After finding a place he thought was secure, Moon started a fire and heated his acquired meat. He was not too worried that Cadoc in his bird form would see the blaze. The canopy of trees above him was more than adequate to hide the light of the fire. He took off his boots and left them near the flame. The lagoon had filled them with water. Though the exterior was dry, the interior was another matter.
His stomach full, he closed his eyes planning to rest them for only a short time. By the time he awoke, the fire had died and night fully engulfed the jungle. “How long have I been asleep?” Moon cursed under his breath. Without the fire to protect him, he was vulnerable to both animal and human.
He groped for his boots in the dark and put them on. He had the sudden feeling of being watched. Had the leopard followed him? He watched and listened for a long time. Nothing. He wondered if his fear shadowed him rather than any predator. Looking up at the trees, the canopy worked both ways it seemed – Cadoc could not see the ground below to spot Moon and he could not see the stars above to direct him safely out.
Fumbling around in the darkness, he eventually managed to rekindle the fire and then fashion a couple of pine knot touches. He was glad the bone knife’s blade never dulled, even after he used it as a hatchet, saw and a knife. He lit one of the torches and began the trek once again.
After an hour, the canopy opened up and the crescent moon stars revealed themselves to him. With the entire universe as his map, he would navigate using the stars. He doused the flame from his torch in case the shaman was nearby and began his work of charting. It did not take long for him to get his bearings. He was not far from his meeting place with his crew and he could be there within an hour.
Using the moonlight as his lamp, he set out on the last leg of his journey and hoped it would be uneventful. He was twenty minutes into his walk when he heard a familiar voice call out.
“Moon.”
He spun on his heels toward the caller, startled to see his shipmate hidden half in darkness. “Tobias? Is that you?”
“Yes,” Tobias replied, but he sounded off like he was having a difficult time speaking.
“What are you doing here old friend? Did you encounter danger?”
“Yes.”
Moon grew cautious. Tobias was known to talk far too much, even when he slept. There was also something about his posture that was not right. He was hunched like he was having difficulty standing, which was different than his typical tall and proud stance. “Are you wounded, friend?”
“Yes.”
“Come toward me so I can get a better look at you. I need to see your injuries in the light.”
He staggered out of the shadows. Half of Tobias’ face was gone. His jaw fell open, hanging loosely be a thin thread of skin. “You must give me back the bone knife,” came a completely different voice.
“Cadoc, what have you done?” Moon demanded.
Tobias swayed back and forth in place. “You must have known there would be a heavy price to pay for your thievery. Your friends are also culpable. Lucky for me I discovered them as I searched for you.”
Moon stared at his friend. Tobias’ wounds were fresh, some still bled and although his pigment had dulled, color yet remained in his eyes. He was not an nzambi… At least he did not think he was. “Is he still alive?”
“Presently yes, but without my knife, I cannot bring back the dead, but I can leave them suspended between life and death,” Cadoc replied. “Give me the blade and I will be merciful and let your friend slip into oblivion.”
“And me?”
What might have been a misshapen grin gradually stretched across Tobias’ damaged face. “I shall kill you quickly.”
Cadoc had placed Moon in a precarious situation. If Tobias had been made into an nzambi, he could be justified in cutting off his friend’s head. As it was, he still lived and if there was any way he could save him, he would.
Another problem struck him. Where were Roche and Thomas? They were the other two crewmembers that waited for Moon.
His answer came from behind him. The two men clambered out of the thick foliage – they, too, looked as if they had been mauled by some animal. They staggered toward him.
Tobias closed in on him as well.
Their movements were clumsy and slow like they were struggling to wrestle free of the shaman’s control over them.
“You are still alive and have free will,” Moon shouted to them. “Fight whatever he’s doing to you! Don’t make me kill you!”
A menacing laugh rang out from the trees. Moon could just make out an abnormally big ape hunkered on a thick limb staring back at him. The primate displayed his sharp fangs in a toothy smile, but its eyes were dull.
