AN: Rudelfelsen is a crude translation of "Pride Rock."

SECHSUNDZWANZIG

Allzeit bereit

Dämmrung will die Flügel spreiten,

Schaurig rühren sich die Bäume,

Wolken ziehn wie schwere Träume—

Was will dieses Grau'n bedeuten?

Dusk prepares to spread its wings,

The trees rustle ominously,

Clouds approach like heavenly dreams—

What does this horror mean?

~Joseph von Eichendorff

Six days later

The days following Hermann's trip to the Outlands had been a nonstop flurry of preparations, target practice, and countless dry runs using Nala, Kopa and Vitani as the allied Outlanders and substituting the word "bang!" for live gunfire. As he had promised, Hermann had continued building his fires at night and inviting everyone else to join him around it; once word got around, it wasn't long before most of the pride wanted in, which made for a rather tight squeeze when each and every one of them tried to find a spot to sit. Hermann went to bed and woke up with his diagrams and written plans, refining and recalculating down to the last detail until he was satisfied with the results. If he wasn't counting out rounds or scribbling all over whatever surface was nearest to him, including his own hands and arms, he was talking with Simba or Nala or translating something into German so that Markos could understand. On the upside, however, Hermann had a cane to use again. Not the same one he had brought along from Germany—he was in no hurry at all to retrieve it, as it was lying right where he had dropped it in the Outlands—but it was a good enough cane nonetheless, a weathered piece of deadwood he found by an old tree nearby. Still, as there was no place for him to rest his hand on top of the stick, he had a bit of difficulty learning how to walk with it, and he resultantly found his gait was even more lopsided than before. It made him particularly easy to knock over, a fact which hadn't been lost at all on Kopa or Vitani, or Markos for that matter (the first two readily amused themselves by pouncing on him at all hours, while the third was content to chuck rocks in his direction and then act completely uninvolved).

On this particular day, the day Zira and her pride was supposed to return after sunset, Hermann was out taking a short walk. He would never have done so had he not been told more than once, and by more than one concerned speaker, that he needed to go and clear his head for a bit, that everything that could have been done to prepare had already been accomplished and now there remained only the unpleasant matter of waiting until nightfall. Still, even though he ultimately relented and went for his walk, Hermann was still thinking things over as he went along, mentally running through every possible scenario that might unfold.

A quick and unplanned reunion with the ground immediately broke him from his thought process. When he brushed the dust out of his hair and rolled over onto his back, he saw a familiar face looking down at him.

"Gotcha. Again."

"Do I look like an antelope to you, Kopa?"

"No."

"And does your constantly barreling into me accomplish anything besides getting me covered with dirt?"

"Nope."

"Then why do you keep doing it?"

"It's fun."

"Fun, is it? Then let's see how much you enjoy it!" Hermann grinned and quickly sprang up on his one good foot for a spur-of-the-moment rugby tackle, but he once again found himself on his back after a few seconds, this time with Kopa standing triumphantly on top of him.

"OK, how did you possibly manage that?" he asked, exasperated. "I had the height advantage, the size advantage and the element of surprise! What's your secret?"

"You really want to know how I did it?"

"More than anything in the world. Tell me."

"It's because you stink at pinning." Kopa got into a low crouch, immediately expecting another misdirected effort from Hermann, but he was a bit surprised to see the would-be assailant do nothing but sit up and lean back on his hands.

"I wasn't always like this, you know," Hermann said. "I used to be one of the best players on our football team. I could run three kilometers in ten and a half minutes, and chase down passes that even professional players would have had trouble getting to. They all told me I could have gone professional as well, and then…well, you know the rest."

"Does it ever make you sad when you think about those days?" Kopa asked. "I bet you'd give anything to get your leg working again."

"Sure, I miss it," Hermann said, "but I was rather lucky, all things considered. As I told you before, more than one person said I'd lose my leg completely. And if I hadn't broken it, chances are I'd never have gone to medical school and become a doctor."

"Why wouldn't you have gone to school?"

"I was banking on making my living playing professional football, but when that wasn't tenable anymore, my parents decided I'd need a good-paying job. I came from a whole family of doctors and professors, so they figured I might as well carry on the tradition; everyone in our family, going all the way back to my grandparents' generation, has a doctorate degree of some sort. I wound up following in my family's footsteps, even if I didn't always intend to do so." Hermann got back to his feet. "So what are you doing out here?" he said. "I thought I gave you plenty to keep you busy…enough at least so that you'd have better things to do than jump on me from behind."

"You did, but I finished already."

"You finished practicing your part of the concert?"

"Yeah, I'm an expert!"

"Are you now? I'll be the judge of that…let's hear it."

