Monkey Wars (31 page)

“I swear!” gasped Mico. “Tyrell's my enemy. He always was!”

Gu-Nah studied Mico's face, considered his words; then with one swift movement he pulled the net clear. Mico staggered to his feet and wiped the dirt from his mouth.

The two monkeys looked at each other like strangers in the moonlight. Gu-Nah saw a monkey who had once been in the highest echelon of the langur troop now reduced to a frightened refugee. Quite a change.

But not as big as the change Mico saw: only a couple of moons ago Gu-Nah had just been a tired old soldier. Not anymore. The Gu-Nah who stood before him had a wild, raw danger pumping through his veins.

“What happened to you?” Mico asked apprehensi
vely.

Gu-Nah's eyes danced in the darkness. “Freedom.”

L
esser rulers would have gone to great lengths to keep Mico's disappearance quiet, nervous that the defection of such a senior monkey would reflect badly on them. But Tyrell understood that by sharing his sense of betrayal, he could win the sympathy of the troop.

Which is why, a few days later, a special group of langur monkeys emerged from the Great Vault with a mission to spread the news of Mico's defection far and wide. Handpicked by Tyrell, these impressionable young monkeys formed the newly created Twopoint Brigade. They worked the rooftops and the lounging trees, persuading mothers who gossiped at the food stations, and youths who played in the banyan groves.

Everywhere they went the message they pushed was the same:
Mico is a traitor! He's stolen all our secrets—how we defend ourselves, where we keep our food. As we speak he's inciting other traitors to spy on us. A neighbor behaving strangely? A friend questioning military strategy? These could be warning signs. Better to report them to the Twopoints and be safe than keep quiet and help traitors.

On the roof and branch the propaganda created a wave of gratitude that Tyrell's strong leadership was protecting his monkeys.

In Mico's family, though, the reactions were very different.

Trumble and Kima were devastated. Nearly losing their son to illness had been bad enough, but now to have him branded a traitor…

They knew Mico with a deep, instinctive knowledge, like a familiar scent, and they refused to believe the accusations were true.

Breri looked at his parents with a dispassionate eye, and judged that they were showing far too much concern for an enemy of the troop, so one evening he cornered his father in the small space under their home.

“You shouldn't feel sympathy for Mico.”

Trumble looked up with grief in his eyes. “He's my son—”

“He's a traitor.”

“But he's still my son!”

Breri shrugged. “More's the pity.”

“What happened to you?” Trumble asked, unable to hide his dismay. “When did you become so cold?”

“I worked hard to prove myself,” Breri snapped as the back of his neck prickled with anger. “
I
wasn't plucked out of obscurity and handed everything on a palm leaf! I had to struggle every step of the way, and now Mico's put all that in jeopardy. Now I'm the brother of a traitor!”

For the first time Trumble saw the utter selfishness of his eldest son. There was no right or wrong for Breri; there was just the simple calculation: how would it be of benefit to Breri?

As if unable to look at the ugliness of his own creation, Trumble turned away and muttered, “Get out of my sight.”

Anger lashed Breri's heart as he thundered through the shady alleys of the cemetery. He wanted to hurt his father the way he was hurting, and he knew exactly how to do it.

In a short while, Breri found himself standing outside the ominous Black Vault that the Twopoint Brigade had taken for its headquarters. He looked up at the official symbol carved above the door—they would teach Trumble about loyalty.

But something made Breri hesitate.

A fleeting memory danced into his mind: when he was a young monkey, he had fallen from the branches of a gum tree. Trumble had picked him up, put him on his back and ran all the way across the city to get him home, where Kima sat with him day and night. Whenever Breri opened his eyes, she was there. It was as if his mother never slept or ate, as if he was the only thing in the world that mattered to her.

Breri shook himself, casting off the memory.
Forget the past,
he told himself.
The past is dead and gone. There is only the future.
He had to do the right thing, which meant putting the needs of the troop above all personal sentiment. That was the truly courageous thing. Troop first, family second.

And having convinced himself, Breri stepped into the Twopoint Brigade's headquarters.

Whereas before the Barbaries had turned up like thieves in the night, this time they swarmed into Trumble's home in broad daylight, determined to make it a public spectacle.

Kima closed her eyes and let herself be dragged into the dusty sunlight, but Trumble still clung to some notion of justice.

“We've been through this!” he exclaimed. “Ask Hummingbird! I've taught him about the stones!”

The Barbaries just kicked Trumble to the ground.

