The Spirit-Eaters Read online

  MAP

  DEDICATION

  Special thanks to Gillian Philip

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Map

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Warriors: The Broken Code: Lost Stars

  About the Author

  Books by Erin Hunter

  Back Ads

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  PROLOGUE

  The water was still and green and placid, its surface dappled by the shifting shadows of the overhead branches. Gulper the white pelican paddled lazily through the shallows, watching for movement beneath him. Around him, his brothers and sisters fed busily, ducking below the surface to scoop up fish. Spotting the flash of a silver shoal in the murk, Gulper arched his wings and plunged his own head underwater.

  The fish he caught was fat and sweet; Gulper threw back his head and swallowed it down, eyeing the bank for possible dangers. But all was peaceful. What a beautiful day it was at the watering hole: the sun beating down from an almost cloudless sky, a gentle breeze ruffling his feathers. Herds milled on the bank, churning up the mud as they stamped and flicked their tails and shook flies from their eyes. Two zebra mares groomed each other’s backs, scratching with their teeth. Buffalo plodded lethargically into the water to stand thigh-deep, enjoying the blissful coolness. A little way off, a pod of hippos wallowed in the deeper water, yawning to show their teeth and occasionally diving down to find the sweet grass at the lake bed.

  Gulper wasn’t too afraid of any of the big animals, though he and his squadron would keep their distance from the hippos. It was the crocodiles he really had to watch out for. Some of the huge scaly predators basked on the shore not far away, their cold eyes scanning the lake for unwary prey. More than once Gulper had seen a croc drag a pelican under to drown and eat. He stretched his wings, plunged for another fish, then surfaced to eye the crocodiles once more.

  A high-pitched three-note call distracted him suddenly, and he looked up, water streaming in rivulets from his feathers. A little whistling duck was flapping quickly overhead, wheeling away from its flock, its white face bright as it called down to the pelicans.

  “Have you heard?” it piped. “There’s a new Great Father!”

  Gulper’s heart surged with excitement as his squadron paddled around him, staring up at the duck. It had been so long since Bravelands had known a Great Parent. Since the death of Great Mother Elephant, the animals had known only False Parents—first the rhino Stronghide, and then the evil baboon Stinger, who had tricked and doomed Stronghide before taking the role for himself.

  Did they at last have a true Great Father who carried the Great Spirit of Bravelands? Gulper hardly dared to believe such good news.

  “Really? Are you sure?” he called up.

  “It’s true, true-true-true!” whistled the duck. “We heard it from a stork!”

  “A stork?” Gulper’s friend Scoop tilted his head skeptically. “I wouldn’t take their word for anything.”

  “You’d be wrong!” trilled the duck. “The stork heard it from a kite, who heard it from a vulture. They don’t lie!”

  “No,” agreed Gulper, giving Scoop a thrilled glance. “They never do!”

  “So it’s true!” exclaimed Scoop. “After all this time!”

  “True-true-true,” piped the duck, spinning away with her flock in search of other birds, their wings a blur of flapping. “Spread the word!”

  “This is too good to be real,” cried Scoop. “A new Great Father!”

  “I trust the ducks,” said Gulper happily. “If this news came from the vultures, it’s time to celebrate.”

  “I hope so,” said young Skimmer. “I don’t even remember a time when we had a Great Parent’s guidance. Does it make such a big difference?”

  “It changes everything!” Gulper told him. “A Great Parent guides, advises, settles disputes. All Bravelands’ troubles would be over!” He stirred the water’s surface with his huge beak. “Everything has been in such uproar recently. You’ll see, Skimmer, we’ll—”

  “Gulper! Look out!” Scoop reared back, flapping his wings.

  Gasping, Gulper twisted his neck to glance back sharply, then paddled furiously away from the huge scaly back that drifted toward him. Beating his wings hard, he rose up out of the water, squawking an alarm.

