Unicorn Tracks

by Julia Ember

  Watching her go, my stomach churned with nerves. What had seemed like a decent plan before now seemed reckless. What if she couldn’t pull this off? Worse still, what if he really hurt her, and I was too late to stop it? If something happened to her while I watched, I wasn’t sure I could ever forgive myself.

  “Hello?” she called softly into the darkness.

  The man’s eyes snapped open, and he licked his lips. I could almost see a line of drool coming out of gaping mouth. He edged over to Kara, slithering toward her like a grootslang on the hunt.

  “I’m lost,” she whimpered, spewing out the few words of our language she had memorized. Her tongue tripped on the Nazwim, making her seem all the more vulnerable. “When we ran from here, my guide left me.”

  His greedy eyes swept over her dirt-covered body and messy hair, taking in the smudges on her cheeks. A hand darted to her breast, the other squeezing the place between her legs so hard that she yelped. He didn’t see the careful outlining of her eyes or notice the way Kara moved with him like a dancer after he released her, circling around so that his back was facing toward me.

  “All alone, lovely girl,” he said, leering and pressing his body close to hers. “No one to protect you. No fake chief to swat my hands away. If I help you, what will you give me in return?”

  Listening to him made me sick. In that moment I hated both him and myself. I had allowed this, agreed to this insane proposal.

  I knew Kara wouldn’t understand what he was saying, but she understood the way he covered her mouth, dirty fingers pawing at the buttons of her shirt. Her pupils dilated in fear, but she didn’t resist him as he pushed her to the ground, determined to see her plan through to the end. I swung my rifle over my shoulder and snuck toward him, a step at a time, hot bile rising in my throat. I wanted to shoot him, to hear the crack of his skull as metal burst through brain and popped out through his repulsive eye socket, but a gunshot would have alerted the whole camp. Everything inside me bubbled with anger. Year-old flashbacks juggled through my mind’s eyes, unwanted. I felt the ground beneath my back, the fingers clawing at my neck and face, the deep burn of his blades…. How had I agreed to this?

  I shook my head. If I didn’t focus now, Kara might suffer the same fate.

  If he saw me and screamed, the plan would be over. But his lust dulled his senses. He was too fixated on Kara to see my shadow as it fell over them. He didn’t hear the soft crunch of the dry grass under my bare feet. I lunged, swinging my rifle as hard as I could. The butt collided with his temple. He slumped on top of Kara. She exhaled, tears of relief falling down her cheeks. I pushed him off her with my foot.

  As he rolled to the side, rage coursed through me. How dare he? Never mind that this had been her plan all along, at that moment, I wished it had failed. I brought my rifle butt down again and again, hitting his stomach, his thighs, and his arms. Even after his body stilled, I couldn’t stop. My arms felt disconnected from my body, operating on their own. I wanted to stop, but I wasn’t in control anymore.

  Shaking, Kara climbed to her feet. She wrapped her arms around my back and pressed my arms to my chest. Slowly, she pulled me back, away from her attacker. We embraced silently for a moment, listening to our breath slow. I looked down at the bleeding, unconscious man at my feet and let the anger flood out.

  A quick glance around the stable block showed how lucky we’d been. He was the only guard watching the stables while the camp slumbered. Arusei imagined the unicorns safely locked away inside their iron stalls.

  The air inside the stable was as stale and pungent as I remembered. The beautiful unicorns stood knee deep in dirty straw, listless with exhaustion. I put my hand through the bars of the first stallion’s grate, trying to coax him to me. The animal didn’t even look up.

  Kara walked over to me and sighed. “It’s going to be hard to get them to run. They have no energy left.”

  Suddenly, the stallion’s ears perked up. He sniffed the air, staring at Kara with interest. He put his head over the half door of his stable, nuzzling her shoulders and chest. After he had made a thorough examination of her body, his head cocked in confusion, unable to find the source of the smell that had brought him to life.

  The foal. Realization hit me as the stallion nibbled Kara’s shoulder. She had carried the baby for days, and the stallion could smell his own kind on her. I wondered if something about the scent told him the baby hadn’t been mutilated—he still had his precious horn and spirit. Kara scratched his forehead, her fingers lingering on the stub of his horn. I peered closer. I could see that the horn was growing. A single, light silver ring twisted around a tiny point.

