Beasts of Prey

by Ayana Gray

  “Koffi.” Saying her name seemed to cost him something. He looked down and saw the mist was now at his knees. Where it touched his skin, it was cold, strangely numbing. He felt his eyelids growing heavier, the old darkness creeping in from the corners of his vision. Somewhere distant, he heard Brother Ugo’s words.

  Nightmares hunt like beasts of prey . . .

  He shivered, felt the world tilt slightly as he swayed. All around him the world was getting cooler, fuzzier. It was getting harder to breathe, as though someone had thrown a cotton blanket over his head. He wanted to lie down, just for a moment . . .

  “Ekon!” Suddenly someone was calling his name, the sound oddly distant. “Ekon, where are you?”

  Ekon sank to his knees, relishing the warmth that flooded his body. Yes, he need only rest for a moment, just a moment . . .

  “Ekon! Where are you?”

  Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew he recognized that voice, but he couldn’t answer it, not now. A numbness was creeping up his body, pulling him down into the earth. It was a surprisingly nice feeling.

  And then he felt nothing at all.

  CHAPTER 16

  The Follow-Through

  The moment Koffi opened her eyes, she knew something was wrong.

  That understanding, the fear that came with it, seeped into her body slowly, like cold water poured over her head on a scorching day back at the Night Zoo. She had no sense of where she was or how she’d gotten there, but she did know two things.

  She was outside, and she was on her back.

  Slowly, she sat up. The world was a verdant blur of color all around her—hues of deep green colliding with browns and blacks, and the occasional pink or yellow. Overhead, the sky was a bright morning blue, interrupted by vines and leaves . . .

  Without warning, it all came back to her.

  She was in a jungle; specifically, the Greater Jungle.

  With the realization, she jumped to her feet and at once regretted it. The world spun for a moment as she recalibrated, trying to get a sense of place. All around her, filtered sunlight pushed through the trees, casting touches of gold on random spots. Her eyes caught one of those spots a few yards away from her, and she went cold.

  Ekon was lying on his back in the grass. He wasn’t moving.

  “Ekon!” She crossed the space between them in a matter of strides to kneel beside him. Her hands shook as she first pressed a flat palm to his chest to feel for a pulse, then held up his wrist to check again. She felt nothing.

  No. Not another body, not another one. Ekon’s face was too smooth. It reminded her of Sahel’s, of Baba’s. Instinctively, she looked around. They were alone here; no one else was coming to help.

  This wasn’t good.

  For a brief moment, she thought of the old woman from the marketplace, what she’d said about magic. Darajas, those with the ability to use it, had once healed the sick and injured. Koffi stared at her own hands. She hadn’t felt even a trace of magic since the night of the fire, she didn’t trust herself to figure out anything here. She pushed the old woman from her mind and instead tried to think of what Mama would do in this situation. Mama was calm, steady, ideal in a crisis. Koffi closed her eyes and searched until she found a memory, a lesson Mama had taught her once at the Night Zoo. They’d been trying to help a baby kondoo calf that had stopped breathing, its heart hadn’t been strong.

  Lift the chin like this, Mama had indicated. Then place your palms at the center of the torso . . .

  Koffi imitated the gesture as well as she could remember, placing her overlapping hands in the center of Ekon’s chest. With as much strength as she could manage, she began pressing down on it in a steady counting rhythm.

  One . . . two . . . one . . . two . . .

  He didn’t move.

  Come on, come on, don’t be dead.

  An idea flitted in the back of her mind like a small bird, hopeful. She stared at her hands, then at Ekon’s body.

  There was one other trick she knew, another thing Mama had taught her. Koffi hesitated. She really wasn’t sure about this one, but . . .

  It could save him. It could bring him back.

  She didn’t stop to think about it any more as she bent over Ekon to pinch his nose with one hand and tilt his chin upward with the other. Every muscle in her body tensed as she leaned down, closer to his face this time. She just had to . . .

