A moment more, and Gazda had climbed higher before leaping higher still.
There the night ape turned to glare down at Magnuh with his long knife still in hand. He slashed at the tree limb by his feet, scolding the bull elephant with a violent display.
Magnuh raged and blew a spray of scarlet foam from his trunk. He used his tusks to slash the bark away from the night ape’s tree before the wounded monster stormed off into the jungle roaring and drooling blood.
Gazda hurled insults after the thwarted beast until the night ape was suddenly taken by a wave of nausea that sent him reeling back against the tree trunk. He realized then that his ankle was broken at right angles to his calf, and the flesh was torn in many places on his chest and belly.
Sinking down upon a branch, he watched in wonder as the wounds began to heal, and a great hunger rose within him, even as the worried cries of his mother grew in his ears.
His legs were deeply bruised and the skin was ripped. He gasped in pain as the ankle cracked and clicked as it suddenly shifted from its unnatural slant, and aligned itself with the rest of his leg.
The pain faded quickly but the hunger did not.
Gazda smiled as he held the long knife up in front of his face where licking carefully, he removed all trace of the elephant’s thick blood from its sharp surface. After that he lapped at the rich fluid where it still clung to his wrist and forearm, relishing the taste.
Neither he nor Magnuh had expected such a turn, and without the blade, Gazda knew he would have been pulverized and killed by the monster.
The night ape gazed lovingly at the weapon and wondered what other uses he might put it to.
1904-1905
Ten to eleven years of age.
CHAPTER 14 – A Jungle Joke
Gazda’s special abilities continued to improve as he aged. He was as strong or stronger than any of his contemporaries, day or night—faster on the ground and in the trees—and he had become an accomplished and peerless hunter. He boasted a keen intelligence and wisdom far beyond his years—certainly beyond most of the apes in Goro’s tribe.
His mother was wise, he knew, as was Goro and old Baho, and there was no doubting the cunning that lay behind Omag’s twisted features.
But Gazda was able to outthink most of the apes his age—if little Ooso did present a challenge from time to time. The she-ape had a piercing intellect and delightful imagination which she exercised when she was not busy judging her many blackback suitors or enjoying the gifts they offered her with their proposals to mate.
She had said that the blackbacks were beautiful to look upon with all that muscle, but that she had been spoiled by her long friendship with Gazda.
“You are smart,” she had said, when the awkward discussion of mating had come up. “And Ooso is smart enough to know that.”
“Then why does Ooso want blackbacks?” Gazda answered. His mother had long thought that the pair should mate when they reached the age, but the night ape could not bring himself to tell her the truth. He was sure that the little she-ape found him too ugly to consider such a union. He was so different.
“They are smart enough to stay with Ooso!” his little friend had replied. “Gazda won’t. He wants to mate with the moon.”
Like his mother, Ooso complained about his strange absences and nocturnal habits. But she was never really angry and liked to goad him into boisterous bouts of horseplay that always left Gazda laughing and wishing he could stay with Ooso.
But she was right; he was in love with the night.
In time, Gazda’s growing acceptance of his differences had increased his emotional distance from the tribe. They were apes and his adoptive family, but he was a night ape, and he longed to know more about his own kind.
He judged that the unique powers: his strength, heightened senses and awareness, must have been a natural thing among the night ape tribe to which he clearly belonged and should well have been a thing of pride. Being of a smaller build than the other anthropoids, he had to be stronger and better at those things that ensured survival in the jungle.
Gazda also linked his growing prowess to his ability to overcome his fears. He had explored Fur-nose’s lair all on his own—something that no blackback in Goro’s tribe would do. In fact, the old story had said that it was Goro who had first entered the tree-nest. So, Gazda was quite pleased to know he had the courage of a silverback.
Even though in all honesty, even Goro had had Baho at his side, and a force of blackbacks behind him—but Gazda would never doubt his king’s courage.
The night ape was not above superstition however, and remembered the odd sense of familiarity he had felt when first investigating the tree-nest, almost like he had been there before, or that it had somehow been preordained that he should enter the lair and become its new master.
His thoughts often drifted back to that day, and were encouraged to do so by the presence of the strange snake symbol he wore around his neck, and the long lethal knife that was thrust through his belt.
The other apes had taken notice of Gazda’s acquisitions when he had first brought the strange artifacts back to the tribe, but it took some time for gossip about them to circulate.
Gazda’s nocturnal existence and the daytime sleeping that resulted, when coupled with his absences while hunting had already created a rift between him and the other apes. Being creatures of daylight, they had other interests and habits, and by the time he’d been into Fur-nose’s lair; he had few close
