The Burning Shore (59 page)

She groped her way through the utter darkness and the warm honey smell of the tunnel and out into the moon light in the narrow valley beyond. She paused to listen for the sound of bare feet on the rocks behind her, but the only sound was the yelp of the jackal packs out on the plains below, and she started forward again.

As she reached the plain Shasa mewed and wriggled on her hip, and without stopping she adjusted his sling so that he could reach her breast. He fastened on it greedily, and she whispered to him as she hurried through the forest, Don’t be afraid, baby, even though this is the first time we have been alone at night. The horsemen will be camped just a short way ahead. We will catch up with them before sunrise, before H’ani and O’wa are even awake. Don’t look at the shadows, don’t imagine things, Shasa- She kept talking softly, trying to shore up her own courage, for the night was full of mystery and menace, and she had never realized until that moment how she had come to rely on the two old people.

We should have found the spoor by now, Shasa. Centaine stopped uncertainly and peered about her. Everything looked different in the moonlight. We must have missed it. She turned back, breaking into an anxious trot. I’m sure it was at the head of this glade. And then, with a rush of relief, There it is, the moon was against us before. Now the hoof-prints were rimmed clearly with shadow and the steel shoes had bitten deeply into the sandy earth.

How much O’wa had taught her! She saw the tracks so clearly that she could break into a trot.

The horsemen had made no effort to hide their spoor, and there was no wind to wipe it out. They had ridden the easy line, keeping out in the open, following wellbeaten game paths, not pushing their mounts above an easy ambling walk, and once Centaine found where one of them had dismounted and led his horse for a short distance.

She was elated when she saw that this man wore boots.

Riding-boots with medium high heels, and well-worn soles. Even in the uncertain moonlight, Centaine could tell by the length of his stride and the slight toe-out gait that he was a tall man with long narrow feet and an easy, yet confident stride. It seemed to confirm all her hopes.

Wait for us, she whispered. Please, sir, wait for Shasa and me to catch up. She was gaining rapidly. We must look for their camp fire, Shasa, they will be camped not far from- she broke off. There! What’s that, Shasa? Did you see it? She stared into the forest.

I’m sure I saw something. She stared about her. But it’s gone now. She changed Shasa to her other hip.

What a big lump you are becoming! But never mind, we’ll be there soon. She started forward again, and the trees thinned out and Centaine found herself at the head of another long open glade. The moonlight laid a pale metallic sheen on the short grass.

Eagerly she surveyed the open ground, focusing her attention on each dark irregularity, hoping to see hobbled horses near a smouldering fire and human shaped rolled into their blankets, but the shapes were only tree stumps or anthills, and at the far side of the glade a small herd of wildebeest grazing heads down.

Don’t worry, Shasa, she spoke louder to cover her own intense disappointment, I’m sure they’ll be camped in the trees. The wildebeest threw up their heads and erupted into a rumbling snorting stampede, streaming away into the trees, fine dust hanging behind them like mist.

What frightened them, Shasa? The wind is with us, they could not have taken our scent. The sound of the running herd dwindled. Something chased them! She looked around her carefully. I’m imagining things.

I’m seeing things that aren’t there. We mustn’t start panicking at shadows. Centaine started forward firmly, but within a short distance she stopped again fearfully.

Did you hear that, Shasa? There is something following us. I heard the footfalls, but it’s stopped now. It’s watching us, I can feel it. At that moment a small cloud passed over the moon and the world turned dark.

The moon will come out again soon. Centaine hugged the infant so hard that Shasa gave a little bleat of protest. I’m sorry, baby. She relaxed her grip and then stumbled as she started forward.

I wish we hadn’t come, no, that’s not true. We had to come. We must be brave, Shasa. We can’t follow the spoor without the moon. She sank down to rest, looking up into the sky. The moon was a pale nimbus through the thin gunmetal cloud, and then it broke out into a hole in the cloud layer and for a moment flooded the glade with soft platinum light.

Shasa! Centaine’s voice rose into a high thin Scream.

There was something out there, a huge pate shape, as big as a horse, but with sinister, stealthy, unhorselike carriage. At her cry, it sank out of sight below the tops of the grass.

