Blood Hunter: An Urban Fantasy Vampire Hunting Novel
Date: 2020-07-14 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy
Description: Vampires took everything from me… Now, all I have left is the path. My name is Guy Mgebe. The Empire was meant to protect us, but they left us at the mercy of vampires. They killed my family. They sacked my village. They left me nothing. Nothing but the Path. To avenge my people, I will need to become so much more. I must forsake all that makes me weak. All that stands in the way of my purpose. Even if it means embracing a half-life… I am Umzingeli wegazi. An outcast. A rogue. A killer. A Blood Hunter. Blood Hunter is an action-packed urban fantasy novel set in the Katverse, the epic modern fa
Publisher: Independently published

Blood Hunter

A Kat Drummond Universe Novel

Nicholas Woode-Smith

Copyright © 2020

Kat Drummond

All rights reserved

This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher and the copyright owner.

Cover Design By: Richard Smith, RedZone

Website: https://nicholaswoodesmith.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nickwoodesmith/

Newsletter: https://nicholaswoodesmith.com/newsletter/

Part 1

Chapter 1.              Manhood

This story begins when my world ends.

I stood shivering in the cold darkness of a Transkei winter night, covered in nothing but a scratchy white and red blanket and my underwear. All the other boys and I, our skin painted white, had long since stopped pretending that we weren’t freezing our negligible chest hairs off. We had been lining up for hours, but what seemed like epochs, as we feverishly awaited our turns.

I was wracked with anticipation, impatience and excitement, but also with overwhelming panic as my turn slowly approached.

Our bodies had grown numb to the chill, and our eyes accustomed to the darkness, even as our lids drooped shut. But, despite our collective exhaustion, the air around the little hut, under the silver light of the moon, buzzed with eagerness and fear. The air was acrid with cold sweat.

I stared towards the moon, contemplating it. Friends, most of them cousins of sorts, milled in front of me, joking, talking, and calling the bravery of one another into question. Those who spoke the loudest, I expect, were the most afraid of all.

Every so often, screams erupted from the hut, our only source of light besides the moon. We were too far from Mqanduli, my home, to be bathed in the warm glow of firelight and the occasional electric bulb. We had to persist with only the light of the moon and the cracks of a gas lamp seeping out of the somagwaza’s round, thatch-roofed hut.

I was no longer startled by these screams, grunts of pain and cursing. They had been persisting all night and had become as constant as the unceasing cold.

The line dwindled in front of me and I watched as a boy from a nearby homestead limped out of the hut, clutching his crotch. Two older boys slapped him on the back, congratulating him.

He was now a man. Or, at least, had started his path to manhood.

I was quiet, even as the boys in front of me chattered away. Perhaps, they spoke to distract themselves from the chill? More likely, it was to keep their minds away from thoughts of the somagwaza’s knife.

“Little Guy,” one of the boys called, pulling me away from my contemplation of the moon.

I looked at the boy. His name was Wisdom. Some people personified the name they had been given at birth. But Wisdom had never demonstrated any propensity for wise sayings, or even an ability to learn from his past experiences. He was rash. Impulsive. A thrill-seeker and a wise-crack. Nine out of ten times that I’d been thrashed for misbehaving, it had been Wisdom’s idea.

“Don’t be frightened,” Wisdom jabbed, an unwavering juvenile grin on his face. “I hear the somagwaza is only drunk for half of his circumcisions. Worst case, he’ll just take a little extra off the top.”

Wisdom laughed at his joke. I did not. I seldom laughed with the other boys. Not that I didn’t find the jokes, often at my expense, funny. More often, my mind was elsewhere. Tonight, it was on the moon.

A hand gripped my shoulder and Wisdom stopped laughing.

“Ulwaluko is a sacred ritual,” Themba said, sternly, as he squeezed my shoulder reassuringly. He was a few years older than I was. A cousin of a relative far removed, as was often the case in tight-knit villages. I was a single child, however. One of the few. And Themba had been an older brother to me since I was aware enough of my existence to acknowledge him.

“Just helping Little Guy with his nerves,” Wisdom said, grinning, but not as strongly as before.

Themba and Wisdom weren’t enemies, but tonight Themba held an assegai in his right hand. It was steel, with its arm-length handle fused into the sharp, leaf shaped blade. I could barely see his short black hair in the darkness. He was dressed like the rest of us, with barely any clothes on, even though he had gone through initiation before. Perhaps, it was to show solidarity.

Themba, like many of the other young men who had already completed Ulwaluko – initiation – were standing guard around the somagwaza’s hut. They didn’t stand guard against criminals or delinquents. No Xhosa would intervene in such a sacred ritual.

For tonight, the boys of the village were to start the path to becoming men. It would begin with the somagwaza, a wise elder, performing a circumcision on each boy. After that, I and all the others would be isolated, where we would learn how to be Xhosa men. When we returned to our families, we would have the right to lead our country, to fight for it, and to marry.

I wasn’t worried about anyone from the village interfering. If there was any worry, it was that the beasts hidden within the darkness had no respect for our customs. Themba’s job was to keep them at bay.

“He will not be little for much longer,” Themba said, smiling. “You are both to become men. I trust that means fewer pranks?”

Wisdom seemed disappointed by that, but I nodded.

Themba patted me on the back, before leaning down to whisper in my ear.

“It really isn’t too bad. And think about what happens afterwards. Any girl you’ve got your eye on?”

My cheeks warmed as Themba laughed, walking back into the darkness.

“Wisdom Ngobe,” the somagwaza’s assistant called, as a boy hastily exited, gripping his crotch and wincing.

Wisdom stood up straight, like a buck caught in headlights, and stiffly entered the hut.

I was alone in the queue. The last one left. Boys who had already gone through their ordeal chatted with one another or remained in solemn silence. None of them paid me any mind. Hours before, we had been friends. Peers. But now…there was a world between us. Men did not live in the realm of children, and we were no longer peers.

But not for long. For tonight I was to become a man.

Perhaps it was time I found a girl to like?

Wisdom entered the hut and, despite all his insistence that he would not scream, he let out a wail and a sob. One of the boys who had recovered, at least a bit, from his surgery looked at me and nodded, encouragingly.

It won’t be too bad, I told myself. And think about what happens afterwards.

My life begins tonight.

Wisdom limped out of the hut as his comrades cheered his arrival. Some heads spun towards me. It was my turn.

“Guy Mgebe,” the assistant called.

I took a step forward and, as my foot hit the dirt, there was a boom of thunder.

No, not thunder.

Some boys shot upright, eyes wide. Some winced as they aggravated their raw groins.

“It’s just the Impundulu,” Wisdom called, waving at the boom dismissively. “The Lightning Bird can’t hurt us now that we’re men. And the rain can’t either.”

“That’s not thunder, Wisdom,” Thabo muttered, peering into the dark, in the direction of the village.

The door to the hut was ajar and the somagwaza was standing next to his assistant. He was an elderly man, with a long grey beard. He wore a Red Cross emblem around his neck. My mother said that he had trained with the mages in Hope City. It’s why his circumcisions were never botched. He had healing hands.

“What is it, boys?” the somagwaza yelled, directed at the guards around the hut. Despite initiation, they would always be boys to him.

Another boom. This time closer. Crackling, and what was that smell on the wind?

My eyes widened. Fire.

Rapid footfalls pattered in the darkness, coming towards us. The already circumcised huddled by the hut wall, as I stood in the open, looking into the shadows.

I realised I’d been holding my breath as Themba appeared, his sweat glistening in the moonlight. I’d never seen his eyes so wide.

“What is it, Themba?” the somagwaza asked.

“Impi!” Themba announced, and I could practically hear the panic rising among the group.

“What are imperial soldiers doing here?” the somagwaza asked, his voice calm. He’d been alive for too long to be afraid of some soldiers. Even if the idea of Zulu troops making bangs this far into the Transkei made me shudder.

“I don’t know, sir,” Themba replied. “But there is orange light coming from the village.”

“They’re burning Mqanduli?!” a boy cried. “We have to fight them!”

The somagwaza smacked him on the back side of the head.

“Don’t be foolish! You think that just because you lack a foreskin, you’re ready to fight impi? The Zulu defeated the old South African Empire; they rule these lands. We raise our fists to them, and we die. You understand?”

The boy bit his lower lip, on the verge of sobbing, but then nodded.

Another older boy, carrying a longer assegai meant for throwing, jogged towards us, skidding to a halt.

“Casspir! Armoured car with impi all over it coming up the road.”

The somagwaza’s expression wilted and, for a second, I thought I saw fear in his eyes.

“Everyone get behind me!” he ordered. “Drop your knobkerries and assegais. Don’t give them a reason to think we’re resisting.”

“But the ritual…” Themba insisted, glancing worriedly at me.

“The ritual will have to wait!”

I shrugged to Themba. “I’ve waited this long. I can wait longer.”

“Good lad,” the somagwaza said, accepting a walking stick from his assistant as he shakily advanced ahead of the group.

Themba smiled, nervously, as if to reassure me. But I could not help but spot the anxious sweat forming on his brow.

An engine louder than any vehicle I had heard before revved and boomed in the night. It approached, growing louder and louder. Branches snapped and foliage was torn up into the massive tyres of the armoured car as it surged towards the small hut in the dark.

I heard shouting in Zulu over the cacophony of the mechanical beast they rode. The language was similar to Xhosa. I could understand a lot of it. But, in its similarity, it was also so different.

“We should hide,” the somagwaza’s assistant whispered.

“And live in the veld?” the somagwaza whispered back. “No, we must trust in the Empire. They are meant to protect us. It is the only way.”

A khaki monstrosity, covered in red and black patterns and adorned with a cowhide shield on the front bumper, screeched to a halt, its headlights illuminating the huddled group. I squinted into the light, the silhouette of the somagwaza blocking my view as he shambled forward, one foot at a time.

Metal doors hummed mechanically as they were shoved open. Heavy boots hit the sand and dark figures made a crescent formation, facing inwards towards the hut and the group.

Faintly, I could see the outline of assegai bayonets, protruding underneath the barrels of rifles. The features of the men who carried these weapons were obscured by the darkness and the intense white headlights. They seemed inhuman.

Impi. The Zulu warriors who kept the Empire safe. The men who had liberated so much of Southern Africa from monsters and oppressors.

I had heard of them. Everyone had. But seldom had I seen any outside of the local garrison, who had basically come to be treated like fellow Xhosa.

“Impi,” the somagwaza called, holding out his hands diplomatically. “These boys are on the path of Ulwaluko. It is important that their initiation not be disturbed.”

It happened in a flash. An obscured figure strode towards the elderly man and belted him across the face. The somagwaza toppled, falling to the ground.

Themba took a step forward but the clicks of firearms stopped him.

I stared at my cousin. He was biting down so hard that I feared his teeth would shatter.

“Dlamini,” the impi who had assaulted the somagwaza called. My vision adjusted to the light levels and I recognised one of the impi from the local garrison approach the man I presumed to be a sergeant. He wore a copper assegai head on his lapel. A medal.

Dlamini saluted, holding his right fist into the air, his elbow bent. Both his and the sergeant’s shoulder badges were black and white, but the patterns were different.

The sergeant indicated the somagwaza, groaning on the ground.

“Is this the sorcerer, impi?”

“Yes, sir. But he…he’s just a healer. And an elder. He’s important to the village…”

“Do not talk back to a superior, impi!” the sergeant yelled.

The sergeant reached for his side, drawing out a revolver. I was almost knocked over as the assistant barrelled past me, startling the sergeant as he put himself over the prone elderly man.

“He’s not a rebel!” the assistant begged. “He’s guiding these boys to manhood. He’s important!”

The sergeant peered at the group of boys. I felt his eyes rest on me for a second. Especially at the white paint adorning my skin.

“Get him off,” the sergeant ordered.

“No!” the assistant pleaded, as two impi pulled him off the somagwaza, who stared calmly at the barrel of the gun.

“Dlamini, read the edict,” the sergeant said, coldly.

Dlamini, hands shaking, unfolded a thick paper scroll.

“The Honourable and Glorious Emperor…” Dlamini’s teeth chattered as he spoke. He was wearing a full uniform yet seemed colder than the almost naked boys. “Emperor Ukuhleleka II decrees that all neutral and enemy mages in active combat zones must be eliminated. Only Zulu mages are to practice magic.”

“Active combat zone?” the somagwaza asked. “We are a peaceful village, loyal to the Empire.”

“You are a rebel village, leaching off the Emperor’s generosity. Any last words, sorcerer?”

The somagwaza’s gaze did not falter. There was no fear. But, alongside the acceptance in the somagwaza’s unwavering stare, I saw something else. Defiance.

“Fire your weapon, impi,” he said, simply. “War is all you know. So, I cannot judge you too harshly.”

My heart skipped a beat and my ears rang as the sergeant fired.

I had never seen a man die before. The somagwaza’s blood pooled onto the sand, painting it red. Silence fell. Themba’s mouth hung agape. Tears streamed down Wisdom’s face. I smelled urine.

The moon had been so bright tonight. The night so quiet. I wanted to remember the chill and the anticipation. Anything but the red seeping from the somagwaza’s head.

The sergeant holstered his smoking gun and turned towards the group.

“Form rows. Get behind the casspir. We’re marching back to your village.”

Chapter 2.              Night Walk

It didn’t seem real. Even now. I turned to Themba, anticipating that I would need to stop him from charging the armed impi. But my passionate, hot-headed cousin stood limply. His assegai had already been collected by an impi, from its spot on the floor.

“You won’t need these blades tonight,” Dlamini said, his voice trying to be reassuring as he spoke to one of the older boys. “None of the monsters will come close to Mqanduli while the impi are here.”

Why did that not reassure me?

The sergeant stepped back into the casspir and the driver manoeuvred the armoured car back the way it had come. The impi formed us into two rows behind the car, with two impi guarding the rear and two on either side of the procession.

“Ready?” the sergeant shouted. His tone hadn’t changed. It was like he hadn’t killed a man this night.

Maybe he felt what I did? A disbelieving numbness. Would he wake up later tonight with shakes? Or would he sleep soundly?

What was I going to do?

Someone bumped into me and I awoke from my reverie, realising the procession was starting to march. An impi glared at me, but I picked up the pace before he could have any excuse to yell. Or worse.

The armoured car crawled slowly along the dirt road, like the head of a snake leading its serpentine body. Impi shone flashlights into the darkness, revealing sparse bushes.

“Where are they taking us?” Wisdom whispered to me. There was no hint of his previous joviality.

“Back home,” I whispered back. But I wasn’t sure I was correct. But there was only one road, and it led to Mqanduli. We had to trust the sergeant’s word. At least this time.

The armoured car flicked up dirt and gravel as it drove. I was thankful to not be up front. I looked up as I put one foot ahead of the next. The night was quiet, and the trees covered the moon and stars. Despite the flashlights of the impi, the darkness hemmed us in. Like ink seeping onto a page. It seemed alive. I felt eyes watching. And, by the furtive movements of the impi, I guessed they felt the same.

“Why can’t we ride in the car?” a young impi whispered, his eyes and flashlight darting across shadowed shrubs and trees.

“There’s not enough space. You know that. We have to watch this lot. Make sure they don’t run.”

“Let them run,” he whispered, his voice even lower, but I had good hearing.

I peered at the tree copse, wishing for the silver of the moon but, as the trees broke, I was met with a red sky. Rain, and the reflection of fire.

“Mqanduli,” Wisdom whispered, disbelieving. “It’s burning…”

It was on the horizon but, in the inky black ocean of fields, we could see the unmistakable glow of firelight. Too much to be controlled.

My heart stopped.

My home. My family…

I wanted to run ahead. To go hurtling through the blackness to save the closest one to me. I imagined myself disappearing into the dark. I could outpace this dreadfully slow column.

But I didn’t move.

I looked at my hands, painted white.

I was meant to be on the path to manhood by now.

But I was still a boy.

A drop of rain fell, pelting into my hand and washing off the white paint, revealing my dark skin beneath. More water droplets pelted down, soon coming in droves. A flash. Followed by a boom, as real lightning and thunder rose.

In seconds, we were drenched.

“We must go inside!” Themba shouted to the impi, a bit of his shell shock disappearing. “The Impundulu will strike us and drink our blood if we stay outside.”

The impi closest to him only laughed. His sodden friend wasn’t too amused.

“We’re used to bloodsuckers. Don’t fear the storm or the lightning bird. You’ll have a roof over your heads soon.”

These men didn’t seem afraid of the Impundulu. Foolishness! Many shepherds and herdsmen had lost their flocks and herds because they’d refused to bring their charges in for the night. The lightning bird had drained them dry, using their blood to power the storms.

The Xhosa boys looked at the Zulu impi sceptically. They had to know of Impundulu. My mother had told me once that, when she was a child, the bird was just a myth. But, after the rifts opened, the storms became much more menacing. I peered into the horizon, towards a bolt of lightning, impacting the ground far away.

The Xhosa boys huddled closer. Themba stood between me and the impi.

“Do not be frightened,” he whispered. “Commander Bhengani is a good man. He will set things straight.”

I didn’t stop staring into the darkness, averting my eyes from the fires of my home.

“I’m not afraid of the impi,” I whispered. “I’m afraid of what’s in the dark.”

Themba inclined his head towards the impi. They weren’t chatting as they were before. The procession moved at a ponderous pace and trudging along became harder as the dirt turned to mud. At least there were no thorns. We all had had to leave our shoes back in Mqanduli.

“They are as well,” Themba said. He nodded towards an impi that could have only been a year or two older than I was. He was muttering a prayer, to the Christian God, to Unkulunkulu or to his ancestors, I did not know. But his knuckles were tense and his finger rested anxiously on the trigger of his rifle.

The impi behind him put something in his mouth and chewed, hastily. He spat a globule of red goo towards the darkness, just as another bolt of lightning struck, illuminating the frightened faces of the drenched convoy.

“He curses the enemy,” Themba explained.

“What enemy?” Wisdom asked, eavesdropping. “There’s nothing there.”

“Nothing there that we can see,” I corrected.

Wisdom audibly gulped and fell back in line.

I caught Themba’s concerned gaze as I looked back towards the darkness.

There was something there. Something even the impi feared. Did I? I wasn’t sure.

I felt eyes upon me as we marched through the mud and torrents, until finally we felt the heat of a village on fire.

Not all of Mqanduli burned, but sufficient houses were ablaze that the village was lit up with a violent orange glow. Casspirs and buffels were parked haphazardly around the village, and impi grappled men and women. There were more dead on the ground. I didn’t look at their faces. I didn’t want to look at their faces. I knew almost everyone in Mqanduli.

“Mama!” one of the boys screamed, dashing towards a woman lying in a heap by a burning hovel. An impi clubbed him in the stomach with the butt of his rifle and the boy fell to the ground, sobbing and gagging.

The air smelled like burning rubber, timber and flesh. Like someone had overcooked meat on the fire.

“Why?” Themba muttered, his eyes wide. Disbelieving, as he watched impi direct a group of people we knew to a wall, where they were searched. Thoroughly. An impi groped one of the women in the group and her husband raised his voice. The impi beat him till he fell to the ground.

Everyone in the procession looked around hastily, trying to find family members or friends. I did not. I didn’t want to check. There was too much blood. Too much death. I didn’t want to know who had died.

I clenched my fists and looked straight, at the bumper of the casspir, slowly pulling into the town square.

Why? I asked myself. Why do this? We were a small village. A loyal village. We paid our taxes, reported malcontents. Mqanduli auxiliaries even served to assault the Three Point Line in the last Glorious Reunification War. They had all died, but they had died for the Empire!

Why burn our homes? Why burn my home?

I wanted to feel rage at what they had done. But it was too sudden. The somagwaza’s head oozing blood and brain matter. The chill numbing me to my bones. And the corpses…

I was not even one step down the path to manhood. How could I understand this? How could I cope?

I looked up to Themba. But, despite being older, he was only muttering to himself, equally disbelieving.

“Commander Bhengani will save us. He’s a good man. He has his reasons. He’ll save us.”

The convoy pulled into the town square, where a group of older impi with scars and wrinkles stood at attention, surrounding a younger officer standing on top of a casspir. While the soldiers with us had black outlined shields on their arms, these older men had white outlines, and many wore necklaces with monster horns and burnt wood. These were killers. Veterans. The White Impi. They would lead the assault on the Magocracy to the north or over the Three Point Line to the west.

But, why then were they here? We were a part of the Empire. Why attack us? Why were they burning my home?

The officer spoke into a megaphone, with the exasperated tone of one who was repeating a message for the umpteenth time.

“For crimes against the Emperor and the harbouring of separatists, the settlement of Mqanduli will be put under the protection of Nkosi Kuzalwa Igazi of the Izingane Zegazi.”

I didn’t hear the rest of the proclamation. All I heard was buzzing. The numbness disappeared, and all I could hear was the drumming of my own heart, and the thousand buzzing of bees.

The Izingane Zegazi. Children of Blood.

Vampires.

Chapter 3.              Fires

Vampires?! Here! I had grown up learning about vampires. But, they had all been far away. Besides the Impundulu and the occasional nightkin, we didn’t get blood-drinkers near Mqanduli. But, I knew that the Empire had vampires among them. They were infamous.

The Izingane Zegazi. A bloodline of vampiric warlords, answerable to no one but that Zulu Emperor himself. And if rumours were to be believed, not even him.

Wisdom told stories about them to scare me. Sure, I’d known they were real. There were towns owned by them all along the western border. But those were military zones, meant to stand against the invaders from Hope City.

Why, then, were they here?

Wisdom shoved me forward, and my senses were suddenly overwhelmed with the smell of burning and the orange haze of fire. The march hadn’t stopped, even if I had been stunned by the realisation that my village had been given to vampires.

I bit my lower lip, tasting blood, as I put one foot ahead of the other. My village was hot. Too hot. I had begun to miss the chill of the night already. Anything but this…

“Please! Don’t! My baby!” a woman screamed, flailing at two impis as a third dragged away a boy of barely five. He was another cousin. Abongile. I’d looked after him on occasion. He liked cows. And now he was being dragged away by an impi, screaming and reaching out for his mother.

I felt shame then. Because I did not even consider helping. How could I? Impi all around. Fire. Armoured cars. And…vampires.

I had no chance.

But I didn’t even contemplate it.

What did that make me?

I looked to Themba, expecting rage in his eyes. He had always been the hero. The one who defended the herd from bandits and zombies. He’d wanted to be an impi. Perhaps…not anymore.

Themba’s eyes were dull. Greyed out. The eyes of a man who’d seen too much in too little time.

“Themba,” I whispered, just to break him out of his reverie. Some life returned to his eyes and he looked at me, wincing as we heard the crack of a gunshot.

“Will we see our parents again?” I asked.

I wanted to hit myself for asking it. And for the sob in my voice. But…I couldn’t just leave it. I couldn’t leave her…she was all I had left.

Themba just stared at me, and I saw moisture in his eyes, glistening in the firelight. He looked away and I felt my heart sting.

“Where are you taking us?” a boy from an outlying homestead asked one of the impis. I expected him to get belted in response, but the impi didn’t sound angry when he spoke.

“You’re safe. We’re taking you to where you’ll be fed and warmed,” the impi said, and was that concern in his eyes? Guilt?

I didn’t sense a lie, but I couldn’t help but feel the acidic and burning sensation of rage rising within me.

Safe?! He comes into my home, slaughters my people, and then feels bad for us?

I didn’t want safety, I realised. I wanted answers. I needed them. And I needed to make these impi pay.

That’s when I saw them. My rage ebbed away like ice melting in a microwave, and all my instincts told me to run. To flee. To hide. Anything but face this creature.

They wore black leather coats adorned with Nguni patterns, dominantly in red and black. Their hair was natural. Curly. No weaves or wigs. And they were impeccably youthful. Their eyes were the colour of blood.

In a way, they were human. Too human. And they were the most terrifying things I had ever seen.

They stood outside the husk of the old shebeen. A woman and man stood with hands in their pockets, looking bored, while a coal-dark man with a short black goatee spoke to an impi officer. The man was so eerily human that it made his red eyes even starker. And he exuded a menace that was indescribable. I felt like a zebra faced with a lion just looking at him.

Past the buildings, I heard the scuffling of feet. In a flash, a group of grey figures rushed past, disappearing into the black. A bone breaking crunch followed.

I gasped as someone grabbed my shoulders. I realised I had stopped walking, and the convoy had passed me. I felt tears of shame well up in my eyes. Of all the times to be stuck in reverie!

“You’ll walk off a cliff with how little attention you pay, Guy Mgebe!” my mom had told me. Oh, how wrong she was. I was going to be eaten by vampires because of my dreaminess.

“Guy!” Themba whispered, anxiously. I turned to face my cousin with palpable relief.

“I’m sorry…” I started, until he covered my mouth.

“Listen to me, Guy. You have to run. When we run to catch up with the others, we have to split up and run into the darkness. As far away from the village as we can. And don’t stop until sunrise…”

“What? Why? You said Bhengani would keep us safe…”

“Bhengani is a ghoul. I saw him in the alley. They turned the garrison commander into a blood-sucking servant.”

I was too stunned to respond. I had never known Bhengani. The Zulu impi had stuck to themselves most of the time. But Themba had believed in the man’s integrity. And now he was dead. Or worse.

Just like the others.

“Mqanduli is doomed,” Themba continued, pulling me along in the direction of the convoy. “These aren’t just impi. They’re Izingane Zegazi. They’re vampires of the Blood. Bhengani told me they only serve themselves. They care not for Empire or Emperor. They only seek to feed…”

“Humans,” a man spoke in Zulu. Themba and I turned, and my eyes couldn’t help but widen. One of the vampires had spotted us and effortlessly strode to our position.

Themba pulled me behind him, as I stared at the human-looking creature. The vampire looked amused. He smiled, revealing fangs.

“Come now, boys. You look cold with just a blanket. Come inside…” the vampire didn’t even try to hide the hunger in his voice.

A man stepped between us. He had a rifle slung over his back.

“These men are not for eating, lord. They’re recruits for the new auxiliaries.”

I recognised that voice. It was the sergeant who had killed the somagwaza!

“Out of the way, impi.” The vampire spat the title like it was an insult. “These are our lands now. The blood that flows through Transkei belongs to the Izingane Zegazi. Unless, you’d like to take their place…”

The sergeant didn’t make a move towards his revolver or rifle. He only repeated himself.

“They are recruits. They belong to the Emperor.”

The vampire clicked his tongue, irritably and took a step forward, just as another black clothed figure entered the fray. He seemed to appear out of nowhere and, while it could be my addled brain, I could not help but see the shadows warp around him. The goateed vampire.

“Nkosi!” the previous vampire said, fearful and reverent.

“Why are you troubling this foot soldier, fledgling?” Nkosi Igazi’s voice was authoritative. Not demanding. Not pleading. He expected to be obeyed without trouble. Always.

“He stands between a vampire and his meal,” the vampire answered.

“Is this true, impi?” Nkosi Igazi asked of the sergeant. A small part of me hoped that the sergeant would be hurt, for what he had done to the somagwaza. But he had stood up for us…

“My lord,” the sergeant said, and I heard the unmistakable waver of trepidation in his voice. “We need men to replace our losses. The next assault requires as many able-bodied men as we can muster.”

Nkosi Igazi considered the words, his gaze slowly drifting over Themba and me.

“Yet, sergeant, only one of them is a man…”

“By their customs,” the sergeant replied. “Not ours. They will both fight.”

Nkosi Igazi rubbed his chin, and finally nodded.

“Fledgling, there is plenty traitor blood within this village.”

The vampire inclined his head in respect but sulked as he skulked away.

The sergeant didn’t move.

“Sergeant,” Nkosi Igazi said, sternly. “This time I see the need for bolstering the imperial forces but, in the future, it would be wise not to disobey the orders of your superiors. Even a fledgling is higher than an impi. Now…”

He stopped, as his vision fell on me. I tried not to flinch, as his red eyes changed shape. Like a cat. His sharp tongue poked gently out of his lips, as if he was tasting the air.

I felt Themba move. Slowly. His hand reaching for the sergeant’s belt knife.

No… I thought to myself, not daring to vocalise my dismay. You’ll die!

A scream caused all of us to turn towards the alleyway, where a mob of grey skinned and red-eyed creatures pursued a woman, tackling her to the ground and tearing off her limbs.

“Whose ghouls are these?!” Nkosi Igazi yelled, irritable, as he broke away and strode towards the mess of bloodsuckers.

I had barely let out a sigh of relief when the sergeant belted Themba and me on the back of our heads.

“You idiots!” he said in Zulu, before changing to Xhosa. “You want to get drained? Stay with the convoy!”

He shoved us forward and, at a jogging pace, we headed down the streets, out of the village. Further away from the overwhelming stench of burning, I smelled piss – coming from the sergeant’s pants.

“The convoy is meant to protect you,” the sergeant sighed, finally out of range of the vampires. This part of the village was darker, the fires now behind us. “These monsters will drain anything that moves if given the chance.”

“Yet, you serve them,” Themba mumbled.

The sergeant winced but didn’t reply.

I turned my head towards the slaughter. My house was on the other side of the village. We were heading away from it. I couldn’t just leave like this…

“Please, sir…” I pleaded, tasting bile as I did so. “Can we see our families before we leave?”

The sergeant tensed. Hesitated, before looking away into the darkness.

“You have no family left. This land is theirs now. Drained already. I am sorry.”

Silence followed that proclamation as the three of us walked through the darkness. The sergeant broke it.

“You two will serve in the Transkei Auxiliaries. It is an honour to serve the Empire. You will not miss your village or families, in time. The Empire is your family now…”

“Will he have to fight, sergeant?” Themba asked, and I heard strain in his voice. He hated this man, but also was thankful for what he had done for us.

The sergeant nodded. “Both of you will. In the Emperor’s name. War comes again, and another opportunity to re-take the Cape from the white man.”

“He cannot fight,” Themba said, referring to me. I nodded my agreement.

“I am inkwenkwe.”

“Meaning?” the sergeant asked, incredulous.

“He is not initiated,” Themba replied, slowly, as if explaining basic math to an imbecile. “He cannot marry or fight for his country.”

The sergeant looked at Themba, wondering if he was joking, before sighing. Heavily.

“This is why we defeated you. And this is why the white man controlled us for so long. Superstition only serves you if it lets you survive. To thrive. Traditions that hold you back should be destroyed.”

“Tradition is what makes us,” Themba replied, gritting his teeth and clenching his fists.

“And that is why there are so few of the amaXhosa left, shepherd.”

Themba stopped and the sergeant and I took a few more steps before realising that he was no longer following.

“Do you have a problem, Xhosa man?” the sergeant said, reaching for his revolver.

“If you had stuck to your traditions, impi, then vampires wouldn’t be ruling my homeland,” Themba hissed.

I expected the sergeant to yell a retort or pull out his weapon and threaten my cousin. I contemplated what I would do then. Would I grab the gun? Assault the impi? Or would I stand still like a coward?

The sergeant sighed, his arm dropping limply by his side.

“I’m not your enemy,” he said. “And the sooner you realise that, the sooner the vampires won’t matter.”

He turned his back on Themba and kept walking. Surprisingly, Themba followed.

“Besides,” the sergeant added. “The boy won’t be fighting for his country. He’ll be fighting for the Empire.”

An important distinction. Why then did it not make me feel any better?

I pinched Themba as we continued the walk. He had not replied to the sergeant. He didn’t respond to the pinching either. I had never seen him so downcast before.

I stayed silent. I seldom had reason to speak. But now, there was too much I wanted to say, yet I didn’t have the means to say it.

I wanted to say goodbye to my mother. To tell the impi what I thought of him. To curse the vampires. And to tell Themba that it was going to be okay.

But I didn’t speak.

Tears streamed down from my eyes, cascading down my cheeks and making rivulets in what remained of the white paint.

We reached the outskirts of the village, where I saw Wisdom climbing into the back of a stationary army truck. I couldn’t hear the slaughter anymore. The night was silent. Even the rain had stopped.

“Get in the truck,” the sergeant ordered, passing us to speak with some other impi.

Themba stepped forward and climbed into the back of the truck. He reached out his arm and I accepted it, being pulled up.

The truck was filled with the initiation group and the older boys guarding it. No one spoke. The remaining white paint made us look like ghosts. And we felt like the dead.

I sat on a hard-wooden bench and watched as the impis secured the back door. It was a low obstacle. Just meant to stop objects from rolling out. They didn’t expect us to run. Who could blame them? Where would we go? Our home was dead.

The impi disappeared and I stared down at my bare feet. They were covered in blood. Not mine. Had I stepped in it earlier? Whose blood was it?

“Guy,” Themba whispered, leaning in close.

I turned to him. His eyes were inches from mine.

“You cannot fight for the Empire,” he whispered.

“You used to support the impis,” I spat, then regretting it. He was my cousin. My brother! I shouldn’t take out my anger on him.

Themba shook his head. “It is different now. They released the Blood onto our land. You must go.”

“What? No…we won’t make it. You heard the sergeant.”

“We’re not being sent to train, Guy,” he said, hushed but faster. The truck lurched forward and the revving of the engine covered the sound of our voices.

“Then where are they taking us?” I asked.

“To be made into cannon fodder. But I won’t let them have you.”

Stunned, it took me a few moments to whisper my reply.

“We have to escape. And we can’t abandon our families to the vampires.”

Themba smiled, sadly. It was the saddest I’d ever seen him. More than his apathy in the streets or his mournful rage at the somagwaza’s death.

“You would have made a great man, Guy Mgebe,” he said.

Before I could reply, he shoved me out of the back of the truck, the thud of my body covered by the backfire of the lurching truck.

I almost cried out, but I glimpsed the faces of the boys in the truck. They didn’t call out to me. All had accepted their fate. And they were willing to sacrifice themselves for me.

I watched the truck disappear into the darkness.

I was alone.

Chapter 4.              Family

The only boy to have escaped the somagwaza’s knife. And now the only boy to be left in the darkness of the cold Transkei night.

Why me? Themba was the leader, Wisdom was popular, and all the other boys were stronger and braver than I was. I was quiet. Some of the men thought I was dull. They were wrong. I just didn’t feel the need to say much.

I wasn’t a hero. I wasn’t a survivor.

Yet…Themba had chosen me to live.

I stood on the muddy dirt road. The truck was long gone, and I could only see by the red light of the stormy sky.

“Why me?” I muttered, a sob rising up. I choked it down and clenched my fists.

I had never been the bravest. But I was all that was left. Maybe now…that made me the bravest boy left in Mqanduli.

That did not make me feel any better.

I peered towards the dark horizon, and then back at the orange haze of Mqanduli. Both looked unappealing.

The fields were a black sea. And every scuff and crack were a potential predator – ghoul or animal.

Run, Themba had said. Run until sunrise.

But how could I run? My home was burning. And my mother…she was still out there.

But what if she wasn’t? What if she was a corpse, ash or a ghoul? Could I see her looking like the somagwaza, with his brains leaking onto the sand?

I did not remember starting to run, but I did it all the same. Not towards the fires or the dark horizon, but somewhere in between. Towards a tiny forested area. It was away from the road. Vampires, ghouls and other beasts were a problem, but so were impi. I had to stay off the road.

I repressed my guilt at not heading back into the village, and kept running through the darkness, wincing as I stepped over sharp sticks, cutting my feet. I didn’t stop running. I passed trees, the darkness turning them into the images of demons, as I ran. Further and further into the wilderness.

I started to pant. My stomach ached. My mouth was dry.

I collapsed just as I heard the mooing of cattle.

I lifted myself up, slowly. The cows continued to moo, anxious at the cacophony of violence and smell of fire and blood in the air.

A single gas-lamp lit a round hut, adjoined to a fenced enclosure, where some brown cows stared at me, curiously.

The Ngaleka family lived here. Distant cousins. They stuck to themselves. I hadn’t seen them for months. I approached the cows and those closest to me calmed as they saw me. I reached out my hand and patted one on the head. It stared at me. Fearful, but trusting.

The cows being alive told me one thing. Ghouls hadn’t been here. They didn’t respect the economic sanctity of cattle. They would consume anything with impunity.

But ghouls weren’t the only enemies out tonight.

The hut was quiet as I approached. Dark inside. I lifted the gas-lamp from its hook and held it in front of me, banishing the dark and acting as a shield against beasts.

I pushed the door to the hut open. It was ajar, and creaked open. My light shone through and I almost gagged at what I found.

My cousins, three of them, lay all around the kitchen, multiple stab wounds in their guts and backs. My lady cousin, only slightly younger than I, was missing her shirt.

