THE RIVER loomed ahead.
Unar knew, now, why the men had been shouting as they burst through the wall of water; she shouted herself, to help focus her will. She increased her speed and thrust her arms above her head as if diving to try and reduce the downward impact of the river. If she slowed, or lost her footing, and truly did dive in, there’d be no going back.
The river smashed around her ears, a terrible, punishing blow. Blackness. Rushing in her head and around it. Legs still pushing. More kicking.
Then she was in the fishing room. Streaks of green-lit fungi exploded in front of her eyes. Her determination had carried her directly into a wall. Her teeth met the splintered wood, blood and river water in her mouth.
“Unghh,” she said, and fell onto her bottom in an undignified way.
“You rode on the back of a demon,” the child said. “I saw you. That was treasure, that was.”
Unar lifted her head towards a light source in her peripheral vision. Ylly stood, her expression horrified, by the gap where the door had been taken off its hinges, holding a lamp in one hand and cradling a grumbling baby Issi to her chest with the other.
“What demon?” she asked.
“A dayhunter,” croaked Oos from a dark corner.
“A big lizard,” the child added. “Dunderheaded and dank. It cannot jump or glide, but it crosses Floor and climbs to plunder the nests of nocturnal animals while they sleep.”
“We’re not sleeping,” Ylly said fiercely. “This dayhunter. Does it fear fire? Let’s heap the logs from the hearth in the hallway, and—”
“It does not feel fire,” the child said quickly, “and its flesh does not burn. We would die before it did.”
“Then what are the men doing out there?”
“Marram is distracting it,” Unar managed. She spat, hoping no teeth went along with the wood and slime, and added, “The other two are trying to saw through the yellowrain tree. You, what is your name?”
“I am called Frog,” the child said.
“An unlucky name in Understorey,” Ylly said. “Shall we call you Frogorf?”
“No. This Frog is going in only one direction, and that is up. What is there for me in Floor?”
Ylly seemed taken aback.
“How many monsoons have you, Frog?” Unar asked.
“This is my tenth.”
“You’re small for your age.”
“There is no light to warm me, here, Gardener. No fruit for me to pluck from laden branches. Neither slaves’ milk nor wasps’ honey.”
“Is that why you wish to climb higher?”
“I will climb higher,” Frog said, showing her white teeth again in that stark, pantherine grimace. “Startin’ right now, if I see that demon’s head come in through the river.”
Unar looked at Frog’s forearms. There were the twin creases where her spines were retracted. If the demon’s head came through, would Unar search the dwelling for her bore-knife and escape in the child’s wake, or would she stay and try to protect the baby and unconscious Hasbabsah to the death, as Ylly no doubt would?
“Audblayin’s bones,” she swore again.
Another sharp crack. Another single, hard shudder of the tallowwood tree. Ylly and Oos cried out in unison as the river’s flow was disturbed, but it wasn’t the head of the giant lizard; rather, it was the yellowrain log tilting, hitting the roof, and then sliding away.
They were all sprayed with water. Then there was only the river as there had been before.
“They did it,” Unar said, feeling weak with relief.
“I’m trapped here forever,” Oos said with despair.
“Is that your baby?” Frog asked Ylly, already shrugging off the fact they had all faced certain death. Even if they had climbed successfully, they would have reached the barrier to Canopy and then what? The demon could have eaten them at its leisure.
“She’s mine now,” Ylly said, holding Issi tighter. “Her mother let her fall.”
“So did mine,” Frog said. “I mean, she did not throw me off with ’er two hands, but she wanted me to fall. She wanted sons. To help ’er, see. She was losin’ her sight and knew she would not be able to do ’er job for much longer. Why put all that effort into raisin’ the wrong sorta child?”
“That’s horrible!” Oos exclaimed.
Frog looked sidelong at Unar.
“She knew I would not be able to do the work,” Frog went on. “She already had one useless daughter, and she thought I looked … small. For my age.”
Unar’s face flushed with shame. She’d just told Frog that she looked small for her age. Before she could apologise, Esse and Bernreb swung in through the river, detaching their harnesses from the rope at the required moment, only to stumble heavily into the others. The tiny room was full. Unar heard someone’s feet kicking the water buckets and the rattling of shelf contents being upset.
“Move,” Bernreb gasped. “Further inside. Go!”
“You’re back,” Unar said, squeezing out from between Esse’s sodden, heaving-chested body and the wall with her tooth-marks in it where she’d come through the waterfall too fast.
