Treeclimber mirrored his leader's pessimism. ‘There isn't anything else under a day's walk from here and you know it.'
'It can't be helped.'
'There is an alternative,’ offered the junior male.
'I'm open to suggestions, Treeclimber.’ That was a first!
The outspoken Upright stood and in a challenging tone said, ‘We take back our drinking and feeding rights from Bighand and his bullies by force.’ His backup group hooted their approval.
'Quiet down!’ commanded Caverunner. A silence so heavy that you could have heard a grain of dust drop enveloped the cavern. Rockshaper, listening in, had even paused his background toolmaking. ‘Are you forgetting the events of yesterday morning?’ the troop leader scornfully put to Treeclimber.
'No, but—'
'Need I remind you that Plainscrosser and Stonehopper haven't come back and are probably feeding the scavengers right about now?'
'I was with them, Caverunner, and lucky myself to escape the fracas. You don't need to tell me their fate.'
'Or that the majority of us are sporting bumps and bruises thanks to robust brutality. My own back is killing me from the blow it was dealt.'
'You've made your point, boss.'
'Not by a long shot. How do you propose to defeat Bighand, by simply asking him to leave us alone?'
'I...'
'Perhaps you and your accomplices plan to throw another rock as a means of persuasion, hmmm? That worked so well last time.'
Treeclimber sat back down and sulked. He had spoken on impulse and not thought matters through, the result of which made him look like an idiot. He could see his promotion winging away like a flapping pelican.
It was Caverunner's turn to rise and he paced the cave floor angrily, addressing his troop in curt barks. ‘Listen up! The situation stands at this: the robusts have the upper hand and that won't ever change. They are bigger and beastlier. We cannot, dare not, stand against them. Our survival depends on us keeping a low profile and not antagonising Bighand further.'
'What if he decides that he wants to occupy Home-rock?'
Caverunner stared the poser of that valid question down. ‘Then we relocate, Grubtaster.'
'Abandon our caves?'
'If need be.'
'Death is preferable to being homeless.'
'Not to my mind it isn't. No more lives are to be sacrificed over a futile land dispute. The welfare of the troop is my paramount concern. We back down. I will deal harshly with anyone who stirs up trouble between the robusts and us. By that, I mean to banish any of you who wantonly disobey me.’ He scanned the faces of his incredulous fellow males challengingly, repeating his authoritative hoots to make his caveat perfectly understood. ‘Any wrongdoer will be turfed out of Home-rock faster than yesterday's carrion.'
Bushwalker was floored by the threat. There was no severer penalty than expulsion and to her knowledge the punishment of exile had never been passed in hominin history. To be cast out of the troop was an incommutable death sentence.
His mind made up, Caverunner wrapped up the meeting by decreeing, ‘Stormsniffer, take Thornchewer and go looking for water out northeast. Follow a Tusker herd if you're able to. That'll be our best bet for locating a new water supply.'
Caverunner was almost as renowned for his practicality as he was for his cautiousness. Fast approaching the height of the dry season, there was always the increased risk of drought at this time of year. The river feeding Murky Watering had already dried up into a trickle that would vanish soon enough into dust and elephants had a reliable reputation for digging out mini waterholes in the dry riverbed.
'The rest of us will forage in and about Scraggly Bush for the next day or so,’ Caverunner concluded, ‘just to be on the safe side. I want Bighand to have a chance to cool off. Let me reiterate that nobody goes anywhere outside the caves unless in pairs or a group, and no-one at all goes near Murky Watering.’ His hardnosed gaze fell pointedly on Treeclimber. ‘I appreciate that you're all thirsty and I promise to find us another waterhole before too long.'
The graciles meandered from the cavern, unhappy at the prospect of scrounging about in the spartan bushland for food but wisely keeping their reservations and rumbling stomachs to themselves. Caverunner's word was final and none dared to speak against him in his present frame of mind. Except for Treeclimber.
'Excuse me, boss,’ he grunted respectfully, pulling his leader to one side of the departing man-apes. ‘I'm volunteering to look for water with Stormsniffer and Thornchewer.'
'Why?'
'Because I want to, chief.'
'Feeling responsible, boy?'
