Oathkeeper

by Erin Hunter

  Sky found she couldn’t blame the herds. What choice did they have now? They’d seen what happened if they were to defy Titan; even Rip had been mercilessly slaughtered. They were taking what chances they could for survival. And it might buy them some time. At least Titan and his wolves wouldn’t kill them right now.

  Sky turned back to her brother, desperate for reassurance. Buffalo and hippos and leopards might bow before the tyrant—but of all creatures, Boulder was the least likely to submit to the loathsome Titan.

  He was deep in conversation with his herd-brothers, but as he caught sight of her he fell silent and raised his head, fanning out his ears. Sky swung her trunk in confusion. That look in his dark gaze: she could not read it. Boulder murmured something to Rock, who gave a slight nod.

  Sky didn’t want to leave Fearless’s side, but she didn’t like what she was seeing. Her brother, even Rock, looked defeated. Boulder turned, trudging toward the watering hole, his herd following. His head drooped, though his eyes blazed with resentment.

  No! Not Boulder too—

  She couldn’t bear it. If her brother capitulated to Titan along with all of Bravelands, it truly was over. If Boulder did not have the strength or the courage to withstand the tyrannical lion, no one did.

  Boulder came to a halt at the water’s edge and raised his head. Sunlight sparked off his tusks; his jaw looked tight, and his eyes were narrow as he glared at Titan. Every animal there fell silent and turned to gape at him.

  “For more seasons than I can count,” he said, his voice booming across the suddenly still water as creatures paused to watch him, “for rain after dry after rain, as far as I remember and a long way beyond, the elephants have pledged loyalty to the Great Spirit.”

  Here it comes. Sky felt heartsick, her chest tight and her throat dry.

  Her brother took a moment to scan the watering hole and the surrounding herds. “Elephants were often chosen as the Great Spirit’s hosts, after all,” he went on. “We have long lives, and strength, and great wisdom. We followed the Code, always; we killed only to survive. That was the life and the death we knew in Bravelands, and we did not think to question it.” Boulder took a deep ragged breath, and when he spoke again, his voice was wretched. “But all eras end. Even that long and golden season.”

  Sky’s heart tore inside her. She wanted to cry out, she wanted to run to her brother, but her feet stayed rooted to the spot. She had to endure this, she knew. Whatever this was costing Boulder, it was too much. All she could do was endure it with him.

  “That age has ended, Titan Wolfpride.” Boulder’s eyes locked with the black-maned lion’s. “It has ended with you. You have killed that season of the life of Bravelands. You have torn down everything we knew. You have smashed the Code as it was. And now we must begin again.”

  A slow smile curled Titan’s muzzle, and he gave a slight nod of acknowledgment.

  “And that,” Boulder went on, lowering his head so that his tusks scraped across the sand, “that is why the elephants must now break our precious Code.” He lifted his head high and spread his ears wide, his eyes blazing. “The Great Spirit must survive. And so, Titan Wolfpride: you must die.”

  For an instant there was stunned silence, and Sky felt the tiny hairs on her hide rise as a thrill swept through her body. Titan still stared at Boulder, his face suddenly immobile.

  Boulder raised his trunk. “For Bravelands and the Spirit!” he trumpeted.

  He lurched into a full-on gallop, thundering into the shallows toward Titan. No crocodile would dare to put his body in the way of such a charge. Boulder’s brother elephants charged behind him, throwing up such vast fans of spray that for a moment Sky was dazzled by its sunlit glitter.

  Animals scattered before the elephants’ stampede, bellowing and braying and hooting as they bolted from the lake. Smaller creatures fled from beneath the melee of trampling hooves, tripping and scrambling over one another, squealing in mortal terror. Sky shook herself.

  “Nimble! Lively! Get out of here!”

  The cheetah cubs needed no second command; they fled up the shore, their black-tipped tails streaking out behind them. Sky had time to puff out a breath of relief before she turned back to the astonishing sight in the lake.

  Wolves were scattering before the elephants’ onrush, with a panicked shrieking and howling. They scrambled and scratched, snapping their thin jaws at their slower pack members, using their weaker siblings as stepping-stones to bound from the water. Some of the smaller ones disappeared gurgling beneath the water.

