The orangutan knew at once that things had gone badly, even before Caesar came into view, carrying Luca across his back. The gorilla outweighed Caesar by nearly two hundred pounds, and was dead weight, but Caesar shouldered the burden, following right after Rocket. The gorilla moaned softly, obviously too injured to walk.
But how badly?
Retreating further into the safety of the woods, Caesar gently lowered Luca to the ground, while Maurice and the others gathered around them. A deep gash in Luca’s abdomen explained the ape’s distress—and offered little hope of survival. Maurice stared aghast at the wound; it required no enhanced intelligence to connect the gash with the bayonet Rocket now toted.
The humans were dealt with, Maurice deduced, but at what cost?
As Maurice looked on, Caesar knelt beside the dying gorilla. His eyes were dry but filled with emotion as he gazed down on Luca, who smiled weakly up at him. Fading fast, Luca nonetheless managed to raise a hand and hold it out to Caesar, who grasped it firmly. Luca signed to him with his other hand.
At least this time… I was able to protect you…
Caesar held Luca’s gaze in silence until Luca’s hand finally released his grip on Caesar’s and drifted slowly onto the snow. Maurice felt his own heart breaking; he and Caesar and Rocket and Luca had been through much together over the last years. Bad Ape, who had barely had an opportunity to get to know the heroic gorilla, proved smart enough to maintain a respectful silence.
The girl, who had been mutely observing the poignant scene, surprised Maurice by clambering down from his back and stepping onto the ground. He watched in wonder, transfixed along with the other apes, as the child bravely approached Luca and climbed onto his chest. She stared intently at Luca, her little face only inches from his much larger one, as her moist eyes displayed more genuine emotion than Maurice had ever seen there before. Certainly, she seemed much more affected by the gorilla’s final moments than she had been by the man Caesar had shot back at the oyster farm.
She is a riddle, he noted, but a riddle with a heart.
Maurice wondered what Luca had done to touch that heart as the gorilla, still clinging to life, if only for a few more heartbeats, gazed at the human child as she removed a flowery twig from behind her ear… and gently tucked it behind his. A faint smile briefly showed upon his face, belying his intimidating features, before the light faded from his eyes and the smile departed along with his life.
Luca, their great friend and ally, was dead.
Caesar remained beside the ape’s lifeless body, staring silently. A complicated mix of rage and guilt could be seen in his eyes. Rocket and Bad Ape kept their distance, letting Caesar be alone with his grief, but Maurice felt moved to speak. He grunted softly to get Caesar’s eye.
I know how much you have lost, the orangutan signed. But now we have lost another. And no matter what we do, our revenge will never bring your family back.
Caesar merely stared back at him, his face a stoic mask.
Please, Maurice urged him. It’s not too late to leave this place. To join the others.
Rocket objected vehemently to Maurice’s suggestion. Luca gave his life! he signed. We cannot turn back!
Maurice understood Rocket’s emotional desire to carry on the mission in Luca’s honor, but it was Caesar that Maurice had to make see reason. Luca’s sacrifice, as tragic as it was, should not inspire them to get more apes and humans killed.
Caesar, he pleaded with his hands.
But Caesar turned away from him, not wanting to hear. He shook his head gravely before speaking at last.
“They must pay…”
His vengeful words filled Maurice with despair—and disappointment. Caesar was their great leader and liberator, who had raised apes from ignorance and savagery and single-handedly guided them to freedom. He had fought and planned and sacrificed for his people for twelve winters, against often overwhelming odds. He was the greatest ape Maurice had ever known and would surely be the greatest ape he would ever know. Maurice owed him everything, including the sharpness of his wits.
But, for the first time, Maurice looked on Caesar and found him wanting.
Now you sound like Koba, he signed.
Caesar turned and glared at Maurice, visibly stung by the accusation and by its source. His expression darkened as he glowered at his oldest friend, who had been staunchly at his side since they had first met in the primate shelter so many years ago. Rocket looked on in shock and disbelief, having never seen Caesar and Maurice at odds before. Bad Ape just looked confused.
