'The lucky specimens were sent to zoological gardens,’ Gideon haltingly said. His actual voice was throaty with bloody phlegm, making the artificially reproduced grunts and growls more husky than tinny. ‘That is, fenced wildlife preserves where they were allowed to live out the remainder of their days in naturalistic surrounds,’ he elaborated unasked.

  Bronte put the dreaded follow-up question to him. ‘And the unlucky ones?'

  'They were humanely euthanised and autopsied.'

  'Could we have that in plain speech and not your cryptic mumbo jumbo?’ she demanded.

  With a regretful sigh, Gideon revealed, ‘Killed and cut open to examine their internal body parts.'

  'That's barbaric!’ the Thunderfoot bellowed. The sickened looks of Orridus and Alphie mirrored her revulsion and outrage. Only Tank did not seem repulsed by the grisly revelation, if the glimmer of interest in his otherwise flat, unemotional eyes was any indication.

  'It was a barbarous practice,’ agreed the Berranian, ‘one the anti-vivisectionists fought hard to outlaw. Regrettably, there is only so much fine detail a scan can reveal about organs and skeletal structure, so dissection procedures were not discontinued.’ He did his best to sound earnest with his sickly wheezing while defending himself. ‘I never condoned nor participated in any autopsy. I was merely a field operative.'

  'Collecting specimens on behalf of those who did the actual cutting,’ extrapolated Tank.

  'I followed procedure. Whose side are you on?'

  'My own, naturally,’ the Clubtail affirmed.

  'Did you capture any of your subjects?’ Orridus enquired in a broken voice.

  Gideon felt he was in a kangaroo court. ‘In some instances I was instructed to,’ he unwillingly confessed. The moral indignation evident in the prejudiced stares directed his way by the Shortfrill, Thunderfoot and even the weeny Treefur was condemnation enough. In their eyes he was as much to blame as the laser-knife wielding veterinary coroners.

  'We're getting sidetracked,’ the hermit determined. ‘Whatever Gideon did in his past is just that—history. The important question before us is what are his present intentions?'

  'To set things right.'

  'Just how do you propose doing that by changing our big sister?’ challenged Orridus.

  Gideon went quiet. He had rehearsed a speech for this precise moment: a stirring oration designed to convince whichever Chosen volunteer to fully accept the Transformation as his or her given destiny. Right now that longwinded dissertation seemed wildly over the top. An instructor from his academy days had at the close of one seminar imprinted on him his personal adage, ‘It is always best to keep things simple', so Gideon opted for a rudimentary lesson in evolution instead by way of breaking the ice.

  'Living organisms grow and physically change over the ontwas, ah seasons,’ he started. ‘Take for example trees.'

  'Oh great, a lecture on foliage,’ quipped the Thunderfoot.

  'Bronte!’ Orridus admonished in a stern voice.

  'Bear with me,’ requested Gideon. ‘A tree starts out as a sapling, but over time matures into...'

  'A tall woody plant,’ Bronte dryly interjected.

  'That's enough!’ censured the hermit.

  'Animal races follow a similar pattern. From parent roots a species will branch out into a number of differing, yet fundamentally alike, forms.’ Gideon addressed the attentive Shieldhorn. ‘Your kind is a classic example of subtle variations on a theme. From a single, hornless ancestor, your racial tree now has many limbs.'

  Orridus thought about it and concluded that the alien was right. Shortfrills and Longfrills were close cousins in an extended family that unbelievably also included the superficially dissimilar Boneheads.

  'We all stem from ancestral stock which has evolved over millions of ontwas into present forms. That process is termed natural selection. Only the fittest from the gene pool reproduce to perpetuate their race.'

  'Where is this babble going to?’ the Thunderfoot tiredly demanded.

  The helmeted extraterrestrial fixed the cow with his visored gaze. ‘You can't survive the planet-killer's impact in your current guise. None of you reptiles have much hope at all of living through the coming nightmare. I can offer you, the Chosen One, a chance of survival in an altered form.'

  This was the revelation Bronte had feared ever since Gideon had flown down to tell her of her uniqueness. ‘As what?’ she asked in a low voice, wanting—and at the same time not wanting—to know.

