His eyes glued to the slow-motion struggle, Pectra answered, ‘Till one tires and makes a fatal error.'

  Midway through the second hour the situation changed. Alphie had thought the pair evenly matched—the larger Orridus pitted against the heftier Thauron. Both had fought their share of battles and proudly wore the scars to prove it. In that respect Shieldhorns were on a par with Killjaws, for the thrill of combat coursed through their veins. The Treefur, in fact, felt sure the hermit had the vital edge in the clash. Half a century of experience, coupled to a record of undefeated bouts, spelt winning odds. At least it should have. The long years counted against Orridus. Thauron was a younger, stronger version and while less wily than his aged foe, garnered greater stamina. The determined Longfrill unwaveringly bore down on the elder Shortfrill until finally the exhausted Orridus broke and gave up precious ground, the spasms of his overtaxed leg muscles making him wobble. A chorus of cheers erupted spontaneously from the massed Longfrills at seeing their leader's imminent victory. The challenger was pulling away, staggering backwards from Thauron's relentless assault. Their hollers of encouragement abruptly became cries of astonishment when the losing lizard cleverly outmanoeuvred the Dominator by faking a stumble, sidestepping the overextended Shieldhorn boss, and thrusting his brow horns beneath the lower rim of Thauron's crest as he lurched past.

  Thauron knew he was beaten. The points of Rhyna's horns pressing into the soft tissue of his throat told him so. ‘Finish it,’ he rasped tiredly. ‘Add another victory and death to your score.'

  The hermit's favourite battle ploy had worked a treat yet again. Feign disability and a foe's own overconfidence hamstrung him without fail. He could have run Thauron through, but instead stepped back and withdrew his weaponry. Thauron, baffled by the gesture, actually appeared disgruntled. How humiliating it was to be left alive by a magnanimous adversary.

  'I have vanquished Thauron,’ Orridus called out to the spectators, his voice strong and clear despite his telling weariness. ‘Accept me now as Dominator!'

  The throng of Longfrills milled about in uncertainty, unwilling to finalise Thauron's loss with their assent. It took the Shortfrill minority, loitering unnoticed in the background, to change their minds. The chant began slowly at first, rapidly gaining volume as the oppressed Shortfrills welcomed back their former leader and associate by shouting his name while they proudly gathered around him in swelling numbers. Thauron's followers quickly changed sides and starting yelling in unison ‘Rhyna!’ over and over again, cementing his astounding victory. Even Alphie was caught up in the infectious rapture of the moment and joined in the chanting.

  Thauron found the verbal applause irritating. ‘Why have you spared me?’ he spat over the din.

  'To harness your expertise,’ the triumphant and now former hermit said.

  'I'm a washout, oldie. You've taken my command and left me no respect. Kill me and be done with it.'

  'Don't be such a sore loser, Thauron. I need you alive.'

  'As a living trophy to flaunt your perfect fight record, I'll bet.'

  'What do you say to my mounting an expedition with you as my second in command?'

  A twinge of interest made Thauron take pause in feeling sorry for himself. ‘For what purpose?'

  'To slay Killjaws.'

  That got Thauron's full attention. ‘It's tempting. Have you got any particular bone-crunchers in mind?'

  Orridus leered evilly. ‘As a matter of fact I do. I want to murder their king.'

  Chapter Twenty One

  Bronte was bored. She was into day three of her internment and feeling left out. Cragg had clandestinely exited the valley with his motley crew of Bonehead heavies the night before, again taking advantage of Highrock sympathisers guarding Thunder Passage to slip out unnoticed. His parting with Hettinor had been a brief and tender moment that filled Bronte with sadness. The assiduous healer had been in the midst of pronouncing her giant patient on the road to recovery when Cragg came by to say farewell around dusk. The Thunderfoot had awkwardly stood by while the doting pair nuzzled snouts and she was painfully reminded of her own beau. Darved was dead or running for his life. Either way, he was lost to her. Cragg had then hastened away and the teary Bonehead matron departed shortly after that. Bronte had since had no visitors.

  Stretching her stiff neck, she listlessly stripped a fir branch of its waxy foliage. Eating was not a great comfort. Her sick bay had become a prison cell. With a sly look, Bronte casually ambled from the increasingly deforested grove to go walkabout, deliberately going back on her promise to Cragg not to wander. Rule-breaking was as second nature to the rebellious cow Thunderfoot as breathing.

