He continued along the trail the lions had taken. It led deep into thick bush and then into a forest. Still he saw them, a flash of brindled fur through the dense foliage; he could smell them too – the stink of rotten flesh heavy under the thick, leafy canopy. But now hunting was more difficult. The trail began to dwindle until Ralph could no longer tell if he was still on it. Were the lions ahead of him or behind him? Were they outflanking him? Ralph had used up almost all of his cartridges. It was time to turn back.

  The sun was past its zenith by the time Ralph returned to the meadow. The carcass of the male would be too heavy for him to carry by himself, but he could skin the animal and take its hide. That, too, was something he had become practised at.

  He pushed through the long grass until he reached the place where he had killed the lion.

  But to his astonishment, it wasn’t there.

  This was definitely the right spot. He could see the cluster of rocks where the pride had gathered, the flattened dents in the long grass where they had lain. Blood still covered the grass where the big male had taken his bullet.

  Had it somehow managed to drag itself down to the water? Ralph walked to the edge of the ravine to check. Here, the river broadened out into a wide pool, almost a little lake. He scanned the banks all around it, but there were no marks in the soil, and the surface of the lake was smooth and undisturbed. Where could the lion have gone?

  A low growl sounded behind him.

  Ralph spun around, just as the lion sprang.

  I thought I’d killed it, Ralph’s mind protested, before a quarter of a ton of lion flesh collided with him. The crushing impact forced the air from his lungs and punched him backwards off his feet – over the edge of the ravine.

  He felt a second of weightlessness, as lion and man fell through the air. Then they hit the surface with a fountain of water. The lake was deep – much deeper than Ralph had expected. Even with the bulk of the lion driving him down, he did not touch the bottom. Now he had to fight not just with the wounded animal on top of him, but with the river, too.

  Man and beast pawed their way to the surface. Ralph kicked out, trying to escape the lion, but his arm was caught in its mouth. As they struggled in the water, Ralph realised that his bullet had shattered the beast’s teeth and torn away its cheek and part of its nose. Its face was only inches from his own, bloody foam boiling from its mouth as it struggled to breathe while keeping hold of its quarry. He tried to punch the beast on the nose, to kick it in the stomach, but he was pinned.

  Ralph caught a blow to the head, feeling the jagged remnants of the lion’s teeth tear into his arm as he was driven underwater. Was the beast trying to drown him? He felt its powerful legs churning the water next to his, lifting them both up, but as soon as Ralph’s head broke the surface, the lion’s paw hit him again, another skull-shuddering blow that drove him back down into the river, mud and blood churning around him.

  He is bobbing me like an apple, Ralph realised, short of breath, the pain in his arm unbearable.

  But without a foothold the lion could not keep him underwater. Ralph drew in a deep lungful of air as the beast gave up on drowning him and began to search for a way out, pawing the water, circling the edge of the lake. The earth banks were high and steep on both sides and Ralph could feel the lion begin to tire, but the grip on his arm never slackened. Dizzy, waterlogged, racked with pain, an even more terrible thought struck Ralph. What if the lion drowned with its jaw clenched shut and pulled him down to the bottom of the river? No one would know what had happened to him, unless in some drought, years in the future, a hunter found their skeletons in the dried-up mud.

  The lion attacked him again. A claw raked his face and cut open his cheek. There was still strength in its limbs, enough to rip Ralph apart if it could find leverage.

  Something brushed past Ralph’s side. He thought it must be the lion’s hind legs, but even as it happened he realised that whatever it was felt different. Something long and scaly, more potent than the lion’s flailing limbs.

  The water erupted. A pair of flashing jaws gaped wide, brandishing an impossible number of teeth. For a second, Ralph stared down the monster’s gullet. Then the jaws snapped shut, biting deep into the lion’s shoulder.

  It was a crocodile, drawn by the blood in the water. The lion tipped back its head in a deafening roar of pain, twisting around to fight its new enemy.

  The moment it opened its mouth, Ralph’s arm came free. The water churned around him, a boiling maelstrom of teeth and claws and thrashing muscle. One more blow from the lion would have knocked him out and drowned him.

