“First those lost toucans, and now Lima’s song. You’re a kind one, Gogi,” Mez purrs nearby.
“It is a good song,” Gogi says. “Or it will be once she works on it some more. Once it, you know, becomes a song at all.”
“Like I said, you’re a kind one. Wait! Hold. Lima, hush!”
Lima’s song abruptly ends. Gogi goes still in the moonlight, listening to the slightest of rustles as Mez turns in a circle. “Chumba,” she continues, “do you detect what I’m detecting?”
“I do,” Chumba says somberly.
“Stay here and protect Gogi,” Mez says. “I’ll go investigate. Lima, are you—”
“—already with you,” comes Lima’s voice from right nearby.
“Go invisible, even though it’s night,” Chumba says to Mez. “I don’t want him discovering you.”
“Who?” Gogi whispers.
Mez, already only a dim silhouette of off-black, disappears entirely. Gogi can only assume that he and Chumba are now alone. There’s so much he doesn’t understand about what just happened, and he knows he should probably protest that he doesn’t need protecting, but being in unfamiliar nighttime territory makes him very glad to have Chumba—and her claws and teeth—nearby. He runs his hands through her calico fur, grooming out any bits of dirt and ticks. It’s not the way panthers usually groom—they’re more into licking—but Chumba seems to enjoy it, purring away.
“Who did Mez see?” Gogi asks. “You said it was a ‘he.’”
“I don’t know who it was,” Chumba whispers back. “But we heard a male frog, and it sounded like he was shouting out orders.”
“Was it Rumi?” Gogi asks hopefully.
“Definitely not Rumi,” Chumba says. “It was a very big frog. Maybe a cane toad?”
“Those big, sloppy guys?” Gogi asks. “None of the shadowwalkers was a cane toad. I wonder how Mez knows this one.”
“I think we’re about to find out,” Chumba says. “She’s on her way back.”
“How do you possibly know that an invisible panther is approaching?” Gogi asks.
“Special sister sense,” Chumba says.
“He’s not more than a minute’s travel south of here,” comes Mez’s voice, surprisingly close. Gogi jumps and puts his hand over his mouth to mute his scream.
“Who is?” Gogi asks once his heart has stopped thumping.
“Rumi,” Lima whispers from a branch nearby.
“Rumi!” Gogi says, unable to keep his voice low. “I said that! I said it was Rumi, Chumba, but you were like, ‘No, silly monkey, that’s not—’”
“Not our Rumi,” Mez whispers. “Frogs are named after where they’re born, so there are lots of Rumis out there. This is Big Rumi. He’s a cane toad that was hunting Rumi when Lima and I first met him.”
“He’s really big and really sloppy and really mean,” Lima says. “I don’t like him.”
“Yeah, I figured that part out,” Gogi says.
“He’s talking to some other henchman, about where they’re supposed to lead the ant horde next,” Mez says.
“Oh,” Gogi says. “This cane toad is collaborating with the Ant Queen, like the hoatzin and fer-de-lance were? That doesn’t sound good.”
“Or it sounds very good, when you have bog fungus in your sack,” Chumba says.
“Precisely,” Mez says. “This could be our chance to find out just what this stuff can do. Come on, follow me. You’ll need to bring Gogi along. We can’t risk any firelight. Chumba, you can track me and Lima?”
“Yes, of course,” Chumba says. “I know your scent better than I know my own.”
“That’s sweet. Weird, but sweet,” Gogi whispers as he wraps his tail around Chumba’s. They start off through the dark. Immediately something spindly is on his eyebrows and he brushes it madly away. Ugh. It might have been a cute little stick bug, or it might have been a huge venomous scorpion. He has no way of knowing. Night travel is the worst.
Soon they’re making their way through undergrowth, the sharp chirps of tree frogs all around them. I hope Rumi—Little Rumi, that is—and Sky are okay, Gogi thinks. As leaves and slimy roots rake against Gogi’s scalp, the ground begins to slope upward. At the top of the rise they come to a patch of rocky soil overlooking a misty expanse of rainforest. Without the aid of his firelight, Gogi can’t see much of it, but he can make out enough to know that, at the bottom of the rise, the ant horde must be at work. Because there are no more trees.
