The Poison Jungle

by Tui T. Sutherland

  It was also kind of a weird nice feeling to have someone notice and care. She couldn’t remember Belladonna ever telling her she needed to sleep.

  “All right, but only for a little while,” she said.

  She took a few roots from the chest and tucked them into one of her pouches. The rest were carried off by Sequoia’s soldiers, out through the canopy and down to the battlefield. Sundew felt strangely apprehensive, watching them fly away. The trees were troubled, but they couldn’t tell her why, and it tangled up her leafspeak, adding tendrils of worry to every thought.

  Is this really going to work?

  What if something happens to the antidote?

  What if Wasp figures out what we’re up to and manages to destroy it?

  Or what if we free the HiveWings from her mind control, but they decide to fight for her anyway? Then there really would be war tomorrow. A war where the dragons Sundew grew up with would all be out in front, with HiveWing weapons pointed at them.

  Sundew had spent her whole life being furious with the HiveWings for trying to wipe out her tribe … but she hadn’t ever quite felt the danger of what would happen if they tried to do it again. She’d been mad about dragons who died half a century ago, but now she had to picture her friends, her tribemates, her parents as the targets, and suddenly she understood, painfully and forcefully, what Sequoia and Willow had felt, and why they hadn’t wanted to restart the war.

  But we can still stop it, she hoped, she prayed, as she climbed up to a sheltered curve in the branches and lay down next to Cricket and Blue. If the antidote works.

  Please let it work.

  She closed her eyes and drifted into an uneasy sleep.

  Sundew woke before dawn, her heart pounding. She couldn’t remember her dreams, exactly, but she felt as though insects had been crawling all over her. Wasps, perhaps, thousands and thousands of wasps with eyes fathoms deep.

  She slipped away from Cricket and Blue, who were still asleep, curled together like intertwining vines. Swordtail was sprawled on Blue’s other side, snoring lightly.

  The tree branches shook as she climbed to the top, swaying in the breeze. Up here, she could smell the ocean; she could hear the cries of seagulls and birds of prey as they swooped by high overhead. Away from the jostling noise of the jungle plants, her leafspeak could discern the faraway murmurs of savanna grasses.

  But this morning, there were other smells, other sounds. This morning she could smell dragons; she could hear hundreds of talons shuffling; she could sense the plants under their feet being smothered, struggling to survive.

  And from the very top of the tree, she could see them. Columns of HiveWings lined the plain on the other side of the Snarling River, stretching to the horizon. Orange and gold and black scales, diaphanous wings flickering, each dragon in its place, an exact distance from every other dragon. They looked too precisely placed to be real, but they were real. The HiveWing prisoner had been right; it seemed as though Wasp had summoned every HiveWing in the tribe for this.

  She’s hoping to wipe us out with one fell swoop, Sundew realized. She’s going to throw everything at us. She wants to finish this today.

  Finish us.

  “It’s terrifying, isn’t it?”

  Sundew turned to find Mandrake perched on another high branch nearby. His eyes were tired, and she wondered whether he’d slept as poorly as she had, or maybe not at all.

  “We’ll stop them,” she said. “We have to.”

  The sky was shading toward pale gray, streaked with pink. The sun would slip over the horizon behind Sundew very soon.

  If there’s a chance we’re all going to die today …

  “Mandrake,” she said. “I’m not going to marry you.”

  “I know,” he said, giving her a real smile for once. “I’ve always known that.”

  “Really?” she said. “Because it’s not about you. You’re one of the few dragons I actually like. But you’re not Willow. And she’s the only dragon I want to marry.”

  “I hope you do,” he said. “I hope the antidote works. I hope this whole horrible thing ends and we all get to live happily ever after.”

  His smile faded as he returned his gaze to the vast army below them.

  Sundew squinted down at the river, searching for the bonfire pile. It looked pitifully small from up here, especially next to all those thousands of HiveWings.

  “Does that look like enough antidote to you?” she asked him.

  He shook his head, looking grim. “No. Not even close.”

  It’s not going to be enough. The smoke might reach the first few rows of dragons … but that will leave thousands more still behind them, still under Wasp’s control.