"Um…OK…" Kopa knew he was in a bit of a bind—as Hermann already suspected, he hadn't put in nearly as much time as he could have—but he was eager to impress regardless. "Here goes…Anfangs wollt ich fa—

"Stop!"

"What?"

"You went up, but it goes down there. Again."

"Anfangs wollt ich fast verz—

"Stop!"

"What now?"

"Same thing. You're going up a whole step when you should be going down. It's the same interval, but the other way around. Did you really practice it like I told you to?" It was an honest question, but Kopa could tell from Hermann's expression that he wasn't cross.

"OK, I tried, I really did," Kopa admitted sheepishly, "but it's just so hard. I know the words; it's reading the notes that I still have trouble with. Can we go back and do it together after Markos is finished with whatever it is he's got planned for you?"

"No problem." If nothing else, it'll take my mind of tonight, Hermann thought. "What has Markos got planned for me? Did he send you out to get me?"

"Sort of. He said he wanted to talk with you to show you something, so I told him I'd go find you."

"And bowl me over while you're at it?"

"That too. Let's go!"

Back at Pride Rock

That ought to do it, Markos thought as he finished tore off a length of tape. It's a work of genius, I can't wait until Hermann sees—

"What in God's green Earth is that?"

"Ah, you're back! It's your rifle; I made some modifications to it," Markos replied, knowing his friend would react exactly as he had. "You now have a bayonet and a light."

"So what you're saying is, you've made a Swiss Army knife out of my perfectly good, evenly balanced, precision-built Remington?"

"Pretty much, yeah. Hey, don't knock it until you test it for yourself. I'm particularly proud of the flashlights; I don't think you would have ever thought of that."

"No, I normally only think of things that work. Have you been drinking again?"

"I wish; I could use a bit of the liquid courage right about now. Look, just humor me for once…point your gun at that wall there, the one where the sun isn't hitting it." Hermann rolled his eyes and picked up the rifle. "What do you see?" Markos asked him.

"Nothing," Hermann answered. "That wall's completely dark." Markos then hit the flashlight's switch, and a beam of light lit up the spot Hermann was aimed at.

"Well? How's that?"

"It's…actually, it's pretty good. So this light goes wherever I aim the gun?"

"That's the idea. It won't be as bright from a distance, but you'll still see more with it than without it. Plus, we'll have the moonlight, and if things get a bit too close for comfort, you've got that knife at the end of the barrel."

"Did you put all this stuff on with duct tape?"

"Of course I did…you know the rule, 'if it moves and it shouldn't, use duct tape'. Admit it, it's a great idea."

"OK."

"OK what? Say the words."

"It's a great idea."

"Wow, that was good, did you hurt yourself?"

"Shut up. Is there anything else you've invented I should know about, or can I get back to helping Kopa with his lessons?"

"Just one more thing, but have something to eat first. You've been in a right state for two days now." Markos tossed a bag of airplane pretzels over to Hermann, along with a metal flask.

"Whisky! Thank God!"Hermann eagerly took the top off the flask and swallowed a huge gulp, only to discover that the there was nothing inside but pure water. "What the hell? This is H2O…where's the whisky?"

"We drank it."

"And the beer?" Markos shook his head.

"What about rum? Scotch? Bourbon? Vodka?"

"All of it, gone."

"Why's it all gone?"

"It's been drunk, that's why! We drank every last drop of beer, Scotch, whisky, and rum you smuggled into your suitcase, so it's good old-fashioned water for us until the airplane touches down in Germany. If you're that desperate for something to calm your nerves, go through all the prescriptions you stole from the pharmacy. Maybe you swiped a vial of anti-anxiety medication along with everything else."

"Even the strong stuff wouldn't work for me now. What is it you wanted me to see? I've eaten as much of these things as I can."

"It's out here. Follow me." Hermann followed his friend outside and immediately saw something amiss: his German flag was apparently gone.

"Where's the flag?" he asked. "It was here this morning; did it blow away overnight? I didn't hear any big wind gusts…"

"No worries, it hasn't gone anywhere," Markos replied. "Turn around."

"There's nothing there," Hermann said once he had taken a good look behind him. "That's the cave we just walked out of; I would have seen it if you'd stashed it inside. What are you playing at this time?"

"I'm not playing at anything. It's up there…all the way up there."

Hermann looked a bit higher, and upon still seeing nothing, lifted his gaze all the way to the highest point of the tallest rock, a narrow but high-reaching expanse of stone that towered over the rest of the pride's home. There was no way he could have ever envisioned anyone climbing it; the facing side where it abutted the cave was a weathered-smooth rock wall, cliff-like in appearance and nearly vertical from bottom to top, while the other side was a series of uneven outcroppings on an unforgiving incline. And yet, there at the very top, blowing in the breeze was Hermann's German flag, its improvised stick-pole wedged firmly into a small crag.

