Chapter Five

THE MIST IN THE Northern Forest was so thick this morning that Leaf could barely see across the clearing to the other pandas. It curled between the trees, chilling the pandas’ fur—and, worse, hiding the thin, weedy bamboo sprouts from them. It was a very paltry feast. Only Gale had managed to find a good-sized clump of new growth, and she had already shared her good luck with Hyacinth and Cane, whose search had come up practically empty.

“At the Feast of Gray Light, your humble pandas bow before you,” intoned Crabapple, though his voice seemed thin and muffled in the fog. “Thank you for the gift of the bamboo, and the wisdom you bestow upon us.”

Leaf tried to make her feast last as long as possible, but it was all gone in moments. There was a quiet in the Slenderwood clearing that had nothing to do with happy pandas munching on bamboo. Leaf guessed they were probably all wondering the same thing—if this mist didn’t burn away soon, would they be able to find anything to eat at Golden Light? What about Sun Climb? Even once the mist lifted, if the growth was this bad, would there be bamboo to find at High Sun or Long Light?

“We cannot go on like this,” said Aunt Plum in a firm voice, startling Leaf out of her worries. Several of the other pandas jumped too.

Grass shook her head. “We don’t have a choice, do we? The Dragon has abandoned us. Unless we pick a direction and start walking, and hope that we come across a better place before we starve to death. . . .”

Cane made a soft whimpering noise, and Hyacinth pulled him close to her with a glare at Grass.

“We are wreathed in the Dragon’s breath,” said Plum. Her voice was quiet, but it seemed to command the attention of every panda in the clearing. “This mist is a sign. The Dragon wants us to do something. I . . . I don’t know what it is yet. But I for one cannot go on like this. We must try to find out why there has been no new Dragon Speaker.”

There was another long silence.

“How?” asked Juniper.

Plum sat back on her haunches and turned her face to the sky, as if she was hoping that the Dragon itself would finally intercede and tell her what to do. Leaf held her breath. What if it did? What if this time, just this once, there was a sign . . . ?

No sign came. Plum let out a sigh and returned her gaze to the rest of the pandas.

“I will go to the Dragon Mountain,” she said. “I will make the journey to the cave. And if I don’t receive a sign along the way, then I’ll meet the Dragon face-to-face and ask what we can do to put things right.”

Juniper blew out a huge breath through his nose, shaking his head.

“Oh, Plum,” said Hyacinth. “No. It’s too far; it’s much too dangerous.”

“No panda has made it to the cave—not since Sunset was chosen,” said Crabapple.

“I think . . . perhaps you’re right.” Juniper got to his feet. “Someone must go. But I also think we may never see you again if you take this on, Plum. You must be certain.”

“How could I be uncertain?” Plum looked around at the Slenderwood pandas, at the meager scraps of bamboo that had been their First Feast.

Leaf watched this exchange with a feeling like a hot spring bubbling up inside her, and now she couldn’t hold it in anymore. She jumped to her paws.

“I’ll go with you.” She ran across the clearing to Aunt Plum. “It’ll be safer with two. I’ll go with you, and we’ll find the Dragon together!”

Plum’s eyes shone as she looked at Leaf. “Oh, my sweet Leaf. No,” she said.

“What? Why not?” Leaf sat back on her haunches with a soft thump. “You can’t go alone—what if you don’t come back to us?”

“That’s exactly why I can’t take you with me,” Plum said. “I promised Orchid I wouldn’t let anything happen to you. I couldn’t risk your life like this. I know the pain of losing a cub,” she added. “My own Cloud died just before Orchid left you with me. I nursed you, and I love you as much as I loved Cloud. I couldn’t bear it if you were hurt, not for Orchid’s sake or my own.”

“I’d be fine,” Leaf said, but weakly, knowing that it wasn’t much of an argument in the face of Plum’s grief. “I can climb. I can . . . I can take care of you.”

“I love that you want to. But I can do this,” Plum said, and leaned forward to lick Leaf between the eyes. Then she turned to the other pandas and set her paws firmly in the thin grass. “I will set off before Sun Climb.”

Leaf ran down the forest slope, the bamboo she’d gathered held tightly but carefully in her jaws. The sun was rising and the mist was less now, though patches of it still lingered in the bottoms of the valleys and between the high rocks.

I can’t have missed her, she thought. She wouldn’t have left, would she?

Her heart juddered with relief as she skidded to a halt at the bottom of the slope and saw Plum, surrounded by the other Slenderwood pandas, saying goodbye to them one by one with a bump of the nose or a gentle pat on the shoulder. She rolled over and spread her arms playfully when she came to little Cane, and he roared in his small voice and jumped onto her belly. Plum gently moved him off and stood up.