  Her nose was less than an inch from his when he opened his eyes.

  “AH!” Koffi jumped back so suddenly, she actually landed on her backside. It hurt, but that was nothing compared to the absolute horror she felt coursing through her. Ekon was sitting up and staring at her, his eyes wide.

  “Um . . . hello. What were you doing?”

  “I—” Embarrassment flooded her cheeks. What had she been doing? Suddenly, the idea of trying to resuscitate Ekon the same way Mama had taught her to resuscitate a kondoo calf seemed more than a little foolish. And what if Ekon hadn’t opened his eyes in time, what if she’d . . . She shook her head before she could think about it.

  “You were unconscious,” she said, deliberately changing the subject. “I was too, a few minutes ago. I only just woke up.”

  Ekon searched the trees all around him for a moment before his eyes dropped to the jungle floor. Then he looked up at Koffi, alarmed.

  “Where are our bags?”

  “Our—” A terrible dread rose in Koffi. Their bags. She’d been so distracted by Ekon that she hadn’t noticed the strange lightness on her back, the absence of something crucial. Instinctively, her hands flew to her hip. The dagger she’d taken from the temple was still there, at least, but that brought her little comfort. Their bags had everything they needed—food, water, supplies, the journal. She looked all around them, retracing her steps as best as she could; it didn’t matter. “I . . . don’t know where they are,” she finally said.

  At this, Ekon jumped to his feet. “How did this happen?”

  Koffi frowned. Her recollection of the previous night wasn’t good, it felt more like a fever dream in hindsight, but there was one thing . . .

  “I remember a mist,” she said. “It came out of nowhere, and then . . .”

  As though her words jogged something, Ekon looked up. “I . . . I remember it too,” he said. “I heard your voice, but I couldn’t find you. It made me sleepy.”

  The longer she thought of it, the more vividly Koffi recalled it. She remembered wispy white tendrils gathering around her ankles, numbing her feet. She’d been looking for Ekon, calling out to him, but he didn’t answer. She’d thought she was alone.

  “It did something to us,” she said quietly. “It’s like it . . . sedated us. How is that possible?”

  Ekon gave her a skeptical look. “You do know where we are, right?”

  Koffi didn’t answer but kept looking around them. There was nothing on the jungle floor save for bits of moss and bramble. “Whatever happened to our bags, it happened when we were knocked out.”

  “Which wouldn’t have happened if you’d listened to me . . . ,” Ekon muttered.

  “What?” Koffi felt something rise in her that took a second to identify. After a moment, she realized what it was: anger. “What did you just say to me?”

  Ekon narrowed his eyes. “After we ran into the jungle, I told you we needed to stop, to reevaluate our plan.” He pointed. “You wanted to keep going, you didn’t—”

  “Wait a minute.” Koffi’s eyes were still searching the jungle floor when she noticed something. “Look at this.”

  Ekon was at her side in a few steps. It took seconds for him to find what she already had. “Are those . . . ?”

  “Footprints.” Koffi nodded. “Human footprints.” As soon as she said it, she knew she was right. Years at the Night Zoo had inadvertently made her something of an expert on the matter. She could tell th
e difference between a zebra’s hoof and an antelope’s, or the pawprint of a lion versus a hyena’s. These tracks were distinct, narrow and rounded, with deeper indents in the dirt near the heel and toe. She followed their path until they were lost in the jungle’s foliage. They were too large to be hers, and too small to be Ekon’s. She pointed. “Look where they start.” Carefully, she stepped around them and indicated. It was difficult to make them out in places, but there was definitely a trail leading deeper into the jungle.

  “I thought no humans came into the Greater Jungle.”

  “I did too.” Koffi’s mind was racing, but she tried to keep her voice even and calm.

  Ekon studied the trail a moment. “The tracks lead east.”

  Koffi stared at him. “How do you know that?”

  He took a few steps and pointed to one of the trees. It was thicker than his entire body, and one side of it was covered in a thick blanket of moss. “Moss grows on the north side of the tree. Once you find north, everything else is relative to that.”