He’s almost relieved that the nighttime hides the full scope of it. There’s a dull roar in the distance, one that he can only assume is from the pattering of millions of spindly legs. There’s a now-familiar sheen to the milled soil, and overhead are swarms of bats heading west—away from the horde.
“So many of them at once,” Lima says, a catch in her voice. “They’re fleeing, and they have no idea where they’re going, they’ve lost their homes. . . . I’ve never heard so much anguish from one group of bats.”
“I’m sorry, Lima,” Mez says. “We’ll fix this.”
“They’re vesper bats,” Lima says, letting out a long breath, “and normally I think of them as total knuckleheads. But tonight, hearing all that . . . I feel bad for them.”
“Hear that?” Mez says. “Big Rumi’s belching out orders again.”
This time Gogi hears it: a guttural vibration, coming from the edge where the trees go from swaying before the stars to disappearing into ruin. The boundary of the invisible ant horde. It takes a few moments for Gogi to make out the creature’s words: They’ve weakened the roots. Now they’re ready to feast on the trunk. When I say the word, we push with our hind legs. Ready? Goooo.
There’s a rumble, then a crack. One of the trees at the edge, a tall ironwood that has probably been growing for a century, heaves over and tumbles into the mass of ants. Gogi can see only the barest hints of their glittering mass in the moonlight, but he can imagine how feverishly they’re digging into the fresh wood and sap—and into whatever creatures were unfortunate enough not to escape the tree in time.
“Excellent work,” Big Rumi chortles. “The Ant Queen will be verrrry satisfied with our progress.”
Whoever the cane toad’s ally is, its voice is too low for the companions to make out.
“Fine,” Big Rumi replies. “You go your way, and I’ll go mine. We will see each other again at the next dropping of the Veil.”
“We have to hurry,” Mez says through clenched teeth, “if we’re to have any hope of tailing Big Rumi.”
“Tailing him? Like, right through the ant army?” Lima says, gulping.
“I can go invisible,” Mez says.
“Yes, but no getting swarmed by ants this time,” Gogi says.
“I can fly over,” Lima says.
“What about Gogi and me, though?” Chumba asks.
“Let Lima and me take care of it. Quickly now,” Mez says. “Give me the sack with the fungus sticks, Gogi.”
“There must be some other way,” he says.
“There’s no time! Once the ants close ranks behind Big Rumi, we’ll have lost our chance. Now! Give it to me!”
Startled into submission, Gogi takes the woven sack off and hangs it across Mez’s chest, pebbles clattering. She steals into the darkness. Lima soars above her and is soon lost in the starry black sky.
“We don’t even know if it’s going to . . . work,” Gogi says, his voice trailing away as Mez disappears. He wishes he’d had time at least to take the pebbles out.
“I guess we just wait?” Chumba says.
“That doesn’t feel very good,” Gogi grumbles.
“Look, there Mez goes,” Chumba says. “Can you sense her too? We can watch what happens, at least.”
“Maybe you can watch her, but I don’t have your special sister sense,” Gogi says.
Figuring that his light will only further take attention away from Mez and Lima, Gogi adds a glimmer of his ring of firelight to the scene. His stomach drops at the full sight of the ant
s, a teeming mass as far as the eye can see, swarming over sundered terrain. Only vague shapes of the ruined rainforest are visible beneath them, fallen trees and animal carcasses indistinguishable beneath the blanket of insects.
A cane toad hops its way through the swarm. The ants try to part before him, but Big Rumi crushes as many as he avoids. The amphibian’s bulbous throat shakes from side to side as he lurches his way forward, burping out orders.
“Big Rumi’s not exactly cute, is he?” Gogi asks.
“You know, this cute-ism among the rainforest animals really has to stop,” Chumba says hotly, but then she swallows her words. “Oh no!”
“What is it?” Gogi asks. He has his answer when he sees Mez stealing toward the cane toad.
Mez is invisible.
But Gogi can follow her.
Because the sack isn’t invisible.
“Chumba,” he whispers urgently. “The sack.”
“I know, I see it,” she says. “What should we do, what should we do?”
Gogi watches, paralyzed, as the bobbing sack streaks toward the toad. He watches as the mass of ants parts to allow Big Rumi through. He watches as Mez creeps after the cane toad, invisible except for a ridiculous square of woven fibers floating in midair.