  But the crocodile did not submerge for a sneaky attack, and it didn’t lunge from the water to strike. As the frightened pelicans milled above it in a flurry of white wings, it drifted on, oblivious.

  “Its eyes . . .” Scoop grunted, shocked. “Look.”

  Gliding back onto the lake, Gulper paddled warily closer. Scoop was right. Now that it was floating into shallower water, Gulper could see that the croc’s eyes were milky and lifeless. Its stubby legs hung in the murky water beneath it, not moving at all.

  “It’s dead.” He clicked his beak in relief as the crocodile’s body bumped into the bank.

  The pelicans gathered around it, curious. No pelican would mourn a dead crocodile, but Gulper couldn’t help wondering what could have killed it. The croc didn’t look old, and it was a big one—in what should have been the prime of its life. He risked prodding its hard flank with his beak, but it did not stir.

  “Biggest croc I’ve ever seen,” remarked Scoop, his eyes wide.

  “I’m not scared,” crowed young Skimmer, lifting himself into flight. He flapped triumphantly onto the crocodile’s ridged back, his webbed feet unsteady.

  Under his slight weight, the dead croc tilted and rolled onto its back, exposing its pale creamy underbelly. With a squawk of alarm, Skimmer took off again, but Gulper didn’t look at him. He could only stare at the croc’s belly.

  A great ragged gash had been torn in its tough hide. There were no traces of clotted blood—it had all washed away in the lake—and Gulper could clearly see the cavity within its rib cage.

  Scoop beat his wings furiously, driving himself backward. Gulper clicked his beak frantically.

  “I’ve never seen anything like that,” he murmured.

  Around him his flock bustled and flapped and grunted; he could sense their bewilderment and fear.

  And no wonder. His own feathers rose at the roots, and his skin beneath them felt cold with dread.

  Let the coming of the new Great Parent be true, he thought. So many things are bad now, and wrong.

  It seemed Bravelands had entered a new and terrible era. And it would take a very special Great Parent to put it back on its true path.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Sky drew a breath, stunned. She took a moment to gather her confused and scattered thoughts. The air was thin up here, in this shallow cleft at the peak of the stony mountain; the sun was hard and bright and high, and it was all too easy to believe that her eyes were deceiving her.

  But why would her mind invent such an odd and startling sight? A baboon, crouched in
the sacred pool, his eyes closed and his expression blank. Vultures were hunched in a circle around the pool, their black eyes riveted on him. It was a baboon she recognized.

  Sky blinked, slowly, and tensed. Hesitantly, she extended her trembling trunk.

  “Thorn?”

  His eyelids fluttered, then slowly opened. He gazed at her, a trace of confusion in his eyes. Yet as she stared at him, wondering, her strongest impression of his mood was one of peaceful resolve.

  “Sky Strider.” His voice seemed to come from very far away, but there was nothing weak about it.

  “Thorn . . . what’s happening?” She flapped her ears, bewildered. “I’ve come to find the Great Parent. I have to speak to him.”

  His dark eyes looked straight into hers, seeming to pierce her to the center of her being. Deep inside her, Sky felt a tremor of powerful emotion she couldn’t identify.

  “Then,” said Thorn calmly, “you’ve come to the right place. And the right creature.”

  Sky stared at him, unable to speak. Did Thorn truly mean what he was saying? Did he know what he was saying?

  Yes, of course he did. Sky knew it with certainty, and a thrill of realization: this made sense.

  I saved his life, she remembered. She had charged at Fearless the lion when he was on the verge of killing Thorn; the instinct had been sudden and irresistible, and Sky knew now the Great Spirit had been working through her all along. The Great Spirit had needed Thorn Highleaf, and it had trusted Sky—its bearer since Great Mother’s death—to do its vital work.

  Was it strange that the Great Parent was a baboon? Especially, Sky thought with an inward shiver, after Stinger, the False Parent, had snatched the role for himself? Yet Bravelands lived in troubled times. A clever, innovative baboon might be a far better guide through those times than a stoic elephant.

