by Marlon James
I go outside, I said, but the mother followed me.
The Aesi gave Nyka his cloak. This village must have heard of Ipundulu, or he guessed they would have terror for any man with wings. More men and women came out from their huts. An old man said something I barely understood, something about he that comes at night. But they heard strange men were coming down the road, including a man white like kaolin, so they hid. They had been hiding for a long time now. Terror, the old ones say, used to come at noon, but now it comes at night, the old man said. He looked like an elder, almost like the Aesi, but taller, and much thinner, wearing earrings made of beads, and a clay skull plate at the back of his head. A brave man with many killings who now lived in fear. His eyes, two cuts in a face full of wrinkles.
He approached us three, and sat down on a stool by a hut. The rest of the village stepped to us slow and afraid, as if at the slightest move, they would scream. They all came out of their huts now. Some men, more women, more children, the men bare in chest and wearing short cloths around the waist, the women wearing leather-skin covered in beads from neck to knee, with their nipples popping out from both sides, and the children wearing beads around the waist, or nothing. You saw it on the women and children most, eyes staring blank, exhausted from fear, except that angry little girl from the hut who still looked at me like she would kill me if she could.
More and more came out of their huts, still looking around, still slow, still eyeing us from head to foot, but not looking at Nyka as any different from the rest of us. The Aesi spoke to the old man, then spoke to us.
“He says they leave the cows open and he take a cow, sometimes a goat. Sometimes he eat them there and leave the rest for the vulture. One time a boy, he never listen to his mother. This boy who think he is man because he soon go into the bush, he run outside, why only the gods know. Sasabonsam take the boy but he leave the boy left foot. But two nights ago . . .”
“Two nights ago, what?” I asked. The Aesi spoke to him again. I could understand some of what the old man spoke, enough before the Aesi looked at me and said, “That is the night he knocked down the wall of that house over there on the other side, and he go in and he take the two boys of a woman who scream, I do nothing but miscarry. Them is the only boys the gods give me, and he try to take the boys away, and the men, who weak before, find some power in their arms and legs and they rush out and throw stones and rocks at him, and hit him in the head, and he try to bat away the rocks, and dirt, and shit with his wings, and still fly and still carry two boys, and could not, so he let go of one.”
“Ask if any of these men fought off the beast.”
The Aesi regarded me for a few blinks, not liking how strange it is, a man telling him what to do.
Two men came forward, one with beads around his head, the other with a clay skull plate painted yellow.
“He stunk like a corpse,” the beaded one said. “Like the thick stink of rotten meat.”
“Black hair, like the ape but he not the ape. Black wings, like the bat, but he not the bat. And ears like a horse.”
“And he feet like he hands, and they grab like hands, but big like his head, and he come from sky and try to go back to it.”
“There are many flying beasts on this trail,” I said.
“Maybe they fly over the White Lake from the Darklands,” Nyka whispered to me.
I wanted to tell him that one would have to go to a dark street where men fuck holes in walls and call them sister to find a remark less stupid.
“Sun queen just gone back home,” said the one with the skull cap. “Sun queen just gone when he first come, ten nights ago. He fly down, we hear the wing first, and then a shadow that block out the last light. Somebody look up and she scream and he try to grab her and she drop to the ground, and everybody running and yelling, and bawling, and we run to we huts, but an old man, he was too slow and his hunchback hurt, and the beast grab him with leg hands and bite his face off, but then spit him out, like the blood was poison, and he chase after a woman who was the last to reach her hut, I see it myself in the bush I hide myself, he catch her foot before she run in her hut, and he fly off with her, and we don’t see her no more. And since then he come every two night.”
“Some of we, we try to leave, but the cows slow, and we slow, and he find we on the trail and kill everybody and drink out the blood. Every man and woman and beast rip in two. Sometimes he eat the head.”
“Ask him when he came around last,” I said.
“Two night ago,” the old man says.
“We need to locate the boy,” the Aesi said.
“We’ve found the boy. I was waiting for him to find Nyka. But we have found him.”
“No one here mentioned anything of a boy,” the Aesi said.
“Good men speak of me as if I am not here. You wish to leave me out in the open so that your boy will find me?” Nyka asked.
“We will not have to. When Sasabonsam comes tonight, he will bring the boy. The boy will demand it until there is no quieting him,” I said.
“I do not like this plan,” the Aesi said.
“There is no plan,” I said.
“That is what I do not like.”
“It took six of us to beat him last time and we still could not kill him. Ask what weapons they have.”
“I say we let what happen, happen and follow him to where he hides,” the Aesi said.
“Where he hides could be two days’ walk.”
“He is too smart to risk the boy.”
“I will kill this thing tonight or fuck the gods.”
“Shall I say something?” Nyka said.
“No,” we both said.
“Ask them what weapons they have.”
