Creatures of the flood, p.3
Creatures of the Flood, page 3
This finally got a laugh out of Pebble, and Rain jumped down off the rock and loped down the slope to the water with her friend’s paws thudding just behind her.
She ran over the tangle of rocks and roots and stones that made up the bank and plunged into the river with a happy snort. The water lapped over her muzzle, cooling and fresh. There was a huge splash behind her as Pebble landed in the shallows and slapped the water with his forepaws.
Rain’s mother was right about the river—it was dangerous to swim out too far.
It hadn’t always been like this. Peony had told Rain many stories of the way the kingdom used to be, before the flood had swelled the river to such a vast size that the lowest hills were completely underwater. Whole territories had vanished. When the rain came, pandas had tried to climb tall trees to escape the water, and they’d been trapped there or had had to swim for their lives from the top branches and been dragged under by the terrible currents.
But that was a year ago. Rain had grown up with the river as it was now, and she knew all the rivulets and shallows as well as she knew her own fur pattern. In some places there were smooth, stony banks, and in other places trees and rocks that used to be on dry land stuck up out of the water, breaking up the flow. A careful panda could swim happily around them without getting too close to the dangerous currents that flowed near the middle of the river.
Rain took a deep breath, and dived.
Under the water, there was a whole different world. Rocks and roots covered with soft green algae housed tiny glittering silver fish and turtles with gleaming opal shells.
It was calm, but a little creepy, too. The water was clear, but there were no smells or sounds, so everything felt soft and slightly unreal. Rain used her big paws to push herself along under the surface, nosing at the underwater branches sticking up from the silt riverbed. A flash of orange, gold, and black over her head made her look up to see a shoal of carp, circling in the sunlight.
She surfaced again and gasped for breath. She had swum out into the faster flow of the river, and she could see Pebble sitting on a rock near the shore, watching her anxiously as she floated away from him. She snorted. He had nothing to worry about. She was the best swimmer in the Prosperhill, and she knew exactly how far she could go without being dragged away. She dived again, swimming hard for the shore, and a moment later she burst from the water right next to Pebble’s rock.
“Worried?” she asked, putting her paws up on the rock to steady herself. But Pebble wasn’t looking at her anymore—he was staring at the bank. His muzzle twitched as he sniffed the air.
Rain tried to sniff too, but her nose was still full of the scents of the river, fish and wet moss. Before she could ask Pebble what he was sniffing at, she heard the voice of a panda—first one, and then several. Horizon and Dawn, she thought, and Frog, too.
“A new panda!” they were saying.
“A new panda?” Rain echoed. She was sure they couldn’t mean it—it was too soon for the new cub to be born, and there were no other pandas living anywhere nearby.
“Come on, let’s go and see what they’re talking about!” Pebble jumped down into the shallows and they splashed together toward the shore. It wasn’t hard to find the source of the commotion—by the time they had climbed the hill, all the Prosperhill pandas had crowded themselves onto one flat ledge overlooking the panda path.
“What’s happening?” Rain asked Peony. Her mother looked at her with flat surprise.
“Can’t you scent it? There’s an outsider approaching. Or at least . . . they smell familiar, somehow. But it’s not a Prosperhill panda. I’m certain of that.”
Rain sniffed again, but it was hard to pick out a single panda’s scent when the rest of them were crowded around her, shifting excitedly from paw to paw. She managed to wiggle through the group to the edge of the rock, just in time to see a shape emerge from between the trees below.
It was a large, fluffy black-and-white shape—unmistakably an adult male panda. His fur was a little thin with age, and across one of his haunches he had a large scar. But his steps were as firm and strong as the trunks of trees. He had exceptionally large eye markings, and he stopped as he came onto the path and looked up at the assembled pandas, blinking as an expression of joy settled across his features.
“My dear pandas,” he said. “I have found you at last.”
This meant absolutely nothing to Rain, but all around her a cry began to go up from the older pandas, a whisper at first and then a roar.
“Is that Sunset?”
“It’s Sunset!”
“Sunset Deepwood!”
