by Erin Hunter
Then he gave a shocked cry and bounded over to the heap. “Fearless!”
“What is it, Thorn?” The lion loped to his side.
What do they think they’re doing?
The baboon was delving gently into the pile of bones. He set aside a small rib, and with more effort, a thick fractured leg bone that might have come from a buffalo. Then he blinked and drew a breath, staring at what had lain below them. Sliding his hands very carefully around something, as if he was cradling a tiny baboon baby, he drew a skull from the heap. He turned to show it to the Cub of the Stars.
Sky stared too: it was the skull of a baboon, picked clean by the vultures. But one fang had been snapped off, leaving only a jagged stump.
The lion gave a rasping grunt of shock. “Bark Crownleaf!”
Thorn Middleleaf nodded, his expression stunned. “Great Mother—this baboon was head of our troop.”
Sky took a tentative step forward—though she stayed safely in Great Mother’s huge shadow—and peered closely at the baboon skull. Its jaws were open, its single long fang clearly displayed. Something about the skull’s expression was disturbing—she could almost hear its scream of shock and rage—and a shiver rippled along her spine.
“I am sorry to hear that,” Great Mother told the baboon softly. “The bones in this pile belong to creatures whose deaths may have broken the Code.”
Thorn Middleleaf stroked the skull’s smooth top. “With respect, Great Mother, I don’t think that’s possible in this case. Bark Crownleaf died fighting a hyena—she was protecting the troop. That doesn’t break the Code.”
“Well,” murmured Great Mother, pacing forward to touch the skull, “I can read bones to tell how an animal died. You know this, don’t you? But you don’t need me to tell you about this remnant.” Gently she took hold of the skull with the tip of her trunk and turned it in the baboon’s paws. “There.”
The young baboon stared at the back of the skull for a moment, as if he could not quite believe what he was seeing. Then he sucked in a high-pitched breath.
Sky crept forward, too curious to resist.
It was not smooth and round as it should have been; there was an ugly, shattered hole in the back of it.
The lion gasped at the same moment Sky did. “Her head was smashed!” he exclaimed hoarsely.
Thorn Middleleaf’s head snapped up, and he hooted in angry grief. “A hyena couldn’t do this!”
“No,” agreed Great Mother sadly.
“What happened, Great Mother? What more can you tell us? Bark’s killer . . . they must have come from behind. . . .” The young baboon’s voice cracked.
“A moment, young Thorn.” Closing her eyes, Great Mother ran her trunk across the skull. Her eyes squeezed tighter, and she flinched just a little. Long heartbeats passed in silence; the animals around her all seemed to hold their breath.
Concerned, Sky raised her trunk to touch her grandmother’s shoulder, but the old elephant finally opened her eyes.
“Death was brought to Bark Crownleaf by one she trusted,” said Great Mother. “Could that have been a hyena?”
The baboon was silent for a long time, his jaws grinding as he seemed to struggle with what he had been told.
“Th-thank you, Great Mother,” he stammered at last. “I . . . we have to leave but . . . thank you.”
For a moment, he seemed unable to move. He leaned briefly on the lion’s flank, as though he needed support, and the Cub of the Stars dipped his head to nuzzle him comfortingly.
At last, though, the baboon drew himself up, clenching his jaw. The two odd friends turned and trudged away, muttering to each other as they went. Though Sky couldn’t make out their words, she recognized the tones of confusion and grief.
The rest of the elephant herd dispersed almost at once, gossiping about the strange visitors as they browsed the bushes, but Sky stared after the lion and the baboon, her mind in turmoil. Her grandmother still stood nearby, quiet and pensive. Sky edged closer to her.
“Great Mother . . .” She cleared her throat. “Great Mother, may I come to the meeting with the cheetahs?”
The old elephant looked down, cocking her ragged ears forward in surprise. But she nodded slowly.
“I think that’s a good idea. Yes, you may come. It is clear this pair must be connected to your vision.” She rolled the baboon skull lightly on the ground. “Sky, I think we’ve found your visions are unusual. You see things in the bones that are hidden from other elephants. Will you try to read this skull for me?”
“A bone of another animal?” Sky pinned back her ears in doubt.
“Let us say I’m curious,” rumbled her grandmother. “Perhaps you can read it, perhaps not. But shall we find out?”
