The Huntress at Sunset

21. Hunting

Nengwe woke late into the afternoon. Falana lay still, her legs outstretched to her free side. She had clearly not slept clear through. He rose, stretched, went to the entrance and blinking, stepped into the sun. He shook some of the debris from his coat and sat, lifting a hind leg to scratch at his shoulder. It hurt, stinging and sharp; he dropped it back and tried instead to fold his head back to nibble at the itch: he couldn't and gave up.

Around him, the rocks lay tumbled into a loose ridge. Some had crashed out onto the flat; some even had rolled off and crashed down to the ground. Some of the rock, less weathered, had a redder hue, far brighter than the grey of the exposed rubble. Nengwe saw little of it: to him, and all lions, it was all one. He set to, pushing, pulling and kicking the loose rocks one by one from the promontory. For each he reserved a little hate, he was glad to see each crash and smash on the ground. After a while he grew hot and headed back to the cave mouth to cool down.

With the flat clear he turned his attention to the mound. It was low, three or four rocks deep, but broad. He started at the top, pushing the rubble down into the open, creating a saddle in the ridge. The rough rocks cut into his pads and skin on his lower legs. At one point he stumbled and lurched onto the bare edges, cutting into his under fur. Nothing now, short of major injury, could stop him. Yet he sensed that this, while all consuming, was not all there was to his life. He was missing something. The cave still called, even though he could now enter it at will. What was it? What secret could lay within waiting for him to discover it?

Falana woke to the cacophony of grunts, growls, clatters, scrapes and crashes. She rose sleepily and headed for the light. There she met Nengwe, more bloodied than ever: ear, haunch, paws and belly.

"What's going on?"

"I'm clearing this rock away. Feel free to join me."

"Nengwe, stop. Please just stop for a moment."

The lion kicked the rock at his feet. It didn't move. He turned to her, looked at her. Something stirred in him.

"I can't stop; I've got to clear this. It's not part of my life, it's someone else's. It has to go."

"What's the matter Nengwe? Isn't this what you wanted? To open the cave?"

"Yes, but it's not open yet. This stuff is still blocking it."

Falana looked at the mound. Nengwe had clearly been busy; a distinct gap had almost opened up. She knew that she wouldn't be able to shake this obsession from him. It had to play itself out.

"OK. So, what do you want me to do?"

By the time sunset slipped away on the horizon behind them, the two lions had cleared a respectable path at the cave mouth. To both sides still lay rubble, stones and rocks Nengwe would keep picking at for months on and off, while secretly Mtundu would put rocks back, sometimes with Falana's help, but the cave lay open and was accessible. The pair sat back on the promontory and surveyed their work.

"Now Nengwe, is that better? Are we done yet?"

"Yes. Yes we are, but… I'm tired and hungry."

"Hungry? You want to go and get something to eat?"

"Well, yes, I'd like that. If you'll let me that is."

Falana considered the prospect: hunting with Nengwe, just the two of them. "Look, if we're going to hunt, stay close. You must watch me all the time. Can you manage that?"

"Yes Falana, I think I can."

"Good, because if you do you'll be able to work out what I'm doing, and what I'm thinking of doing. Remember, just watch me. You'll know what to do when the time comes. Just make sure that when the charge is on, you don't go rushing in. Take your time, and always keep with me, and support me whatever happens. Can you do that?"

Nengwe quietly nodded. Yes, he could try to do that for Falana.

He led them out to the north-west, into the high grasslands beyond the lugga. The distant whistling thorns over the valley quiet in the silver-clear light of the half-moon. Along the valley floor grazed twenty or more gemsbok, Falana's specialty; their striking black band and head marks making them almost float across the grass. They stretched away toward the river.

"Now Nengwe, don't bother going in from behind. Those horns aren't much good for defence, but they're as sharps as your claws. They're long enough to scratch their rumps with them so chasing them is a sure way to get yourself killed. If they really get going, let them. We can't outrun them."

"Great, so how do we catch them?"

"Stalk them and charge from the side, or ahead, before they can run."

"Anything else?"

"Yes, they won't spook when they spot you. They know they can get away, so keep out of sight."

"You're full of good news."

