Wilbur Smith - Assegai

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.

The two lions had separated three days previously when the elder had been lured away by an irresistible perfume on the cool pre-dawn breeze. It was the odour of a mature lioness in full oestrus. He had left his younger twin and hurried to answer the wind-borne invitation.

He found the lioness an hour after sunrise, but another lion was already mating with her, a younger, stronger and more determined suitor. The two had fought, roaring, slashing and ripping at each other with fangs and bared claws. The older lion had been injured, driven off with a deep gash across the ribs and a bite in the shoulder that had cut down to the bone. He had come back to join his twin, limping with pain and aching with humiliation. The two lions had been reunited a little after moonrise and the wounded one had fed on the carcass of the kudu killed by his twin, then retreated to a rocky overhang in the side of the hill where he had lain up to rest and lick his wounds.

He had been too sore and stiff to take any part in the attack by the morani hunters, but the angry roaring and the death throes of his twin had brought him out of his hiding place. Now he looked down on the killing ground where the corpse of his sibling lay. He did not know the human feelings of grief, sorrow or loss, but he knew rage, a terrible consuming rage against the world and especially against the puny creatures in front of him. The figure of Graf Otto was closest, and the pale colour of his body acted as a focal point for the lion’s anger. He sprang forward and charged down the slope.

A dreadful wail went up from the women, who scattered like a flock of chickens before the stoop of a peregrine. The morani were taken completely off-guard: one minute they had been brawling with Graf Otto and then the lion had appeared, as if by virtue of his magical powers.

By the time they had rallied to face this new threat the beast had covered most of the ground to reach Graf Otto. Leon thrust Eva behind him and shouted at her, ‘Stay here. Don’t come any closer!’ Then he raced forward in an attempt to protect his client. He and the morani were far too late.

At the last instant Graf Otto threw up his arms in a futile effort to protect himself, but the lion smashed into him with all its speed and massive weight. He was bowled over backwards with the beast on top of him. It enfolded him in the crushing embrace of its forelegs, and drove its claws like butcher’s meat-hooks deep into the flesh of his back. At the same time its back legs raked the front of his lower body and thighs, cutting deep gouges into his flesh and slicing open his belly. Now it was crouched on top of him and went for his face and throat, but Graf Otto thrust his forearm into the gaping jaws in an effort to keep it away. The lion bit down, and as Leon ran up he heard the bones splinter. The lion bit again, this time crushing Graf Otto’s right shoulder. Like a kitten worrying a ball of wool, its back legs were busy, ripping long yellow claws through Graf Otto’s thighs and belly.

Leon slipped the safety catch off the rifle and rammed the muzzles into the lion’s ear. At the same instant he pulled both triggers. The bullets tore through the skull and blew out through the opposite ear, taking most of the brains with them. The lion flopped on to its side and rolled off Graf Otto.

Leon stood over the man, ears singing from the blast of the rifle, and stared in horrified disbelief at the damage the animal had inflicted in just a few seconds. For the moment he could not bring himself to touch Graf Otto: he was awash with blood, and more spurted from the hideous wounds in his arm and shoulder. It poured, too, from the deep gouges in the front of his thighs and from the slashes in his belly.

‘Is he still alive?’ Eva had ignored his instruction to stay back. ‘Is he alive or dead?’

‘A little of each, I think,’ Leon told her grimly, but her voice had snapped him out of the inertia of horror that had gripped him. He handed the rifle to Manyoro as he ran up, then dropped to his knees beside his client’s body, drew his hunting knife from its sheath and started to cut away the blood-soaked shuka .

‘Sweet God, it’s torn him to shreds. You’ll have to help me. Do you know anything about first aid?’ he asked Eva.

‘Yes,’ she said, as she knelt beside him. ‘I’ve had training.’ Her tone was calm and businesslike. ‘First we must stop the bleeding.’

Leon stripped away the last of Graf Otto’s tattered shuka and cut it into strips as bandages. Between them they placed tourniquets on the shattered arm and the torn thighs. Then they strapped pressure pads to the other deep punctures left by the lion’s fangs.

Leon watched Eva’s hands as she worked quickly and neatly. She showed no repugnance although she was bloodied to the elbows. ‘You know what you’re doing. Where did you learn?’

‘I could ask you the same question,’ she retorted.

‘I was taught the basics in the army,’ he replied.

‘The same with me.’

He stared at her in astonishment. ‘The German Army?’

‘One day I may tell you my life story, but for the moment we must get on with the job.’ She wiped her bloody hands on her skirt while she appraised what they had done, then shook her head. ‘He may survive the injuries, he’s tougher than most, but infection and mortification will probably kill him,’ she said.

‘You’re right. The fangs and claws of a lion are more deadly than poison arrows. They’re caked with rotten flesh and dried blood, a seething hothouse of germs. Dr Joseph Lister’s little friends. We must get him to Nairobi right away, so that Doc Thompson can stew him in a hot iodine bath.’

‘We can’t move him until we’ve done something about the tears in his belly. If we try to lift him now, his bowels will fall out. Can you stitch him?’ she asked.

‘I wouldn’t know where to begin,’ Leon said. ‘That’s a job for a surgeon. We’ll just strap him up and hope for the best.’ They bound up his stomach with lengths of shuka . Leon was watching Eva, waiting for her to express some emotion. She did not seem to be grieving. Did she have any feelings for him at all? She seemed to be working with professional detachment and avoided his eyes so he could not be certain.

At last they were able to lift Graf Otto on to a war-shield. Six of the morani took up the burden and carried him at a run in the direction of the salt pan where the Butterfly stood waiting.

Under Manyoro’s supervision they lifted the makeshift litter into the cockpit and Leon lashed it to the ring bolts in the deck. Then he looked up at Eva. Pale and dishevelled, she was squatting opposite him, her skirts filthy with blood and dust.

‘I don’t think he’ll make it, Eva. He’s lost too much blood. But perhaps Doc Thompson can pull off one of his miracles, if we get him to Nairobi in time.’

‘I’m not coming with you,’ Eva said softly.

He stared at her in amazement. It was not only the words themselves, but also the language in which she had spoken them. ‘You speak English. That’s a Geordie accent,’ he said. Its lyrical cadence was sweet to his ears.