Chapter Seventeen

“HYACINTH?” LEAF ROARED. “SEEKER?” Her cry echoed from the sides of the mountain, and she paused, balancing on a pile of rocks, listening for any hint of a reply—a word, a whimper, even the sound of crackling branches. But there was nothing.

“Wanderer? Hunter?” Dasher cried, running out to the end of a tree branch and peering over at the drop down to the bottom of the ravine below. “Is anybody out there?”

Leaf held her breath.

A sound caught her ear—a rattling of stones. She and Dasher looked at each other and turned to run toward it, but Leaf already knew it probably wasn’t one of their friends. A live panda would have heard them calling and replied. Sure enough, it was just another tumble of loose rocks settling into their new position.

The earth had roared for a long time, but finally it had gone still. The dust had blown away, and now the mountainside looked very different. Most of the thornbushes had been torn up. Broken bamboo and fallen trees were scattered down the slope. And there was no sign of the pandas, or the red pandas.

“If they were dead, we would have found them,” Dasher said, for the third time.

He was right, Leaf thought. But it was strangely little comfort. They had been all the way down to the bottom of the hill, where they had seen their friends and family tumble and vanish into the dust clouds. There wasn’t, as Leaf had feared, a pile of bodies. But apart from a few scraps of torn fur, there was no sign that the others had even been there—they had disappeared.

“They must have found a way out of danger,” she declared, nodding to Dasher. “It seems like they managed to stay together.”

“But . . . what do we do now?” Dasher sat down on a wobbly rock, cleaning the dust from behind his ears with his paws. “We have no idea where they’ve gone, so which way do we go to find them?” He looked to the left and then to the right, following the line of the mountain downward to the next peak.

Leaf stood up and shook herself.

“Up,” she said. Dasher turned to stare at her. “If we try to chase after them and go the wrong way, we’ll be lost,” she said. “The only thing we can do now is carry on—toward the Dragon Mountain. We must try to find Aunt Plum. The others know that’s where we were going—if they’re still trying to get there too, then we’ll find them.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Dasher said in a small voice. Then he brightened. “At least I can’t smell that tiger anywhere now.”

“Let’s eat,” said Leaf. “There’s all this broken bamboo; we shouldn’t waste it. Then we’ll go.”

Dasher nodded, and scampered off to search the scattered plant life for something tasty for himself while Leaf carefully picked her way across the ground, tearing the leaves and shoots from the fallen bamboo. They climbed back to the top of the ridge before eating, and sat looking out over the Bamboo Kingdom. Leaf couldn’t help still listening for rustling or familiar voices, but the whole kingdom seemed to have sunk into a shocked, exhausted silence. When she raised her voice to deliver the blessing, it sounded shaky and thin to her own ears.

“At the Feast of . . .” Oh no, she thought, I’m not even sure what feast this is. She looked up at the clear sky. Was it Long Light? They had been waiting for the earth to stop roaring for what felt like a long time. Perhaps it was closer to Sun Fall?

“Great Dragon, at the Feast of Sun Fall your humble panda bows before you. Thank you for the gift of the bamboo, and the clarity you bestow upon us.”

I need all the clarity I can get, she thought.

The feast did give her a little more energy, but the climb up toward the White Spine Mountains was still hard. Leaf felt as though there were a thick vine tethering her to the other pandas, wherever they were, and it tugged on her as she put one shaky paw in front of the other. She tried to shake it off and focus on the route ahead of her.

The air grew colder, but the exertion of the journey kept her warm for a while, until she paused to look back down the way they’d come. All of a sudden, she realized just how far they were from the Slenderwood and the river. The sparse bamboo and tall, leafy trees of her old home looked like a lush, teeming paradise when she compared it to the ridge where she stood now, which was rocky and bare and covered in frost.

They had made it to the base of the White Spine. Sure enough, not long after she had looked back, she began to feel the cold creeping under her fur, no matter how fast she tried to walk to shake it off. Dasher started to shiver, and tucked his thick tail close to his body to shield him from a breeze that carried the first droplets of ice-cold rain.

They walked through a small, dark valley between high crags, and found themselves pushing through and around snowdrifts that had collected there, perhaps thrown down from the higher slopes by the shaking of the earth. Dasher’s short legs struggled, and though Leaf was getting tired, she let him ride on her back until they managed to climb up and out of the shadow and onto the rocks.

The rain blew harder and colder, turning into a full, driving sleet that settled in her fur like snow just for a second before melting. There was ice on the ground now as they climbed ever higher, and Leaf decided she preferred the real snowdrifts, however hard they had been to walk on—she tried to watch where she was putting her paws, but the sleet got into her eyes and slicked down her fur. She slipped and fell flat on her belly, letting out a wincing howl.