A tense moment, pregnant with the possibility of violence, ensued before Caesar spoke again. Rage, tightly controlled, simmered in every syllable.
“It was a mistake to bring you all. This is my fight. I will finish this alone.” He swept his fierce gaze over the other apes. “If I am not back by morning… go. Join the others.”
He rose at last from Luca’s side and took the bayonetted rifle from Rocket. Without another word, he turned and set off back toward the canyon, where the humans and the Colonel no doubt waited.
Maurice wondered if he would ever see his friend again.
15
Night cloaked Caesar’s descent as he covertly made his way down the steep, snow-packed wall of the canyon to reach the broad ledge he had been spying on before. A crescent moon gave him just enough light to see by even as he kept to the shadows, watching out for any further soldiers on patrol. Caesar wondered if the two men from the ridge had been reported missing yet. If so, it might well be that the camp’s security had been tightened and that the Colonel was on guard.
Only one way to find out, he thought.
The foreboding watchtower loomed beyond the ledge, rising up from the floor of the canyon, which remained out of view. Searchlights mounted somewhere below swept the lower slopes of the mountain, forcing Caesar to time his approaches carefully to avoid being exposed by the luminous beams. Breathing hard, Caesar slowed as he approached the enigmatic X-shaped structures at the edge of the cliff; the figures who had erected the crosses had left when the sun had, but the crosses remained. Caesar’s eyes widened as he began to make out shadowy figures roped to the crosses, struggling weakly against their bonds.
What is this…?
Confusion turned to horror as he drew nearer and saw that the pitiful figures were apes, twelve in all, barely conscious and struggling to breathe while bound to the X’s by their hands and feet. Aghast, Caesar looked from ape to ape, his mind reeling at the awful spectacle before him. Not even back in the old days, when apes had been treated like animals by humans, had he seen anything this barbaric or pointlessly sadistic. Caesar had seen war, and the horrors of war, but… never anything like this.
He staggered toward the crucified apes but was distracted by a disturbing murmur rising from the canyon that hinted at something even more terrible than the tormented apes before him. The unnerving sound echoed the plaintive groans and whimpers of the suffering apes, only magnified many times over. His heart pounding, he turned away from the crosses and rushed to the brink of the ledge, where his anguished eyes saw his worst fears confirmed.
My people!
Hundreds of apes were crowded into outdoor holding pens in the middle of a sprawling prison camp nestled at the base of the mountains, some three stories below the ledge Caesar stood upon. The noise that had drawn him was the collective moans and cries and anxious chattering of the imprisoned apes, who, in their numbers, could only be his apes. These were not a few stray zoo escapees like Bad Ape; this was an entire community of apes locked up like animals.
The exodus, Caesar realized. They’ve been captured.
All of them.
Guilt shocked him like the electric cattle prods the ape handlers had used back at the primate shelter years ago. He had let his people go on without him and now…
He stumbled back from the edge, overwhelmed. Desperately seeking answers, he looked again at the crucified apes—and finally recognized one of them as Sp
ear, the valiant young chimpanzee he had placed in charge of the exodus. Caesar hurried over to Spear, who seemed too weak to even notice his leader’s arrival.
Caesar was stunned by the other ape’s appearance. Spear barely resembled the vigorous chimp who had ridden to battle against the human raiders not too long ago. His head sagged forward, his chin resting upon his chest. His dark fur had lost its healthy luster, ribs protruded through his flesh, as though he had been starved. Painful breaths wheezed from his lungs. He was haggard and trembling, looking near death.
What have they done to you? Caesar thought. What have they done to all of you?
Caesar reached forward and gently lifted Spear’s face with both hands. The tortured ape’s eyes flickered open, unfocused at first, then filled with wonder as he finally recognized Caesar. He gaped at his leader, unable to believe what he was seeing.