Rain sat back on her haunches and was left alone on the rock as the other pandas rushed down the slope, crying out their greetings.
“You’re alive! You’ve returned to us!”
“The Dragon Speaker has returned!”
Chapter Three
GHOST BORN OF WINTER made no sound as he padded through the snow, across the wide open ridge of the White Spine Mountains. Up ahead, his littermates Frost and Snowstorm were sleek, dappled shadows darting from rock to rock, pausing to sniff the air or poke their whiskers into a hole in the ground. Ghost sniffed around too, but he couldn’t scent any prey on the icy wind.
He glanced back and paused for a second to let Shiver catch up. His sister was the runt of the litter, and her legs were shorter and her fur thinner than the others, so she always had to run in scampering bursts, stopping to catch her breath often.
“Have they found anything yet?” she whispered as she reached him, shaking the snow off her whiskers. Her spotted head barely reached Ghost’s shoulder.
“Not yet,” he replied.
“Well, maybe we’ll find one first!” Shiver said brightly. She closed her eyes. “Snow Cat, show us your paw prints!”
She opened her eyes and looked around, as if she were expecting to literally see the prints of the Snow Cat leading her to a burrow full of tasty prey.
“Let’s catch up with the other two,” Ghost suggested. Shiver nodded, and they advanced across the snowfield. Despite the size difference, their paces were well matched, with Shiver’s frequent pauses for breath and Ghost’s slower, heavier tread.
Snowstorm and Frost had paused in the lee of a large rock, and Ghost saw Snowstorm turn to look back at them, her tail lashing and ears pricked. She’d found something.
Wait for us, Ghost thought. We’re all supposed to be hunting together. . . .
He put on a burst of speed, but Snowstorm and Frost had already moved on, creeping around the rock and out of sight.
“Mother said they’re not . . . supposed to go too far ahead,” Shiver panted.
Ghost simply nodded. Winter had told them to stick together, and with very good reason. They all needed to get hunting practice if they were ever going to be able to make the leap across the Endless Maw, become adults, and finally move out of their mother’s den.
He glanced up at the towering peaks that rose from the ridge to the north, black and white against the swirling snow. There had been another avalanche only a few nights ago. They’d been safe in their den, but they’d all heard the cracking and rumbling of the white waves of snow as they rolled down the mountain. It was a wonder there were any prey animals left living among the White Spines—but then, Ghost supposed they were just like him and the other snow leopards. They didn’t want to leave the place they’d always called home.
Ghost and Shiver hurried around the rock and found Snowstorm and Frost on the other side of it. Snowstorm flicked her tail at them again.
“See it?” she hissed. “Right there!”
Ghost peered through the snow, and, sure enough, there was a flicker of brown beside a pile of gray rocks, half buried in a snowdrift. The brown ears of a mountain hare. It was large and tough-looking.
“We should sneak around and pounce from the rocks,” Frost said, and set off at a fast creep, his body so low to the ground he left a trail of disturbed snow behind. Ghost tried to follow him, but his broader shoulders and stocky legs made it hard to slink. So instead he focused on staying quiet, placing his paws carefully, and letting the snow muffle his movement.
Shiver raced ahead, but she couldn’t catch up with her faster littermates, who had already circled around in a wide arc and begun to climb up the rock on silent paws. The hare never saw or heard them coming. They sprang, first Snowstorm and then Frost, and trapped the creature under their paws. But the hare was surprisingly strong, and it wriggled and kicked in their grip. Its powerful back leg struck Frost under the chin, sending him reeling back.
“Ugh! Stay still, you little—Ghost, come and help me!” Snowstorm growled through a mouthful of writhing fur. Ghost put his head down and charged toward them. He might not have been very good at stealth and speed, but it felt good to unleash his power. He put a heavy paw down on the hare to hold it still, and finished it off with one clean, powerful bite to the back of the neck, just like Winter had taught him.
“We did it!” Shiver panted, catching up behind them. Ghost saw Snowstorm and Frost exchange a look, and hoped they wouldn’t say anything mean to their sister. Shiver would have been able to catch her own prey if they’d let her go first instead of rushing off ahead.
