He paused for a moment, bowing his head. There were a few muffled whimpers of sadness.
Stinger raised his eyes again, but only briefly. “And I know that I could never . . .” He trailed off, as if unsure of himself. But the troop began to hoot.
“Go on, Father,” murmured Berry, smiling.
Stinger cleared his throat. “We have suffered great tragedy, but if you can accept it, I wish to put myself forward once again to serve you all.”
Thorn felt his heart soar. It wouldn’t be right to jump up and down and whoop, but despite the troubled atmosphere, he wanted to. He had to clench his paws to restrain himself. Stinger would be a wonderful leader; I know that even more now! He’s been acting like a leader already—organizing the patrols and the work parties, defending our territory, reassuring all of us.
Mud whispered to Thorn, “He’d be a great leader.”
“Yes,” said Thorn.
“We face perhaps our greatest challenge as a troop.” Stinger, urged by some of the other baboons, had climbed up onto the Crown Stone and was addressing the troop in an atmosphere of quiet respect. “Bark’s death was one of honor, protecting her troop; but Grub’s was a deliberate act of malice. The troop needs a strong leader, a determined leader: one who is cunning and intelligent, too. Brightforest Troop, I want to be that leader for you. With your support, with your votes, I will protect our family from all its enemies, both known and unknown.” His expression darkened. “No traitor, no murderer should ever gain a foothold in our family again. I will make sure it never, ever happens. So Brightforest Troop will be safe; but more than that, it will be great. I will face our challenges, I will lead us to a new and better home, and I will strike fear into the hearts of our enemies.”
Stinger paused for a few heartbeats, letting his words sink in. Then his voice softened.
“I promised you once before that I would raise this troop to greatness; I respected your decision when you selected another. But now I make that vow to you again.” Taking a deep breath, he raised his cry to a stirring crescendo. “Brightforest Troop: let me lead you to a bright and happy future!”
The baboons erupted in whoops, stamping and slapping the ground. The whole glade rang with their cries of relief and delight.
“Stinger! Stinger! Let Stinger rule!”
Thorn’s heart was in his mouth. He raised himself up onto his hind paws to look around; surely no other Highleaf could compete with such a speech! Please, please let Stinger be chosen.
“Are there any other candidates?” Beetle’s tremulous, awkward question sounded out of place among all the whoops of approval.
The old baboon looked almost relieved when no one else came forward—not even the other baboons who had offered themselves last time. Every face was focused on Stinger, and every face shone with admiration.
No one wants to take on such a dangerous position, Thorn realized, but it isn’t just that. They genuinely love him! They want him as Crownleaf!
Beetle was padding hesitantly forward, still scanning the troop. Even the old baboon looked brighter now. “This is unprecedented!” he declared as the noise of the glade died down. “However, if there are no further candidates, then there is no need to vote. I declare that Seed ‘Stinger’ Highleaf is—by acclamation—our new Crownleaf!”
In the roaring, whooping clamor that met his announcement, Thorn rushed to Berry. He was about to throw his arms around her, but stopped himself short before he made such a terrible breach of the rules.
Glancing around to make sure no baboon was looking, Thorn reached out his paw to squeeze hers. “I’ll look out for him,” he whispered urgently. “Nothing will happen to your father on my watch—I promise. But the troop needs him more than ever!”
Slowly, she nodded. “I know he’s the right one to lead us,” she said, returning the pressure on his paw.
“If anyone can guide the troop through these tough times,” he said, “it’s your father.”
She gazed into his eyes, smiling. I wish we could stay here like this forever, he thought wistfully.
He was so wrapped up in Stinger’s triumph and the stolen moment with Berry, it took him some time to realize that the tone of the whoops and shrieks had changed. Now the baboons sounded afraid; they were calling the alarm! Chittering, screeching angrily, the troop was retreating higher into the trees. Thorn frowned in confusion and glanced behind him.
Two lions were padding through the forest toward the glade. One of them was instantly recognizable as his friend, but the other, an older maned lion, was a stranger. Thorn blinked. What’s Fearless doing here?
