Tembo is a Niloan boy and a protagonist in Tales of the Great Beasts. His spirit animal is a monkey named Omika. When Briggan united the Greencloaks, Tembo was their first leader.
Overview
Tembo is a former Vendani goat herder. His village was raided by the Conquerors, and since then he had been a part of a small resistance. He is also the first Greencloak.
In the Books
Tales of the Great Beasts
Tembo and Omika are first found by Uraza as they hid in the grass under a greencloak. Uraza asks what they were doing on her hunting grounds, and Tembo replies that he was here to save her from the Conquerors. He tells her that the Conquerors are hunting her and her talisman, the proposes that they fight together. Uraza refuses and attempts to fight off the approaching Conquerors and their leader Samilia by herself, only to be struck with poison-tipped arrows and put into a cage.
That night, Tembo sneaks into the Conqueror camp and charges straight for Uraza's cage. A guard blocks his way and he impales him with a spear. More guards follow him and he leads them away from the camp. Meanwhile, Omika finds the keys to Uraza's cage and releases her. Uraza and Omika head towards where Tembo had run off, scaring away the guards. Tembo informs Uraza that Samilia was leading her forces into her hunting grounds, heading towards the Red Orchard, where her talisman is.
Tembo and Omika appear again at the Red Orchard, where Uraza finds them, and they discover that the Conquerors had already taken the talisman. Tembo tells Uraza that he saw the talisman in an iron wagon coming off of a Conqueror ship, and that they could work together to get it back. They start to track the Conquerors down, where they stop in a village named Dakami to meet Tembo's allies; Djantak, Kinwe, Jinta, and several others.
Later, the resistance sneaks into the nearby Conqueror camp. They plan to start a fire and then use the diversion to steal back Uraza's talisman, but they run into a trap; Samilia knew they were coming. Despite the Conquerors surrounding Tembo and Uraza, Tembo whistles a signal, and the camp starts to explode into fire. He summons Omika and the monkey rips the talisman from Samilia's neck. Not long after, though, Tembo is struck down with an arrow. Samilia's tuatara spirit animal takes the talisman. Uraza, noticing the lizard and injured Tembo, decides to save Tembo instead of pursuing Samilia. They escape from the Conqueror camp and regroup with the resistance. Tembo informs Uraza of a shipment of Conqueror siege weapons that will be arriving into Port Tantego next week, and Uraza decides to follow the resistance there.