Legacy Chapter 12 –

	I come to groggily, my mind blissfully clear, the night free of dreams.  Most every night has been like that for me lately.  In this place, the past seems to fade away into the recesses of my mind.  To have that tapestry of guilt, shame and anger as a backdrop to my life, rather than a dogging, every day source of pain is a liberation in and of itself.  Collar or no, I haven’t felt this free in years.
	A lot of that has to do with the hyena pressed up close against my chest.  His muzzle’s in the hollow of my throat, his breath even and slow, one of his long arms wrapped around my hip.  I can feel his toes against mine, our legs awkwardly tangled, as they tend to end up most mornings.
	I’m not sure when this all became normal to me, but I’m even less sure when it was I began to rely on him to be there for me to sleep soundly.  Unlike on the plantation, we have an abundance of sleeping mats here – three, and three blankets, one for each of us in the hut they sequestered us in.  Raja almost never spends the night here unless he’s drunk or between lionesses, and Ahsan and I have slept together since we arrived, nearly a month ago.  I don’t think I’ve ever even considered spending a night away from him, so two of the mats remain completely unused.
	This is what it’s supposed to be like.  This is how it should have been for my mother and father, how it should have been for my wife and I.  We’ve never even talked about what it is we have.  It’s unspoken, but still understood.  A mutual need we’re both filling.  It’s not that I can’t be apart from him, we often work separately and Ahsan’s made a lot of friends amongst the women in the village, but we always come back to one another at the end of the day.
	It’s really not all that different from the way we’d begun to rely on one another on the plantation.  The only big changes are the . . . physical ones.
	Until the plantation, the only lover I’d ever had was my wife.  And I can’t call what we had ‘love’, it was just two scared kids going through the motions.  We often didn’t even accomplish what we were trying to do, and I always felt like I was hurting her, or forcing it on her somehow.  Some of the other boys I talked to at the kilns said women could enjoy it, but Ishaya was either incapable, or she just didn’t want me.  
	I wanted her.  I wanted everything to be right between us, but it just never was.  And eventually I lost any interest I’d ever had in her body, because every time I’d touched her, I’d been made to feel like it was a violation.  Some of that is still with me to this day, I’m sure.  The thing that happened with Vikram didn’t help, either.  It’s hard for me to enjoy what’s only ever been bad for me, in the past.  Regardless of what my body has to say about it.
	I never grew up thinking I’d be with a man, either.  The oddity and the nuances of that have been an adjustment, but not one I’d say was overly difficult.  Just different.  I’m sure it helps that Ahsan is undeniably good at all of it.
	Well, most of it.  There are things I’ve done with Ahsan in the past month that I’d never done with my wife, but sex . . . the sort of thing Vikram did to me, that is . . . has not been one of them.  We haven’t even talked about trying it, and I’m honestly glad he hasn’t pushed me.  The thought of it still feels wrong to me, and I’m not sure if it’s because of my experience with the lion, or just the fact that it would mean I’d have to take a less passive role than I have so far.  I get twisted up inside whenever I think about the possibility of hurting him.  Especially considering what he went through at the manor.  I feel better about all of it when it’s his decision, when he’s the one leading, as it were.  I don’t want to mount him like all those other men did, even though I know he’d let me if I asked.  
	A few months ago I would never have imagined we’d be lovers, though.  So who’s to say how I’ll feel in a few more.
	My whiskers prickle, and I glance down, only noticing now that he’s shifted a bit and his eyes are just barely open to slits, looking up at me.  They’re so dark when he’s half asleep, his pupils blown wide.  I used to think the rust-colored, dark eyes most hyenas had were merciless and greedy.  But looking down at him now with the first hints of morning light streaming in through the threshold, casting a halo along the tips of his mane and lining his body in silver . . . I’m not sure how I couldn’t see the unique beauty in his people.
	I smile a bit, slipping a hand down to lazily cup and stroke one of his ears.  He leans his head into my touch and gives a pleased, soft noise.  
	“You’re gorgeous when you’re half asleep,” I tell him, my voice still husky with morning roughness.
	I don’t miss the way his ears color up, and he glances away, shyly.  “You’re surprising, Kadar,” he replies.
	“Oh?”
	His eyes find mine again, and he smiles.  “You’re sort of . . . romantic?  I thought . . .” he trails off, as if finding his thoughts, then shifts his body to move over mine.  My hands find his hips and tug him against me once we’ve found just the right angle where every part of us fits together.  We’ve gotten very good at finding that angle over the last month.