“Leaf!” Dasher called through the howling wind. “Are you all right?”

“Fine,” Leaf grumbled. A rock had jabbed her in the ribs, and every part of her was soaked through and ice cold. She got back to her paws and shuddered, then looked around. They were standing on a field of broken rock and ice, which sloped gently upward to meet a cliff that looked like a wall of enormous boulders piled one on top of another.

“We could climb that,” Leaf told Dasher, pointing out the cliff. “Take the shortcut. But not in this weather . . .”

“We’ve got to find somewhere to get out of the wind.” Dasher crept in close to her side.

Are you using me as a shelter? Leaf thought, but she didn’t chide him aloud—frankly, she couldn’t blame him. Anything between her and the swirling, worsening weather would have been welcome.

“We’ll have to keep going along here. Maybe there’ll be a cave in the cliff,” Leaf told him. Dasher groaned, and she bent down and licked the drenched fur on his face so that it at least wasn’t falling in his eyes so much.

She knew it wouldn’t do much good, even though he stuck to her side as they walked. It wasn’t long before both of them were drenched and moving clumsily over the rocks as their legs grew stiff from cold. Leaf felt like she was actually wetter than she had been after they’d both fallen in the river.

They were also running out of hillside, the rocky field growing thinner and the steep cliff face coming closer. Leaf was just starting to think that they might have to attempt to climb the slick, sharp rocks in the wind and sleet after all, when she saw something up ahead. A circle of tall rocks sticking up from the ground, like the claws of a paw, or an open roaring mouth full of teeth. They made a stark and slightly scary sight against the cloudy sky, but also formed a sort of half cave, with one wide rock claw leaning over so that the inside would be at least slightly sheltered from the sky.

“It’s perfect,” Dasher yelped, and broke into a run.

“Careful!” Leaf called after him, just as his paws slithered on a patch of ice. He tumbled over, but got up again at once.

“I’m okay! Come on, let’s get inside!” Dasher hurried, a little more carefully, toward the tall rocks.

The closer they got, the more Leaf could see how big the formation really was. It would be wonderful to be out of the wind, sheltered from this bleak and barren landscape. But there was something she didn’t like about this spot, a chill that didn’t have anything to do with the frozen ground under her paws.

Dasher paused as he reached the gap between the stones. He looked over his shoulder and blinked through the sleet at Leaf as she joined him.

“It is a bit . . . eerie, right?” he said.

“Yeah.” Leaf put her nose through the gap and sniffed. It smelled as strange as everything did up here on the mountain: of ice and rock and the odd, faint trail of passing creatures. She stepped over the threshold into the sheltered space, trying to ignore the feeling that she was stepping into the mouth of a giant beast. Dasher followed her in.

The sheltered area inside was large enough for both of them to stand and turn without bumping into each other, and it really was a relief to be out of the wind, though the sleet fell in wet drips through the gaps in the stone.

Dasher sat down and began to paw at his face and ears, wiping away some of the wetness, but Leaf couldn’t get comfortable. She paced around the edge, sniffing at the rocks.

“There’s something . . .” She couldn’t finish the thought—she didn’t know what it was she was sensing.

She looked down at Dasher. He was still pawing at his ears, though they were already clean. He shuddered.

“I can feel it too,” he said. “Do you think we’d be better off out there?”

“Maybe . . .” Leaf turned to look out through the gap in the stones.

But something was in the gap, blocking the way out. For a moment, she couldn’t see it clearly in the dying light.

Then she let out a howl of fear and leaped backward, stumbling over her own paws and falling onto her haunches. Dasher skittered around to look, yelped, and crouched low to the ground as the tiger stepped slowly in through the gap in the stones.

Close up he was huge, bigger than the biggest of the pandas. His head was held high, his bright yellow eyes fixed on Leaf. His muzzle twitched as he sniffed at her, and she flinched and clumsily scrambled up and backed away until she struck the stone wall hard with a back paw.

The wind. The sleet. I didn’t scent him coming.

She certainly scented him now. The predator’s reek of torn flesh filled her nostrils and sent her heart rattling in her chest as the big cat put another paw forward, and then another. His striped fur rippled across his shoulders, sleek but powerful.

He was blocking the only way out.

This will be over quickly.

Down by her paws, Dasher pressed into the stone, his fur fluffed up and a high-pitched, panicky growl coming from between his bared teeth. Leaf wanted to stand her ground with him, until the end, to make herself look fearsome. She was a bear! She had big teeth and big claws and—

And she had never been in a fight, not ever. She hadn’t even liked to play-fight as a little cub.