  Cupping his gloved hands, Gideon coaxed Alphie off his horned mount and into the palms of his extended hands. The Treefur, not fully understanding why he obeyed, did so. He sat there shaking more out of habit than apprehension as the Berranian momentarily paused his translator and softly crooned to him in a foreign tongue that soothed his nerves and stilled the shivering mammal's trembles. ‘Behold the future of this planet's wildlife,’ Gideon intoned, reverting to animal talk. ‘At least the cousin of it.'

  The three reptiles—two bigger than a car, the other larger than a bus—peered down at the inconsequential marsupial, unable to believe Alphie's true significance.

  'And me old dad told me as a cub that I'd never amount to anything,’ the Treefur defiantly proclaimed. ‘Does this mean I'm going to outlast the lizards?'

  Reality slapped Bronte on the snout like a springy tree branch. ‘You want to change me into that!’ she spluttered.

  'Not her exactly, but...'

  'I'm a he,’ Alphie tartly corrected Gideon. ‘Surely with that oversized eye of yours you can tell the difference?'

  'Sorry. Sexing animals is often guesswork for even the trained eye. Bronte, you won't be mutated into the exact same form as him, but you will come from the same mould.'

  The look Bronte gave the egotistical Treefur was less than flattering. ‘I won't be a Thunderfoot,’ was all she grumped.

  'You'll no longer even be reptilian,’ observed Tank, his tone mocking.

  The cow was aghast. ‘I'll be giving up my scaled heritage!'

  'Supreme sacrifices have to be made when the occasion demands it,’ expressed Gideon. He understood that implicitly, having made the ultimate forfeiture by leaving behind family, friends and an entire planet to cross the interstellar reaches on a daring rescue mission.

  'I don't have to make any,’ she protested. ‘There is another Chosen lizard out there.'

  Orridus was puzzled. He distinctly remembered seeing Bronte's Duckbill pal losing his head out on Fernwalk on the afternoon of the Thunderfoot massacre. ‘Wasn't your friend killed?’ he timidly reminded her.

  'Chappy did die,’ Bronte answered in a sober timbre, the pain of her loss woundingly fresh in the cow's mind. Gideon solemnly nodded his concurrence of that saddening fact. ‘I wasn't meaning him,’ she said. ‘Moldar said there is another Chosen One who I am to face when the choice is made.'

  The hermit's bafflement was compounded. ‘Gideon, what do you know of this claim?'

  The Berranian felt the leg he was propped against move as Tank responded to the Shortfrill's query. ‘The blind, mud-gulper guessed right. There is a second Chosen bull and he is none other than Luthos, the son of Rexus.'

  'I don't recall seeing a Killjaw male with a garish birthmark on his head amongst those we rounded up?’ Orridus pondered.

  'That's unsurprising,’ the Clubtail sneered. ‘The Killjaw Prince is tucked away with a pair of minders where even I can't find him.'

  The oldster paled. ‘Oh dear,’ he murmured. ‘I appear to have committed a grave oversight.'

  * * * *

  The attack was swift and brutal.

  Thauron had been caught completely off guard with his horns down. A trio of avenging Killjaw bulls had burst from out of the trees like a windstorm and blown the Shieldhorn prison camp wide apart. The flightier Longfrills reacted predictably to the intrusion and had promptly forgotten about guarding the Killjaw king to meet the aggressors’ head on, ignoring Thauron's hasty order not to break ranks. Rexus had instantly capitalised on the melee and taken Thauron out personally.

  The Shieldhorn left in charge stood swaying like a seedling in a gale, spurting redness onto the leafy ground, his wounded body missing several 140 lb chunks of flesh where Rexus had exacted payback. The tyrant-king stood tauntingly before him just out of horn's reach, roaring insanely while Thauron bled to death. ‘Luthos, get your tail back here to me! You two with him—keep those pesky Longfrills off our backs in time for us to make a clean getaway. The rest of you pathetic losers fight off the Shieldhorns that are left.'

  Thauron swung his droopy head in the direction of the captive Killjaws and was dismayed to see the predators rallying ferociously against their keepers. The elderly Shortfrills were having a tough time keeping the now-heartened carnosaurs at bay and casualties on both sides were growing heavy.

  Rexus limped over to the Longfrill captain, watching with perverse delight the spasms of pain coursing through Thauron's shocked body like ripples on a pond. ‘See what happens when you play with fangs?’ he growled smugly. ‘You get bitten.'

