Wing & Claw 3_Beast of Stone

by Linda Sue Park

  I can’t let him down.

  Back at the pother tent, he stepped inside and glanced at the worktable. He saw a large mortar filled with a new batch of vine poultice . . . which was properly quickened, snapping and popping with scarlet sparks.

  He did it! It looks every bit as good as mine—better, even!

  That was twice that Garith had succeeded with his apothecary combinations—first the throx powder and now the poultice. Raffa didn’t want to make too big a tremor about it this time, which might imply surprise at Garith’s achievement. But when their eyes met, Garith gave him a quick wink, then stuck out his tongue and crossed his eyes.

  A welcome gladness warmed Raffa, dispelling some of the doubt. He made a pig nose back at Garith.

  “We’re running short of spineflower,” Garith said. “Missum Yuli wants another batch for the patients who need re-treating.”

  “I’ll go collect some,” Raffa replied. In that moment, he realized that this was exactly what he needed: a little time in the Forest, gathering botanicals. It was one of his favorite activities, both soothing and stimulating; it would calm him down and help him think.

  Only a few dozen paces out of the clearing, it was as if he were all alone in the Forest. The sight of the tents and the sounds of the people faded; no one else was about. Besides being exhausted and bewildered by their journey, the Gildeners would be wary of the mysterious Forest, and would almost certainly stay within the bounds of the clearing.

  Raffa found a patch of spineflower almost immediately, recognizing the grayish-green foliage, even though the plant was not yet in bloom. He took a quick peek at Echo, fast asleep on the perch necklace, and couldn’t help smiling. The little bat’s wings looked like a neatly wrapped cape.

  Harvesting the spineflower plants had exactly the effect he had hoped for. He fell into the familiar rhythm: choose, gather, move on, repeat. It didn’t take long to fill a sack; still, when he was finished, he felt more refreshed than he had in weeks.

  As he walked toward the clearing, the sack snagged on a shrub. He reached to free it, and—

  “YOW!”

  He snatched his hand back and shook it hard, as if it were on fire. “Touchrue,” he muttered in disgust as he glared at the offending shrub.

  Gildeners spoke in fear of Forest plants so vicious that they supposedly shot poisonous thorns at humans. Touchrue thorns were indeed noxious, coated with a sap that caused burning and blisters. There were other plants whose pods burst open, scattering seeds. Tales of the two kinds of plants had been conflated, giving birth to a falsehood. The touchrue bush hadn’t shot its thorns at him. He knew better than to touch it, and chided himself for not looking first.

  He examined the sore spot on his finger. Already a blister was bubbling up beneath the reddened skin. It wasn’t a serious reaction—he had jerked his hand away very quickly—but it was bothersome all the same. A hazeltine combination would soothe it; he wondered if Garith had any.

  Without touching the shrub, he unsnagged the bag. Then he stared at a cluster of thorns for a long moment, not knowing quite why.

  Darkness fell across his vision. He felt himself hurtling down a long, narrow tunnel before bursting out into the light.

  He looked around in astonishment.

  Nothing had changed. He was standing in the Forest next to a touchrue bush, holding a sack full of spineflower.

  Raffa realized that he had just experienced one of his moments of intuition. Sometimes when he was working with botanicals, he knew what to do without being able to say quite how he knew. That uncanny ability had helped him excel at apothecary from a very young age. He could never predict when or how such moments would happen. Colors, sounds, light, or music—they were rarely direct flashes of knowledge. He always had to think about them, figure out what the secret parts of his mind were trying to tell him.

  He was now learning how to best handle his intuition—to not rely on it exclusively but to use it combined with experience and observation and practice. It wasn’t always easy.

  Touchrue . . . it’s about the touchrue. But why the tunnel? Touchrue . . . tunnel . . . touchrue in a tunnel . . .

  “Ah!” Raffa couldn’t help a shout. He took the time to carefully snip a twig full of thorns, wrapped it in a leaf, and put it in his rucksack. Then he started running back to the clearing, heading straight for the council circle.

