by Brandon Mull
Tembo nodded. “We’re near the village of Dakami. There’s an old man living there that I befriended after he caught me stealing a baby goat. He’s an ally. He’ll see my signal and call my friends.”
Uraza issued a full-throated noise, something between a growl and a purr. Tembo cast a wary glance in her direction, then quickly looked back at his work. Despite his bluster, Uraza could tell that the little warrior was still nervous around her. As he should be.
She put her head down and watched as the fire caught. Tembo held his cloak over the small blaze, periodically pulling it back to send precisely timed bursts of smoke into the air.
“Why?” she finally asked, when he had stamped out the fire.
“Why what?” He lay down in the grass, nestling into his green cloak.
Uraza gave him a long look, violet eyes glittering in the light of the dying coals. “Why risk your life for my talisman? Why fight against the Conquerors, when there are so many of them, and there’s just a few of you? From what I saw, it looks like you’ve already lost.”
“It’s true, most of my tribe surrendered months ago.” Tembo’s face was still, staring up into the starry sky. “The village elders negotiated a deal with them, in order to keep us out of the war. But when they came, they destroyed everything anyway. We watched them torch our buildings, slaughter our livestock. My mother had a favorite goat, Maggi, the one that always gave us the most milk, and the best-tasting cheese. That woman, Samilia — she killed it and ate it right in front of us.”
Tembo fell silent for a moment, and Omika nuzzled up against him.
“They didn’t just take our livestock, our wealth. They took our way of life. Our honor. The elders said we couldn’t fight. That they were too strong. But that first night after we surrendered, I stole back Maggi’s last wheel of cheese and gave it to my mother. And I realized there wasn’t anything that special about these Conquerors. The next day, I decided to leave my village. I stole a green cloak from one of their officers, in order to blend in with the grasslands, and fled.”
Uraza watched the boy, wondering at the arrogance that had led him to take on an entire army alone.
“I met in secret with young men and women I knew from other villages and nearby tribes. I heard the stories of what the Conquerors had done, and told them mine. Everywhere I went, I stole the invaders’ supplies, sabotaged their wagons, and always made sure that someone got a glimpse of my cloak, or Omika, so that they would know that it hadn’t been a local who was responsible. It was when they demanded that spirit animals stay in their dormant state that I started to gain allies.”
Tembo’s voice had been tense and angry, but now he swelled with pride. “One night last spring, we all left behind our tribe colors and allegiances and replaced them with green cloaks, so that we could move undetected across the savanna. Everywhere we go, we bring hope that all will be free one day, and knowledge that the power of these Conquerors is not absolute. And we will fight, and win — with or without our Great Beasts.”
Tembo seemed to be waiting for her to respond, but Uraza let the pause stretch into a long silence, until finally she heard his breathing fall into the steady rhythm of sleep.
The next morning, Uraza loped along the savanna, Tembo jogging easily next to her. Omika, exhausted from the journey, had gone into the dormant state, disappearing into a tattoo on Tembo’s arm. They passed hippos sunning themselves in the Kwangani River, and a flock of sandpipers flew overhead, heading to their breeding grounds for the season. Finally they reached an area where the acacia trees had all been cleared. For a mile, they passed only stumps and discarded branches.
They crested a rise, and Tembo motioned to stay down. They crept forward in the grass and hid behind a large stump. On an even taller hill ahead stood the Conquerors’ camp. It was nearly a small city, and the center was surrounded by a wooden stockade. A central keep had also been constructed of wooden palisades. The tracks they were following led straight toward the camp.
Tembo pointed to a small red flag of a lizard under the black Conqueror banner. “That’s Samilia’s insignia. It means she’s there right now and holding court.”
The Great Beast’s muscles tensed. “I will have her throat in my jaws.”
Tembo shook his head. “There are too many of them. Our only chance is to get in and steal it.”
Uraza glared at him. “Throat. Jaws.”