  That thought brought back to Sky her whole reason for coming here. She took a deep breath, dipped her head, and closed her eyes.

  “There is a terrible new menace in Bravelands,” she told Thorn softly, “and you are the only one who can thwart it.”

  Sky’s eyes flickered open once again, studying his. A strange feeling came over her. It was as if, in only a moment, the troubles of Bravelands did not seem so insurmountable anymore. There was a new calmness inside her that made up for all the confusion, all the torment, all the terrible anxiety of the months since Great Mother’s murder. The world around her—the mountain, the stone, the sky—seemed to thrum with a bright hope, and Sky knew the Great Spirit was near her once again. It felt a little as if family had come back to her: family she had loved and feared lost.

  Great Spirit, I’ve missed you.

  “Please help us,” she begged Thorn. She bowed her head, then raised it to gaze at him. “Great Father.”

  She saw him tense, his jaw clenching, and for the first time, he did not seem so serene. And no wonder, she thought. Thorn Highleaf had just taken on the greatest and most terrifying responsibility in Bravelands—and she had brought him instant proof of that burden.

  Shaking himself, Thorn began to climb out of the pool. Sky hurried forward, extending her trunk to help him, and though the ring of vultures tensed, their feathers bristling with alarm, Thorn held on to her.

  “I’ve carried the Great Spirit too,” she told him, gently withdrawing her trunk to let him stand alone. It’s no surprise he looks overwhelmed, Sky thought: the Great Spirit was a burden for an elephant, let alone a small and nervous baboon. “I understand a little of what you’re feeling, Thorn.”

  “I know you do.” His voice was hoarse and quiet, but his eyes were filled with gratitude.

  “You’re not alone,” she said. “I will help you. All your friends will.”

  Thorn let his head droop and took a few deep breaths. When he raised his gaze to hers again, he was smiling ruefully. The young baboon looked much more like his old self.

  “Honestly, Sky?” he told her. “I know this was right. I resisted it for long enough—till I knew I had no choice.” He gave her a wry grin. “But I haven’t got a clue where to begin. Tell me, what news were you bringing me?”

  Sky sighed. “The strangest things have happened these last few seasons in Bravelands. You know that as well as any creature, Thorn. But this . . . this might be odder than all of them, and even more horrible. There’s . . . there’s a pack of golden wolves. They came to Bravelands recently.” She hesitated. How could she possibly explain?

  “Go on,” Thorn urged her gently.

  “They’re breaking the Code,” she said.

  “We’ve known many animals recently who have done that,” Thorn pointed out.

  “But this is different.” Sky stirred the white dust with her trunk as the vultures looked on, impassive. “Thorn, they are killing animals for no reason but to take their spirits.”

  He frowned. “They’re doing what?”

  “They don’t eat anything of their kills—nothing, except the heart. These wolves, they believe that when they eat a creature’s heart, they take its spirit and its abilities.”

  “Storm and stream,” murmured Thorn, shocked.

  “And the worst of it is, they’re right.” Sky raised her troubled gaze to his. “I don’t know if it’s true that the wolves can take their victims’ strength, but they certainly kill their spirits. And by taking an animal’s spirit, they prevent it going to the stars. Those essences are lost . . . forever.”

  Thorn clenched his fangs. “This is true evil, Sky. It’s clear these wolves don’t follow the Code, so it’s unlikely they’ll listen to the Great Father, but that’s not the point. I have to try to stop them. This can’t go on.”

  “So many have been taken already.” Sky’s voice quavered as she remembered Rush, the brave cheetah who had joined them in the Great Battle against Stinger. After surviving all that, Rush too had been taken by the wolves, her heart ripped out and her two cubs left orphaned.

  “Then we need to warn all the other animals,” pointed out Thorn, smoothing down his damp fur. He picked in agitation at his lip. “But how? Bravelands is huge—it would take weeks to cover it—yet I hate to think of one more animal falling to these creatures.”