“You waste your time with your pleading,” it explained. “They are nothing more than puppets.”
“By the gods,” Moon yelped.
His suspicion about the shaman being able to transform into other animals was confirmed. He cursed under his breath and brought the torch close to his face. He hoped it still carried some faint embers. He blew on it desperately trying to reignite the flame. The torch came alive in his hand.
He thrust the torch crosswise at Tobias hoping it would force the man to back away. It did not.
To Moon’s dismay, Tobias boldly staggered headlong into the hot blaze. His shirt lit up into flames and fire quickly engulfed him.
“No, I did not mean to…” the rest of Moon’s words got trapped in his throat.
His friend screamed in agony; terror was reflected in his eyes. Whatever Cadoc had done to Tobias obviously had not blocked his sensitivity to pain or the awareness of what was happening to him. Still, he pressed forward with his charge in an attempt to grab Moon.
Moon canted to one side. His body reacted automatically, following his dodge with an elbow into his friend’s ribcage.
Tobias hit the ground, a smoking fireball and stayed there, no longer screaming.
Moon wanted to mourn the man, but there was no time.
Roche had drawn his sword in an attempt to stave off the flame.
Moon brought his torch front on guard, and parried, easily knocking the sword away. A maneuver his crewmate should have avoided with no trouble. The shaman’s control over Roche’s movements clearly lacked a swordsman’s skill.
Clumsily, Roche came in with a thrust.
Moon countered by slashing the torch at his opponent’s stomach. He hoped Cadoc would not want his slave dead and would instinctively have him give ground.
Roche retreated several steps.
Thomas, however, came in from another direction, forcing Moon to divert his attention to him. He, too, had his sword out. In a blur of steel, the blade clashed against the torch. Metal proved to be more formidable than Moon’s timber; the torch was hacked in half, its flaming head plummeting to the earth.
“Yes, now slay him,” Cadoc roared in a pale imitation of a human voice
Moon kicked as hard as he could, launching the lost torch flame into the air and right into Thomas’ surprised face.
Thomas dropped his sword as he unconsciously reacted to the sudden attack.
Moon flung himself into him, lifting the man off the ground and slamming him onto his back. For good measure, he slammed the sole of his shoe down onto his crewmate’s ribs, which was followed by an audible crunch. Controlled or not, Thomas was still human and it would take time for him to recover, even at the shaman’s magical prompting.
Moon whirled around to face his last standing opponent. Roche lunged forward with his blade at Moon’s chest. He barely had time to sidestep the attack.
Roche’s attack was true and found a mark, slashing Moon’s left arm. The wound was not deep nor life threatening, nonetheless it burned with a fierceness.
Moon hurled the remaining piece of his torch. It struck Roche in the face forcing his head to snap back. The momentary reprieve was enough to give Moon time to pick up Thomas’ discarded weapon. He deflected a second attack from Roche.
The men’s swords crossed and they stood facing each other.
“Kill… me,” Roche said in a strangled breath. It was his voice and not that of the shaman. He had always been bullheaded and did as he pleased even when it countermanded Moon’s orders. It appeared even Cadoc had difficulties commanding him.
“Fight him,” Moon insisted.
“Can’t… he’s t…t…too strong.”
“Slay him,” Cadoc shouted. “Slay him now!”
The two men slowly circled each other, their blades still locked. The warm glow of flickering flames reflected off their somber faces as Tobias’ corpse continued to burn. Sweat ran down Roche’s forehead as he fought to resist the shaman’s grip. His eyes pleaded for help.
Moon wrestled with what he knew must be done. “I can’t.”
“Then… we are both… dead men,” Roche replied as his eyes turned cold.
He pushed Moon’s sword away and followed with a vertical slash, cutting a straight line through his shirt. If Moon had not jumped back in time, his guts would have been all over the ground. He let his sympathies get the better of him and nearly got himself killed because of it.
Was this Cadoc’s doing? he considered, Did he let Roche’s mind free only to distract me? Flames revealed the shaman’s fanged grin in the shadows, validating his thoughts.
