The Kin (24 page)

Lions.

No other animal left tracks that size and shape.

There hadn't been a lot of large prey in the Moonhawks' old Good Places, so there'd been few lions around. Some of the other Kins had been less lucky, and once or twice Noli had heard of somebody being killed by a lion. But on the whole, lions didn't attack people.

There was a saying:
Eight people make a lion
. This meant that a group of eight people with stones and digging sticks in their hands could usually scare a lion off, unless it was very angry.

Or unless it was a demon lion. These lions preferred the taste of people meat to all other flesh, and so stalked and killed people, and even leaped at night into their lairs and carried children away. The hero Sol had fought and killed such a lion, but that had been long, long ago. There'd been another demon lion in the time of Noli's mother's mother's mother. Noli used to scare herself with the thought of it when she was a small one.

But no ordinary lion would attack a group of people as many as they were. Noli found Goma and tried to tell her this, but she seemed as scared as any of the others and wouldn't try to understand.

They drank quickly and anxiously, huddled together, with several always on the lookout, and immediately moved well away from the river to a group of shade trees with a wide view all around. The men at once settled down to making themselves digging sticks.

Several stood guard while others rested, and when they moved on, everyone picked up a couple of good throwing stones and carried them while they foraged. No lions were seen.

That evening they refused to return to the outcrop where they had laired the night before, and insisted on going to another one, despite its being much further from the river. But it was straight-sided almost all the way around, with only one section that could be climbed, and even there the small ones needed help. It was a nuisance to carry up enough fuel for a fire, but otherwise it made a good, safe lair.

The Moonhawks were secretly amused by all this, but the canyon people were right. The next morning, while they were foraging, a lion attacked.

Noli didn't see it happen. She heard screams and yells, and looked up in time to see the lion dragging something—no,
someone
—into a patch of bushes while people ran after it, yelling, and pelting it with stones.

“The lion takes a boy!” shouted Suth. “Noli, bring the small ones. Stay close.”

He ran towards the bushes. Noli passed Otan to Tinu, took Ko and Mana by the hands, and hurried after him.

“I fight the lion,” gasped Ko as he ran. “I fight the lion too.”

They found everyone gathered staring at the place where the lion had disappeared. They were furious, frightened, and uncertain what to do. The bushes grew densely together. There was one narrow opening, a sort of tunnel leading towards the middle. It looked well used, as if this was the lion's lair. To try to rescue the boy, if he was still alive, they would need to crawl in, one at a time. It was impossibly dangerous.

“I see this happen,” said Suth, pointing towards a shallow dip in the ground. “The lion lay over there, low, low. It was not seen. It waited. The people came near. It ran out, quick, quick. It came at a boy from behind. It struck him, so …”

He made a slashing movement, hooking his fingers like claws.

“The boy fell,” he went on. “I think he is dead. The lion took his shoulder in its mouth. It carried him away.”

Tinu was on his other side, tugging his arm. He looked down.

“Suth …” she mouthed, “make fire … Wind …”

She gestured to show the direction of the light breeze.

“Tinu, this is good,” he said. “Wait. I find Tor.”

He dashed off, and then came back with Tor and Fang and some of the others. He pointed urgently at the fire log and the bushes and blew with his mouth and made flame gestures with his hands. The Kin sometimes used to hunt by setting fire to patches of scrub, and then waiting downwind to try to kill any animals that came dashing out through the smoke, but Suth couldn't just start a fire without the canyon people's consent. The boy who'd been taken was one of them. They might believe he could still be alive. But they got the idea and grunted approval.

Some of them hurried around with the Moonhawks to the windward side and helped to gather fuel, while the rest went back towards the tunnel.

Rapidly Suth and Noli piled branches against the bushes while Tinu sorted out a small heap of grass and twigs. As soon as everything was ready, she made an opening at the base of the main pile, tipped the embers into it, and stuffed her separate heap in on top, then lay on her stomach and blew.

