isolated islands of violent struggle and conflict on the otherwise calm sea of the plains.

A lone lioness padded resolutely, hungry but not intent on hunting. She walked at an even and unhurried pace; each step clearly separated from the last. As she lifted each paw she allowed her pads to roll off the ground beneath. Each hung limply at the end of her leg for a moment before she swung them forward and down to make the next contact with the earth, placing them precisely in the pawfall of the one in front. At every fourth paw fall she hesitated momentarily, though if she felt any discomfort her expression did not show it. Her experienced and hardened gaze was fixed on the way ahead. It revealed nothing of the emotions and feelings of the lioness within.

Her coat, once a rich glossy cub-spot mottled sunset brown above underfur of purest light sand, hung loosely, dulled by world-worn age. Countless small groups of healed parallel scratches marked her shoulders and sides. She had long since forgotten the source of most of them. Her ears, greying but still dark chocolate at their tips and behind, stood easy. Between her lips, partially held open to allow her to more easily take each breath in the growing heat, her teeth showed browned and thin and seemingly brittle. The dulled once piercing points had glowed white, but now they reflected little of the undiminished spirit that still burned within her. Her time-hardened, crack-crazed pads held her firm, feeling little now, felt all before. The animals she passed knew her, or knew of her, and saw that she was not in the mood for hunting. Her hearing remained sharp; the distant sounds of mother zebra telling their foals not to underestimate this oldest of lionesses still caught in her dark ears.

A few of the individuals she passed turned in alarm as she closed, but none raised their voice to sound a warning. She continued onwards without hesitation. The only sounds were a hesitant stutter of hooves and low muffled grunts. She knew where she was heading and why, her age may well have dulled her coat but not her mind. She had had an eventful life even though her steady progress suggested she might have always lived her life at such a subdued pace.

Her name was Shaha, though it had not always been so. She had taken the name years before as she followed in the family tradition as a teller of sunset tales to cubs. It had been a long time since she last had had any cubs to entertain. The last was her own daughter, Falana, but she was years out of cubhood. It was to join Falana that Shaha was walking; in response to her call that signalled the successful end of her lone hunt.

The two lionesses knew the abundant land well. They had both been born there. They had only recently returned after a year in the sparse grazing of the high plateau far to the east. Their prey, the vast herds of zebra, wildebeest and other antelopes that roamed these plentiful, fertile plains, had moved on, forcing Shaha and her daughter to follow in search of food. The herds led them back into the long cold shadow of a barren towering rock that loomed over their long, pain filled memories. Hunger is a powerful force, powerful enough to drive those uncomfortable memories from Shaha for a time at least. All that interested her was a share of her daughter’s kill, a kill that still lay some way off. Her thoughts of food suppressed more than just her painful memories. She passed the trunk of a dead tree left to crumble on the savannah floor after a drought many years before. Dulled by her preoccupations rather than her age, her nose failed to detect the faint but distinctive five day old scent of a young male lion.

 

***

 

Falana called out impatiently over the plain, “This is getting beyond a joke. Mother, where are you?” There was no immediate need for any concern. So far there was no sign that her fresh kill, the gemsbok lying by her hind paws, had yet attracted any of the numerous scavengers that roamed the plains for carrion. The tip of her tail touched the carcass’ unnaturally twisted neck. The antelope’s last view had been that of the clear morning sky.

A warm drip of blood trickled down the back of the lioness’ nearhind leg. She turned her head to look back along her right flank. She saw that blood had begun to well up from the gashes left by her teeth in the gemsbok’s neck. It was dripping steadily onto her leg. She dropped and shook her head slowly, closing her eyes as she turned back. She chuffed to herself quietly. She stood square and firm, not stepping forwards nor moving her legs away from the blood that began to congeal in her fur. After a few seconds she raised her head and opened her mouth to roar to her absent mother once more: “Come on! Get a move on! I’ve waited enough already!”

