“Berry,” he croaked, “I—”
“I trusted you,” she whispered. Her beautiful eyes were dark with disgust.
“It’s not true, none of it! Berry, all I wanted was to keep you safe!” Thorn struggled, but Stinger’s grip on his arm was merciless. Berry turned away, pressing her face to Blossom’s shoulder.
“See how he has hurt my daughter?” Stinger flung out a paw toward Berry, and this time his voice held wounded rage. “And his latest crime? That is the worst of all.”
For a moment, time seemed to freeze. There was movement in the crowd; someone or something was approaching. Animals backed away, clearing a path as ripples of unease spread. Thorn creased his eyes, trying to focus through a haze of heat and pain.
Worm and Fang paced toward him; between them they carried a limp burden. It was another baboon, Thorn realized.
He strained forward. Crazy, but he thought he saw a white streak of fur on the baboon’s forehead. Starleaf? he wondered, dazed. It couldn’t be. Starleaf was safe, hiding with Nut. Why would she reveal herself? Why would she let Worm and Fang carry her here like a dik-dik corpse?
Then Worm stumbled on a wildebeest’s hoof, and her burden slipped. One of Starleaf’s long arms dangled loosely, her knuckles scraping the ground, and her head lolled to face Thorn. He stared in speechless horror into her empty eyes.
Stinger held out his paws toward the body. His eyes were bright with tears of grief. “Starleaf was about to reveal the truth about Thorn. So he murdered her.”
“No!” Thorn shrieked. “No, no, no!”
He might have screamed his denial forever, but something slammed into him, knocking him out of Stinger’s grip and onto the ground. Small claws slashed and tore at his chest and face, and Thorn felt blood trickle from his snout into his eyes, half blinding him.
It was Mud, but a Mud Thorn had never seen. His eyes were brilliant with fury as he yanked Thorn up by the throat, then slammed his head against the ground.
“Mud, I didn’t do this, I didn’t, I swear it,” Thorn tried to rasp, but the words caught in his strangled gullet. Mud was past listening, anyway. He shook with racking sobs as he tore his claws into Thorn’s flesh. “Mud, please—” Thorn gave a shriek of pain as he felt Mud’s teeth pierce his shoulder.
“Enough, Mud,” said Stinger’s calm voice. “Justice will be done, but it must be done fairly.”
Strong paws pulled them apart, Grass holding Thorn upright while Fly tugged Mud away. Thorn’s whole body was a fire of pain, and he could feel blood trickling from his muzzle and brow and his mauled shoulder.
It didn’t matter. It was nothing to the pain of knowing he had lost everyone. Mud hated him. Berry hated him. No one believed him. He wanted to curl up on the bank of the watering hole, to be left alone. There he could wait for night to fall, and the crocodiles to take him.
“Thorn’s crimes are terrible,” Stinger declared, “but they are only a symptom of what happens when Bravelands has no true Great Parent.”
Oh no, Thorn realized through his haze of agony. Here it comes.
“It was hard for me to believe,” Stinger said. “I have always tried to do what was best for Bravelands and best for my troop. What small talents I had—for organizing, for peacemaking—I was happy to use for the benefit of all animals. But I never suspected . . .” There was no need to pass his words back through the crowd, because every animal was utterly silent, straining to hear. “The Great Spirit has come to me,” he said. “I did not ask for this honor, but the Great Spirit whispered what I must do to save Bravelands. I, Stinger Crownleaf, am the only one who can guide us through these terrible times. I am the true Great Father.”
“No!” Drawing on the last of his strength, Thorn wrenched himself from Grass’s grip. He crouched and leaped, his fangs bared, straight at Stinger’s throat.
He slammed Stinger to the ground. Beneath him, for the first time, he saw the older baboon’s eyes widen in shock.
Then a blur of golden fur engulfed him. Huge and heavy, it crashed into Thorn with stunning force. Thorn sprawled on the bank, but for a moment he didn’t know which way was up. A terrible weight was crushing his chest. He couldn’t move, could barely breathe. . . .
Fearless.
