The covenant - James A. Michener [283]
Then, from a distance almost as great as the first, a second flight of assegais was released, again with no consequences. At this point it was obligatory for the four warriors on each side to run forward and to throw their last spears from a distance of about twenty-five feet. Again they could be fended off easily.
Now the main bodies of the two armies were required to mingle; however, they did so under carefully understood rules: vast flights of assegais, thrown from far distances so they could be easily deflected, and when both armies were thus disarmed, a fragmentary melee without weapons in which one side pushed a little harder than the other and took a few captives. The observers could readily see which side had won, and when this was determined the other side fled, leaving its cattle to be captured and a few women to be taken home by the victors. Of course, in the scuffling some warriors were injured, and now and then some inept fighter would be killed, but in general the casualties were minimal.
A convenient feature of such a battle was that when it ended, each side could pick up about as many assegais as it had carried at the beginning, but of course they were not the same ones.
Disgraceful! Shaka brooded. This is no way to fight. Imagine! And he kicked his right foot in the air, sending his cowhide sandal in a wide arc: Men fighting in sandals. It slows them down. They can't maneuver. And it was after this fight that he began running up and down hills barefooted, until his feet were tougher than sandals and his breath inexhaustible. He also required Nxumalo to stand in the sun hour after hour, holding a big shield in his left hand, an assegai in his right.
Forty times, fifty Shaka told Nxumalo, 'I am your enemy. You must kill me.' And with a wild leap Shaka sprang forward, bringing the left edge of his shield far to his right. When Nxumalo tried to throw his assegai, as warriors were supposed to do, Shaka suddenly swept his own shield-edge brutally to the left, hooked Nxumalo's shield and half-spun him around so that the entire left side of his body stood exposed. With one swift lunge, Shaka thrust his spear at Nxumalo's heart, halting it inches from the skin.
'That's the way to kill,' he cried. 'In close.'
One afternoon, when he had slain Nxumalo many times, he took his own assegai and in a rage broke the shaft, kicking the halves in the dust. 'Spears are not the weapons for a fight. We need stabbers.' And in fury he grabbed Nxumalo's spear and shattered it, too.
'What's the matter?' Nxumalo asked.
'So stupid!' Shaka cried, kicking at the spears. 'Two armies approach, like this. You throw your first spear. I throw mine. Second spear. Third spear. Then when we have no weapons we rush at each other. It's madness.'
Retrieving only the metal points of the two spears, he went with Nxumalo to the best iron forger along the river and asked him whether he could combine these two points into onea massive, heavy, blunt stabbing sword. The artisan said that might be possible, but where would Shaka find a haft heavy enough for such a spear.
'It's no longer a spear,' Shaka said. 'It's something quite different.' And he worked with all the blacksmiths, trying to find the man who could make the terrible weapon he visualized.
In these days, when the two were still living in mutual exile, Nxumalo noticed several unusual aspects of his friend's behavior, and once when they talked idly of their possible futures in this alien chiefdom, where warriors were respected but where real warfare was unknown, Nxumalo was goaded into telling Shaka of those obvious curiosities.
'For one thing, you cleanse yourself more than anyone I've ever known. Always under the bowl of