I squeezed on the handle of the lamp as my breath escaped me. All I saw was red. A fiery and bloody red.

Impi had done this. Zulu. They had come and killed my people. My family.

I hated them! Even the sergeant who had saved me from the vampire. Even Dlamini who had played football with us on Sundays. I despised them. Every single one of them. Not simply for what they had done. But for what they were.

The vampires weren’t the only monsters. Some monsters were human.

I took a step forward into the hut. The cows mooing took on a mournful tone.

I should bury them. But I had no shovel. And not nearly enough time. Just another thing I couldn’t do.

My knees felt shaky and I lurched forward, placing the lamp on a wooden table and taking a seat. All three of my kin were in plain sight. Their blood had pooled onto the concrete floor and boots had made bloody tracks around the hut.

There was a jug of milk on the table. Mercifully, un-spilled. In all the struggle and violence, it had remained. I sniffed it. Fresh. Or at least, not completely expired.

I didn’t want to drink. My stomach was a pool of acid and rage. I suspected that anything I drank, I would bring up. But I was thirsty, and hungry. I hadn’t eaten since…I couldn’t remember. Had it been lunch? Yesterday?

I tipped my head back, my hands shaking with rage as I chugged the milk, forcing down every gulp of lukewarm milk.

Unbidden tears came to my eyes as the last milking of this homestead went down my throat. I remembered playing with my cousins. Wisdom had been beaten with a stick because he had shaved curse words onto one of the cows. He said it was worth it.

And now he was heading into the darkness. Would I ever see him again? Or Themba?

I choked on a gulp and dropped the jug to the floor, spilling the rest of its contents, as I collapsed into a ball, clutching my knees.

Everyone was gone…and I didn’t do a thing.

I sobbed, meekly and quietly, on the floor next to my dead cousins.

I did nothing.

But perhaps it wasn’t too late…

I couldn’t let it end like this. Not without even trying. Themba had told me to run, but I had not promised him a thing. I had to return to Mqanduli. I had to see for myself if my mother still lived.

I couldn’t let the vampires have her!

With that realisation, the sobs stopped. I sniffed once and wiped my eyes. I had a mission now. And I would see it through.

I realised then that the cows had stopped lowing. In fact, I couldn’t even hear the stomping of their hooves. I lifted myself up, quietly, my heartbeat like a drum.

Scuffling. Footsteps. But not human. More bestial. With fevered footfalls and sharp sniffing. Coming…closer.

I considered the gas-lamp for a second but decided to leave it, as I snuck into the backroom. As I lowered myself under the bed, I heard the front door creak.

Sniffing. Blocked nose. Human, but…animalistic. I slowed my breathing, which was hard as my stress levels rose. My heart felt like it was going to fall out of my chest.

A footstep. Another. The breathing grew louder.

I watched through the ajar door of the back bedroom, seeing only a crack. The gas-lamp illuminated my girl cousin’s face, frozen in agony and torment.

Then, a grey creature loomed over her. I held my breath, covering my mouth for good measure. I knew this creature. He had been an impi in the local garrison. Friends with Dlamini.

And he was now a ghoul. Drained of all blood and made a servant of the vampires.

He sniffed the air, as he crouched down, placing his face on the ground. Right by the spilt milk and blood. A long, mutated tongue lolled out of his mouth and touched the blood, scooping it up like a teaspoon would.

His tongue lapped up the blood like a cat would cream, as it drifted across the floor, before touching the milk. It shot up, shocked and revolted.

I had imagined ghouls to be mechanical things. Automatons that acted only in accordance with their master’s wishes.

But this creature seemed like just that – a creature. There was nothing left of the impi. Just a beast remained. But it was a beast. Nothing like the zombies that ghouls were often confused with.

I realised I had started breathing again, as I studied this humanoid beast. It sniffed the milk and then returned to the blood. It pulled itself slowly across the ground, lapping up blood, until it stopped.

My heart shuddered as it seemed to look right at me, with red eyes filled with an inhuman hatred and hunger.

My feet, I realised. They were covered in blood. And there were tracks right into the room.

The ghoul crawled forward inch by inch, and then faster. I considered screaming, running, reaching for a weapon that wasn’t there. But, like a traumatised buck against a leopard, I could only lie frozen and resigned to my fate.

Suddenly, the ghoul leapt upon my cousin’s corpse, sinking his teeth into her arm. With a crunch, he ripped it from its joint and then fled, like a hyena with its stolen prize.

I didn’t continue breathing for what seemed an age. The cows did not make a sound. I planned not to confirm if they were dead or alive.

As my eyes drifted closed, I realised I couldn’t stay. I had work to do. I couldn’t delay any longer. I slowly pulled myself out from under the bed, all the while listening.

There was no sound. Not of ghouls, cows or distant battle.

I still did not risk sighing in relief.

I took a step forward but then stopped as I noticed something in the corner of the bedroom. It was a wooden club, with a spherical knob at the end. A knobkerrie.

I bit my lip.

I was inkwenkwe. I was not allowed to raise arms in the defence of my country.

But, this was not for my country. I had to defend my mother. It wasn’t for the Transkei that hadn’t seen freedom for over a hundred years. It was for her.

I took the knobkerrie and exited the hut. The night was still cold but I didn’t feel it. I only felt the red heat of rage boiling inside of me.

Chapter 5.              Sunrise

The night was quiet as morning approached. No birds sang to herald the inevitable sunrise. Perhaps, the sun didn’t plan to rise, and the birds knew this?

Perhaps, it really was the end of the world?

If it was, then running would have solved nothing. And if it wasn’t, I needed to try something. Anything. I was not a man, but I had to at least act like one. For her.

Clouds kept the sky unnaturally red, reflecting fires and blood. Even when the sun rose, the vampires would be able to continue travelling outside with sufficient cover. At least, that’s what I predicted. We didn’t learn about vampires in school. But Themba had taken an interest in them. Other parts of the Transkei had been ruled by vampires before. The Zulu Vampire Clans. The Izingane Zegazi. The villages they ruled over were considered black marks on the map. Themba, understandably, did not trust the vampires. He said that while they claimed to be loyal to the Emperor, they only truly followed the rule of their bloodline. And everywhere they decided to rule became desolate.

And now they were here.

I bit my lip, stifling a yawn or a sob as I travelled through the dark plains. I had taken some clothes and sandals from my cousin’s hut. I didn’t want to. It felt like stealing. Even if they were dead. But I didn’t regret it as I cut across the wilderness, circling Mqanduli and coming as close to my home as I could.

My plan was simple. Find my mother. Then escape. Impi may pursue us during the day, but I was more afraid of the vampires. We could travel west, to the Ciskei. But there were also vampires there…

Hope City was an option. I didn’t like the idea of leaving my homeland but Hope City had been resisting the Empire for decades. We could be safe there…if we even made it.

I no longer heard the sound of battle or agony. The rains had put out most of the fires. Nobody continued to fight the impi or the vampires. I wasn’t sure that anyone had resisted them at all, actually. We did not have weapons in Mqanduli. Well, we had assegai and knobkerrie, but what use were they against rifles and vampires?

Commander Bhengani had meant to protect us! I couldn’t help but clench my fists in rage, letting my anger heat me up and ward off the cold dawn air.

Themba said he had been ghoulified. Just like that impi. But that meant Dlamini had worked with the vampires.

He had betrayed us. Even after my mother had given him breakfast every Sunday morning. Even after we had attended church together.

He had chosen to side with those who were slaughtering my people!

When I was young, the impi had made me feel so safe. Cowhide emblems had been a symbol of protection. Of certainty. The Empire were occupiers, yes. But they were our cousins. And, that meant something.

Well, I thought it had.

I smelled soot in the air. And the smell of burnt rubber.

Had the impi used dark magic? The sickly smell of burning rubber was a common smell in dirty weylines. But that was unlikely. Mqanduli had a very weak weyline. That had made the somagwaza extremely important as a local healer, as he was the only one with his own spark of internal magic. When sangomas and other wizards needed to collect magic from the world around them, sorcerers, like the somagwaza, had magic inside of them. A spark.

He had used that spark to heal. And now he was dead.

I sniffed the air again, slowing down my swift and steady pace. The orange glow of the remaining fires outlined Mqanduli’s black silhouette in the dark dawn light.

Ash. Wood fire. But also, petrol. And still, the overwhelming stench of burning rubber.

My breath caught in my throat as I almost doubled over. It felt like an assegai was being swiftly inserted into my chest.

No! It couldn’t be.

Something primal gripped me and I clutched my knobkerrie in two hands as I broke into a run, paying no heed to the need for stealth.

The sickly smell of rubber and the piercing stench of fire became stronger as I panted, tearing over the grassland towards the perimeter of Mqanduli. My home was at the edge, near an outcrop of trees. And, as I approached more closely, I realised that there were no dead bodies scattered in view. I saw no impi armoured cars or patrols.

Hope began to fill me. My mother could be alive! Unscathed. The violence must have been at its worst in the centre of town. But here, on the outskirts, why would the impi feel the need to kill a single mother?

I slowed. The stench in the air lingered, but it could have been from far away. My mother was alive. And my home was out of harm’s way.

I reached the tree line and steeled myself. When I saw my mother, I didn’t know how I would react. There was something disarming about one’s mother. You could be weak around them. But I couldn’t risk that. I had to be strong. For her.

I let excitement overwhelm my trepidation, as I slowly moved through the trees, my indefinitely loaned sandals crunching on fallen twigs below. My initiation blanket shielded my arms from the sharp branches, as I moved through the darkness, past the thick shrubs, and was finally greeted by the orange hue of fire.

My excitement and steely façade ebbed away immediately, as a wave of heat washed against my face.

“No…” I choked out, taking an unsteady step forward, as wood cracked, and the roof of my home collapsed inwards.

Memories. Of playing with Themba. Of dinner with my mom. And the photos…the last photos of my dad.

I sprinted, rounding the house towards the front door. I had to get in there. I couldn’t just let it burn…

I stopped, as I came within view of the front door.

Kneeling before the front door, its limbs frozen in place by rigor mortis, was a charred corpse, a melted tyre around its neck.

The corpse wore no clothes. Had no hair. But it could only be one person.

I tried to yell as I charged towards the charred husk. I couldn’t hear what came out of my mouth. I only heard the ringing in my ears, the booming of my heart and the incessant crackle of the inferno consuming my life.

I fell to my knees beside my mother.

She didn’t move. Pockets of flames still clung to her and I used my blanket to pat them out.

I was meant to save her.

Tears fell freely from my eyes, no matter how much I tried to stop them.

I had failed. Everything.

The fires hissed as rain fell. I did not notice the figure approaching me until they were standing by my side.

“The art of good blood,” a woman’s voice said in Zulu. “Is good breeding, a healthy diet, and a lack of stress.”

The words fell on me like anvils, pressing me down. I didn’t look up. My hands didn’t leave what was left of my mother.

“There is very little good blood in this backwater hole,” the woman continued. “It’s as if all you eat is pap and sawdust. Pitiful. It leads to bad blood.”

The ringing in my ears had stopped. All I heard was this…thing with a feminine voice speaking. I didn’t feel the cold. The fire still raged, but somehow silently.

“When blood is bad, I am loathe to drink it. Why should I have an imperfect meal?”

The question was levelled at me. I didn’t look up, even as I felt the creature’s piercing gaze. Probably on my neck.

“Bad blood should be disposed of,” she continued, giving up on my responding. “And she looks so good in her new necklace.”

In a flash, before I had realised, I was even moving, I hefted the knobkerrie from the ground and, with a roar, brought it down on the vampire’s head.

My arm vibrated and the bones seemed to ring as the knobkerrie stopped short. My eyes widened.

The vampire was a short lady, with bright red eyes and an arrogant fanged grin. She wore a red beret over black braids. She held the orb of the knobkerrie in a single hand, as if it was nothing.

And then she squeezed. There was no resistance. The knobkerrie burst like a smashed bottle, sending splinters flying.

I fell backwards, too shocked to cry, to scream, or even feel anger anymore.

There was only fear.

“Run, little Xhosa,” she said with a chuckle, pulling a splinter out of her palm. “You smell like piss and its ruining my appetite.”

I looked at her, for what seemed an age of torment, until she stepped forward. I ran. Far. And I never looked back at what I had left behind.

Chapter 6.              Wilderness

I didn’t remember my last meal. Actually, that was a lie. If the milk counted as food, as it might as well, then the last thing I had consumed was that lukewarm milk surrounded by my dead cousins.

By the time I had stopped running from Mqanduli, and found myself deep in the cold wilderness, I had already vomited up that milk.

Since then, I had lost track of the days.

Transkei was cold. My blanket and measly clothes were not enough. And I did not risk starting a fire in the open grasslands even if I had the tools to make one. I had never started a fire before without a lighter. I had seen movies where people rubbed sticks together but that didn’t seem to work. All the wood was too wet. And I didn’t stop moving.

But it wasn’t that which truly stopped me. Fire, despite the chill of the night, just didn’t seem comforting anymore.

During the day, I stayed in the outcrops of trees and foliage, sometimes hiding among the rocks. I stayed away from the villages and roads. There were impi everywhere. And impi meant vampires. If they were still alive, any Zulu impi was guaranteed to be serving the vampires. I couldn’t trust them. Any of them!

I wouldn’t end up like the somagwaza, with my brains all over the floor. The only trustworthy impi was a dead one.

My rage kept me going as I travelled, drinking water from puddles collected on boulders. I had considered eating grass, like cattle. But it only made me feel sick.

I clutched my aching belly as I walked aimlessly over rolling hills. It had been many nights since I had last seen any sort of civilisation. I had stayed away from every single village and homestead. Impi about.

More than rage kept me going, as I put one cold foot ahead of the other.

I had failed. I truly was inkwenkwe. And that meant something.

I was not meant to defeat the vampires. To defend my own. Because I was just a boy. And now that the somagwaza was dead, I always would be.

I did not accept that fact. It wasn’t something I wanted to or could accept. But it was reality. It was like the memory of that burnt husk in front of my blighted home. It was like the remains of Mqanduli.

I couldn’t accept it. But I had to.

I was just a boy, in a world of monsters. And I was hungry. So, hungry…

I crested a hill, almost zombie-like, before recognition heated my muscles and I ducked, suddenly. It wasn’t as cold today, as the sun heated my back. It also hadn’t rained for a while, and all the puddles I had drunk from were stagnant and muddy.

What the lack of rain also meant was that the expanse of sand before me had not been turned to mud, which meant it was perfectly fine for a horde of Zulu impi to be marching across said sandy field, bellowing their war cries.

My chest hit the ground and I watched, waiting to see if any of the specks at the training grounds activated an alarm or came to investigate. But none of these little ants seemed to notice me atop the hill. They continued with their exercises. I focused and could see groups practicing their bayonet lunges, letting out a united cry with every thrust. More troops marched, beating the sand with every bootstep and ensuring nothing could ever grow there.

Could Themba be here? I suddenly thought. Or Wisdom?

They had been conscripted, the sergeant had said. Taken to become impi themselves.

But Themba had shoved me out of the truck. He had let me escape. The impi would punish him for that.

I bit my lip. I couldn’t let another death weigh down on my conscience. I needed to know if he had survived. But also…I did not want to know if he died.

I felt shame at this inner conflict, as I was too afraid to even face if my cousin was dead.

I watched the camp from the hill for an age, observing their training regimen and memorising the outline of the camp.

The camp was circular, with buildings forming a perimeter around the training grounds. Two of the buildings were fenced and guarded. An officer’s HQ and the armoury, I presumed. The rest of the buildings had to be barracks. Except for that one, with the smoking chimney.

I couldn’t help but lick my lips, as the scent of cooking meat and porridge wafted towards me. My stomach begged for it!

These impi were in my lands. But I was inkwenkwe. I couldn’t fight them. But there was no shame in stealing from them.

I slowly backed away from the crest of the hilltop, until I was out of sight. There was an outcropping of trees and rocks near the camp. I headed there and noted how the war cries, muffled by distance, were now booming. They were singing in Zulu and were different from the war cries of the Mqanduli garrison. Every battalion had their own song, Themba had told me. I wondered if he would take pride in his battalion’s song. Part of me hoped he didn’t.

The trees were thicker here. Not native. Through the brush, I saw the remains of bricks. There had been a building here, once. Probably built by missionaries or settlers. The alien plant-life they had brought with them had somehow thrived in this patch of land. I was thankful for that, as it allowed my approach to be unseen.

I left my initiation blanket by a rock. It would make me too bulky as I snuck into the camp. Keeping low, I moved towards the camp. I stopped. My heart hammering.

Two men chatted casually in Zulu. I peered through the branches and noted they were carrying rifles without the assegai attached. The rifles were slung casually over their shoulders as they spoke carelessly, patrolling the outskirts of the camp.

They passed and their voices became muffled, then disappeared entirely. I let myself breathe a sigh of relief, before taking a deep breath and emerging from the trees. I glanced left and right. No one. This was my chance!

I sprinted from the trees to the camp. There was no fence at this part of the circle. The impi owned these lands, in the middle of nowhere. They didn’t see the need for too much security. Who would be stupid enough to rob them?

Me, I realised.

But it was too late to turn back now.

I hit the wall of a barracks just as I saw a glimpse of the impi pair returning. I rounded the corner, losing sight of them, and now facing a dozen impi. Their backs were towards me. Their instructor, facing them, didn’t look my way.

I kept low, hiding behind a pile of cardboard boxes. I read the label. Soap. So mundane for a military base, but of course they would need it.

I risked a glance towards the impi, as their instructor bellowed an order:

“Cast!”

A volley of fire, electricity and translucent energy burst towards the instructor, all missing him and destroying targets by his side. He didn’t flinch.

Sorcerers. A squad of them. Mqanduli had only had the somagwaza. But, among this camp, they had at least twelve! And while the somagwaza’s affinity for magic had only been healing, these impi were pyromancers, electromancers, force mages…

We hadn’t stood a chance…

The voices of the patrolmen disappeared, and I ducked back around the corner to the outskirts. Their backs were to me and I used their blind spot to my advantage, skirting around the perimeter towards the building with the chimney.

I tailed them at a safe distance, glancing furtively towards them, behind me and between the gaps I passed. Through the gaps I saw impi doing chores, carrying boxes, cleaning. Others were training, learning to march in step. I kept an eye out for anyone I knew, but they were all strangers to me. I suspected they were all Zulu, from the north. They were young and their badges and banners were outlined in black.

One of the patrolmen stopped, suddenly. I hit the dirt, hoping he wouldn’t think to look down. But he only bent down to pick up a cigarette someone had dropped, before continuing his patrol.

The scent of food grew stronger as I approached. My mouth watered. Halfway through my mission, I realised what I was doing. My adrenaline spiked, but despite my realisation that I was planning to rob a Zulu base, I was smiling.

Was it because I was taking from them? Was it because, at least pettily, I was enacting my vengeance? No. They wouldn’t even notice. It wasn’t that. I had to admit, that the sole reason for my sudden elation was simple: the thrill. For days I had been a zombie, wandering the hills. But now…I was doing something.

Smoke rose from the chimney of what could only be a field kitchen. I inhaled the rich scent of meat and porridge and had to resist sighing in anticipation.

An impi stepped right in front of me from a gap between the buildings. I almost fell backwards as he released a frustrated sigh and stepped forward. I held my breath, staring wide eyed. I didn’t dare move. He was metres away.

This had been a bad idea!

The impi put his hand into his breast pocket and retrieved a cigarette. He lit it with a small flame that appeared from his finger, before walking into the bush.

For a second, I thought I had died at Mqanduli and was now an invisible ghost. But ghosts couldn’t get this hungry, surely?

My stomach grumbled, reminding me of the scent. The kitchen was just ahead!

I crawled forward, pulling myself into a crouch run, staying low. I peeked around the corner, and hastily retreated as a man wearing an apron exited the kitchen carrying an empty gas canister. As soon as I couldn’t hear his footsteps anymore, I peeked again. Clear!

I followed the scent. The delicious, hypnotic scent! I had never valued food so much before now. It was like I needed it to survive, or something.

The door to the kitchen was open. I listened carefully for activity. Nothing but the bubbling of boiling water. I slowly peeked around the corner. The room was long, dominated by a central wooden table adorned with cutting boards. Rows of hotplates lined the counters, flanking the island table. I smelled meat.

I looked behind me, confirming that I hadn’t been spotted, before entering. I couldn’t help but lick my lips.

Pots and pots full of porridge and beef mince. There was enough for an army! Well, duh. That was the point.

I approached a pot and touched the surface of the porridge. It was hot, but not too hot. I scooped my hand right in, ladling the porridge into my mouth. I went down for another bite. But I couldn’t eat it all now! I looked around and spotted a small pot with symmetrical handles. I retrieved it and began ladling porridge and mince into the vessel. My stomach told me to eat now, but I had to be disciplined.

The pot was being weighed down, but I could handle more. I had to. I couldn’t expect to sneak in here again…

Footsteps. I dropped the ladle into the porridge in fright. I reached to try fish it out, but too late. Leaving my pot on the counter, I dashed to the only place I could think of. Behind the door.

I caught a glimpse of a now whistling man, the one with the apron, as he entered the kitchen. I held my breath as I watched him from behind the door. Fortunately, he hadn’t closed it.

The man stopped whistling, as he spotted my pot. I bit my bottom lip. Hard.

“Ugh. They could at least have the decency to wash up if they’re wanting to skip the queue,” the cook lamented, as he lifted the pot and carried it towards a sink. My heart sank as he started to tip the contents down the drain.

I didn’t realise it until it was too late, but I had leaned forward involuntarily, nudging the door. It creaked.

The cook stopped, looking at the doorway. I held my hand over my mouth, curling into a ball and hoping against hope that he didn’t come investigate.

I heard footsteps as the cook approached. Closer, closer.

A shadow pooled underneath the door. He was just on the other side…

“Oi, chef,” a man called. “When’s lunch?”

The cook turned.

“It’s ready when it’s ready! And have you offered to help with…”

His voice faded as he walked away, berating the hungry impi.

I didn’t delay escaping my hiding place. I looked longingly at the pot, but it was on the opposite side of the kitchen and was too heavy. But I couldn’t leave empty handed. I saw an open carton of milk and immediately grabbed it, before fleeing outside of the kitchen.

Miraculously, no patrollers were present as I escaped, and made a dash towards the outcropping of foliage. My heart beat fast and sweat ran down my forehead. The milk swished inside its carton as I ran and spilled a few droplets.

I didn’t stop to watch for patrollers. I just ran. As fast as I could. I did not hear any alarms or shouts. And by the time I reached the trees, I was out of breath.

I waited, crouched behind a tree.

Silence.

No alarm.

No sound of running.

I had escaped…

My elation was only overwhelmed by my hunger.

I pushed through the brush towards my blanket. It was undisturbed. No patrollers had happened across it.

The milk carton in my hand felt like a burden. I had wanted so much more! And I had it. I could still taste the porridge. It had been unseasoned. No sugar or salt. It was bland. And it was the best thing I’d tasted in an age.

This milk was barely a consolation prize.

But…I was alive. And I hadn’t been caught. That meant something.

I shambled to my blanket, allowing myself to pant. I sat down on the blanket before lifting the carton to my lips and drinking.

Crack. A branch. I looked up, closing my lips even as milk spilled onto them.

A pair of bright yellow eyes stared at me from the shadows of the treeline. I didn’t move.

The eyes blinked, making me think for a second that they were just my imagination. Until they came closer. A black snout appeared, followed by light brown, speckled fur. The eyes were hungry. Primal. Predatory. And I was the prey.

I slowly lowered the milk from my mouth as the beast approached. It didn’t growl but, as it watched me, it let out a high-pitched, almost demonic cackle. It was large. Too large. Double the size of a grown man. Its chest and shoulders were as broad as a hippo and, as it grinned hungrily, I saw rows of spear-like teeth.

I had heard of these beasts before. But, in the moment, I couldn’t even dredge up the memory.

All my mind and body could tell me to do was flee!

The creature pounced, just as I threw the milk at it, dodging out of the way. Its claws tore into my blanket on the ground as it blinked away the milk in its eyes.

Its demonic cackle grew in volume. It sounded amused. But its amusement only made me shiver.

I didn’t run straight away. I knew it could outrun me. Its massive forearms and legs could possibly keep pace with a car.

The creature turned towards me and lunged. I ducked low, feeling the air almost snap above me as I heard the thump of the beast’s bite. Its fur smelled of old rotten meals and musk.

A claw the size of my head shot out towards me. I yelped just as I dropped out of the way, crawling as quickly as I could. The beast’s paws vibrated the ground as I crawled away, edging towards the treeline.

A thump. And another. It was charging towards me.

I gritted my teeth. I couldn’t get away from this. But, at least I could face my death head-on. Themba would have wanted me to do that.

I spun, facing the creature, just as a shot rang out. Blood spurted from the creature’s head as its amused look of bestial hunger turned to bemusement. Another bang. Brain matter splattered onto the ground.

My ears rang as I stared at the creature’s corpse. It had crushed the milk carton.

I regained my senses in time to hear bootsteps, approaching me. I turned and came face to face with an impi, carrying a long rifle.

I recoiled, backing away towards the creature.

The impi raised his one hand up, as if to calm me, before slinging the rifle onto his back.

“Calm! Calm! It’s dead now. I’m not going to hurt you.”

I didn’t believe him. How could I? I crawled back until I collided with the furry flesh of the creature. I half-expected it to let out another cackle.

The impi approached, slowly. I heard shouting from behind him. He stood up straight and opened his mouth. My heart skipped a beat as I expected him to call for men to help carry me away. Back to Mqanduli. Back to the vampires.

“I killed it!” the impi shouted towards the treeline. “Just a werehyena. Nothing else.”

The shouting stopped, and I froze. Had this impi just lied for me?

No. He had to be tricking me. Somehow.

The impi looked at me, in my eyes, as he crouched low. I hesitated, as I saw something totally unexpected in his eyes.

Pity.

“Hide nearby, until they clear the body away. Then meet me here afterwards.”

He waited for a reply. Finally, I nodded.

A group of impi arrived ten minutes later. I watched them from a nearby hillock. They cut the werehyena into manageable pieces before carrying all the body parts away. They even picked up the impi’s shell casings. Nothing was wasted.

In this time of respite, I examined what was left of my initiation blanket. It had been shredded; the corners frayed. But it was still usable. I was glad. It was all I really had left that was mine.

A werehyena. There had been sightings of a few around Mqanduli. They weren’t actually from around here. Not even from Earth. But the Rifts that brought magic into the world also brought monsters. Werehyenas could take the form of a human, disguising itself in human society. And when the time was right, it could transform into its bestial true form and consume its prey.

And I had almost been that prey. That fact did not escape me.

The clean-up crew soon left, and I made my way back to the outcropping. I didn’t know why. But that impi had asked me to come back and, even if he was an impi, he seemed to be trustworthy. At least, for now.

I waited where the werehyena had attacked me, as the afternoon sun began to wane. I waited so long that I began to believe the impi was never coming back. I stood, to leave.

The impi appeared, pushing away a branch with his free hand. In his other, he held a bowl full of porridge and mince. My eyes widened.

He offered me the bowl. But I couldn’t help but stare at the rifle, slung over his back. That rifle had saved my life, I realised.

I hesitated, but then grabbed the bowl, before sitting on the ground to eat. The impi nodded. But instead of leaving, he sat down on a rock, and watched me eat.

I tried my best to ignore him, even as he looked anxious to speak.

“My name is Sifiso,” he said, finally. “131st Black Battalion. Transkei Impi. We call ourselves the Amabhola Agqokayo. Did you hear our war cries earlier?”

I ignored him, as I ate greedily. Perhaps even too fast, as I began to feel a bit ill.

Sifiso continued, indicating his rifle.

“I’m the squad marksman. They call me Sure-Shot Sifiso. Have you seen one of these before?”

I stopped to examine his rifle. It was black. Metal, with a fold-out stock and long-barrel.

I went back to eating.

“It isn’t just a normal R4. Most of the infantry carry those. This is an R1. Big calibre. Can kill a monster in one hit. Or two.”

I didn’t reply, even as there were only dregs left in the bowl. I realised that I hadn’t stopped looking at him. He tried to smile, but then frowned, looking away.

“You hate me. Don’t you?”

I hesitated, but then nodded.

He sighed, as I regretted my honestly. But he didn’t reach for his rifle or a stick to beat me with.

I put down the empty bowl.

“That is fair,” he said, much to my surprise. Nobody would ever admit to hating an impi back in Mqanduli. “We’re in your land, after all. And the Empire does a lot of things…things worth hating. But I think it’s worth looking at the bigger picture…”

He trailed off, as he heard a horn blow. He stood up.

“There’s a shack nearby. Just follow the dirt road past that hill.” He pointed somewhere behind me. “I’ll check there tomorrow with food. But…I won’t blame you if you are not there.”

He turned his back and began walking away.

“Guy,” I said, finally. It was almost a whisper. It was the first time I had spoken since Mqanduli. Sifiso stopped and looked at me. I straightened my back and looked him in the eyes.

“Guy Mgebe. That is my name.”

Sifiso nodded, and smiled, before disappearing into the trees.

Chapter 7.              Enemy

Against my better judgement and my rampant distrust of impi, I sought out this shack. It was a small thing. One room. Wood and scrap metal. It was just off an old dirt road. I doubted this road was even used anymore. I couldn’t see any evidence of tyre tracks, and rain had washed away anything less pronounced. The door of the shack was missing a hinge, but it opened and closed. There were pockmarked holes in the scrap-metal roof from rust. But it was the warmest place I had been in since Mqanduli.

There was no food inside. I didn’t expect there to be. Even after Sifiso’s gift, I was starving. But I had been starving for days. I could persevere. And if Sifiso was bringing food…

I shook my head. What was I doing? Impi had taken everything from me. Taken everything and handed it to the vampires. I couldn’t trust them.

But Sifiso had given me food. And he had saved my life…

Maybe…just maybe, I could trust him for now. Just to get food. If he wanted to hurt me, he would have by now. So, he had to have an ulterior motive. All I needed to do was find out what that was before it was too late.

In the shack, I found some old chewed blankets. They were scratchy but I didn’t care. The nights were cold. Before going to sleep, I moved some of the broken pieces of wood and furniture to block the door. It wouldn’t stop a vampire or an impi, but maybe it would deter an opportunistic beast.

It was the first time I was sleeping under a roof in gods know how long, and I thought that meant I would sleep soundly. But every noise in the night became gunshots, every breath I took was laboured, and I couldn’t get rid of the memory of the smell of burning rubber and petrol.

I wanted to cry. But I had cried too much already.

It was light by the time I realised I had not slept a wink.

I was wide awake as the sun peeked through the pockmarked holes in the shack roof, sending rays of golden light to illuminate the airborne dust in flight. I lay still, as if still asleep despite my eyes being open.

My face was cold, as the scratchy blanket and remains of my initiation blanket could only cover so much. I breathed, seeing my breath come out as a warm mist.

Would I ever be warm again?

I remembered an orange glow. A blistering inferno. The smell of petrol and rubber. Perhaps, I did not want to be warm again.

My eyes darted towards the barricaded door as I heard humming, interspersed with some chanting. Boots squelched in the muddied dirt road, before stopping outside the door. They were making no effort to be stealthy.

Knock. Knock.

Beasts didn’t knock. But impis did. I lay still. It could be Sifiso. It could not be. And even if it was, what did he want with me?

“Guy?” Sifiso whispered, loudly. “Good morning. Are you inside?”

He sounded…excited. Like a child faced with a novelty.

I almost laughed, without humour. It was rich of me to call him a child, when I still was one.

Sifiso knocked again, but then stopped.

He turned and squelched away in the mud.

I clutched my pained stomach. What was I doing? He had fed me. And said he was going to bring food.

But he was impi…

My baser instincts overwhelmed my reason and I rushed to tear away the barricade. By the time I opened the door, Sifiso had returned, hearing the cacophony of my redecorating.

He held half a metal bowl of pap and mince. I realised, as we stood face to face, that we could be the same age. Perhaps he was a bit older. But Themba had said that many Zulu recruits entered the service at fifteen. If I had been Zulu, I could be fighting for the Empire already.

Sifiso had an easy smile and honest eyes. His hair was a buzz-cut and he didn’t have a stitch of facial hair. His impi uniform was a dark and light green, with a cow-hide style badge on his right forearm. Unlike the impi at Mqanduli, he did not have any assegai emblems or trinkets denoting kills, high-rank or achievement in battle.

He was impi, I reminded myself. But he hadn’t done anything. Yet.

Sifiso’s easy smile grew wider.

“I’m glad you decided to stay!” he said, and it sounded earnest. Why did he care so much about if I stayed or not?

He offered me the bowl. I stared at its contents, sceptically, before accepting them.

“I apologise for the lack of variety,” Sifiso said, sincerely. “It’s all we get. Unless we’re being deployed. But that’s a long way off.”

To me, food was food. And while I tried to look nonchalant, my mouth was salivating.

Sifiso waited, expectantly, as he glanced inside the shack.

It was a long walk from the camp to the shack. He must have travelled since the sun came up.

I stepped aside, letting him enter. He ducked inside the little shanty, the tip of his rifle barrel still clanking against the doorframe.

There were two stools in the shack. Both of which I had used as a part of the barricade. Sifiso corrected both of them, placing them apart, and then took a seat. He didn’t have food for himself.

I took a seat and considered my companion.

“You aren’t going to eat?” I asked. I realised it was the second time I had spoken to him.

Sifiso shook his head. “I’ve eaten already. Half of breakfast. That’s the other half.”

Shocked, I considered the bowl. The pap and mince had been expertly put to one side. He had saved half his rations. For me.

“Why?” I asked, simply.

Sifiso shrugged. “You looked hungry.”

It was that simple. I sat down and began eating. Sifiso considered me in silence. Every so often, my eyes were brought to his rifle. It was longer than the rifles that most impi used. But its design was similar.

“You said you’re a marksman?” I finally asked, in between bites.

Sifiso beamed at the acknowledgement, as he puffed up his chest, proudly.

“I am! Best shot in the squad. And the company. Once we’re done with basics here, the company marksmen are going to go for specialist training. There we get to use bigger rifles. I hope to use the new Isikweletu-I. Only the company sniper gets to use it.”

I must have looked completely and utterly confused, as he explained.

“It’s a new sniper rifle. Fifty cal. That’s the size of the bullet. And it’s a Zulu gun. No more using this relic.”

He indicated his rifle – the R1.

“How old is it?” I asked, surprising myself as I realised I was genuinely curious.

Sifiso unslung the rifle and put it on his lap. He frowned.

“I’m not sure. It’s been re-stamped.”

I sidled over to inspect the rifle. Most of the rifle had a black metal exterior, but there were sections that had been worn down to the more silvery original metal. As if something had been sanded off.

“My cousin says that the impi carry guns from the SADF,” I said. Themba had a lot of interest in military history. His dad had been a soldier, apparently. I wasn’t sure for which army. Not the Zulu Empire. But not the SADF either.

Sifiso nodded, sadly. “Buffels and Casspirs are also from then. But we’ve started making our own. I wish we had our own design. But, apparently, the armoured cars don’t do well at the Three Point Line.”

“Why?”

I was from a backwater village but, even with my ignorance of military matters, I knew about the Three Point Line. It was a series of bridges and fortifications marking the border between the Zulu Empire and the State of Good Hope.

Sifiso looked pleased to be explaining something. Most people were happy to be in the lecturing seat. Gave them justification for absorbing so much knowledge. And everybody wanted to feel smart.

“The commander says that the bridges are too narrow. We would have to send a lot of cars across to break the defences but, if we sent too many, they would cause a traffic jam. Then those settlers could use their magic to push us into the ravine.”

“But you’re training to assault it?”

Sifiso nodded, puffing up his chest again.

“Why?” I asked simply. The bowl was empty. I was still hungry, but also feeling a bit guilty. This was half of Sifiso’s breakfast.

“Why?” Sifiso asked, incredulously. He pondered the question and then looked me straight in the eyes, more earnest than I’d ever seen him before.

“We are the peacemakers,” he said. “We come to bring order to this world. To rid it of the oppressors and the traitors. Before the Empire, there was only flame and darkness…”

“How could it be dark if there were flames?”

Sifiso seemed shocked at my jab, but then chuckled.

“A metaphor. It’s how the commander put it. But it was a dark time. Monsters, criminals, and chaos ruled. The fools in the South African government refused to do what they must to bring peace to this land. The Honourable and Righteous Emperor Ukuhleleka, first of his name, gave the fools a choice. Allow him to save this country or die. But the fools died foolishly, as they refused. The Emperor took charge of the country, all except for the settlers in Good Hope. They still held onto the idea that this was their land. They refused to believe that the Emperor brought light to this dark land. And others refused. Traitors took his life and the blighted Magocracy took a third of the country.”

