Nengwalamwe heard: a frustrated sort of chatter that preceded one of the more substantial rock falls. Nengwalamwe thought about going to see what all the noise was about and had barely got up when a curtain of dry earth and sharp stone fragments dropped and clattered down from the arch of the cave entrance. He froze and waited, looking up wearily as if he could see the baboon through the roof. With the last stone, silence fell over the rock once more.

More than likely the stinking animal would wander off by itself when it got bored with whatever it was that it was doing. Nengwalamwe was prepared to let him waste his time while he got on with more important matters: cleaning his belly fur. The baboon would pay for his part in the incident by the waterhole later, after all it would be impossible to catch him up there on the slippery bare rock that afforded no clawhold. To attempt to catch a baboon, that was much more used to scrambling over the rock, in the dark was not the sort of thing Nengwalamwe liked. What he wanted most was to get himself clean, and with that out of the way he would set his mind to filling his belly. A foul smelling baboon would suffice if needs must, but something more palatable would be far more to his taste.

In the darkness, Nengwalamwe licked himself into deep and undisturbed sleep; filled with nothing more unsettling than a dim scene of young cubs playing with Nengwalamwe’s tail under a tree. One turned to him and he was half aware that he recognised her.

Sometime during the night, the baboon climbed down from the top of the rock to the ledge at the entrance to the lion’s cave and peered in for a few seconds before slipping away unobserved into the darkness.

The following dawn was subdued and shrouded by cloud. It was nearly half an hour after first light before Nengwalamwe woke to the few fleeting shafts of early sunlight that penetrated the entrance of the cave. He still felt empty and drained. This, he was determined, was the day he would finally get to eat. So few of sounds from the plains drifted up into the cave that the lion thought at first that it might still be before dawn. When he had stretched and shaken he walked calmly to the cave entrance and stood, blinking in the light. The sun was struggling to break through the clouds that streamed down from the mountains. The lion yawned, finishing with a rasping light growl that was designed in part to tell the baboon that the great Nengwalamwe was awake.

To the east, on the open grassy plain below the rock, vast herds, mainly of zebra and wildebeest but with smaller groups of lighter coloured antelope, grazed forming a grey blanket as far as the eye could see. The lion’s eyes picked out the movements of the lesser groups, some of which looked likely to be Thomson’s gazelle - just about at the upper size limit for his hunting skills. He stood and watched for a while, partly to assure himself that the baboon had finally gone and partly to determine that Falana and her mother were not around to spoil his day.

After a minute or two his natural confidence returned and he set off along the ledge to the promontory. Less than a minute later he paused to mark an outlying boulder before walking purposely on to the plain with the sun before him and the towering rock casting its long, cold shadow behind him. From those deep shadows, a pair of hunting dogs trailed in his paw prints, careful to keep out of the lion’s earshot.

It took Nengwalamwe longer than he had expected to reach the outliers of the herds. From the promontory of the rock they had seemed much closer. The sun had risen steadily and now, with merciless heat, tried to burn away the clouds that threw their shadows rolling over the herds. He was hot and breathing heavily, making it difficult for Nengwalamwe’s drained mind to concentrate on any one beast. For a while he totally lost the Thomson's gazelle he had seen from the rock. He wandered to-and-fro making a few probing rushes into edges of the herds hoping to flush out any stragglers. It was beginning to become apparent that his mane was far too visible for him to be anything other than a very minor irritation. Every time he moved on the herd, it opened up in front of him in a wide arc, he heard little more than a few grunts of vague alarm. He broke off, growling under his breath as the incessant throbbing in his head grew unbearable.

Nengwalamwe was totally unaware that he was being watched discreetly from a rise at the southern edge of the grassy plain by the dogs who had followed him from the rock. In time they tired of the ineffective efforts of the lion and eventually, with nothing more than a nod to each other, turned and trotted back the way they had come. It was clear that the lion, whoever he was, was not going to be able to feed himself for much longer if this was how he hunted. As he had been rejected by the lionesses he was not going to hang around for much longer. The dogs knew they would not have to bother about this lion for very long.