The big cub’s eyes burned with fury as he forced Thorn down into the hard lake shore. Sharp claws punctured Thorn’s chest, and he felt more blood flow down the channels of his ribs. Fearless, he tried to say, Fearless, we’re friends, but no sound would come.
“Great Mother had vultures,” Stinger cried to the crowd. “Stronghide said he had oxpeckers. And I? I have lions.”
Gasps and shouts of astonishment rippled through the herds. “He must be the most powerful of all,” a giraffe breathed.
Stinger bowed his head. Thorn knew he was the only one who saw the glitter of triumph in the Crownleaf’s eyes. “If you trust that the Great Spirit has chosen me—and if you will accept me—I will do my best to be worthy of you all.”
The watering hole exploded with noise. Shrieks, yowls, screeches: each animal rapturously proclaimed their enthusiasm. Thorn was crushed against the dusty ground beneath Fearless’s heavy, hot paws. He was nothing, he knew that now: a scrap of helpless, useless flesh.
“Fearless,” he croaked. “Don’t believe Stinger. Think.”
Fearless glared down. “Quiet,” he snarled. “I don’t know you anymore, Thorn. Maybe I never did.”
Thorn let his head flop back into the mud. He felt utterly empty.
Stinger raised his forepaws, urging the herds to silence. “Before you drink and pledge your allegiance, I must announce my first decision as Great Parent.” He stared contemptuously at Thorn. “It gives me no pleasure, but I must judge this breaker of our Code. I have tried to be merciful. I’ve turned my eyes from Thorn’s evils, over and over again, because I loved him too much to believe he was lost to the Great Spirit.” He hesitated and drew a paw across his face. “Maybe this time, he can change. Maybe I can give him one more chance.”
“What?” gasped a giraffe.
“No!” grunted a cheetah in fury. “No mercy!”
“That one’s beyond change.” A hippo widened its jaws to display its horrific blunt teeth. “Drive him from Bravelands!”
“What good would that do?” a jackal snarled. “He’ll come back. Kill him and be done.”
Voices rose on every side: “Kill him! No mercy! Kill him!” Thorn thought he could hear Pebble’s voice in the chorus, and Bird Lowleaf’s, but he tried not to listen. He did not want to hear Berry and Mud calling for his death. He rolled his head back on the gritty earth to stare up at Fearless again. Fearless wasn’t shouting for his death, but there was certainly no mercy in his blazing eyes.
Stinger sighed, his shoulders drooping. “And so it must be. The Codebreaker will be killed. Fearless, Strongbranches—take Thorn away.”
As Fearless removed his paws from his chest, Thorn rolled over, desperately scrambling for freedom. Moments ago he had wished for a swift end in the jaws of crocodiles; now that death was snapping at his heels, he discovered a fierce urge to live.
But there was no escape. Fang and Worm shoved him back toward Fearless. A wave of Fearless’s familiar scent swamped him, mixed now with something bloodier. The lion clamped his jaws around Thorn’s arm and dragged him along the sand.
The crowd seemed to swing around him, like treetops in a storm, as Fearless hauled him through it. Fly, Grass, Worm, and Fang strutted at the lion’s flanks. Fearless wasn’t biting—Not yet, a terrified voice murmured inside Thorn’s head—but his jaws were tight, and Thorn could sense the suppressed power that would soon crush him between deadly fangs.
“Please, Fearless,” he gasped. “Listen. I’m not the killer.”
A growl sounded in the lion’s throat. Fly smacked Thorn on the side of his head. “Shut up, traitor.”
As he was dragged through the hollering, baying crowd, Thorn glimpsed Berry, her face hidden behind her paws, and Mud, tightly hu
gging the body of his mother. Distantly Stinger was wading into the watering hole, his head high. The animals had begun to follow him, eager to declare their allegiance to their new Great Father.
Stinger’s victory was absolute.
Helpless, Thorn sagged in Fearless’s jaws, his body jolting across grassland and low hillocks. He was beginning to think he would die of the dragging when he heard Fly’s voice, tinged with bloodthirsty eagerness.
“Those trees.” Fly jerked his head at a thick stretch of forest. “We’ll kill him there.”
