He should have let it kill the woman. He had not counted on her appearance and she had no defence. In that one second, when he saw her eyes widen with recognition, the hyena had made its rush. He had flung the spear, seen it find its mark, watched the creature topple. Then the woman was falling too, and when the screaming began he knew what she had seen. He could see it too, no matter which way he turned his head. The body of the man was staked out on the ground, arms and legs spread wide, genitals sliced away and stuffed into the silent agony of his mouth, belly ripped open so that his entrails spilled on to the earth, sightless eye sockets turned in darkness to the moon. The warrior still saw that vision, still heard the screaming, long after he had escaped the place of sacrifice. He had left the spear in the hyena’s neck and slipped into the surrounding bush, covering the marks of his passing in the way of his people, knowing that the trackers would soon be searching for him, casting all around the ridge for signs of the direction in which he had gone.

In those first moments he had been filled with a savage euphoria, had felt himself invincible. He had completed his quest, had carried out his oath. He could feel the power of the bhang that he had taken prior to the ritual, still coursing through his body, flashing scenes of colour and mystery before his eyes. He was beyond pain as he drew the air down into the fiery passage of his throat. It filled his chest with seared oxygen, whistling out again through his clenched teeth in a shower of foaming spittle. His heart was pounding, muffling the sounds he left behind him so that they were a distant buzz in the back of his consciousness. He came to an area of dense bush and thorn, and ran along its edge, veering away after a few minutes to climb on to a rocky outcrop where his footprints would be lost to anyone following. Then he retraced his path slowly, stepping in his own tracks until he came to another section of the scrub. He crouched and slid into the thicket, mindless of the thorns that tore at him. The drug gave him an altered vision, as though he was looking down into some far-off scene from a great height, and he could see himself moving under the bushes, undulating like a serpent, until he emerged on the other side of the dense undergrowth. His skin was ripped, and blood welled up to mingle with the blood of his victim, which already covered his body. He did not try to clean it away.