  A useful fact, Koffi noted to herself. After a moment, she nodded. “Whoever those footprints belong to was here recently. They would have seen us lying here unconscious. I think we should follow them.”

  “What?” Ekon looked up. “Why?”

  Koffi gave him a pointed look, as though he was missing something obvious. “Let’s see, we wake up in the middle of a magical jungle with all of our valuables taken. Just a few feet away, there’s a set of footprints that belong to someone who isn’t here anymore. I think whoever these footprints belong to took our stuff, and I want it back.”

  Ekon shook his head. “We’re here for the Shetani, not a random chase through the jungle.”

  Koffi rolled her eyes. “Everything we had, everything we needed, was in those bags. We’re not getting to the Heart of the Jungle or finding the Shetani until we get that stuff back.”

  Ekon hesitated. She could see the calculations happening in his mind. Another second passed before he sighed.

  “Right.” He nodded. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  Under the thick canopy of trees, it was difficult for true sunlight to find its way through, but that didn’t stop the heat from rising as the hours passed. Koffi had worked in the Night Zoo for eleven years—looking after its beasts in every condition, from torrid rainfall to scorching sunshine—but she’d never felt a heat quite like this. It was oppressive, domineering, and deliberate. She huffed, pinching bits of her dampened tunic away from her skin. She felt like an intruder in the Greater Jungle, a thing that didn’t belong. It was as though the jungle was feverish, trying to sweat them out of its depths like a sickness. She didn’t want to be there, and like an ungracious host, it wanted her out. Absently, and perhaps for some comfort, she let her fingers brush the hilt of the dagger on her hip. Whoever had taken the rest of their things had let her keep it, and she didn’t know whether that was an oversight or a small mercy. Not that she’d know what to do with the thing if something attacked her. She felt Ekon’s gaze on her and looked up.

  “You know, that’s a pretty rare weapon these days,” he said, nodding to the dagger.

  “Is it?” Koffi deliberately tried to sound offhand. In truth, from the moment she’d picked up the small white blade, she’d sensed that something about it was special. It held a sense of agelessness, like it was a piece of something born in another time.

  Ekon nodded. “They don’t really make jino blades in the Zamani Region, not anymore.”

  Jino blade. Tooth blade. At once, Koffi felt a bit silly. She hadn’t known the knife’s proper name. She looked up again.

  “How are they made?”

  “From the teeth of large animals,” said Ekon. “Elephants, lions, anything big enough, I suppose.”

  Koffi didn’t know whether to be impressed or horrified. She thought then of the beasts of the Night Zoo. There’d been the ones that were obviously dangerous—like Diko—but there’d been others too, ones that only looked dangerous. She thought of Kubwa, the warhyppo, with his long white tusks. He was partial to corn. She remembered Mkaida, the three-horned ram, with silver horns longer than her arms. The idea of someone hurting them, taking pieces of them away, disturbed her. It left her to wonder what beast this weapon had been born from. Had it come from a vicious beast, hunted down by warriors, or had it belonged to something innocent and afraid? She’d never know.

  “Do you know how to use a dagger?” Ekon asked, still watching her.

  Heat crept into Koffi’s cheeks. She’d had very little in life that she could call her own, least of all any kind of weapon. She covered up the embarrassment quickly.

  “I’m perfectly capable of defending myself.” She wriggled her foot for emphasis. “Remember?”

  Ekon rolled his eyes. “That doesn’t count.”

  Koffi cocked an eyebrow. “I think Father Olufemi disagrees.”

  In response, Ekon cringed. “That tactic is . . . somewhat effective, but you should always have a variety of moves in your repertoire. When you only have one, you become predictable and easy to defeat.”

  Koffi frowned. A part of her was annoyed to realize he was probably right, but another part was genuinely curious; after a few seconds, the latter won out. “Did you have some other move in mind?”