The embers hadn't been long in the fire log and were still very hot. Smoke rose at once. The whole pile roared into flame, too hot to stand near for long. Tinu poked dry sticks into it, and as soon as they were lit handed them out to the others, who worked along the edge of the thicket, trying to set fire to anything that looked as if it would burn. Most of the small fires they started failed, but a few took hold and spread. Then, with a crashing roar, these patches joined and a line of flame began to move steadily across the thicket, roaring and crackling as it went, blown by the breeze.

They found the people gathered on either side of the opening under the streaming smoke. Everybody had found a weapon or missile of some sort, but nobody (except Ko) seemed anxious to face the lion directly.

For a little while, nothing happened. Several snakes came gliding out. Any birds must already have flown off. Then, without warning, he was there, a huge male lion, stalking out of the tunnel.

He paused and swung his head from side to side, growling low in his throat. His tail lashed. He looked as if he was angry enough to attack and was choosing his target. For a moment the sullen bloodshot eyes seemed to be staring straight at Noli. She froze. She felt that if he attacked now she wouldn't be able to move. Then his head swung on.

The watchers yelled and screamed and hooted and flung their missiles. The stones were heavy enough to hurt. The lion gave a roar that was more of a snarl. A second shower of stones rained in. He snarled again and raced for the gap between the lines. Several men rushed in and struck him, hard, with their digging sticks as he went by. And then he was loping off, with some of the people running, screaming, after him. Seen from behind, he had a mangy look, and his ribs showed beneath his skin.

As he disappeared into the distance, some of the canyon people went back to the windward side of the thicket and started to work their way in through the blackened bushes. The Moonhawks went too, to help Tinu rebuild her fire so that it would leave enough good embers to fill the fire log.

“This lion is old,” said Suth.

“I hit him with my stone,” said Ko optimistically.

A wailing rose from deep in the thicket. Those outside took it up. Noli realized that the boy's body had been found.

A man appeared, his skin streaked with black from the charred branches. He grunted to Suth and made signs that he wanted to show him something. Suth followed him into the thicket. When he returned, his face was set and sombre.

“The boy is dead,” Suth said. “The lion ate his stomach.”

“This is sad, sad,” said Noli.

“I saw other bones, Noli. I saw the headbone. It was the headbone of a man. Also I saw a foot. Part was eaten. The toes were not. Noli, I saw skin on the toes. It was not like the skin of these people. It was dark, like my skin.”

Noli stared at him. What did this mean? The last she had seen of any of their own Kin had been when she and Suth had left them asleep in the desert and gone back to rescue the small ones. Had they gone on, found water, reached this place? Had they left that handprint on the termite mound? Had the lion killed one of them? More than one? Did any still live?

Her heart was filled with horror, but also with hope.

“I think this one was Moonhawk,” said Suth. “Noli, I mourn.”

“I mourn also,” said Noli.

“Moonhawk mourns,” said Suth. “The women dance the dance for a death. Noli, Tinu, Mana. You are the women.”

Noli put Otan down, and Suth took Otan's hand and told Ko to stand on his other side. The three girls formed a line opposite them. Suth clapped his free hand against his thigh to give the beat, and the girls began the dance that the women of the Kin used to dance to help the spirit leave the body and then to protect it from demons while it found its way to the Happy Place at the top of the Mountain above Odutu, where the First Ones lived. They shrilled the high, wordless wail, and stamped their right feet on the ground three times, and then their left, again and again, while Suth clapped the rhythm and grunted deep in his throat and Ko did his best to copy him.

The endless, repetitive movement sent Noli into a trance. Her spirit seemed to move out of her body, to float up through the burning, dusty sunlight, till it hovered bodiless above the groups of mourning people and the blackened thicket with the last smoke drifting away.

