Avina was staggering across the grassland, lamenting her crushed face and the death of her happiness. It was a foolish accident, one that she never should have had, and since she was on a solo hunt there was no one to help her. She had leaped for a hartebeest, and all was well until she felt almost like someone had grabbed her ankle and pulled. The hartebeest struck her in the cheek, burying her under a mountain of pain.
She desperately sought out Rafiki, and instead she encountered Gur’mekh....
Gur'mekh saw with horror what the Makei was doing inside him. He was a spectator, helpless in the grasp of an irresistible force. He seized her throat, tasted lion blood, and felt the ground tremor as her once beautiful face struck the grass.
She struggled weakly, begging him to stop in God’s name. For one brief moment, he met her eyes and her horror and sadness came pouring into him. “What’s going to happen to my cubs?” she silently despaired.
“May Roh’kash bless them,” Gur’mekh tried to say--it would not come out. And as a tear trickled down his cheek, he grasped the tender skin of her abdomen and ripped her alive.
Her shriek pierced him like a thorn. “Why, God?? I thought I was free of this! I thought I was free!”
“There’s only one way to be free of me,” a voice echoed inside his head. “You don’t have the nerve to do it, you little coward! Now shut up and eat! You must set a good example for your friends.”
Gur’mekh’s stomach was in knots and his limbs quaked as he was forced to eat the still-warm lioness. The huge bites Melmokh made him take nearly choked him.
“Gur’mekh? Brother? Do you think we should have done this?”
It was Jalkort. Gur’mekh looked around, unable to say what was in his heart. But tears were streaming down his cheeks.
“Oh Gur’mekh!” Jal watched the tears fall silently. “What’s wrong?”
Gur’mekh looked at him pleadingly for a moment, mute against his will. “Oh Jal!” he thought. “My nearly perfect friend. If only you could hear my thoughts!”
As he looked back, blood and mother’s milk ran from Avina’s torn abdomen. “Oh gods! Oh gods, show me the way and I’ll be rid of this thing! I’d do anything! ANYTHING!!”
“Your gods won’t help you now. You told me to kill Demrath of your own free will, and you’re beyond their help. You’re mine to do with as I please!”
A terrible roar shattered the air, and for an instant Gur’mekh expected Melmokh to materialize before him, revealing his shame to all present. The other hyenas looked at him, frozen in terror, wide-eyed with fear as they backed away from him.
Abruptly he realized they were not looking at him, but at something beyond him. He turned his head to see the furious charge of a male lion hurtling towards them, his face burning with fury, fangs bared as he uttered another challenge. Without waiting for Gur’mekh’s command, the hyenas broke and ran. Gur’mekh joined them, stumbling away in a haze of horror.
The Makei fell into mocking laughter as the lion looked up at heaven and raged against the awful crime. "I said I'd pick the next victim! Run, Gur’mekh! Run while you still can! Ha ha ha ha!!"