The Spirit-Eaters Read online

  Yet Thorn was right—she should be with her herd. An elephant of her age should be with the other females, raising a calf, protecting the family, learning the migration routes till she could follow them on a starless, moonless night. . . .

  Perhaps I will never live the life of a normal elephant, she thought sadly. It wasn’t as if she could take a mate now—her impetuous betrothal to Rock meant that she was bound to him for life. Was there even a place for her with the herd anymore?

  Realizing she had nearly reached the foot of the mountain, Sky blinked and took a breath. Waiting just below the final shallow slope was the bull herd, with her brother Boulder at its head. He turned to watch her approach, his ears flapping forward in welcome. Not far from the bulls were the cheetah cubs Nimble and Lively and, keeping herself a little apart, the bossy little lion called Menace.

  Thorn’s baboon friends were there too—at least, Sky assumed they were his friends. Two of them she didn’t recognize, but she knew that shy little Mud was Thorn’s best friend. The other pair must be trustworthy, then, although they looked very different. One was heavily built, strongly muscled, with a badly scarred face that told of a violent past. The other . . . Sky pinned her ears back, startled. He was a gangly baboon with an unfocused gaze, and he appeared to be babbling away in some form of Sandtongue to a bright red-and-blue lizard on his shoulder.

  All the waiting animals, except for the one chatting to the lizard, stared skyward in awe as the vultures circled and swooped. None of them had time to ask questions, because Thorn was already scrambling down Sky’s extended foreleg and bounding forward. He paused to call up to the vultures.

  “Call everyone!” he cried. “Bring Bravelands to my Great Gathering.”

  For a fleeting moment, Windrider caught Sky’s gaze; the old bird’s stare was intense. Then the vulture dipped her head toward Thorn, flicked her wings, and turned at a steep angle to rise into the sky. Her flock followed her, and in moments they were invisible against the glare of the sun.

  What had that look from Windrider meant? Sky swallowed. She thought she knew, and guilt stung her. Windrider knows I’m uncertain.

  But Windrider would never have doubts; the old vulture’s trust in the Great Spirit put her own to shame. Sky straightened, lifting her head a little higher.

  Windrider knows my faith has been shaken, yet she is passing on guardianship of the Great Father. She trusts me to protect Thorn with my life.

  She would repay that trust. Renewed determination filled Sky as she watched Thorn embrace his three oddly matched baboon friends. I will protect him, she promised herself. And it will be an honor to do it. I served and guarded the Great Spirit. Now I will do the same for the Great Parent.

  Sky felt a prickle in her hide that told her she, too, was being watched. Swinging her head around, she noticed her brother Boulder.

  “Well done, sister.” Ambling closer, he twined his trunk with hers.

  “We have a new Great Parent,” she whispered, pressing her head to his. “It’s the beginning of a whole new season in Bravelands.”

  “It is.” Thorn had padded close to them both, and he smiled up at her. “Now we will head for the watering hole. The vultures are summoning the herds.”

  Leaving the other two baboons, Mud bounded over and clapped his paw on Thorn’s shoulder. His eyes glowed.

  “Yes. It’s time,” he said, his voice brimming with happiness. “The first Great Gathering of our new Great Father!”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Titan could not have survived. It wasn’t possible.

  So where was his broken corpse?

  Fearless paced across the valley floor, still cast in deep morning shadow. In the cooler air beneath the steep walls of the ravine, the young lion felt a chill ripple through his muscles. That monstrous, black-maned lion had fallen from that high ridge above them, vanishing in the mist.

  “He’s nowhere,” called Keen, lifting his head and flaring his nostrils to sniff the air once again. “We’ve lost him, Fearless. He must have escaped, unless a giant hawk took him.”

  Fearless shook his head. “There are no giant hawks,” he growled. “He’s got to be here somewhere.”

  “We’ve searched every scrap of ground.” Keen hunched his slim shoulders. “There isn’t so much as a scent. We’ve done all we can. I’m sorry, Fearless.”

  Frustration burned Fearless’s throat. He stared up at the impossibly high ridge, snarling. “He has to be dead.”