  She plodded unhurriedly through the valley, drifting unthinkingly toward Stonejudge. Trudging onto the plateau, Bronte stared at the vacant podiums of the Deciders and came to the conclusion that she possessed no freewill whatsoever. Others had always made life-changing decisions for her. Sorrin abandoned her, Balticea mated her, the Killjaws orphaned her, and the Boneheads imprisoned her. Even now a horned stranger was championing for her. In no way did it end there. Chappy had thoughtlessly gotten killed protecting his best friend and in the process made her the Chosen One. Was this lifelong chain of events a conspiracy to rob the cow of her independence? If so, it was working brilliantly.

  Gideon was another prime example of a control freak. With Chappy gone, the alien was sure to decide her fate for her. Bronte lamented. She had no hankering to be the world's saviour; she wanted only to be herself. A wicked thought entered her mind. Would it be so terrible if the rescue attempt was botched and the offworlder accidentally met with a tragic end? The answer was a distasteful yes. Since her walking coma, she had ceased dreaming of sprinting through a dark forest hounded by the personification of evil to run into her guardian's arms as a shapeless form. That recurrent nightmare had been replaced by a dreadful sense of inevitability as portentous as the thunderheads darkening the midafternoon sky.

  'Ere, lads, what have we here?'

  'Looks like a trespasser to me.'

  'Might you be lost, giantess?'

  Bronte was wrenched out her rumination by a gang of three highland bullyboys. They had sneaked up on the preoccupied Thunderfoot. She did not think them a glee club. ‘Just having a peep,’ Bronte said.

  'Take a good look.'

  'Aye, it'll be your last.'

  'Was it worth it?'

  The big cow was in no mood for playing games and confidently shouldered past the trio. She alone was ten times their combined weight. ‘I'll be on my way,’ she said in a tart rumble.

  'Not so fast, lassie.'

  Bronte stopped in her tracks. Shrok was marching fast up the incline to the plateau and he was not alone. A troop of fellow insurgents fanned out behind Cragg's disloyal son, each with a rock cupped in their hand-like forefeet. ‘This can't be good,’ she rumbled worriedly.

  'Where are you hurrying off to, bitch,’ he growled.

  The Thunderfoot tried to sound insouciant. ‘Why boys, are you throwing a welcoming party for me? How nice.'

  'Yeah, welcome to your demise!’ Shrok laughed hollowly. ‘You're to be judged by me now. Stone the Outside.'

  Bronte did not wait. Flinging her bulk around faster than seemed possible for an animal her size, she bowled over the nearest three Boneheads like skittles. The nervy cow then made for Shrok. With all her escape routes cut off, she made up her mind to take out the fomenter of this lynch mob first.

  Seeing his peril, Shrok yelled, ‘Give it to her, lads!'

  The vigilantes pelted the desperate Thunderfoot with their stony missiles. Bronte shrugged off the rain of rocks and kept on coming, bearing down on Shrok in an avalanche of flesh. She rocked onto her back legs, trunk-like forelimbs flailing wildly. To be sure she felt each and every hurtful impact of the barrage, but that pain was nothing compared to the anger boiling her blood. Her life was her own! She would physically take it back if it meant trampling every Regressionist barring her way.

  'Stop this idiocy!'

  The rearing Thunderfoot loomed over Shrok like a toppling tree, then crashed harmlessly to one side of the petrified bull as the stoning came to an abrupt halt. An elder bonehead came traipsing up the hill and Bronte thought she recognised the Flatstone Chieftain.

  'Get away from the Outsider,’ he bawled. It was indeed Malp.

  The younger bulls, puzzled by the command, nevertheless obeyed and drew back. Except for Shrok. Stooping, he reached for a throwing stone carelessly dropped on the flat. Bronte, bruised and bloody, saw the move and swished her serpentine tail in readiness.

  'That goes for you too,’ Malp barked at his protégé.

  'We must stone all outsiders,’ insisted Shrok. ‘You taught me that.'

  'True, but not today, lad. We have more important stones to move.'

  Shrok reluctantly tossed aside his rock.

