Read Fanfic : The Huntress at Sunset (Page 44)

gotta eat. These trees ain’t got no fruit, I cain’t eat here. I gotta live too.”

“I guess so, but if I find you’re hiding something or you’ve betrayed me then you’ll go the same way as him - but I’ll not leave your bones, there won’t be a trace of you left to show you’d ever lived! You hear me?”

“Yeah, yeah, I hear ya. I hear ya.” Mtundu moved close to Nengwalamwe’s forequarters and sat down, leaning close to the lion’s head. “I won’t betray you, I… I promise.”

“You had better not.” Nengwalamwe leant his head over, stretching out his tongue to lick the baboon’s arm. “I like baboons a lot you know, though if they called me Nengwalamwe I’d like them a whole lot more. So did you see any?”

The baboon didn’t answer, and even seemed oblivious to the lick. The cry of a bird echoed off the tree trunks.

“Well Mtundu? Did you?”

“What?”

“Dogs! Back there - wherever it is you’ve been. Did you see any dogs?”

“NO! I ain’t seen any… since I last crossed the river.”

“You sure? This one was alone, but he tried to make me think he wasn’t. Mtundu, we have to be sure. Where we’re going, I don’t want the dogs to find us.”

“There ain’t no way they’ll find out. They sure won’t, I’ll stake my life on it.”

“Yes… you’re right there. But they will won’t they? He found us here. They’ll never stop. Never. That’s what he said. What is it with those dogs anyway? What have they got against me?”

“Nengwalamwe,” said Mtundu looking toward the trail that had brought them down from the plateau. “It’s not you, it’s all lions.”

Nengwalamwe lifted his head to Mtundu’s. “All dogs hate lions. Lions hate dogs.” The baboon said nothing. “But this is more than that isn’t it?”

Mtundu gazed on.

“Isn’t it?”

Without taking his eyes from the trail Mtundu replied distantly, “Yeah, there’s more. They’re afraid.”

“Of what?”

“Of a lion who…” Mtundu paused.

Nengwalamwe felt a shiver shimmer through the baboon.

“...Who might… ya know.”

”What?”

“Damn it Nengwe. Do I have to spell it out? Mate, have little Nengwes - make a pride!”

“What’s wrong with that? Lions do it everywhere?”

“Not here. There’s not been a lion round here for that many rains. Ain’t you noticed that there ain’t no cubs?”

“Eh? What do you mean there aren’t any cubs?” Nengwalamwe raised his eyebrows as best he could. “Anyway, Mtundu, they could have got me ages ago. If they really wanted to do away with me they could have tried it anytime I was asleep on the rock.”

“No, no they couldn’t,” said Mtundu as he turned to Nengwe smiling. “They cain’t go there, that’s where the lions use’ta be, see? They cain’t ever go there.”

“Not ever?”

“No, never. While you were up there you were… kinda the ruler I guess. When you didn’t stand and fight, they reckoned they’d sussed ya. They knew you’d run then, and they were right, weren’t they?”

Nengwalamwe lifted his forequarters from the ground, paused a moment, then, looking sideways at Mtundu, drew his hindquarters up to stand full square. He closed his eyes, twitched his tail and turned his ears forwards and walked away. Mtundu raised a hand to his chin, tipping his head over onto it, fingers tapping on his cheek. His features tightened over his eyes, partially closing. The lion walked on; with a sigh and a shake of his head Mtundu got up and followed him, raising his arms as he ran, shouting, “Hey Fuzzbutt! Where’dya think you’re goin’ wi’out me?”

The trail, never far from the rushing urgency of the river, dropped down through the forest. The path was clear, though that which had made it was not. It was purposeful, direct, rarely straying far from the river’s edge. Here and there, where the path was very close to the river, smaller paths cut through the undergrowth to the banks. Yet the water was deep, swift flowing and uncrossable, the paths seemed to lead nowhere. The forest was dense and for the most part impenetrable, not that Nengwalamwe had any inclination whatever to enter its depths. It was a strange and therefore dangerous place of sounds, sights and smells alien to the lion. He had been there before and had no desire to taste its delights again.