  “Agreed.” Keen licked Fearless’s muzzle. “There’s no way he could leap across the ravine; no lion could do such a thing. And no lion could survive such a fall! Not even Titan.” He shot a guilty look at Ruthless, Titan’s young estranged son, who was trotting dejectedly toward them. Lowering his voice, Keen muttered to Fearless, “Maybe he wasn’t quite dead when he hit the ground? Titan must have dragged himself away, to die in a hole somewhere.”

  “No.” It was galling for Fearless to admit it. “If Titan was here, dead or alive, we’d have found him.” He had missed yet another chance to avenge Gallant, the lion who had raised him, and he’d failed to get justice for Loyal Prideless, too, his true father.

  Fearless sucked in a bitter breath. “Titan survived, I can feel it. He’ll probably try to get back to Titanpride now. We should go and see.”

  “Yes,” said Ruthless in a small voice. “We really should.”

  Despite his own disappointment, Fearless’s heart went out to the cub. Ruthless had loved his father, had spent his young cubhood confident that his father loved him too—but that was before Titan had gone mad with hunger for power, heedlessly breaking the Code of Bravelands and killing beyond any need for food. Even Ruthless had now come to terms with the fact that Titan had to be stopped.

  “I think it’s a mistake to challenge Titanpride,” Keen growled. “We are not strong enough to take them on.”

  Speak for yourself, thought Fearless, though he didn’t say it aloud.

  “I don’t want a direct confrontation,” he replied. “We should be able to get close enough to see if Titan is there.”

  Keen licked his lips. Across his neck, the first fine hairs of his mane were coming through, Fearless noticed. For a moment, he felt inferior, though he knew that his own would appear soon enough.

  “Very well,” said Keen at last. “Let’s just be careful, yes?”

  Fearless led the climb back the way they had come, placing his paws cautiously on the loose scree and slippery rock, wary of the dampness that lingered from the morning dew. Ruthless trailed a little way behind them; when Fearless glanced back he noticed the cub looked sad but resolute. Poor Ruthless, he thought. This must be tearing him apart.

  Higher up, the sun’s rays found the cliff faces and turned them gold; the last of the mist that had hampered their search was burned away. Fearless was panting with heat and effort by the time he bounded over the lip of the ravine and onto flat grassland. He still sensed Keen’s reluctance to continue on their course of action.

  “I was supposed to kill him,” Fearless muttered as they walked across the grassy plain. “That was my moment, there on that ledge. And I messed it up.”

  “He backed out of the fight, you mean,” Keen reminded him gently. “Titan was clearly afraid of you, Fearless, and you’re not even fully grown. Your time will come.”

  Fearless was not so sure. Titan had been within reach of his claws and teeth, and he knew he would have gotten the better of him eventually. “Let’s not discuss it too much in front of Titan’s son,” he growled. Raising his voice, he called back to the cub, “Are you all right, Ruthless?”

  “I’m fine,” panted Ruthless, picking up his pace to walk beside the two older lions. “It’s just, well—it will be strange seeing the pride again.”

  Fearless felt a pang of guilt. Of course Ruthless was troubled. His mother, Artful, had been the most powerful lioness in Titanpride, and he had only recently heard of her death at the feet of the elephants. How could I have been so cruel?
I was only thinking about myself.

  “Perhaps you should stay at a distance with Keen,” Fearless said.

  “What’s that?” At his side, Keen came to an abrupt halt and growled.

  Fearless stopped too and sniffed the air. As a thick, rank, and deathly scent reached his nostrils, he curled his muzzle in disgust.

  “It’s the wolves,” he snarled. “Those brutes that have been feeding on spirits.”

  “It doesn’t surprise me that they chose to come this way,” said Keen, shaking his ears. “This is the Dead Forest.”

  The three lions stood unmoving, staring at the trees ahead of them. The Dead Forest was well named, thought Fearless. Its trees were skinny and broken and lifeless, their bark gray with an unhealthy mottling of pallid white fungus. Even the grass beneath the trunks was stunted and limp, and the whole place seemed infected with that fetid scent of wolf.

  “Perhaps,” said Keen, his voice hushed, “it was the wolves who took Titan’s body.”

  “Why would they?” Fearless hunched his shoulders. “They don’t eat whole corpses, only hearts.”

  Keen grunted in resignation. “True.”

