Faster, he urged the horse. Faster!
The horse raced through the woods, its hooves pounding against the forest floor and tearing up great clods of earth in its headlong flight from the screams and gunshots and explosions behind them. It wove expertly between the trees and leapt over rotting logs and brambles. Riding bareback, holding on tightly to the horse’s reins, Spear spurred his steed on although this was hardly necessary; the horse wanted to escape the slaughter just as much as its rider did. Spear screeched at the top of his lungs, desperate to sound a warning. He couldn’t believe how quickly the humans had come upon them. One minute he had been standing guard with his companions, not truly anticipating any danger; the next, his friends were dead, the wall was breached, and all was blood and flame and smoke and death.
The tribe needed to be warned. Caesar needed to be warned.
More gunshots echoed through the forest behind him. Spear prayed that his fellow apes had rallied and were returning fire at least. It seemed to him that the noise of the battle was following him instead of receding as he galloped away from the fighting; could that mean that a retreat was underway, with any surviving apes shooting back at the humans’ relentless onslaught as they attempted to escape?
Spear wanted to think so.
His frantic screeches warred with the pounding of the horse’s hooves. Spear feared that none would hear him in time, but then his desperate shrieks were answered by a rising chorus of simian screeches and hoots coming from up ahead and growing louder by the moment.
Yes!
Hope flared in his chest. Pulling back on the reins, he brought his horse to a sudden stop. Lather dripped down the horse’s heaving sides. It strained at its bit, desperate to keep running from the massacre and rearing up on its hind legs. Spear tightened his grip on the reins and clung to the horse with his legs to avoid being thrown.
No, he thought. Wait… wait!
He peered through the trees ahead. His spirits soared as, heralded by the thunder of hooves, an entire company of mounted ape soldiers came riding toward him, armed for combat. The charging cavalry was composed of every species of great ape, united to defend their endangered colony, and seemed almost as numerous as the trees they rode out of. Spear was impressed at how quickly the cavalry had mobilized in response to his cries. Caesar had trained his forces well.
And with good reason.
Spear grinned at the reinforcements. Thick black hairs bristled along his back and shoulders in an aggressive display, making him appear even bigger and more intimidating than he actually was. He bared his canines. No more retreating, he vowed. No more running from the humans. The teachings of Caesar filled him with pride and courage.
Apes together strong.
Screeching in fury, he turned his horse back the way it had come. He raised his spear high and pointed it toward those he had left behind to face the guns and malice of the enemy. More apes on horseback poured out of the hills and joined in behind him, charging down the wooded slope toward their implacable foes.
Humans had begun this attack, but apes would end it.
* * *
The battle of the hill raged on as Preacher fought alongside his unit against the retreating apes, who were not going down as easily as he had hoped. Preacher had seen combat before, but nothing this fierce. Enemy fire targeted the humans as they chased after the apes, intent on wiping out every last one of the monkeys despite the bullets and spears and arrows flying every which way. Bodies, both human and simian, littered the forest floor, while the moans and whimpers of the wounded were disturbingly hard to tell apart. Panic nibbled at Preacher’s resolve, but he was no deserter. Taking shelter behind the trunk of a massive redwood, he fired shot after shot from his crossbow, drawing fresh bolts from the quiver at his hip. His shots hit more often than they missed, bringing down one ape after another. Frantically reaching for another bolt, he was dismayed to find his quiver empty.
How had he gone through his supply so fast?
His eyes searched anxiously for Red, who, along with the other donkeys, had fallen back to keep out of the line of fire. Preacher shouted at the gorilla.
“Reload!”
Red hurried toward him on all fours, bearing his heavy pack of gear. Preacher hurriedly retrieved a fully loaded quiver from the rucksack and discarded the empty one. Grateful for the gorilla’s prompt response, he nodded at Red, only to see that the ape was looking past him at the front lines of battle, where the retreating apes were being cut down by the soldiers’ guns and arrows. Gorillas just like Red were dead and dying upon the hillside, bleeding out onto the greenery. Red watched the slaughter with cold brown eyes and a stony expression that offered no hint of what was going through that clever monkey brain of his.