  Ralph kicked off, desperate to get away. The two great beasts, locked in their death struggle, ignored him – but there would be other crocodiles nearby. He splashed towards the bank, his injured arm flapping like a broken wing; he had to grit his teeth and use all his strength to keep from spinning in circles. His progress was agonisingly slow. Behind him, he could hear the water roiling as the two beasts fought.

  He reached the edge of the lake. The steep cliffs made progress almost impossible, but he found a place where a vine hung down from one of the trees above. He wrapped it around his arm, ignoring the shooting pain from the bloody holes the lion’s broken teeth had punched in his flesh. One-handed, he hauled himself up the bank.

  With a final effort that made him scream out with pain, Ralph slithered out onto the rim of the cliff. Behind him, the water had gone still. Ralph guessed the crocodile had triumphed, dragging the lion down to the depths.

  I must not tell Shaka about this, he thought through his pain. The Zulus believed that the spirits of the ancestors spoke through animals. The death of a lion, torn apart by a crocodile, was an omen that needed no interpretation.

  Ralph lay still, drawing breath and gathering his strength. His arm was bleeding, while his face and torso were covered in wounds from the lion’s claws. An open cut across the top of his scalp leaked blood down his temples and into his mouth.

  How far had he come from the camp? Several miles, at least, through thick forest. Weak from his ordeal, still bleeding, he would be lucky if he could find his way back. The pack of lions had scattered, but they would come hunting when night fell.

  Shaka was right, he thought ruefully. I should not have come alone. I should not have sent the boy away.

  Ralph imagined the king mocking him, hunching into a ball to mimic a man cowering in terror while his courtiers rolled with laughter.

  I will not let Shaka have the last word.

  Ralph pushed himself to his feet and looked up to the ridge he had descended earlier that day. In his current physical state, it loomed as steep and high as Table Mountain.

  His only other option was to give up and die. Half stumbling, half crawling, he found a game trail that led up the hill. Every movement was agony. Once, he tripped, threw out his arms to break his fall and lost consciousness from the pain. He tried not to think about the blood he had lost, a trail that every lion and hyena in the forest would follow as soon as the sun went down.

  Pain and loss of blood made him dizzy. When the wind rustled the grass around him, he imagined he saw the shadows of vast monsters lurking to devour him. In his mind, he was back in the open boat with Lizzie Courtney and Harry, enduring endless days of ravaging thirst and hunger. Now the shadows in the grass were the men who owed him vengeance, stalking his tracks. A Chinese pirate, the first man he had ever killed. The boy at KwaBulawayo, murdered by Marius to prove a point with the rifles. Warriors from the different tribes he had fought over the last four years. And most terrifyingly of all, far off in the undergrowth, half hidden, the ghost of Harry’s father.

  The phantoms drove Ralph onwards until, at last, he looked back and realised he had reached the top of the ridge.

  The sun was sinking behind him. Shadows pooled on the valley floor, hiding the lake where he had fought the lion. He still had miles to go.

  He stumbled on, ignoring the voice in his head that insisted the effort was futile, that he would never find his way home. He had to keep going until he escaped or died. It would be a lonely death, but he did not feel alone. The ghosts of his past spoke to him constantly.

  The Zulus are right. The ancestors are always watching.

  Ralph could not tell what was real anymore. Even the pain in his arm seemed to somehow be outside of him – a constant raw tearing that lit up the night with showers of red-hot sparks. When he heard a voice, ahead through the trees, he assumed at first it was another one of his ghosts.

  But something about this voice was different. He paused, listening. The voice was real, a living human being, and not far off.

  A rush of relief went through Ralph. He was saved. He opened his mouth to shout for help—

  But a cautionary instinct held him back. This was a contested country, between the frontiers of the Zulus and the Mpondos. A man in the forest might lead you to safety, or he might stick his spear in your guts.

  Ralph sank to his knees and crawled closer to the voice, trying not to make a sound. He came up against a fallen log covered with moss and lay there, listening. The people must have been only a few yards away, though the thick bush hid them from view.

  The man he could hear was speaking in Zulu. It should have reassured him – but it did not.

