Unicorn Tracks

by Julia Ember

  The horn itself held its shape, blackening without burning. But as we peered deeper into the fire, the lines of silver twisting around it unfurled. Starting from the wide base, a strip of pure silver filament unwound in a curled spiral. The glistening metal started to glow orange and red with heat, and suddenly, it exploded. The pieces hovered in the air around us, like stars suspended in midair. We watched them twinkle for a moment, before a low wind came and brushed heaven’s dust away.

  THE CLANK of iron greeted the dawn with us. As the sun rose, and I prepared the mules to leave, we heard the sound of metal and the low groan of a hundred men working in the rising heat.

  Kara wrapped her shawl around her hair like a headscarf, donning my gloves and jacket. Only her eyes were visible through a narrow slit in the fabric. But as long as no one saw too much of her tapered features, hair, or body, people would assume she was a foreign merchant or a leper. At least I optimistically hoped they would, since we had no better method of disguise.

  “I’m going to sweat to death wearing this,” Kara complained. She lifted the back of her blouse, using the material to fan her sweaty body.

  “Once we get through to the other side of the village, you can take it off,” I promised. “We’ll have a quick look around. Our towns aren’t big, and this one can’t be huge. It’s been here six months at the longest.”

  I boosted her up onto Elikia, letting her step up using my knee. My mare was tall and narrow, difficult to mount from the ground. But her wiry frame and bay coat were more typical of horses here than the glossy black of Kara’s chunky gelding. Better to have one less thing to attract attention to her.

  We rode across the fields. Flower petals and old leaves whipped around us on the morning breeze. I reveled in the cooler morning air, letting it kiss the bare skin of my arms, while Kara sweltered in silence. I’d warned her not to speak once we left the relative safety of our little camp. Nothing would draw attention faster than her strange language and accent. And who knew if the poachers would have scouts lurking.

  As we drew nearer to the village, it became clear that it wasn’t a town at all—but a giant camp. I could see that none of the structures were permanent. There were no huts or chieftains’ builds, nor farm animals and crops. Instead, hundreds of tents stood clustered together on a flat plain of mud. Each tent had only a single post, and they looked flimsy, like thin blankets that had simply been draped over sticks. Meat bones, half-smoked cigars, and molding bread littered the ground. Skinny pack mules picked through the garbage for scant mouthfuls of grass and leaves. A few men smoked pipes outside their tents or played cards. A few lay immobile on tattered pallets. Their cheeks were drawn together and their eyes bloodshot. Most didn’t even look up as we passed them. One of them sported fresh whip marks across his back and shoulders.

  We followed the sound of hammer against steel. My pity for the men intensified as our horses floundered in the deep mud—how could they live like this? Sleeping, eating, going about their lives up to their knees in mud and filth. Whippings were often given in Nazwimbe for crimes, but with the condition of the camp as well as the men’s bodies plus the vacant look in their eyes, it seemed more likely that all of them were slaves, kidnapped from their homes. I wondered where they had come from and who had taken them.

  The hidden location of the camp made complete sense now. The savanna was so expansive that it concealed many illegal operations; it was too difficult for the General to patrol hundreds of miles of open wilderness. Smugglers, drug traders, and thieves worked out here. I’d never seen such a huge camp before, but General Zuberi was getting old. Maybe he simply could not keep such a close eye on our frontiers anymore.

  A rider approached us at a canter. His thigh was bandaged, and I recognized him as the poacher the filly had impaled the day before.

  He spread his arms out, taking in the sight of Kara. He looked at her but spoke to me in our own language. “Ah! This must be one of the dealers. I thought it would be a man. Tell her she can unwrap. The sun is not too warm yet. I know these foreigners don’t like to burn, eh?” He winked.

  I hesitated, my mind churning and trying to figure out how we could turn this to our advantage. “My client is the emissary,” I began shakily. “The dealer wants her to make a report before he rides here.”

  The man shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Worse and worse. These lazy Echalenders. I told Mr. Arusei we did not need all this foreign money. Local labor can provide what we need.”