Falana shrugged off Nengwe's jibe. "We'll go for a young straggler. Are you feeling strong?"

"Enough. Why?"

"I want to take it back to the rock."

Nengwe's eyes popped at the thought, yet they were not so far from the great rock as to make it all that difficult. At least it would make the selection of the target simple: one he could drag back.

He took her at her word and watched Falana. Her tail floated from side to side leisurely. Her shoulders rolled easily as she started to walk off. Her pawfall was measured, precise and elegant, even if those paws were somewhat muddied. In the moonlight her ear marks showed clearly that she was alert yet relaxed. This was something she had obviously done before, and often. Her talk of horns, he thought, may well have been purely for his benefit. He looked to the herd, dismissing the idea: they were more than real enough. Before she had gone ten lengths he set off after her, catching her up.

"I think we ought to get off this ridge, we can be seen against the moon."

"Yes, you're right Nengwe." She stopped, and looked down to her right. "Let's get down there. You go on and put some distance between us."

For a while, with the shade of the ridge covering them, they made good progress. There was little wind to give them away, but with the stillness came greater risk of being heard.

Nengwe paused and listened for Falana's pawfall behind him. He heard nothing other than his own breathing. He leant forward on his hindpaws; a twig cracked. He froze, looking to the still peaceful herd. They remained so. He lifted his nearhind leg and drew it forward, all the time staring intently over the valley. A silver streak caught his eye; the rains had filled the bottom of the valley with water: a stream. They would have to cross it.

"Yes Nengwe," said a subdued voice from behind him. "How do you think my paws got muddy?" The lion just stared at the gemsbok. "I suppose you want to help me with cleaning them. Get this right and I might even let you." Nengwe continued to stare. "Pity we can't be on the other side working down. We'll just have to work our way down here, over the stream and up to the long grass around those boulders. See?" Nengwe turned his ears round toward the boulders.

"Yes, I see."

"Come on, you're doing all right so far."

Falana led on to get ahead of the herd: down into the valley floor and over the stream, which she crossed without any regard to its pitch-mudded bed. Nengwe picked his way across, then realising that he needed to keep up and keep down, he slipped across lightly, soon joining Falana in the boulders.

"Wait here. They are coming this way." She retreated, slipping out of sight. She re-emerged to Nengwe's nearside, closer to the still seemingly untroubled gemsbok.

Nengwe whiled away the next half an hour or more watching Falana and the herd, steadily but painfully slowly approaching. She appeared calm; content to lie in wait. Content for the herd to come to her, and come to her it did. As it approached the boulders the leaders grew tense and anxious; looking about, listening and scenting. Nengwe watched Falana breathe in steady, unchanging rhythm. The leaders moved on, feeling secure enough to graze within eight lengths of Falana lying in the grass ahead. They kept further from the rocks. In time they moved away, the bulk of the herd slipping by. Still she waited.

Crouched among the boulders, looking like just another of them against the moon, Nengwe waited and watched. His eye turned to the tail of the herd. It thinned, and almost as Falana had predicted there at rear were what he thought must be a mother and pre-adolescent. Both were horned, the youngster though lacked the black belly band of the others. That, he thought, must be their target, but how to take it?

He remembered Falana, lying patiently in the grass. Her ears now scanned slowly. Her shoulders rippled tensely. Her hindquarters shimmered. She was ready, but for what?

The mother looked up from grazing. She had strayed too far from the herd. She moved forward. For a moment the youngster held back. That moment shone clear in the moonlight. It was all Nengwalamwe needed. The time had come, and he knew what to do. He broke from cover and charged toward the mother. She panicked and ran toward the herd, only then realising her mistake. The youngster heard her go, and decided to run the only way that made any sense: down slope in a curving arc behind the charging lion. Before it had picked up any speed Falana broke right in front of it and lunged up at the hanging skin of its neck. She swiped at its flank, knocking the wind out and breaking some of its ribs. Gasping for breath and falling, the lioness bit down hard on its neck and carried it down to the ground. She held on tight. She wasn't going to let go.

Nengwe stood and watched as the herd dashed off in to the night, then turned to return to Falana.

"Are you all right?"

She nodded, still gripping the gemsbok's neck.

"Falana, I think it's dead. You can let go."

