Wing & Claw 3_Beast of Stone

  He started walking faster. They entered the Forest and soon joined up with a path that he recognized. It led to a large clearing.

  A place he had been to before.

  Months earlier, he and Garith had made a trip to the Forest of Wonders. They had been appalled to discover an enormous clearing, created by the ruthless axing of dozens upon dozens of old-growth trees. The Forest had long been protected by government charter, because its plants were the source of such valuable botanicals. The cousins could not imagine who would commit such a terrible crime.

  Later, Raffa deduced that it was the Chancellor herself who had ordered the desecration of the Forest. The clearing had been used as a base during the effort by her forces to capture hundreds of animals, most of which were either babies or pregnant mothers. Jayney and his complice, Trubb, had discovered that very young animals were the easiest to train.

  Raffa was so preoccupied that he could not properly appreciate being in the Forest again. Normally, he would have been searching constantly for useful or unusual plants, and marveling at how the Forest had changed since his last visit. Now he hurried along the path, barely noticing his surroundings: It was yet another way that the small joys of life had been wrenched away ruthlessly by the Chancellor’s schemes.

  He found himself especially torn on entering the clearing. He hated this gaping wound in the Forest, and knew that the entire area around it had been stripped of much of its animal life. It would take years—decades—before it returned to anything like its natural state.

  On the other hand, there was a grim satisfaction in the knowledge that what the Chancellor had made was now being used against her.

  The clearing looked completely different from when he had last seen it. A tent village had been erected to serve as housing for the evacuated slum dwellers. The tents were makeshift, constructed of motley materials and, as a consequence, very colorful.

  He made his way farther into the clearing. Near the center was a large open pavilion, which consisted of a canvas roof held up by poles. The space under the canvas was filled with rough benches and tables. Raffa guessed that both the poles and the furniture had been made using the felled trees. A stream ran near one edge of the clearing. A water station had been set up there, equipped with buckets and barrels. Next to the water station was a long fire pit, with big pots and kettles rigged to hang over the flames.

  He was astounded. Shakes, it’s like a whole town!

  “Raffa!”

  He turned and saw a small group of people heading toward him.

  “Kuma!”

  Chapter Nine

  A SMILE split Raffa’s face, and he saw that Kuma’s smile was just as wide. He ran toward the pavilion to meet her.

  “I’m so glad you’re here!” “It’s so good to see you!” they said at the same time.

  In the next breath, “Where’s Roo?” “Where’s Echo?”

  They laughed together, providing each other with at least a partial answer: The beloved animal friends were safe, wherever they were. As Kuma and Raffa hugged, Kuma put a protective hand over the small warm lump of Echo under Raffa’s tunic. Garith caught up and hugged Kuma, too.

  But Kuma grew sober almost immediately; there was no time for more catching up. “I’m to take you to the pother tent straightaway,” she said.

  Kuma led the boys to two tents side by side, not far from the stream. “This one is for pothering,” she said, pointing to the tent on the left. She made a stirring gesture with her hands; Garith nodded in understanding. “The other one is for treating people who are wounded.”

  About a dozen people were lined up along the side of the treatment tent, some sitting on the ground. Although many of them must have been in pain, they were all quiet. Raffa looked over them quickly. He saw a man whose shoulder was bleeding, and another with bite and claw marks on his neck. A torn earlobe, lacerations to cheek and chin, more neck and shoulder wounds.

  Raffa nodded at the patients in sympathy. His pother blood was quickening: He felt almost itchy to begin making combinations to help heal them.

  Kuma lifted the tent flap so they could peek inside. There was a table for patients to sit or lie on. Another table held baskets containing stacks of fabric squares and rolled lengths of linen for bandages. Next to the baskets stood two large basins, one each of hot and cold water. Raffa was impressed again by what the settlers had accomplished in such a short time, but he couldn’t help noting the improvised nature of everything he saw.

