As soon as they were set on their feet, the hunters spread out to search the platform for signs of dangerous predators. Moon sent Sand and Aura up into the fern trees to keep watch and made the warriors stay put until Bramble signaled it was safe.
With the hunters in charge, the minimal camp went together fast, including a dirt hearth and shelters constructed from stretches of fabric made water resistant with tree sap. There weren’t any rocks handy, so Merit used chunks of mountain-tree wood that was too old and hard to burn, spelling them for fireless heat.
Moon sent River, Drift, and Briar with two of the hunters, Plum and Salt, to take a kill from the grasseater herd on a lower platform. He wanted to keep them all fed at every opportunity, to be prepared for anything. Once they were gone, Moon shifted to groundling, but he was so tense it didn’t help much to lose the weight of his wings.
He paced on the flattened grass near the hearth. The other warriors distributed themselves around the camp, stretching and talking quietly. Floret stayed near Moon, as if waiting for instructions. He wished he could think of some.
Bramble brought the water kettle and set it on the wood to heat. Then Venture strolled up. She said, “You’ve done well today, consort.”
There was no rational response to that, so Moon didn’t make one. Bramble, crouched near his feet, hissed deep in her throat.
Venture asked Floret, “Are we waiting here for the line-grandfather?”
Floret, rather pointedly, asked Moon, “Moon, are we to wait here for Stone?”
Moon nodded, still lost in thought.
Floret told Venture, “Yes, we’re waiting for the line-grandfather.”
Venture gave her an ironic nod. “The consort spoke freely at the court, with a reigning queen present. Why not now?”
Floret tilted her head, annoyance turning to something more dangerous. Venture clearly had opinions about young consorts who thought they were qualified to lead bands of warriors and Arbora. But then young consorts who had never been feral solitaries normally would never have left the court without a queen to protect them, either the queen they had been taken by or a close relative. From Venture’s point of view, Moon’s presence here was foolhardy, rash, and scandalous, and Pearl was worse for allowing it. It was a valid point of view for a Raksura, except that Moon was tired of hearing about it. He said, “Venture, why are you with Garnet?”
A flicker of surprise and something else crossed Venture’s expression. She said, “Queens are always accompanied by female warriors. Maybe with your background you haven’t had that explained to you—”
“Queens are accompanied by their clutchmates. You’re supposedly the clutchmate of the reigning queen. Did she not want you? Or does she not trust Garnet?”
Venture stiffened in offense. A queen usually kept any female warrior clutchmates close by; they were important advisors and companions. If Venture was with a daughter queen, then either the reigning queen didn’t like her or she was meant to keep an eye on Garnet. Floret and Bramble watched her with fixed expressions. Bramble, in groundling form, flexed her shoulders as if raising spines she didn’t have at the moment; under her sleeveless shirt her muscles rippled.
Venture showed her teeth briefly. “I was sent to Garnet as an honor to her,” she said, and walked away.
Floret and Bramble both relaxed. Floret muttered, “If I said something that idiotic, Pearl would slap me so hard my fangs would fly out.”
Bramble, dipping the metal travel cups into the tea, snorted. “I guess it’s no fun for her to scratch when someone scratches back. Why did she ask you about Stone, Floret?”
Floret sat beside the hearth. “She’s pretending she thinks I’m in charge to make us angry.”
Bramble took Moon’s wrist and put a cup in his hand. “Oh, wonderful. It’s lovely enough having her along without that.”
“I know. It’s not as if we can’t argue and fight on our own, we don’t need an outsider poking us.”
She was right about that.
Merit came to the hearth, carrying his pack, and Moon asked him, “Can you do an augury?”
Merit nodded. “I’ll get started right away.”
Just before the light failed entirely, River and Drift and the others returned with two kills, big furry lopers. “We only need one,” Moon said. They had all eaten that morning, and he didn’t think an easy day’s flight was enough to make them that hungry.
River dumped the second carcass and shook blood out of his frills. “Stone’s coming back here tonight, isn’t he?”
