Wing & Claw 3_Beast of Stone Read online

  Davvis clapped hands with Raffa. “Everyone should be coming soon,” Davvis said.

  Raffa shook his head in puzzlement. Nearly the entire population of the slums—more than a thousand people—would be making their way here, using the underground passages and cover of darkness.

  How in the name of the Quake would they get across the river without using the ferry?

  Chapter Seven

  DAVVIS grinned at Raffa’s perplexed expression. “We’ve been making boats,” he said. “Come see!”

  Raffa recalled that Davvis and his family used to live in the northern slums, probably not far from the Vast, the ocean that surrounded the Obsidian peninsula. It made sense that they might have earned their living on the water.

  “We made most of them downriver, away from Gilden, and brought them up last night,” Davvis said. “We’re finishing up a few more here. You can see how it’s done.”

  Row after row of canoe-shaped boats were tied up along the edge of the river. As Raffa drew closer, he saw that they were made entirely of reeds.

  Several activities were going on at once. A few people were cutting reeds. Others went back and forth delivering armfuls of reeds to the boat builders, who were working in groups of two or three.

  The reeds were placed on the ground in a long pile. The two ends of the pile were tightly bound, with the middle spread out to form a rough boat shape. Then the reeds were tied together in bundles, and the bundles tied to each other to create the bottom and sides of the boat. Before Raffa’s very eyes and in less time than he would have thought possible, a completely river-worthy boat was finished!

  “So steady,” he said, the highest compliment he could think of.

  Davvis nodded. “My mam’s in charge—you’ll meet her later; her name’s Quellin,” he said. “Listen to this: She got into boat-building because she’s scared to death of the water. She says that’s why nobody builds a better boat than her.”

  A sharp whistle sounded. Every head turned toward the source of the sound. Whispers began to ripple through the night, passed from one person to the next until the eager words reached Raffa.

  “It’s them—they’re here!”

  Raffa held a lantern high to help light the way for the long straggle of people. In the lantern’s greenish glow, he could see their tired faces, not a smile among them. Lost. Frightened. Angry, bewildered, sad.

  During the deepest hour of the night, the slum dwellers had slipped into the underground passages, led by several youngsters, most of them friends of Jimble. They had emerged just beyond the apothecary quarter of Gilden, not far from the river. From there they were now making their way to the boats, which were positioned halfway between the two heavily guarded ferry landings.

  The travelers had clearly been warned that silence was an imperative. With dozens upon dozens of people on the move, it was both impressive and eerie how little noise they made. Everyone was carrying something: baskets, grain bags, misshapen parcels filled with foodstuffs and other essentials. Adults and teens carried sleeping babies and toddlers. One little girl clutched a bedraggled cat.

  At the riverbank, Davvis, Fitzer, and a few others began directing and helping people into the boats. Oars were handed out, two to a boat; like the boats themselves, they were made of bound reeds. Raffa realized that the boat-building effort must have begun at least a few days earlier. A small but strong glow of pride warmed him, that it was his mother who had discovered the details of the Chancellor’s plans and warned of its imminence.

  Raffa’s arm was getting tired of holding the lantern aloft. He switched hands, and the green glow wobbled momentarily. In that instant, he thought he saw a familiar face. He swung the lantern back and steadied it, searching the faces of those now walking past him.

  “Garith?” he exclaimed, incredulous.

  Even as Raffa uttered the name, he was already moving, knowing that Garith would not have heard him. Keeping the lantern above his head, he passed several people and tapped the shoulder of a tall boy in a leather tunic with a sack slung on his back.

  The boy turned his head.

  It was indeed Garith.

  Raffa’s thoughts tumbled and thumped. Garith had returned to Gilden to try to patch things up with his father, Ansel, who was in charge of making the apothecary combinations to dose the animals for the Chancellor. With an ache in his heart, Raffa realized that Garith’s presence here meant that he must have given up on a reconciliation.

  Garith stepped out of the flow of foot traffic. The two boys stared at each other for a long moment.

  Raffa wasn’t sure who moved first. An instant later, he and Garith were hugging each other, briefly but fiercely.

