KwaZulu-Natal, 1812

“There he is. The cunt.”

INkosi Dingiswayo, Hegemon of the Mthethwa, spat into the soil before putting away his spyglass. He’d gotten the curious trinket from a Portuguese trader and never went anywhere without it.

“You shouldn’t speak like that about another king, nkosi. The ancestors frown.”

Dingiswayo chuckled, a deep, hearty sound, before turning to the speaker.

“What is a king to me? Many kings have joined the Mthethwa, and many more shall soon bend the knee.”

He turned towards the north with a hateful gaze.

“As soon as I am finally done crushing that cockroach, Matiwane.”

The impi was stationed just south of the White Umfolozi river, organising into amabutho under the direction of Dingiswayo’s new military doctrines. They were preparing a massive assault on Matiwane, a troublemaker who’d tried to usurp rule over the Ngwane from the Dlamini clan. They’d exiled him and his followers for it, and now he roved across the plains, stealing cattle and burning every isibaya he came across.

With a whoosh, Mandla suddenly came to, standing guard behind the overlord and his young general.

He looked around, confused. They were at the top of a small hill with nothing around but grass, sparse trees and the odd grazing groups of zebras and impala.

What’s going on? Is this the Trial?

He looked down at himself and suddenly felt nauseated. Breaking out into a cold sweat, he shook as he fought to control himself. He wasn’t in his own body. The strange proportions and new sensations overwhelmed him for a second, but he took several deep breaths.

Okay, breathe, calm down, evaluate. I’m in a new body. I kinda know why I’m here. For the Trial, and because we have to kill Matiwane. Matiwane?

Mandla glanced around, fully realising where he was.

Wait what? That’s THE Dingiswayo? Then that means the iNduna he’s talking to…

The revelation was like a cold splash of water.

Ding!

Objective: Steal one cow from the amaNgwane herd.

Mandla blinked, baffled.

What the fuck?

He looked over to where Dingiswayo had pointed the spyglass. Without his Ascendant eyes, he could barely see the amaNgwane settlement. Squinting, he saw the dirty smudge on the horizon that represented the amaNgwane isibaya and his way out of here.

His body’s memories told him they’d been chasing Matiwane across the plains for months, and had finally caught him unawares, with spies having told them the amaNgwane only planned to leave this place in three days. Dingiswayo was going to attack tomorrow.

I need to move fast.

Whoever’s body he’d taken over, maybe an ancestor of his, he was obviously a highly regarded warrior, as he was guarding the Hegemon of the Mthethwa. He searched his memories.

Whoa, nice.

He still hadn’t gotten a name, but this guy had been handpicked by the Zulu king, Senzangakhona, to join the impi and fight by his iNkosi’s side, as every ruler within the Mthethwa was obligated provide troops. There was some seriously impressive stuff in this guy’s past.

Let’s hope none of that becomes necessary. I’ll slip away at night, sneak into the amaNgwane isibaya, jack a cow, come back here and reap the blessings. Easy peasy.

Waiting for the sun to fall, he was struck by how… familiar the orange-lit plains looked. It was the same kind of grassy savannah he’d been in, in the real world.

The real world… Is this the real world? Did my consciousness jump back in time or is this all in my head? Fuck there’s a battle going on.

As he was lost in thought, he didn’t notice the hand until it was already cuffing him about the head.

“Ow, fuck!”

“Stop daydreaming, Mnqobi! You didn’t even see iNkosi Dingiswayo walking back towards the impi.”

He rubbed his head as he ran after the group. His memories identified the assailant as a guard sent by the Buthelezi king.

Ah yes, Mzilikazi. Mnqobi thinks you’re a prick.

He was inclined to agree. That was just unnecessary.

As Mandla and Mzilikazi made it to the escort group, they joined the rear silently, as Dingiswayo inspected each ibutho.

He wasn’t happy.

“No, no, no! You form up in regular lines! Your isihlangu must be raised to the same height as the man next to you, to form a wall.”