* * *
—
Four axes, ten torches, two knives, one whip, five spears, and a pile of stones. I tell truth, these people, who left the hunt for the field, were foolish to forget that this was still a land full with wicked beasts. The men brought the weapons, threw them at our feet, then scrambled to their huts like mad ants. This did not surprise me—all men are cowards, and men together only added fear to fear to fear. Darkness snatched the sky, and the crocodile had eaten half of the moon. We hid by the fence near the north of the village. The Aesi crouched low, holding a stick I did not see him with before, his eyes closed.
“Do you think he calls on spirits?” Nyka said.
“Speak louder, vampire. I do not think he heard you.”
“Vampire? How harsh, your words. I am not like who we hunt.”
“You have witchmen hunt them for you. We will not have this argument again.”
“It would please the night if you were both quiet,” the Aesi said.
But Nyka wanted to talk. He was always like this, needing endless chatter. He used chat to mask what he was plotting at the same time.
“I have not killed a man today,” I said.
“You said many times, over many years I have known you, I am a hunter, not a killer.”
“If not Sasabonsam, then I will kill every man here for being so weak and pathetic.”
“Careful, Tracker. You’re in the presence of a vampire and . . . whatever this Aesi is, and yet you burn with the most ill will. And even if you do joke, you were funnier back then,” Nyka said.
“Which then? Before or after you betrayed me?”
“I have no memory of that.”
“Memory has much of you. You never asked about my eye.”
“Did I too cause that?”
I stared at him, but turned away when seeing him only made me see myself. I told him how I got the wolf eye.
“I thought a man punched you in the eye and left it so,” he said. “But I see I am responsible for that too.”
He looked away. I could think of nothing more to do with Nyka’s remorse than punch him in the face with it. How I w
ished I had Sadogo’s knuckles to punch his head clean off. Sadogo. I had not thought of him in many long moons. Nyka opened his mouth again, and the Aesi covered it.
“Listen,” he whispered.
The sound cut through the dark, shuffling, jumping, running, falling over the fence, and cracking branches. And coming at us. No flapping of wings. None of the giggle, gurgle, and hiss of a child failing to mask himself. One rammed me in the chest and knocked me over. Then another. His knee in my chest, he looked up, sniffed quick, and turned to see others piling themselves all over Nyka, and the Aesi, screaming, grunting, shrieking, and grabbing. Lightning men and women. More than I could count, some with one hand, some with one leg, some with no feet, some with nothing below the waist. All of them rushing at Nyka. Two larger ones, both men, kicked the Aesi out of the way. Nyka yelled. The lightning women and men search and seek the Ipundulu; he is their only desire and purpose and they yearn for him forever. I have seen them run towards their master, desperate and hungry, but I had never seen what happens when they finally find him.
“They devour me!” Nyka shouted.
He flapped his wings and blasted lightning, which hit several of them, but they sucked it in, fed on it, grew more mad. I pulled both axes. The Aesi kept touching his temple and sweeping his hands over them, but nothing happened. The lightning people were an anthill on Nyka. I backed up, ran, leapt up, landed on the back of one, and rained his back with hacks. Left, right, left, right, left. I kicked one and chopped the side of his head. One wrapped her hand around Nyka’s neck and I chopped at her shoulder until her arm fell off. They would not let go and I would not stop.
A foot coming from nowhere kicked me in the chest. I flew in the air and landed on my belly. Two jumped to charge me. I had one ax and pulled my knife. One jumped at me, I rolled out of his way, and he landed on the ground. Knife in hand, I rolled back to him and plunged it in his chest. The second ran at me but I spun on the ground and chopped her leg. She fell and I hacked half her head off. They were still on Nyka. The Aesi pulled two, throwing them away like they were small rocks. Nyka kept pushing them off but would not attack them. I ran back to the pile, pulled one out by the foot, and stabbed him in the neck. Another I pulled and he punched me in the belly, and I fell to the ground, howling in pain. Now I was mad. The Aesi grabbed another. I pulled myself up with an ax and found another. One that crouched on Nyka’s chest to suck his neck, I chopped straight in the back of the neck. Lightning flashed through all of them, but they would not even turn from him. I rained chops down on his head and kicked off a woman beside him. She rolled off and came running back. I crouched, swung my ax, and hacked her right above the heart when she ran into me, and I swung the other down on her forehead. I chopped them all away, until there was Nyka, covered in bites and bleeding black blood. The last one, a child, jumped on Nyka’s head and gnashed his teeth at me. Lightning lit his eyes. I jammed my knife straight in his throat and he dropped in Nyka’s lap.
“He was a boy.”
“He was nothing,” I said.
“Something here is not right,” the Aesi said.
I jumped right before a woman from the village screamed.
“At the back!”
The Aesi ran off first, and I chased after him, jumping over these bodies, some of which still sparked lightning. We ran past huts hiding in the dark. Nyka tried to fly but could only hop. We got to the outer boundary to see Sasabonsam, his foot claws around a woman and flying away. The woman still screamed. I hurled an ax and hit his wing but it cut shallow. He did not turn.
