The Maahes who saw it coming. Mbemba-Nlaza was a court watcher from the kingdom of Kongo, one of the great states of central Africa, and the mantle chose him two years after Mariama-Sow died. By then, the first ships had reached the mouth of the great river. Within a few years, ships were arriving every season.
He understood before anyone what they meant. The Children of Apep had always been hunters of the unseen, and the ships offered them something new: a road that ran between two worlds, a hold that no one looked into, and a ledger that counted the dead without ever asking who they were. The brood had found a new road across the sea, and it was following the ships back and forth, feeding at both ends.
He sent the warning to every arm of the Pride through Amina-Gao's Great Circuit, the first time it had ever been used. The arms answered, but there were too many ports and too few Pride. The Circuit had been built for armies and kingdoms. It was not built for a thousand small harbours along the whole length of a coast.
He built the first Coastal Watch, a chain of watchers along the Kongo shore with a single order: look into the holds. He held the mantle for 37 years, and in 1529 he was killed at the royal port of Mpinda by the brood he had spent a lifetime exposing. It was the first time in the Roll that a Maahes was killed by the Children of Apep rather than by a fight. They had learned to wait for him.
What he left behind: the warning, the Coastal Watch, and the first reading of what the ships were.