He sighed, and I noted that he was no longer smiling. I knew a lot about what he was saying. But never had it been taught as passionately as Sifiso spoke it now.

“I train,” Sifiso continued. “Because I want peace for this land. After I finish my tour, I will have the right to marry. I hope by then that this land will be united, and we can have peace.”

A horn blew, punctuating his lecture. He stood up, slinging his rifle onto his back once again.

“I will be back,” he said. “If you plan on staying. I’ll bring something to start a fire with later.”

“No!” I said, suddenly. “…please…”

He eyed me curiously, but then left, bidding me farewell until lunch.

“Peace…” I muttered, as Sifiso disappeared. I snorted.

If Mqanduli was the Zulu peace, I didn’t want to see their war.

***

Sifiso returned at lunch with food but had to leave promptly. I thanked him, this time, unable to feel guilty that he was running on half-rations because of me. He didn’t seem to mind.

Over the next few days, Sifiso returned three times a day. Like clockwork. Every breakfast, we would speak for a while. He told me about the girl he hoped to marry, about his hometown in Natal, about his father who was a commander of a White Battalion. On the third day, I asked him about his badge. It was different from Dlamini’s and the other impis I had seen.

Sifiso looked the proudest I had ever seen him.

“It is the badge of my company. The 131st. Every company has a cowhide badge. We don’t use hide shields anymore, but this is a part of our heritage. Every company’s badge is different.”

He leaned forward to show me his badge in more detail. To me, it just looked like the splotches of a brown and white cow.

“We each have to make our own badges. My mother helped me with mine…” he almost seemed to blush. “She saved up for the materials. She’s a teacher.”

I felt a pang, remembering my mother. She had baked for a living. She made the best pot bread in the village. I used to eat it fresh out of the oven.

I would never be able to do that again.

Sifiso had asked about my family before. I ignored his questions. He never pressed. Perhaps, that was one of the reasons I began to like him so much.

I was shocked, at first, to realise that I liked an impi. At first, I thought it was just the food. But, as he spent time with me, as I hid in the confines of an isolated shack, afraid to leave lest I never find a roof over my head again, I realised that Sifiso may be an impi, but he was also human.

He spoke Zulu to me, and I spoke Xhosa back. We both understood each other. Our languages sounded different, but, at the core, they were the same. And, perhaps, it was the same with us.

Sometimes, Sifiso stayed late into the night. He said that he was expected to patrol the far-flung corners around the camp, but there was nothing but opportunistic beasts that wouldn’t dare attack an armed soldier. He didn’t consider shirking his patrol duties as too sinful.

Night patrollers got extra rations so, on those nights, there was enough for both of us to eat our fill. I realised that, as the days went by, I began to open up.

I told Sifiso about Mqanduli. Not what happened there, but about my life before. About the girl I had liked but who was, most probably, dead. About Themba and his wisdom. And Wisdom and his lack of it. About my mother’s food, my cousins’ herds. About feast days and celebrations.

I spoke of all this with a joy I hadn’t felt in a while. I forgot about the fires and the bloodsuckers. I was able to remember the good times. And, soon enough, my days and nights spent in the little shack with the impi became those good times.

But nothing lasts forever.

Chapter 8.              Army of God

Sifiso did not arrive one night.

I didn’t fret. He had told me that he had to remain at base tonight for inspection. I wondered why he was to be inspected at such a peculiar time. It had been a month since I had begun living in the little shack. The first week or two, I had refused to leave. But, as days passed, I sometimes went hiking, collecting water. Sifiso brought me bottles of water, but it wasn’t enough. I collected wood and scrap that I found around the hills, and brought it back to the shack, repairing holes and turning the building into more of a home. It no longer leaked during storms. Sifiso had brought a small gas-lamp that he said would not be missed. My nights were no longer pitch black.

On one of the Saturdays, Sifiso brought empty glass beer bottles and lined them up against a hill. He handed me his R1 and taught me how to shoot. The gun was heavy, and I was out of shape but, soon enough, I was hitting targets. I felt a bit guilty holding the weapon. I was still inkwenkwe. But these were just bottles. Perhaps, if I only needed to shoot bottles to defend my country, Mqanduli would still be around.

I spent the night without Sifiso whittling. I had found an old assegai head on one of my walks and was using it to sharpen sticks. I wasn’t at all dexterous enough to make anything resembling art. But, a sharp stick was its own kind of art. My stomach wasn’t aching with hunger, despite Sifiso not bringing dinner. He had brought extra food during lunch. He had said that the mess hall had extra rations, but he was also a bad liar. He had forfeited his entire lunch knowing that he would not be able to deliver dinner.

I tried to refuse the food. He was the one exercising and training all day. I was just wandering aimlessly around these hills. But, he insisted.

I slept restfully, assured that my friend would return the following morning, as he had always done.

And he did return. Yet, there was an unmistakable hollowness to his eyes. He didn’t smile as easily as before. Or at all.

“Inspection didn’t go well?” I asked, genuine concern growing for my friend.

Friend? Really. Friends with an impi…

He shook his head, but then hesitated.

“It went fine,” he said, passing me breakfast. I ate as he paced the small confines of the shack.

I watched him, silently, as I ate.

Finally, he sighed.

“It’s fine. I’ll get used to it. They’re servants of the Emperor as well. They just…make my skin crawl.”

“Who? What is it?”

Sifiso looked surprised, but then realised he hadn’t given any context. He waved the comment aside, dismissing what he had just said.

“It’s nothing. Just vampires. The Izingane Zegazi. The 131st and the entire battalion have been put under their command. The entire Transkei is apparently to be governed by them now. It’s worked in Ciskei, apparently. And, I’m sure the Emperor’s judgement isn’t faulty…”

Sifiso’s words became muffled, as a ringing returned to my ears. I felt a blistering heat on me, remembering fire, petrol, rubber…

“Guy!” Sifiso cried, as I heard the clatter of the metal bowl hit the floor, spilling its contents.

I shook my head, before covering my face with my hands.

Vampires. Here. Now. After all this time. Were they after me? Did that creature who murdered my mother change her mind?

“Guy?” Sifiso insisted, grabbing my shoulders and shaking me.

I looked at him and realised I was vibrating with fear.

“What is it?” Sifiso asked, eyes filled with concern.

“I ca…I can’t,” I stammered. “Not now. I have to go.”

He grabbed my arm as I stood to leave.

“Why? What is it?”

I considered pulling my arm away from him. I had to run. To get away from this place. I had the cover of the sun for now. But, they would be back at night. I had to leave!

But Sifiso was my friend.

I collapsed back onto the stool.

“The vampires…they destroyed my village…”

Sifiso backed away, genuinely shocked. He let go of my wrist.

“The impi too,” I continued. “They took everything from me. My mother. My home. My future. Themba and Wisdom are already dead, probably.”

“I…I didn’t know,” Sifiso said.

“Of course, you didn’t!” I hissed, feeling a rage replacing the fear. “An impi protects, right? Until he doesn’t. Until he helps the vampires kill every single one of us. We’re an excuse to you. Peace? You can’t bring peace with war. You didn’t bring peace to this land. You burnt it!”

I regretted the words as soon as I finished speaking. Sifiso, for the first time, seemed younger than me, as he stood, shocked, in the corner of the minute room.

“We’re here to help you,” he muttered, disbelieving.

I shook my head. “It’s too late for that.”

I lifted up the metal bowl and handed it to him. He accepted it, with a shaking hand, and disappeared out of the door.

***

My gut told me to run. To get out of this place. But, as Sifiso fled my accusations, I was overcome with guilt. Impi had helped the vampires destroy Mqanduli. But Sifiso had helped me. Fed me. He’d taught me how to use his rifle.

But why?

What was his ulterior motive?

Was it to win me over to the Empire?

I didn’t think so. He truly believed that the Empire was good. He didn’t feel the need to convince me.

He had never tried to manipulate me. He asked nothing of me.

He gave me everything. And all I had done was yell at him.

He did not return for lunch or that evening. I subsisted on rainwater.

The following morning, he did not return. I considered leaving. I was tired after a sleepless night, listening for vampires or awaiting his arrival. But Sifiso was my friend. I could not leave before apologising to him.

Lunch. He did not arrive.

The sun grew dim, and I decided to give it one final night. I would leave in the morning. Go where? I did not know. West, to the Three Point Line. North, to the Magocracy. My homeland was now the property of bloodsuckers. There was nothing left for me in these green hills.

I waited in the dark, as hope of Sifiso’s arrival grew dimmer. Finally, I sighed, and began moving the furniture and bits of the nightly barricade into place. When I heard bootsteps. I held my breath. Squelch, squelch, sque…stop.

Knock. Knock.

I didn’t speak. It probably wasn’t Sifiso. I had chased him away. Burnt him despite all he had done for me. If I remained silent, perhaps the impi or vampire would not feel the need to investigate…

“Guy…it’s me.”

Sifiso! He sounded…anxious. But also, excited.

I opened the door.

“I’m sorry!” I sputtered out, just as he said the same.

I stopped, just as he did.

“Can I come in?” he whispered, glancing furtively behind him.

I made way and he entered. He turned off his flashlight as I turned on the gas-lamp.

“I’m sorry,” I repeated. “You’ve helped me. And no matter what the Izingane Zegazi have done to me, it isn’t your fault. Maybe not the Empire’s fault either. I shouldn’t have said what I did.”

Sifiso looked at the ground, looking sadder than I’d ever seen him before.

“The vampires…” he said. “Had their reasons. I won’t try to justify them. But…they may not be your…our problem anymore.”

“What? Why?”

“The 131st is being moved north. We’re to prepare for an assault on the Magocracy. There’s been a treaty with the settlers, for now. That means…we’re no longer under the command of the vampires. We’re moving tomorrow.”

I clenched my fists as my skin went cold. Sifiso was leaving. The vampires would leave too, but he was also leaving. My last friend…

“The camp is looking for camp followers. As a Xhosa inkwenkwe, you won’t be expected to fight,” Sifiso continued. “Just to serve in the kitchens, help unload…menial stuff. But you’ll get three full meals a day. And you’ll be safe…”

I was so shocked I had to sit down.

“I…I could come with you?” I asked, dumbly.

Sifiso, for the first time since I had accused him of the sins of his empire, smiled as he nodded.

I shouldn’t feel excited to work in an impi camp. I should be ashamed of working for the men who had destroyed my life. But, as Sifiso had taught me – not all impi were bad.

Three meals a day. A roof over my head. And I would not have to fight. I could survive…

Knock. Knock.

Two slow knocks, evenly spaced apart. Sifiso and I both stared at the door. We hadn’t heard anyone approach. Sifiso stood, carefully, and approached the door. Unconsciously, I backed into the far corner. Sifiso smiled at me, reassuringly, before opening the door.

A man stood outside. His head was shaved, and he had some light stubble. He wore a black coat, with red Nguni patterns around the shoulders. His eyes were red.

My heart stopped.

“Impi,” the vampire said, casually, but with the subtle hint of accusation. “What is this?”

Sifiso locked his feet together and saluted.

“Sir, this is one of my stops for my night patrol.”

The vampire entered, without invitation. Unfortunately, it seemed not all myths were true.

The vampire scanned the room, considering the splinters from my whittling, and the small wooden stools. Then, his eyes fell on me. I froze.

“And it is?” the vampire asked, his stare unwavering. Did he ever blink?

“He is a local boy. He is not an enemy. I feed him part of my rations.”

The vampire approached me, and I felt the wall behind me, scratching at the decaying wood.

Sifiso stepped in front of me. His fist was clenched, but he relaxed his posture.

“Sir, he’s just an orphan. He doesn’t leave. He’s not a traitor or a spy.”

Just an orphan.

Sifiso was only a year older than me, I had discovered. But I was still the boy, and he the man.

Surprisingly, the vampire laughed. It was a sick laugh, but not forced.

“Impi, you shouldn’t be ashamed. What you do with your slave is none of my business. You don’t need to make excuses.”

“He isn’t my slave!” Sifiso said, aghast.

“Servant, then. It’s all the same. How much?”

“How much what?”

“I want to buy him.”

Sifiso’s hand twitched. I felt a renewed shame, as I cowered behind my friend. I couldn’t see the vampire.

“He…he isn’t for sale.”

“Impi…don’t make me order you to relinquish the boy…”

“I’m sorry…sir. But he’s not for sale.”

Silence. A heavy, fevered silence. The vampire sighed. It sounded distinctly human.

“Fine. A taste then. How much for a taste?”

Sifiso stepped forward. The shadow he threw from the faint light of the gas lamp seemed to double in size and menace.

“He. Isn’t. For. Sale...Sir.”

I could smell the tension. It started to rain. The clatter of drops began to fall suddenly and heavily. One of the holes I had mended burst open once again and rain poured into the room.

“A shame,” the vampire said, profoundly disappointed. “I tried to be civil…”

He shoved past Sifiso as if nudging away a small child, before grabbing my arm. I tried to cry out, but no words escaped my mouth.

The vampire stared at me hungrily with those blood red eyes. I could see clearly that he wasn’t going to settle for just a taste.

Squelch.

The vampire stopped. He let go of my arm. His eyes looked…shocked.

The squelch hadn’t been from the mud outside.

Sifiso backed away, pulling his bayonet from the vampire’s back. I caught a glimpse of his eyes. He couldn’t believe what he had just done.

“Impi…” the vampire wheezed, not turning around. “Next time you seek to betray the Empire…make sure you aim for the head.”

In a blur, the vampire had turned on Sifiso. My friend didn’t even have enough time to charge the bolt on his rifle. The vampire tackled him to the ground, bringing his arms back and raking at my friend with his claws.

I tried to move. I tried to do something. But what could I do against such a beast? I was only inkwenkwe. And this was a monster.

Sifiso screamed as his blood spread around him. The vampire stopped slashing and, with a sickening puncture, sank his fangs into Sifiso’s neck.

He was draining him dry. Like Bhengani. Like the other impi. Like the people of Mqanduli.

Sifiso stopped screaming. I could only hear the spluttering and suction of the vampire as he consumed his meal.

Once again…vampires had taken everything from me. And I had done nothing.

…

No!

My body heated up as I clenched my fist.

I couldn’t stand by again. Not this time.

Sifiso’s rifle and assegai bayonet lay by his side. But there was another assegai, just by my stool.

A rage boiled inside of me. A pent-up anger that had been brewing since Mqanduli. Since watching the somagwaza’s brain spilled out onto the floor, since watching Themba disappear into the darkness. And since watching my mother burn…

I dropped to the floor, lifting the old assegai, blade down like a knife. The vampire didn’t turn, as I voicelessly rushed him. He lifted his head from Sifiso’s neck.

Too late. The assegai met resistance. The creature’s skull. I pulled it back, and before the vampire could react, I beat the blade down on him once again. And again, and again. The blade warped under every blow, and the vampire twitched. I hammered the spearhead deeper and deeper into the vampire’s skull.

Until he no longer moved.

With a final blow, I let go of the spearhead’s handle, and slumped backwards.

The vampire didn’t move. Didn’t even twitch. I looked at my hands. They were red with blood. My own. I had chafed my hands over and over again on the old metal.

I looked at the vampire. His expression was of pure shock, as blood dripped down from the hole in his forehead and eye socket.

Aim for the head.

I would have laughed, if I hadn’t been crying. Tears flowed from my eyes as I looked at my friend, lying prostate, his arms lax by his side.

I should have acted sooner. It was too late now. It was always too late. It didn’t matter if I killed this creature. It had already won.

I covered my face to stifle my sobs. As I heard a scuffing. I looked up, as Sifiso began to move.

I smiled, standing up, before I noticed his eyes. Elation turned to horror, as Sifiso’s skin rapidly greyed and his eyes became a blood-red.

“No…” I whispered. Not this. Not now. Not on top of everything else…

Sifiso lunged towards me, hissing. I was frozen. I couldn’t bring myself to look for a weapon, or to even run. I couldn’t hurt my friend. Even now. Especially after how I had failed to save him.

Sifiso plummeted to the ground, just in front of me, as a throwing spear protruded from his back. He cried out and turned towards the doorway. Another spear flew towards him and landed in his chest. He fell to the ground with a primal roar of pain, as I backed up into the corner.

The ghoul Sifiso tried to lift himself up, as a bearded man with grey hair and black clothes entered. He withdrew one of the spears from Sifiso’s body, being rewarded with a pained growl. The gas-lamp glinted off the spear-tip. Silver.

The man drove the spear deeper into Sifiso’s flesh, pinning him to the floor. In his other hand, he held a black machete, with a silver edge.

It took two chops. Sifiso’s headless body twitched once. Then lay still.

Silence. The man left Sifiso’s head, as he revealed a cloth and began wiping down his blade. I didn’t move.

The man’s black clothing was odd. He wore a multi-pocketed vest, like Sifiso and the other impi. His collar was thick, and shone silver. He was wrinkled. Old. Yet, he moved faster than anyone I had seen before. Excluding the vampires.

The man sheathed the machete and then crouched, examining the vampire’s corpse. He looked at me. His eyes were…indescribable. They were brown. Normal. But…there was a depth there, a form of pain and wisdom that I could not fathom.

“Did you kill the vampire?” the man asked, in Xhosa.

I hesitated, but then nodded. Slowly.

“I’m sorry,” I said, hastily.

“Why?” the man asked, showing a small hint of confusion. But his demeanour did not change overall. This man was too old and too experienced to be particularly shocked by anything.

“I am inkwenkwe,” I answered.

“Did you kill the vampire for your country, inkwenkwe?” he asked, sternly.

I shook my head.

“Then why did you kill it?”

Why? To save my friend? He was already dead. Because I didn’t act sooner. Because the vampire was going to turn on me afterwards? That had not crossed my mind.

“I hate them,” I finally said. “All of them. They took everything from me. I want to kill them. Every last one.”

The man stared at me, and I stared back, unblinking. I had felt fear this past month. Fear, shame, guilt. And exhaustion.

I was tired of being frightened.

I wanted to be angry. To let the rage fill me.

“I don’t want to fear them anymore,” I added, almost whispering.

The man stood and examined Sifiso’s R1. He checked the magazine and then slung it around his back. Sifiso didn’t need it anymore.

“You wish to slay vampires? To hunt the Blood? To follow this path?”

I nodded. No hesitation.

“To hunt the Blood,” the man explained, “will put you beyond the society you once knew. To become umzingeli wegazi, you will no longer be a boy or a man. You will have to roam these lands for all times, seeking the Blood. You will spill much of it…if you aren’t drained of yours first. Do you truly wish to go down this path?”

The vampires had taken everything from me. Left me without choice. Without even the path to manhood.

“I do.”

The man handed me one of the spears, before turning towards the darkness outside. He stopped, and inclined his head, bidding me to follow.

I gave Sifiso one final look, before following the man into the darkness.

The path of the Umzingeli wegazi.

Blood Hunter.

Part 2

Chapter 9.              Roamer

Sand erupted into a dust storm, leaving a fog in my wake as I sped along yet another dirt road, towards yet another backwater village, and yet another alleged monster sighting. The motor on my dirt bike chugged diligently, but I couldn’t help but imagine that it sounded like someone with a nasty cough.

I hoped it wasn’t breaking down. My old faithful had been much more efficient. But that garkain down by New Ulundi hadn’t taken kindly to my less than romantic advances. I’d survived but couldn’t say the same about my old bike.

This new one wasn’t bad. But, you never truly appreciated something when it had been forced onto you.

Perhaps, that’s why, despite taking me in and training me, I was never truly thankful to Silumko, my teacher. It didn’t help that he didn’t ever ask for thanks. Walking the path was enough for him.

In fact, it was all that mattered to him.

Eight years had passed since that fateful night, and I had served as a fully-fledged Blood Hunter for four of those years.

During my apprenticeship and after that, I had travelled the lands. I’d seen village after village, seldom travelling into the towns that were flooded with impi. I travelled to defend the common folk from the monsters. The impi could not be everywhere. And, seldom did they care about the lives of backwater villagers.

But this was not my goal.

I sighed as the engine on my bike started to peter out. Hadn’t I filled it up this morning? Wait, no. That had been last week. Was it before or after the zombie dressed as Count Dracula?

I pulled over, walking my bike the extra distance to hide it behind a tree off the road. If my internal compass wasn’t too off, I was near to the village. It didn’t have a name. Not officially, at least. It had been a hamlet once, but people escaping the border wars had flocked to it.

That meant a lot of people, in an isolated and semi-lawless settlement. That meant chaos, curses, conflict. And, with all that culminating in one thing: monsters.

News from the petrol station off the highway said that this village had monster trouble. No details beyond that. But that was usually the case. Small town folk had a terrible understanding of monsters. It was always an evil spirit, or a demon to them. Sometimes an old and vengeful god. I’d killed a few of those. They were quite disappointing for deities.

But, that’s why I had to investigate. I was a Blood Hunter. That meant I sought out vampires of the Blood, and then put them down. But, because people seldom knew what they were dealing with, it was very possible that a demon ended up being a vampire.

But, besides that, my teacher advised we hunt all sorts of monsters. It honed our skills. Plus, we were meant to charge for our services. And then use that money to fund the war against the Izingane Zegazi.

I opened my meagre wallet. Just a single ten idola note. King Shaka’s face stared mockingly at me. I sighed again.

The fundraising hadn’t been going so well. These were poor lands. What I made was barely enough to keep myself alive, much less fund the war against vampires. Qamata! I couldn’t even afford ammunition. Bullets were expensive. Silver bullets, even more so. My Star M43 pistol was painfully empty in its holster on the side of my tactical vest.

I hoped that this nameless village had some money to spare for me ridding them of their monster. And hopefully, it was a monster!

Just a few months ago, I’d been called into a village to rid it of a vampire. Sounded promising. Until I found a poor albino boy tied up in the elder’s attic. The villagers didn’t feel like paying me any compensation after I spent an hour lecturing them about the difference between albinos and vampires. And rifts! They shouldn’t be making the connection at all. Every member of the Izingane Zegazi I’d seen were as dark as me and everyone else.

Vampires mutated differently; I had discovered in my almost decade-long journey now as a Blood Hunter. Most had red eyes, like the creatures that had burnt Mqanduli to the ground, but other mutations were diverse. Some had claws, some grew thick natural armour. Some even grew wings.

This was another reason why I pursued any lead I could get. Almost anything could possibly be a vampire. A dog that got bitten by a vampiric squirrel from another world, the demon that lulled priests into a false sense of security while sucking their blood, or even the massive heaving pile of flesh that drained everything in its path dry.

So, I trudged in the midday sun, down a dirt road, to a nameless village, carrying a backpack hidden under my tattered old initiation blanket, and a small jerry can to hopefully get petrol. That last thing was a vain hope. I had no money. But, hopefully, if there was a monster, I could earn my petrol. And, hopefully, some bullets!

I contemplated the silence as I walked. I enjoyed the humming of a bike’s engine, but I had spent so long in silence during the last years that it had become comforting. There was hardly anyone to ever talk to, and that suited me fine. I didn’t have much I wanted to say.

I eventually arrived at the nameless village. It had no sign. No particularly unique landmarks. It was far away from any main roads. I preferred it that way. I wasn’t a wanted man, but impi asked inconvenient questions. And an armed man who wasn’t serving in the Emperor’s army was always seen as a problem. Some impi tolerated the Blood Hunters, but most wanted to know where I’d gotten my pistol and my assegai.

That wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have. With them, or my own people, if they figured out what I was.

I entered the village. It was larger than I predicted. The buildings, a motley combination of houses, shacks and huts, snaked in between the hills, with some homesteads dominating the hilltops.

I walked past a herd boy, nudging some thick-horned cattle towards their kraal. He eyed me suspiciously. He looked about thirteen, fourteen. The tattered blanket on my back caught his eye. I approached him, but as he caught sight of the black metal piece I had displayed on my black tactical vest, he averted his gaze and rushed back to his work.

I really needed some clothes that didn’t stand out so much. All black, tactical gear, with a relic of who I was before taking the path, was not the way to remain inconspicuous. But it was practical. You never knew when a monster was stalking you in the bush, or a bandit wanted to shiv you between the ribs. My vest was padded against such attacks. It would stop a zombie or ghoul bite, and maybe even let me survive some shrapnel. I had gotten used to its weight a long time ago.

Besides the lowing of the cattle being confined for the evening, the village was quiet. I saw a few people walking between buildings. All of them eyed me suspiciously.

Yeah, definitely needed to think about some more appropriate clothing.

None of the people I saw were armed with anything more than a sjambok, a wooden whipping stick. That was disappointing. Some of these backwater villages had a semblance of a black market in firearms. Post-Cataclysm Southern Africa was full of guns, no matter the attempts by the Empire to control the supply. But, it seemed I’d have to find another place to restock my poor pistol.

I proceeded further into the village. It was surprising that this place didn’t have a name. There was a grocery store with really outdated tabloids about Hope City monster hunters, a stall selling pirated pre-Cataclysm movies on DVD and VCR, and a shebeen.

Before I could consider searching the pirated film stall for anything to watch on my non-existent DVD player, a man with greying black hair approached me. In a hushed tone, he asked in Zulu.

“Are you from the garrison, impi? We sent word a month ago for help. Where’s the rest of the company?”

Some other villagers began to congregate around us, keeping a respectful distance.

I shook my head.

“I am not an impi,” I replied, in Xhosa. This was a Xhosa man. But, it was becoming less and less prudent to speak the non-imperial tongue around the impi.

The man squinted, suspicious, and voicelessly asking: “Then what are you?”

“I’m a Blood Hunter,” I continued.

He seemed to visibly recoil. Without saying goodbye, he and the crowd began making themselves scarce. Soon enough, I was alone in what I suspected was the village square.

I sighed, for what seemed the umpteenth time today. I was used to this. Got it a lot. Blood Hunters were not strictly legal. We carried firearms, despite not being impi. And we took it upon ourselves to hunt monsters, when the impi were meant to be the sole law enforcement of the land. Well, excluding the Izingane Zegazi and their thralls.

It wasn’t completely public that our true purpose was to hunt the vampire clans. The impi tended to tolerate us. But, if it came out that we were working against the liege lords of the land, then perhaps it would be a different story.

None of the villagers had remained. Sometimes, one or two did, to offer me reward in secret. Like witch doctors, Blood Hunters were scorned by the people. Yet, they rushed to us when they became desperate.

This was our lot. My lot.

And I’d grit my teeth, if it meant following the path.

I moved to the shebeen. It was true of all towns, villages and settlements that the best place to find a lead was the place where everyone got drunk. And, without the health standards and restrictions of a licensed pub, shebeens were very good at loosening people’s tongues.

But, upon entering this shebeen, I was greeted by a depressingly empty bar, with only a single patron lying with his head on the front counter, while a bartender idly opened and closed the cash register.

The bartender saw me and stood to attention, fast. I could see the battle going on behind his eyes. He wasn’t keen on serving an armed stranger, but he was also desperate for cash.

Desperation. It stank like blood and sweat. But it was also the Blood Hunters nectar. We thrived on it. We were bathed in it. It was desperation that drove us onward.

I sat down at the bar, as the bartender decided to temper his enthusiasm while being polite to a customer, but sceptical of a stranger.

Before he could list all the beverages that were out of my price range, I pre-empted him.

“Water, please. Tap.”

The bartender looked disappointed.

“The pump station is old.”

“That’s fine.” I drank water out of puddles in the mud. I could survive some badly treated water. Would take a lot more than cholera to kill me! And yes, those do sound like famous last words.

The bartender shrugged. “Your funeral.”

I didn’t speak as he disappeared to go and fetch my water. There were no taps behind the counter. I suspected he was fetching water from the bathroom. Didn’t bother me.

The shebeen was cosy. Cleaner than many I had frequented before. That may be due to the lack of people. Signs bearing the branding of local and foreign beers adorned the walls, interspersed with photos of happy patrons. It was the type of bar that had a community feel. If only there was a community present to feel it.

The bartender returned with my glass. The water looked clean. For the most part. I took a sip. It tasted only a little bit metallic.

“This is a shebeen, stranger,” the patron to my side finally said, slurring slightly. But it seemed his slurring was more due to tiredness than inebriation. “Why are you drinking water? Get something that’ll put some hairs on that chin.”

Odd. He had no facial hair to speak of. Middle aged, slightly wrinkled. But no facial hair.

“I’m on the job,” I replied, taking another sip.

The patron snorted. “All the more reason to drink!”

I didn’t argue as I took another sip, and then inclined my head towards the glass-front fridge behind the bar.

“Perhaps, but what would I order? You seem to be out of beer.”

The bartender twitched. Was that a nerve? Or something else.

“There’s no beer,” he confirmed. “But there’s spirits, if you’re up to it. I still have some Coronation. It’s aged well.”

Coronation? I doubted it was real. The Coronation Whiskey was distilled in honour of the Emperors. Only the top Zulu clans had access to a bottle.

I glanced around the almost empty shebeen, confirming the lack of customers.

“Tell me, barkeep,” I said, leaning forward. “How does a village this small, but obviously well-stocked, consume so much alcohol so quickly?”

The bartender twitched again. Yep, I was right. Sore point. He excused himself and disappeared into the back. He left the register open. I noted that it was empty except for a few old rand coins and a single Idola note bearing an image of King Dingane.

The patron sidled closer to me. He didn’t seem drunk at all, despite his insistence that I should drink.

“It isn’t wise to bring attention to dark forces,” he said, hushed. “Best to ignore them and let them go away.”

“Getting the attention of dark forces is my business.”

The patron squinted, and then examined me fully. His eyes fell on my pistol and my sheathed assegai. If he looked under the blanket, he would notice more. A machete, hatchet and equipment to make traps.

“Are you an impi?” he whispered, sounding half hesitant and half in awe.

It would be awe-inspiring if an impi travelled this far to help a Xhosa village, yeah.

“No,” I replied. “I actually do my job.”

He nodded, and I saw the hint of an amused smile. Good for me. Some Xhosa respected impi. I tended not to get along with them.

“Why have you come to our inappropriately unnamed village, not-impi?” he asked more loudly, indicating for the bartender to bring him some of the hard tack. The bartender was happy to oblige, as he opened a safe and revealed a bottle of Coronation whiskey. I wasn’t an expert at forgeries, but the black and white and taped on printed label was kind of a giveaway. It did smell like whiskey, though. If I had some money, and wasn’t on the job, I’d have considered buying a glass myself.

“I heard about a monster,” I said, simply.

The bartender hurried his pouring and then retreated. See no evil, hear no evil. Didn’t help them escape it, though. A ghoul you couldn’t hear or see was a ghoul that would promptly enjoy chewing on your bones.

The patron leaned in again. “There’s a house. On the outskirts of the village. One of the old houses. Some white homestead back in the day. A lady used to live there months back. Good Xhosa lady. Always showed up to church, always praised the ancestors. But, one day, she disappeared. It was then that the troubles started…”

The man paused to swig. I waited, patiently. I used to tap my foot irritably, waiting for the theatrics to end. But clients loved telling stories, with suitably dramatic pauses.

He gave a satisfied sigh and continued.

“Started with the usual hubbub. Noises in the dead of night. Sickening laughter, screams, yelling. But with no one there to make the sound. Lights would go on and off in the abandoned house. No one had seen the owner for ages. Hadn’t come to church or any of the market days. In the coming months, it got worse. A reeking stench moving like a cloud down the hill from the house…”

“What type of stench?” I asked, interjecting.

“Reeking, as I said.”

“I mean…corpses, rot, fire? A lot of creatures have distinctive smells. It might help me guess what it is.”

He shook his head. “The smell is indescribable.”

Typical.

“The worst was yet to come,” he continued, leaning closer, as if engaging in a conspiracy. “Shipments of liquor began to disappear at night. First a few bottles, then crates, and now entire fridges. Poor Thabo over there can’t keep stock long enough to sell it. We set up a posse to investigate the disappearance but found no one….no one human at least…was responsible.”

Or, more likely, everyone in the posse was dividing the loot.

“Did this posse investigate the house?”

He looked at me like I was mad.

“Of course not! Do you think we have a death wish?”

Apparently, I did.

I suppressed a sigh.

“So, a reeking stench, disappearing liquor, odd noises. Taking a house as its haunt. Probably consumed the old owner…”

The patron’s eyes widened. He had apparently not thought about that possibility.

“Do you know anyone else I can talk to about what this thing might be?”

He shook his head. “No need. I know exactly what it is.”

It was my turn to lean in closer, as his voice dropped to below a whisper.

“Tokoloshe.”

I laughed, in his face, unable to stop myself from leaning back. He looked at me flabbergasted, his eyes offended. I tried to contain myself, let out a few more guffaws, and then gripped the side of the bar.

“I’m…I’m sorry,” I managed to choke out, rubbing a tear away. “It might be a tokoloshe…”

“Ssshhh, not so loud. You’ll get its attention.”

“Tokoloshe are trickster sprites, possibly demons. But they’re functionally harmless.”

“Tell that to the nice lady on the hill.”

My expression darkened, and he leaned back at the sudden change.

“I know. And I’ll slay whatever killed her. It is probably a nightkin. They look like tokoloshe and are vampiric.”

He waved dismissively. “Nightkin? Bah! Those monkeys are just vermin.”

I’d seen villages depopulated by said vermin. Nightkin weren’t a joke. If this was one, I just had to hope it was by itself. Then I could handle it.

“If that’s everything, I’ll be investigating the house…” I moved to reach for my wallet. The man stopped me, placing his hand on my arm, before flicking a coin over onto the counter.

“It’s the least I can do for a man I probably won’t ever see again.”

Your faith in me is moving!

I waved him farewell and proceeded to the house on the hill, just as the sun began to wane.

Chapter 10.      Sprites

Superstition was a compelling motivator for many. And, in a world of magic and monsters, some superstition was just common sense. But, it wasn’t the most powerful of motivations. Offer a starving man a feast and he will pointedly ignore that you’re probably a witch fattening him up.

No. You needed much more than superstition to cause this much fear in a village this large. And, by my estimation of these village folk, they weren’t complete backwater yokels. I came from a traditional village, and this wasn’t one. It was the epitome of a transient boom town. The economy of the Zulu Empire and its occupied territories ebbed and flowed. And it was currently going through one of its booms. That meant a demand for commodities. In particular, metal. And that meant mining.

Thus, these villages sprang up as families and migrant workers followed the prospects of employment.

These were not country folk, isolated from the modern magical world. Yes, they were ignorant on many magical matters. But, so was I. And I killed magical beasts as a way of life.

Long story short: it would take more than just old myths around water sprites and curses to keep a village of economic opportunists this fearful.

The sunset painted the world red and orange as I made my way up the hill in question. While shacks and hastily constructed buildings flooded the plains, they all gave this hill a wide berth as well as the brickwork house atop it.

The house was western style. Possibly a farm in ages past. Pitched roof. Exposed brickwork on some of the walls, but white plaster over others. The windows were open, letting frilled curtains dance in the breeze.

This was a nice house. Nicer than any other in this transient settlement. And it did not look looted, vandalised or that anyone had even attempted to squat within or around it.

What could drive so many people to not even consider taking up residence in a more than adequate house?

Superstition only went so far. As I examined the house from a distance, placing my plastic jerry can to the side of the dirt path, I felt a shiver run up my spine, and a lump like a fist appear in my gut.

There was something wrong with this house. And it had driven an entire village to steer clear of it.

I slowly approached the brickwork abode, drawing my machete with my right hand. It was a bulky thing, with a steel edge that had been visibly worn down by constant sharpening over the years. It looked battle-scarred. But I knew that it had many years left in it. Hopefully, like me.

I pulled my bag off my back and placed it quietly outside the door of the house. If I was fighting something like a nightkin, then I would need to be completely agile. The creatures were so fast it was almost like teleportation. Carrying a loaded backpack containing all my belongings wouldn’t help even the odds.

Backpack stowed behind a dying bush near the front door, I unsheathed my assegai. Its metal was painted black, all except for the exposed edge, that shone in the waning light. Silver. Always good to have silver. Just in case. Vampires hated it. So did werewolves, and evil spirits, and some demons. Silver had overtaken gold in terms of value in this magical world. Too bad for me, as I needed to buy some.

I muttered a prayer under my breath. Silumko had taught it to me. He was definitely not a staunch traditionalist. He found my being an inkwenkwe an irrelevant point, even if it still concerned me. He was also the least superstitious man I had ever met.