  “We have to keep going and find Titanpride.” Tensing his muscles, Fearless padded forward through the sickly trees. Even the ground beneath his paws felt sticky and soft, like rotting meat. He picked up speed.

  They seemed to walk a terribly long way, as the sun rose higher in the sky beyond the skeletal branches, and the Dead Forest becoming no more welcoming. Its silence felt oppressive, growing heavier with every pawstep. When Keen spoke at last, his voice seemed to break a horrible, deadening trance.

  “You’re quiet, Ruthless,” Keen told the cub lightly.

  “Sorry.” Ruthless twitched his whiskers ruefully. “I was thinking about my father.”

  Fearless shot a glance at Keen, who looked as uneasy as Fearless felt.

  “He’s a bad lion,” Ruthless went on, his paws trembling with each pace on the yielding ground. “He’s done terrible things. I know he deserves to die, and I know Bravelands would be a better place without him.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “But he’s my father . . . or, he was.”

  “We know, Ruthless,” said Keen. “And we understand.”

  “Cub,” said Fearless, pausing to turn to him, “you need to understand what must happen. What I plan to do. I know how you feel—I lost my own father—and I know this is difficult. But if Titan is still alive, I will kill him.”

  “Yes,” said Ruthless softly. “I know.”

  “Titan took two fathers from me.” Fearless walked on, letting the cub follow behind. “He murdered Gallant, stole his pride. He tormented my mother, Swift, and let Artful blind her. Then he killed my true father, Loyal. I made an oath of revenge, Ruthless, and I have to follow it through. No lion should ever break an oath.” He hesitated, feeling a twinge of guilt. Loyal himself had been an oath-breaker. My own true father. He never meant to break that oath, and it was one of his greatest regrets, but he did.

  Hurriedly, he went on: “But Ruthless, I do know this is hard for you. You don’t have to stay with us. And you certainly don’t have to help me.”

  The rapid padding of Ruthless’s paws ceased, and Fearless turned in surprise. The cub was gazing at him levelly, his eyes dark but determined.

  “Fearless, you and Keen have shown me more kindness than my father ever did,” Ruthless told him. “It will be hard, you’re right. But I’ll stay with you. Whatever happens, I’m at your side.”

  Fearless found himself swallowing with emotion. He nodded, then turned swiftly away and strode on, his tail-tip flicking in consternation. Who would have predicted that one of his most loyal friends, the pride-mate who would follow him no matter what, would be the son of Titan?

  Fearless was beginning to think the Dead Forest was endless, that they would never escape it, when at last an odor that wasn’t rank wolf-scent drifted to his nostrils. Lions. Just as he recognized the scent, he saw the open plain beyond a last line of trees. Fearless shook himself, as if he could dislodge the clinging foulness of the forest.

  “We’re close to Titanpride territory,” murmured Keen at his flank. “Let’s take care.”

  Lowering their shoulders, slinking through the long grass beyond the Dead Forest, the three lions made their infinitely cautious way toward the familiar camp. There was no stir of movement in the grass, no tossing of golden manes, no flick of a tail swatting flies. No black-maned monstrous pride leader rose to his paws to roar a challenge, and Fearless was torn between relief and disappointment. But where were the others—Resolute, Glory, Artful, and the rest?

  A breeze whispered across the plain, bringing a scent that stung Fearless’s nostrils and caught in his throat. He stiffened, halted, and rose higher in the grass to stare.

  “Look at the flies,” whispered Ruthless.

  The camp was abuzz with them, black masses of flies like shifting storm clouds. Fearless shuddered. Vultures circled overhead, landing one by one, and he saw a lone jackal glance at him, freeze, then scamper off into the far brush. It held a rib bone in its jaws, fringed with tatters of blackened flesh.

  “What happened here?” breathed Keen. Seeming to throw caution aside, he straightened up and strode forward.

  Fearless trotted to overtake him, staring in disbelief at the carnage of Titanpride. The corpses of lions were strewn across the grassland. He jerked his head around and growled at Keen.

  “Titan may be among the dead. Keep Ruthless back!”

  Reluctantly, Keen halted and swung his forequarters to block the cub’s path. Fearless paced on toward the ruined corpses of Titanpride.

