Oathkeeper

by Erin Hunter

“No,” said Sky firmly. “And I’m sorry, Thorn, but you cannot bring flames to the Plain of Our Ancestors. The destruction would be worse than anything Titan and his wolves can inflict.”

  “Not on the Plain itself,” said Thorn, touching her trunk again. “Remember the smoke? Remember how it drove every creature before it, whether weak and small or powerful and huge? We will build fires around the Plain. Starting here, at its entrance. Fear and smoke will drive out Titan and his wolves, long before the bones are burned.”

  Sky glanced at Rock, then at Boulder; then she turned her agonized gaze toward the Plain. She swung her trunk in confusion. “I don’t know. It seems far too risky.”

  “The fire in the forest,” said Rock, “it wasn’t a thing you could control. It went where it willed.”

  “True,” rumbled Boulder. “We cannot control what the fire-flowers do once they bloom. The danger is too uncertain.”

  “Rock-friend isn’t correct,” said Spider suddenly and politely. “Fire doesn’t go where it wills.” He smiled up at Sky, letting his agama lizard scuttle around his neck.

  They all stared at him, surprised. Thorn frowned.

  “Fire,” added Spider, “goes where the food is.”

  “What?” said Boulder, looking genuinely bewildered.

  “He’s right,” said Thorn, excitement rising inside him. “Spider’s seen more fire than any of us; he makes it.”

  “He does?” Rock blinked and peered down at Spider with a new and nervous respect.

  “Spider’s the one who showed us how to make a fire-break,” Thorn explained. “He told me the fire-flowers follow what they eat. I didn’t believe him then, but he was exactly right. The fire couldn’t cross a place if there was nothing for it to burn.”

  Sky flapped her ears. “I think . . . perhaps this could work after all,” she said eagerly. “Boulder, remember how we cleared the fire’s path to stop it, after Thorn told us what to do?”

  “It was Spider who explained it to me,” put in Thorn, and Spider puffed out his chest.

  Sky turned hopefully to her brother. “There’s not much to burn in the center of the Plain—except for bones, that is, and the flowers needn’t ever get near those.”

  Spider nodded in satisfaction. “Bones do not burn. Nothing for the flowers to eat. A bit of grass, is all. Put out food for the fire around the edge, and that’s where it will stay.”

  “I still say it’s dangerous,” grunted Boulder, “but perhaps it’s worth a try. If what Thorn and Spider say is true . . .”

  “It’s true.” Thorn tilted his head to scan the sky for birds. A single eagle soared high over the ravine, and he cupped his paws to his muzzle to call it down.

  “Air-flier! Wing-spreader! Cloud-breacher! Come to me!”

  Tilting its feather-tips, the eagle adjusted the angle of its wings. Its flight path dipped, and it flew lower, lower, till Thorn could make out its black, determined eye.

  “My friend,” he cried.

  “Great Father.” The eagle dipped its head a little. Its Skytongue was surprisingly shrill, like its hunting cry. “How can I be of service on this fine blue day?”

  “I thank you, brother bird.” Thorn smiled up. “Bring others—vultures, buzzards, hornbills, weavers. Bring them all! We need you—we need brushwood. Bring twigs and branches, dead bush and scrub. A few dry leaves, if the bulbuls and sparrows will carry them!”

  The eagle had a light of perplexed amusement in its eye. “And where shall we bring all this, Great Father?”

  “To the edges of the plateau,” Thorn told him. “Drop it in great piles all around the border of the Plain. We will do the rest!”

  “Very well. The Great Father’s wisdom is mysterious, but it is always wisdom.” With a last nod, the eagle soared into the sky, then flew down toward the sprawling savannah at the foot of the mountain. Thorn saw a flock of blue starlings rise from the trees, and a buzzard take off from its nest, as they flew to join the eagle.

  His friends were staring at him, as always, in astonished respect; none more so than the elephants who had not witnessed this before. Thorn closed his eyes, his heart beating thunderously within his rib cage.

  And now, all we can do is wait.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Against the glare of the sinking sun, and the streaks of golden cloud across the violet horizon, Sky could make out black dots. She blinked. The birds were approaching rapidly, and soon she could make out each bird kind: hornbills and storks, shrikes and doves and marsh harriers, hawks and egrets and weaverbirds. She had never seen so many birds in the air, even at the grandest of Gatherings. The birds respect and trust Thorn, she thought. They know he is a fine Great Father.