It was all Moon could think about, so he wasn’t certain how he had forgotten that Stone was going to need to eat too. “You’re right,” he said.
River stared at him blankly, apparently having prepared a defense that now he couldn’t use. Moon turned and went back to the hearth.
It was full night when Stone arrived.
Moon sensed him first, the near-silent movement of air over big wings, the sudden cessation of calls and hums and chirps from the night-dwelling insects, birds, lizards, treelings, frogs, and other creatures. A moment later the sentries hissed softly.
Merit had spelled some moss and wood for light, and Moon pushed to his feet as Stone’s big shape appeared at the edge of the platform. Stone landed, shifted to groundling, and crossed toward the hearth.
Moon found himself holding his breath. Stone said, “I found their first camp.”
“But not them,” Moon said. He was half-expecting the tension in his chest to ease a little, but it didn’t.
“No. No sign of any trouble, either. The firepit and latrine were covered, nothing left behind. No blood scent.” Stone stretched and rubbed the back of his neck. “I searched all around it, down to the forest floor.”
Moon reminded himself the goal today had been to pick up their trail, and Stone had done that. No one had really expected that they would find anything so soon.
Stone returned to his winged form long enough to eat, then shifted back to groundling and joined Moon at the hearth. Floret, Serene, and Bramble sat nearby. The other Arbora and the warriors who weren’t on guard duty kept a distance, some still eating and others already retiring into the shelters to rest.
Stone took the cup Bramble handed him and said, “How did it go today? Any trouble?”
“No.” Moon knew he meant Venture. She had gone into a shelter with Aura and Band. “The only thing she could do is delay us. I’ll leave her behind if she tries.” He had thought Venture might fake an accident and claim to be too hurt to fly; if so, she had better be able to display an open wound or a broken bone.
Stone didn’t comment on that. “I’ll start out again after I get some sleep.” He took a sip of tea and winced.
Bramble said, “It’s good tea. You’re too picky.”
Stone ruffled her hair. “I’m a delicate consort.”
Stone lay down on a blanket by the hearth, since he only meant to sleep for a few hours. Moon went into the little shelter the Arbora had built for him, mainly because he needed some privacy from the others. He could feel everyone staring at him, wondering what was going on in his head, if he would break down.
When Bramble crawled in after him, he said, “I want to be alone.”
Bramble said, “Floret told me to sleep with you.”
“What?” Moon stared at her.
“To keep Venture from trying anything,” she explained.
Moon needed a chaperone about as much as he needed another arm. “I’ll rip her head off if she tries anything,” he said, exasperated.
“She doesn’t know that.” Bramble cracked her knuckles suggestively. “It’s my job to make sure you don’t have to rip her head off.”
Moon said, “Are you serious?”
“We tossed lots for it and I won.” Bramble handed him a blanket.
Moon threw the blanket down. “Fine. I’m not having sex with you.” It was something many groundling races would have found inexplicable, that Moon would be considered compromised by th
e close presence of an infertile warrior from another court, but not by Floret, an equally infertile warrior and not by Bramble, a fertile Arbora. It didn’t make much sense to Moon, either, at times.
Bramble pretended to look hurt. “I’m too proud to beg.” With a little exasperation, she added, “Strike will be in here too, and the others right next to us.” She sat cross-legged, facing him, and said seriously, “You need to let us protect you. Just let us worry about it, so you and Stone can worry about finding the others.”
Moon rubbed his forehead, trying to get past kneejerk annoyance and think. “Why would Venture come after me? It would just make Ocean Winter look worse. If Ocean Winter isn’t responsible for Jade and the others disappearing, it doesn’t make sense.”
Bramble said, “Venture might think we’re lying about Jade’s party being missing, that we’re just trying to get an advantage over them. Or maybe you’re right, this is all a trick to get rid of Garnet.”
