Bravelands #4

by Erin Hunter

  “I reckon that’s exactly what the liar’s doing.” Viper nodded.

  “It’s worth checking out, surely!” said Thorn hurriedly. “I can take him and scout out that area. Have him show me where he claims he saw Pear. See if there’s anything to this wild story.”

  Berry nodded distractedly. “Thank you, Thorn. That would be helpful—and brave.”

  “Hmph,” muttered Creeper, shooting Thorn a suspicious one-eyed glare. “I’m not so sure. I think I should go with Thorn. To protect him.”

  Thorn did not like the sharp edge in his voice, but Berry nodded. “That’s a good idea, Creeper. And since baboons should only go out in threes, as I decreed, we need someone else to go with you both. Who—”

  “I’ll go!” yelped Nut, loping to Thorn’s flank.

  Thorn grinned gratefully at him. At least he would have one ally at his side.

  “Very well,” said Berry. “Now, waste no more time. Go, Thorn! Please find my mother.”

  Spider was quite enthusiastic as he bounded along, pointing out landmarks and sniffing around tracks. “This rhino trail—yes, yes. I saw her walk this way. Toward that lone fever tree, see? Only one way to go after that. Too many rocks for poor paws the other way. See . . .”

  Grimly Thorn loped after him, only too aware of Creeper at his heels. He had the sense it wouldn’t take much for the big baboon to turn on him and try to kill him, so he was hugely glad of Nut running at his side. At least it’ll be two against one.

  They had been traveling for most of the morning, and the sun was rising fast toward its highest point. The landscape was white and glaring, the horizons to every side shimmering in the heat. Alongside Thorn’s niggling distrust of Creeper there was a far worse torment in his gut about Pear. He didn’t know what could have taken her so far from Tall Trees, or kept her away so long, but he feared it couldn’t be good.

  The dappled shade of a dense acacia grove was a relief from the burning heat. Thorn padded into its relative coolness after Spider, who had slowed his pace. With his wounded hands, Spider stirred a pile of sandy soil.

  “Baboons have eaten.” He licked his lips. “Lucky baboons.”

  Thorn peered over Spider’s shoulder as Nut and Creeper came up to his side. Sure enough, there were fragments of fruit and shreds of soft leaves here, and a few husks of scorpion and beetle. Thorn’s muscles tensed into alertness.

  “This wasn’t Pear,” he muttered. “There’s no scent of her.”

  “And look.” Spider pointed up. “Nests. Baboons have slept, lucky—”

  “Never mind that,” interrupted Nut. He nodded toward a high sloping outcrop of rock beyond the trees. “What’s in that cave?”

  The four baboons crept closer to the shadowy hole in the rock. Overhung by jagged boulders, the gash looked as black as a lion’s throat against the sunlit sandstone. A thrill of nerves rippled up Thorn’s spine.

  “We need to be careful,” he growled. “The baboons we smelled might be in here, or nearby.”

  A few lengths from the hole, Creeper flared his nostrils and sniffed carefully. “There have been baboons here,” he growled, “but the scent’s stale.”

  “It’s our only lead,” said Thorn, loping a last few hesitant paces to the cave mouth. Gripping the rock, he leaned forward and peered into the darkness. “This tunnel’s deep. We have to check it, make sure Pear’s not trapped inside somehow.”

  He led the way, placing his paws with infinite caution as he crept down into the shadows. It was cooler in here, at least, but that wasn’t a comfort; something about the dank atmosphere raised the fur on his neck. He realized his teeth were bared, and that he could taste the stale unpleasant air on the inside of his lips. Thorn tried to relax his muscles, but it was impossible.

  There were no forks, no branches in the tunnel. That made the search easier, but it did nothing to ease his nerves. Thorn blinked, letting his eyes adjust. In the gloom he saw that the walls rose sharply from the cavern floor, smooth but ridged with narrow ledges; the ground beneath his paw pads was cool and gritty. There was not a hint of vegetation; this was a dead place, he thought. A place of death . . .

  A pungent smell permeated the cavern: the droppings of some creature, Thorn guessed. But underlying that was another, more ominous odor that caught the back of his throat, dark and sickly sweet. Instinct made his fur rise and his hide prickle.

  Thorn stopped. There was something huddled a little way ahead, there against the rough stone wall. He could see only an outline in the traces of light.