Roche slashed and thrust his sword countless times.
Each blow was parried by Moon, but it was only a matter of time before one of Roche’s strikes got through his defenses. Where his crewmate did not seem to tire, Moon could not make that same claim. He was already at his limits end from days of travel with little food, water and rest. Perhaps that was the reason the shaman had not immediately attacked him after he had stolen the bone knife, he wanted Moon at his weakest.
No, he thought, it had to be more than that.
Cadoc had power; that was obvious. Yet instead of directly facing a man he should be able to easily defeat, he chose to send his undead creatures and Moon’s crewmates after him, while he stayed a safe distance away.
Again, Moon allowed himself to be distracted. Cold hands grabbed both of his ankles. “What the…”
He glanced down to see Thomas, on his belly, glaring up at him. Thomas’ arms were stretched out, his fingers digging into Moon’s limbs, preventing him from moving.
Moon gave up on his conviction that he could save his crewmates.
Without hesitation, he plunged the point of his blade deep into Thomas’ right eye socket. The man’s hands tore away from Moon and he rolled to his back reaching urgently for the metal invader to pry it out. A torrent of blood sprayed out as Moon wrenched the sword from his crewmate’s face. His body jerked like a fish out of water, silently shaking as his chest rose and fell in short gasps.
Moon glanced up to see Roche stampeding toward him.
Moon quickly drew the bone knife from its sheath, took the blade by its edge and threw it. The bone knife soared through the air and punched through Roche’s chest and into his heart.
“Thank you,” Roche gasped before he toppled backwards.
“No,” Cadoc roared. He leaped down from the tree, landing gracefully onto the earth. His gaze locked on the bone knife jutting from Roche’s chest.
Moon’s focus was also on the blade. He tossed his sword away, knowing it would do little good against the shaman.
Cadoc and Moon glanced up at one another. “A race then,” the ape growled.
Both rushed toward Roche’s body. In a back and forth mixture of hops and sprints, Cadoc, who was further away from the body, closed in much faster than Moon could in his fatigued state, but he refused to let the shaman best him. For the first time in his life, he prayed for the gods to grant him strength, not caring which deity answered his pleas. One must have been listening.
Moon grabbed the hilt of the bone knife just as the ape glided down from a desperate jump, eclipsing all light from the heavens. He uprooted the blade and rolled to the left just as Cadoc landed heavily next to the body.
“No,” the shaman screamed.
Cadoc whirled around to face his prey. His body began to shrink and his features slowly became more human-like. In seconds, a sinewy, tall man, with skin as black as dusk, stood before Moon. He wore long, thick braids on his scalp that danced freely with his every movement. He wore nothing but a loincloth wrapped around his waist. Inked drawings of devotion and strange symbols covered all of his exposed skin.
Cadoc squatted so that he was level with Moon’s prone body. “Are you wondering what these symbols mean?” he asked in a casual tone. Without waiting for a reply, he answered. “They signify life and death. They show devotion to my master Legba, who granted me his magic over two hundred years ago.”
Legba, Moon knew, was the gatekeeper of the dead. That explained much about how the shaman could create the nzambi creatures. What surprised him more was Cadoc’s age, he looked no more than fifty, yet he was claiming to be over two centuries.
“I tell you this,” the shaman continued, “because this same gift can be granted to you. All you need do is hand over the bone knife.” He proffered his hand, his palm facing the sky.
Moon gaped down at the knife, noticing for the first time his crewmate’s blood dripping off from its blade. He looked up, first seeing the vanishing flame from Tobias’ baked corpse, next the body of Thomas which lay in a pool of blood, and finally at Roche who had a hole in his chest – all dead because of him. He felt a dark cloud envelop him.
“I want nothing from you or your deity, except for your death at my hands,” Moon replied.
The shaman lowered his arm in defeat. “You know you cannot win against me, boy.”
