“Need something quicker than horses,” I say.
We in the sky quicker than a loose thought. Me and a sentry on the back of a ninki nanka. Wind (not wind) take me up in the sky all the time, and more than one time I leap over an entire forest, but wind rush by so fast on this dragon’s back that it take me out of why we was in the air. And the air colder than the white dirt and solid water up in the mountains, and wind whipping past quick and forceful as a storm. Open my eyes too wide and the wind blast the tears out of them. I grab on to the sentry tighter than I would like, but she don’t notice. Underneath us muscles more powerful than an elephant or rhinoceros and scales trapping the last orange of the sunset. The ninki nanka shriek. The sentry grip the reins tighter, which the beast take as command to flap her wings and rise higher into colder sky. Over her shoulder I see the dragon’s impossible neck and the thick ridge of scales leading all the way to her head full of horns. She snort and black smoke leave her nose. Behind me, her tail stretching far back, whipping in the air. I want to stay in the air on this fantastic beast’s back, and the voice in my head is telling me that I would if not for the reason why we flying in the first place. I want to ask the sentry if she ever get used to this, flying so light on the mighty back of one so heavy, and I would if not for the reason why we flying in the first place. I was about to say that we need to be lower when dip the ninki nanka do and I try not to scream as we go lower and lower and lower until we less than two men high above ground and rustling up dust. It’s only one trail, and some parts barely wide enough for a small wagon. And every fabric, skin, and wool in Mantha is white so she will never be one with the dim or the dark.
“I don’t see her,” I say.
“Leave it to Ningiri,” say the sentry. “She see heat, especially in prey.”
What I was going to say next I leave stuck in my throat. We almost touching the ground now, but dashing so fast that ground, rock, and mist blur. Ninki nanka shriek again. I grab the sentry tighter, right before the dragon rise, spin twice, spread twice, then dash down a small valley. There we see the one named Lethabo, running wild, then trying to hide by a tall rock. The sentry pull reins the way one would with a horse and the dragon flap her wings to stop. Lethabo try to run again, but ninki nanka blast a stream of flame in her way.
“Where is the bird?” I yell down to her on the ground.
“Take off and gone,” she yell back. “You hear me? Take off and gone.”
“To who?”
“If I was so the fool he wouldn’t send me.”
“Bigger fool than you know not to say he. So who is he?”
She purse her lips and look away like that is all that will be said on the matter. I nod at the sentry and the ninki nanka approach her. She scramble backways and stumble on the ground. The dragon lower her head right in front of Lethabo and shriek so loud that it blow her clothes like wind. Lethabo scream. The ninki nanka puff a small flame in her face. She scream again.
“Two elder send me. They behind everything, even the name.”
“You not Lethabo.”
“Which mother ever name a daughter so? They guess that the regent would think whoever name me never want me. She drawn to them kind of woman.”
“First a he, then a two, now a they. Talk, woman, or she going start with burning off your hands first.”
The ninki nanka purr. She understand me. And now she expecting supper. She approach Lethabo again.
“Move it from me!”
“She look like anybody moving her?”
“The bird long gone. Nothing you can do about it now.”
“But still there is something you can do. I not asking again.”
“One of them was some fat man name Belekun. The other don’t say nothing. He don’t look like an elder now that I think about it. More like a warrior. Black robes, no blue, no blue and black. He make the fat one nervous. Is the black one who give me the crow. And say if I see any strangeness from the woman you call princess to release the bird.”
“With no message?”
“If they did want message they would done send a woman who can read and write.”
“Strangeness, eh?”
“You know anything stranger than a nun with big belly in front of her?”
“You lying.”
“Me going lie with . . . with that thing looking me down?”
“Strangeness could mean anything. They would expect more. You use word or glyph?”
“I say—”
“A crow will get to Fasisi before the end of the night. Go on like this you won’t live to see it.”
“I draw a stick! A stick with a belly and a dot in it.”
The Aesi. Perhaps. But if not him then who else? ask the voice that sound like me. How we get this far not assuming that behind him must be a legion? Eyes and ears, and nose everywhere, even beyond the so-called sacred hymen of Mantha.
“The whole of you good. I almost did think that she just stop move with the rest of we because she remember that her blood richer. Is not until she start to birth-bawl that I know.”
Nothing left to learn from this one, but she is just beginning to talk. And so she go on, about what a simple life she used to have as a thief before this fat monk smelling of rape come to her with a black robed man smelling of murder. And she, just a thief. All she want now is to stay out of whatever is going on with all involved and whatever wahala going burst loose.
“I don’t even know this woman name. I don’t—”
She didn’t see me nod at the ninki nanka. He spit a blast of flames that roast her faster than she could scream. Then she eat her own cooking.
* * *
—
So here is the plan. The boy we send with Nsaka to Basu Fumanguru, who two days after we release the pigeon respond by secret women’s drum to come, come now. But if our pigeon can reach Kongor in two days, theirs will reach Fasisi in one. The princess we escorting to Dolingo, the independent land of blue-skin people, that is not under the Fasisi King’s dominion, though he love to say so. She is a supporter of the cause, the Queen of Dolingo, Nsaka say. We will be women together, she say in a message sent two moons ago with the Bultungi, shapeshifting hyenas of the Forest Lands. Only two other realms have a Queen, and neither of them is like Dolingo, which even I in a southern bush hear legends and rumors of the new domain built there. A giant land with a citadel sitting on top of giant trees and all sort of caravans, wagons, carts, doors, ladders, hatches, baths, and windows that operate by their own.
“I hear that is more than a moon to get to Dolingo. She in enough danger already.”
“By land it is, but you going by river,” Nsaka say.
“That is still too long to stay hid. Crows fly every sky and pigeon too.”
“We not going the whole way by river, Sogolon,” Bunshi say. “Chipfalambula will take us down lower Ubangta, until we reach Mitu.”
“You didn’t hear me? By land too long and too dangerous.”