He’d come out of exile with strange new ways of war and was testing them out on this first punitive assault.

Dude had the right idea.

As they walked down the ranks of the impi, Dingiswayo would correct a warrior’s stance here, fix an arm bracer there, just generally interact with his men. And Mandla saw that they loved him for it, some looking legitimately starstruck that the overlord would deign to speak to them.

He’s good at this.

Mandla decided to pause his plan for the cattle raid. He’d watch Dingiswayo go about his duties then steal away at night when they retired to camp. Where else would he get to watch a legitimate ruler so intimately? Imagine what he could learn!

Now, focusing diligently on the man he was bound to protect, Mandla began noticing his brilliance. A few of the kings under the Mthethwa had come along with their amabutho, and Dingiswayo played them off each other perfectly. Implied guarantees, covert winks, suggestions of possible marriage alliances, every king in the impi thought he and Dingiswayo were getting one over on all the rest of them.

He vaguely remembered history lessons about how Dingiswayo grew the Mthethwa mainly through diplomacy and alliance, but seeing the man himself, Mandla realised that didn’t even scratch the surface. This man was a political genius.

Stopping himself before he devolved into a complete fangirl, he recalled the reason he was here.

Yes, objective. Cow.

As the inspection wound down and the sky reddened, illuminating the clouds like great balls of fire in the heavens, Dingiswayo headed back towards his tent, guard detail in tow.

At first Mandla was confused at the early night but then a glance down at his loinskin reminded him.

Right, this is olden times. No electricity. Christ, they probably all go to bed as soon as the sun goes down.

Rummaging inside his tent, Dingiswayo ordered a stool placed outside it, and grabbing a cloth and some grease, he withdrew a long flintlock rifle from within his sleeping quarters.

Huh. I guess that makes sense.

Dingiswayo disassembled, then began cleaning the gun, making sure to sharpen the wicked bayonet on the muzzle. After confirming everything was dust-free and lubricated properly, the overlord retired, ready to sleep for the night.

Mandla was just getting started.

The rapidly failing light gave him a chance to move around unquestioned, as everyone withdrew to their sleeping arrangements.

Picking his way through tents and sleeping mats, he made his way to the edge of the encampment. Looking in the direction of the amaNgwane isibaya, he sighed. It was so far away.

Still, even without his Ascendant body, he’d have to run for it. He’d timed the sentry patrols and knew he had a roughly thirty second window to cross the picket line and disappear into the grasses. He didn’t know if this body could do it.

Am I so accustomed to my Ascendant physique that I can’t do shit without it? Of course not!

Mandla slapped himself, psyching himself up.

“Okay, nice and easy.”

A sentry with a burning torch passed by and Mandla waited a few nail-biting seconds for him to walk out of earshot, then took off running.

Holy shit, this is so much easier when you’re tall.

Sprinting his way past the patrol route, Mandla kept a steady count until he hit the thirty second limit. He dropped directly into the grass, obscuring his large form. Risking a glance back, he saw the latest guard had clearly heard something, the man just wasn’t sure what.

Just assume I’m a warthog, just assume I’m a warthog.

Mandla was hoping for the best, but sneaking away from a surprise attack force in the night towards the people meant to be getting ambushed was not a good look. He didn’t want to get executed.

What even happens if I die before completing the objective?

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

A hiss in from of him interrupted his musings.

Oh fuuuu-

Even his thoughts went still as a long snake with a dull brown-grey colouring slithered past his face. The world seemed to stop, hypnotised by the serpent’s scales. Its signature pitch black mouth opened to hiss in warning.

He didn’t dare to breathe as it glided over the ground in its serpentine fashion. He willed his heart to stop thudding so hard against his ears.

When the end of its tail disappeared into the stalks, Mandla exhaled.

Jesus fuck. A black mamba.

Their bites would have you screaming in agony in twenty minutes, and kill you in six hours if you didn't have antivenom, which these guys most certainly did not. In modern South Africa they’d been mostly pushed out of the cities, but apparently they just fucking rolled up anywhere in the olden days.