  Thauron grunted. He was losing blood by the bucketful and lacked the strength to talk for long. ‘Your ... army ... outnumbered ... still,’ he gasped.

  'Doesn't matter,’ contested Rexus. ‘They'll fight to the death even when losing. Not out of any sense of loyalty to me or the crown you understand, but for the satisfaction of a glorious end.’ Joined by his swaggering son, he expounded, ‘Their blind sacrifice serves a good purpose: keeping me alive and free long enough to snatch back the upper claw by killing the accursed Chosen Thunderfoot and elevating Luthos here in her place as the Chosen One.'

  Thauron had no clue what Rexus was going on about. Maybe it had something to do with the fogginess creeping over his senses.

  'So long sucker,’ the king farewelled, lashing out at the mortally wounded Longfrill with a powerful kick in the flanks that sent him toppling over on to his side.

  Lying in his pooling blood with the din of battle harsh in his ears, Thauron watched the father and son Killjaw royals saunter away. Rhyna's predicted outbreak of trouble had come true—the beastly slayers were never more dangerous than when cornered, or in this case subjugated. The old fogey of a Dominator was going to have a field day with this little misadventure. By the time the pair crossed the short space of trodden ferns to the treeline beyond, the vitality had faded from the pitiable Longfrill and he stared after them with dull, lifeless eyes.

  * * * *

  'Earth shudder!'

  Cragg's warning cry came too late for half his troop as the scree hillside they were traversing collapsed into a cascade of loose stones that swept them away downslope to their deaths. The distraught Highrock chieftain looked back from the more solid ledge on the northern climb of the incline as the shale rockslide bottomed out into a brush-choked gully hundreds of feet below. Pushing through the stunned remainders of his fractured band, he stared down at the billowing pall of dust hanging over the gulch for any signs of life as the tremors rattling the rock shelf beneath his feet lessened.

  A forefoot rested lightly on his back. ‘It's futile, chief. They're gone. Nobody could have survived that.'

  Cragg failed to acknowledge Bollda's summation. There was no need for him to. The tangle of twisted bodies and grotesquely broken limbs and tails being layered by the settling dust like a death shroud in the deep of the ravine was truth enough. Those brave souls had come through the trial of battling the most terrifying of the lowland lizards unscathed, only to be buried by their beloved highlands.

  'Our brothers are gone,’ repeated Bolldar, ‘and we'd better keep moving if we're going to retake the valley anytime soon. I'm dying to get my mitts on Malp for you, chief.'

  Cragg turned to his subordinate with despair on his snout. ‘It's pointless, lad,’ he said with inconsolable sadness.

  Bolldar checked out the rocky graveyard below. ‘We have enough warriors left to take on the usurpers, as long as we can get our ally clans back on side,’ he calculated.

  'We're too late.'

  That chord of finality in his leader's statement chilled Bolldar to the marrow. ‘Nothing's set in stone, chief,’ he reasoned. ‘The Regressionists will pay dearly for their subversion—in blood.'

  The highlands were rocked by a second quake that overshadowed the quieting aftershocks of the first with its stone-jarring intensity. Loosened boulders gyrated down adjoining slopes as more pebbles slithered along the gradient that had moments ago carried the unwitting Boneheads downhill to their entombment, showering their corpses with further debris. The shaking earth set their surviving comrades on edge.

  'We won't get the chance to punish Shrok and his cronies,’ Cragg said bitterly. ‘Redmount will be doing that for us shortly.'

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Redmount finally blew its top.

  The uppermost cone of the 10,000-foot-high stratovolcano was obliterated by the explosive release of internal pressure equal to 500 atomic warheads detonating simultaneously. Fourteen hundred cubic feet of basaltic rock was blasted asunder, shortening the brooding peak with a resounding clap heard thousands of miles away. Molten rock and cinders rained down on the surrounding countryside, preceded by an avalanche of superheated gas and ash that roared furiously down the slopes to flatten mature trees like they were nothing but twigs. A column of smoky ash plumed 60,000 feet into the heavens, darkening sunny skies 150 miles away in all directions. At the same time blocks of fractured rock were torn from the crater walls, and rounded blobs of hardening lava dropped haphazardly from the roiling air onto the reeling forestland like exploding bombs. A river of fire began to cascade from a gash in the rent crater, the fluid red-hot lava running down the mountainside to scald and smother every living thing in its path, setting scores of brush fires along the way.