“This isn't about your silly stones, Trumble.” The voice was quiet, cold.

Trumble craned his neck and saw a langur standing over him. “And it's nothing to do with Hummingbird,” the langur added. “It's Twopoint business now.”

Trumble tried to make out the Twopoint commander's face against the blue sky—there was something familiar about him.

“You're…you're one of Breri's friends. You played together as youngsters.”

“And you're the father of a traitor,” the commander said ominously.

So that was why they'd come.

The Twopoint commander nodded to the Barbaries, who bundled Trumble and Kima away, marching them slowly along the paths, giving the monkeys who peered out from the shadows plenty of time to see the shame of traitors.

They kept marching, out of the cemetery, through the langur-controlled streets until they came to the gates of the Eastern Province. The prisoners were taken across the Great Lawn, down the narrow steps that led to a cellar under the summer house tower, where they were thrown into a dark, damp room.

The door was slammed shut behind them. This time there was no interrogation.

Trumble and Kima had been shut away from the sunlight to be forgotten.

Far above, Tyrell was standing at the window of his room; beside him was Breri. They had watched the arrest in silence, and only when he heard the heavy clang of the metal door did Tyrell turn to Breri and see the grave expression on his face.

“Not having second thoughts?”

Breri quickly pulled himself together. “No, my lord.”

“You made a difficult choice. But you made the right one.”

“Thank you, Lord Tyrell.”

“Not every monkey would've had the courage to denounce his own parents.”

Breri hesitated. There were so many conflicting emotions rampaging through his heart, when all he wanted was certainty.

He looked at Tyrell and with heartfelt sincerity replied, “It wasn't an easy decision, my lord.”

Seeing the enormity of the step Breri had taken, Tyrell opened his arms and embraced him. “Think of
me
as your father now. We are a troop first and individuals second.”

As the ruler's arms held him tightly, Breri felt a huge sense of relief. All he had to do was follow Tyrell unquestion
ingly, do as the leader ordered, and everything would be all right.

“There is nothing greater than loyalty,” Tyrell reassured him. “It is the fabric of the troop.”

Gently he led Breri over to the massive, carved map of the city that dominated one wall of the room.

“Do you think your brother's out there somewhere? Or has he fled the city altogether?”

Breri looked at the tangle of lines, struggling to understand the visual abstraction.

“You've known him since he was born. Watched him grow up, played with him, fought with him. If Mico could go anywhere, where would he run for safety?”

Tyrell plucked a selection of the juiciest fruits from his own personal supply and laid them down in front of Breri.

“Sit. Eat. Think.”

And Breri did exactly as he was told.

M
ico woke with a start as a furious whistle split his eardrums. He leaped to his feet in utter confusion. For a few moments he was totally disorientated; his mind rushed to catch up with his body.

Then someone behind him chuckled, “Welcome to my world.”

Mico spun round and saw Gu-Nah tucking into a pile of freshly pilfered fruit.

“The express trains all do that. You'll get used to it,” Gu-Nah said and tossed an orange across the hide.

Mico went to catch it, but he wasn't awake enough and the orange dropped through a gap in the rafters. There was a soft
splat
as it exploded on the floor far below, reminding Mico exactly where he was.

Gu-Nah sighed. “Concentrate.”

He tossed another orange—this time Mico caught it and sank his teeth into the flesh. As he sucked hungrily on the juice, Mico studied Gu-Nah and saw that his wild fur wasn't the result of neglect; it had been carefully cultivated.

“Not keen on the crazy look?” said Gu-Nah.

“It's a bit…extreme.”

“It has to be. A lone monkey is vulnerable. Rabid dogs, hungry rats—they all want to have a pop. But enemies back away from madness. It's too unpredicta
ble.”

“So the crazier you look, the safer you are?”

Without warning Gu-Nah lunged at Mico, baring his teeth. Startled, Mico tumbled backward, slipped off the rafter and plummeted.

In an instant, Gu-Nah swung down and his iron grip clamped around Mico's tail, hauling him painfully back to safety.

“See? Unpredicta
ble,” the old soldier chuckled darkly.

Mico wasn't amused. “You could at least have made the place a bit safer,” he said, looking at the chaotic jumble of rusting metal sheets wedged between the rafters.

“The secret is all in the gaps. From below, it looks like junk.” Gu-Nah thrust his head between two planks. “But all the while you can keep an eye on the approaches.”

Mico peered out between the roof sheets—the view certainly was impressive.