	Once he’s over me and we’re more nose to nose, he continues.  “I don’t know,” he huffs, his tail flicking over my hands as they move around his hips to his lower back.  “I thought you’d be more . . . reserved.”
	I arch an eyebrow at him.  “Are you suggesting I’ve been noisy?  Because really, if we’re going to compare-”
	“No,” he chuckles.  “No, I meant more that . . . that I thought you would be . . . not unaffectionate, but more distant?  No, that sounds insulting.  I’m sorry, I’m having trouble putting it into words.”
	“I put up a hard front,” I say.  “That’s what you meant?”  
	He nods.  “But you say things sometimes,” he says, “like just now.  And you do things, small things, but I know what they mean.  Like the comb.”
	I flick my ears back, abashedly.  “I told you, that wasn’t that much trouble to trade for.”
	“You watched that woman’s swarm of children for nearly a week, Kadar,” he laughs.
“They liked spending time at the well anyway,” I insist.  “And I like children.  I’m a simple man, so I get on well with them.  It wasn’t much trouble.”
“See, even now you’re not willing to admit it,” he leans in, pressing his nose against mine.  “But you are.  You’re a romantic.”
“Gods, I’m never complimenting you again.”
He laughs at that and kisses me, and I tug him in a little closer, entangling our legs once more.  At length, he pulls back and looks down at me, his tail flicking against my thighs.  A lingering scent in our fur, specifically our two scents co-mingled, reminds me of the night before.  My sheath feels restricting, but I’m still too lethargic to consider doing much about it.
“I guess,” I murmur, “I always wanted someone I could make feel safe.  Happy.  I like that it matters to you when I do something for you.  Even if it’s just a damn comb.”
“I got a lot of gifts, when I was at the manor,” he says, laying his head on my chest.  “Expensive trinkets, jewelry, things I could wear.  I wasn’t ungrateful, it’s just . . . I was always reminded how I’d be earning it, either right after I received it, or right before.  So eventually, I realized I was just being bought, and I didn’t even get a choice in what was being offered.  But they always wanted the same thing.”
I frown, but I don’t reply other than to stroke his back.  He talks about his time at the manor sometimes, when he’s comfortable enough to do so.  I’ve only gotten bits and pieces, and I’ve found the best thing to do is just to let him talk.  I don’t know if I’ll ever know everything that happened to him there, but he seems to want to impart it all at his own pace.
“It’s not that they were evil men,” he says.  “Not all of them, anyway.  Most of them would be civil, even kind.  But they were being kind because they were afraid of upsetting my ‘mother’.  It was always a trade, or part of some agreement they’d made with her.  Nothing was freely given.”  He strokes a hand through my chest fur, slowly.  “You’re kind to me and then you deny it.  You don’t even want gratitude.  You don’t seem to want anything.”
“I can’t think of anything more I’d want,” I shrug against the blankets.  
“Really?”  He smirks, leaning up on his elbows over me.  “I could think of a few things I know you’d enjoy.”
“See?”  I smirk.  “I never need to ask for the things I want.”
“You could,” he says lowly, his hips rocking forward in my loose grip, so that my paws settle lower on his rear.  “Ask, I mean,” he clarifies, as if that needed clarification.
I squeeze my fingers into the tight, yet soft musculature of his rear, and his eyes slip closed for a moment, his sheath rubbing up between mine and the hollow of my thigh.  He’s harder than I am already, and he gives this sharp, short gasp when he feels the first hint of my own tip rubbing against his. 
“I prefer things the way they are,” I assure him quietly.  “I like it when you lead.  I never have to wonder if my affections are wanted.”
“I’ll always want you, Kadar,” he promises, his voice always threaded with the hint of a growl when we’re like this.  It’s odd, because he’s usually so soft-spoken.  But I know from the incident in the manor that somewhere inside the boy they raised there to be docile and subdued lies another fiercer man he’s only just begun to uncover.
As if to make his point, he bows his head and begins to nuzzle his way down my chest, his broad nose pressing up into my fur so he can nibble at my skin.  I never would have considered myself to have sensitive skin until him.  I didn’t even know men’s chests could be made to feel this way.  
