Bravelands #4

by Erin Hunter

  “You fought me bravely,” growled Titan, his voice breathy and uninterested once again. “But now: now it is time to die. I thank you for your tribute of battle, Fearless Fearlesspride. Be glad, be proud. A moment’s agony, and then pain will be as nothing to you, ever again.”

  Gently, almost dreamily, the jaws began to close on Fearless’s stretched throat. Terror had seized him; for a hideous, agonizing moment, Fearless did not know which way to move, how to strike back. Cold terror stung the open wound on his belly.

  Something shot through the mist from the slope above them, barreling into Titan, flinging him aside. There was a grunt of surprise from the black-maned lion, and then Fearless found himself staring up at Keen.

  Keen’s muzzle was peeled back in fury. “You idiot!” he snarled, then jumped and twisted swiftly to face Titan again.

  Fearless rolled hurriedly, staggering to his paws, only just catching his balance on the precipitous rock. Beyond Keen he saw the figure of a smaller lion, rooted to the spot and trembling.

  Ruthless! He fetched Keen! I told him not to, I told him—

  Panting, both Fearless and Keen stared at Titan. He watched them from a short distance, his body wreathed in that eerie mist. For a long moment, they faced one another in tense silence.

  Fearless took a step forward, and Keen matched him. On Fearless’s other flank, Ruthless suddenly bounded forward too. Together the three young lions bared their fangs and growled.

  Titan’s stare darkened. He tensed, his muzzle curling, a growl rumbling in his throat; he seemed torn between rational wariness and the overpowering need to kill them all.

  Then, with a single fluid motion, Titan swiveled and sprang out over the edge of the precipice. The dense gray murk swallowed him, and he vanished.

  Fearless gasped and took three quick running bounds to the spot where Titan had jumped. Shivering, he stared down.

  He knew this ravine, knew its gaping width and the height of its precipitous walls. Had Titan really been so determined to escape that he’d jumped to his death? There was an eerie stillness to the fog-bound air: no rattle of stones, no yowl of pain, no distant thud of a body on rock. All was gray, damp silence.

  “He can’t have made it,” muttered Fearless. “The ravine’s too wide. No lion can fly!”

  “He’s fallen,” said Keen crisply, padding carefully to Fearless’s side. “He’d sooner leap to his death than be beaten by three young lions. You told me he was a coward.”

  Fearless shivered. “He was, but he’s changed,” he murmured, half to himself. “And not in a good way.”

  Nothing was visible beneath them, not even the next rock shelf. It was impossible to make out Titan’s body on the ground below. And as Ruthless crept forward, shivering, Fearless realized he was glad that they couldn’t—at least in these first shocked moments—see the corpse. Titan was monstrous and mad, he thought, but he was still the cub’s father.

  All the same, they had no choice but to seek it out. “I know you’re right, Keen,” he growled softly to his friend. “Titan can’t have survived. But I have to be sure. I have to see his body with my own eyes.” He turned to Ruthless, kindly. “You don’t have to come with us—”

  “Yes I do,” said Ruthless, quietly but firmly. “I’ll come with you, Fearless. I have to see this to the end.”

  Fearless nodded, and with painful caution, the three young lions began to creep toward the foot of the slope. They sprang lightly from outcrop to outcrop, slithering on patches of scree and sending rocks rolling and tumbling to the gully floor. The mist was beginning to burn off in the sun as they jumped down to safety at last.

  “I’m sorry, Fearless,” muttered Ruthless. “You told me not to tell Keen where you were going, but I was so afraid for you—”

  “With good reason!” interrupted Keen. “What were you thinking, Fearless? You didn’t have a chance against that enormous brute! What if you’d been killed?”

  Fearless didn’t have the energy to answer. A dull misery had settled over him, now that the danger of the sharp cliff was behind them, and his gut felt hollow. He had dreamed of Titan’s death so many times—but not like this! He should have died at my jaws. I needed to avenge Gallant and Loyal and all the others, and Titan took even that from me.

  Methodically, sniffing at every rock and crevice, the three lions patrolled the valley floor, hunting for any sign of Titan’s broken corpse. Mist still lay thickly in a few sheltered hollows; that must be where the body had fallen, thought Fearless, scraping aside patches of brush. He landed in some kind of deep hole. He must have . . .

