Floodpath

by Emily B. Martin

  “Okay,” Lark says, standing hip-deep in bracken on the uphill embankment, surveying the road. “The coach comes in on the straightaway. Tamsin said she usually traveled with three guards—one on the coach, one in front, and one behind—plus her maid.”

  I nod eagerly. The main subject of our kitchen discussions for the last three days has been how to get as many guards as possible away from the coach and held up. Iano had suggested he simply step into the road and give the royal order to stop, but Tamsin reminded him of how we’re still unsure if his mother had a hand in the attack on her stage, meaning we have no way of knowing what the palace guards’ orders might be should they encounter him. I offered a series of attack formations, moving our little group around in an array of swords and crossbows, with Rat thrown in. Iano got hot and bothered, and was arguing against any injury to royal guards when Lark finally cut in and offered her simple, elegant solution.

  “The coach stops,” Lark continues, stepping back onto the road and striding toward the hairpin. “A guard rides forward to check the way.” She rounds the blind curve, ducking around ferns hanging into the road. She stops. “And then they see the tree.”

  “And there’s a lot of swearing,” I say.

  She nods, looking from the empty road up to the redwoods reaching to the sky. “It’s too steep and narrow for the coach to turn around. The guards will get out their tools—if we’re lucky, they’ll only have hatchets, but in this terrain they’ll probably at least have a bow saw—and they’ll get to work clearing the tree while the coach waits.”

  “The curve will hide us, and the noise from sawing should cover our sound,” I say.

  “Again, if we’re lucky,” Lark says, staring darkly at the road. “Chances are high they’ll leave at least one guard with the coach, and if Kimela or her maid screams, the others might hear over the noise of their saws. That’s where the rest of you come in.”

  I nod again excitedly. We’ve parceled out the weapons we have among us—Soe with her crossbow, Lark with her knife and broadsword, Iano with his rapier . . . and me with his longbow. He’d reluctantly handed it over yesterday, and I’ve been practicing with it since then. I was surprised—it’s not nearly as hard to draw as I thought it might be. My folk use shorter flatbows, and I’d failed to realize that my ma’s stubby hedge-apple bow is ten times stiffer than Iano’s willowy yew bow. I’m hardly the archer my sister Ida is, but after a day of practice, I’m at least hitting the target as many times as I’m missing it.

  “You’ll stay upslope, and Soe will be down the road,” Lark says, looking up the bank again. “That way you can snipe from the trees if you need to. You’ll be at that rock we found, so you can see around both sides of the bend and use those birdcalls you taught us to keep everyone coordinated.”

  My excitement spikes. This was my best idea—using the scouts’ long-distance whistles to run our attack. I’ve been practicing them since I first learned to whistle, tiptoeing around our family’s wing at Lampyrinae and letting them ring out when things got too quiet. When I got older, I was able to use the excuse that I was helping Vynce practice them for his rise through the Guard ranks, but in reality it was so I could internalize what little scout culture I had access to.

  It only makes sense to use them now. Golden-crowned sparrow for a warning. Cardinal for all clear. Goldfinch for location. Towhee for aid. We’ve added a few more to suit the needs of our plan. Soe’s cabin had rung with experimental whistles and chirps as I’d taught them to the others, making Rat finally slink out of the kitchen with his ears back.

  Lark goes to the edge of the narrow road, looking down into the steep-sided ravine. “Iano and I will detain any guards that hang back. When we’re sure they’re secure, Tamsin and I will get into the coach with Kimela. I’ll help her say her piece, and then we’ll hand Kimela the essay. If she seems ready to ally with us, she can have her guards stand down, and we’ll all have a long chat. If she doesn’t . . .”

  This has been a sticking point for us—what to do if Kimela isn’t swayed by Tamsin’s appearance and composition, or what to do if she just caves and gives us a confession right away. Would the guards follow Iano’s orders if it turns out that Kimela has been our enemy? Or will they attempt to fight their prince?