The First One was there, grieving with the grief of those below. There were others too. She felt the kindly presence of Goma. She felt someone else, a boy her own age, his spirit still throbbing with the pain and terror of his death. And very faintly, like a far, sad whisper, yet someone else … Man or woman? Kin or not Kin? The presence was too faint for her to tell, but it was the person for whom the Moonhawks were doing the death dance down below.

The First One seemed to gather the dead spirits into itself. The huge grief eased. Noli slid gently back into her own body and found her legs still stamping the rhythm and her throat still shrilling the chant beside the thicket.

She stopped abruptly.

“It is finished,” she croaked.

She looked around and saw the canyon people starting to leave. So as soon as Tinu had repacked the fire log, the Moonhawks hurried to catch up. Though they were going in the opposite direction to the one the lion had taken, they stayed in a close group in case it circled around and attacked again.

This meant that they were returning over ground they had already foraged, but long after they were clear of the dangerous area, they kept on.

After a while, Suth became impatient.

“This is foolish,” he said. “We were here before. We took all the food.”

“I think they are too afraid of the lion,” said Noli. “They go back to the canyon.”

Suth halted.

“I say we, Moonhawk, do not do this,” he said. “I say this is more foolish. What food is in the canyon?”

“There is none, Suth,” said Noli. “You are right. We stay.”

Tor must have noticed that the Moonhawks were no longer following, because at this point he came trotting anxiously back. They did their best to explain, and as soon as he understood he became very unhappy, and with urgent grunts and gestures tried to get them to change their minds.

In the end he gave up and sorrowfully hugged each of them in turn with his good arm, kneeling by the small ones to do so. When she understood that Tor might be leaving them, Mana, who normally quietly accepted whatever was happening and made the best of it, burst into tears. Noli saw tears in Tor's eyes too, but he turned and limped off after the others.

And I did not say goodbye to Goma
, Noli thought.

And the First One is gone, gone with its people
.

For the rest of that day, the Moonhawks moved warily, with someone keeping a lookout all the time, and never getting too far from some kind of refuge they could run to, steep rocks or climbable trees. This meant that there were many promising areas they didn't dare forage because they were too near to thickets or folds in the ground, where the lion might be lurking. But since there were now only six of them, they found as much food as they needed.

When they went to drink that evening, Suth and Noli helped the small ones up into the branches of a tree. Then they went by themselves to the river. He kept watch while she filled her gourd.

They laired on the good safe outcrop they'd used the night before. Noli felt depressed and anxious. She missed Goma. She missed Tor. She longed for the First One to come and comfort her with its presence, but she knew that wouldn't happen. It belonged with its people. She was appalled by the idea that at least one of the Kin had made it across the terrible desert, only to be killed and eaten by a lion. These were Good Places. Like Suth, Noli longed to stay here. But she grew more and more alarmed about trying to live, just the six of them, in an area where there was a lion that liked to eat people.

A demon lion.

Suth had been brooding along the same lines. He snorted in frustration.

“Tinu,” he said, “how do we kill a lion?”

“I think,” she said.

For the rest of the evening she sat, staring at the fire, hardly moving, until they all lay down to sleep.

When Noli woke the next morning, Suth and Tinu were missing. She could hear their voices from the far side of the outcrop, but she couldn't see them, though the top of it was almost flat.

She found them at a place where a deep notch ran into rock, just as if some giant had sliced down twice with his cutter and pulled out a piece of the cliff and taken it away. On one of its sides, the notch ran straight down to the plain below, but on the other there was a broad ledge about a man's height below the surface of the outcrop. Suth and Tinu were on the ledge, kneeling and peering down at the bottom of the notch.

“What do you do, Suth?” Noli called.

He turned his head and grinned at her.

“Tinu makes lion trap,” he said. “Come see.”

Noli called to Mana to keep an eye on Otan and climbed down and kneeled beside Suth. He pointed to the bottom of the notch.

“It is same as ground rat trap,” he explained. “Down there, bait. Up here, rocks.”

With his hands he outlined the shape of several boulders balanced at the rim of the ledge.