Without speaking, both men trailed the lions. Something was very wrong, and Nikolai’s gut twisted into a knot. There weren’t many prides left in this area.
Then they came across a cub. The body lay in the dirt, with other paw prints clustered around it. The lioness, trying to get him up. By the signs, she’d dragged him a distance, even though he was an adolescent and far too large to carry properly.
Ngubi exchanged a worried look with Nikolai, who crouched beside the body, running fingers through the fur. Mai’s flexible little proboscis emerged alongside his face. She quivered, emitting a soft squeak as she vanished back into her hiding spot.
The body had already cooled. Even the pink froth coating its mouth had dried.
Nikolai shook his head, and Ngubi almost looked relieved. The Khomani glanced away when Nikolai clutched his amulet with one hand and spread his fingers of the other over the still body, before closing his eyes.
He couldn’t explain how he did what he did. If he let his thoughts drift, he could sense the life essences, just as he had with the human baby. Healthy blues and greens emanated in gentle swirls from the animals and plants surrounding him. One old tree and a mouse in the bushes had the yellow overtones of stress.
As he leaned over the dead cub, Nikolai’s gut twisted tight. What if he could do these things because he wasn’t human?
He shoved those thoughts away. There was no time for them now. He only got residual readings from the body, the last gasps of its fading life and they were black. But when he moved his hand over the tracks of those still living, he got a different read—and they were all variations on red.
Nikolai rose and exchanged a look with Ngubi. “They’re sick.”
“The tracks tell us that,” his dad pointed out. “But why?”
Nikolai’s mouth straightened. For an entire pride to fall ill at once was very unusual. It almost spoke to...
Ngubi beat him to it. “Poison,” he spat.
They stood upon lands set aside as a game preserve. The ranches that bordered the reserve sometimes poisoned the predators to keep their cattle safe, but there was another possibility.
Poachers.
Some might argue that the Khomani could not be distinguished from others harvesting the local wildlife. But Nikolai, who lived the hunter and gatherer lifestyle, knew the truth of it—the Khomani lived in balance with the land, as they had from the beginning of time. They only took what they needed to survive, and their numbers were never so great that the land even blinked.
Poachers slaughtered for pure profit, selling the animal bits—and sometimes even the animals themselves—to buyers far afield. Motivated by greed, they didn’t care if they wiped out an entire species in their pursuit of wealth.
Lions were an easy target—the poachers put out poisoned carcasses which the big predators had no trouble accepting as dinner. Once the animals died, their heads and paws and sometimes bones were sold on the black market.
Ngubi’s piercing gaze assessed him. “There is nothing we can do.”
Nikolai’s eyes returned to the tracks. “You know that isn’t true.”
Ngubi sighed and fell in behind Nikolai as he followed the trail.
It led them through the scrubby thorn bushes. In their weakened state, the lions were looking for a place to hide. They couldn’t know that the thorns wouldn’t save them.
Nikolai sensed their energy. It spiked jagged red through the calmer greens of the surrounding plant life. The streaks of black running through it indicated they didn’t have much time left.
The pride had gone to ground beneath a dense stand of bushes. They were already so sick that only one lioness and the big male raised their heads to stare at the men. The other two lionesses, and the cubs, lay ominously still.
Ngubi froze. “This isn’t a good idea.”
“I have to try, Ngubi.”
The older man swallowed. “If this is the work of poachers, they will come for them. And soon.”
Nikolai gestured back along the trail. “Watch for them. Signal if you see anything.”
Ngubi sighed and untangled the ancient rifle slung over his shoulder from the strap holding his arrows. Arrows and spears were not much use against the automatic weapons the poachers often carried, but the old rifle wasn’t much better. They carried it as a defense against just such a thing, but in Nikolai’s lifetime, it had been fired exactly six times. And hit precisely nothing.
Ngubi measured him with his wise gaze. “Remember they are lions, Nikolai.”
“I know.” Nikolai traded a worried glance with his dad. “If it’s poachers, don’t engage them. Just signal me and hide.”