  They stood with their hands on each other’s shoulders. “I’m so glad you’re here,” Raffa said, and tapped his heart with one hand.

  Garith nodded, then grinned. “Yeah, you are,” he said. “Come on. I can’t wait to get to the Forest.”

  The atmosphere was tense but orderly. Three or four people, depending on weight and size, boarded each boat and rowed across. After they disembarked on the far side, one person had to make the return journey to pick up another group of passengers.

  Raffa and Garith held lanterns, offered a steadying arm, handed over parcels. Once, Raffa heard a splash when someone fell overboard, but whoever it was had been quickly hauled back in again. Otherwise, the crossing continued, slow and steady and without mishap.

  As instructed, Echo found Raffa twice during the night. The third time, to Raffa’s great relief, the bat returned to his usual roost on the perch necklace, heavier by several hundred mosquitoes.

  The blackness of the sky was thinning to gray when Raffa heard a noise coming from beyond the top of the riverbank. For a moment he couldn’t tell what it was, but then he recognized the sound of distant voices, combined with the thud of pounding feet.

  People were running, and their voices were filled with fear.

  Order immediately turned to disarray. The quiet line of passengers waiting to board the boats broke into knots and clumps of frightened people milling about—children crying, babies wailing, adults calling out in panic.

  “What’s happening?”

  “What’s all that noise?”

  Raffa ran up the riverbank, struggling against the flow of people frantically pushing past him. At the top of the bank he saw more people running, and a man standing on a tall stump silhouetted against the daybirth sky.

  “This way!” the man bellowed. “The boats are down here!”

  “Mannum Fitzer!” Raffa shouted. “Can you see anything?”

  “Go back, young Santana!” Fitzer shouted. “You have to get across! Hurry!”

  Raffa hesitated, then pressed on toward Fitzer. He had to find out what was happening. Moments later he pulled himself up onto the stump.

  “What are you doing?” Fitzer said. “I told you—”

  “I’m going, I promise,” Raffa said. “I just needed to know—”

  Then they heard a shrill scream, followed by cries of alarm.

  “RUN!”

  “RUN, EVERYONE!”

  “Dog—no—FOX! They’re foxes!”

  “Someone’s down! Help!”

  Raffa’s blood chilled. Animals attacking . . . already! How had the guards found out about the river crossing? The Afters could have been spotted leaving the slums, something as simple as that.

  He couldn’t think about it now—he had to find whoever was injured and do what he could to treat them. As he leaned forward to jump from the stump, he was jerked harshly and almost choked by his own collar: Fitzer had grabbed the back of his tunic and was holding him fast.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Fitzer roared. He did not wait for an answer. “You get to a boat right this minute! NOW, or I’ll drag you there myself!”

  He spun around still holding on to Raffa, and dropped him off the other side of the stump, toward the river.

  Raffa obeyed instantly; there was no arguing wit
h Fitzer’s fury. He ran back down the bank, slipping, stumbling, staggering. Boat after boat was being launched into the water, in complete chaos.

  “RAFFA! RAFFA!”

  It was Garith’s voice, loud enough for Raffa to follow. Garith was standing waist-deep in the river, holding on to one of the boats. Raffa crashed through the water and flung himself into the boat, then grabbed Garith’s arm to help haul him aboard. They each took an oar and began to paddle.

  Raffa looked back to see Fitzer and Missum Quellin, Davvis’s mam, helping load another boat with passengers. Where was Jimble? What about the twins and little baby Brid? And Jimble’s chummers? Had they crossed in any of the earlier boats? Dozens of people were stranded, with more coming over the top of the bank every second. Raffa searched in vain for Jimble’s blond head among the crowd.

  He paddled a few times, then risked another glance behind him.

  The ground at the top of the riverbank seemed to be . . . moving, as if it were a carpet being pushed over the edge. At that moment, the sun cleared the horizon, and Raffa could see plainly.

  “No!” he cried out.