  The stench made his gut churn, and he wasn’t even among them yet. His pawsteps slowed, his blood feeling heavy in his veins. As he crept closer, he recognized a muzzle here, a twisted tail there; a distinctive mane, an old scar. Not just the weak and old, but strong males too.

  Fearless tried to close his twitching nostrils. But in this sluggish heat, there was no escaping the noxious odor of death and rot. Walking among the corpses, for a moment he paused, his head reeling. He recognized so many of these lions. He’d liked very few of them, but what kind of end was this for a feared and arrogant pride? There was Merciless, one of Titan’s lieutenants: his fierce golden eyes staring lifelessly, set in rigid terror at some unseen enemy. He lay sprawled on a dry patch of red earth, a stain of much darker red clotted beneath him. Flies danced ecstatically around the dried blood, their buzzing almost deafening in Fearless’s ears. Shuddering, he backed away and walked on.

  He spotted a misshapen lump of unusually pale fur—Glory, once a Gallantpride lioness. Fearless almost choked on the stench. She lay on her back, paws curled up as if she was basking in the sun. But her tail did not stir to flick at the crowd of flies, and her eyes, like Merciless’s, stared at nothing.

  Shaking his head violently, Fearless edged closer to Glory. Feeding vultures backed away, gulping down strips of furred meat as they watched him with wary eyes. One of them cawed in offense at the disturbance. In his peripheral vision, Fearless noticed the jackal creeping closer once more.

  But his attention was focused on Glory and her ripped chest. The lioness’s rib cage was exposed, fragments of bone gleaming white against her dead flesh. Her heart was gone, ripped out.

  Fearless swallowed hard. Silently, Keen had crept to his side. Together they stood among the corpses. So many corpses. This was almost all of Titanpride.

  But where were the rest?

  “Was it sickness?” rasped Keen. “Or did they starve?”

  “Neither.” Fearless stood aside to let him see Glory’s wound, and his friend gasped.

  “The wolves?” breathed Keen.

  “It must have been.” Fearless stalked between the bodies, trying not to inhale too deeply. “These lions all have the same wound.”

  “But those golden wolves, they’re so small.” Keen shook his head in disbelief. “How could they have done this to Titanpride, of all l
ions?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what’s happening in Bravelands. I don’t know what’s happening to it.”

  From above them came an unearthly, piercing cry that sent ripples of dread along Fearless’s spine. He jerked his head back and stared into the sky.

  “More vultures,” observed Keen. He shuddered as his paw brushed against a corpse, and he drew it quickly back.

  Of course, thought Fearless; the stench of this carnage would draw rot-eaters from far away. He watched the new flock circle. The birds that had been feasting on lions shifted on their talons, then stretched their black wings and flapped into the air.

  Without a word, Fearless turned and bounded back to Ruthless, Keen at his heels. The cub was shivering, staring up at a sky that was now dark with beating wings.

  “What’s that call? The vultures sound different.”

  “I don’t know what it is,” growled Keen, “but you’re right, Ruthless. It’s different. And I’ve never known a vulture abandon its meal like that.”

  “I think I know.” Fearless felt a surge of excitement that drowned out even the horror of Titanpride’s ruin. “That’s the herald call to a gathering. A Great Gathering!”

  The other two lions stared at him, confused. “A what?” asked Keen.

  “A gathering of all the creatures of Bravelands,” Fearless said. “Only one animal sends out such a summons.”

  Ruthless’s eyes widened. He stared at Fearless, then up at the vultures once again. They were forming into an organized flock, aligning their broad wings to fly south. The cub blinked in wonder. “And that means . . . ?”

  “A true Great Parent!” growled Fearless, slamming a paw onto the ground. “That means Bravelands has hope once again!”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Borne forward on Sky’s shoulders toward the lake, Thorn watched as crowds of animals parted to let the two of them through. It wasn’t for his benefit, of course—they simply wanted to avoid the stomping feet of an elephant. Above, the air was loud with birds. There were the vultures, of course, but so many more: a glittering flock of brilliant blue starlings, a dignified squadron of pelicans, bee-eaters that flashed and whirled. A single marabou stork flapped down close to Thorn and clattered its beak as it eyed him.