It was Stinger who calmed the troop, rearing up on his hind legs on the Crown Stone and crying out for quiet. “Brightforest Troop! Don’t be scared! This is our friend Fearless—you all know he means us no harm! Grub was wise in many ways, but he was wrong to send the Cub of the Stars away.” He nodded to Fearless, who dipped his head in response. “If this other lion Crookedtail is Fearless’s friend, he is also ours!”
Warily, the baboons began to descend from the trees, but Stinger strode confidently forward to greet Fearless. It was clear, Thorn realized as the troop began to gather around the two lions, just how much they all trusted Stinger. Happiness swelled in his heart. Things will be better now.
The older lion was impressively huge, his gold-streaked mane fully grown. Thorn saw now why Stinger had called him Crookedtail—it was bent like a broken branch. He was staring around at the troop as if he was stunned. That was to be expected, thought Thorn with a grin—but Fearless too looked anxious and unhappy. As Thorn pushed past the other baboons, he saw Mud squeezing through from his side of the glade toward Fearless. Mud was closer than Thorn, but he was still limping from his leg injury, and both of them reached their old friend at the same moment. Together the two young baboons hugged the lion’s chest in delight, and he bent his head to nuzzle them.
“Fearless, what are you doing here?” asked Thorn, scratching his neck fondly. “Who’s Crookedtail?”
“He’s my friend—his name’s Loyal. I’ll tell you everything,” rumbled Fearless. “I promise I will. But there’s no time. I need to ask you something, both of you!”
“What?” Thorn swapped an apprehensive glance with Mud. “Ask us anything!”
“Thank you, friends.” Fearless gave a shaky sigh of relief. “Because without your help, my mother and I are going to die.”
The canopy of the strange woodland was different from Tall Trees, but many of the trees themselves were familiar to Thorn and Mud: the tangled, twisted trunks of strangler figs, the ridged bark of jackalberry trees, the dark leaves and vivid red scars of the stinkwoods. Butterflies darted and fluttered around the two baboons as they crept nimbly and silently through branches and swathes of creepers, keen eyes scanning the forest floor below.
“It’s not a very big forest,” whispered Mud. “The cheetahs shouldn’t be hard to find.”
“No,” agreed Thorn dryly. “Finding them definitely won’t be the hard part.”
“Let’s stay high, on the thinnest branches,” murmured Mud. “Cheetahs can climb, but they won’t risk breaking these and falling.”
“I hate the idea that they’re somewhere below us,” admitted Thorn, peering down through the foliage. “It’s making me nervous.”
“But we have to help Fearless.”
“Of course we do.” Thorn tensed his muscles to leap for the next thick yellow-brown branch. “So let’s—aiiiee!”
The branch flopped down, to dangle and glare at them with opaque, calculating eyes. Mid-spring, Thorn was still off balance. He felt Mud grab his fur and yank him back, just as the thing lunged.
“Snake!” yelped Mud.
Now that he was out of its reach, Thorn parted the dark green stinkwood leaves and peered at the undulating body. The snake was a massive thing, covered in smooth scales patterned in yellow and brown, its thick body half coiled around another branch above them. “Get back, Mud!” he whispered urgently
. “Watch its fangs!”
Mud shivered behind him. “It’s not venomous, it’s a python! They grab you and squeeze you to death—Mother told me about them. Stay away from its tail too!” Nervously he glanced around him. “Where’s the rest of it?”
Thorn let his eyes follow the snake’s length. It twisted twice around a branch, but its tail was farther away still, wound around the trunk of a stinkwood. The sight of those scaly, thickly muscled loops made Thorn feel sick. It nearly grabbed me! “Up there, Mud.” Shuddering, he gestured higher up into the canopy. “It was lying in wait. It tried to ambush us!”
The python’s body rippled horribly, and it flickered out its forked tongue, letting it quiver in the air. Its head swayed closer to the two friends.
“It’s sniffing for us,” whispered Mud. “Don’t let it get its coils around you!”
The snake gave an angry, sibilant exclamation in Sandtongue, then slithered forward. It paused, flickering its tongue again.
