The retreat of General Ashworth's battered and humiliated expeditionary force was not a clean break, but a bleeding, agonizing crawl out of the lands an Ntemi Jabari now indisputably controlled. For weeks, Lبانجى's Wanyisanza warriors and Hamisi's tireless Batembo skirmishers, like packs of relentless wild dogs, harried the British rearguard. They launched daring night raids on Ashworth's makeshift camps, stampeding his remaining transport animals, setting fire to what little forage his men could find, and ensuring that no red coat or askari felt a moment's peace until they had stumbled well beyond the southernmost Batembo-allied villages. Kaelo, through Jabari, had been adamant: Ashworth was to be allowed to escape – a live, defeated general carried more potent tales of Nyamwezi ferocity back to Zanzibar than a dead one martyred in the bush – but his exit was to be a prolonged torment, a lesson etched in exhaustion and blood.
When the last exhausted runner finally confirmed that Ashworth's column, now a mere shadow of the proud army that had invaded, had crossed the Great Ruaha River and was truly gone from their immediate sphere, a wave of profound, almost disbelieving relief swept through Jabari's ikulu and the allied chiefdoms. They had done it. They had faced the Butcher of the Indus, the might of the British Queen's red coats and cannons, and they had driven them back.
The celebrations that followed were unlike anything Unyamwezi had ever witnessed. For seven days and seven nights, the Batembo capital and its surrounding villages feasted, danced, and sang. The captured British rifles, now numbering well over a hundred, were displayed with pride. The two damaged but potentially repairable field guns taken from Harrison's column (one abandoned at Kisanga, the other during the final rout from the Black Rock Hills) were objects of awe and endless speculation. Warriors recounted their deeds in boastful, poetic verse, Mzee Kachenje already beginning to weave the disparate threads of heroism into a grand epic of the Batembo-British war. Jabari, as the paramount chief, the victorious Ntemi, was hailed as "Jabari Mshindi"—Jabari the Victor—"Simba wa Unyamwezi"—the Lion of Unyamwezi. His name became a legend, whispered with reverence not only among his own people but by traders and travelers carrying the astonishing news across the caravan routes.
Yet, amidst the euphoria, Jabari, with Kaelo's cold, calculating mind ever at work, led the solemn rites of mourning for the hundreds of Batembo and allied warriors who had fallen. Their sacrifice had been immense, the price for this breathing space paid in the best blood of their clans. He ensured every family that had lost a son, a husband, a father, received generous compensation in cattle and grain from the communal stores and the tribute now flowing in from newly loyal territories. This meticulous attention to the human cost, Kaelo knew, was as vital to maintaining unity and loyalty as any military triumph.
The victory, and the legend of Jabari, acted as a powerful magnet. Chiefdoms that had remained nervously neutral during the British invasion now sent delegations laden with gifts, eager to swear allegiance and seek the protection of the Ntemi who had defied the sun-haired men. The Batembo Kingdom, as Kaelo now consistently termed it in his strategic planning, expanded rapidly, its influence stretching further than ever before. He guided Jabari in negotiating these new alliances, ensuring the terms were fair but also clearly established Batembo paramountcy. Tribute was standardized – a portion of each harvest, a tithe of new cattle, a commitment of warriors in times of war – but Kaelo also insisted on contributions of specific resources: iron ore from chiefdoms known for rich deposits, salt from those near vital pans, skilled craftsmen, or even youths to be trained in Jabari's growing administrative or military cadres.
Boroga, his ambition now fully channeled into the monumental task of organizing this burgeoning kingdom, thrived. Under Kaelo's tutelage, he established a more sophisticated system for collecting, storing, and distributing tribute and resources. He oversaw the creation of new, larger granaries, the expansion of herds under royal protection, and the establishment of regular trade links between the core Batembo lands and the newly incorporated territories, ensuring a fairer exchange of goods than had often existed under the previous fragmented system of competing chiefdoms.
Juma and his small team of "scribes," their skills with Kaelo's symbolic script and rudimentary Swahili improving daily, were now tasked with an almost overwhelming amount of work. They created inventories of warriors, weapons, and livestock for each district. They recorded the terms of new treaties, the judgments passed in Jabari's council, and the key events of the kingdom, forming the first fragile archives of a new Nyamwezi power. Kaelo knew this was the bedrock of a modern state, however primitive its current form.
Seke the smith, now revered as a master craftsman second only to the Ntemi himself in practical importance, became the lynchpin of their military development. His forges, expanded and improved with better bellows and access to a wider variety of ores from tributary regions, produced a steady stream of superior spearheads, arrowheads, and agricultural tools. But his true passion, fueled by Kaelo's constant probing questions and the wealth of captured British weaponry, was firearms. He and his apprentices painstakingly disassembled, cleaned, and repaired every rifle taken from Harrison's men. They learned to recast lead balls, to mix gunpowder with greater consistency (though the quality still lagged far behind European standards), and even began to experiment with forging replacement parts for damaged locks and barrels.
