The herds did not return.
With the last bones picked clean, the clan had to roam further and further afield to find prey. They drank filthy, muddied water eagerly when they found it. Mostly, what they found was conflict. The pride of lions that lived beside them in an uneasy truce was hungry. They clashed bitterly, stealing one another's kills more and more frequently. Into this hard and hungry time, the queen of the hyena clan bore five cubs. Two strong females and three smaller brothers. She knew that with so many hungry adults, she should let them starve, but she could not.
With five more mouths to feed, the hyenas grew more desperate. Their raids on the lions grew deadly. Their numbers dwindled. Dikeledi and Bahari, the two females of the litter, were still too young to range far from their den, but they understood that this was the way of the world. Life was a battle. They saw their exhausted, starving family limping home from fresh battles with a few stringy mouthfuls of meat, their hides seared by the red marks of fang and claw for their trouble.
The end came in the night, when the five cubs were safe in their den, curled up at their mother's skinny flank. They heard the whoops and screams of their clan and woke at once, their eyes bright with terror. Their mother went howling up out of the den like a dervish. Later they would not remember her name, but they would always remember her laughing shrieks as she tore into the invaders, and the thuds and scuffles from above as she fought to defend her home.
The shrieks became helpless squeals of agony, and a rhythmic kicking, scratching sound. The cubs huddled together, too horrified to move. Relief washed through them as something crouched at the entrance of the den.
But this was not Mother returning victorious, this was something else. The Claw. To adult eyes the starving lion's paw would have seemed wasted, but it was the largest and most terrifying thing the cubs had ever seen. The massive paw reached for them, blunt claws extended, raking one of the male cub's faces. He began to scream, but the scream was cut short as the paw caught hold of him more securely and dragged him from the den. Dikeledi and Bahari sat huddled in blind fear as the paw came back, snatching the rest of their brothers and hauling them from the den, their pitiful growls and squeals cut short with a terrible crunching, smacking sound.
It was their silence that saved them, their fear, something that Dikeledi and Bahari would attempt to make up for for the rest of their lives. The starving lion, satisfied with his meal, left the den. Dikeledi and Bahari heard the sounds as the rest of the lions turned on him, growling and snapping as they fought him for the remains of the cubs. By the time the morning's light entered the mouth of the den, silence reigned. No friendly calls of the clan. No snuffling nose in the den, coming to find the queen's cubs.
They did not work up the courage to leave the den until midmorning, their hunger driving them out. What they witnessed was devastation. A few of the clan hyenas remained, torn to pieces on the bloodied ground. Several rail-thin lions lay among them. Their brothers -- they could not bear to look for them, nor for their mother. The cubs did not remain to mourn their clan. They were too young to know much, but they understood, in a vague way, that soon their hunger would overcome them. Even then they would not do what the starving lion had done. The tiny cubs knew they would rather starve.
They staggered on, sniffing half-heartedly for bugs and mice. When the sky darkened they did not understand. How had night come so quickly? They sat on their haunches, miserable and afraid. They had no den, no Mother. The lions would come and hunt them tonight. Just as they opened their mouths to cry at the loneliness and sheer unfairness of it, something struck the ground before them. And then another something. Dampness. They stared at it, not understanding. While they sat, paralyzed by astonishment, the skies broke open at last.
The rain had come too late to save their clan, but it would bring a flush of life to the land and sustain the two sisters. They would carry on their mother's legacy, Queens in their own rights, and rebuild the clan decimated by lions. A True Hyena society, founded on matriarchal beliefs, would come together to bring the lions to their knees.