'I didn't hurl that stone, Caverunner. I don't know who did, but I swear it wasn't me.'
The gracile leader was unswayed. ‘I can't trust you, lad. You're not going. That's final.'
Treeclimber fumed as Caverunner stomped out of the grotto. He would find a way to redeem himself in the eyes of his chieftain.
'Are you okay, honey?’ It was Bushwalker.
'Glad to see you back in one piece,’ the preoccupied male mechanically said, rubbing his battered shoulder.
'Did you miss me?'
'What? Oh, yeah. Sure.'
'Treeclimber, I might have been dead!'
'But you're not. Now be a good girl and run along. I have a problem to figure out.'
Bushwalker stood there, gazing at him with teary eyes.
'Is there something more you want to say?’ he harshly asked her.
She limped crying from the cave down into the encompassing bushland and hid amongst the thorn thickets sobbing uncontrollably for a good quarter hour.
'Why Bushwalk blubber?'
Turning around, Bushwalker glimpsed Ugnap through her tears. He had come up on her from the rear. For all his bulk the buffalo moved through the branchy scrub as silently as a cat. Drying her eyes with her knuckles, she revealed, ‘Male trouble.'
Ugnap snorted. ‘Me stomp him.'
She indulged the simpleton bull with a smile. He possessed a heart as big as his body. ‘Thanks, but that's not necessary. Why are you still hanging about Scraggly Bush anyhow? I said you didn't have to linger after you walked me home last night.'
'Ugnap Bushwalk's friend. Me stay.'
Bushwalker, flattered by the attachment, hardly needed a buffalo nursemaid. Excusing herself, she returned upslope to the caves and spent the remainder of the day in isolation, shunning even Rockshaper's company.
The next few days were something of a drudgery for the Home-rockers. Caverunner's prudence became nigh on intolerable, for he kept his troop well within the safe bounds of Scraggly Bush. Tempers grew short due to the increasing thirst and scarcity of food. The hunt for water proved fruitless, as Murky Watering, despite shrinking daily from the stifling heat, had not shrunk sufficiently to prompt the Tuskers to start water divining the riverbed. Caverunner subsequently directed his searchers to try their luck out south at the foot of the mountainous Whitetop. They had yet to meet with success, returning at the dusky close of each day with bleak news of a scornful, waterless land.
Bushwalker retreated into herself. Rockshaper was thoroughly engrossed with his toolmaking and Treeclimber so busy scheming to get back into the good graces of his penalising leader that she seldom saw either. She let herself go completely, not bothering with grooming at all. Her lustrous ebony pelt, admired by the males and envied by the females, degenerated into a greasy and knotted mess grimed with dirt and excrement. The pregnant female had issues on her mind more important than personal hygiene. Bushwalker's sleepless nights continued, her paranoia of being spied upon in the darkness multiplying. Disturbed by more than her fun-loving beau's aloofness, there was the nagging, unsolved matter of the mystery cat.
* * * *
Jinku reported in. Yowlar patiently listened to the baboon recount his latest nocturnal reconnoitre of the hominin caves. The monkey droned on while the fiery yellow plate of the sun lifted blazingly into the eastern skies to banish the nig
ht with streamers of pinky gold.
'Yes, that's all very interesting,’ the panther said with an exasperated growl, ‘but I don't need the layout of the upper grottos. The lower level interests me more. That's where the majority of the Uprights reside. Give me the information I desire, scout, or your next job will be acting as my scratching post!'
Jinku began to shake. The black Sabretooth was a hard taskmaster. The crippled baboon only just completed his fourth nerve-racking night of creeping through the unlit innards of Home-rock, committing the positions of the caves and their occupants to memory. It had literally been a thankless job.
Listing, until he was hoarse, the inhabited grottos of the gracile apartments one by one as best as he could remember, the monkey spy was relieved when Yowlar at last seemed satisfied with his report.
'They seldom change their sleeping arrangements. Excellent,’ the cat purred.
'Is that why you've been sending me back into that warren night after night, sir, to establish where the Uprights bed down?’ Jinku asked, a touch of annoyance inflecting his query.