“Vampires, magic, monsters…are all beings of a new science,” he had said. “We can understand them. And we must, if we plan to kill them.”

That had been one of my first lessons as a Blood Hunter. Superstition was useful, but only insofar as it warned us about phenomena that we could then learn and understand.

Silumko was pragmatic. And, while he did not believe in the theology of these prayers, he had taught them to me as a way to help me focus. And, as I muttered the words and incantations, I felt my body limber up, my breathing and heartrate steady, and any latent fear I felt escape my body. I wasn’t fearless, mind you. But this ritual helped me mask my fear with reason. I could still be wary, but without the panic.

A sea of lights, like a starlit sky, began to blink awake in the nameless village at my back. No lights awoke inside this brickwork house. Why would they? It was either abandoned, or its inhabitant did not care about light.

I activated a flashlight attached to my vest and then, with the same hand that I was holding my assegai’s short spear handle, I slowly reached towards the doorknob. Steady. Almost hesitant. I concentrated on feeling the local weyline. Like Silumko had taught me. It didn’t feel dark. Somewhat weak. Magic didn’t flow so well in these backwater parts. More menial things attracted people to live in such places – not the wonders of the supernatural.

I didn’t feel any sort of obvious magical signature around the door. Satisfied, I tried the doorknob. Unlocked. My lucky day!

I pushed the door forward, holding my machete up to block a possible onslaught. The door met resistance. Not hard. But there was definitely something on the other side. Many things, in fact. And they were clinking.

I gave the door a concerted push, and it swung open to the sound of much tinkling and clinks. My flashlight shone on a tiled floor. At least, I guess it was tiled. I could hardly see it, as the floor was covered in a sea of glass bottles of varying green and brown, interspersed with cans.

Well, I’d found where the alcohol was disappearing.

I stepped forward into the room, which I realised was a kitchen by the presence of an open fridge and many countertops, covered in more and more cans and beer bottles. My feet shifted more of the clutter, letting out a jarring clinking echo. I winced.

Well, the initial glass cacophony must have alerted the possible monstrous inhabitant to my presence already. I waded through the clutter, scanning the walls for a light switch. Found one. Click and bingo. The kitchen became awash in a warm yellow glow as electric lighting truly illuminated the mess. Benefit of mining boom towns. Electricity.

I could not help but marvel at the mess. It had exceeded the point of shame and had become a wonder. The floor wasn’t just coated in the haphazardly discarded cans and bottles, they were piled up. There were months, if not years, worth of alcohol shipments here.

This wasn’t just some teenage hooligans hiding their ill-gotten booze in the abandoned house on the hill. With this volume of alcohol, they would have been noticed. This was something more.

Something supernatural.

I scoured my memory of creatures with a taste for alcohol. It ruled out vampires. Sure, vampires consumed alcohol on occasion, but as much as a human would. It was one of the aspects of a vampire that was possibly the most human.

This not being a vampire should have made me lose my interest. I’m a vampire hunter. Not some Hope City hunter with a slutty approach to selling my skills. My hunt meant something.

But Silumko had taught me that vampires were just one type of monster. And, we needed to save everyone we could, or our path would become meaningless.

So, I pondered other possibilities, while keeping an eye on the dark doorway to the rest of the house. The question was, what monster consumed this much alcohol?

Satyr? Possibly. They were known for their debauchery. But they weren’t considered dangerous. Some trolls and ogres could also drink this much, but one of those would have been noticed. Besides, even a small troll wouldn’t be able to fit in this single-storey house, much less an ogre.

That left two possibilities. Fae or demons. And seeing that both those were categories of creatures containing an endless multitude of unique beings, I was back to square one.

I took a reluctant step forward. I hated not knowing what I was hunting, but that was just a part of the path. Rifts, we hardly knew anything about vampires, and they were our primary target.

I advanced into the dark hallway, searching for a light switch. Part of me wanted the creature to be alerted to my presence. The sooner I flushed it out, the sooner I could kill it.

I scoured the house, finding a sitting room. I searched for any signs of struggle but found none. No damaged furniture, scratches, bludgeon-marks or blood. Not even faeces from rodents. Whatever was now living in this place was keeping it tidy. Well, their sense of tidy, as every room was covered in the ever-present alcohol cans and bottles.

Starting to doubt that this wasn’t just some fever dream, I opened the final door, to what I presumed would be a bedroom with an en suite bathroom.

“Bold of you to step into the belly of the beast, mortal,” a voice rang out, just as I opened the door. The room was empty, yet I felt an unmistakable presence.

“You are brave, if foolish, human, for coming into my domain,” the voice continued. It didn’t boom like a large monster. There was an unmistakable ring of arrogance in the creature’s tone. But more than all that, I couldn’t help but detect that all the words were laden with something else.

Apathy.

“Run, mortal,” the voice continued, as I stepped forward. It was a bedroom. Double bed. Bedsheets ruffled. This was the only room not overwhelmed by discarded bottles and cans.

I sniffed, scanning the room.

“Heed my warnings, trespasser! I give you only this chance to retreat and live another day. Flee!”

The voice didn’t have any directionality to it. It was as if it was being played directly into my head. I prodded the bed with my assegai, before speaking, calmly but sternly.

“You murdered the owner of this house, creature. And then pillage these people of their belongings. I won’t flee. But, I give you a warning: go. Now. You are not welcome here.”

There was a long pause, as I scanned the room for the source of the voice.

“Pillage? Are you accusing me of thievery, mortal?” the voice asked, incredulously.

I shrugged. “You take what isn’t yours. That makes you a thief, creature.”

“I only take what is due to me! It is a tribute. I refrain from destroying them all, and they deliver tribute in the form of intoxicating nectar.”

“You are a sneak thief. They don’t even know what you are.”

I could hear that the owner of the voice was taken aback in its silence.

“I have come here,” I continued, speaking loudly and confidently. “To slay you, and free this village of your shadow. But, most of all, to avenge the owner of this house that you killed.”

“What owner?” the voice asked, equally as incredulous as before.

“The woman! The woman who lived here and who is now dead at your hand.” I must admit to growing a bit heated.

The voice audibly scoffed.

“There was no one when I made residence here. And if you are speaking about the old owner, she left of her own volition. Went off to become the mistress of some impi commander. I came here to punish her, at the behest of her ex-husband. But she was gone. Kill her? Please! My wrath is wasted on petty mortals.”

Sent here? Not just a beast then. Well, it was obviously intelligent. Definitely fae or demon. Most probably demon, if it was used as a part of a curse.

“What are you?” I asked. Always worth a shot. But I had an ulterior motive, as I began edging towards the open window, near an open can of beer. I smelled liquor.

“What a rude thing to ask! I didn’t inquire of what type of bipedal buffoon you are when you came traipsing into my home!” the voice ranted, outraged. Touchy! Definitely a demon. Or a fae. Dammit, they were way too similar.

“All I hear is a whiny spirit…” Both fae and demons hated being called spirits.

“My patience wears thin!” the voice bellowed, but there was a waver in its voice. I turned to look at the nightstand, away from the window. The voice came back more confident. “Go now and I will forget about the offence you have caused me, puny mortal!”

“Well, I’m glad I’ve been promoted from mortal to puny mortal,” I replied, before sniffing. Yep, unmistakable. Sweat, gas and booze.

I spun, suddenly, dropped my assegai and lunged my open hand towards the windowsill. I felt something furry and wet with nervous sweat, as a small hairy creature appeared in my hands, its hairless face paling as it stared at me terrified.

He was short. Possibly coming up to just below my knee. His brown and black fur looked almost charred, coating his body except for his face and hands, which were hairless and pale. Two long, bat-like ears flanked his face and a pair of coal-black eyes.

“You are a tokoloshe!” I exclaimed, honestly surprised that the villager was correct.

“Takes one to know one!” the tokoloshe replied, his predicament not restraining his quips.

I tightened my grip and the tokoloshe reached for my fist, before noticed my machete edging closer to his neck.

“I didn’t hurt anyone,” he squealed. “I swear!”

“Don’t lie to me! We all know the myths. Tokoloshes kill people. You’re an evil sprite sent by witch doctors to wipe out families. Why shouldn’t I kill you now? By the smell coming from behind you, you seem to think you’re out of options.”

“Myths are myths!” he replied, hastily. “Tokoloshes don’t kill people. We can’t! Well, unless it’s a last resort. We’re like bees. If we use our killing powers, we cease to exist. And I’m quite a fan of existing.”

I examined him for deceit, but only saw desperation, which was understandable. I examined his tiny form. Limp arms and legs. He was definitely not overpowering anyone. He could have magic. Probably did. But if he did, I’d likely already be dead.

I chose to trust the creature. For now. I let him go. He fell to the windowsill with a thud, before rubbing his throat and then taking a long swig of beer.

“What’s your name, tokoloshe?” I asked, retrieving my assegai and sheathing it.

“Asking a demon its name is never polite,” he replied, tossing the can out the window. Litterer!

“So…you’re a demon.” I slowly started unsheathing my assegai again.

“So are angels!” the tokoloshe explained, raising his hands defensively. “And you featherless bipeds still worship them for some reason. Sure, I’m a demon. But there’s a lot of us. And, we don’t often see eye to eye. Besides, you can trust a demon. We have rules. It’s the fae you gotta watch out for. They don’t disappear in a cloud of smoke and ash when they violate their tomes of precious codes.”

I sighed and took a seat on the side of the bed. My adrenaline ebbed away as the possibility of a real fight seemed to end. This tokoloshe, for all its big words, seemed harmless.

“So, tokoloshe, what makes you different from the fae and other demons? What can a tokoloshe do?”

The creature grinned, widely. His grin was oddly human. His teeth were perhaps even more herbivorous than omnivorous. But that meant little. Demons defied our universal laws and expectations, Silumko always said. We knew very little about them because they made it so hard for us to try understanding them.

Suddenly, the tokoloshe disappeared. I started, just as the creature appeared behind me, sticking his tongue out before disappearing again. He appeared in front of me, his backside levelled towards my face, as he let out a foul odour. I coughed, as he disappeared once more. I felt a slight weight on my head, as he perched on top of me.

“So…” I repressed a gag. “You’re a demonic prankster.”

“We’re a curse you mortals summon against your enemies,” he explained, sounding proud. “The bogeyman or the reaper but without the morbidity. We don’t need to kill, for our very legend fills the land with dread. Why send an assassin when you can send the fear of one, and drive your foes into a panic?”

“Terrifying housewives and cattle herds. A very noble profession.”

The tokoloshe teleported at my feet, where he retrieved a bottle to swig, before finding it disappointingly dry.

“I must be able to call you something,” I insisted. “Tokoloshe feels a bit impersonal.”

“You can call me Graham.”

Graham?

“Why?” I asked, dumbfounded.

“Why not?” Graham shrugged. “It amuses me. And what is your name, one who hunts alcoholic demons in backwater slums?”

“Guy,” I answered. “Guy Mgebe.”

Recognition flickered in Graham’s eyes, but he didn’t comment.

I sighed and stood up. I was hoping for some pay, but this creature was harmless. Perhaps the village could benefit from some sobriety.

“Are you leaving already?” Graham asked, as if he had not been threatening me minutes before.

“I believe you are telling the truth. Which means this is your house now. But, I must ask that you stop stealing from the village folk. We both know now you cannot destroy this village even if you wanted to. So, find some more honest way to get your booze.”

I started towards the door, just as Graham teleported in front of me, his black eyes wide.

“You can’t leave! If you came up here, that means someone sent you. Which means that they may start coming up here themselves. And when they find out that I can’t kill them, they’ll lynch me! Do you know how they lynch criminals in these parts? What would they do to a demon?”

“Not my problem. Why were you hiding here in the first place if you’re that scared of them?”

I took another step forward; he teleported to keep pace.

“The best place to hide,” he grinned. “Is in plain sight.”

He disappeared then reappeared on my head, staring at me upside down.

“Come on,” he began to whine, lifting two empty bottles and offering me one. “This has been the most fun I’ve had in a long time…”

“I almost killed you.”

“Variety is the spice of life.”

I shook my head, exasperated. I just wanted to find a nook to settle down in for the night and then do some odd jobs for petrol money in the morning.

Graham teleported onto my shoulder. He didn’t smell putrid anymore. Thankfully, it seemed he could turn it on and off.

“You don’t seem the type to claim a reward for a job undone. And you said this is my house now,” he said. “Which means that you going down there will signal that the house is safe. They’ll come up here to loot this place, and you won’t even get your pay.”

I shrugged. “I get paid to kill monsters. No monsters, no pay.”

Graham feigned a flirtatious sigh. “No monsters? You are such a gentleman.”

I snorted.

“Come on, Guy!” Graham continued, pleading as I entered the kitchen, kicking bottles lightly out of the way to create a path. “The way you’re going, none of us get what we want.”

“Alas…”

“What if there was a way we could both get what we want…” the demon pondered for a little while. I stopped, half-consciously. I was admittedly curious as to where he was going with this.

“A deal!” Graham finally said, as if it was a breakthrough.

“My mother taught me to never make deals with demons.”

“Your mother sounds very uncreative…”

My cheeks warmed and fists tensed, but Graham didn’t seem to notice as he continued.

“I can’t stay here, regardless of what happens. You stepping out of here alive will signal the village that they have carte blanche with this old house. A shame that you don’t get rewarded for the trouble. So, how about, I fake my death? You present my corpse to the villagers, and then get rewarded.”

“And then what will you do? They will still come for the house.”

“I’ll go with you!”

“No way. I work alone. That’s the Blood Hunter way.”

“Blood Hunter? What’s that? Some thrash metal band?”

I sighed.

“We’re an order of warriors, training to rid the world of vampiric bloodlines. We travel alone to reduce risk. Because, if a vampire of the Blood detects us as we kill them, our scent, image, sound and even unique essence is transmitted to all other vampires of the bloodline. To be a Blood Hunter is to accept that we must inevitably sacrifice ourselves to rid this world of vampirism.”

Graham yawned, widely, exposing his flat teeth. I gritted my teeth.

“Sounds like pompous nonsense to me. And irrelevant. I’m not scared of vampires. I don’t have blood. Well, I do. But I’m sure by now it’s alcohol levels are so high that one sip would poison a vamp instantly.”

I shook my head.

“No is no.”

Graham appeared on my head, looking down at me upside down.

“Come on! I’m an immortal demonic trickster. A good conversation partner. And I don’t eat a lot. Or anything. Just go past a town once in a while so I can get some booze and we’ll be fine.”

I exited the house and picked up my backpack. Fortunately, no opportunists had risked approaching the house to steal the stranger’s stuff.

Graham sighed, leaning back on my head. He didn’t seem to need to grip onto anything and was even lighter than he looked.

“Well, you leave me no choice. You don’t get paid, and I continue to follow you invisibly, making a nuisance of myself. Making villagers think you’re a witch, telling vampires your blood tastes good, pissing in your water…”

“You wouldn’t dare…” I hissed.

“I would, biped. I’ve got nothing but eternity waiting for me. And demons have been known to do much worse for far pettier reasons. So, accept my company, or don’t. You’re getting it all the same.”

I clenched my fists, and then let out a long breath.

“Fine! You can come. But I’m not taking pay for this one. Just petrol. And maybe some food.”

“Your business is your own but, I must say this, is not a prudent way to run one.”

My empty wallet agreed with the tokoloshe riding on my head as I made the hike back down to the nameless village.

Chapter 11.      The Hunt

I didn’t think rotting limbs could be so dextrous, but you learn something new every day on this job.

The zombie lunged forward, thrusting an assegai welded to the stump of its arm in my direction. The rusting blade slid off my armour and pierced my backpack. I winced. I had just sewed it up again!

“Too slow, mortal!” Graham chuckled, as he sat atop the wall of a collapsed white-washed hut, covered in grime and old blood.

The zombie gurgled at me, as if echoing the tokoloshe’s jab. It wore traditional Zulu dress. And, by traditional, I mean 19th century. Hide loincloth and covered with trinkets and animal parts. Where his hands should be was an assegai grafted into his flesh, and a metal shield covered in decayed cowhide on the other.

Shaka’s Chosen. An impi who had died honourably and been brought back by one of the Emperor’s necromancers to serve the Empire – even in death.

The undead let out a breathless roar and charged with a ferocity unbefitting someone who had been dead and abandoned in these hills so long ago.

Villagers had told tales of the Hill Horror, an impi who had died here ages ago and now tormented the hills looking for flesh and blood. They weren’t that far off. But I recognised this type of zombie. The impis kept them away from the public. In fact, they kept them away from even the other impis, most of the time. I wondered if Sifiso knew about them. What he would have thought about them.

Shaka’s Chosen were not a secret. They were held up as one of the highest orders and honours to be awarded a fallen soldier. But, the practicality of the honour was very different. Zombies were slavering creatures, consumed by an insatiable desire for flesh. Only the necromancers could keep them obedient. But, when their circle of necromancers was killed, the zoms went rogue. These hills were only lucky that this zombie had been content to roam only the isolated homesteads and hadn’t attacked a village. It couldn’t infect anyone. Not anymore. But that was a small mercy for someone who was being eaten alive.

“Stop zoning out, twinkle toes!” Graham laughed. Was he eating popcorn? Where did he get that?

My glancing at the odd tokoloshe perched on the hut wall rewarded me with a blow to my stomach, as the zombie bashed me with its shield.

Graham let out a guffaw, spitting out unpopped kernels.

I grunted and ducked below another thrust of the assegai. The zombie still had muscle memory from when it was controlled by its necromancer. Maybe even more. Some witch doctors who dabbled in necromancy said that skilled living made skilled undead. I didn’t really like the implication there. If our flesh held our skills, then what was the importance of keeping us alive?

I hoped the Emperor didn’t talk to many necromancers.

The zombie pressed in for another attack, unceasing. Zombies were not the smartest enemies, but they were unrelenting. Untiring. The epitome of a perseverance hunter. Which meant I needed to kill them quickly.

I sidled past the zombie, shoving against its pseudo-traditional shield with my free hand. Its last lunge and the shove pushed it off balance, allowing me to kick at its shin. It tripped, falling over with a confused gurgle.

I kicked it while it was down, breaking teeth, before I stomped down hard on its shield arm. It craned its head desperately to try and bite at my boot. I hefted my machete for a swing at its neck but hit bone. With a second swipe, the machete carved through the zombie’s uplifted arm. Its assegai fell to its chest.

One swing. Thud. It still moved but stopped gurgling.

Second swing. And the head was free.

Even in actual death, the impi zombie looked angry. Famished. It had raised its arm, as if to shield itself. I frowned. Zombies weren’t meant to have self-preservation. But…muscle memory.

Were we just sacks of meat with memory?

The smell of cheap booze and putrid fur wafted suddenly towards my nose as Graham teleported onto my shoulder.

“I thought you were a monster hunter,” he jibed, holding onto my hair for balance, even though I suspected he could maintain perfect balance without being an inconvenience. But, being an inconvenience was Graham’s entire nature.

I grunted in reply, sawing off the last sinews of the zombie’s head. I would need to present it to the client. I carefully manoeuvred the grotesque head into a plastic bag. I didn’t worry about anyone thinking it was human. It was far too bestial and was already dripping the gooey black necroblood found in the undead.

“You’ve been hunting small-fry like this for the…what, three weeks that I’ve been tagging along? And you struggle every time.”

“Three months,” I corrected him, and it had been torture the entire time. “You could have helped, you know?”

Graham shrugged, grinning his too large grin.

“And miss out on the show? I’m a spectator, mortal. A connoisseur never dabbles in the practicality of his art. It ruins the mystique.”

“I was under the impression that a connoisseur was expected to dispel mysticism.”

“Well, you’d think that, as you are prone to being wrong.”

As if by magic, because that was probably the case, a bottle of beer appeared in Graham’s hand. He began to drink, holding his finger up, telling me to wait.

I rolled my eyes and secured the head in the bag onto a hook on the side of my backpack.

Graham let out a satisfied sigh and a burp, before tossing the bottle into a bush.

“See? I’m a connoisseur of your beverages, because I know very little about them. Every good story ends when the mystery is solved. I don’t want this story to end, so I continue in blissful ignorance.”

I didn’t reward his discourse with a response. He teleported onto my shoulders as I turned away from the scene and followed the long path down to civilisation. I had walked all the way here from the main village, not wanting to alert the undead to my presence. Fat good that had accomplished. The Chosen had stumbled right into me as I entered the homestead.

“You do not enjoy the hunt,” Graham said, nodding understandingly.

“Why do you say that?” I asked, immediately regretting my action. Graham sometimes stayed silent if you ignored him for long enough.

“You never smile on the hunt…or ever really. It’s all clinical, for you. Calculated. There’s no art. No passion.”

“This isn’t a game, tokoloshe. This is life and death.”

“The biggest game!”

I rolled my eyes, as Graham teleported to investigate a discarded liquor bottle, which he soon realised was his own from earlier.

The village which had hired me to rid them of the Hill Horror was tiny. More a collection of homesteads surrounding a schoolhouse and small store than any more substantial settlement. It was cosy, though. Far away from the highways and towns that were the focus of imperial control. I liked it here.

A herdsman stopped observing his herd as he saw me approach down the dirt path. He was visibly shocked and peered at me for a bit longer to confirm that I wasn’t some sort of spectre.

As I entered the village, the herdsman and some other villagers congregated around me. Graham had, of course, long since disappeared. He didn’t show himself to any other humans. Thankfully. I didn’t feel like losing business because a demon kept hanging off my ears.

I lifted the bag off its hook and held it before me, slightly open. The villagers looked at each other, tentatively, as they wrinkled their noses at the smell. Finally, the oldest among them hobbled forward and peered into the bag. His eyes widened and he looked close to gagging. I closed the bag.

“The Hill Horror…the Aimless Impi…it is dead?” the herdsman asked for confirmation. The man who had seen the head nodded, slowly.

One at a time, the faces of the congregated villagers lit up. The air seemed lighter and the sun brighter, as their collective relief washed over me.

“I will discard of this head in a deep grave. Do you have payment?”

The villager’s relieved smiles faded, slowly. They began fidgeting. I repressed sighing.

“Um…we didn’t expect you to actually do it. Most strangers just come and go. No one has actually…” the younger man cut off.

“We lied,” the older man who had since recovered from the disgusting visage, interjected, sounding genuinely ashamed. “We don’t have any money. At all. There are no jobs for money. We live off what we produce.”

Typical…I wanted to get angry at them and insist on payment. My pistol was still empty, and I had only barely managed to get enough money for petrol working on a construction site. Graham had really found that amusing. He’d weight down bricks when I was trying to pick them up.

But, seeing the relief on their faces after I had slain the beast that had been tormenting them…

I unclenched my fists and sighed.

“Do you have a meal I can eat, at the very least?”

The villagers’ relief was palpable as their eyes lit up.

“Aphiwe! Please get some food together for our hero,” the older man called. A young lady, about my age, poked her head out of a hut and nodded.

I inclined my head in thanks. “I will bury the head…”

“No, no! You have done enough. Boys, bury the head. Far away from the village,” the older man continued, taking charge.

I handed the packet to two young men who grimaced at their package.

“Place some rocks over it before filling the hole,” I said to them. “And bury it deep! Don’t want any corpse eaters coming close to the village to dig it up.”

They nodded. They probably knew the drill. Even before…that night in Mqanduli, I knew how to discard of monster bodies. It was something you just needed to learn living in a rural area, where the darkness hid many terrors.

I thanked the villagers, despite the non-payment, and took my leave while I waited for my meal.

There was a tree just behind the schoolhouse. I could hear loud counting in unison from inside the wooden structure. Its rhythm was nostalgic. Calming.

I took off my backpack, unbuckled my weapon’s belt and leant up against the tree, enjoying the shade and cool breeze on my skin. I closed my eyes. It was calm. I loved these villages. Mqanduli had been larger, but very much like this.

I felt a discomfort, waking me before I could truly fall asleep, and I opened my eyes to the sight of Graham staring at me. His furry-flanked face looked confounded.

“What?” I hissed.

“You can’t keep letting them get away without paying you, Guy. You look like a patsy. They can smell it miles away. Makes you a sucker.”

I sighed. “These people don’t have much. It feels wrong to exploit them.”

“You aren’t. You risk your life to fight their monsters. You deserve a bit of moola.” He rubbed his fingertips together. A very human gesture.

“I don’t expect a demon to understand,” I started, but then stopped as I heard footsteps. Graham disappeared without a trace.

Aphiwe appeared, poking her head around the tree as if looking around a corner into a room. I tried to smile, looking up at her, but she flinched. I opted to look impassive instead.

“I brought food. I hope it’s okay…” she said, passing me a bowl and plate as I stood up straight.

She had to be my age. Maybe a bit younger. Her black hair was long, kept in a braid. Strands of the braid fell in front of her, covering the top of her orange and blue dress.

“Thank you,” I said, glancing away as I realised I was staring. The food was another thing worth looking at. Pap and beef mince, boiled mielies, homemade scones and amasi. It seemed they did feel guilty for not being able to repay me properly.

I expected Aphiwe to leave immediately as I accepted the food, but she lingered as I dug in. I looked up, and she glanced away shyly. When I caught her staring, it was either at my machete, sheathed beside me, or my holstered pistol, or on the scars by my neck.

“What happened there?” she finally asked. She pointed shyly at a large scar.

I shrugged. “Ghoul. I was fighting its colleague and it used the chance to slash at me with its claws. Bit deep but managed to kill the creature and get a bandage over it.”

Her eyes widened. “You had friends to help you with the wound, right?”

“No. Why? It’s fine. I was able to apply enough pressure and do the necessities before passing out. My teacher taunt me an incantation to slow the bleeding.”

She seemed to flinch at the admission. A lot of backwater villagers were suspicious of wizards. Sorcerers were one thing. Their spark was a gift from God, or the ancestors, or any other native god. Depending on if they were Christian or had embraced Neo-Traditionalism. But wizards were different. Their discipline was complicated, requiring years of study that most people could never understand. That made them outcasts in the eyes of many.

I didn’t like it. Wizards earned their place. Sorcerers had their power thanks to an accident of birth. But, it would take much more than me to overturn centuries of superstition.

“You are a monster hunter, then,” she said, almost sounding relieved, but she kept her distance all the same. “I almost thought you might be a charlatan. Or someone who got lucky. But, from the scars and the…weapons…”

She stopped as she caught me staring at her, holding a chunk of bread up to my mouth.

“There is another monster,” she said, steeling herself, no matter how uncomfortable I apparently made her feel. “An inkanyamba. It has infested the freshwater river where we used to collect our water and wash our clothes. The other rivers are closer, but they are too small and too dirty. Some of the children are getting sick. I know we can’t pay you anything, but we have more food. And you can stay in one of the spare huts…for a while.”

Not forever, she meant. They would accept a Blood Hunter to slay their beasts for them, but never to live among them.

“Are you sure it’s an inkanyamba,” I asked. “They’re rare.”

She nodded, earnestly. “It’s big. Way too big to just be an eel. It consumed the boats we had beached there in a single bite, leaving only splinters. And, around the shores of the river, it is said that there are storms unlike that everywhere else.”

That sounded like the legendary inkanyamba, but one could never tell. Sometimes, people saw what they wanted to see. And legends were often self-fulfilling prophecies. But, despite that…

“I will investigate the river. Thanks for the food, Aphiwe.”

She practically glowed as she thanked me, turned and walked away.

I watched her as she left, noting the swaying of her hips. From the corner of my eye, I saw a less desirable visage, as Graham grinned mischievously.

“What?” I asked him.

“Mysterious stranger, rock-hard muscles, scars from a life of service and sacrifice…” Graham listed, putting on the air of one reciting romantic poetry.

“What are you talking about, demon?”

Graham rolled his eyes. “Are all humans as dull as you? You like that girl. Hit it!”

“Hit her? No!”

“For the love of…no, seduce her.”

I shook my head, returning hastily to my meal. It was growing colder.

Graham appeared in front of me, stealing one of the mielies. He consumed an entire side of it before levelling it at me like a weapon.

“You aren’t going to get anywhere with this mysterious outsider shtick if you don’t follow through. I saw how you looked at her…”

“She’s afraid of me.”

“For now! Because you’re a dangerous man of violence but, if she can figure out that you’re HER man of violence, then she’ll be putty in your hands.”

I shook my head. “No, no. It’s not appropriate.”

Graham turned, giving a loud and exasperated sigh. I would be surprised if no one else had heard him.

“You’re such a prude, Guy Mgebe. You got the violence part down pat, but you have a lot to learn about sex before you can be a real man.”

I winced, but Graham didn’t seem to notice, as he smelled liquor and went to raid the villagers of their feast day booze.

***

The river in question was quite far away from the village. It must be impressive for the villagers to seek it out despite all the closer streams. And even more impressive now that they wanted me to risk my life to kill a legendary giant eel so they could use it again.

Well, that was my lot.

Graham pestered me about lack of pay, as if it was his problem. But he wouldn’t understand. These weren’t his people.

Over a final grassy hillock, I saw the river. Brackish, but long and wide, snaking between the hills like the serpent that allegedly inhabited it. Bushes, trees and reeds grew by its banks.

“Why are there no settlements near this river?” Graham asked, sounding the most scholarly I had ever heard him.

“Dangers lurk in the depths, and around the shores. Raiders expect villages to appear near rivers. And look at this land. It’s flatter. Fewer places to hide. Very hard to defend.”

Graham shook his head as he hung loosely off my sleeve.

“Such an unpleasant land you live in. Haven’t you ever considered going to Hope City? It sounds nice. It’s got hope in its name after all!”

I snorted, proceeding to the riverbank.

From a distance, the river looked normal. Nothing out of the ordinary, unless the lack of settlements was considered out of the ordinary. In a safer land, perhaps it would be.

But, as I reached the bank, keeping a safe distance from the dark waters, I saw disturbances.

Cracked branches. Flattened bushes.

I counted the signs of destruction as I scoped the riverbank. A small tree uprooted, hanging limply into the river.

Graham was uncharacteristically silent as we surveyed the damage to the foliage.

We soon reached a muddy bank without plants. Shattered and splintered, a small raft lay in ruins against a rock, far from the shore. As if it had been thrown. I knelt close, examining the wreck. A lot of the damage was from the impact with the rock, but there was initial damage in the centre of the raft. Something sharp had crunched into it from both sides, hefting it out of the water and tossing it to shore.

I stood up and faced the river. The sun brightened as clouds passed out of the way. There were trenches dug into the dark mud. Not made by man. As if trails made by a creature dragging its immense weight through the dirt.

They looked like snake tracks. But, if the snake was massive.

“This seems a bit above your paygrade,” Graham said, and he didn’t sound mocking.

I turned my back on the river and left.

“Are you really leaving this beast here? I didn’t think you had the sense!” Graham added.

“No. I’m coming back,” I said. “But I’m going to need a little help…”

Chapter 12.      Muti

A blinding flash of lightning followed by the boom of thunder. It wasn’t like a gunshot. In a way, it was more terrifying. Storms spoke to something primal within us. Our genes remembered when we couldn’t hide behind thick walls and sturdy roofs. Our bodies remembered the terror of the cold, and the noise. And, despite all we now understood about weather, and rain, and lightning…storms reminded us that knowledge couldn’t protect us from everything.

Dark clouds covered the hills in shadow. I saw the hut only by the small lamp hung outside its door.

Perhaps, it was not a coincidence that the storm started as I approached this lone hut in the hills. It was said that witch doctors kept impundulu as pets and familiars. In exchange for human blood, the lightning birds would provide the witch doctor with the power of the storms.

This was not a witch doctor. This hut belonged to a sangoma. A healer. But…often enough there was little difference.

Graham was nowhere to be seen as I pulled my raincoat in tighter around my body. Raincoat was a bit of an overstatement. It was basically a bit of almost human shaped tarp that I used for transporting monster bits, and for occasionally keeping myself out of the rain.

The world went white for a split second again, followed by the booming of nature. I repressed a shudder, as I rapped my knuckles on the hut’s wooden door.

One knock. Two knocks.

Before I could perform a third, the door opened, revealing an elderly man with a scowl that seemed indented into his skin. He wore a faded robe, but in its day would have been a rich array of red and blues in the shape of flowers and stars. A wig crafted of white beads fell around his head like a waterfall. The room smelled like earth and blood.

“What?!” he asked, sharply.

“I seek to slay a monster. An inkanyamba by the river a few valleys south.”

“And this concerns me how?” the sangoma hissed, looking behind me as if he expected vagabonds to shove past me any second.

“I come looking for muti. For protection against the darkness. I bring some things that may interest you in exchange.”

The sangoma scoffed. “I don’t lust after idola, little herd boy.”

I shook my head. “And I have no idola to give. But if it is the parts of monsters that interest you, then I think we could make a deal.”

The sangoma had been on the verge of closing the door, but he stopped. He spun, his beaded wig rattling.

“Come in. Close the door.”

I entered, giving a presumably invisible Graham a few moments to pass through the door before closing it behind me. The cacophony of the storm became a muffle. The thatched roof of the hut sealed away the torrents. Magic or engineering, I did not know. In a way, they were the same thing.

The sangoma, paying me no heed, returned to a colourful woven mat, where he retrieved a mortar and pestle. As a sangoma, he should be grinding up isicakathi – plants with medicinal properties. But the contents of his mortar were white. Like bone meal. I hoped it was from an animal.

I was slow to join the sangoma, as I examined his room. The walls were lined with shelves, bearing jars of plants, pickled reptiles and disturbing organs. I wasn’t an expert in anatomy, but I suspected that some of it may have been human. Or zombie. Fine line there.

I stopped at a snow globe, depicting the Drakensberg mountains. A quaint little thing. If I had space for it, I may have asked to include it in the trade.

I finally sat down, cross-legged, opposite the sangoma. He kept grinding the white powder, adding a few violet flower petals, and some white objects that looked like dog teeth.

“You are a Blood Hunter,” the sangoma said, matter of factly.

I nodded.

The sangoma sighed. It didn’t sound frustrated, and rather held just a bit of pity.

“Black-clad fools, all of you. You chase demons and monsters to train for your fated battle with the blood-drinkers. But we all know that battle will never come. There are always too few of you. And no one appreciates your work. And, even if they did, how do they reward you? The only people with money are collaborators, or impi, or the Blood themselves. So, you wander the hills in search of revenge. You tell yourself that you are training. That your hunt means something. But, in the end…you are only searching for your grave.”

A muffled crack of thunder punctuated his rant. Or was it truly a rant? I looked into his eyes, even as he kept them downcast on his work. Yes, that was pity.

“My fruitless hunts sometimes bear fruit, witch,” I said. The sangoma winced, but his eyes became hungry as I revealed a cloth bag of vials.

“Ghoul blood. Taken while alive…if you can call it that. Not as potent as vampire blood, as you know. But it should be enough for what I need.”

The sangoma reached greedily, but then hesitantly, towards one of the vials. He uncorked it and sniffed, before dipping a finger in to taste.

I didn’t stop him, despite what I knew about the liquid. It wouldn’t make him a mindless thrall, but one should never drink the Blood. You could become lost in it.

The sangoma nodded, satisfied. He recorked the vial and put it with the rest, before closing up the cloth bag and stowing it behind him.

“Do you have any charms, spells or muti in mind?” the sangoma asked. Pity and contempt had disappeared from the man. He looked eager. Good.

“The red roots of the Umabophe for weakening the beast. The juices of the ikhubalolika lanjeni to grant my body protection. And, finally, a necklace of ancestral marks to lend me guidance.”

The sangoma nodded, slowly, before standing up to retrieve the ingredients needed to make the charms and muti.

“The inkanyamba is said to be able to take flight,” the sangoma said, rifling through some jars. “Does that pistol of yours have ammunition? I could provide some divine powder to augment the rounds.”

I shook my head, sadly.

“It is winter. They have never been known to fly outside of the summer months. I hope to lure it on land and trap it.”

I heard the clinking of glass as the sangoma revealed a glass bottle. It used to be a vodka bottle. Clear glass. But it had been corked and filled with reddish-brown liquid.

“Hide this bottle inside the carcass of a calf. When it has consumed it, its wounds will reopen and no longer heal. It shall become weak and ready to be slain.”

I nodded my thanks, stowing the bottle of magical poison in my bag.

The storm ended, eventually. I bid the sangoma farewell. He was too busy grinning at the vials of ghoul blood. I closed the door on my way out.

“You can’t really believe that this stuff will work?!” Graham accused, popping into existence onto my shoulder, holding the vial of ground up red roots.

I grabbed it from him, and he blinked on top of my head.

“There’s real magic, Guy, and then there’s just hocus pocus.”

