“What things?”
“You speaking intrigue on who is still your King. Or that as prefect I am his servant.”
Much time had slipped since I looked at his sword. Engage the enemy first, that is how he would have it. But he turned his back to me and stood looking at a stack.
“Fumanguru produces this whatever you call it against the King, and because he was murdered, you figure him blameless. Cast your eyes on the world as we prefects do. You are about to ask what I mean. I mean thus. More times than not, whenever some deed most foul comes to a man’s door, it’s because he invited him in.”
“So every death comes to the victim who deserves it. You truly are a prefect.”
“What a wife you will make someone one day.”
I did not even bother to glare.
“So do as your superiors do and call the matter shut. Hear this. Since this is an open space where any may enter, and since I am not connected to any crime, be a good member of the Kongori chieftain army and be gone.”
“Now hold—”
“Is our business not done, prefect? There is a child you do not believe lives, a writ you think means nothing, about a king whom you serve and believe blameless, and not connected to a series of events that did not happen, or even if they did happen, meant nothing. All surrounding a man whose entire family was murdered because of some snake he took to his home thinking it a pet, only to have it bite him. Is that about all of it, prefect? It surprises me you’re still here. Make distance between us. Go ahead.”
“I will not be dismissed by you.”
“Oh fuck the gods! Then stay. I will leave.”
“You forget who has authority in this room,” he said, drawing his sword.
“You have authority over your own kind. Where are they, your black-and-blue zombi?”
He held his sword out straight and came at me. The zup sound shot between us and we jumped back as the spear lodged itself in the floor. Black with blue marks.
“One of yours,” I said.
“Shut your mouth!”
A quick light shone from above us, and only when the arrow lodged into a tower of books did we see the light was flame. A shadow in the window had shot a flaming arrow down at us. The fire rose from the floor and flicked a tail. It twisted left, then right, then left like a lizard seeing too many things to eat. The flame jumped on a stack, and fire burst from each book, one then another, then another, up and up. Three more arrows came through the windows. The fire halted me, tricked me into stopping to wonder how come an entire wall was raging in flames. A hand grabbed mine and pulled me out of the spell.
“Tracker! This way.”
Smoke burned my eyes and made me cough. I couldn’t remember if the Sangoma protected me from fire. Mossi pulled me along, cursing that I wasn’t moving faster. We dashed through an arch of flames right before they collapsed, and burning paper hit my heel. He jumped over a stack of books, went through a wall of smoke, and vanished. I looked back, almost slowed down to think of the fire’s speed, and jumped through the smoke. And landed almost on top of him.
“Stay to the ground. Less smoke. And they will see less of us when we come out.”
“They?”
“You think this is one man?”
This section of the hall had only smoke, but the fire was running out of food and hungrier than ever. It jumped from stack to stack, and ate through papyrus and leather. A tower fell and shot flames through the smoke wall at us. We scrambled. I could not remember where to find the door. He grabbed my robe and pulled me again. We ran right, between two walls of books, then left, then right, and then what felt like north but I did not know. Mossi’s hand still gripped my robe. The heat was close enough that the hair on my skin burned. We reached the door. Mossi swung it open and jumped back before four arrows hit the floor.
“How far can you throw those?”
I grabbed the ax. “Far enough.”
“Good. Judging from how these arrows lean, they are on the roof to the right.”
He ran back into the smoke and came out with two books burning. He nodded to window, then pointed at the door. Don’t give them a chance to grab new arrows. He threw the books out the window and four arrows cut through the wind, two hitting the window. I ran, dropped, and rolled out the door, then jumped up, ax in hand, and threw it. As the ax spun towards the archers it curved, slicing one man’s throat and lodging in the other’s temple. I jumped into the dark and out of the path of two arrows. More arrows kept coming, some with flame, some with poison, like rainfall until it stopped.