  Thousands more still coming for us.

  Panic surged through her like a jolt of toxin.

  “I’m going to make more,” she said. “Come with me and help!”

  He nodded and followed her. She scrambled down the tree until she found an open gap in the branches where she could spread her wings and drop down to the jungle floor.

  It was still very dark down here, but Sundew let her leafspeak reach down into the soil and out through the root systems, tracing them along until she found water. A stream, a tributary of the Snarling River. That would be the best place to grow more heart of salvation, in the mud along the banks, where the damp earth could help it along.

  She heard cracking branches overhead and looked up to see Cricket flailing her way down, catching on every vine and cobweb as she did. Mandrake ducked out of the way as the HiveWing landed in an ungraceful sprawl. She hopped to her feet, shaking herself off.

  “You don’t have to come with us,” Sundew pointed out.

  “Sure I do,” Cricket said. “I can help carry roots! I can harvest them while you make more grow! Also I really want to watch; I didn’t get nearly enough of a chance to watch that chokecherry grow, and I imagine it’ll be really awesome. I mean, scientifically speaking. I wish I could make plants grow just by thinking at them!”

  “Well, it’s slightly more complicated than that,” Sundew said, “but all right, come along.”

  They hurried through the jungle until they reached the stream, which wound between small pitcher plants and gurgled over smooth stones. Long feathery ferns leaned over the water, as if plotting how to steal it all for themselves.

  Sundew found a patch of dirt, dug a hole, and planted a piece of the root in it. It looked pale and ghostly against the dark wet earth, like a grub that had wiggled its way up from the depths of the underground, or the haunted spirit of a real plant. She could still see patches of its white skin winking through the dirt as she covered it up, until finally it was completely buried.

  Mandrake took another piece and moved farther upstream to do the same thing. Cricket stayed beside Sundew, with her tail wrapped around her talons, watching curiously. She wisely (and surprisingly) kept quiet as Sundew dug her claws into the earth and closed her eyes, summoning all the power of her leafspeak.

  Hello, little plant. We need your help.

  Hmmm, the plant murmured back softly.

  You want to grow, Sundew told it. Let me help you grow. You can grow big and grand and wild, with so many roots you won’t need them all …

  Grow wild spread far … the plant echoed, more or less, stretching its tendrils like a centipede unwinding. Grow far spread wild …

  There was some kind of block between Sundew and the plant; she could reach it, but she couldn’t wrap herself all around it. She could feel it growing, but she couldn’t latch on to its exact voice. She felt as if she was hearing it reflected off another surface. It was hard to describe … like a sound just out of range that she knew she’d recognize if she got a bit closer.

  Come forth, Sundew called. Be here. Let me see you.

  The plant’s response felt like rustling in the back of her brain. Yessss, it whispered, yesss, coming, growing, spreading, taking, and then suddenly it was as loud as a waterfall YESSS HERE NOW, it roared, a
s vines shot from the earth and blasted across the ground all around them.

  Sundew recoiled, her leafspeak recognizing them before her eyes did. She stared in disbelief as the vines kept growing, spreading, laughing inside her mind, red-and-green leaves unfurling, white flowers and evil-eyed seeds everywhere.

  The antidote wasn’t a new plant. There was no “heart of salvation.”

  She was looking at the breath of evil.

  “Mandrake, stop!” she cried.

  Too late, too late, the plant hummed. Spread grow far wild conquer consume all mine … The vines had stopped growing outward as soon as Sundew pulled back, but they were already huge and covered the bank of the stream. Cricket was nearly caught in a tangle of them, but she’d jumped into the air and hovered above, her talons pressed to her mouth and her eyes wide with shock.

  Mandrake came stumbling back toward Sundew. She could see that his root had grown as well, not as vigorously as hers, but enough vines had sprouted to show him unmistakably what it was.

  “What is this?” Mandrake asked plaintively. “It looks just like the breath of evil! Sundew, what is happening?”

  “We were tricked,” she said. “I think. I don’t know! Why would anyone —? But look at it. The antidote is a lie.”

