At the thought of bone-faces, a thrill of anxiety ran through him and Gazda rose to his full height, standing over the dead panther to sniff the early evening air.
His beloved tree-nest was unprotected and vulnerable, and the Bakwaniri could be anywhere.
The tree-nest. He had nothing else that so clearly defined his connection to things outside the tribe of apes. Nothing else to relieve the keen alienation he often felt.
Could the bone-faces take the tree-nest for their own?
And what of Omag? It was not that long ago that the night ape had been to Sip-sip’s cave. Had the traitor abandoned it to return to Gazda’s land—and as an exile from the tribe would he not be looking for a secluded lair of his own?
The other apes remembered Fur-nose’s lair and they avoided it, but might that isolation appeal to a fugitive?
Gazda glared up into the canopy and a sharp intake of breath answered its soaring, green immensity. The jungle was too great a thing for him to guard alone. A bone-face hunting party could have easily slipped by him with designs upon the tree-nest.
As could Omag.
It was not the first time the night ape had struggled with this thought for pondering such small fixations filled his lonely hours. Gazda had only to feed but once a night and his capacity for the rapid satisfaction of those needs left him time aplenty for worry.
His tree-nest had come to mind—but why?
Gazda’s crimson eyes burned inward and he shuddered at a mental picture of his lair. The jungle night was falling about the structure and the door stood open!
Had he not closed it? Of course he had closed it, he always did—always.
Then why the thought?
Panting worriedly, Gazda scaled the nearest tree where at a height he cast about, nosing the west wind for any sign.
Something foul had passed him. A stink! But was it Omag’s cadaverous stench—or the sickly smell of Bakwaniri?
Gazda snarled into the breeze, snapping his fangs as a heavy scent grew stronger. Something pungent there—most definitely—both familiar and rare it was, and yet...
The night ape leapt from the tree and caught the closest vine from which he swung to the next branch. One after the other after the next, a leap and swing and jump—ever picking up speed, Gazda raced through the high canopy as a blur.
And when a space opened in the jungle before him, he did not pause. Gazda combined the upward flexing of the branch from which he leapt with the explosive power of his thighs to launch himself in a 70-foot arc that dropped him in the swaying trees on the opposite side.
Thunder rumbled over the dense canopy. The dark sky flickered and rain crashed down against a million leaves. The deafening deluge obscured the jungle behind a wall of falling raindrops, and hid what was ahead and below from even Gazda’s remarkable eyes.
So guided by the muted scents and instincts he charged into the gray...
...until he halted on a high branch at the northeast ridge that overlooked his clearing. Somewhere in the murk the tree-nest stood well-wrapped in leaves. From the tangled forest wall he glared into the open space, fury smoldering in eyes that strove to penetrate the deluge.
To see his lair...
Sniffing at the damp, a scent struck Gazda motionless. His rigid form hung paralyzed from the wet bark, but his full lips parted to pant his word for “smoke.” He could smell the black mist that followed the untamable flame of lightning strikes.
The night ape growled and sought some sign of the hungry orange creatures, for surely their flickering forms would show through the gloom.
Thunder crashed again, the rain slowed, and an eerie twilight haze fell glowing over the open grasses.
Gazda gasped, for here he had worried that Omag or bone-faces might come to steal his lair, not thinking that flame could take it too!
CHAPTER 7 – Fire and Smoke
Smoke drifted out of the hollow tree trunk that pierced the roof—the black thing had been a puzzle since Gazda had first climbed up and peered beneath its angled covering.
Now a plume of smoke floated out and was washed away by the rain.
Gazda panted fearfully when he realized there was a light within his tree-nest! Yellow like the sun—like flame—it leaked through the mesh-covered window on the side.
Fire had come, indeed, and now inhabited his lair.
The night ape hooted worriedly, realizing suddenly that much of the foliage that had choked the windows had been taken away. But by whom and why?
Fury clenched his pounding heart as the invading light flickered, as Gazda gathered his limbs beneath him—as his muscular form swelled in a threat display...
...as he prepared to jump...only to shrink in place for a shadow had moved behind the lighted mesh. A shape had shifted in there. A creature that mastered the fire.
He had seen Harkon do thus to flickering flame, could it be her?
At first fleeting glance, the silhouette had resembled the head and shoulders of a creature like himself. Far too small it was to be an ape like Baho, and yet it was too large for Harkon’s hairless head—and then the skin prickled along the night ape’s neck.
Was it Fur-nose himself? How much did Gazda really know about him other than that he was an exceptional ape who was capable of wonders—a creature that had made the tree-nest, the skin-stones and other artifacts.
Might the skeleton inside the lair have made itself into a living thing?
The thought set Gazda’s hair on end; and yet, his fear could not quash his curiosity, nor negate his growing outrage.
Who dared invade his lair? Was it one, or many?
The King of the Apes bared his fangs in a defiant grin. Better for them if they be ghoulish things of Fur-nose’s making, for if the interlopers were of flesh and blood then their fate would be terrible.
Gazda’s blackback heritage did
