The Lion King: Dawn Of The Nations

Episode 20: Sangria

 The Lion King: Dawn Of The Nations

Episode 20: Sangria

Jinobe was watching over Kion, the other lions and the cheetahs through the aperture of the cave, his warriors stood behind, ready to hear orders. "Groups three and four...attack." Jinobe said firmly. They left the cave in a hurry, running through the canyon's inner tunnels and gorges to reach the defile, laughing with commitment and thirst for battle. Jinobe stood on the same spot, just waiting for the battle to begin.

Kion's ear twitched. "They're coming." He turned facing the east canyon, growling while adopting a combat position. The glares of the warriors were locked at the gorge that led to the canyon. Sounds of laughs started to sound, increasingly getting louder, the fiery eyes of the hyenas began to show up in the gorge's darkness. Jinobe's warriors finally exited the gorge, running towards Kion and the others.

Kion let out a powerful roar that almost made the hyenas to slow down the rush, and along with his warriors, he began to run rapidly towards them. The cheetahs were the first to approach them, jumping at them with their jaws open, bitting them with strength and rapidness, chirruping and growling while dodging their attacks. Kion pushed a hyena strongly with his head and sent him towards other two hyenas, making him to collide with them. The three hyenas fell to the ground. He then approached them and started to kill them with several bites.

In the dimly lighted tunnel of the west canyon, Juzare's and Kiara's warriors were having a similar fight, with almost the same development. Kiara was fighting Juzare herself, evading his quick, violent bites, replying with constant blows and bites of her. The cheetahs threw quick, rather weak bites at the hyenas while running among them, but as they were too many, the hyenas got weakened enough to let the lions and lionesses throw the fatal attacks, biting their necks and sides deeply, puncturing their faces with their sharp claws.

Juzare felt how the blood went down from the wound on his left eyelid to the fur of his lower jaw. He growled at Kiara with desperation and hatred. "You can't stop us!" His steps backwards were almost unconscious.

Kiara growled at him while taking slow, hostile steps towards him. "Are you scared, Juzare?" She noticed how his legs trembled.

Juzare's ears twitched recurrently by his warrior's laughs of pain and demise. "It's easy...isn't it?!"

"What?!" Kiara growled louder.

"To be the strong ones! The ones who never feel hunger!" Juzare exclaimed, stopping his steps. "The ones who thrive and live with no worries!" The clearness of the tears that came from his cut eyelid mixed with the red of his blood. He chuckled while sobbing. "It's easy..."

"As it was for Jasiri to kill those cubs?!" Kiara grunted at him while frowning.

Juzare chuckled mockingly. "Jasiri? She didn't have the guts to do what Jazanu could... to make you suffer...to hurt you...to set things as they should be."

"What do you mean?" Kiara inquired aggressively.

"Jasiri was weak!" Juzare exclaimed. "But she is gone, and a new reign has arised...mine!"

"They were just children...what did they do to you?!" Kiara exclaimed.

"What would they have done to us? You mean?" Juzare let out a chuckle. "They would have stepped on us, marginated us, our offspring and theirs would have been living in the same shortage you forced us to live in!" Juzare looked at her with a grim smirk. "And I'll go after yours...I'll make them suffer..." He started to laugh. "I'll tear their skin apart and cover the ground with their blood...oh it's gonna be so much fu..."

Kiara roared angrily and jumped at him with her open jaws, two of Jinobe's reinforcements approached them and tackled Kiara, she had aimed at Juzare's neck, but by the hyenas' tackle she bit his front legs, making him to scream by the intense pain, laughing with tears and blood. Kiara had gotten into her paws rapidly and didn't let go off his legs, she bit harder instead, crushing them with her sharp teeth, the two hyenas were biting her sides to force her to let go, but she resisted the strength of their jaws. One of the hyenas stopped bitting her. "The captain is down! Come!" The hyena exclaimed at a group of his equals who immediately ran towards the situation.

