Black Leopard, Red Wolf

by Marlon James

  “I am Tracker,” I said.

  “I will not ask again.”

  “Then don’t. I said my name is Tracker. Is your name Deaf One?”

  She stepped to the front, and poked me with her spear. I staggered back. I could not see her face, only her shiny war helmet. She laughed. She poked me again. I gripped my ax. Panic felt a day away, then it was right behind me, then it was in my head, and I squeezed my eyes shut.

  “Maybe your name is Deathless, since you seem to have no fear of me killing you.”

  “Do what you must. If I take just one of you with me, that is a good death.”

  “Nobody here would hate to die, hunter.”

  “Do any of you hate to talk?”

  “For a man who looks like river folk, you have quite the mouth.”

  “Pity I know no rebel Fasisi verse.”

  “Rebel?”

  “No Fasisi army has made it to the south border of Wakadishu, or you would have been corpses on a battlefield. No women walk in Fasisi ranks. And no Fasisi guard could have ever landed this far south, not with war here. You are Fasisi born but not loyal to Kwash Dara. King sister guards.”

  “You know much about us.”

  “I know that this is all there is to know.”

  The spears moved in closer.

  “I am not the one being rude in the face of seventy and one spears,” she said.

  She pointed at me.

  “Men and their cursed arrogance. You curse, you shit, you wail, you beat women. But all you really do is take up space. As men always do, they cannot help themselves. It’s why they must spread their legs when they sit,” she said.

  The men laughed, all who heard whatever kind of joke this was.

  “How great your brotherhood of men must be that all they think about is men spreading their legs.”

  She scowled, I could see it, even in the dark. The men grumbled.

  “Our Queen—”

  “She is not a queen. She is the King sister.”

  The warrior chief laughed again. She said something about how I must either seek death or think I cannot die.

  “Did he teach you that as well, the one who rides with you? You would do good to keep him up front with you, for his kind prefers to kill from behind,” I said.

  He rode his horse right up to the front until he was beside the warrior chief. Dressed as they were with the feather helmet taming his wild hair, he seemed not only odd on the horse but that he knew it. The way a dog would look riding a cow.

  “How it goes, Tracker?”

  “Never seems to go away, Leopard.”

  “It’s been said you have a nose.”

  “Under your armour, you stink worse than them.”

  He gripped the bridle harder than he needed to, and the horse jerked her head. His whiskers, which rarely showed when he was a man, shone in the night. He took his helmet off. Nobody moved their spears. There were things I wanted to ask him. How a man never interested in long-term hire found long-term hire. How they got him to wear such armour, and robes that must drag, and tear, and chafe, and itch. And if part of the bargain was that he never changed to his true nature again. But I asked none of that.

  “How different you look,” he said.

  I said nothing.

  “Hair wilder than mine, like a seer nobody listens to. Thin as witch stick. No Ku marks?”

  “They washed in the river. Much has happened to me, Leopard.”

  “I know, Tracker.”

  “You look the same. Perhaps because nothing ever happens to you. Not even what you cause.”

  “Where do you head, Tracker?”

  “We go where you come from. Where we come from you go.”

  The Leopard stared at me. He would have known who I searched for. Or he was a fool. Or he thought me to be one.

  “Tell them that you are headed home, Tracker, for your sake.”

  “I have a home? Tell me where, Leopard. Point me where to go.”

  Leopard stared at me. The warrior chief cleared her throat.

  “Let me state it clear that I tried to help you,” he said.

  “‘Let me state it clear’? From where did you get this tongue? Your help is worse than a curse,” I said.

  “Enough. You two fight like people who have fucked. You came upon us, traveler. Be on with you and . . . Who are those two?”

  Behind me Nyka and the Aesi were at least a hundred paces away. The Aesi covered his hair with a hood. Nyka wrapped his wings tight around himself.

  She continued, “You and your kind go. You already delay us.”