“The moment Big Rumi turns around, he’ll spot her,” Chumba says.
“And then he’ll set the ants on her, if they’re not already attacking,” Gogi says. “But maybe he won’t turn around?”
“Every creature turns around,” Chumba says bitterly. “This is the rainforest. Any creature who didn’t check its surroundings every few seconds would already be dead.”
“That’s pretty dark,” Gogi says, chewing on a fingernail. “And true.”
“We need a plan,” Chumba says, eyelashes fluttering as she looks into Gogi’s eyes. “And it’s got to be up to you, because I’m about to fall into daycoma.”
Gogi’s ears burn. “Are you kidding me right now?”
“So . . . sleepy,” Chumba says.
“Ugh, why couldn’t you have been born during the eclipse, like your sister? Quick, into this thicket,” Gogi says. He parts a stand of ferns and vines, and Chumba drags herself in, ears drooping. She’s asleep before the fronds have stopped quivering.
Gogi stands outside the thicket, tapping his nose. Now what? Think, Gogi, think!
The ants part before Big Rumi and then re-form behind him as he passes, leaving a narrow open space to his rear. That’s where Mez is, the woven sack bobbing right behind the toad. Lima wheels in the sky above, too small to be of much help.
To keep Mez and Big Rumi in view, Gogi needs to get some altitude. He scampers up a nearby fig tree, plucking himself upward branch by branch until he’s in the thin upper reaches of the canopy. This feels very high up, even for a monkey. He takes many skinny branches in each hand to support himself, but even so he sways alarmingly, the ground well past monkeysplat distance.
He surprises a tamarind monkey family, a mom with two tiny babies clinging to her belly. Three sets of frightened eyes stare at Gogi. “Excuse me, ma’am,” he says. “I didn’t mean to startle you. It’s just that I need to be here to see my friend, so if you’ll excuse me . . .”
“Flee!” is all the mother squeals, babies squirming about her. “We must run to the spot where the sun sets, or the ants will eat us all!”
“Well, yes, you see, that’s exactly what I’m trying to prevent,” Gogi says. But the family of tamarind refugees is already gone by the time he finishes his sentence, his last sight of them two pairs of wide eyes as the babies stare over their mother’s shoulder.
Gogi leans out so the branches bend, giving him an unrestricted view of the scene below. Big Rumi and Mez are a good fifty monkeylengths out, making their way over chopped-up terrain and the flailing bodies of ants. Lima is a blip in the sky above, swooping back and forth, powerless to do anything to alter the situation.
Unless . . . What if Lima plucked away the bag? Big Rumi might notice, of course, but it would make Mez undetectable again.
It would ruin their plan to get the fungus deep into enemy lines, though—unless Lima could manage to then fly the sack deep into the horde and drop one of the sticks.
Gogi needn’t deliberate any longer, as a screeching howl brings his attention back to Mez and Big Rumi.
Mez has been discovered.
Big Rumi is hopping and slavering, circling the strange floating sack and lashing out with his vile pink tongue. Gogi’s woven sack dodges and leaps, but the ants are pressing in, closing the circle. They’ll soon be covering Mez—and the ants won’t care one bit if their target is invisible. They’ll start biting, and by covering Mez they’ll let the cane toad know exactly where to strike.
He has to get there to help, and fast. But—silly monkey!—he’s way up in the air, a good fifty monkeylengths up, too far to do any good.
Or wait. Maybe not so silly after all. Fifty monkeylengths up! Mez is about fifty monkeylengths over!
Gogi gets to work right away. Craning his neck to stare down, he aims his palm at the base of the tree trunk, where the bark has already been worn away by the advance guard of the ants. Then, lips tight between gritted teeth, he teases a tendril of flame out from each palm. The heat crackles the air and sets his brows to sweating.
So much else calls for his attention: the ants around him, the ants swarming Mez, the pitched combat between panther and cane toad. Come on, Gogi, stay focused, just for a minute. He manages to keep his concentration up: the fire is sure and true, striking the base of the tree. He’d have aimed it at Big Rumi directly, but with Mez bobbing and darting all around him, it’s too risky.