“And the gaps let in telltale sounds,” Gu-Nah explained. “It's a warning system….The slightest change in water dripping from a gutter, or the sound of falling coals—”

“So that's how you knew I was coming!”

Gu-Nah gave a wry smile. “The trick to seeing the future is to study the present more closely than your enemy.”

Mico was impressed and daunted as he realized how much he had to learn about survival outside a troop.

He would need to learn fast.

In the map room at the top of the tower the hunt for Mico was gearing up, with Sweto newly appointed to lead the mission. This devious langur had held a grudge against Mico ever since they'd clashed in the undercroft, and he longed for the chance to settle the score.

For an entire night, Tyrell had kept Breri in the map room, remembering every hiding place Mico had used when playing as an infant, every neighborhood he'd mentioned in casual conversation.

As he listened to Breri reel off the targets (honey farm, bins behind the pastry shop, burnt-out tamarind tree…) Tyrell realized that in all the time he'd known Mico, he had never had those private conversations that offer glimpses into a monkey's soul. It was as if Mico had been holding back all along, and the thought filled Tyrell with an angry dread.

Never again would he make the mistake of trusting another monkey with so much power.

Perched on the guttering, looking down on the shunting yards, Mico was amazed to see how busy the tracks were. Last night there had just been the odd train passing through, but this morning there was a rattling confusion of engines shunting back and forth with long lines of carriages in tow.

“So…” He turned to Gu-Nah. “What now?”

“Chocolate,” Gu-Nah replied, tossing over a pilfered bar. But Mico wasn't going to be distracted so easily.

“You know what I mean.” He gestured to the derelict engine shed. “Is this it? Just living wild?”

“What would you rather do? Overthrow Tyrell's empire?” Gu-Nah chuckled at the absurdity of the idea, but when he looked up he saw that Mico wasn't smiling.

“Oh no,” said Gu-Nah. “I'm just pretending to be mad. You really
are
mad if you think—”

“We know all his secrets.”

“He's got a whole army!”

“We know their tactics.”

“He's got the Barbaries—”

“We know their weaknesses.”

“This is the monkey who massacred the rhesus!”

“And we're going to let him get away with that?!”

Mico and Gu-Nah glared at each other testily.

“How can two outcasts take on a whole empire? Tyrell is indestruct
ible,” Gu-Nah said firmly, trying to finish the argument once and for all.

“Powerful, yes. Indestruct
ible, no.” Mico handed the chocolate back as a peace offering. “In their strength is their fatal weakness.”

“They don't have a weakness.”

“Tyrell controls everything,” Mico went on. “All decisions have to come from him. That makes the langur inflexible. You said it yourself, but your ideas about fighting were never going to catch on because they flew in the face of Tyrell's need for control.”

“What's gone is gone.” Gu-Nah shrugged. “We missed our chance.”

“But what if we trained
other
monkeys? If we had just a small troop, highly trained in your new fighting skills…” Mico picked up a coconut and tapped it. “It looks so strong, doesn't it? But if you know how to attack it…” And with a swift hand, Mico slammed the coconut on a roof girder, striking it at just the right angle so that it split in two.

Gu-Nah looked at the shell, then reached out and took the half with the sweet milk. “No point wasting it.”

“If we strike at Tyrell in a new way,” Mico said quietly, “we can send a fracture line through his whole empire.”

Gu-Nah gulped down the coconut milk. He was certainly tempted—al
though his experiment in the new form of fighting had been cut short, he had glimpsed its power. If the enemy had to wait for information to travel up and down a chain of command, maybe, just maybe, a small, highly trained force really could win, even if they were massively outnumbered.

The more Gu-Nah thought about it, the more it intrigued him. He felt the old urge of combat start to stir.

“Did you know some of the rhesus survived?” he said finally.

Mico stared at him in disbelief. “Survived? Are you sure?”

“Oh yes.”

“How many? Where? Do you know how to find them?” The questions spilled from Mico's mouth as he dared to hope that Papina might still be alive.

Gu-Nah passed the chocolate back to Mico. “Eat well. We've got a long journey ahead.”

It was sunset by the time Sweto and his elites arrived at the railway sidings. They had spent all day searching bolt holes across the city and turned up nothing, but Sweto had high hopes for the engine shed; hiding here—a place most monkeys did not dare visit—was just the sort of devious move he would expect from a traitor.

The hit squad hurried across the tracks; then Sweto peered through a crack in the engine shed walls, searching for clues that might give away the enemy's position.