My breath hisses between my teeth when he nips at me, and I instinctively suck in my stomach when he noses his way down lower.  I can feel that I’m lying more heavily out of my sheath now by the weight resting on my lower stomach, and I know what he has in mind.  One of those things my wife never did for me.  It’s been a struggle for me to enjoy it without my mind wandering to the likely reasons he’s so skilled at things like this, but . . . I’ve managed, somehow.  Likely because, as aforementioned, he’s really good at it.
One of his paws, finally roughening up from a few months of hard living, grips me gently by the sheath, and I watch his muzzle part over my tip, but shut my eyes before his tongue makes contact with me.  For some reason, I’m still a bit embarrassed about watching him do this.  Even though I really should, if I ever want to be any good at it, myself.
Which I am not, as it turns out.  The one time I tried, I mostly made a fool of myself, and he was good enough not to laugh at me until afterwards.
Like I said, it’s been an adjustment.  
His muzzle’s unbelievably hot as it encompasses my length.  I have to fight myself not to arch up into his mouth, even though every instinct in me is telling me to do just that.  My hands need somewhere to go, and I know from previous experience that he’ll not only allow me to hold him by the mane, but that he actually enjoys it, so that’s where they end up.
He takes me into his muzzle from root to tip, cupping my sheath and rubbing at it softly in time with his motions, coaxing the rest of my length free.  I run my thumb and forefinger down the ragged edge of one of his ears, and he hums appreciatively as I do so.  I can feel the low, thrumming growl, almost like a purr, through every inch of skin he has in his mouth, and I don’t bother fighting the groan that escapes me then.
I’m not really sure how long this goes on, because time gets a little fuzzy when he does these things to me, but I’m drunk on bliss and approaching a state of completely contentment when, as he has a tendency to do, Raja surprises the both of us and ruins everything.
More specifically, he stalks through the doorway, stares at us for a moment, and then gives a disgusted growl and prowls off to his corner of the hut.  
He can’t be half as disgusted as I am, though.  Ahsan doesn’t exactly like the cheetah to begin with, but he especially doesn’t like him being around as an audience, so the second we’re no longer alone together, he groans unhappily and stops what he was doing, planting his nose in my belly fur and hiding his face away as well as he can. 
“Too late, I already saw you with dick in your mouth,” the cheetah informs him in a mocking tone.
“Raja,” I growl out.  “Knock.”
“On what?”  The cheetah gestures roughly with both of his hands at the open threshold, and the thin hide we have covering the opening.
“Alright, I’ll give you that,” I mutter, letting my head thud back into the blankets, giving a long sigh.
“You two are completely disgusting, by the way,” the cheetah mutters.
“I saw you trade plenty of ‘favors’ with the men on the plantation,” I snort.  “Up to and including rats.  So you’ve got no leg to stand on.”
“I don’t mean because he’s a man,” the cheetah says, throwing down a satchel of what I’m guessing are his few possessions onto his empty sleeping mat.  “I mean you’re disgusting because you’re always all over one another.”
“What’s this now for you?”  I grate out.  “Lioness number six?  Seven?”
He briefly gives a fanged grin.  “Eight,” he corrects me.
“Yeah, and this one tossed you out, too,” I point out.  “You’re making your way through a very limited population, Raja.  It looks like the word’s getting out on you.”
“What ‘word’?”  He looks up, confused.
“That you’re a dick.”
“Says the man who sucks dick,” Raja snarls.
“Not well,” Ahsan comments mournfully, his voice muffled by my fur.
Raja gives a full-throated laugh at that at my expense, and I’m honestly too frustrated to get up and deck him.  Not to mention still hard.  My humiliation is furthered when even Ahsan starts laughing eventually, chuckling against my stomach.  I grumble and shove him off, all enthusiasm for continuing where we left off now officially gone.
“Aren’t you supposed to be out roaming the world, making other people’s lives miserable by now?”  I inquire of the cheetah, not really angry, but feeling the need to vent my bodily frustration in any way I can think of.
“I’m out of lionesses,” he says with a smirk, “but there are a pair of vixens that might still be willing to take me in for a time.  And plenty of work and food, for however long I decide to stay.”
“I just never thought any place would hold your interest this long,” I say, being honest.  “Or . . . tolerate you this long.”
“Dela tells me they’ve never had a man more capable at the well, actually,” he crows.   “She is very happy to have me here.”