The tree, however—a falling tree will get him there fast. Maybe a little too fast, Gogi realizes as the trunk begins to wobble and sway alarmingly. With his flame destroying the wood on the ant side of the trunk, the tree starts pitching toward the horde, causing the top of the canopy to sway. The few remaining birds squawk and flee.
Then, with a great crack, the tree careens through the air. Gogi’s belly feels like it’s being sucked inward, and then his face fills with wind, disrupting his flame and ballooning out his cheeks. He hears Lima cheering from the sky above, but his fraying thoughts are focused on scrambling through the branches, so that he’s on top of the tree when it hits, and not under. Being under a falling tree would definitely be bad.
Rushing air, a deafening boom. Fingers and toes and tail gripping wood so hard it feels like it’s splintering under his grip.
Then silence.
He succeeded! At least Gogi figures he must have. It’s hard to tell much amid the chaos of the fallen tree, but if he’s wondering whether he’s still alive, that must mean that he’s survived! Pleased with himself, Gogi forces his way out of the shredded branches, plucking leaves from his mouth.
He tumbles right into a swarm of ants.
Yelping, he leaps to his feet and brushes the ants off as best he can. But there are more under his feet, and they’re immediately swarming up his legs. Once he’s covered in ants, there will be only one possible end. Within seconds, he’ll be overcome.
He leaps in the air and twists, trying to sight Mez and Big Rumi. He spots them soon enough. This part of the plot went as planned: they’re only a few lengths away, on the far side of the fallen tree. Gogi scrambles over the branches, skidding through swarming ants until he’s upon them. Taking advantage of Big Rumi’s surprise, Gogi shouts, “Mez, go visible!”
Suddenly she’s there, teeth bared as she squares off against the cane toad, then barrel-rolling to one side as Big Rumi lashes out with his tongue. “Here I am, Gogi!” she cries. “Please tell me you have a plan!”
“Of course I do,” Gogi says as he high-steps over the ants to reach Mez’s side. Well, he sort of has a plan. Almost has a plan. Maybe doesn’t actually have a plan. But Mez doesn’t need to know all the specifics of what he does and doesn’t know.
Fire. Fire is always a good place to start.
While Gogi runs, Big Rumi continues to lash out with his tongue and powerful back legs. Just like the hoatzin and the fer-de-lance from before, a necklace of ants is marching around his head. “It’s you!” he thunders at Mez. “The panther who rescued that traitorous little tree frog.”
“It was a mistake to ever let you live!” Mez hisses as she lashes out with a claw, narrowly missing the toad’s eye.
“The mistake is yours,” Big Rumi says. “It’s too bad you will die here, because otherwise you could go ask your little friend what he did that was so terrible.”
“Stop lying,” Mez spits.
Gogi wraps his arms around Mez and wills his body to produce a sphere of flame to cover the both of them. “Ow, ow, ow,” Mez says. The smell of smoldering fur—and burning vegetation—wafts up around them.
“The sack is catching fire!” Mez says. “Not to mention me!”
“Okay, sorry, sorry,” Gogi says. “This was a better idea in my head.”
He lets the fire shield dissipate. They’re surrounded by half-sizzled ants, on their backs and sides, antennae waving in the air. At least the ants right under them won’t be attacking anymore—he’s bought himself and Mez a few seconds.
Enough time for Big Rumi to go on the attack.
He’s given up on using his tongue, and instead leaps directly for Gogi. Big Rumi is astonishingly fast, and having a toad as big as him hurtling in his direction just about stops Gogi’s heart. Before he knows it, his legs are inside Big Rumi’s mouth, and then the cane toad jerks, and Gogi’s suddenly inside his slick gullet, all the way up to his belly button. Try as Gogi may, the toad’s jaws are locked tight on his midsection, cutting off his breathing. He’ll be swallowed up before he knows it.
Mez springs on top of Big Rumi, jaws gnashing at the toad’s head and rear claws raking his backside. Startled, Big Rumi opens his mouth wider, and Gogi manages to get his hands around the sharp-edged jaws enough to pull himself up and out. He’s covered in toad slobber, his hands are bleeding, but he’s alive.
Mez gives one ferocious bite to Big Rumi’s skull, then leaps away. The toad hits the soil, facedown. He doesn’t get up.
The Lost Rainforest #2 Page 12
