They said the boy’s birth shook the rafters of the birthing hut.
The midwives of K’Mbali had assisted in hundreds of births, but none had ever seen a child like this. When they lifted him, his bones chimed faintly, like hollow metal struck by wind. When they cleaned him, their tools slipped off his skin as though it were polished stone.
They named him M’Bare, but the people of K’Mbali began calling him something else before he could walk: The Iron Walker.
No one could explain him. Not the healers, not the priests, not even the diviners who cast cowries into the dust. But all agreed on one thing: M’Bare was touched by something older than the kingdom itself. Some whispered he was the child of Ng’goro, a war spirit said to have vanished centuries ago when peace briefly settled across the savanna....
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