  She reined her horse.

  “No,” the Leopard said. “I know him. You cannot let him go.”

  “He is not the one we look for.”

  “But if the Tracker is here then he’s already found him.”

  “This man. He is just some man you know. You seem to know many,” she said.

  I hoped she smiled in the dark. I really hope she did.

  “Fool, how do you not know who this is? Even after he said his name. He is the one who insulted your Queen. The one who came to kill her son, but he was already gone. The one who—”

  “I know who he is.” Then, to me, “You, Tracker, you come with us.”

  “I go nowhere with any of you.”

  “You’re the second man to think I am offering choices. Take him.”

  Three warriors dismounted and stepped towards me. I held both axes in hand and gripped them tight. I had just cut a child’s throat and split a woman’s head in two, so I would kill anyone here. But I looked straight at the Leopard when I thought it. The three stepped to me and stopped. They lowered their spears and approached. Before, I could not smell it anymore, the fear metals had for me. I could stand tall like the person in the storm who never got hit by hail. Now I looked left and right, thinking who I should dodge first. I looked up and saw Leopard watching me.

  “Tracker?” he said.

  “Have all my men gone deaf in the night? Take him!”

  The warriors would not move. They shook and strained, forcing their lips to speak, their hips to turn, to say that they wanted to do as she wished, but could not.

  Nyka and the Aesi came up behind me.

  “And who are these two?”

  “I am sure they have mouths. Ask them,” I said.

  Every man holding spears lifted them away. The chief looked around in shock, and spooked her horse. She rubbed his cheek hard, trying to calm him.

  “Who is . . .” Leopard said, but his words vanished.

  The Aesi came to stand by me. With both hands he pulled back his hood.

  “Kill him! Kill him!” Leopard shouted.

  The warrior chief yelled, “Who is he?” The Aesi’s eyes went white. Every single horse jumped and kicked, throwing themselves up in the air, throwing off the riders, and kicking whoever they could strike. A warrior got struck in the head. Those who held on to their horses yelled in fright as the horses ran into each other and attacked those on foot. Three horses ran, trampling two men underfoot.

  “This is his will! This is his will!” Leopard shouted to the chief.

  She grabbed Leopard by his arm and both fell off their horses. Most of the horses ran away. Some of the men ran after them but stopped, then turned around, pulled their swords, and attacked each other. Soon everyone fought someone. One killed another by driving a sword into his chest. A warrior fell from a sword in his back. Leopard punched the chief and knocked her out. He rose and snarled at the Aesi. The Aesi stared at him as he approached. He touched his temple. He tried to work his mind on the cat, but Leopard changed into beast and charged. He leapt at the Aesi but horses ran straight into him, cutting him off and knocking him down. Nyka spread his wings, walked through the fighting men, and stopped at one on the ground ble
eding from a mortal wound. I know he told him that he was sorrowful. And that he was quick. He punched straight into the man’s chest and pulled out his heart. He did it to two more wounded soldiers before all the men, alive and near-dead, fell asleep. All except the chief, who had a stab wound in the shoulder. The Aesi stooped down beside her. She flinched, tried to hit him, but her hand stood up in the air.

  “When your brothers awake in the morning, they will see what was done here. They will know that brother raised sword against brother in madness, and killed many,” the Aesi said.

  “You are the living evil. I have heard of you. You set yourself against women and men. The wicked half of the Spider King.”

  “Do you not know, brave warrior? Both halves are wicked. Sleep now.”

  “I will kill—”

  “Sleep.”

  She fell back on the ground.

  “And have a sweet voyage to the dream jungle. It will be the last pleasant dream you shall ever have.”

  He stood up. Behold, I call three horses, he said to me.

