Black Leopard, Red Wolf

Bunshi tried to grab her but she pushed her away. Sogolon fell to her knees. She grabbed a stick and started drawing runes in the sand. In between what looked like someone punching her and slapping her she scratched them in the dirt. The Ogo had enough. He pulled on his iron gloves and stomped to her, but Bunshi stopped him, saying his fists cannot help us here. Sogolon marked, and scratched, and dug, and brushed dirt with her fingers, making runes in the dirt and falling back and cursing until she made a circle around her. She stood up and dropped the stick. Something moved through the air and dashed at her. We couldn’t see it, only hear the wind. Also this, the sound of something hitting, like sacks thrown against a wall, one, then three, then ten, then a rain of hits. Hitting against a wall of nothing all around Sogolon. Then nothing.

“Darklands,” Sogolon said. “Is the Darklands. All of them feeling stronger here. Taking liberties like they get passage from the underworld.”

“Who?” I asked.

Sogolon was about to speak, but Bunshi raised her hand.

“Dead spirits who never liked death. Spirits who think Sogolon can help them. They surround her with requests, and become furious when she says no. The dead should stay dead.”

“And they were all lying in wait at the mouth of the Darklands?” I asked.

“Many things lie in wait here,” Sogolon said. Not many people hold her stare, but I was not many people.

“You are lying,” I said.

“They are dead, that’s no lie.”

“I’ve been around those desperate for help, living and dead. They may grab you, hold you, and force you to look, may even pull you down to where they died, but none slap you around like a husband.”

“They are dead and that’s no lie.”

“But the witch is responsible and that’s no lie either.”

“Zogbanu is hunting you. There are more.”

“But these spirits on this shore are hunting her.”

“Think you know me. You know nothing,” Sogolon said.

“I know the next time you forget to write runes on sky or in dirt they will knock you off your horse or push you off a cliff. I know you do it every night. I wonder how you sleep. Tana kasa tano dabo.”

Both Bunshi and Sogolon stared at me. I looked at the others and said, “If it is ground, it is magic.”

“Enough. Nowhere is where this is taking us. You need to get to Mitu, then Kongor,” Bunshi said.

Sogolon grabbed her horse’s bridle, mounted, then pulled the girl up. “We go around the forest,” she said.

“That will take three days, four if the wind is against you,” the Leopard said.

“Still, we gone.”

“No one is stopping you,” Fumeli said.

I wanted nothing in the world as much as I wanted to slap this boy. But I did not want to go into the Darklands either.

“She is right,” I said. “There are things in the Darklands that will find us, even if we are not looking for them. They will be looking for—”

“It is less than a day through this silly bush,” the Leopard said.

“It is never less anything in there. You have never been.”

“There you go again, Tracker, thinking whatever has beaten you shall beat me,” the Leopard said.

“We go around,” I said, and turned for my horse. The Leopard mumbled something.

“What?”

“I said, Some men think they have become lord over me.”

“Why would I seek to be your lord? Why would anybody, cat?”

“We go through the forest. It is only trees and bush.”

“What is this ill spirit in you all of a sudden? I said I have been to the Darklands. It’s a place of bad enchantments. You stop being yourself. You won’t even know what that self is.”

“Self is what men tell themselves they are. I am just a cat.”

His rudeness made no sense and I have seen him at his most brash. It was too quick, like some boil hidden for years that just burst. Then the boil opened his mouth.

“Through the Darklands in one day. Around the lands is three days. Any man with sense would make the choice,” Fumeli said.

“Well, man and boy, choose whatever you want. We go round,” I said.

“The only way forward is through, Tracker.”

He grabbed the horse and started walking. Fumeli followed.

“Everyone finds what they are looking for in the Darklands. Unless you are what they are looking for,” I said.

But they were no longer looking. Then the Ogo started to follow them.

“Sadogo, why?” I asked.

“Maybe he thinking he tired of your fat verse,” Fumeli said. “Everyone finds what they are looking for in the Darklands. You sound like those men with white hair and shriveled skin, who think they talking wise when they just talking old.”

The Ogo turned to answer but I cut him off, although I should have let him explain for days. At least that would have kept him from following them.

“Never mind. Do what you have to,” I said.

“Seems like the boy finds his use,” Sogolon said, then rode off with the girl.

I mounted my horse and followed her. The painted girl held on to Sogolon’s sides, her right cheek resting on her back. Evening was running after us, and doing it in the quick. Sogolon stopped.