The little warrior shrugged. “Well . . . I see your point. Perhaps we might be able to fit in a little side mission.” He looked back the way they’d come. “Let’s go meet the rest of the resistance. We’ll need them to pull this off.”
Uraza left reluctantly. She would rather have just charged in and hunted down that Conqueror woman, but Tembo had a point. There was an army in there, and they were dug into their defenses.
That night they met the resistance fighters at the one tree still standing within miles of the enemy fort. It had been burned out by a lightning strike, and was a charred wreck not suitable for building. Several of the smaller ones cowered in the back, wide eyes never leaving her huge, muscled form. Uraza could smell the fear coming from them. Even the most fearsome of them, a man fully an arm taller than the rest, was gripping his ax so tightly it looked like the wood might splinter. He had the tattoos of the Takweso people running down his bare chest, intertwined with a Niloan wild dog tattoo — his spirit animal in a dormant state. From what Uraza knew of the local tribes, the Takweso were ancient rivals of Tembo’s Vendani. But the massive man gave Tembo a crushing hug as he arrived.
“Djantak!” Tembo said as he embraced the man.
“Goat thief!” Djantak answered with affection.
Tembo introduced Uraza to his fellow rebels: Djantak, the big Takweso man with the wild dog spirit animal; Kinwe, a bespectacled little man with an owl who peered down at them from the top of the tree; Jinta, a small, quiet girl with throwing knives and no apparent animal, and several others.
They were a ragged group, many of them a good deal younger than the usual age of Niloan warriors. And they all wore an assortment of green cloaks and capes, from rough cloth to what looked like a woman’s decorative scarf wrapped around a little boy.
These human children should have been playing in the streets of villages and helping herd goats and sheep to watering holes, not fighting a desperate resistance for their freedom. How could their village elders have surrendered and left this mess for them to fix?
And yet that was the way of the wild. Often the young matured fast or not at all. This was not Uraza’s concern. She hadn’t created this situation. “Why do we need so many to sneak in and steal my talisman?” Uraza asked.
“Steal your talisman?” Tembo grinned.
“You’re a madman, goat thief,” Djantak muttered.
“We’re going to do much better than that,” Tembo continued. “We’re going to burn that place to the ground, and their supplies and weapons along with it.”
Djantak pulled back his cloak, revealing a cluster of waterskins. “Lamp oil, saltpeter, and birthwort extract. Liberated from a captured Zhongese caravan,” he said. “These could make a blaze from a heated insult.”
Jinta gave a menacing grin and held up a chunk of flint. She struck it with one of her daggers, creating a small shower of sparks.
“I’m here for my talisman,” Uraza growled. Loudly. “Not a supply raid.” All the resistance members save Tembo backed away from her nervously, their eyes wide. Djantak raised his ax defensively, then slowly lowered it to his side.
Tembo nodded. “I’m going after your talisman myself. The fire will be the perfect diversion.”
The leopard cocked her head at him. “And what is my role supposed to be in all this, little warrior?”
Tembo gave his infuriating grin. “I’m going to ride you in, and then jump from your back to the top of the tower wall. Over a short distance you’re much,
much faster than I am — we’ll be in before they can even close the gate.”
Uraza leveled a stare at him, a look that had frozen whole herds of wildebeests in terror. “No human is going to ride me. You need a new plan.”
The two locked gazes for a second, but Uraza was unyielding. If this boy thought he could ride a Great Beast, he was going to find a claw through his throat. “I am the mightiest predator in Nilo, boy. I’m not your beast of burden.”
Tembo looked at her for a long moment, but she stared back with complete resolve. He nodded. “All right. We’ll just have to be stealthy, and hope we can get close before they raise the alarm.”
They struck out just before dawn. During the night, Jinta had used the cover of darkness to sneak up to the camp’s palisade and weaken the stakes in a large section. Uraza crept forward, slinking through the grass alongside the green-cloaked humans. Though many times their size, the Great Leopard was a more than able stalker. When she did not wish to be noticed, eyes simply moved past her. They reached the palisade, and she waited while Tembo and Djantak quietly dislodged the wooden slats. How had she ended up here, reliant on humans to do things for her? She’d developed a certain fondness for her little warrior, but now a whole crowd of the smelly things surrounded her.