  Chapter Eleven

  “AN idea . . . For the blowpipes.”

  Raffa stood in the middle of the circle, out of breath from his run. He had asked for and received permission to address the council members, who were still at their contentious meeting.

  “Go ahead,” Haddie said.

  He reached into his rucksack and pulled out the leaf parcel. Unwrapping it gingerly, he displayed the thorns to those in the circle.

  “These are touchrue thorns,” he said. “Some of you know about touchrue—it’s one of the plants that grows here in the Forest of Wonders but nowhere else. The thorns sting and burn when you touch them. You can see how long and skinny they are—they’ll fit fine inside a reed. We can use them as ammunition for the blowpipes.”

  He saw the adults exchange quick looks. Were they skeptical? Uncertain? He wasn’t sure, but at least they were interested.

  “The reaction is temporary. It goes away eventually, and it can be helped along by a hazeltine poultice. If we want to be sure that some of the guards are slowed down, I’m thinking that we should also soak the thorns in nettle essence. That will increase the chance of a painful reaction, and make it more likely to impede them.”

  The council had questions for him. Could enough thorns be harvested? How would people be able to store and load them without getting stung themselves? What if the guards were wearing heavy armor? How far could a thorn be blown from a reed with reasonable accuracy?

  Raffa answered what he could. “Gloves—everyone would have to wear gloves.” For other questions, practice and experimentation would be needed.

  The council agreed to support the effort to try out the thorns as ammunition. The mood at the meeting had changed. While everyone still looked serious, the anger had dissipated.

  Haddie spoke to the other council members. “Earlier we were discussing the animals. I’d like to propose that we include Raffa. He knows the animals better than any of us.”

  Elson looked apprehensive. “Doesn’t seem right, Haddie, to put that kind of burden on a child.”

  Bristling a little, Raffa squared his shoulders and stood as tall as he could.

  “I’m not asking him to come up with any answers,” Haddie replied crisply. “Just to tell us his experiences.”

  “Then Kuma should come, too,” Raffa said. “She’s been with me almost every time I’ve seen the animals.”

  Raffa was pleased when the council agreed that he and Kuma were to return after sunpeak meal to share what they knew.

  He made his way through the camp, thinking so hard that he walked right past the pother tent. Realizing his mistake, he backtracked and saw that there was no longer a queue of people awaiting treatment. A good sign, and he hoped it meant that Missum Yuli had been able to treat everyone successfully using Garith’s poultice.

  Garith, Kuma, and Jimble were tidying up inside the pother tent. Raffa put the sack of spineflower on the table, opened it, and pulled out one of the plants he had harvested.

  “Jimble, this is spineflower,” he said. He showed Jimble how to strip the leaves gently, without bruising them, and sort them separately from the stems. “Would you get started? I need to talk to Garith and Kuma, but we won’t be long.”

  “Take as long as you need,” Jimble said. “That nursery tent—it’s the best thing ever. The twins and Brid love it there, and I can stay here all day!”

  Raffa sat next to Kuma on a log outside the tent, with Garith on a stump opposite them, so he could see both their faces.

  “The council is going to ask me and Kuma to talk about our experiences with the animals,” Raf
fa said. “But I want to do more than that. I’m hoping that the three of us can come up with some suggestions.”

  “Suggestions for what?” Garith asked.

  “Using apothecary.” Raffa went on to explain about the blowpipes and the touchrue thorns.

  Garith grinned. “That’s a great idea. I’ll make the nettle essence. Jimble can help. I can already tell—he seems to have a real feel for pothering.” A slight shrug. “The only problem is, he talks all the time and he’s always forgetting to look at me. I have to keep reminding him.”

  “Maybe have him stand across the worktable from you?” Raffa suggested. “Instead of side by side?”

  Garith tapped his temple. “Should have thought of that myself. I’ll try it.”

  “Okay, let’s start at the beginning. The crows.” Raffa looked at Kuma. She had been with him on two occasions when he had seen the trained crows.

  “They went for our eyes,” Kuma said, with a shudder, gesturing with two fingers.

