by Cat Rambo
The old man clicked his tongue again. Dajan didn’t think he would answer, but after a moment, Esu said: “Duma.”
Dajan clenched his spear in surprise. Surprise and something else. Desire. As the cowrie shell shook, he saw her on the plains—beautiful as the Sun at the edge of night.
“Go!” Esu hooted. “Make me a story!”
Dajan was running. He left his spear on the dunes, knowing that he must do this on his own. If he were to tame her, it would be with his hands. He let out a whoop of joy as his feet landed on the cool grass of the savannah. Then, as he disappeared into the sweet embrace of the grassland, he was silent once more. His body made no more than a whisper as moved, the stalks sliding around him like water around the prow of a coracle. It was infinitely sweet, the tickle of grass in his nostrils, the moonlight on his back, the breeze teasing the tips of his braids.
It was life.
It was home.
It was the hunt.
He was close now. The silver light lit up her coat in a soft copper sheen. He knew the mottled spots on her skin, knew them as he had known his own footprints in the desert. It was a part of him. Taking a breath, Dajan held his hands out before her, not to touch her this time—he was wiser than that now—but in a gesture of supplication. He saw the duma’s muscles tense.
There was a smile touching his lips as she pounced.
He was keen-eyed and long-armed, yes, as he had told the boy-god. That had not left him over the years. But in this place he was armed only with the wisdom of the desert. There was nothing between him and her claws.
She was a duma, a huntress in her own right. She was prey for no man.
And she tore through him easily.
Dajan cried out, stumbling in blood beneath the weight of her body.
Esu, watching from the distance, furrowed his brows. He mumbled words beneath his breath and continued to shake the cowrie shell.
“All men are crossroads,” he whispered in a singsong voice, “and all women are gateways.”
Out on the plains, Dajan died. The claws of the duma flayed the skin from his body. But there was a smile on his face.
He was wise.
* * *
The duma stood over him, claws and teeth red from the kill. She made a noise deep in her throat and began to nose through the still-warm remains of the hunter. Her claws swept through the rags of skin, searching, always searching. She saw a movement among the bloody strips and nudged the refuse away. Beneath, she saw the first glimmer of gold. Then an eye dark as desire. Gold and brown.
With a low growl she swiped away the last pieces like the hen scratching away at the earth to form the continents of the world. From the space she had cleared crawled the lean form of a cat. The duma knew the pattern of his skin, knew it from long ago. There was no pride this time. He smelt of the desert, the sharp scent of sand and the lonely wind.
The second duma rose and shook free of the remnants of his former life. He could feel a change within him, another path, another story.
Warily, he took a step towards her. She snarled and batted at his head with her paw. He hesitated, but the gesture was playful—coy.
He tilted his head slightly, keeping it low to the ground, and made an inquisitive noise.
“Shall we hunt?” he asked in the language of the duma.
“Our prey?” she growled in a voice as soft as the feather of a guinea fowl.
With a soft huff of breath he said, “Ubora, King of the Antelopes.”
* * *
Atop the hill Esu watched with a half-mocking grin as the two of them raced through the tall grass, little more than a blur of gold and brown. Absent-mindedly, he scratched at his crotch.
“Sly,” he mumbled, “sly as a woman’s eye.” He ran his hand through his stubbly black hair and carefully bound it up within the stretch of red cloth.
With that, his arms stretched out into the wings of a heron. In a moment, he was nothing more than another flash of silver in the night sky, an arrow shot from the bow of the Moon towards the fleeing light of his prey.
Copyright © 2014 Helen Marshall
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Helen Marshall is an award-winning author, editor, and book historian. Her debut collection of short stories Hair Side, Flesh Side on the Sydney J Bounds Award from the British Fantasy Society and her second collection Gifts for the One Who Comes After will be released in late 2014. She lives in Oxford, England.
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COVER ART
“Kaybor Gate,” by Alex Ries
Alex Ries is a Melbourne- based illustrator and concept artist. His artworks have been featured by publishers including Clarkesworld Magazine, Pearson Education Canada, and the Discovery Channel. He worked with THQ’s Bluetongue Entertainment studio and contributed to four published titles. His studies in diverse visual media such as painting, 3D visualization, and film, coupled with an interest in biology and real-world technology, have fostered an artistic style that can not only accurately illustrate life from the real world but fictional life as well. View his work at www.alexries.com.
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
ISSN: 1946-1076
Published by Firkin Press,
a 501(c)3 Non-Profit Literary Organization
Compilation Copyright © 2014 Firkin Press
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