“Rich coming from you…tokoloshe. You’re a myth from my people’s history. And these medicines and charms are the way of my people. You should respect them more.”

Graham rolled his eyes. I didn’t even need to see him do it. I could just guess that the snide little demon would have such a reaction.

I stepped out onto the muddy path, breathing in the fresh air. Everything smelled better after a shower. Especially the Earth.

“The mythology of mortals doesn’t concern me. And even if it did, am I not a testament to its inaccuracy? What am I supposed to be? A giant gorilla with a crocodile head? A gremlin who consumes little children? A water sprite that cannot harm you if you sleep on bricks…”

“Fine, fine…I get your point. But, Silumko says these charms work.”

“And Silumko is…?”

“I’ve mentioned him at least eight times.”

Graham examined his nails. He had lost interest. I repressed a huff and continued on my way.

“Why do you even care?” I asked, finally.

Graham pondered the question.

“You amuse me, mortal. I would rather you aren’t eaten anytime soon. It would be particularly humorous for a moment, but then I would have to find a new travelling companion. And you know how shy I am.”

Could have fooled me!

“If you truly don’t want me to die, imp, then you could help me slay the beast. For once.”

Graham shrugged, and that was the end of that.

Chapter 13.      Swim

Clear skies were covered once again, darkening the land. I prayed a storm wouldn’t come. Legend said that the inkanyamba could control the storms. But, so could impundulu. Now that I thought about it, a lot of the local mythological beasts were big on controlling storms. Perhaps, their competition for domination over the elements left the weather in equilibrium?

I stopped dragging the calf carcass as the river came into view. Two men from the village had helped me carry it this far but, as the clouds covered the sky once again, they fled. Graham was practically rolling on the floor laughing at that. We mortals really were amusing to him, apparently.

I took a deep breath and then tugged hard on the carcass again, pulling it a few more inches through the mud. Graham appeared atop the poor departed creature, his legs crossed.

“Those men flee this beast, but you charge towards it,” he said, grinning. “What does this mean?”

I snorted by way of response, pulling the corpse just a bit further. Had it become heavier? Graham didn’t weigh much when he was perched on my head or shoulders. But knowing him, he could probably adjust his own weight. Just to torment me.

“It means,” Graham continued, despite my displeasure. “That either you are a fool, or they are.”

“They are not fools,” I grunted, as I hefted the calf over a rock indented into the mud.

“Then that makes you the fool.”

“Perhaps.”

Graham frowned at that. A rare expression on the demon’s face.

The slope downwards made my labour much easier, but it was still hard going, as the body caught on branches and rocks, and its limbs got stuck in the mud.

“You respect them,” Graham finally said. “Even though they are simple folk. Peasants.”

“They know what life is meant to be. Peace. And they embrace it. I am the fool for seeking violence and death. But…”

“Without you…they would not have peace.”

His voice was low. Measured. Graham had never sounded so sincere or thoughtful before.

I pulled on the carcass, wrestling it from its restraints and agonisingly pulling it to the riverbank. Graham remained sitting on the calf, crossing his legs and looking into the distance.

Eventually, I reached the riverbank. Graham disappeared as I let the calf lie in the mud. A light drizzle had begun to fall. Hopefully, it would remain light.

I retrieved the poison bottle from my bag and placed it deeply within the pre-cut hole in the calf’s side, securing it firmly in its gut. I would have liked some explosives too, but one could only dream.

Bait as ready as it could ever be, I proceeded to a tree. It had a thick trunk, with old roots sinking deep into the earth. I retrieved a long rope, which I tied around the tree trunk. Silumko had drilled me in knot-tying. A lot. I was confident this knot could hold a dragon. I tied the other end of the rope to a metal ring on the butt of one of my assegais. The blade on this weapon had hooks on the side. Once it pierced a target, it would take a lot of damage for it to slide out.

I crouched down and took out my arsenal. Machete, hooked assegai and my plain silvered one. From a vial from the sangoma, I took out the red roots of the Umabohe and began chewing them.

“Careful, hunter,” Graham chided, seemingly out of his contemplative mood. “You don’t want to chew it all to pulp before you can spit it at the serpent. For all the good that would do.”

I spat the red root pulp onto my machete blade, and then chewed some more and spat it onto the blades of both my assegais. Graham cocked his head.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

I picked up my machete and began spreading the pulp across my blade.

“You’re meant to spit it at the enemy,” Graham explained. It seemed he did understand some Nguni traditions.

“Silumko says that’s a waste of good roots. The plant has magical properties, but only when used right.”

With my finger, I began drawing symbols onto the now earthy red blades. The symbols were straight lines. Simple geometry. But not random. Silumko had pushed me hard to remember this runic scripture. I could draw it blindfolded. I had, once before. And many more times in the dark, stalking my prey.

Graham watched, seemingly genuinely curious, as I applied similar runes to the other blades.

“The rain will wash it off,” he argued.

“Then it will wash off. But worth making the effort, just in case it doesn’t.”

“These patterns…they’re runes?”

I nodded. “From Uhlanga. The same place this beast comes from. Kryptonite hurts Superman from Krypton, so the runes of Uhlanga should hurt this beast from Uhlanga.”

“Arbitrary reasoning”

I shrugged. “The runes weaken the hide of those it touches. But it must be written in the pulp of the red root. Else, I’d use it more often.”

Graham watched my preparations for a while longer, as I drank the juice of the ikhubalolika lanjeni and placed the necklace of ancestral marks around my neck. The necklace was crafted of animal bone and the lightning-struck wood of trees in the area. Similar Uhlangan runes were carved into each, bearing the true names of my ancestors.

I regretted finishing my preparations. Idleness was something I was used to but it was almost always an opportunity for Graham to torment me.

I sheathed my ropeless assegai, and held my machete in my right hand, hooked assegai in my left. I crouched, watching the carcass. Ready.

“It pains me to admit it, mortal…but you’re actually good at this,” Graham said, sounding a bit hesitant.

That was unexpected. I almost responded. Almost.

“You’re a skilled Blood Hunter, a young and well-muscled chap. And, as a demon, I am a master of sexuality, so I know that you are considered attractive by your fellows. You are confident in a fight. Driven. Focused…not a fool.”

I didn’t like where this was going.

“Which makes me wonder…why are you so bad with people? So coy around women? You could have bedded dozens of women in these last few months. I can see the hunger in your eyes. The longing. But you never act on it. It’s not that you lack confidence. The way you rush towards danger isn’t foolhardiness. It’s knowledge that you will come out alive at the end.”

Were those ripples in the water? I focused on the surface of the dark water, trying to ignore the creature as he loomed closer towards me.

Graham leaned closer. The drizzle turned to rain. I held my blades underneath my tarp raincoat to keep the pulp on the metal.

“You hold yourself back, Guy,” Graham whispered, leaning even closer and closer. I kept my eyes on the water and the carcass.

“Could it be…”

Yes, the water was definitely moving.

Graham grinned, wide.

“Could it be that you still have your foreskin?”

I flinched, just as the water exploded, showering me with ice cold liquid. I hoped my blades remained dry. A dark brown serpent as wide as an elephant and still snaking its away from the river emerged from the brackish water. Its head did not look reptilian. It looked almost like a horse-skull, draped in eel-hide.

The serpent lunged towards the carcass, crunching bone and ripping half of the calf’s body into its mouth.

I shot forward, Graham disappearing in a poof. The serpent didn’t notice me, as it munched on the calf’s head and forelegs. Bones and all!

I kept low, sticking to its blind spot, even as Graham’s comment still rattled me. But it shouldn’t! I was a Blood Hunter. I had abandoned that other path. It was closed to me. Forever.

The serpent swallowed its meal and considered the other half of the calf.

Yes…eat it. Eat it.

The serpent unhinged its jaw and consumed the other half of the calf in a single bite. I almost breathed a sigh of relief. Until I saw a glint of glass.

The bottle had fallen out. How did that even happen?!

Well, looks like I had to do this the hard way.

The rope connected to the tree trailed behind me. Some men would have thrown the assegai, despite it being used for stabbing. I knew better. I rushed the body of the serpent, the part that still touched the ground and hadn’t reared up to swallow its meal.

Crunch. My boot broke a branch. The serpent’s head spun towards me. It had black eyes. Black like the void. My body wanted to freeze. Or flee.

But I didn’t let it. I surged forward and leapt the extra distance. The momentum and my red root enchantment let my hooked assegai sink deeply into the creature’s flesh, even as its head turned to bite down where I had been a second before.

It reared up with an almighty roar. A roar that did not sound like thunder. It was thunder!

With the rope secure, I chopped at the creature, digging a crevice into its eel flesh. Like slicing through butter. It thundered again, convulsing its snake body to lash out at me. I managed to dodge, anticipating its movements. This was the thing about big creatures. They were slow.

The serpent chomped down on the ground, near the rope. It missed me and the rope. I stabbed it in the head, causing it to rear up. Before it could lash out again, I ran along the side of its body slashing a groove into it. Then, my blade met resistance.

The rain. It had washed away the pulp. And now the hide was strong again.

I watched in horror as the wounds I had just made began to knit closed.

Why, oh why, did so many monsters have regeneration capabilities?!

I surveyed the battlefield, rolling out of the way as the serpent’s horse-skull head bit down into the mud near me.

What could wound it? Think. Think!

The poison!

Racing against the roiling serpent, I rushed towards the glass bottle. But the fight had covered it in mud! I went to where I remembered it last, just as thunder rang out in my ears and the creature slammed into me. I felt a crack. I hoped it was a stick and not a rib!

My body hit something taut and plummeted into the mud. Got a mouthful of it too! I reached my hand out and felt the rope. It was fraying!

Oh dear.

I lifted my face out of the mud, just as the shadow of the serpent loomed above me. Those eyes…those pitch-black eyes.

It turned around. I slowly lifted myself up as the creature rushed to the shoreline, my rope fraying behind it.

I swore, loudly, and bolted towards it as it rapidly disappeared into the depths. Closer, closer. Its head was already submerged. The tree was bending. I cut at the last bit of the creature left on land just as it pulled away.

The rope snapped.

Graham appeared on my shoulder, carrying the bottle of poison, coated in mud.

“Well, better luck next time.”

The remaining rope rapidly trailed into the water.

I grabbed the bottle, causing Graham to disappear from shock, as I dropped my machete and clutched the rope. I was pulled under.

Graham had said I wasn’t a fool. It was almost a compliment. Too bad he was wrong.

I had only a split second to take a breath before the brown water consumed me. It was dark here. Dark and wet. As my eyes adjusted, I could only see the rope, and the tail-end of the mammoth serpent shooting through the depths.

I managed to manoeuvre the bottle into my vest pocket, and, with two hands, I edged myself up the rope. Further and further, even as my lungs burned.

Why did I do this?

The serpent didn’t relent. I could see dark liquid…red liquid…moving in the water. Seeping from a wound that hadn’t closed.

I pulled myself closer, and closer. Its tail, now by my side, buffeted against me. Only the water cushioned me from the blow. Everything hurt.

This was not my village. Not my people.

I reached the end of the rope. The wound was further up. With my free hand, I retrieved my other assegai, and stabbed it into the serpent’s hide. It didn’t give way easily but, with two blows, it pierced flesh. I held on to that as I pulled out the hooked assegai, and then hammered it further up the snaking body.

The villagers weren’t paying me for this. I would be lucky to get a single meal out of it. Then why? Why help them?

I scaled the monster’s body, my already blurry vision blurring more. The blood flow was getting heavier. I was close. But my sight was darkening. How long had I been under?

This was not my village. Not my monster. My village was dead, destroyed by bloodsuckers.

Yet, I kept going. Clawing my way, inch by bloody inch.

My hand slipped, and my assegai was lost to the rapids.

A black eye, the size of a football, stared at me. A cut seeped blood above its eye. My stab from earlier. It hadn’t closed. Good.

I rammed my remaining assegai deep into its eyes. It convulsed but kept swimming. But, my goal here wasn’t to kill it. It was to get a good grip. With my spare hand, I reached for the bottle of poison, and thrust it deeply into the cut. Pressed it deeper and deeper. Like a blunt knife into a gut wound. And, when it was deep enough, I smashed it. Glass cut into my hand, and the serpent vibrated with painful ferocity. Its previously dead straight swimming faltered, swaying side to side, and it hit the river edge, almost crushing me.

Why did I slay other people’s monsters?

My vision went black. My mouth opened involuntarily, and water came flooding in.

Why did I take this path?

Perhaps…

It was because somebody had to.

Chapter 14.      Survival

My eyes flickered open to the warm orange glow of firelight, bouncing off a stone ceiling. The crackling of a wood fire sent sparks towards the rock. For the first time in a long time, I felt warm.

Graham’s almost monkey-like face looked down at me, a satisfied grin on his face.

“I take back what I said. You’re not that good at this.”

I wracked my brain for what had happened. A serpent. The legendary inkanyamba. Maybe. And I had killed it. I think? But what after?

The last thing I remembered was that I had died.

Well, I had been wrong plenty of times. I slowly lifted myself up, realising that there was a blanket covering me. Scratchy, but warm. It wasn’t mine. I surveyed the small overhang, looking out onto the mouth of the river that had almost killed me. My backpack, machete and other belongings were sodden, drying next to the fire, alongside a similar backpack, and long spear with an assegai head. I doubted any of that belonged to my tokoloshe friend.

Friend? Well…I guess.

Graham reappeared sitting on a rock by the fire, clutching a jar of liquid that smelled like methylated spirits. He drank greedily.

My body stung. In many places. But I could move. I could breathe. There were bandages all over my skin, where I suspect debris in the river had cut into me, but I hadn’t broken a rib.

Finally, I gave up trying to figure out what happened myself.

“So…” I asked, my voice croaky. That toxic booze was seeming a bit more appetising now. “What happened?”

Graham held up a finger, telling me to wait as he gulped down a bit more. And by that, I mean he chugged the entire jug and then tossed it over his shoulder.

“It took a while to catch up to you but, after you killed that overgrown snake, I was able to fish you out. Easy peasy. Wasn’t going to do CPR though. Not that I don’t like you or anything, it’s just that my breath may have just killed you. And if I killed you, then I’d die. And can’t be having that, can we?”

Involuntarily, I coughed. I had inhaled a lot of river water. But I was still breathing.

“So, if you didn’t revive me, who did?”

“I did,” a Xhosa man spoke, as a figure clothed in black approached the fire. He carried a spear like the one in the cave. Three juicy fish were spitted on the shaft.

He placed the spear over the open flames, elevated on some piles of bricks, and took a seat opposite me.

He was older than me. In his mid-thirties, perhaps. Three scars ran down from his cheek to his chin.

“Well, that isn’t exactly true,” he continued, slowly rotating the fish over the fire. Like a spit. “I helped the tokoloshe drag you out of the river and then got the excess water out of your system. But you healed fast.”

“Ikhubalolika lanjeni,” I said. I did not explain what I meant by that. I saw the recognition in his eyes.

The man nodded in respect. “The tokoloshe…”

“My name’s Graham, mortal!”

“No, it’s not…the tokoloshe said that you are a Blood Hunter. But I don’t make a habit of believing demons at river edges. But it seems that he was speaking the truth. I’m glad. How are you feeling?”

I still felt the rush of water on my flesh, as if it was peeling away my skin. I probably had broken a rib. Which meant that the juice had worked.

“Alive,” I answered. “And thankful. My name is Guy Mgebe. And I presume you are also a Blood Hunter.”

The man offered his hand over the fire and I accepted it, sitting upright and wearing the blanket around my shoulders to keep out the night chill.

“Blessing Ndaba,” he replied. “I have walked the path for almost two decades now. You?”

“I completed my training four years ago under Master Silumko.”

Blessing’s eyes widened with recognition. He grinned, twisting the scar on his cheek.

“Silumko never speaks of his other apprentices. But I knew he had others. When last did you see him? Is the old man still kicking?”

I grinned, faintly.

“Just like him to never discuss anything that isn’t directly related to beheading ghouls and impaling vampires. I saw him two years ago by New Ulundi. We tracked a pack of nightkin together. Before we could collect the reward, he vanished.”

Blessing nodded, understandingly. “The old man is alive. Will take much more than this path to kill him. No matter how much he tries to ingrain it in us that nothing lasts forever…”

“What a wonderfully cheerful man,” Graham interjected, taking a swig from another moonshine jug. Where did he keep getting them?

Blessing ignored my tokoloshe companion and indicated my neck. “What monster?”

I almost smiled. When two Blood Hunters met, it was tradition to discuss the hunt. To compare scars.

We were meant to hunt alone, but that didn’t mean we weren’t connected in some way.

“Ghoul,” I answered. “Slashed me when I wasn’t looking.”

“And?”

“Put an assegai in its eye and used my last bullet to put down its friend.”

Blessing nodded with respect. I inclined my head at his scar.

“Shaka’s Chosen. Nasty one with steel claws. Wasn’t too dangerous, but it still stings. That zombie’s bits are strewn across the Transkei now.”

I nodded, acknowledging his skill, as he took the fish off the makeshift spit and handed one to me. The outside was charred, but that didn’t matter. The flesh within was juicy. And there was a lot of it. Blessing must’ve been a skilled fisherman. Or he just bought it. Which made him a good hunter for having money to do so.

“I couldn’t find a knife among your things…” Blessing said, using his own knife to cut up the fish on a tin plate. I was eating on a similar one. The tail of the last fish was hanging loosely out of Graham’s mouth. I hadn’t seen him start eating.

“Garkain. Ate it.”

Blessing nodded, understanding, and retrieved another knife from his satchel. A basic thing. Medium length blade. Thin. Wouldn’t work against bigger game, but a knife was always good to have. For practical things.

“Keep it. It belonged to…another hunter.”

I nodded my head in thanks and reverence for the hunter who had completed his path.

“How did they die?” I asked, cutting into the fish.

Blessing stared into the fire. He stopped cutting. Graham used a fish bone to pick his teeth then returned to the bottle.

“A vampire…he was tracking the creature up near the Magocracy border. Not of the Blood, but still advanced. A few mutations. He managed to corner the creature and kill it but succumbed to his wounds.”

We ate in silence, with only the crackle of the fire and Graham’s glugging to fill the night air. Finally, I finished, and thanked Blessing quietly for the meal.

We would probably camp together for the evening, then go our separate ways in the morning. Whoever woke first would leave. If a mindwarping vampire was to capture one of us, we didn’t want to have any information at all that could lead to tracking our companion. This was the path. In solitude…safety. In sacrifice…

“So…” Graham said, loudly, before letting out a belch. “This is what you Blood Hunters do? You go after pint-sized vamps or giant snakes minding their own business, and then pretend you’re on some grand quest to wipe out the Blood? Pah! Why don’t you all just use your weapons and potions and go after Nkosi Igazi himself? Storm Mqanduli. Then you’ll have something to write about your path.”

Blessing didn’t even wince at the tokoloshe’s drunken words. He had mastered dealing with Graham already.

I gritted my teeth but couldn’t restrain myself.

“Mqanduli is dead. The Blood drained it dry. Destroyed it.”

“And turned it into a fortress,” Blessing added.

Graham shrugged. “How hard could it be?”

“A hill-top keep manned by at least two dozen vampires with at least two mutations per a head. Impi patrols during the day, ghoul patrols at night. Grid-like streets, running between windowless boxes where the humans live like less than cattle. No one can enter or leave without Nkosi Igazi’s say-so. Even the impi fear to go there…”

“But you have?” Blessing asked, firelight flickering off his face, twisting and obscuring his scar.

I nodded, and that silenced both the Blood Hunter and the tokoloshe.

“I heard something,” Blessing finally said. “When I took a job near Ngqoko, the client spoke about a Blood Hunter who fit the description of Silumko. Our mentor left a message.”

He paused, retrieving a scrap of paper from his satchel.

“There is to be a moot…a meeting of those following the path…”

Graham was the only one who wasn’t stunned by this. Blood Hunters never had meetings. Never had councils. At most, we worked in pairs on one or two missions. But we never put ourselves all in one place. The risk was far too great.

“Why? Why now?” I asked.

“The traditions aren’t working,” Blessing replied, sounding empty. He had dealt with the ramifications of this invitation before meeting me. “We must meet…to change the path.”

“Change the path? But…we are the path. It defines us.”

“And it hasn’t gotten us anywhere. Dammit! The tokoloshe is right,” Blessing snarled, glaring at Graham, who feigned sleep, cuddling his empty moonshine bottle.

Blessing stared into the embers of the fire and sighed.

“I travel out towards the mountain and the moot. Tomorrow. Will you join me?”

The path…the traditions that I had accepted, at the expense of renouncing those of my ancestors. The path that had almost gotten me killed. Again, and again.

What choice did I have?

Chapter 15.      Moot

Blessing and I travelled on his motorcycle to retrieve mine by the village. They rewarded my slaying of the serpent with beef and mielies. Graham wasn’t impressed.

Soon after that, we set off towards the moot. We avoided highways, when we could, and cut across dirt roads, passing villages and homesteads. Usually, we would have stopped at every one of them. To listen to rumours about monsters in the bush, spirits in the well, and demons possessing the floorboards. But, today we rushed. To a mountain, and to change the path.

Graham had questioned Blessing and me about this, chiding us and trying to coax us into defending something he couldn’t understand. But we remained silent.

Blood Hunters never met up like this. Even the apprenticeship system and our occasional teaming up was a risk. Vampires could take too much from us. And all vampires of the same bloodline would know. Masks wouldn’t help. Through their bloodline, a vampire could spread our scents, mannerisms, facial structure, our very essences, through the minds of all their kin. Like a hive mind.

That’s why we worked alone. So, when a hunter put down a vampire of the Blood, they were prepared to die. But this meeting was putting all that at risk. A vampire with mindwarping powers or a special mutation could siphon the memories of our comrades from our minds and spread it to the Blood. We could all be compromised!

If Silumko had invited us to this, it meant that he had good reason. A reason that was worth the risk of annihilation.

It was nearing nightfall by the time we saw the mountain. It was far away from civilisation and we had to ride our dirt bikes over rough terrain, without even a dirt road to guide us.

I liked this land. It was peaceful. Untouched. I doubted there were any monsters here, as there were no humans to attract them. Ironic that it was humanity we fought for, yet it attracted the beasts we had to slay.

The terrain soon became too rough to continue on our bikes. Blessing and I stopped by a lone tree, and covered our bikes in grey and brown canvas, just in case there were opportunistic thieves or spies in the area. It would also shield our already flagging vehicles from the elements.

“It will be nice to see the old man again,” Blessing commented, as he hoisted his bag onto his back, carrying his two spears like they were ski poles. Silumko also preferred longer spears. At least he had when I had last seen my ancient mentor. They provided extra range and could be thrown more accurately and over longer distance.

My assegai was the Zulu style. Short. Manoeuvrable. Fast. I didn’t want to risk losing my precious blades by throwing them and, in a scuffle, you needed something short.

I grunted by way of reply to Blessing. I was honestly nervous about seeing my old master again. Silumko had been a harsh mentor. His training was gruelling. Unforgiving. Sometimes, I would wake up and he would be gone. I would live off the land, fending off beasts, until he wordlessly came back weeks later and continued my training as if nothing had changed. Perhaps, when you got to Silumko’s age, time stopped mattering.

Silumko was not a kind man. But he had taught me everything about being a hunter. And that meant everything to me.

The trek from the bikes took us past rock formations, boulders and thick decaying shrubs, and then up the incline of the mountain. Blessing would stop to check the scrap of paper for directions, and would turn down different footpaths, made by ancient hikers and animals. Occasionally, he broke through the brush and scrambled over small cliffs, leaving visible disturbances as we broke branches and shrubs.

I followed, wordlessly, even as Graham littered the area with his booze. I would have scolded him for leaving a trail, but I had soon learnt that this mysterious spectral alcohol that he sometimes drank didn’t leave a trace. Which raised the question of why he stole booze at all if he could just magically fabricate his liquor.

Finally, Blessing stopped, and sniffed. I smelled it too. Woodfire. Nestled between two boulders, only discoverable if you had scaled this isolated rock and followed the correct paths, was a cave. Orange firelight flickered from within.

Blessing breathed a sigh of relief. He seemingly had not believed he could find it.

We approached the cave carefully. This was not a popular destination, but there was no guarantee that these were the other Blood Hunters. They could be squatters. Very likely would be squatters. But the land belonged to the vampire clans, so I wasn’t planning on evicting them if they were.

Despite trusting the directions enough to come here, Blessing levelled one of his spears ahead of him, preparing for an attack. I followed his cue and drew my machete as we edged closer towards the cave mouth.

“Who do you hunt?” a female Xhosa voice spoke from inside the cave.

“The Blood,” Blessing and I responded in unison.

“And what will you pay?”

“Everything.”

A woman in black emerged from the cave mouth. Black tactical vest, shirt and cargo pants. The heads of two assegai poked from behind her back where she wore them criss-crossed. She had shaved her head since I had last seen her. Anathi. She had defeated a vampiric beast that we suspected was an alp down by Dingane. She had done most of the work, but she still split the bounty with me. I didn’t know how old she was, but it was close to mine. At least, that’s how she looked.

I had failed to say anything of substance back then as well.

My cheeks warmed as Blessing stepped forward to greet her, placing his spear against a rock and clasping her wrist as a form of a handshake.

Graham appeared, looking between her and me, grinning a stupid demonic grin. He poofed out of existence, just before I felt him shove me forward. Blessing had proceeded into the orange and black of the cave.

Anathi smiled. She had a new scar on her cheek.

“It was Guy, wasn’t it?” She pointed at my face.

I must have looked confused as she explained.

“These scars across your face. What monster did you slay to get them?”

I didn’t know I had any facial scars. I stroked my hand across my cheeks and felt small welts. I remembered now.

“Driftwood,” I replied, then immediately mentally kicked myself. I took a step back.

“I mean…I was dragged through a river by an inkanyamba. There was a lot of…debris.”

Surprisingly, she nodded. With respect. She didn’t say anything. Tick. Tock.

My cheeks warmed again.

“Your scars…” I blurted. “What monster did you slay to get them?”

“A demon,” she replied. “A stone imp. Not unlike your demon…”

“Excuse me?!” Graham interjected, teleporting atop a rock to look down on us. “I am not anyone’s demon but my own! And a stone imp?! I am a tokoloshe. I am three tiers higher than any damn imp.”

Anathi waved the comment aside. She didn’t seem to find the presence of Graham at all unusual.

“You and Blessing are the first to arrive after me,” she said, continuing as if there wasn’t an alcoholic demon shouting at her from atop a boulder. “Do you know why Silumko called us here?”

I shook my head. “I’ve been in the sticks for way too long. Blessing said he only found out about the meeting because he dropped by a town. It was by luck that we crossed paths.”

“Luck my arse,” Graham said, appearing on my shoulder and pointing his thumb at his chest proudly. “I saved this fool hunter and found the other fool hunter fishing nearby. Bah! You humans put so much stock in luck and divinity, when there’s a perfectly immortal demon watching your back.”

“Demonic aid is seldom welcome,” Anathi said, turning and entering the cave.

I didn’t follow immediately, as I watched her enter. That is until Graham blocked my view, his black eyes staring eagerly into mine.

“You like that warrior woman?” he asked, grinning.

I didn’t entertain him with a reply, but I did regret that I could no longer see Anathi as the cave turned down a corner. I entered the darkness, following the flicker of firelight. Graham continued to goad me all the way.

Further in the cave, Blessing and Anathi were already sitting on wooden stools. I doubted Anathi had brought them. Blood Hunters travelled light. Silumko had probably used this place for a meeting in the past.

I took a seat opposite Blessing and two stools away from Anathi. Graham pinched me as I did so.

“Blowing your chance, man!” he whispered.

Anathi didn’t seem to notice or care that I put space between us. She was cleaning a lever-action rifle, as Blessing polished the blades on his spears.

No one spoke. We had swapped stories of our scars and now it was time to contemplate. Already, this was the most Blood Hunters I had ever seen in one place. And what did that mean if any of us got caught? Well, we were already damned for coming. I wiled away the next hour sharpening my machete, until we heard the sound of boots entering the cave.

Blood Hunters, clothed in black and carrying various weapons, arrived slowly over the next while. Some I recognised, most I did not. We were a small community. Fewer than a dozen, but our vocation entailed solitude.

No one spoke, even as only two chairs remained empty around the firepit. Silumko would have prepared the moot area according to the latest deaths. He somehow always knew when one of his students or colleagues perished.

Silumko wasn’t the leader. The Blood Hunters didn’t have a leader. Hard to have a hierarchy when acting solo was your entire modus operandi. But Silumko was the oldest surviving member of the Blood Hunters. He had been old when the Cataclysm brought vampires to the world and was older now. Blessing, Anathi and two other Blood Hunters here were all his students. The others were self-trained, and others were the students of men who had been slain on the path.

The fire was beginning to die as we waited, and Blessing took another Blood Hunter to collect firewood. I continued caring for my weapons, even though they had been sharpened enough, as I felt someone’s gaze.

I looked up to see a Blood Hunter I was unfamiliar with staring at me from across the circle. He had punctures on his neck. Scorched punctures. Barghest, probably.

“You…” he said, accusatory. The other Blood Hunters stopped their procrastination and stared at the both of us.

“Yeah, you…” he continued. “You’re the inkwenkwe, aren’t you? The boy that the old man gave an assegai and sent out to slay monsters.”

I didn’t reply, as I averted my gaze. Graham had not been visible or even present, until now. He watched from a rock-shelf. Some Blood Hunters noticed him but didn’t seem too startled.

The Blood Hunter stood up.

“Yes! It is you. Not even denying it. Too ashamed to even speak to a man. The old man thinks he can flout tradition, but that is why God has cursed us. You have cursed us by following this sacred path! A boy hunting vampires? Bah!”

“Shut up, Bongani,” Anathi interrupted him, suddenly. Her voice was cold, but angry.

Bongani spun towards her.

“And you! The old man sends a boy and a woman against the Blood, paying no heed to custom, and we wonder why our numbers dwindle?”

Blessing and the other hunter entered, carrying sticks and dried grass. They stopped at the scene. Bongani holding his arms apart, indicating Anathi and me as if we were the root of all the Blood Hunters’ problems.

Perhaps, he was right.

“Tradition…” a voice came from behind Blessing.

Silumko didn’t need to push past the hunters at the entrance. He glided between them like he was air. He had aged since I had last seen him, but every wrinkle, scar and extra inch of his beard didn’t suggest weakness. They were testament to his spirit. To his power. Silumko was not a sorcerer. He had no spark. He was not a Zulu lord or impi commander. He was a Xhosa herdsman. Like me. Yet…he had outlasted the end of the world.

“Tradition…” he repeated, his voice dripping with that confident authority and gravitas that had ruled over me as I trained. “Is a crutch for normal men. We are not normal. All who follow the path renounce the customs of where we came from. There are no Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho, Pedi, Shona…no one…but Blood Hunters. This is the way. But, ways change.”

There was silence as Silumko proceeded further into the room, before taking a seat on the second last stool.

“Perhaps, Master Silumko,” Bongani said, punctuated by Blessing restocking the firepit. “Our ignoring of tradition has been why Bezile was ripped apart by ghouls?”

“Death is a part of the path,” Anathi recited. “He knew the risks. He let his face be seen by Izingane Zegazi. Like a true Blood Hunter, the deaths stopped with him.”

We all inclined our heads downward in silence as we respected Bezile’s memory. I had met him. Once. He was a good hunter.

Bongani returned to his seat, leaving only the last stool empty.

“Master,” Blessing hesitated. “With Bezile gone, we should remove the final stool. It is bad luck to keep an empty chair when its owner is dead.”

“Pffft. That’s made up,” Graham interjected, as he reclined on a rock-shelf, swinging his legs.

“Shush, demon,” Silumko said, calmly. “Trickster sprites have no say in our ways. We tolerate your presence here because we cannot remove you. No reason more.”

Graham looked smug at the admission of his impunity.

“The chair is not for Bezile,” Silumko continued. “We have a guest…”

As if on cue, a man entered the light of the fire. My breath caught in my throat as I shot up, knocking over my stool. The man looked just as shocked to see me.

We rushed towards each other and embraced.

“Cousin! Oh, Qamata! You live,” Themba cried, on the brink of tears.

I was lost for words, as I backed away to examine my cousin. He was shorter. Or, I was taller. But his previous well-toned body had been forged into thick muscles. A thin stubble covered his face and he had shaved his head into a buzz cut.

Tears almost came unbidden as I realised how much had changed, and memories of Mqanduli, happy and sad, threatened to come bubbling to the surface.

“Wisdom?” I asked. “And the others? What of the boys from Mqanduli?”

Themba’s smile wilted.

“Wisdom lives,” he said. “But he is a changed man. The impis…they beat out of him what made him. He lives…but…I will tell you later.”

I realised we were being watched by a cave full of Blood Hunters. My cheeks warmed as I returned to my stool. Silumko stood to indicate Themba’s seat, but Themba didn’t sit.

“Comrades,” Silumko said, without changing his emotion at all. He was always lecturing, even as he ordered a coffee. “This man is Themba Mgebe. He is a member of the Transkei Resistance.”

Pandemonium broke out at the admission. Those who didn’t yell that we had brought the eyes of the Empire upon us shifted uncomfortably, some eyeing the door.

I expected Silumko to silence the hunters. Instead, Themba stepped forward, the firelight painting his features onto the cave roof.

“I understand why you fear me being here!” Themba yelled, and then quietened as the group went silent. “I understand that your profession is dangerous enough already. That you must face against the Izingane Zegazi and every impi questioning where you got your weapons. The Empire is another big threat. Too big to handle, you may think. You must focus on hunting the Blood. I know this. But…do not forget who sent the vampires to our land.”

“Why are we entertaining this outsider?” Bongani asked, pleading with Silumko.

Silumko chose to ignore him, allowing Themba to reply.

“We have a common enemy, Blood Hunter. The vampires and the Empire are the same. And we will only be rid of them when Transkei is free.”

Bongani scoffed. “A free Transkei? A pipe dream!”

Themba turned to face Bongani head on. “Only if we think of it that way! Before the Empire, before the settlers, we were free. We could be again! The Transkei Resistance are fighting for your freedom. Our freedom! And our country that needs to be. Are you doing the same chasing monsters for peanuts?”

Bongani crossed his arms. “I hope not! If we were fighting for this country that doesn’t exist, it means that inkwenkwe would be breaking the customs fully.”

Themba turned and looked at me pointedly.

“My cousin does what he must. He is a hero.”

I felt lighter as my cousin, whom I had thought had perished in some suicidal assault on the Three Point line, acknowledged me.

Themba stood straight and addressed the circle, pacing around the fire.

“Even if you do not think so, as Blood Hunters slaying the beasts that infest this land, you are already fighting for your country.”

“What country?” Bongani interjected. “We’re an imperial territory. That is all.”

“The country that held the white man at bay for over a hundred years. The country that resisted Zulu encroachment till the end. The country that survived the oppression of whites and now survives the oppression of our bloody cousins. Our ancestors’ lifestyle made them fragile. They were isolated. We just wanted to care for our cattle. And was that so bad? But, it let them divide us. Conquer us. But being Xhosa doesn’t make us weak. Because every single one of us is a kingdom unto ourselves.”

“So what? We split the Transkei between every kraal?” Bongani clicked his tongue dismissively. “You’ll see us burn again.”

“Not if we unite! The Transkei Resistance knows how to fight impi. We hit them where they hurt the most…”

“You steal their rations and clog up their drains…” another Blood Hunter mocked.

“But we don’t have the skills to hunt the Children,” Themba continued, ignoring him.

The circle went silent. Themba nodded, satisfied.

“Goldfield is not our ally, but we can learn from them. When the Empire sent vampires after them, they formed the Extermination Corps. The Goldfield mages knew that they could not fight a conventional war against such beasts. So, they appointed specialists. Specialists backed by a movement of freedom fighters. And they wiped out the blood-drinkers throughout their land.”

“Hunting the Children head-on is suicide!” Blessing blurted. He looked like he had been holding himself back for a while. “The rabble in Goldfield can’t be compared to them. The Corps hunt rift-borne beasts and the Empire’s leftovers.”

“The Children are tougher,” Themba agreed. “But together, the resistance and Blood Hunters can fight them. We must fight them!”

Silence. Bongani stood up, wordlessly, followed by another Blood Hunter and Blessing. They began walking towards the exit of the cave mouth.

Themba had given a great speech, I thought. But I saw sweat glisten on his forehead. He looked nervous as another hunter stood to leave.

“I know how to get silver!” Themba suddenly blurted. The hunters stopped and turned.

