Black Leopard, Red Wolf

“Then you would be too weak to stop the blood leaking out of you, and the others coming after you. Just like the one in Venin,” I said.

She backed into the wall. “All of you too fool. None of you ready. You think I was going leave the true fate of the North to all of you? No skill, no brain, no plan, all of you here for the coin, nobody here care about the fate of the very land you shit on. What a bliss, what a gift to be so ignorant or foolish.”

“Nobody here was lacking skill, Sogolon. Or brain. You just had other plans,” Mossi said.

“I tell you, I tell all of you, don’t go through the Darklands. Stop walking in the room crotch first, and walk headfirst. Or step back and be led. You think I goin’ trust the boy to people like you?”

“And where is your boy, Sogolon? Do you nest him so tight to your bosom we can’t see him?” Mossi said.

“No skill, no brain, no plan, yet were it not for us, you would be dead,” I said.

“Goddess of flow and overflow, listen to your daughter. Goddess of flow and overflow.”

“Sogolon,” I said.

“Goddess of flow and overflow.”

“You still call to that slithering bitch?” Venin-Jakwu said.

“Bunshi. You calling for your goddess?”

“Don’t speak of Bunshi,” Sogolon said.

“Still there thinking you get to give orders,” said Venin-Jakwu. “She don’t change in a hundred years, this Moon Witch. I tell you true. Woman in Mantha still calling you prophet, or they finally see you just a thief.”

“We need to save the boy, you know where they heading,” she said to me.

Venin-Jakwu, the wrap around their leg almost full red, started circling her slow, like a lion, and began to talk.

“So what this Moon Witch be telling you about herself? For the only one who tell tales about Sogolon is Sogolon. She tell you she come from the Watangi warriors south of Mitu? Or that she was river priestess in Wakadishu? That she was the bodyguard and adviser to the sister of the King when she was just a water maid, who step over many heads to get to her chamber? Look at her, on a mission again. Save the royal sister’s boy. She tell you that nobody ask her? She set off on mission to find boy, so that she no longer the joke of Mantha. And what a joke. The Moon Witch with one hundred runes but only one spell, finally get to show her quality. Maybe she going tell you later. Listen to me, I tell you this. The moon witch sure be three hundred, ten and five, I tell you true. I meet her when she was just two hundred. She tell you how she live that long? No? That one she keep close to her lanky bosom. Two hundred years ago I was still a knight and have only one hole, not two. You know who me be? Me be the one who knock her off her horse when she forget to write a rune strong enough to bind me.”

Sogolon kept looking at me.

“And her little goddess, you meet it? It come sliming down the wall as of late? If she is a goddess then me is the divine elephant snake. That little river jengu, claiming she fight Omoluzu, when you could kill her with just seawater. Her goddess is an imp.”

“None of you deserved to live, not a single one of you,” Sogolon said, still looking at me.

“That is between we and the gods, not you, body thief,” Venin-Jakwu said.

“You was always an ungrateful, stinking piece of dog shit, Jakwu. Killer and raper of women. Why you think I give you that body? One day all of that you do will happen to you.”

“The body had an owner,” I said.

“Every day before sun come, she running out to go back to the bush so Zogbanu can eat her. No matter where me take her and how me train her. Far better use of she body than she ever go use it,” Sogolon said.

“You just wanted me to stop knocking you off your horse,” Venin-Jakwu said. “Just like you been knocking people out of they body for a long, long time.”

“How?” Mossi said.

“Don’t ask me, ask she.”

“Time running and passing, and they still have the boy. You know where they going, Tracker.”

Sogolon looked around, at all of us, speaking to everybody, convincing no one.

“She didn’t try to kill us,” Sadogo said.

“Speak for yourself,” Venin-Jakwu said.

“We agreed to save the boy,” Mossi said, and walked over to me.

“You don’t know her. I know her two hundred years, what she do more than anything else is plot how a person can be of use. She never ask you what is your use? I didn’t agree to nothing with none of you,” Venin-Jakwu said.

“Maybe not. But we go to save the boy, and we might need the deceiving Moon Witch.”

“A dead Moon Witch not going to be any use to you.”

“Nor a dead girl who tried to go through three of us to kill her.”

Now Venin-Jakwu darted from face to face. They pushed a foot under the sword of a fallen guard and kicked it up in hand. They gripped it, liking the feel, and smiled.

“I am a man!” he said. “My name is—”

“Jakwu. I know your name. I know you must be a fearsome warrior with many kills. Help us save this child and there will be coin in it for you,” I said.

“Coin can help me grow a cock?”