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  Yowlar abruptly relaxed his grip. ‘I'm new in this wood. You a local?'

  'Born and raised, yessir.'

  Confounded by the baboon's doglike face, the cat demanded to know, ‘What manner of Howler are you?'

  'I've no notion what a “Howler” is, sir. I'm a Squaremuzzle.'

  'What's your name, boy?'

  'Jinku, sir.'

  'What sort of name is that?'

  'The name of your guide, I hope.'

  Releasing the baboon, Yowlar spat out a mouthful of greyish-brown hair. ‘And in return for this service I'll have to let you live of course.'

  Jinku, flat on his back, rubbed with his hands at the puncture marks on his throat where the Sabretooth's canines had broken the skin. ‘That's the general idea,’ he agreed. Contemplating the sticky blood on his stumpy fingers, he made a face. ‘I think I'm going to faint.'

  Yowlar considered the proposal. Information had all of a sudden become more pressing than food. ‘On one condition, Jinku,’ he growled.

  The queasy feeling monkey came back to life. ‘Anything, sir! Just you name it.'

  'I can do better than that. I'll give it to you.’ With a flick of his paw Yowlar raked his claws across the nearest of the baboon's outstretched legs. Jinku hollered and clutched with his stubby-fingered hands at the ragged lines of red welling on his thigh.

  'What did you do that for?’ he complained to the cat.

  'Insurance,’ elucidated Yowlar, retracting his side weapons. ‘If you are lame, you can't run off and leave me stranded. It also makes you reliant on me. Without my protection I doubt you'll last the day out, considering your pride haven't come to your rescue.'

  Jinku winced and looked up into the trees at his watchful, unmoving troop. They stared back, wary but indifferent to his plight. ‘Our motto is “Look after number one",’ he bitterly conceded.

  'It's settled then,’ Yowlar snarled merrily. ‘I keep you alive and you show me about the place, pointing out the pleasures and the pitfalls.'

  Not entirely happy with this one-sided arrangement, the immature baboon male nevertheless asked the cruel panther, ‘So what do I call you?'

  'Sir will do just fine.'

  * * * *

  'You're forgetting to eat again.'

  Bushwalker deposited a collection of small, yellow-green fruits at Rockshaper's side before sitting opposite him and nibbling on her own supply of the fleshy, oval jackalberries, her black pelt glossy in the heat. The gracile elder was seated under the glaring midday sun in a shallow, stony basin absently picking over the scattered rocks lying about.

  'What? Oh,’ he said, examining a chunk of angular quartz in his hairy hands. ‘I thought you were off with Treeclimber.'

  'I was, but he's doing his usual thing and playing in trees.'

  'And you prefer to walk.'

  'That's why I was named.'

  Rockshaper could not find fault in that argument. Upright infants were given names based upon childhood habits. Bushwalker exhibited a tendency at an early age to go strolling through the scrub whilst Treeclimber loved clambering about in the thorny acacias. Name changes could also come about during adult life when somebody's characteristics or circumstances radically altered. Rockshaper himself had originally been called Rootgrubber before tinkering about with stones to the extent that the then tribal leader renamed him. Caverunner was itself a generic appellation for the head of the Home-rock man-apes and replaced the more personalised name of that particular individual after his ascension to power, always by force. Male bigness, not necessarily brains, determined Upright leadership.

  'Where are the others?’ Rockshaper asked.

  'Back in the shade of the trees over yonder,’ answered Bushwalker. ‘Where we should be.'

  'There are no decent stones over there,’ the elder pointed out.

  Caverunner's irate voice bounced across the shimmering heat haze, clearly berating Treeclimber for his aerial antics.

  'He's probably pelting one of the other junior males with rotten fruit,’ surmised Bushwalker, almost shyly adding, ‘Our leader hasn't got a great sense of humour.'

  Rockshaper vouched for that with a wry grin. ‘Do you know what his name was before he took over the leadership of the tribe?'

  'No, as it happens I don't. I was born well after Caverunner became leader.’ Shifting position, she plonked herself behind the oldster and started grooming him, picking bits of grass and twig and the occasional tick out of his fur with her questing hands and mouth. Aside from promoting cleanliness amongst the Uprights, it cemented bonds and fostered unity amongst the troop. ‘I bet it was something grand.'