She bit deeper, shaking her head. The gemsbok's lifeless eyes stared back at her. Her strike had broken its neck; it had been dead before it hit the ground.

~oOOo~

They took their fill from the carcass where it fell. It was Falana that dragged it most of the way back to the rock, Nengwe took over for the final haul up the boulder path. He had to drag it backwards up the steep slope, Falana encouraging him from the promontory. When he stumbled backwards over some of the fallen rubble the pair set about clearing the entrance to the cave. The moon had set before Nengwe dragged the carcass into the cave. Falana was already inside, resting quietly on the platform.

As he approached, padding gently and with renewed vigour, he looked on Falana, lying at her ease on her side exposing her pure cream under fur which seemed to glow with warmth and strength. He stopped for a moment unsure as to whether she had heard him, unsure whether he would be welcome at her side. He smiled gently and felt a surge of guilt at the thoughts that he was unable and unwilling to suppress. Falana was not just a lioness; she was his mother, friend and daughter all in the one golden furred body. He knew his thoughts were totally inappropriate for those so he pushed them mentally to one side and with a shake of his mane walked up to within a length of her outstretched forepaws. She did not move as he drew close but just lay watching the stars through the cave entrance. Nengwalamwe let his hindquarters drop to his offside, his hind paws sliding across the earthy bareness. For a moment he said nothing but just watched Falana's eyes as they gazed unmoving out into the night. He was just about to drop himself to the cave floor when Falana spoke, softly and assuredly, but with a strong sense of 'Not now Nengwe!'

"It's been a long night, and I'm still hunting." She didn't look towards the young but not unattractive male sitting within striking distance. For a second Nengwalamwe was at a loss and just sat shaking his head distractedly.

"Still hunting? But all I wanted was to lie and enjoy the night with you. Is that too much to ask?" Falana smiled gently and played on:

"Yes." She kept her eyes fixed on the distant horizon

"Well if that's the way you feel I'll go. I just wanted to be with you for just little while. You know, that company you mentioned."

"Yes..." said Falana in a distant voice.

"Are you going to lie there and just say yes all the time?" asked Nengwalamwe in slight irritation. Falana chucked quietly, beginning to purr under her breath.

"Yes"

"Come on, I know you never much liked me, but how is playing games going to help?" Nengwe dropped his head and looked away towards the distant line of green, blue and black that seemed to so captivate Falana. Falana turned towards him wondering how long it would take him to realise that she was different and rather more female than she had been for some time. She raised her hindquarters a little in the pretence of getting more comfortable. He turned back to look at her when his ears caught the light sounds of her movement.

"Yes," she said slowly with a voice that talked to Nengwe like he had never been spoken to before. Suddenly he felt like a greater lion than he had ever been, suddenly his feelings for Falana bursting up from within, feelings that he knew were wrong and that might well get him clawed and humiliated. He felt like he had felt once before: helpless at a lionesses paws. She had come to him, and helped him open the very cave they now lay in. They had hunted together, the kill laid just few lengths away. He couldn't hold his gaze on Falana's loin achingly beautiful emerald eyes and tore himself away with a self-disgusted grunt.

"How can you tease me like that? Hey, what is it with you? What is all this about? It's not even as if you're in season or anything."

Falana unhesitatingly and strongly felled him with a short and penetrating word that struck Nengwalamwe firmly, "Yes."

Nengwalamwe had come a long way since entering the Pridelands. He had entered the land and yet that was nothing, he was still a loner, a wandering vagabond without a pride. Later he had longed to enter the cave and become a part of the rock yet it was cold, hard and dark and yet it was nothing to compare with what he yearned for now but knew she would never allow him to have.

"Good for you. I hope you find some nice lion and have his cubs. I know you don't want to mate with me." Nengwalamwe turned back to watch Falana. She had already risen up, forequarters first. She stretched out her forelegs, pushing her head and shoulders upwards, her back sloping down in a gentle curve that ought not to belong to such deadly an animal. She turned her head away from Nengwe as she pushed her shoulders towards him. The touch of her strong shoulder against his whiskers sent shivers down to his tail. He sat spellbound as she drew herself up and forwards running her back and thighs past his nose. He could not fail not notice her scent as she slowed to hair by hair pace as the base of her tail crept tantalisingly beneath the soft fur of his muzzle. She continued forwards, moving away from him in one long movement. She flicked the end of her tail lightly over his nose, toying with his most complex instinct. She walked forwards a pace and stopped, turning her head and looking him in the eye. She watched his incredulous expression for a moment before saying with a mischievous cub-like smile: "Yes?"