  Malp approached him and struck Shrok savagely across the snout with his clenched forefoot. ‘Don't ever go freelancing again! You're putting our plot in jeopardy with this nonsense.'

  Anger and confusion exploded in Shrok's hard eyes. ‘I saw an opportunity and took it. I thought you'd be pleased.'

  'I gave you specific orders, Shrok. Don't deviate. Go carry them out.'

  The sullen young bull tramped away with his buddies.

  'If it's any consolation, you can stone Clift and Revasse after you detain them,’ Malp called after him. ‘I've no qualms about seeing that pair killed.'

  'They'll have to do,’ returned Shrok.

  'And don't forget your mother!'

  'She'll endorse my ascension or die alongside them,’ the treacherous Highrocker shouted back before disappearing down the grade with his band of not-so-merry lizards, leaving Malp alone with Bronte.

  'What's going on?’ the perplexed cow rumbled.

  'If you haven't worked it out yet, you're in the middle of a coup.'

  Bronte was none the wiser, compelling Malp to spell it out for her.

  'A takeover—I'm overthrowing the Deciders.'

  The Thunderfoot was astounded. ‘Leadership is for life! It just can't be taken away on a whim.'

  'Maybe not where you hail from, but here in the vale hereditary rule is not always a guarantee for the duration of a chieftain's life. If he's declared unfit to rule he can be usurped. I'm merely taking that prerogative a step further. Whose to say the rotten half of an entire council can't be excised?’ Malp shook his bony head. ‘Why am I bothering explaining this to a stupid, ignorant Outsider.'

  'Cragg won't stand for this,’ argued Bronte.

  'He doesn't have a say in it. Shrok is going to come into his inheritance sooner than anticipated and chieftain the Highrock Clan from now on.'

  Bronte was aghast. ‘Cragg's not dead, is he?'

  'He is to me,’ Malp said in a stony voice. ‘I'm aware he secretly left the valley last evening with a bunch of other misfits and by doing so broke our most sacred law. That is punishable by death.'

  'You plan to execute him.'

  'There's no need. Even now my sentries at Thunder Passage are walling this end so solidly with rubble that not even the most able-bodied digger in the dell could tunnel through in his lifetime. I've magnanimously commuted Cragg's punishment to exile.'

  'Who made you Originator? I thought you lot operated by consensus.'

  Malp chuckled grimly. ‘We do. Alvanch and Grisure support my bid, and Fravell will fall into line once he realises my Regressionists have won. Actually, your precious Cragg set things up nicely for me to stage my belated revolt. The cream of his clan's defenders went along on his jaunt, meaning his allies can't muster enough might to thwart me. With my four clans against their two and a half, I'm a shoe-in.'

  'To be what—patriarch?'

  'I'm a fundamentalist, lowlander. A figurehead council will remain in power ... with me at its head, naturally.’ Malp was constructing the world's very first puppet regime. The pioneering Bonehead republic was finished and so too was Bronte.

  She shifted about on her mammoth legs, her battered body aching terribly. ‘You stopped Shrok from trying to kill me. Are you saving my death for later?'

  'Surprisingly enough, nay.'

  Bronte was baffled again. What did Malp have in store for her?

  'Follow me,’ he instructed her.

  The flustered giant refused to move.

  'If you want to live, you'll come with me.'

  Bronte grudgingly dawdled behind the seditious chief.

  Malp took her down from the mesa and along the back trail running north to where the tiny grotto in which the Deciders cast their votes was tucked away at the bottom of the escarpment. The Flatstone chief led her past the inconspicuous fissure and down the length of the brush-choked valley wall for a good quarter of an hour before stopping. He turned front-on to the cliff face and commenced uprooting a half-dozen of the hardy alpine shrubs flourishing at the base of the bluff, uncovering in the process a massive ovular boulder set neatly into the rock façade. Grunting madly from the exertion, Malp pulled the gargantuan stone out and rolled it to one side, revealing a dark opening in the dale boundary.

  Bronte eyed the void suspiciously. ‘It's a hole,’ she dryly observed.

  Malp let the obvious comment slide. ‘It happens to be a bolthole, Outsider. When my ancestors settled this valley they excavated an escape tunnel with their bare claws in case the relocation did not work out.'

  'That must have taken a while.'