  Keen was prowling at his side, snuffling under rocks. With a glance toward Ruthless, who was a little way away, he brought his muzzle close to Fearless’s ear.

  “I saw what Titan was eating,” he growled. “Not a zebra, not a gazelle. A lion.”

  Fearless took a breath. But even that horrible news didn’t have power to shock him deeply, not now that he’d stared into Titan’s crazed eyes. “Bravelands is well rid of him,” he muttered. “Though I wish it had been me who ended him. But where is he?”

  “Somewhere in this ravine,” said Keen. “I hope it’s us that finds him, and not Ruthless.”

  But it was none of them. The young lions searched until all three of them were exhausted and their paw pads ached. At last, Keen halted and flopped onto his belly, growling with frustration. The sun was high and hot, the mist dissipated, and despite their frenetic and slightly irrational hunt, there was no rock, no patch of scrub here that was big enough to hide Titan’s massive body.

  “He’s not here,” said Keen.

  Fearless remained on his paws, trembling with frustration. He gazed up and around, angry and despairing. The ravine was too wide to jump; it was. The slopes were too steep and high for any lion to survive the fall.

  But Titan was gone. Fearless’s vengeance had disappeared with the mist.

  Tipping back his head, he let out a roar of grief and rage. It reverberated around the barren stone of the ravine, echoing back to taunt him.

  CHAPTER 26

  “This is no fun for Spider.” The eccentric baboon glowered at the rocky trail as he stomped on up the hillside. “Spider is bored.”

  “Spider will have to be patient,” said Nut dryly. “And Spider needs to stop whining before I knock him on the head.”

  “Nut-friend has been whining much more than Spider.”

  That, thought Thorn, was actually true. Spider was the only one of them who didn’t seem hungry and tired and footsore, and he was in fact a lot less grumpy than Nut. He spent most of his time chatting to a bright pink-and-blue agama lizard on his shoulder. At least, Spider was chatting, making little hisses and clicks to try to persuade it into a conversation. The lizard just perched there, staring at the baboon’s face with amiable incredulity.

  “Cheer up, everyone.” Nut squinted into the hot blue sky and pointed at black specks that were circling lower. “When we finally collapse, the vultures will finish us off nice and quickly.”

  “Thanks for that cheery thought,” said Mud sarcastically. “Honestly, if the stones had told me my paws would ache this badly, I’d never have trailed after Thorn. Great Father or no Great Father.” He shot Thorn a wry look.

  “I don’t think it’s far now,” said Thorn, though he found it hard to remember. The long, dusty slope didn’t have many distinguishing features: a twisted acacia here, a big craggy boulder there. It just seemed to rise, endlessly, toward the lilac haze of the higher mountains.

  “You’ve been saying that for ages,” pointed out Mud gloomily. “It’s always not far now.”

  “I’m starting to think he made the whole thing up,” said Nut. “Don’t look at me like that, Thorn, I’m joking. But how much farther?”

  “I’m honestly not sure,” Thorn sighed. He clambered up a ridge of steeper rock, the pale dust crumbling away under his paws. “I seem to remember this bit—oh.”

  He rose onto his hind paws, staring as hope
surged in his chest.

  He did know this tall crag of rock. It rose before him, a pale golden bluff with one tenacious juniper clinging to a crevice. He was sure now—

  Dark shapes stooped swiftly from the sky above them, and behind Thorn, Nut gave a gasp and squeaked, “I knew it!”

  Thorn dropped to all fours, tensing.

  The vultures tilted their wings into the still air, the tips of their feathers flaring. The largest of them landed, with a hop and three quick steps; her companions followed, and suddenly Thorn was surrounded by the birds, and separated from his anxiously chittering friends.

  “Thorn, look out!” shouted Nut. “Leave him alone, you carrion-munchers!”

  Ignoring him, cocking their bald heads, the vultures studied Thorn with glittering black eyes. Windrider—he recognized her—stretched her wings, then folded them.

  “Why have you come?” she croaked.