  A young man sat on the table. Missum Yuli, whom Raffa had met at the settlement, was examining a wound on his neck. “You’re here!” she exclaimed without stopping her work. “Kuma will tell you what we need. Sooner is better, please upon thank you!”

  They left her to her work and went next door into the pother tent. Raffa turned to Kuma. “The fox,” he said quietly.

  “Red, spring,” she replied.

  They were both thinking of the fox they had found earlier, one of dozens of animals that had stormed Kuma’s settlement. “Red, spring” had been the command for attack—to leap and bite at people’s throats. That was why the injuries were almost all to the face, neck, and shoulder.

  “You know animal bites,” Kuma said, addressing both him and Garith. “They turn putrid easily, and can take a long time to heal. We can’t afford to lose people to injury—as it is, we’ll be well outnumbered. What we need is something that will speed up the healing.”

  Raffa glanced at Garith to make sure he was following along and saw his cousin’s eyes light up.

  “I’ve got something that might help,” he said. He took yet another bag from his rucksack, opened it, and held it out toward Raffa.

  At first glance, Raffa could see the color of the open bag’s contents.

  Red.

  An intense, vivid red that almost seemed to be glowing.

  Raffa let out a shout of near glee. Garith had brought with him powder made from the scarlet vine!

  Garith put the bag of the scarlet-vine powder on the tabletop. Raffa stared at it for a moment, thinking.

  Combinations made with the rare and elusive vine had proved to be miraculous, healing and curing sick and injured animals almost before his very eyes. But when the vine infusions were taken by mouth, the creatures had later suffered from dreadful side effects. No matter how dire the need, Raffa knew he could not yet give humans the vine infusion by mouth.

  However, it was a different story with poultices, which were rubbed on the skin. Raffa had treated Echo and two baby raccoons with a vine poultice, and as far as he could tell, there had been no ill effects.

  But he had not yet used the poultice on a person. Anxious as he was to get the poultice to Missum Yuli, Raffa knew it could not be used until he was certain it was safe.

  He flapped his hand to get Garith’s attention. “The combination for slashes and lacerations,” he said. “We’re going to need a lot of it.”

  In addition to the vine powder, Garith had brought quantities of many other botanicals from the laboratory. This was an amazing gift—to have such variety and quality right from the start! Garith took charge of organizing these ingredients, while Kuma went off to fetch tools and equipment from the kitchen and supply tents.

  Raffa hurried to the tent flap and called after her.

  “Kuma, would you keep your eyes open for Jimble? Tell him we could use his help here. You’ll know him when you see him—like Trixin shrank and turned into a boy.”

  She smiled at that, and waved her assent.

  The cousins began their work. Raffa was conscious that they had to balance speed with caution; it was not easy to work both quickly and carefully. When they had made a large batch of the healing combination, he put a small amount into a mortar, then stirred in a spoonful of the scarlet-vine powder.

  The grainy dust was incorporated into the paste, growing smoother with each turn of the pestle. Raffa felt his mind empty, in a good way, of all but the task at hand. The paste took on a faint red glow. A few
more turns, and glow turned to glimmer. Raffa speeded up the rhythm, until a breathtaking flurry of sparkles and flashes danced throughout the paste.

  Garith slapped the tabletop and grinned at Raffa, who grinned back and nodded. Garith understood, as perhaps only another pother could, the satisfaction of a beautifully made combination.

  “How are you going to test it?” Garith asked.

  Raffa glanced up from the mortar. “Actually, I have the perfect subject,” he said. He held up his bandaged right hand. “Me.”

  Garith unwound Raffa’s bandage and put it aside to be laundered. Then he fetched a clean one from Missum Yuli in the treatment tent.

  Raffa washed his wound and dried it carefully. Part of him felt a sudden reluctance. He could not forget that another poultice made with the vine had caused a dangerous reaction. That was a different combination, he reminded himself. This one was fine for Echo and the raccoons. It might not do anything wonderful, but it’ll probably be perfectly harmless.

  He kept his body moving, hoping to dodge his doubt. He took a single breath, dipped his left forefinger into the paste, and quickly rubbed it onto his right hand.

