Fear in the Bones, Courage in the Heart

The villagers went about their day. Sipho, one of the warriors, dressed quickly for his daily practice. As he slipped on his tunic, his eyes caught the wound across his chest—nearly dry now, a reminder of yesterday’s duel. He had not flinched when the blade cut through his skin. Pain was fleeting; he had always known that. Gratitude filled him when he thought of Kesia, the woman who had held his heart since the days of innocence. The only shadow in his life was her sister, Amina.

The two sisters looked almost like a pair of eyes. Kesia was luminous, alluring, while Amina unsettled him in ways he could not name. It wasn’t her face or manner; she was pleasant enough. It was the fortress she had built around herself. For a warrior like Sipho, it was the unknown that bred unease.

He heard the sisters laughing downstairs. Tall as a tree, he bent his shoulders to descend the narrow steps. Kesia’s face lit up when she saw him. And there it was again – Amina’s silence, her sudden retreat behind invisible gates. Sipho shrugged the thought away. She would be gone before dusk.

But when the dreaded fever arrived, rolling through the valley like a dark tide, Amina’s life collapsed. The slow whisper of disease swelled into a storm that swept through villages, leaving only death and silence. Her aging parents were among the first to fall. Desolate, she returned to her sister’s home. Whispers followed her – whispers that she, too, would be taken by the fever.

Amina shivered, though the air was still. The forest near her sister’s home became her refuge, the one place she could let her inner gates swing open. The trees, the sky, the birds—each spoke in a language older than words. But that day, even the birds seemed grave, as though they too mourned what was to come. Lying on the grass she saw it grow, felt the earth breathe beneath her, roots deepening, life persisting. Fear spread through her body, chilling her from her toes to the tips of her frizzy hair. Acutely aware of her breath, she became aware of the blood flowing through her veins. From her veins Amina travelled to her heart. Within her chest, her heart glowed with warmth. It was then the answer came: the Hortuku moss, high in the mountains, could cure the fever. The forest whispered its secret to her heart. But it also warned her – the climb was perilous, and many who attempted it never returned.

Amina ran to her sister and Sipho with her revelation. They stared at her, disbelief shadowing their faces. Irritation flared in Sipho again. Already the warriors mocked him for being bound to the “strange one.” If she spread her tale, he would be an object of ridicule.

“How do you know this?” he asked sharply. “Don’t go repeating it in the village. No one has climbed that mountain in a thousand years. It’s dangerous.”

That night, Amina lay awake, the thought of the climb haunting her. Frightening. Impossible. Necessary. Before dawn, she set out alone. Fear pressed upon her like a second skin, but with every step, her resolve burned brighter.

After two sunsets, she stood before the indomitable mountain. The grand old man had seen eons pass. The cycle of life and death were as true as the sun that warmed him in the day and the icy moon of the night. This little child was different though, he thought.  Even though her body was frail, her heart was stronger than most.

She trudged up slow and deliberate, her head bent to penetrate through the freezing winds and gale. Her bones frozen, her throat parched. And yet, the life force coarsed through her as if to make an exception for some reason. After thirty sunsets, she finally reached the top, her tired eyes searched for the horotuku moss. It was nowhere to be seen. Despair swallowed her. “Alas, it was just a figment of my imagination!” she screamed wordlessly. Amina collapsed upon the rocks and wept, her sobbing turning into uninhibited wailing. The cries loosened an avalanche. When the earth settled again, the rocks lay shifted, and before her spread a fresh wall of luminous green – the Hortuku moss.

She bowed to the old mountain in gratitude, gathered what she could, and began her descent.

When she returned to the village, bedraggled and hollow-eyed, the stares and whispers no longer mattered. She rushed to her sister’s home, only to find Kesia burning with fever. Sipho sat at her side, cloth in hand, fear in his eyes. For the first time in his life, Sipho felt utterly powerless. He let Amina do as she wished, knowing that it was a matter of time before his wife would be taken from him. 

Amina fed her sister the sour tasting paste of moss. Through the long night, Sipho watched, helpless, waiting for the end. Eventually, he fell asleep with exhaustion He awoke at dawn, hearing the sisters whispering softly to each other. Relief surged through him. He embraced Kesia, tears streaming down his face, and then bowed before Amina.

She had shown him another kind of courage – one that rose not from sword or muscle, but from spirit and heart.

The villagers honoured her with an Ichafu, a cloth of reverence. They came to her to learn – not how to wield weapons, but how to listen. To the winds. To the earth. To the voices hidden in silence.

Leadership Lesson:

Organizations today stand at the edge of vast unknowns. Artificial intelligence and new technologies sweep across our world like gales. Agility alone will not suffice. What is needed is speed – supersonic speed – and clarity of direction.

But where does that direction come from? Past data no longer holds the map; the world-scape changes too quickly. Leaders must learn, as Amina did, to sense the whispers beneath the noise. To pair analytics with intuition. To listen as much to their own hearts as to the numbers.

The new warriors of our age are those who dare to walk uncharted paths – who sign up for one way journeys to Mars, who build engines that run on water, who design floating cities, who allow chops to be embedded in their brain. There is no precedent for what they create. Only the courage to listen, the daring to trust, and the faith to walk where no one has walked before.