'I do want to kill him,’ the hermit was ashamed to admit. ‘Although I won't.'

  The plotting tyrant-king was aghast. His hopes were pinned on goading the ancient Shieldhorn into acting rashly. When Orridus backed off and signalled the attendant Longfrills to close up ranks around their prisoner, Rexus felt his optimism draining away.

  Orridus fixed Rexus with a flinty gaze. ‘Running you through won't redress the past,’ he said.

  'Glad to hear it,’ the unhappy Killjaw forced himself to lightly reply.

  'However, goring your son will make amends.'

  'Orridus!'

  Ignoring Cragg's condemning exclamation, the recluse pointed his nose horn in the direction of the demoralised Killjaws and demanded, ‘Are you going to tell me which of the Killjaws in that bunch is unlucky enough to be your boy, or do I have to trample it out of you?'

  Looking strangely beyond the threatening Shortfrill, Rexus became animated and emitted a blood-curdling roar. It was not the answer to the hermit's enquiry. ‘TAAANK!’ he screamed. The Adviser was wandering unhurriedly out of the forest back into the makeshift court cum internment camp of the Killjaws, the alien Gideon slumped across his back as if nothing were amiss.

  Alphie watched as the Clubtail passed by the oak bole he had halfway climbed to draw up behind the Shieldhorn and Bonehead leaders. ‘I thought I was the only jockey in Mother Forest,’ he blithely said while surveying the Berranian. The others turned to stare in wonder at the inert offworlder.

  'Nobody told me there was a party going on,’ Tank dryly commented to whoever was listening.

  'You weren't here, you perfidious scum,’ gnarled Rexus.

  'My, that's a big word for you, Rexus. Does it mean that you missed me?’ The Clubtail proceeded to ignore the raging, sputtering Killjaw king and spoke to Orridus instead. ‘What's going on here, Shortfrill?'

  The fascinated hermit somehow tore his eyes off the bizarre form of the alien to regard Tank. He had seen Gideon only from afar, not up close, and was understandably intrigued. ‘Who are you?’ he bluntly asked the Clubtail.

  'The bane of my existence,’ Rexus muttered out loud.

  Tank was surprisingly forthcoming. ‘Former adviser to the Killjaw king,’ he explained. ‘Presumably I've been sacked from my position,’ he said mordantly to Rexus.

  'You got that right,’ confirmed the monarch. ‘Plus you can forget about any retirement plan.'

  Turning back to Orridus, Tank repeated his query. ‘Now Shortfrill, care to explain yourself in grunts of one syllable or less.'

  'I've staged a revolution—Clubtail,’ he answered tartly.

  'And I wasn't invited? Rexus, how could you be so remiss?'

  'Believe me, this is none of my doing,’ the ousted king spat.

  'Actually, we've come for the wee laddie upon your back,’ Cragg informed Tank.

  'Among other things,’ Orridus bleakly added, scowling at Rexus.

  Tank sized the Bonehead up and down critically. ‘Who's your lumpy friend?’ he asked Orridus, ‘and what's his interest in the outlander?'

  'That's a lengthy tale.'

  'We haven't really the time for a boringly detailed life story.’ The Adviser locked knowing glances with the hermit before their paired eyes drifted skywards. That unspoken exchange said plainer than words of them both being aware of the coming doom and the salvation offered only to one.

  Orridus walked around the Clubtail, sniffing at the senseless alien. ‘Gideon, is he ... ?’ The oldster left the query hanging tensely. He had not come this far and endured so much just to rescue a corpse.

  'Resting. He's alive, but hardly well,’ Tank elucidated rather blandly. ‘Rexus is a poor host.'

  The eavesdropping Killjaw king actually seemed abashed. ‘I'm a fighter, not an entertainer,’ he protested.

  'We had best get him away from the fanged sod to a safer place,’ the hermit suggested.

  'Aye,’ agreed Cragg.

  The Clubtail's unreadable gaze slyly went from Orridus to the Bonehead and back to the Shortfrill, his sharp mind calculating madly. With logic-derived insight he threw Rexus a cagey look.

  'What?’ bit the nonplussed Killjaw.

  'That'll ruin the surprise,’ Tank impishly said, having gleaned that the Chosen runaway had new friends.