  Titan himself hesitated, glaring in disbelief at Boulder and his brothers as they stampeded through the water toward him. But his madness hadn’t made him stupid. With a roar of fury, he spun around, knocking a last loyal wolf flying. Then he fled, his paws splashing through the water at incredible speed. Whether it was cheetah-spirit driving him or simple fear, Sky could not tell.

  It didn’t matter. A surge of hope rushed through her, stirring her limbs at last, and with a trumpet of defiance, she launched herself after the other elephants. As she plunged in among the herd, she was quickly swept up in their charge. Great gray bodies hemmed her in, carried her along, but she wasn’t afraid. These were her brother’s family, her family, her kind. Clenching her jaw in determination, she galloped in their midst, feeling the strength of their righteous anger flowing into her from every side.

  She could not see the fleeing Titan, but she knew he was there, just ahead, with the last of his wolves. The angry bellows of the other elephants told her so. The water beneath her feet became hard sand, then gritty earth, as the stampeding herd left the watering hole behind them. Then, abruptly, they plunged into the forest. The elephants ran on, heedless of the snapping, whipping branches; Sky was protected from the worst blows by the elephants around her.

  They broke out of the trees, but the elephants did not slacken their chase. Sky could hear the bellowing trumpets of her brother, calling them on, urging them to deliver justice to the foul Titan.

  “He won’t escape us now, brothers. Take him! Trample the brute under our feet! Crush his worthless flesh! Make his rotten remains feed the earth!”

  Sky marveled at the energy that propelled her on. It came from deep within her heart and spirit. This, she knew, could at last be the end of Titan. Giving up now was not an option. As the ground beneath her feet rose in an uphill slope, some of the elephants around her were wearying, their pace slackening. But Sky forged on with the strongest, finding herself closer than ever to the front of the charge.

  The noise, the dust, the shaking of the earth were all overwhelming. With a moment of chilling clarity, Sky knew that she couldn’t stop anyway; if she did, she would be trampled herself.

  The power of the herd flowed through her, drove her on uphill, leaving forest and grassland behind until the earth dried and paled. It was so hard to see, but the steep rocky path was familiar. She knew this trail so well, and where it led, and her thundering heartbeat jolted.

  The Plain of Our Ancestors! Titan was heading for the elephants’ most sacred place.

  Suddenly her steps were less certain, her feet faltering. Sky gasped for breath, and as one of her feet caught a rock, she almost tripped. Elephants were not meant to run so far, so fast.

  But now she had to reach the front of the herd. Gathering all her strength and energy, Sky shouldered ahead of the other elephants.

  She raised her trunk, blaring out a call of desperation. “Titan must not reach the Plain!”

  As her words echoed from cliff to cliff, she caught sight of the black-maned lion cresting the ridge and fleeing within the protecting walls of the sacred plateau. She saw the tails of his remaining wolves flash after him, perhaps twenty or so of the vicious creatures. They vanished from sight within the encircling cliffs.

  Boulder was just ahead; with a last spurt of speed, Sky barged against his flank, throwing him momentarily off course. He started and half turned, his racing steps faltering.

  Quizzical
and perplexed, he shook his head. “We have him, Sky!”

  “Boulder, stop! You know this is wrong!” She raised her trunk and her voice. “Look how close we are to the Plain!”

  Slowing, her brother hesitated. Then he stared back at the gap in the cliffs. The elephants behind him halted, milling in frustration, raising their trunks and swinging their tusks.

  “Yes,” grunted Boulder, his ears spreading wide in anger. “I . . . wasn’t paying attention. You’re right, Sky.”

  “This Plain is littered with the bones of our forebears,” she reminded the bulls, as an eerie hush fell. “Titan has desecrated it already, simply by entering. We will not do the same.”

  Some of the males protested, but Boulder silenced them with a snort. “She’s right,” he said. “We will shed no blood here. We will not disturb our ancestors’ resting place.”

  The bulls lapsed into a sullen mood, scraping at the ground with their feet. Then Boulder flapped his ears, threw up his tusks, and gave a bellow of frustration.