“I’ll try.” Tentatively Sky approached it and extended her trunk toward the skull. Then she hesitated. “Will I see how she died?” she murmured.
“Don’t be afraid of it, young one. The bone cannot hurt you.” Great Mother blew a soft breath against Sky’s neck. “Your vision came from your mother’s bones, so learning to read other remnants might help you understand that vision better. And it might well help me, too.”
Carefully Sky mimicked her grandmother’s technique, which she had witnessed so often, running the tip of her trunk delicately across the shattered skull. Great Mother is right. This isn’t frightening. It’s almost soothing. . . .
Her eyes drooped, and she swayed slightly. The foliage of the watering hole blurred and melted into green and ocher ripples, and sleepy warmth enfolded her.
And then, with an abruptness that turned her own bones cold, something flashed into her vision.
A baboon’s eyes, bloodshot with hate and vicious cunning. Jaws gaped wide, and long savage fangs glinted in the brutal white sunlight. And it screeched—
Snapping out of her trance, Sky stumbled and cried out in fear. There was no baboon here; only the calm, sparkling lake, and the idly grazing herds, and the concerned face of Great Mother, bending down to her.
“Sky! My dear, what did you see?”
“A baboon! Grandmother, I saw it again—but I don’t think it was Thorn Middleleaf. This one is evil!”
But there was no fear in Great Mother’s kind eyes. She looked proud as she curled her trunk around Sky’s.
“You have the gift, young Sky. You do not simply receive messages from the bones; you read the very heart of them.”
“What was it?” Sky was shaking, and despite the heat of the sun, a chill lingered in her blood. “What did I see?”
“The baboon you saw in the bones, Sky?” Great Mother gave a deep sigh. “That was the murderer of Bark Crownleaf.”
CHAPTER 19
“Good luck, my friend,” said Thorn, pressing his forehead against Fearless’s chest. “If anyone can get the cub back from the cheetahs, it’s you.”
His heart ached, his head reeled with unanswerable questions about Bark Crownleaf’s killer, and he wanted nothing more than to stay in the comforting company of his friend. But he could see that Fearless’s mind was elsewhere.
“I hope you’re right.” Fearless licked Thorn’s head. He was staring in the direction of the three-branched Lightning Tree.
Much as he wanted to scramble onto Fearless’s back and stay with him, wandering the savannah until night fell, he could only watch his friend turn and pad away. When the lion was out of sight, Thorn took a deep breath, clenched his jaws, and bounded for the gully where Berry had found Bark Crownleaf’s body.
As he paused on the edge of the ditch, he swallowed hard. He scrambled down, clutching at vines and scrubby thornbushes to slow his descent. He didn’t want to fall straight down and possibly disturb the remains that lay there.
Grass and tendrils of flowering balsam were already beginning to creep over the skeletons. Carefully Thorn picked and tugged away the encroaching vegetation to expose the bodies; of course, both had been scoured clean by insects and rot-eaters. Bark’s skeleton, though, was more disturbing than the hyena�
�s; her spine ended abruptly at the neck, the skull taken by the vultures to the Great Mother. Thorn shivered.
Frowning, he inspected the ground nearby, pulling aside creepers. It was hard to tell if there had been a struggle here, and whether it had been only between Bark and the hyena. It wasn’t possible to read anything in the terrain, he decided.
He turned to the hyena’s bones. They had been tugged apart by the scavenging birds and beasts. Rib bones were scattered in a haphazard tumble, and Thorn pulled them impatiently aside. Though they were scored with teeth marks, they were unlikely to tell him anything. But beneath those, tangled in the grass, lay the beast’s skull.
With a grunt of determination, Thorn gripped it and pulled it free of the vegetation. An unexpected shiver rippled through him as he gazed into its empty eye sockets. Slowly, he turned the skull over.
For a moment he simply stared at it, his heart thudding slowly. He’d half expected this, but he’d still dreaded being right.
The hyena’s skull, too, had been smashed. A section at the back was cracked, with a small hole in the center.
None of us examined the bodies, he thought. But how could we have suspected? How could we have known to look for evidence of bad deeds?
It would take something hard and heavy to smash two skulls.