  There was a door in the Blood Swamp, but it would have taken us to Luala Luala, too far north. At first I thought the Aesi knew nothing of the ten and nine doors, but he only chose not to use them. This is what I suspected: that going through a door weakened him, just as it weakened the Moon Witch. The massive number of wronged spirits and devils that waited for him in the doorway of each door, snatching him at the one point when he was just like them, all spirit and no body, and could be grabbed, or taken, or fought, or even killed. This is what I thought: that there were things we could not see, many hands perhaps, grabbing for any part of him, vengeance lust coursing through them where blood used to run.

  “Tracker! Are you lost? I called you three times,” Nyka said.

  He had already mounted his horse. It looked like it was fidgeting, disturbed by the unnatural thing on its back. It reared, trying to throw him off, but Nyka grabbed its neck. The Aesi turned to the horse and it calmed.

  We rode off in the dark, on what would be a night’s journey north, then west, along grasslands, until we got to the rain forest. It had no name, this forest, and I did not remember it from the map. The Aesi rode in front, at a quick gallop several paces ahead of us, and I don’t know why I thought so, but it looked as if he was trying to get away. Or get to them first. When he came for me in the Mweru I told him that he could have the boy, do as he pleased, take a circumcision knife and slice his whole body in two for all I cared, just help me kill the winged devil. But I would kill this boy. Or I would kill the world. People passing me keep saying we are at war. We are in war. Then let there be killing and let there be death. Let us all go down to the underworld and let the gods of death talk about true justice. The gold grass turned silver in the night.

  Their hooves hitting the ground, the horses struck up a thunder. Deeper dark lay ahead of us, dense dark like mountains. We could see it across the flat land, but it would still be dawn before we reached it. Riding through the black, and thinking wickedness, and smelling him without thinking about him, I didn’t see the Leopard until he was a length away and pushing his horse hard, trying to catch me. I leaned into my horse harder, pushing him to a full gallop. Now that my nose remembered his smell, I could sense him getting closer and closer. He snarled at his horse, frightening her, until we were riding tail-to-head, head-to-trunk, neck-to-neck. He jumped from his horse right onto me and knocked me off. I spun around in the fall so I landed on top of him. We still hit the grass hard and rolled, and rolled, and rolled several paces, him grabbing on to me. A dead anthill finally stopped us, and he flew off me. The Leopard landed on his back and jumped up, right into my knife pressed at his throat. He jerked backward and I pressed deeper into his neck. He raised his hand and I pressed and drew blood. His face was bright in the moon dark, his eyes wide open; in shock yes, in regret perhaps, blinking very little, as if begging me to do something. Or none of those things, which made me mad. I had not seen him in moons, for my mind burned with what I would do to him should we again cross paths. Should I be on top in him, should I overpower him, should I have an ax or a knife. Like the knife at his throat. No god could count how many times I had thought of this. I could have cut my hate out of him, as deep and as wide as my knife would go.

  Say something, Leopard, I thought. Say, Tracker, is this how we will now find sport, you and me—so I would cut you and shut you up. But he just stared at me.

  “Do it,” said Nyka the Ipundulu. “Do it, dark wolf. Do it. Whatever peace you seek you will never find. And it will never find you, so do it. Forget peace. Seek vengeance. Tear a hole a hundred years wide. Do it, Tracker. Do it. Is he not the reason you suffer?”

  Leopard looked at me, his eyes wet. He tried to say something but it came out as just sounds, like a whimper, though he was too brave to whimper. I wanted to cut a hole in something so badly. And then a rumble rose under him in the quick. The dirt broke up into dust and pulled him under the earth. I jumped back and shouted his name. He forced his hand through the ground and kicked and kicked, but the ground swallowed him. I looked up as the Aesi draped his hood over his head.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  You killed him!”

  I pulled my ax.

  “Child of a fucking whore, you killed him,” I said.

  “Tracker, how tiresome you are. For moons you have thought of killing this beast. You have slit his throat in the dream jungle. You have tied him to a tree and burned him. You have shoved all sorts of things up in every part of his body. You had a knife to his neck. You name him as the cause of all your misery. And yet now you scream when finally you get what you wish.”

