Shadows on the Mountain, page 5
Groundnut patted Cassava’s shoulder. “Are you all right?”
Cassava shook him off gently. “I’m fine. And so is my father. I’ll try talking to him again in the morning.”
“I still say it’s unusual,” put in Lantana with a scowl. “Burbark’s behaving very oddly in the last few days, and this—”
“I never saw him treat the Mistback like that before.” Bindweed shook his head in dismay.
Bramble chewed his lip, silent. He didn’t like to hear the troop questioning his father, but he had to admit they were right.
Moonflower had wandered off to speak to her mother, who was shaking herself out of her smoke-induced daze. Bramble sat down, his gaze switching between Cassava and the trees where his father had disappeared.
Of course we must do what the Great Spirit wants. It’s just that we’re not sure what that is. . . .
He frowned, tugging at his lower lip. The plains were a terrifying place; he had heard the stories. Even if Cassava had exaggerated the lions, Bramble didn’t much want to meet one after all. And lions were far from the only notorious villains of the great grasslands. Cheetahs. Crocodiles. Rhinoceroses, with spikes on their heads as big as trees . . .
He found himself far from disappointed by Burbark’s decision. Blood pools on the plains. Gorillas did not belong there, and Burbark Silverback’s word was final.
No one from the troop was going anywhere. Thank the Great Spirit.
Chapter Five
Oh, the bliss of a full belly! Chase lay sprawled on her flank in the den, barely able to imagine moving again, let alone hunting. She puffed out a sigh of contentment through her nostrils, feeling her whiskers shiver.
The bongo had fed all three of them, and well. Seek was fast asleep on his back beside her, his paws twitching in the air; perhaps he was dreaming of chasing down his own prey. But even better than the food had been the look in Prowl’s eyes as they had feasted on the carcass. She had glanced up frequently at her daughter, yellow eyes burning with gratitude and pride. It had warmed Chase’s innards even more than bongo-flesh.
Chase had not told her mother about that run-in with Shadow. She had certainly not confessed her failed attempt to cache her prey in the tree. Instead, she had dragged the bongo all the way back to the den, fighting off exhaustion and a few cheeky jackals, and had managed to feign some remaining energy when she arrived.
It was no problem, Mother. I didn’t want Seek to have to trudge all the way to the prey; I decided to bring it here instead.
The struggle and the weariness had all been worth it. Prowl was delighted with her; Chase had reveled in her triumph and in Seek’s adulation.
Her ears twitched; her mother was stirring. Chase rolled over to catch the shape of Prowl, slinking out of the den mouth.
“Where are you going, Mother?”
Prowl turned her head, her whiskers twitching. “It’s nothing important, Chase, so don’t worry. I want to patrol the territory, that’s all. Stay with Seek and go back to sleep.”
Chase rose to her forepaws. Prowl was gazing at her very directly; worse, she was using the voice Chase had heard before. That had been the voice Prowl had used when she told Seek, over and over again, that his mother was coming back soon.
But Slink didn’t come back. Slink was dead all along.
Prowl’s eyes were still fixed on hers. She’s not telling the truth, thought Chase with a shiver of certainty.
“Chase, you mustn’t worry,” Prowl told her gently. “I’ve patrolled this land more times than I can count. I’ll be all right.”
Chase took a breath to argue. But her mother’s eyes were warm, so she simply nodded. Prowl turned again and squeezed out through the den mouth into the night.
Chase glanced down at Seek. His rounded little belly rose and fell steadily, his eyes were tightly closed, and he wore an unconscious smirk of pure contentment. Chase waited a few moments longer. Despite her mother’s reassuring tone, she had been hiding something. The cub was not going to wake up any time soon. Waiting a few moments to give her mother a safe head start, Chase crouched and slunk out of the den after her.
