So many years had passed, and Gazda had yet explore the unusual growth of sickly trees, an oversight he never managed to correct. He remembered too well the eerie black fog that leaked from its roots, and the presence he’d once sensed among the shadows.
And these things were there with him in the dream as he’d approached the grove; the dull mist wafting up around his ankles as feral eyes watched him from between the bloated trunks.
Then he saw a stone wall had been built behind the forest, and at its foot a canyon had opened in which many night apes clambered and screamed. There was a roar high atop the wall, and looking up he cried out with the others as fire rained down in burning streams...
Gazda lay upon the bed listening to his racing heart and he might have fallen back to sleep had a sound not come suddenly from just outside his lair—then the entire structure trembled, and dust drifted down from the ceiling.
He quickly pulled his long knife before creeping toward the door where he listened for a moment to something just outside.
Breath racing in and out...a creature panting in distress and pain.
With long knife ready, Gazda pulled the door aside and slid his head past the frame to see...
Kagoon!
The lowering sun’s rays burnished his old friend’s face—but he was gravely injured! The bull ape had dragged himself up onto the raised platform and now lay with his enormous shoulders against the wall. The planks beneath him were stained with blood.
“Kagoon!” Gazda rushed out to him, eyes searching the clearing and the jungle eaves for enemies that had done this.
“Goro...” Kagoon blurted, with breaking voice, “...days ago...” The wounded blackback shrugged his torn shoulders, then drooling blood guessed, “Two days—Omag...”
Hooting worriedly, Gazda lowered himself over his friend sniffing at the many deep fang marks and bruises on his neck, chest and shoulders—and licking at the dripping mounds.
Decay...Gazda could smell decay in the flesh...
“Ulok...at the Two Trees,” Kagoon moaned. “Omag and the old queens supported it and blackbacks also.” His voice rattled.
Gazda slid a strong arm behind the giant shoulders to cradle his friend’s massive head. Cooing softly as Eeda had done for her son, Gazda brushed at the torn sideburns that hung in gory tangles to either side of the bull ape’s broken jaw.
Kagoon half-smiled at this, but his happy panting turned into a coughing-fit. Afterward, he had barely the strength to shudder as he gazed into Gazda’s eyes. The night ape’s strong fingers stroked his forehead.
“Omag did this...” the blackback said haltingly, gasping, almost drowning in a wave of pain before pushing along with his tale.
“It was that cane of his,” Kagoon sighed. “Like your shining fang, Gazda. None of us knew its true power...”
And as his friend spoke, Gazda was amazed to feel the story brush against his fingertips before it took shape inside his mind.
CHAPTER 31 – The Cripple’s Cane
Goro’s tribe had been feeding north of Fur-nose’s lair and east of the Grooming Rock. It was many miles inland from the coast and blackback scouts had reported finding many ripe bananas growing near the clearing by the Two Trees.
The king had wasted no time calling the tribe together and leading them through the jungle at a slow and steady pace.
The journey lasted for much shifting of the shadows that the rising sun sent down through the branches, but the apes arrived finally at the broad, flat space by the Two Trees. The land there was open to the blue sky, and the sun was high over them warming the tall grasses and the banana trees that grew along the eastern edge of the clearing.
There Goro ordered the group to feed after he, Baho and his loyal blackbacks spaced themselves evenly around the others to stand watch for predators and bone-faces while they ate.
The Bakwaniri had not attacked the tribe since the incident that led to Eeda’s death, and while the king thought the bone-faces strange, he considered them less a threat than hungry leopards.
Omag, Ulok and the aging queens came late to this place, followed by nine young blackbacks, so when they dined it was on green fruit passed over by the others. The late-comers had doubtless been slowed by the crippled ape’s labored gait.
The wasting disease had twisted Sip-sip’s back until a huge hump of muscle quivered between his shoulders, set slightly higher than his head; and his right arm had shortened so much that he depended entirely upon the axe-head when moving on the ground.
Many apes still joked about “Sip-sip’s baby” but as walking grew more difficult for Omag, the tribe saw that the crippled ape needed the device for mobility...or so they thought.
Omag’s protégé, Ulok, was unhappy that his late arrival meant he had to eat unripe fruit, and he grumbled his displeasure to his companions and blackback comrades, before turning to the entire tribe and voicing his ire most vociferously.
This year, Ulok’s broad muscular back had grown a dappling of silver fur to match the bright bands at his shoulders and hips, and many in the tribe were growing anxious as they anticipated a challenge to Goro’s reign.
Such speculation was all that the females and blackbacks could talk about when grooming or tending to their daily needs. The young bull ape was massive, and had grown to look so much like Goro that he was sometimes mistaken for the king.
After growling his complaint, Ulok postured and pumped up the swelling muscles that rippled beneath his bristling silver mane. The bull ape glared across the clearing to where Goro sat with his queens, before quite deliberately raking at the earth with his rigid hands and snorting loudly.
A palpable shudder quivered over the tribe as Omag rose from where he sat with the aging queens and limped over to Ulok.
Sip-sip stood upright, swaying before his enormous young ward, and then with great flourish, he bowed so low over his cane that his ragged forehead scraped against the grasses.