Mandla was starting to consider the real possibility of failing his objective. What could he do if a wildebeest charged out of the bush randomly and gored him to death?

No point planning for failure.

With that one-sentence pep talk, he set off.

Making his way across the plain, he watched the moon rise, brightening up the savannah with delicate silver light. This was good, he’d be able to see better. This was also bad as the amaNgwane would also be able to see better. Regardless, he had to do it tonight.

After a couple of hours of walking, Mandla came upon the outside limits of the settlement. He hadn’t seen any sentries, which was strange for someone as careful as Matiwane had been.

Shrugging, he chalked it up to the Ascent influencing things, making it easier for him.

Approaching the thatch-roofed rondavels, Mandla kept low. Even if there were no sentries, there still were people living in these huts, the people who owned the cattle he was about to steal. They likely wouldn’t be happy.

Gingerly tiptoeing around the circular huts, Mandla penetrated into the heart of the settlement, where the isibaya was. Walking up to the wooden fence posts, he looked inside the isibaya.

Most of the cattle were asleep, with a few older cows still awake, lowing softly. His gaze zeroed in on one specific cow that stood silently, not sleeping, not making any noise, just quietly chewing cud.

Perfect.

The wooden gate was bound tightly with rope, and as Mandla tried to undo the knot, he only scraped his fingers raw.

Fuck this.

Backing off for the moment, he searched the slumbering settlement for any sort of implement that could help. Circling around its whole circumference, the only remotely useful tool he saw was an axe, leaning against the outer wall of a rondavel.

Imbemba. A war axe.

Something weird is definitely going on. Weapons are usually kept in one hut.

Even Dingiswayo’s travelling impi used a central location to store their weaponry, for ease of transport and record-keeping. Matiwane and his amaNgwane might have a different way of doing things, but too much weird had gone on this night.

Mandla needed to hurry up and get out of there.

Grabbing the axe, Mandla rushed back to the isibaya. With a two-handed swing, he cleaved the knot binding the gate and the rope fell to the ground.

Okay, good so far.

Now, he just had to get the cow. Herd animals, cows were notoriously difficult to separate from their families. Either all of them would follow the lone trailblazer, or the selected animal would refuse to leave the herd, bellowing and mooing loudly. Either way, it was a chore to steal just one cow.

Luckily, most of the other cattle were asleep, but when Mandla poked and prodded the silent cow to move toward the open gate, the other awake cows started shuffling towards the open space as well.

Mandla whispered furiously.

“No! No! Get back! Goddammit!”

The cows paid him no heed, so he ran towards the gate and held it shut, stopping them in their tracks.

That’s when he heard voices.

“Hahaha, they don’t even know what’s coming! I just wish we could be here to see their faces.”

“Yes, it’s an inspired plan, but digging those trenches was back-breaking and took too much manpower. This whole area was unguarded for a while, imagine if someone had come to raid the isibaya?”

“You lazy bum, you just wanted to be the one to light the flame, didn’t you?”

The second speaker fell silent, prompting another guffaw from the first man.

Holy shit!

From what he could tell, Matiwane was shrewder than they’d thought. Either he’d found out about the Mthethwa impi coming for him or he’d sent double agents to misinform Dingiswayo about their schedule.

Either way, the Hegemon would be in for a huge surprise, as it sounded like the amaNgwane were digging fire breaks. Matiwane was going to encircle the impi in a massive veld fire.

Mandla didn’t know if this really was the past, or a reconstruction in his head, but on the off-chance that it really was…

I can’t let this happen.

Aside from the fact that one of his ancestors would be caught in the blaze and possibly erase Mandla from existence, the historical significance of Dingiswayo could not be overstated. Without him, the Zulu empire never happens.

“Hey, I think I see something!”

Mandla ducked, hiding behind one of the fenceposts.

“Look, someone forgot to lock the gate. Imagine if all our herd just escaped? This is what happens when you send everyone on a digging expedition in the middle of the night.”