  Kara moved from stall to stall, letting the animals take in her scent. One by one the unicorns perked up. Rows of pricked ears stared back at us, waiting. I began pulling the bolts on their stable doors as fast I could.

  At first the creatures just stared at the open doors. Some stood with dirty hay dripping out of their mouths, ears flickering back and forth. I pressed myself against the wall of the stable and held my breath. Then they poured out into the night, in a white river of long manes and sinewy muscle. Their hoofbeats fell softer than a cat’s paw, ghosts.

  Kara took my hand and pulled me toward the door. “We have to get out of here. We’ll hide out until we see your father and the General’s men. If we go back to camp, we might miss them. Hopefully they’ll come tomorrow.”

  The last unicorn turned to face us at the doorway. The biggest of them all, the top of his back reached higher than my father’s head. He let out a scream; a shrill melody floated on the air, rising higher like the climax of a song. Bending the muscular crest of his neck, the stallion touched his muzzle to his knees. And I could have sworn he was taking a bow.

  THORNS PRESSED into my back and the bush’s sulfurous odor made me sneeze. But if I rolled over, I’d have to move my head off the pillow of Kara’s chest, so I sniffled and tried to ignore the pain. She curled closer to me in sleep, her hands entwined in the fabric of my shirt. A light layer of morning frost covered the ground around us. I shivered, pulling myself even closer to Kara to absorb her warmth. The bush’s terrible scent kept predators away, so we didn’t need a fire for protection, but I missed the heat. I didn’t dare try to make one now, in case Arusei’s men saw the smoke. It was a no-win choice between sleep inside the bush’s prickly curtains or risk being eaten by predators.

  Hoofbeats approached, and through the gaps in the leaves, I could make out a sturdy, shiny pair of black hooves. I held my breath and kept my body absolutely still.

  “How could you let them get away?” a man’s voice demanded. “You had one job. Only one.”

  “I never expected a chief’s daughter to flee like some kind of wild animal in the middle of the night,” another voice hissed back. “The foreigner, maybe. Who knows? Echalenders are a strange people.”

  How did they know I was a chief’s daughter? I swallowed, wondering what they had done to Tumelo before putting him to work in order to get information about me. Did they know about Bi Trembla and the camp too?

  The horse pulled at his reins, sniffing the grass below with interest. Its pink muzzle nosed the grass a foot away from my feet.

  “Still,” the first voice began. “Foreigner or not—stealing the General’s goddaughter’s pony? Poor Ariana was sick with worry. Up all night. And she’s such a sweet child. Serves his brat of a grandson right, though.”

  “Too right,” the second man chuckled. “Little wretch needs to learn to share his toys. I can’t believe they jumped over the wall on those things. That takes guts.”

  I sucked in a deep breath. These men weren’t from Arusei at all. Even if he had tortured Tumelo until my cousin broke, Tumelo could not have revealed our midnight pony heist. I sat up, scratching my arms on brambles and thorns and crawled out of the bush.

  The horse’s head snapped up, and he shied sideways, nearly dumping one of his riders. He was an enormous draft animal, with hooves the size of plate
s and a deep, powerful chest. The second rider jumped down as soon as he saw me. He looked me up and down, eyes jumping to the yellow dusting of pollen that covered my hair.

  “My God,” he exclaimed, and then rolled his eyes. “Ran away, rode all this way, just to lie sleeping in a bush? We had bushes in Mugdani, you know. If you wanted one instead of a bed, you could have saved yourself all this trouble and asked.”

  He grasped my arm, as if afraid I might crawl back under the foliage and disappear again before he could bring me to his boss.

  I snatched my arm away. He was one of the General’s close attendants. I recognized him from the day before. “You’re early. We didn’t expect you until this afternoon or maybe tomorrow.”

  “And you’re in a world of trouble,” he said, exchanging glances with his companion. “Your father was beside himself. So yes, we ended up coming as soon as we could.”