“Mmh,” I give a noncommittal noise, not wanting to show how exasperated I am.  I had literally predicted he’d take his job hauling up water as some kind of challenge, and he did, insisting on out-performing me every day.  I don’t actually care, and neither does anyone else, but it’s just a little sad how predictable the cat can be.
“Speaking of,” he stands, stretching out his long legs.  “It’s dawn.  Get your asses up, or we’ll be late.  And Dela won’t accept ‘sucking dick’ as an excuse.”
“You’ve changed since we left the plantation,” I point out to him.  “You used to be an asshole with a presence about you.  It was honestly a little intimidating.  Now you’re just an asshole.”
“I’m happier here,” he says, his statement surprising me because of how forthright it sounded.  I glance up at him as he heads for the door, in time to see him level one last look at me.  “And I trust you two.  I know you don’t want to get one over on me, or mess with me.  We’re comrades out here, not just slaves to the same master.”
I’m almost touched by the rare admission, and then he smirks.  “Besides.  I don’t need to impress men like you.  An entire oasis full of women, and you’re still fucking each other?  The hyena, I could see, but I thought you were more of a man, jackal.”
I do get to my feet at that, and he makes as if to accept my challenge.  Then his eyes travel downwards, to where I’m still poking out of my sheath, and he cringes, “Ugh.  I’m not fighting you like that.”
“Fight nothing,” I reach out for him, and he skips back away from me.  “C’mon, Raja.  Let’s share a manly embrace.”
“Go fuck yourself,” he shoves me back, snarling but still smirking.  “Or better yet, let the hyena do it.”
I all but chase him out of the hut with his tail between his legs, a rare victory in the battle against Raja’s ego.

By mid-afternoon, when the heat is so bad that even Dela won’t make us work through it, I am extremely ready to find some way to be alone with Ahsan.  But not nearly as impatient about it as he is.  
“Where?”  He asks, following me to the outskirts of the date palm grove.  “We could go back to the hut, I guess-“
“Do you want a repeat of this morning?”  I ask him plainly.  The hyena’s flattened ears and cringing expression are answer enough.
“It’s a small oasis,” he sighs.  “So long as he’s staying at the hut with us, we might not be able to find many moments alone.”
“Let’s just get some food,” I sigh.  
He’s silent for a bit, and he doesn’t say as much, but I can tell he’s dissatisfied by how quickly I let the matter drop.  
“We can still sleep beside one another,” I say, spreading my hands.  “It won’t be that bad.”
“Is this about that comment Raja made?”  He asks.  “Because you know I’d never – I mean, unless you wanted me to-“
“What?”  I blink, confused.  “No, I . . . look, I’m just not certain where or how we’ll find any privacy until he moves out again.  That dhole nearly caught us at the well the last time, and I don’t want to anger Dela or the other lionesses.  And there aren’t really many sheltered areas in this place,” I gesture to the grove, and the thin palm trunks and occasional olive trees.
“Gods, I never thought I’d miss the fields,” the hyena mutters.  
“Don’t tempt fate,” I warn him.
“They were just such a great place to disappear,” he smiles a little, then suddenly stares past me, his eyes going distant.
“What?”  I ask, then curiously peer over my shoulder.
At the wind-swept grassland beyond.
I look back to him.  Then he looks to me.  Then we’re both taking off to the outer edge of the oasis, into the tossing sea of high grasses.  
Some of the oasis water must seep into the land around it, because the grasses for half a mile in every direction grow far taller and lusher than they do anywhere else in this expanse of scrub land.  It’s all golden and drying, of course – still scrub grass, not fit for even rats to eat.  The women know of some weeds that grow in the shade of the nearly waist-high grasses that are good for eating or medicine, but for the most part it’s just a buffer around the oasis for the lionesses to stalk through and keep guard.  And a beautiful sight in the midst of the day, when the sun shimmers and ripples across the surface of the tossing, tall blades.
We manage to find a small dip in the land that’s probably sitting over some of the bedrock that the well springs from, and crash down into the weeds together.  Ahsan can actually get a little rough when he’s this enthusiastic, but I can take a pin here or there.  For the first few minutes that’s really all we end up doing – wrestling like pups.  I’m stronger than he is, but that may not be the case for much longer.  Hyenas are powerful, and Ahsan’s not lacking the frame, he was just terribly malnourished back at the plantation.  That’s begun to change, ever since we left.  Not only is the food good and plentiful here, he’s finally begun to feel less self-conscious about his height and weight.  He eats full meals, he carries himself with less of a slump, and we’re all working very physically demanding jobs, so he’s begun to put on some muscle, as well.  