Yes, Caesar thought. I’m here.
Unfastening the bayonet from his rifle, he used the blade to slice through the ropes binding Spear to the X. The other chimp slumped to the snowy floor of the ledge, tottering unsteadily upon his knees. Caesar crouched to steady him and felt Spear’s abused body shaking. No words escaped the ape’s cracked and bleeding lips. Instead he struggled to sign to Caesar:
You came… Some of us were starting to think you’d abandoned us for good… but I knew you’d come…
The ape’s constant faith in him tore at Caesar’s heart. He wasn’t sure he deserved it.
“What happened?”
When we got into the mountains, Spear signed, we heard horses. I thought it was you, that you’d finally come back…
The words were like a knife twisting in Caesar’s gut.
They came out of nowhere, attacked us. Spear shook his head, his face twisting in shame. I don’t know how they found us…
Caesar knew. “They… were on their way here.”
He cursed the cruel fate that had sent his people fleeing across the state and into these mountains at the same time that the Colonel and his soldiers had headed this way as well, to make his rendezvous with the troops coming from further north. The apes had marched right toward the very menace they’d been trying so desperately to escape.
They must have spotted us, Spear signed. Tracked us… waited for the right moment. He shuddered at the memory. It was over so quickly. Many died, the rest of us were taken prisoner.
Caesar recalled the countless apes trapped in the holding pens below. Apes in cages… just like it used to be.
We were sure they would kill us, Spear signed. But the Colonel stopped them…
Caesar blinked in surprise. Had he understood correctly?
There was madness in his eyes, Spear tried to explain. He said they could use us, before we died. And they brought us all here.
Caesar remembered the Colonel’s icy blue eyes, staring back at him from behind the mask of camo paint, just before the killer had escaped through the falls. But he didn’t understand. Why would the Colonel herd Caesar’s people to this remote, forgotten camp? Why hadn’t he just slaughtered the defeated apes, the same way he had murdered Cornelia and Blue Eyes?
“Use you?” he echoed.
Spear started to reply, but the last vestiges of his strength ran out. Collapsing, he fell forward onto the snow, revealing long ugly welts across his back. Swollen red stripes crisscrossed the chimpanzee’s flesh, visible even through his fur. Appalled, Caesar instantly recognized the welts for what they were.
The marks of a lash.
He tenderly lifted Spear from the snow, cradling the injured ape in his arms. Despite his debilitated state, the loyal chimp tried to tell Caesar what he needed to know.
They’ve been forcing us to work, he signed feebly. They beat us, strung us up here, to make the others work harder.
Caesar’s need to destroy the Colonel grew stronger. “What… kind of work?”
Spear wanted to answer, but he was near his limit. His eyes fluttered, closing, but he forced them open long enough to sign haltingly, only a few words at a time.
Your… little son… is here.
The words struck Caesar like a blow. Cornelius!
He didn’t know whether to be relieved that his child had survived the massacre—or terrified that Cornelius had fallen into the hands of the Colonel and his bloodthirsty soldiers. Rendered speechless by the news, it took him a moment to find his voice again.
“Try to hold on, please!” he urged Spear. “I will get you out of here! All of you!”
But it was obviously too late for Spear; he had been abused too badly for too long. His life visibly slipping away, he gazed up at Caesar with bleary, bloodshot eyes that were rapidly losing their light. A hoarse, agonized whisper escaped his lips.
“Caesar…”
The ape leader peered into Spear’s eyes as the dying chimpanzee uttered his final words.
“We… needed… you…”
Guilt crashed down on Caesar as Spear passed away in his arms, the victim of both the humans’ cruelty and Caesar’s failure to protect his people.
I should have been there, he thought bleakly. I should have never left them.
He heard the groans of the other apes hanging on their crosses and feared he was also too late to save them. Still holding onto Spear’s lifeless remains, he was about to see to them when, without warning, a hairy foot stepped into view. Startled, he looked up to see Red standing over him, holding a rifle.
