“Don’t do that,” Gur’bruk said gently but firmly. “Can’t you see we’re lucky to be here at all?”

Kambra moaned, reaching up with a paw and gently rubbing Yolanda’s forearm. She kissed the lioness’ foot again, anointing it with her tears.

Yolanda cleared her throat. “Go on without me, sisters. I’ll be detained.”

The hunting party moved on, and when they were out of range, Yolanda reached down and tenderly nuzzled the sobbing Kambra. “Stand up, honey. I’ll carry him for you.”

Kambra slowly rose to her feet. She looked searchingly into Yolanda’s eyes. “Yes, you DO understand. Somehow, some way, I’ll repay this debt. I swear it.”

“No debt, hon. Your son was very brave. You would have been proud of him.” As gently as if she were moving a cub, Yolanda took Gur’mekh’s battered body by the scruff of the neck and followed the hyenas back toward the eastern meadow. From there, Gur’bruk and Kambra went into exile. Yolanda last saw them heading across the desert. Whether or not they would make it, she did not know.

Of course that same night the Makei was without a home, and he sought someone else to cling to. Someone who would voluntarily accept him. Shimbekh was too wise to take him in. But that was a momentary handicap. Somewhere out there was someone that would let him in.

He began to wait on a hard-bitten and hard-biting female who was full of repressed rage, sorrows, and bitterness.

Fabana stirred in her sleep. She was overwrought from the events of the day. She worried that she would grow old in destitution and ruin, never enjoying the life she’d heard told about by the clan members. Her heart began to fill with bitterness, a bitterness that was sweet incense to the Makei.

Fabana heard something and looked around. A bright golden light appeared next to her. Staring from the bright light was a beautiful female hyena.

“Are you a ghost??” Her hackles raised and she trembled.

“No,” the form said in almost a dreamy lullaby. “I am who I am. Okash of all, child of none.”

Fabana fell at her feet and kissed them. “Roh’kash ne nabu! Roh’kash ne nabu!”

The Makei reached down and kissed her gently. “The Lord your God has come to rescue your people. I have anointed your unborn daughter to become the next Roh’mach at the time I have chosen. You will name her Shenzi, a name that will come to mean salvation for the race.”

“I am yours!” Fabana fell on her back and reached up with a paw. “I am yours! Use me!”

“I shall,” said the Makei. “Oh, I shall.”

Melmokh strictly warned Fabana not to reveal the prophesy before the appointed time. Faithfully she agreed to keep silent, though her reputation could have used the help. A few of the hyenas treated Fay with disdain because of her husband, doubly unfair because Jalkort did nothing shameful.

Since Gur’mekh was disgraced and dead, it was easier to rail against him and his followers openly instead of whispering in the shadows. Fay contented herself by imagining the looks on their faces when the plans of Roh’kash were made public. There would be an accounting then, by the gods!

However, most of the hyenas were sympathetic to her plight, especially Ber. He tried to help her get by when she became too great with child to hunt, becoming a second okhim to her. He listened sympathetically when Fay needed a friendly ear and occasionally brought her some meat. There was only so much he could do since he was hunting for Lenti and her pups. But his friendship fed a hunger deeper than the pit of her stomach.

Lenti was also like a sister to Fabana. She remembered the gazelle that she ate the night her husband died. Fay was the giver then in the days of her sleek, well-fed figure. Now the ribs showed, and she walked a little slower, her head bowed a little lower and her smile used a lot less. As Gur’mekh’s group had formed a clan within a clan, a common bond of grief united Fay and Lenti in a private world of grief.

Korg and Skulk had gotten away with their role in killing Avina. It almost seemed unfair that they walked and slept and breathed the fresh morning air while Jal’s bones sharpened the teeth of jackal pups. At least they had the decency to look away when Fabana and Lenti walked by, and not brazenly meet their glance.

Amarakh was already unpopular with most of the hyenas for her handling of the Avina affair. She had little to lose by being openly friendly to Fabana, even to the point of giving a public eulogy for Jalkort. Fay was very grateful, especially when Amarakh would come by to check on her. It was her link with respectability. As if Amarakh knew this, she would go out of her way to be seen with Fabana in front of the others, asking about her health and her pregnancy.

When the pups were born, the first male was named Ed. This was a form of exorcism, for the name of her betrayer would belong to her faithful child, and the hurt would be undone. Banzai his brother would bear a warm place in his mother’s heart, for he looked like his father. But it was Shenzi that was of special interest. For this was the daughter of the prophesy. Small and helpless, the future Roh’mach snuggled to her muti to take her first meal. “Wherever you are, Jal, see your children. Aren’t they beautiful?”

Fabana looked at Banzai’s face and wept. “Oh, Jal! You did not leave me without comfort! My poor, dear Jal!”

It was not until four moons after the birth that the false Roh’kash made an appearance. It was very subtle to avoid frightening the children. The Makei needed their complete trust.

Smiling, the being of light whined and licked Shenzi. “You’re beautiful. You’re so beautiful that my heart melts.”

“That’s God,” Fabana said, falling face down to the ground and trembling.

“Hello, God,” Shenzi said, boldly rubbing against the false Roh’kash. “I’m Shenzi.”

“Show respect!” Fabana stammered.

“SHOW respect? She will be SHOWN respect,” the light said. The false Roh’kash materialized as a beautiful female from the light. She dropped her front legs and wagged her tail. Shenzi began to bat her with her paws. With Fabana watching in near shock, her daughter began to wrestle with the Creator, laughing and finally collapsing in submission as Shenzi was bathed by Roh’kash’s own tongue.

As days turned into weeks, and weeks into months, young Shenzi was the "daughter dearest" whom the false Roh'kash had anointed and given the power of life or death. And still not a word was breathed outside of Fabana’s family. “When the time is right, the truth will reveal itself,” the light would say. In a very bitter way, that would prove to be true.

Shimbekh turned again to Brin’bi for comfort. Her first love had fled, her sister was gone, and Gur’mekh had been picked clean by the jackals. Her parents had turned inward in their grief and were little help in sharing her own burdens. Brin’bi’s friendship upheld her during a time when all other support was gone. And over time her feelings for him had had grown to a love.

Brin’bi could feel that love, and it began to play upon him. He would appear to her more often, sometimes unbidden. And she never did anything to discourage him. In fact, she craved the every moment of the time they spent together.

Giddy as a young bak’ret on her first date, she went to all of the places she enjoyed and took Brin’bi on a tour of her private world. But her favorite thing was to lie in the grass Gur’bruk and Kambra were wont to do, gazing into his soft eyes and loving him without a word. In her rapture, she remembered the Ecstasy of Limlorin: