He had tried to challenge the mighty Ulok, but Omag had lunged between them, and with much flying spittle refused the fight on the young blackback’s behalf. Gazda was not a real ape, Sip-sip had claimed most hurtfully, and Gazda could find nothing to say in response.
In the night ape’s heart, he had yearned to call Omag out to a battle, but never in his most youthful boast would he dare utter such a thing to an ape that had fought Goro himself, for it would be like challenging the king.
And Goro’s indomitable power had been so ingrained on Gazda’s soul, and pounded in by his feats of prowess, that the silverback represented the epitome of strength in the night ape’s mind.
There had not been a serious challenge to Goro for many years because the silverback was truly the most powerful bull ape to come along in generations.
Many of the young blackbacks still performed mock displays, circling the king, but never doing more than earning a ferocious reprimand if they stepped too far. Those adolescent blackbacks who in their youth and folly came to blows with Goro were punished accordingly, but rarely did they suffer excessively for the king was not a despot.
Goro usually took the youthful exuberance in stride, and responded eagerly when the mock challenges came.
All male apes grew silver hair on their shoulders and along their spines when coming into adulthood, but it was only after challenging their king for leadership that this vest grew thick enough to earn the characteristic name of silverback.
So all kings were silverbacks and their challengers, too.
An adult blackback male would never perform a false display, for all such challenges were accepted, with an outcome that led to death or exile—or worse, a beating and mercy shown by a king that many considered “weak” for straying from tribal law.
Of course, tradition demanded that any genuine challenge for the throne should be made at the meeting place of the Two Trees where generations of ape successions had been decided.
That place was a great, grassy, stone-strewn clearing a day’s walk northeast of the Grooming Rock that was edged around with prickly thorn trees and fruit bearing bushes. The tribe visited at least twice a year when the fruits and nuts came into season, and it was there that the tribe knew any “official” challenges to leadership would come.
Two Trees was also the place where other challenges of less import were addressed, with the king holding court center to the “V” formed by the dead trunks of the titular “Two.”
Here he would listen to complaints within the tribe: of violent behavior between mates, of dangerous actions among blackbacks, of the true lineage of offspring, before he reminded all of the responsibilities for the guilty parties, of the dangers of infidelity and of the need to satisfy the victims.
Within a rough ring of stones by the buttressed roots of the Two Trees Goro would give his pronouncements and settle all disputes. The proceedings were essential to the tribe’s well-being as they had been for generations, since small disagreements grew into large ones if unaddressed, and the jungle life was too fraught with peril to have one’s tribe divided against itself.
Here apes were judged, and proof of this was the old thorn-nest where legend said usurpers of the crown had ended up in ages past for attempting to circumvent the law and unseat a silverback through guile or mischief. There would such offending apes be detained until the challenged silverback dealt out swift punishment.
And it would have been harsh, for a tribe of apes cannot survive without a king, and a squabbling coalition of weaker, ambitious apes would not assure the survival of a tribe as one mighty silverback king could, since usurpers without loyalty would unseat each other before long. Their personal dreams would be more important than all else, and so the tribe would fail.
Not so with a silverback for he was the tribe, and so the tribe’s needs were his own.
But there at the Two Trees would official challenges be made, and so Goro and his tribe often entered the clearing with a mixture of excitement and trepidation upon their sturdy brows.
It was true that succession could occur away from this place if a silverback were fairly challenged—had he shown weakness or fear—and at other times when a silverback died far from the Two Trees temporary succession occurred that lasted until the apes returned to that place again.
Apes were creatures with short memories and few traditions, so with the “challenge at the Two Trees” chief among them, they clung to it with all their might.
The night ape, however, remembered everything, and was not so poorly endowed, seeming as eager to add to his treasure trove of remembrances as he was to increase the height of his growing pile of skins. Always, he was thirsty for experience.
Gazda fondly remembered a time when Goro had come to his rescue and cemented a bond between them that would forever keep the night ape from considering anything other than his complete loyalty to the king.
It happened in his fifth year. Gazda was trapped against a tangle of strangler figs by some young adolescents led by the big Ulok and dead Tobog’s son Dogo. They had teased him about his “snakeskin” and “bird legs” and mocked him with crude imitations of how he moved.
But it was when they insulted his mother that he finally flew into a rage.
“Eeda mates with monkeys,” Ulok had yapped as the other blackbacks panted in agreement.
Gazda was a third the size of the smallest bully there at that time, but he did not give this a thought when he launched an attack directly at Ulok who shied away from its ferocity.
Unfortunately, the adolescents were daylight creatures and had started teasing Gazda in the afternoon when much dim light still fought its
