“How different you look,” he said.
I said nothing.
“Hair wilder than mine, like a seer nobody listens to. Thin as witch stick. No Ku marks?”
“They washed in the river. Much has happened to me, Leopard.”
“I know, Tracker.”
“You look the same. Perhaps because nothing ever happens to you. Not even what you cause.”
“Where do you head, Tracker?”
“We go where you come from. Where we come from you go.”
The Leopard stared at me. He would have known who I searched for. Or he was a fool. Or he thought me to be one.
“Tell them that you are headed home, Tracker, for your sake.”
“I have a home? Tell me where, Leopard. Point me where to go.”
Leopard stared at me. The warrior chief cleared her throat.
“Let me state it clear that I tried to help you,” he said.
“‘Let me state it clear’? From where did you get this tongue? Your help is worse than a curse,” I said.
“Enough. You two fight like people who have fucked. You came upon us, traveler. Be on with you and … Who are those two?”
Behind me Nyka and the Aesi were at least a hundred paces away. The Aesi covered his hair with a hood. Nyka wrapped his wings tight around himself.
She continued, “You and your kind go. You already delay us.”
She reined her horse.
“No,” the Leopard said. “I know him. You cannot let him go.”
“He is not the one we look for.”
“But if the Tracker is here then he’s already found him.”
“This man. He is just some man you know. You seem to know many,” she said.
I hoped she smiled in the dark. I really hope she did.
“Fool, how do you not know who this is? Even after he said his name. He is the one who insulted your Queen. The one who came to kill her son, but he was already gone. The one who—”
“I know who he is.” Then, to me, “You, Tracker, you come with us.”
“I go nowhere with any of you.”
“You’re the second man to think I am offering choices. Take him.”
Three warriors dismounted and stepped towards me. I held both axes in hand and gripped them tight. I had just cut a child’s throat and split a woman’s head in two, so I would kill anyone here. But I looked straight at the Leopard when I thought it. The three stepped to me and stopped. They lowered their spears and approached. Before, I could not smell it anymore, the fear metals had for me. I could stand tall like the person in the storm who never got hit by hail. Now I looked left and right, thinking who I should dodge first. I looked up and saw Leopard watching me.
“Tracker?” he said.
“Have all my men gone deaf in the night? Take him!”
The warriors would not move. They shook and strained, forcing their lips to speak, their hips to turn, to say that they wanted to do as she wished, but could not.
Nyka and the Aesi came up behind me.
“And who are these two?”
“I am sure they have mouths. Ask them,” I said.
Every man holding spears lifted them away. The chief looked around in shock, and spooked her horse. She rubbed his cheek hard, trying to calm him.
“Who is …” Leopard said, but his words vanished.
The Aesi came to stand by me. With both hands he pulled back his hood.
“Kill him! Kill him!” Leopard shouted.
The warrior chief yelled, “Who is he?” The Aesi’s eyes went white. Every single horse jumped and kicked, throwing themselves up in the air, throwing off the riders, and kicking whoever they could strike. A warrior got struck in the head. Those who held on to their horses yelled in fright as the horses ran into each other and attacked those on foot. Three horses ran, trampling two men underfoot.
“This is his will! This is his will!” Leopard shouted to the chief.
She grabbed Leopard by his arm and both fell off their horses. Most of the horses ran away. Some of the men ran after them but stopped, then turned around, pulled their swords, and attacked each other. Soon everyone fought someone. One killed another by driving a sword into his chest. A warrior fell from a sword in his back. Leopard punched the chief and knocked her out. He rose and snarled at the Aesi. The Aesi stared at him as he approached. He touched his temple. He tried to work his mind on the cat, but Leopard changed into beast and charged. He leapt at the Aesi but horses ran straight into him, cutting him off and knocking him down. Nyka spread his wings, walked through the fighting men, and stopped at one on the ground bleeding from a mortal wound. I know he told him that he was sorrowful. And that he was quick. He punched straight into the man’s chest and pulled out his heart. He did it to two more wounded soldiers before all the men, alive and near-dead, fell asleep. All except the chief, who had a stab wound in the shoulder. The Aesi stooped down beside her. She flinched, tried to hit him, but her hand stood up in the air.
“When your brothers awake in the morning, they will see what was done here. They will know that brother raised sword against brother in madness, and killed many,” the Aesi said.
“You are the living evil. I have heard of you. You set yourself against women and men. The wicked half of the Spider King.”
“Do you not know, brave warrior? Both halves are wicked. Sleep now.”
“I will kill—”
“Sleep.”
She fell back on the ground.
“And have a sweet voyage to the dream jungle. It will be the last pleasant dream you shall ever have.”
He stood up. Behold, I call three horses, he said to me.
There was a door in the Blood Swamp, but it would have taken us to Luala Luala, too far north. At first I thought the Aesi knew nothing of the ten and nine doors, but he only chose not to use them. This is what I suspected: that going through a door weakened him, just as it weakened the Moon Witch. The massive number of wronged spirits and devils that waited for him in the doorway of each door, snatching him at the one point when he was just like them, all spirit and no body, and could be grabbed, or taken, or fought, or even killed. This is what I thought: that there were things we could not see, many hands perhaps, grabbing for any part of him, vengeance lust coursing through them where blood used to run.
“Tracker! Are you lost? I called you three times,” Nyka said.
He had already mounted his horse. It looked like it was fidgeting, disturbed by the unnatural thing on its back. It reared, trying to throw him off, but Nyka grabbed its neck. The Aesi turned to the horse and it calmed.
We rode off in the dark, on what would be a night’s journey north, then west, along grasslands, until we got to the rain forest. It had no name, this forest, and I did not remember it from the map. The Aesi rode in front, at a quick gallop several paces ahead of us, and I don’t know why I thought so, but it looked as if he was trying to get away. Or get to them first. When he came for me in the Mweru I told him that he could have the boy, do as he pleased, take a circumcision knife and slice his whole body in two for all I cared, just help me kill the winged devil. But I would kill this boy. Or I would kill the world. People passing me keep saying we are at war. We are in war. Then let there be killing and let there be death. Let us all go down to the underworld and let the gods of death talk about true justice. The gold grass turned silver in the night.
Their hooves hitting the ground, the horses struck up a thunder. Deeper dark lay ahead of us, dense dark like mountains. We could see it across the flat land, but it would still be dawn before we reached it. Riding through the black, and thinking wickedness, and smelling him without thinking about him, I didn’t see the Leopard until he was a length away and pushing his horse hard, trying to catch me. I leaned into my horse harder, pushing him to a full gallop. Now that my nose remembered his smell, I could sense him getting closer and closer. He snarled at his horse, frightening her, until we were riding tail-to-head, head-to-trunk, neck-to-neck. He jumped from his horse right onto me and knocked me off. I spun around in the fall so I landed on top of him. We still hit the grass hard and rolled, and rolled, and rolled several paces, him grabbing on to me. A dead anthill finally stopped us, and he flew off me. The Leopard landed on his back and jumped up, right into my knife pressed at his throat. He jerked backward and I pressed deeper into his neck. He raised his hand and I pressed and drew blood. His face was bright in the moon dark, his eyes wide open; in shock yes, in regret perhaps, blinking very little, as if begging me to do something. Or none of those things, which made me mad. I had not seen him in moons, for my mind burned with what I would do to him should we again cross paths. Should I be on top in him, should I overpower him, should I have an ax or a knife. Like the knife at his throat. No god could count how many times I had thought of this. I could have cut my hate out of him, as deep and as wide as my knife would go.