Moon hadn’t said exactly that, but it was certainly a possibility. “If Garnet was away from Ocean Winter when Jade arrived, she might not know what happened. Or that anything happened.” Then the reigning queen had sent Garnet off on this supposed trading trip, hoping that Indigo Cloud would take revenge on her. Except that meant a large part of the Ocean Winter court had taken part in the conspiracy. That was a little much for even Moon’s suspicious nature. “That doesn’t sound likely.”
“No, it wouldn’t be a big plot, it would be a small one.” Bramble straightened her blanket. “Say Ocean Winter is innocent. But when Garnet arrives at Indigo Cloud, Venture realizes this is a chance to get rid of her. So she gets herself sent along with us, then she does something to you. Pearl assumes it really is war, and she kills Garnet in revenge for you and Jade.”
Moon lay down, head pillowed on one arm. The problem with that was that Venture would have to be willing to die to make it happen. And there would have to be a queen in Ocean Winter who would be willing to risk outright war with another court just to dispose of a rival. Even Halcyon hadn’t included a war in her plot against Tempest. “Is that what the Arbora think?”
“Not really,” Bramble admitted. “We talked about a lot of possibilities, but most of them are pretty unlikely.”
It was true. The most likely possibility was still the one that they could do nothing about, that Jade and the others had been attacked during the night at one of their camps, and that none of them had escaped. Moon tried to push those thoughts away, knowing they would accomplish nothing except to make him even more crazy.
From outside the shelter, Stone growled, “Shut up and go to sleep,” and that put an end to speculation for the night.
Moon woke before dawn with Bramble’s head pillowed on his hip and Strike curled up against his side. When Moon had first met Strike he had been an adolescent, one of the small group of Arbora hunters who had escaped the Fell attack on the old colony in the east. Now he was a little taller and broader, though still obviously young.
He shook them awake and sent them to get the others up. By the time the light changed from pre-dawn dark to gray morning, they were on their way.
The next two days went much the same as the first. Moon and the warriors flew through the day and made camp in the early evening. Then Stone arrived by sunset, having found another one of Jade’s camps, but no traces of anything happening to the Raksura who had camped there.
That was the most nerve-racking part of the day, waiting for Stone to return, knowing the word he might bring could end all hope. Moon spent it pacing, trying not to pace, keeping an eye on the warriors’ hunting efforts, and watching Merit scry. Merit was vague about his results, mostly because his results were vague. At least Moon knew he was trying hard, maybe too hard; all he did was scry, staying up most of the night to do so and sleeping during the day when he was being carried by a warrior. He staggered around blearily before they left camp every morning and had to be reminded to eat and wash. Moon worried that he would push himself too hard, but Merit insisted he was fine. “I know you’re thinking about how Flower died,” Merit said on the second morning. “But this is different. I’m a tenth her age.” Moon just hoped Merit wasn’t overestimating his stamina.
Venture was less trouble than Moon had expected; she mostly stayed with the younger warriors, who seemed overawed by her.
“Seemed” was the important point. On the third evening, when Venture was out hunting with Serene and Sand, Aura came to Moon’s hearth to report to Floret.
“She asks a lot of questions.” Aura wrapped her arms around her long legs. She was young, with dark copper skin and red-brown hair. Moon didn’t know much about her, except that she had Arbora clutchmates. She looked from Floret to Moon. “Mostly about Jade, and the consort, and the court. I think she doesn’t believe we’re telling the truth, that Jade was still at Indigo Cloud, hiding somewhere. That this is all a trick to make Ocean Winter look bad.”
Bramble, Merit, and Plum sat nearby, and River had crept close enough to listen. Floret frowned and glanced at Moon. “Can she really believe that?”
“It could be a trick,” Bramble said, and shooed away a flying frog that had landed on her pack. “She knew you’d tell us.”