  “Thorn, what are they saying?” cried Mud, jumping up and down beyond the ring of vultures. “Can you understand them?”

  “Yes. Yes, I can.” Thorn reared up on his hind paws again and met Windrider’s gaze. “I’m ready to accept my destiny.”

  The vulture said not a word. With a flurry of black wings, the flock lurched into the air around him. Thorn felt Windrider’s powerful talons grip his shoulders, and abruptly the ground was gone from beneath him. Cold air rushed through his fur, stung his eyes. Once again, he was flying, lifted effortlessly through the sky in the claws of a vulture.

  Cries of shock erupted below him, but they grew fainter and more distant with every moment. Mud was jumping up hopelessly, screeching into the air.

  “Thorn! Thorn! Let him go, you crazy birds!”

  “We’ll rescue you!” hollered Nut. “We will!”

  “It’s fine!” Thorn tried to shout, his voice caught and whipped away by the wind of the vultures’ wings. “Don’t worry! I’ll be all right. . . .”

  His friends’ cries faded to nothing as Thorn was carried over the crest of the rockface. Below him the mountain, so recently an aching slog of rock and scree and heat, became a majestic series of points and jutting crags, with slashes of dark shadow lying in its sharp crevices. The sight of it made Thorn’s heart leap and stutter, but more in awe than in fear.

  The serried peaks rose before him like storm-whipped waves on a river. Thorn craned his head around, desperate to see everything as these birds did. Beyond the lowest foothills, the mountain’s flanks swept down in every direction to the boundless plains of Bravelands: green and gold and infinite, splashed with patches of dark forest and streaked with silver rivers. Tiny with distance, great herds moved, golden and black and brown. Thorn could not tell what creatures they were, but from up here their movements seemed slow but purposeful, as if they were taking part in some ancient, Spirit-ordained procession.

  The rocks below him reached a jagged summit, high vertical crags that circled a flat crater. With a breathtaking swiftness Thorn was borne down into it, and with a gentleness that surprised him, Windrider set him down in its center.

  He clambered to his paws, smoothing his fur nervously. The pool lay before him. Bubbles rose and popped on its surface, and Thorn smelled again that thick, sharp under-earth reek. He raised his eyes to its far edge.

  Grayfeather was already waiting, his creased ancient eyes fixed on Thorn’s.

  “Thorn Greatfather,” he rasped. “Will you truly commit to your destiny, once and for all time?”

  When he put it like that? Thorn swallowed.

  For a horrible instant, he wasn’t sure at all. He stood in a place that was as strange and dangerous to him as the blue arc of the sky, among creatures whose language he should never have been able to comprehend. If he did this, he was committing to honor, serve, and advise all those great herds and packs and clans of Bravelands—when frankly, he wasn’t sure he could do that for himself and three friends. He was offering Bravelands his entire life.

  Thorn stared around at the sheer walls of rock. He remembered the sight of the mountain from above, and the eternal plains spreading out beyond its roots to the gleaming horizon.

  “Yes,” he said, quietly and clearly. “I will.”

  Grayfeather nodded once; Thorn thought he caught a spark of satisfaction and delight in the old bird’s milky eyes.

  “Then drink,” said Grayfeather, and hobbled back.

  Thorn crouched at the pool’s rim. The water stank, and his gut recoiled at the thought. I have to do this.

  He stepped forward into the pool, its coldness making him draw a sharp breath. Then he cupped his paws and scooped up water. It glinted and glittered in the sun. Droplets of it fell on his chest fur, sparkling in the light. Bringing his paws to his muzzle, Thorn drank.

  His first thought was that the taste wasn’t so bad at all. It was nothing like the odor; it was sweet and fresh and keen, and it tingled through his body and cleared his head in an instant.

  Well, that was easy enough. It—

  And then the visions swamped him.

  He was a gazelle, pronking and leaping, outmaneuvering a cheetah with a thrill of energy and triumph. He was the cheetah, his lungs aching and his legs faltering, the disappointment swiftly fading before a new determination. He would hunt again.

  He was a hyena, lifting his paws lightly as he trotted, a hunger stirring inside him to feed the cubs of his clan. There—an unwary dik-dik . . .