  Alarmed shouts broke out from the victorious Shieldhorns and all heads turned to the source of concern. A brisk, unexplainable fog was billowing out of the northern forest like smoke from a brush fire, encasing the perimeter of the tiny glade in a fence of vaporous white while oddly leaving the centre of the clearing untouched.

  'Stand fast!'Orridus bellowed to his restive troops. ‘It's only mist.'

  Alphie, perched on his woody grandstand in the thick of the obscuring dampness, squeaked worriedly, ‘That may be, but what's hiding in it out there?’ Hulking shadows thudded past the cringing Treefur in answer to his fearfulness. ‘That was a rhetorical question, Originator!’ he moaned to the entity on high, ducking for cover around the far side of the barked pole.

  A stiff breeze gusting down from the background hills instantly blew off the fog with its chill touch, revealing a pair of bewildered Thunderfeet poised on the demisted treeline amid a flurry of swirling leaves lifted by the wind.

  'Surprise,’ Tank whispered to Rexus.

  The flabbergasted Killjaw king at long last beheld the object of his deadly ire in the flesh. ‘Bronte,’ he rasped, conveying all the hatred and contempt he could muster in that single name.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  'Bronte, what are you doing here?'

  The bewildered cow had to field that question from three sides—Orridus, Cragg and Alphie, who had since remounted the Shortfrill. The gobsmacked trio were blurting the same query in a unified voice.

  'I'm not entirely sure,’ she professed. ‘I must've taken a wrong turn on the trail.'

  'The presence of Balticea's bloodline makes things interesting,’ Tank remarked to Bronte. She gawped at the faceless Clubtail. Did every other reptile in Mother Forest know of her? Her troubled gaze intensified when she spotted the insensible alien biped he was transporting.

  Darved, as confused as his mate, gawked at the assembly. ‘Who are all these lizards, beloved?'

  'I'm not sure of that either.'

  'We are her guardians,’ stated Orridus.

  'And friends,’ Alphie added.

  'Your sure do keep strange company, my sweet,’ laughed Darved, easing the tension of the moment. ‘First a Duckbill, now a Shieldhorn and I don't even know what you are,’ he said, clapping amazed eyes on Cragg. The insignificant lump hunched over on the Clubtail's back did not even warrant the bull Thunderfoot's attention.

  'They always overlook me!’ the forgotten Treefur griped from the hermit's back. ‘Am I camouflaged or something?'

  'We can all get to know one another later,’ Orridus gruffly decided,’ but for now I'm curious to find out how Bronte got here?'

  'Aye, I'm also interested in how the lass escaped the highlands,’ wondered Cragg. ‘There's no way she could've gotten out through Thunder Passage. It's guarded tighter than a wasp's nest.'

  Orridus took in Bronte's sorry condition. ‘Whatever passage you took wasn't an easy one.'

  'Believe me, Malp's route was a far cry from an evening stroll out on Fernwalk.'

  'Malp?’ the Highrock Chieftain exclaimed in surprise. ‘What had he to do with your leaving Concealed Valley?'

  'He was behind the whole episode by showing me a hidden tunnel in the cliff face not far from Stonejudge which took me straight through the hills to the lowlands.'

  'The Bolthole?’ deduced Cragg. ‘He dinna have the right to disclose that secret to you. I'll bring him up on charges before the Deciders—aiding and abetting an escape, revealing information privy only to council members ... and to an Outsider, to boot. Nothing personal, Bronnie, but Malp shouldn't have helped you in the manner he did. It beats me why he even went out of his way to set you free at all. Last time we argued I had to dissuade him from sealing you up in a blind canyon.'

  'He had his reasons,’ confided Bronte. ‘When I left him he was orchestrating a coup.'

  'Must be the day for it,’ Rexus bitched. A warning glower from Thauron shut him up.

  Darved, towering next to the cantankerous Longfrill, enquired in a nervous rumble, ‘Do you have any idea what they're talking about?'

  'None whatsoever,’ admitted Thauron. ‘I'd sort of like to keep it that way. Thinking about things too much hurts my head.'

  'I must be away home,’ the mortified Bonehead chief declared to Orridus as Bronte's dire news sank in. ‘I hate to leave you in the lurch, old friend.'

  'Don't concern yourself about me. You've got bigger worries. Besides, the Killjaws have been soundly beaten. I don't think they'll be making a comeback any time soon. You go and crack a few heads. Give Malp a head-butt for me.'