Fearless picked up his pace, and all too soon the shadows of the forest closed around them. Spangled sunlight flashed into Thorn’s eyes through the branches, and he glimpsed the pale flowers of a rosewood tree against the blue, blue sky. If death was coming now, he was glad he could see the sky.
Fearless’s jaws loosened abruptly, and Thorn thudded to the ground. His nostrils filled with the familiar scents of earth and wood. Sunlight filtered down through the rosewood’s leaves, dappling the green moss and his own blood-soaked fur. If it hadn’t been for the root that jabbed into his spine, Thorn would almost have been at peace; it was just like the forest glade where he, Mud, and Berry had played when they were very young. When my parents were alive, and Tall Trees was the only part of Bravelands that mattered.
“You’ve known me all my life,” he rasped, staring up into the cold eyes of Fly and Grass. From the ground they looked so huge. “Would I really kill two Crownleaves? I threw the Third Feat, and you know it. I didn’t even want to be a Highleaf enough.”
“Stop arguing,” Fly told him, almost kindly. “It’s over.”
“You do it, Fearless.” Grass touched the lion’s shoulder. “It’ll be fastest.”
Panic swept over Thorn. He panted, trying to catch his breath. His heart beat so hard, it seemed to be escaping his chest. “Please, Fearless,” he moaned. “This is a terrible mistake.”
Fearless loomed over him, blotting out the sun. There was nothing but determination in his eyes.
Fly’s right. It’s over.
Staring up steadily at his old friend, Thorn fought to subdue the terror. “I know you don’t understand,” he managed to say, softly and levelly. “This isn’t your fault, Fearless, and don’t ever forget that. It’s Stinger’s.”
Fearless’s ears flicked back and Thorn thought, just for a moment, that he’d reached him. But then, with a grunt of anger, the young lion opened his powerful jaws. His long white fangs glinted, and a rush of hot, blood-tinged breath filled Thorn’s nostrils and lungs.
He couldn’t watch. He shut his eyes tight and braced himself for death.
EPILOGUE
Babble puffed out his bedraggled feathers, trying to warm himself. The oppressive heat had finally broken, and with it the sky; torrential storms lashed Bravelands with thunder and rain and wind. He and Chatter were drenched. The sky above them was ominously dark; there was little chance the rain would let up anytime soon.
“Horrible,” he chittered. “And now this.” He pecked a flea from the rhinoceros’s hide, but the body beneath his claws was already growing cold in the rain. “That’s the last one,” he said regretfully, gulping it down.
Chatter clicked his red beak. “Ah, well,” he said resignedly. “Plenty more ground-plodders in Bravelands. The pickings were always good on this one, but it’s time to move on. You know the saying: Don’t worry about today, because there will still be insects tomorrow.”
Babble tilted his head to peer down at the motionless gray mass beneath him. A shiver ran through his feathers that had nothing to do with the cold. There would be no tomorrow for the great rhinoceros who had provided them with ticks and fleas for the whole season. “It’s hard not to feel sorry for him,” he sighed. “It’s a bad way to die.”
Chatter flicked his tail dismissively. “What did he expect, angering the Great Spirit like that?” He hopped a little farther down the rhino’s gray flank, poking at a wrinkle in search of one more overlooked tick. “The vultures say anyone who provokes the Great Spirit will regret it.”
Babble tested his wings against the rain, preparing to take off, and a movement in the sky caught his eye. “Speaking of vultures,” he said, “they’re coming now.”
The huge birds spiraled gracefully on the air currents, dropping to settle one by one around the rhino’s body. Babble edged closer to Chatter, their wings brushing. He’d heard of this ritual: the great rot-eaters would taste the flesh and judge the death. He was eager to witness the tradition, but the vultures, so big and so wise, were intimidating.
The biggest was the one called Windrider, with her shabby black-and-white feathers and her wrinkled pink head. Babble was overcome with curiosity as Windrider hopped forward, flapped up onto the rhino’s rib cage, then tore a strip of flesh from its belly. She tipped her head back and her throat worked as she swallowed. The other vultures watched her calmly; Babble and Chatter stared in awe.
“A good death,” she croaked at last. “Though it tastes of betrayal and deceit.” She spread her wings, then paused, peering down at Babble and Chatter.
