by Julia Ember
Kara rubbed circles on the roan’s forehead. He leaned into her in exhaustion, cheekiness completely drained out. Now that she was on the ground, the foal’s eyes snapped open. He struggled madly in his carrier, wanting to stretch his legs. I tried to pat the white pony’s neck, hoping his nastiness had dwindled. He rewarded my kindness by biting my elbow and trying to stand on my foot.
I shook my head, rubbing the welt forming on my arm. “If this pony belongs to one of the General’s granddaughters, she must be pretty brave. He’s tried to bite me about twenty times.”
“Or he’s a one-person pony and wants you to know it. In case you get any crazy ideas about keeping him.”
“No chance. I’d swap him for a pack mule,” I said. I tied the pony’s reins to a post on the inside wall, double-knotting the loop, just in case he tried something in our absence. We left them to rest and walked to the next hut, settling ourselves down in the deep straw, beneath a crack in the daub wall.
The gap was just wide enough that I could squint through and see the road. I rested my back against the wall. Kara sat down in the straw beside me. Her cheeks were still red with excitement; her feet tapped against the straw. I could almost feel the sparks of her nervous energy buzzing against my skin.
She cleared her throat. “I wanted to tell you… if it were an option, if I wasn’t already engaged… I would stay here with you. I just thought you should know that. In case something happens to one of us.”
I leaned over, biting my lip to suppress a smile, and stroked her hair back out of her face. “Nothing’s going to happen to us.” I settled for providing comfort because I couldn’t say that I hadn’t given up on trying to keep her. How could I tell her everything I hoped, when so much of it seemed impossible?
Kneeling up, she straddled my legs, chest pressed against mine. Her whisper tickled my ear as her lips brushed against the lobe. “And I wanted to thank you. For doing this. I know we’ll get in trouble. And I know I coerced you into looking for the unicorns before….”
I lost track of everything she was saying as she nibbled the base of my ear. Her fingers crept up my shirt, pressing her nails into the flesh of my back. The sensation hovered dizzyingly on the edge of pain. The feeling brought the memory of Obasi’s claws, but instead of feeling panic, it made me want her more. Obasi’s scratches had bled; when he’d held me down he had wanted to maim me, mark me as his, ruin me for anyone else. This pain, dull and delicious, was simply primal, natural. I pulled her shirt off and pressed my mouth to the sweet dough of her flesh.
As she slid down my body, I heard the echo of hoofbeats clambering down the road and managed to peer through the crevice in time to see the General’s guard clatter past. Her fingers stroked the skin of my thighs. She clamped her hand over my mouth, silencing the catlike noises passing though my lips. I gripped the wall, anchoring myself to something real.
A KNOT of dread and guilt formed in my stomach as we rode up the dusty, red lane. I wanted to swap horses for something we could escape on, should the need arise, so I’d led us back to Tumelo’s safari camp. The afternoon bonfire flickered at the center of the camp, the dark clouds overhead strengthening its glow. In Tumelo’s absence, Bi Trembla would be holding court over it, filling the guests’ heads with stories from her childhood.
The white pony’s head drooped between his knees, his ears flopping sideways like a donkey’s. By the time we stumbled into camp, I didn’t even have to touch the reins to pull him up. We halted in the shadow of the fire. When I dismounted, the poor creature didn’t even have the energy to nip me. Instead, he leaned part of his weight against my side.
A shadow passed across the firelight. I looked up to see Bi Trembla scurrying from her chair. I longed to bury my sorrows in her ample bosom, but if I considered our history, she was more likely to slap me than give me a hug. I sighed and braced myself for impact.
Her hand connected with my cheek. I yelped and Kara winced.
“Where have you been?” Bi Trembla panted, tears welling up in her eyes. She spoke in Echalende, so Kara understood every word of my humiliation. “I have been thinking the worst for days. Wondering if you all died out there. Of all the inconsiderate things you’ve ever done, this—” She stopped and looked around behind us. Her voice rose in pitch, and she clutched her chest. “Where is Tumelo?”
“Captured,” I squeaked.
