“You are the true king, Magnuh! I will leave this place to you and your kin, and to my tribe of apes...” Gazda shrugged, with lowered head. “And I will go to hunt for the thing I am—and I will find it!”
He threw his head back and with swelling shoulders wide he pounded upon his chest, and gave forth the terrifying challenge of the bull ape.
With hot tears running from his blazing eyes, the night ape leapt up into the high branches and swung away from where Magnuh stood swaying, trumpeting his answer to Gazda’s challenge.
Eventually the night ape climbed the tallest tree with the highest branches overlooking the clearing that had played such an important part in his life, and there, too, was the vine-draped tree-nest of Fur-nose. The structure held so many secrets, yet he now could not stand to be inside it. Such a full and rewarding mystery, and yet...it was a prison for his loneliness.
His eyes drifted with some hesitation to a dark blight of twisted limbs where the sickly grove of trees now dominated, where black fog seeped out into the twilit grasses.
He could not bear to feel the dank mist’s touch again for it would remind him of his Lilly, of Ginny—and of betrayal.
Frowning, he looked out to search the distant line where sky met water, yearning for something that he longed for, and yet could not have.
Did Ginny—did any of them—know that he still lived? Was it possible they had thought him dead in battle with the bone-faces? It was possible. He recognized that hope.
To Gazda’s blackback spirit a “hope” like that seemed like weakness—but if hope was all he had, then it conveyed a certain kind of strength.
As the weight of years pressed upon his heart he thought of Eeda, and that memory led him back to thoughts of his tribe.
Glancing to the south he knew that the apes would be in their sleeping trees after foraging all day for fruit near the shore. Old Baho would have been center to them with his stories while the blackback guards watched him for weakness and courted females that were not suckling little ones.
Baho had survived his own succession, and now served as Gazda’s lieutenant as he had for Goro. Would the former silverback not survive another change of the guard? If a blackback with ambition were to claim the leadership, it was likely Baho would negotiate the outcome, and end up a protected and trusted advisor again.
And so long as Gazda’s death were never witnessed or known, might there not be temporary stewards for the throne? Who would dare to claim it outright, if the true king might return?
A king like Gazda of the Apes.
Thought of his tribe brought him memories of Ooso and Kagoon. All gone now. And Goro his king and like a father, gone.
Gazda looked back to the great blue water and thought of the other night apes passing over its surface. He thought of Ginny and the smell of her smooth, clean limbs. He thought of her clear eyes and soft kisses.
His mate would not have left him on her own account, and if, indeed, she lived, he would find her.
So, until Gazda could discover a way to follow her over the water, he would begin to go around it, but first he would recover his box of gold and jewel-encrusted trinkets. He had taken the treasure from a man whose scent he recognized from the big nest on sticks in the bone-face lair.
This one’s skull-mask only went to his cheeks where he grew a long black braid of beard like old Fur-nose must have worn. His garments were similar to the Bakwaniri silverback Gazda had killed with Omag’s head, and he might have escaped had he not quarreled with the other bone-face who’d been helping him carry the heavy box.
Gazda had found that body on the trail, and easily followed the drag marks to the second man who had wept for his life as he died.
The night ape had buried the box some miles north along the river.
Ginny might enjoy such shiny baubles—if he could find her.
Gazda smiled fiercely at the night sky. He would find her.
The night ape dropped down beneath the jungle canopy to swing from branch to vine to tree, flinging himself along an eastern course to where the world grew larger.
CHAPTER 41 – The Crew’s Fate
With much reluctance, Harkon left Anim with the little group of survivors in a safe place west of the river so that she might make a swift and secret journey to spy upon the Bakwaniri village before returning to her distant homeland. She wanted to know the fate of those degenerate people—whether they were still a threat—and to learn what had happened to her jungle friend.
A horrid stench grew stronger as she approached the village, a smell of death it was and worse. It was foul, and tasted of evil, and was overpowering to her as she hid across the river from the guards atop the wall.
Only to later find that they were not guards.
But the fears kindled by that realization did not dispel the concern she felt for the ape-man.
Mighty though Gazda was, he had been aflame with the heat of battle, and Harkon knew how bloodlust weakened the wit and betrayed the most powerful warrior. She hoped her friend had not been slain while mad with hate for there was no need. The worst of the evil ones could be killed, and the rest spared, the children at least, who were innocent.
But what Harkon found within the abandoned palisade was more horrific than she could have imagined. Degenerate though they were, she doubted that even the cannibals deserved what she found—what they had suffered.
Harkon was a hardened huntress yet she was sickened by the sight.
The unusual village was empty of life, though its inhabitants remained.
Many of the bodies had been dismembered, torn limb from