Kiara knew she was about to get cornered, so she finally let go off Juzare's now destroyed legs and with a violent shake she got the hyena's jaws off her. Kiara ran away from Juzare to go deal with more hyenas, being chased by the ones that had just arrived to confront her as well as the other pair. Juzare was laying over the dark, rocky ground, over a pond of blood that flowed from his legs. He was sighing intermittently, crying almost statically, his gaze was lost on the darkness before him. "Captain!" The voice of a female hyena sounded like a distant echo for him. He felt how she was slowly carrying him over her back. The chirrups, roars and laughs started to fade away, the darkness persisted, as well as the pain, on the outside and on the inside.

Kion threw a hyena with his jaws, killing him as he smashed onto the rocky wall at their side. The cheetahs weren't breaking a sweat, their fast movements and bites helped greatly, for the lions and lionesses to give the final strike at the hurt hyenas. Jinobe was still watching inside the cave, frightened, seeing how the army was being decimated. The impulse that could bring him to join his comrades on the battle didn't show up, the fear was keeping him there, hidden. "We lost." He said with a broken voice.

"Do as I do!" Kion commanded and a group of lions followed him, he ran towards the clash that was happening between the hyenas and the cheetahs, and when getting there, he started to throw quick, strong bites at every hyena he encountered with and kept running. The warriors behind him did the same. The strategy was applied continuously, and sooner than they thought, Kion and his group managed to kill all of the hyenas at the defile, not without some casualties here and there. "Now we go help Kiara!" He gestured at the west canyon, the cheetahs and lions before him nodded and ran towards the gorge that led there, getting inside quickly. Kion entered last. Jinobe was running inside the dark tunnels of the east canyon, almost unconsciously, ignoring the shame he had started to feel, just wanting to go elsewhere, far from the Outlands, as his life was the only thing that mattered to him at that confusing moment.

The battle in the west canyon was also coming to an end, but the hyenas had the advantage there as they knew the paths, levels and passages better than their own paws, they took sudden jumps at the cheetahs and lions from paths above them and brought them down with collective, deadly bites. "To the walls! To the walls!" Kiara commanded and walked backwards to get against the rocky walls, the others did the same, she knew that way the hyenas wouldn't be able to surprise them that easily, but it also made them more susceptible to getting cornered.

Kion's group arrived with roars and chirrups of battle, followed by him, who let out the loudest of them all, the hyenas then left Kiara and her warriors to go deal with Kion's. The strategy didn't change, the cheetahs went after the hyenas with their fast paws and bit them several times, also pushing them on their way, the lions and lionesses then tackled them and killed them with their strong jaws. Kiara's group joined them, and the laughs of death began to outnumber the chirrups and roars of the same kind. That battle delayed a bit more to end, with many casualties from Kion and Kiara's side, but with victory nonetheless. Juzare's legions had been defeated.

Kion, Kiara, the cheetahs and the lions were slowly recovering from exhaustion, inhaling and exhaling repeatedly. "My king..." A tired lion approached Kion and sat down next to him. "...what will we do with the others?" He referred to the hyenas that weren't part of the legions, the common families of the Outlands, who were the vast majority.

"Leave them." Kion said. "We have stated our word today." He got into his paws and walked towards Kiara, followed by the lion. "Whatever they do, wherever they go...it's not our problem anymore."

"Kion." Kiara said when her brother sat down next to her. "Jasiri... it wasn't her."

Kion raised an eyebrow and looked at her with confusion. "What?" He thought briefly. "Then who?"

"Jazanu." Kiara sighed and shook her head, then looked at him. "I'm not sure, but, I think she was expelled or... maybe killed."

Kion stood silent for a moment, then he glared away from her, looking at the hyenas' corpses as well as the ones of their own army. "Whatever happened to her... I don't care." He looked at Kiara with a straight face. "We won. It's all what matters now."