You! Caesar thought. Traitor!
The butt of the rifle slammed into him.
16
Water dripped somewhere in the darkness as Caesar slowly, painfully regained consciousness. His skull throbbed and his face was pressed against a rough, icy surface. Wincing, he opened his eyes, which were immediately assailed by a harsh yellow light shining down from above. Freezing water splattered all around him.
Where…?
Lifting his head, Caesar attempted to get his bearings, even as his vision shifted in and out of focus. The last thing he remembered, he was on the ledge overlooking the prison camp, cradling Spear’s dead body in his arms. Then Red appeared and…
Anger fought the fogginess in Caesar’s mind. Forcing himself to concentrate on his new surroundings, he found himself sprawled on the frigid floor of what appeared to be an old railway depot. Iron train tracks cut through the base of a large cavernous structure. The rusted-out carcass of a dead locomotive gathered dust nearby. Looking up, Caesar saw a huge curved ceiling overhead. The yellow glare of sodium-vapor security lamps invaded the depot through a rip in the ceiling, melting the snow dripping through the gap onto the floor.
At first Caesar thought he was alone. Then he noticed a figure standing guard a few feet away. As his vision cleared, Caesar saw that it was Preacher, one of the human soldiers whose lives he had spared before. The youth looked tense and uncomfortable as he watched over Caesar while carrying a military-grade crossbow. Caesar wondered if Preacher was prepared to offer the same mercy he had been granted before.
Probably not, the ape guessed.
Before Caesar could say anything to Preacher, a familiar voice emerged from the shadows. Footsteps marched through the slush toward Caesar.
“Grant and Lee,” he said. “Wellington and Napoleon…”
Caesar had only heard the voice once before, in his violated dwelling back at the fortress, but he recognized it instantly. His eyes widened as the Colonel stepped out of the shadows into the light.
“Custer and Sitting Bull… You’re probably not much of a reader,” he said, “but this, this is a big moment.” He paused for emphasis. “This is… beyond historic.”
Caesar glared fiercely at the murderer of his wife and firstborn. All awareness of his physical pains was incinerated by the white-hot rage ignited at the very sight of this particular human.
No camo paint obscured the Colonel’s hated features as he coolly examined the prone ape. He had white skin, weathered by sun and wind, and a sidearm holstered at his hip. His voice was calm, bland e
ven. Only a gleam in his cold azure eyes hinted at how dangerous he was.
“Where were you?” he asked Caesar. “We came upon your herd. We got lucky, to be honest, but I was surprised you weren’t with them.”
Caesar just stared at the bald, bearded human, who was also responsible for the crucified apes on the ledge, the death of Spear, and the imprisonment of Caesar’s people. He wasn’t interested in answering this man’s questions or waging a war of words. He just wanted the Colonel’s blood.
He started to crawl toward his enemy, intent on ripping out his throat, but was yanked back hard by something around his own throat. Gasping, he realized too late that there was a collar around his neck and cold metal shackles upon his wrists. Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw Red at the other end of the chain connected to the collar. The turncoat gorilla tugged cruelly on the chain, obviously enjoying Caesar’s humiliation and discomfort.
Revenge for Koba—and for Red’s own outcast status?
Preacher stepped forward, leveling his crossbow at Caesar, who glared at him scornfully. Their situations had once been reversed, not so long ago.
“I hope you don’t come to regret sparing his life,” the Colonel said. “He’s quite a good shot.”
His tone was casual, but Caesar once again caught a gleam of genuine madness in the man’s eyes that reminded him disturbingly of Koba. There was something wrong, damaged, about this human.
Which made him all the more dangerous.
“Have you finally come to save your apes?” the Colonel asked.
“I… did not know they were here,” Caesar said, seething with fury and frustration. His green eyes blazed murderously. “I came for you.”
His meaning was not lost on the Colonel, who paused to consider the ape’s blunt statement. Understanding dawned on his face.