  Kara climbed out of the bush to stand behind me, rubbing her eyes. Ant bites and thorn scratches covered both of her arms. I winced for her as she attacked the red bumps with her nails. Her hair looked like a living creature: ants moved across the red strands, leaves and berries clung to the knotted nest.

  “Where is the rest of the army?” she asked, putting her head between her legs and combing her hair with her fingers to shake out the ants.

  “We’re just scouts, sent to look for you. They’re just over the ridge, setting up camp. We left before dawn,” the second rider grumbled. He lifted his foot to the horse’s stirrup to climb up, but his companion shook his head.

  “We should let them ride.”

  “Let them ride after all the problems they’ve caused?” the attendant asked, chuckling and rubbing the back of his head. “You have to be kidding.”

  The other rider swung off the horse, shaking his head. “The General will not be pleased if we make two women walk while we ride, especially a chief’s daughter.” He held the stirrup and motioned for Kara to mount. “Any trouble they’ve caused isn’t for us to deal with. We take them to General Zuberi and Chief Adebayo. Then it’s their problem.”

  “It’s still not fair,” the first attendant whined. “We’ve been up for hours.”

  “And they slept in a bush covered in ants. Do you really want to compare worst nights? Besides, if they’re on the horse and we’re holding the reins, they can’t run away again.”

  I swallowed. Suddenly, I wished the General had ignored my father and chosen to sleep in. Father alone was formidable enough when truly angry, but the General had a terrifying reputation. We might have been safer with Arusei.

  WHEN WE reached the edge of the General’s camp, I understood why Zuberi had wanted so much time to prepare. The camp spanned acres, built along a perfect grid. Identical rows of blue and black soldiers’ tents framed a central square. It looked almost as if someone had patrolled with a ruler, perfectly aligning the camp like an enormous architectural drawing.

  Stacks of weapons lay outside each tent: pile after pile of rifles, poison bombs, and claw-blades. I almost smirked. Without Arusei’s death carts, the General’s men could overrun the poachers with ease. As we approached the central square, the attendants brought the horse to a halt outside the largest tent. I pressed my lips together to vanish the smile. Better to look contrite.

  We dismounted, and the attendant rushed inside to announce us. Seconds later the General appeared through the tent flap. His dark eyes stormed, and he tapped his cane on the ground. He jabbed his finger at me. “Just her. The foreigner can stay outside.”

  The ferocity in his eyes made my legs shake. We hadn’t eaten in over twenty hours, but fear made my bowels churn. This was it. It probably wouldn’t even matter what I told him about the unicorns. I bowed my head and followed him into the tent.

  Inside, the General lowered himself into a leather chair at one end of a long table. Twelve unoccupied wood chairs sat around it, so I tentatively pulled out the one farthest away from him and perched on the edge. Attendants scurried around the tent, hanging drapes and mosquito nets. General Zuberi cleared his throat, and the servants stopped immediately and filed out of the tent in a line. I shuddered, feeling much exposed now that we were alone. Any man who could order people about by clearing phlegm from his throat needed to be feared.

  General Zuberi steepled his fingers. “You disobeyed an express command, from both myself and your father.”

  I squirmed in my chair. “I know.”

  “I should have both of you publicly horsewhipped for your insolence.”

  I looked down and ran my finger over the cracks in the table, hardly daring to breathe. He’d said should, which meant he still might decide not to. Or at least allow me to save Kara.

  “Do you want to explain to me why you disobeyed me? With the foreigner, I understand. She is not accustomed to our ways. Plus, the man imprisoned is her father. Doesn’t know our history or our laws. She has no reason to trust my reputation. But you are a chief’s daughter. I expected much better.”

  “We just had to know. We couldn’t sit and do nothing. We had to know if they were alive.” I took a deep breath. It was tempting to look down at my feet and answer his questions in monosyllables. But the General wouldn’t respect me for that. “But, sir—it’s a good thing we did. Last night we snuck into Arusei’s camp.”