Tembo motioned for silence. They huddled down as a pair of guards passed by on the wall above them. The conversation drifted down in the early morning air.
“She’s pushing us hard,” one of the Conquerors was saying. “The troops are exhausted.”
“But she got the talisman,” the other answered. “The last few tribes in the south are surrendering, and northern Nilo won’t be far behind. She’ll probably go after the lion, Cabaro’s, next.”
Uraza could almost hear the evil grin as the first man spoke. “I can’t wait to burn some of those villages, once they surrender. The look on their faces is just priceless.”
“And then we can finally leave this ugly mudhole behind,” the other answered. Their bootsteps began to recede.
Uraza started to growl, and Tembo put his hand on her flank to quiet her. She glared at him, but grew still.
Once the hole was cleared, they each wriggled through and crept from building to building on the other side of the stockade. It was still and calm inside, almost unnaturally peaceful. The rest of Tembo’s warriors spread out and disappeared into the early morning grayness as Tembo, Djantak, and Uraza made their way to the central building.
Djantak peered around the edge of one of the nearby makeshift wooden shelters.
“Guards, little brother. Many guards,” he said to Tembo. “We’ll have to go in from behind.”
They skulked through the outlying huts, making their way to the rear of the main building. It was only a small two-story thing, with rough stockade walls and a shingled roof.
Djantak squatted and Tembo stood on his shoulders, bracing himself against the wall. With a low grunt, Djantak pushed up and Tembo grasped the top of the wall. He pulled himself up to be even with the roof and scrambled onto the shingles.
Once Tembo was safely in, Djantak disappeared into the morning fog.
Uraza backed up, took a few steps, and leaped to the top of the building. She soared through the air, a sleek arrow of predatory instinct. Another beast of her size might have made a crash, but she landed as delicately as a sparrow alighting on a branch.
There was a trapdoor in the roof, which Tembo easily slipped through, but Uraza had to wriggle and push her way in.
The room was bare. Not merely plainly decorated, but completely empty. There were even marks in the floorboards where furniture had stood, but it was now all gone. Tembo crept to the stairs but looked back, shaking his head.
“Nothing there,” he whispered. “It’s been stripped clean.”
Uraza glanced around the empty room, her body tensing. “Samilia knew we were coming. This is a trap.”
As she said it, a bell pealed outside. Tembo ran to the trapdoor and poked his head through it. “They’re pouring out of the buildings,” he yelled down. “Fully armed and armored.”
Uraza flexed her muscles and bared her fangs. “You don’t trap a Great Beast twice. I will destroy them all.”
Tembo laughed. “I like the enthusiasm, but maybe we could try something with a higher chance for my survival?”
Uraza glared at him.
“Samilia has the talisman around her neck. I have a plan. I just hope they haven’t caught the rest of our people yet.” Tembo rubbed his arm absently. “As soon as I have the talisman, jump down and show them your claws.”
Uraza said nothing. If he failed, she could still try a more direct approach.
Samilia’s voice rang through the building. “Come on, kitty, I don’t suppose you’d make this easy? Just surrender and this will all be over. I won’t even kill your little goat thief friend.”
A smile lit up Tembo’s face. “No mention of the others. This should work.”
“Very well, little warrior. I’ll give you a chance. But if this fails, you’re on your own.”
Tembo shrugged, gripped his spear, and headed for the door while the leopard returned to the roof to peer down at the enemy.
Tembo was right — they had been prepared for this. A horde of Conquerors was surrounding the building, their armor giving off a dull gleam in the gray light.
“Hold on, I’m coming out!” Tembo’s shout came from below.
A moment later, he was facing off with Samilia in front of the building. He looked tiny, standing there with nothing but his spear and green cloak, faced with a wall of swords, shields, and spears. Samilia stepped forward, her smile showing off her unnaturally sharpened teeth. Her lizard curled around her neck, mimicking her reptilian smile.