Beyond the cave mouth, starlight outlined the ridges and the forests in an eerie silver glow. Chase paused for a moment to inhale the cool night air through flared nostrils. She closed her eyes briefly. She loved the nighttime; it was impossible to imagine hunting in the heat and glare of the day, with flies buzzing around her sticky fur. How did lions and cheetahs tolerate it? In the darkness of the night, the air felt purer, lighter, and every scent was enhanced—grass, flower, river, or prey. The birds were quiet, but for an occasional night screech; insects buzzed and whirred and chirped in a constant chorus that she loved. Her ears caught every rustle in the grass, every creak of a branch, every tiny susurration of dry leaves.
She flicked one ear back as the grass stirred close by. Tilting her head, she measured the sound, estimated the speed of what was there, and slapped her paw down hard.
There was a squeak of terror; she felt soft fur and fragile bones beneath her paw pad. Very slightly lifting her foot, she peered down at her catch. The huge eyes of a pygmy dormouse stared up at her, glazed with terror.
Chase lowered her head to sniff at its long bushy tail. There wasn’t much meat on it, and she was hardly desperate. She could feel the creature’s violent trembling through her forepaw.
She stepped back. “Go on. You’re lucky I’ve already eaten.”
It gazed up at her for an instant in petrified disbelief. Then it squirmed upright and fled into the night.
She watched the grass close behind it, feeling rather pleased with herself. She’d obeyed the Code as a proud leopard should: Only kill to survive. She certainly hadn’t needed that poor tiny creature to sustain her existence.
Swishing her tail, Chase padded on after her mother, following the clear trail of her scent. She was so preoccupied with her achievements of the day—an excellent hunt and respect for the Code!—that it took longer than it should have for a new presence to penetrate her awareness. When her instinct grew too strong to ignore, Chase paused, one paw raised, and frowned. She glanced slightly to the side, twitching her whiskers and flaring her upper lip.
There was something downwind of her: not some insignificant small prey, but a large creature with blood on its breath. It was impossible to catch the precise scent, but her hide tingled with the awareness that she was being followed. She glared into the darkness behind her.
Nothing moved. Chase widened her nostrils, but she couldn’t trace the scent. If it was the hyenas, back for revenge . . . I must get out of their reach.
There was a thorn tree a few paces away; she could make out the glimmer of its bark in the starlight. With six loping bounds she was beneath it, and without a gazelle to weigh her down, it was easy to scramble silently into its branches. Chase stretched herself along a lower bough, breathing as calmly as she could and gazing down at the grass below her.
Not far away, the long grass was stirring. It waved and swayed, and suddenly a shape that seemed darker than the night itself emerged from the pale blades.
Shadow . . .
He paced slowly toward the thorn tree where Chase hid, then hesitated. His whiskers jerked, and his nostrils flared. He narrowed his glowing eyes.
How dare he! thought Chase angrily. She stood up on her branch, her tail lashing. “Why are you following me?”
Shadow looked up, startled, but his face swiftly took on that rather smug expression of his. “Chase. You should be careful at night, out alone like this. I saw another leopard in this territory today. A big one. He’s looking for a mate and for land.”
Chase wrinkled her muzzle. “I’ve smelled no other leopard. And Prowl hasn’t mentioned any strangers lurking.”
Shadow hunched his dappled black shoulders. “Believe what you like, Chase. I’ve seen him with my own eyes. Be careful, that’s all I’m saying.”
Chase narrowed her eyes and peeled back the corner of her lip to show her fangs in derision. “You sound scared, Shadow.”
“So what if I am? It means I’m smart. You shouldn’t joke about such things, Chase. If a new male homes in on your mother, and then finds Seek, there’ll be trouble.”
A chill rippled along Chase’s spine. There would be more than trouble; there would be death. Seek’s death. No male would tolerate another’s cub in his territory.
“Don’t let me interrupt your precious nightly hunt,” said Shadow, turning with a flick of his tail as he stalked away. “I thought you’d appreciate the warning, that’s all.”
He merged with the darkness of the forest night, and Chase waited only a moment after he’d gone before bounding down from her perch. She looked toward her mother’s trail, then turned back toward the den.
If Shadow’s right—if a new male is in the area—I have to get back home. Now.
