Black Leopard, Red Wolf

“My second plan? My first plan was to find out who murdered an elder and his family, until I came across some people who would not leave their bodies alone. My second was not to follow a suspect to the library that got burned down. My second plan was not to kill my own prefects. My second plan was not to be on the run with a bunch of bastards who can’t even cross a road together, all because my brothers would kill me on sight. My second plan, believe it or not, was not to be stuck with such a sorry bunch of fellows because I have nowhere else to go.”

He stood up.

“Fuck yourself and your self-pity,” I said.

“My second plan is to save this boy.”

“You have no stake in this boy.”

“You are wrong. One night. It took one night to lose everything. But maybe everything was nothing if it could be lost so fast. This boy is now the only thing that will make my life seem as if the past few days have any sense to them. If I am going to lose everything, then fuck the gods and the devils if my life will not mean something. This boy is the only thing I have left.”

“Sogolon wants to save the boy herself. Maybe the girl and the buffalo as well to protect them on the way back to Mantha.”

“A thousand fucks for what Sogolon wants. She still needs you to find the boy. Here is a simple thing, Tracker. Give her no news.”

“I don’t—”

He looked at me and put a finger to his lips. Then he nodded over his shoulder. He stepped to me quiet until his lips touched my ear and whispered, “What do you smell?”

“Everything, nothing. Wood, skin, arm funk, body smells. Why?”

“Both of us have been scrubbed clean.”

“What do you smell that you don’t know?”

I switched places with him, backing slow to the other end of the room. My calf hit the stool and I moved it out of the way. Following me slow, Mossi picked up the stool, by the leg. Right before the side wall, the same wall that a table came out of, I stopped and turned around. Porridge, wood oil, dried grass rope, and sweat, and again the stink of an unwashed body. Behind the wall? In the wall? I pointed to the planks of wood and the look on Mossi’s face asked the same questions. I slapped the wood and something scurried like a rat.

“I think it’s a rat,” Mossi whispered.

I moved my fingers along the top of the wood, and stopped at a slot about the size of three fingers. My fingers gripped the wood and yanked. I yanked again and the wood broke from the wall. My hand gripped the space and tore out the plank.

“Mossi, by the gods.”

He looked in, and sucked in his breath. We stood there, staring. We grabbed planks and ripped them away, planks as tall as us, and what would not move we kicked in, and kicked away. Mossi grabbed at the boards almost in a panic, as if we were running out of time. We yanked and tore and kicked out a hole in the wall as wide as the buffalo.

The boy was neither standing nor lying, but leaning against a bed of dry grass. His eyes were wide open, seeing terror. He was scared but could not speak, tried to scamper but couldn’t. The boy couldn’t scream because of something like the innards of an animal pushed through his mouth and down his throat. He couldn’t move because of the ropes. Every limb—legs, feet, toes, arms, hands, neck, and each finger—was tied to, and pulled, a rope. His eyes, wide open and wet, looked river blind, the black circles as gray as moody sky. He looked blind but he could see us, so terrified at us moving in closer that he pulled and yelped and grabbed and tried to shield his face from a blow. It made the room go mad, with the table pushing out and in, the door swinging open and shut, the balcony ropes loosening and tightening, the shit bucket emptying. Rope wrapped around his waist to keep him there, but one of the planks had a hole wide enough for his eye, so yes, he could see.

“Boy, we will not hurt you,” Mossi said. He reached in with his hand to the boy’s face and the boy banged his head against the grass over and over, turning away, expecting a blow, his eyes running tears. Mossi touched his cheek and he screamed into the innard.

“He does not know our tongue,” I said.

“Look at us, we are no one blue. We are no one blue,” he said, and stroked the boy’s cheek long and slow. He was still pulling and kicking and the tables, windows, and doors were still opening and closing, pushing out and slamming in. Mossi kept stroking his cheek until he slowed and then stopped.

“They must have tied these ropes with magic,” I said.

I could not untie the knots. Mossi stuck his finger in a slot on his right sandal and pulled out a small knife.

“Sentries are less likely to search when you step in shit,” he said.

We cut every rope away from the boy, but he stood there, leaning against the dry grass, naked and covered in sweat, his eyes wide open as if he was never anything but shocked. Mossi grabbed the tube going down his mouth, looked at him with all sadness, and said, “I am so, so sorry.”