Bi Trembla closed her eyes slowly. “How did it happen?”
“They didn’t buy any of it. When Kara and I went to stable the horses, they were taken. We only just got away ourselves.”
“Why didn’t you come to me immediately? Tell me what had happened, instead of letting me believe some poacher put a bullet through all of your heads?” Bi Trembla reached out and slapped my other cheek, but her this time, her touch was light.
“I didn’t want to lead them back here!” I took a step back, out of her arm’s range. “We went to my father, and then the General—”
“And where are they?”
I squirmed. “Still in Mugdani… the General needed time to prepare before he rides out. The poachers are heavily armed.”
Bi Trembla’s hawk eyes scanned over the tired ponies she didn’t recognize and our lack of supplies. She looked into my eyes with an intensity that made me feel like she was scanning my soul. “And the General knows you are here? Whose horses are those?”
I looked at the ground and mumbled, “We snuck out.”
“You stole General Zuberi’s ponies?”
“It was my fault, Bi Trembla,” Kara interrupted, moving so she stood between us, blocking me from further violent onslaught. “I begged her to go. My father was captured, and I need to know if he’s still alive. I’m sorry for the worry we’ve caused you, but since you’ve spent the last few days thinking that we were dead, perhaps you can imagine what it’s been like for me not knowing if my own father—my only living blood relative—is still alive.”
Bi Trembla stared at Kara, and for a moment I was afraid she might strike her as well. Instead, she reached out and cupped Kara’s chin, sighing. “I can’t imagine, child.”
While I was glad she hadn’t slapped Kara, I still couldn’t help thinking how unfair it was. Tumelo was my blood relative too!
The housekeeper looked over to the fire and called for one of the kitchen boys. After thrusting our horses’ reins into his hands, she took both of us by the upper arms and steered us toward the fire. “I don’t like what you are about to do. You nearly got caught before, and it would be prudent to wait for the General. But I understand. At least let me feed you before you ride off again.”
STANDING ON her gelding’s back to reach the lowest branch, Kara scrambled up the trunk like an oversized, redheaded baboon. She swung herself into the canopy and disappeared into a cloud of dark green leaves.
I stood on the ground and fanned the small pit fire I’d built to keep the predators away, wondering just how I was going to replicate that feat of gymnastic athleticism when Kara’s head popped out from the green. “Come on,” she urged, waving at me from above. “It’s not hard, just stand on the horse’s back and pull yourself up.”
“How did you get to be the master climber?” I grumbled. I felt self-conscious being the one stuck on the ground, worrying, when I spent hours every day riding out. But heights had always made me nervous. “Weren’t you a proper young lady in Echalend?”
She chuckled, swinging from a branch with one hand. “I used to climb out of my window all the time to go to political rallies. Father was okay with what they were saying, and with me reading all the literature, but he didn’t like the idea of me going to those parts of the city. I had to get back in the house somehow.”
“Check and make sure there aren’t any leopards up there before I come up.”
Her eyes widened, and I swallowed down a giggle.
“Did you see tracks?” she demanded, lowering herself back down to the first branch. “Do you think there could be one, higher up, waiting?”
“Sometimes they lurk right at the top, waiting for the monkeys.” I couldn’t hold back any longer and my face split into a grin.
Kara scowled and gently kicked the top of my head. “Get up here.”
Sighing, I dragged my horse under the branch, mounted, and swiveled so that I faced toward her rump. I stood shakily and crouched on her haunches. The mare gave an irritated swish of her tail. I swallowed hard and reached for the branch above. I caught it and dangled, struggling to pull my leg over. Kara grabbed me and helped me the rest of the way up.
I nestled against the tree’s trunk, adjusting the dials on my binoculars until Arusei’s camp blurred into view. We were close enough to the camp to see what was happening, but if we stayed hidden in the trees, they would struggle to see us. I’d chosen our spot with care: a small forest enclave surrounding a watering hole. Kara had reluctantly left the foal to Bi Trembla’s care. If we got caught now, neither of us wanted him returned to captivity.