 

***

 

“That’s from over...” but Nengwalamwe could not match the apparent direction to any ground feature visible against the intense low shafts of early morning sunlight. “Ahh, what does it matter? It’s only a lioness.” He smiled for a few seconds and then looked at his fore legs and paws. Suddenly he reached down to lick a black spot from the fur of his paw. ‘Ah well,’ he thought, ‘as its wet I might as well just check my mane.’ He reached down and licked the back of his leg again, slightly above the paw joint, and turning it over, reached up to the top of his head. He pushed his head forwards while holding his overturned paw steady, running it through the length of his mane. He repeated this four times, leaving a ribbon of depressed clinging hair that he felt sure would soon dry in the sun.

He jumped up and stepped forwards before seeing the back-breakingly sheer to the cracked and shard-strewn base of the rocks below. He blinked and gingerly stepped back a few paces before turning with a jump, launching himself back down the slope to the tantalising rock pile. He gave it a short piercing look and thought as he turned at its foot, ‘You’ve not beaten Nengwalamwe yet. You’ll see.’ Then he surged away, bounding over the overgrown boulders that lead from the slab of the promontory.

A couple of seconds later he reached clear ground and picking up speed, ran off over the short, browned dry grass towards the source of the roar. It shouted ‘food’ and, though not quite so insistently, or so Nengwalamwe thought, ‘company’.

 

***

 

When she heard her daughter’s impatient call Shaha let her legs and paws walk on for a moment, not wanting to break her rhythm. ‘Falana - I’m coming, don’t lose your tail.’ She looked to where the call had come: a low rise just ahead topped by scattered, grey, weathered stones no bigger than a lioness’ paws. It seemed likely that Falana was waiting just out of view beyond the summit. She stopped and looked back, behind and to both sides to check that nothing was following. She was concerned about attracting scavengers and other opportunist feeders.

All around, the savannah lay still as the air filled with threads of steamy mist in the first heat of morning. Her ears pricked and she wondered if she heard, against the incessant haze of morning sounds, the crunch and crackle of heavy padded pawfall some distance behind her. She strained her head against her flank but heard nothing more unusual than the beat of now distant hooves of gemsbok on the hard ground of the plain. ‘So that’s what she’s brought down,’ she thought as she turned back and set off up the rise. ‘Falana, you’re good. You’re very good, but don’t ever think you know it all girl. Life’s too short to go throwing it away.’

As she crested the summit she caught sight of her daughter. The back of her head and her pronounced black spinal line showed plainly in the backlight. Equally plain was the dramatic broken line that showed red down from her shoulder to below her rib cage. Shaha stopped the instant she saw the wound: her kill had not died quietly.

 

***

 

Detecting a familiar scent on the breath of wind from the rise Falana turned to her mother, trying to show that there was no cause for any alarm.

“And where were you, Mother? I thought you said you were going to stay close? How long did you take to get here, huh?”

“I came as soon as I heard your call. What more do you want? You’re too old for me to hold your paw.” Shaha’s tone softened, “Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” replied Falana pointedly.

“That wound looks painful. You had better clean it up, it’ll soon go bad.”

“OK, OK, I’ll see to it later, all right? Now then, can we eat now?” She turned to the kill without waiting for a response. She crouched down to break through the kill’s hide with her teeth.

“What would you do if I were a lion? You wouldn’t turn your back on a lion like that.”

Falana paused and chuckled quietly. “I certainly wouldn’t crouch down with my back to you like this, that’s for sure! Come on; let’s eat while it’s hot.” She crouched lower, turning her head to match the contour of the kill’s haunch.

Shaha saw a ripple of discomfort flow through her daughter: her sides heaving as her breath shortened. She knew better than to expect Falana to do anything about the wound for herself, even though it would clearly trouble her for some days. Shaha hoped there would be time during their dozes through the full heat of the day for her to clean it for Falana.

Shaha thought that as the gemsbok had clearly put up

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