  'Actually, it was Smellybottom.'

  Bushwalker could not help but laugh. ‘You're joking. No wonder he wanted to be leader, if only for the name change.'

  'I knew his father,’ confided the elder. ‘Now there was an ape with a wicked sense of humour. Though Smellybottom's mother naturally objected to her son being named so, her sometime mate was adamant and it stuck. The poor wee bugger got teased quite a lot, but in hindsight I guess it made him stronger.'

  'Strong enough to head the tribe.'

  'Don't think too badly of Caverunner, my girl. He may be an old stick in the mud, but he makes a fair leader.'

  'He is short-sighted and sexist,’ argued Bushwalker.

  'Tradition is hard to let go of, young ‘un.’ Rockshaper tossed away the stone he was studying in disgust, the piece clearly not suitable for his purposes. ‘Caverunner is not the only member of the troop fearing change. Others share his reluctance to embrace newness.'

  'You've taught me otherwise.'

  'Good. Don't ever forget that lesson. Life without growth gets to be stale and tedious. Stretch the mind every so often. You'll benefit from nutting out puzzles and the like.'

  'Is that what you are doing with your stones?'

  Rockshaper stood. ‘Time for that demonstration, I think.’ He opened up his left hand and displayed to Bushwalker a pebble-tool with a rounded handgrip topping a crudely flattened spade-like end fashioned by methodically chipping away flakes of the rock with a handheld hammerstone. It was a process she had seen the oldster use countless times during the twilight evenings back at Home-rock to make his weird and wonderful implements. ‘I've been shaping this one for quite a while now,’ he said with pride. ‘It's about ready to test.'

  Bushwalker regarded the stone dubiously. ‘What does it do?'

  'Follow me and find out,’ instructed Rockshaper.

  They left the hollow and ambled over to a clump of leafy shrubs. Dropping to his knees, Rockshaper motioned for Bushwalker to do likewise. She complied and he told her to dig out the roots of one of the stringy plants to get at the tasty tuber beneath the soil. Scratching futilely at the hard earth with her blunt fingernails, the female gracile gave up before too long, throwing up her hands in defeat.

  'Watch and learn,’ the elder told her, a crafty look in his eyes. Shooing Bushwalker aside, Rockshaper proceeded to use his digger to break up then scrape away the compacted soil surrounding the shrub's roots, exposing the succulent tuber. He dug out the delicacy and shared it with his younger friend.

  'Clever,’ Bushwalker said admiringly, brushing off the dirt and grit by rubbing the corm against her hairy upper arm before gnawing at the white, turnip-like flesh. Lacking the sturdier teeth and powerful jaw muscles that allowed the robusts to make short work of tough roots, graciles had to be content with nibbling tubers at their leisure.

  'What other things can you do with that flattish stone?’ she asked between bites.

  Rockshaper never got the chance to say, for Caverunner's shadow fell over them. ‘We're moving on,’ he crisply announced.

  'Can't I collect some more stones?’ Rockshaper asked.

  'We are leaving, with or without you.’ The gracile leader was unbending. ‘You should concentrate on finding food not flints.'

  'Caverunner, look at what Rockshaper can do with his pebbles.'

  Caverunne
r's response to Bushwalker's prompt was less than flattering as he confiscated her root for himself. ‘Females should be seen and not heard. Now run along with the old boy before I lose my temper.’ He bent down and gripped the oldster's wrist hurtfully, forcing him to drop the stone implement. ‘Leave your toy behind.'

  Helping Rockshaper to his feet, the chastised maid walked him back to where the tribe was assembling under the shady trees to march. Glancing back over her shoulder, Bushwalker saw Caverunner contemptuously kick away Rockshaper's digger before shadowing the pair and she felt an irrational surge of anger quicken her blood.

  Chapter Six

  'I must look ridiculous.'

  Jinku glanced down at the panther. ‘I'm feeling none too comfortable myself, sir.'

  Yowlar sympathised. He was entirely to blame however. Crippling his baboon guide presented the panther with a laughable dilemma. How was Jinku to show him around this land when he could not walk on all fours? The solution had been humiliatingly simple. The monkey was now nervously riding on the back of the fearsome cat, an inane product of their questionable partnership.