The hall burned in every wall, every chamber, and a crowd started to gather in the street. No more archers waited on the roof. I slipped away from the crowd and ran around to the back of the building. Up on the roof Mossi wiped his sword on the skirt of a dead man and sheathed it. How he passed me I don’t know. Also this: On the roof lay four bodies, not two.
“I know what you will say. Don’t sa—”
“These men are prefects.”
He walked to the ledge and watched the blaze. “Two of them are dead,” he said.
“Are they not all dead?”
“Yes, but two were dead before we killed them. The fat one is Biza, the tall one Thwoko. Both have been missing for over ten and three moons, but nobody knew what happened to them. They—”
I heard them in the dark and knew what was happening. The dead men’s mouths tearing open. The rumbling and rattling from toes to head as if death came in fits. Even in the dark the ripples rose from their thighs, to belly, to chest and then flew out the mouth in a cloud inky as night, a cloud we could barely see, which swirled and then vanished in the air. Too many shadows to see, but I knew on the spin of cloud and dust formed wings, for we both heard the flutter. We both stood there, looking at each other, neither wanting to say anything first, anything that spoke of what we just saw.
“They will crumble to dust if you touch them,” I said.
“Then best not to touch them,” a man said, and I jumped. Mossi smiled.
“Mazambezi, was it the flames that drew you or you missed the smell of me?”
“Indeed, one lives with shit, one gets used to the perfume of it.”
Two more prefects climbed up on the roof, neither saying anything to Mossi, but both looking over at the fire and covering their mouths at the smoke that started drifting our way.
“What do we do when we watch our history burn?” Mazambezi said.
“Your words speak of such loss, Mazambezi. We shall fill a new hall,” Mossi said.
“How did it start, do you know?”
“Don’t you know? Your men—”
“Some men dressed as chieftain army,” Mossi said, interrupting me. “I saw them myself, fire arrows into the great hall. Maybe they are usurpers. Hurting us where it would hurt the most.”
“This too will need a record. And where shall we store them?” Mazambezi laughed.
“You must take a look at these men, Mazambezi, their whole bodies are racked by dark craft,” Mossi said, and looked at the bodies again. It flashed, catching the light of the fire, and I yelled.
“Mossi!”
He ducked just as Mazambezi’s sword sliced through the air right above his head. The duck made him stumble. One of the men drew a small bow and aimed at me. I dropped beside the body that had caught my ax in the skull. I tore it out as an arrow flew in and replaced it. I jumped up and flung my ax, which spun and blurred and struck him in the middle of his chest. Mazambezi and a prefect both fought Mossi with swords. Mazambezi charged at him, sword out straight like a spear. Mossi dodged and kicked him in the chest with his knees. Mazambezi elbowed him in the side; Mossi fell and spun out of the other prefect’s strike, which sparked lights on the ground. The prefect raised his sword again but Mossi swung from the ground and chopped off his foot. The prefect fell, screaming. Mossi jumped up and drove his sword down into the prefect’s chest. He paused, panting, and Mazambezi sliced right across his back. I jumped between them and swung my ax. His blade met my blade and the force knocked him clear across the floor. He rose, shocked, confused, Mossi jumped in between us.
“Enough with this madness, Mazambezi, you called yourself incorruptible.”
“You call yourself handsome, and yet I can’t see what the women see in you.”
Mossi held his sword up, as did Mazambezi, and circled as if to clash again. I jumped in between them.
“Tracker! He will—”
Mazambezi swung his sword a hair’s length from my face, and I caught the blade. It shocked the prefect. He pulled his sword to cut my fingers but drew no blood. Mazambezi stood there, stunned. Two swords went straight through his back and came out through his belly. Mossi yanked his swords back, and the prefect fell.
“I would ask how, but do I—”
“A Sangoma. An enchantment. He would have killed me with a wooden sword,” I said.
Mossi nodded, not accepting the answer, but not wanting to push for another one.
“More of them will come,” I said.
“Mazambezi was not like the others. He spoke.”