Chapter 2

The night seemed to wear on for an eternity as Tojo slipped through the tall grass. His eyes stared with fixed determination at the distant rock looming above the Pride Lands and his paws thumped the earth with a dull rhythm, carrying his mind into the days of his childhood. . . .

"There are bad lions in the world, son," Ni told Tojo with a tender expression.

It was months after they'd left the Pride Lands. Their small, pitiful group wandered aimlessly. Two old lionesses had died, leaving three more: one with a newborn cub, Tojo's mother Shani, and one other, Namba. But the cub was killed in the night by a famished Namba, and its mother died of grief, leaving Tojo and his parents to chase Namba away.

A miserable and confused Tojo had asked his father why Namba had eaten the cub, to which Ni had thus replied.

"Are we bad lions for chasing her off?" Tojo had asked.

"No, we are not," said Shani gently.

"Then why couldn't we stay with Nala? I liked her . . ."

Tojo wandered away a little and flopped down.

Ni and Shani looked at each other.

"I'll talk to him," said Ni.

Shani agreed with a silent nod but could not depart without a worried glance in her son's direction.

Tojo looked up at his father. It was difficult to look at Ni these days without wincing miserably. The old lion was steadily getting older and the constant fighting he'd endured to protect his family was not helping. He moved very slowly now and was riddled with scars. His eyes, while once bright and cheerful, were now haggard and weary with care.

Ni was very near death, Tojo knew, and one fell bite to the throat from the sickliest hyena could take his father down in a heartbeat.

Yet while the old lion's condition was obvious, Tojo's parents persisted in pretending everything was fine. But Tojo saw the worried look in his mother's eye: if Ni died, not only would she suffer grief and despair on his part, but she and Tojo would become targets for other nighttime predators. A single lioness and a cub were easy targets for a pack of famished hyenas. . . .

Ni sat beside Tojo without a word and the two gazed miserably at the stars.

"Tojo," said Ni heavily after a long moment, "when I saw you with Nala, playing so happily, so carefree and safe within the Pride Lands, several ideas ran through my head. Mufasa's kingdom is a happy, safe place and I thought, if I could take over the Pride Lands, you could take Nala as your future queen and would grow up in a place where you were safe and happy. But then I remembered Mufasa's brother, Scar, and that I would have to fight not only one but two lions to take the Pride Lands. And then, most importantly, I remembered the kindness Mufasa and Nala had shown us – Nala risked her own life to save a cub she didn't even know and Mufasa risked the safety of his Pride in allowing strange rogues to stay in his kingdom overnight.

"And that, son, is why we could not stay with Nala. That is why I did not take the Pride Lands. That is why we wander in desolation, wretched and starving . . ."

"It can't be like this!" Tojo declared. "It's not fair!"

"Who said life was fair?" replied Ni gently. "Where is that written in the stars?"

Tojo merely glowered and looked away, his ears flat on his head. "One day I'll return to the Pride Lands, Dad, you'll see. One day I'll go back and everything that should have been mine will become mine --"

"Tojo --!" began Ni in alarm, but an agonized roar cut him off. "Shani!"

"Mom!"

Tojo darted away before Ni could stop him.

"Mom! Mom!"

The little cub scrambled across the barren brown earth and up a low hill where he stumbled to a stop with a gasp of horror. Lying below in a pool of moonlight was Shani, dead. Her body lie very still, her mouth partly open in a last gasp of pain, and her eyes closed. Standing over her and watching Tojo with a dark smile was a slender lioness with bright piercing eyes and a dark stripe running down her back from her forehead.

Tojo gave an infantile growl of rage and staggered down the hill toward the strange lioness. The lioness merely began to laugh, and when he lunged at her face, brought up her paw and swiped him aside. Tojo remembered soaring through the air, flailing and screaming, before his head hit a rock jutting from the nearby hill. Blood spilled across his eyes and the world was a blur as he dropped instantly into a dark hole, where he slumped unconscious.

When Tojo later awoke he was quite alone. There was no sign of his father but he noticed as he peered carefully from his hole that a grave have been built for his mother. A pile of rocks stood solemn and silent in the pool of moonlight where his mother had been lying and he knew with a wave of cold sickness that his mother was lying beneath it. He realized his father must have buried Shani and moved on, probably searching for him.

"Dad?" Tojo called suddenly, bounding from his hole. He ran some feet away into the moonlight but was careful to avoid the grave. The thought of his mother lying dead beneath the pile of rocks brought tears to his eyes and he couldn't bear the horrible stench of death when he drew too near it. He darted some feet in the opposite direction instead and called again desperately, "Dad?"

"Dad! Dad!" someone mimicked.

Tojo turned with a gasp to behold three hyenas moving smoothly from behind his mother's grave. They laughed in their high-pitched, cackling voices as they drew nearer, their heads bobbing on their long necks, their mouths open in evil crooked grins.

A male hyena with crossed eyes licked his chops and cackled unevenly.

"No way, Ed," complained the other male, "I saw it first!"

The third hyena, a female, rolled her eyes, "Will you two shut up? Everyone knows the brains of the outfit gets the first meat --"

"Then I'll be taking the cub," said the male who'd spoken.

Ed cackled again with the same brainless smile.

"No way, Ed!" growled the male hyena, taking a threatening step toward Ed. "It's mine!"

Tojo, who had backed against the hill trembling, was struck by a sudden idea.

"Ed is right," said Tojo suddenly. "He sniffed me out first!"

Ed cackled happily in agreement.

"What!" shouted the female. "Ed, you sniffed nothing!"

"Yeah, that's right – I sniffed him out!"

The female walked into the other male until their faces were pressed together. She kept moving forward, trodding on his paws as he staggered back, "Look here, Bonszai, that cub is mine!"

"It's mine as I smelled it first, Shenzi!" came back Bonszai, walking into the female until he was trodding on her paws in turn.

Ed cackled something again and they turned upon him, and as the three hyenas stood thus arguing, Tojo crept away over the hill, then ran for his life.

Tojo ran and ran, tears streaming on the wind behind him as he thought of his dead mother and his missing father. Had the hyenas killed his father or had the strange lioness killed him as well? But she couldn't have killed him! It seemed Ni had had enough time to bury Shani and perhaps to stand over her for a while in mourning . . . Where then could his father be?

Tojo came to the tall, dead grass which ran along the dried up river and scrambled up a tree. This barren tree was to become his home until he was too old and too large to hide in its branches.