  But of course, it wasn’t only Thorn they trusted. The birds, more than any other Bravelands creature, knew the power of the Great Spirit—and that power could bring them together.

  Tearing her eyes away from the vast flocks, Sky peered around the edges of the Plain. The shadows beneath the rock faces were long now, and deepest purple, but she could make out the positions of most of the elephants and lions. Boulder and his brothers, convinced by Thorn’s plan, had finally allowed the lions to pass through the entrance onto the borders of the vast plateau, but none of them had ventured to its interior. That was still held by Titan, his wolfpride, and his baboon allies. The baboons must be afraid now, since Creeper’s violent death; Sky could only imagine how badly the surviving Crown Guard wanted to get out of there. Even for Creeper, she could not help feeling a twinge of pity.

  But they brought it on themselves.

  Titan and his wolfpride must have known what was happening at the edges of their temporary territory, but no shadow stirred, no creature emerged from that central ground. Titan must have been caught off guard by this strategy of Thorn’s; otherwise, Sky knew, she would already see him directing the wolves in a sneaky counterattack or summoning some other terrified and enthralled creatures to his aid. Titan was now on the defensive, at least—and after the debacle at the watering hole, that gave Sky a thrill of satisfaction.

  Cries and screeches and whistles echoed in the air above her, and she glanced up again. The birds were overhead now, and they had done as Thorn asked. Eagles carried broken and torn branches; a big hornbill bore a thin bleached stump; the sparrows and weaverbirds and starlings brought leaves and twigs and grass, and the tiniest scraps of forest litter. Each bird alone could never have made a difference, but together they were depositing great piles of dry brushwood at regular points against the encircling cliffs. So many birds, Sky thought in amazement. The high clouds were still stained with the purples and pinks of sunset, but the colors were almost blotted out by the black mass of the gathered flocks. Already twilight felt like night.

  Fearlesspride waited by the plateau’s entrance, not far away, but Sky wasn’t watching them. Near her feet, in the patch of sunlight on the border, Spider crouched over a small heap of dry leaves and grass. She turned her attention to him, fascinated, reaching out her trunk to sniff at his little stack of tinder, and at the sparkling-clear piece of stone he cupped in his paws.

  “The Plain’s gate is at the west,” he told his lizard. “That’s lucky, see. So we get all the sun that’s left. Spider hopes it’s enough.”

  He watched the vast crowd of birds as they dropped their last scraps of wood and bark, then rose into the air and flew back beyond the cliffs. With satisfaction, he nodded.

  “Spider reckons that’ll do,” he muttered. “Good birds. Just in time, eh?”

  He gripped the stone carefully between his fingers and frowned at the horizon. The setting sun’s light was very intense now, blazing between thin golden clouds and painting the shadows of the animals far across the Plain beyond.

  “Still warmth in it,” Spider grunted, and angled his stone with great care into the rays.

  The dazzle was unexpected. Sky had to blink hard as he twisted the stone, focusing the splayed sunlight into a single brilliant beam. For what seemed a breathless age,
Spider crouched there immobile, the shard of intense sun-glow aimed at the curled dry leaves before him.

  Sky saw his head twist; he was glancing anxiously at the horizon again. Far across the savannah, the sun was sinking fast. Spider’s paws trembled a little, but the beam itself held steady. To Sky’s eyes, it seemed more brilliant and red-gold than before.

  “Come on, brother-Sun,” Spider muttered. “Come along, now. Don’t say good night just yet.”

  The lowest rim of the blazing sun touched the Plain on the far western horizon. Without even understanding what was happening, Sky felt her chest clench with anxiety. In her head she chanted along with Spider’s mumblings: Don’t go, brother-Sun. Don’t go yet. . . .

  An acrid tang drifted to her trunk, and she started. Staring down at the dry leaves, she saw a wisp of pale smoke shimmer out of the heap.

  Spider grinned. The pile was smoldering now, the smoke snaking out in darker, thicker coils. Spider dipped his head and seemed to coax the flame by talking to it. As Sky watched in fearful fascination, a fire-flower bloomed, sudden and beautiful.

