Folio Two, Page Seven (svegra mos pyes)

Some deity had answered my prayer. In fact, it came roaring around the bend like thunder. Water splashed everywhere. Wild animals cried. I heard a chorus of predatory roars.

In the moments before the herd came, I looked up at the sky. “Thank you!”

Pulling away from the brambles proved more difficult than I thought. The tunic tore, leaving soiled blue fabric behind. I fell back into the mud but managed to keep my grip on the money. I wrapped it in a small leaf that I put in my mouth. A mameku reared. I jumped onto it and grabbed hold of its ridge horns. By some miracle, or perhaps the curvature of the horns, my hands held.

I turned my head and surveyed the stampede. Something awful could have chased the herd—the gnashing teeth and bony tentacles of an orobusa had given me nightmares ever since I saw my first one in a menagerie—but a pack of wild namkazya now followed us. It meant death for some members of the herd, but namkazya don’t eat humans even when we are killed by accident. Mamekya, like the one I rode, and pygmy daraigya are their choice meals.

One particularly stupid namkazë jumped up the side of the bank towards the police, who ran as fast as they could. Someone fired a shot that brought it down. Two other namkazya grouped the main herd, and four followed at a distance.

The mameku I rode, once at the forefront, slipped farther and farther back. Choosing to ride the animal had doomed it. It spent too much time trying to loosen me. My heart hammered in my chest; as if possessed, I kicked its side with my bare foot. The armored underbelly cut through my skin. My heel came away bloody. The mameku screamed and stampeded forward, lowering its head to push a pygmy daraiga aside.

On my left, I felt the brush of down, followed by a full bodyslam as a namkazë took my place on the mameku’s back. My knees skidded against the ground. The mameku tipped over; I let go and scampered backward.

The namkazë stared at me as it pawed through the animal’s thick flesh, only looking away when it delivered the killing blow. Arterial blood gushed up like a fountain, falling on my face and dripping down my chin. I couldn’t look away.

Something else brushed against me. I felt a paw push me down against the streambed. A namkazë tongue lapped at the blood on my face and neck. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to control my trembling body. After what seemed like a century, the pressure lifted.

While the pack feasted on my savior, I ran up the side of the bank and spat out the leaf filled with money. I did not look back.

During an interview, I made the mistake of relating the story. Someone took it from me and invented something horribly fantastical about me riding the namkazë from Kobsarka to Menarka, where it deposited me on my mother’s corpse.

That never happened. I rode the train just like anybody else.

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