"They came at a run, side by side, seeming to wade through the thick swamp of mortar smoke and dust, and they appeared monstrous and inhuman in the stark light of the star shells. One of them was a huge Matabele. He had lost his helmet and his head was round and black as a cannon ball, his open mouth was a pink cave lined with ivory teeth, and his bull bellow rose above even that storm of gunfire. The other was a white man, the top of his battledress torn half off his body, exposing the pale flesh of his chest and shoulders, but his face was daubed with fiendish streaks of dark green and brown paint". At the dawn of a new century, the pioneers of Rhodesia have staked their claims and stocked their farms in the land they have carved as their own. But in the hills, the Matabele indunas are preparing for the bloody rebellion which will scar the opponents for ever - and etch for them the same tragic legacy for generations to come.