Centaine leapt to her feet and raced towards the trees, but before she reached them the moon was snuffed out again, and in the darkness Centaine fell full length. Shasa waited fretfully against her chest.

Please be quiet, baby. Centaine hugged him, but the child sensed her terror and screamed. Don’t, Shasa. You’ll bring it after us. Centaine was trembling wildly. That big pale thing out there in the darkness was possessed of an unearthly menace, a palpable aura of evil, and she knew what it was. She had seen it before.

She pressed herself flat to the earth, trying to cover Shasa with her own body. Then there was a sound, a hurricane of sound that filled the night, filled her head seemed to fill her very soul. She had heard that sound before, but never so close, never so soul-shattering.

Oh, sweet mother of God, she whispered. It was the full-blooded roar of a lion. The most terrifying sound of the African wilds.

At that moment, the moon broke out of the cloud again, and she saw the lion clearly. It stood facing her, fifty paces away, and it was immense, with its mane fully extended, a peacock’s tail of ruddy hair around the massive flat head.

Its tail swung from side to side, flicking the black tuft like a metronome, and then it extended its neck and humped its shoulders, lowering and opening its jaws so that the long ivory fangs gleamed in the moonlight like daggers, and it roared again.

All the ferocity and cruelty of Africa seemed to be distilled into that dreadful blast. Though she had read the descriptions of the travellers and hunters, they could not prepare her for the actuality. The blast seemed to crush her chest, so that her heart checked and her lungs seized.

It loosened her bowels and her bladder so she had to clench fiercely to keep control of herself. In her arms Shasa screeched and wriggled, and that was enough to jar Centaine out of her paroxysm of terror.

The lion was an old red torn, an outcast from the pride.

His teeth and claws were worn, his skin scarred and almost bald across the shoulders. In the succession battle with the young prime male who had driven him from the pride, he had lost one eye, a hooked claw had ripped it from the socket.

He was sick and starving, his ribs racked out under his scraggy hide, and in his hunger he had attacked a porcupine three days before. A dozen long poisonous barbed quills had driven deeply into his neck and cheeks and were already suppurating and festering. He was old and weak and uncertain, his confidence shattered, and he was wary of man and the man odour. His ancestral memories, his own long experience had warned him to stay clear of these strange frail upright creatures. His roarings were symptoms of his nervousness and uncertainty. There was a time when, as hungry as he was now, he would have gone in swiftly and silently. Even now his jaws had the strength to crunch through a skull or thighbone and a single blow of one massive forepaw could shatter a man’s spine. However, he hung back, circling the prey. Perhaps, if there had been no moon, he would have been bolder, or if he had ever eaten human flesh before, or if the agony of the buried quills had been less crippling, but now he roared indecisively. Centaine leaped to her feet. It was instinctive. She had watched the old black stable torn cat at Mort Homme with a mouse, and his reflex action to his victim’s attempted flight. Somehow she knew that to run would be to bring the great cat down on her immediately.

She screamed, -and holding the pointed stave high, she rushed straight at the lion. He whirled and galloped off through the grass, fifty paces, and then stopped and looked back at her, lashing his tail from side to side, and he growled with frustration.

Still facing him, clutching Shasa under one arm and the stave in the other hand, Centaine backed away. She glanced over her shoulder, the nearest mopani tree stood isolated from the rest of the forest. It was straight and sturdy with a fork high above the ground, but it seemed to be at the other end of the earth from where she stood.

We mustn’t run, Shasa, she whispered, and her voice shook. Slowly. Slowly, now. Her sweat was running into her eyes though she shivered wildly with cold and terror.

The lion circled around towards the forest, swinging its head low, ears pricked, and she saw the gleam of his single eye like the flash of a knife-blade.

We must get to the tree, Shasa, and the infant whined and kicked on her hip. The lion stopped and she could hear it sniffing.

Oh God, it’s so big. Her foot caught and she almost fell. The lion rushed forward, grunting terrible exhalations of sound, like the pistons of a locomotive, and she screamed and waved the stave.

