through low scrub.

As he closed he slipped into a bouncing lope. For the moment the questions stopped nagging. The voices became clearer. Suddenly a trio of gazelle burst out of the scrub to his left and crossed his path, on seeing the lion they pronked away in panic. Something must have spooked them; it certainly could not have been Falana, nor less the still weak Shaha. Could there be another lion? On Nengwalamwe’s land?

The scrub thinned, ahead stood a few spindly acacia, then, assumed Nengwalamwe, everything would clear. The scrub and the mystery, though maybe not the clouded sky still tinted with the very last light of sunset.

He slowed and stopped by one of the trees. Ahead, over a shallow re-entrant was a scene that swallowed him whole. Sheltering under the trees lining the far side were, two, no three adult elephant. They looked down into the valley to where, on the slope, stood seven or eight dogs in a loose, ragged pack. Some Nengwalamwe recognised. At the centre one stood out clearly: a bitch with rich chocolate and white ears and very light patches on her hind legs. On the far flank was something the lion found especially odd: a leopard.

Maybe it was his scent. Maybe it was something dry-cracking as he leant forwards better to catch their talk on the still air. Maybe one of the elephants saw him. It was the leopard, ah, a leopardess; her head held high, her tail slipping down behind her, holding its tip off the ground; that turned and saw him. Now he heard them clearly: a yelping as the dogs turned; a twisted growl and belly-shuddering rumbles. A great elephant twisted his head in violent agitation.

Nengwalamwe sized them up. He thought he could take three, maybe four of the dogs. After that he would be on even terms with the leopardess. He might be just be able to escape if he took them on, though they might just as easily take him down; but with the elephants backing them up he stood no chance, and if he did get away any remaining dogs would hunt him down. No matter where he ran, no matter what he did or where he hid they would get him. Maybe not this day, nor the next, but eventually, one sleepy noon day they would catch him. Nengwalamwe knew the only way out was now, and he was determined not to stay around long enough to make sure. He spun round and ran back into the scrub pursued, once again, by dogs.

 

 

 

***

 

Moonlight bright nights betray the huntress, to the hunted. Clouded nights confuse both, by which the outcome is uncertain. So, to hunt by the stars, is to be the huntress….

“Can we get out of here?”

“Very well Falana, but I said you wanted to go along the ridge.”

“No, not here Mother.” The lioness stopped, waving her tail. She lifted her head and swung it round in flat arc. “Here! All this. Why don’t we try south again?”

“Come on Falana, you know the drought forced all the herds here. There’s nothing for us there now. There’s everything we need here.”

“How about over the river?”

“No, I’m too weak for that journey yet and by the time I am, the river will be swollen by the rains. We’ll have to wait until the floods are over. We couldn’t cross it for at least another moon, if then.” She looked worriedly at her daughter who was padding incessantly from paw to paw. “Anyway, what’s brought on all this itchy pad stuff all of a sudden?”

“I just want to get away from here.”

“Don’t you mean away from him?”

“That lion’s got nothing to do with this!” She paused; breathing deeply while her anger subsided. “How’d he get here anyway? If he got in, then we can get out.”

“You saw how weak he was when he got here. What chance would I have? He was a young, healthy, strong and...”

“Stupid lion. Look mother, I can’t stand it here any longer; I’ve got to get away. Any way, it doesn’t matter where.”

“Come on, you know we can’t leave yet. You’ll just have to learn to live with Nengwalamwe.”

Falana’s ears dropped. “Mother, come on! Have you seen the way he looks at me? You haven’t hunted with him like I have. He frightens me.”

“Why? Because he can hunt almost as well as you can? Does it frighten you that a lion can do a lioness’s job? There’s things he can’t do you know, and there are things that he can do that only a lion can.”

“That frightens me. You know he’s after me. Anyhow he can’t hunt to save his life, which we had to do for him if you recall.”

“Is that such a bad thing? If I were your age I’d be flattered by the attention of a young, bold and rather… well, I’m not your age am I?”

“It’s a bad thing. I’m old enough to be his mother twice over.”

“Well you’re not his mother.” Shaha’s voice grew urgent. “You can still bear cubs Falana - I can’t. When we die, the Pridelands dies with us.” The clouds rolled by as the two lionesses stood silently. “You do realise that, don’t you?”

“Mother, not that stuff again. I’m too old to bring up cubs; I’m too old for anything.”

“And what does that make me?” Shaha looked sternly into her daughter’s eyes, risking her wrath a second time. “You, Falana, are the last of the line. In you lies the future of this land. You can’t leave here. Nengwalamwe’s the one, the real one. You of all lionesses must see that. You and he can restore this land as my father once did, you and he may not succeed… but you have to try.”

“Mother, why do you always lay this stuff on me? Why can’t I just be…?”

 “You have to do it for the sake of the future, and for the past.” Falana stood silently as a slim glow of starlight slid over her back. “Can’t you see? The herds drew us here for a reason. Nengwalamwe came here for a reason. You are that reason and you have to stay here otherwise everything that has happened, and everything that we are, will have been for nothing. Your father and my father and their father’s before them will have all died for nothing and it will all be forgotten. One by one, the stars over our heads will go out until these lands are in complete darkness under the dogs. We are all that’s left. We have come back, now, to do a job, and I’ll not leave until it’s done.”

Falana thought for a moment, contemplating precisely what she’d have to do to complete this ‘job’.

“I thought we came here for the herds? So, what do you want ME to DO? Throw myself at him? ‘Take me! Take ME Nengwe! MY mother says she won’t leave the Pridelands until you’ve had your evil way with me so take me NOW!’”

“If that’s what it takes Falana, then that’s what it takes.”

“Mother, you have really lost it this time. There’s no way I’m going to give myself to Nengwe just because you go on and on about my father. My father was a waste of a mane. He never did a decent thing in his whole life.”

“He fathered you.”

“How? You never liked him, no one did. After he killed your father I don’t understand how you could have stood to crouch for him.”

Shaha stood resolutely, looking back over her life; considering what it had all meant. “Life’s never that simple Falana. I did what I had to do.” She paused, adding, “For the good of the pride. You’ve only ever had one lion, and he was a fly-by-night rogue who only didn’t even hang around long enough to get you in cub.”

“Now, mother, he had important things to do with that other pride.”

“What other pride?”

“Zimmale’s. He was going to lose it to Zimmale if he hadn’t gone away to protect it.”

“You don’t actually believe that do you? Falana, he was a rogue through and through; not an honest hair on his back. Oh, he was smooth-tongued all right. He even tried it on me once, but I told him his nose was mistaken. Nengwalamwe’s no bully. He’s rough around the edges, but he’s not like that other one you had. Nothing like.”

Falana sat back, blinking and twitching her ears sadly.

“He didn’t… I couldn’t….”

Shaha shouldered her gently, trying to coax her daughter into confiding in her.

“There never were going to be any cubs Mother….”

Shaha stood silently. There was no need for words. As Falana slid sorrowfully to the ground Shaha moved forward and reached down and gently licked the fur between her daughter’s ears. She moved to Falana’s side and lay beside her.

 

***

 

“Are you hungry Falana?”

Falana rolled her eyes towards her mother and flicked her ears up to catch her mother’s words. Then she slowly and deliberately lifted and turned her head to face her. She waited for her mother’s smile to drop. It didn’t, and in a few moments, Falana allowed herself to smile too.

“Now Mother that’s the best thing you’ve said today. What’s the special tonight?”

“Whatever you fancy, anything at all. I’m so hungry I could eat a whole zebra.”

“Aaahh - we’re fresh out of zebra.”

“Any

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