“I know that you are running out of silver. It’s why Silumko agreed to this meeting. I know that silver sales are heavily restricted. Illegal, practically. And I also know that you are all very bad at stealing.”

Themba’s words stung, but they were true. The silver lining on my assegais were scraping off. Practically gone already after the inkanyamba.

“The Empire is in financial distress,” Themba continued, calming as he regained the full attention of the circle. “Because of this, they’re doing a once off mega-shipment of silver to the State of Good Hope.”

“But…they’re enemies,” a man in the circle stated, sceptically.

“Money is money. And Hope City is a friend today and enemy tomorrow. The truck is going to be approaching the Three Point Line three days from now. I want your help.”

“Are vampires guarding the trucks?” Silumko asked. I had forgotten he was there. Silumko had a presence when he wanted it but was practically invisible if he chose to not be noticed.

“No, but…” Themba replied.

“You’re undermanned,” Silumko finished his sentence.

Themba nodded, embarrassed.

Bongani clicked his tongue, irritably, and stormed off. Blessing glared at Themba and then looked at Silumko apologetically.

“Thank you for the work you have done, master, but I won’t abandon the path that you put me on. I hunt vampires, not impi.”

He left.

Other Blood Hunters began standing to leave. Others fidgeted. Themba looked at me from across the room, his eyes pleading.

Slowly, I nodded. And with it, a weight seemed to disappear from my back.

“Excellent!” Anathi beamed, slapping me on the back. I hadn’t seen her edge closer. My cheeks warmed. “The impi brought the vampires to this land. It’s time we make them pay!”

Other Blood Hunters didn’t look as convinced and turned to Silumko. Silently, we watched my mentor.

“The path,” he said. “Is ever winding. Ever changing. Tradition and custom must stay if it serves us. If it does not, it must be abandoned.”

Half our number left. Anathi, Silumko, Themba and I remained, alongside three others. Themba shook all our hands, one at a time. Silumko admitted he thought fewer of us would go for it.

It all became a blur for me, as memories of my home resurfaced, and I remembered how I got here.

Empire. Vampires. They were the same. And I had to crush them. Tradition or not. And, if my cousin had somehow lived, then what else was possible?

Chapter 16.      Tradition

I wanted Themba to stay. To camp with me among the rocky hills like we had done as boys. But he had to return to his resistance cell. To tell them the good news. He promised to catch up soon.

I still couldn’t believe it. Themba. Alive. And not just that. He had escaped the impi he had once admired. And was now fighting to free his…our…country.

I didn’t know if I desired a free Transkei. Themba had always been the more political cousin. But I did know one thing. The Izingane Zegazi were here by imperial decree. And it was impi that sacked and burnt Mqanduli under their orders. The Empire were my enemies. Officially, now.

Themba left promptly, hesitant to tell me who exactly had died. From his expression, I gathered too many. But he had survived. The faces from Mqanduli, friends and relatives, had become blurs over the years. But Themba had always been closest to me. It was enough that he had lived.

I bid the Blood Hunters farewell and, as was customary, we went our separate ways, agreeing to meet with the rebels in a day.

Blessing’s bike was missing. I couldn’t help but feel a sense of loss there. Blood Hunters did not have friends, and fellow hunters weren’t exactly comrades. But the path was lonely, and Blessing had provided company – for a short while at least.

I rode my bike to a series of hillocks protected by boulders half an hour away from the hidden cave. There was plenty of kindling and some dried wood, so I treated myself to a small fire. Not even the most capricious impi would hassle a camper this far out in the sticks.

I settled by my tiny fire, contemplating the twisting path before me, and the old faces behind me, and slowly started to drift to sleep.

Until a furry body with a toothy smirk blocked my vision.

“I didn’t know you had a cousin! I thought you just spawned into this world. Brooding and moping, and perpetually failing with women.”

Ah, yes. I still had the tokoloshe!

“I have a family, demon. Unlike you,” I spat. The thought simultaneously filled me with sadness and regret, but also with palpable relief. Themba was alive!

Surprisingly, Graham’s expression darkened. “Unfortunately, I do have a family.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Where are they?” I asked, sincerely interested perhaps for the first time whenever speaking with Graham.

Graham waved dismissively.

“Unimportant.” A grin, that sent shivers down my spine, returned to his face. “What’s more important is that hot piece of ass in black.”

“Her name is Anathi. Pay her some respect.”

Graham chortled, revealing a hipflask that I suspected was not a fabrication and that one of the hunters would be missing. He took a gulp and sighed, satisfied.

“The whole me lady shtick can only get you so far, bub. You gotta pounce on that ass. Slap it around a bit. Make her swoon.”

I averted my gaze from the creature, sneering as if something smelled pungent. In fact, he did.

Graham sighed and reappeared on my shoulder.

“I can see your desire, Guy. You’re an open book. And that makes it fun to mock you, but it can also get boring when there’s nothing new to discover. You want the companionship of a lady. That lady, the one in the village, the bar maid back in New Ulundi, that one shepherd’s daughter…”

“I get it. I’m a desperate fool grasping for what he cannot have.”

Graham grinned, just slightly. In a way, it seemed more honest than his usual expression.

“That was almost deliciously self-deprecating. But why? You’re a man. They’re women. Sure, a lot of them will reject you. That’s part of the game. Move on. There’s someone on this infernal rock who will fuck you.”

“It’s not that…” I shook my head, regretting engaging with the demon. “It’s just that…ugh…I’m inkwenkwe. I’m not a man. Just an overgrown boy who’s already tearing up centuries of tradition by hunting the monsters who took everything from me.”

“You’re inkwenkwe?” Graham asked, surprised but I could see he had figured it out already. Down by the river. “So, damn what?”

“I cannot marry, bed a woman or fight. The last has some technicalities…but, when you seek technicalities in your beliefs, you don’t actually believe them. It’s like trying to bargain with God. I know I’m breaking tradition already…”

“So, just circumcise yourself. Right now. I’ll help!”

“No!” I blurted, thoughts of the little bastard holding a knife filling me with horror. I calmed myself as Graham took another chug. “It’s not that simple. I have to go through the proper rites, with the proper procedures…and I’m too old now. And the initiation takes too long. I’m a wanted man, even if the impi don’t actively hunt me. If I stay in one place for too long, I’ll lose my place on the path. I…”

I shook my head, frustrated.

Graham frowned but nodded slowly.

“Why not just scrap it altogether, then? You heard the old man. Tradition is a guide. It isn’t law. You should abandon it if it doesn’t work. And you said it yourself. You’ve been fighting all this time. Killed more monsters than most men ever will. You aren’t a boy anymore, Guy Mgebe. Not in any real sense of the word.”

“I am in the eyes of my ancestors.”

“Trust me, they really don’t care.”

The fire cracked as Graham and I watched in silence.

“It isn’t just that…” I finally added. “It’s about proving myself. I am Xhosa. That means something. Damned or not, I need to see this through. For myself, for Themba…for my mother.”

I suspected Graham to argue. Instead, he nodded slowly, and continued to sip his stolen beverage in silence.

Chapter 17.      Rebellion

We met up with the rebels by a little homestead near to the highway but obscured by rolling hills. Anathi, Silumko and the three other Blood Hunters filtered in slowly, but all arrived before the rebels.

As was the way, we Blood Hunters spent these moments in relative silence. We had exchanged stories of our scars just yesterday. None of us had had the fortune or misfortune to gain new ones in the time that had passed.

Eventually, Themba arrived, wearing a casual t-shirt and jeans. He had worn mostly traditional wear back in Mqanduli. It was odd to see this comparatively western attire on him.

He parked his pickup and approached the group of black-clad hunters with a wide grin on his face. I was glad that he hadn’t lost that expression. From the passenger seat, Wisdom emerged.

I took a step forward, unable to stop myself from grinning. But Wisdom did not smile back. He nodded severely and made a beeline into the building.

“You hunters really stand out!” Themba said, eyeing Wisdom with a hint of sadness, but maintaining a jovial tone. “But, don’t worry. We expect you to. Even impi let Blood Hunters go about their business. We’re betting on them continuing with that.”

“We’re here to fight vampires,” Silumko said, sounding half-bored, half-severe. “Not be your spies in the daylight.”

Themba nodded. “Of course! And there will be plenty vampire slaying…after we get you your silver.”

Silumko nodded and Anathi beamed. Themba led us into the building but stopped me at the back.

He was no longer smiling.

“Wisdom is a changed man, Guy. So are all the others.”

“So am I,” I said.

He eyed me up and down and smiled. Sadly.

“Yes, I guess you are.”

The homestead was a front. From the outside, it seemed a simple small house backed up against a hill. But the others had already passed through a secret entrance, leading into a cement wall facility with fluorescent lighting. It made me think of a James Bond villain’s hideout.

“The old government had a secret facility here,” Themba explained, as I saw some old warning signs in Afrikaans. “Some Goldfield buddies let us know about it and even gave us the keys. Funny how that goes, hey? Our oppressors yesterday become our friends today.”

The hallway opened into a well-lit and large planning room, equipped with a war table, maps, whiteboard and many dour faces.

I recognised many of those faces. From Mqanduli. They should have filled me with happiness. But they looked at me and my weapons with disdain. I saw accusation in their eyes.

“Welcome to the Mqanduli Marauders,” Themba said, presenting the group. “You know most of them. Some new faces are other recruits who joined us when we escaped. Oh yeah, you don’t know what happened. We were conscripted as impi. The sergeant hadn’t been lying about that. Took us far away from the vampires. They trained us, took us on a few operations into Goldfield. That’s how I got my contacts. Eventually, they trusted us enough to let us loose as a full company.”

Themba stared into the distance and I saw a fire in his eyes.

“But we hadn’t forgotten about Mqanduli. What they did to us. We killed our impi commander, sacked the base of whatever we could, and tracked down the resistance.”

He grinned, but there was no joy in it. There was pain in that grin.

“They didn’t know what they had done. They didn’t turn us into their dutiful servants. They trained us. Armed us. And now we’re going to make them pay.”

As if on cue, the group took seats or stood. Themba went to the front of the room by the whiteboard and began sketching a plan. I spotted the Blood Hunters standing in the far corner, away from the Marauders. Torn, I hesitated, and was caught by the entrance, between the two parts of my life. Themba began.

“Tomorrow, we commence Operation Windfall. The Marauders know the plan, but now that we have extra support, we need to brief the Blood Hunters and factor them into the plan…”

“Why is he here?” Wisdom suddenly asked, glaring at me.

Themba looked shocked and then sighed. “Because he’s a Blood Hunter, and I’m about to get to how they fit in…”

“He’s not one of us, Themba. He didn’t go through what we had to. He got to escape. Thanks to you. But worse than all that…he’s inkwenkwe.”

Themba stared at Wisdom, for just a few moments. His expression was a storm cloud.

“And you aren’t? Just because you lack a foreskin doesn’t mean you’re a man, comrade.” His tone dripped a venom that I had never expected from my cousin. Wisdom winced.

“Besides,” Themba continued, turning back to the whiteboard. “He’s a Blood Hunter, a skilled soldier. Trained to kill vampires. Vampires that rule this region under the Zulu Emperor, I might add.”

“He will bring bad luck upon us. He breaks the traditions even now by bearing those weapons. We can’t risk the gods and ancestors looking disfavourably upon us!” a distant cousin of mine, whose name escaped me, piped up.

Before Themba could respond, Graham burst into existence in the middle of the war-table, startling everyone but the Blood Hunters. Wisdom fell backwards on his chair.

“Foolish mortals!” Graham mocked. “You stupidly cling to old ways that mean nothing in reality.”

“Tokoloshe!” one of the rebels yelled.

“Yes, very astute of you. Frankly, I half-expected you to be unable to string a coherent sentence together.”

Wisdom and some other rebels looked towards the hunters and even me.

“Kill it!”

I shrugged.

“He’s harmless,” Silumko grunted. “Just ignore him.”

“I won’t be ignored while you superstitious insects reject a real warrior from your cause!” Graham yelled. “Do you know what this so-called inkwenkwe has gone through? What he has slain?”

“Against custom!” Wisdom yelled back, finally realising Graham wasn’t going to bite his head off.

“Your customs can go lie in my shit-hole!”

Pandemonium erupted, with the rebels exchanging obscenities with the tokoloshe, Themba attempting to regain control, and the Blood Hunters impassively watching the chaos unfold.

Fists were raised, but no one took a move to fight the mythical little dwarf as he insulted their entire heritage.

Parts of what Graham said offended me. But, an even greater part made me feel something new for my usually intolerable travelling companion. He was standing up for me. And that meant something. Even if the manner in which he was doing so was less than appropriate.

Themba gave up trying to bring peace to the room and slumped down in a chair, massaging the bridge of his nose.

Graham wouldn’t relent. He never did. And, for some reason, he felt he needed to defend me.

“Enough!” I shouted, startling even the Blood Hunters. Graham and the rebels turned towards me, stunned.

“I will help,” I said, quieter now. “But I won’t kill any impis. Will that be fine?”

A few of my erstwhile kin nodded, reluctantly. Some grumbled. Graham took a seat on a shelf, panted and took a long drink of someone’s bottle of scotch.

“Well,” Themba said, relieved. “If that’s sorted, we can begin…”

***

The plan had holes. All plans did. But it was solid enough that even Silumko gave it his nod of approval. He wasn’t physically fit enough (surprisingly) to participate, so he would be providing a supporting role.

None of the old Mqanduli crew apologised or even greeted me as they left after the meeting was done. Wisdom gave me a glance but looked away. There was scorn and guilt in his eyes.

We had changed. But I hadn’t realised by how much.

Themba waited. Graham didn’t make any effort to move from his final perch atop the whiteboard, where he sulked. The rebels had slowly realised that ignoring the demon was the best way to deal with him. Graham didn’t like that at all.

Finally, Themba and I were alone. Graham didn’t count.

Throughout the meeting, Themba had been poised. Powerful. Even when he was exasperatingly trying to bring order to the chaos, he had the unflinching resolve of a leader.

But now, alone, his smile wilted. His eyes became tired. He stared at me from across the room. We didn’t speak. I didn’t know what to say.

“I’m sorry,” Themba finally said, and it carried a weight as if he’d been burdened with those words for a lifetime. “I’m sorry that I didn’t find you. That I abandoned you.”

I shook my head. “You did what you felt was right. And, in the end, perhaps it was. I lived. I live. And for not finding me. This land may be small, yet so large.”

“You’re a Blood Hunter,” he said, with a hint of shame. Not at my vocation, but that he had pushed me towards it.

I shrugged. “It is only natural. The Blood took away everything from us. It is right that I seek to slay them.”

I saw something die in Themba’s eyes. An image of a younger Guy. I didn’t mourn that younger self any more than I missed the experience of having breakfast a day prior. That Guy was gone. I was what remained.

“Not everything,” he said, and stared wistfully into the distance. We were contained by four concrete walls, but I saw the rolling hills in his eyes.

“We still have the land. And each other.” He looked back to me. “I love this land, cousin. With all my heart. And to see it fly its own flag, to not be drained by vampires or stepped on by impi…that is all I ever wanted.”

“You used to want to be an impi.” I couldn’t help but level it as an accusation.

Themba looked down, ashamed.

“Yes…yes I did. But then they burnt down our home. Gave us to vampires. I used to think the assegai pendants and cowhide badges were a symbol of so much more. Of claiming this land for ourselves against everyone who stood in the Empire’s way. I thought they were right. But…”

Themba clenched his fists. There was fire in his eyes.

“Now…I’ll kill every single one of them.”

“Ambitious, rebel leader,” Graham piped in.

Themba eyed me, questioningly. I shrugged. It didn’t really matter why or how Graham began to follow me. He was my rash now. And it was impolite to discuss rashes.

“It is ambitious,” Themba said, as if replying to me. “But that’s why we need you, and the others.”

He walked to his backpack in the corner where he took out a satchel. He handed it to me.

“I know you’re inkwenkwe. But I also know that tradition gone too far got us conquered. Again, and again.”

“I do not want to endanger the mission,” I replied, restraining myself from opening the satchel. I suspected what was inside.

“You won’t, cousin,” Themba replied with a hint of finality. “I have a feeling, deep down in my gut, that you’ll be the one to clinch it.”

Chapter 18.      The Heist

Wind buffeted against my brown canvas jacket. I felt naked not wearing black, but Themba was right. Blood Hunters were conspicuous. Perched on top of my dirt-bike, overlooking the busiest highway in the occupied Eastern Cape, I couldn’t help but feel that I stood out enough already. The tokoloshe reclining behind me didn’t help.

I had spent over a quarter of my life avoiding highways. Highways meant impi. It meant vampires or their cronies, who might recognise my scent. Highways were the arteries of the Empire and I was afraid of imperial blood. But not today.

“Wind-1, you copy? Over,” Themba spoke over a crackly walkie-talkie.

“Copy, Stronghold. Over,” I replied. The over part was actually unnecessary. The radio was a new model and Themba could control the communication cleanly between everyone on the channel. But some habits were hard to break.

“Such inventive code names,” Graham mocked, leaning up against me on my bike, chugging a beer he had snagged off a moving pick-up. If only he used his powers for something productive!

It was the middle of the day. The sun beat down upon me, blocked only by my helmet and disguise-jacket. I seldom worked at this time of the day. No vampires. No dark spirits. Rarely a demon.

I wasn’t hunting vamps today.

But neither was I hunting impi.

I felt a weight on the front of my pocketed vest, hidden underneath by the canvas jacket. I wasn’t hunting impi. So, why did it feel like I was?

The crackle of my walkie talkie interrupted my reverie.

“Wind-1, proceed. Over.”

I revved my engine and sped off in a dust cloud, ramping a hillock and landing with a jolt on the other side. The highway snaked like a concrete river in the near distance. From up here, I could watch it all clearly.

Plenty of trucks in sight. But not what I was looking for. The truck and its precious silver cargo were far behind. I was an advance scout. Spot potential guard posts, watch the front of the convoy when it arrived, and basically, just be a glorified watchman. Sure, I had the responsibility of watching for reinforcements, but I couldn’t risk engaging them.

No matter what Themba told me.

I stopped on the agreed hill and flipped up my visor to survey the landscape for guards.

“Clear, Stronghold. Over,” I reported.

I sighed.

“Itching for a fight, eh Guy? Your cousin says it’s fine. He’s practically exploding with excitement to get you to prove yourself.”

“I’m fine, Graham. I…”

I cut off as I heard the screeching and crunching of cars. I looked down the highway, and saw it reeling down the concrete river like the inkanyamba.

It didn’t look like a truck. Blacked out windows that blended into the metal itself, with a sharp nose and massive size, the silver-cargo truck looked more like a freight train with tyres. The two armoured cars rushing in convoy with it seemed unnecessary. This thing could ram a tank!

The cars it was pushing off the road were no match for it. Traffic that didn’t veer to safety after the warnings of the massive horn were crushed, sent reeling off the road or into other cars.

The Empire wasn’t playing around!

“Stronghold…” I began.

“Acknowledged, Wind-1. Everyone into battle stations!”

I flicked down my visor and burst forth to keep up with the rampaging convoy.

Further ahead, cars disguised as run-down junkers but with souped up engines and handling, rushed from off the highway to join the flow of traffic. And then just completely ignored traffic to keep up with the convoy. Anathi, some blood hunters and the rebels were in those cars.

But the armoured cars were blocking them from getting towards the truck. And, with every car with a bit of sense veering to the side to make way for the monstrosity, the rebel cars closing in were mighty suspicious. I watched as one of the rebel cars got a bit too close. An armoured car clipped it, sending it reeling into traffic. The truck may not need the armoured car escort, but we had to get rid of it.

I found myself biting my lip as I moved to the next phase of the plan.

“Convoy incoming, Outriders,” I called into the radio. “Five seconds. Four. Three. Two…”

Out of the brush, rebels on dirt-bikes ramped off the overpass. Like flies descending on a carcass, they fell on either side of the front armoured car, veering close towards the black exteriors and placing sticky bombs before pulling back. I winced as a rider was almost caught underneath the truck, but narrowly dodged, rather veering off the road entirely. At least grass was softer than a speeding truck. The remaining riders pulled up on either side of the trailing armoured car and tagged it with their explosives, before splitting in multiple directions.

Three. Two. One.

Boom!

The armoured cars, smoking and even more blackened, were crushed under the simultaneous explosions of the bombs. Their metal husks hopped along the road under their own momentum, until scraping to a halt, shooting up sparks.

The truck would stop now. Impis would surge out. The rebels would engage them. Then we’d win. Well, that was the plan.

The truck burst right through the ruined armoured car like it was a cat charging through a house of cards, sending the metal husk reeling into traffic in the other lane.

“Engage!” Themba yelled frantically through the radio.

Anathi’s car veered to dodge the exploded back armoured car, as men with guns fired impotently at the truck. It was a stampeding behemoth!

I kept accelerating to keep up with it from my vantage point, watching with palpable anxiety as the rebels dodged the remains of crushed cars. The truck did not relent.

Then I saw it. Just over the ridgeline.

A checkpoint. Armoured cars. Towers. Fences.

Impi. And just past them…the Three Point Line. Chasms and bridges guarded on both side by fortresses, both conventional and magical.

“Checkpoint ahead!” I reported.

No reply. Everyone was panicking.

The bikers tried to keep the pace, but they were too far ahead. The plan was to disable the armoured cars and then pull the truck to a halt! But this truck was refusing to play by the rules.

The cars couldn’t get close enough. And they didn’t have explosives. If only we had anticipated how ballsy and armoured this truck was going to be!

Explosions wracked the highway as the truck hurdled towards safety.

We had moments!

I felt a weight on my front.

Moments.

I had promised I wouldn’t get directly involved. But, what was my life but failed promises?

I swung towards the highway. The convoy was still behind my destination. I had moments.

That’s all I needed.

I shot forward, facing the highway dead-on. Up and down, ramping off hills. I felt Graham jolting behind me.

I smelled smoke and fire.

“What are you doing?!” Graham cried. He had lost his beer.

I gritted my teeth and sped up. Faster. Faster.

“You’re insane!” Graham yelled, before poofing away.

I ramped the final hill, just above the highway. I loosened my grip on my bike, and let it sail away into the other lane, as I fell towards the rapidly moving black surface below me.

I felt a jolt as my body hit the top of the speeding truck, and an almost electric pain as I pierced the knife Blessing had given me into its softer roof. The wind threatened to push me off and I felt like I had been close to getting whiplash.

It was just like the river and the inkanyamba. I should have taken some muti before we started. I was going to feel these bruises in the morning!

In my free hand, I drew my assegai and drove it just ahead of me into the roof. Slowly, I pulled myself along, with every painful screech of metal. It didn’t escape me that the checkpoint was just in sight.

But I couldn’t give up! I didn’t dare look behind me to see if the rebels were close by. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was me, the truck, and what I had in my front pocket.

Pull by painful pull, I arrived at the lip of the metal-black windscreen. Even if it was metal enchanted for one-way transparency, it had to be thinner than every other part of this monstrosity.

I pulled out my assegai, just as the truck jolted. My wind-chilled hand lost the assegai to the gales. My exposed skin felt frozen and numb at the same time.

This place would have to do. I dug around in the front of my vest, underneath my jacket. I hadn’t wanted to bring this. But Themba had given it to me. As if he’d known we would need me to have one.

I retrieved the bomb and, with my teeth, ripped off the tape that covered the adhesive. I pressed it down as far onto the windscreen as I could, before clicking two switches on its side.

I smiled, as I pulled the knife out of the roof and flew backwards, catching the back lip of the truck just in time.

The explosion deafened me before I could even comprehend its sound. All I heard was a buzz as the truck spun, veering side to side, swinging me like a ragdoll at its back. I held on for dear life, letting my body bash against the metal and sail in the wind like a flag.

The out of control truck hit something, and then overturned. I felt my body rapidly breaking. I didn’t let go. Metal sparks flew off the ground beneath me as the truck pulled to a stop, scraping on its side against the ground. All I heard was a buzz.

The truck stopped. And my hearing was welcomed by the sound of rushing vehicles, fire and wheezing. Some of the latter was my own. In the distance, a military siren blared.

I pulled out the knife and sheathed it, before drawing out my pistol. I checked the chamber. Themba’s donated rounds looked good inside my long empty pistol.

I rounded the corner of the truck. The checkpoint was still a way off, but I could see them rushing around like ants to send reinforcements.

No sign of the driver.

I limped forward, pistol at the ready. The world seemed silent. Tense.

I stopped at the corner of the driver’s seat. One breath. In. Out. I had already broken my promise to not fight. I might as well double-down.

I turned and came face to face with a boy younger than me, his chest and stomach peppered with glass shards. His eyes were wide, terrified, on a face covered in blood and lacerations. I kept my gun trained on him. I didn’t fire.

The boy breathed, slowly. Strained. He could have been me. Years ago. He could have been Themba when he had been conscripted. He could have been Sifiso. He was just a boy…

I slowly lowered my pistol. I heard the revving of rebel engines approaching the truck. The impi were still rallying.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

In a flash, much faster than I anticipated by his wounds, the impi boy drew a pistol and fired. Two bangs. Only one hit.

The boy slumped, as my arm rang out from recoil and the strain of my high-speed climbing on the truck’s roof.

The other sounds became muffled even as rebels secured the area. I didn’t tear my eyes away from the boy.

Anathi drifted close towards me, opening the door of the car as it still moved.

“You’re a hero, Mgebe!” she called out. Rebels with pick-ups were already putting as much as they could carry into the backs of their vehicles. Bikers put ingots into their backpacks before speeding away.

The impi were surging towards us. But we would be gone when they got here.

I entered the warmth of Anathi’s car. The backseat was coated with spent shells. A rebel who had been accusing me of being inkwenkwe at the meeting was grinning, reloading his AK. He gripped me by the shoulder.

Hero.

I didn’t feel like one.

Chapter 19.      Hero

I only half acknowledged the rebels, even Wisdom, as they apologised to me in groups and individually about doubting me.

“You were born a Mqanduli Marauder!” Wisdom announced, a hint of his old joviality in his eyes. He had already apologised and seemingly forgotten about how he had treated me previously.

I smiled, faintly, at the recognition, but the smile was forced. Just a bit.

Themba’s smile, however, seemed perfectly natural, as it split his face. In one hand he held a brown bottle of beer. In the other, a silver ingot stamped by the Imperial Forge itself.

“Comrades!” he announced, half-slur and half-triumph. The party stopped chatting and sharing stories of the heist as they turned to their leader.

Themba swayed, just a bit, before raising the silver ingot into the air.

“This, my comrades, is the life-blood of our oppressors! The poison of their bloodhounds! Taste it, hold it. We crushed a monster today. My cousin cut off the head of the snake and now we can all enjoy the spoils!”

The group cheered, raising beer bottles and other ingots in toast.

“Don’t get too attached,” Silumko added, arms crossed as he leant up against the corner of the doorway. “That silver has one home, one destination…the hearts and heads of the enemies of the Xhosa!”

That received an even larger cheer. Themba slinked away to speak to Silumko. Probably planning how to turn the pretty, albeit impractical, ingots into weapons. Silumko had smiths, that much was clear. My first silver assegai head had been a gift from him. Newly forged. After that, I had relied on scavenging and buying the occasional left-overs from the Hope City hunters. Impi controlled the silver-trade here, but black markets were pervasive. Occasionally, I could find what I needed.

But things were changing now. The pile of ingots that Silumko hadn’t already stashed away was testament to that. Wisdom excused himself to go reminisce about the heist with some of the other bikers, leaving me alone in the party. Even Graham was too busy drinking to chat. I was glad to see that he had been given his booze and hadn’t resorted to robbing the rebels. This time.

I approached the pile of silver and picked up an ingot. A cowhide shield crossed with an assegai and knobkerrie. The divine flames of God crowned the shield. The Imperial Crest.

I rubbed my thumb over the silver the rebels…I…had helped steal. I didn’t feel anything about taking from impi. I would do it again. But, in the silver glowing exterior of this noble metal, I saw blood and desperation.

I let the ingot clink down beside its compatriots, before turning around to face Blessing.

“You have new scars,” he said, looking a bit out of place, but repeating the traditional Blood Hunter greeting.

I didn’t have any cuts or lacerations where he could see. Were the scars on the inside?

“I killed an enemy of my people,” I said, simply, and then inclined my head, asking wordlessly. What are you doing here?

“I realised something,” he said, following me as I moved away from the pile of silver. “About me, about this land, and about the path.”

I grunted in response, watching Anathi showing some rebels a chokehold used against ghouls out of the corner of my eye.

“Impi did bring the Blood to our land,” Blessing continued. “And, if we have any hope of truly stopping them…then we must fight all our enemies. Not just the bloodsuckers.”

All the enemies. Even boys. Impi.

“That is, of course,” Blessing continued. “If there’s still space for me!”

Themba arrived, placing his arm over Blessing’s shoulders.

“There’s always space in the fight for freedom! Welcome aboard!”

Blessing beamed, and then looked at me. As if asking for approval. It made me uncomfortable. But I nodded.

“Welcome.”

Themba dragged Blessing off to discuss the heist and some of our plans going forward. Leaving me alone. Wisdom was miming what seemed to be a bike in mid-air. Silumko was even smiling, just a little, as an excited Blood Hunter spoke to him. Rebels everywhere were celebrating our score.

Yet, why did I feel like something was missing?

I hadn’t been to a party since long before my initiation. And I remember being quiet then. Awkward. Perhaps, parties just weren’t for me?

I stifled a sigh and went to the doorway. I followed the tunnel to the outside, where I was greeted by the earthy smell of grass and fresh air. The night was cold, but it was a refreshing chill.

It was quiet. I couldn’t even hear the party inside.

Themba claimed that the impi had no way of tracking us down. That we were in the clear. I believed him. To a degree. We’d already checked all the ingots for tracking devices and coated them in demanzite powder to disable any tracing spells.

No. I wasn’t worried about a reprisal. At least not now. Then what was the reason behind my mood?

Perhaps…

The door opened behind me. Anathi appeared, lit cigarette in her mouth. My belly started doing flips.

“Hey, Mgebe. Good work out there.”

“Um…thanks.”

She offered me a cigarette. I accepted it and leant in as she lit it. Her hands, holding the lighter, seemed soft. Despite calluses and scars. How could someone remain soft in this line of work?

It confused me. But not anymore than this feeling I had.

What was I missing?

“It’s not exactly usual that a woman becomes a Blood Hunter,” she said, leaning up against a wall and watching the dark horizon.

I didn’t reply. I hadn’t thought about it, to be honest.

“Only two hunters haven’t given me shit about it. Silumko…and you.”

“Why would I?” I replied. “You’re a good hunter.”

She chuckled.

“That’s not the point. At least, not to many of our comrades. We keep talking about how tradition has failed us, and that we need to change if we are going to survive, yet we keep clinging to custom like we’re going to drown if we let go. But…they aren’t too stupid.”

Anathi took a long drag and, in the faint light, I saw her exhale the smoke into the night air. It looked like an ash sprite frolicking under the starlit sky.

“They saw what you had to offer and forgot all about curses and the old ways. Because they know that results matter. Question is, do you?”

The question came as a surprise, and I let some smouldering ash fall from my cigarette as I pondered it. Quietly. From the corner of my eye, I watched Graham perched on a tree stump. Watching us.

I sidled closer to her, almost unconsciously.

“My life has been balancing tradition and results. At the end of the day, results are what matter. But…we have to have something to guide us. Something to keep us from just mindlessly grasping at the fire in the sky.”

Anathi nodded, slowly. “I didn’t know you were the philosophy type, Mgebe.”

My cheeks warmed. It sounded like an accusation.

She laughed. “It isn’t an insult. You men and your precious egos! Intelligence and thoughtfulness aren’t something to be ashamed of.”

You men…I couldn’t help but wilt, just a bit.

Anathi looked at me, closely. In the faint light of the cigarettes, I could see sincerity in her eyes.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re initiated or not,” she said. “What matters is who you are and what you do. You raised arms in the defence of your land today. And we were not cursed. And if your ancestors are looking down on you right now, then they would be fools to judge you harshly…”

Her face was close to mine. I could smell tobacco and coconut.

“Damn tradition,” she whispered. “When this is over, you owe it to yourself to find a nice girl, settle down, have kids…you deserve a family just as much as…more…than most people. Doesn’t matter if you’re uninitiated or not.”

She was so close. From just behind her, Graham was giving a double thumbs up.

Was this it? The thing I was missing?

I leaned closer, and slowly closed my eyes.

Anathi had turned back, oblivious to Graham or me. I stood up straight, cheeks heating.

“When this is all done,” she said, no hint of noticing what I had just been doing. “I want to settle down in a free Transkei, or maybe near Hope City. My daughter would like that. My husband says she misses me when I go on these trips. But he understands. I need this.”

Husband.

Anathi put out her cigarette and smiled, broadly.

“Congratulations, again, on being a hero, Guy Mgebe.”

She raised her right fist into the air.

“Amandla!” she cheered.

“Awethu…” I replied, half-heartedly.

She went back inside, leaving me to the now less refreshing but even more welcoming cold solitude of the darkness.

Graham walked up to me, not teleported, as I slumped up against the wall. He handed me a beer. I accepted it and drank, as he patted me on the back.

Chapter 20.      Freedom

As a Blood Hunter, I had never pondered my goal or focus. The end goal was to kill vampires. That was simple. Simple to understand, but hard to execute. Perhaps, it would be simpler in Hope City or Goldfield. Vampires weren’t the aristocracy there. Kill one of them and, if you didn’t get a medal, at least the cops didn’t care. But here, they were the rulers.

So, we Blood Hunters travelled the land killing lesser vamps, monsters, beasts…and we lived on scraps while doing it.

I hadn’t minded any of that. There was no real direction back then. My journey was plotted by convenience. Village by village, kill by kill.

I had focus, at least. At least for a little while. For the moments that it took to dispatch a monster, nothing else mattered. But, after the hunt was done, it was back to the road. To staving off starvation, to eking out enough money to replace my weapons.

My life had lacked a true sense of purpose before, as my real goal was always out of reach.

And, for every beast I killed, and every ghoul I buried, a vampire would kill a village. As if nothing I did mattered.

But it was different now. I wasn’t a lone hunter in the wilderness killing for scraps anymore. I was a part of something. Something greater than myself. And, even if my goal was still revenge, Themba’s unfailing positivity and idealism got to me.

I truly came to support a free Transkei. A place where my people could finally live, be free of vampires, of impi, and could finally settle down. A place where I could belong.

In the months that followed the silver heist, we put the ingots to use. Silumko delivered replacement weapons and ammunition, and we used them to dispatch all manner of beasts. The Blood Hunters were used for what we were trained for, and we were let loose on ghoul-infested impi installations. The vampires’ servants fell underneath our silver rounds. It was good to have ammo again!

We balanced our time between slaying beasts and training the rebels on how best to deal with the Zulu’s tamed beasts. Shaka’s Chosen, the undead hordes, once filled everyone with dread. But now they were just another minor obstacle. We didn’t even need silver for them!

When I wasn’t being a Blood Hunter, I was a rebel, helping to sabotage impi installations, scouting for the rebellion, and being a thorn in the side of the Empire. It felt good. At least, for a little while.

Because, no matter how much I fought, how much ground we gained, infrastructure we bombed or impis we disrupted, something still felt missing.

And I still couldn’t get the face of the truck driver out of my head.

I had killed countless monsters. But only one human. And I couldn’t get the image of that lacerated body and terrified eyes out of my head.

I gave up on trying to sleep. The bed was comfortable. Much more comfortable than I was used to. Most of the rebels spread out to live in their homesteads, towns and villages. Some disappeared into the mountains. But Themba, after all these years, wanted me to stay with him for a while. To catch up.

He rented a humble abode from a homesteader, overlooking a lake. It was relaxing. Peaceful. Especially after the carnage we wreaked on this land we were trying to free.

I peeked my head through the curtains and saw the faint illumination of the rising sun. No point trying to fall asleep now.

I got out of bed and put on my gear. Back in black. If I wasn’t trying to infiltrate a place, I preferred it. Made me feel like I was on the path.

I retrieved my pistols. Two now. I had taken one from an impi armoury. It was a .45 semi-auto. Zulu design. Called an Assegai-45SA. It was going to be confusing distinguishing them from the spears, seeing that assegai bayonets were still standard issue for the impi.

I took my pistols and exited the hut. The fresh morning air greeted me, and I took my weapons to a bench and wooden picnic table overlooking the lake. The slowly rising sun allowed me to see my weapons faintly as I laid them out on a square piece of leather. But I turned on an electric lamp nearby just to provide some extra illumination.