Chase started out at a brisk trot, but quickly broke into a run, streaking through the trees toward the den. Her heart swelled and raced, faster with every step, and she laid her ears back, desperate.
The thick-rooted tree was in sight; she sprinted for its shadowy base and squirmed into the cavern. Relief melted into horror as she felt its emptiness; there was no cub here. She could hear no light, quick breathing, no squeaky dream noises. Chase’s blood throbbed in her ears, in time with her thrashing heartbeat.
“Seek!” she cried out loud. “Seek!”
He was nowhere to be seen. There was a flattened patch of earth where he had lain, and a couple of tiny broken roots; all that remained was his cub-scent.
Chase dragged herself back out of the den onto the open plain. “Seek!” she wailed, as loudly as she dared.
A hyena could have taken him; they could burrow into the den quite easily. Or, if he’d wandered, a night bird of prey would find him easy meat. He was still so small! The forest night was home to Chase—but not to Seek, not yet. A thousand dangers could find him here. . . . How will I tell Prowl that I lost him?
“Seek! Seek, call to me! I’ll come for you!” Her plaintive roar resounded through the trees.
She could barely hear it for the thudding of her heart, but at last she did: a mewling squeak, muffled by distance, at once remorseful and frightened.
“Seek!” Chase bounded toward the noise. There was a shallow gully between the tree and a neighboring copse, and it was there that she found him, cowering beneath a patch of thorny scrub.
Seek crept out from beneath the thorns, quivering. His glowing eyes were huge in the darkness.
“I’m sorry, Chase,” he whimpered. “I woke up and you weren’t there, so I went to look for you, but I got lost.”
Chase fell on him, licking his head and pressing his small body down with her forepaws. She licked harder at his jaw.
“Ow, Chase . . . that hurts . . .”
She drew back, torn between relief and anger. Then she drew a few sharp breaths and closed her eyes as guilt washed over her.
“It’s my fault, Seek. Prowl told me not to leave you, and I shouldn’t have. I’ll stay now till morning, I promise.”
Far more gently, she picked up the little cub by his scruff and trotted as fast as she could back to the den. He dangled limply, not resisting at all; he seemed simply glad to be found and rescued. Chase’s hide felt cold with terror and relief. What if I’d lost him?
Back in the musty dimness beneath the tree roots, Seek fell asleep again almost instantly, in his usual flattened-earth spot. Chase curled her body around him, tucking her tail carefully over his face; she was determined not to let him wander away again without waking her.
The important thing was that Seek was safe. There had been no strange male leopard, no intruder to pursue Chase and Prowl and dispose of his predecessor’s cub. Shadow was wrong.
Or we were just lucky. . . .
Perhaps the stranger was lurking close by, and simply hadn’t yet stumbled across their den. Perhaps he’d never existed at all.
After all, thought Chase darkly, Shadow might have his own motivation. He might just want to frighten the family off so that he could take this fine territory for himself.
The stranger might be a pure invention of Shadow’s. Chase closed her eyes, but she coiled her body even tighter around Seek and pressed her muzzle close to his.
All the same. I’m not taking any chances.
Chapter Six
It happened at dawn, as the first pale rays of the rising sun pierced the violet cloudbank.
One moment there was easy peace: the murmur of waking gazelles, the rip-and-crunch of their morning grazing, the soft braying calls of the gazelles on the outer rim of the herd; and huge eyes blinking wide all around Prance.
Then panic.
It was not the terror of a single gazelle; it was a charge that bolted like lightning through the Us. Every head snapped up and reared back, every tail stiffened, and a thousand slender legs raced into motion. The herd fled, galloping headlong for every life within it.
It had happened so many times. Prance knew how it should be, and she raced with the rest, matching her speed to theirs—or trying. She knew, even as fear surged through her veins, that it was different this time. The Us did not carry her; it was as if she was striving with every instant, every hoof-fall, to remain with them. There was no instinct carrying her on, only her own singular desperation. The herd surged and thrummed like a vast heartbeat; all she could do was pound along with them, her whole body tightening and trembling with panic. She didn’t know where they were going, when and how they would turn. She was separate, an individual.
