Muezzinland by Stephen Palmer Page A

cattle looked the other way. Coming across an abandoned well, they refilled their waterskins and moved on.
    Two further days brought them to another border, and with great relief they entered Dogon Mali. This was the country that had Timbuktu as its capital.
    Hyenas followed them. They were the nocturnal variety, ridden by ephemeral forms, hyenas real, without doubt, yet partaking of an aetherial menace. They licked their chops and snapped their teeth, as if cracking imaginary bones, and then they flapped their tongues as if licking out the marrow. Nshalla wondered if they were being toyed with. Yet the beasts never attacked.
    Two days into Dogon Mali found them amid hyena men.
    The change had been imperceptible. It was night. One minute hyenas were patrolling around their campsite, the next men with sparkling talismans strung around their necks were staring at them, their eyes luminous, like the beasts. Gmoulaye woke, and, taking Msavitar's dart rifle, tried to shoot them down, but they dodged and shifted like ghosts. In the end she cursed them and gave up. The chuckling wail of the animals rose up to taunt them.
    "I'll not have come all this way just to be eaten by hyena men," Nshalla said. "Timbuktu's only a week away."
    "There is only one way to fight these creatures," Gmoulaye said. "Hyena men live everywhere—my grandmother told me how to deal with them. You, Nshalla, will have to strip off and entrance them. You must lie down naked before the nearest hyena man, while I hide behind a tree with the dart rifle. I'll pick them off one by one as they stand hypnotised."
    Nshalla considered whether this was a plausible plan. It had the ring of tribal authenticity that she associated with Gmoulaye's wisdom, but it was dangerous. Even she, an urban woman, had heard of hyena men.
    With gestures, she indicated that Gmoulaye should slink behind a tree. Msavitar, who was something of a coward, trembled by the fire, crouched down, his face concealed by his shirt, and seeing this Nshalla felt she was experiencing the deepest possible contempt for him. She took a kerchief and wrapped it around his eyes, saying, "If I see you looking at me, I swear by Ataa Naa Nyongmo, and by all the holy Gan pantheon, that I will slit your throat and watch until the very last drop of blood sinks into the sand, and then I will cut you up and feed your giblets and your brain to the hyenas. D'you hear me?"
    "Yes."
    Still she wore the colourful Ghanaian dress. In sight of the slavering hyena men she disrobed, letting the dress fall to the floor. Her dusty, sweaty body lay open to the ogling beasts. She glanced back. Msavitar's face was pressed firmly to the soil.
    There was a ping, a hum, and then a hyena man fell to the ground, a dart in his neck. The others seemed not to notice, their rounded eyes locked upon Nshalla's ebony form. Then the darts flew fast, until every hyena man lay on the ground, quite dead.
    Nshalla pulled her dress up and across her shoulders, returning to the campfire. She wanted to leave the place, but travel by night was risky. Six hours at least remained before dawn. "We'll stay here," she grunted, "and hope no other packs are around." She glanced at an embarrassed Msavitar. "Poke the fire and throw on some sticks."
    He followed her instructions. "By all that's mighty," he said, "that was a brave deed." Gmoulaye agreed. Msavitar continued, "We are destined to make Timbuktu, surely, if even the dreadful hyena men fall before us."
    "I did what I had to do. Men are simple to bewitch, or so I've found."
    "I am humbled, humbled," Msavitar said.
    "Did my scars show?" Nshalla asked him.
    "Yes, but—"
    Nshalla pounced. He had fallen for her trick. "So you did look! You scum of the dry dust! I told you not to look and you defied me." She grabbed the blade lying upon Gmoulaye's belts and thrust it against his neck. With staring eyes and frozen body he lay below her, petrified, choking. For some seconds Nshalla was sure she was about to