His blood pounding in his veins, Thorn rummaged in the undergrowth, yanking dead branches aside, flinging chunks of earth and rotted leaves out of his way. In the depths of a thick clump of lantana, he finally found what he didn’t know he was looking for.
For a moment he went still. Then he pulled the rock out of the shadows—a wedge-shaped fragment, pointed at one end, and the perfect size to fit into a fist.
It certainly felt heavy and sharp enough to do damage even to the toughest old bones. A pang of grief twisted Thorn’s gut as he thought of poor Bark, trusting and unawares. Great Mother said our Crownleaf was betrayed. Surely that has to mean a baboon did this? And not many other creatures could grasp a rock and smash it down. . . .
But the real evidence was the crust of blood that had dried in every crack and crevice of the stone. Thorn scraped at it with a claw, shivering, then wiped his paw frantically on the lantana leaves.
So a baboon killed Bark and the hyena. With this stone. But after it killed them—
A shudder ran through his bones. Bark’s fang had been snapped clean off. The killer must have done that, just so he or she could sink it into the hyena’s corpse.
And there’s only one culprit I can think of. There’s only one of us who could have been so ruthless. The individual who stood to gain the most when he became Crownleaf.
Grub.
Dizzy, he scrambled back up to the lip of the gully. His whole body felt heavy and clumsy as he made his way back to the center of Tall Trees. His heart ached inside him, but his head was numb, and his paws felt as if they didn’t belong to him.
Within the camp, there was lively bustle; as Thorn padded in, it felt odd and wrong to him that life was going on in this normal, cheerful way. Stinger hailed him from the forked branch of a cassia tree.
“Thorn! Where have you been?” Stinger rose up on his hind legs, gripping a branch for balance, and peered at him. “Never mind. There’s a Council meeting shortly, and we’re gathering the best food from our stores for the members. Can you help, please?”
It wasn’t really a request, thought Thorn dully, but he was glad of a distraction while he tried to wrap his mind around the awful discoveries of the day. He took his place in the group of working baboons; in a daze he sorted through berries and nuts and tender leaves, picking them out and placing them aside for other young baboons to carry to the Council Glade. As Grub strutted past on his way to the Crown Stone, Thorn stared at him, feeling sick.
What happens now? I don’t know what to do!
Nut grabbed a handful of leaves from Thorn’s discard pile. “Why are you putting these aside? They’re perfect.” He flung them with a flourish into the pile meant for the Council Glade and gave a chitter of disgust. “Why do we have to work with stupid Middleleaves?”
Thorn barely heard him. I can’t just let this go. I have to say something. But when? And who can I tell?
“Thorn.” He felt a paw on his back. “Are you all right?”
Startled, he turned to see Stinger’s concerned face. “Er . . . yes, I’m fine.”
“You don’t look it. You’ve been in a trance since you arrived.” The older baboon drew him aside, behind a colorful thicket of orange and red croton plants. “What’s wrong?”
Miserably, Thorn licked his jaws and gazed at Stinger. He’s a senior Highleaf, he thought. And I trust him.
“I went to see Great Mother today,” he blurted. “And something happened. . . .”
Stinger watched Thorn’s face intently as he listened to his frantic tale. As word followed terrible word, the older baboon’s expression darkened, and he drew back his lips in horror as Thorn described his search of the skeletons in the ditch.
“And Stinger,” finished Thorn miserably, “I think Grub did it. Remember how eagerly he came forward to be leader? I think Grub killed Bark Crownleaf.”
Stinger subsided onto his haunches, then peered over Thorn’s shoulders nervously. “It’s true he was . . . enthusiastic,” he rasped. He stared at his own paws. “I . . . put it out of my head. I didn’t want to think anything so terrible had happened.”
“So do you think I’m right?” asked Thorn desperately.
“I do not know.” Stinger laid a paw on his trembling arm. “But I trust your instincts, Thorn. You’ve always been a clever baboon. And . . . I did have my own suspicions. I just didn’t want to think too hard.” His amber eyes looked sunken and shadowed.
“Would Grub really break the Code just to make himself leader?” whispered Thorn.
“I hope not.” Stinger raked at his shoulder fur with his claws.
“We have to tell the troop!” Thorn said desperately. “We can’t keep this to ourselves. Even if Grub is innocent somehow, the troop has to hear about what I found.”