“You could win the crown at Loftfol with a cut that quick,” Frog said, skirting Bernreb’s dripping shape to follow Oos and Ylly down the hall. “Treasure.”
“To Floor with Loftfol and its crown!” Esse wheezed. “Where is Marram?”
“Not here,” Unar said.
“Do not,” Bernreb told Esse, gripping his shirt in a giant fist. “If he did not fall, he will come. If he did fall, you cannot help him. The best place to wait is in front of the fire.”
When they were all in the hearth room, Bernreb regretfully moved Hasbabsah’s chair back from the fire. She didn’t move; hadn’t moved for some time, except to breathe. Now there was room for all of them to cluster by the heat.
“That old woman stinks,” Frog observed.
“Show some respect, child,” Ylly said.
“Whose house is this?”
“It is mine,” Esse said. His tone did not invite further conversation, but Frog did not fall silent.
“Have I monsoon-right, then? It seems I am trapped here with you people.”
“No,” Esse said, at the same time as Bernreb said tiredly, “Yes.”
“No,” Esse said again.
Finally, there was silence. Steam rose from Unar’s Gardener’s tunic. She shifted her feet, turning each side to the fire as the other grew too hot. Beside her, Oos did the same thing. Her eyes looked glazed, the skin of her bare feet wrinkled by the water. She smelled of blood, and Unar couldn’t tell if it was a failure of the dried moonflowers or the wound along her arm.
Ylly made a meal for Issi. When the baby was full and sleeping, she made a meal for Esse and Bernreb, too. Unar didn’t feel like eating, but she scrubbed the last of the demon dung off her hands before making herself chew some dried fruit and sweet gobs of insects trapped in sap. Oos coaxed a little water into Hasbabsah and changed her clothes underneath the blanket. For once, Ylly didn’t criticise her, but helped lift Hasbabsah’s dead weight.
“You are angry with me,” Frog said to Esse at last. “What have I done?”
Esse roused himself. He’d been staring at the wall, as if he could see through it to a place where Marram was napping in a hollow to refresh himself before flying home.
“Somebody cut the crown from that yellowrain tree,” he said. “Today. This morning. The cut was fresh. Then they cut the tree again, at the base, so that it would fall. Was it you?”
Frog looked incredulous. “Does it seem to you that I could cut a tree down by myself? If I could, my mother surely would have kept me.”
“The top of that tree was in Canopy when the sun rose. That means the person who cut off the crown was there, too. And you have the colour of a Canopian.”
“She speaks like an Understorian, though,” Bernreb said gruffly. “Like she was raised in Gannak. And she has the snake’s gift.”
“Too young,” Esse said, his eyes sparkling with displeasure. “Who would give them to such a young girl?”
“I am ten,” Frog said, glaring at him. “I earned them. I did not climb into Canopy. I cannot climb into Canopy. I do not know who cut down that tree any more than you do. I was with my adopted family on the outskirts of Gannak when the tree fell. I thought I would follow it a little way to visit my friends in the palm-oak. Since the monsoon started, we had received no birds from them. Now I know why.”
“The dayhunter,” Bernreb said.
“The dunderheaded dayhunter.” Tears glistened in the corners of Frog’s eyes but didn’t fall. “If the demon ’as took your fellow, too, then I am sorry for you, but it is not my fault.”
“We never said it was your fault.”
“’E will not guarantee my safety.” She pointed at Esse.
“He will,” Bernreb said. Esse’s gaze snapped angrily in his direction.
“Floorians take both of you, Bernreb, I—”
“Make a little room for me by the fire, brother.” Marram walked into the room, shivering, teeth chattering, and wingless. He must have left the chimera skin in the fishing room, unheard above all the shouting.
Esse crossed the floor and roughly embraced him.
“Who are you?” Marram asked Frog over Esse’s shoulder.
“I am Frog,” Frog said, her shoulders hunched defensively. “Will you give me monsoon-right now? Am I forgiven for whatever you think I have done, Heightsman?”
“You are small,” Marram said, moving past Esse to stretch his hands out to the flames. He gave Frog a sidelong glance, considering. “Small, and yet you have the spines implanted already.”
“Does anyone else wish to insult me?” Frog demanded angrily.
Marram grinned despite his chattering teeth.
“I am not insulting you,” he said. “Only thinking. I think I could teach you how to fly.”