Leaf paused just outside the group to steady herself. She couldn’t imagine life without her aunt Plum. But she was right—someone had to find some answers, or none of them would survive much longer.

She trotted into the circle, and Plum turned to look at her.

“I brought you these for the journey,” Leaf said, dropping the bamboo at her feet.

“Oh, Leaf.” Plum gently bumped foreheads with her. “Your mother would be very proud of you. Now, don’t forget—always say the blessing, even if the feast is a single leaf. Remember to groom behind your ears, especially after you’ve been climbing. Listen to your elders. Don’t let those red pandas lead you anywhere you can’t get back from.”

“I’ll remember,” said Leaf.

“I’ll see you very soon. Take care of them all for me,” Plum added. Leaf drew herself up as tall as she could, and watched as Plum took the bamboo and turned to start on her long journey. The rest of the Slenderwood pandas called out their good wishes to Plum and then began to disperse, but Leaf sat still until her aunt had completely vanished over the rocks and between the sparse trees.

Her heart felt heavy, despite Plum’s reassurances. But for now, there was nothing she could do.

She needed a distraction, she decided. She started walking toward the river. She would climb one of her favorite trees by the shore and see if she could see any movement on the far bank.

As she was walking, she heard a rustle in the undergrowth, and then a voice.

“Leaf! Hey Leaf! Wait for me!”

It was Dasher. Leaf stopped to let her small friend catch up. It didn’t take long—somehow the red pandas always seemed to move faster on their little legs than a panda four times their size.

“I heard about Plum,” Dasher said, sitting up on his haunches when he’d reached Leaf’s side. “Wow. She’s so brave.”

Leaf nodded, and her heart felt a tiny bit lighter. “She is.”

Dasher grinned, then put out his black paws and rested them on Leaf’s chest. “She’s going to be okay,” he said. Leaf nodded again, but couldn’t bring herself to reply. “Hey, hey, Leaf,” Dasher went on, getting back down and bounding across the path in front of her. “I’ve got something to show you. Down by the river. You’re going to want to see this!”

And with that he scampered off, running vertically up trees and over rocks, pausing every few seconds in his dash to look back and check she was following him. Leaf smiled and hurried after him. This was a pretty obvious ploy to distract her, but to be fair to Dasher, it was working. She was lucky to have a best friend like him.

Dasher led her down to the shore, to the place where instead of jutting rocks or tangled trees sticking up out of the river, there was an open, pebbled beach that sloped gently into the water. There were a handful of red pandas there already—Leaf recognized Jumper, as well as some of the older pandas whose names she didn’t know, and Splasher Swimming Deep. Splasher was sitting on a rock in the shallows, her tail lashing back and forth as she stared into the water.

“They’re still looking for a way to cross?” Leaf asked Dasher. “Even after what happened to Diver?”

“Especially,” said Dasher, and lowered his voice as he added, “Splasher wants to do it in his name. Anyway, we don’t give up on things. If the Great Dragon can’t help us, we’ll help ourselves. That’s the red-panda way,” he said, blinking proudly. “And today might be the day! Look!”

He scampered to the edge of the water and pointed with one of his small black front paws. Leaf looked, and her heart suddenly felt as light as air. A huge old bamboo trunk, nearly as wide around as Dasher’s whole body, had fallen from the shore and was now sticking out over the fast-flowing center of the river.

“It doesn’t go all the way to the other side,” Dasher said.

“But it would give us a head start, take us across the worst of the current. We could make it!” Leaf was already walking toward the rocks where the base of the bamboo was, its roots still firmly embedded in the earth. Dasher scampered after her, and Splasher joined them, running up onto the rocks and looking along the length of the tree.

Leaf’s belly fluttered, like branches tossed in the wind. Can I really do this? She leaned forward, tentatively placing one paw at a time on the bamboo. The thick stem creaked a little, but it didn’t move.

“I’m going,” Leaf said. “If I can get across, if I can find my mother . . . I have to try.”

“I’m coming with you,” Dasher said. He turned to Chomper. She gave him a solemn nod.

“I’ll tell the Climbing Fars where you are,” she said. “Good luck.”

Dasher raised his tail in a kind of salute, and got on to the trunk behind Leaf.

Leaf looked out over the rushing water and took a few slow, calming breaths.

Remember you’re a panda, she thought. Go steady, be strong. You’ll make it.

She squared her shoulders and began to walk out over the river.

The bamboo creaked and swayed a little with each step, but it seemed to be holding firm. She told herself it was just like climbing, but in a different direction—paw over paw, reaching for claw holds in the smooth woody surface, and not looking down.

“Still with me?” she called back to Dasher, without turning around—the movement of doing so could be enough to throw her balance off.

“Yep, yep, still here,” said Dasher.

