He grabbed my throat.
“The little ball, the little one he tried to roll away. You want know how far he get? He the one that say, My father going come back and kill you. He going chop you with he two askis.”
“Kosu.”
“Father, he call you. Father? You don’t roll like a ball. You don’t have no askis now. Look at your quality.”
“Kosu. Ko—”
He punched me again. I spat out two teeth. He wrapped his long fingers around my head and pulled me up.
Axes, he was saying that Father was going to chop him with axes.
“He never scream. And I have him in many bites.”
“Kosu.”
I could only see bits of light through his thick and stinking fingers. His claws scratched my neck.
“When I reach the bone in his back, still he did not cry. Then he die. And I bite the back of the head and suck—”
“Fuck the gods.”
He threw me and a peace came over me in flight that cut when I landed in branches and leaves. He grabbed at my ankle and I kicked him away. He giggled and grabbed my leg again and kept giggling as he pulled me out of the branches. My back and head hit the ground and then I was moving; he was pulling me.
“You the fool and she the fool. She the one in gold and red and all she do, she sit. I see her through the window. Only I know the boy. I come for him in the weird place and he follow me. He even call me, for the white one teach him how to call. Me never want the boy for he don’t want me, he want the lightning one, but he call me and I come take him, and the night did quick and I fly away with him and he say I hear my mother talk about the wolf and he cubs and how she try to make him her soldier and they live in the monkeybread tree and I say that is the one who kill my brother, I hear, he says so and the boy say fly with me on your back and I can take you, and he take me.”
I said, Quiet, but it died before it fell out of my mouth. I don’t know where he was dragging me, and my back scraped against grass and dirt and stones in water, and then my head sunk underwater as he pulled me through a river, and the back of my head hit a rock, and I went dark. I woke up and I was still under the water and coughing and choking until he pulled me out into grass and under trees again.
“The white one, the pretty one, the one who when I squeeze him until I see the blood flow under the skin, delicious, he a fighter, he better fighter than you. He get teach by the one with the two sword. The two of them, I break down the door and the two of them swing down from the tree saying they going fight me. And they jump up on me and strike and the one with two sword throw one sword to the white-skin and he come at me, this boy, he jump, and the boy he strike me in the head and it hurt and the man jab me in the side right here, right here and the sword go in but stop at my chest cage right here, I thump him with me knuckle and he fall back and the white-skin run at me and duck before I swat him with my wing and he grab my wing and stab right through it, see right there how it still a hole, that the white-skin do and I grab him with this foot and grab him with my other foot and fling his up into the tree and a branch knock him quiet. Yes yes. And the one that is a ball, he roll up behind me and knock me off me two foot. And I fall and he laugh but I grab him before he run away and I bite him and pull the flesh out, sweet flesh, sweet, sweet flesh, and I take another bite and another bite and the man with hair scream. He put some of them on horse and slap the horse. And they ride off and he come for me and he angry, and I like angry and he fight and fight and fight, and stab and cut and go for my eye and I catch the sword and the white-skin stab me right up me shithole and now I is fury, yes I was.”
He pulled me out of light grass into dark and above me was also dark. I kicked at his hand again and he swung me up and slammed me back down on the grass. Blood poured out of my ear again.
“I grab white-skin and I smash him, and smash him, and smash him, and smash him, and smash him until all he juice run out. And the long hair one he bawl and bawl and make like a dog, but he fight like a warrior man, he and two swords, better than you with one ax. Stay still and make me smash you too, I say to him, but he do this and this like a fly and he cut me across my back—he cut the skin! Nobody cut the skin and is many moon me see me own blood, then he flip around, better than you, and stab me in the belly and he look at me, and I stop and make him look at me, because many man think something down there, but nothing down there but flesh. I beat him away with this hand.”
He dropped me to show me his hand.
“And pull out the sword with this hand. I don’t use sword good but he reaching for he knife and I push it right through he chest just like I push my finger through mud. I swing the sword and cut he throat. And then I jump on him and eat the nice part first. Oh, the belly, then the red part, oh the fat, like a hog. They think my brother like the flesh and I like the blood, but I eat anything.”
I wished I had a voice to beg him to stop, and I wished he had ears to hear.
“Then I go after the others, the runners, yes I did. How they going flee far when I faster than a horse? The two-head one.”
“They were two, you son of a bitch. Two.”
“The other head he start cry for his brother. You know what I tell the ostrich one?”
“Niguli. His name is Niguli.”
“A strange taste. You feed him strange? He cried. I say, Cry, boy, cry. You not the one I come for, he should get eat instead of you.”
“No.”
“Lie. Lie. Lie. I lie. Me would eat you first then them. They call you Father?”
“I was—”
“You didn’t breed none. And you don’t after watch none. You open the pen and let in the wolf.”
“The Leopard. The Leopard killed your brother.”
He grabbed my throat again.
“The ghost one, I couldn’t grab her. She be a dust in wind,” Sasabonsam said.
He tossed me to the ground. Dark came on me in the day. Wanting to kill, wanting to die, in your head they are the same colour, and the door to one leads to the other. I wanted to say he would get no joy out of killing me, that I had walked from north to south of these lands and walked through the two kingdoms in war, and walked through arrows and fire and the killing plans of people and did not care, so kill me now, kill me hence, kill me quick, or kill me from toe to finger to knee and up, and I still would not care. But instead I said:
“You know no griot.”
Sasabonsam’s ears flattened, and he squeezed his brows. He stomped towards me. He stood over me, and I was between his legs. He spread his wings. He bent down until his face was right in front of my face, his eye on my eye. Rotten flesh settled between his teeth.
“I know how a little boy taste,” he said.
I took my two knives and stabbed his two eyes.
Blood from his almost blinded mine. He roared like ten lions, fell back on his own right wing, and snapped it at the bone. He roared louder and flailed around until he grabbed both knives and pulled them out, screaming with each pull. He ran straight into a tree, fell on his back, jumped up, and ran again, right into another. I grabbed a stick and threw it behind him. He jumped, swung around, and ran into another tree. Sasabonsam tried to flap his wing but only the left flapped. The right swung but it was broken and limp. I searched around for the knives as he ran into trees. He roared again and stomped the ground, and scraped the grass and ground with his hands looking for me, coming up with clumps of dirt and leaves and grass and panting, and roaring, and shrieking. Then he would touch his eyes and howl.
I found one knife. I looked at his neck. And his pale chest and pink nipples. At his fright at everything. At him backing into his right wing and cracking it again.
He fell on his back.
I stood up and almost fell to one knee. I rose again and limped away.
Back through the bushes and down the hill and across the river, Sasabonsam was still howling, squealing, and bawling. Then he went quiet.
The me of many moons ago would search for why neither fate made a difference to me. I did not care. Nyka was still up in the tree, still trying to free himself. I had found one ax in the bush under his tree, and the other several paces away. I heard him before I saw him, crawling down the tree on hands and legs like the white spider before, crawling to get to Nyka, to a sweet spot to drink blood. The boy. I threw my ax, but the pain in my leg made me miss, just a hand’s length from the boy’s face. He scurried back up the tree. I threw the second ax to Nyka’s right and cut through the vines gripping his hand. He pulled it free. I thought he would say something. I thought how there could be nothing that he would say that I would care to hear. I fell to one knee. Then he shouted my name and I heard a wing flap.