“Let’s eat,” Frost said instead, licking his lips. “Mother said we should eat if we caught something.”
Snowstorm reared back and batted playfully at the air around his ears. “Not yet, stupid. We’ve got to thank the Snow Cat first.”
Shiver sat down between them and kneaded the snow with her paws. “We thank the Snow Cat for giving us this prey,” she began, and the other three leopards joined in.
“May you leave your paw prints in the snow, that we may follow them,” they said together.
Snowstorm, Frost, and Shiver immediately fell upon the hare and tucked in, delighted. Ghost knew he needed to eat too. They often went for several days without fresh prey, and his stomach was rumbling at the idea of feeling full again. He tore mouthfuls of stringy flesh from the hare and gobbled them down as quickly as he could.
For a while there were no sounds but the chewing and purring of four hungry cubs, and even those were muffled by the falling snow.
Then a yowl split the air behind them. Ghost spun around, kicking up a flurry around his paws, and saw two spotted shapes emerging from behind another rock. Two more leopard cubs, a little younger than Ghost and his littermates. His heart sank as he recognized them.
“Look, Sleet,” one of them said. “It’s the freaks Born of Winter.”
Ghost let out a rumbling growl as Brisk and Sleet Born of Icebound padded toward them.
“This isn’t your territory,” Frost snarled, licking his muzzle. “Get out of here, or we’ll make you.”
“Ooh, are you going to set your freak brother on us?” Brisk tilted her head. “Or your weak little sister?”
Shiver started to stalk toward them, her teeth bared. “Try me!” she growled.
“Is Ghost even here?” Sleet mewed, turning around in fake confusion while still casting mean looks right at Ghost. “Where is the big white-furred weirdo?”
Ghost tried to ignore Sleet’s teasing, but he couldn’t help feeling self-conscious, treading the snow uneasily with his perfectly white paws. He knew there was nothing wrong with being larger than his littermates, or with having no spots, but Sleet and Brisk certainly seemed to think there was.
“That’s it.” Snowstorm leaped, bounding right over Ghost’s back to land in the snow in front of Brisk and Sleet. “I’m going to make you pay for that.”
Ghost and Frost hurried to back her up, and Ghost opened his jaws and let his deep growl out as a roar. Brisk and Sleet both flinched, and Snowstorm and Frost joined in with the roar as they advanced on the two cubs Born of Icebound.
Ghost felt a flush of warmth envelop him as he stood side by side with his littermates, and Brisk and Sleet began to back off.
“What, don’t you want to fight?” Shiver snapped.
“What kind of cowards are you?” Frost backed her up.
“Afraid to face a family of freaks?” Ghost leaped, jaws open, and snapped his teeth together just a few paw-lengths short of Brisk’s nose. The cub whimpered, and the two littermates slid and scrambled back, turned tail, and fled across the snowfield.
“Yeah, don’t come back here!” Shiver yelled after them.
Snowstorm shook her head. “They’re such idiots.”
“If they wanted our hare, they shouldn’t have announced themselves,” Frost said, behind Ghost. “They should have crept up on us . . . like this!”
Ghost ducked, but just slightly too late. Frost tumbled over his shoulders and landed on his back in the snow, but his paws still held on to Ghost’s thick neck, and he pulled Ghost’s head down and landed a playful gnaw on his ear.
Ghost reared up in mock fury. “Then we would have had them just where we wanted them!” He brought his paws down and batted at Frost’s exposed stomach. He was extra careful not to hit him—Ghost knew his claws didn’t pull back like the others, but Winter had taught him how to play safely with his littermates, and Frost didn’t flinch as the black talons scraped the air above him.
“Yeah, it’d be four against two!” Shiver said, and pounced on Snowstorm’s tail. Snowstorm gave a fake wail of agony and batted Shiver across the back of the head. Shiver fell back, her paws spread exaggeratedly wide, and Snowstorm went in for the kill, pressing her nose into the fluff under her sister’s chin, making Shiver giggle and splutter.