I looked out over the sea of tents and mud. The railroad’s tracks extended almost to the camp now, and I could make out square patches of dry earth where tents had been moved to make more space. Squinting along the iron river, I saw something that made my insides swim. A great steel machine the size of two bull elephants rode proudly along the track, steam and smoke billowing behind it. The engine had a grate of metallic teeth that flashed in the light, and it ate up the tracks at breathtaking speed.
As the machine slowed, the overseers began to drive teams of laborers toward it. A flash of white in a sea of whipped-raw black skin drew my attention, and I grabbed Kara’s arm, pointing. “Look, look there—it’s your father.”
Kara scooted closer to me along the branch. She held her breath as she studied the camp below us. “It is him. And I see Tumelo down there as well.” Biting her lip, she whispered, “They’ve been whipped. Badly. My father’s back is all torn up.”
I clutched her hand, grinning. Relief made me feel dizzy. “But they’re alive.”
The laborers started unloading long metal tubes from the train cart. Each of the tubes was large enough that it took two men to carry it. Tumelo and Mr. Harving staggered under the weight of their burden. A mountainous overseer wearing a white shirt splashed with blood and black mud cracked his whip against Tumelo’s thigh. My cousin’s eyes closed in momentary anguish.
“Those tubes… they kind of look like cannons, but they have no supports, and they’re too small,” Kara said, fiddling with dials on her binoculars for a better look. I nodded, not wanting to admit that I had no idea what a cannon was or how a metal tube big enough that two men struggled to lift it might be too small as a weapon.
Digging my fingers into the bark, I carefully adjusted my position on the branch so I could follow where Tumelo and Mr. Harving deposited their tube. They sank up to their calves in slick, green-tinged mud. The overseer walked behind them, sneering as he brought the lash down on Mr. Harving’s pale flesh. A sensation like ants moved up my back as I imagined the snap and penetrating sting of it. I winced—when General Zuberi arrived, we would learn exactly what it felt like.
The two men hoisted the tube onto a black cart, alongside three others. Licks of painted fire covered the cart’s matte sides. The tube fitted neatly into a slot. The space seemed to anchor it in place, but the end was open, allowing the tube to protrude beyond the cart’s edge. Another overseer fed a string through a hole in the top of the “cannon.” Arusei sat in the driver’s seat, alongside one of his men. His lackey held the black leather reins, stretching down through the D rings of an enormous fitted harness to the tender mouth of a unicorn stallion.
Tumelo staggered back from the cart. He looked weary enough to drop to his knees in the mud and sleep in the filth. The overseer drove him away, but I kept my binoculars locked on Arusei.
His driver snapped the reins and the unicorn trudged forward. Another snap and the poor beast stumbled into a canter, dragging hundreds of pounds behind him. I watched as the driver maneuvered the unicorn through the tents, gathering speed as they went. A single horse could never have dragged a cart that heavy alone. A tandem team couldn’t navigate with so much agility. An elephant would be too slow, too clumsy. Cold sweat trickled down my neck. They were like the carts of legends, but the unicorns themselves were not. Our stories talked of war-hungry beasts who sought out the enemy for their masters, fueled by bloodlust. The unicorn that dragged Arusei’s cart now looked afraid and tired.
As soon as they were clear of the camps, Arusei reached down by his feet and lifted a thick slab of beechwood. He lit it as casually as Tumelo would strike a cigar and swiped the flaming stick across the tubes.
The bang that resulted was so loud I could hear it from the trees. Birds scattered around us. Smoke flew out of the ends of the tubes. Molten metal clung to the ground like silver frost around the cart. Arusei’s secret weapons from Echalend had arrived.
“Does General Zuberi have those?” Kara asked. Her voice trembled.
“I’ve never seen anything like them,” I whispered.
“Me either. I didn’t even know we had them in Echalend.”
The General’s forces would have better rifles than my father’s warriors. A few might carry gas that stung the eyes and poisoned the lungs. But they had nothing like that death cart. When my father and the General arrived, their forces would be entombed in metal by these portable volcanoes. General Zuberi’s musings rang in my ears. He’d wondered why Arusei needed the unicorns so badly. Now we knew, but we’d have no chance to warn them.