  “Titan escapes again!” he cried.

  “Titan is safe,” rumbled Sky, “within this prison. The walls are sheer, Boulder.” She shook her head. “He has not escaped. But this is where our pursuit ends.”

  “For now, Sky,” Boulder corrected her, turning to glare his fury at the entrance to the Plain. “For now.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Fearless knew he was awake, but it was as if sleep still held him half in its grip, trying to drag him back to darkness. Was this a dream after all, then? Surely the flames that roared around him weren’t real. He could feel their heat, their sharp tongues licking out to burn his flank and belly, but the only light blazing in his aching eyes was sun-dazzle.

  He blinked hard. Then again. There was the blurred shoreline, there was the wavering ripple of the water; but where had those running elephants gone?

  And . . . where was the fire? Only within me—

  With a painful effort, Fearless twisted his head. His side looked odd. Wrong. It felt wrong.

  Everything felt strange and bad: the world, his mind, his body.

  Warm breath caressed his muzzle, and Fearless felt the gentle tickle of whiskers and tongue. That seemed more real than anything; it soothed him, brought him gently back to reality.

  “Fearless,” urged a voice he recognized as Keen’s. “Fearless, you’re alive. Thank that Great Spirit of yours.”

  “Yours, too,” mumbled Fearless shakily.

  Keen’s nod was blurred in his vision. “You’re wounded.”

  “I know it,” gasped Fearless as another bolt of pain went through his side.

  “The grass-eaters are still in a panic.” Keen nodded toward the lake, and Fearless tried to turn his aching head to see. Sure enough, many of the herds still wheeled and galloped, or simply pawed and stamped at the sand, raising their heads to cry out in misery and fear. The shoreline was churned into a chaotic mess of hoof- and pawprints.

  Fearless dragged himself up onto his forepaws and narrowed his eyes to try to make sense of the scene. There, visible in glimpses between the frantic animals, lay Rip’s mutilated body, his pale belly still exposed to the sun. The corpse was coated in dust from the melee, but the wound was thick with the sticky darkness of congealing blood.

  Rip’s was not the only lifeless body, Fearless realized with grim satisfaction. Many wolves lay among the trampled animals.

  He blinked and angled his head to left and right, staring sharply into the chaos and carnage. Wolves, but no Titan. Titan still lives. . . .

  Between a stamping, snorting herd of gazelles limped smaller, furry shadows: four of them. Thorn and his friends, thought Fearless, and through the relief, a surge of sudden anger gripped him.

  He rose painfully onto all fours. Ignoring the pain that blossomed inside him, Fearless lurched toward the baboons.

  As his eyes met Thorn’s, the baboon flinched, halted, and backed a step away. “Fearless. You’re all right. Thank the—”

  “Yes, yes,” snarled Fearless. “The Great Spirit has already been thanked, and by lions. Lions who should have been trusted with your plan! Why didn’t you confide in me, Thorn? Why didn’t you let me know what was happening?”

  “I . . . it went wrong,” stuttered Thorn. “We didn’t count on the treachery of the crocodiles. We—”

  “Enough!” roared Fearless, and Thorn winced again. His friends too shrank back, though they chittered angrily through bared fangs. “You knew, Thorn. You knew I needed to kill Titan, but you took that away from me. And because of your overconfidence, we both failed!”

  He expected Thorn to rally, to snarl back at him, but the baboon simply looked down at the sand, utterly miserable. “Fearless,” he whispered, “I can’t deny anything you say. I did fail, and I should have trusted you. It’s . . . please understand. Listen to me. I’m trying all the time to do what’s right—not just for me or for my friends or the other baboons, but for all of Bravelands. That’s why I called on Rip and his crocodiles—because I wanted to be sure this would work.”

  Fearless hesitated. The agony on his old friend’s face was almost unbearable to see. Thorn’s tormented by this disaster, he realized. And he always will be.

  Thorn sank to a weary crouch, his shoulders hunched. “I ask your forgiveness, my friend. I know it might be too hard to give.”