  “You did what?” the General hissed. Then he banged his fist on the table. “This is exactly why your father was so insistent we leave immediately. He knew you would do something rash and stupid—”

  Against all sense of self-preservation, I cut him off. Words flew out. I needed him to know everything, before I lost the nerve. “But sir—Arusei’s weapons from Echalend… they arrived. We saw them unload the train. He has these tubes…. Kara called them cannons… but he lines them up on carts and uses the unicorns to pull them. We set the unicorns free. If we hadn’t, many of your men would have died.”

  The General went very quiet, staring at me across the table. He licked his lips, and when he finally spoke, I heard the smallest note of uncertainty in his iron voice. “He had cannons?”

  I nodded. “Mobile cannons. They were like death carts. Each unicorn could pull four at once. Fast.”

  General Zuberi took a deep, jagged breath. His eyes scanned my face. “That’s what he needed them for. You freed them all?”

  “Yes, and before when we snuck in, we stole his moonstone—that’s how he attracts them. He can’t replace them. At least not until he finds another stone.”

  He stroked his chin and drummed his fingers on the table again as he thought. “Then we must act before he has chance to do so. He will still be able to load those cannons, but without something to pull them, they will be difficult to move into place. If we can ambush them from the sides of his camp, they will have no chance to use them. I have brought three hundred armed men with me. We will arrest them within minutes.”

  He rose slowly from his chair, legs shaking without his cane. I felt the urge to go and offer him my arm, but I doubted he would appreciate any acknowledgment of his weakness. “I can’t condone your disobedience outside this tent. You will understand that appearances have to be upheld. But let us say, between you and I, that I am not displeased.”

  Limping, he came toward me and laid his hand on my shoulder. “Those cannons would have ripped our men to shreds. I don’t know how you girls did it, but doing so was very brave. My warriors are also brave, but sometimes I wish I had more like you around me, with the courage to follow themselves.”

  I looked down at my hands. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Your cousin and the girl’s father… they are alive, yes?”

  “Yes, Arusei enslaved them. Please… when you arrest Arusei, most of the laborers have been forced. They don’t want to work for him. Don’t shoot them.”

  He shook his head in disgust. “Arusei is a monster. Even when he was a child, we knew what he would grow up to become. He and those who served him willingly will be condemned to the Pits. The others we will restor
e to their families.”

  I closed my eyes, thanking the gods I never prayed to that Tumelo would soon be home.

  General Zuberi turned toward the tent flap. “I will instruct the attendants to find you and the foreign girl a tent, food, and a hot bath.”

  “Kara and I have guns—”

  The General raised his hand, scowling. “You’re not a trained warrior, and the presence of women will distract the men on the field. In this you will obey me.”

  I walked behind him, so that we were at eye level. “I’m a good fighter, just because I’m a woman—”

  His cane snaked out and whacked my calves so hard I nearly screamed.

  “You forget yourself,” the General said. “I like you. I like your ideas. But I have explained to you why your disobedience could jeopardize our mission. I won’t have a young girl’s silly ideas about becoming some sort of warrior princess cost any of my men’s lives. You’re a good tracker, and you have a good brain. Stick to your talents. If I find you at Arusei’s camp during our attack, I will have you horsewhipped. No matter the outcome.”

  I hung my head as the General walked out of the tent, slinking away without looking at him again.

  FED, BATHED, and warm, we wrapped ourselves in a thick blanket and floated in the airy comfort of the feather mattress until evening. I woke with my arm slung over Kara’s back, to the sounds of men marching. I wanted to stay and admire the contrast between our skin and the graceful arch of her sleeping back, but despite what the General had threatened, I couldn’t imagine staying in bed while his army attacked Arusei’s camp. Zuberi and his men would be focused on the poachers, and my father would play the part he was given—someone had to make sure Tumelo and Mr. Harving made it to safety.

  With a small sigh, I slid out from under the white, velvet blanket. When had I become such a daredevil? Kara mumbled in her sleep. I pulled on my clothes, hesitating to look at her before I slipped out the door. When Kara woke up, she’d kill me for leaving her behind like this. We were a team, but she was safe here, away from the battle like General Zuberi had ordered. Besides, I was already scarred and a few whip marks wouldn’t make my body any uglier. But for Kara, I wondered what they would mean when she returned to Echalend.