Below us, Arusei’s men stacked cart after cart with the tubes. Others brought metal plates and starting fitting them to the unicorns’ bodies. Armor. They wanted to make it hard for the General’s men to shoot the unicorns. When the men finished loading the carts, I noticed that they had six carts with tubes but no unicorns to pull them. It was a small comfort, knowing that by stealing the moonstone, we’d robbed them of their ability to field six of the death carts. I slipped my hand inside my shirt, assuring myself that it remained with me. The stone’s glassy surface was warm with the heat radiating from my skin.
“We have to do something.”
“What we can do? We won’t have time to ride all the way back to the city. And we might miss them depending on the route they take. There is nothing we can do. We can’t fight Arusei alone.” I felt completely powerless to stop the carnage that would follow. The General would lose. My cousin would remain the slave of a crazed warlord forever. And all of Nazwimbe would fall.
“Set the unicorns free.”
Her answer was so simple, so confident, that I wanted to believe we could do it. But the camp was armed, the overseers wary, and there was no way we could pass as emissaries again.
Kara gripped my arm. Leaves and needles from the tree clung to strands of her hair and that worrying sparkle of mischievous insanity glittered in her eyes again. “I have an idea.”
USING A piece of charcoal from our dwindling fire, I outlined Kara’s eyes in smooth black. Then brushing white and gray ash across her lids, I blended the colors together into a smoky haze. Brilliant blue twinkled against the sultry darkness. Kara pinched her cheeks to bring on a wanton flush, as I raked my fingers through her hair to mess it up.
A mix of fear and longing spread through me. I wanted to drag her to my lips by her hair and use my body to stop her from doing this mad thing.
“Go on,” she breathed. Her body trembled. “Mess me up. I need to look disheveled.”
“Kara,” I whispered, biting my lip and looking skyward so I wouldn’t have to look into her eyes. “You don’t have to do this. We can find another way to get into the camp.”
“We’ve been through this already. I can’t think of any other way.”
“You could get hurt; you could end up like me….” My arms wrapped around my body, as I tried to squeeze out the hollowness inside my chest.
“We’ll stick to the plan. Nothing will happen to me. I trust you.”
; I swallowed. The weight of the responsibility she was giving me settled so heavily in my stomach, it felt as though my insides had turned to molten lead. At the same time, a tingling lightness spread through my limbs as I struggled to draw breath. How could she ask me to do this? And why didn’t I have another answer?
“We have to go now. If we don’t, I’ll start to chicken out, and I can’t be the one who does that this time.” She laid her hand on my back. “I’ll be fine. I know you’ll stop it soon enough.”
Leaving the horses behind with the fire for protection until Bi Trembla’s kitchen boy came to get them, we made our way across the grasslands separating us from Arusei’s camp. In the foggy haze of the smoky night, all I could see were the outlines of tents, cast in shadows by his men’s fires.
We crouched behind a termite mound, and I whipped out my binoculars. We peered into the darkness like a pair of hyena, waiting to ambush our target. Months of tracking elusive creatures served me well. I knew how to follow the line of shadow and stay camouflaged by the darkness. And I knew how to be patient. We would wait until we found the specific creature we were after.
The target stood against the stable block, back turned away from the camp. His knees were bent, and he pissed against the wall, groaning with relief as steam rose from the ground. I wrinkled my nose in revulsion, motioning Kara forward.
We dropped to our stomachs and began to crawl through the tall grass. I prayed that a leopard or a lioness didn’t lay waiting for us behind a rock or concealed by a dip in the land. My heart felt frozen in my chest, and I struggled to keep my breathing even and quiet. Grass and termites clung to my skin, raising itching bumps across my forearms.
The repugnant prey buttoned his pants and leaned back against the wall, eyes half-closed. We crawled until we were twenty feet from him, hiding behind a pile of discarded meat bones and flour sacks. Then Kara slowly got to her feet.