He gives me quite a challenge today, but ultimately, as I always do, I let him have his way.  I think he knows I succumb on purpose, but it never dims that triumphant grin he gets when he moves over me.  I give a playful snarl and lean up to brush our muzzles together, and it isn’t long before we’re kissing and picking up where we left off this morning.
This time, thank the gods, we’re left alone long enough to thoroughly enjoy one another.  I forgo another attempt at using my muzzle on him, since we don’t have that much time and I know for a fact how long the last attempt took to . . . ultimately accomplish nothing.  Ahsan loves my paw anyway, and I’m much more certain of my skill there.  The reprieve ends with him lying against my chest, my arms wrapped around him, stroking him until he’s bucking into my palm and spilling himself into the crushed grass around us.
We lie there for a time afterwards, staring upwards at the cloudless, endless blue desert sky.  We’re both panting in the heat, a lazy fog creeping into my head and threatening me with a mid-afternoon nap, if I don’t force myself to move soon.  The insects thrum in a lulling chorus, making it all the harder to consider going back to work. 
“I wish we could stay here,” Ahsan murmurs wistfully.
	I frown silently, and shift my arm a bit from where he’s been lying atop it, moving it to wrap around his shoulders instead.  He leans his head against my chest, and I sigh.  “We can’t,” I eventually say.  “This place isn’t meant for us.  It’s not a haven for wanted men, it’s a watering hole for the desperate, for people who need the help they can offer here.  We were lucky to find it, but . . . we’re able-bodied, and we can’t keep being a drain on their resources.”
	“We work-“
	“We could never live this well anywhere else, as laborers,” I say with a grimace.  “Trust me.  What we do could be replaced by one camel, or an oxen.  And they could feet it grass, not meat and rice.  We’re here because Dela Eden is a kind woman, and she has yet to force us out.  We shouldn’t take advantage of her Pride much longer.”
	“I’m afraid to go back out there,” he murmurs, quietly.  I squeeze his shoulders closer to mine.  “Where can we go, Kadar?”
	“I don’t know,” I reply honestly.  “Somewhere foreign, maybe.  Somewhere the clans have no influence.”
	“The north?”  He questions.  “The Dog Lord lands?”
	“I’m not sure,” I say, uncertainly.  “Moving north would be a very long journey.  Following the Hyronses would be the best idea, but it’s completely controlled by the Clans.”  
	“I used to look at some of the maps in the estate,” Ahsan says quietly.  “Mataa is our country.  It was orange on the map, and there were markers inked across it, with dotted lines and symbols.  One of the men I used to see explained to me once that those were all different Clan territories.  There were a lot of them.  And we’re really far down, near the bottom.  We’d have to go through so many . . . .”
	“The land itself is a problem, too,” I flick an insect off my ear.  “There’s the Great Expanse to the north.  This old lion I used to talk to at the kilns said the Expanse is so hot, and so dry, the sands turn to glass in places.  He said it’s why the Dog Lords have never conquered the Clans.”
	“What about the ocean?”  The hyena asks, turning towards me.
	“The coast?”  I turn my gaze back to the sky, considering.  “It’s all controlled by the Clans as well.  But there are a lot of foreigners there.  I hear, anyway.  This is actually the farthest west I’ve ever been.”
	“Kadar,” he says suddenly, more urgency in his tone.
	I lean up on my elbows, because he just did.  His ears are turned up, the fur of his mane bristling.  He always seems to hear things before I do, and I’m not sure if it’s his species or just that his hearing’s better than mine, but by now I’ve come to trust his instincts.
	“What is it?”  I ask, sniffing the wind, but it’s very still right now, and the aroma of the grasses is all I’m getting.
	“Someone’s moving through the grass,” he says, his own nose twitching.  “Or . . . was.  I don’t hear them anymore.”
	“Probably one of the lionesses,” I sigh.  “We should head back.”
	“We wouldn’t have heard one of them,” he insists, a snap in his tone.  
As much as I’m concerned he’s overreacting, he’s probably right about that.  “Is it an animal?”  I ask, uncertainly.
Something . . . no, someone, they sound two-legged . . . shifts in the grasses then, and this time I hear it too.  He jerks and stiffens, his body going still.  Then the wind kicks up.  
