Zhura feinted, pretending a thrust with her staff, and then blocked Kajimani's swing. She crouched under the block, reversing her staff smoothly over the shoulder to counter with her own swing. Kaj skipped back. Zhura advanced, jabbing again.
Menga the ironsmith had taught her the short staff, training her since childhood alongside his sons. The staff was an ideal weapon for a village woman, he said. In skilled hands it could break a wrist, ruin an eye, or crush a windpipe. Yet it stood only chest high on Zhura. It was light of weight, and innocuous enough to appear as a walking stick.
Made of well-crafted hardwood, the staff could turn an axe or sword at the right angle. Zhura stifled a grin, remembering the smith's words as she circled. She wove an imaginary shield around herself with her weapon, blocking a flurry of strikes from an increasingly frustrated Kaj.
She had always believed Menga trained her to fight because he thought of her as his third son. But now she wondered if he knew someday she would need to protect herself.
Where did I come from?
Two years older than Zhura, Menga's eldest son was quicker and much stronger than her. She hadn't bested Kaj in sparring since he was twelve. Now, sweat glistened on his corded muscles as he tried desperately to finish her. But on this night, Zhura's body was awash with energy, and she kept one step ahead of him.
After her encounter with Ntoza, Zhura had returned to the crone to prepare remedies and make a stew. Once the old herb-witch had retired to her bed for the evening, Zhura came to Menga's compound as she often did, to spend the remainder of the night with the only friends she possessed in all the world.
"Beware, my love," Amina quipped as she watched them from the edge of the yard. The merchant's daughter tended a pot of millet beer as it warmed over the fire. "I think Zhura is still angry about being taken advantage of by a stranger."
Zhura felt anger, but it wasn't emotion that gave her such boundless energy. She stepped offline, deflecting another attack and countering. Kaj struggled to block.
"If anger makes her so quick," Kaj panted, "Give her spear and shield and make her a warrior instead of an herb-witch."
Zhura rapped his knuckles with the shaft. He bent at the knee, absorbing the blow. An instant later, she held the point of her staff poised at his throat. Kaj dropped his weapon.
"It's been a long day," he said.
Zhura set her staff aside and clasped his hand. "Thank you, Kaj. It has been a long day. I know you were already tired."
Kaj showed her a genuine smile. Both of them were dripping with sweat, he in only a training breechclout and she with breechclout and halter. They ambled across the grass-lined yard to join Amina. She already had stools and beer ready for them.
Amina, still dressed in her colorful wrap skirt and halter from working in the market, grunted hungrily at her man. They made a provocative couple. She with a heart-shaped face and deceptively innocent dark eyes. He with long limbs shaped by the hammer and bellows, and a scruffy-bearded boyish face. They were pledged to marry.
Well, aside from certain obstacles...
"You must try this millet beer from the south. Mama has been selling it at market for the last few days and it is all the frenzy!" Amina said. She handed each of them a clay cup. "It is good for your yoni and popo."
Zhura guffawed into her cup. The flavor was sharp, with whispers of honey and ginger.
Kaj took a sip. "Father says he hasn't seen his friends for days because they are off trying to make babies with their wives," he grinned. "He says it's the southern beer."
As they all sat, Amina dried her lover off languidly with a dry cloth. "Maybe that explains your encounter this morning," she said to Zhura. "The woman was drunk on heady beer."
Zhura pursed her lips in thought. "It doesn't make sense that she would have been so far upriver. She came there for me."