  His gut clenching, Thorn padded forward again. He could hear the hard, anxious breathing of the others behind him, but he kept his eyes locked on that odd shape.

  And then he saw. As the strength went out of his limbs, he crouched limply beside the body of Pear Goodleaf.

  With a trembling paw, he touched her fur. She was quite dead, quite cold, and her flesh felt stiff.

  He shut his eyes as a racking grief seized him. This will break Berry’s heart. It was very nearly breaking his. Berry had only just found her mother again, after so many years.

  Now he knew why his powers had failed him. When he had tried to look through Pear’s eyes he had seen nothing—because Pear saw nothing. She felt and heard nothing. She had been dead all along.

  “Aw,” said Spider, miserably. “Nice old baboon.”

  At Thorn’s shoulder, Creeper was breathing fast and angrily. “Spider did this! Come here, you brute! I’ll—”

  “Hush!” Thorn sprang to his feet, ignoring Creeper and the cowering Spider. “Listen.”

  “Pawsteps,” murmured Nut.

  Many pawsteps, Thorn realized; they were quick and urgent and just beyond the cave mouth. He jerked his head toward the sound, and a sickening suspicion gripped his belly.

  “We have to get back out,” he barked as he sprang back toward the entrance. “Come on!”

  The tunnel felt too long, his paws pounding painfully against the hard gritty ground. Behind him he heard the others racing, their breath panting with fear. But it was fine, it was fine: there was the dazzling light of the cave mouth ahead of them, and escape was a few sprinting paces away.

  Squinting, he saw blurred, warped shapes move against the sun’s brilliance. Thorn’s heart turned over. He could not make out what those shadows were, but he could hazard a guess. “Hurry, we have to—”

  Before he could finish, his voice was drowned out by a rumbling thunder. Skidding to a halt, Thorn watched, appalled, as the glare of the sunlight was blotted out by tumbling, crashing chunks of darkness.

  The racket of the rockslide resounded and throbbed, disorienting and sickening, and the cave mouth vanished swiftly beneath falling rubble. A last few cracks and glimmers of light were blotted out as boulders went on tumbling, smashing, rolling. Then the light vanished altogether, and the four baboons were in utter darkness.

  For long moments after the echoes faded, Thorn could hear nothing but the distorted, frightened breathing of his companions. A few dislodged pebbles pattered to a stop.

  Then: “Rockfall,” snarled Creeper. “And not a natural one, I’d bet.”

  From the other side of the rocks a voice drifted eerily, muffled and warped by stone, but the taunt was clear.

  “A trap, and you fell for it. Stupid baboons!”

  Trap trap . . . stupid stupid stupid . . . The echoes bounced around them in the darkness. Cold fear flooded Thorn’s blood.

  “Dawntrees Troop is just as stupid as Brightforest, then,” mocked Tendril Crownleaf from behind the rockfall.

  Thorn let out a howl of impotent fury. “You let us out of here, Tendril, or so help me—”

  “You’ll do nothing!” Nothing nothing nothing. “You’ll die in here.” Die die die . . .

  “What did you do to Pear?” yelled Creeper.

  “The spy?” High, chilling laughter seeped from beyond the rocks, echoing through the cavern. “She paid the price. And so will you.”

  “Pear Goodleaf was no spy!
” shouted Thorn. “She wanted to help!”

  “Yes, yes, so she claimed. ‘Oh, I’m here to make p-peace, I p-promise.’” Tendril mimicked Pear’s gentle timidity, and Thorn clenched his fangs in rage. “But she couldn’t fool me. I am Tendril Crownleaf!”

  Thorn’s fury ebbed a little, swamped by a dark and heavy sadness. “Pear Goodleaf was the kindest, most honest baboon I ever knew,” he growled clearly. “You’ve broken the Code, Tendril, and all to kill a baboon who intended nothing but good for you and your troop.”

  Silence fell, heavy and dark.

  “You let us out of here!” roared Creeper suddenly. “Do you hear me, crazy monkey? Let us out!”

  “Ha-ha, as if I would,” sneered Tendril. “You’ll stay here and starve to death as you deserve. Look on the bright side, Dawntrees idiots. At least you won’t have to watch your troop being wiped out.”

  “What?” snarled Thorn as his heart chilled. “What are you plotting, Tendril?”