  I shrugged, then cleared my throat and spoke to Kara. “Miss, the man here says you do not need your wrappings. The sun is not too hot, and you will not burn. He will show us around, and we can make the report to the Echalender dealer.”

  I noticed the way the poacher tried to follow what I said and was glad I hadn’t spoken to her without breaking character. Kara cocked her head in confusion, but a moment later, she nodded and began unwrapping her shawl. I wonder what kind of dealer we were supposed to be representing. Surely hornless unicorns wouldn’t fetch enough foreign money to be worth the hassle and danger of trapping them. Not when the creatures couldn’t survive in a colder climate anyway.

  When Kara’s hair tumbled over her shoulders, and she revealed her face, the man smirked. “What a treat on the eyes, eh? That hair! And nice and fat. I’d lay that girl on her stomach and spend the whole day grinding into her behind. Probably why they sent you with her instead of a man!” He laughed, revealing a cracked tooth. I wanted to break the rest. I was glad Kara couldn’t understand what he said.

  I frowned, looking out over the camp. “Show us around so that we can make our report. It’s a long ride back.”

  The poacher scowled, unhappy to have his survey of Kara cut short. “Fine, fine. Come along.”

  We followed him through the camp, trying to stay on the narrow path of solid earth behind him. It kept the horses out of the deep mud, so I wouldn’t have to oil their legs later. The tents were everywhere, an endless sea of green and black tarp.

  The men’s groaning and the clap of metal grew louder and louder. The forest of tents slowly thinned out, but stretched out in front of us were dozens of laborers, carrying hammers, sheets of metal, wooden planks. Mixed in amongst them, I saw the unmistakable forms of twenty unicorns, their bodies strikingly white against the muddy black of their legs. Each unicorn pulled a sleigh loaded with metal. The scraps were piled high, twelve feet or more, and must have weighed several tons. Still, each animal pulled its own sleigh, its muscles barely straining with a load five horses would have struggled to drag. Overseers marched behind them, whipping both the unicorns and the laborers.

  At the epicenter of all the activity, laborers lined the wooden planks and scraps of metal together in neat rows. They nailed the wood into place, adding rows to the great river of metal that stretched back farther than I could see, cutting through the savanna.

  “It’s a railway,” Kara breathed.

  “It’s good?” our guide asked, gesturing to the scene in front of us.

  It was the worst thing I’d ever seen.

  My hands shaking on my reins, I whispered back, “It’s good.”

  WHEN WE arrived back at the safari camp, bedraggled, dust-covered, and hungry, it was almost evening again. At the sound of our horses’ hooves, Tumelo and Bi Trembla came running from his office. He held Kara’s bridle while she dismounted, making a show of escorting her back to her tent for tea and a hot bath, all the while glaring at me over his shoulder. I gulped. His look was foreboding enough, but if he was leaving me alone to face Bi Trembla’s wrath, he had to be furious.

  Bi Trembla slapped the back of my head and then pinched my ear between her yellow nails. “One night! You promised me one! And that you’d have her back early the next morning! We’ve been waiting all day. Do you know how many excuses I had to make to her father today? Oh, they are riding. Oh, they have gone to the lake. Your daughter? Ah, she is having her nap. Stupid, irresponsible girl!”

  I yelped, jerking away
from her brutal nails. “We found something and had to track it. It took a bit of extra time. But we’re back before nightfall!”

  I didn’t want to tell Bi Trembla what we had been tracking. Better to save that information reveal for Tumelo, after he took his evening drink.

  Bi Trembla placed both hands on her wide hips and glared. “Do you know how worried I have been? Thinking for the past ten hours that a wild beast ate you in your tents? A stampede ran you over? It’s bad enough that Tumelo sends a young girl into the savanna with only a bunch of idiot foreigners for protection, but how much worse if you didn’t come back?” She reached out, and I cringed, thinking she was about to slap me again. Instead, her warm palm caressed my cheek. “I care for you, msichana. Like my own granddaughter. Make sure you always come back.”

  Done with her brief display of emotion, she picked up the basket of washing she’d left by the side of Tumelo’s hut and bustled away. Tumelo appeared from behind a tree. Apparently he’d been waiting until after Bi Trembla finished with me to make his reappearance.

