Chapter 79 - The Smell of War
Zeila Port
The western wind howled as the team approached Zeila—a wind that carried the scent of the sea, the stench of death, and the faintest traces of spice. Akumu and Tiriki dismounted a mile outside the port, hidden among thorny acacia bushes and dry brush.
The soldiers took the wagon into the city, carrying wares and questions. Meanwhile, Akumu and Tiriki slipped through the crags and dunes like shadows.
Zeila was no longer the proud trade hub it once had been.
The port had grown bloated with vice. Smoke stained the whitewashed walls. Banners bearing the crescent moon and star hung beside those of the Sultanate, but none flew clean. Pirates wandered the streets in packs, their laughter too loud, their blades too loose. The city smelled of sweat, salt, and rotting ambition.
Akumu wore the clothes of a spice merchant’s apprentice, his head wrapped in a saffron-dyed scarf, his sleeves rolled up to show calloused hands. Tiriki donned a soldier’s cast-off tunic, charred at the edges, torn at the shoulder. He walked with a bow-legged gait, mimicking an old injury.
Their eyes, however, were wide open.
Zeila wasn’t just a port—it was a marketplace of secrets.
Slave traders whispered beneath curtained stalls. Foreign envoys from the Arabian coast made quiet deals in smoky rooms. And the streets ran with gold, bribes, and blood.
By day, Akumu followed the scent of cinnamon and myrrh into the marketplaces. He listened as women gossiped over piles of cloth and spices. One Somali merchant, draped in white, spoke of a new threat to the north—a kingdom that refused to bend. Another warned of missing caravans along the eastern coast.
By night, Tiriki ventured into the port’s underbelly—gambling dens, dock taverns, and brothels where secrets spilled faster than drinks. He posed as a runaway mercenary, bitter and broke. It worked.