A Game of Horns: A Red Unicorn Anthology

by Gregory D. Little

  Surely there had to be someone out in the nomad camps who knew how to trap a karkadann. Anpu had often insinuated herself into a blanket-wrapped crowd gathered around a campfire, listening to storytellers spin wondrous tales. Her favorite stories had been those about a group of warriors who rode atop one-horned beasts, bringing justice to the oppressed, healing to the sick, wisdom to the ignorant, freedom to the enslaved, and retribution to the guilty. Surely those tales had some truth to them.

  Anpu turned to her left, emerging from the mouth of a cave. She hurried over the hot dunes toward a nearby wadi known as the Thieves’ Market. Anpu knew that some of the goods she saw there were stolen. Others, though, belonged to poor craftsmen who could not afford the city’s market fees, or to foreign smugglers who wanted to avoid taxation. The Thieves’ Market was dangerous, but it was a good place to begin her search—far better than wandering the desert hoping to chance across a nomad camp.

  Anpu ambled through the cacophonous crowd inspecting a clutter of goods displayed on wagons, blankets, ropes suspended between the oases’ trees, and sometimes even on the ground. Farmers hawked fresh vegetables, chefs cooked over sizzling braziers, and craftspeople displayed handmade goods for sale. On the far side of the market, Anpu glimpsed an animal tamer exhibiting a collared lion. His wagon also featured caged birds, tamed rodents, and trained dogs. Such a trader might also have a karkadann, or know where to catch one.

  To reach the animal tamer’s wagon, Anpu had to weave her way through a knot of people listening to a musician. The performer’s lilting tune showed off his skill, but Anpu found his song unpleasant in a way she could not easily describe. There were so many notes, ascending and descending without warning in an uneven rhythm. The effect was confusing and strange. It made Anpu’s head hurt, but it also drove her to think on it further. She found herself urged to concentrate, to listen until she could find meaning in it, or until meaning was given to her …

  The crowd parted ahead of her. Anpu realized, belatedly, that she had shoved her way through the spectators, drawn to the sound like a moth to a flame. Consciousness returned like a slap of cold water when she saw the great equine form on its knees before the crowd.

  She had never imagined to be so close to one of the lords of the desert. Even on its knees, the karkadann’s head towered over hers. Its hide gleamed like burnished gold, save for the area along its spine that was slashed with brilliant lazuli stripes. Its horn thrust skyward like an obelisk, and its eyeteeth were long and jagged.

  The only thing more shocking than the karkadann was the identity of the musician. He bowed his head to a long reed flute, finishing his song with a relentless barrage of notes. Laughing, he bowed to receive the adulation of the crowd.

  “Kau?” she demanded. Anpu had thought her cousin a creature of the court; she had never imagined she would see him in the Thieves’ Market dressed in a nomad’s cloak. Her stunned brain registered that the men nearest to him were the same foreign magicians who had accompanied him that morning in the Pharaoh’s hall.

  “Anpu,” he said, his formal nod utterly incongruous with their surroundings. She expected him to sneer at her, or perhaps even to pretend he didn’t recognize her in her worn, dusty clothing. She did not expect the cold smile that curled his lips. “Look at what I have procured for our Pharaoh.”

  The rest of the crowd began to wander away now that the show had ended. Kau’s companions stepped forward menacingly, as though to grab her, but Kau waved them off. He lifted the flute and pursed his lips, steering his breath into a tune. The karkadann obediently lurched to its feet, swayed once as though drunk, and then rose onto its hind legs like an ornately carved statue. From this angle, Anpu could see that the lord of the desert was, in fact, a lady. Her body was magnificent, but her eyes were strangely dull.

  “The karkadann … she is terrifying,” she breathed. “How are you this creature’s master?”

  Kau raised the flute. “Have you ever seen the entertainers who charm snakes with the sorcery of music?”

  Anpu had. “A karkadann is not a snake.”

  Kau’s smile widened. “It is only a matter of knowing the right song.” He played a quick series of notes, and the karkadann obediently returned to all fours. Anpu realized that Kau’s discordant song held the creature’s mind in thrall.

  Kau winked at her, his face so strikingly handsome, his eyes so bewitching. “Think of it,” Kau coaxed. “You and I, riding to our coronation, mounted on a karkadann.”

