Black Leopard, Red Wolf (The Dark Star Trilogy #1)

by Marlon James

they came upon a place where love lived. The boy was with him, someone wrote in blood on sand. A beautiful hand wrote on the sand in blood. But that is not the story. For the man who lived in the house of love, he came upon the message written in blood, by one who was dead. And he was beyond words, but filled himself with grief and rage, for they were dead. They were all dead. Some of them only half was left. Some of them half-eaten, some of them drained of blood, and drained empty. And this man he cried, and this man he wailed, and this man he cursed the silence of the gods, then cursed them too. And this man, he buried them, but could not bury the one made of spirits, for though they could not kill her, the killing ground made her go mad and she roams all the way to the sand sea, groaning a spirit song. And this man fell to his knees nine times in great grief, and profound dismay, and magnificent sorrow. And this man, after season upon season of grief, let that grief sink, and harden, and turn into rage, which sunk, and hardened, and turned into purpose. For he knew who the boy came with, or who came with the boy. He knew it was the beast whose brother the Leopard killed, though the beast came and took his revenge on him. He said to his friend, All these deaths are on your hands. And he sharpened his axes and dipped his knives in viper spit, and he set out for the Mweru, for that is where the boy came from and that is where he would go back to.