Poor, strong, softhearted Frog, with her quiet devotion to the Great Spirit; Thorn knew already how much he was going to miss her. He glanced up at the vultures. Why haven’t you touched her?
His mind was in turmoil. Vultures had been Great Mother’s messengers; they’d brought her evidence of bad deaths. They wouldn’t eat a corpse that had been killed in breach of the Code. Was that why they’d left Frog alone?
Frog had talked about Great Mother, he remembered. She’d gone back twice to the body beneath the branches. Was it possible someone had overheard her telling Thorn about that? Or had seen her going to and from the troop—perhaps Stinger himself? Crouching over the body, Thorn flared his nostrils tentatively.
No hint of scorpion venom—at least, not that he could detect. It was hard to say for sure, though, with the smells of dry earth and the failing stream, and the faint but growing odor of death.
Thorn rose to his paws. Clambering up the gully’s far side, he gathered windblown twigs and branches and carried them down to Frog’s body. When she was covered, he sat and watched over her. The elephants had done this for Great Mother; it was the least he could do for his own friend.
Not quite all, though. Frog had wanted to take him to Great Mother’s body; she’d wanted to show him what she’d found there.
He owed it to her to fulfill that wish.
Thorn’s pelt prickled as if a hundred eyes watched him in the night. Hippos bobbed in the shallows, sleeping. A herd of kudus dozed close to Great Mother’s body, their elegant brown hides turned to white-striped gray in the darkness; a few kept watch with glowing eyes, their spiraling horns raised high. Thorn flinched as a night bird screamed.
Milling around Great Mother’s body, their huge shapes silvered by starlight, were the elephants. They were so close, Thorn’s nostrils were filled with their earthy musk, and he could hear every blow and sigh. Night had fallen completely, and the prickly bush where he crouched was dense, but still he felt as if every animal could see him; worse, open grassland stretched between him and Great Mother’s body. Every creature in Bravelands would see him and know what he planned, and every creature would turn from him in disgust.
He backed farther beneath the bush. A few half-dried berries were clustered among its leaves; Thorn chewed some, wrinkling his muzzle at the bitterness. There was movement in the night; a cheetah slunk to the water’s edge to lap at it, her coat spotted gray, her eyes fiery orbs. Ponderously, the elephants moved toward a copse of trees, guiding each other with their trunks—so lovingly that Thorn felt a pang of loneliness.
He’d already lost Fearless. A ravine seemed to be splitting open between him and Mud, becoming ever wider with the secrets Thorn kept from him. And as for Berry . . . Thorn clung to the hope that she’d recover, but would she ever want to speak to him again?
He mustn’t think too hard.
The clear silver moon was rising higher: it was almost full, the shape of an elephant’s ear. The elephants themselves were lost in the shadows of the bush. With infinite caution, Thorn crept out, thorns snagging on his pelt. Crouching low, he scurried across the grassland.
The mound of greenery that covered Great Mother’s body rose far above Thorn’s head. On top rested a branch of white flowers—they were dead, but their dried petals looked like scattered stars. Forgive me, Great Spirit.
Finding handholds on the branches, he climbed lightly to the top of the mound. Great Mother had been dead for several days, and by now Thorn would have expected decay, especially in this oppressive heat. By now she should be rot-meat, her body parts scattered by scavengers. Instead he could smell nothing but leaves and flowers, and when he pulled aside a branch, he drew back in surprise—Great Mother’s skin was deeply creased, but her body remained firm. There was no swelling or hollowing, and she was unmarked by any scavenger. The old elephant seemed untouched by death.
The Great Spirit must be protecting her body, he thought in wonder, because it once made its home there.
The idea made him a little less afraid, and a little less ashamed. Somewhere on this body lay whatever Frog had wanted him to find, and Thorn had a sense that the Great Spirit wanted him to find it too. Quietly, he lifted more branches.
On Great Mother’s trunk and forelegs there were vicious bites, still clotted with dried blood. Peering at the rows of tooth marks, Thorn hesitantly explored them with his fingertips. Deep and tapering, they were definitely crocodile bites. Horribly, he could picture the scene: powerful jaws tearing at Great Mother’s legs until her knees buckled, long teeth fastening into her trunk, scaly bodies thrashing as they dragged her head beneath the surface . . .