  “Our … coronation?” Anpu whispered.

  Kau’s grin broadened. “I am a generous man, and my offer of marriage still stands. Join with me. Together we will stand at the Pharaoh’s right and left hand—and when the Sun sets, we will rise.”

  Perhaps she should reconsider Kau’s offer. Perhaps this was her best opportunity to overthrow Akhteset. Even those who had mourned Nitocris’s passing had found comfort in the presence of a man on the throne once more. Anpu represented more uncertainty and confusion; Akhteset was a new stability. Kau could be a new stability as well.

  And yet.

  Her eyes fell on the flute in Kau’s hand, and it crossed her mind that while Akhteset had powerful allies in the form of the northern army, he also possessed all the subtlety of a cudgel. Upon Nitocris’s death, he had taken the palace by display of force. It was beyond Akhteset’s skill to charm anyone.

  But, apparently, not beyond Kau’s.

  Anpu looked at her cousin through narrowed eyes, remembering the entertainers in the Thieves’ Market who charmed snakes for coins, and she wondered just who was responsible for the deaths of her parents.

  Kau’s smile faded. Anpu knew he would be quick to wrath if she were to reject him, and if she were to voice her suspicions, well, she would be the first to die beneath the karkadann’s hooves. The flute in his hands held the power to take her life, or worse, to shackle her soul. She was in danger, right now.

  She needed to play along with Kau. She had learned the basics of music in childhood; she would listen, and she would learn the karkadann’s song. Then, someday, when Kau’s back was turned, she would steal the flute and play the notes that would incite the karkadann to kill.

  And then she would be no better than Kau. Anpu thought of the snake that had been set upon her parents—an innocent creature transformed into a weapon to do a human’s will.

  “I …” she began, stepping near, bowing her head, holding out her hand.

  Kau smiled in triumph, switching the flute to his left hand so he could reach out and take her offered hand with his right.

  Anpu stretched out her arm like a striking cobra and snatched the flute out of Kau’s grasp. Gripping each end of the reed in her hands, she snapped it in two over her knee.

  Kau staggered backward, staring at her in horror. “What have you done?”

  “I have avenged my parents,” Anpu retorted, hoping she sounded braver than she felt, for she realized her own life might well be forfeit.

  The karkadann awoke, shaking her head as though waking from a dream. She caught sight of her, and her eye rolled in her head until Anpu could see the white. It was too late for Anpu to hide the damning evidence in her hands.

  The karkadann fixed on Kau and bared its dagger teeth.

  Kau pursed his lips and tried to whistle that mesmerizing song. Fear dried his mouth. He managed a few notes before he choked. Kau gagged, licked his lips, puckered in vain. By then the karkadann was upon him, lowering her head, thrusting her horn through his heart in an executioner’s coup de grâce.

  All but one of Kau’s foreign allies turned tail and ran for their lives. The bravest dared draw his scimitar. He launched himself at the karkadann, slashing at the great artery on its neck. Even through her fear, Anpu observed and analyzed, noting that the magician waited for the karkadann to skewer Kau before pressing his attack.

  His strategy did not save him. The karkadann reared up, hoisting Kau on her horn while she lashed out with her forelegs, knocking the scimitar
from the man’s hands. Kau’s lifeblood streamed down onto the karkadann like the summer rains and mingled with the fluid pouring from the cut on the karkadann’s neck, staining its coat a gory red. The unicorn tossed her head, and Anpu could not tell if Kau were still conscious and struggling or whether the karkadann’s movements were sufficient to send his limbs flailing.

  Anpu closed her eyes and looked away, but her mind’s eye was not so easily blinded. Her memory replayed what it had seen in the instant before her eyelids had closed: Kau’s body thrown off the karkadann’s bloody horn, impacting the magician who had held the scimitar; the swordsman and Kau trampled into meat under the unicorn’s hooves; the other magicians fleeing even as the bloodstained karkadann pursued them. Anpu had no doubt that the creature would catch them.

  Even with her eyes shut, she could hear the panicked shouts and cries from the crowd. She was jostled, thrown to her knees by unseen people rushing past her. If Wepwawet were here, he would carry her away from the rampaging karkadann. If she were wise, she would at least try to run.