  'I'm so hungry I could eat a whole stag-moose,’ moaned the shrunken, inked Sabretooth.

  'What's that, sir?'

  'A beast a lot bigger than that piddling leaf-muncher I pulled down earlier.'

  Jinku was puzzled. The panther brought down a gazelle kid a short while ago but had not partaken of the kill. Gurgon-Rha had knobbled Yowlar in more ways than one with Tsor mind control, preventing the cat from feasting upon any animal other than the Uprights. Hunger was going to eventually rob Yowlar of his freewill and force him to stalk and kill the man-apes, else he would starve. A basic but effective tactic to cleverly ensure he was won over to Gurgon's cause.

  'How far does this prairie go on for, Jinku?'

  The baboon scratched his head. His furry mount was ambling through the untouched long grass edging the bulk of the savannah, his passage making a dry rasping sound as he went, heading away from the patchy bushland beneath a cloudless sky of purest blue. ‘Forever, sir. Firewind Veldt stretches for many days in all directions but hits barricades in the north and south.'

  'What obstruction lies to the north?'

  'A row of steep hills behind and to the side of us.'

  'Is Scraggly Bush the only tract of wood of any note in the area?'

  'Yessir. There are pockets of trees dotting the banks of the river feeding the waterhole, but they're so isolated as to be hardly worth mentioning.'

  Forming a map of the region in his mind, Yowlar remembered with a pang of regret that Miorr had staked her claim to that particular region.

  'There's a forest on the far shore of the lake. What of that?'

  'That's the patch of jungle fringing the southern shore of Murky Watering, but Greenshadow's impenetrable and, and....'

  'What, Jinku? Cough it up.'

  'Said to be damned. The jungle swallows up any savannah animal crazy enough to enter it.'

  'You mean they get hopelessly lost?'

  'Nothing so fortunate,’ Jinku said, fluffing his hair agitatedly. ‘The jungle eats them sir!'

  Unbothered by Squaremuzzle superstition, Yowlar glossed over his usher's fear and posed a query of greater relevance. ‘Are there any other waterholes hereabouts?'

  'No siree. Not that I know of. Just the one.'

  The panther uttered a smug little growl. If he was going to be left with no choice but to hunt the mortal enemies of the Tsor, he would do so his way. Every animal needed to drink, meaning Yowlar could simply stakeout the only watering spot in the region and lay in wait from the cover of the waterside scrub for the thirsty Uprights to show to quench their thirst. Yowlar caught himself. He was thinking, even acting contrarily. The heavyset Sabretooths never climbed trees, nor did they bother to skulk around drinking places on the off chance that prey would turn up. The pride merely hunted what they wanted whenever the mood took them. Africanised Sabretooths were vastly different cats. Yowlar had now an inbred affinity for trees and the grassiness of the unforested flatland unnerved him.

  'Damn you, Gurgon,’ he cursed. ‘If you aren't already scavenged bones, may all your scales drop off one by one.'

  'Sir, are you alright?’ Jinku asked the muttering cat.

  'Fine!’ Yowlar snapped back. ‘What barrier fences the southern grassland?’ he insisted on learning, returning to his mental mapmaking.

  'A horrible, withering place by the name of Wastesand. You don't want to go there, sir'

  'Why ever not?'

  'It is a desert.'

  'What's that?'

  'A treeless, barren domain of shifting sand dunes and blistering heat where the wind is said to strip the fur from your flesh and the sun sucks the moisture straight out of your body.'

  'Sounds appealing. How does a cub like you know of it and the layout of the rest of this land in such detail?'

  'We Squaremuzzles are a far ranging bunch. Whenever my troop meet up with a roving band I listen in to the older males talking, once the squabbling has died down. You can learn an awful lot from eavesdropping, sir. For instance, did you know that there are rumoured to be two-humped Longlegs actually living out in the sands?'

  'Fascinating,’ Yowlar dryly remarked, not knowing nor really caring what manner of creature a Longleg was. It would have surprised him to learn that the African Longleg was close cousin to the Lumpback native to Sabretooth time and clime, both look-alike representatives of the camel family. Originating in the Americas like the horse, they too would die out in their native land but flourish in central Asia and Arabia.