  ‘Shaka will not go with the army,’ the voice said. ‘He will stay near this place, until the battle has been fought.’

  The percussive monotone, the sibilant hiss as the speaker sucked air in through the gap between his front teeth: it sounded like Dingane.

  ‘Shaka will not go with the army.’

  The same words again. Had the speaker repeated himself, or were the words simply echoing in Ralph’s fevered head? Though this time he had heard them in English.

  ‘He will stay near this place until the battle has been fought.’

  It was an English voice. And different from the one before, deeper and richer. Yet – impossibly – familiar again. It sounded like Jobe.

  Ralph clenched his eyes shut and shook his head. Panic stirred inside him.

  Am I losing my mind?

  A third voice answered, and Ralph knew he must be either in the depths of a nightmare, or wide awake and in mortal danger. A man he feared more than any lion or crocodile.

  ‘Shaka’s a bloody coward, hey? How many men will he keep with him?’

  Marius.

  Jobe translated the question.

  ‘A thousand,’ Dingane answered.

  ‘That is too many to fight at once,’ said Marius.

  ‘Not all of them are loyal to him.’

  Marius chuckled. ‘I suppose not.’

  Ralph got up on his knees and raised himself until his eyes were above the level of the tree trunk. Marius, Dingane and Jobe stood around a small clearing, forming a rough triangle. They kept apart, which was why they had to speak so loudly: their need for secrecy was evidently less than their distrust of one another.

  It was four years since Ralph had seen Marius and Jobe. The interval had not been kind to Marius: he had grown thinner, making his enormous frame seem more grotesquely oversized. Any softness that had been present in his bullish face was gone; all that remained was an ugly gaunt strength. As for Jobe, Ralph could not guess where he had been, but it seemed to have agreed with him. Always tall, he had grown big in every other direction, with a full face and a swollen paunch sagging over his woven belt. He wore a chief’s cloak, copper rings on his forearm and three strands of glass beads around his neck. The same new beads that Ralph had noticed among the Zulus.

  Jobe’s cloak was draped over his shoulder, hiding the mark that the slavers had branded into it, but it was surely still there. What could have brought him together with Marius now?

  ‘Does Shaka suspect?’ Jobe asked.

  ‘Shaka fears all men, always,’ Dingane answered. ‘The more he fears, the more he kills. The more he kills, the more men hate him.’

  ‘What about when the army comes back?’

  ‘The army serves the king,’ said Dingane. ‘When they return—’ He broke off suddenly. ‘What is that?’

  Ralph had been straining to listen and had leaned forward, putting his weight on the branch he was kneeling on. It snapped, sending a crack like a gunshot through the twilight of the forest.

  All three men in the clearing looked around. The forest diffused the sound, making it almost impossible to tell where the noise had come from. Dingane and Jobe looked this way and that. Marius had keener instincts. He stared at the tree where Ralph was hiding.

  Ralph fought the urge to duck away. Marius had a hunter’s eye that would seize on any movement. Instead, Ralph made himself stay still. Leaves shadowed his face; his skin was smeared with mud and blood. He must be almost invisible.

  Marius took two steps towards him. His eyes raked over the undergrowth.

  He has not seen me yet.

  Another pace. Any closer, and he could not miss Ralph.

  If I had a rifle and two bullets, Ralph thought, I could end a great deal of mischief this moment.

  It was a vain thought. He had lost both his guns in the struggle with the lion, and his ammunition pouch was soaked through. Marius had two pistols in his belt, and a long-barrelled rifle slung on his shoulder.

  Something seemed to catch Marius’s eye. He pulled out one of the pistols and levelled it towards Ralph’s hiding place. Now all three men were looking towards him.

  ‘You see someone?’ Jobe asked.

  Marius fired. Ralph flung himself to the ground, at the same moment that the bullet ploughed into the tree trunk.

  If he moved, he would get a bullet in his back. He cowered behind the tree trunk, bracing himself for Marius to fire again. But through the ringing in his ears, he heard Marius say: ‘That should flush out any nosy Kaffirs.’

