The chirping of the early birds woke the king from his deep sleep. The dreams of him and his daughter were still fresh in his mind. As he opened his eyes, he noticed that it was a little dark. The chirping birds irritated him because he felt like they were singing songs of shame to him.
The Bantu kingdom was well known for its power and security. Munhumutapa's actions had brought shame upon the king because none of the people would feel safe after knowing that he entered the king's compound without being caught.
Changamire Zama stood up hastily but he groaned when a sharp pain on his leg kicked in. He had almost forgotten than the invader had injured his leg. He leaped towards the door and opened it. The sun was not yet up but the orange color appearing on the horizon told him it was almost up. The whole compound was silent as if everyone had left it.
The king leaped towards his daughter's hut. He got reminded that there was still life in his compound when he passed by hut with a man snoring like a pig. When he reached his daughter's hut, he pushed the door with all his might.
Two lifeless bodies with trails of blood were on the floor. To him, this was a reminder that his daughter could or could have fallen into something much worse than her servants.
He looked at his daughter's servants who were dead and shook his head in anger as tears welled up in his daughters. How he wished he was powerful to defend his daughter. He cursed himself for putting measures to protect the whole kingdom when his daughter was never protected.
He then walked to the rock where he always stood to examine the villages below him. Everything was normal. There were no flames grazing huts and there were no cries in the villages. In fact, some people were already moving in the villages doing their daily chores. The villages looked peaceful.
Shocked and helpless, the king leaped back to his hut. The pain he felt in his heart was much worse than what he felt on his leg. When sat on a wooden stool in his hut, he finally took a chance to examine his wound.
It looked deep but not as deep as his troubles. He just sat with his face down and his mind blank. He raised when he heard the Queen fidgeting and saw her waking up.
She yawned and stretched her her arms for a bit. When she noticed the king's posture she felt that something was wrong. "Baba, what is it?" The Queen questioned.
For a moment the king felt angry that she was asleep when everything happened. If she was awoke he wouldn't be doing the job of explaining the previous night's events. But then he saw that it wasn't her fault that their daughter had been taken.
"He was here," the king said softly.
"Who was here?" The Queen questioned as she used a log to search for any burning charcoal in the fireplace.
She found fidgeted and felt a cold metal making contact with her leg. When she looked at the king's spear, she noticed a spot with blood. Her eyes widened as she set them back on the king and noticed the fresh wound on his leg.
"Baba! What happened?" The Queen questioned as she rushed to his side.
"The wolf entered our kraal last night," the king said whilst still looking at the ground.
The Queen began breathing heavily as she noticed that something had taken place in their hut. She looked at her husband and said, "Did he destroy our villages? What happened here?"
"The villages are safe-our people are safe. But our house is not safe," the king said.
The Queen held her husband's hand and said, "Baba, stop beating around the bush. Tell me exactly what happened here."
The king raised his eyes to face his wife. He knew that what he was about to tell her would shatter her heart to pieces. "He came after our fruit. Mutapa took our daughter," Changamire Zama said.
The Queen gaped her mouth in shock as she searched for a different story but his eyes told her the truth. "No, no, no. Not our daughter," the Queen said as she put both hands on her head.
The Queen left their hut and rushed to her daughter's hut. She found the door open and her eyes landed on the dead servants. She dropped to the ground and began wailing.
Her wailing woke up some of the people who were sleeping in the compound. Mhare had slept in one of the warrior's huts hoping to escape during the night but Mutapa's smoke and made him sleep all night.
All the people in the compound had been smoked to sleep and they did not hear anything during the night. When Mhare heard the Queen wailing, he jumped out of the hut and rushed to where she was.
When he saw that the Princess was missing, his heart was shattered. He rushed to the king's hut and found him sitting alone on the wooden stool with one elbow on the right side of his knee which was not injured and the palm of his hand supporting his head.
"Changamire, what happened?" Mhare asked but the king failed to respond. He could go through the events of the night by relaying them to someone again.
Mhare saw that the king was not in good shape and rushed to find herbs to treat his wound. When he found them, he ground them and placed them on the king's wound. He then covered them with a cloth which he tightened around the king's thigh.
Soon, everyone in the compound woke up. A couple of women gathered around the Queen who was still mourning the abduction of her eldest daughter. The guests looked around the compound and noticed that there were footprints of a lion.
They gathered around the king and stormed him with questions about what he saw. The king narrated the events of the night to them as they listened. He felt embarrassed and belittled by Mutapa who had taken his daughter away when there were guests in his compound.
He felt humiliated to a point where he wanted to put blame on the warriors stationed in the mountains. "I believe he came alone, that's why it was easy for him to penetrate into the compound without being noticed," Mukono of the Zezuru kingdom said.
"I agree. We have to find him before he harms the king's daughter," Mhare said.
"You sent spies to look for this man, have they returned?" Mambo Tenda of the Karanga kingdom asked.
The king shook his head and said, "Maybe they haven't found anything. Or he found them and fed them to his beasts."
"We have to tighten the mountains so that he won't enter this kingdom again. This is war. If he promised to come back, then he will definitely come back. But I fail to understand why he took the king's daughter," Mukono said.
"To prove a point that he can cause damage even if we protect the kingdom by all means," Mhare responded.
"Then we have to find him before he strikes again," one of Changamire Zama's elders said.
"That's what he wants. When you go out there to look for him, you will leave the kingdom exposed to him," Mambo Tenda said.
The king remained silent as these men argued. He was staring at the ground. The kingdom did not matter anymore to him. All he wanted was the safe return of his daughter. He had tried by all means to protect the kingdom and in return his daughter was taken captive by any enemy he feared.
"Only a few men will go out to search for the king's daughter whilst the rest of us prepare for the worst," another elder chipped in.
"I suggest that we set traps in the mountains. It's wise to put more warriors in the land than placing them in the mountains where they spend the rest of the night sleeping. No one will go to the mountains until we have killed this man," the first elder said.
The king remained silent as the men argued about what to do with their safety. He was thinking of a way to make sure that his daughter returned alive. He raised his staff and everyone went silent.
He cleared his throat and said, "Whoever finds my daughter and brings her back alive and well will be rewarded. That man will become my daughter's wife."
When the man sitting before the king heard this, their hearts raced. Mhare felt his blood running and quickly rose to his feet as he went home to prepare himself for the journey.