  Those animals unlucky enough to live through the initial blast now faced trial by fire. This was Hell on Earth.

  * * * *

  Shrok stopped what he was doing. The thin stone shelf he was dragging his mother's corpse over quivered. Quakes were not uncommon in the high country, but there was something unsettling about this particular tremor. He scrutinised the surrounding bedrock, as if the agitated granite would reveal the source of its discontent. A distant report jerked his head upwards and his eyes darted about wildly. There was trouble in the air. He smelt it. The clatter of disturbed pebbles sounded close by and Shrok dropped Hettinor's body, spinning around anxiously.

  'Relax lad,’ chided Malp, skidding to a halt after descending the short slope of loose stones directly above Shrok. ‘You're about as skittish as a fish in a puddle. What are you so nervous about? The last of the old pack surrendered just a few moments ago. Cragg's underlings will soon be swearing allegiance to me, then the revised council I'll be putting in their stead. You'll be at my side as my right foot Decider. Things couldn't have gone any smoother.'

  Shrok still looked unhappy. ‘Grab mother's legs and tail,’ he said to his elder, bending to pick up his dam's cadaver beneath the arms again.

  'Ah,’ Malp sighed understandingly. ‘You're having guilt over killing your mother.'

  'Not in the slightest,’ Shrok denied, straightening with the battered stiff lodged between his murderous forefeet. ‘She was a liberal heretic and never deserved a more fitting end than being stoned to death. The only regret I have is that my soft-hearted da wasn't here to share her fate.'

  'The lowlands are a wild place, I hear. I'd be surprised if Cragg and those fools he took with him aren't being hunted for sport right now by mobs of homicidal predators.’ Malp tossed a challenging stare Shrok's way. ‘You had absolutely no qualms over taking the life of the cow that hatched you?’ he asked again.

  'None whatsoever.'

  'Shrok, you've no conscience at all. I swear you have gravel running through your veins.'

  'You didn't recruit me into the Regressionists to be squeamish.’ He fixed Malp with pitiless eyes. ‘I would kill and bury even you, if the need arose.'

  Malp tittered nervously. His protégé clearly had ambitions. The Flatstone Chieftain made up his mind then and there to remove Shrok permanently at his earliest possible convenience. Lifting up Hettinor's hindquarters, he casually asked his dangerous lackey, ‘Where's your mother's final resting place going to be?'

  'The Oasis,’ came back Shrok's reply. ‘She is unfit to be accorded a proper Bonehead interment. Even dumping her in the lake is better than the bitch deserves, but I'm sick of the sight of her.'

  The two conspirators struggled up the short incline carrying the dead weight that was the slain Hettinor.

  'What a waste,’ Malp grunted, eyeing up her pummelled body. ‘It's such a pity she's dead. Hetti would have made a wonderful companion.'

  'Mother would have never submitted to you.'

  'Aye,’ the chief gave a wistful sigh. ‘She was spirited.'

  'Obstinate more like it.'

  There came a muted roar from somewhere overhead and the ground shook terribly as if a giant were treading through the valley. Shrok and Malp, knocked off their feet, grabbed for any handholds they could find in the rock face, as the flaccid carcass of the Highrock healer rolled away downslope amid a shower of stones. The shuddering grew stronger as the frightening din rose in pitch.

  'What's happening?’ squealed Malp, clawing at the convulsing stone for support.

  'I think our victory is going to be rather short-lived,’ Shrok bleakly surmised.

  A wave of solid water spilled over the crest of the slope in foaming dirtiness and plunged downward with earth-stripping force. The deceitful highlanders were washed from their rocky perch and, in a single instant, both were drowned by the torrent and smashed to a pulp by the uprooted trees and boulders gyrating in that swirling mixer. They had the unenviable notability of becoming the first Bonehead victims of Redmount's fury. The earthquakes triggered by the eruption cracked the rim of the Oasis and untold gallons of lake-water had pressed against the fracture with the inevitable result. The floodwaters gushed from the crumbling breach to pour into the low-lying dale, the overhang Shrok and Malp had been caught under being the first stop of the deluge. Friends and foes alike met a watery death as the Concealed Valley was submerged under 90-foot-high muddy waves topped off by a downpour of ash. Starlight Falls, robbed of its source, was gradually reduced to a mere trickle, in turn causing Clearwater River to begin drying up.