The sword’s blade is made of bronze, and is curved into a sickle shape, perfect for decapitation. The handle is elephant ivory, shaped and polished to fit perfectly in her right hand. She tilts her head to the side, and her head gleams, the sun highlighting her cinnamon brown skin, her lean muscular body. The vertical white stripes on her face are there as a blessing from the village priest, a sign her grandmother’s spirit is behind her sword hand, giving her strength. She wears the brown, tanned skin of a cow over her breasts, and another one below to protect her womanhood. The skin below is nothing more than underwear. The only protection the rest of her body has is goat fat. She wears no bangles, no ear or lip piercings. She wants nothing to slow her down in this fight, nothing to distract her.

“Dylah.” An older woman touches her shoulder, her mother. The sun has begun it’s slow dissent to the other side of sky. It is time to begin. Dylah stands up.

On the other side of the oval is a man, standing straight up, his heavy spear in his hands. He is older than the young woman by perhaps five years, and is more experienced, which is why he feels no need to pray. His face bears not paint, but scars from other duels such as this. He has lost every duel he has fought, but since he is not from this village, no one here knows this. He wears heavy arm bangles, and bells on his ankles, a sign of his pride. His hair is long and colored red with ochre, which stands out in contrast to his dark plum colored skin. The only clothing he wears is a short kilt made of bark cloth, which reaches down to his mid-thigh. He inspects his weapon, shaving the hairs on his arm with the nickel-iron spearhead to make sure it is sharp enough to cut through flesh. It is. He steps into the oval.

Dylah steps forward as well, and she looks over her adversary for the first time. She dismisses his skill at once, noting the scars on his face. She thinks of the one she wishes to marry, a great farmer of coffee. Once she has defeated this man here, she can be with him.

The man looks at the young woman who faces him, and thinks her a girl. She wears no bangles, no bells. He knows this is her first duel. He is happy. He thinks of the one he wishes to marry, far away in his village, a fine weaver of cloth. “Soon, your Lindani will come back to you, Urenna.” he whispers into the wind.

The village priest approaches them. He is the only one allowed to wear linen, and he is dressed in a long white kilt which reaches to his ankles. His flat belly is pierced in many places by tiny, vertical rods of gold, a sign of his status and courage. He puts his hands on Dylah’s shoulders and blesses her, praying that her grandmother will give her added strength. While he is taking his hands away, he gets a flash of what is to come. His eyes roll back in his head, he shudders violently, as if in a seizure. The importance of the vision is so great, he is forced to his knees, shaking all the way down. When he recovers, he straightens and gets silent, even somber. He stares from one fighter to the next, then stares at every single dusky face under the shade of the large trees. Then, as not to change destiny, he moves off hurriedly under the closest fig tree, and writes down his vision on a piece of old cloth, telling no one what he sees.

Of course, the priest’s behavior does not go unnoticed by the people sitting in the shade, or by the two opponents. Everyone feels uneasy. Visions are only received when something legendary is about to happen, and priests are neutral to the sides of good and evil. Even if a plague of some kind were to strike, he can not warn anyone until it has happened. Such is the will of The Gods.

Regardless of what is to happen next, the duel has to continue. The head chief of the village stands between them to officiate. He is a brawny man, with thick arms knotted with muscles, and a great chest that reminds many people of a tree trunk. The various iron titles he is wearing in his lion skin vest clink together. He is trembling, like a stubborn child being shaken by his mother. He has been in many battles, and served directly under the king in two wars, but he has never been witness to a priest receiving a vision. He is more scared of what is possible than he is of all the spirits of all the men he has killed. Somehow, he finds the strength to give them the signal to start, trying to make his yell into a roar and not a scream.

Dylah immediately ducks down. She knows her opponent’s first move will be to hurl his spear at her throat. She moves in close under the spear and his outstretched arm and tries to knock the spear aside. The man stands firm, and whips the spear down to strike her on the head. She dodges him again, hurling her body to the side. Dylah rolls over and ends up close to the ring’s perimeter. Lindani makes his move, twirling his spear between his hands loosely, hoping to knock her off balance without shedding too much of her blood. Dylah cartwheels to the side out of his way, her sword momentarily between her teeth.

“Where are you running, little monkey?” Sneers Lindani. “Come taste my spear. Send me to my love.” He dashes at her, his ankle bells clanging and he her hurls his spear at her throat once more.

Dylah dodges him, pointing her sword at him mockingly. “Why are you so slow? You move like a slow giraffe, and just as ungraceful. Opech awaits!” She circles him slowly, just out of range of his spear, looking for an opening. She soon has one. Lindani thrusts his spear at her again, but she flips over it, moving like a temple dancer over a sacred cow’s back. She attempts to cut him then, only first blood is necessary to win this match, but at the last second, he hops back. She damages only air. “Til!” she curses under her breath. “The giraffe has skill!”