“Nyka!” I said.
Nyka flapped his wings and thunder shook and lightning burst from him, but it shot west and south of him, not straight at the beast. Sasabonsam flapped and flew away, the woman still fighting. She struggled, until he kicked her in the head with his other foot. But there was no thicket to hide him in this savannah. My ax glinted in the dirt.
“He is flying north,” the Aesi said.
A flock of birds that I did not see far off changed course and flew straight to Sasabonsam. They charged him two and three at a time and he tried to swat them away with his hand and wings. I could not see all, but one flew in his face, and it looked like he bit into it. More came after him. The Aesi’s eyes were closed. The birds dived for Sasabonsam’s face and arms, and he started to swing his arms wildly. He dropped the woman, but from so high that when she hit the ground she did not move. Sasabonsam swatted away so many birds that they shot through the sky. The Aesi opened his eyes and the remaining birds flew away.
“We will never catch him,” Nyka said.
“But we know where he is going,” said the Aesi.
I kept running, jumping over shrubs and chopping through bush, following him in the sky, and when I couldn’t see him, I followed the smell. This was when I wondered why this all-powerful Aesi did not supply us horses. He wasn’t even running. I could turn my fury at him but that would be a waste. I kept running. The river came upon me. Sasabonsam flew over it to the other side. It was fifty paces, sixty paces wide, I could not guess, and the moonlight danced wild on it, meaning rough and perhaps deep. This part of the river was unknown to me. Sasabonsam was flying away. He had not even seen me, not even heard me.
“Sasabonsam!”
He did not even turn. I gripped both axes as if it was them that I hated. He made me think dark thoughts, that he held no joy for what he did, or even pride, but nothing. Nothing at all. That my enemy did not even know that I sought him, and even in the presence of my smell and my face I was no different from any other fool throwing an ax. Nothing, nothing at all. I shouted at him. I sheathed my axes and ran right into the river. My toe hit a sharp rock but I did not care. I tripped on stones but did not care. Then the ground fell from under my feet and I sank, inhaled water, and coughed. I pushed my head out of the water but my feet could not find ground. And then something like a spirit pulled me, but it was the water, cold and pulling me hard to the middle of the river, and then drawing me under, mocking my strength to swim, spinning me head over foot, yanking me beyond where the moon could shine, and the more I fought the more it pulled, and I did not think to stop fighting, and I did not think, I’m tired, and I did not think the water was colder and blacker. And I stretched my hand out and thought it would reach into air, but I was so far down and sinking, sinking, sinking.
And then a hand grabbed mine and pulled me up. Nyka, trying to fly and stumbling, bouncing, then falling into the water. Then he tried to fly again while drawing me out, but could only pull me up to my shoulder and fight the current. In this way he dragged me to the riverbank, where the Aesi waited.
“The river nearly had you,” the Aesi said.
“The monster flees,” I said, gasping for air.
“Maybe it was offended by your sourness.”
“The monster flees,” I said.
I caught my breath, pulled my axes, and started walking.
“No gratitude for the Ip—”
“He is getting away.”
I ran off.
The river had washed off all the ash and my skin was black as sky. The land was still savannah, still dry with shrubs and whistling thorn that sat close together, but I did not know this place. Sasabonsam flapped his wings twice and it sounded far away, as if it wasn’t the flutter but the echo. Tall trees rose, three hundred paces ahead. Nyka shouted something I did not hear. A flutter again; it sounded like it came from the trees, so there is where I ran. I hit a stone, tripped, and fell, but rage fought pain and I got up and kept running. The ground went wet. I ran through a drying pond, through grass scratching my knee, past thorny shrubs scattered like warts on skin that I jumped over and stepped in. No sound of flutter came but my ears were on him; I would hear him closer soon. I did not even need my nose. The trees did what trees do, stood in the way. No valley path, only giant thorns and wild bush, and as I went around I ran right into them.
>
Men on horseback, I would guess a hundred. I studied the horses for their mark. A ridge of armour over the head coming down the long face. Body draped in warm cloth, but not long like the Juba horses. Tails kept long. A saddle on top of layers of thick cloth and at the corners of the cloth, northern marks I had not seen in years. Maybe half of the horses black, the rest brown and white. I should have studied the warriors. Thick garments to stop a spear, and spears with two prongs. Men, all of them, except one.
“Announce yourself,” she said when she saw me. I said nothing.
Seven of them surrounded me, lowering their spears. I usually thought nothing of swords or spears but something was different. The air around them and me.
“Announce yourself,” she said again. I did nothing.
In the moonlight they were all plume and shine. Their armour silver in the dark light, the feathers in their headdresses ruffling like a meeting of birds. Their dark arms pointed spears at me. They couldn’t tell who I was in the night. But I could tell who they were.
“Tracker,” I said.
“He does not speak our language,” another warrior said.
“Nothing special about the language of Fasisi,” I said.
“Then what is your name?”