  He was a serpent-bird, launching himself into flight, his black-and-white wings riding the warm breeze, his long legs trailing behind him. He was a bee-eater, swooping and flashing his fine colors, darting after insects for the sheer fun of it.

  He was a lion, his heart dark with madness, loping across the plains with nothing but immortality on his mind. Powerful, remorseless, murderous.

  He was a shrew, scuttling panicked through tall, tall grass. He was the serval cat, his movements so graceful and lithe, that leaped on it with joy.

  He was the agama lizard on Spider’s shoulder. What was this strange creature trying to say, chittering and clicking its nonsense? He tilted his head, curious. Well. He liked the baboon. He liked his perch up here. There were tasty flies buzzing around that bristly brown ear, and he could reach them easily. It was a happy place to be.

  Now he was the baboon. No, he was another baboon, not Spider. He was himself. He stood in a glinting pool, high on a mountain, the cool water lapping around him, and his heart brimmed with certainty and joy.

  Thorn blinked and took a breath. He stood motionless, the visions still drifting at the edges of his mind. He was staring into the wise, worried eyes of a young elephant.

  “Thorn? Thorn!”

  “Sky Strider.” His voice seemed to come from far away; from a hyena, a serpent-bird, a lizard.

  “Thorn . . . what’s happening?” It was no vision; this truly was Sky, standing real and solid on the opposite side of the pool. She flapped her ears in bewilderment. “I’ve come to find the Great Parent. I have to speak to him. It’s important, so important.”

  “Then,” said Thorn, “you’ve come to the right place. And the right creature.”

  Sky’s eyes widened. She stared at him for a long, wondering moment. He heard her take a soft, deep breath: it held surprise and relief and intense gladness.

  Her head dipped, and her eyes closed.

  “There is a terrible new menace in Bravelands, and you are the only one who can thwart it.” Sky’s eyes flickered open once again, gazing into his; for all her obvious anxiety, they sparkled with solemn happiness.

  “Please help us. Great Father.”

  EPILOGUE

  “Night is falling, little ones.” Darktrill the nightjar felt excitement mounting in her small breast. “It’s time for me to hunt. But I have something to tell you before I go.”

  Her chicks trilled eagerly beneath her wings.

  “We’ll miss you, Mother.”

  “But you’ll be back soon!”

  “And we’re hungry, Mother!”

/>   Fondly Darktrill gazed down at them, so well concealed in the litter of bark and leaves beneath the cordia tree. “Stay safe in the forest-shadows until I come home, my dears.”

  “What are you going to tell us, Mother?” The biggest and oldest of her chicks blinked up at her.

  Darktrill paused, so full of happiness that for a moment she was lost for words. She glanced up through the branches at the deep lilac twilight, where the other birds of Bravelands flew toward their roosts. White egrets flapped lazily homeward, the last light of sunset glowing on their wings. A lugubrious marabou stork, high in a nearby kigelia, folded its massive wings and hunched its head sleepily into its shoulders. Their day was ending for now; her time was only beginning.

  But it was the finest day she could remember, one that had lightened her heart and brought it new song. Darktrill stretched her wings in sheer joy and sang up to the settling egrets.

  “Good night, Purefeather! Good night to you all! Thank you for your news!”

  “What news, Mother?” cried her oldest chick again.

  “That hunting will be good now, Sweetsong, and my dear chicks will thrive, and that all will be well once more. The egrets say the Great Parent has come at last!”

  The chicks trilled and chattered with delight.

  “The egrets? They said so?”

  “It’s exciting!”

  “We’ve never had a Great Parent!”

  “No, little ones.” Darktrill preened their feathers gently. “For too long, all Bravelands has been without one. But now you will live in the time of Great Father Thorn, Baboon of the Dawntrees!”

  Sweetsong’s eyes were huge and dark and bright. “A baboon? I thought the Great Parent was an elephant! Are you sure, Mother?”

  “Of course, my chick!” Darktrill gave a rippling, churring laugh. “Egrets tell no lies. A baboon may not be as strong as an elephant or as swift as a cheetah, but he is clever and wise. He has brought the Great Spirit back among us all. And it is not for us to question the Great Spirit’s choice, Sweetsong!”