The Huntress at Sunset

25. Full Circle

Nengwalamwe paused and looked back, smiling. A few lengths behind his elegantly groomed dark tail tip a cub was struggling to keep up with his father. As Nengwalamwe looked on the cub paused and started to sniff about, unsure as to the nature of the new world that lay all around it.

"Wait up! Do you want to wear them out on their first day off the rock?" came a voice from some way behind the rise.

Nengwalamwe, the proudest father the Pridelands could offer, turned his head easily to watch his cub. He seemed so small and yet so unafraid, as if he had no idea of the dangers of the world. Nengwalamwe's pride fell, his pleasure at the sight of his own first cub turned to dread fear. He was a father and it was his responsibility to see that his cubs, both of them, lived to become lions and lionesses as strong and healthy as he and their mother, Falana.

Where was little Yalima? They were no further than two strikes away from Priderock and he had already lost one of his cubs. What was he to do? Leave Nengwa alone and go back? Pick him up and carry him between his rhino-hide piercingly sharp teeth? He lifted his head and looked deeper along the rise. A rustling ripple floated across as the grass caught the faintest of breezes then nothing as the heat shimmered over the paper-dry grasses once more. Yalima: "Little Yali" Falana had said it meant. Little Yali… now there was a name.

She must have been in great pain after the birth as she had mumbled something about naming her after her grandmother. Even now she was growing more like another lioness every day, but like Shaha? No, surely not. The lion looked down at his son sitting at his foreleg. Just maybe there was something of her in him too. Nengwalamwe missed her and perhaps more so the cub he met in the mountains. Young Yali: The cub that brought him here. The cub who none but himself ever….

"Nengwe, is Nengwa with you? I can't see him? I've lost him already. I don't know what to do, I can't leave these two here!" Falana's voice was distant but that could not disguise the fear it carried.

Nengwalamwe's spirit rose when he heard Falana's call, for he now realised that he shared that fear with her. He now knew that he would never really be certain that he was doing the right thing by his cubs. What parent ever could? He, like every other parent was simply doing the best he could and none could ever do more.

'Cubs have to grow up,' he thought, 'and I've got to let them grow, help them and watch over them. I can't grow up for them.' His smile broadened. '…and they can't grow up for me.'

"Yes, Fal, he's with me - for a moment there I thought I'd lost you two."

"Is that right? For a moment there I thought you two males had run off and left us lionesses to fend for ourselves, isn't that right Yalima?"

As Nengwalamwe dropped down close to Nengwa, who seemed quite unconcerned with anything, the two, father and son, pricked an ear each to a small 'meaaarrrr' which could almost have been Yalima agreeing with her mother. If she had been a little older that is.…

~oOOo~

"Mother, are we there yet?"

"No, not yet Yalima." Falana looked down to the cub by her off forepaw. "We're only at Silent Rocks, there's a way to go yet."

"Can me and Nengwa run on a bit?"

The lioness looked up, narrowing her eyes, "Hmmm, what do you think Nengwe?"

"Yes, all right. Just don't talk to any strange lions, you hear?"

"Nengwe!"

"I'm serious kids, don't go so far that you can't call to us, you hear? And don't talk to anyone, you understand? Stay safe like we told you: if you see any leopards you come straight back."

"Or hyenas right Dad?"

Nengwalamwe smiled lightly. "Yeah, that's right. Go on now." He turned to Falana, his smile broadening. "I guess these rocks aren't so silent now with our lot around."

"It's been a long time since these rocks heard cubs." Falana dropped her head. "You know we ought to rename them now."

"I've been thinking about that. What about Lizzie's Folly?"

"No Nengwe. I don't think she deserves any memorial." Nengwe nodded, the smile dropping from his fur-soft mouth. "But there is someone who does."

"Shaha?"

"Yes, and it couldn't be more appropriate."

Nengwe saw their cubs prance-pouncing away through the dry grasses. He shook his head lightly. "Oh, they're OK" he said under his breath. "Why?"

"Nengwe, do you know why she liked it here so much?"

"No, of course not Falana. She never told me. I was only just beginning to get to know her."

"Yali, and she was Yali then, only her grandmother called her by her full name, Nyala. She'd sit up there…"

"There?"

"No, the lower one; just there. She'd lay there, her head resting on her tucked and crossed forelegs, her earmarks framing her against the flaming sky, and tell us stories in the sunset, just as her mother had, and hers before. Our voices echoed around these rocks." Nengwe looked on quietly in the late afternoon light. "One by one we all went away. We grew up. Some died. The males moved away. Then there was no one to tell stories to. These rocks fell silent, and Yali began calling herself Shaha: the storyteller, perhaps just to remember. It wasn't very long before those memories became too much for her and so we left for the south."

"Falana, this place, Shaha's Rest… it doesn't have to stay silent."

Falana thought for a moment: a flood of memories, none as bad as she feared.

"I couldn't. I'm not my mother. It wouldn't be right."

"Oh yes, it would be right Falana: 'just as her mother, and hers before'. That's what you just said."

