you deserved to live, not a single one of you,” Sogolon said, still looking at me.
“That is between we and the gods, not you, body thief,” Venin-Jakwu said.
“You was always an ungrateful, stinking piece of dog shit, Jakwu. Killer and raper of women. Why you think I give you that body? One day all of that you do will happen to you.”
“The body had an owner,” I said.
“Every day before sun come, she running out to go back to the bush so Zogbanu can eat her. No matter where me take her and how me train her. Far better use of she body than she ever go use it,” Sogolon said.
“You just wanted me to stop knocking you off your horse,” Venin-Jakwu said. “Just like you been knocking people out of they body for a long, long time.”
“How?” Mossi said.
“Don’t ask me, ask she.”
“Time running and passing, and they still have the boy. You know where they going, Tracker.”
Sogolon looked around, at all of us, speaking to everybody, convincing no one.
“She didn’t try to kill us,” Sadogo said.
“Speak for yourself,” Venin-Jakwu said.
“We agreed to save the boy,” Mossi said, and walked over to me.
“You don’t know her. I know her two hundred years, what she do more than anything else is plot how a person can be of use. She never ask you what is your use? I didn’t agree to nothing with none of you,” Venin-Jakwu said.
“Maybe not. But we go to save the boy, and we might need the deceiving Moon Witch.”
“A dead Moon Witch not going to be any use to you.”
“Nor a dead girl who tried to go through three of us to kill her.”
Now Venin-Jakwu darted from face to face. They pushed a foot under the sword of a fallen guard and kicked it up in hand. They gripped it, liking the feel, and smiled.
“I am a man!” he said. “My name is—”
“Jakwu. I know your name. I know you must be a fearsome warrior with many kills. Help us save this child and there will be coin in it for you,” I said.
“Coin can help me grow a cock?”
“Such an overpraised thing, a cock,” Mossi said. I don’t know if he was trying to make the room smile. Sogolon’s chest right above the heart was red. Ipundulu had tried to cut her chest open and rip out the heart, but she would have us watch her collapse on the ground before telling anyone that.
“See to your heart,” I said to her.
“My heart clear,” she said.
“It’s almost falling out of your chest.”
“It never cut deep.”
“Nothing seems to,” Mossi said.
At the foot of the tree, the buffalo waited with two horses. Everything I wanted to ask with my mouth I seemed to ask with my eye, for he nodded, snorted, and pointed to the horses. Jakwu mounted the first.
“Sogolon rides with you,” I said.
“I ride with no one,” he said, and galloped off.
Mossi came up behind me. “How far shall he ride?” he said.
“Before he sees he does not know the way? Not very far.”
“Sogolon.”
“She can ride on the buffalo’s back.”
“As you wish,” Mossi said.
I grabbed a piece of Mossi’s tunic and wiped his face. The blood had stopped running.
“It is but a scratch,” he said.
“A scratch from a monster with iron claws.”
“You called it something.”
“Give me this,” I said, and took one of his swords. I cut a hole at the fringe of his tunic and tore off a long strip of cloth. This cloth I wrapped around his head, tying it at the back.
“Sasabonsam.”
“That is not one of the names I remember from the old man’s house.”
“No. The Sasabonsam lived with his brother. They kill men from high up in the trees. His brother the flesh eater, him the bloodsucker.”
“World’s not short on trees. Why does he travel with this pack?”
“I killed his brother,” I said.
Two things. The Sasabonsam took a sword to his wing. He was carrying both the boy and Ipundulu, who must have been as heavy as him.
On the ground the two burning trees seemed hundreds upon hundreds of paces away, which they were. We were about to ride off when several of the Queen’s guard, ten and nine, maybe more, all on foot but in front of us, bid us to stop.
“Her Radiant Excellency said she never gave anyone leave.”
“Her Radiance has worse things to worry about than who takes leave of her radiant ass,” Mossi said, and rode right through them. They jumped out of the way when the