That Devil of a Beast 1298

It all began with a goat.

Lmumba spied the odd, fattened creature while basking lazily in the sun, perched on a bnkomba branch that hung over the river; the tree's ear-like leaves heavily swooning in the breeze as her weight pushed the branch down. She had never seen a goat before.

She laughed at the beast, with its squat little legs and its small horns, just barely beginning to curl. The goat grazed with a finicky eye, unable to find the patch of grass it wanted, occasionally looking over to Lmumba's side of the river as if the grass there would be better.

It probably would be. The goat's side of the river was sparse, dusty meadow, while Lmumba's was thick, rich forest, with plenty of green, crisp undergrowth.

Lmumba's stomach rumbled fiercely as the sun began to recede into the east. Her slanted eyes sighted something across the river, something better than the normal fare. Goats were obviously rare, why shouldn't they be succulent? The funny looking beast was asking to be eaten with its plump little body and its diminutive legs.

Lmumba leaped across the river in one single, graceful motion. The goat's neck was snapped without problem by her long dark arms and her shapely hands with cruel nails. The goat didn't make a sound. She cut the beast's throat with her cruel, sharpened nails and placed her thick blood-red lips to the opening. It was warm and sweet, the first drink after a kill always was.

Lmumba's tribe feasted on goat that night. No one, not even the wise and worldly griot, had ever seen such a beast. Its bones were picked dry, broken for the marrow, and thrown onto the fire for the God's Own Feast. It was a gift from them, so they deserved something more. They were given the heart and intestines, but not after Lmumba and the griots had savored a bite or two or even three of those delicacies. The skull was kept by the griot, to be placed on his banner. The skin was given to Lmumba, who wrapped herself in it after it was dried. She pierced her large bnkomba leaf ears with the teeth of the goat, an unorthodox piercing, but accepted in meaning.

Lmumba's tribe feasted to their death. Lmumba adorned herself in funerary garb. The Gods who had given them the goat were not forgiving, and wanted more than the heart, intestines and bones of a goat run astray. They wanted the world of Lmumba's tribe, of all the other tribes.

The Horned Crusade had begun.