  Some primitive instinct sent her stumbling back in gut-deep horror as the flames blossomed and grew, young and hungry. Spider tossed down his stone and clapped his paws together. Then, turning, he shaded his eyes at the last intense glow of the sun.

  “Thank you,” he hooted. “Sleep now, brother-Sun.”

  And the glow beyond the far plains blinked out and died.

  The air was instantly darker violet, its clouds streaked pink-gold, but its beauty wasn’t what fascinated Sky. In the swiftly deepening dusk, the flames were taking hold of Spider’s tinder. They crackled and hissed, devouring the little stack rapidly.

  The fire goes where the food is, Sky remembered. Curling her trunk carefully around a burning twig, she pressed it closer into the larger heap of leaves and brushwood. For a heart-stopping moment she thought it wouldn’t catch; then the flame danced higher and roared up a dead pine branch.

  The pile was alight! She could hear the low snarl of the flames as they intensified in the heart of the deadwood. Spider grabbed a burning branch and bounded toward Nut at the next woodpile.

  Snatching the branch, Nut pushed it hard into that heap. It caught in moments, the flames seeming to take no more than a breath before erupting through the heart of the brushwood. Already smoke was billowing up the cliffs and drifting across the Plain, but there was little to attract the flames themselves in the wasteland of stunted grass. A burning branch in his own paw, Nut sprinted toward Boulder, who waited with his trunk impatiently extended.

  Sky held her breath as one baboon, one elephant after another, lit a lengthening line of fires around the circle of the Plain. One by one, the heaps of dry wood burst into golden flame, and the roar and reek of the inferno filled the plateau before even half the fires were lit. Once again, that spurt of instinct twisted in her belly: this was wrong, dangerous. I should run. Flames rose to lick the sky—if they reach the clouds, would they in turn burst into flame?

  No. I trust Great Father Thorn. Summoning her courage, she turned her head to peer through the smoke toward the center of the Plain. Nothing could be seen, not yet. But it could not be other than terrifying to see those fires spring into life on every side.

  She imagined Titan, rising to his paws with Menace. She could picture the two lions, with their wolves and the baboon Crown Guard, backing toward safety on the far side of the plateau. But there, too, Sky realized that fires were now erupting, and the still air was soon thick with smoke from all directions. There will be no escape, Titan Wolfpride. Sky felt a flicker of thrilling certainty. This was truly going to work! Where else can Titan go?

  A few blades of grass burst into small fire-flowers at Sky’s feet. Hurriedly she stamped them out, feeling the heat even through her thick pads of skin. The flames must not reach the bones of our Ancestors. Through the thickening smoke she saw other elephants doing the same, crushing the fire-flowers that crept from the edges of the brushwood stacks. It was clear the fire was giving up that route willingly; what was charred and trampled grass when there was so much food for its flames in the brush piles themselves?

  Clever Spider, thought Sky, tears stinging her eyes.

  The elephants, together with Thorn, Mud, Nut, and Spider, were already making their rapid way back around the cliffs toward the plateau entrance that Spider called the “Gate.” When they were all assembled, they turned to watch the smoke-shrouded Plain, but by now there was nothing to be seen in the murky darkness. The only sound was the hungry crackle of fire-flowers, and from somewhere deep within the plateau, guttural grunts, choking coughs, and hoarse howls of fear.

  Thin, sinuous shapes rushed out of the smoke with a suddenness that took Sky aback; the wolves were fleeing. An elephant lifted his foot to stamp on the leader, but it dodged nimbly and shot past.

  “Never mind the wolves,” growled Fearless, who had come to stand next to Sky. “Let their worthless hides go. It’s their leader I want.”

  “He’s right,” Sky told the elephants, and Rock nodded. “Keep on the alert for Titan.”

  “Are the fire-flowers dying?” asked a young bull, Ravine. He scraped the ground anxiously.

  “They mustn’t,” said Thorn grimly. He glanced up at the sky, then grinned. “But my friends know what to do.”

  The birds were returning. Once again they carried branches, twigs, and bark; once again they dropped their burdens around the edge of the Plain, feeding the ravenous flames. The fire roared back to life. Night had fallen completely, but eerie shapes were visible now, jutting from the heart of the Plain, outlined in firelight: gigantic skulls, jagged ribs, great spears of tusk, all lit by a violent orange glow. Sky’s breath caught in her throat. The bones are not for you, fire-flowers!

