by Julia Ember
The two men exchanged uneasy glances. I wondered if Tumelo had overplayed his authority. When my father gave commands, he always did so with a quiet confidence. He expected to be obeyed and felt no need to raise his voice.
After a long pause, the man who had tried to stroke Kara wheeled his horse around and galloped through the mud. I had to cover my mouth to hide a smile of pure relief.
The other poacher half bowed in his saddle. He had a shrewd look about him, with narrow-set eyes and a small, pursed mouth. “Welcome. I assure you Jayweu did not mean any harm. He’s not the brightest man we have, but he’s fearless, and he can rope a unicorn with the best, so we keep him around.” His eyes rested on Kara and me as he said, “Some servants are strong, others must possess… other talents. I apologize if he has given offense. My master is in his pavilion, overseeing the slaves’ progress. I am sure he will receive you there for refreshments.”
We gathered our reins to follow him, but he circled his horse around Tumelo and spoke directly to Mr. Harving. His accent was coarse, but intelligible Echalende flowed from his lips. “Hello, sir. I trust your journey to our country has gone well?”
“Yes,” Mr. Harving croaked. He fanned his beet-red face. “Terribly hot here, though.”
“Yes. We get that complaint a lot, I’m afraid. How did you arrive?”
“By ship, of course.”
The man nodded. “Of course. What other way? Until we complete this project, that is.” He gestured behind him, over the tents to the trail of smoke coiling up to the sky. “Have you spent much time in Nazwimbe? I was not aware that a new ship had landed for some weeks.”
I could see Mr. Harving struggling to find excuses, so I cut in. “As you say, our client has been here some weeks. He became ill on the journey, and we had to make many stops.”
The man’s lip curled. “I see.”
“Do you think that this is his only business?” I snapped.
The man bowed in his saddle. “Of course not. Again, I don’t mean to offend.”
“Are you taking us through for refreshments or not?” Tumelo interrupted. His tone did not question, and this time he didn’t raise his voice. Maybe he had studied my father closely after all. “I wish to dismount and take something to drink.”
“Of course, sir,” the man said, switching instantly back to our language. “Follow me.”
As we trailed after him toward the source of the smoke, Kara leaned over in her saddle to whisper to me. “What do you think all that was about? He seemed really suspicious.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. But he speaks your language. Your father might have to do a lot more talking than we thought.”
Given how much Mr. Harving had struggled to supply a simple excuse, I sincerely hoped the poacher’s leader did not speak Echalende.
When we reached the edge of the labyrinth of tents and mud, Mr. Harving pulled his horse up to study the scene that played out in front of us. We watched, breath held, while two of the slaves hitched a unicorn mare to a sleigh. The mare’s once proud head drooped between her knees. A hornless foal trailed her flank, ribs visible under his fuzzy baby coat. The slaves dragged the mare forward by the bridle, while an overseer whipped their backs. The animal staggered with exhaustion and the weight of the sleigh. The slaves’ groans echoed through me, and despite the intolerable heat, I shivered.
I wanted to reach for Kara’s hand, but the eyes of a hundred men followed us as we made our way through the camp. Even worse, her father rode beside us, and he would see everything. I wrapped a lock of the gelding’s long mane around my hand instead.
The leader of the poachers reclined under a black velvet awning. He rested his feet on the back of a kneeling slave and sipped a bubbling green drink held by another. Two more laborers waved an enormous pair of feather fans above him. I squinted; the fans looked as if the poachers had simply cut off and preserved two ostrich wings. There was no sign of the black box or the moonstone. When he caught sight of our party, he rose to his feet and beckoned us toward the pavilion.
I heard Tumelo exhale. When we passed the slaves, he had slumped in his saddle, haughty bearing gone as he witnessed their abuse. Until he had seen the camp, the acting had been a game to him: a challenge for the salesman inside him to win. He’d known the risks and argued them, but looking at his face, I could tell that he only really understood everything now. An overseer whipped a slave to our left. The man’s blood sprayed in an arc, spotting Tumelo’s robes. He flinched, closing his eyes, as if afraid the whip might slash across his face.