“I still can’t smell anything,” I murmur, confused.  It sounded large, and if it was a feral animal of some sort out here, I’d certainly be smelling it by now.  The lionesses have mentioned that on occasion, Atlas lions will come through here looking for game, but they usually know to avoid the oasis and the Eden Pride.  And anyway, this really sounded like a person, the way it walked.
I glance back to Ahsan to ask him if he’s heard anything I haven’t, and that’s when I notice he’s shaking.  His muzzle’s just barely open, and his gaze looks miles away.  “Ahsan?”  I reach out for him, concerned.
“It’s her,” he says, with startling certainty.
“Who?”  I blink, glancing back out towards where we heard the grasses move.  I can’t hear a thing any more, and I still can’t smell anything.
“The priestess of Anala,” he whispers.  “The woman who killed Lochan.”
“What?”  I snuff, completely bemused by his guess.  Of all the things I thought he’d say, that wasn’t even in the spectrum.  “Wh . . . what the hell makes you think that?”
“She had no scent,” he says, his jaw shaking slightly.  “When she attacked us in the courtyard.  She smelled like clay, and sand.  I think she rubs it into her fur.”
“Ahsan,” I say evenly, “I know that was a terrible day.  I know it’s hard to shake the memories, but we’ve put a lot of distance between ourselves and that place.  They don’t know we’re here.  They can’t know.”
“It’s her,” he says, still staring into the gently tossing grasses like he’s seen a ghost.  “Kadar, I know it’s her.”
“Because you didn’t smell something?”
He finally looks back to me again, his whole body shaking now.  “They’ve found us.”

As unlikely as it all seems, by the time we’ve made it back to the oasis, Ahsan’s demeanor coupled with a strange uneasiness in the air has me on edge.  Something definitely doesn’t feel right.
One of the first people we come across as we head towards the village square is Davika.  The little meerkat woman’s managed to settle in well enough here, from what little I’ve gleaned from the few interactions I’ve had with her since.  She and Lavanya apparently stay in a hut with one of the older lionesses and work in one of the olive groves.  I see Lavanya far more often, since she spends more time with the lionesses and the other large species, but I’m not on bad terms with the meerkat.
She looks nervous when she sees us from one of the footpaths that lead towards the groves, and I’m hoping that’s nothing unusual.  She often looks nervous.  But when she rushes up to us, clutching a basket of olives in her small paws, I can tell something’s really bothering her.
“They sent out Lavanya to find you two,” she says, hurriedly.  “I’m glad you’re safe.”
“Safe?”  I ask, narrowing my eyes.
“Dela’s calling everyone away from the fields,” she explains.  “One of the lionesses was hurt.  I don’t know much.  She’s with the healer.”
“Thank you,” I tell her hurriedly, and then I double my pace to the village square.  Ahsan follows me, dread in his eyes.  It’s far too early to assume he’s right about his wild guess, but it’s certainly coincidental that this is all happening at the same time.  Someone must be out there.
The women are massed in the center of the village around the doused cooking fires, and there’s an especially large group near the healer’s hut.  I start pressing my way through the crowd when someone grabs at my shoulder from behind, startling me.
“Where were you?!”  Lavanya demands, her yellow eyes wide.  “Someone told me they saw you heading for the fields, I’ve been out there looking for you for half an hour now.”
“I’m sorry,” I put up my hands.  “We were just-“
“Nevermind,” she cuts me off, “did you see anything while you were out there?”
“We didn’t see anything,” I begin, “but-“
“It’s the Sura clan,” Ahsan says, shakily.  “I know it is.”
Lavanya’s ears tip back at that and she looks suddenly far more worried.  I shake my head, “We don’t know that,” I insist.  “Anyone could be out there.  Vagabonds, criminals like us, maybe even a lost caravan.”
“I know it was her,” Ahsan insists, vehemently.
“ ‘Her’?”  Lavanya repeats.
“Ahsan’s convinced it was a Guard Master from our plantation,” I sigh.  “A priestess of Anala.”
Lavanya shakes her head, looking to Ahsan.  “Well, you’re wrong there.”
“We can’t rule anyone out, I suppose,” I say.  “However unlikely.”
“No, I mean it can’t be her,” Lavanya insists.  “The lioness who made it back said she saw men.  Foreign men.”
“She saw them?”  Ahsan asks, ears twisting towards the healer’s hut.  That gets my rapt attention too, and without another moment to spare, we all make our way there.