  We tossed around the idea of trying to take Kimela away with us, but none of us liked that plan. Lark pointed out that the guards would be after us like a shot, while Soe pointed out that we had nowhere secret or secure to keep her prisoner. In the end, Tamsin convinced us all to simply retreat, making sure we all got away in one piece, so we could make a new plan with the information we had gathered. To me, it seems like a loose end, a place where our plan simply stops. But Lark agreed, insisting that we need to be more focused on our safety than doing anything too rash.

  “All right,” she says, scuffing a few rocks experimentally with her boot. “We’ve covered everything we can think of.” She nods to the cart, where the crosscut saw and wedges are. “Ready for the hard bit?”

  “Ready,” I say.

  “Are you sure?” she presses. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

  “’Course,” I say with forced indifference, reaching into the cart for the canvas-wrapped saw.

  But when we’ve struggled up the steep bank and reached our selected tree, I hesitate. The redwoods here are small for their kind, practically tiny compared to ancients like Giantess. But their trunks are still three feet across, strong and healthy, their roots weaving through the soil to hold this hillside together. I check to make sure Lark is occupied around the far side of the tree, and then I rest my palm on its bark.

  Mama has seeded a deep culture of forest conservation in the Silverwood, though she argues against folk who say so. She counters that she didn’t start it at all—that it’s always been in the blood of our folk to protect our forests the best ways we know how, and that she simply codified it again after the bad practices employed by my grandfather. I’ve seen the scars on the landscape from overharvesting and unchecked pests and disease. I’ve seen the barren hillsides, burned right down into the soil by roaring wildfires that raced across the ridges where scout-controlled burns had been neglected. The Silverwood’s legendary forests are a joint product of both forestry and deep respect, and nowhere is that more evident than my ma’s eye on the mountains.

  Rule number one—don’t cut anything without a good reason.

  Fire management and pest control are good reasons.

  I’m not so sure staging a bandit attack is.

  I run my fingers over the crevices in the cinnamon-colored bark. I wonder how old this tree is, what creatures call it home, what it’s seen, what it’s survived.

  I’m going to kill it.

  Lark comes around the other side before I can pull my hand away. She pauses.

  “We can try to think of another way,” she says.

  I shake my head. “No, we’ve made our plan. The only other possibility is a full-on attack—better to cut down one tree than have one of us get hurt.”

  “We could call it off,” she says lightly. “There’s still time. We could see if she’d meet with us once she gets into town.”

  I lift my eyebrow at her, forcing bravado. “Is the Sunshield Bandit arguing for diplomacy over an ambush?”

  “Yeah, the Sunshield Bandit just might be,” she says with an edge. “It never hurts to think twice about these things.”

  I sigh. “I’ve thought a lot more than twice, and I know you have, too. If we were sure Kimela wasn’t behind the blackmail, maybe we could meet with her in Giantess. But if she is, the lot of us waltzing right into her entourage would put Tamsin exactly where she’d want her. It would put all of us exactly where she’d want us. This way at least there’s a chance to get away.” I look up at our doomed tree, trying to push away my guilt. At least it will die for a cause. “Have you ever done this before?”

  “Not on anything this big,” she says.

  “The hard part’s going to b
e knowing when to stop so it doesn’t fall until tomorrow—we don’t want somebody else coming along and clearing it away.” I roll up my sleeves and start to unwrap the saw. With some reluctance, Lark unrolls the wedges, ax, and sledgehammer. When all our tools are in order and there’s no more stalling to be had, I pick up one end of the saw. Lark takes up the other end, but she doesn’t move toward the trunk with me.

  “You sure?” she says again.

  My irritation—and guilt—flare. “Yes, Lark, I’m sure. I know you think I rush headlong into everything, but I’ve actually thought this one through.” I try to shift toward the trunk. “Anyway, what’s made you so sentimental about one bitty redwood all of a sudden?”

  “I just know you’d probably like to not kill this tree,” she says shortly, not giving in to my tugging. “And I’m telling you we can find another way.”

  “No, we can’t! Not one that makes sense, anyway. Quit trying to talk me out of it.”