  “There,” he said, his voice a little too loud. “Now we wait and see.”

  To his surprise, he sounded exactly like his father. How often had Mohan used the same words, cautioning him to patience?

  He stared at his hand for a long moment. Nothing seemed to be happening. But maybe that’s a good thing. No pain or burning, like last time. Yes, definitely a good thing. Trying to distract himself from his impatience, he worked with Garith to organize the tent space into some semblance of a pother laboratory.

  A little while later, Kuma returned. She was carrying a bucket that contained a strainer, a pair of tongs, some hollow reeds, a paper of pins, and a few other items Raffa had asked for. She also had some welcome news.

  “I found Jimble,” she said.

  Raffa hooted in delight and relief.

  “He’s helping set up a sort of nursery for the little ones,” she said. “He’ll be here as soon as he can.”

  A nursery? Raffa frowned.

  “Kuma, do you know anything about what’s going on?” he asked. “We’re not here just to hide out, are we?” When the guards realized that the Afters were not at the settlements, it wouldn’t take long before they widened the search to include the Forest. As a hiding place, the clearing was not the best choice: It was probably the only part of the Forest that some of the guards might know.

  “The leadership council is in meetings all the time, talking about it,” Kuma said. She named the council members: Haddie and Elson, her aunt and uncle; Mannum Fitzer; Davvis’s mam, Missum Quellin, the boatbuilder; and Missum Abdul from the settlement. “And your da and mam, of course. Even though they’re not here.”

  Raffa felt a pang of longing for his parents so keen that it made him gasp. He held his breath for a moment to keep from crying. Then he realized that his fists were tightly clenched. He looked down at his hands, trying to relax.

  “Shakes and tremors!” he said. As his companions stared, he held out his right hand, knowing what he would see before he saw it.

  He turned his hand palm up and opened his fingers wide.

  The cut had already healed. The skin was firm, dry, and healthy, with only a faint line of pink for a scar.

  Chapter Ten

  RAFFA hustled the rest of the sample batch to Missum Yuli so she could begin using it right away. Then he returned to the pother tent to begin working on a larger quantity of the poultice.

  “I can do it,” Garith said. His expression was half-defiant, half-pleading. “At least let me try.”

  He was talking about adding the vine to the combination himself. On a previous occasion, he had not been able to draw any kind of sparkle or shine from the vine botanical, which seemed to be the key to releasing its remarkable powers.

  Raffa hesitated. Garith was older than him by a year, but he was acting as if Raffa was in charge. In the past, Garith had resented when Raffa tried to take the lead. This will take some getting used to. . . .

  “No,” he said at last, and met Garith’s glare with one of his own. “We don’t have time. Those people”—he pointed toward the treatment tent—“need the poultice now, so there can’t be any ‘trying.’ You just have to do it.”

  He remembered Garith saying that his deafness had actually helped his apothecary skills, that he could now concentrate better. Well, here was his chance to prove it. He held his breath, wondering how Garith would respond to the challenge.

  Garith nodded at him, and Raffa was heartened to see the determination in his cousin’s eyes.

  “I need to talk to the council,” Raffa said. “Kuma, will you come with me? Garith, I hope Jimble will get here soon. He can help, and he’d like nothing better.”

  Raffa ducked out of the tent, not wanting to hover over his cousin as if he needed supervising. He hoped that his departure would send Garith the message that Raffa had confidence in him. He left without looking back, leaving behind a trail of thoughts. Come on, Garith, you can do it, steady upon solid!

  Kuma led the way through the camp to her family’s tent. As they walked, Raffa told her about using throx to lead the dogs astray.

  “But surely it won’t be long before they search the Forest,” he said. “How do we know they’re not on their way right now?”

  “We’ve got watchers and runners,” Kuma said, “at both ferry landings. We’ll get word as soon as they start crossing over. But even before that, we’ll know when they leave Gilden. Your mam has people helping her. Some of them send messenger pigeons, so there’ll be plenty of warning.”