The two men’s footsteps sounded closer and closer. Mandla had to do something. They’d pick up the rope and see it had been cut. Then they’d probably check on the herd, discovering him.

Mandla’s pulse roared in his ears, his heart hammering against his chest. He had to do something!

The men reached the gate. Picking up the discarded rope, one of them exclaimed in confusion.

“Hey, Jobe, does this look like someo-”

Acting on pure instinct and adrenaline, Mandla leapt to his feet and rammed the wooden gate open. It cracked one of the inquisitive men on the jaw, knocking him out cold.

The other man barely had any time to react, shocked, as Mandla, using his body’s muscle memory, swung the axe savagely, burying it in the man’s throat. He made a pained, wet gurgling sound instead of the alarm he was about to raise, clutching at the blade in his throat.

Mandla paused for a second, stunned.

I didn’t... I mean, he was…

Shaking his head, he slapped himself again.

Fuck, mission first. I need to steal this cow and get word to the iNkosi.

Dragging the bodies inside the isibaya, Mandla tried to withdraw the axe from the poor man’s neck, but the squelch and resistance of the flesh made him squirm.

Instead, he picked up the club tied at the unconscious man’s waist, an iwisa.

Juggling it in his hand as he got used to its weight, he went around to the back wall of the isibaya and started slapping the rumps of sleeping cattle, jolting them awake. Further prodding and annoying them, the cows lowed and started cantering out of the gate.

Singling out the silent one, Mandla met it outside the gate and led it off in a different direction to the rest of the herd. True to its nature, it remained calm and silent instead of bellowing out to its herdmates.

Pushing it to a jogging speed, he was quickly making his way out of the settlement when a man appeared from behind a hut.

Surprised, both men stood staring for a second before the Ngwane man opened his mouth.

“Nyandzaleyo! Nyandzaleyo! There’s a Mtheth-”

He couldn’t finish before Mandla cracked him on the head with his iwisa. He didn’t go down, so Mandla cracked him again, then a third time until he finally went still. Blood dripped from the end of the club.

Drawing a shaky breath, Mandla stared at the body before slapping himself again.

Don’t think about it, don’t think about it. Mission. Objective. Don’t think about it.

He didn’t have time to hide the body, so using the thin end of the club as a riding crop, he snapped it against the cow’s rump, making it yelp and start running out into the moonlit plain. The other cattle were spread out within the settlement now and making such a commotion that people were waking up, shuffling bleary-eyed out of their huts.

He jogged next to the cow, heading for the impi encampment, when he heard another cry of alarm raise up. They must have found one of the bodies.

Shit, shit, shit!

He heard Ngwane men shouting in anger, and looking back, he saw torches collecting in front of the settlement. They were going to chase.

Shit, shit, shit!!

Now fully running, he snapped the cow once more on the rump, trying to get it to speed up. With a hiss and a whoosh, an assegai flew between them, barely missing.

SHIT!

He broke into a full sprint, now praying the cow would follow him on its own. Multiple assegai hissed through the air and stuck into the ground around him, wobbling as he dashed past.

From behind him, a loud moo sounded, the cow crying in what seemed like panic. As he raced back towards the camp, a dark form appeared from his rear. It was the cow, now galloping as fast as it could, an assegai sticking out of its posterior.

Javelins rained down around them as the furious amaNgwane chased the fleeing pair down the grassland. One nicked Mandla’s calf, only just barely drawing blood, but spurring Mandla to dig even deeper, run even faster.

The two ran for what seemed like hours, before the hissing stopped and they’d seemingly lost the amaNgwane. Slowing down, Mandla risked a glance back to confirm that yes, they were home free. Matiwane had likely told them not to engage with the impi until they were ready to spring their trap.

HA! Not on my watch, Matiwane.

Lost in self-congratulation, he didn’t notice the rock until he tripped over it, landing face first in the soil.

I probably deserved that.

The cow by his side mooed in distress. Mandla sat up on the ground.