  Scores of animals were now pouring down the bank. He saw the red fur of foxes, the sleek bodies of stoats, badgers striped black and white. The animals began attacking the people at the water’s edge.

  Between the shouts and cries, Raffa heard an unfamiliar thin whining sound and finally realized that it was coming from the guards.

  Whistles. They’re using some kind of whistle to command the animals.

  Then he heard voices clearly calling out orders.

  “RED, SPRING!”

  “RED, SPRING!”

  “SHARP, SNAP!

  “FIERCE, LUNGE! FIERCE, LUNGE!”

  Screams rent the air as people fled in every direction, some splashing into the river itself. Raffa saw a man trying to fend off a stoat that leapt at him repeatedly. A fox closed its jaws on a woman’s shoulder. Another woman held a wailing child and kicked desperately at a menacing badger.

  As Raffa stared at the turmoil, rigid with horror, guards appeared. They did not advance farther than the top of the bank but spaced themselves out and stood looking down on the chaos. They thrust their lancers viciously at anyone trying to climb back up the bank.

  Raffa turned and saw Garith kneeling at the bow of the boat, paddling hard. Raffa reached out with his own oar to tap Garith on the shoulder.

  “We have to go back!” Raffa shouted, gesturing wildly. “They need help!”

  Garith shook his head just as wildly. “We have to get across—we can’t risk getting caught!” he yelled. “PADDLE!”

  Choking on a sob of frustration, Raffa spun around to face forward again and started paddling as fast as he could.

  Chapter Eight

  ON the far side of the Everwide, Raffa and Garith jumped out of the boat and hauled it ashore. Several other boats landed to either side of them. Fitzer, Davvis, and Missum Quellin were in the very last one.

  “How many made it?” Missum Quellin asked as they joined Raffa and Garith on dry land.

  Fitzer shook his head. “Hard to say. More than three-quarters, maybe? We’ll know for sure upon certain when we get to the camp.”

  “What will happen to the rest of them?” Davvis was looking back toward the shore on the Gilden side. It was too far away to see anything, but Raffa shivered at the memory of what he had witnessed there.

  Will they all be taken to the Garrison? Or will the guards force them to go straight to the foothills? In the chaos, families had surely been sundered—parents, bereft and in despair; children, wide-eyed with terror. The silence that followed Davvis’s question was its answer.

  Raffa saw the people who had arrived ahead of them hurrying up the riverbank and disappearing over the top. He hoped with all his heart that Jimble and his siblings were among the crowd.

  “But how will they find their way?” he asked, knowing that most of the slum dwellers—maybe all of them—were unfamiliar with the Forest.

  “Folks from the settlements were waiting here for them,” Fitzer said. “A girl’s leading them—a friend of yours, I believe.”

  “Kuma!” Raffa exclaimed, and immediately felt a little better. She was completely at home in the Forest.

  And the slum dwellers had a head start: It would take the guards a while to reach the ferry landing so they could make the river crossing.

  “She won’t have been expecting us to cross,” Fitzer said. Raffa knew he was talking about the Chancellor. “It’ll take her some time to come up with a plan. I’d say she’ll send some guards in pursuit, but not many. Not to attack but to scout, figure out what we’re up to.”

  Garith began digging through the sack he was carrying. He pulled out several smaller bags and handed them around. The bags contained some kind of powder.

  Raffa untied his and gave the contents a quick sniff. “Throx?” he asked.

  Garith nodded.

  “What’s that?” Quellin asked.

  “It’s a powder distilled from throx plants,” Raffa said. “We use it as a stimulant—” He stopped and looked at Garith. “But why do we need it now?”

  “Dogs,” Garith said. He looked at Raffa expectantly.

  Raffa stared at him for a moment, until his mind lit up with understanding.

  “Oh! Shakes and tremors, that’s brilliant!” He couldn’t help a little hop of excitement as he spoke to the others. “Throx powder has an unusual quality: It numbs scent organs.”

  “What organs?” Davvis asked, in obvious puzzlement.

  Raffa tapped his nose. “Your nose,” he said. “Makes it so you can’t smell. It’s temporary, but it lasts for a while—an hour or two, at least. So we need to spread out along the bank, wherever the boats landed, and sprinkle the powder around as we walk.”

