Bellowing, the titans beat and ripped at one another’s foreheads, faces and chests. In moments, blood sprayed in droplets upon the dappled grass.
So terrifying was the sound that came from this battle that the infants and young ones scampered higher into the trees as their worried mothers followed screaming and scolding the combatants from their refuges.
But Goro and Ulok were deaf to these feeble complaints as they savaged each other with fang and fist and all the terrible strength in their mammoth forms unleashed.
Ulok was strong, and may have been more so than the king, but he was also younger and impatient, and Goro had realized this when the challenger abandoned custom and charged without the proper displays.
He was impatient, and that exposed a vein of cowardice.
Ulok had charged without delay because he had doubted himself brave enough to see the king’s answering displays. The challenger was strong but that was all he was.
Goro would take nothing for granted for already he bled in many places, but he would test the younger Ulok’s patience, and in it seek his challenger’s fatal flaw.
The jungle around the clearing had been stirred into a raucous storm of noise as each living thing was agitated by this battle of the apes.
Neither Goro nor Ulok had given an inch of ground, and such an explosion of power had there been that both had faces like bloody masks as their fists pounded flesh and fangs ripped through thick hides.
Yet it was at this point that Goro decided to test his challenger’s impetuous nature. After receiving a flurry of blows, the king grunted and stepped back, body slightly turned to expose a vulnerable right side.
Ulok saw the silverback’s muscular profile and flank exposed and forgot that moments before they had been fighting to a draw. Imagining himself king already, the challenger screamed victoriously and surged in to ram Goro hoping to cave his ribs in and stop his heart...
...but the silverback was ready.
Goro pushed backwards suddenly, Ulok’s head slid under his mighty chest so the king’s powerful arm could slip around the younger ape’s thick neck and chin.
Then, with a terrific burst of strength, the king jerked upward on Ulok’s head, throwing him off balance so that he thundered to the ground upon his back. Before the challenger could react, Goro’s full weight was on him, and his sharp fighting canines pressed into Ulok’s throbbing jugular.
Biting down enough to draw a taste of blood, Goro grunted an order he need not utter.
“Submit or die...”
The blackbacks had ringed the clearing as the battle played out. Some of the biggest males moved forward now, drawn by the blood and the excitement. Even Omag had limped across the grass, lurching closer on his cane.
A shudder ran through Ulok’s body in a final muscular challenge to Goro’s reign that drew more blood from his neck.
But he could not break the king’s hold upon him.
So the challenger hissed shrilly, “Ulok submits!”
The tribe watched breathlessly, some in the trees; others huddled under green cover and more still coming closer to the fighters. Such a challenge to the kingship was answerable by death or exile according to tribal law, and while Goro was a gentle king, he was no fool, and would understand that Ulok would challenge him again one day.
But, Ulok was Goro’s son, and the king did not want him exiled or dead or to have the tribe lose the bloodline. They would need a new silverback one day, and when Ulok had learned from this defeat, he might grow to earn the position.
Then, Goro as a former silverback might offer Ulok guidance, as Baho had for him.
Goro was Goro, and he slid his great fangs out of Ulok’s flesh and rising into an upright stance of victory he loomed over the cringing challenger.
The tribe immediately sang out in joyous panting and hooting. The open space of the Two Trees rang with happy screams in appreciation of Goro’s decision to be merciful. His supporters knew their king—and his detractors only scowled, for what more could they do?
“Yet Omag also knew his king,” Kagoon said, before a coughing fit spilled more blood from his mouth. “As Goro had awaited Ulok’s submission, Sip-sip slipped up close behind the king.” A shudder of outrage shook the injured ape. “So when Goro rose to his full height, the crippled ape also rose up, reversed his cane, and gripping it by the wood, he swung the flat and shining stone at the king...”
Goro did not see it coming. The axe blade cut into his neck. A great spray of blood shot into the air and the silverback’s head almost came away from his shoulders. The king was dead as he rolled forward onto the cowering Ulok who pushed the twitching corpse aside.
The startled challenger climbed up onto his knees and stared at Omag’s hunched form, mentor and pupil soaked in the royal blood.
And Ulok remembered the long talks about leadership that he had shared with Omag and how the crippled ape had helped to choose this day for the challenge.
Now Omag had done this thing for Ulok and for the tribe, because by sparing the young challenger Goro had broken the laws again.
The apes needed a king that respected their traditions—especially by the Two Trees.
And such an ape would Ulok be.
Panting and hooting his gratitude, Ulok gained his feet and nodded at the older ape that stood chattering and showing his own teeth in happiness and joy.
The apes that had witnessed this were screaming their anxiety, for Omag had done the unthinkable. He had not challenged the king but manipulated Ulok into the traitorous act.
Yet, many believed that this grisly turn was Goro’s fault. Had the silverback not been so soft—pardoning his challengers in defeat—then would he not be living now?
Had he not spared Baho and Omag, and now Ulok?
Old Baho and those loyal to him
