“I thought he was doing things for you?”

“Yeah.” She cleared her throat awkwardly. “Well, as I say, if you do run in to ‘im. Tell ‘im we want words. Friendly like.”

Utawala looked to the two dogs sitting tongue loose behind her. One was George, looking as if he’d fall over as always. The other, a grey, he didn’t recognise. He raised his eyebrows momentarily. “Yes Ma’am.”

“Now I want you to arrange a presentation.”

“A presentation Ma’am?”

“Yeah, a presentation. Has everyone round ‘ere got cloth ears or what?”

“It’s been a long time. It won’t be easy.”

“You’d better get on with it then. How long will it take?”

“Well, there the grazers: it takes ages just finding their herd leaders. Then all the predators have got to agree not to eat them, and then….”

Elizabeth swished her tail. “How long Utawala?”

“Maybe ten… no eleven days at least.”

“Ya got eight.”

“Yes ma’am. Very well, though… there may be a few missing.”

“I don’ care. Just get ‘em there. Dawn in eight days time.”

“There? Where?”

“The bleedin’ rock. Where else?”

“You mean Nengwalamwe’s great rock?”

The glare Utawala caught cut him to his bones.

“’E don’t exist. I never wanna hear ‘is name again. ‘Ave you got that?”

“Yes Ma’am… A-as you wish.”

Elizabeth stared at Utawala. The baboon, greying over most of his coat, tipped his head and looked steadily back. The bitch curled her lip and breathed out a light growl then turned and walked off. Utawala watched them go until they were just a haze on the horizon. Then, with a look to the heavy clouds above and a sigh, he set off to find what was left of his family.

 

***

 

“Nengwe! Nengwe! Will ya just stop and listen for one damn minute?”

It was late afternoon. The air lay heavy, the ground still steaming after a brief downpour. Nengwalamwe’s flanks had dried, but the damp cooled his spine as he carried his own cloud about him. Already the ground at his paws was lightening: drying, warming and shimmering.

“I’m tired. I’m wet. She’s not there again. I’m going back. Are you coming or are you going to sit there all day?”

“I’m coming. I’m coming damn it.” Mtundu scurried after the lion, ignoring the splashes from the thinning red-muddied puddles. The downpour had flooded the eastern plain below the ridge so the pair so they were north of the great rock, approaching the eastern end of the lugga, but it was so different. Everything was different: greener, old familiar tracks covered over, landmarks confused, trees re-leafed and flowers everywhere: red, white and yellow clusters and blankets over once dry barren ground. Then there was the lugga, or what used to be the lugga: flat, sandy and dust-dry, now mud and ooze and from the north, still black with rain, a rushing rumble; a wall of water thundering down the valley taking all in its embrace.

Nengwalamwe felt safe on the slopes above. They had lost the trail and were slowed as they picked their way over the greened valley side. Mtundu, breathlessly caught up with the lion.

“Hey Fuzzbutt! We’re going the wrong way.”

The lion stopped abruptly and turned back. “What?”

“I told ya, we’re goin’ the wrong way.”

“You didn’t have to come.”

“Sure I did.”

The lion sat, nodding his head with a half-smile.

“OK, so what is it now? What have I missed?” Before the baboon could answer the lion’s expression fell. “What the heck is that?”

Mtundu followed Nengwe’s gaze, out over the valley to the still dry far side of the lugga. Something light coloured moved then darted back up the bank.

“Some warthog, a lost gazelle, how the heck do I know?”

“Or a dog?”

“Jeez, a dog… yeah, it could’a been a dog.”

“Which? Come on Mtundu, which one was it? Which one?”

“Dunno, cain’t say for sure. Looked a bit like it could’a been Jane… sure wasn’t George or Charles, could’a been Liz I guess. Heck I don’t know Nengwe. I only caught a flash o’ them. It could have been a warthog. Look when ya’ll waiting to be taken down by wild dogs everyone looks like a dog.”

“Has everyone ever looked like a lion to you?”

“More like a lioness but yeah, it happens.”

‘Was it a dog? Was it? What about the others? Were they there, over the lugga? In the trees? Up the slope? Behind the rock? In the grass?’