How does he feel about this? Preacher wondered. Guilty about betraying his own kind? Or is he just glad to be on the winning side?
If the bloodshed troubled Red, his face held no evidence of it.
Preacher strapped on the fresh quiver and cautiously stepped out from behind the tree trunk, ready to rejoin the fray. Red tagged along with him, but they only got a few steps before a startling sight drew their gazes upward.
Two—no, three—trails of spiraling white smoke hissed through the air high above their heads. The vaporous streamers arced through the cold gray sky before smacking to earth and rolling across the ground toward Preacher and his comrades, spewing thick, billowing fumes everywhere. The young soldier gasped out loud, uncertain what was happening but knowing already that it wasn’t anything good. He shared a confused look with Red, who appeared to be just as surprised and disoriented by the smoke.
What the hell?
His crossbow armed and ready, Preacher looked around fearfully, but dense, opaque smoke had hidden his sight lines, taking away his targets. He couldn’t fire his weapon for fear of hitting a human instead of an ape.
And then he heard it: the thunderous pounding of hooves.
Many, many hooves.
Oh crap. Preacher’s mouth suddenly went as dry as the Mojave as he remembered the chimp that had gotten away on horseback earlier.
That’s not just one monkey on a horse.
* * *
The ape cavalry thundered down the slope, charging from the woods above the breached fortifications. Riders with slings hurled another volley of crude smoke bombs over the heads of the retreating apes, causing a second wave of fuming missiles to smack down amidst the human invaders, fomenting confusion. At the forefront of the cavalry, Spear relished the soldiers’ obvious surprise and disarray. It was not enough to make up for all the death and carnage the humans had brought to the forest, but it was a good start. The faces of his murdered friends were still fresh in Spear’s memory and his hackles bristled in rage.
We’ve only begun to make them pay, he thought. If they thought they feared apes before…
The riders met the tide of fleeing apes, who were in woeful shape. Spear was shocked and angered by how severely the survivors’ ranks had been thinned, and by the number and extent of their injuries. Maimed and bleeding apes, many who would bear the scars of the humans’ sneak attack for the rest of their days, scrambled madly away from the massacre. A wounded chimpanzee clung to the back of a limping gorilla, who sported ugly burns and cuts of his own. Another ape cradled a broken arm against his chest as he was forced to flee on only three limbs, and an orangutan winced in pain with a crossbow bolt wedged in his side; one of his bulging cheek flaps was shredded to ribbons. More able-bodied apes took to the trees, firing back at the humans with guns and bows. Spear admired their valor, even as he thanked providence that he and the cavalry had arrived before it was too late.
We will save our brothers, he thought, and avenge the fallen!
He screeched loudly to break through the clamor. Raising his spear high, he watched with pride as the panicked apes halted their retreat. Fear faded from their faces as they spied the cavalry and realized that they were no longer outnumbered. Panic gave way to fury as all that were able turned
back toward the humans and bared their teeth. Simian war cries rose in savage chorus.
Spear’s heart swelled. Lowering his spear, he spurred his steed forward, leading the charge. Enraged apes ran back toward the smoke-filled battlefield, alongside the charging cavalry.
The humans would wish they had stayed far away from these hills.
* * *
We’re screwed, Preacher thought. Big time.
Along with the rest of his unit, he stumbled blindly through the smoke, unable to see more than a foot in front of him. The harsh fumes stung his eyes and invaded his throat and lungs, leaving him coughing and gasping for breath. Clutching his crossbow, he turned in circles, unsure from which direction danger might be coming. Watery eyes searched in vain for targets to shoot at. Angry shouts and curses filled the woods as he heard the other soldiers raging against the smoke, bumping into trees and each other. Red and the other donkeys screeched and jabbered in alarm. Preacher wondered if they regretted switching sides.
I would if I were them.