  “I just want you to think . . .”

  “I am thinking! I did think!” I jerk the saw handle in my fists. “And how come suddenly I have to be all careful and reasonable, when you’ve crashed a dozen-odd coaches? Did you hem and haw before you turned over Professor Colm’s stage?”

  “Is that what this is all about?” she asks quietly, still holding the other end of the saw loosely at her waist. “Getting to play outlaw for a while, like there are no consequences attached?”

  “I just want to do something that’s going to make a difference,” I say hotly. “And you suddenly feeling bad about stuff you’ve done isn’t going to stop me.”

  As soon as I say the words, I wish I hadn’t. She stares at me, her face tense and guarded—almost sad. She doesn’t look like Eloise, or Rou, just now. She looks more like Queen Mona than ever. The cold, steely stare is familiar, but . . . I hadn’t been expecting the sadness.

  I almost say something to walk back my callous words, but before I can, she steps up to the tree. Adjusting her grip on the saw handle, she places its teeth against the rippled bark and pulls. I stagger as the saw moves. With a long, raw scrape, the metal makes the first bite into wood.

  I straighten and set my footing, and then haul the saw back toward me. Within a few pulls, we settle into a stiff, silent rhythm, the only sound the fitful whrzz, whrzz of teeth slicing through living wood.

  Tamsin

  Rain cannot soak dry ground. When met with arid soil, it runs off and races onward, becoming destruction, pulling land and root and creature with it. For rain to penetrate the earth, that earth must already be damp. Rain must find its likeness on its plunge from the sky—it must find its own blood reaching for it. A sibling to a sibling, a friend to a friend. Only then can it seep gently downward, fueling life and yes, change, without destruction.

  So, too, is the manner of people, and of the perils Moquoia faces. We find this country at a breaking point, when there exists not so much a spectrum of humanity, but a gulf between two extremes. Those with means stand on the backs of those without. Climbing out of the grips of the bond system is not only barely possible—it is purposefully kept that way by generations of ashokis, ministers, and monarchs within the comforts of Tolukum Palace.

  For too long has the cry for change been met like rain on dry ground—rolling off unwilling ears, channeling instead through exploitive practices that continue to wash away the scaffold of our society. For too long has the self-interest of politics hardened itself to this country’s dark storm of slavery and bond servitude . . .

  I look up as Iano sits down across the table.

  “How’s it coming?” he asks.

  Done, I sign. I turn the pamphlet around so he can read it. By this point he’s seen enough drafts to know the gist from start to finish, but he reads it all the way through anyway. Observing it upside down, I take the time to appreciate the precise, even lines of text turned out by the stamp press. I’ve switched over to using Soe’s medium-size press, which I thought might not give me the same quality given its shorter screw, but I found that printing was much easier with the fewer turns required to clamp the plates. I admire, too, the title font, which Lark carved a little bigger and bolder, in all capitals:

  THE PATH OF THE FLOOD

  Iano reaches the end of the three pages. He takes a breath, nods, and slides it back to me.

  “It’s a good essay, Tamsin. Kimela’s got to see the truth in it.”

  I pull my slate toward me, because while Soe has caught on to many of my signs, Iano still struggles to interpret them. I PLAN TO PRINT MORE TO HAND OUT IN COURT

  He chews his lip. “Well . . . perhaps, once we’ve set things straight. Small steps, you know?”

  There’s that word again—small.

  There’s thumping on the porch, and through the door come Lark and Veran, both looking stiff and exhausted. Sawdust flecks their clothes and hair, and they bring the smell of green wood and sweat with them. Neither of them sit at the table—Lark eases onto the potato bin, groaning, while Veran sinks to the floor in the corner, resting his head on the wall and closing his eyes. Rat comes in after them—Soe’s gotten more lenient about letting him in the house—and trails around the kitchen, sniffing hopefully at the stove. Soe flicks him a bit of venison from her skillet.

  “Hey.” I rap the table. Lark opens her eyes. How did it go?