  The crows that attacked Raffa and Kuma the previous fall had been trained using scarecrows whose eye sockets held grapes. During the attack, the crows had rained repeated blows on their heads and shoulders. It was Roo the bear who had come to their aid: She had killed several crows and driven away the rest.

  “Well, that’s easy,” Garith said. “Masks, for protection.”

  After some discussion, Raffa hit on the notion of using birchbark for masks. Kuma knew of a stand of parchment birches growing near the stream. It was quick work for Raffa to fetch several kerchief-size squares of bark. With Garith and Kuma looking on, he used his knife to cut two narrow rectangular slits in the bark, eye-width apart. Then he picked it up and held it in front of his face, curving the edges to form a mask.

  “Creepy,” Garith said. “Why didn’t you make the eyeholes round instead? That would look more normal.”

  Raffa held the mask out and inspected it. “It is a little weird-looking,” he admitted. “But I made them like that on purpose.”

  Kuma spoke up excitedly. “So you think—maybe the crows won’t recognize those slits as eyes, and won’t aim for them?”

  “Pretty clever,” Garith said. “What about a second set of holes? Higher up, like here”—he pointed at the hairline on the mask—“and make them rounder. So the crows will aim for those instead.”

  That idea was greeted with enthusiasm; Raffa quickly added a second set of eyeholes to the mask. They made several more masks, refining the design each time; by the time they finished, the supper gong was clanging.

  They stood in line by the fire pit, each receiving a ladleful of mush, another of lentil stew, and a piece of bread for scooping. The aromas of the hot food made Raffa’s knees weak. At the table, he shoveled and gobbled, his manners completely vanquished by hunger.

  Raffa held up a mask while Kuma handed out the others to the council members. He had already described the crow attack, and the reasoning behind using the masks.

  “Hmm,” said Missum Quellin. “I don’t suppose the masks will do any harm. But to be honest, I’m more worried about the other creatures.”

  “Let’s show the masks to the squad leaders,” Fitzer suggested. “They can see to it that everyone makes their own.”

  “Good,” Haddie said. “Now, Raffa, tell us what you know about the foxes and the stoats.” She went on to say that the council had already discussed the attack at the settlement; she and Elson had witnessed it firsthand.

  Taken aback that the masks had garnered so little attention, Raffa took a moment to gather his thoughts. He started by describing what he had seen at the riverbank. “The foxes and the stoats both attack by jumping,” he said. “They snap and tear with their teeth, and there have been claw injuries, too. It’s unusual for foxes to hunt in packs, but that’s what these have been trained to do.”

  He continued, “At the settlement, they attacked animals—the foxes went for the sheep and the stoats for the chickens. But at the river, they attacked people.”

  “Stoats are so small,” Missum Abdul pointed out. “Could they really do serious damage to a full-grown person?”

  “They’re small, but they’re vicious, and their teeth are really sharp,” Raffa replied. He swallowed. “The injuries we saw here—they’re the people who got away. We don’t know anything about the ones who were hurt worse—and couldn’t get across.”

  A sober silence.

  “We have to face facts,” Elson said at last. “We don’t have anywhere near enough bowshooters. The blowpipes might slow down both guards and animals, but we can’t expect more than that. We’re going to need another strategy.”

  “Poisoned bait,” Fitzer said in a weary voice that implied he had said it before—several times.

  Everyone spoke at once. “Not with the bait again—” “We’ve been over this!” “We can’t count on it—”

  A piercing whistle cut through the jumble of voices. Raffa was startled twice over—once by the sound itself and then when he realized that it was Kuma who had whistled.

  She stood an arm’s length from him. Every face turned toward her. She took a deep breath. When she spoke, her voice was so tight that she seemed to be forcing the words out one by one.

  “I’ve heard talk of—of bowshooters. And poison. I might be wrong, but I don’t think so.” She stared at her aunt and uncle in turn. “You’re talking about killing them. The animals. Or at least hurting them badly.”

  No one answered. Kuma’s eyes were bright with rage.