And a gasp went through the clearing.
Sip-sip’s behavior was an outrage, for none but the king could be shown this sign of respect before the tribe.
Goro had watched this display from where he lay in the grass with his queens about him grooming. Nearby his young sons rolled and played.
The silverback grunted powerfully and the females called the infants close before moving away toward the forest at the clearing’s edge. Goro rose up on all fours, his chest rumbling deeply and threateningly.
Baho moved near Goro and with him came six of his blackback allies—some of them his sons. The combined darkness of their fur and staggering mass of their muscle dominated that side of the clearing. The message was obvious to the blackbacks gathered near Ulok. If there was a challenge to come, then none but Goro and Ulok could settle it.
At that same moment, other blackbacks could be seen moving along the edge of the clearing toward Ulok.
“Something would be settled that day—we all knew,” Kagoon croaked and coughed. Gazda held the injured ape and pressed his hands against the wounds that clustered at his friend’s shoulders and neck. “The tribe was split.”
This division had existed for their entire lives. Many apes had always believed that Goro was weak because he showed mercy, while the recipients of his mercy, like old Baho, believed that the quality was his strength.
Omag and the aging queens had always been vocal about their thoughts on the subject and all knew that they had passed along their contempt to young Ulok.
The king was soft, they said, and did not act like an ape, or respect tribal law.
“Goro growled and showed his fighting fangs to Ulok then,” Kagoon continued softly, the images flickering through Gazda’s mind. “But his eyes—they burned upon Omag.”
Goro swayed in place and barked fiercely. The action set his mountainous muscles quaking and he yawned to show his enormous fighting fangs, giving Ulok a moment to reconsider whether he was making a mistake. The challenge could still be forgotten; could still be forgiven.
But Ulok only glared and raked at the ground with his claws!
Goro’s eyes flared angrily as he stamped his feet and reached out to tear a thick sapling up by the roots. The silverback howled repeatedly as he swung the tree back and forth, voice rising in pitch and fury as he rocked from side to side.
The insolent Ulok looked away and down at Omag, to see the aging queens glancing up from where they laid on their bellies by the crippled ape.
And with that Ulok’s lips rolled back from his fighting fangs, and with a terrible roar he charged at King Goro, his mighty fists tearing up rocks and plants as he pounded forward.
The king was taken aback at this flouting of tradition, for ape custom regarding challenges demanded long displays and several mock charges.
But Goro was no coward so he leapt forward, thundering across the open space, anvil-like head lowered, and long canines snapping—a battering ram of muscle and fury.
The giants crashed head to head almost in the center of the clearing, and a great, meaty whump resounded from the collision as the great apes rose upright and standing chest to chest rained blows and bites upon each other.
Bellowing, the titans beat and ripped at one another’s foreheads, faces and chests. In moments, blood sprayed in droplets upon the dappled grass.
So terrifying was the sound that came from this battle that the infants and young ones scampered higher into the trees as their worried mothers followed screaming and scolding the combatants from their refuges.
But Goro and Ulok were deaf to these feeble complaints as they savaged each other with fang and fist and all the terrible strength in their mammoth forms unleashed.
Ulok was strong, and may have been more so than the king, but he was also younger and impatient, and Goro had realized this when the challenger abandoned custom and charged without the proper displays.
He was impatient, and that exposed a vein of cowardice.
Ulok had charged without delay because he had doubted himself brave enough to see the king’s answering displays. The challenger was strong but that was all he was.
Goro would take nothing for granted for already he bled in many places, but he would test the younger Ulok’s patience, and in it seek his challenger’s fatal flaw.
The jungle around the clearing had been stirred into a raucous storm of noise as each living thing was agitated by this battle of the apes.
Neither Goro nor Ulok had given an inch of ground, and such an explosion of power had there been that both had faces like bloody masks as their fists pounded flesh and fangs ripped through thick hides.
Yet it was at this point that Goro decided to test his challenger’s impetuous nature. After receiving a flurry of blows, the king grunted and stepped back, body slightly turned to expose a vulnerable right side.
Ulok saw the silverback’s muscular profile and flank exposed and forgot that moments before they had been fighting to a draw. Imagining himself king already, the challenger screamed victoriously and surged in to ram Goro hoping to cave his ribs in and stop his heart...
...but the silverback was ready.
Goro pushed backwards suddenly, Ulok’s head slid under his mighty chest so the king’s powerful arm could slip around the younger ape’s thick neck and chin.
Then, with a terrific burst of strength, the king jerked upward on Ulok’s head, throwing him off balance so that he thundered to the ground upon his back. Before the challenger could react, Goro’s full weight was on him, and his sharp fighting canines pressed into Ulok’s throbbing jugular.
Biting down enough to draw a taste of blood, Goro grunted an order he need not utter.
“Submit or die...”
The blackbacks had ringed the clearing as the battle played out. Some of the biggest males moved forward now, drawn by the blood and the excitement. Even Omag had limped across the grass, lurching closer on his cane.
A shudder ran through Ulok’s body in a final muscular challenge to Goro’s reign that drew more blood from his neck.
But he could not break the king’s hold upon him.