Kicking Elikia forward, I rode up, even with him. His eyes were dazed. I lifted my sleeve to his face and wiped a bead of blood off his lip. Then I turned to the overseer, trying my best to sound imperious, blasé, like my mama would in this situation and shouted, “You have just splattered blood on the chieftain’s robe. Clear a path.”
When the man hesitated, whip still raised, Tumelo recovered himself. “Now,” he ordered.
The leader craned toward us, watching our party intently, taking note of how we handled the men. I looked at Kara, and she met my eye. I could tell from the worried crease across her forehead that both of us were thinking the same thing: this was going to be much harder than last time.
We approached the pavilion. Sitting on their horse’s backs, Tumelo and Mr. Harving were at eye-level with the poacher’s leader. He raised his hand to Tumelo, palm flat, as was our custom when meeting a chief, but I noticed that his eyes never lowered. He watched them all the time, looking for any cracks in their image. We’d only seen him from afar that day on the ridge, but up close, I could see he was much younger than I’d imagined. His face bore no lines; his hair was ebony black. Under his velvet dinner jacket, he wore a silver belt adorned with a collection of knives.
“Greetings,” he said in smooth Echalende.
Mr. Harving removed his hat and tipped it toward him.
“You’re early. Or late. We weren’t expecting anyone today, so you’ve surprised us all. If you’d sent your envoys a bit ahead, I could have arranged for someone to meet you.” He smiled, revealing his teeth. None of his apology carried through in his tone. In place of his two canines were two minute silver blades. I wondered how he chewed without destroying his own cheeks.
“I was ill when I first arrived in the country,” Mr. Harving parroted. His eyes darted to me, searching for affirmation. I looked away. We couldn’t be seen exchanging glances like that. He was supposed to be my employer; he couldn’t look to me for help.
I was glad his face still showed the hollowness of fever because the leader nodded and seemed to accept this excuse without noticing the way he looked at me. The poacher sat back in his chair and said, “I am Arusei Njenga. As you will know from our letters, I am looking to secure further labor and a steady supply of raw materials from the North. Iron, mostly. And weapons in the new style. I think you will be pleased with our progress. Already the railroad connects Nazwimbe to Erithvea and Olstwanga. All in secret, of course. It wouldn’t do for our dear General to know about all this until we’re nearer completion.”
“Of course,” Mr. Harving managed to stutter. Tumelo’s hand shook on his reins.
“This part of the country is very special,” Arusei continued. “Very few inhabitants, but flat. Of course, we hope that will change once we have completed our work. The General is blind. He would never give permission for a project like this. Nazwimbe needs to modernize, or we’re going to be eaten alive by the countries around us.”
“Very astute,” said Tumelo. “But what will you do once the General finds out?”
Arusei just smiled.
While Arusei turned his attention to studying Tumelo, Kara whispered to me, “We should get water for the horses. I don’t see the moonstone here with him. I don’t know how long this distraction will last. We need to start looking for it. We’ve heard all we need to go to your father.”
Arusei clapped his hands and all of us jumped in our saddles. “But
come, let us go to my private tent. Take some refreshments. I have a delightful pair of dancing girls to entertain us—”
I cleared my throat and forced myself to look right into the man’s cruel eyes. “My companion and I must take care of the horses. Maybe one of your men can show us where to water them?”
“Of course,” Arusei said, his lips curled back a little bit too far, almost into a sneer. He flagged over two of the overseers. They were at his side in an instant. It seemed that whatever their position, everybody in the camp obeyed him as if he were a demigod. “Show these ladies where they can tend to their horses, and send laborers with fresh clothes for them to change into.”
The men who approached us easily outweighed a water buffalo between them. They were each over six feet, shoulders padded with flesh and muscle. The first had a scar running the length of his face. The other smiled toward us, revealing a toothless mouth. The color drained from Kara’s face, but she kept silent. I wondered if Arusei had purposely chosen these men to intimidate us.
As we followed the men away, Tumelo turned in his saddle. I’d missed some of the slave’s blood: a smudge remained along his collar. I saw the fear in his eyes as he mouthed, “Hurry.”