  But running had not saved the magicians. When the clattering and screams around her turned to silence, Anpu took a deep breath, climbed to her feet, and opened her eyes.

  She stood alone in the wreckage of the Thieves’ Market, facing a red unicorn. The karkadann watched her from across a field of gore, her entire coat now stained russet with the blood of her kills. She flared her nostrils and curled her lip, baring teeth like ceremonial blades. Anpu was thunderstruck when she spoke.

  “Name yourself.”

  “Anpu.” She hated the quaver in her voice. Would this creature attack if she perceived her as weak? She steeled herself to speak the way her mother had taught her. “Rightful Pharaoh of Kumat.”

  “You wear no crown, Anpu-who-claims-the-throne.” The karkadann tilted her head and stepped closer, peering at her as though she could see through her flesh and bone into her very soul.

  Anpu’s heart quailed. A stammering retraction was on its way up her throat to her lips when she saw something in the karkadann’s eye. Her own reflection looking back at her was that of a craven child.

  Her reflection was a lie.

  Anpu stood up straight and strong, raising her chin and meeting the karkadann’s gaze head-on. “My rival, Akhteset, thinks force alone can make a ruler. That one”—she gestured to Kau’s trampled body—“sought to win the throne by guile. But only integrity can turn a queen into a true Pharaoh. Only those whose highest goals are the service of wisdom, courage, love, and abundance can ever reflect the glory of the Gods.”

  The karkadann whuffled. She sounded amused. “You say you would be queen so that you may serve?”

  “To rule my people is to serve them, for if it were not, why would they need a Pharaoh in the first place? The nomads of the desert have no Pharaoh, and they survive according to their own customs. They travel under the wings of their Shaykhs, and this lifestyle serves them well. But for those of us who farm the rich lands of the holy river, we have done better with a government that can protect our borders, support our merchants and offer praises to our Gods, whose blessings are reflected all around us.”

  The karkadann nodded. “You are wise beyond your years, Anpu of Kumat. May the blessings of the Guardian Jackal be upon you.”

  Anpu bit her lip, surprised to hear an animal speaking of the Gods. But the karkadann was no dumb creature, and, of course, the Gods were not prisoners in their temples, but manifest in the natural world. How easy it was to forget that truth in a culture where worship was focused in particular places via age-old rituals. Anpu had rarely spoken to the Gods herself when she had priestesses to speak on her behalf.

  She would need to rectify that shortcoming.

  The karkadann continued, “I am known as Samiel, the Poison Wind. I am the wrath of the desert, the scouring grains of the sandstorm, and the retribution of the Goddess. I bring the punishment due to those who would enslave the Goddess’s creatures—those whom I have slain here, and those whose deaths are yet to come.” Samiel rose up on her hind legs, screaming her battle cry to the sun, and leaped away in a gallop to the east.

  Anpu felt her heart clench. “No! Stop! You can’t go that way!”

  Samiel drew up sharply, her hindquarters bunching as her back hooves slid forward to touch her front hooves. The sun illuminated her coat, stained with blood, and Anpu imagined the karkadann becoming redder still, tail and mane soaked with gore, and Wepwawet and his guards crumpled beneath her feet like the bodies that littered the wadi.

  Samiel turned her head and spoke in a voice that both chuckled at Anpu’s audacity and threatened her with an undertone of warning. “You are bold, Anpu-who-would-be-Pharaoh, but your queenship has no claim on me.”

  “There is danger that way,” Anpu insisted.

  The karkadann raised her head, listening.

  “Akhteset has demanded my mother’s Royal Guard bring to him a karkadann. This morning Captain Wepwawet called his men and ventured to the eastern oasis where rumor says a karkadann has been seen. If you go in that direction, you are sure to cross their paths.”

  “You would not see me recaptured?”

  “I mean no insult,” Anpu responded. “No, I would not see you captured, but I would also not see my last ally killed.”

  “Not your last ally,” the karkadann responded. “The wind brings to me a message. My pairmate, Azazel, has followed my tracks since I first fell under the bewitchment of that treacherous flute. She has come to rescue me, and I will not flee this place and leave her alone, not when the breeze murmurs to me of men and horses, the dry threat of rope and the tangy metal of chains. I would see your city in ruins before I would leave my pairmate behind.”

