Assegai полностью

The moment was shattered by the blast of a whistle and a great shout from the morani. The hunters formed up in column. Loikot took his place in the front rank to guide them to where the quarry was lying up. Still singing the Lion Song, the morani followed him, winding through the trees, with the gleaming white body of Graf Otto in their midst. The spectators trooped after them. Gustav and Hennie were swallowed up in the crowd and borne away with it.

Leon and Eva were left alone. He went to where she sat on the wing. ‘If we are to be in at the death, we must hurry.’

‘Help me down,’ she replied. She lifted her arms and leaned towards him. He reached up, placed his hands around her narrow waist, and when he set her on her feet she pressed against him for a brief moment. He smelled her particular perfume and felt the warmth of her belly against his. She read his eyes, and felt the stiffening of his loins through their clothing. ‘I know, Badger. I know so well how you feel. I feel it too. But we must be patient a little longer. Soon! Soon, I promise.’

‘Oh, God!’ He groaned. ‘I wish . . . Otto . . . the lion. If only . . .’

Her eyes quickened with real fear. ‘No, don’t say it!’ She placed a finger on his lips. ‘Don’t wish for that to happen. It would bring us the worst possible luck.’ She dropped her hand from his face, and he saw that Manyoro had come silently and was standing at his shoulder. He had the Holland rifle in one hand and the ammunition bandolier in the other.

‘Thank you, my brother,’ Leon said, as he took them.

‘Graf Otto said there were to be no guns on this hunt,’ Eva reminded him.

‘Can you imagine what might happen if he wounds that lion and it gets in among all those people?’ Leon asked grimly. ‘It’s one thing for him to have a pact with the devil, but quite another if he intends to include a dozen women and children in the bargain.’ He opened the breech of the rifle, and while he loaded it with two fat brass cartridges, he asked, ‘Can you run in that skirt and those boots?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then let’s see you do it.’ He took her arm and they raced after the column of morani, which was drawing away rapidly from the rabble of spectators.

Leon was surprised by how well Eva kept up. She lifted her long gabardine skirts to the tops of her knee-high boots and ran with the grace and lightness of a newly roused doe. He took her arm to steady her over the rougher footing, and boosted her up the steep bank of a ravine. They passed the stragglers and caught up with the main body of hunters, and were not far behind the leading warriors when the hunt master blew his whistle again. The morani evolved smoothly into their twin-horned battle formation.

‘They have caught up with the lion.’ Leon was breathing heavily with exertion.

‘How do you know? Can you see it?’ she panted.

‘Not from here, but they can. Judging from the way they’re moving, it must be lying up in that dense scrub at the foot of the kopje.’ He pointed ahead at a jumble of rocks and silver-leaf scrub.

‘Where is Otto?’ She gasped to catch her breath and leaned against him for a moment to rest. Her forehead was damp and shining with perspiration, and he delighted in her warm, womanly odour.

‘He’s right in the thick of it. Where else would we expect him to be?’ Leon pointed, and she saw his pale form standing out clearly in the first rank of dark warriors that was closing like a mailed fist around the rocky prominence of the hillock.

‘Can you see the lion yet?’ Her tone was agonized.

‘No. We’ll have to get closer.’ He took her arm and they began to run again. The first line of morani was no more than a hundred and fifty paces ahead of them when Leon stopped abruptly. ‘Oh, sweet God! There he is! There is the lion.’ He pointed.

‘Where? I can’t see it.’

‘There, on the high ground.’ He put an arm around her shoulders and turned her to face it. ‘That huge black thing on top of the highest rock. That’s him. Listen! The morani are challenging him.’

‘I can’t see . . .’ But then the lion raised and fluffed out his mane, and she gasped. ‘I was looking right at it. I never realized it would be so big. I thought it was a gigantic boulder.’

The lion swung his massive head from side to side, surveying the host of enemies that surrounded him. He snarled and bared his teeth. Even at that distance Leon and Eva could clearly see the ivory flash of his fangs and hear the furious crackling growls. Then he lowered his head and flattened his ears against his skull as he picked out the moon-pale flash of Otto von Meerbach’s body in the centre of the ranks. He had been driven off his kill and he was angry. He needed no further provocation than the sight of that alien body. He growled again, then launched his charge, bounding down the side of the kopje straight at Graf Otto.