ARUSEI’S GOONS led us into a dingy stable block without windows. Cobwebs hung from the ceilings, and the pungent smell of manure hovered around us so thickly it seemed to drip down the walls. Most of the stalls were empty, but one at the back housed a pregnant unicorn mare. She turned despondent circles in her dirty enclosure, eyes glazed. Unimpressed by the accommodation, Elikia butted my arm with her head and flattened her ears.
Once they provided us with the water and grain their master commanded, the men left us in peace to seek out fresh women’s clothing. They grumbled as they walked away, wondering out loud how they could be expected to find women’s dresses in a camp of two hundred male laborers and guards. But I didn’t think either of them would dare question their leader’s command.
Left alone with the loud clamor of metal, whipcracks, and hoofbeats to drown out anything we said, I still decided to whisper, to minimize our chances of being overheard and reported.
“This is not what I expected,” I said as I removed Elikia’s bridle and rubbed the space between her ears. “We need to find the stone and get out. I don’t know how long even Tumelo can keep this up.”
“They speak Echalende. That’s not good. My father isn’t a good liar.” Kara took a deep breath, her fingers shaking on Brekna’s girth strap. “I’ll never forgive myself if something happens to them.”
“They’ll be all right.” My voice sounded shaky and unsure, even to me.
Finally I allowed myself to reach for Kara’s hand. Her palm was clammy with sweat and humidity, but I pressed it to my cheek anyway. Vibrations traveled up through my fingertips, and I felt her tears begin before I heard her breath hitch.
She let out a single, unrestrained sob. Then, pinching her nose bridge, she glanced around us and choked back the rest of her tears. “Right, we know it’s not in the pavilion. We can guess it’ll be under guard.”
“I think Arusei would keep it around him, where he can be near it most of the time,” I said. “He doesn’t seem the type to trust his followers with something so essential.”
The unicorn mare whinnied urgently, her voice high and melodic like the stallion’s had been. We rushed to over to her, peering inside her stall. The mare lay down in the dirty straw, sweat and foam drenching her white flanks. Kara yanked the bolt to her stable and knelt in the straw beside the mare. Her knees sank in the manure, but she laid her hand across the unicorn’s neck anyway. She soothed her gently with soft, murmured words.
“She’s foaling,” she whispered in wonder. “I thought you said they could choose. Why would she choose now? Choose this place?”
I shook my head. Maybe the moonstone was affecting her. Who knew what its constant presence around the unicorns could cause? Maybe it forced the foals to come forth. If Arusei knew that, he would guard it all the more closely. The mare’s sides heaved, her eyes rolling with fear and pain. Kara’s hands moved to her head, massaging the stump of her horn. I crouched beside her, wincing as the smell of manure and urine intensified. The mare quieted under Kara’s touch.
I glanced up toward the stall’s door, terrified that the men would come back and see us touching one of their prized beasts. We had to get going. If we couldn’t find the moonstone, then the entire trip would be pointless and we’d endangered ourselves for nothing. Tumelo and Mr. Harving needed us to hurry. The mare groaned, body shuddering with pain. I couldn’t just leave the animal like this.
“You haven’t picked your time too well, girl,” Kara said, reaching under the mare’s long, matted mane to scratch her neck. “You don’t want to have your baby in this place. Keep him inside you, shelter him from what this will be like for a little bit longer.”
The unicorn looked into my eyes, and I saw something I’d never expected to see in the eyes of an animal: understanding. She held eye contact in a way no horse would and rested her head against my calf. In that moment, I felt entirely connected to her by an invisible force. The mare’s body convulsed.
“Here, swap places with me and stroke her head,” I said. I had some experience in delivering horse foals. My family raised many types of animals, and I’d grown up running through the fields after the playful foals and baby goats. I remembered assisting my father with the broodmares in the early hours of the morning, holding the torch close so he could see. If I could align the foal’s legs inside her, I could help the mare in her delivery.
“Yes, Doctor,” Kara said with a mocking salute. “Nurse Kara Harving reporting.”
I chuckled, kneeling behind the mare’s hind legs. The squelch of manure and the fluids from the mare’s womb was enough to make my stomach churn. I gagged but forced the bile back down. I stroked the mare’s flank gently to relax her. No creature should have to give birth in filth like this.
