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Yayuka did not have much input on the planning. He was getting rather impatient, and couldn't bear all this waiting around! To be fair it wasn't too much waiting around, but, anyways. There was Ea to save, and the cub!

And then, when they were finally getting closer, the hyena.

Though he couldn't say he had much sympathy for an invader, the decision was made without a second thought when the male's eyes looked at their group. Yayuka charged forwards without needing to be told, and somehow found himself the first to arrive — not that he'd been paying attention.

He launched himself at Scheherazade with a snarl, trying to get a grip on her neck or head. She managed to slip away and he failed to restrain her, but Yayuka was certain he had delivered a solid blow, and she had let go of the other hyena. At least that!

--

Keegan found that it was hard to dig together with a grown-up! Much as Vesta might be trying to be mindful of not tossing sand on the cub, it was still rather hard to get a paw in and make a difference when someone so much larger was on the job.

Still, she diligently did her best to get a paw in whenever she could, and found herself actually enjoying the labor after a while. The sand was heavy when wet, but at least it was still fun to get into and mess with.

Staring for a while at the other hyenas gathering, his ears aching at their crackling voices, Roihu tried vainly to catch some word that might be familiar. But the one dog that had led them was the only one speaking in common tongue. A low growl rumbled in his throat at the others, deeply suspicious of their chattering - though they didn't seem to be aggressive for the moment.

Roihu wanted nothing more than to take down the great black hyena himself after she had escaped him before, but his bad luck was holding. He was wary actually throwing himself at her, and after all, Yayuka's blow had been heavy enough to release the captive beast beneath her. But he threw in his claws for a brief strike just to score some blood and distract her long enough for one of his more battle-suited kin to finish her off. He sorely hoped that it would work, as his own strike had ended up being quite weak.

Asuen whined, shaking out her sore neck. She wanted to do more than just stand around and watch the others duke it out. She was hardly friends with that black hyena. Though she couldn't say she didn't have a great deal in common with Scheherazade. They both got easily - and ravenously - drawn into their current focus. However, like Darj, her own constant focus was on the Graos Oma. Even if it wasn't always as much fun.

As much as she wanted to get ahold of that hyena who had given them the slip previously, she wasn't fast enough. She'd trailed towards the end of the group after having taken the time to threaten her previous prisoner. This threat had cost her the chance at taking down that menace of a canine! Too many lions were between her and it, but she loomed as close as possible to try and help stop the fight and perhaps pin in the huge female. There was little else she was capable of doing, though she did spare a dark look for the fleeing wild dog. So far, very little of this situation made sense.

Scheherazade snarled, forced to drop Skall from her grip when Yayuka slammed into her. The butterfly marked hyena gasped for air as he fell to the ground, his mouth foaming with blood and saliva. But he still drew breath, alive. As Skall watched the world through bleary vision, he found himself once again indebted to a lion.

Scheherazade was quick and large, and her scarred black fur painted a good picture on just how experienced a fighter she was. Although the lions outweighed and sized her by considerable measures, her fleet feet kept her moving. Worse so, she was brazen. Marzi's estimate about her unwillingness to preserve her own life seemed to be accurate. Her jumps and flails were wild and full of risk to her own self- a bizarre style of fighting that one rarely would encounter.

Once she was free of the other lions, she fell back to the rocky outcropping, scaling it quickly. Now in a higher postion, she glowered down at the lions below. "Firekin, go on. You can have him," she laughed, looking down at the crumpled hyena.

Suddenly, there was movement from one of the alcoves. Ea appeared, looking about as happy as one might expect she would after this encounter. Which was to say, she was furious. She zeroed in on the lion's standing closest. "What took you idiots so long to get here?" She snapped. "I've been trying to talk this situation down for hours!"

"Perhaps if you had gone to the guard initially, this wouldn't have-" Elcca started.

Ea pushed past the seeress, smacking her across the face with her tail. Ea stopped in front of Morag and the others. "The other two cubs are fine, with me. There's a third one missing, and I haven't heard from it since that b***h took off. I assume she has more cohorts that fell back to the mountains."