But why had they attacked her? The crocodiles didn’t follow the Great Spirit, he knew, and they didn’t even know the Code—they might have thought her an ordinary elephant, alone in the water. An elephant in their territory, maybe? And, furious at the invasion, they killed her?
Thorn tried to imagine it again—Great Mother wading deep into water that was filled with crocodiles. That was the part that didn’t make sense. Even the stupidest monkey knew how dangerous crocs were, and Great Mother had been the wisest animal in all of Bravelands.
So something made her go into the water.
Or someone . . .
His only hope of discovering the truth was Great Mother’s body itself. Thorn studied it as well as he could in the moonlight, raising branches and exploring her belly, her side, her legs. Oh, Frog, I wish you were with me. What did you find?
Deep gouges slashed the old elephant’s flanks and hind legs. Thorn ran his paws over them. They were different from the wounds made by the crocodiles—broad and ragged, and far from being neat rows, they were scattered unevenly. His heart raced. He was right—another animal had forced Great Mother into the water. But who?
Thorn felt the gouges. Not bite marks, and too deep and broad to be claw marks. Horns? Tusks? They were high on her body, near the top of her thighs—the animal who’d made them had been large, but still smaller than Great Mother.
As he paused, thinking hard, there was a shuffling, scratching sound at the edge of the watering hole. Thorn froze, his heart turning over. Had he been seen? Slowly, he turned.
From the bank, an ibis watched him, its long, curved black beak as delicate as a butterfly’s proboscis. It ruffled its white wings and cackled at him in Skytongue.
“Hush!” Thorn hissed. “Please be quiet!”
The ibis called again. It picked its way across the bank on its long legs, then bent its beak to probe at the ground. Looking up at Thorn, it gave another cackling cry.
Thorn waved his paws. “Go away! Shouldn’t you be roosting?”
The ibis cocked its head, spread its wings, then folded them and pecked at the ground once again. Between every stab of its beak, it cackled what sounded like a summons. Stifling a groan of anxiety, Thorn backed down off Great Mother’s body, trying not to disturb more branches.
“What’s the fuss about?” he hissed.
The ibis did not fly away. It simply stared at him, with eyes that were blacker than the night. With a sigh, Thorn crouched and patted the ground in front of it.
He frowned. The mud here was dry and already cracking in the heat, but he was sure this patch had a loamier texture, as if it had been recently disturbed. Finding the edge of the looser earth, Thorn began to dig at it. The ibis watched, silent at last.
Deep in the crumbly mud, Thorn’s fingers touched something hard and ridged. His heart thundering, he clasped it with both paws. Frog. Whatever this is, you buried it.
He tugged it out and brushed away clumps of dried mud. The thing was heavy, a solid cone that tapered to a sharp point. The broader end felt rough and jagged against his palms, as if it had broken off something larger. Thorn turned it in his paws. There was a dark stain on the point. Thorn lifted it to his nose and sniffed. Blood.
Thorn’s heart began to race once more. He spun around to the ibis—but the bank was deserted. The bird had gone.
; A thrill rippled along his spine. Great Mother had been close to the birds—she’d spoken their language of Skytongue, like all Great Parents. Did the ibis know more about her death?
The thing in his paws was like a broad broken tooth, from some large creature; Thorn had seen something like it before, he was sure. Clutching it with difficulty in one paw, Thorn loped back to Great Mother’s body and scaled the branches once again. With a deep breath he pressed the tooth into one of the deep gouges in Great Mother’s flank.
It matched exactly.
Frustrated, Thorn stared at the tooth, picking mud off it with a claw. What kind of animal had teeth that were so brown and ridged? In some ways it wasn’t like a tooth at all.
He scoured the bank for the ibis again. Out on the lake there was a flash of white, the gleam of a long beak, the shadow of black tail feathers against the water. Relieved, Thorn bounded toward it, leaping from stone to stone and splashing up to his knees.
“Come back!” he called as loudly as he dared. “I need you!”
