“Hey Fuzzy, are you OK?”
“I’m not ready to be the guest of honor at your dinner party.”
“For once I’m relieved.” The buzzard regarded him closely. “Where is your lady friend?”
“Gone. She dumped me.”
Markaaagh looked surprised and disappointed. “Tell me it ain’t so! Brother, I know how you feel.”
“How could you?”
“Oyeghegh left me without so much as a pinfeather.”
“Oh? I’m sorry.”
“Of course, I take these things in stride. In my younger days, I was quite the rage among the young ladies, and I still haven’t lost it entirely! Har har!”
Kubali covered his eyes with a paw.
“You poor boy, I was happy for you. I was hoping this match would work out. I’m really sorry.”
Markaaagh trundled across a bit of savanna, flapping his huge wings until he was airborne and could put some distance between himself and the lion. He embraced the buzzard policy of not getting involved with animals he could eat. It was only courting pain and conflict. Still, he felt he had to get to the bottom of this. If only to find some dirt on Gamu that would give him the satisfaction of ripping out his liver when Fuzzy got through with him.
It took a while. In fact, it took several days. Then by patience and silent soaring, Markaaagh caught Gamu in a bragging mood, talking with a “dead” hyena about his imminent conquest. He heard Gamu tell the story for probably the hundredth time, though it was the first time he could put all the pieces together.
He had heard enough. “We can eat three day old carcasses, but some things we just can’t stomach.” He smiled a nauseating vulture smile. “Today, greedy gut, you get yours! Drive me off with insults, will ya?? I’ll see you ripped like a gazelle!”
Markaaagh flew quickly to find the moping lion. He told Kubali what he had heard.
“You have earned yourself FIRST RIGHTS at my next five kills!”
Kubali rallied. Suddenly he stood tall and straight and proud. It did Markaaagh’s heart good.
CHAPTER: THE CONFRONTATION
Gamu’s fear campaign had worked too well. Elanna was truly afraid to remain alone for even a moment with hyenas about. If only she had known that the nearby clan was the histrionic attempts of Griz’nik to be seen in several different places in quick succession, using variations on his voice with every territorial yip! He would call out “Ta’bliz!” (Attention!) and answer himself, “Mar roh!” (Yes milord!). The sound of the dark tongue would send chills down Elanna’s spine as she worried about those hyenas. Not used to freeloading off the lions, these were surely hunters of the first order, fierce and coldly efficient.
When Gamu left her with strict orders to remain behind, he really expected her to stay put. Though it was supposedly for her own good, Gamu’s ordering about was intended to complete his domination of her and to give him free reign to contact Griz’nik for further orders. Without careful coordination with the hyena, Gamu’s main trump card of fear of the hyenas would become worthless, for a frightened lioness can run faster than an angry lion.
Elanna used all her stalking skills to stay within hearing range of Gamu that she might be a simple shout away if intruders targeted her. Little did she know what she would hear that fateful day!
Elanna saw Gamu talking to the hyena. She overheard what he was saying.
Griz’nik was laughing when Gamu told him again about the deception. That Elanna was foolish enough to believe Kubali loved Gamu after making love to her all night!
She knew that was the hyena that Gamu said he killed. She recognized the voice as one of those that called about her in the night. And she gritted her teeth to keep from crying out.
Griz’nik asked Gamu what would happen to him when Elanna pledged to him.
Gamu said, “I was just about to tell you that myself.” He started forward. “Old friend, I had three great ambitions. One was to have her warm my belly. One was to see Kubali dead in the dust. My third wish is of great interest to you. It’s to keep you from ever telling my secrets to Lannie. I’ve practiced your little cries. Ta’bliz! Mar roh! En’khet koi, Roh’mach! In fact, I think I can get along without you.”
“You’re sending me away??”
“Clear to whatever hell you believe in.”
The hyena backed back. “Oh gods, don’t do this! Let me run away, Gamu! Oh gods, don’t hurt me! Please!”
Griz’nik had backed back into the corner of the small shelter as far as he could go. “I’ll do anything! Oh gods, this is madness! Stop!!”
Gamu was about to bite the hyena’s neck through when suddenly in burst Elanna.
“Griz’nik, I should have recognized your smell anywhere! If you want to live, you better tell the truth!”
Griz’nik urinated freely in his utter panic. “He wanted to kill me! Have mercy and I’ll tell all! Gamu is a cheat and a liar! He invented that story about Kubali being in love with him, and he told Kubali you had betrayed your husband!”
She raised her face in an agony of extreme hate, roaring to shake the walls of the small cavern. Her eyes glowed red with fierce bloodlust, and she sprang on Gamu. “I’ll kill you, you devil!”
For all her determination, Gamu was a young adult male, and he outweighed her by half again her bulk. Her claws tore hunks of fur from his mane but barely grazed the skin beneath. He raked her shoulder and easily brought blood.
Elanna did not really care. If she could only mark him before she died, she could look down from the stars on him and feel revenged. Gamu, who had so often tried to make love to her, was bringing the terrible brunt of his anger on her.
Then a lion announced his presence with a terrible roar. “Keep your paws off of her!”
Gamu looked about. It proved to be his undoing. Elanna clubbed Gamu on the back of the head with one massive blow of her paw and sent him sprawling.
In an instant, Kubali was all over him, battering him and covering him in small cuts and scratches.
From seemingly nowhere, a gallery of buzzards had gathered to watch the fray. One of them yelled, “Give it to him, Kubali! Tell him who’s the stupid bird NOW!” It was Markaaagh. Somewhere, somehow, Kubali would remember that the bird used his real name. He was “Fuzzy” no longer.
Kubali wanted to kill Gamu, and with the rival pinned to the ground, he started to inflict a killing bite to the skull. Elanna stopped him.
“No, honey tree. There are fates worse than death.” She looked at the pathetic lion You wanted to take Taka’s place. So be it.”
Gamu tried to shake his head “no.”
She raised her paw and quickly raked his face. He screamed and rolled out from under Kubali, whimpering and putting a paw over the fresh wound that lay where his right eye had once been. “Oh gods! Oh gods!” His back feet dug into the soil and he kicked spasmodically.
“Now you ARE Taka. Go and never come back, for the next time I see you, I’ll kill you!”
He scrambled to regain his footing. Tilting his head to one side, he staggered away yammering in the half-darkness of pain that had become his world. If he lived or died, Aiheu would decide.
Kubali wanted to apologize, and so did Elanna. Neither could get the words out. Instead they nuzzled, wrestled, kissed and rubbed with a desperate intensity. Tears came, and they lasted a long while. The wounds were deep and cruel, but love would heal them all.
As for Griz’nik, he went away and they never saw him again.
Kubali touched Elanna’s tear-stained cheeks with his tongue. “We will never be parted again, though all the Makei in hell stand in our way.”