“How did they open it?” Jade asked, overriding several people trying to ask the same question, including Moon and Chime. Some of the Kek jerked back in alarm.
Stone paused to hiss for quiet. Kof lifted his hands. “Do not know. Door opened.”
“What then?” Stone asked.
After a time, the scouts had seen the strange groundlings leave through the same door. Not long after that the groundlings had left the area, a process which Kof described with vague waving motions. When the Kek had ventured to investigate, they had found the door closed again.
“That doesn’t tell us much more than we already knew,” Jade said, tapping her claws impatiently. “What did the groundlings look like? Did they have skin or fur?”
Stone translated the question, but Kof scratched his chin tendrils thoughtfully, not seeming to understand. Moon shifted to groundling, which caused a stir among the Kek. Apparently it had been a long time since they had seen a Raksura shift. He leaned forward beside Stone, and pushed his sleeve up and held out his arm. “Skin like this, like we have, or something else?” Stone held out his arm too, dull gray next to Moon’s dark bronze.
Kof reached out and touched Stone’s arm, then Moon’s; it was like being gently brushed with sticks. Kof turned and spent a few moments consulting the other Kek, some of whom had presumably seen the groundlings. Then he spoke to Stone again, who translated, “At least some of them had bare skin like our groundling forms. They didn’t see many of them closely, so the others might have been different.” He added to Kof, “But your scouts didn’t kill any? Up in the root passage near the doorway?”
Kof replied with an emphatic negative. The strange groundlings were strong, and had metal weapons, and the Kek knew they couldn’t survive a battle. They had hoped only for the strangers to leave, and once the strangers had, they hoped they never came back.
“Tell him they won’t come back,” Jade said, propping her chin on her hand, disappointed. “They got what they wanted.”
They left the Kek, who were happy to have the colony tree inhabited again, even though Stone had told them it might not be permanent. When they got back to the greeting hall, Stone went up to lie on the floor of the queens’ level and growl at anyone who came near him. Pearl disappeared, probably to barricade herself in a bower with River and her other favorites. Bone went down to report the conversation to Flower and the other mentors, who were trying to find information about the seed in the court’s library.
Moon ended up standing in the teachers’ hall with Jade, Chime, and a dispirited collection of Aeriat and Arbora. “What do we do?” Bell asked, glancing uncertainly at Rill. “We were going to clean out the rest of the bowers on this level, and start working on the gardens, but…”
“The flying boats need repairs before we send them back,” Blossom added, then made an exasperated gesture. “I mean, even if we have to use them again, they still need work.”
“And we still have to eat.” Bead shrugged wearily.
Jade twitched her spines in half-hearted agreement. “Whatever happens, we’ll be staying here for a time. The hunters will search for game, with the warriors to make scouting flights and guard them. The others can keep making the bowers comfortable, and start the repairs to the flying boats.”
Everyone seemed relieved to have a decision made; even if they didn’t know what to do in the long run, at least they knew what to do now.
As the group dispersed, Moon caught Chime’s frustrated expression. He nudged him with an elbow. “Go help Flower and the others.”
Chime hesitated. “You think I should?”
“That’s more important right now.” From the way the others were talking, all the hunters and most of the warriors were going out to hunt. They didn’t need Chime, and the mentors could probably use all the help they could get.
After a moment of indecision, Chime nodded. He seemed relieved to have something to do that he felt confident about. “You’re right. I’ll go help with the books.”
As Chime left, Jade said, “I’ll go down and help them as well. I don’t know as much about the library as a mentor, but the last few turns I haven’t done much more than study.”
Moon realized he had been assuming that he was going on the hunt. “Uh, do you mind if I go hunting?”
She tilted her head, giving him a sideways look. “Would it matter if I did?”
A little stung, Moon said stiffly, “Yes.” Then he hesitated and found himself adding more honestly, “Probably.”
Jade sighed, but it was wry. She said, “Go on.”
Moon went.
The hunt turned out to be almost interesting enough to distract Moon from worrying about their immediate future. With a group of Aeriat, he scouted the suspended forest, finding that grasseaters lived on the platforms of the mountain-trees. After a consultation with Bone, they decided to focus their attention on a herd of jumping grasseaters that looked like the eastern bando-hoppers, except with dull green fur, horns, and much meaner dispositions.
The colony tree’s platforms weren’t connected to those of the surrounding trees, though the Arbora had found the remnants of wooden bridges, long since collapsed. The Aeriat flew the hunters over to a platform near the bando-hopper-like creatures, and the hunters took it from there, finding their way from tree to tree, leaping or swinging down to the lower platforms, crossing branches, or climbing the swathes of greenery to the higher levels.
In a clearing on one of the platforms, perched on a dead hopper, Moon watched the end of the hunt. They still needed to identify the big predators in the area, and the Aeriat would have a lot more scouting to do, but he could believe that this suspended forest was the place the Arbora had been meant to live. The green-tinged sunlight was bright, the place sang with birdsong, the breeze, over the blood and dead hopper, was laced with the scents of a hundred different flowers. As Bone dragged another carcass into the clearing, Moon said, “This is a good place.”
“Well.” Bone straightened up and shook blood out of his head frills. “It would have been.” He sounded resigned.
Moon didn’t think it was time for resignation yet. “We fought off a Fell flight that had crossbreed mentors,” he pointed out.
Bone sighed. “If we had something to fight, I wouldn’t worry.”
When the hunters called a halt, Moon helped transport the carcasses back to the colony. They had enough fresh meat for the whole court for a few days, and the Arbora could dry some to store. The hunters took over the skinning and butchering, and Moon flew to one of the platforms to stand under a small waterfall, rinsing his scales off. He had fond memories of the hot water baths at the old colony, heated by rocks that the mentors spelled to give off warmth. They could have much the same set-up here, once they cleaned out the moss and figured out how to get the water to flow back into the pools throughout the tree. If they were here long enough.
To dry his wings, he flew over to the platform where the flying boats were docked and landed on the Valendera’s deck. A group of Arbora worked on the ship under Niran’s direction and Blossom’s watchful eye, sanding away claw marks, patching holes, and winding new ropes. The news had already spread, and Moon found Niran unexpectedly sympathetic. “It’s similar to the loss of a ship’s sustainer,” he said, leaning on the railing. “The rock that forms flying islands is hard to obtain for those who have no means to reach it. Instead of trying to purchase it, some try to steal it.” He shook his head. “But we know where to get more, and we don’t live in our ships.”
Blossom leaned on the railing beside him, her spines and frills drooping with depression. “I don’t know what we’re going to do. We were all counting on living here.”