  “Then you must call a Great Gathering,” said Sky firmly. It was how Great Mother had reached out to every inhabitant of Bravelands; even those who could not attend would have news and advice brought to them by those who could. “There should be a Great Gathering anyway, Thorn. All of Bravelands needs to know that you are our new Great Father.”

  Thorn rubbed his muzzle with his paws. “I don’t—the trouble is, Sky, I don’t know how to do that. I don’t even know how to call a Great Gathering.”

  “The vultures know.” She turned to Windrider, the austere old vulture who stood in front of the others, dignified and watchful. This was the bird who had carried messages and bones to Great Mother. Sky felt a little shy in the bird’s presence, and she could not quite meet those brilliant black eyes. “They know what to do. The birds can spread the word to more than their own kind, I think, in spite of our different tongues.”

  Thorn took a step forward and rose onto his hind paws. He gazed solemnly at Windrider. “I believe Sky speaks the truth,” he said, with a respectful inclination of his head. “Can you and your flock herald the Great Gathering, Windrider?”

  The huge vulture spread her wings, extending her neck toward Thorn. Opening her savage beak, she gave a sharp, drawn-out cry. Sky had no idea what she was saying, but it was clear that Thorn, like all Great Parents, understood Skytongue. He waited for Windrider to fall silent, then nodded and murmured, “Thank you.”

  Thorn turned to Sky. “We should begin as soon as we can,” he said. “We must leave the mountain now.”

  “Ride on my back,” Sky offered at once. “It’ll be faster.”

  Nodding with thanks, Thorn scrambled up her extended foreleg and onto her shoulders. It did not feel too odd to have him there, Sky thought as she set off up the short bank of the summit crater. After all
, she had carried many animals on her back—most recently those poor orphaned cubs of Rush. Thorn settled easily between her shoulder blades, his fingers gripping her ears, and he seemed to adapt quickly to her swinging stride.

  The way down the mountain was long, but Sky discovered she wasn’t tired at all, not yet—the new Great Parent coming forward gave her a thrill of swelling hope. Of course she could never have anticipated that it would be her friend and ally Thorn Highleaf.

  I fought beside him in the battle for Bravelands, even as I carried the Great Spirit inside me. Yet it gave me no hint. I never once suspected the Spirit would pick Thorn. . . .

  And all her life, Sky had believed one thing above all: the Great Spirit always acted wisely.

  Around and above them, the vultures flew, Windrider at their head. Sky was grateful: no danger or predator would escape those searching eyes, so she herself could concentrate on finding her footing down the gritty rock and through the dry scrub of the lower slopes. The sun beat down fiercely on the shadeless landscape, but she barely felt its glaring heat.

  “What’s next for you, Sky?” asked Thorn after they had walked and ridden for a while in silence. “Will you find your herd and go back to them?”

  Sky sensed unease in his voice; Thorn must be worried she would leave him alone. That, she thought firmly, would not happen—not until he no longer needs me. She still owed her allegiance and faith to the Great Spirit, after all, and now it resided in Thorn.

  “My herd can wait,” she reassured him. “And besides, I’m not quite sure what my plans are. I’ve been sidetracked for such a long time—first in the aftermath of Stinger’s tyranny, and then with my quest to find the Great Parent. Now I’m focused on keeping the Great Spirit safe. . . . I’m almost too used to being without my family.”

  Of course there were things she didn’t want to tell Thorn, too: her disastrous love for Rock, the bull elephant who had murdered her herd-cousin River in a blind rage; her doomed mission to deliver Rush’s cubs to safety with the cheetah’s sisters, when one was dead and the other would have nothing to do with them. And after fleeing in grief and horror when the bull’s herd had revealed Rock’s crime, Sky had taken on another lost cub: Menace, the daughter of the lioness Artful and the mad lion Titan. Sky had barely had time to think, let alone find her family once again.