“Yes yes, we’ll get there. If I take it out now, you’ll bleed and get infected.”

It mooed again, more insistently.

“Look bro, I need a quick rest. We’ll get going, so chill.”

It was then that Mandla heard the hiss.

Fuck, more of them.

He shot to his feet, ready to run, when he felt a sharp stabbing pain in his thigh. He looked down.

A black mamba.

Yelping in fear, Mandla jumped, taking his foot off the snake’s tail where he’d inadvertently placed it.

The snake angrily hissed, slithering away.

Looking down at the bite wound, Mandla screamed in frustration.

“FUCK! No! No, this isn’t how it ends! I’ve been through too fucking much to die from a damn snake bite!”

Glancing at the cow, which was looking back at him almost apologetically, he found new strength.

Fuck that, I’m a Zulu. Strong as a fucking bull. I can do anything.

He knew he had roughly twenty minutes before the pain would become debilitating and an hour until he lost consciousness. Probably less if he was going to be moving.

Gritting his teeth, Mandla took a strip of leather from his loinskin and bound his thigh in a tourniquet, hopefully slowing the spread of the venom.

Putting a hand on the cow’s side, he and the bovine began limping as fast as possible back to the encampment.

Half an hour later, gasping in pain with every breath, dizzy with nausea, he shambled into the picket line, where a patrol found him.

“Mnqobi? What the fuck?”

Of course, it’s this guy.

Still, it was better than nothing. Mandla responded weakly, almost vomiting up the words as he felt his eyelids droop and a sharp metallic taste in his mouth.

“Mzilikazi, take the cow to the isibaya, and bring me to the iNkosi. Right nurrr-”

His speech slurred as he collapsed to the ground. His thoughts were scrambled, disjointed as everything blurred in his eyes. He slowly closed them…

Before waking up with a jolt, suddenly in the iNkosi’s tent, surrounded by vaguely recognisable faces.

Dingiswayo looked down at him, concern on his face.

“Give him another dose.”

A sangoma nodded, putting a cup to Mandla’s lips. He tried to drink but could barely swallow. However, the little bit of fluid that made it down his throat traced a line of fire into his stomach. He felt energized, if only for the moment. He looked down at the liquid. It was a harsh white, thick as paint.

The overlord spoke again.

“Mnqobi! Mnqobi, can you hear me? You must answer some questions, it’s imperative.”

“Yrr nkrr…”

The ruler sighed, gesturing to the sangoma.

“Give him another. He won’t live to see the sun, so we must gain as much knowledge as we can now.”

The sangoma brought the cup up to Mandla’s lips once more, holding the dying man’s nose so his body swallowed automatically.

Again, it was like a jolt of lightning to his organs. Mandla woke up fully now, his eyes focused.

“Mnqobi, you must tell us what happened. Did you give away the ambush?”

“No, nkosi, they already knew. They were preparing to burn the veld when we attacked.”

Dingiswayo growled in frustration.

“I fucking knew it! The fucking Ndwandwe have probably infiltrated my ranks. No wonder Matiwane has stayed one step ahead of us this whole time. Zwide is aiding him.”

Zwide kaLanga, Hegemon of the Ndwandwe, and Dingiswayo’s mortal enemy.

Dingiswayo’s young general took the man aside and spoke in low, hushed whispers. Dingiswayo nodded. He turned back to Mandla.

“Mnqobi, you have done a great service for your people. Your wives and children shall be taken care of as my own, your homestead will flourish because of what you achieved here today. I will send word to the Zulu king immediately.”

Mandla just gave a weak smile, before a notification popped up.

Ding!

Objective: Steal one cow from the amaNgwane herd. Achieved!

Level up!

Congratulations! You are now a 2nd Rung Ascendant! Configuring status…

Heh, that prick actually took it back.

As everything went dark, he saw Dingiswayo’s general look his way and give him an appreciative nod of respect.

Nice, Shaka Zulu thinks I’m a badass.

Then his consciousness fled.