  Raffa nodded, reassured. He was especially glad to hear that his mother wasn’t alone in her work.

  “I want to ask what the council is planning,” he said. “Because maybe I can think of ways to use apothecary to—to help.”

  He was on tricky ground here, and he knew it. The essence of the pother code was to heal, not harm. Raffa had already chosen several times to use apothecary for other ends. Once, he had temporarily blinded a guard using cappisum powder; on another occasion, he had given Jimble an infusion of mirberries to make him vomit on cue as a distraction. None of the effects had been permanent—but that wasn’t the point. The point was, should he even be thinking of using apothecary as a battle tactic?

  The question was part of a larger one—so large that Raffa sometimes felt that his head would burst from thinking about it. Was it an apothecary’s duty to discover all the countless new ways that botanicals could be used? That was what the Chancellor and Uncle Ansel believed. Or should a pother’s efforts be focused solely on healing, as Da had always preached?

  Maybe there’s another answer: Using apothecary for—for what’s right. Whether that’s healing people’s bodies, or trying to stop unfairness. Even as this thought occurred to him, Raffa was aware that such choices were not always simple and straightforward. Still, it made him feel a little better to have thought of what might possibly become his own guideline.

  The council members were sitting outside, on stumps arranged in a small circle. Quellin represented the slum dwellers. Haddie, Elson, and Missum Abdul were Afters who lived outside Gilden. Fitzer was there, too—not himself an After, but against the Chancellor’s plans just the same.

  As Raffa approached, he heard raised voices.

  “—bow and arrow?”

  “—not enough bowshooters—”

  “—no other weapons, unless you count hoes and hammers—”

  Frowning, Kuma put a hand on Raffa’s arm and drew him back behind the corner of the tent, out of sight of the council. “They’ve been arguing a lot,” she whispered. “Not at first. Last week, while we were setting up the camp, things went really well. But yesterday, right before all the Gildeners came, it was like everyone started getting tense.”

  Raffa noticed that she didn’t say “slummers.” She said “Gildeners.” Because that’s what they are,
even if the Chancellor and her—her supporters don’t want to say so.

  The voices were growing more agitated.

  “—blowpipes, for everyone else—”

  “—even with blowpipes, it’s not going to be enough!”

  “That’s not the point! Nothing we come up with will be enough!”

  The last voice belonged to Elson, Kuma’s uncle. Elson was usually calm, steady upon solid; on hearing his agitation, Raffa’s shoulders grew tight with foreboding. I thought they would know what to do . . . that they’d have it all figured out somehow. He shook his head and began walking back toward the pother tent, Kuma following him.

  When they were out of earshot, he said, “It didn’t seem like a good time to talk to them.”

  She nodded, and he saw on her face the same worry he was feeling. He forced himself to focus on something other than his fears. “They’re planning to use blowpipes . . . Have you heard anything more about that?”

  “Yes. Some people have been cutting reeds to use as pipes, and they’ve tried dried peas as ammunition. The peas sting when they hit you, but they wouldn’t stop anything bigger than a—a sparrow, maybe.” Pause. “And none of us are experienced with blowpipes.”

  Raffa’s gloom deepened. How could they possibly defeat the Chancellor? She had a huge force of guards and weaponry. She had the animals, too. And what do we have? Hollow reeds and dried peas. There must be something better. Here in the Forest . . .

  The gloom of uncertainty lifted from Raffa’s shoulders, and was immediately replaced by a different kind of load: the weight of responsibility. I know the Forest better than all of these adults. I’m the one who has to think of something.

  Immediately his father came to mind. Raffa had long struggled against Mohan for more freedom and independence in apothecary. This is why. He was teaching me, but he was protecting me, too.

  The load of responsibility was heavy. And uncomfortable.

  But he would choose it any day over hopelessness. And he recalled what Mohan had said to him at the Garrison. He said that it’s up to me, that I have to stop them. So he thinks I’m ready now.