  'Whole generations and today only the chieftains retain knowledge of it.'

  'Where does it lead?'

  'Straight to the outside, cow. Take it and get out of my highlands.'

  'Why are you doing this for me, Malp?'

  'Simple sanitation, Thunderfoot. I don't want your outsized carcass stinking up my valley when Shrok gets back around to stoning you to death, as he surely must.'

  'Your concern for the environment is commendable.'

  'Shut your trap and get moving.'

  Bronte gazed fearfully ahead. The tunnel entryway had the disconcerting look of the black maw of some gigantic beast about to swallow her whole. ‘Am I going to fit in there?’ she worried.

  'It can easily accommodate two adult Boneheads side by side,’ Malp informed her, ‘so it'll be plenty big enough for the likes of you.’ He tried manhandling her toward the tunnel.

  'Hey, quit shoving!'

  'Hurry up then. We don't have all day. If I'm caught aiding and abetting your escape we'll both be for it.'

  'How are you going to explain away my disappearance?'

  'I'll trigger a landslide somewhere close by and say you were buried alive.'

  'You've thought of everything,’ rumbled Bronte. It was not a compliment.

  'You'll find Boneheads are very meticulous lizards. Oh, but you won't. You shan't be here. Now get going before I change my mind.'

  Bronte still refused to be pushed into the unknown and said frankly, ‘Malp, I don't trust you.'

  'I wouldn't trust me either,’ he agreed. ‘I'd have stoned my own granny if it furthered my ambition. Come to think of it, I very nearly did. But that's beside the point. Either take your chances in the tunnel or remain here to become a victim of hate crime. The choice is yours.'

  The resigned Thunderfoot forced herself to step through the uninviting portal into the inky recesses of the passage and halted. Behind her, muffled shouts echoed across the valley floor as Malp's insurrection took hold. She could not be sure whether the cries were calls of alarm or whoops of victory.

  'What of Hettinor?’ Bronte suddenly asked over her humped back. The kindly healer reminded Bronte greatly of Florella and had become dear to her heart.

  'If Shrok doesn't kill his ma, I'll make her my mate,’ Malp said unashamedly. ‘I'm not fussed which. Highrock Clan will be mine anyway.’ He quickly set to rolling the cover stone back in place over the doorway before Bronte had a chance to decry his despicableness, shutting out the light and the Concealed Valley from the vexed Thunderfoot.

  Alone and in total blackness, Bronte grew panicky. This was not the best time for her to discover she was claustrophobic.

  * * * *

  Success was his!

  It had taken Orn two full days of tedious scouring to find Shadower's latest and strangely unoccupied day lair, plus a further one to sniff out the Nightclaw's clever hiding place for the alien's ripped-off appendage at the foot of a cypress half a mile away. To be sure, his untrusting cousin had picked an ingenious spot to stash his loot. The thieving spy had failed though to take into account that ostrich-like reptiles tended to think alike, giving the snooping Fastclaw the advantage he needed to finally uncover the prize his imperious king craved.

  Clearing a space in the layer of small rounded cones littering the base of the trunk, Orn dug down into the soft earth and scooped out Gideon's stolen Energy Dome. His bulging eyes lit up with marvel as he brushed off the moist dirt to behold the mutely glowing crystal. The attraction was instantaneous. All birds and bird-mimic lizards love shiny objects.

  Orn carelessly dropped the half-globe and it bounced away from him. He chased after and playfully toed the object with his foot. The Energy Dome shot up unexpectedly into the air, caught against his leg and stuck fast. The surprised gofer shook his limb, but the artefact did not fall off. Somehow the dome's opened wristband had locked about Orn's ankle with the clasp snapping shut. He bent over and began to fiddle with the catch.

  'Noli me tangere!'

  The Fastclaw stood bolt upright. Someone had spoken. He searched the streamers of milky sunlight penetrating the immediate forest with wide, unblinking eyes. The wood was deserted. Orn cautiously went back to trying to undo the fastener.

  'Noli me tangmere persona non grata.'

  This time Orn nearly jumped out of his skin. The mystery, foreign-speaking talker sounded dangerously close. ‘Who's out there?’ he demanded, head bobbing furtively. The forest remained empty and a deathly silence prevailed before the skittish runner got his reply.