  'You had better hurry,’ urged Bronte. ‘Malp said something about blocking the passage end of the dale with an impenetrable wall of rock. You'll probably have to dig your way back in.'

  'I'll definitely need my lads behind me then,’ Cragg said with grim resolution.

  Bronte had not finished. ‘There's more. Malp stopped Shrok and his lackeys from stoning me, but he and your rotten son have been conniving to take over your clan. Malp's got the crazy notion in his head of becoming the supreme clan-chief of a puppet council.'

  Cragg sensed his bearer of bad tidings was not divulging all of her abysmal bulletin. ‘What are you holding back, lass?'

  'Malp plans to take Hetti for his mate, providing Shrok lets his mother live through the overthrow.'

  'Bollda!’ he hollered. ‘We're marching home and will need to find a heap of throwing stones when we get there.’ There tolled a lethal certainty in his tone that struck a note of fear even in the black heart of the listening Killjaw king.

  The enraged Bonehead stalked away with murder darkening his once kindly eyes. Silently wishing his friend luck, Orridus asked Bronte,’ Where exactly did this secret passage come out?'

  'A short way up from Clearwater River.'

  The hermit was mystified. ‘That's a fair hike from here, girl. When did Malp usher you from the valley?'

  'A couple of days after your departure.'

  'How then did you get from that place to this so damn quick?'

  'I honestly don't know.'

  'Maybe that irregular fog we walked through had something to do with it,’ Darved hypothesised. ‘We were practically plodding blind. It is possible we could have come farther than we supposed and in a much shorter time than we thought.'

  'Unlikely,’ disputed Orridus. The far-ranging recluse had walked Mother Forest doing his goodly deeds long enough to accurately gauge distances. From this spot to the river took at least a day and a half of solid walking. Add to that another half a day to slog through the tunnel out of the Uplands, and it became an utter impossibility for the cow to make up that kind of time.

  Bronte thought on it. ‘I think that blind seer I bumped into might be responsible,’ she ventured.

  'Moldar? Rexus spoke up again, despite Thauron's threatening stare.

  'Do you know of another sightless fortune teller living hereabouts?’ Orridus crossly snapped. ‘Pipe down, Rexus. I'll finish dealing with you shortly.'

  'She met up with that red-eyed devil and lived to tell about it?’ The tyrant-king simply could not believe her luck.

  Bronte regarded the chagrined Killjaw. ‘So this is the monster who had my family killed.’ Her manner was dangerously calm. Seeing his cow's tautness, Darved followed suit and tensed up, his eyes locking firmly onto the homicidal regent.

  Sniffing trouble brewing, Orridus suggested, ‘I think we had better forget the murderous actions of Rexus for the time being.’ Even with Shieldhorn backup, he stood little chance of stopping one, let alone two vengeful Thunderfeet if things got heated.

  'That would be prudent,’ Tank concurred.

  'I don't need your approval, Clubtail.'

  'But you are in need of the advice of a logician such as myself.'

  'What makes you think that?'

  'I alone possess the insight into the king's deviant mind needed to keep one step ahead of him. Even now he's plotting no good. This discussion would be better held elsewhere.'

  'I was just about to say that same thing myself.'

  'Of course you were.'

  Orridus herded the menagerie from the glade. He detested the Killjaw king's tame Clubtail, if nothing but for the glaring reason that they were so much alike, independent loners used to leading others around by the snout and getting their own way. To Thauron he said, ‘Guard Rexus carefully. If he makes even the slightest wrong move, drill him full of holes.'

  'That'd be my pleasure,’ Thauron replied.

  Rexus watched his disloyal adviser, piggybacking Gideon, tag along after the departing lizards. ‘I warned you about getting attached to One-eye,’ he growled to the ambling Clubtail.

  'And your counsel means so much to me.'

  Tank's feigned gratitude dangerously inflamed the testy tyrant-king. ‘The game's almost up, Tank and when it is I'll gut you quicker than a Lizardwing takes flight!'

  Turning to the cranky old Shortfrill he was walking beside, Tank said in all seriousness, ‘Once you get to know Rexus, you'll discover that he really is an arsehole.'

  The assorted prehistoric animals crunched their way through the carpet of yellowed leaves littering the forest floor and into a broad stand of poplars where Orridus called for them to halt. Bronte and Darved stood closely, even defiantly, together, while the hermit, with his Treefur mahout, purposefully distanced himself from Tank and his alien burden.