Nengwalamwe’s efforts grew more desperate with each attempt. Just before midday his patience finally broke and he suddenly rushed at full stretch towards a nearby zebra, roaring as though it were an intruding lion that had discovered him alone with his lioness. He could only close to within four lengths of the zebra mare before it galloped off barking shouts of alarm. He gave chase until his legs and lungs began to burn, then he stood gasping in the stinging, airless heat. His legs could hold him no longer and he dropped down on to the grass and lay staring blindly. The heat and his hunger had finally brought him to the limit of his endurance, yet the full heat of the day was still to come.

He had had no food for many days, this would not normally have been much of a hardship for him but he was now becoming seriously dehydrated. The grass turned a foggy red in Nengwalamwe’s eyes and his head pounded as though an elephant was dancing on his mane. At home the supply of fresh kill had been so plentiful that he could not recall ever drinking from the Kolata. Here, the river, much wider than the Kolata, was almost an hour’s walk away across the open plain. Even now, just before the rains, it was swift flowing and dangerous with wide muddy banks. There was the ever-present threat of crocodile attack. Crocodiles were one of the very few things that Nengwalamwe really feared. The luggas that fed the river in the months after the rains were dryer than Nengwalamwe’s throat. They were nothing more than parched dust gullies. The only water within his reach was the waterhole; the waterhole where he had so recently been degraded by that warthog’s backside of a baboon. Here, on the wide expanses of the Pridelands he was forced to swallow his pride and return to the scene of his humiliation.

Nengwalamwe’s head cleared a little and he struggled to his paws. He stood and closed his eyes to block the brightness of the sun but the all-pervading pain in his head remained. He turned slowly, dragging his forepaws through the grass. The waterhole lay to the southwest of the rock, at least a half-hour’s mind-pounding slog away through the kopjes and thickets. He had little choice but to set off in the open to the nearest kopje, desperately hoping to find some shade among the rounded rocks and scraggling trees. He repeatedly had to stop and rest. His eyesight clouded over and he felt as though his head would burst. More than once he thought he would stop altogether and lie down never to rise. If it were not for the intermittent shade from the clouds then he might well have lain unseen and unnoticed on the ground as just one of the savannah fallen.

In amongst the kopje there was little shade. He moved on. In the thicket beyond he managed to stumble onwards, each pawfall growing more painful, each step draining him until he felt as though he would give himself up to any passing hyena simply because it would stop the excruciating pain in his head. Then, just as he was about to forget what he was living for, he came to the far edge of the thicket. There, just twenty lengths away, lay the remains of the waterhole, now little more than a muddy pool barely five metres across. He struggled to the mud’s edge. There he found, like the day before, his paws began to sink. He was close, so close to the water when he collapsed and dropped down on the steaming mud. He had just not been strong enough to reach the pool and the mud had drained the last of his strength. He closed his eyes and felt the heat of the sun burn into his mane. He closed his eyes for what he felt sure was the last time and moments later lost all sensation, save that of the hot mud on his belly.

***

He woke. It was cool; the morning. He heard a strange confusion of sound: purring, treetops in high winds, chattering monkeys, everything all at once. It came from behind. He whipped round; towards him a green box slid along the ridge. It smelled of death and fire. He ran from it.

The he saw her. She was watching something in the distance intently. Her face was dull and strained. Her coat dusty, unwashed for many days, her ears up but not high. Her tail hung down, still and limp. An almost lioness.

He stopped close by. The box screeched then stopped high on the ridge. Dust swirled. A man appeared in it, standing up. He took reached down and took up something black and covered is eyes with it. He too looked.

“What’s going on?” he said, but his voice carried no further than his nose. “What’s going on?!” He said no more now. Pointless. He too looked. Looked down the slope towards his rock, but it wasn’t his rock. It was hers. A distant rumble rolled up. No, it was his. But that was neither a call nor a challenge. It