 “The weak have only themselves to blame,” father said.

 ‘Take this one; yes. Then the next, and the next, and they’d keep coming. One by one, torn apart. Dead, dying. Running away.’

“Only the weak fight back. The strong fight on.”

 ‘Alone; only I can do it. It’s my task, my place, mine, all and only mine. Killing; for what? Only to do it all again the next day, and the next. So much death. Help - can’t do it alone: too many.’

“No one who asks for help deserves it.”

Nengwalamwe shivered in the chill of the mountain void. His father was coming to get him; to kill him. Roaring and running after. Cold, bitter, empty. Black, empty, dead, dying.

“Don’t think: do. When you do, don’t stop. Never look back.”

‘Look back. Nothing to see: nothing there. Nothing ahead. Nothing. Void and so cold and close. Everything around so close. Closer and colder. Soon it will take everything. Falling. Shiver-cold.’

“Nengwe!”

‘Nothing to do but lie still and die.’

Mtundu stood over Nengwalamwe’s shaking body. The lion’s legs out-stretched, trembling and twitching. His tail tightly curled and trashing the ground. Claws out, ripping the earth. His head adrift in a gale at mane-sea lurching with open unseeing, frightened eyes.

“Nengwe, what the heck’s happening? Talk to me!”

“Mt… Mt… hel…”

‘No father, I’m not weak. I’m not going to die here. I deserve to live.’

“Help! Me.”

“Hey, Uncle Nengwe, you don’t look so good.”

Nengwalamwe was on the eastern ridge. It was dark, getting on toward dawn, already the first blue-red hints of light horizon. His mane rippled in a fresh breeze. He smiled to Yali.

“Oh yeah? You think so huh?”

Ahead, every animal he’d ever seen, and many he’d eaten, great and small, predator and prey, all the birds of the air and even a crocodile streamed toward the great rock. Some were already there, gathering peacefully.

“What are they doing?”

“It’s a presentation?”

“A what?”

“A presentation. Everyone gathers to welcome a new king. Look, there’s the zebra. Don’t they look funny? And there’s the elephants. My dad says they always want to be in front. I guess they don’t see too well.”

Nengwe sat back. Yali lay at his side pressing to him for warmth in the unexpected dawn chill. They watched together as the elephants strode through the throng to take up pride of place below the promontory. As they took their place an unnatural hush came over the savannah. For a few heartbeats all was still. The eastern plains lay as silent as the growing arc of the sun. Above, on the rock, the cave lay open and from it to the very tip of the promontory walked Elizabeth. She stood, flanked by a baboon and a leopardess, her mottled coat damp stained with splattered blood. Up went a cry, taken up by all, flooding over the plain: “The King is dead, long live the Queen! The Queen shall reign forever and ever!”

“Yali, which king is dead?”

“I… I don’t know. I don’t like this anymore. Nengwe, please, can we go now?”

“Yes, I don’t like it either.”

He rose. Yali turned, he turned with her. There in front, black against the sun, ears glowing blood red against the light were the dogs, more than ever before. All of them: Eddie and Mary, George and Elizabeth, Charles and Jane and the others. Not one dead. They fanned out, blocking their way. He turned again. There were more. Yali shrunk tightly to him.

“Please Nengwe, make them go away. I don’t like them.” He looked down to her; she looked up, wide-eyed, afraid: alone. “Please, make them go away.”

The dogs closed in, covering them both in darkness. Nengwalamwe fell still.

“Nengwe!” Mtundu gripped the lion’s mane and shook it. The lion’s head flopped loosely to the ground, his mouth open, his paws lying still. Mtundu felt the lion’s side, then under his chest. He was warm, he was breathing.

The sheet-black sky eased its grip on the northern hills. In moments the lugga heaved and seethed, filling with mud, then spray then fast flowing flood and bushes and trees. The water rose almost to where the lion lay, but left him dry and cool. The baboon, not knowing what else he could do, kept him close and warm, the lion’s breathing steady and deep but slow and unchanging.

The moon was well up, and the raging waters gone by the time the lion stirred. Confused and not understanding where the day had gone, he

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