  “M-maybe not,” Cricket stammered from above them. “Maybe another piece of the plant could be an antidote for the rest of … no, it doesn’t make sense. Maybe Hawthorn got mixed up and gave us the wrong thing?”

  “No,” said Sundew. She felt frozen in place, as though the plant had hypnotized her. “He knew what he was doing. But I don’t understand why.” She tried, tentatively, to reach out to the plant again with her leafspeak. Maybe if she understood it … maybe if she spoke to it, she could turn it into an antidote? Perhaps that was what Hawthorn had done.

  But she found nothing healing about this plant. It felt as sinister as the ones in the Den of Vipers, far worse than the ones in Wasp’s greenhouse. And when she tried to investigate it, it reached right back, a sensation like freezing tentacles plunging into her brain. She closed herself off quickly.

  “We have to warn Queen Sequoia,” she said. “She needs to know that burning the roots won’t help.”

  “But Inchworm —” Cricket said. “He was cured! It worked on him!”

  “I think perhaps it didn’t,” Sundew said. She felt a new cold fear, like her skin turning inside out. They’d left Inchworm with Hazel and Willow. If Wasp was still inside him …

  “If the antidote doesn’t work, Blue is the first dragon they’ll come for,” Cricket said in a panicked voice. “He’ll be out there where everyone can see him!”

  “We’ll go stop them,” Sundew said, lifting into the air. “Mandrake, stay here and destroy all these vines. I mean really destroy them.”

  “He can try,” said a voice from the other side of the stream, “but it won’t make much difference. We’re spreading through the jungle as we speak.”

  Hawthorn stood on the opposite riverbank, twitching pitcher plants away from himself with his tail. Beside him, with a dragonbite viper coiled around her neck, was Willow. Its fangs were bared and Willow’s deer-brown eyes were fixed on Sundew, terrified and defiant at the same time.

  Sundew hissed and started forward, but Hawthorn raised one claw and made a patronizing “ah, ah, ah!” sound. She could kill him for that sound alone, but she was definitely going to kill him for threatening Willow.

  “If you hurt her,” Sundew growled. “If you dare —”

  “I know, I know,” he said. “You’ll do something terrible and violent to me. But it will be too late, because she’ll be dead. So how about you stay on your side of the river while we have our little talk, and maybe she’ll survive this, more or less. You too, little gnat. And you, disposable LeafWing, I can still see you; don’t even think about sneaking away.”

  Sundew sank back down to the ground; Cricket and Mandrake did the same on either side of her. The moment they touched the earth, the breath of evil vines slithered around and around their talons, snarling them in place so they couldn’t move.

  “There,” Hawthorn said. “After all, it would spoil everything if you went to warn Sequoia. My whole brilliant plan, ruined by a trio of idiots? I think not.”

  “What brilliant plan?” Sundew asked. “So you tricked us into burning a pile of roots; great work! If you think that means Queen Sequoia won’t be prepared for Wasp’s attack, you’re the idiot. She’ll be ready even when the bonfire does nothing. We’re stronger than you think, and so is this jungle!”

  Hawthorn chuckled. “Oh, I know how strong this jungle is. It’s been my home for thousands of years, after all. It came so close to killing me at last, after so many had failed … but then Hawthorn came along and rescued me. Gormless lovely dragon husk. He’s been so useful. I think I’m going to keep him forever, or at least, until his bones rot and I can’t move him anymore.”

  Silence fell, chilling and horrible, like a dragon-trap closing its jaws around them. Sundew couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. She could only stare into Willow’s frightened eyes, her pulse pounding how do I save you, how do I save you, how do I save you from this?

  “… What?” Mandrake said finally.

  “Is Hawthorn — aren’t you Hawthorn?” Cricket asked.

  “Hee hee,” said the dragon in front of them, a sneering sort of wheeze. “The outer bark is Hawthorn, yes. All these years, he thought he was in control. He thought I was merely one of the voices in his head, his beautifully carved seed just whispering back to him.” He took out the carving that Sundew had thought was an egg. But of course it’s supposed to be a seed. The breath of evil’s seed.

  Hawthorn cupped the seed in his talons. “Such a clever scientist. Left to test his experiments on himself, poor fellow. Imagine what he might have figured out if he’d had other test subjects. Aren’t I lucky he didn’t.”

