Gray frowned his lack of recognition. “Those are wolves?”
“Actually, the species is more related to hyenas than wolves,” Benjie said. “But these are massive.”
Benjie never took his gaze from those normally reclusive creatures. They typically subsisted on termites and other insects. But that was their smaller selves, not these two-hundred-pound brutes. Lips snarled, showing teeth meant for more than chewing on bugs.
All the while, the pack remained eerily silent.
The elder faced the largest of the group, a huge male. He offered a palm. The aardwolf edged forward and bumped a nose into that hand; then it shifted closer to brush a greeting. A thick bushy tail swept back and forth—but those unblinking eyes never left Benjie and the others.
The elder leaned to the beast. His lips moved silently. It reminded Benjie of Tucker with Kane, but he sensed something more intimate here, a bond far deeper and older. The beast bobbed its head once, gave a final graze of cheek to shoulder, then swung away. In a single bound, it vanished into the forest.
The old hunter followed after the aardwolf, drawing the rest of the party with him, both beasts and men. Benjie and the others remained standing in place—until the elder frowned back at them, clearly scolding them to keep up.
“He wants us to go with him,” Benjie realized.
Gray turned and waved Kowalski over. “Then that’s what we’ll do.”
Benjie briefly matched gazes with the elder. The small hairs on his neck shivered under the intensity of those dark eyes. In that moment, Benjie felt as if the entire jungle were staring back at him.
Worst of all, he suspected the truth.
Maybe it was.
6:04 A.M.
Gray hiked behind the hunters. Despite their diminutive size, the tribesmen moved swiftly through the forest, following a path known only to them. After a half hour, Gray was thoroughly lost.
Before abandoning the ATV, he had taken the precaution of pinging their location to mark the spot on his digital map. Still, as he searched behind them, he was uncertain if he could find his way back.
Benjie and Faraji—both sweating heavily—followed at his heels.
Kowalski hung farther off. He rested his Shuriken on his shoulder as he climbed through the jungle. The pygmies had not objected to them bringing their weapons or their packs. Then again, the tribespeople had plenty of protection. The wolves flanked to either side, invisible in the forest, only revealing themselves for the briefest snatches.
Despite the threat of those beasts, Gray took cold comfort in their presence. If the tribe worked alongside those altered wolves—especially a species so radically altered—they must have a history tied to the source of the virus.
Gray was counting on that.
They continued through a forest crowded by cliffs on all sides. Pin nacles of rock rose high enough to pierce the canopy. Boulders had to be vaulted over. What little of the skies could be seen had begun to brighten. The sun had yet to rise, but dawn approached.
As they hiked deeper, the forest remained hushed. There was no piping or screaming at their passage. Even the whine of mosquitoes had died away. The silence weighed on him. Each footfall felt like a trespass. He found himself holding his breath, afraid to further disturb the solitude.
Finally, they followed a dry stream bed that ran along the bottom of a deep ravine. Bluffs rose to either side, their sheer faces enshrouded by jungle. The bed of polished stone led them toward a towering cliff, one draped in wet ferns. It was only then that Gray realized the rock underfoot was not a dry stream, but the remains of an old road, broken by the passing centuries into a tumbled trail.
It ended at a huge crack in the rock face. The small hunters stopped and gathered between two familiar stone pillars that framed the entrance.
Benjie gasped at the sight, relief shining on his face as he stumbled forward. “We made it.”
Faraji’s features remained dour, turning a name into a curse. “Mfupa Ufalme.”
“This had better be worth all the blisters on my feet,” Kowalski griped.
Before they could approach closer, a dark shape burst out of the shadowy ravine. It was the huge aardwolf who had fled earlier. The beast rushed to the tribal elder and circled his form once, brushing close in greeting. There was no servility or deference to this gesture, only cold acknowledgment of the man’s return.
All eyes turned toward the entrance.
The aardwolf had not come alone. Drawn in his wake, another appeared. Taller by a foot, shaggy with age. The beast’s fur was gray, striped in darker shades, its muzzle snow-white. It padded from the shadows and stood guard.
A tall man appeared next, his skin dark, his cropped hair graying in age like the aardwolf. He carried a staff of polished white wood. He was Congolese, though Gray suspected the man bore no nationality or allegiances to borders or governments. Despite his age, his eyes shone clear as he gazed over the hunters to the newcomers.
He stepped past the aardwolf, thumping forward with his staff. He wore sandals and a simple brown robe embroidered in black, in a pattern of diamonds encased in arrows. Gray recognized the design. Faraji had called it mbul bwiin, a pattern limited to Kuba royalty. Across the man’s chest, an embroidered double knot folded in on itself, so intricate that it threatened to capture one’s gaze. Its curves and convolutions seemed to move on their own as the man shifted out of the shadows and stepped into the first light of a new day.
Gray knew this symbol, too, taught to them by Faraji. An imbol. It marked the presence of a king. This was reinforced by the circlet of gold atop the man’s head.
The hunters bowed, showing respect, but Gray sensed no subservience.
The king lifted an arm in greeting, his voice firm. Surprisingly, he spoke English with a slight British accent. “If you seek answers, follow me.” He turned around, but not before adding an admonition. “Yet, know this. You may be refused. She is angry—and most merciless.”
He headed off.
Gray glanced at the others. He had a thousand questions, but one burned the brightest now.
Who the hell is he talking about?
Fifth
23
April 25, 6:28 A.M. CAT
Ituri Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo
Gray followed behind the tall figure bearing the gold circlet, trying to comprehend who led them. The man’s bearing was regal, even when leaning on his staff. His gray curls formed a nimbus that supported his simple crown. The pattern on his robe shifted with each step, looking more like a dappling of shadows than embroidered thread.
As they continued along the chasm that cut between high cliffs, the king conversed softly with the older pygmy who had guided Gray’s group here.
To either side, the pair’s aardwolves paced them, brushing through the ferns fringing the gravel path, often vanishing completely out of sight. More wolves and the remaining pygmy hunters followed behind their group.
As they hiked, the cliffs to either side had slowly pulled back, allowing a thick forest to grow between them. A canopy crested over the trail, turning the path into a tunnel. Still, the foliage was thin enough to show peeks of a brightening morning. Occasionally the loose stones underfoot became solid rock cut into steps. The trail climbed slowly higher, leading them deeper into the labyrinth of this mountainous region. More pillars dotted the path, like ancient road markers. They grew taller as the march continued, looking quarried from the same rock as the cliffs.
“I think those were once the bases for arches,” Benjie whispered. He pointed to the next set of pillars. Their tops did seem to bend toward one another, but the spans between them had long crumbled away.
Gray nodded. He glanced back to where Kowalski and Faraji trailed them. He tried to picture a road of stone arches leading through this chasm.