“Finally ready to surrender, goat thief? I think you’ll find my dungeon quite comfortable.”
Tembo shrugged casually. “Maybe. Do you have coconuts for Omika there? She likes a cup of coconut juice in the morning and the rest of the fruit for lunch.”
Samilia’s expression darkened. “Drop your spear and surrender, boy, or I’ll take it from your lifeless body.” The leopard’s sharp violet eyes could see her own talisman dangling on a strip of leather around Samilia’s neck, the Amber Leopard practically glowing in the predawn light. The idea that this awful human shared in Uraza’s power by wearing the talisman sent a fresh wave of fury through her. Samilia gripped her sword, which would swing with vicious speed, her movements aided by the hunter’s instinct that Uraza’s talisman conveyed.
Tembo stuck two fingers to his lips and let out a whistle that pierced the morning air. Then two things happened at once.
First, the stockade shook with the sound of explosions. In four places around the camp, fires suddenly sprouted into the air. Conquerors spun around in confusion, pointing at plumes of smoke at the edges of the stockade.
At the same time, Tembo stuck out his arm. A streak of energy came off of his wrist, and in a burst of light, Omika appeared — right on Samilia’s shoulder. It happened in a blink, too fast even for Samilia’s talisman-hastened speed. Before the woman could think to react, Omika grabbed the talisman and ripped it from her neck. Uraza was stunned — the ability to control exactly where a spirit animal appeared was not something that she had ever heard of. The two must have spent a long time practicing, to learn this trick.
Omika jumped toward Tembo just as Samilia swung at the monkey with her jagged sword. The woman’s arm was fast, but no longer quickened by the power of the talisman. Omika lengthened and burst into light as she moved, and by the time the blade reached the monkey, she was nothing but a streak of energy. Tembo caught the talisman in his left hand while Omika appeared as a tattoo in the dormant state on his right wrist. Tembo raised the talisman in his hand, and Uraza leaped down.
The leopard roared with joy, finally able to strike at the enemy after so many day
s of pursuit. They had been distracted by the explosions, their neat lines shattered. She easily charged through them as discipline evaporated.
Conquerors went flying, struck by a whirlwind of claws and fangs. For a long minute she let the rage consume her as she pressed her revenge on the mass of enemy soldiers. Uraza purred gleefully as she saw Samilia retreating, guarded by shield-bearing Conqueror soldiers.
It was only when the enemy fell back to re-form that Uraza realized she had lost track of Tembo. She followed his scent through the smoke and found him lying on the far side of the camp, an arrow protruding from his right leg. He had a firm grip on the talisman, but wounded as he was, both were easy targets for the enemy.
The scene was now cast in an orange glow as towering flames lit up the stockade. Buildings in the interior were starting to catch as well, straw roofs going up in smoke first.
Some Conquerors were running, but Samilia had pulled together a large contingent and was forming a shield wall with them. In the firelight, her sharpened teeth gleamed as she ordered her soldiers to prepare themselves. She caught Uraza’s eye, and in her gaze was something that surprised the Great Leopard: triumph.
That was when she noticed the lizard. It moved like water, slithering over and past the injured Tembo, carrying away the Amber Leopard talisman as easily as a river abducts a leaf.
Uraza yowled, a sound that shook the whole camp, and lunged for the tuatara. But it was too fast, was already halfway up Samilia’s leg by the time Uraza had reached Tembo.
“There are too many,” Tembo said, gasping for breath. “And I can barely move. Get your talisman back and run. You can still stop her.”
The enemy closed in, a curtain of steel. Behind the line, Samilia cackled in victory. Uraza weighed the odds. Could she defeat them? Her sinews tensed, ready to charge in. One good blow could scatter them and break the wall. She had reserves of strength untapped, and the body of a Great Beast was an incredibly resilient thing. Uraza glanced at the brave little goat thief, trying to push himself up with one hand, his spear at the ready in the other.