The trunk started out suspended about two bear-lengths above the water, and the weight of the two friends bent it down a little, but Leaf knew that bamboo this old and thick could take a huge amount of pressure. It held them both up above the water until they were over the middle of the wide river, and a little bit farther. Then it began to thin, and Leaf gripped the sides with her claws as it bent down toward the cold water.

“Not much farther,” she said. “Then we’re going to have to swim for it.”

The bank opposite seemed so close now, she could almost feel her paws on the soft, mossy earth. It would be a tough swim, but she could make it, and once she was there, surely it wouldn’t be hard to find Orchid and her sibling. . . .

Then the bamboo beneath Leaf’s paws jolted suddenly downward. A c-r-r-r-a-a-a-ck! echoed from the cliffs on either side of the river. Leaf crouched and dug her claws into the thick bamboo as it dipped and bounced under her.

“Leaf!” Dasher gasped. “It’s—”

The water came up to meet them, and Dasher’s words were cut off as he, Leaf, and the whole bamboo trunk plunged into the river. Water splashed up Leaf’s nose and soaked her to the skin in an instant, waves crashed against her flank, and the bamboo rolled and bobbed in the water, but she wrapped herself around it and held on with all her might. At last her head broke the surface long enough for her to let out a roar of fear.

“Dasher!” Leaf glanced back over her shoulder, terrified that she would see her best friend’s small body being dragged under by the current. But Dasher had managed to cling on to the bamboo too, though his fluffy red fur and striped tail were waterlogged. Behind him, the bamboo had come free of the earth completely—she could see cracks in the trunk and the straggling ends of roots—and now Leaf realized that the whole thing was floating downriver, driven along by the currents. The beach, Splasher, the whole Slenderwood, all of it was receding quickly into the distance behind them.

“We’ve got to get off this thing!” Dasher squeaked.

Leaf tried to look at the river in front of them, and spluttered as another wave rolled over her head.

By the Nine Feasts, she thought desperately, I would have been safer going with Plum to the mountain! I promised her I’d stay safe, and now . . .

But there was no time to chide herself. Somewhere up ahead, she knew, there were sharp rocks that split the river into churning rapids. If they couldn’t stop before they reached them . . .

“Climb back!” she yelled to Dasher. “Get back to the thicker end!”

Dasher turned, his nimble paws clutching the trunk, and started unsteadily running back. To follow him, Leaf had to let herself slide into the river with her back paws, and then claw her way along, pointing her nose in the air to try to keep it above water.

If we can get closer to the northern bank, maybe we can swim for it, she thought. We have to try!

“Over here! Panda! Here!” cried a voice above her. She looked up, trying to blink the wet fur from her eyes. Two small shapes were bounding from branch to branch in the trees along the northern shore. One of them sprang from a tree, and the fur between its arms and legs splayed out, letting it glide through the air to the trunk.

Flying squirrels!

“Root coming!” one of the squirrels squeaked urgently. “Get it! Grab it!”

Leaf peered over the bamboo trunk and saw it. A bend in the river where rocks and the roots of trees stuck out in a trailing tangle.

“Dasher, jump for it!” she roared. “Go!”

Dasher bunched his muscles, ran along the bamboo trunk, and leaped, flying through the air almost as if he could glide like the squirrels. His front paws connected with the root, and he pushed down, rolling over through the air to land in a tangle on the shore.

It’s now or never, Leaf thought. She pushed off from the bamboo, trying to propel herself as close to the roots as she could. She knew at once she was going to fall short. The water was dragging her down. So she took a deep breath and dived, pushing underneath the water. She fought to open her eyes, and saw the roots ahead as they stretched down under the water. With paw-strokes that seemed to take all her strength, she battled against the current to reach them. Her chest became tight and panic gripped her, but then her claws found purchase on the underwater roots and she began to climb.

Her nose broke the surface, and she almost head-butted Dasher, whose concerned face was peering over the edge of the tangled roots. He yelped and scampered backward.

“Leaf! You’re alive! You made it!” He grabbed at Leaf’s front leg with his paws as she pulled herself up and over onto solid ground, and Leaf appreciated the attempt to help, even though he was far too small to hold on to her. “We saw you go underwater. I thought you’d drowned!”

“I made it,” Leaf echoed, gasping and coughing up river water.

She sank to her belly against the trunk of the tree that had saved them and tried to catch her breath.

“What a pair of idiots,” said a voice above her, and she looked up to see the flying squirrels, clinging upside down to the trunk of the tree.

“Did you really think you could make it to the other side?” the other squirrel said.

“It’s too far,” the first one shook its head at Leaf. “Especially for a panda. No offense, cub. But if we can’t even glide across, how’s a big old bear like you going to make it?”

“Get used to living in the Northern Forest, you two,” said the second squirrel as it started to climb back up the tree. “Because you’re never going to leave it.”