When we draw near, I can hear Dela addressing some of the women’s concerns.  My impatience threatens to overwhelm me, but I stand back and don’t interrupt for now.  Our presence hasn’t gone unnoticed, though.  Many of the women who live here have never been fond of the fact that we’re here, even if the lionesses tolerate us.  They usually keep quiet about it, it’s just a sense of not belonging I pick up on sometimes when I come to dinner.  I can’t blame the women, considering what many of them went through.  But right now, that sense of not belonging is growing steadily with each passing moment.
Finally, one of them speaks up.  
“It’s the men,” the woman, a cheetah with a baby on her hip says bitterly.  “They’re criminals, aren’t they?”
One of the rats in the crowd hears her, and is less afraid to be rude to Dela, apparently, because she raises her voice.  “Yeah, what if they’re here for the men?!”  She cries out.  “They’re the only ones we’ve taken in this season!  They’re owned-“
“So are you, Lakshmee,” a squirrel says from beside her, plucking at her own collar.  “Many of us are owned.  They could be here for anyone.”
“We were fine until the men showed up!”  Another voice calls from the crowd.
Other voices begin to join the fray, and amidst the throng of bodies, I see Raja in the distance, emerging from one of the paths with an empty bucket slung over his shoulder.  He stands out almost entirely because he’s heads over most of the women here.  He looks confused, especially when the crowd begins to turn against us.  He gives me a long look from across the throng of bodies, and I grind my teeth, considering taking Ahsan right now and joining him, just for safety in numbers.
As if that would matter.  We’re three men in a sea of women, and for the first time, that feels dangerous.
The scene begins to grow chaotic, every voice trying to be heard at once.  I can tell the moment Dela’s lost her patience, because her ears flatten back and she opens her muzzle to bay out a roar.  It’s nowhere near as shaking as a male lion’s, but the old lioness still manages to quiet the clearing and make tails tuck, all the same.
“Enough,” she growls, showing her yellowed fangs.  “You will all listen for now.  Speaking is pointless when your words are lost in a roar of ignorance.”  She waits a further few moments to assure she has everyone’s attention, and then begins talking again.  She doesn’t seem to have to raise her voice to be heard.
“We are not living on some other world,” she says, sternly.  “We live in Mataa, and so long as we live in these lands, we will have to contend with the clans, the Prides, and all the troubles that plague the Huudari people.  This is not the first time this place has been attacked, nor will it be the last.  We are fortunate enough here to have what many others want, and so long as that is the case, we will have enemies.”  She raises her hand, sweeping it over the crowd.  “Almost all of you came here, fleeing your own troubles.  We took these men in just the same as we did all of you.  It does not matter who these strange men who attack us are here for.  We stand together, as castoffs and unwanted people.”  
“The Eden tribe has no harem lord,” one of the other lionesses, a younger hunter by her side, speaks up.  “We chose not to, not because we hate men, but because we wanted to be equals . . . and no woman in a Pride is the equal of her husband.  If we treat them as lessers now, we are not elevating our gender.  We are only putting theirs beneath us, as our husbands once did.” 
“It’s my fault,” Lavanya suddenly speaks up.  Slowly, all eyes turn towards her, including Dela’s.  She takes a deep breath.  “Dela Eden, I’m . . . I’m sorry.  It’s my fault we were found.”
“Child, we’re not even certain who found us,” Dela assures her, calmly.  She lifts an aging hand and gestures to us.  “Come.  Please.  Come and speak.”
Lavanya moves past me through the crowd, and I decide to follow, trailed eventually by Ahsan.  Dela’s hunters part for us and let us through, and we join the older lioness as she heads into the healer’s hut.
The second we’re inside, I smell blood, herbs and desperation.  I don’t even need to look at the fallen huntress to know her condition is dire.  She’s on her side, a compress over what must be a terrible wound on her hip.  It’s bled through, and there are several others like it boiling in a pot nearby.  The aging medicine woman looks up at us from where she’s grinding something in a mortar and pestle.  Dela kneels beside the injured lioness and then looks up to us.
“I have never seen a wound like this,” she admits.  “She was speaking for a time when we first found her, collapsed and bleeding in the grass.  She’d been out hunting, I’m not sure where or how far she went, but . . . she said she saw a group of men.  Canines, in strange clothing.”
“Are you sure they weren’t hyenas?”  Ahsan asks.
