Fifteen minutes later the lioness still lay, motionless as carved stone. Tawny eyes showed she was alert and focused. Invisible from all but the sharpest observer, she was cleverly camouflaged by the dappled shade of a low scrubby bush and the sparse dun coloured grass around her. Muscles tensed along her back and haunches, rippling beige, twenty-three stone of power and speed. Her concentration was total. She was very, very hungry.
The little boy thirty seconds away from death was two, maybe three years old. His fair skin burned crimson from too much sun. Silky blond curls lay damp on his head in the intense heat. A cut on his leg was crusted with dried blood. Face grubby and streaked with recent tears, sobs still surfaced from deep inside him and shook his sturdy little body. He had done the unthinkable, the unbelievable. He was lost in the vast, barren, heat soaked sand that was the Kalahari Desert.
For now, he was absorbed by what he had found on the ground and had no idea the lioness lay, no more than thirty feet away, planning to eat him. Even if he had known, there was nothing he could have done to stop her.
Impending death stilled all sounds. Even the birds were silent, awed by the savage drama unfolding in a land where conscience has no meaning. They watched and waited. The little boy was just another meal but his death would be viciously spectacular.
The lioness tested the child’s scent. Her mouth became a silent snarl as she drew her lips back, exposing large yellow teeth, sucking and blowing air over sensitive taste buds. Her stomach rumbled in its hunger, but she hesitated. The small creature before her was edible—she could tell by the blood scent—but it smelled like nothing she had eaten before, looked like nothing she had seen before and sounded like nothing she had heard before.
The object of her interest was squatting beside the remains of a long-dead ostrich. Jackals, vultures and ants had eaten all but a few bones, and the gritty contents of the bird’s gizzard. The child was absorbed by a stone which shone with a thousand different lights in the fierce desert sunshine. When he held it up against the sky, and the colours danced and changed as he twisted it in his hand, he chuckled in pure enjoyment, his terror at finding himself alone temporarily forgotten.
The lioness was nearly committed. She knew this was easy prey. One flash of a heavy paw, one slice of razor-sharp claws, one crunch of jaws on that small head, and she could rip out the intestines, then feed to her heart’s content. Still she hesitated; caution and stealth had kept her alive till now. As one who lived instinctively, she had a deeply rooted fear of human beings. Her instincts told her to be careful.
On his haunches, the boy hopped sideways around the skeletal remains of the dead bird looking for more shining stones. The movement took him closer to the bush where the lioness lay. She tensed, ready to strike out and bring him down, but he had seen something on the other side of the ostrich, rose and toddled over to it, remaining out of reach. Sobs still shuddered through him but, with the myopic concentration of the very young, he no longer noticed them.
The large and hungry cat inched forward on her belly. Hunger rumbled again. She had not eaten in four days. A front paw throbbed with the poison from a suppurating abscess, caused by a thorn which had broken off and remained embedded. Hundreds of ticks itched as they feasted on her blood but she ignored them. Flies stung as they fed on the sunburned raw edges of her ears. She ignored them as well. Discomfort was as much a part of her life as her instinct to hunt.
Then the little boy began to talk to himself. It was his high-pitched childlike voice which convinced the lioness she was safe. The strange hairless animal was defenceless. Completely committed now, she rose in one fluid motion, disturbing not so much as a leaf. Her tail twitched involuntarily. Tensing front legs she bunched herself, ready to execute her fast, low, deadly rush. The warning growl, something she was powerless to prevent, rose in her throat. It was time to eat.
In that last, intense split second before she acted, her excellent hearing picked up a sound. Self-preservation is strong in those who live by their wits and hunting skills. Hungry as she was, the lioness slid silently from her covering bush and put as much distance between herself and the sound as she possibly could. So great was her ability to move silently, the little boy was unaware she had ever been there.
WATCH OUT FOR BEVERLEY HARPER’S THIRD NOVEL,
Echo of an Angry God
At a signal from the King, torches were lit, throwing their flickering light onto the inky water of the cove . . . Ng’ona saw the flames. At three metres below the surface, he flicked his tail and glided in a circle . . . The warrior stood alone . . . With no hesitation, he leapt high in the air and plunged into the jet black embrace of unimaginable horror.
For centuries, Likoma Island in Lake Malawi has been a place of mystery, exotic ritual and human sacrifice. It is also where geologist John Devereaux disappears in 1983, while carrying out a secretive survey of the lake in search of oil.
Fifteen years later his daughter, Lana Devereaux, travels to Malawi, ‘the warm heart of Africa’, to discover the truth. But Lana soon finds herself caught up in a web of deceit, passion and black magic that stretches back over two hundred years and has ramifications that reach well beyond the shores of Lake Malawi.
Following Storms Over Africa and the best-selling Edge of the Rain, Beverley Harper’s third novel is a thrilling adventure that once again captures the spirit of Africa.
Wilbur Smith
River God
Ancient Egypt. Land of the Pharaohs. A Kingdom built on gold. And a legend shattered by greed.
At the festival of Osiris, loyal subjects of the Pharoah gather to pay homage to their leader. Only Taita – a wise and formidably gifted eunuch slave – sees him as a symbol of a kingdom’s fading glory.
Danger surrounds all those who oppose the ruling elite. But together with his proteges, Lustres, beautiful fourteen-year-old daughter of his master Lord Intef, and the proud young army officer Tanus, Taita begins the long and dangerous journey towards his own glorious dream – to restore the majesty of the Pharoah of Pharaohs on the glittering banks of the Nile.
Returning to the splendour of Ancient Egypt, Wilbur Smith draws the reader into a magnificent, richly imagined saga that explodes with all the drama, mystery and rage of a bygone time. River God is a masterpiece from a storyteller at the height of his powers.
‘An epic of sex, death and intrigue in the Valley of the Kings . . . richly written . . . packs in the action . . . excellent!’
DAVID PROFUMO, WEEKEND TELEGRAPH
‘Grand mythic material . . . the set pieces are fabulous in the true sense, and the wider narrative careers along as swimmingly as Isis herself’
GILES RODEN, TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
Wilbur Smith
The Seventh Scroll
A fading papyrus, nearly four thousand years old. Within it lie the clues to a fabulous treasure form an almost forgotten time . . . a riddle that becomes a savage battle across the unforgiving terrain of North Africa.
When her husband is brutally murdered, beautiful half-English, half-Egyptian Royan Al Simmu is forced to seek refuge in England. With eminent archaeologist Nicholas Quenton-Harper, she can pick up the pieces of her shattered life and find the courage to return to Ethiopia. For Duraid. For the long-dead slave Taita. And for the dreams of an ancient Pharoah . . . Because others will stop at nothing to claim the prize as their own.
‘A desert sandstorm couldn’t get pages turning faster than Smith’
INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY
‘Full blooded, muscle-on-bone-crunching treasure hunt . . . it is non-stop action’
DAILY EXPRESS
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Storms Over Africa Page 41
