“What happened?” Gazda asked, moving with him, his pulse raging in his ears. So much blood he smelled, but there was something else...
He had almost flown through the jungle canopy hoping to reach the tribe of apes before the dawn; his mind and body set for battle, but it looked like he had missed the fight.
Then it struck him. The blood! Ooso! It was Ooso’s blood...
The night ape thrust himself past Baho and in the dark found his little friend lying on a mattress of leaves and grasses beneath the copse of trees. Her mother crouched near, grooming the festering flesh around bite marks that clustered on Ooso’s face, breasts and shoulders.
Tiny Yulu’s frightened eyes gleamed where she watched from another female’s embrace.
“Ooso!” Gazda fell at the tiny ape’s side; ignoring her mother Amak’s threatening growls. He slipped his arm beneath his injured friend to lift her head.
The little she-ape seemed half asleep as she muttered, and her eyes glinted along the line of her closed lids. Ooso’s small body had been savaged with vicious bites and blows from fists and feet, and her soft, dark hair was matted with blood.
Crouching near him in the dark, Baho whispered: “After Omag’s blackbacks attacked Kagoon, the new king flew into a rage when he heard that they had allowed him to escape. In his anger, Omag killed three of those apes with his flat and shining stone. I knew as most of us did that this also was against all tribal law, and so with other blackbacks young and old I attacked Omag and his loyalists. In the battle, he slew many with his weapon.
“Half of his followers we killed and the aging queens were captured. Omag fled with what remained of his force when he saw we would submit no longer, and that his treachery could not be forgiven,” Baho moaned sadly, reaching out to touch little Ooso’s arm. “We found her. By this time, he had tried to mate her, but she...she would not submit. Omag and the queens forced...”
He grumbled savagely, and turned his watery eyes away.
Amak panted worriedly, and licked at her daughter’s many wounds. Still more females crowded near keening sadly.
It was hopeless. Gazda could smell the rot in his friend’s injuries. She was dying.
“Little Ooso, my friend,” he said, lying beside her and grabbing her hands. She cried out in pain until he pressed her broken fingers to his lips. She blindly sniffed the air.
“Ooso is Gazda’s mate—not Omag’s!” the little she-ape squeaked before asking, “Is Gazda for Ooso?”
“Gazda is for Ooso,” the night ape whispered brokenly. “And Ooso is for Gazda.”
She fell unconscious soon after, and her breathing slowed. Gazda pressed his cheek to her brow and set her bruised palm against his forehead. The tribe had gathered around them in the morning light, moaning softly; but a hush went through them as tears rolled over the night ape’s pale face.
Gazda pushed through where the tribe crowded around his dying friend; moaning with grieving voices for little Ooso.
Baho walked with Gazda, wincing at his own injuries, and said, “Omag did this.”
“He was not alone. Where are the queens?” Gazda hissed.
“We put them in the old thorn-nest,” Baho growled, gesturing to the place.
Gazda followed the former silverback to the thicket of thorny bushes that tradition said was used as a prison for traitors, and he slipped between a pair of bristling blackbacks that guarded the entrance.
Within the dark and thorny place, the old queens immediately lowered their heads and pressed their faces to the hard-packed dirt floor. With open palms extended, their voices came out as whining supplication.
“Omag threatened to kill us!” Oluza shrieked. “With his flat and shining stone.”
“Silence!” Gazda growled, and the she-apes trembled.
“Where has Omag gone? Tell me now!” he snapped, but when neither spoke he grabbed both she-apes by the hair atop their heads and heaved them up, viciously pushing them against the wall of thorns where they whimpered and squirmed and wept.
He looked deep into Akaki’s eyes and spat, “Old queen, you will tell me after this!”
Snarling, Gazda sank his fangs into Oluza’s throat and ripped at the muscles and veins there. He chewed at the flesh as Akaki screamed in fear, but she could not look away for the night ape’s hand held her face close to his as he lapped at Oluza’s foaming blood.
His red eyes burned at the other aged queen.
When the night ape had drunk his fill, and dropped the dead Oluza, he turned to grip Akaki’s trembling shoulders.
“Old she was, and her blood was thin,” Gazda said. “I am hungry yet, Akaki. Where is your ‘king’ Sip-sip?”
“Omag—er—Sip-sip ran into the forest and east toward the bone-face larder. There is a cave by the river where he eats their females,” Akaki shrieked. “He has been gone three days. Please, Gazda, there is nothing for old queens in the tribe. He made us...”
“He made you?” Gazda sneered at Akaki. “You made Omag powerful when you put your ambitions into him, and he passed those ambitions into the fists of Ulok and his blackbacks. They have killed other apes unlawfully, and have brought on Kagoon’s death, and soon poor Ooso!” The sudden emotion that clutched his features was banished as he bared his fangs.
“So!” he snarled, moving his face close to the shivering old she-ape as he sniffed the gray fur along her jaw. “They were your fists that crushed Ooso’s bones and broke her flesh.”
Gazda’s hurtling rage surged up in him as he roared, “And I will do the same to yours!”
Many apes were waiting outside the thorny thicket, moaning now and mourning the loss of Ooso who had died. Others whimpered in fear at the sounds of horror and violence that came from within the thorn-nest.
So all stepped back trembling as Gazda exited the thicket, his pale body covered in crimson