  “I’m not plotting, Thorn Highleaf, it’s as good as done. We’ll hit your troop tonight before dawn, catch them by surprise. And we’ll take out all the females with young. All of them, Thorn. Every baby and infant and their mothers! That will put an end to your miserable troop once and for all. It will destroy you!”

  Thorn sucked in a horrified breath. “Tendril! You can’t. No! Tendril! Listen to me!”

  Creeper and Nut were hollering their outrage too, and the echoes of his own yells and theirs hurt Thorn’s ears. But however long they shouted and protested, it was useless. Spider was quiet, thought Thorn distractedly, and perhaps he was smart not to waste his energy; as their desperate voices faded at last, there was only silence. Tendril was gone.

  “We have to stop her!” said Nut.

  “We can’t,” growled Creeper. “We’re stuck in here! That vicious little—” Hot breath struck Thorn’s face suddenly, and he realized Creeper had swung around to him. “This is your fault, you stupid monkey. You led us in here!”

  “Back off!” Thorn snapped his jaws wildly in the darkness and lashed out a paw. He felt Creeper flinch back abruptly, and the stink of angry breath was gone from his nostrils. “This isn’t the time,” he snarled. “We’ve got to get out of here! Look for a way, Creeper. Don’t do it for me, do it for the troop!”

  He heard a grumbling and cursing as Creeper shuffled cautiously toward the cavern wall, and he exhaled in relief. They couldn’t fight among themselves, not now.

  Turning, Thorn began to feel his way desperately along the stone, searching the rock for any cranny or breath of air. “There has to be a way out. Tendril might have missed something.”

  “That cunning brute? I doubt it.” Creeper had moved closer to him again, but this time he was scratching and fumbling at the stone. “She outsmarted you. Not difficult,” he growled bitterly.

  Thorn ignored Creeper. He could hear Nut close by too, and the scraping of his friend’s claws as he checked the line where the walls met the rocky floor. From what Thorn could make out, Spider didn’t seem to be helping at all—but his great resigned sigh was perfectly audible.

  “Going to die,” he said dolefully.

  Thorn ignored him, even though he had a suspicion Spider was right. He couldn’t bring himself to be afraid: not when the troop was in far greater danger. Gritting his teeth, Thorn scraped his paws fiercely against the rock, hunting frantically for cracks, not caring that his palms were already raw.

  “There’s a crack here,” came Nut’s eerily resonant voice. “But there’s no way we’d get through.”

  “Up here there’s a hollow, and I think it goes farther,” said Creeper. He was scrabbling at the back of the cavern; Thorn had noticed earlier that the rock there rose up in a series of narrow ledges. “We could try it, but it might just take us deeper into the cliff.” Creeper growled in frustration.

  Thorn went still.

  Creeper and Nut too fell silent, listening. From somewhere in the cavern came a strange, stirring rustle, like leaves whispering in a breeze. Thorn angled his head; it was hard to make out where the noise was coming from.

  Spider hissed and squeaked and piped, and Thorn realized he was working out how to mimic the sounds coming from above.

  “Shut up, Spider,” muttered Creeper. “I don’t like this.”

  “Me either.” Nut shook off a shiver; Thorn heard him.

  “Hush.” Thorn suddenly tilted his head upward, staring into the blackness. “You too, Spider. Be quiet.”

  “Something’s talking,” said the eccentric baboon. “Spider hears voices.”

  He’s right. Thorn tensed. The words were an odd, sibilant squeaking, but he could make out the language: a bizarre combination of Skytongue and Grasstongue.

  “Hunting, comradesss?”

  “Noooo. Ssstill day. Sssometing woke usss. Let me sssstretch wingsssss. . . .”

  “Night’ssss taking too long. I hungry for bugsssss. And beeeetles.”

  “Patiencccce, Slitherwing. Sssstretching . . . Ahhh. Go to sleeeep. Night soooon.”

  “What a sinister racket,” complained Creeper, but Thorn touched his shoulder to quiet him.

  “I think they’re bats,” he murmured.

  “Ooh,” said Spider with interest. “Spider likes bats.”

  “So this is where they go in the daytime?” Nut sounded reluctantly curious.

  “Looks like it,” murmured Thorn. “That must be what they are.” In fact he knew it—all that talk of wings and bugs—but he wasn’t about to admit he could understand what the bats were saying.