Wincing, I slid my arm into the unicorn’s tight birth canal. This foal was definitely her first. The mare groaned. I could feel the sharp edges of impossibly tiny hooves brush against my fingertips. The baby was too small. The hooves felt smaller than a dog’s paw. Why now? I questioned the mare in my mind. You could have held him for another year if you had to.
I pulled gently on the foal’s limbs as the mare pushed against me. Her contractions were so strong—I feared she would shatter my wrist—but I maintained the pressure anyway. The foal slipped downward, his hooves and ears sliding out of the mare.
With a final heave, the mare pushed her baby out onto the dirty straw. I immediately snatched him up, pulling the placenta off over his head and rubbing his coat to stimulate the blood. He was the size of a mountain dog puppy, too small to even reach his mother’s udder if she stood up. But every other part of him was perfect, from his white, bearded face and inquisitive ears to the tip of his blunt baby horn. The delicate foal took his first breath, and I pressed his mouth to his mother’s teat, letting him guzzle the nourishing first milk.
The mare lifted her head to look at her foal while he suckled. She whinnied at him and the baby gave a soft nicker in reply. Her eyes met mine again for a split second. Then she groaned again. Her head dropped into Kara’s lap, but her eyes stayed open, unblinking. The foal shivered in my hold. The mare had known exactly what she was doing when she decided to give birth now. She had chosen the only moment she could to give her baby a chance at escape.
“She gave him to us,” Kara said, echoing exactly what I was thinking. She leaned down and kissed the mare’s dusty forehead. Then, without a hint of squeamishness, she reached for my blood-covered fingers and squeezed them.
“Do you have a shawl in your saddlebag?” I asked. She nodded and rose to fetch it. Her linen pants were stained with blood. I looked down at myself. I was drenched in red from my chest down, bits of gooey placenta stuck to my trousers. The blood had started to dry on my arm, sticking to the hairs and forming a crust. To
gether, we’d look like a pair of roadside murderers.
I wrapped the foal tightly in Kara’s wool shawl, fashioning a sack to drape over my shoulder so that I could carry him easily. How we could look for the moonstone now, covered in blood, carrying a newborn unicorn, I didn’t know. But when I was a child, and my grandfather succumbed to palsy, the Mkuu told me that the last wish of the dying gave special powers to the living that watched his soul depart. We could only pray that the unicorn’s last wish would see us and her baby safely back home.
WE SQUEEZED the remainder of the unicorn’s milk from her teat into Kara’s canteen. It felt wrong to milk her like this, like we were violating her body by prodding and gripping her still warm udder while she lay dead beside us. But we had nothing else to give her baby. After dipping my fingers into the warm, opaque liquid, I let the foal suckle drops from my fingers while Kara held him. His toothless gums tickled my hands, but the baby seemed to know he was tiny and fed greedily, butting into the soft flesh of Kara’s bosom whenever we stopped feeding him.
“It’s gotten quiet outside,” Kara observed. I pulled my fingers out of the foal’s mouth and listened. She was right. The sound of men’s work had dwindled to a low murmur, and I could no longer hear the shouts of the overseers or the cracks of their whips.
A gunshot fired. The sound ripped through me, and the terrible image of Tumelo lying facedown, bleeding in the mud forced its way into my mind. I pushed the foal fully into Kara’s lap and scrambled to my feet.
Stumbling out of the stable block, I peered around the corner into the yard. Rows of slaves lay facedown in the mud, the overseers walking around them, counting. Several of the poachers raced toward an enormous black velvet tent with thick red silk hangings. My stomach sank. That tent could only belong to Arusei.
I stepped back into the stables, motioning Kara to stand up. We had to get out quickly, before any of the other men came for us. There was no way we could know if Tumelo or Mr. Harving had just been shot. But if they had been discovered, our only chance to save them now was to find the moonstone and get to my father as fast as we could. If we failed to get the moonstone, Arusei could lure dozens more unicorns in the time it would take us to return. If we managed to escape, Arusei might become desperate. Who knew how many more of the creatures he would capture in order to speed up the building process. Only General Zuberi would have the forces to take on Arusei’s men. We had to get the moonstone, because once he completed his iron highway and brought in whatever he planned from the North, even the General might not be able to stop him.