She shakes her head.  “She insisted they were not clan hunters.  She said they were dressed strange, and didn’t look like any men she’d ever seen before.  Their ears were turned over.”
	“Turned over?”  I repeat uncertainly.
	“Northerners,” Ahsan says, suddenly.  “Men from the Dog Lord lands.  They look like jackals and wolves sometimes, but different.  And they have weapons – can I see her wound?”
	Dela nods sagely, and gingerly reaches forward, removing the compress.  The moment the herb-soaked bandage is removed from her matted fur, I suck in a breath.  And Ahsan wilts.
	“I’ve have seen that kind of wound before,” I say darkly.  “Once before.”
	“It’s from a powder weapon,” Ahsan says, his voice gone thin.  “The men from the north come and trade them for spices and drugs, sometimes.”
	“They’re loud,” I point out.  “Very loud.  Like thunder.  Which tells us at least that she must have been attacked far off in the scrublands.  We would have heard it if they were any closer.”
	“That’s something,” Dela’s muzzle twitches.  “Although they could be upon us at any time.  If she was able to make it back wounded, they could easily have us surrounded by now.  And we still don’t know why they’re here.”
	“I think I do,” Lavanya speaks up again, knitting her hands in her lap.  We all go silent, and the lioness straightens her back, but keeps her eyes down.  “I’m sorry, Dela Eden.  I told others where this place was.”
	Dela gets a stern expression at that.  “Who, child?”  She asks, her voice reminding me of my mother’s, when I was being scolded.
	“Another woman at the brothel,” she says with a soft exhale.  “She chose not to leave with us when we fled the place.  She wanted to leave as badly as Davika, until they got her started on the Divine.  She was afraid that if we fled somehow, we’d have no place to go.  I just wanted to assure her I knew somewhere safe.  I didn’t tell her exactly where, just . . . that it was to the west.”
	The older lioness exhales slowly.  “Our oasis is not entirely hidden away.  It is known to some of the traders and travelers in this area.  It wouldn’t take a good hunter long to discern where you may have gone.”
	“I’m so sorry, Dela,” Lavanya says, her body slumping over, head bowed.  “She was a different woman before the drug.  I thought she would leave with us, if we ever liberated ourselves.”
	“It doesn’t matter how it happened,” Dela says.  “Were you not listening to me out there?  Every person here is under the protection of my Pride.”
	“Will you fight, or flee?”  I ask.
	She gives me an offended glare. 
	“. . . right,” I shrink back.  “But, these weapons . . . .”
	“I know of them,” she says.  “I’ve met travelers who carry them.  I’ve just never seen what they can do, before.”  She straightens her back, looking out towards the light streaming in from the one window in this room.  “But no weapon makes the warrior.  They aren’t gods, just because they have these things.  We know these grasslands, we know how to defend this place.  They are strangers here.”
	“Let me fight beside you and your hunters,” I press.  “Even if we didn’t lead them here, we’re part of why they came.”
	“I know a little bit about the weapons,” Ahsan says.  “They used to test fire them in the back acre of the estate.  I hated them, but . . . it was hard to ignore them.”  He looks to me.  “I don’t think they can fire them quickly.  There would be a lot of time between shots, sometimes.”
	“Matron Sura seemed unable to make it fire twice in a row,” I agree, remembering the courtyard.  “Maybe they’re hard to use.”
	“These men were foreigners, though,” Lavanya points out.  “If they’re from the north, they’ll know how to use their own weapons better than your Matron did.”
	“Mercenaries,” Dela concludes, quietly.  “They must not want you alive any more.  They would have sent their own hunters if this was about collecting you.”
	“They have ample reason to be angry at us,” I admit quietly.  
	“I’m certain there are hunters amidst them, regardless,” she says.  “We’ll try to make sure we capture one alive, and find out what this is all about.”
	“What do you think their plan is?”  I ask.
	She shakes her head.  “They won’t attack us at night.  The foreigners know we can see better in the dark than they can.  They’ll probably come for us early in the morning, when our guards are tired.”
	“What can we do until then?”  Ahsan asks, his voice trembling.
	Dela looks to all of us, narrowing her eyes.  “Sharpen your claws,” she says quietly.  “And try to rest.  Tomorrow we will force the attack, one way or another.  They don’t get to sit out there and terrorize my Pride.  This place is ours.  We will fight for it.”