Right before Moon’s eyes, Cadoc transformed from one large carnivorous predator to the next before reverting back to human form. “I am a god weighed against you.”
“Then kill me,” Moon dared him. He righted himself, standing to his full height of six feet. “Come bring me this death you’ve been promising me.”
Cadoc stood as well, his gaze darted to the bone knife and then into Moon’s face to meet his eyes. “Don’t be a fool.”
“I told you I would pierce your heart with this blade and I will do just that.” He paced forward one step and the shaman took one back, maintaining his distance. “Do you fear me Cadoc?”
“I fear no man.”
“Then why not attack me? You are obviously far stronger than I. Attack me now!”
Cadoc took another apprehensive step back, placing even more space between them. His expression suggested he was thinking of something to say. Finally, he gestured to the bodies. “Your fellow thieves called you Moon. Not a name native from our land. Were you a slave? Did some white master give you that name, boy?”
The question had taken him aback. His mind flashed back to a time when he was shackled in metal chains, torn away from his mother’s arms forever and tossed into a carriage on the night of a full moon.
Repeatedly, the young son of the white man who had taken him kept referring to him as Moon. A name he never bothered to change after he escaped, because he no longer remembered his birth name.
He shook off the unpleasant memory. “Why do you care?”
“Because I want to end the Europeans’ régime of our land, which has always been my goal. With the bone knife, I can build an army to slay the white man and return our land to its once proud heritage,” Cadoc explained. “You’ve interfered with that plan by stealing my knife. Give it back to me and I can save our people from slavery.”
“Save our people?” Moon repeated, thinking about his mother, who may be alive, still a slave in the Colonies.
Cadoc must have read his thoughts. “You want to save someone you love, yes? I can do that for you.”
It was a tempting offer and for a brief moment, Moon considered returning the bone knife to its true master. But the bodies of his crewmates, the friends Cadoc killed, made him reconsider.
Is my mother worth all the lives it would take to free h
er? he mused, And could I ever look her in the eyes knowing that?
“Your price is too high, shaman,” Moon blurted.
Cadoc’s expression changed into a furious mask. “I will revel in making you one of my undead slaves, Moon.”
Despite having the magical knife, he had his doubts he could defeat the shaman, at least while he stood alone against him. “If only my crewmates were still alive to help me,” he whispered. The bone knife pulsed in his hand.
All at once the three corpses sat up, all looking directly at Moon. At first he thought it was the shaman’s doing, but from the fear emitting from his eyes, he knew immediately he was wrong.
“No,” Cadoc exclaimed. “This is impossible.”
Roche, who was closest to Cadoc, grabbed the shaman’s legs. Tobias’ smoking corpse got up and jumped onto his back. Thomas’ lumbered toward his prey and clutched him by the throat and began squeezing.
“How are… you doing this?” Cadoc managed to choke out. “How?”
Moon had no idea. Perhaps his friends felt their lives were stolen from them and they thirsted for revenge. Maybe the gods saw fit to stop Cadoc before he became so powerful that they felt he would one day become a threat to them. The answer did not matter; in the end, all that mattered was that, somehow, Cadoc would be stopped.
The shaman transformed into an ape, followed by a tiger, and finally, a rhino. His efforts were fruitless because the nzambi were relentless, ripping and tearing at his flesh.
Finally, Cadoc changed back to a man. The nzambi dragged him deeper into the jungle. If he had lightning bolts in his eyes they would have been hurling bolts at Moon.
“This is not the end, Moon! This only delays my plans! I am forever and I will have the bone knife back,” he promised. “I curse you and all your descendants. I shall be a plague upon your family until there is none left to torment!”
The shaman’s threat hit a nerve. Moon’s father had been savagely murdered trying to liberate his wife and son from slave traders. And Moon had no idea whether his mother was still alive or had borne any other children in the Colonies. For all he knew, he was the last of his lineage and the only hope of continuing his bloodline. That thought did not sit well with him. He raised the knife preparing to end the shaman’s life.
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