“Go!” Mud shoved Thorn, who jumped up onto a higher branch, then yanked Mud up behind him just as the python struck. Its jaws gaped wider than Thorn would have believed possible, and he caught a glimpse inside: moist pink flesh, serrated teeth made to grab and hold, and not just one row of them. They missed Mud’s weak leg by a small beetle-length.
The snake cursed again in rasping Sandtongue.
“Let’s get out of here,” panted Thorn. He sprinted across the branches and into the next tree, glancing back to make sure Mud was behind him. His friend was wide-eyed with fear, but he was leaping away from the snake as fast as his lame leg would allow him. Thorn paused to let him catch up, his heart in his mouth.
“I hope all that racket didn’t alert the cheetahs,” muttered Thorn as Mud landed beside him and hunkered down.
“I’m sorry, Thorn,” growled Mud, crouching beside him. “I’m no use on this kind of mission. It’s like the Crocodile River all over again—I’m holding you back.”
“Rubbish!” grunted Thorn. “I need your help. If it hadn’t been for you I’d have been busy dodging that snake’s teeth while it snuck its entire body around me! Hey.” He pointed at the ground far below and dropped his voice to a barely audible whisper. “Look, there!”
Mud peered over his shoulder. In a small, light-patched clearing, a cheetah sat on its haunches, still and alert; from high above, its spotted hide blended into the dappling of sunspots. Only the flicking of its bushy-tipped tail had given it away.
“It’s keeping lookout,” whispered Mud. “Ruthless must be here.”
“I don’t know,” murmured Thorn. “Look, there are the other cheetahs, beside the bushes.” The sleek cats lounged in a patch of sunlight, blinking and yawning and licking their fur. “But I can’t see the cub. What do we do now?”
“We should do just what we did when we stole those eggs,” said Mud, placing a paw on Thorn’s shoulder. “Be patient. Keep watch.”
Nodding, Thorn grinned at him. He made himself settle back against the ridged trunk of the jackalberry.
We can’t wait as long as we did then, though, Thorn thought. Fearless hasn’t got forever.
After a while, though, it began to feel like forever. The cheetahs stretched and sprawled; they groomed one another and exchanged bored chatter.
“When are we going to hunt again, Fleet?”
“Don’t know. Before sunset.”
“Quiet in here, isn’t it?”
“Nice and quiet, Bolt. No lions.” A chittering laugh. “Well, except for . . . you know.”
Thorn felt a hot impatience trickling through his blood. We can’t let Fearless down! Where is that cub?
“Maybe we should take a chance,” he whispered to Mud when he could bear the waiting no longer. “Maybe we should risk climbing down—”
One of the cheetahs stood up and padded languidly over to the tangled, knotted trunk of a strangler fig that stood in the middle of the clearing. The fig had wound its vines around some older tree, choking it to death before establishing itself permanently in its place; now its lower trunk was a twisted network of thick, solid, exposed roots. Fearless narrowed his eyes, studying the cheetah; it was glancing to its left and right, then peering cautiously over its shoulder.
But it never thought to glance skyward.
The cheetah rose onto its hind paws, dug its claws into the wood, and stretched up to peer into a shadowy gap between two thick, woody root-tendrils. Then it backed and hopped down, yawned, and resumed its place in the clearing.
There’s something hidden in there. . . .
Thorn and Mud exchanged an excited glance. Together they made their way through the treetops, clambering as quietly as they could from branch to branch. The strangler fig might have grown up in the middle of a clearing, but its crown still tangled with the rest of the woodland canopy; it was easy enough to leap into its topmost branches.
Cautious and silent, the two baboons eased themselves as far down the twisted trunk as they dared. A few dangling creepers of new roots obscured their view; Mud parted them with his clever fingers and they paused, ears straining. That was when Thorn heard a faint, unhappy whimper from the heart of the tree. It could only be one thing.
We’ve found Ruthless!
CHAPTER 22
“He’s right there, inside the strangler fig tree!” Thorn’s eyes glowed with excitement. “We could almost have touched him!” His face fell. “There are six cheetahs guarding him, though.”