  Fearless felt the last of the hot anger seep from his heart. He nodded. Taking a couple of paces toward Thorn, he bent to touch his muzzle to the crown of the baboon’s head.

  “I forgive you,” he said hoarsely. “It’s not as if I haven’t made mistakes, Thorn.”

  “We do not forgive!” A warthog trotted up, his whiskers bristling as he glared at Thorn. “Easy for you, Lion; the baboon’s your friend.”

  Beside him, all other warthogs snorted in agreement.

  “Not our forgiveness!”

  “You won’t get that!”

  “Too many of us are dead,” squealed a hare, pushing through the gathering crowd toward Thorn. “That’s less easy to forget!”

  “He’s right,” neighed a glowering zebra mare.

  The dispersed and panicked herds were calming and organizing themselves once again, Fearless saw, but it wasn’t in a good way. One by one they approached, some limping, until they formed a deepening host around Thorn and Fearless and the other three baboons.

  “Why did you lie, Baboon?” bellowed a hippo from deep in the line. “Why let us think you were dead?”

  “Indeed!” yelled a buffalo, and stamped his huge hoof, sending up a cloud of dust. “Explain yourself, Great Father.”

  Thorn opened his mouth, but he seemed lost for words. A bushbuck lowered his horns menacingly and made as if to butt him from the side. “We needed a Great Father. Needed him more than we ever have. And this—this coward pretended to be dead so he could stay out of trouble!”

  “That’s not what—” began Mud, but he swallowed hard and shut up as the buffalo shoved forward to loom over him.

  A leopard prowled through the crowd until she came face-to-face with Thorn. Very deliberately, she licked her jaws. “I knew a baboon was a useless choice as Great Father.”

  Fearless hastily sidestepped to put himself between her and his friend. “Back off,” he growled, “cat-sister.”

  She glared up at him, moving neither toward Thorn nor back. Three cheetahs stalked forward to stand at her side, their tails switching angrily.

  Fearless turned to Thorn. He was all too aware of the weakness of his limbs, the disabling pain in his chest and side, the shaking of his paws. “I’m outnumbered, friend,” he growled quietly. “You should leave.”

  “Yes, you should,” grunted the warthog. “Run away, Great Father. Run away again.”

  Thorn cleared his throat, finding his voice at last. He rose onto his hind paws. “I will not,” he declared, trembling only slightly. “I’ve never run away, so why should I start now?”

  Almost as one, the angry animals moved forward, tighteni
ng their semicircle. From behind Thorn, more of Fearlesspride suddenly moved forward, nodding to Fearless and surrounding Thorn.

  “Do not touch the Great Father,” snarled Resolute, and Glory growled in agreement.

  The hostile creatures halted in astonishment; for the first time since they’d surrounded Thorn, they looked nervous. They exchanged glances, and some began to back away. Only the buffalo and the hippos held their ground.

  Two small shadows dodged lithely between the gathered legs and hooves and trotted up to Thorn. Fearless recognized Nimble and Lively, Sky’s cheetah cubs.

  “We stand with you, Great Father,” mewled Nimble, earning a glower from the older members of her kind. Then Resolute and Honor stalked forward too.

  Slowly, the angry crowd began to break apart, retreating with muttered threats and venomous glances toward Thorn and his impromptu guard. Tails in the air, the warthogs spun and trotted away haughtily. The zebras broke into a gallop and rejoined their dejected herd. The buffalo snorted a curse and stomped off, kicking up more clouds of dust and sand. The situation was hardly resolved, thought Fearless, but at least any violence had been averted.

  “Thank you, Fearless,” said Thorn. “And all of you.”

  Mud blew out a breath of relief. “That could have ended badly if you hadn’t been here, Fearlesspride.”

  Thorn nodded dejectedly, then gave a deep sigh. “I’m grateful for your support, lions of Fearlesspride. More than I can say. But . . . I’ve lost the rest of Bravelands.”

  There seemed to be nothing Fearless could say to that; from what he had seen, it was true. As the silence stretched, he shook his mane. Even that small motion sent pain shooting through his chest and flank; it was as if one bone was grinding against the rest. It almost snatched the breath from his lungs.