Assegai

Leon and Eva were left alone. He went to where she sat on the wing. ‘If we are to be in at the death, we must hurry.’

‘Help me down,’ she replied. She lifted her arms and leaned towards him. He reached up, placed his hands around her narrow waist, and when he set her on her feet she pressed against him for a brief moment. He smelled her particular perfume and felt the warmth of her belly against his. She read his eyes, and felt the stiffening of his loins through their clothing. ‘I know, Badger. I know so well how you feel. I feel it too. But we must be patient a little longer. Soon! Soon, I promise.’

‘Oh, God!’ He groaned. ‘I wish . . . Otto . . . the lion. If only . . .’

Her eyes quickened with real fear. ‘No, don’t say it!’ She placed a finger on his lips. ‘Don’t wish for that to happen. It would bring us the worst possible luck.’ She dropped her hand from his face, and he saw that Manyoro had come silently and was standing at his shoulder. He had the Holland rifle in one hand and the ammunition bandolier in the other.

‘Thank you, my brother,’ Leon said, as he took them.

‘Graf Otto said there were to be no guns on this hunt,’ Eva reminded him.

‘Can you imagine what might happen if he wounds that lion and it gets in among all those people?’ Leon asked grimly. ‘It’s one thing for him to have a pact with the devil, but quite another if he intends to include a dozen women and children in the bargain.’ He opened the breech of the rifle, and while he loaded it with two fat brass cartridges, he asked, ‘Can you run in that skirt and those boots?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then let’s see you do it.’ He took her arm and they raced after the column of morani, which was drawing away rapidly from the rabble of spectators.

Leon was surprised by how well Eva kept up. She lifted her long gabardine skirts to the tops of her knee-high boots and ran with the grace and lightness of a newly roused doe. He took her arm to steady her over the rougher footing, and boosted her up the steep bank of a ravine. They passed the stragglers and caught up with the main body of hunters, and were not far behind the leading warriors when the hunt master blew his whistle again. The morani evolved smoothly into their twin-horned battle formation.

‘They have caught up with the lion.’ Leon was breathing heavily with exertion.

‘How do you know? Can you see it?’ she panted.

‘Not from here, but they can. Judging from the way they’re moving, it must be lying up in that dense scrub at the foot of the kopje.’ He pointed ahead at a jumble of rocks and silver-leaf scrub.

‘Where is Otto?’ She gasped to catch her breath and leaned against him for a moment to rest. Her forehead was damp and shining with perspiration, and he delighted in her warm, womanly odour.

‘He’s right in the thick of it. Where else would we expect him to be?’ Leon pointed, and she saw his pale form standing out clearly in the first rank of dark warriors that was closing like a mailed fist around the rocky prominence of the hillock.

‘Can you see the lion yet?’ Her tone was agonized.

‘No. We’ll have to get closer.’ He took her arm and they began to run again. The first line of morani was no more than a hundred and fifty paces ahead of them when Leon stopped abruptly. ‘Oh, sweet God! There he is! There is the lion.’ He pointed.

‘Where? I can’t see it.’

‘There, on the high ground.’ He put an arm around her shoulders and turned her to face it. ‘That huge black thing on top of the highest rock. That’s him. Listen! The morani are challenging him.’

‘I can’t see . . .’ But then the lion raised and fluffed out his mane, and she gasped. ‘I was looking right at it. I never realized it would be so big. I thought it was a gigantic boulder.’

The lion swung his massive head from side to side, surveying the host of enemies that surrounded him. He snarled and bared his teeth. Even at that distance Leon and Eva could clearly see the ivory flash of his fangs and hear the furious crackling growls. Then he lowered his head and flattened his ears against his skull as he picked out the moon-pale flash of Otto von Meerbach’s body in the centre of the ranks. He had been driven off his kill and he was angry. He needed no further provocation than the sight of that alien body. He growled again, then launched his charge, bounding down the side of the kopje straight at Graf Otto.

A challenging shout went up from the morani ranks and they drummed on their shields, goading the lion. As he reached level ground at the foot of the slope he flattened out with the speed and power of his rush, snaking low to the earth, the dust spurting up from under the massive paws, grunting with every stride.

Without a moment’s hesitation Graf Otto lifted his shield and held it high as he charged forward to meet the great beast. Leon and Eva came up short and, with a sense of inevitability, watched it happen. Eva was clinging to Leon’s hand and he felt her finger-nails sink into his flesh, drawing blood. ‘It’s going to kill him!’ she whispered, but at the last possible instant Graf Otto moved with the timing and co-ordination of a consummate athlete. He dropped to one knee and covered himself with the rawhide war-shield. At the same time he brought up the assegai in his right hand and presented the point to the charging lion. The beast took it in the centre of his chest, and it went in full length, so deep that Graf Otto’s right hand, which held the haft, was buried in the coarse black fleece of the mane, and the lion’s heart was spitted cleanly by the razor steel. His jaws gaped wide as he roared, and from his throat shot a fountain of bright blood that sprayed over Otto von Meerbach’s head and shoulders. The lion reeled back with the spear still buried in his heart, staggered in a circle and collapsed into the grass, all four legs kicking in the air. It was a perfect kill.

Graf Otto threw aside the shield and bounded to his feet, bellowing triumphantly, whirling in a dervish dance, his face contorted under the glistening coating of the lion’s blood. A dozen morani rushed forward to stab the blades of their assegais into the corpse. The Graf confronted them, bellowing possessively, keeping them away from his kill. He ripped his own spear from the lion’s chest and shook it at the warriors as they crowded forward, driving them back, shouting in their faces, beating his chest with his fists in a berserker rage, threatening them with his raised spear. They yelled back furiously at him, drumming on their shields with their own blades. They were demanding to share the glory, their entitlement to wash their spears in the blood of the lion. Graf Otto lunged at one, and the morani was only just quick enough to deflect the thrust with his shield. Graf Otto screamed with rage and hurled the assegai at him, like a javelin. The warrior raised his shield but the blade cut through the rawhide targe and slashed open the blood vessels in his wrist. His companions roared with fury.

‘Dear God! The madness is on him,’ Eva panted. ‘Someone will be killed, either himself or the Masai. I must stop him.’ She started forward.

‘No, Eva. They’re all mad with blood rage. You ca

She tugged against his grip. ‘I’ve been able to quiet him before. He will listen to me . . .’ Again she tried to pull away, but now he grabbed her shoulders with his left arm, and hefted the rifle in his right hand. Strong as she was, and no matter how she struggled, she was helpless in his grip.

‘It’s too late, Eva,’ he hissed into her ear and, holding the heavy rifle as though it were a pistol, he pointed with the barrel over the heads of Graf Otto and the wounded morani. ‘Look up there, on top of the kopje.’

She looked as he directed, and saw the second lion, the missing twin. He was standing on the crest of the hillock, a huge creature, bigger even than the one Graf Otto had killed, but his mane was fully erect with rage so he seemed to double in size. He hunched his back, opened his jaws wide and held them close to the ground as he roared, a full-throated earth-splitting blast. The hubbub of the watchers, the tumult of Graf Otto and the embattled warriors died away into a deathly silence. Every head was turned to the summit of the kopje and the beast that stood there.