  “I never wished for that.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  “Go into my head again and you will—”

  “I will what?”

  “Free him.”

  “No.”

  “You know I will kill you.”

  “You know you cannot.”

  “You know I will try.”

  We stood there. I ran back to where the Leopard was. The ground was the mound of a new grave. I was about to dig him out with my hands when a whistle came from behind me, a cold wind that looked like smoke. It dove into the mound and made a hole as wide as my fist.

  “Now he breathes,” the Aesi said. “He will not die.”

  “Pull him out.”

  “You would best think about what you want in these last days, Tracker. Love or revenge. You cannot have both. Let him dig himself out. It will take him days, but he will have enough strength to do so. And enough rage. Come, Tracker, Sasabonsam sleeps by day.”

  He and Nyka mounted their horses. The mound was too still. I stepped away but still watched it. I thought I heard him, but it was creatures of dawn. We rode away.

  Gods of morning broke daylight. The forest was in sight but still not close. The horses grew tired, I could feel it. I did not shout to Aesi to stop, though he slowed to a trot. Sasabonsam would have gone to sleep. I rode up to him.

  “The horses will have rest,” I said.

  “We won’t need them when we reach the forest.”

  “That was not a question.”

  I halted my horse and climbed off. Nyka and the Aesi looked at each other. Nyka nodded.

  I slept, I do not know for how long, but warm sun woke me up. Not noon, but after. None of us spoke as we mounted our horses and rode off. We would reach the forest before evening if the horses ran steady. The afternoon was still hot and wet in the air, and we came across another battlefield, from a long-fought battle, with skulls and bones, and parts of armour not salvaged scattered about. The skulls and bones led up to a hill as high as a house with two floors, maybe two hundred paces to the right of us. A hill of spear shafts, other broken weapons, and shields, dented and cracked, and bones scraped clean of flesh and sinew. The Aesi stopped and reined his horse.

  H
e watched the hill. I asked him nothing, and neither did Nyka. From behind the hill of spears appeared a headdress, then a head. Someone walked to the top. The face, in a mask of white clay covering all but eyes, nose, and lips, her headdress dried fruits, or seeds, along with bones, tusks, and long feathers hanging down and brushing her shoulders. White clay on her bare breasts, down to her belly, with stripes that looked like the zebra’s, and a ripped leather skirt on her hips.

  “I shall meet you by the mouth of the forest,” the Aesi said, and rode towards her. Nyka hissed the curse that could not come out of my mouth. The woman turned and went back where she came from. I rode off and after a while heard Nyka riding behind me.

  We were some time in the forest before either of us noticed. The bush was too thick with grass and fallen trees for the horses, so we went on foot.

  “Should we wait for the Aesi?” Nyka said, but I ignored him and kept walking.

  Something about this forest reminded me of the Darklands. Not the trees pushing their way up into sky or plants, tufts, and ferns spreading out of the trunks like flowers. Or the mist so thick it felt like light rain. The silence is what took me back to that forest. The quiet is what bothered me. Some vines reached down right in front of us like rope. Some swung back up and around branches like snakes. Some vines were snakes. Dark had not yet come, but no sunlight came through these leaves. But this was not the Darklands, for the Darklands had many ghost beasts. Things cooed, and cawed, and screeched, and bawled. Nothing growled, nothing roared.

  “This shit,” Nyka said. I turned around and saw him scraping worms off his foot. “Worms know decay when it steps on them,” he said.

  I climbed over a fallen tree, the trunk as wide as I was high, and kept walking. The tree was far behind me when I noticed that Nyka did not follow.

  “Nyka.”

  He was not on the other side of the tree either.

  “Nyka!”

  His smell was everywhere, but no trail opened up to me. He became air—everywhere but nothing. I turned around only to see two gray legs spread wide, and before I could see between them something white and wet shot into my face.