“I hope he is innocent,” Stinger said, his voice agonized. “If he’s guilty, one day we’ll find out for sure. But Thorn, we can’t say anything just now. We have no proof! Grub could turn this against us. I assume you’ve left the evidence?”
“The skeletons are still in the ditch—but Great Mother has got Bark’s skull.” Thorn chittered his teeth, torn between anger and indecision. “What should we do?”
“I think it’s wise to keep our counsel for now,” Stinger told him. His intelligent face was grave. “Remember, I lost the vote to become Crownleaf to Grub. If we say anything now, he could accuse me of just wanting him gone.”
“I . . . maybe you’re right. Yes, I see that.”
“If Grub did this awful thing, we’ll find a way to expose him. But in the meantime, Thorn, it’s important to be careful. Grub is Crownleaf now, and who knows what he’s capable of? We have to keep our eyes open.”
“Then I hope no one has noticed us talking about it,” said Thorn with a stab of fear.
“You’re right,” said Stinger grimly. “Come on. It’s time we were at the Council.”
It was so hard to keep a normal, relaxed expression as Thorn took his place behind Stinger in the Council Glade. Sunlight filtered weakly through the creepers and lichens that draped the surrounding trees; behind each of the fourteen Council Highleaves, their retinues sat in greenish shadow, eyes glowing. To Thorn, for the first time, the dimness of the glade felt sinister, as though something menacing lurked behind the creepers. And he could barely bring himself to look at Grub, perched so self-importantly on the Crown Stone. Looking at his haughty posture, it was all too easy to imagine him being a murderer.
The Council, it seemed, had returned to the concern Thorn had heard them discuss many times before. “If we move the troop now,” Mango was saying gruffly, “we miss half the fertile season in Tall Trees.”
“But the monkeys might wel
l try another attack,” pointed out Twig. “What if we can’t fight them off next time? I say we find new territory before they come back.”
“But where would we go?” asked Beetle tremulously. “We may face more threats at our new home.”
“Well,” said Stinger—a little too brightly, thought Thorn—“I think a change would do the troop good. We’ve been rooted here for too long.”
“I’m not so sure,” grumbled the Crownleaf. “There’s been a lot of upheaval lately. We need some stability, and moving is always chaos. I don’t want young baboons starting to treat their elders with disrespect, or thinking they can pair with lower statuses. That’s where instability leads: to that kind of uproar and nonsense.”
Thorn swallowed hard at Grub’s talk of interstatus pairings.
“Youngsters, didn’t you hear me?” Grub was glowering around the retinues. “I said, bring in the food! This is hungry work.”
Snapping his focus back to the job at hand, Thorn sprang down from his rock behind Stinger and bounded to the collection of the finest food, piled in a small neighboring clearing. It wasn’t all nuts and berries; there were a few mice and hares, too, and a dik-dik. That should obviously go to Grub, as Crownleaf. Thorn reached for the tiny gazelle.
His paw was slapped away. Nut glared at him with his small, mean eyes and snatched up the dik-dik.
“I’m a Highleaf,” he hissed. “You’re a Middleleaf, remember? I’ll serve the Crownleaf.”
Thorn bared his fangs, but right now he couldn’t bring himself to care about Nut’s stupid antics. If only you knew what I do, he thought bitterly. Grabbing up an armful of mangoes, he followed Nut back to the main glade.
Nut was already at the Crown Stone, obsequiously offering the dik-dik to Grub, who snatched it without taking a breath. Clearly Grub was into his stride on the subject of the disrespectful youngsters of the troop.
“And another thing,” he was saying, “there’s a bit too much insolence to the elders for my liking. Why, just the other day”—he tore a strip of meat from the dik-dik’s haunch and crammed it into his mouth—“a Lowleaf refused to hand over his mango to me. Me, the leader of the troop!” He sank his teeth into the dik-dik and chomped another mouthful. “Well, I soon set him straight. And let me tell you, moving around will give these youngsters even more ideas above their status. Suddenly they think being young and quick gives them the right to question orders.” He gulped and ripped another mouthful. “And they are very rarely right about anything. Not that that matters, anyway. It’s the principle that’s important. Tradition. Respect. But in the arrogance of youth, they—” He stopped suddenly, coughing.