Chapter 1: Zira's Loss

The Lioness paced to and fro, anxious to hear anything about her mate, Zubari. Her claws raked the stony floor of the crevice in which she was hiding. Her three cubs were with her along with a few lionesses who were her supporters.

A messenger lioness, dark-colored and swift, ran to the edge of the cave. The mother, safe on the inside, was ready to pounce if she needed to. She was anxious, and she knew that not even a neutral messenger could be trusted.

"Where is Zubari?" demanded the mother.

The messenger shrank back into the rain, frightened. "I'm sorry, Zira," she said, bowing her head. "Your mate has been killed. He attempted to take down Kopa and Simba, but he only succeeded with the first part."

Zira roared in emotional agony. Her eyes were smoldering like fire and she crazily rampaged around the cave, slicing everything with her paws. The other lionesses in the cave tried to calm her down, but she seemed insane.

"Mother?" asked one of the cubs worriedly. He got as close as he dared to the matron and received a brutal kick in response to his plea.

When Zira heard her son whimpering, she stopped rampaging and looked down on him. "Shut up!" she shouted ruthlessly. With some effort she controlled herself and said a bit more gently, "Nuka, go take care of the young ones and don't bother me again. All our plans are ruined. Why did Zubari have to act so soon? This wasn't our plan!"

"Is Dad okay?" asked the cub, clueless.

"You fool," Zira snarled. "Zubari is dead, and at Simba's hand!" She continued to roar and rampage for several more minutes before the messenger lioness suddenly gasped and bolted. Zira and her followers instantly went to the mouth of the cave with their teeth and claws ready.

They were not surprised to see Nala and her lionesses standing out in the rain.

"You devil!" Nala screamed at Zira. "Simba decrees that you and your followers are to be banished from the Pridelands forever!"

"Simba obviously didn't think it was important enough to come himself," Zira said mockingly. She knew the smart thing to do was to go now and escape with her life, but all she could think about was finishing what she had started. She had to kill Nala now, regardless of the odds.

Nala looked even more ferocious than Zira just then. "Simba is in no condition to fight," she explained, "so I came. He's at Pride Rock tearing what's left of your mate to shreds."

Zira pounced on her nemesis, imbedding her claws in the queen's skin and trying to drive her teeth into her enemy's neck. Nala sank to the ground and squirmed out of Zira's grasp. As she leapt free, the queen slashed her unsheathed paws across Zira's shoulder blades. Ignoring the pain and the blood, Zira got ready to pounce again, but she was suddenly surrounded by Nala's followers.

"You coward!" Zira shouted at Nala. "Don't you want to fight me yourself?"

The queen's blue eyes were grim. "I don't just want to fight you, Zira—I want to kill you. I want to see you torn up the way my cub was." Her gaze fell to the ground. "Fortunately for you, Zira, I am a loyal lioness. I won't go against Simba's word. Now get out of here!"

Zira laughed maniacally. "You're a pitiful coward," she said. "I will raise my cubs with or without the Pridelands. And then you'll be sorry you didn't kill me when you had the chance." Making sure her followers had her back, Zira turned and strode into the cave. She lifted the smallest cub in her mouth.

The oldest cub, Nuka, stared up at her with big, stupid-looking eyes. "What about me?"

"Carry your sister," ordered Zira.

Nuka whimpered again, but didn't dare cross his mother. He was in a state of shock about his father's sudden death. He hadn't even known about the plot to kill Simba's family. Shuddering, Nuka picked up his small sister Vitani. Nuka was short for his age and it was difficult for him to carry something so heavy, but he tried.

Under Nala's fierce eyes, Zira and her followers filed out of the cave and into the pouring rain. Zira was again tempted to drop her young son and attack Nala. However, common sense was reinstating itself in her head and she remembered the risk. If she struck now, her cub Kovu would be in grave danger. Kovu was the last cub who stood for something worthwhile—for Scar and Zubari.

Zira and the treacherous conspirators walked to the outlands. It seemed to Nuka that they walked for years. At last they found some kind of shelter—Nuka didn't recognize what it was—and they lay down to sleep. The cubs were too exhausted to move, and the lionesses were too angry and disappointed to do much of anything. Nobody noticed Zira awake and erect long into the night, mourning her husband and watching out for her only followers.

*********

How well Nuka remembered that morning! He felt so cold and empty and terrified. When he figured out that he was in the Outlands and had been sleeping in the shelter of an elephant's skeleton, he shuddered. Besides being gross and scary, this graveyard was the traditional home of the hyenas.

The next few days were terrible for everyone. In the graveyard there was nothing to eat, and everything was mysteriously silent. All the lionesses were on edge, expecting hyenas to attack at any moment. Nuka's stomach rumbled and he watched enviously as his younger siblings were nursed by Zira. Nuka was already weaned, but lately all he had been able to eat was a few locusts.

"Mother," Nuka said in his usual whiny voice.

"What is it now? I'm trying to take care of the cubs," Zira snarled.

"I'm a cub too."

Zira finished nursing Kovu and Vitani. She placed them between her front paws and roughly licked their fragile, dusty hides. "Nuka, you're not going to be a cub much longer," she said. Her voice was as dry as a canyon, with a low, rumbling growl always creeping into it. "Your father is dead, Nuka. You must be a big lion now, like he was. I'll need your help raising Kovu."

"But I don't want to be a big lion," Nuka pleaded, as if his mother could change his identity for him. "I want to stay a cub. Look, I'm so little. I might get stepped on!"

Something remotely close to a smile appeared on Zira's face. For a moment she was amused at her son's ability to communicate exactly what he felt, at his innocent transparency…but only for a moment. "We've been banished from the Pridelands," Zira reminded her oldest cub. "Life is going to be hard here, so you must toughen up…or you'll get left behind."

"Why did we get banished?" asked Nuka. "Did Daddy do something bad?"

Zira stopped bathing the cubs. Her face was hard as steel. "No, Nuka," she said grimly, "your father did the right thing. He tried to take up the kingship, which was his biggest dream. If he had succeeded, Scar would be avenged and you and Kovu would both be princes. But Simba would not allow it, and he killed my Zubari."

Nuka did not understand everything his mother said; but he knew that his father was dead, and it made him angry and upset. "Mother, it's not fair," he sobbed.

Zira stood up, towering over her son and looking down on him with flaming eyes. "Stop sniveling!" she roared. "Of course it's not fair. We can't wait around and depend on justice to work itself out, Nuka. We must act; we must fight for what we want or die! Now go make yourself useful!"

Nuka screeched loudly and darted for cover. This was going to be a long day.