“Quiet!” the middle one shouted, then swung her arms wide and struck both.
The young one changed first, in a blink. Her nose and mouth and chin shot out of her face and her eyes went white. The muscles on her shoulder pumped and popped up, and those in her arms raised from arm to fingertip as if snakes ran under the skin. On the old woman her chest spread as if new flesh was tearing out of the old, all under her rough skin. Her face went the same. Her fingers, now black claws, the tips like iron. All this happened far quicker than I describe it. The old woman growled, and the young girl did the heh-heh-heh laugh that was not a laugh. The old woman charged the middle one but she swatted her away like a fly. The old woman pawed the ground, thinking to charge again.
“It took your ribs five moons to heal last time,” the middle one said.
“Take the gag out and let him give us sport,” the old one said. The young one changed back to girl. She came to me and indeed her smell was foul. Whatever she last ate, she ate days ago and chunks of it rotted somewhere on her body. She ran her hands around the back of my head and I thought of banging my head against the wall, anything, even the slightest thing to resist. She laughed and her foul breath ran past my nose. She pulled the gag and I coughed up vomit. They all laughed. She came in close to my face as if about to lick the vomit off, or kiss it.
“A comely bitch, this one be,” she said.
“As man goes, he will not be the worst to go down my stomach,” the old one said.
“Long in leg, thin in muscle, lean in fat, he will not be much of a meal,” said the old one.
“Salt him with his brains, and add some hog fat to his flesh,” said the young one.
“I give him this,” said the middle one. “In the only matter that counts with man, he impresses me. How do you run with it swinging so low?”
I coughed until my throat was raw.
“Maybe he will have water,” the old one said.
“I have in me some strong water,” the young one said, and laughed. She hiked up her left leg and grabbed her dangling cock, then laughed instead of pissed. The old one laughed as well.
The middle one stepped forward. She said, “We are the Bultungi, and you have unfinished business with us.”
“Unfinished business I will finish with my hatchet,” I coughed. They all laughed.
“Chop it off, place it in another room, and boom! Man still acting like he swinging,” said the old one.
“Old bitch, not even me understand that,” said the young one.
The middle one stood right before me. “Do you not remember us?” she said.
“The hyena has never been a memorable beast.”
“Make me give him something to remember,” the young one said.
“Truly who remembers the hyena? You look like the head of a dog pushing out of the asshole of cat walking backwards.”
The old and middle women laughed, but the young one flipped to fury. She changed. Still on two legs, she charged for me. Middle one kicked her leg out and tripped her. Young one landed hard on her chin and slid a little. She crouched and growled at the middle one, then started to circle her as if about to fight over fresh kill. She growled again, but the middle one, still in the form of woman, let loose a snarl louder than a roar. Maybe the room shook or maybe the young one, but even I felt something shift. She whimpered heh-heh-hehs under her breath.
“How long since you saw our sisters?”
I coughed again.
“I stay away from half-dead hogs and rotting antelope, so I would never see your sisters.”
I only noticed now, with her close, that her eyes were all white as well. The old one went off in the dark but her eyes popped out of the black.
“And what sisters? You boy-beasts who change to women, what are you?”
They all laughed.
“Surely you know us. We are the beasts where the woman do the tasking and the men do the tasks. And since men have made it that the biggest cock rules ground and sky, does it not make sense that woman should have the biggest cock?” said the middle one.
“This is a world where men rule.”
“And what good has come of your rule?” the old one said.
“There is game, there is bush, there are rivers without poison, and no child starves because of the gluttony of his father, since we put men in their place, and the gods willed it,” said the middle one.
“He don’t remember any of them. Maybe we cry. Maybe we make him cry,” the young one said.
“I would tell you how many moons have passed, but we do not fear gray in the hair, nor the crook in back, so we do not count moons. Do you not remember the Hills of Enchantment? A boy with two axes jumped a pack of us, killing three and maiming one. Who could no longer hunt, became prey.”
The other two groaned.
“Women doing what they do. Protecting their young. Nurturing, providing—”
“Feeding them whatever young child you were too glutted to feed yourself.”
“That is the way of the bush.”
“And should you come across me with half of your cub in my mouth, would you tell yourself that too is the way of the bush? Fuck the gods, if you are not the shiftiest of creatures. If you are in the bush, and of the bush, why do I smell your fucking stink in the city? You roll in the street and grovel like a mangy bitch to the women whose children you snatch at night.”
“You have no honor.”
“You bitches have me down in a hole full of man bones, and the smell of children you murder. A group of you killed ten and seven women and babies over twenty nights in Lajani until hunters killed them. Until I passed through and asked why does everywhere reek of hyena piss, they thought they were hunting wild dogs. I see your ways. You shift form to move among children, do you not? Then drag them away to kill. Not even the lowest shape-shifter kind sinks so low. Honor. There’s more honor to the worm.”
“He keeps calling us dogs,” the young one said.
“We followed you for a year,” the middle one said.
“Why grab me now?”
“I told you time is nothing to us, nor is haste. It’s your friend who took a year.”
“Awhoa! Sister, look at his face. Look how it falls when you speak of the friend. Did you not yet see in your mind-eye that he betrayed you?”
“Nyka. That is his name. Was there strong love between you? You thought he would never sell you for silver or gold, and yet how do we know his name?”
“He is my friend.”
“Nobody ever gets betrayed by their enemy.”
“Nothing, he says. Now he says nothing. Watch the face. It’s drooping longer. No sting like betrayal’s sting. Watch the face,” the young one said.
“It turns into a … a … scowl? Is it a scowl, sisters?” the old one asked.
“Come out of the dark so you can see clear.”
“I think the boy shall cry.”
“Take heart, boy. He sold you to us a year ago. In that time I think he might have even grown to like you.”
“He just like gold coin more.”
“Do you wish that we kill him?” the middle one said as she stooped in front of me.
I lunged at her as far as the chains would let me, but she did not even flinch.
“I can do this for you. A final wish,” she said.
“I have a wish,” I said.
“Sisters, the man has a wish. Should one of us attend to it or all three?”
“All three of you.”
“Give us this wish, we shall hear it,” said the old one.
I looked at them. The middle one smiling as if she was the healer woman come to touch my forehead, the old one cupping her ear as she looked at me, the younger one spitting and looking away.
“I wish you would stay in hyena form, for though you are a hideous animal and your breath always stinks of rotting corpse, at least I didn’t have to bear you in the mockery form of women. Women who make me ask what kind of woman smells as if she shits from the mouth.”
The old and young ones howled and changed form again, but I knew the middle one would not allow them to touch me. Yet.