  'Why did you shoo me away from him?’ Bronte griped to Orridus, meaning the captive Killjaw king. ‘He deserves punishment for the atrocities he has committed against the Thunderfeet and others.'

  'Rexus may be being held under horn and frill, girlie, but he's bubbling like a hot-pool ready to shoot up as a geyser and you are not ready to tackle the likes of him.'

  'Maybe not alone, but together we could handle that Killjaw,’ Darved bragged on his cow's behalf.

  Orridus ignored the boast. ‘I don't want any trouble, Bronte. The whole purpose of this foray was to reunite you with Gideon. That has been accomplished. We're not going to push our luck for the sake of vengeance.'

  'You did,’ Alphie muttered accusingly into the aged hermit's earhole. The snorted rumble he got in reply was unrepeatable.

  Darved, sounding puzzled and a trifle jealous, asked, ‘Who is this Gideon, my love?'

  'That's a question we'd all like the answer to,’ she replied obliquely.

  'Let's get back to the matter at foot,’ prompted Orridus, resuming his interrogation of Bronte. ‘You were saying you thought Moldar was behind your rapid journeying here.'

  'It must have been him,’ presumed the cow. ‘After we finished talking, those horrible eyes of his started glowing and a mist formed over the river. Next thing I know I was immersed in that fog and Moldar had vanished.'

  The hermit was baffled by the occurrence. ‘How peculiar.'

  'I was left with the impression that my meeting Moldar wasn't a chance encounter either,’ theorised Bronte. ‘He claimed he was on his way to Crescent Lake, but when he bumped into me he was swimming upstream away from the lake.'

  'If the legends surrounding that despicable Watersnout are as true as they are grisly, he never gives something away for nothing,’ considered Orridus. ‘Exactly what did he say to you?'

  Bronte was getting bored with this conversation. All she wanted to do was turn tail and bolt southwards with Darved, forgetting this whole terrible mess. She was about to tell the hermit so when Gideon stirred.

  The lizards all drew back as the alien struggled into a sitting position on Tank's back scutes with a groan. ‘What happened?’ he asked in a hoarse voice.

  'You passed out again,’ the Clubtail informed him.

  'Last thing I remember I was climbing atop of you, Tank.'

  'That was at my insistence. Rexus was becoming unhinged. Taking you into hiding was the logical thing to do. After all, he did instruct me to keep you alive any way possible. Giving the sentries the slip was actually quite challenging.'

  The woozy Berranian looked around for the tyrannical Killjaw king and to his surprise was greeted with the intrigued stares of three giant herbisaurs and a lone marsupial. He had to look twice. Two of those elephantine vegetarians were Thunderfeet, and of that special pair one bore a white blaze on the forehead that shone brightly in the milky sunlight like a guiding star.

  'Bronte, I knew you weren't dead!’ he cried out joyously. He weakly kicked at his Clubtail mount. ‘You lied about her death.'

  Tank was his usual uncaring self. ‘Technically, Rexus came up with that fib. I simply chose not to contradict it.'

  'What on Berran is she doing here?'

  'I'm trying to get to the bottom of that mystery now,’ Orridus said with an exasperated rumble.

  Gideon was suddenly seized by a violent coughing fit. He grabbed onto one of Tank's ventral spikes for support as his frail body convulsed. It was a hacking cough laced with a fluidic rattle that bespoke of serious health problems.

  'He sounds sick,’ Bronte said accusingly to Tank. ‘What's wrong with him?'

  'Like I told your horned buddy, Rexus didn't play the congenial host.'

  The alien's hawking ceased abruptly as he slumped over and toppled off the Clubtail to land like a sackful of spuds on the leaf-strewn ground.

  Tank swivelled about to glance at the fallen extraterrestrial and offhandedly remarked. ‘It appears he is dying.'

  'I haven't gone yet,’ Gideon retorted from his prone position.

  The damage Luthos had done to the alienaut's unprotected body was severer than imagined. Gideon was indeed at Death's door, but Life has a way of clinging on to the most precarious of handholds. A faint buzz hummed in the audio receptors built into his helmet and, raising himself onto his elbows, he puzzlingly tapped the side of his vibrating headgear. The buzzing coalesced into the defined crackle of static. Gideon managed an ironic smile behind his ebony visor. The jolt must have restored his downed comlink.