The thunder of hooves grew louder and more frightening. A sudden whistling noise drew his gaze upward in time to see a torrent of wooden spears and arrows raining down on them. Screams erupted all around him. Dimly glimpsed figures, barely more than vague silhouettes in the smoke, hit the ground and didn’t get back up again. And still the lethal missiles kept plummeting from the sky, claiming new victims. A stone-tipped spear struck the earth right at his feet, causing him to jump backwards into the hard, unyielding tree. The back of his helmet smacked into the trunk hard enough to hurt, but Preacher barely noticed the impact. He felt like he was trapped in some hellish limbo where death struck at random and without warning. He couldn’t believe how quickly the tide of battle had turned against them.
We were winning, damn it! We had them on the run…!
Another scream came from only a few yards away. An agonized voice cried out hoarsely.
“RETREAT!”
Preacher had no idea who had issued the order, but he didn’t have to be told twice. Ducking low to present a smaller target, and half-expecting to be skewered at any moment, he ran for his life. A moss-covered log blocked his escape and he dived over it, seeking cover, only to find himself tumbling headfirst down a steep slope into a ditch. He landed hard, the breath knocked out of him, blurry eyes peering up at the trees towering high above him. Part of him wanted to just keep lying there, to close his eyes and hope the battle moved on without him, but the terrifying prospect of being left behind in the ape-infested woods was enough to convince him that he needed to keep moving. He lifted his head to orient himself.
Dead eyes looked back at him.
Preacher bit back a scream as he found himself face to face with the captain’s lifeless body, just one of several dead soldiers lying in the ditch, which now resembled a mass grave. Preacher recognized all of the corpses: Ward, Chambers, Chavez, Robbins, Shimoda. An arrow pierced the captain’s throat. Glassy eyes stared blankly into oblivion.
The apes had killed him. The apes had killed all of them.
Preacher feared that he was as good as dead, too. Down in the grave with his fallen comrades, he could hear the apes drawing nearer. They screeched and hooted at each other like the animals they were. Agitated horses neighed and whinnied. Gunshots sounded far too close by, a sign that the battle was still underway, or were the apes simply picking off the last few humans? Preacher wondered briefly if Red and the other “good” apes had gotten away, then wondered why he cared.
For all Preacher knew, he was the only human soldier left.
He groped about for his crossbow, which he’d lost rolling down the hill, but couldn’t find it. Most of the bolts had fallen out of the quiver as well, leaving him more or less unarmed. He didn’t want to die like this, alone in the woods with no one but the dead to share his final moments. Fear threatened to override his training, but he tried to hold himself together even though he was shaking like a leaf. He reached out trembling hands and pried the captain’s headset from the corpse, which was still warm to the touch. The dead man’s blood stained his fingers.
Sorry, Captain, he thought. I need this more than you do now.
He hoped to God that the equipment was still working. Grimacing, he put on the headset and powered it up.
“Colonel? Colonel, do you copy?”
Static crackled in his ears, crushing his hopes. An endless, excruciating moment passed before a calm, authoritative voice responded. Preacher gasped in relief as he recognized the familiar cadences of his commanding officer.
“Who is this?” the Colonel asked.
Preacher’s mouth was dry. He somehow worked up enough spit to speak.
“Preacher… it’s Preacher, sir.”
He had no idea if the Colonel knew him by name. He was nobody important, just another grunt in the war.
“Where are you, soldier? I need your position.”
“I don’t know!”
The Colonel’s voice remained steady, reassuring. “What do you see?”
Preacher wasn’t about to lift his head out of the ditch just to report that he saw some trees and bushes. His own voice quavered, nearly cracking under the pressure. What if the apes heard him, too?
“I can’t see anything! We lost a lot of men, sir. The captain is dead!”
The Colonel seemed to take a moment to process that intel. “You’re in command now.”
“Command, sir?” Preacher tried to make the Colonel understand. “I think it’s just me by myself now!”
The apes were definitely closer. He could hear them stomping through the brush toward him. Preacher peered up, waiting tensely for an ape to come into view. He knew his time was almost done.