So the challenger hissed shrilly, “Ulok submits!”
The tribe watched breathlessly, some in the trees; others huddled under green cover and more still coming closer to the fighters. Such a challenge to the kingship was answerable by death or exile according to tribal law, and while Goro was a gentle king, he was no fool, and would understand that Ulok would challenge him again one day.
But, Ulok was Goro’s son, and the king did not want him exiled or dead or to have the tribe lose the bloodline. They would need a new silverback one day, and when Ulok had learned from this defeat, he might grow to earn the position.
Then, Goro as a former silverback might offer Ulok guidance, as Baho had for him.
Goro was Goro, and he slid his great fangs out of Ulok’s flesh and rising into an upright stance of victory he loomed over the cringing challenger.
The tribe immediately sang out in joyous panting and hooting. The open space of the Two Trees rang with happy screams in appreciation of Goro’s decision to be merciful. His supporters knew their king—and his detractors only scowled, for what more could they do?
“Yet Omag also knew his king,” Kagoon said, before a coughing fit spilled more blood from his mouth. “As Goro had awaited Ulok’s submission, Sip-sip slipped up close behind the king.” A shudder of outrage shook the injured ape. “So when Goro rose to his full height, the crippled ape also rose up, reversed his cane, and gripping it by the wood, he swung the flat and shining stone at the king...”
Goro did not see it coming. The axe blade cut into his neck. A great spray of blood shot into the air and the silverback’s head almost came away from his shoulders. The king was dead as he rolled forward onto the cowering Ulok who pushed the twitching corpse aside.
The startled challenger climbed up onto his knees and stared at Omag’s hunched form, mentor and pupil soaked in the royal blood.
And Ulok remembered the long talks about leadership that he had shared with Omag and how the crippled ape had helped to choose this day for the challenge.
Now Omag had done this thing for Ulok and for the tribe, because by sparing the young challenger Goro had broken the laws again.
The apes needed a king that respected their traditions—especially by the Two Trees.
And such an ape would Ulok be.
Panting and hooting his gratitude, Ulok gained his feet and nodded at the older ape that stood chattering and showing his own teeth in happiness and joy.
The apes that had witnessed this were screaming their anxiety, for Omag had done the unthinkable. He had not challenged the king but manipulated Ulok into the traitorous act.
Yet, many believed that this grisly turn was Goro’s fault. Had the silverback not been so soft—pardoning his challengers in defeat—then would he not be living now?
Had he not spared Baho and Omag, and now Ulok?
Old Baho and those loyal to him had retreated at the death of Goro; as the air had filled with the strong smell of the king’s blood, and there at the edge of the clearing did these apes wildly protest this gory event.
Baho had ordered his blackbacks to take up guard positions near the trees that held the females and little ones, for the stink of blood filled all with fear.
Still, most of them watched as Omag bowed to Ulok, his head nodding vigorously, his yellow fangs snapping close to the ground, while behind him, the aging queens did the same...as did other blackbacks loyal to the usurpers.
Rising to his full height, Ulok grunted his thanks to Omag and then turned angrily to glare at Baho where the former silverback and the others protested.
“But Omag was not finished,” Kagoon groaned mournfully, and Gazda felt the sad sound echo in his own throat. “Ulok turned away...”
And Omag brought the axe-blade down upon the back of Ulok’s head. Blood, brains and bone flew into the air as the bull ape’s skull exploded, and the tribe again went mad with terror.
Baho moved with his blackbacks higher into the trees as Ulok’s great body tottered and then fell forward.
With a barking call from Omag, still more of his loyal young blackbacks rushed out of the trees to form a solid wall of muscle behind the crippled ape.
It was clear to all that in Omag’s hands, the flat and shining stone was a weapon of unstoppable power. All the blackbacks—the entire tribe—had watched him slay two silverbacks in succession and in many minds the crippled ape had become invincible.
Even old Baho whimpered his fears as Omag shook the bloody weapon over the bodies of his victims.
The aging queens Akaki and Oluza crept closer to kneel before Omag as he pointed the dripping axe-head at the apes in the trees. Gore fell from the weapon in gobbets and crimson rivulets crept along the twisted arm that held it.
“Omag is king!” he roared, excitement briefly mastering his speech impediment. “Submit or die!”
He waited then as the tribe of apes slipped out of the trees and approached their new king where he stood by the corpses of Goro and Ulok.
There they dropped in front of him and pressed their bony foreheads against the bloody ground, submitting to the new silverback’s will and to this ascendancy.
Baho hesitated with his loyal blackbacks by the trees, but Omag saw this, warning: “Baho! Follow me or be the third silverback to die—and neither will your sons be spared...”
Old Baho looked at his comrades and at the terrified apes that trembled obediently at Omag’s feet. Then he bravely moved forward and showed fealty to his bloody new king. Baho had no plan. He simply knew that he could not abandon his tribe to one such as Omag.
CHAPTER 32 – King of the Apes
“We all submitted,” Kagoon said before another coughing fit shook him and left his dark face gray. Gazda had already smelled the rot in his old friend’s injuries, and could see the larva wriggling in seams of open flesh on his chest and shoulders.
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