  Cresting a knoll, a refreshing breeze gusting in his face and tousling his ebony fur, the incurious panther spied again the giant bluish cone rising up out of the savannah over the waterhole like a gravestone. This time in a healthier frame of mind to better notice the misty peak, he voiced his interest. ‘At last, a recognisable landmark. What mountain is that?'

  'Whitetop,’ Jinku supplied after scanning the horizon.

  'No other mounts, I take it?'

  'Only the pinnacle of rock slap bang in the middle of Scraggly Bush.'

  The totally black Sabretooth yowled moodily. ‘This place is so foreign. No sunning rocks or tar pits ... just this infernal dry heat. When does summer end around here?'

  'It hasn't started, sir. This is winter still.'

  Even the regional weather was topsy-turvy! Cyclic changes affecting the savannah were confined to the wintertime dry spell and the summertime rainy season. Spring and autumn were banished from a landscape where seasonal changes were observed not by barely fluctuating temperatures but the absence of rainfall.

  'It is customary to find a shaded spot at this time of the day,’ the baboon commented. He frowned. ‘Sir, just where are you from?'

  'Someplace a lot cooler and wetter.'

  Yowlar carried his unsure jockey down the other side of the mound and slumped in the small amount of shade the hillock provided, bucking Jinku off in the process. Landing with an oath, the baboon limped away to snooze.

  'Not so fast,’ growled the panther, lazily slapping a paw on the monkey's stunted tail to prevent him crawling off. ‘The tour may be over, but you still have introductions to make.'

  Jinku spent the better part of the afternoon naming the assorted African wildlife that wandered into view for Yowlar's benefit. The cat was again struck by the similarities between the locals and those beasts native to his former homeland. Familiar already with the hairless Tuskers, striped horses and thundering buffaloes, all having North American equivalents, there were a few genuine surprises for the migrant.

  Giraffalopes seemed a physical absurdity, midway between an okapi and giraffe. Short-necked, with stilts for legs and jigsaw patterned hides, these thickly muscled herbivores were ornamented by two pairs of fuzzy, horn-like structures. The front set consisted of small, twinned horny protuberances, but the back pair was strikingly palmated and huge, reminiscent of stag-moose antlers in Yowlar's estimation. Jin
ku assured him the ungainly browsers could outrun the wind and break a hunter's jaw with one kick from their stalky limbs, while the cheetah was a bizarrely cattish attempt to emulate the Giraffalope body plan. Lithely limbed, the skinny-bodied Speeders seemed an abhorrent mishmash of feline and canid features. Curiously, back in Yowlar's original time and place a stockier cheetah did evolve to chase down the racy Pronghorns that sprinted blithely across the American prairie.

  The bad tempered Nosehorns filled the void left by the lack of gargantuan Ground Sloths and Jinku strenuously cautioned the panther never to invoke a rhino charge. Yowlar spied no coyotes but rightly assumed that the black-backed jackal he watched guardedly lope by mid-afternoon filled that niche. Wolves were completely absent from this otherwise duplicate ecosystem, replaced by the equally noisy and detestable packs of piebald hunting dogs. All in all Yowlar was left with the impression that this foreign habitat was basically not so far removed from his old world, other than he no longer topped the food chain.

  'What about the great cats I hear at night, Jinku? Why haven't we seen any of them?'

  'The Roarers have enough sense to stay out of the hot midday sun, sir. They'll be out and about again come dark, worse luck.'

  'Are they really so terrifying?'

  Jinku shuddered. ‘And then some. They roam around in that big gang of theirs picking fights with any animal they don't immediately eat. Most nights they end up in a tussle with the resident Bonecrunchers.’ The enmity between lions and hyenas would progress as a longstanding feud carried through to modern times.

  Yowlar knew he had heard right on his first night spent here. There definitely was a pride of big cats patrolling somewhere out there. ‘These Roarers, just where do they hang out?'

  His monkey tour guide had to think for a moment. ‘I don't keep close tabs on them, but they seem to favour the strip of grassland between Scraggly Bush and Murky Watering.'

  'That's one spot I'll avoid,’ the panther decided. If the Roarers were as big as they sounded he did not wish to tangle with one, let alone the whole bunch. Fighting a compulsion not his own and failing, he snarled irritably at Jinku. ‘Tell me about the Uprights.'