  “I still don’t get it,” Davvis said.

  “The guards,” Raffa replied. “If they try to track us, they’ll most likely be using dogs. The dogs will inhale the powder, and—”

  “And it’ll numb their noses so they can’t pick up our scent!” Davvis finished triumphantly.

  “That is brilliant,” Fitzer agreed. “If they don’t find any scent trails into the Forest, perhaps they’ll think we’re headed for the settlements instead. In any case, it’ll surely delay them, and we’ll be needing every moment.”

  Raffa pointed a finger at Garith, and then tapped his own temple. “Your idea?”

  Garith shrugged. “Yeah. Aunt Salima harvested the plants, because I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere,” he said, an edge of resentment in his voice. “And Uncle Mohan helped make the powder.”

  “Let’s get to work,” Fitzer said. He picked up a stick and drew a quick sketch in the damp sand, diagonal lines intersecting each other and making a sort of diamond pattern. “If we walk a grid like this, we’ll be able to cover the most ground.”

  They spread out along the bank, staying within eyeshot of each other. Raffa climbed the bank, scattering powder as he went. There was enough throx to strew over an area thirty paces wide and nearly a quarter of a mile long.

  As Raffa emptied the last of the throx from his bag, he heard Fitzer’s voice, calling urgently. “Down, everyone!”

  They were in scrubland between the river and the Forest. Raffa saw a tangle of cracklefruit shrubs and ducked beneath them. He sat hugging his knees, listening hard.

  At first he heard what sounded almost like singing, faint and far away. The sounds were getting closer.

  No, not singing.

  Baying.

  Dogs.

  It seemed like no time at all before Raffa could hear voices. The shrubs around him were in spring bud, not full leaf. He felt so exposed that he might as well have been sitting out in the open.

  “THIS WAY! OVER HERE!”

  Were they coming toward him? Raffa stared as hard as he could in the direction of the voice.

  Then a sharp bark—so close that he nearly jumped out of his boots! He swiveled his head and saw
a dog off to the right, perhaps fifteen paces away, on a lead held by a guard.

  Fear knotted his throat. In a moment of nonsensical instinct, he closed his eyes. If I can’t see them, maybe they won’t see me. . . .

  “NO! THIS WAY! WHERE ARE YOU GOING?”

  The voice was so close, it seemed he could almost feel the guard’s breath.

  Another voice, farther off: “FAULTS AND FISSURES, THAT’S THE WRONG WAY!”

  “SEARCH, TRACKER! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? SEARCH!”

  Raffa swallowed a squeak of surprise. The dogs are confused! The throx is working!

  Now the guards began arguing with each other.

  “My dog says this way!”

  “Well, mine’s pulling hard over here!”

  “Arrow’s more reliable than Tracker, and you know that’s the truth!”

  “Is not! Arrow couldn’t find her way to a tree to pee!”

  Raffa would have laughed aloud if he weren’t trying so hard to stay quiet.

  Guards and dogs crisscrossed the scrubland in confusion. Finally a guard who apparently outranked the others gave the order to head south—toward the settlements. Raffa gave a fervent, silent cheer. The throx powder had worked even better than he had hoped.

  He waited until the guards’ voices faded into silence, then began counting to one hundred. At seventy-three, he heard Fitzer calling.

  “They’re gone. Come on out, everyone. We’re in the clear.”

  Raffa ducked out from beneath the shrubs and ran toward Garith. He whooped and tackled the taller boy to the ground, mock-pummeling him.

  “You did it! It worked!” he crowed.

  “Get off me, you quake-brain,” Garith said, grinning.

  Raffa pulled his cousin to his feet. The success of Garith’s idea to use the throx powder had inspired him. As they clapped each other’s hands in celebration, hope rose inside him—hope spiked with determination.

  The glow wore off quickly during the hike to the Forest, for the memory of seeing people attacked by the animals remained vivid in Raffa’s mind. Their fear had tainted the air like smoke.