Lindani catches his breath, knowing only The Gods could have moved his feet like they did. “I cannot allow her to get so close again.” He decides to use a daring move he has never before attempted. Breathing deeply, he suddenly starts turning the spear in his hand, making it appear like a wheel in motion. Then he moves his wrists and arms from side to side, and the spear becomes the wind itself, whipping sand and earth from in front of him.

Dylah backpedals, unsure of what to do. Here is something she has never seen before. Her entire strategy is based on the fact that she can maneuver around her opponent! How can she avoid her opponent’s spear when it is everywhere? She doesn’t have much time to think. The ring is small, and stepping out of it, to be jeered by everyone around is worse than being defeated. She tenses up her body, unsure of what to do. She can feel the hot air being whipped up by Lindani’s spear. Closer, closer. He is coming! But she remembers Opech’s cool lips on hers this morning, and his firm hands underneath her breasts as she embraced him an hour ago. And she remembers the paint on her face.

Lindani is confident. “After all this time, Urenna, I will come back to you!” He whips the spear at Dylah, to strike her vertically, but she does something as equally amazing as his spear play. She leaps over his spear, and his entire body, all seven feet of it. Not to be outdone, Lindani follows her with his spear as fast as he can.

Dylah lands on her feet, and quickly strikes her sword against the chest of Lindani from below. But at the same instant, she feels her shoulder rip open with blood.

Both opponents stagger back and hold their wounds.

The crowd, which has been cheering on Dylah, the home favorite, is suddenly quiet.

There has never been a draw in the history of The Wedding Duel, the ritual spread over The Three Lands. Everyone who has ever participated has either won or lost. None of the spectators know what to do, so they approach the priest.

“Did your vision have something to do with what has happened here? Tell us what must be done!” The crowd exclaims, excited and scared all at once.

The priest rises and holds his cloth up to read. “Two halves will spill one another‘s blood at once.”

The crowd murmurs amongst themselves. “Two halves” is a phrase used in the marriage ceremony by the priest when he marries a couple. It is never used to describe anything else in the language. Even when a guava is split, it is called “two parts”. The meaning is clear. The two must be married.

“But Opech is waiting for me, Uzen-Maani! I promised him I would spill blood for him!” protested Dylah, holding her hand over her shoulder to slow the bleeding.

“I cannot stay here in this land. My woman is waiting for me!” said Lindani rapidly. He allowed his blood to flow in streaks down his body, too prideful to stop it.

The priest holds up his hands. “Enough. The will of the gods must be obeyed, or chaos will fall upon us.” The crowd nods in agreement. Dylah weeps. Opech and Dylah had always been together since childhood. How can she marry this stranger? This man without one victory? Lindani’s face becomes stoic, willing himself be like rock. After all this time, Urenna is still lost to him. He feels old suddenly-very old-and he feels his knees are about to give out on him. He sits down before they do.

Dylah is more free with her emotions. She collapses. She trembles as her heart shatters within her. “I will never be whole without Opech!” she looks for him in the crowd, and sees his tall, able body moving off for the coffee plants. “Don’t go!” she tells him, stumbling after him until she can grab him, begging him not to leave her. “We can go against the order of things. We can go far from here!”

He turns to her, his eyes look strange with hurt. He looks more wounded than Dylah, although it is her blood that is flowing silently to the ground. He hugs her, and they weep. “You know we cannot.” His voice, forever calm and smooth, is a small comfort to her. “There is no escaping the will of The Gods. Even if we were to live together for many years, the damage we will wreak…” He moves from her, running towards the coffee fields, some miles away. “I cannot bear it!” He howls. He runs until he is out of sight.

Dylah falls to her hands and knees, and it feels to her as if Lindani has killed her. She would have preferred death to the pain of feeling her heart shatter. Tears fall down in a downpour, like the storm clouds the rainy season. She squeezes the red clay of the earth between her fingers to remind herself that this is no dream. Opech is gone, and in his place is a stranger. Dylah hammers her fist against the ground, not willing to give up so easily.

Lindani is not as emotional as his opponent, but he too feels pain at this unforeseen occurrence. He has traveled many months and never won. And now all his traveling and loneliness has been for nothing. His eyes seem to burn with the memory of his Urenna. His Urenna until a few drops of his own blood had taken her away from him. He pounds the ground with his spear.

The priest, Uzen-Maani, steps between them again. Whatever he is about to say is unknown, for he trembles again, falling down this time, rolling over and over in the dirt. Everyone runs to him. One vision in a lifetime is legendary, but he is having his second in the course of minutes! Dylah and Lindani both hope The Gods have changed their minds. The two of them hold their breath as Uzen-Maani wipes the foam from his mouth and speaks.

“The two of you must leave here for Kulb. You will not be married today.” He loses consciousness and falls again to the ground. The head chief and lesser chiefs drag the priest under the shade of a fig tree and attempt to revive him. Dylah and Lindani eye each other warily, and offer up a prayer to The Gods that whatever they must do will be done quickly.