'Naturally. Learn the habits of your prey, monkey-boy. It could mean the difference between a full belly or starvation.’ In reality Yowlar, still opposed to and fighting Tsor conditioning, was waiting out his gnawing hunger in the hope that the alien stimulus to kill solely man-apes would lessen, even fade away. That drive to slay the Uprights remained undiminished, intensifying in fact to the point of blind obedience.
Withstanding invisible alien puppetry was not Yowlar's only mental challenge. Sabretooth innate distrust of caves posed a lesser, but nonetheless valid problem. Caves meant bears and Takers were invariably troublesome. Laughably, it was a mute point. The sole bear species on this entire continent resided out of harm's reach up in North Africa, never venturing below the equator. But Yowlar had no way of knowing that. Loath to admit a failing to himself let alone his baboon servant, he wrestled silently with his dilemma. Tackling the slenderer Uprights meant entering their caverns. For him there was no alternative, lest he relinquish the advantage of the night. In the end the difficulty was taken out of his paws. Tsor mind control overrode even ingrained claustrophobia.
'Do I go back in tonight, sir?’ Jinku enquired with a definite lack of enthusiasm. ‘I'm getting rather sick of this sneaking about. It doesn't help having that Curvehorn mooching about in the bush either. He makes it hard for me to get in and out cleanly.'
Hungry and browbeaten by a dead alien tormentor, Yowlar snarled under his breath, ‘Curse you, Gurgon ... you win. I'll do your dirty hunt for you.'
'Sir?'
'We stalk at sundown, Jinku.'
* * * *
The night was deathly quiet.
Bushwalker stirred two hours after a breathtaking sunset sent the parched Uprights to bed. Some deep-seated warning bell buried in the dozing female's subconscious was tolling a warning for her to waken fully. Taking care not to disturb the snoring Rockshaper at her side—despite everything, the longstanding pals continued to share the same sleeping cave—she sat up and promptly arrested. Even in the dark of the cave she sensed the intruder.
Jinku paused, detecting the faintest of movements in the blackness. Hearing nothing further he continued his stealthy advance into the grotto on all fours, his injured leg scuffing the floor.
Holding her breath in case it gave away her alertness, Bushwalker felt rather than saw the prowler grope its way inside the inky vault. Whatever it was brushed against the soles of her feet and she shuddered from the touch even as the trespasser crawled to a halt at the foot of Rockshaper's mattress of picked grass. The frightened maid was about to overcome her terror and raise the alarm when the sneaking baboon beat her to it, uttering a low hoot of its own. Bushwalker's panicked cry died in her throat even as two sparks of burning yellow materialised in the cave mouth and the phantom of her nightmares stole into the cavern.
Entering furtively in soundless paws, Yowlar seemed an extension of the blackness, the embodiment of the darkest fears conjured up by primitive minds after the sun relinquishes the sky to the moon and stars, giving substance to the shadows. Padding past Bushwalker, he immobilised the already scared stiff Upright female with a cursory glance that stripped away her defences entirely before moving on to the sleeping form of Rockshaper. Jinku hurriedly moved aside to grant his master access to the unknowing gracile. Yowlar sniffed the grey-haired male and wrinkled his nose in disgust at the apish scent before examining him with eyes perfectly suited to seeing on even the blackest of nights. Seemingly content with what he saw, the coal-black Sabretooth walked the length of the slumbering elder and unhesitatingly clamped his jaws about Rockshaper's throat.
Bushwalker recoiled in horror as her closest friend's death-gurgle assailed her ears. Too frightened to shriek or lift a finger to help him, her mind pictured what the darkness thankfully obscured, the sounds of his feeble, short-lived struggle as he sleepily wakened to death enabling her to visualise the ghastly attack: clawing fingers scratching futilely at the grass bedding, legs twitching madly in protest, the terrible wheezes as oxygen starved lungs uselessly strained to draw breath through a crushed windpipe. The scrape of his body being dragged across the cave floor grated on her taut nerves and she cowered in the dark like a lost child.
Maddening silence suddenly deafened her. The phantom killer and its accomplice had left. Bushwalker reached out a tentative hand, fingering a pool of sticky wetness and nothing more. Rockshaper's corpse had gone with them. Freed of the constraints imposed by fear, she at last screamed.
