Black Leopard, Red Wolf

Something drew me to look over at the toppled shelves—the plates, pots, and bowls of drying fish—and under a chair. Under the chair looked right back at me. Eyes wide and bright in the dim, staring at me staring at him. A voice in me said, There he is. There is the boy. His hair, wild and natty, for what else would a boy’s hair be without a mother to groom and cut it? He jumped, frightened, and first I thought it was because of them who had him, for which child is not frightened by monsters? But he must have been in dozens of houses and seen dozens of kills, so much that the killing of a woman, and the eating of her, and the killing of a child and the eating of him was child’s play. If you lived all your life with monsters, what was monstrous? He stared at me, and I stared at him.

“Mossi.”

“Maybe you should have skipped Dolingo,” he said to the Ipundulu.

“Mossi.”

“Tracker.”

“The boy.”

He turned to look. Ipundulu tried to push himself up on his elbows, but Mossi pressed his sword into his neck.

“What is his name?” Mossi asked.

“He has none.”

“Then what do we call him? Boy?”

Venin-Jakwu and Sadogo came up behind me. Sogolon was still on the floor.

“If she does not wake soon, all her spirits will know she is weak,” I said.

“What should we do with this one?” Mossi said.

“Kill him,” Venin said behind me. “Kill him, get the witch, and get the b—”

He burst through the window, blasting off a chunk of the wall that shattered into rocks, hitting Sadogo in the head and neck. Right behind me, his long black wing slammed Venin-Jakwu, sending them flying into the wall.

The smell, I knew the smell. I spun around and his wing knocked me off my feet, swung back and hit me square in the face. He stepped into the room, and Mossi charged him with both swords. Mossi’s sword struck his wing and got stuck. He slapped the other sword out of Mossi’s hands and charged him.

Flapping his black bat wings to lift his body, he swung both feet up and kicked him in the chest. Mossi slammed into the wall, and he slammed into him. Then he dug his clawed finger into Mossi’s head, cutting from the top of his forehead down, slicing through the brow and still moving down.

“Sasabonsam!” I said. He smelled like his brother.

He slapped Mossi away and faced me.

My head still moved slower than my feet. He came after me just as Sogolon stirred and whipped a wind that knocked him off his feet and pushed me to the ground. He fought against the wind, and Sogolon was losing strength. He staggered, but got close enough to cut into her raised hands with his claws. I tried to get up but fell to one knee. Mossi was still on the ground. I did not know where Venin-Jakwu was. And by the time Sadogo rose and remembered his rage enough to stomp to the room, Sasabonsam grabbed Ipundulu’s leg with his iron claw hand wrapping around the leg like a snake, scooped the boy with the other hand, after the boy crawled out from under the chair, and ran straight to the window, blasting out the frame, the glass, and chunks of the wall. One of the guards, lightning coursing through him, ran after his new master and fell where Sasabonsam flew. I staggered in after Sadogo and saw Sasabonsam in the sky with his bat wings, dipping twice from Ipundulu’s weight, then flapping harder, louder, and climbing high.

So. Sadogo, Venin-Jakwu, Mossi, and I stood in the room, surrounding Sogolon. She tried to stand up, darting at all of us. Outside, overturned carts, slaughtered bodies, and broken sticks and clubs littered the streets. Smoke from the two rebellious trees streaked the sky. Farther off, not far away, the rumble of a fight. And what fight? Dolingon guards were not made for any fight, much less a war. Over in the Queen’s tree, the palace stood still. All ropes to and from appeared to be cut off. I saw the Queen in my mind-eye, crouched in her throne like a child, ordering her court to believe when she said that the rebellion would be smashed and smote in a blink, and them hollering, screaming, and shouting to the gods.

We stepped towards her, and Sogolon, not sure what to do, shifted back and forth, then skipped clear of us. She raised her left hand but stopped when it made her chest bleed. She kept darting at each of us, her eyes wide one blink, hazy the next, almost asleep, then stunned awake. She turned to Mossi.

“Consort, she was going treat you like. Keep her womb full and she wouldn’t care.”

“Until she turned tired and sent him to the trunk,” I said.

“She treat the pretty ones better than a king be treating he concubines. That is truth.”

“Not the truth you told me. Not in words, not in meaning, not even in rhyme.”

We moved in closer. Sadogo squeezed his left knuckles, his right hand bloody and loose. Venin-Jakwu pulled a wrap around their leg wound and grabbed a dagger, Mossi, half his face covered in blood, pointed his two swords. Sogolon turned to me, the one without a weapon.

“From me could come a tempest to blow everybody out that window.”