Moon suspected Bramble didn’t want to hear evidence to contradict her own theories. As of last night, the Arbora had arrived at a consensus that this was an elaborate plot by Ocean Winter to take over Indigo Cloud’s territory. Moon had stopped listening at that point, so had no idea how this was supposed to be accomplished. He knew the Arbora were only doing it to occupy themselves on the long flights, coming up with complicated plots to argue the merits of over the hearth in the evening to keep from thinking about what might have happened to their lost queen and warriors. But it was too much for his already tense nerves.
Aura didn’t agree. She said, “No. Venture thinks Band and I are idiots. She thinks we’re so overawed by a reigning queen’s clutchmate showing us attention that we can’t think straight.”
River made a skeptical noise. Moon ignored him and said, “You can think straight. What about Band?”
Aura twitched a little uneasily. “I know he’s been rude to you,” she admitted. “But he’d never go against anything Pearl wanted.”
Everyone muttered agreement. Moon caught River’s eye, and River gave him a cynical shrug. To Aura, Moon said, “Make sure he’s not alone with her. I don’t want her to take advantage of him.” Band might not intentionally betray Pearl, but he might be talked into something stupid that would amount to the same thing.
Aura’s brow furrowed and she nodded seriously.
Aura went to rejoin the others and the Arbora huddled up to discuss this new information. Floret sat down and planted her chin in her hand. “That’s not good.”
River said, grimly, “Did you really think this was an Ocean Winter plot?”
“I wanted to.” Floret’s answer was bleak.
Moon rubbed the bridge of his nose, partly to conceal his expression. He had wanted to, as well.
At midmorning on the fourth day, their route took them near the camp Stone had located the day before. On impulse, Moon called a halt at it, to give the warriors a chance to switch out who was carrying an Arbora, and to give the Arbora a chance to stretch and rest. The place was just as Stone had described, a large platform hanging on the outer branches of the left hand cluster of a gnarled twinned mountain-thorn.
Standing in the sparse grass near the small stream, Moon looked up at the twisted thorn branches arching overhead. They were huge, each one supporting its own little forest of small spiral and fern trees, of bushes and puffblossoms and every other kind of foliage that called the Reaches home. The second half of the thorn hung to one side, blocking off the view of the other platforms and sheltering this one. It didn’t look so much like a tree as it did a giant carved puzzle, festooned with greenery. He wondered why Jade had chosen this spot; the lack of visibility was worrying, though it also meant that predators on the platforms of the ot
her mountain-trees couldn’t see the camp. Maybe there was a storm and they needed the extra shelter.
There was little sign left of Jade’s camp, just the remains of the small firepit, the latrine spot, and a place where what had been a neat pile of fruit peels and other food debris had been turned into a nest by scavenging insects.
Moon paced absently around while the others explored or drank from the pond. They were here, he thought, days ago. Just days. But standing here he had the same feeling that he got in ancient groundling ruins: that an unbridgeable gulf of time separated him from the people who were once here.
A tiny spark of blue near the firepit caught his eye, and he dove for it as if he expected it to be the answer to something. But it was just a bead, stained with dirt. He dug around a little and found a few more and a frayed piece of thread. It hadn’t been torn off in a struggle, but looked as though the loose thread had finally given way under the weight of the beads.
He should just drop them. He knew they weren’t Jade’s, and he couldn’t remember if he had ever seen Chime or any of the others wear blue beads like this on their clothing. But he closed his hand around them and held them tightly, and after a moment dropped them into the bottom of his own pack.
That evening they made camp as usual, on a smaller platform in a young mountain-tree that had been crowded into a narrow column by more robust neighbors. It was the first platform Moon spotted in the area with a pond and no obvious signs of predators, and he couldn’t be bothered to find one that was more comfortable. Seeing Jade’s deserted camp had affected him more than he had expected, and his mood was so obviously dark that no one complained.
They set up camp, hunted and ate, and waited for Stone. Moon paced almost continuously, his nerves drawn tighter than ever. They were only two days from Ocean Winter at most. We have to be close. It was hard not to imagine scenarios where Stone discovered a camp with them all alive but the warriors too injured or sick to fly, and Jade guarding them and waiting for help to arrive.