  Pairmate. What did that mean? It seemed more than friend, more than family; whatever the translation, it was clear that Samiel would defend Azazel with her life.

  “Wait,” Anpu pleaded. “Akhteset—the false Pharaoh—has schemed to set your pairmate against my old defender. Wepwawet has no choice: he will be put to death for disobeying royal orders, or he will die on your friend’s sharp horn. I do not want to see your pairmate harmed, but I cannot stand by while Wepwawet is made to suffer for his loyalty to me.”

  “And how would you defend Wepwawet, Anpu-who-would-be-queen? Azazel and I have sharp teeth and strong limbs, horns like sabers and hooves like hammers. What weapon do you have against us? If Akhteset did not have soldiers more numerous than your Royal Guard, you would already have removed him from your throne.”

  “You may kill Wepwawet, and half the city besides, but do you think Akhteset would permit two wild animals to run amok in his territory? If he cannot ride you, he would gladly see you dead. How do you propose to live with every citizen of Kumat hunting for you?”

  Samiel’s eyes narrowed. “Have you any alternative?”

  Anpu placed her hands on her hips. “You have said it yourself, Samiel the Poison Wind. I am blessed by the Guardian Jackal, protector and defender, Opener of the Hidden Way. I can guide you, Azazel, and the Royal Guards out to the desert beyond the City of the Dead, following the underground caverns, if you only agree to spare my guards’ lives.”

  Samiel picked at the turf, considering, then slung her head in a gesture toward her back. “Climb on and hold fast.”

  O O O

  Anpu had learned to ride on her mother’s horses, but to travel on a bloody karkadann was a different matter altogether. Anpu wound her hands into Samiel’s matted mane, pressed her body to the karkadann’s neck, and held on with all her might. People on the road threw themselves out of the way. It was hard for her to see through tear-blurred eyes, but she thought she glimpsed the people falling to their knees in her wake. Over the clatter of Samiel’s hooves, she might have heard the people’s voices entreating the Gods to tell them if Anpu and her gory mount were their deliverance or their destruction.

  Samiel, following the scent of her pairmate, vaulted to the top of a dune and looked down into the oasis below. F
eeling the karkadann grow still, Anpu lifted her head. Near the shore of the oasis, the royal guardsmen held their spears in a defensive formation while a purple karkadann menaced them with lowered head and bared teeth.

  “We’re not too late,” Anpu gasped.

  Samiel threw back her bloody head and bugled her war cry. The other karkadann whistled back. The nervous guards clustered closer together as they turned to look. Wepwawet shoved his way through the formation to protect his soldiers against this new threat, holding his sword at the ready.

  “Samiel?” Azazel’s voice was gruff thunder. “What is the meaning of this—that you suffer a girl to ride you like a common horse?”

  “Anpu!” Wepwawet’s eyes widened as Anpu approached him atop a bloody karkadann. He tried to sound authoritative, but terror tainted his words. “Come down from there, come clear!”

  “No,” Anpu said, speaking like the queen she was destined to become. She and Samiel circled the guards until they stood between the men and Azazel. “We will not allow you to harm one another.”

  “My lady, you must understand,” Wepwawet pleaded. “The Pharaoh has given me no choice. I must bring him a karkadann or forfeit my own life.”

  Anpu felt her throat close, because she too had seen only two choices until Samiel reminded her that she was a child of the Guardian Jackal, god of hidden wisdom. “There is a third path,” she said, “revealed to me by Samiel, the karkadann who carries me. We will go to the river, where the sewer drain empties into the water, where the tunnels are large enough for horses. We will follow the underground caverns to the Jackal God’s kingdom, the tombs beneath the City of the Dead. From there we will make our way into the desert to freedom, and no one will see where we have gone. We can leave this city behind, and I can show us the way.”

  “That karkadann,” Wepwawet said warily, “is covered in blood.”

  “And I,” Anpu retorted, “have had my fill of blood today.”

  O O O

  Anpu clung to Samiel’s mane as she led the Royal Guards through the darkened caverns of the City of the Dead. Wepwawet walked at her right side, carrying a torch, while the karkadann Azazel moved riderless at her left. The Royal Guards followed behind. Even in the dark where Anpu could not see the red stains, she could still smell the coppery tang of blood.