Nengwalamwe leapt forwards but Falana anticipated his move and, already standing, moved off with strong pushes from her supple legs. She laughed as she ran out of the cave.

Nengwalamwe growled and ran headlong after her. In a few lengths she slowed a little and he felt the flash of her tail tip past his head, then, in the next pace he was by her hindquarters, even here in the open air of the promontory her scent was irresistibly strong.

He stumbled on one of the smaller stones left from their earlier exertions. It pricked his pads of his forepaw. He lurched on to Falana's work heated thigh. She responded by tensing. Nengwalamwe tumbled to a stop at her side, falling over onto her ungracefully. Thinking he might have hurt Falana he scrabbled to his paws, his right forepaw pressing hard onto her shoulder. He relieved the pressure on her yielding but tense fur. He felt her heart pounding. Now freed, his forepaw slid down her leg and stopped on the ground by her side. He pushed down on it again and lifted his great weight from her back.

Instead of rising up and pulling herself from underneath his belly she pressed herself down further to the ground, flattening her hindquarters so that she lay square on the ground. She panted strongly. Nengwe felt the warmth of her flesh on his and asked gently:

"Do you really want this with me?"

For a moment she said nothing, their hearts pounding as one. Then she extended her hindlegs powerfully, forcing her hindquarters back, beneath his body. "Yes Nengwe, it's what I wished for."

He curved his back down, the skin on his sides rippling as he felt her offering herself to him. She pushed back again… his instincts took over.

He cried out in a roar as he held his teeth open over Falana's neck. Underneath he felt her hold onto him. Falana closed her eyes as his power closed all around her. She knew the moment couldn't last and let out all her flesh ripping tensions of years with her mother in one long ear piercing roar as she felt an intense heat of inner strength flood over her. She saw and heard nothing as a loud silence and an intense red blackness overtook her.

When she next saw light she could no longer feel Nengwe's belly rubbing her back, she felt disorientated and lost. She whipped herself up from the ground and lurched over to find him. She rolled onto her back desperately hoping to catch a touch of the one who had just given her such a wonderful gift. Her right hind paw caught a nose. As she pulled her leg away, she felt the overheated panting breath of a lion who then licked the blood from his nose; his breath coming back in sharp lung-filling gasps.

"Are you all right Falana? I'm sorry I didn't mean for that to happen, I just..."

"Shuusssh, it's just how I wanted it to happen," she said looking at him with her hair-hung chin pressed to the underside of her neck. "Didn't you want it too?"

"I've wanted it forever. I wished for it too. It's what I was born for: for you."

Later, in the cave with some of the gemsbok to sustain them, Nengwe's thoughts turned to lighter things.

"I do wish you wouldn't do that claw thing Falana. Why do you keep on trying to claw me?"

"Nengwe", said Falana laughing as she rolled on her back in front of him, "Do you think a lioness is going to reveal all her secrets at once?" He didn't understand, but smiled at Falana just the same. "But as you ask I'll tell you: It's to keep you on your pads. We lionesses can't have you lions dropping off on us can we?"

"I really don't know what you mean." Nengwe took a playful swipe at her forelegs as they swing by again. He suddenly grew serious. "Falana, promise me you'll save yourself and… if…" He couldn't get the words out. He sighed deeply.

"Don't Nengwe. Forget about all that: leave it out there on the plains. We're here now, that's all that matters. We can hunt tomorrow."

Later the following morning, unknown and unfelt by either, their gifts, so freely given and passionately received and enjoyed as one, became so powerful as to draw forth not one but two souls from the void. Their gifts had become the most precious of all: of life itself. Yet the void does not give out its souls easily. As it gives, so it's cold, dark fingers reach out and take back. This day the void was in no hurry, unlike the lions. The void could wait, and so it left the two together, their time was not over. Their sun was not set, even though in the cave new days were dawning.