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,” Raffa 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 doubt and sadness.

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