Harry Turtledove - Reincarnations

Where Tshingana had danced before, he sang now. If he could keep his herd headed in the direction the elephants were going, their huge feet would erase the tracks of the cattle. The men and boys from the kraal might never catch up to him! What sort of triumph would be foretold by his triumphant return home after they all gave up?

He shouted to the cattle, smacked a couple with his assegai. They had to move quickly now, to stay ahead of the elephants, and move in a tighter body than usual, too, so no stragglers’ hoofprints would let his pursuers pick up the trail.

The cattle complained, but they were used to obeying herdboys. They would do what Tshingana wanted, at least for a while. The elephants were faster than they were, so eventually he would have to get out of the way. But not yet, he thought. Not yet.

Tshingana sang louder. Things were going better than he had ever dared hope. Even the elephants were cooperating, walking a fairly straight path that was easy to anticipate. They would hide the herd as a witch-doctor’s mask hid his face while he was smelling out an umThakathi.

Just as Tshingana was starting to feel like a great chief (or as he imagined a great chief might feel), everything came apart at once. The elephants were about a quarter of a mile behind the cattle when Tshingana heard a low, rumbling roar that jabbed twin spears of ice into the small of his back.

The elephants’ trunks went straight up into the air; their great fanlike ears stood away from their bodies. First one, then another, trumpeted the high shrill cry that meant danger.

The moso roared again. Tshingana partly heard that roar, partly felt it with some ancient part of his body that seemed specially made for knowing terror. He remembered what Uhamu and Ndogeni had said about the moso’s roar. He had thought they were exaggerating. He thought so no longer. The moso’s roar made him afraid, in the most bowel-loosening literal sense of the word.

The elephants were terrified too. They scattered in panic, running every which way. The ground shook under Tshingana’s feet. The moso bounded after a cow elephant who fled with her ridiculous fly-whisk tail straight out behind her. With its bulk, the moso was not as fast as a lion, but it was faster than any elephant. Tshingana watched the great muscles ripple under its striped hide as it slammed into the cow.

Like a lion that had seized a gnu, the moso tried to drag the elephant off its feet. Its claw scored the cow’s thick hide, leaving behind dripping lines of red. The elephant’s screams grew even more frantic. The moso roared and bit, roared and bit.,

Finally the moso pulled the elephant down. Tshingana heard the thud of that huge body slamming to the ground. Forgetting his own safety, he ran closer. He wanted to watch this greatest of all kills. Through the dust the other elephants had kicked up, through the cloud that surrounded the fallen female, it wasn’t easy.

Even down, the female kept fighting, striking out with her big round feet at the moso, which clawed her belly like a wild cat ripping the guts out of a squirrel. Blood was everywhere now, on the elephant, on the ground, ‘all over the moso. The moso was biting as well as clawing, trying to get a grip under the elephant’s chin and throttle it.

Then, unexpectedly, the moso’s roar rose to a shriek that made Tshingana stuff fingers in his ears. The cow elephant, still screaming itself, scrambled up onto its feet and lurched away. The moso slapped at it with a barbed foot as it escaped, took two or three shambling steps after it, and stopped. After a moment, Tshingana saw why: in the struggle, the elephant’s bulk had crushed one of its hind legs.

The moso shrieked again, fury and torment mingled. Tshingana’s flesh prickled. He was not used to feeling empathy for animals, but he did now, for the moso. A three-legged cat was as useless as a one-legged man-and no one would provide for the moso, as clansfolk might for a cripple.

However beasts know things, the moso must have known it was doomed. It sank back on its haunches, methodically licked the blood from its flanks and belly. It licked its ruined leg too, then let out a snort that said as clearly as words that it knew it would do no good.

But while the moso lived, it would try to keep on living. It snorted again, this time, Tshingana judged, in pain, as it got up. Only three legs touched the ground. Its enormous head swung back and forth, finally stopping, to his horror, on him. The moso growled, and that growl brought on the same freezing fear as its roar. It limped toward him-if it could not hunt elephants any more, smaller prey would have to do.

Tshingana fled. The moso came after him. For the first time, he wished his clansfolk had caught him hours ago. But he had done too good a job of hiding. He was on his own-he was a man. He wished-oh, how he wished!-he were a herdboy again.

He looked back over his shoulder at the moso, tripped over a root, and fell on his face. Thorns scratched his chest and arms. The shock and pain of the fall helped clear the panic from his head. His wits were working once more as he jumped up.

The moso still limped after him, remorseless as death. But Tshingana was faster now, and could change directions far more nimbly. If he kept his head, he was safe.

Safe, suddenly, was not enough. Instead of running, Tshingana danced toward to the moso. Its baleful yellow eyes followed him as it tried to turn to keep itself facing him. Had it roared, its fear would have made him run again. But it was silent, panting, watching to see what he would do.

He slipped round till it presented its left flank to him. There, he thought-just behind that stripe. That was where the assegai would have to go in. From ten or fifteen yards, he threw the spear. Then, weaponless, he fled in good earnest.

The moso screamed, a cry so loud and terrible he thought for a dreadful instant it was coming hard after him. But when he looked around, he saw it writhing on the ground, batting at the assegai with a forepaw. Each time it touched the shaft, it drove the point deeper into its side and screamed again.

Tshingana saw his cast, his first with a man’s spear, had not been perfect. The assegai was sunk into a brown stripe, not the lighter fur in front of it for which he had aimed. The moso was making up for it, though; its frantic efforts to dislodge the spear simply stirred it through the beasts’ vitals. At last it must have pierced the heart. The moso gave a convulsive shudder and lay still.

Tshingana looked around and gasped in dismay. The moso had made him commit the herder’s ultimate sin-however briefly, he’d forgotten about his cattle. As cattle will, they had taken advantage of his inattention and were happily scattering themselves over the savannah.

He dashed after them, shouting and waving his arms. Rather grumpily, they acquiesced in being regathered into a tight knot-all but one, an old white cow with a crumpled horn that delighted in making herdboys’ lives miserable.

After spearing a moso, Tshingana was not about to let a cow intimidate him. He screamed in its ears and threw clods of dirt at it. It lowed mournfully, baffled that its usual tactics were failing. Tshingana slapped it on the nose. Utterly defeated, it went back to the herd.

Tshingana cautiously went back to where the moso lay. Its eyes were glazed now; its flanks did not move. Blood ran from its mouth. Tshingana was sure it was dead… but not sure enough to risk getting in range of those dreadful claws. He picked up a long stick, prodded the end of the spearshaft with it.

Only when the great cat still did not move did Tshingana dare to reach for the assegai. Just as his fingers closed round it, he heard a shout, thin in the distance: "I see you, half-brother of mine, you worthless clump of cow dung!"