King Dabulamanzi was speechless. The tension that followed was palpable. It took the crowd a long while to recover from what had appeared to be a nightmare. When people eventually came to grips with what was happening, the King was as jittery as a frightened fawn. The only thing he could think about was making an escape.
He leered at the crowd who all shouted: “Traitor! Traitor! Traitor!”
“Let’s kill him!” commanded Deputy King Ncengani.
Suddenly, King Dabulamanzi broke into a searing run, with Bwenjili and King Ncengani leading a pack of swearing men in hot pursuit, like hounds after a hare. There was a lot of huffing and puffing as the chasing pack gained on him. He couldn’t outrun the furious mob for long, as he soon came face to face with a sheer cliff that he was unable to scale. He was cornered.
He clung to the cliff face on all fours, taking up his position to defend himself like a hog cornered by hounds.
“Any man who steps on this cliff will meet his maker!” he threatened his pursuers.
A lean man was the first to jump onto the defended zone. He was easy game for the King, who caught him with a fierce upper cut to the throat. His windpipe raptured, he coughed up blood and died instantly.
The King took on the challengers one after the other. They presented very little threat to him – out of more than ten fighters who took up the challenge, only one gave him a run for his money.
His stiffest opposition came from none other than his own Deputy: King Ncengani. But he too finally succumbed when King Dabulamanzi lunged at him with a volley of punches on the left eye that eventually proved fatal.
Finally, it was Bwenjili who squared up against King Dabulamanzi in a mouth-watering championship battle to decide who would be the overall King of the Kingdom. All the villagers gathered around to watch the titanic battle that had all the ingredients of a thriller.
At first, the King enjoyed a superior advantage with a dazzling display of his martial arts skills. He leapt into the air and lunged like a cobra as he delivered quick flashing kicks that gave Bwenjili a hard time. The action swung from one end to the other until the two fighters ended up pinning each other down on the hard surface, groaning with pain like wrestlers in a ring.
Bwenjili was the first to rouse himself. He caught the King with a crushing header to the nose. The King stumbled and lost his balance. Bwenjili followed this with a flurry of punches to the King’s jaw.
He disengaged, doubled back a few metres and then drew out his sling. He placed a boulder inside it and swung. He let fly. The boulder flew terribly close, grazing the King’s hair. Bwenjili went for the second attempt. There was the unmistakable sound of breaking bones as the boulder crushed into the King’s skull.
“Ngadla!” Bwenjili said, as he buried the final thrust of his dagger into the King’s torso.
King Dabulamanzi slumped over and died. Bwenjili was declared a hero and was crowned the new overall King of the Kingdom.
***
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