The black-and-white shape rippled and fractured. Suddenly it wasn’t an ibis at all; it was nothing but moonlight breaking on the dark water.
A shiver crept through Thorn. Staring at the lake, he backed swiftly toward the bank. Nothing moved out there now but the eerie reflected moonlight.
His paw closed tightly around the tooth, and he bolted for his temporary home.
It seemed almost like a different moon that cast its light on the baked earth in front of the hyena den. Here, its silver shimmer felt reassuringly familiar, even welcoming. Thorn felt a tremor of relief as he caught sight of the tunnel entrance.
A slender figure sat just outside, crouched over something on the ground. Recognizing Starleaf, Thorn hurried to join her.
“It’s stuffy in the den, isn’t it?” he said.
She glanced at him. “It’s not much cooler out here, but I needed some space and peace.” She gestured at the Moonstones laid out on the sandy earth. “I’d hoped they would tell me when this awful heat will lift, but I see nothing. First the rain, then that windstorm, and now this. I’ve never known Bravelands so troubled.”
That sent a frisson of unease through Thorn. Starleaf was old enough to have seen a lot of trouble. He licked his jaws, uncertain what to say. I’d like to give her some comfort, but I can’t. He could hardly tell the wise old baboon that things were even worse than she thought.
“Starleaf, can I ask you a question? I don’t want to disturb your reading, but . . .”
She smiled at him. “Of course you can, Thorn. I’m glad of a distraction.”
He nodded and held out his find. “Can you tell me what kind of tooth this is?”
Starleaf took it from him and balanced it on one palm, lifting it to the moonlight. Her eyes narrowed, and she scratched the white streak on her face.
“This is no tooth,” she said. “It’s the tip of a rhinoceros horn.”
That’s it. That’s where I’ve seen it before. Thorn’s mouth went dry. Of course it wasn’t a gigantic tooth. It had been snapped short; that was what had confused him. It was darker and a little less ridged, but it had the same look and texture as the tip of Stronghide’s horn.
Stronghide. Thorn’s head swam. Stronghide and his crash must have killed Great Mother so that he could become Great Father. The rhinos had always been jealous of the elephants; that night they had decided their time had come. It made a sudden, horrible kind of sense. Mud was right, he thought. Our Great Parent really is a fraud.
Starleaf handed back the horn. “Where did you find it? It must have hit something hard to break like this.”
Thorn winced, imagining the horn smashing into Great Mother’s thick leg bone. “I . . . I don’t know,” he mumbled. “Just lying around.” Taking his rapid leave, he hurried into the den.
Stinger sat on a pile of leaves just inside the first tunnel, sinking his teeth into a fig. He chewed on a mouthful, wrinkled his muzzle, then tossed the rest to the ground. It rolled to a stop against a cluster of more half-eaten figs.
“Sweet,” he said, chewing. “But it doesn’t have the tang of scorpion.”
Thorn halted, swallowing hard.
“Thorn Strongbranch,” Stinger greeted him emphatically. “What can I do for you?”
Thorn licked his jaws. “Frog’s missing.”
“Is she?” Stinger picked up another fig from the stack beside him. “Let’s try this one, it might have a little more edge.”
“I can’t find her,” said Thorn, his gaze fixed on his leader, “anywhere.”
Stinger gave an irritated shrug. “She’ll have wandered off on some solitary hunt. Frog’s a strong one, but not too bright.”
The rage that rose inside Thorn almost choked him. His paws shaking, he thrust the broken rhino horn beneath Stinger’s nose.
Stinger stopped chewing. His eyes flickered over the horn.
“The rhinos did it,” croaked Thorn. “They drove Great Mother into the water, knowing the crocodiles would kill her.”
Stinger went entirely still. He lifted his eyes, watching Thorn for long, silent heartbeats.
Then he slapped the ground and hooted with laughter.
“Well, well,” he cackled. “Maybe Stronghide isn’t as stupid as he seems. You know, I have a reluctant admiration for him. He got what he wanted, didn’t he? He’s Great Father now—may the Great Spirit help us all.” He snatched the horn and turned it in his hands. “Clever work, Thorn. Go on, off you go.”
Thorn stared at him. “But what about Stronghide?”