Scheherazade grinned from where she stood.

Roihu continued to watch warily, recognizing the hyena had had to revive earlier. The poor beast was certainly having a bad day... not like he knew the slightest thing about the average day of one of these vile hyenas. But he felt the tug deep in his gut to help the wounded beast like he had before. He had been raised to feel such a draw toward healing injuries. And he had certainly gathered up quite a few spare bits of medicine in the past day. But the dialogue between Elcca and Ea made him somewhat nervous, and he waited to see how the situation would play out.

But the rain had slowed to a mist, hardly a drizzle left in the sky. There was nothing to block the view of the horribly injured hyena at the feet of the wicked black one. He could but be curious, however, as to what the missing medic had been doing all this time. "What exactly happened here?" he asked, somewhat confused as to why Ea was even there, much less the cubs. All he could see was what was right in front of them: the one hyena had mauled another.

Nkera growled viciously as the black hyena climbed the rocky surface, quickly following after her with little hesitation. For the former mountain lion, going up had always seemed easier than going back down so he was already midway by the time Ea emerged from the rock. Nkera froze in a somewhat awkward position.

His ears were pinned down and he mirrored the medic's fury perfectly. Eyes fixed on the black hyena, the guard's growl dropped down in volume as he listened to the brief exchange and then waited for Skall to speak. If he didn't say anything useful regarding the location of the missing cub, Nkera was ready to wipe the grin off Scheherazade's face.

The low, grumbling growl that lingered in Alya's throat grew into a full snarl as the hyena made its way up the rocks. She was getting so, so tired of this. Of chasing and making no real progress. It was time to actually do something. Her jaw pressed tight as she listened to the conversation. If there was something they could do, any sort of lead they could follow, then they had damn little time to waste. The lioness let her tail thrash behind her, an obvious show of her impatience. Her eyes darted to the wounded hyena--their only lead. He needed to speak up; he owed them at least that much.

Roihu was tiring of failure. He would return to the injured Skall... but only after making his final attempt at bringing down the black hyena before them. He scaled the cliff-face, faster than he had in his previous attempt. But claws and jaws were aimed right back down at him, and the sharp teeth gnawing into his paws loosened his grip. He roared at her with immense frustration, unable to take a clear shot.



Time and time again, it was being bitterly proven that his place was as a medic, not a soldier. His pride hurt more than his paws, but he allowed himself to crawl back down to allow room for another lion to try. The moment he was down, he rushed back to the wounded red hyena's side - who had only seconds earlier seemed to claim that he would indeed reveal something important - the location of the cub! But it was choking on the blood in its throat, and could soon drown in it... This was an emergency. Since everyone else seemed so invested in the black hyeness, Roihu stood alone in Skall's defense. Loathsome though the animal might be, his duty as a medic did not stop at lions. So he ripped a small incision in the hyena's throat - it was precisely placed, though he had to estimate the exact anatomy of the oddly-necked creature - cutting the windpipe. The poor thing was going to suffer for a few minutes, but only long enough for the blood to drain... and there was a great deal of blood. But it wouldn't be hard to stitch back up. The wicked black female had crushed a great deal of his organs, but narrowly missed his jugular and windpipe. It was merciful that his neck wasn't even broken.

He withdrew from his bag the needles of the whisker cactus. They themselves were brittle and not particularly threatening, but the fibers within the cactus, when properly extracted, were long and strong, and perfect for stitching together ripped flesh. So as Roihu allowed the blood to drain from his lungs, he quickly began to stitch the rest of his wounded neck to prevent anything else from bleeding out. Skall would be very weak after this. There was a great deal of blood on the ground around him. But he would survive - that, Roihu assured him. Once he checked that the hyena's breathing was clear (at least in his lungs and windpipe - his snout was badly mangled as well), the medic closed the incision to his windpipe, rubbing a salve on it so it would be airtight, and began to try to clean his face. It was a miracle this thing was still alive. He had been through a great deal of beatings in one day - once even at Roihu's hands. But now twice he had healed him.