"Well, maybe." She looked over Nengwe; back out towards their great rock. He had almost given up when she quietly went on, "Do you know 'The Lion in the Moon'?"

"No, I… I don't know that one."

"I think I can still just about remember it. I remember my mother telling it right there see, so many times. It was one of her favourites."

"Then Falana, I think it's time it was told again."

~oOOo~

Ahead the ground opened out onto a wide treeless area of low hills. A young lion walked out to a tiny knoll in amongst long grasses. He looked around, standing as tall as his pain would allow. Neither seeing, hearing, nor smelling any signs of danger, he drooped down to the ground exhausted. In a few minutes he was asleep for the first time since the high mountainside.

He blearily opened his eyes.

"Hey, are you a lion?"

Where was the voice coming from? Who was it? He looked around; his shoulders ached. "Who are you? What do you want?"

"I… I don't want anything. I'm no one."

The lion lay still for a moment then lifted his head and yawned. 'Cub?' he thought, 'Yes, that's a cub. Now where is she?' He scanned the long grass around the knoll. Whoever the cub was, she was well hidden.

"Where are you?"

"I'm… I'm not over here."

"Come out. I won't hurt you."

"No, I can't. You might… might want to kill me, chase me and kill me."

"No, I won't. I can't."

There was something, a pained tension in the lion's voice that led the cub to believe him.

"You can't kill me?"

"Maybe that I can, but I can't chase you." He paused, looking down, "I'm very tired, and I can't run far."

"Why?"

"It's OK. I'm not ill. It's, well it's an old wound."

The cub broke cover to the lion's left while still holding back. She looked puzzled.

"See? Here on my haunch." He rolled over to expose his off side. The cub moved forward a little.

"It's OK. Here take a look if you don't believe me." The cub moved closer still, close enough for the lion to have lunged for her. He didn't. She was now close enough for him to smell her. There was something in her scent that reminded the lion of someone... but whom? She noticed something about him too.

"Who are you?"

"My names Talashi, but my family call me Tashi."

"Can I call you Tashi too?"

"If you like. Where are the rest of you?"

"What rest of me? Oh.… you mean my pride don't you?"

"Yeah, like I said: the rest of you."

"My father..." The cub looked a little sad and alone, "He's not here right now."

The cub sniffed at the lion's wound. It was old, unevenly healed, and long, running down almost the full length of his off thigh.

"Not here? Where is he? Are you lost?"

"Does it hurt?"

"Yes, not all the time. It does now." Now it was the lion's time to be afraid. "Is your father nearby?"

A call sounded, close and clear, "Yalima?"

"Yes Tashi, he's nearby. Are you going to be OK? I've got to go."

Talashi had come a long way. It had been a hazardous, arduous journey. He had got lost more than once. He had led all that remained of his pride to this place. His mate, lightly with cub, lay resting, all but exhausted, at the edge of the trees. The void had claimed his mother high on the mountainside. He had got his mate this far, only to lead her into terrible danger into some pride's territory and now that pride's male was bearing down on him. Maybe he could somehow lead him off, giving her a chance to get away.

The cub ran off. Talashi could barely stand, let alone fight. He wondered if his father's words, "No one who asks for help deserves it" were really true. If so he was in deadly trouble.

The next few minutes were confused for Talashi. His haunch shot him through with piercing pain. His tiredness blurred everything. Sounds floated through him. He lay down, his final reserves of energy, determination and spirit gone. He heard muffled voices, confused and fragmentary, "…and didn't I tell you not to talk to strange lions...?", "…he's not strange… smells like you." He waited for the lion to come and kill him.

"Tashi? Come on, you've got to get up, we've got to get you home."

Talashi showed no sign of movement, indeed little sign of any life at all. Nengwe ran his nose over the lion's cheek, sniffing the slumped form and feeling for movement with his whiskers. Then he licked his lion's neck with the tip of his tongue, but there was no response from the still warm flesh below.

Yalima nuzzled the lion, "Yeah Talashi, come on. You can get up. Please."

The lion opened an eye; barely, but definitely open. He thought for a moment he saw his mother.

"Mother? I thought we'd lost you."

Falana was surprised, and worried for him. He was clearly very weak and delirious. He seemed in very poor condition, but still carried a ghost of athleticism: tall but strongly built. "I'm not your mother. My name is Falana."

"Melakwe? Help me," the lion said weakly, with all the little hope he had left.

"Melakwe?" asked Nengwe incredulously.

"Later Nengwe, later," said Falana seriously. "This lion needs our help. Who is he?"

Nengwe really couldn't believe what he was about to say: "He's Talashi." Here, on the very edge of the Pridelands, was, well, it simply couldn't be happening. He lay down, supporting the lion's head gently with his shoulder. "He's… he's my brother."

Yalima and Nengwa gathered round their parents, and now, their uncle. Soon, they would gather in the sunset shadow of Shaha's Rest to hear the story.

As night drew in under a new moon; to find food for her family, the huntress set out once more.