  But though smoke swirled and twisted between the ancient bones, no flames leaped to attack them; no skeletons erupted in fire, no tusks smoldered and blackened in the heat. Closing her eyes, Sky gave silent inward thanks to the Great Spirit.

  When she opened her eyes once more, living shapes were moving in the sinister glare. Her eyes streamed and an acrid tang stung her sensitive trunk, but she made herself peer harder. Now she saw them clearly: wolf after wolf, bolting from the dense smoke. One by one they fled, skinny shapes that flashed past the waiting elephants and vanished into the darkness. No black-maned lion loomed from the murk, but Sky thought she could hear something, deep within the circle of cliffs: an enraged roaring that made the smoky air shiver.

  Could it be the flames? No. It sounded different from the fire’s voice, she thought with an inward shudder. There was a distinct note of darkness and evil in the muffled sound.

  Two more wolves. Three. A cluster of five. Two Crown Guard baboons; she didn’t recognize them, but then they seemed diminished and pathetic as they fled. They too disappeared into the darkness of the Bravelands night. Neither of them was Thorn’s sworn enemy, Viper: Sky was sure of that.

  A limping wolf, its fur burned and torn. And then another, barely able to drag itself through the gate of the Plain. As it lurched down the trail, Sky thought she heard its last whimper, swiftly cut off. Most likely, its friends had put it out of its final misery.

  After that, no further creature appeared. The air was bad enough where Sky stood, scorching her throat and choking her trunk; surely any creature left on the Plain must have succumbed to the suffocating smoke? There was nothing to do now but wait silently in the night, the hearts of baboons and lions and elephants beating alike. There was something so terrible and beautiful about the circle of fire that raged around the Plain of Our Ancestors.

  As the night drew on, stars appeared now and then, twinkling through the pall of smoke; but then the birds would reappear, bringing their inexhaustible supply of food for the flames, keeping the fire flourishing at the edges of the plateau.

  It was hard to track the progress of the night hours, with the stars and moon mostly invisible. But eventually the fires began to subside.
The exhausted birds were at last running out of brushwood and branches; or perhaps they were simply returning to roosts that had been left too long. The flocks’ numbers gradually dwindled until only the eagle was left, soaring on the disturbed air currents above the Plain. He stooped, tipping his wings in salute to Great Father Thorn, then soared away out of sight beyond the cliffs.

  A bone-deep weariness stole across Sky’s limbs quite suddenly. She blinked and swayed; the smoke wasn’t as thick now, drifting into ragged tendrils, and through the murk it was clear that day was breaking. The sky had paled to lilac-gray, and beyond the far cliffs, a pale shimmer of gold outlined the eastern mountains.

  “He’s dead.” Nut’s voice broke the silence. “He can’t have survived that.”

  “I’d hope not,” grunted Boulder.

  Sky peered through stinging eyes toward the clearing Plain. The wood stacks were almost burned out, blackened and scattered and smoldering. Wisps of feeble smoke licked the nearest grass, but the elephants had done their job well at the beginning of the night; there was nothing to catch those dying flames in the charred, trampled grass around the fires. Already the thick smoke seemed more like a tattered morning mist. If it wasn’t for the stink of death and burning, thought Sky with a shiver along her spine.

  She raised her head and looked east. Spider’s “brother-Sun” burst like a new flame at the horizon, spilling rays across the center of the plateau, turning the remaining smoke to golden mist. Sky gasped at its beauty.

  Then, as the sun rose, a roar echoed out from the very heart of the Plain, savage and defiant and unforgiving.

  And alive.

  Sky’s blood ran cold as a river. Around her, the elephants stiffened, lifting trunks to scent the air. Mud chittered in distress.

  “How?” bellowed Boulder. “How?”

  Fearless struck the earth with a paw, raking his claws deep into the grass. He gave a furious snarl—but Sky thought she heard something else in it. Satisfaction, maybe.

  “And now, he’s mine,” growled Fearless. “There’s nothing more you can do. You’ve stripped him of his wolfpride. It’s my turn.”