  “Hard,” she says, rubbing her face. “I am never wanting to fall a tree so big again.”

  “Did you bring it down?” Iano asks.

  “Not yet. We have the—uh, things, lu’tuw—”

  “Wedges,” Veran says, his eyes still closed.

  “Uah, wedges, we have them inside the cut, holding.” She makes a shallow v with her palms. “So tomorrow it is not too hard to finish.”

  “We hope,” Veran says. My gaze darts between the two of them—is it just me, or are they acting a bit stiffer toward each other than usual? Only yesterday Veran was making doe eyes any time Lark’s back was turned.

  Maybe they’re just tired.

  Nobody else seems to notice. Iano picks up my pamphlet. “Tamsin finished the essay.”

  “Oh, can I see?” Lark stretches her hand out and takes it. She studies it, holding it close and furrowing her brow as she concentrates on each word. She slowly turns the fold and similarly scans the interior. After a moment, she turns it around.

  “What is this word, economy?” she asks, pointing.

  Iano translates for her. “That section goes into the practical implications for Moquoian infrastructure.” He scoots his chair forward—Rat is still circling the kitchen, his claws clicking on the wood floor.

  Important for people in court, I say when I see Lark frown. I reach for my slate nearby. WE HAVE TO MAKE IT AS EASY AS POSSIBLE FOR PEOPLE TO CHANGE THEIR MINDS

  Lark opens her mouth to say something, but she’s cut off by Rat, who barks. She looks at him and clips a few words in Eastern, scolding his bad manners. She goes to the door and opens it for him. He stands on the threshold, looking not outside, but up at her, his head cocked to the side. After a moment, she curses him and closes the door again. He goes back to pacing, treading over Veran’s splayed feet.

  Lark sets the pamphlet back down on the table. “As long as the money isn’t becoming more important than the people.”

  I shake my head. No. But if people—important people—I need to learn the sign for lawmakers. I turn to my slate again. IF THEY DON’T SEE STRATEGY, THEY’LL THINK IT’S ALL TALK

  That it can’t be done, I finish.

  “I understand. Rat, durst,” she says, grabbing his ruff and trying to get him to sit. He flops his rump down on her foot, panting agitatedly. She scratches his ears, but as soon as she takes her hands away, he’s back up again, this time going to Veran and thrusting his nose in his ear. Veran turns his face away without opening his eyes.

  Soe taps her spoon on her skillet and looks over her shoulder at me. “Do you think the ashoki’s maid will give us any trouble?”

  I shrug. T
his had been a troublesome point a day or two ago, when I described how my maid, Simea, had jumped to my defense when my coach was attacked. She’d thrown herself across me, shielding me from the loaded crossbows, and had died as a result of it. The terrible thing is, I may have been able to escape through the opposite door had her body not pinned me to the seat, but I can hardly grudge her brave action. Once I had the space to think about it, her sacrifice had surprised me. Simea had been recently assigned to me, and I wouldn’t have thought she’d be so loyal. My throat closes up. I owe her my life.

  If Kimela’s maid is just as protective, we could have trouble. But I’d like to think that Lark could keep such a person in check.

  Rat stops in front of Lark, his ears and tail up, and barks at her again. She swears at him and tosses up her hands.

  From the corner comes a short, sharp groan.

  Veran slides sideways and hits the floor with a dull thud. His body stiffens and starts to shudder, rigid.

  We all move at once—Iano and I jump from our seats and Soe leaps back from the stove. Lark vaults from the potato bin and hauls him from his stomach to his side. She waves toward us, and despite my own heart having sprung to my throat, her voice is pointed and calm.

  “It’sko—a shirt, a cloth, or something,” she says.

  I shrug off the shawl from my shoulders and pass it to her. She folds it a few times and settles it under Veran’s knocking head. While she’s situating it, Rat paces around behind her and flops down on the floor behind Veran’s bowing back, still panting heavily.

  Iano grips the back of his chair. “What do we do?”

  “Wait for it to stop,” Lark says. “Get some water.”