16. The Return

The languorous, bloated flood of the river had gone, replaced by a jostling, rushing, roaring, cascading mass of muddied browns and whites. As the lion and baboon took each step forward, the river overtook them, flowing urgently onward. Nengwalamwe looked down the trail, and realised that he was no different from the river. What was left of his mane sagged down about him, full of mud, leaves and probably even a few twigs. Like the river, even his whitest fur was stained brown. He could only go one way, onward. He felt for the river, as he too knew not where he was going; he was following a trail laid out for him and following it wherever it led. So the great lion and the great river, both full of confusion and forces beyond their control, flowed onward and ever downward. The earth itself drew the river. Nengwalamwe had no idea what was drawing him on.

He had had ideas about leaving Falana and the rock far behind, yet the rock barrier called to him through the mist and spray; called to him to conquer them, to force his will on them, to cast them aside. And they invited him, spoke soft words to him, needed him and wanted him. Even if they had not, then there was nowhere else to go but down the riverside trail. Occasionally he caught glimpses of the far bank. Though it was not open savannah, it was not dense forest, the grass really was greener over the river, not that any lion ever cared much about grass.

As the river dropped ever lower it sped up, gaining strength and power from the fall. The surface broke, sending the water up in snow-white shoots and sheets, only to fall in a million droplets a few lengths further downstream. The flow seemed purposeful, organised, but in haphazard way. It was no longer smooth and even, it was increasingly broken into channels that flowed around and into each other, though why it should be so was more than Nengwalamwe could comprehend. Even Mtundu was at a loss to explain it. With the change in the flow came another - the sound of the river. A gentle flowing stream burbles pleasantly, seemingly enjoying its course, yet the river now crashed and roared continuously in an anger more fierce than any lion. Nengwalamwe reacted powerfully to the sounds of the river; he kept low and silent, fearful of the river reaching out to strike him. Like his father’s rage, he could not escape the river’s anger and hoped it would not notice him cowering at its paws. Yet the river’s rage was growing as it was confined to an ever narrower and rougher channel. Soon, thought Nengwalamwe, its anger would break free to smash all around it. The rage of thought would turn to the rage of action, and nothing, certainly no lion, would be able to stand in its way.

The slope steepened, gently at first, so that Nengwalamwe and Mtundu barely noticed the change, then suddenly it seemed to drop away before them. The path ran close to the river; the air was thick with mist. The rain had long since stopped, yet the ground beneath Nengwalamwe’s pads was damp and slippery. He extended his claws a little when his pads alone could no longer hold. Mtundu slid to his side, grabbing hold of the woody stems of a shrubby bush to stop himself.

“Nengwe! Where’a we goin’? This aint goin’ nowhere but down fast!”

The lion tried to stop. His foreclaws gripped, his hind caught for a moment, then his momentum carried his hindquarters on, dragging through the soft clay slip. His hind legs buckled underneath him. The lion twisted round involuntarily. His back tightened and he struck out at the ground with his hindlegs, claws fully extended, only to feel the clay slide, clammy and gritty, beneath him. Then, filled with pain at being twisted around each other, his forepaws lost grip, and Nengwalamwe, the mighty would-be king, slid uncontrollably down the slope on his belly and near side.

Mtundu clung onto a bush, watching his friend slide from him. The expression on the receding lion’s face was of terror and surprise.

“Nengwe!” Mtundu lurched back as mud spray, sent up by the lion’s fall, splattered over him. Then, his grip loosened by his instinctive reaction, he too succumbed. “Ooh SHI..I…T!!”

***

Pain, stabbing pain in uncountable places. Back, upper hind legs, ribs, shoulder. Lie still. Lie and never get up. Lie….

“Nengwe?”

Lie still.

“Nengwe? Are you OK?”

Lie and move an ear.

“Nengwalamwe? Come on! Get up!”

Open an eye; wish I hadn’t.

“You’re OK. Wow! That was some ride huh? Do you wanna go again?”

Feel like eating baboon: if my sides didn’t hurt so much.

“No… I guess not… Say, y’all feeling all right ain’t ya? ”

Lift head. Open mouth, let teeth glint in one of the few beams of