I got to work stripping the pieces.

I was used to using my machete and assegais in combat, but there was nothing that beat the feel of a good pistol in one’s hand. It was power. Directed. Controlled. Surgical. I could hide a pistol when I needed to and pull it out fast to drill a ghoul head with a single shot. It didn’t hit as hard as a rifle but didn’t need to. For my prey to fall, I just needed to hit them. It would be a different story when it came to higher vampires, but then the weight of fire from these twin pistols would need to be enough. Put enough silver hollow points in any vamp, no matter its age, and it will fall.

They were tough. But not unstoppable.

At least, that’s what I had learned. While I had killed countless ghouls and lesser vampiric monsters, I was, admittedly, under practiced when it came to killing my true prey.

I heard the crunch of shoes on grass approaching me. I didn’t turn as Themba sidled up to me and examined my work.

“Up early?”

I grunted.

“Actually, that’s wrong. You never fell asleep.”

I looked up and Themba’s eyes were filled with concern. I had missed my cousin. More than I had ever realised. It was more than just his steadiness, his optimism, and his leadership. He had always been my guide. More than a cousin, more than a brother. And despite others from Mqanduli surviving, I couldn’t help but feel that Themba was all I truly had left of my home.

“You’ve been struggling to sleep for a few days now. Hasn’t been affecting your hunting, but it will.”

Themba looked at me, his eyes filled with concern.

I was getting sloppy. Not at the hunt. But perhaps, in hiding my emotions. Or, Themba had always known how to read me.

“Do you…” I hesitated. “Ever think about the men you’ve killed?”

I regretted asking, but Themba didn’t say anything immediately. He considered the question, and then sat down opposite me.

“Occasionally,” he said. “Is this about…”

I nodded. “He was a boy. An impi, yes. But he looked so scared.”

“I saw his gun,” Themba replied, straight-faced. “He had fired it. You acted in self-defence. He was our enemy. Simple.”

“Then why doesn’t it feel simple? He was scared. He fired. But…he’s still human. The Zulu aren’t our enemies. They’re our cousins!”

“Yet, they oppress us. They took our land, fed us to the vampires. You saw what they did to Mqanduli!” Themba was still calm, but there was a bit of fire rising in his voice.

“Not all of them,” I whispered.

Themba looked on the verge of replying, but calmly considered my words. He nodded, slowly.

“That boy, cousin, will always be with you. Like everyone I’ve ever killed. They will never truly leave. But, eventually, there will be days when you don’t think about it. You will wake up, have breakfast, live your life, and eventually you will realise that, for the first time in a long while, their faces didn’t come into your mind.”

I stopped my working and looked my cousin in the eyes.

“Look forward to those days, cousin.”

I could see in Themba’s eyes that he was looking for those days too. And they had yet to arrive. Themba was able to read me like a book but, despite his always more open demeanour, I had always struggled to unravel my cousin.

But I did now. And I saw that behind his façade of bravery and patriotism, there was pain. And there was sacrifice. And I respected him all the more for it.

Themba stood up and stretched.

“You should get some sleep. Even if the sun is coming up. I’ve got a mission for you. Rebel stuff. You’re our best scout. And I need someone calm and collected for this mission.”

“What is it?”

“Zulu encampment near the Badlands. North of the Three Point Line. They’ve been sending impi and supplies up there. We need to know why. What are they planning? If they’re preparing for a push through the Karoo, we need to know. Hope City will pay handsomely for that sort of intel. And we always need the cash.”

I returned to reassembling my pistols. Themba walked off but stopped. He squeezed my shoulder.

“There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, cousin. And we will get there. All of us.”

Chapter 21.      Encampment

Blood Hunters were, apparently, quite noticeable, but my experience riding dirt bikes through the rockiest of terrain had awarded me with the skills to get almost anywhere by the unlikeliest of routes. I didn’t need highways or roads. I cut across grasslands, hills, rocky fields and forests. An impi would have to be in the middle of nowhere to see me coming.

Even so, I felt a rising trepidation as I approached the location of the Zulu encampment. I was being sent solo. That was good. Meant we weren’t attacking. Yet, at least. I was just scouting. Seeing what was up. So, I didn’t have to add another face alongside the truck drivers. At least, I hoped so.

I had gone on scouting trips like this before. So, why then did I feel so uneasy now?

I parked my bike hidden between two rocks and covered under the grey canvas. Nearby was a hill. And, on the other side, the apparent encampment. I scaled the hill, keeping myself low as I reached the top. As I crested the hill completely, I lay down and brought a pair of binoculars up to my eyes.

The encampment wasn’t just that. Yes, there was a wall and guard towers. But that wasn’t that unusual this close to the Badlands. Monsters roamed the wastelands to the north west, and settlements on the border needed to be ready to face them. This wall was a simple affair. Almost make-shift. Prefab mesh fencing reinforced with metal sheeting and wood. I scanned the guard towers, expecting to see impi snipers, but found only a single impi watching the horizon with a pair of binoculars. No sniper rifle in sight.

Was this really an encampment?

“Definitely a den of crime and villainy,” Graham commented, picking at something underneath his nails.

I looked deeper into the encampment and spotted houses. Huts. This was a village. And still was. Men and women, wearing Xhosa traditional dress and modern variants, hawked wears, carried goods and spoke to impi. From up here, their interactions seemed almost normal. It wasn’t unusual to see impi among villagers. There was no distinction between military or law enforcement in the empire. But, what was unusual was the familiarity and casual nature of the interaction. It reminded me of the impi of my village, before they had betrayed us or had been executed by the vamps.

This didn’t look like a Zulu fortress. It looked like a frontier village with just an above average number of soldiers. But, as I looked more closely, I did see an above average number of crates being carried from military trucks. They were stockpiling arms. But not nearly enough to push through the Karoo and past the Three Point Line.

I kept watching, seeing if I could spot anything incriminating. But, instead, I felt myself being drawn into the normalcy of it all.

“Guy…” Graham muttered. I ignored him, as I watched an impi sling his rifle onto his back to help carry a crate of fruit for an old lady.

“Guy…” he repeated.

Were they really preparing for an assault? If so, why were they being so good to the people here? Fortresses and villages didn’t mix…

“Guy!”

“What?!”

Graham pointed towards the distance. A dust cloud. Rapidly heading towards the village.

I trained my binoculars on it, and almost gasped.

Riding atop a gigantic rhinoceros, wielding an artillery piece underneath its arm like a lance, was an ogre dressed like a steppe raider of the Mongolian golden age. He was massive, making the rhino seem a pony in comparison to his stature. And he was yelling, his braided black goatee flying in the wind.

I couldn’t hear what the beast was yelling. But I heard it fire. The dust cloud gave way to fire as a deafening blast arced towards the village, smashing its gate wide open.

Pandemonium broke out as people screamed, dropping their baggage and fleeing. The ogre charged into the encampment, using his fired cannon as a joust and piercing the side of an armoured car. The usually impenetrable vehicle was pushed over onto its side, the metal shaft pierced right through its carapace.

Impi ran around like panicked insects. I expected them to run. This was a Xhosa village. It wasn’t worth defending. Impi didn’t care about us. If they stayed and fought, it would be to defend their Empire. Not its conquered inhabitants.

But then I saw reason for their panic. They were not running about chaotically. Pairs of impi directed villagers towards the exit of the village, away from the ogre. Others were coaxing the ogre to fight them.

They weren’t running. They meant to stay.

A crescent began to surround the rampaging ogre as he yelled in his guttural language. The impis put themselves between the ogre and the villagers, opening fire. The bullets pelted harmlessly against the beast. Impi were trained to fight men. Not beasts. And nothing as destructive as an ogre raider on rhino-back. They didn’t have the munitions to pierce its hide. Or the knowledge of where to shoot.

Before I could truly think it through, I was sliding down the hill, breaking into a run and jumping over boulders.

“This again, Guy?” Graham asked, exasperated, as he perched on my shoulder. “You’re going to get yourself killed. One of these days.”

He disappeared.

I cleared a section of low wall with a jump, and landed in the village, among some terrified villagers who eyed me as if I were also a monster.

The cracks of rifles were punctuated by shouts and the thud of the ogre’s artillery club. I rushed towards the impi firing line, as they dodged and weaved between the ogre’s attacks. A large grey mass lay by the gate. From what I had learned about the ogres, they would have to be driven to the edge of desperation to let one of their prized rhinoceros mounts get killed. They would sooner die than let one fall, in fact. Yet, this majestic beast lay slaughtered. The impi were not doing as well against the ogre who had ridden it.

“You…kill…horde!” the ogre bellowed in broken Zulu.

There was no room to negotiate, as he swung his massive club, propelling a car into a team of impi, who were crushed instantly.

I scanned the battlefield and saw a man wearing a copper assegai medal on his lapel. A veteran, at least. His badge represented a feathered headdress, like one that his ancestors would have warn into combat.

I dodged shrapnel sent up from the ogre destroying a shack, before sprinting towards the officer.

“Spread out!” he yelled. “Minimise losses!”

I caught his eye. I saw a spark of recognition but didn’t let him speak.

“Quickly! Get your men to trip the ogre up. We have to get him low to the ground.”

“Wait…you’re a Blood Hunter? Rebel!” he spat.

“And?” I replied, drawing my pistols but staring at the ogre.

The officer hesitated but, after glancing at the carnage, nodded.

“After he’s down, stay clear. I’ll handle him.”

Without another word, I sprinted towards the ogre. Impi almost jumped, seeing me run up from behind them. The officer ordered them to stop firing. Without fear of bullets hitting me from behind, I charged the hulking beast in front of me.

Closer up, I could see tears streaming down the ogre’s face. There was some blood running down his pale grey skin, but his thick armoured plate had blocked the bullets from hitting anything vital.

The ogre charged another armoured car, flinging it towards a shebeen where it crashed through the roof.

The ogre bellowed in frustration, as I rounded it and caught its eyes. For a second. That’s all I needed. I snapped off two shots, hitting the ogre in an eye. Its eyeball burst and it screamed, clutching its face with one hand before arcing its club towards me. But, with its new lack of depth perception, I was able to dodge out of the way.

The ogre roared and charged. I didn’t waste time aiming and firing. I had its attention already. I let it come close, before using the delay of it lifting the cannon club over its head to slip underneath it. The shockwave on the ground after its hit almost made me lose my balance. Almost.

I regained my footing in time to dodge its massive foot as it kicked towards me. The gust of air the giant kick made was almost enough to topple me too.

Where were those damn impi?

“Die!” the ogre screamed, smacking the butt of its cannon towards me like a spear. That almost hit me!

I rolled to safety and lifted myself up just in time to see a horde of impi carrying a long, thick metal cable.

“On my sig…” I yelled but was cut off. My body felt like it was being squeezed in a vice grip. It might as well be, as the ogre had dropped its cannon and lifted me up in its massive callused hands.

“Revenge! Honour!” the ogre bellowed, as if chanting in its broken Zulu. I couldn’t breathe as the creature squeezed me. Tighter, tighter…

With a war cry, the impis collided with the ogre, moving in unison to tie the cable around the creature’s legs. With a triumphant bellow, the impi pulled together, bringing the ogre down onto its knees.

I grinned, and the ogre looked at me, incredulous. Its grip had weakened.

“Thank you,” I said in Xhosa. “For bringing me close to your face.”

I flicked the switches on my sticky bomb and tossed it into the ogre’s open mouth. Shocked, the ogre dropped me, and I scattered, calling for the impis to flee.

We just got behind cover as we heard the thud of ogre bone and flesh shatter and cover the village with its guts.

It was over fast. After the explosion ended, I looked up to confirm that the ogre was now headless, slumped on the sandy ground.

I sighed, relieved. That was before I realised, I was surrounded. None of the impi aimed their rifles at me, but they were shocked.

I heard engines in the distance. Armoured cars. Trucks. Reinforcements.

The impi recognised my clothing. And they didn’t need to. Any non-impi carrying explosives and guns was a rebel. Safe assumption.

The officer from earlier shoved through the circle and faced me. I hadn’t realised it before. But I did now. He was older. More exhausted. And he had haunted eyes. But it was Dlamini. The impi from my village, who had betrayed us.

He held a pistol. Mine. My heart skipped a beat, before he handed it to me.

“I’m sorry,” he said, before the circle of impi opened up, and let me disappear into the wilderness.

Chapter 22.      No Good Act…

The rebel leadership of this cell, at least, was present in the secret base when I arrived. Themba looked up at me expectantly, his eyes concerned at the dust and blood on my skin and outfit. I had travelled straight from the encampment. No breaks.

“Guy! What happened?” he exclaimed, sending for one of the rebels to get me water.

I slumped down in a chair, possibly looted from an impi office. I was alive, but my body ached from being manhandled by the ogre and then rushing back to base on a less than comfortable bike.

I gained back some of my breath and answered, simply. “An ogre attacked the village.”

“Village? What village? Did you not make it to the impi encampment?”

“The encampment was a village. Yes, there were impi there. But also people. Our people. Xhosa.”

I was handed a glass of water, but I didn’t drink.

“What happened?” Themba asked.

“An ogre attacked the village. The impi tried to fend it off. They tried to defend the villagers. But they didn’t know how. I did.”

Silence. The implication was clear.

Themba looked shocked. “You…you helped them?”

I shrugged. “Of course, I did. The monster was destroying people’s homes. Killing them!”

“But it was killing impi…” a rebel added.

Themba nodded. “It could have done the work for us. An ogre could decimate an entire company if they aren’t prepared. What possessed you to side with our enemies, cousin?!”

I frowned. I hadn’t expected this. At all.

“The impi were stockpiling arms, but nothing heavy. It was an occupied village. That is all. And they were dying to save civilians.”

I felt an uncomfortable energy in the room as rebels milled around me.

“Did…” Themba began, voice menacingly low. “They see you?”

“They did. But they let me go.”

A rebel stood up suddenly, knocking over his chair.

“Were you tailed?!”

I glanced at him, offended. “There was nothing but open fields and hills for hours of my journey. And they were not in any shape to follow me. I don’t even think they saw me get on my bike.”

Themba whispered something to a rebel carrying an Ak. The rebel scampered off, dripping anxiety.

Themba considered me. Slowly. He mulled over his response, keeping the room silent.

Finally, he spoke. Evenly. Calmly. But most of all, impersonally.

“You made a mistake. You let the impi know we were scouting the base. They will be ready for an attack or further scouts. You risked them tailing you to our base of operations, and more than all that, you sabotaged an opportunity to wipe out an enemy company…”

“And an entire village with them!” I yelled. Graham popped into existence from shock. Some rebels backed away. Themba stared at me. He shook his head, sadly.

“And it would have been a worthy trade. To see our enemies fall, we must make sacrifices. To free this land, there will be martyrs.”

“Those people…” I hissed. “Are not a part of this fight, Themba. They are innocents in all of this!”

“They are with us or against us!” Themba yelled back, hitting the table and spilling water from the glass.

I stood up, calmly, and turned my back on the rebels. Nobody said a word. I left, quietly. No one stopped me.

A face flickered across my vision. A bloodied, youthful impi. The truck driver, but also Sifiso. Blending into one.

I mounted my bike and drove. I had no destination in particular. Nothing but the need to put distance between myself and my cousin.

With us or against us.

Wind buffeted against me as I embraced the open dirt roads of the Transkei highlands. I sped, as fast as I could, kicking up dust and rocks. I kept accelerating. Faster, and faster.

The impi took everything from me. But Sifiso had been my friend. And Dlamini…he let me go. There had been sadness in his eyes. Immeasurable guilt.

I rounded a hill, breaking just slightly to maintain control.

A worthy sacrifice.

“How many people have to die?” I asked myself, voice muffled by the wind and engines.

I smelled burning flesh and rubber. Mqanduli. Villages torn apart by vampires. Raided by impi. Yet…

I skidded to a halt, stopping parallel to a ridgeline.

I took off my helmet and discarded it onto the ground. I parked my bike and shambled to the ridgeline.

Transkei…my home. It had always been my home. And, perhaps, Themba was right to fight for it.

But…the land didn’t matter.

The impi had laid down their lives to save my people.

I slumped down and sat on the edge, letting my legs hang loose.

Graham appeared. I didn’t know he had kept up. Perhaps, he didn’t need to. I was practically haunted. In a way, that comforted me. And knowing that Graham was here filled me with a sense of solace.

Strange that a demon had probably become my best friend.

Graham had an almost empty bottle of beer and a cigarette in his mouth. He couldn’t fabricate tobacco, so this had to be stolen.

“This is the problem with humans,” he said. It was the type of thing he would say usually, but it was not said in the same mocking tone. He sounded…sad.

“You all try to do so much good…but then go too far. And no matter how saintly you become, there is no good act that goes unpunished.”

I let Graham’s words sink in, slowly, as I watched the wisps of smoke dissipate into the breeze.

“Was…am I wrong?”

“You’re going to need to be more specific. In general, mortals are always wrong.”

“About…everything. Should I have become a Blood Hunter? Should I have sworn revenge against vampires? Was I right to fight the Empire? And did…did I have a right to kill that boy?”

Graham took a long drag.

“Demons…” he began, contemplatively. “Are simple.”

I snorted, and he shoved me. Lightly.

“Humans have so many emotions in them. So many convictions. And they’re all in conflict. You cry when you are happy. You laugh when you are traumatised. And you value life above all. Then you take it.”

“And what do demons do?”

“We just…are. I am the essence of some aspect of creation. I don’t know which. But I know that I am. And I know what I am. I know that when I feel, it is something straightforward. Something consistent. But with humans…it’s different.”

He offered me a cigarette. Seemed he had taken the whole box. I accepted.

“I have been observing your kind for a while now,” he continued. “And what I have seen is a race of contradictions. I have seen anger lead to love. I have seen greed save people. And I have seen life taken, so it can be protected.”

He tossed his beer bottle over the edge. I didn’t hear it smash.

“Humans are contradiction. Accept it. But you must pick which side matters more. You can exist in flux your entire life. But, eventually, you have to act. And when you act, do it with your entire being.”

The sun was setting. Graham had materialised another beer and was swigging it in silence.

In the beginning, it had been simple.

Vampires. Impi. They had taken everything from me. But nothing was simple. Impi had saved me. They had hunted me. I killed them. And I saved them.

Did I fight for revenge?

For Mqanduli?

Perhaps. But then why did I not feel fire in my belly and rage in my heart when I thought of the soldiers who had sacked my home?

Perhaps, it was because they were human. And humans made mistakes, they fought for the wrong side. They killed innocents.

But, they could be redeemed.

At least…I hoped so.

I opened my eyes, wide, as it dawned on me. Why I did this. Why I did everything. And why it all mattered.

It wasn’t about revenge. Not even against the vampires. Taking revenge against a vampire was like promising vengeance against a rabid dog.

Vampires were monsters. They couldn’t help it.

And that’s why I had to hunt them all down.

It wasn’t about hatred. It wasn’t about freedom for a country that hadn’t existed for hundreds of years.

It was about saving people. All people.

I could do that.

I stood up and Graham ate his cigarette butt and discarded another beer bottle over the hill. This one did smash.

“So, you sorted everything out, eh?”

I smiled. “I think so.”

Graham nodded and held his fist out towards me. I leant down and pounded it. Graham smiled back. And it wasn’t mischievous, or at anyone’s expense.

“Let’s go back. I need to tell Themba exactly where I stand.”

Graham teleported to the back of my motorcycle and I rode in the darkness back towards the rebel base. The air was cool and refreshing but, as I approached, I slowed down.

A new scent in the air. Fire.

I sped up, diverting from the usual road and towards another nearby hill.

Most of the rebel cell had been in the base when I left. They were preparing for another big operation. But, most of all, Themba was there.

I bit my lip, drawing blood, as I sped into the darkness. As the stench of burning increased and an orange hue annexed the sky, I left my bike in the shadows and continued on foot.

As I crested the hill, I saw the rebel base. And it was burning.

Part 3

Chapter 23.      Goes unpunished

I froze as smoke spiralled into the sky. The outlying buildings surrounding the rebel base were aflame. Firebombs. And, highlighted by the boiling hue, were dark figures. Some stood up straight, carrying rifles with bayonets fixed. I could already picture blood dripping off the blades. But it wasn’t these impi silhouettes that caused me to hold my breath.

Moving in packs, staggering and sniffing like beasts. Humanoid in all but behaviour.

Ghouls.

And that meant: vampires.

Did I do this? Did I lead the enemy back to our base?

Themba…

I was running down the hill, sticking to the shadows as much as I could, before I even realised it. Graham would usually call me insane now. And, perhaps I was. But my demonic friend stayed silent as I charged towards the inferno.

I slowed down as I reached the bottom of the hill. The roar of the flames covered the sound of my footfalls. I hid behind a brick wall, its thatch roof already collapsed.

A crack of a rifle. I winced.

Not Themba!

I risked a peek around the corner. The flames illuminated the courtyard of the homestead in a flickering, angry shade. Two armoured troop carriers called buffels. Impi cowhide crests painted on the side. Did I expect anything else?

But buffel was telling. Ten impi in the back. Two up front. More if they hung off the sides. That meant approximately twenty four impi and ghouls. But how many vampires?

A boot crunched a branch behind me, and I turned. An impi looked at me, stunned. For a dreadful moment, we stared at one another. He opened his mouth. But no sound came out as I drove Blessing’s knife into his throat. He gargled for a few moments, and then lay still.

It was dark, and the firelight played tricks on the eyes, but I would remember his face.

I picked up the impi’s rifle and sneaked in the direction he had been coming from. Slowly. I peeked around the corner and pulled back suddenly. Multiple ghouls. Sniffing the air. I heard a gut-wrenching rip and tear. No scream. Already a corpse. Small mercies.

I risked looking. The ghouls were luckily distracted by their meal. I didn’t recognise the now mangled face of the corpse, but I knew that Hope City leather jacket, with pseudo-Scout patches. He’d been a rebel. And now he was dead. The courtyard was littered with more dead. Spent shells reflected the light as they lay strewn across the sand and grass.

How would we ever recover from this? And how could I face my cousin after luring them here?

My hands clenched more tightly on my rifle.

No! I would face my cousin. Because if I couldn’t…

I pushed the thought way down. Themba had failed to die once already. He could do it again.

An impi, wearing the regalia of a lieutenant, exited the main base that, while aflame, was still surviving the brunt of the inferno. The ghouls had moved on and I rounded the building, crouching down to watch him.

He approached the passenger door of one of the buffels and saluted, stiffly.

My heart stopped as the door opened.

A figure not of authority, but of complete and utter primal terror. Yet, he looked human. All except for red eyes.

Nkosi Igazi…the Lord of the Blood.

The vampire lord exited the buffel but didn’t allow the lieutenant to go at ease. The lieutenant held the pose as Nkosi Igazi surveyed the burning homestead.

Rage filled me.

This…thing…had taken everything from me. He had burnt Mqanduli to the ground. He had turned my people into cattle!

And he stood here now. So close…

I felt something pulling me from behind and realised I had started edging closer and closer to the vampire, paying no heed to the impi now milling about the courtyard. Graham pulled me back completely, but I was still close enough to hear as Nkosi Igazi released the lieutenant from his pose.

“Report,” he remarked, casually. As if he was strolling in the park.

“Yes, Lord. We are still tallying the rebel dead. But there is no more resistance or hold-outs. We just need to retrieve our dead and…”

“Leave them…”

“Excuse me…?”

“Excuse me, Lord,” the vampire corrected. “And you can leave your carcasses for the ghouls. The pickings here were disappointingly low.”

“Lord…”

“Enough! Get your men and extricate. Nightlady Impindiselo and her ghouls can mop-up.”

The lieutenant oozed reluctance but waited patiently for Nkosi Igazi to finally dismiss him.

I watched, my trigger finger aching, as eight impi entered the same buffel as Nkosi Igazi and the lieutenant and then rode off into the darkness.

So, fewer impi. A buffel full of ghouls instead. And this nightlady…

Could it be?

I turned towards the rapidly burning main building as a roofbeam collapsed.

Fire crackled as a wind picked up, making the flames hum. It was quiet. Too quiet for a night with this much death.

I felt the world should be screaming.

But it never did. Monsters roamed the Earth, people died, and the world never wept.

I felt Graham’s questioning gaze. I looked at him. He looked…sad.

“I have to,” I whispered.

He nodded. Perhaps, he finally understood who I was. And, for the first time in a long while, I was throwing myself into something. Completely.

I shouldered my rifle and trudged into the burning base. More rebels lay dead, strewn over now immolated and peppered furniture. They were missing limbs and were emaciated. Drained of blood and essence. I looked for faces I knew. A mistake. I knew them all.

I had clung onto some slim hope that they had not discovered the secret entrance, but the tunnel was wide open, for all to see. I smelled iron and gunpowder within.

My boots clinked against spent shells. Ak-rounds. At least the rebels had fought back. They went out shooting. Sometimes, a dignified death, shouting against eternity, was all one could hope for.

I descended into the tunnel. The lights had gone red and the fire sprinklers sputtered, long out of their showers. More corpses. Some had mocked me. Tormented me for what I was. But then they had come to respect me. Come to see me for what I had become.

I crouched down by Wisdom’s side. He lay spread-eagled, his finger still on the trigger.

I hoped that he had found peace again.

I rose suddenly as I heard bestial scratching. Further up. Near the conference room.

I moved on, leaving my dead friends behind. I had never realised how much of a labyrinth this base had been. But now, in the dim red light and without a friendly face to escort me, I only had the memory of an alternative path to guide me.

More scuttling. I stopped as a ghoul passed me. Just metres away. I held my breath. I didn’t want to fight. Fighting meant noise. Noise meant death.

The ghoul started turning towards me…

A smash of glass. The ghoul tore down the hall towards it. Graham reappeared on my shoulder, a beer bottle in either hand.

I nodded my thanks and kept moving. Less death here. But still evidence of fighting. Blood droplets. And…footprints in the blood. Leading towards the conference room…

I turned a corner, following the tracks and saw the table of the conference room. It was turned on its side and had become swiss cheese from bullet holes.

I edged closer. And closer. My heart pounded in my ears. I entered the conference room, and my heart jumped.

Themba.

He was covered in blood, legs and arms splayed as he lay slumped up against the table.

I rushed towards him, just as Graham shoved me to the side, behind the whiteboard and some piled up chairs. I almost protested, until I heard bootsteps. I held my breath.

Two ghouls entered the room and began sniffing Themba. But before I could react, a woman entered. She had not changed, at all, despite the years. And I felt a fire grow inside of me.

Black braids. Topped by that same red beret. She wore a black leather coat. She was unarmed. Of course, she was. She was arrogant. She didn’t think she could die.

“No, my pets!” she scolded. “That human still lives. That means he’s for me.”

My eyes widened.

Themba was alive!

The ghouls backed away as the vampire approached my cousin’s limp form.

“Run along. Patrol the perimeter. There must still be some dirty traitor in these hills. Find them. And when you’re done, you can feast.”

The ghouls wordlessly exited the room.

It took everything inside me to not jump out and fire upon the creature. She leant over Themba and I saw spittle spilling from her mouth.

“A rare vintage! Matured in hatred and rebellion. The last of the Mqanduli…I will savour you, my sweet.”

She cradled Themba’s head, as if he were a lover. My heart thumped. This had happened before. Again, and again. I saw Sifiso. Dying in front of me. Dying and becoming…

No…

I wasn’t that scared little boy anymore. And I may not be a man.

But I didn’t need to be.

I was a Blood Hunter.

I burst out from my hiding spot and levelled my rifle at the vampire’s head. I squeezed the trigger. Bang! Bang! Bang!

My ears rung and my arms ached as I kept the rounds on target. The bullets impacted with the vampire, even as she spun and, with a hiss, roared towards me. I ducked under her first attack, still firing, as she caught me with a kick.

The wind was knocked out of me and she pulled the rifle out of my hand, then swung it at me like a club. I pulled away just in time as she shattered the rifle on the wall behind me.

She dropped the broken weapon and let loose a flurry of bestial thrashing. I sidled away, but too late. My arm burned as she raked into my flesh. She stopped and grinned, as she licked her fingers.

“Another good vintage! Spicy. It tastes like…rage.”

She thrust forward with her outstretched hand, as if it were a sword. I managed to draw Blessing’s knife and slash, sprinkling her vampiric blood across the whiteboard.

She clutched her hand and then stared at me with rage to match my own. Just before she charged with the ferocity of an angry cobra.

I slashed outwards, trying to maintain my control and deflect her strikes, but it was too much! The sheer monstrous anger…

My arm grew numb from pain and bruises mingled with bloody cuts appearing all over my body.

I had to end this! Vampires could outlast any human. I couldn’t afford a war of attrition.

A bottle suddenly impacted with the vampire’s face. My chance! Despite my aching body, I charged her, knife pointing towards her heart.

She batted me to the side. As if I was a small child. I fell prone, my knife skidding across the floor. Before I could lift myself again, I felt her boot crunch on my leg. I cried out. She laughed, before leaning in close. She lifted me up by my throat. Not enough to choke me. Not yet. I saw her face clearly, even as my vision faded.

That arrogant grin. Those bright red eyes. I remembered them. I had run from them. But not this time.

Recognition flickered across her face. Her grin deepened.

“I remember you! I remember your scent. It reminds me…”

Somehow, her grin became even more evil and more satisfied.

“It reminds me of burning flesh…”

Vampires were tough. They could shrug off a lot of bullets. But they weren’t unstoppable. The trick was…exposing their weak spots.

“You made a mistake…” I wheezed.

She cocked her head. Somehow, I grinned.

“You got too close.”

In a single rapid movement, I pulled my pistol from my waistband and fired at her head. She dropped me to the floor as she screamed, a hole drilled through her chin and out her head. In her pain, she tripped over a fallen chair.

I rose and approached her.

She stared at me with those red eyes full of hate.

“You can’t kill me!” she yelled, like a desperate fanatic. “You’ll bring damnation upon yourself. Everything you love, everything you believe in…we will destroy it all. Nobody harms the Blood and lives! We will hunt you to the ends of the Earth. We will know your face! Every single one of us.”

“I’m counting on it.”

I fired. Her body convulsed with every blow, until she no longer moved. My pistol was empty.

I picked up Blessing’s knife and cut into her neck. Deeply, until it left her body. I would leave it outside for the sun. Just in case.

As the bloodlust left my body, I saw the slumped body of my cousin. I rushed towards him and felt for a pulse.

I breathed a sigh of relief. He was alive. His wounds were shallow. Non-lethal. Even so, I applied some first aid. Stopped the bleeding. Even if it was just to not attract any more vamps or ghouls.

If the vampire was truly dead, her ghouls would go feral. If they had made it outside, they would have scattered into the hills. Come morning, hopefully the sun would eliminate them for good.

“Come on, cousin,” I whispered, as I pulled him over my shoulders in a fireman’s carry. “This is another time you failed to die.”

Chapter 24.      Decay

“It wasn’t you,” Anathi insisted, as I slumped in my chair, the guilt of what I had caused wracking me now that the adrenaline had dissipated. We had been on the run for days, trying to rendezvous with surviving members of the rebellion. I had only found a few rebels and Blood Hunters. Too few. Many had already given up and were fleeing the cause. If they weren’t already dead.

We were hiding in an isolated hut in the wilderness. A Blood Hunter safehouse. Not on the rebel books. Most of the rebels were dead, but we couldn’t be too careful. Vampires had ways of making prisoners talk. And only Silumko had known about this place.

Silumko stood, arms crossed.

“The rebels got sloppy, Mgebe. Cells you never could have known about were hit at the same time. It wasn’t you. Possibly an informant.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Themba said, defeated. His wounds were bandaged, and he was recovering quickly. But he had the air of Wisdom now. No optimism. No energy. He looked like a shell of the Themba I knew from Mqanduli or the rebellion.

“It’s over,” he continued. “All we can do now is escape this damned country. Perhaps, that’s what we should have done in the first place. Should have gone west…”

Silumko nodded. His feelings on the matter were indiscernible. My mentor had always been a closed book. More a brick wall than a human with emotions.

“There is not much else we can do here. I am heading north. The Corps sees things similarly to us. I hope to find a home in Goldfield. I won’t stop killing vampires. But…this is not my home anymore.”

The others nodded, grimly. So, few left. Silumko, Blessing, Themba, Anathi. The other Blood Hunters had been killed during a botched operation. Blessing survived to tell us of their bravery. Silumko called it foolhardiness.

Silence followed as the group pondered Silumko’s words. I looked to Themba. I expected inspiring words. A speech about how much this land…our land…mattered. But he only looked into his lap, avoiding eye contact.

Was it really ending this way? Themba’s wounds were recovering. He had been knocked out before the real fighting started. Something for which he felt shame. But it also spared him. Yet, he had come so close to death. If nothing else, I had saved my cousin. And that did matter!

Even so…it just felt so empty. Ending now. After all we had done…

Anathi squeezed my shoulder. I looked up at her. She looked defeated. No more of that fiery determination I was used to. She had accepted this end.

“Take care, Mgebe. Maybe I’ll see you on the other side of the Three Point Line?”

Anathi turned towards the door. Silumko and Blessing moved to do the same.

It was really over, wasn’t it? Despite…everything. All we had gained. All we had done. All the sacrifice. Everything.

All over.

I clenched my fists.

No!

I stood up, knocking over my chair.

“No!” I said aloud, causing everyone to stop and stare.

“It’s not over!” I yelled. “Not after how far we’ve come.”

Blessing shook his head, looking pitying.

“It is,” Themba murmured. “We have lost too much. They crushed us. Utterly. Informant, bad luck…it doesn’t matter. We’re done. We’ve lost everything.”

He slumped down on the bed he was sitting on.

But we hadn’t, I realised. I glanced at my mentor. My paranoid, almost alien and perpetually mysterious mentor. He always had a plan. Always.

“Not everything,” I said. I turned to Silumko. “What happened to the rest of the silver?”

“The silver caches were taken,” Themba interjected, dismissing the point. As if he was looking for more reasons to give up.

Silumko, for once in his life, fidgeted. The group turned on him, noticing this oddity as if he had just yelled out an expletive.

“That isn’t exactly true,” he said, hesitant. “I did not trust that you truly believed in our cause…so I hid a few more caches.”

Themba looked taken aback. “That belonged to the rebellion! We were allies!”

Silumko stared daggers at my cousin.

“I have survived this long because I don’t trust easily. And, in this case, I have been vindicated. There is still silver. I plan to take it to the Corps as an offering. You are welcome to all take a split…maybe.”

Before Themba could retort, I stepped between them all.

“We haven’t lost everything! We still have silver. We still have weapons. And there are still Blood Hunters in the Transkei. Us. We have walked down this path for too long to just let it end like this. And you, cousin, they took too much and you fought too hard to just give up now. We must leave this place, that much is clear. But not like this. Not while they think they have won!”

“They have won!” Blessing yelled, a slight sob in his voice. As if pleading with me to give up.

“Not yet,” I replied, voice level. “Not the war.”

The group, even Graham who perched on a wooden shelf, pondered my words in silence.

“What are you proposing?” Anathi finally asked. She faced me dead-on, no longer turning to leave.

“One final mission. One final blow against the Empire. And one final hunt against the Blood.”

“What…what are you planning, cousin?”

“We must go back to the beginning. To the heart of this vampiric empire. We’re going home, Themba. To Mqanduli.”

Chapter 25.      Home

The path of the Blood Hunter had taken me across this land. I had seen rolling green hills, dotted with mountains and seaside vistas that would make the gods envious. Themba was right. This was a beautiful land. A land worth fighting for. Perhaps…worth dying for.

But, it wasn’t the land that mattered. It was the people. And I had seen, throughout my life, the atrocities that the impi and vampires had wreaked on the amaXhosa. I had seen villages sacked, occupied, barely surviving under the boot of men with guns. I had seen the soul of my people slowly drained away under threat of blood, fire and violence.

Yet, I had never seen something quite like Mqanduli now.

Over a week, Themba gathered the surviving rebels. Only three other men from the Mqanduli Marauders had survived. That was good. I thought Themba and I were the only ones left. We still didn’t know if there was a rat and Silumko cautioned Themba to be careful. But my cousin was, even in this dark hour, an optimist. Even so, he gave rebels he didn’t trust completely smaller tasks. Of the dozen or so rebels left, only five accompanied the Blood Hunters to Mqanduli. At least, what was left of it. The others were tasked with attacking other impi and vampire facilities across the land. To mark our exit with fire. To tell the Empire, we weren’t dead. And we would return.

