Aluga shrieked and screamed like no other, and soon even old Baho’s concern was drawn by her dramatic tale. He sat by Goro with his large hands over his ears as a pair of she-apes tended his noisy mate’s wounds.
The king ordered his lieutenant and the blackbacks to get the females and infants into the trees while he performed a rearguard action by pacing the trail back toward the stream. The males would then protect the tribe and under Baho’s leadership await Goro’s return.
Few of the frightened apes missed the king’s many angry looks at Omag, who hoisted himself into the trees with an impudent expression of amusement upon his distorted features.
As the tribe was climbing into the branches, Goro started retracing the she-ape’s path, but came to a sudden halt when a gaunt lioness appeared out of the thick undergrowth near the clearing’s edge.
She had followed Aluga’s trail and tracked her right back to the tribe.
Terror seized the heart of every ape, and screaming with unbridled panic, they clambered higher into the trees, seeking protected perches where they could safely scold and taunt the unwelcome predator.
Gazda did this also, caught up in the king’s order and the tribe’s fear, and he was soon 50 feet above the clearing where he turned upon a bough to see that Goro had not moved.
The king stood his ground before the lioness. A deep rumbling sound came from the silverback, as his massive body seemed to swell and dwarf the very open space around him.
Shouting encouragement, Gazda watched as Goro’s bull-ape roar caused the lioness to flinch and the great carnivore cowered before the king of the apes—shaking. Thus emboldened, Goro pounded his mighty chest and with fangs bared he charged the beast, tearing up stones, plants and rotten logs as he hurtled toward the cringing lioness.
Gazda recognized the trap too late, so he could only scream an unheard warning as Goro pounded closer to the cowering beast. For that lion was the bait to draw the king in and when he was close enough...
...another lioness launched out of her hiding place in the underbrush as Goro passed, and landed full upon the great ape’s back.
Gazda and the other apes screamed and shook the trees at this duplicity and cowardice.
Goro howled in fury as this second lioness raked his shoulders and lower back with long, sharp claws. She hacked at the thick muscle about his neck with her fangs, seeking his jugular.
When the king reached back with his powerful hands to pull the lioness off, the first beast made her attack, jumping at Goro’s chest and face.
The rest of the apes shrieked and scolded from the trees, threw sticks and stamped on swaying branches to no avail as their king battled the lions alone.
Several blackbacks looked to old Baho who was reluctantly holding his position. It was clear on his face and in the cries of his fellows that they wished to test their strength against these lions; but the former silverback was torn by his duties to his friend and to the leadership bestowed upon him, for indeed he had also inched his way lower where he shook the branches with fighting fangs displayed.
Baho was torn, for it was the way of the apes to do their duty. He had been ordered by the king to guard the tribe not Goro. The king was doing his duty, so must Baho, and the blackbacks had been charged with the tribe’s protection also.
Watching and howling and shaking the trees only helped infuriate these beasts who were many and the lions but two.
Some of the most eager had slipped down their respective tree-trunks and hesitated by the gnarled roots, eager to join the fight.
But Omag bellowed close to old Baho. He hung hand and foot from overhead scolding any blackback who had moved to the ground, or dared work up a fighting frenzy. The huge Ulok loomed there also, backing up his crippled mentor by roaring for order. Between them and the aging queens every blackback was reminded of the king’s pronouncement that “he” would fight the lions.
While not 80 feet from them, Goro wrapped his massive arms around the first beast, hissing as the lioness behind him sank her fangs again and again into his mountainous shoulders—his “silver” back hung in shredded strings of crimson gore.
The king drove his own long fighting canines into the first lioness’ shoulder as he crushed her against his chest in a smothering embrace. The snarling carnivore slashed at his forehead.
Gazda was struggling with the memory of his mother. Had she still lived, she would have crept up onto the branch beside him having read from his bearing that his fear was gone, and that his impulsive nature would soon make him act against the tribal laws.
She would have recognized this, and slipped her strong arms around her son where he would alternately try to break her grip while raging at the lions that battled Goro.
Though she no longer lived to protect him, her memory was there to hold Gazda in place, and so the night ape wrestled with the lessons Eeda had taught him.
As indecision grew heavy in the pit of his stomach, he cast about the trees at his fellows—feeling some relief to see little Ooso and tiny Yulu high up in an ironwood, while in the branches below them Kagoon’s massive black form lurked protectively.
They were out of danger, but Goro...
Already, the king’s fur was slick with scarlet and the flesh on his shoulders was torn in ragged strips. Even at such a distance Gazda’s nostrils grew full with the smell of battle and his heart raced for blood.
Goro was either weakening, or the first lioness had set her teeth in his throat for the great silverback fell forward suddenly, and as