  “Don’t you realize how unfair that is? Those animals—they’re like slaves. They’re being forced to do things against their nature! We should be talking about rescuing them, not killing them!”

  Now she was shaking, and near tears. Elson stood and put his arm around her shoulders.

  “Kuma, we talked about that in earlier meetings. None of us want to do it, but it’s self-defense. What choice do we have?”

  Haddie spoke gently. “Our first priority has to be people, Kuma.”

  “I’m not saying put the animals first,” Kuma said, her voice calmer but still fierce. “But they—she just—she does whatever she wants, without respecting anything. The Afters, the animals, the Forest—it’s all the same wrongness. We can’t fight just one part of it. We have to fight it all.”

  Raffa’s eyes were wide. He thought of Kuma as shy and reticent, but here she was speaking her mind to a group of adults. It’s because she cares so much, he thought. Defeating the Chancellor is more important to her than—than being shy is.

  “You’re right,” Fitzer said. “We have focused more on the guards than the animals. It’s why we asked you to join us here. We were hoping that information about the animals would help us come up with some new ideas. But—” He looked around the circle and shook his head.

  “So what are you planning to do about the guards?” Raffa asked.

  The adults exchanged glances. “Might as well tell them,” Quellin said, “seeing as we’ll be announcing it to the whole camp soon.”

  Haddie nodded in agreement. “You already know that we’ll be outnumbered,” she said to Raffa and Kuma, “and that they’ll have weapons. We’re not even thinking of trying to defeat them in the usual sense of the word.”

  But then how—

  Fitzer spoke next. “Some of the guards are Afters. Or at least part-After. They’re our neighbors—even friends or family. We see them at the market, on the street, at the ferry. We’re planning to draw them here, to the clearing, as many as we can. But we won’t fight them. We’ll surrender, but as we do, we’ll talk to them. We’ll try to convince them to put down their arms and come over to our side.”

  Kuma raised her head in excitement. “If it works, maybe nobody will get hurt.”

  Haddie coughed a little. “That’s what we’re hoping,” she said.

  Something in her voice made Raffa glance at her, and then at the other council members. What he saw made his stomach clench. Fitzer, Elson, Haddie—their eyes were full of d
oubt and sadness.

  They don’t believe it will work. . . . And they don’t have another plan.

  Chapter Twelve

  AS Raffa tried to digest this bleak realization, he heard shouts coming from the direction of the entrance to the clearing.

  “HORSE AND RIDER! HORSE AND RIDER!”

  The council members jumped to their feet.

  “Stay here,” Haddie said to Kuma.

  Once the adults had all rushed off, Raffa and Kuma exchanged glances, and began running too. When they drew near the entrance, they saw that the path into the clearing was blocked by a group of people holding improvised weapons—pitchforks, scythes, hoes. Raffa could hear hoofbeats, which grew louder and then slowed as the rider approached.

  The horse was a majestic animal, a chestnut with a white blaze and white socks on his forelegs. The rider was a teenaged boy, perhaps sixteen or seventeen years old, dark-haired and olive-skinned, whose fine clothing and beautiful saddle marked him on sight as a Commoner.

  “HOY!” the man next to Elson shouted, waving a scythe in the air. “Stop where you are! Who are you and what’s your business here?”

  The rider immediately reined his horse to a halt. He raised a hand in the air. “Aren’t you going to say ‘Once upon a time’?” he asked.

  Surprise rippled through the group.

  “He knows the code.” “Who could have told him?” “Why would a Commoner have the code?”

  The rider raised his voice a little. “All right, then, I’ll do it myself. You say ‘Once upon a time,’ and I say ‘Happily ever Afters.’”

  Still no one moved, and Raffa felt the tension rising. If a Commoner knows the code, does that mean someone has betrayed us? Does the Chancellor already know we’re here? He could see his own doubts reflected in the grim faces of those blocking the path.

  The rider must have sensed it, too, for he spoke again.

  “I have a message,” he called, “for the leadership council, from Senior Salima Vale.”

  Raffa gasped and started forward. Fitzer, standing next to him, clamped a hand on his shoulder and held him back.