Babble forgot to breathe. He could feel Chatter trembling along with him, and his friend’s yellow eyes were rounder and wider than ever.
“Don’t look so frightened, little oxpeckers,” Windrider said gently. “I bring news.”
With an anxious glance at Chatter, Babble cleared his throat and gave a shy chirp. “What—what kind of news?”
The clouds shifted, sunlight struck the vulture’s black wings, and for a moment her feathers shone. Her dark eyes seemed to see into him—no, right through him. Babble was suddenly certain that they saw past Bravelands, to whatever lay above and beyond. Her whisper seemed to fill his whole small body until he felt as big as an eagle.
“Good news, Babble Oxpecker. The Great Spirit has returned.”
BACK ADS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ERIN HUNTER is inspired by a fascination with the ferocity of the natural world. As well as having great respect for nature in all its forms, Erin enjoys creating rich mythical explanations for animal behavior. She is also the author of the bestselling Warriors, Seekers, and Survivors series.
Visit her online at www.bravelandsbooks.com.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
BOOKS BY ERIN HUNTER
Book One: Broken Pride
Book Two: Code of Honor
THE PROPHECIES BEGIN
Book One: Into the Wild
Book Two: Fire and Ice
Book Three: Forest of Secrets
Book Four: Rising Storm
Book Five: A Dangerous Path
Book Six: The Darkest Hour
THE NEW PROPHECY
Book One: Midnight
Book Two: Moonrise
Book Three: Dawn
Book Four: Starlight
Book Five: Twilight
Book Six: Sunset
POWER OF THREE
Book One: The Sight
Book Two: Dark River
Book Three: Outcast
Book Four: Eclipse
Book Five: Long Shadows
Book Six: Sunrise
OMEN OF THE STARS
Book One: The Fourth Apprentice
Book Two: Fading Echoes
Book Three: Night Whispers
Book Four: Sign of the Moon
Book Five: The Forgotten Warrior
Book Six: The Last Hope
DAWN OF THE CLANS
Book One: The Sun Trail
Book Two: Thunder Rising
Book Three: The First Battle
Book Four: The Blazing Star
Book Five: A Forest Divided
Book Six: Path of Stars
A VISION OF SHADOWS
Book One: The Apprentice’s Quest
Book Two: Thunder and Shadow
Book Three: Shattered Sky
Book Four: Darkest Night
Firestar’s Quest
Bluestar??
?s Prophecy
SkyClan’s Destiny
Crookedstar’s Promise
Yellowfang’s Secret
Tallstar’s Revenge
Bramblestar’s Storm
Moth Flight’s Vision
Hawkwing’s Journey
Tigerheart’s Shadow
FIELD GUIDES
Secrets of the Clans
Cats of the Clans
Code of the Clans
Battles of the Clans
Enter the Clans
The Ultimate Guide
NOVELLAS
Hollyleaf’s Story
Mistystar’s Omen
Cloudstar’s Journey
Tigerclaw’s Fury
Leafpool’s Wish
Dovewing’s Silence
Mapleshade’s Vengeance
Goosefeather’s Curse
Ravenpaw’s Farewell
Spottedleaf’s Heart
Pinestar’s Choice
Thunderstar’s Echo
NOVELLA COLLECTIONS
The Untold Stories
Tales from the Clans
Shadows of the Clans
Legends of the Clans
MANGA
The Lost Warrior
Warrior’s Refuge
Warrior’s Return
The Rise of Scourge
Tigerstar and Sasha #1: Into the Woods
Tigerstar and Sasha #2: Escape from the Forest
Tigerstar and Sasha #3: Return to the Clans
Ravenpaw’s Path #1: Shattered Peace
Ravenpaw’s Path #2: A Clan in Need
Ravenpaw’s Path #3: The Heart of a Warrior
SkyClan and the Stranger #1: The Rescue
SkyClan and the Stranger #2: Beyond the Code
SkyClan and the Stranger #3: After the Flood
Book One: The Quest Begins
Book Two: Great Bear Lake
Book Three: Smoke Mountain
Book Four: The Last Wilderness
Book Five: Fire in the Sky
Book Six: Spirits in the Stars