  “That was quite a stunt,” he said, pulling a cigar from his back pocket. “Want to tell me where you’ve been?”

  I sighed. There was no hiding what we’d been doing anymore. Not when we’d already decided that we needed his help. “You know the pile of unicorn horns you told me to show her?”

  Tumelo scowled. He knew me well enough to know there would be much more when I started things like that. “Yes.”

  “Well, we found out why they are there.”

  He stroked the day-old stubble around his chin. “Don’t be coy, Mnemba. Spit it out. What have you found and why are you back so late?”

  “They’re capturing the unicorns,” I blurted. “Taking them to build some iron road. When they cut off the horns, the unicorns just change… they give up. It’s like a part of their soul dies.”

  “Back up,” Tumelo said, lighting the cigar and sucking in a breath. “Who is capturing the unicorns?”

  “A gang of poachers. They’ve brought the unicorns to the edge of the savanna. We saw them capture two. They’re building… and kidnapping laborers, hundreds of them.” My voice trembled as I remembered what we had seen.

  Suddenly, I didn’t care if he was angry with me. I stepped up to him and rested my head on his broad chest. My head fit perfectly under his chin. Tricky, mercantile bastard that he was, Tumelo had always been the family member I trusted. When everyone else had pressured me to just forget and live my life as a shell, he offered me a new start. Even when I thought any chance of a real life had vanished. His strong arms wrapped around me, and I poured out my soul, telling him everything.

  “Hey,” he said, petting my hair gently when I finished. “What you saw out there. It’s all right. It didn’t come back with you.”

  I shook my head. “We have to go back.”

  Tumelo pushed me off his chest to look in my face. “Why would you go back there? They have guns; they’re kidnapping people. We should stay as far away as possible and go to your father. He has the General’s ear.”

  “I don’t have enough facts yet. We don’t have proof that they’re kidnapping the people or that the General doesn’t already know. Like I said, we only had a quick glance around…. My father won’t listen to us unless we have actual facts and know why they’re building that railway.” My voice trailed off, and I cleared my throat. “We need you. You and Mr. Harving. To pose as dealers.”

  He spat out his cigar midpuff. “Have you lost your mind? We can’t ask a tourist to infiltrate something like this. It’s bad enough you dragged his daughter into this.”

  “These unicorns mean the world to him. And to his daughter. Their life is studying these creatures. Plus, I didn’t ‘drag’ Kara into anything. She wanted to go after them. She begged me.”

  Tumelo thought for a long moment, studying me. I squirmed under his scrutiny. “I’ve been thinking this whole thing, this tracking the poachers… it’s not like you. You’re like me. We leave well enough alone, unless it affects us,” he said. “Why go after the unicorns at all? Why camp to watch these poachers? It’s not the creatures themselves, I know. It has to be something else. So tell me, cousin, what is this girl to you?”

  “A friend.” It was the truth and a lie at the same time. “And I do care about the unicorns. You didn’t see what happened to that stallion.”

  Tumelo cupped my chin, a knowing twinkle deep in his brown eyes. “Be careful. I brought you away here to see you happy, not to let you get broken again.”

  I FOUND Kara reclining in her bath, hair draped over the side of the bronze tub. She didn’t look up when I pushed back the hut’s flap. Her head lolled to the side, and she dozed on her arm, while the steam rose in smoky white tendrils around her. Her flesh was bright pink with the heat, like the feathers on a hoopoe’s crest. Bi Trembla sat on a low stool in the corner and darned the holes in Tumelo’s woolen socks.

  She looked up when I came in, cooing, “Poor lamb. Fell asleep almost as soon as she got in the water.” Her brows furrowed, and she scowled at me. It wasn’t fair that I got all the blame, and Kara was the “poor lamb,” when she’d been the instigator. “You exhausted her in the heat. They’re not used to it like us. You have to take each day slowly. I’ve just been watching here to make sure she doesn’t drown. Her father is anxious to see her. She didn’t want to go in until she washed.”

