“There’s a mark right here on this wall that I know,” I said.
“I thought you would give word about the piss first.”
Mossi jumped, but I did not move, though I wished I had an ax. He came from somewhere deep in this house, running down the narrow hallway leading outside, and leapt straight at me, knocking me down flat on the ground. The buffalo snorted, the Ogo ran to my side, and Mossi drew his two swords.
“No,” I said. “He’s a—”
The Leopard licked my forehead. He rubbed his head against my right cheek, dipped under my chin, and rubbed against the left. He rubbed his nose against my nose and rested his forehead on mine. He hummed and purred as I sat up. Then he shifted shape.
“Picked that up from lions, you poor excuse of a leopard,” I said.
“Shall we go into the foul things you’ve picked up, wolf? Because foul they are. Soon I shall hear that you kiss with tongue.”
The snort came from me, not the buffalo.
“You, with your eye of a dog, me with my eyes of a cat. We are quite the pair, are we not, Tracker?”
Leopard jumped to his feet and pulled me up. Mossi still had both swords drawn, but the Ogo went right up to the Leopard and picked him up.
“I like you more than most cats,” he said.
“How many cats do you know, Sadogo?”
“Only one.”
Leopard touched his face.
“Ay, buffalo, even now you have been no man’s meal?”
The buffalo stomped in the dirt and the Leopard laughed. Sadogo put him down.
“Who is this, with swords drawn? A foe?”
“To tell true, Leopard, I half thought to draw my knife as well.”
“Why?”
“Why? Leop … Is that boy with you?”
“Of course he is …. Oh, wait. Yes, yes, yes. I would have drawn a knife on me too, this is a true thing. There is a story I must tell you. An ass is fucked, so you shall love it. And how many you must have to tell me? First who is this good man who still won’t withdraw his sword?”
“Mossi. He used to be chieftain army.”
“I am Mossi.”
“So he just said. I’ve been through a few chieftains, not so chieflike, they were. How do you come to be with these … what do I call you, call us?”
“The story is long. But now I also search for the boy. With him,” Mossi said.
“So you told him about the boy,” Leopard said, looking at me.
“He knows everything.”
“Not everything,” Mossi said.
“Fuck the gods, prefect.”
Leopard looked at him, then me, and broke into a wicked grin. A thousand fucks for him doing that.
“Where is Sogolon?”
“This is a very long story. Longer than yours. I will have words with the lord of this house. He has a man who looks just like him in Dolingo.”
“What took you to Dolingo? Alas, the only thing to meet us when we came were spiders, empty it was. Every room, every window, not even a plant left. Go in, good Ogo and prefect, whatever your name is.”
“Mossi.”
“Yes, that was it. Buffalo, our vegetables inside are better than anything on this foul ground. Go around the back and let them give you through the window.”
That was the first in a long time I heard the buffalo make that sound that I still swear was a laugh.
“Mossi, you look like a swordsman,” Leopard said.
“Yes, and what of it?”
“Nothing, but I have two swords that are no use to a beast on four legs. Fine blades made in the South. Belonged to a man whose neck I chopped off.”
“Do you or this one ever leave a man whole?”
The Leopard looked at me, then at Mossi, and laughed. Then he slapped Mossi hard on the back and pushed him off with a “They are in there.” I can’t imagine Mossi liked it, not as much as I liked seeing it.
“Tracker, she is here also.”
“Who?”
He nodded for me to follow.
“We get the boy tomorrow night,” he said.
As we entered, Fumeli, whom I had not seen for so long, ran up to us, but slowed quick when the Leopard snarled.
“I will be asking about that later,” I said.
“We shall do as we always do, Tracker. Contest story against story. I believe I will again win.”
“You have not heard my story.”
He faced me. His whiskers stuck out under his nose, and his hair looked longer, wilder. I missed this man so much that my heart still jumped at the slightest movement from him. At him turning around