The four of them rolled and laughed in the snow, and Ghost felt that warmth spread through him again, even though his paws were getting frozen and the wind whipped fiercely around them. He and Shiver might not be the greatest hunters, but when it came down to it, the cubs Born of Winter would stick together, no matter what.
Chapter Four
RAIN GRIPPED THE LONG bamboo stems in her jaws. She hurried back up the path, careful not to get them caught on the undergrowth as she climbed between the mossy rocks, threading her way uphill between the trunks of the gingko and pine trees, heading for the feast clearing.
Her mouth watered, but she didn’t stop to sneakily eat any of the stems she carried, as she might have done on a different day. Pebble walked behind her, inspecting the bamboo they passed for new shoots that would be perfect to pick for the feast.
Bamboo was being gathered from all over the Prosperhill for this Feast of Dying Light. There would be more than plenty for every panda. Nobody had said that this would be a special feast, but it had just seemed obvious that it was a celebration. Sunset Deepwood was back.
Rain and Pebble passed by Peony, who was drinking from a clear stream that trickled between two rocks, forming a tiny sparkling waterfall. She let some run over her muzzle and then shook her head, spraying droplets into the air. She saw Rain, and ran over to give her an affectionate lick on the ear.
“It’s so wonderful,” she said. “Everything feels renewed. Can you sense it too? Look there.” She pointed with her nose toward a little tussock where new bamboo sprouts were poking up through a layer of moss. “I’ve seen many of those, since Sunset came back to us. I think the whole Southern Forest is . . . it’s as if it’s celebrating his return.”
Rain nodded, pleased to see her mother so happy. She wasn’t quite sure it was true—bamboo often sprang up in odd places, and fast, and there was nothing about this new growth that seemed like a sign to her. But then, she’d been sure there was no Dragon Speaker and never would be again, and now here he was.
I guess anything is possible.
“Things will be better now,” Peony said. “We’ll be connected to the Great Dragon again. With his help, we’ll be able to get back to normal, the way things were before the flood.”
“Not . . . quite the way they were,” said Pebble in a small voice. Peony’s eyes turned sad, and she gave Pebble a kind nuzzle against the side of his head.
“No, you’re right,” she said. “Some things can be made right again, but not all.”
Rain looked at the ground. She wished she knew something to say to make Pebble feel better, but she knew there was nothing that could bring his big brother back. Unlike her, Pebble was just about old enough to remember the flood clearly, and the memories were painful.
“Let’s get to the clearing,” Pebble said, shaking himself from tail to ears. “We can’t miss the blessing!”
“Quite right,” said Peony gently, and led the way along the path.
The feast clearing was a dip on the peak of one of the steep hills that made up the Southern Forest. It was a clear, grassy space surrounded by trees and rocks. Rain dropped her bamboo in the center and took a helping for herself, then climbed up into the low crook of a tree and made herself comfortable as the rest of the Prosperhill pandas gathered. They climbed up the hill from all directions and took their places in the soft grass or up on the rocks, until they looked a bit like a flock of large, round birds.
From her perch in the tree, Rain turned to look around at the Bamboo Kingdom. The sun was setting at the mouth of the river, leaving half the valley in deep black shadow and the other half ablaze with golden light.
The Southern Forest was a rolling series of forested peaks that climbed higher and higher and eventually vanished into the clouds. Below her to the north was the rushing river and, on the other side of it, the sharp peaks of the Northern Forest and the White Spine Mountains beyond, like a pale reflection of the Southern Forest.
The world is so big, Rain thought. I suppose I could never know for certain that there was really no Dragon anywhere out there.
Rain felt a little guilty as she watched Sunset Deepwood crest the hill with old Mist beside him. When he’d first appeared, though the air had thrummed with the excitement of the other pandas, she hadn’t felt particularly impressed. For a start, her tricks with the cubs wouldn’t work anymore. And she might have to admit to Pebble that she’d been wrong. She knew it was petty, but it stung a little bit.