I am alone.
Her hooves struck the ground, her muscles worked to carry her along, but it was all such an effort. It was as if the air she ran through was thicker than the air that surrounded the herd. When the gazelles, as one, veered sharply to the west, they collided with her clumsy body; Prance stumbled and almost fell as she made a frantic, conscious effort to turn with them. Almost at once the herd swerved again, and this time she could barely keep up. The effort was more than she could bear. Her legs were heavy, her lungs bursting, and they were leaving her behind; all she could see in her blurred vision were the white flashes of their rumps as the throng outpaced her.
“Wait! Friends! Wait!” It was a strangled gasp, and of course they did not hear her. The Us moved them like water flowing over stone; they could not have turned back even if they’d heard her, even if they’d wanted to turn.
Prance knew how it felt. But only now did she understand it fully.
Her body ached, and her lungs were seized by a searing agony. She should not look back, she knew; she should not strain to see what it was that pursued them. It would slow her down. Running with the Us, there was never the time or the need for such distractions.
Prance had no choice. She twisted and galloped as fast as she could in the other direction. There was no point following the herd now; the Us was lost to her. She was on her own.
Don’t look back. Don’t look back. It was taught to them from the moment a gazelle was born, because the alternative was unbearable: Don’t look back. Don’t watch for your own death. Run.
Don’t look back. . . .
Yet Prance couldn’t help herself; it was as if another instinct had taken over, one that had been dormant during her whole life of oneness with the Us. She twisted her head and saw the predator at once: the pale, fast body of a lioness, streaking through the grass toward her. It ran strangely, lurching on three legs while the fourth barely touched down; but the speed of it was not affected at all. How could a lame, wounded lion catch her? I am a gazelle! I am the wind!
More lions ahead. The blurred streaks of their tawny bodies coming in to intercept her.
Putting on a burst of extraordinary speed she hadn’t known was in her, Prance hurtled toward a nearby copse.
Don’t stay on the open plain. Not now. That is for the Us.
Her head and shoulders burst into dry rattling foliage, and Prance felt a brief spurt of triumph. But then, far sharper and stronger, she felt the hot lethal pain of claws in her rump. She stumbled forward into the bushes, but the big cat was dragging her back, pulling her toward the grassland with a remorseless strength.
It was strange how time had slowed. Prance almost felt as if she could catch her breath. The safety of the scrubland receded, and she knew a cold certainty: this was the end. All she had to do now was wait: for the bite of fangs in her neck, for the heavy strangulation that would bring merciful darkness. Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt so very much. Perhaps the lioness would snap her neck, unintentional but quick; Prance had seen it happen. It was kind.
It was final.
It was now—
I AM NOT MEANT TO DIE!
The knowledge burned through her, firing her heart into renewed, angry life. Prance lashed out with her hind legs and felt her hooves hit a warm body. Her hooves were hard and sharp, and the yielding body fell backward. Prance thought she heard a yowl of agony, but it was so distant it seemed to come from another world.
Her kick was not enough, of course. Those claws still clung to her rump, and Prance found herself rolling and falling, tangled with the hot, reeking body of the predator. As they crashed into a fallen branch, the lioness grunted with pain, and all but one of her claws lost their grip. Prance took her chance and tore herself free of the last dragging claw. She felt the warm trickle of blood where her hide had ripped, but the lioness was dislodged at last.
Prance staggered to her hooves, backing away. The lioness crouched opposite her, panting and growling; blood streamed from the flesh-eater’s left eye. Her tawny flanks heaved with exhaustion and her good eye burned with frustrated rage, but Prance did not wait for the lioness to catch her breath. Spinning, she sprang away through the trees.
This was not her land; she was used to running on the open plain. She was terrified that one of her thin legs would catch on a bush or a branch, sending her tumbling head over hocks and leaving her easy meat for the pursuing predator. But Prance fled at full tilt anyway, praying to the Great Spirit to keep her feet sure.