  “Very interesting,” said Nut dryly. “But it doesn’t help us.”

  “No.” Thorn’s heart slumped again. “They’re as trapped as we are now. Poor things.”

  “Everybody’s going to die,” said Spider, almost cheerfully.

  A rage of helplessness suddenly filled Thorn, and he slammed a paw against the rock. He didn’t care that it hurt.

  Spider was right again. Tendril Crownleaf was heading for Tall Trees at this very moment, and she and her troop were going to slaughter the innocents of Dawntrees Troop.

  And there wasn’t a single thing he could do to stop it.

  CHAPTER 21

  Thorn had no idea how much time had passed in the darkness. There was not even a sliver of light, and though Pear’s corpse did not unsettle him, it was sad to think of the poor old baboon lying here in the cold and lonely cave.

  But at least Pear was beyond danger now. Thorn’s heart turned over as he recalled Tendril’s words yet again. The mothers. The infants.

  He had heard Creeper and Nut slump at last against the wall, frustrated and simmering. Occasionally, Creeper would growl under his breath and slap the ground, but neither of the two spoke. Spider was scrabbling at small stones on the floor, intent as always on something completely unimportant.

  Thorn got to his paws and prowled through the darkness, blinking hard. No, it was no good. No light had miraculously seeped into the cavern.

  The bats had quieted long ago, but now he heard a faint rustle above him. He craned his head back to peer up.

  More rustling, a sleepy squeaking. A flutter and hiss of leathery wings.

  “Night’sss heeeeere! Hunt!”

  Poor things, thought Thorn. They’d find out soon enough that there would be no hunting tonight, or ever again.

  Above him, the ceiling erupted in a whirring chaos. Peering up, Thorn wondered if that was blacker shadows he could see, or if he was only picturing the bats. Nut sprang to his paws. Creeper grunted in surprise. Spider said, “Ooh, they’re flying.”

  Thorn turned, trying to locate the bats by sound alone. To his ears it was nothing but confusion up there, but at last he realized that the bats were coalescing into a flock of sorts. They were gathering, orienting themselves, flapping away in a great mass—

  And not toward the cave mouth.

  Thorn tensed. He was sure of it now; the bats were flying deeper into the tunnels, and higher; none of them were returni
ng, and he heard no squeals and cries of disappointment.

  “Are they getting out?” asked Nut.

  Thorn’s gut stirred with excitement. “I think they are!”

  He closed his eyes. He couldn’t let on to his companions, but an idea was forming in his head. Come on, Windrider. Please be right after all!

  It was hard to focus on a single bat in the spinning cloud that diminished by the moment. But at last Thorn locked onto one bat-mind and let himself plummet into its consciousness.

  And he was flying. His leather wings caught the air, cool and free, and his tiny heart brimmed with excitement. The hunt! The hunt!

  The wingtips of his comrades brushed his, but it was no distraction. He was flying forward, the other bodies a reassuring cloud of rushing movement around him. The familiar tunnel was right ahead, and he adjusted his wings and swept through it, feeling the space open out around him. There was dusty darkness all around, but his ears and his head sensed every bump in the wall, every curve of the tunnel. It was easy instinct to find the way through. He smelled night and the forest, dark and green, and suddenly he burst with his comrades into the open, starlit savannah.

  The ssstarlit sssavannah . . .

  Thorn blinked and gasped, and he was deep in the caverns once more. He was a baboon once more. He shook off a lingering yearning for the taste of mosquito and grabbed Nut’s arm.

  “I think I know how to get out!”

  “Oh, come on,” drawled Creeper. “How could you suddenly know that?”

  “I don’t want to get stuck in some little bat tunnel,” said Nut warily.

  “Better die right here,” offered Spider. “More room.”

  “Look, I can’t explain. It was . . . I heard where they went,” said Thorn urgently. “Come on, we have to try!”

  “Because all your ideas have been so good?” said Creeper sarcastically. “Fine. I suppose we’d better make the attempt.”

  The cavern felt hollow and quiet with the bats gone, but Thorn was confident. He bounded to the rear wall, felt his way along it, then hoisted himself onto the narrow ledge he’d spotted through the bat’s eyes. A faint hint of fresh air drifted to him from the narrow opening ahead.