“Sir, I don’t think I’m gonna make it.” His throat tightened, overcome with emotion. Bad enough to die young fighting a winning battle, but to go down in defeat at the hands of an ape, without even accomplishing the mission… “I’m sorry, sir. I’m so sorry!”
The Colonel answered gravely:
“I understand, soldier. Just kill as many of them as you can.”
But it was already too late for that. Searching fruitlessly for his crossbow amidst the dead bodies, Preacher heard a hostile grunt from above. He froze as he looked up to see several apes glaring down at him with murder in their eyes. Spears and rifles were aimed at him, even though any one of the apes could probably tear him limb from limb with its bare hands. No mercy showed on their simian features, nor did Preacher expect it to. Humans and apes had been mortal enemies for most of his life, which was apparently now at its end. Preacher swallowed hard and braced himself for whatever came next. He was already in a grave. The rest was just a formality.
Go ahead, he thought. Get it over with.
3
Caesar contemplated the grisly aftermath of the battle. Apes scavenged for weapons, stripping guns and ammunition from the bodies of dead human soldiers; a necessary task, but a distasteful one. The ape leader—still in his prime—turned away from the looting and slowly made his way toward the exposed trench, whose camouflage and defenses had failed to spare it from the humans’ assault. The shattered remains of the wall were strewn across the landscape, testifying to the force of the enemy’s explosives. Charred timbers still reeked of smoke and scattered brush fires needed to be put out.
He watched grimly as ape bodies, not all of them intact, were lifted out of the blasted depths of the trench. He did not try to count the dead; there would be time enough later to tally their losses. For now it was more important that the scores of wounded apes were attended to; he feared that, despite the best efforts of their healers, many more of his people would succumb to their injuries in the hours and days to come. The apes’ “victory” had been a costly one.
The battle is over, he thought, but the mourning has just begun.
Sentries posted in the trees kept careful watch just in case there were more humans afoot. Caesar trusted them to sound the alarm if necessary as he descended into what w
as left of the trench. Gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans, and bonobos, injured or otherwise, looked up to gaze upon their imposing leader with awe and reverence. His very presence provoked a reaction from all present; wide-eyed apes nudged each other, alerting their fellows to his arrival. Even the wounded roused themselves and raised their heads at his approach.
Caesar was used to this response. He was their leader after all… and their liberator. It was he who had unleashed the virus that had elevated their intelligences, and who had freed them from captivity in labs and zoos more than a decade ago.
Now pushing twenty years old, Caesar had some gray around his muzzle, but his authority remained unquestioned. Conscious of his people’s regard, he projected strength and fortitude. His hard, stoic expression displayed no sign of fear or weakness. Only the pain in his distinctive green eyes betrayed how much the suffering of his people affected him.
Will the bloodshed never end? he thought. Will the humans never leave us in peace?
A pair of gorillas flanked Caesar on either side. Luca was a grizzled silverback who had been one of Caesar’s most trusted lieutenants for many years. After being liberated from the San Francisco Zoo, he had fought beside Caesar upon the Golden Gate Bridge in the early days of their freedom and had eventually become the chief of the gorilla guard and an integral part of Caesar’s inner circle, remaining loyal even during the dark days of Koba’s short-lived coup two years ago. At least twice Caesar’s size by weight and a head taller to boot, he was formidable even by gorilla standards. Dark brown eyes peered out from beneath his prominent brow ridge.
Luca was accompanied by Winter, a young albino gorilla whose white fur and pink eyes stood out amidst the blackened, shadowy depths of the trench. Less inured to the ravages of war, he looked upon the bloody wreckage with obvious distress. He bent low, automatically assuming a defensive posture. A low whimper escaped his lips.
Caesar wished he could have spared Winter this horrific spectacle, but the times would not allow such mercies. Winter was a promising young ape, quick of mind and strong of limb, whom Luca thought highly of, but Winter could not defend their people, let alone help to lead the colony in the future, if he was shielded from the harsh realities of the world as it was. He needed to know what the humans were capable of at their worst, to appreciate the danger that the apes had faced ever since they had first risen from captivity, before Winter was even born.