  The vines tightened around Sundew’s talons.

  “Wasp,” she growled. “So you’ve been here, in our jungle, this whole time. You knew we were still alive.”

  Hawthorn threw back his head and laughed, an awful slithering noise that sent cold vibrations through Sundew’s leafspeak.

  “Wasp, really,” he said when he finally caught his breath. “No, no, no. She’s a perfect ally, all poison from her core out, but in the end, she’s my puppet, too. I let her do all her great evil things because it pleases me. But one day she’ll realize I’ve hollowed out her brain and she has no more control than her lowliest worm of a subject.”

  “Then who are you?” Cricket burst out.

  Hawthorn’s face went very still, his eyes flickering white-green-white-green.

  “I am the rightful owner of this continent,” he growled in a low voice. “It was mine, all of it mine, every insect and blade of grass and grain of sand. I ruled it all. And then you came, with your outsized brains and your clumsy crushing talons and your fire. And you stole it from me.

  “All these thousands of years, I’ve waited to recapture my home and destroy you all. I bided my time and planned my vengeance. Even trapped in the jungle, I knew I’d find a way one day. I had no idea how easy it would be, in the end. You foolish, shortsighted dragons. You came looking for me! You fed me to your enemies! You let me spread and infect you, and soon every one of you will be no more trouble than my obedient snakes here.”

  “I will always be trouble,” Sundew said. “You can’t control LeafWings, and you’ll never control me.” Or you, she tried to say to Willow with her eyes.

  “Hee hee hee,” Hawthorn said again, his grin widening so far it looked as though his face might split in half. “You are pleasantly stupid. You really haven’t figured out the next stage of my plan? Let’s see, how did you put it … ‘when the bonfire does nothing.’ But of course the bonfire does something, you splintery twig.”

  Cricket gasped, apparently guessing it before Sundew did.

  “What? What does it do?” Mandrake asked.

 
; “Well, Hawthorn did have very powerful leafspeak,” said the thing inside the dragon facing them. “He almost managed to put a cage around me. He took advantage of one of my weak little shoots, who would have done anything to survive, and he really did adapt that branch of me to only work on HiveWings. Aggravating monster.” He abruptly stabbed himself in the neck, then chortled as blood trickled down from the wound. “I could work with it, though. It was a good start, but not what I needed. Not what I wanted. I wanted everyone.

  “So once I was finally inside him, I had him fix me. All his little chains are gone. And now … I will have what I want.”

  He stretched his wings and closed his eyes, breathing deeply.

  “The fire has been lit,” he murmured. “The smoke is rising. They are breathing it in, and me along with it. All those brave LeafWings, ready to fight. Oh, there’s your mother, Sundew. The queen will be mine soon. It’s too bad the Chrysalis didn’t make it here in time … but I will get to them eventually. For now, at least I have these two sweet little SilkWings to infect.”

  “Blue,” Cricket said softly, tears rolling down her snout.

  And Swordtail.

  And Queen Sequoia. Nettle. Belladonna. Wolfsbane.

  Those poor dragons.

  Thorn-sharp rage surged through Sundew. She had never been so furious in her life. She felt like the vines around her should erupt into flames, like she was a white-hot sun about to set the entire jungle on fire. She sank her claws into her rage, holding it close and letting it build. Her anger would get them out of this. Her fury was a weapon, and she knew where to point it now.

  “Next important question,” said the thing inside Hawthorn. “Which of you four should I infect first?”

  “Come, now,” Hawthorn purred when nobody answered him. “Make this easy on yourselves. Eat a tiny piece of the root or one of the seeds, and all your worries will be gone! Wouldn’t you like that? Who’ll go first?”

  Sundew’s eyes were locked with Willow’s. The viper’s fangs were so close to Willow’s neck. No matter what Sundew tried, the moment she made a move, those fangs would sink in and Willow would be lost. Even if she could somehow kill Hawthorn in an instant — which wasn’t likely — she wasn’t sure that would stop the viper. As far as she could tell, the thing controlling all the dragons was also controlling the snakes.