  Ekon studied her a moment before seeming to come to an idea. “There’s one dagger technique I think I could teach you pretty easily. Let’s see . . .” He looked around them, evaluating, then to her. “Step back, please.”

  “Ooh.” Koffi almost laughed at the politeness of the request, but complied.

  Ekon withdrew his own hanjari from the sheath on his belt. It didn’t look quite as old as the jino blade, but it was obvious that it wasn’t new. Someone had taken good care of it over the years, and Koffi wondered if it’d been him. The wooden hilt was clean and polished, its silvery metal blade sharpened to a lethal point.

  “There are all sorts of weapons.” Ekon rotated the blade in his hand, letting it catch in the late-morning sunlight. “But personally, short blades are my favorite. The combat is intimate; you have to get close to fight properly. There’s no room for hesitation when you use one.”

  Without warning, he spun on his heel, stabbing the dagger through the air in a perfect ring. The movement was so fluid, so agile, that the air actually whistled. Koffi tensed. In that fleeting moment, Ekon had looked like someone else entirely; his face had been razor-sharp with focus, discipline.

  “That move is called the duara.” He said the word carefully. “It means ‘circle.’ ”

  Koffi held up the jino blade. “Teach me.”

  A small smile tugged at the corner of Ekon’s mouth, and he went back to looking more like himself. “Daggerwork is part skill, part instinct. What’s important is that, whatever move you try, you move with confidence—”

  “Like this?” Koffi cut the air from left to right as fast as she could. The air didn’t whistle, but it felt good to have something to protect herself with for a change. “How was that?”

  Ekon looked mortified. “What . . . was that?”

  “The same thing you just did.”

  “That’s definitely not what I just did.”

  “Sure it is.” Koffi tried again, turning on her heel. It wasn’t as graceful, true, but she thought she’d mastered the general idea. “Just swing and . . .”

  This time, Ekon cringed.

  “Your feet aren’t anchored,” he said, shaking his head. “And your grip is . . .” He stopped himself, fingers tapping against his side in a rhythm. When he noticed Koffi was watching them, he made himself stop, looking distinctly embarrassed.

  “Sorry.”

  Koffi frowned. “Why?”

  “My fingers.” Ekon looked down at them, almost condemning. “Sometimes they move when I—”

  “I don’t care what your fingers do,�
�� Koffi said quickly. “Are you going to show me this circle thingy or not?”

  A curious expression passed over Ekon’s face before he refocused. “Right.” She wasn’t expecting him to close the gap between them in two strides. At once, the air around her filled with that same smell, leather and cedarwood. It was a strange blend, sharp and faint all at once. He put his hand over hers, and began adjusting her fingers on the jino blade’s hilt.

  “. . . grip is horrendous,” he grumbled to himself, manipulating her hand. “Keep these four fingers over the hilt, and your thumb flat. Both your elbows should be tucked in, legs apart . . .”

  He circled her, gently pulling her shoulders back and nodding for her to move her feet.

  “To keep your stance grounded,” he explained, still moving around her.

  Koffi followed the instructions and tried not to think about how close Ekon was. At the Night Zoo, there had been other beastkeepers—boy beastkeepers, like Jabir—but he’d always been like a little brother to her. This particular closeness felt different. She found she almost didn’t mind that leather and cedarwood smell . . . Ekon stepped back.

  “Okay.” He nodded. “I want you to try again. This time, keep your feet apart and throw your weight to the right. Let the force of it pull you around to complete the circle. It’s all about the follow-through.”

  Koffi raised the blade, tentative. Her fingers felt stiff and awkward the way Ekon had arranged them, but he was looking at her expectantly. After a pause, she threw her arm back and spun in a circle with the blade in hand. At once, she felt the difference. Ekon had only changed her grip slightly, but the result was profound. The blade sliced through the air, impossibly fast. Ekon nodded in approval.

  “Not perfect,” he said with a smirk. “But . . . not terrible.”