Lukarin snapped at Kkali. “I’m trying to think!” he hissed, the fur on his back standing. “Stop damn asking questions.”

Kkali shrank away, scampering to Kirisa. It had now been four days since Tsiqai’s death, and the truce between the cheetahs and the hyenas was an uneasy one. Since they’d left, the only meal had been two ground squirrels, both caught by Kirisa. They were starving.

“Don’t be so prickly,” Kirisa told her brother.

“I’m trying to damn think of what we should do,” Lukarin snapped. “Because this clearly isn’t working.” He slid his paw along the dusty ground and flicked his tail to the barren landscape. The shrubland was only reducing as they progressed.

“Why don’t you hunt instead of damn thinking. Your thinking isn’t getting any food in our stomachs.”

“Please don’t fight,” Kkali whimpered.

Lukarin stepped closer, glaring down at his shorter sister. “We wouldn’t be in this damn situation if it wasn’t for you and Yrsanu. Your faith in him is going to get us killed.”

“You must trust him!” Kirisa shouted. “I trust him because I feel it as much as he does. You’ve got no reason to trust him, but you’ve got every reason to trust me. Tiruk trusts him, so why can’t you?”

Before Lukarin could respond, Yrsanu was beside him. “You don’t have to stay with us,” he said, his voice like gravel.

The waft of rot from Yrsanu’s mouth made Lukarin snicker.

“You can stay in the savanna and die. I don’t give a damn,” Yrsanu continued. “I’m saving my own rump, and whoever wants to join me is invited to.”

Lukarin turned and faced Yrsanu head on. The young cheetah was taller by a quarter head, but much lighter. Yrsanu had ten times more experience, and could take ten times the hits, despite his injuries. A confrontation would have an obvious winner.

The sickening look in Yrsanu’s eyes told the others that he wouldn’t hesitate.

Lukarin showed no signs of backing down.

The confrontation was inevitable.

~

“Can you see? Can you see it in the stars?” Yrsanu asked Kirisa. The night sky bore down upon them like an empty maw. The horizon line were the jaws of the unfathomably massive creature falling towards them, waiting to swallow them whole. The creature that only Yrsanu and Kirisa could feel. A mere ache within them that told them a sole word: Run.

“The danger?”

“No,” Yrsanu’s large tongue slid over his teeth. “The ones before us.”

Kirisa craned her neck upwards. The lithe figure of Tsiqai, leaping and prancing with Silukithn, the night.

“They’re mocking us,” Yrsanu rumbled. “Taunting us. Daring us to try and survive.”

Kirisa shook her head. “They’re watching for us. They see the dangers ahead, but they cannot do anything to help us. Only if we seek and accept their wisdom, can we make it out of this.”

A short, gruff laugh came from the hyena, that sounded more like a cough. “I pity you for thinking that.”

Kirisa looked at him, distraught. Then she turned and looked to the others. Tiruk and Kkali were snuggled together, an intertwined, tangled heap of soft fur and warmth. Lukarin lay apart from them. His breath quick and his pelt dusty from tossing and turning. His mind plagued with hidden darkness, lunging for him, but dancing just out of the way as he tried to fight back. It was a war he couldn’t win. A war against himself.

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A soft, nearly inaudible ruffle in the grass made the two predator’s ears twitch, but neither of them had the energy to go and investigate.

“It’s been three sun downs since I ate,” Kirisa complained, lying down and putting her head on her paws.

Yrsanu collapsed onto his side. A wave of relief flooded through him as the pain he hadn’t even noticed was there in his knees subsided. “Last meal I had was a vulture forsaken buffalo hoof, seven sun downs ago. Since then I’ve only been drinking my own blood.”

His tongue wound was healing quickly. He had nothing to eat, so he couldn’t complain that it was stopping him from feeding. The wound in his foot was clogged with dirt, so he grabbed it in his mouth, and ripped it off. It would be fully scabbed by sun rise and healed in two sun downs afterwards. His neck and ear however, were his biggest concerns. Injuries usually didn’t worry Yrsanu. He always healed, and he rarely licked. Hyena bites however, were deadly. The old rotten food stuck between their teeth carried diseases. Any bite they inflicted would be infected, and Yrsanu could already feel the effects on him.

“That looks bad,” Kirisa pointed out, noticing his torn ear.