  “Don’t you have cooking to do?” I asked, ignoring her accusations the best I could. The sun had almost entirely disappeared. Sometimes Bi Trembla insisted on doing too many things herself, which did nothing to make her sweeter. “I can make sure she doesn’t sink.”

  Bi Trembla peered out through the flap, sighing. “So many things to do. Yes, I should start the cooking. Tumelo will get moody without his supper, and we’re getting some more guests tonight—a couple, and they’re late. Oswe is waiting for them at the end of the road with a candle.”

  I pointed to Kara. Her head had rolled back onto the edge of the tub. “I can do this, Bi Trembla, honestly.”

  “Her hair hasn’t been washed yet,” Bi Trembla said, getting up from her seat and packing up her knitting bag. She picked up the stool and moved it to the edge of the tub. Kara didn’t stir. “Make sure you scrub right down to her scalp to get it all clean. She has so much hair, the dirt gets trapped.”

  “I know how to wash hair.”

  “Don’t take that tone with me, I still haven’t forgiven you. We have a standard to maintain.”

  I nodded and took a seat on the stool. Bi Trembla wearily stumbled out through the flap without glancing back. Kara’s long hair hung almost to the floor. Next to the bath, she had placed a narrow comb, a soft soap, and a bottle of fragrant oil. I lifted the oil to my nose and breathed in a blend of thistle and vanilla.

  I wet my palms in the hot water to warm them. Then slid my fingers through the layers of her hair, massaging the base of her scalp. She gave an unladylike snort, stirring from her sleep. I saw the shadow of her eyelashes blink in the dim light.

  Slowly, I increased the pressure of my fingers, massaging behind her ears and up to her temples. I’d washed many ladies’ hair before, but this was different. My fingers seemed to buzz with energy. The scent of the oil and the warm steam seemed to caress me and draw me into her. Kara tilted her head back and sank deeper in the water. “That’s amazing, Bi Trembla,” she sighed.

  I chuckled, and she turned around, her lips pressed together in a mocking scowl. “Sneaking up on a lady in her bath. Not very proper. Is that the kind of establishment you run here?”

  I dipped my head in a bow. “But, Miss Harving, I’m here to attend you.”

  She rolled her eyes but faced front again, leaning into my touch as I worked the soap and oil into the red tresses. Wet, her hair looked a different color. Like faded bronze, instead of brilliant copper. My own hair was so dark, I never noticed the difference, even when it was wet.

  When I finished washing her hair, I rested my hands on
her shoulders. Kara turned to face me, water running down over her lips. She reached up and hooked her fingers into my hair, yanking me toward her with a little growl. I moved back so quickly I nearly fell off the stool, biting my lip and looking toward the flap of her tent.

  “We’ve kissed before,” she said, scowling.

  Nervousness made me shiver. How could I explain to her that every time might feel like the first to me?

  “I can’t.”

  Sighing, she dropped her hands back into the tub. “Are you afraid that it’s wrong?”

  “No… it’s just… don’t pull on me.”

  When she didn’t respond, I lowered my head and kissed the hollow juncture between her shoulder and neck. She shuddered as my lips brushed across her collarbones.

  I closed my eyes to preserve the scent of her in my memory. In two more weeks, she would get back on a boat and vanish forever. I wanted to ask her what this meant to her. Would she remember my scent too when she left? Or would I dissolve into a single piece of her memory of Nazwimbe?

  Kara purred like a chimera in the sun and turned to face me, waiting for me to lean toward her. On her lips I tasted the salt of my own tears.

  RIFLE BRACED, I waded through the swamp that bordered our camp. The thieves’ hideout lay at the center of the bog, enclosed by a fortress of reeds and cattail grass. I poked my rifle through the cattails, separating them enough to squint through the gap.

  The criminals sat on the bank, chattering to one another as they scooped out handfuls of their creamy bounty. The powder stuck to their fingers, and they licked it off with relish. One of them threw a handful of the substance at the other, coating him in a cloud of white. The thieves formed an uneven circle around the aggressor and his victim. I clapped my hands loudly, and the activity abruptly stopped. Six guilty howler monkeys dropped Bi Trembla’s can of powdered milk and scattered.