We’re going to die.

The tiger sniffed again, and Leaf jumped and whimpered.

She was no fighter. But perhaps she could buy Dasher time. Maybe he could make it through one of the gaps in the stones high above.

O Great Dragon, why? Why have you brought us here? Why . . . why hasn’t it attacked yet?

The tiger was just . . . watching them. At last his mouth opened, revealing a glimpse of sharp fangs. But instead of sinking them into Leaf’s neck, the tiger spoke, in a voice that resonated deep within his chest and seemed to fill the hollow place between the stones.

“You,” he said. His gaze was still trained on Leaf, the black pupils wide in the dim light. “You are the panda with one white pad.”

Leaf couldn’t answer for several moments. How could you hold a conversation with a creature that might be about to eat you? But at last the tiger’s words settled in her mind. Almost involuntarily, she lifted her paw and looked down at it. There were her pads, all black apart from the larger grip pad, which was white.

The tiger’s ears twitched as he saw it too. Leaf flinched, bracing herself for the leap and bite . . . but instead the tiger sat back on his haunches.

“I have been searching for you for a long time,” he said.

“Why?” Dasher yelped. He was still fluffed up and pressed tight against Leaf’s flank. “What do you want Leaf for?”

“I have come to honor a promise I made to another panda, during the great flood. You needn’t tremble, small fox-bear,” he added. “I won’t eat you if this panda—Leaf—asks me not to.”

“Please,” Leaf squeaked. She tried to clear her throat. “Dasher’s my friend. I can’t trust you unless you promise not to hurt either of us.”

“A tiger’s promise is not easily given, but it is always kept,” said the creature. He paused for a moment, and then raised a paw to clean his whiskers, in a movement that oddly reminded Leaf of Dasher. “Leaf the panda. Dasher the fox-bear. My name is Shadowhunter. And I promise I will not hurt either one of you.”

Leaf still felt deeply uncertain about this, despite the tiger’s assurances, and she was sure Dasher would be thinking of poor Scratcher. But she didn’t have much of a choice.

She forced herself to sit down. Outside, the wind still howled and the sleet pattered against the standing stones.

“Well, you’ve found me. What promise did you make during the flood?”

“I promised to find you, when the time was right, and tell you who you are. This I promised your mother.”

Leaf had been about to shoot back that she knew who she was, thank you, but now she froze, mouth open.

“Orchid Risingtree chose my cave to shelter in during the storm, as the flood swirled below. She delivered her cubs in my den. I was there when you were born—you and your two littermates.”

My what?

What do you mean, two littermates?

We’ve met before?

What do you mean, “who I am”?

Leaf tried to speak, but she had so many questions they all seemed to cram together in her throat, keeping her silent. She could only stare at Shadowhunter. None of this made any sense. This couldn’t be happening.

And yet the tiger’s terrifying appearance seemed to shift and change with every word. He had known her mother. He had known her, as a tiny, helpless cub. He didn’t actually shrink, but every moment he didn’t attack them, he seemed less like a monster.

“No, Leaf just has one littermate,” Dasher whispered. “We know that . . . don’t we? That’s what Plum always said. What happened to the other one, if there were three? Did you do something to them? Like you ate my uncle Scratcher?” he added, growling at Shadowhunter. Shadowhunter growled in return, his lips peeling back to show his long, sharp fangs. Each one was about the length of Dasher’s entire skull.

“I would never hurt the triplets,” he snarled. “I gave Orchid my word I would protect them all, whatever the cost.”

“Then where are they?” Leaf found her voice at last. “My other two littermates? And my mother, where is she?”

Shadowhunter stopped growling. He sat and licked his jaws with a pink tongue as wide as two of Leaf’s paws side by side.

“You are the first I’ve found. You had to be separated after you were born, for your own safety. You had to be hidden, and have your destiny hidden, even from you. If other creatures understood what you were, some of them would try to use you—or kill you. But now is the time.” Shadowhunter’s eyes gleamed in the darkness, and for a moment he stared into the air above her head, as if he could see something there she could not. “The Great Dragon walks among us,” he said, his voice rumbling low in his chest. “Its breath is at our backs.”

Leaf shivered. She thought of the sensation she’d felt on the hillside—the sinuous black shape in the undergrowth, and the warm breeze in her fur. . . .

“Destiny is on the move, and it has chosen you: all three of you. The triplets born of Orchid are the new Dragon Speakers.”