“Thank you, Thorn!” Fearless felt his hopes rising once more. The two lions and the young baboons stood at the forest’s edge, upwind of any creatures within it; tantalizingly, Fearless could make out the earthy scent of the cheetahs, drifting from among the mossy trees. He licked his jaws. “Now we know where Ruthless is.” Fearless glanced questioningly at Loyal, hoping the older lion would have the solution that eluded him. “So how do we get him out?”
Loyal huffed thoughtfully. “Cheetahs are fierce fighters and good runners. Even a lion can’t outpace them.” He sounded a little sulky about that. “A head-on attack won’t do it.”
“Hmm.” Fearless growled softly. “If Loyal and I can keep the cheetahs busy, maybe you two baboons could grab the cub? Thorn and Mud, what do you think?”
Mud drew back his lips, looking alarmed. “I don’t know, Fearless.”
“Ruthless doesn’t know who we are,” pointed out Thorn. “He might struggle. And he might bite. He may be a little lion, but his teeth will be sharp.”
Fearless thought hard. “Just mention his father’s name—tell him you’ve been sent by Titan of Titanpride.”
“You know, it’s not a bad plan,” murmured Loyal. “The cheetahs really didn’t like me being at that meeting—remember, Fearless? They were worried they’d been caught in a lion trap. Maybe we can make them think that’s what’s happening. If we approach the fig tree from two directions, they might think it’s a sizable ambush.”
Thorn looked nervous. “That sounds dangerous.”
“Of course it is.” Fearless licked his friend’s head gently. “But it’s our best chance.”
“You two will have to be quick,” Loyal warned the baboons.
“Yes. If the cheetahs think all of Titanpride has come—and I hope they do—they might decide to make a run for it with Ruthless.” Fearless grunted. “We’d never catch up with them if that happened.”
“All right.” Thorn raised his brows questioningly at Mud, who nodded reluctantly. “We’ll be ready. And we’ll be fast. Right, Mud?”
“Yes.” Mud nodded more enthusiastically. “Really, really fast.”
“Will you be all right on your bad leg?” asked Thorn. “Are you sure you can do this?”
“I’ll be fine.” Mud seemed to draw himself up, looking more determined. “Don’t even think of leaving me behind!”
Fearless grinned at all three of his friends. “Then—let’s go!”
He and Loyal slunk toward the edge of the forest and crept in through the undergrowth, leaving
the baboons to clamber high up into the trees. Fearless could feel his nervous heartbeat in his throat. This is my last chance to save my mother.
The scents that surrounded him were multiple, rich, and chaotic: lichen, rotting leaves, ant nests and beetles, damp moss, the dung of bushbuck and dik-dik and buffalo. He could make out the cheetahs’ strong odor, but it was confused with so many others. With luck, my own scent will be confusing too. I hope they mistake the two of us for a whole pride of lions.
Above him, moving shadows caught his eye; he glanced up to see Thorn and Mud crouched in the branches, signaling frantically with their paws. They both peeled back their muzzles and gestured toward a dense patch of lichen-draped trees.
That must be where Ruthless is hidden.
Nodding silently to Loyal, he hauled himself over a rotting log and crept closer. Now he could make out a clearing beyond the hanging moss. Halting with one paw raised, staying absolutely still, he focused his vision on the dance of sunlight and shadow through the trees. In moments he made out the spotted coats of the cheetahs, only a few loping strides away.
Now he could hear their low, chirruping voices. He couldn’t make out the words, but they sounded tense, argumentative, and they kept glancing edgily around at the undergrowth. Have they smelled us already?
Fearless craned his head forward, anxious to see without being seen. Beyond a stinkwood tree, its dark scaly bark scored with red gashes, he could make out the strangler fig: the tangled knot of wood was unmistakable. Though the whole tree was draped in gray-green tendrils, Fearless could clearly see those exposed, intertwined roots that formed its lower trunk. It’s clever of the cheetahs. A perfect trap to hold a small lion.
Two cheetahs got suddenly to their paws, sniffing the air, wrinkling their muzzles.
Come on, Thorn and Mud. You need to get closer to Ruthless before they notice us!
With relief, he spotted two brown furry shapes, clambering carefully down through the fig’s branches under cover of its drooping vines. Lower and lower they climbed. . . . They were almost at the knot of thick roots. . . .