“If you touch me, I’ll rip your throat out.”

“You’ll get infected,” Kirisa said stubbornly. She crawled over to him.

“I’ve killed more cheetahs than dik-diks in my life.”

“None of them were your friends though,” she leaned forwards and let her soft tongue slide gently over his ear. It tasted foul, and sickly sweet with disease, but she didn’t care. She knew Yrsanu was good, and she would do what she could to bring it out of him. She couldn’t do that if he was dead.

~

“Can we rest? We’ve been walking since sun up!” Kkali bawled. He hadn’t yet been exposed to the full length of the Savanna. The lengthy stretches of buffalo trampled grass seemed endless to him.

“We could cover a lot more distance if we ran,” Kirisa suggested.

“Run if you want to,” Yrsanu murmured, plowing on ahead. He knew that him and Kkali would never be able to keep up, but he couldn’t care less. Their lanky front legs and shortened back legs could never match the cheetah’s lithe, lean form.

“We’ve got to stay together,” Tiruk said, her slight voice was barely louder than the wind. “We’re stronger together.”

The sea of buffalo to their right stretched on and on, as far as the eye could see.

“The lion’s prey,” Lukarin stated. “Reserved only for them.”

Yrsanu snorted.

“Hyena’s hunt buffaloes too!” Kkali cried. “Aluraki once let me eat part of a buffalo liver.”

“The hyena, the only ones of the Savanna that can rival the lion,” Lukarin continued. “You know, if us cheetahs worked together, we’d stand a chance as well.”

“There aren’t enough of us left,” Kirisa said, wistfully.

A small pack of wild dogs -maybe seven- were visible, lounging across a stretch of dirt, unwary of a giraffe that was headed towards them. To their left, was a small pond, barely bigger than a puddle.

“Call me a jackal if there’s a crocodile in there,” Yrsanu yelped.

“Is it right to take water from them?” Tiruk asked, but she got no response as the others sped towards the wild dogs.

“Get out of here, flea carcasses!” Yrsanu hollered, barreling towards them. Lukarin and Kirisa moved to his flanks.

The wild dogs were instantly on their feet, ears and tails pointed to the sky.

“Mange hound!” one of them cried, as they formed a defensive circle.

Yrsanu took no notice of the insult as he charged, jaws snapping, into their ranks.

Instantly, the rigid, shoulder to shoulder wild dogs scattered, running in every direction. None of them individually stood a chance against the hyena, but collectively, they were more than a match.

Yrsanu swiveled, now with his back to the pond. He unleashed a flurry of aggressive barks. He easily weighed double that of each wild dog, but they had numbers.

Lukarin and Kirisa were standing at his side, unsure of what they could really do. Tiruk and Kkali were nowhere to be seen.

The wild dogs fanned out, advancing slowly towards them. Each of them unsure of what to do. Their leader prowled forwards, glancing at the others to make sure they were doing the same. Suddenly, one of them broke the ranks and turned to face the others, with it’s back to Yrsanu.

“We are honorable creatures. Thiriden, we’ve had the water for twelve sunrises now. We can let them have a share,” it said.

Both Kirisa and Lukarin were stunned, losing their aggressive stances, but Yrsanu curled his lips back even further.

Another wild dog, presumably Thiriden, stepped forwards, with its chin raised high. It paused before speaking. “Does Qassan speak for the pack?”

The wild dogs nodded vigorously. Most of them looked as if it was Yrsanu’s size and growl that had persuaded them, not their moral compass.

Thirden nodded. “We will leave the pond but will return at sun down. If you haven’t left by then, there will be bloodshed.”

“Why does there always have to be bloodshed?” Tiruk asked, suddenly at Lukarin’s side. “Why can’t we just share it?”

Lukarin didn’t respond. He was too intrigued by the wild dogs, staring at them with his analytical eyes as they loped away.

“You’re welcome,” Yrsanu muttered, shoving his snout in and gulping down the murky, dirty water.

Kkali let out a squeal of delight, and bounded forwards with big clumsy steps.

The cheetahs were more delicate, keeping their feet from being wet, and lapping up the water with their small pink tongues.

The warm water felt like a river of cooling ice, running down Yrsanu’s desert dry throat. The dirt particles stung the open wound on his tongue, but he couldn’t care less.

“