Stone had said something about that, when they had found the urn in Ardan’s collection. That thought made Moon remember just how much he wanted to return to the tree. “I don’t care how crazy Pearl is going to be, I can’t wait to get back.”
Jade smiled at him. “Then wake the warriors and let’s go.”
They still took it easy on the warriors, finding a place to camp before dark and sleeping past dawn. One evening, they stopped on a mountain-tree platform to rest and hunt the herd of furry grasseaters grazing on one of the stretches of open meadow. They weren’t too hungry, so Jade told Balm, River, and Floret to only take three kills, while the others got a camp ready.
Moon flew up to a branch to keep watch over them, so had a good view of it when River tried to slam Balm out of the way and take the buck she was stooping on. Balm, who had either been expecting something like this or just had lightning-fast reflexes, rolled up and away from the blow, twisted to come down on top of River, and flung him out of her way. River righted himself with a couple of wild flaps, Balm took her kill, and Floret circled away to make it clear she wasn’t involved.
When the warriors returned to the camp, no one mentioned the incident. Moon just smiled to himself. Balm obviously had no intention of allowing River to push her around anymore.
They traveled steadily for six days with no trouble, then ran into a heavy rain that lasted a day and a night. It was too heavy to fly through, so they took shelter in a hollow in an ancient, dying mountain-tree. The tree was crumbling and the hollow had leaks, something they didn’t discover until it was raining hard enough that no one wanted to venture out to look for a better shelter.
It didn’t make for a good night’s sleep, and they all emerged early the next morning wet and cranky. To make up for it, Jade decided they would make camp on a small forest platform nearby, with the idea that full stomachs would make up for the lack of sleep.
Jade, Balm, and Song stayed at the campsite, and the others broke up into groups for hunting. Moon went with Chime, with Root tagging along, and they flew some distance from the camp before they found a platform big enough for a grasseater herd.
They took a big buck, and Moon bled the carcass by draping it over the branch, while Chime and Root kept a lookout for predators. “You think Stone’s had time to get there yet?” Chime asked. He sat nearby, and Root was above them, exploring the knobs and hollows on an upper branch.
Moon thought about it, gauging time and distance and Stone’s superior speed. “No, not yet.” They were taking the direct route from the coast to Indigo Cloud, but Stone had planned to stop at Emerald Twilight. He should have reached it two or three days ago, and he would have stayed the night at least, both for the meal and the chance to sleep. He would have also told them about the seed and how they had gotten it back, in order to make sure Emerald Twilight knew Indigo Cloud was no longer a weak court at the verge of disaster. Jade had thought this would make for a better chance of good future relations between the two courts. “It’ll probably take him another day or so.”
“The others will be so relieved that we got the seed back.” Chime frowned. “Until he tells them about Flower.” He shook his head. “At least by the time we get there…”
Moon hesitated, but Root was still on the branch above them, occupied with poking a stick into a hole, and wasn’t listening. He said, “It’s still going to be hard. They’re all going to want to talk to you about her.”
“I know.” Chime shrugged his spines uneasily. “It’s not that I don’t want to talk about her, but it’s just… hard right now. We knew she was dying for so long, and yet it still feels like it happened so quickly. I guess I was too good at putting it out of my mind, pretending she was going to be fine if she just got more rest.”
Moon nudged the carcass over, and sat back on his heels, hooking his disemboweling claws into the wood to steady himself. “Did you have a chance to talk to her about what happened inside the leviathan? How you kept getting—” He waved a hand beside his head. “Visions from it?”
“No. I wish I had.” Chime looked up at Moon, the scales on his brow furrowed with worry. “Esom kept wanting to talk about it. He seemed to think I’m going to be able to sense things like he can. I told him I wasn’t like a groundling sorcerer, and I wasn’t going to be like one, no matter what.”
“Would it be so bad if you were?”
Chime glared at him. “Yes.” He glanced back around, toward the west. “The others are coming this way.”
Moon stood and leaned over the steaming carcass to see if it was ready to move. Then Chime said, “Wait. Who’s that with—” His voice sharpened. “That’s not them.”
“What?” Moon looked, straightening up. Four warriors… no, five warriors came toward them through the trees. The colors and sizes were all wrong; these were strangers. “We’re about a day’s flight from Emerald Twilight.” He looked down at the carcass, belatedly wondering if they were trespassing. “Are we hunting in their territory?”
“Yes, but we’re just passing through. Nobody cares about that.” Chime pushed to his feet, watching the warriors approach.
There were two big males with copper-red scales, a smaller blue male, and two females, one green and one dull yellow. It was obvious they were heading this way. Maybe nobody cared about poaching back in the territory the old Indigo Cloud colony had occupied, but things might be different here in the Reaches. Moon said, “Root, come down here.”
Root dropped from the branch above to land next to Moon. “What do they want?” he asked, sounding a little nervous.
“We don’t know.” Moon wondered what the penalty for poaching was, if they would have to fight, and how many warriors he could take out on his own. Chime wasn’t the best fighter, and Root was still on the small side. Chime’s spines flicked uneasily and he whispered, “This isn’t good. I don’t know everything about being a warrior, but I don’t think they should be approaching a strange consort like this.”
Moon flicked his spines back. “If they’re from Emerald Twilight, they know who we are. We’re not strangers.”
“Still…” Chime muttered.
The warriors banked in, then split up at the last moment so that three landed on the branch above and two came down on this branch, about ten paces from Moon, Chime, and Root. There was something about them that made Moon’s spines itch. He didn’t recognize any of them from Emerald Twilight, but there had been a lot of warriors and he hadn’t been paying much attention to the ones clustered around the younger queens.
The green female had landed on their branch, and now she said, “What court are you from?”
She didn’t sound angry or aggressive, and Root and Chime both lowered their ruffled spines. Chime said, “We’re on our way back to Indigo Cloud. Are you from—”
Something hit Moon in the face, a wet membrane filled with liquid, thrown by one of the warriors above them. He staggered back a step, startled more than hurt, and snarled in surprised fury. Root growled, astonished, and crouched to leap upward. But Chime grabbed for Moon, shouting, “No, don’t breathe, don’t breathe!”
But the heavy sweet fumes of the splattered liquid filled his lungs, his head. Another membrane hit Chime in the side of the head and he jerked away. Moon stumbled sideways, darkness closing in around him rapidly, falling…
Moon drifted awake slowly, weighed down by a heavy lassitude. He felt oddly reluctant to move. He made himself turn his head, and felt leaves and branches creak and rustle beneath him, smelled the pungent scent of crushed foliage. Leaves? he thought, and remembered falling. He opened his eyes.