Yet, watching what had happened to my once quaint, yet proud town, from the safety of a distant hill, I wondered if I should have returned. This was Mqanduli. And I could see faint shadows of what it had once been. The town square was still in the same place but had been concreted over. Some of the outlying homesteads had survived, but their kraals had been turned into warehouses for industrial farming. It was fitting that the sky was grey and weeping.

But, that was where the slim similarities between this place and my home ended.

Where there had once been a village of humans, there was now an industrial hellscape. Windowless, grey warehouses blanketed the field, between obsessively straight grid-streets. Guard towers interspersed this prison of a village. Yet, there were no outer walls. Why would there be? Only a fool would attack Mqanduli. And only the suicidal would attack its medieval, European style, fortress overlooking this vampiric domain.

“You said you had come back before,” Graham remarked. There were just the two of us. For now. The others were nearby, but hidden. We wanted to minimise the chance of a rat informing on our plans. Because of that, we had filtered in on our own over the past few days, camping a safe distance away from the vampires’ stronghold.

“I did,” I replied. I stowed my binoculars and turned away from the bleak wasteland. “But always from this distance. And…I never really accepted it.”

Graham nodded, slowly, as I covered myself with a dark green tarp, a similar colour to the grass and foliage.

Tonight, we wouldn’t have enough time for me to do this. I wasn’t sure I’d even survive tonight. But there was something I needed to see. I did not know why.

I approached Mqanduli on foot, sticking far away from the modern tarred roads. Even the layout of the roads didn’t match up with the old Mqanduli. I wondered if the somagwaza’s hut had been spared in the wilderness. The road leading to it had been overgrown.

Graham didn’t speak but remained visible underneath my tarp. I could only faintly hear his shallow breathing as rain pelted the tarp. For some reason, I took comfort in his presence. Perhaps, I had grown overly familiar with his presence. Stockholm Syndrome.

The new Mqanduli was built around Nkosi Igazi’s garish keep. Which meant that parts of the old Mqanduli did not fall into the bulk of his field of warehouses and towers. I had made sure of that before beginning this journey. It was foolish, I knew. But I had to know for sure. And the trees hid the truth from me, meaning there was only one way to find out.

I had to see if the ruins of my home still remained. Even if it meant travelling on foot, dangerously close to a vampire’s town.

I reached the treeline. It was much like I remembered. When I was a boy, Themba would tell me scary stories about tokoloshes and other beasts hiding in the shadows. My mom would scold him and tell him that tokoloshes were respectable spirits and shouldn’t be feared.

Oh, how wrong and right they both were.

“Are you sure you want to proceed?” Graham asked, as a waft of a pungent smell hit us through the treeline, mingling with the far fresher smell of the rain.

By way of reply, I ducked under a branch and pushed the overgrown shrubs out of the way. I kept moving forward. The last time I had been here, I had been fleeing. At least, I had not returned before avenging my mother.

That did not make me feel any better about losing her.

I stopped at the periphery of a vast hole, carved haphazardly where my home had once stood. The source of the pungent smell was lying strewn across the pit. Trash, faeces, corpses. Some animal, some human. I didn’t think vampires considered there to be a difference.

“I’m sorry,” Graham said. He had become increasingly sentimental over the past week, but never like this. There had always been a hint of mockery. A bit of alienation. But now, he truly and sincerely seemed to be sympathising with me.

“Don’t be,” I replied in a whisper. “This was the last push I needed. I always knew there was no coming back, but this is what I needed. I’m going to make things right. One way or the other.”

“You know that this is a suicide mission, right?” Graham asked, a plea in his voice. “You can’t kill the Blood. You’ll be destroyed. Utterly. There is no shame in running away. Escape this land. Go west. Go north. Just…leave. Don’t throw your life away for pride.”

“It isn’t pride…”

At least, I didn’t think so.

There was no burning rubber or flesh, yet I still smelled it. I always smelled it. And it would never go away.

“I’ve lived in a haze, Graham…less than a dream. Since that day. It’s not me being an inkwenkwe that makes me feel less than a man. It’s that I don’t feel alive. Because Guy Mgebe died in the fires, alongside his mother. I’m just a ghost, living a half-life. I thought…I thought hunting vampires and monsters would bring some sort of meaning. I thought fighting for this land would make me feel. And maybe it did…for a short time. But there is something I left here. Something I have to get back. And if I don’t do this, I don’t think I deserve to live.”

Graham didn’t respond. The rain increased in intensity. Good, it would cover our movements.

Finally, I turned my back on the pit where my home once stood. I never returned.

***

“The Keep is completely locked down during the day,” Themba explained. He did not have the air of authority he once had, or the energy, but he was still a leader. I don’t think that’d ever change.

The remaining Mqanduli Marauders and Blood Hunters huddled around a map of Mqanduli, lit by a gas lamp. This ruined homestead had never experienced electricity, even when it had been inhabited.

“If we cannot access the Keep or the vampires during the day, then we attack at night, as we planned,” Silumko replied.

Planned wasn’t completely accurate. Fearing that the enemy would hear of our plans through a spy, we had not prepared a detailed plan. We only knew that we were to act tonight or tomorrow. That was all. The most an informant could do was warn the vampires of our meeting place. But we had a few lookouts surrounding the homestead who could give us warning if the vampires moved. Assuming the vampires didn’t cloak themselves in shadow, of course. But, when up against such alien and terrifying creatures, one had to take risks.

“The problem with night is that the vampires and ghouls then join the patrols. Only impi patrol the streets during the day,” Themba replied, as if the presence of only the largest and most professional armed forces in Southern Africa was a decent consolation.

“We can deal with ghouls, and we’re here to kill vampires,” I added, rubbing my chin before pointing at a point on the map.

“We still have some explosives left. At nine PM, the impi will change the guard. The area around the barracks here and here will be at their most chaotic, with the lightest watch. During that time, plant all the explosives across the barracks on the opposite edge of the Keep.”

Themba scratched his chin in thought. “A decoy, while you Blood Hunters sneak into the now opened Keep?”

I nodded. “Hopefully, the fledgling vampires will leave to investigate the explosions. I doubt Nkosi Igazi will leave his Keep. And, if he does, that’s even better. Drawing him out into the open will give us more angles of attack.”

Themba pointed at another section of the map, near the barracks.

“We need to make a concerted effort to lure them to the armoury. It’s the most strategically important target, following the Keep itself. If we can make them think that we’re attacking it, then the entire town’s defences will move.”

“And once we’re in the Keep?” Blessing asked. He looked exhausted. He had agreed to help, but not before pleading with us to reconsider. “None of us has ever killed a vampire lord. Not even Master. And some say Nkosi Igazi is a true vampire. Not some human turned monster. A beast from beyond the In Between.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I replied. “We have killed rift borne beasts before. True vamp or not, Nkosi Igazi must die.”

“Exactly right!” Anathi chimed in.

I smiled, feeling a bit envious that I could never have a life with her, but also happy that she had come. I’d make sure she lived. She had a life to go back to.

“I see no reason to delay,” Themba said, rolling up the map. “And no more reason to let the vampires react to our presence if they know we’re here.”

He raised his fist into the air.

“Amandla!” he yelled, and I saw the fires in my cousin’s eyes glow hot once again.

“Awethu!” we yelled back in unison, even the taciturn Silumko, who, for once in his life, smiled.

The path…it was almost complete.

Chapter 26.      The Blood

Mqanduli was a depressing and surreal sight during the day, as humans marched like cattle between their warehouse lodgings and the identical grey blocks where they manufactured goods for the vampires. We weren’t exactly sure what. Themba suggested ammunition and weapons. I didn’t think it was anything that important. For the vampires, humans were cattle. Letting them out to work every day was the same as taking cows out to pasture. It was to give them the bare necessities of life…before snuffing it out.

But, as night fell and darkness consumed Mqanduli, the Keep’s metal shutters ascended. Its gate opened. And monsters emerged. Packs of skulking, bestial ghouls. They wore uniforms. Pale mockeries of the impi camo. Every one of them had a number on their back, in a different colour. There were reds, blues, yellows…but no oranges. The she-vamp had controlled the oranges. Hopefully, all her ghouls had gone rogue and perished in the sun.

The Blood Hunters, clothed in black, set forth into the gridded town. The darkness of the fields and wilderness covered our approach, even though any patrolling vampire would have seen us. They didn’t care about the dark. But no one had ever attacked Mqanduli. Why would the spoilt vamps patrol the dark outskirts of their domain when not even their impi and ghoul servants did?

We reached the periphery of the town and hugged tightly against the wall of a concrete monstrosity. It was two-stories high. Some of the buildings were as high as four. I confirmed that there were no windows. At all. But I heard the faint hum of a ventilation system on the roof of this building. At least my people could breathe. For all that was worth in a city under the thumb of bloodsuckers.

“How can they live like this?” Anathi whispered, glancing at me briefly. I saw pity in her eyes.

“They don’t,” I replied. We were still far enough away from any patrols, so could risk speaking. “They aren’t truly living.”

Anathi didn’t press as Silumko peeked around the corner. He gave the sign for the all-clear. We rushed around the corner, darting past bright white lights (for the benefit of the impi) and rushed to the opposite alley, where there was a patch of darkness between two identical concrete monstrosities.

We had considered splitting up, but we knew we needed as many of us as possible to handle the Keep. If we were caught in transit, it would be better if we all fought together to make a break for the Keep.

The crossroad between warehouses was clear as we passed, but we heard shouting and gut-wrenching crunches on the other side of our hiding spot. I edged towards the noise and risked a glance.

Two grey ghouls, covered in human blood, ripped a man apart. He was far too mutilated for me to recognise him. He gave one final cry for mercy before the one ghoul ripped his leg clean off. An impi with hollow eyes watched from nearby. Finally, the corpse was just a few mounds of bones and flesh. The remainder of the ghouls carried the rest off to consume later.

“Why?” Blessing asked, stunned.

“He violated curfew,” I replied, and then continued on my way. The hunters followed. We didn’t say another word.

We dodged patrols of impi and ghouls, getting as close to the Keep as we could. But, as we came closer and closer, the number of ghouls and impi became thicker. We got caught in an alleyway, hiding behind some unloaded crates, as we were hemmed in by ghouls and impi that fortunately did not acknowledge us.

I checked my watch. The minute hand was edging closer and closer. Tick. Tick. Tick. The hour hand moved completely, followed instantly by an explosion.

The patrollers we could see stopped and stared in the direction of the boom. I could smell gasoline and burning. Themba had really outdone himself again.

The ghouls sniffed the air, like dogs, and were visibly startled as another explosion wracked the previously quiet night.

“It’s coming from the armoury!” an impi shouted. In response, the soldiers started bolting towards the explosions, ghouls in tow.

“Qamata, rifts, gods and ancestors…protect him,” I whispered under my breath. I hadn’t been religious. But there was a time to invoke the more than magical and, if it meant that Themba would survive this, then I would marry the Pope.

With the streets clear, we proceeded. With the soldiers gone, the streets seemed eerie. If not for a crowd of people, neatly lined up outside a closed metal shutter outside a warehouse.

I stopped, suddenly. I knew those faces.

Without thinking, I bolted towards the crowd. They didn’t show any sign of fright or surprise as I gripped one of them by the shoulders.

“Uncle!” I cried. “It’s me - Guy.”

His eyes were fogged over. He showed no recognition. A spell?

“The impi are distracted!” I insisted. “You can escape. Now. Go!”

No one moved.

Shocked, I took a step back.

It wasn’t magic. I knew that much. But neither was my uncle truly in there. I tried to address my cousins, neighbours…no response. Not even a flicker of emotion.

They had had the life sapped out of them. They were broken.

I felt a tight grip on my shoulder, pulling me back.

“Are you mad?” Blessing hissed. I didn’t argue, as he pulled me back into the shadow of the warehouses.

More explosions echoed in the distance and I heard gunfire. I hoped Themba and the Marauders were not overcommitting. The goal here wasn’t to kill impi.

We didn’t approach the Keep from the front but, instead, scaled the hill on the side. Like the warehouses, there were no windows. But, there were ventilation holes. Older vampires didn’t need to breathe, but fledglings and human servants weren’t so invulnerable.

Silumko took the lead, shouldering a shotgun slung around his shoulders and carrying a silver tipped spear in his left hand. He checked around the corner of the sheer Keep wall, towards the front entrance.

He signed: “Two vampires.”

We could handle that. But we didn’t want to cause a commotion until we were inside the Keep. The longer it took for them to engage us fully, the closer we could get to Nkosi Igazi.

Anathi stepped forward. Instinctively, I gripped her arm. She smiled, faintly, and whispered into my ear.

“I don’t plan to die, Mgebe. I’ll see you out west.”

I let go and watched as she rounded the hill and approached the entrance from the front. The vampires stepped forward. They had been young when they were turned. And probably were only fledglings. They showed no visible mutation besides red eyes.

“I heard,” Anathi announced, clanging two machetes together. “That vampires are legendary killers. But all I see here are two wannabe goths pissing away the evening.”

The vampires hissed and charged her, probably forgetting about their firearms. Anathi laughed as she ran, the vampires in pursuit.

“She will live,” Silumko said, as he rounded the corner. It didn’t sound like a wish. He truly believed it.

The way was now clear. And the Keep doors were wide open. I muttered the chants that Silumko had taught me. I heard Blessing do the same. Perhaps, it would be the last time we muttered these pseudo-prayers. The path was nearing its end. One way or the other.

As we entered, I immediately smelled two things. Bleach, and decay. The former was probably meant to hide the latter. It was not doing a good job.

The interior of the Keep was an odd blend of medieval Gothic aesthetic and modern minimalism. The floor was a barely smoothed cobble, with only a few sconces carrying flaming torches of all things. Yet, the walls were plastered white, and hung with artefacts. I recognised an initiation blanket, like the one I still wore to cover my backpack. It was dark and tattered after so many years.

The white walls were almost immaculate but, as we moved further into the Keep, I saw specks of red, where overly hungry vamps could not wait to have a meal in a more appropriate setting. Cocktails of cleaning supplies could be smelled in these places.

We delved deeper into the Keep, rising when we found stairs. There were no signs. But it wasn’t a labyrinth. There was reason to this structure. It was evil, dripping with malice and oppression, but it made sense. And a king always lived in the penthouse. So, we rose.

As we had expected, most of the vamps had probably left the Keep earlier in the night. We hadn’t seen any more after Anathi had lured them away.

I hoped she’d survive.

We passed an open doorway, where the walls were painted bloodred. The reason was clear. The centre of the room held a feasting table and, atop it, were the naked and emaciated bodies of a man and a woman.

We didn’t dwell on this scene, but Blessing was growing visibly nervous. His hands shook on his handgun and I could smell his sweat.

Silumko, on the other hand, seemed completely at home. As if he had been born to walk these halls. Not as a vampire, but as their hunter. But, the old man had always walked with seemingly endless confidence. Never arrogance. Silumko knew the world. Knew the hunt. And he had walked this path before it was even a path.

I felt a small bit of regret that I had not learnt more about the man who had trained me. Perhaps, if we lived, I would ask more about him. And, this time, I would insist on answers.

Silumko pulled me back, just before a crowd of grey ghouls carrying rifles ran past us. Ghouls were bestial but could be trained to use guns by their masters. The ghouls didn’t spot us in this side hallway as they rushed to fulfil their master’s request. Probably to reinforce the armoury. I hoped Themba and the others had gotten out.

The seemingly endless tide of ghouls ended and, as the sound of their hisses and footfalls ceased, I stepped forward.

The wind was taken out of me as a figure tackled me to the ground. I saw a flash of red eyes and the white of fangs before the shaft of Silumko’s spear went through the vamp’s head. The silver coating the blade caused the vampire’s flesh to smoke.

Metal rung on metal as another hissing vampire engaged Blessing, who deflected a knife with his own. I stood and saw two more vampires coming this way.

Silumko blasted the knife-wielding vampire with his shotgun, downing the vamp with silver buckshot, before stepping in between us and the pair of vamps.

“Go!” he yelled, spittle flying. “Find him! Kill him!”

He turned to fire. We didn’t look back as we ran. More vampires appeared out of side-rooms, summoned by the gunshots and yelling. Carrying two pistols, I made snap shots, hitting the vamps in the heads and chests. Smoke rose from the bullet holes. Even if fledglings, the shots probably wouldn’t kill them. But, it would stun them long enough for us to fulfil our main mission.

We found a stairwell and scaled it. Bullets hit the ceiling above us as vampires below opened fire. I didn’t stop to fight back, instead jumping through the doorway, allowing Blessing to slam a thick wooden door behind us. He barred it, then panted.

“We’re close,” he said. “Just a bit further.”

We couldn’t be sure, but we had been ascending for quite some time. Nkosi Igazi had to be close. I could practically feel his malice.

The vamps on the other side of the door hammered at it. The door vibrated but I heard the clanging of metal underneath. Armoured doors with wooden outer layers. Good for a last-ditch defence. Or for dividing the defenders.

I changed my magazines and gave Blessing a look. He was still panting. His eyes were hollow. I didn’t realise how exhausted and pained he really was. But he had come this far despite that.

“Let’s go, brother,” I said, giving him a smile. He almost smiled back but frowned. Another thud and the door started to buckle. A ram. Manned by vampires. The door wouldn’t last long.

“I’ll cover this door,” Blessing said. “Keep going!”

This wasn’t ideal. But we had expected this. I thought it would be Silumko who confronted Nkosi Igazi. Not me. But, in a way, this was fitting.

It was not on the ashes of Silumko’s home that this monument to murder was built. But mine. It was my place to tear it down.

I jogged further down the spiralling halls, following them until they turned towards a double door. The dark-wood doors were open, and I had the distinct feeling that this was my destination. The end of the road. I checked my mags one final time and entered.

Nkosi Igazi didn’t look shocked to see me. He wore a crimson trench coat, with black formal attire underneath. His red eyes glowed slightly as I approached. I had planned to fire immediately, but something stopped me. The cool way he stood, his arms crossed behind him, as he faced me. He looked confident. Unfazed. As if he had expected me. Well, with all the noise we had made, he definitely did.

“Thank you,” he said, with that same authoritative and unceasingly predatory tone. “For saving me the need to track you down, human. It is always simpler when the prey pursues the predator. And I grow tired of long, drawn out hunts.”

He lifted a hand and indicated the wall. The room, I realised, was round. And the walls were lined with paintings. One of them was a painting of the she-vamp I had killed.

“She was precious to me, in a way. One of the first of your kind I made whole. And you took her from me. An inevitability, to be sure. I have lost my children before. Some from their own stupidity, others to those who wear the black. But, every time, the Blood remembered. And we always finish our vendettas.”

I’d heard enough. I fired both my pistols, now carefully aimed at Igazi’s head and chest.

I could only have imagined it, but in a blur, both bullets completely missed. Just before I felt a sharp thump on the back of my head.

I fell to the ground, dropping my guns. In a haze, I saw a figure loom over me. Wearing black.

“Ble…ssing…” I wheezed, disbelieving.

Even in my blurry vision, I saw tears in his eyes.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” he pleaded, over and over.

“Why?” I groaned, groggy.

“It was on a hunt,” Blessing explained, as way of an excuse. “Hunting a vampire. But I got captured. They fed me their blood. I couldn’t help it! After they let me go, I needed more. And only they could get it for me.”

I wanted to yell at him. I wanted to scream. But I couldn’t say a thing. Tears escaped my eyes. I thought he was my friend.

Igazi only laughed, his gloating and voice a distant booming as I tried to lift myself up.

“Did you really think you could stand a chance against us? The Izingane Zegazi tamed these lands. We brought order to this domain of weaklings!”

He approached, his boots clapping against the stone floor. Blessing sobbed, backing away as Igazi came closer, looming over me.

“The human Emperor thinks he rules this land. But this is our domain. And we are the ones who truly rule. Humans are weak. Like your friend, who betrayed you for a few sips of blood. Like your comrades who are just now being consumed by my children. If it was not for this blasted ball of fire, we would rule this land for all time, but that does not mean you stand a chance. This is nature, my puny hunter. And you are a lesser being. Simply, prey.”

Igazi rounded me, pacing. He sniffed and I saw recognition in his eyes. Blessing hadn’t hit too hard. I was recovering. Slowly.

Igazi looked at me, almost surprised.

“I remember you! The little boy whom the impi defended. Do you know what became of that impi? I consumed him. He tried to stand in the way of a vampire and his prey again, and this time I was not sated enough to let it slide.”

Igazi grinned, wide. His fangs glistened.

“Do you like what I have done to your home, little Xhosa?”

“You will burn, vampire,” I spat.

In a dark flash, I was beaten to the floor. I felt flesh tear from my cheek as he raked his claws across my face.

Igazi laughed and stood up straight again.

“P…p…please, master. I did what you asked…” Blessing grovelled, edging closer.

“You let rebel scum blow up valuable infrastructure.”

“Please, master! I had no opportunity to report to you. But I did as you asked. I brought you prey.”

Igazi raised a hand towards him. Blessing recoiled, shaking like an addict with withdrawal. Because, that’s just what he was.

Igazi suddenly grinned, toothily, and retrieved a vial of red liquid from his inner pocket. He tossed it to Blessing who yelped as it almost fell to the floor. In a single breath, Blessing started chugging the blood.

Igazi turned to me, just as I saw a flicker of movement behind him.

“Why did you do this?” I asked, not caring about the answer. I focused on Igazi’s features, not betraying the movement behind him.

“Master,” Blessing begged, squeezing the empty, red-stained vial in his fist. “I need more.”

Igazi ignored him, even as he edged closer, grovelling.

“Do what, human?” he said the latter as if it was the gravest insult.

“Treat humans like…like cattle. Why do you despise us so much?”

I spotted a glint of silver. So close. Blessing whined, approaching from another angle. Paying no mind to anything else but his grovelling.

“Why shouldn’t I?” Igazi asked. “You are weak. Pathetic. You hide under this accursed star, protected by a long-forgotten Seraphim pact. It is shameful for the beast to deny its true nature. And the nature of humans is to be our food.”

“How can you think that, when you used to be one?”

Igazi laughed, as a silver blade slowly got into position to thrust towards his heart from behind.

“That is where you are a fool, little hunter. I’ve never been human.”

Silumko thrust forward with his silver-tipped spear, driving home towards Igazi’s heart. And, for the first time, I saw shock on my master’s face, as his spear shattered, sprinkling shards of metal across the floor.

I lunged towards my pistol but was too late. I watched as my master was raised above the ground, spitted by a pair of shadowy claws. He kicked wildly, trying to beat at the vampire till the very end. My mentor didn’t blink. Not once. Even as the claws closed and severed his head from his body.

Blessing yelled out a painful wail, as he fired his pistol multiple times towards Igazi. The bullets didn’t even pierce. Blessing wailed in guilt and torment as he unloaded his pistol towards the vampire, impotently. Our master’s head lay at his feet.

I reached for my pistols but, just before I could pick them up, shadowy blades severed them, spilling even the powder of the bullets onto the floor.

I drew Blessing’s knife, its edges coated with fresh silver.

Igazi, a bit annoyed at Blessing’s betrayal, turned towards him, just as I pounced on his back, throwing him off balance. I stroked the blade across his throat, drawing some blood, just before he shook me off, sending me flying towards the opposite wall. With an oomph, I hit the paintings, tearing some down with me.

I recovered just in time to see Blessing split in two, blood spraying across the floor and onto the stone roof.

Blessing’s remains fell by our mentor’s. I felt wetness on my face. Blessing had betrayed us, but then…

I raised my knife as Igazi sauntered towards me. Not a speck of visible blood marred him. He straightened his coat and stood just before me.

I thrust forward with the knife, just as he split it in half with his shadowy weapons.

“You are unarmed, little hunter. And all alone. It’s fitting, isn’t it? I took away your home, your family, your comrades. And now, everything that’s left. Accept this. It is the way of the world. Alone you were born to suffer, and alone you shall die.”

“Except, he’s not alone.”

Igazi turned, shocked, and then looked down at Graham, standing proudly, despite only coming up to the vampire’s calf. Igazi laughed.

“Go on, tokoloshe. The real monster is playing.”

Graham ignored the vampire and, through his legs, looked at me.

“I can see true names,” he said, matter of factly. “And I know you told me the truth. Why?”

Even through the pain in my head, and the blood dripping down my cheek and onto my body, I grinned.

“The best place to hide,” I said. “Is in plain sight.”

Graham laughed, as if it was the funniest joke in the world. Igazi looked between the both of us, unamused, before lunging towards Graham. But he was no longer there.

He appeared on Igazi’s shoulder, who staggered back from shock. I had long since gotten used to Graham’s impromptu teleportation.

“You say you’re the real monster,” Graham mocked, teleporting to Igazi’s other shoulder as he swiped at his last one with his shadowy claws.

“But, you’re too afraid to go out in the sun.”

He appeared on Igazi’s head. Igazi looked around, confused.

“Everybody knows about vampires,” Graham chortled. “You’re living clichés.”

With a roar, Igazi let loose a spire of dark energy up above him. Graham had already teleported just behind him.

“But you know what makes tokoloshes so dangerous?”

Igazi let out a frustrated roar, letting loose an arc of dark energy that cut through the wall just above my head.

Graham appeared right by Igazi’s ear.

“…Nobody knows what we do.”

Suddenly, Graham appeared in front of Igazi, hovering above the ground. I had never seen him do that before. His arms were outstretched, his eyes gleeful and sober. And, for the first time that I’d known him, I detected an unmistakable aura of power.

“You think we’re not monsters?” Graham grinned. “Well, then you’re in for a shock!”

Graham disappeared. And, in his wake, a blinding white light filled the room. I shut my eyes, as its brightness was too magnificent to handle. It was the sun.

I heard Igazi scream, a deathly wail unlike anything I had ever heard before.

“Tokoloshes…” Graham groaned; his voice strained. “Aren’t meant to kill. But…we can.”

The hum and heat of Graham’s light increased and, even through my eyelids and arms blocking my face, I felt that I would be washed away.

And then…

Silence. I no longer felt the golden light. The glow ceased and I was surrounded by black.

I waited. No more screams. I opened my eyes. There was no trace of Igazi. Not even ash.

I stood, wincing as I clutched my wounds. But I had to find Graham. I shambled into the centre of the room, looking around anxiously for my friend.

“Graham!” I called. No reply.

I winced as my sudden turning strained my wounds, but I had to find him.

“Demon! Tokoloshe! Where are you?”

I stumbled throughout the chamber, finally stopping by where he had shone like the sun. I touched the stone floor.

He was gone.

He had not lied. Tokoloshes could kill. But that was their end.

“Thank you, friend,” I whispered, some tears falling to the ground.

I picked up the shaft of Silumko’s broken spear, and used it as a crutch, as I limped outside of the Keep, and into the darkness.

Chapter 27.      Hope

Miraculously, Themba and the rebels had all survived with perfectly survivable wounds. I met them at the rendezvous, where they were already toasting their part in the victory. Anathi also lived. She wore the vampires’ fangs on a new necklace. Said she was going to give it to her daughter.

We all had long moments of silence. For Blessing, who had done the right thing in the end. For Silumko, who even now seemed unbreakable. And for Graham, who had proven he was my monster.

We licked our wounds after that and then went our separate ways. We didn’t say exactly where we were going, but I knew we were all heading west by separate routes. There were too many impi between us and Goldfield to the north. So, Hope City it would have to be.

I wished my cousin good luck on his journey. Anathi kissed me on the cheek. I didn’t feel envy anymore. Or longing. I was just glad she was okay.

I stayed near Mqanduli in the following days. In the chaos after our killing Nkosi Igazi, it wasn’t too hard to watch from a distance. It took two days for new vampires to arrive. The Blood persisted. Always. And when you cut off one head, two more grew in its place.

The connection between a vampire’s sire and its fledgling was stronger on the side of the sire. It was easy for Igazi to have a picture of my essence. But it would be harder for his children to track me through the shadows of his memory. Harder…but not impossible.

I could hide. In the wilderness. In the darkness. But that was not the way to truly escape the Children of Blood. The best way to hide was in plain sight. And, in the anthill of Hope City, I could disappear. Perhaps, they’d even waste time trying to track us north, in Goldfield, where vampires were persona non grata and we were expected to go.

Honestly, the thought of moving to a country where vampires had human rights sickened me, but it was better than dying.

In the darkness of the night, I took my bike, patted my perpetually empty wallet, and rode out west. I avoided the highways. The Three Point Line was too hot. I went the north-western route. Through the almost deserts of the Karoo. Monster territory. But I’d killed ogres before. And I’d been friends with a real monster. I wasn’t afraid of them.

I rode under the cover of nightfall, just in case there were impis patrolling the border. The roads were dark. Many had turned from tarmac to dirt roads under disrepair. I didn’t mind. I had been riding rough what seemed my entire life.

I snorted.

Life.

Yeah, that was it. I was alive. If only Graham could see it.

My headlights pooled in front of me as I rode at a conservative pace down this dark and abandoned wasteland road. The night had been pitch black beyond my meagre illumination until, in the distance, I saw a faint light. Headlights. Unmoving.

That was peculiar. The only things living in this wasteland didn’t own cars. And when they did, they could most often be found munching on the car’s previous owner.

I rode steadily towards the lights, wishing I had found a replacement gun. All my weapons had been destroyed in the fight with Igazi.

As I approached the car, facing south-west, I realised it was stuck in a large pothole. But that was the least of its problems. Its engine, hood open, was chugging out enough smoke to blind a jet plane.

As I halted, a disgruntled face looked up from the engine. A white guy, with short dark hair in a buzz cut and a sprinkling of dark stubble. My headlights lit up his bare arms, where I could see a tattoo just below his shoulder.

56-3.

“You smell like vampire blood,” the man commented, then looked at me with the eyes of a killer. “You a vampire?”

“No,” I replied, simply. That seemed to satisfy him, as he looked back at the engine.

“Good. Cause if you were, I’d have to kill you.”

“These roads aren’t good for cars,” I said. “Too many holes. And can’t dodge an ogre in a Corolla.”

The man tightened or loosened something before he got a face full of smoke.

He backed away, coughing, before sighing. Defeated.

“I’m heading to Hope City. Need a lift?” I asked, before realising what I’d done. I was a loner! Didn’t need company.

The man pondered it, looking me up and down.

“Are you sure you’re not a vampire? You wear a lot of black. And there are some vamps with mutations to hide their eyes.”

“You know a lot about vampires,” I commented.

The man glowered but went into the car and retrieved a backpack. It was smaller and lighter than mine. But he also retrieved a pump-action shotgun. Maybe some armed company would be welcome.

The man approached the bike and offered his hand. I accepted it, gripping firmly and looking him in the eyes.

“Brett Callahan,” he said.

“Guy Mgebe,” I replied.

Brett mounted the bike, which strained under his weight. Brett was far heavier than Graham. But my bike was strong. Sure, I missed my old one. But this girl was growing on me.

I started riding into the night. Dead trees and abandoned settlements passed us as we rode towards our new home.

“I hear Hope City is more than just at the edge of the world,” Brett commented idly, over the hum of the engine. “Apparently, it’s a place you can become a new person.”

I grunted. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

AN END

I hope you enjoyed Guy’s origin story! If you’d like to meet up with Guy again in Hope City, make sure to pick up your copy of Part-Time Monster Hunter, or dive straight in with the Kat Drummond 4-book boxset, the best way to continue your journey on Post-Cataclysm Earth.

If you enjoyed the book, please let me know by leaving a review on Amazon and Goodreads!

Guy’s story isn’t over. The Children of Blood are still out there. And they never forget!

Author Note

Despite Hope City being a city in Africa, it always felt a bit more western. This is understandable, as Cape Town (Hope City’s real-life counterpart) is a very much western society at the bottom of Africa.

In the Kat Drummond Series, I infused Hope City with a very Capetonian flair. A lot of the myths and legends are based on Cape folklore, the food Kat eats is often Cape cuisine and the places she goes to are (for the most part) real.

But for many readers, these aspects are subtle. Some may even excuse them as quirks of a post-magical world, and not a different culture of a real city at the edge of the world.

Blood Hunter is different. While in the same region as Hope City, it is set in the context of the amaXhosa and amaZulu of South Africa, and the book itself is dripping with not just references to these vibrant cultures that exist today, but set around how these cultures interact in a new world.

Guy’s journey through occupied Transkei and the surrounding areas are very much steeped in his struggles with very real traditions and conflicts that are immersed in history.

Of course, as an author I had to take liberties. I tried my utmost to stay true to folklore and history. The muti that Guy uses is based on historical cases (albeit, with different and less supernatural results). I also, of course, gave my own spin on the tokoloshe myth with the callous but ultimately bighearted Graham.

Blood Hunter, overall, is not just a character-study into Guy Mgebe, but an attempt to bring more and more of South Africa’s cultures and history into the international mainstream.

Due to the unfortunate political culture of the time, I suspect that I will receive some backlash by non-African critics accusing me of cultural appropriation, misinterpretation or twisting narratives.

My defence is simple: this is a story. And as folklore and myth from Asia, Europe and the Americas have been shifted and changed to fit a story, the same can and should be done for Africa. We should not alienate African cultures from the creative process. And while we hold myths sacred, we regrettably risk letting them become forgotten. Rather, I feel we should see culture and myth for what it is: a tool that unites us, invigorates us, and evolves as we do. Culture should be spread, adapted and enjoyed by everyone.

Blood Hunter is an addition to the small catalogue of fiction that uses Xhosa and Zulu culture as a springboard to craft a narrative. I hope it becomes one of many.

And most of all, I hope you enjoyed it!

Acknowledgements

It takes more than just a single author to truly craft a novel. There are countless inspirations that build a story. Some think that stories can be wholly original. Divinely and supernaturally inspired, even. These people are not writers. And if you are also not a writer, I am sorry to have to break the illusion that we’re original beings of pure creative energy.

Every game, book, story, event and person of history, series and film I have seen has contributed in some way to my writing. To craft art, we must learn from art. And this is what all writers do. So, as my first acknowledgement, I would like to thank every other creative who has helped shape me as a writer.

This book was much more research intensive than my previous books. For research on the culture, and particularly military strategy and dynamics of the amaZulu, I used The Social System of the Zulus by Eileen Jensen Krige. For an understanding of the economics of the area, I read An Economic History of South Africa by Charles Feinstein. The Kat Drummond Series and this book are steeped in South African history, which I have studied intensely and adjusted to make up for the existence of magic. Perhaps, I should thank my undergrad history degree for that. Not my postgrad degree, as I dropped out to write books. I think it worked out.

Thank you to Zakhele Mthembu for helping with the occasional Zulu translation, and Dumisane Kili for helping me understand and appreciate Xhosa customs.

Thank you tremendously to my editor and mother, Shelley Woode-Smith. One day I’ll make you let me pay you for this service.

Thank you to the skilled and creative Richard Smith, my father, for designing the cover of this book and bringing Guy’s image to life.

Thank you to my ARC readers for ensuring this book releases with reviews on time. You guys are great!

And finally: thank you!

Yes, you! Without you, I’d probably still be studying a degree with no earning potential. Ew. But because of you, the reader, I can spend my life doing what I love. And that means everything to me.

If you would like to receive a newsletter filled with fantasy and sci-fi recommendations from me, make sure to subscribe to my newsletter:

https://nicholaswoodesmith.com/newsletter/

Nicholas Woode-Smith is an urban fantasy and sci-fi author from Cape Town, South Africa. When he isn’t crafting worlds for you or his D&D players to enjoy, you can find him playing PC games, watching cartoons and reading history.

Table of Contents

- Blood Hunter A Kat Drummond Universe Novel Nicholas Woode-Smith

- Part 1
- Chapter 1.              Manhood
- Chapter 2.              Night Walk
- Chapter 3.              Fires
- Chapter 4.              Family
- Chapter 5.              Sunrise
- Chapter 6.              Wilderness
- Chapter 7.              Enemy
- Chapter 8.              Army of God
- Part 2
- Chapter 9.              Roamer
- Chapter 10.      Sprites
- Chapter 11.      The Hunt
- Chapter 12.      Muti
- Chapter 13.      Swim
- Chapter 14.      Survival
- Chapter 15.      Moot
- Chapter 16.      Tradition
- Chapter 17.      Rebellion
- Chapter 18.      The Heist
- Chapter 19.      Hero
- Chapter 20.      Freedom
- Chapter 21.      Encampment
- Chapter 22.      No Good Act…
- Part 3
- Chapter 23.      Goes unpunished
- Chapter 24.      Decay
- Chapter 25.      Home
- Chapter 26.      The Blood
- Chapter 27.      Hope
- Author Note
- Acknowledgements
- Nicholas Woode-Smith