  Marius had not seen him. It had been a feint, to scare Ralph into revealing himself. Instead, the pistol smoke had blinded Marius for a moment, so he had not seen Ralph duck away.

  Ralph crouched behind the tree trunk, keeping his breath as shallow as possible. He listened as the after-effects of Marius’s shot echoed through the forest. He heard beating wings and swaying foliage as birds left their perches; rustling undergrowth from creatures scuttling away. Distant animal cries and calls of fear.

  And, closer, snapping branches and running footsteps; and then Marius’s voice shouting: ‘I knew we would find him.’

  What does he mean?

  Ralph heard the rapid movements of a struggle, a slap, a high-pitched voice crying out, and then the thud of someone falling to the ground.

  ‘Who are you?’ Marius demanded.

  ‘Who sent you?’ Jobe asked in Zulu.

  Who would be so far out in the woods? Someone from the local tribes? A lost hunter? Or had Shaka suspected Dingane’s treachery and sent a spy to follow him?

  ‘Who sent you?’ Ralph heard Jobe repeat his question, then a dull thump that sounded like a boot kicking flesh. A moan, and whimpering.

  ‘I was looking for game,’ said a small voice in Zulu.

  Ralph knew that voice. It was Bheka, the boy he had brought hunting.

  I sent you away, he raged. Why did you come back?

  ‘Are you one of Shaka’s boys? Did he send you?’

  Jobe translated the question.

  Do not mention my name, Ralph willed him. That will only bring you pain.

  All three men’s attention was surely on the boy now. Ralph risked putting his head above the log. Bheka lay on the ground, naked like all Zulu boys. Marius and Jobe stood over him, while Dingane watched from a distance.

  Let him go, Ralph willed. He is innocent.

  Bheka had spent most of his life in Ralph’s kraal, away from the intrigues of Shaka’s court. Even so, he recognised the king’s brother. Confronted by these three men, he did not know what to say.

  Marius crouched beside Bheka. He stroked the boy’s face.

  ‘You’re frightened, hey? You have nothing to fear. Did Shaka send you to see what his brother was doing? Did he ask you to listen, in case his brother was in trouble?’

  His voice was soothing and steady. ‘You’re a good boy, hey? You do what you’re told. Are you hungry?’

  He reached into his bag and pulled out a strip of smoked meat, which he tossed to the boy. Bheka tore off a chunk in his teeth and chewed eagerly.

  ‘Who sent you?’ asked Jobe.

  ‘Shaka,’ said Bheka, through a mouthful of biltong.

  Marius nodded. ‘I thought so.’

  In a single motion, Marius took one step back, drew his second pistol and fired it into Bheka’s skull. The boy’s head exploded in a shower of blood and bone; his body jerked and went limp. A half-eaten strip of biltong fell from his lifeless hand.

  Ralph bit his lip until it bled; his muscles quivered with the effort of keeping still. Even with his wounds, dizzy from blood loss, it took all his strength not to fly at Marius. But that would be suicide.

  Dingane gazed on Bheka’s corpse, his face expressionless.

  ‘You should not have killed him so fast. He could have told us more. What Shaka knows, what he suspects.’

  ‘In a week, it will not matter what Shaka suspects,’ said Marius.

  Dingane was still studying the body. ‘I have seen this boy before. He is a servant of umRalph.’

  Marius raised his head. ‘Ralph Courtney’s boy?’ He kicked the corpse. ‘If I had known that, I would have skinned him alive to make him talk.’

  ‘We should go,’ Jobe interrupted them. ‘We are not safe here.’

  The other two nodded. ‘When will you strike?’ Marius asked Dingane.

  ‘I will make plans.’ The prince’s eyes were emotionless, but a frown creased his broad forehead. He pointed to Bheka. ‘This is a bad sign. If Shaka suspects . . .’

  The three men disappeared into the trees, leaving Bheka’s broken body unburied. Ralph waited in his hiding place until the sound of their footsteps crashing through the bush had died down. He was so dazed and exhausted, he couldn’t stand, so instead he crawled to the centre of the clearing and dug enough rocks out of the ground to cover the boy’s corpse. It did not take many.