"This is your handiwork, is it?"

"Well we both know you couldn't have put it there. Starting tonight and ending tomorrow morning, the place formerly known as Pride Rock is now…Fort Rudelfelsen, the world's newest German defense post."

"You do realize that most defense posts are…how should I say it…defensible? Most of them have a trained military garrison on site; we have a pride of lions and the cast of 'ER'."

"OK, it is probably the worst-defended fort in human history, I'll give you that. But more to the point, I wanted you, the both of us, in fact, to be able to see our flag no matter where we wind up tonight. Just as a reminder of why we're here and who we're fighting for."

"What's that supposed to mean? Unless the Bundestag has just granted German citizenship to Simba and the rest of the pride—that's a German flag, after all—I'm not following you."

Markos sighed. "You know, Sterlitz, for someone who graduated summa and had a residency in the bag before they even handed out the diplomas, you can be awfully thick at times. All the crazy stuff you've done these past two weeks…don't even try to tell me you haven't been doing it for Friedrich as much as for anyone else. I haven't forgotten who you dedicated that flag to the day you learned about his death."

Hermann didn't try to agree or disagree. He hated being cornered in conversation, especially when he knew that every last thing the other party had said was completely true.

"You know what I think?" Markos continued. "I think you went into protective overdrive when you heard about the bombing because you knew you couldn't get back at whoever sent that package to the hospital. But you could do the next best thing…you could stop another equally pointless death from happening, at the hands of someone just as cruel and heartless as our mystery bomber. Look, I know as well as you do that nothing's going to bring Friedrich back, but if you can look up there tonight and get a bit of inspiration, then as far as I'm concerned, Friedrich Ross isn't dead yet."

Markos could tell Hermann was still harboring some sort of skepticism, and he figured he knew the root of it. "If you're wondering how you'll ever see it in the dark, I've taken care of that. I put our camp lantern at the base of the pole; once the sun goes down, the flag will be lit from the front. They'll be able to see it from quite a distance out, and the message is pretty simple, regardless of whose side they're on: that we're open for business."

Hermann knew that to a pride of attacking lions, seeing a colored flag above Pride Rock (or whatever name the structure might be carrying if Markos had his way in the hours to come) would carry almost no meaning, if they would even be able to see it in the dark at all. Certainly they wouldn't make the connection that Markos was implying—that the defenders were flying their national colors as a sign of strength and resolve—but Hermann let himself ignore the fact that the symbolism would be, for the most part, lost. And he wasn't about to try and convince his friend that Friedrich's death in the recent attack on German soil had nothing to do with his efforts to date; such a statement would have constituted the biggest, most boldfaced lie of his life. "Who would have thought we'd get ourselves into anything like this?" he ultimately said with a hint of a smile.

"Not me," Markos replied. "My money was on you getting jailed for shoplifting mouthwash from the drugstore."

"I told you a million times, I forgot it was in my pocket." Clouds were beginning to build themselves in, along with a steadily growing breeze. "She's definitely coming," Hermann said. "You don't get weather like this without something bad about to go down. What are you staring at over there?"

"Giant crocodile at three o'clock," Markos replied nonchalantly, as if such a sight were completely normal to both him and his friend. He watched, more in awe than fright, as a familiar neighbor, even bigger-looking out of the water than in, strolled up to him and his friend.

"Buenas noches, amigos. I come, as promised."

"Kopa and Simba weren't kidding," Markos whispered as the newcomer slowly went around a corner to look for the rest of the pride. "One, he really is huge, and two, that's got to be the strongest Spanish accent and the weirdest voice I've ever heard in my life...sort of like a snake crossed with Don Quixote de la Mancha."

"I can definitely see how he managed to carry Adila all the way here," Hermann said in German. "He could have probably carried two lions her size without—

"Get the kids inside!" a frantic voice interrupted from out of sight. "We've got crocs!"

"He's with us!" Hermann shouted back. "Whoever that was, turn off your panic button!"

"I can't wait to see Zira's expression when she's suddenly face-to-face with him," Markos said with a grin upon hearing the previous exchange. "We could honestly charge admission for that…a lioness who thinks she's the epitome of evil, getting chased around by Roberto like a frightened pussycat."

"Don't get ahead of yourself," Hermann replied. "If everything goes the way I've planned it, Zira won't get the chance to see him in the first place."

"That's exactly why I'm getting ahead of myself. Nothing ever goes according to plan when you're the one doing the planning. Just stay sharp tonight, OK? No matter what happens, keep your head on straight. I'm going inside to divide up the shells. Can you stay out here for five minutes?"

"No problem; go ahead." Markos jogged inside, leaving Hermann looking out over the savanna as a fresh gust of wind blew through. Don't miss, Hermann Wolfgang, he thought for the second time that week. Don't miss.