Free Unicorn Tracks by Julia Ember

unmistakable forms of twenty unicorns, their bodies strikingly white against the muddy black of their legs. Each unicorn pulled a sleigh loaded with metal. The scraps were piled high, twelve feet or more, and must have weighed several tons. Still, each animal pulled its own sleigh, its muscles barely straining with a load five horses would have struggled to drag. Overseers marched behind them, whipping both the unicorns and the laborers.
    At the epicenter of all the activity, laborers lined the wooden planks and scraps of metal together in neat rows. They nailed the wood into place, adding rows to the great river of metal that stretched back farther than I could see, cutting through the savanna.
    “It’s a railway,” Kara breathed.
    “It’s good?” our guide asked, gesturing to the scene in front of us.
    It was the worst thing I’d ever seen.
    My hands shaking on my reins, I whispered back, “It’s good.”
     
     
    WHEN WE arrived back at the safari camp, bedraggled, dust-covered, and hungry, it was almost evening again. At the sound of our horses’ hooves, Tumelo and Bi Trembla came running from his office. He held Kara’s bridle while she dismounted, making a show of escorting her back to her tent for tea and a hot bath, all the while glaring at me over his shoulder. I gulped. His look was foreboding enough, but if he was leaving me alone to face Bi Trembla’s wrath, he had to be furious.
    Bi Trembla slapped the back of my head and then pinched my ear between her yellow nails. “One night! You promised me one! And that you’d have her back early the next morning! We’ve been waiting all day. Do you know how many excuses I had to make to her father today? Oh, they are riding. Oh, they have gone to the lake. Your daughter? Ah, she is having her nap. Stupid, irresponsible girl!”
    I yelped, jerking away from her brutal nails. “We found something and had to track it. It took a bit of extra time. But we’re back before nightfall!”
    I didn’t want to tell Bi Trembla what we had been tracking. Better to save that information reveal for Tumelo, after he took his evening drink.
    Bi Trembla placed both hands on her wide hips and glared. “Do you know how worried I have been? Thinking for the past ten hours that a wild beast ate you in your tents? A stampede ran you over? It’s bad enough that Tumelo sends a young girl into the savanna with only a bunch of idiot foreigners for protection, but how much worse if you didn’t come back?” She reached out, and I cringed, thinking she was about to slap me again. Instead, her warm palm caressed my cheek. “I care for you, msichana. Like my own granddaughter. Make sure you always come back.”
    Done with her brief display of emotion, she picked up the basket of washing she’d left by the side of Tumelo’s hut and bustled away. Tumelo appeared from behind a tree. Apparently he’d been waiting until after Bi Trembla finished with me to make his reappearance.
    “That was quite a stunt,” he said, pulling a cigar from his back pocket. “Want to tell me where you’ve been?”
    I sighed. There was no hiding what we’d been doing anymore. Not when we’d already decided that we needed his help. “You know the pile of unicorn horns you told me to show her?”
    Tumelo scowled. He knew me well enough to know there would be much more when I started things like that. “Yes.”
    “Well, we found out why they are there.”
    He stroked the day-old stubble around his chin. “Don’t be coy, Mnemba. Spit it out. What have you found and why are you back so late?”
    “They’re capturing the unicorns,” I blurted. “Taking them to build some iron road. When they cut off the horns, the unicorns just change… they give up. It’s like a part of their soul dies.”
    “Back up,” Tumelo said, lighting the cigar and sucking in a breath. “Who is capturing the unicorns?”
    “A gang of poachers. They’ve brought the unicorns to the edge of the savanna. We saw them