Chapter Ten
'It's the truth!'
Caverunner gave Bushwalker a dubious look and finished his examination of the murder site in the cold light of morn, speculatively handling tufts of silvery-grey hair scattered about the bloodstained grass that had served as Rockshaper's makeshift bed. Clearly some sort of violence took place during the night, but the squatting ruler of Home-rock was sceptical of Bushwalker's account. He bent forward to again sniff the congealed blood pooled on the strewn bedding. ‘Two glowing eyes, you say, girl?'
'That's what I saw. It was a clawfoot, Caverunner. I'm sure of it.'
'But you didn't see it clearly.'
'The cave was dark.'
'So you're assuming a Roarer took Rockshaper.'
'I didn't say it was a Roarer. I said it was some sort of clawfoot.'
Caverunner rocked on his heels pensively. He and Bushwalker were alone in the grotto while the Uprights crowded curiously outside the mouth of the infamous cave. Caverunner warned them off with a sharp bark. The pungent smell of spilt blood was already panicking the more excitable members of his troop. He did not want full blown hysteria disrupting Home-rock routine. ‘Plainswalker,’ he called out.
The summoned male stepped forward from the jostling crowd to cautiously enter the cave, his eyes darting about nervously. No relation to Bushwalker, Plainswalker had been the second oldest gracile. The unsilvered, brown furred twenty one year old now became the eldest and the unwelcome elevation made him uncomfortable. ‘Yes, Caverunner?'
'Could a Roarer have wandered into our caves last night?'
Plainswalker shrugged his hairy shoulders, bare in patches from excessive grooming. ‘I'm no expert on the habits of clawfeet, but it's possible I suppose. Unlikely, but possible.'
Caverunner dismissed the elder with a grunt. Faced with problems that had never before confronted a gracile chieftain, he was having difficulty coping and Plainswalker's greater life experience did not help him one whit. For the sake of convenience he opted to lump his mounting problems into one package. ‘The robusts did this,’ he judged.
'What?’ Bushwalker was flabbergasted.
Caverunner stood. ‘It's obvious. Bighand wanted revenge for the incident by the waterhole, so he had a couple of his boys sneak into the caves to kill one of us, the underhanded swine. Rockshaper happened to be the unlucky victim of a robust reprisal. They probably figured that out of all of us the old bugger could defend himsel
f the least.'
'I saw a clawfoot,’ maintained Bushwalker.
Caverunner remained disbelieving. ‘You aren't sure what you witnessed last night. Everyone knows you're afraid of the dark. The mind can play tricks on someone who is scared witless. That run in with the robusts shook us all up pretty bad, Bushwalker. You just don't want to admit to yourself that Bighand is capable of raiding Home-rock.’ He exhaled. ‘It is a pretty frightening realisation, after all.'
'You're wrong, Caverunner!'
'Have a care, girl. You're forgetting your place.'
'Aren't you the one who keeps telling me not to sleep near the cave mouth in case a roving meat-eater looks in?'
Bushwalker had him there.
'This is the work of Bighand's goons and nothing else,’ Caverunner reiterated. ‘If you continue to question my judgement maybe I'll have to reconsider your membership of the troop, Bushwalker.'
She shrank back against the wall. The threat of banishment was an effective tool of persuasion.
'Treeclimber, front and centre.'
The eager to please male shoved his way of out the massed sightseers. ‘What do you need, chief?'
'For you to get rid of these gawkers, cos the show's over.'
'Right away, boss.’ Treeclimber hesitated. ‘What are you planning to do about Bighand?'
'Nothing.'
'We're not going to avenge this trespass?'
'Must everyone challenge my decisions?’ Caverunner exploded, beating his knuckles against the cave floor in a fit of uncontrolled rage. He calmed down just as spontaneously, the heaving of his chest lessening, the wildness receding from his troubled eyes. ‘Our bullying cousins have committed their act of retribution,’ he quietly reasoned. ‘They won't be bothering us at home anymore. Just in case they do, we'll move upstairs to the higher grottos.'
'One of our own was murdered!’ seethed Treeclimber.
Chosen Too Page 11