Stinger picked fig pulp from his long teeth. “What about him?”
“Aren’t we going to tell Bravelands what he did?”
Stinger licked a finger, his eyes bright. “Why should we?”
Thorn stiffened in disbelief. “Because he murdered Great Mother.”
“Looks that way.” Stinger shrugged and went back to picking his fangs.
Thorn wanted to shriek, or better still to claw at him. “This crazy weather, the conflicts with the herds, the way we’re hiding in a stinking hyena den—it’s because we’ve got Stronghide pretending to be Great Father. The Great Spirit is angry!”
“Oh, I agree with you,” said Stinger cheerfully.
Thorn clenched his fists. “So what are you going to do about it?”
“Nothing.”
Thorn’s jaw felt slack, and he couldn’t say a word. Thoughts went racing through his mind like skittering spiders, too fast and confused to catch. He’s surprised. And he’s not surprised. He’s seen that horn before, or he knew about it.
But he’s shocked that I have it. He didn’t expect that. Not yet.
Oh, Frog, I don’t know what to do.
“Thorn, Thorn, Thorn.” Stinger spat out a fig seed. “I’ll do nothing, and nor will you. This is one of those times when we’ll have to let others fight our battles for us.”
Thorn felt a growl rising in his throat. “I . . . What does that even mean? We have to tell—”
“Careful.” Stinger’s tone was suddenly, terribly different. He stepped down from his leaf pile and drew himself up. Thorn had almost let himself forget just how big Stinger was: intimidatingly so. He was staring down at Thorn now, his amber eyes very cold.
“Remember who you’re talking to. I’m your Crownleaf and commander, Thorn Strongbranch. And I forbid you to say a word about this to anyone.” Stinger’s upper lip peeled back, revealing his long yellow fangs. It was nothing like a smile. “Do you understand?”
A bolt of sheer, chilling fear went through Thorn’s rib cage. How many times had he told himself, Stinger might kill you . . . ?
For the very first time, he knew in every bone and sinew of his body that it was true. It was true, and very real, and if he didn’t leave right now, it was imminent.
The words barely rasped through his constricted throat. “I understand.”
Slowly he backed away from Stinger, until he was outside the tunnel and beyond the glow of the bi
g baboon’s deadly eyes. Then he ran, desperately, for the safety of his troop-mates.
Another secret, he thought. I’ll have to live with it. But for how long?
CHAPTER 18
The sun had risen to its highest point, shortening the shadows almost to nothing, and its heat thrummed on Sky’s back with what felt like malice. She and her two companions trudged through a long, narrow valley that was lush with soft grass and thick flowering bushes, but already Sky saw signs that the heat was taking its toll: flowers drooped and shed their petals, and the tips of the grass were drying to yellow. So often she had gazed toward the hills and seen them shrouded in mist, but now the sky was a hot intense blue from horizon to horizon. Not a shred of cloud interrupted its dazzling arc.
At the farthest end of the valley a mountain rose, hazy with distance. Sky gazed longingly toward it. A flock of starlings flew from one wind-twisted tree to another, their blue and red feathers flashing, and the rasping honk of hornbills echoed through the valley, but Sky was focused on just one bird: the great black vulture that held Great Mother’s tusk fragment in her talons. The bird hunched at the top of a crooked tree, a little way ahead. She was always a little way ahead. Every time Sky, Moon, and Silverhorn drew close to her, she would spread her wings and flap a little farther, waiting in the next convenient tree.
It was so dispiriting. Oh, Great Spirit, please let that glitter in the grass be a stream. . . . The Great Spirit must have heard her. Exhausted, Sky came to a halt before the shallow gully. There was bedraggled grass high on its banks, but below that an expanse of drying mud; the stream itself had clearly shrunk and was little more than a murky trickle. All the same, Sky was glad of it, and she gave a murmur of thanks to the Great Spirit. She sucked up water as well as she could and poured it gratefully into her mouth.
As Silverhorn trotted down to join her, Sky reached out her trunk for Moon, and he too stumbled down the bank and leaned against her.
“You must be thirsty, little cousin.” She used some of the precious water to spray his shoulders. “Come on, take a drink. Then roll.”