Black Leopard, Red Wolf

I swung the hatchet right for Egbere’s forehead and chopped in deep, pulled it out, and chopped into his neck. I swung again and again until his head came off. Ewele screamed and screamed that the wind is killing his brother, the wind is killing his brother.

“I thought he was your cousin,” I said.

“Who is it, who is demon of sky that killed my brother?”

I know the ghommids. Once upset they are out of control. He would never stop crying.

“You kill my brother!”

“Shut your face. His head will grow back in seven days. Unless it gets infected, then he will just grow back one big ball of pus.”

“Show yourself! I am hungry to kill you.”

“You kill my time, troll.”

You have no time, someone said in my head. I heard him this time. It was a him and he spoke to me like I knew him, with the warmth of an old friend but only in sound, for it felt colder than the lower regions of lands of the dead, which I have been to in a dream. The voice took me out of the spell and Ewele jumped me. He screamed and his mouth opened wide, his sharp teeth grew, he became all mouth and teeth like the great fishes I have seen in the deep sea. And he got stronger as he got madder. My hand pushed him away from my face but his hair was slippery. He snapped and snapped and snapped and flew straight up in the air and vanished. My horse had kicked him away. I mounted her and rode off.

Why did you come back? he said.

“I did not come back. I am passing through.”

Passing through. But you are on the road.

“The horse cannot ride for long in the bush.”

I knew you would.

“Fuck the gods for all you know.”

I knew you would come back.

“Fuck the gods.”

What kind of a story would the griots tell of you? You are no story. A man of use to no one. A man no one depends on, no one trusts. You drift like spirits and devils and even their drift is with purpose.

“Is that all people are? Their purpose? Their use?”

You have no purpose. You are a man loved by no one. When you die, who will grieve you? Your father forgot you before you were even born. They raised you in a house where people murdered memory. What kind of hero are you?

“That what you want? A hero?”

I have word from your father and your brother.

I stopped the horse.

“Are they disappointed again? Do they hang their heads in shame in the underworld? They never seem to change, my father and brother.”

I have word of your sister.

“I have no sister.”

Much has come to pass since you took yourself from your mother’s house.

“I have no sister.”

And she has no brother. But she has a father, who is also her grandfather. And a mother who is also a sister.

“And you say I am the one bringing shame to his family?”

What do you want?

“I want you to either kill me or shut up.”

What kind of man has no quality?

“For a spirit, it staggers me how much you care about what ordinary men think. You talk about purpose like the gods shat it out of a divine ass, then gave it to man as if they would know the difference. I had a purpose, given to me by my blood, my father and my grandfather. I had a purpose and I told them to go fuck themselves with it. You use that word purpose like there is something noble to it, something of the best gods. Purpose is the gods saying what kings say to men they want to rule. Well a thousand rapes for your purpose. You want to know what’s my purpose? To kill the men who killed my brother and father, leaving a grandfather fucking my own mother. To kill the men who killed my brother, because they killed him because he killed one of theirs. Who killed one of his, who killed one of theirs, and on and on while even gods die. My purpose is to avenge my blood so that one day they can come and seek vengeance on me. So no, I don’t want purpose and I don’t want children born in blood. You want to know what I want? I want to kill this bloodline. This sickness. End this poison. My name ends with me.”

I am your—

“You are an Anjonu and you bore me.”

Something like a scream came through the bush. The same leaves brushed past my arms, the same smells slipped past me. I came to a clearing I had just walked through. Trees were deceitful in these parts.