The lion stopped, but this time stood its ground, facing her, lowering its great shaggy head threateningly and lashing the long, black-tipped tail, and when Centaine began to back away, it moved forward, slinking low to the earth. The tree, Shasa, we must reach the tree! The lion started to circle again, and Centaine glanced up at the moon. There was another dark blot of cloud trundling down from the north.

Please don’t cover the moon! she whispered brokenly.

She realized how their lives depended on that soft uncertain light, she instinctively knew how bold the great cat would become in darkness. Even now its circles were becoming narrower, it was working in, still cautious and wary, but watching her and perhaps beginning to realize how utterly helpless she was. The final killing charge was only seconds away.

Something hit her from behind and she shrieked and almost fell, before she realized that she had walked backwards into the base of the mopani tree. She clung to it for support, for her legs could not hold her, so intense was her relief.

Shaking so much that she almost dropped it, she unslung the leather satchel from her shoulder and tipped the ostrich-egg bottles out of it. Then she pushed Shasa feet first into the bag, so only his head protruded, and slung him over her back. Shasa was redfaced and yelling angrily.

Be quiet, please be quiet- She snatched up her stave again, and stuck it into her rope belt like a sword. She d to catch the first branch above her head and she jumped got a hold and scrambled with her bare feet for a grip on the rough bark. She would never have believed it possible, but in desperation she found untapped reserves and she hauled herself and her load upwards by the main strength of arms and legs, and crawled on to the branch.

Still, she was only five feet above the ground, and the lion grunted fearsomely and made a short rush forward.

She teetered on the branch and reached up for another hold, and then another. The bark was rough and abrasive as crocodile skin and her fingers and shins were bleeding by the time she scrambled into the fork of the mopani thirty feet above the ground.

The lion smelled the blood from her grazed skin and it drove him frantic with hunger. He roared and prowled around the base of the mopani stopping to sniff at the ostrich eggs that Centaine had dropped, and then roaring again.

We are safe, Shasa, Centaine was sobbing with relief, crouched in the high fork, holding the child on her lap and peering down through the leaves and branches on to the broad muscled back of the old lion. She realised that she could see more clearly, the light of dawn was flushing the eastern sky. She could clearly make out that the great cat was a gingery reddish colour, and unlike the drawings she had seen, his mane was not black but the same ruddy colour.

O’wa called them red devils, she remembered, hugging Shasa and trying to still his outraged yells. How long until it’s light? She looked anxiously to the east and saw the dawn coming in a splendour of molten copper and furnace reds.

It will be day soon, Shasa, she told him. Then the beast will go away- Below her the lion reared up on its hindlegs and stood against the trunk, looking up at her.

One eye, he’s only got one eye. The black scarred socket somehow made the other glowing yellow eye more murderous, and Centaine shuddered wildly.

The lion ripped at the trunk of the tree with the claws of both front feet, erupting into those terrible crackling roars once more. It ripped slabs and long shreds of bark from the trunk, leaving wet wounds weeping with sap.

Go away! Centaine screamed at it, and the lion gathered itself on its hindquarters and launched itself upwards, hooking with all four feet.

No! Go away! Michael had told her and she had read in Levaillant that lions did not climb trees, but this great red cat came swarming up the trunk and then pulled itself on to the main branch ten feet above the ground and balanced there staring up at her.

Shasa! She realized then that the lion was going to get her, her climb had merely delayed the moment. We’ve got to save you, Shasa. She dragged herself upward, standing in the fork, and clutching the side branch.

There! Above her head there was a broken branch that stuck out like a hatpeg, and using all that remained of her strength, she lifted the rawhide bag with Shasa in it and hooked the strap over the peg.

Goodbye, my darling, she panted. Perhaps H’ani will find you. Shasa was struggling and kicking, the bag swung and twisted, and Centaine sank back on to the fork and drew the sharpened stave from her belt. Be still, baby, please be still. She did not look up at him. She was watching the lion below her. If you are A quiet it might not see you, it might be satisfied. The lion stretched up with its forelegs, balancing on the branch, and roared again. She smelt it now, the stink of its festering wounds and the dead carrion reek of its breath, and then the beast hurled itself upwards.