Shy Deer Steppes black viper

He had never expected death to be so swift.

The lion had grown with stories of great men who died in blazes, proud women who passed surrounded by family. Maybe it was fitting that Leandros was afforded neither. His mind had been homeward bound, to Soto, to Kemal, to Safiya. He had no reason to be searching for a snake in the grass.

It was bloody, and it felt worse than a broken bone. The jaws moved so quick, he barely had time to catch the face they belonged to. Leandros thought he should curse, bite the hands that never fed him, but all that came was tears.

Warm blood filled his throat, and with a heavy thud the lion hit the ground. He was left alone to suffocate, to wish he had listened, to watch bundles of green fall from the pelt. His thoughts fell to Verapaz; would Soto be angry? Would Kemal be disappointed? But as he choked out a final sob, would any of this truly matter?

He would never know the answers to those final questions. Vision soon faded, and for the lion, the world was finally quiet.

She hadn't expected it, but she had not known Arslan – not really. Still, the sight of his lifeless body forced a strangled sob out of Disa. They could have been friends.

Lesser animals had been at him already, scattering when the living wolf approached, but the scene was easy to read. Murder. He had obviously not fallen and did not smell of cat or sickness. The hole in his throat had been made larger by the merry band of opportunistic feeders, but they had not created it – the blood in the dry grass told Disa as much. Someone had had reason to open his throat.

Disa stayed a little longer, looking into one of Leandros' dead eyes. He had been so close to home. Had she travelled with him instead of going off to investigate the Lion's Head Mesa, he might have made it.

Eventually, Disa turned toward the desert. Someone had to tell Kemal.

The vultures barely waited until she was out of sight.

when arslan does not return on time, soto’s gaze turns south. they were a ranging pack with reach as far as the hinterlands — but a life of losing acolytes tells soto something is wrong. 

he finds disa’s tracks first; the impressions hasty on the dry earth. she’d been moving fast — and for why?

an hour later he comes across his answer. he smells the blood simmering in the dusty heat long before he sees it: the red lion, folded in on himself. buzzards picking at his throat. 

his heart sinks, constricting with black anger. his eye measures this place warily, alarm mounting. he’d grown complacent. he’d assumed they had eliminated all competition. and now was something more terrifying than anything — an unidentified enemy slithering through their territory.  

very few sights in this world cut through your soul the way seeing a felled brother does. but he knows that sometimes this provocative display is meant to send you rushing blindly in - soto holds his ground and watches from the cover of twisted shrub for an hour. 

nothing besides vultures here. deciding the coast is clear, soto lunges at the birds with a snap. as he circles arslan, he finds the green hunched between his slumped body.

this chills him. another cartel would take the life and the spoils. this meant they operated differently than the segundo understood, which filled his gut with stony horror. the scent of blood is too cloying to identify anything beyond foul play. 

perhaps sentimentality has gotten to him, but he can’t stomach the idea of arslan blistering in the desert. as he pulls the stiffening man to his shoulders, a familiar voice sounds in his left ear. 

soto freezes but for a moment, a grimace on his scarred muzzle. then he hikes arslan’s dead weight on his broad back, and pulls for home.