Kaelo spent many hours with Seke, trying to recall every scrap of knowledge from his twenty-first-century understanding of metallurgy and early firearms technology. He explained the concept of rifling, drawing crude diagrams in the dust, though actually creating rifled barrels was far beyond their current capability. He spoke of case-hardened iron, of different tempering techniques. Seke, a man of immense practical intelligence, listened intently, absorbing, experimenting, sometimes failing, but always learning. The dream of a truly Batembo-made firearm, however distant, no longer seemed an impossibility.
The Nkonde sya Ntemi were now a formidable force, almost entirely armed with captured British rifles. Hamisi and Lبانجى drilled them relentlessly, incorporating the lessons learned from fighting Harrison's regulars. They focused on marksmanship, on disciplined volley fire, on using terrain for cover and concealment, and on swift, coordinated maneuvers. They were the iron heart of Jabari's army, a symbol of Batembo military prowess that deterred potential regional rivals and formed the ultimate guarantee of his authority.
But Kaelo knew that military strength and internal consolidation alone would not be enough. The British would return. The crucial question was when, and with what force. He intensified his efforts to build a wider intelligence network, dispatching trusted traders and discreet envoys not just to Zanzibar and the coastal towns, but also further inland, towards the Great Lakes and the powerful kingdoms there. He needed to understand the shifting alliances, the rivalries between different European powers (for he knew the British were not the only ones with ambitions in Africa – Finch had been English, Steiner German, and tales of Portuguese and French activity also circulated), and any signs of new expeditions being planned.
He also pursued a more ambitious diplomatic strategy. The defeat of Harrison had given him immense prestige. He used it to try and forge a broader coalition of Nyamwezyi and even non-Nyamwezi peoples. His message, carried by Mzee Kachenje and other skilled orators, was clear: "The sun-haired men will not rest until all of Africa is theirs. Divided, we are but mouthfuls for their insatiable hunger. United, we can be a mountain they cannot move, a river they cannot dam."
The response was, as before, mixed. Some powerful chiefs, like Munyigumba of the Hehe, remained aloof, suspicious of Jabari's own growing power. But many others, particularly those smaller chiefdoms who had witnessed or experienced European arrogance firsthand, were increasingly receptive. A loose confederation, with Jabari as its acknowledged military leader and primary spokesman, began to take shape, its bonds fragile but its potential significant. Kaelo knew that forging true, lasting unity from such diverse and often historically antagonistic groups would be the work of generations, if it could be achieved at all. But every pledge of mutual defense, every agreement for coordinated action, was a small victory in the larger war he foresaw.
His most audacious dream, one he barely dared to articulate even to himself, was to somehow acquire the knowledge and means to leapfrog generations of technological development. He pored over Steiner's and Harrison's captured journals and textbooks, trying to decipher scientific diagrams, to understand principles of engineering, chemistry, and medicine that were centuries beyond current Nyamwezi understanding. He questioned any coastal trader who possessed even a smattering of European knowledge about steam engines, telegraphy, advanced agriculture, trying to filter useful nuggets from exaggerated tales. It was a near-impossible task, like trying to build a sky-kraal with only handfuls of mud, but Kaelo was driven by the terrifying clarity of his foresight. Without a radical acceleration of their own capabilities, any victories they won would only be temporary delaying actions against the inevitable tide.
Months stretched into a year, then nearly two, since Harrison's retreat. It was a period of unprecedented growth, consolidation, and preparation for the Batembo Kingdom. The land was at peace, at least from external European threats. Trade flourished, albeit under Jabari's firm control. The army was stronger, better equipped, and more numerous than ever before. Jabari's name was spoken with awe across a vast swathe of East Africa.
Then, one cool evening during the season of the short rains, as Jabari sat with Seke examining a newly forged rifle barrel – thicker, stronger, with faint, almost accidental traces of what might one day become true rifling – a runner arrived from the coast. He was not one of Jabari's usual informants, but a Nyamwezi porter who had deserted a European-led caravan in Zanzibar and had traveled for weeks to bring his news directly to the legendary Ntemi who had defeated the red coats.
His face was ashen, his eyes wide with a terror that transcended mere exhaustion. "Great Lion," he gasped, falling at Jabari's feet. "They come again! Not just the British this time! Ships from many sun-haired tribes – British, German, French, even the Belgi, they say! They met in a great council in a place called 'Berlin' far across the waters! The Arab traders in Zanzibar whisper that they have… that they have divided all of Africa amongst themselves on a great map! They say each sun-haired tribe has been given its own piece to eat, and that this new 'Jenerali' for the British, even greater and more terrible than Ashworth, lands now in Zanzibar with an army not of thousands, but tens of thousands, with cannons that spit fire without end, and new rifles that fire many times without reloading! They say he comes to finish what Ashworth started, to make Unyamwezi a British garden, and to take your head, Ntemi Jabari, back to his Queen in an iron box!"
Kaelo felt a profound, soul-deep chill settle over Jabari. The Berlin Conference. He knew it from his history books. 1884-1885. The formal, cynical partitioning of an entire continent by European powers who saw it as nothing more than a prize to be carved up. His victories, his kingdom-building, his desperate race against time… had it all been for naught? The breathing space was over. The full, unified, and now legitimized (in their own eyes) fury of colonial Europe was about to be unleashed. The sharpened claws of the Batembo lion felt suddenly, terrifyingly inadequate against the iron teeth of the world's greatest empires.