The only I could say that made the situation better was that Esie had dragged Juniper into center stage with me. Rather than meeting at the Gathering Spot, we had ended up on a medium sized platform at the very top of the Scale sect’s tree. It wasn’t a regular platform either, made from a widened branch, but rather a thickly woven net of pine needles that only gave slightly as we stepped on it. Rather than the thick utilitarian railings of amber I was used to seeing, this platform’s railing was made of filigree thin brown amber. Each strand of the railing was curved and stylized to look like pine branches stretching across a night sky. If Hattie wasn’t leaning against it without a care in the world, I would have thought it might crumble under someone’s weight. Esie mentioned offhand that some members of her sect liked to mediate on the goddess’s past rulings and actions on similar platforms, so that they could make better judgments. They thought that being so close to so many of Her aspects, especially at night, would help them gain clarity.
Perhaps it did, but the location certainly wasn’t helping Juniper focus. Her gaze kept flicking down to the needles beneath her feet and the way they moved slightly every time she shifted. And when she wasn’t focused on that her attention was drawn to the way the horizon spread out all around us with the ground far, far below. Perhaps if it had been a normal platform she would have been fine, after years of living in the Seedling Palace, but it didn’t take a genius to realize she was halfway expecting the needles to give out into a deadly plummet.
It made me realize that for all Esie was good at presenting herself like she had all the knowledge anyone would ever need, she had either overlooked Juniper’s fear of heights or had underestimated the hold it had over her. Which wasn’t ideal when we were being watched by six whisper women.
That…flicker of protectiveness I was trying to ignore swelled to a candle flame in my chest at the panic in Juniper’s eyes. Really, it was a bit cruel of the goddess to give someone with a fear of heights a bless mark given the amount of time we spent up high.
I tried to tell myself that I wasn’t responsible for Juniper and that she could take care of herself. That as the daughter of a Tribe Master she was much more used to crowds than me and should be the one to handle our current predicament, but somehow I still found myself whispering in her ear, “Chin up for your tribe,” before I stepped forward to partially block her from the whisper women’s view.
As an example, I lifted my own chin and met each whisper woman’s gaze in turn. “We appreciate being allowed to join your meeting.” I would have preferred washing my hands of the situation in the delta, or at least simply gathering information about it in my own time, but between Esie and the Hundred Eyes sect head it seemed they were determined to make the fight some sort of proving ground for me. “My name is Gimley and this is Juniper.”
“We know who you are.” That was Nix, the investigative Hundred Eyes whisper woman. “The question is why you are here.”
Surprisingly, it was Hattie who answered instead of Esie. She popped up off the railing she was leaning against with a grin. “Gimley was the first one in our group to notice the lack of wind during the last battle on the southern shore and she was the one that pushed us to continue heading for the caves rather than return to camp, not to mention the Wind Snake incident after that. She has a way of foiling the Devouring Blue’s plans. Isn’t that right, Little Diver?”
In my mind that all counted toward one overarching plan the Lady Blue had in that area, but splitting it up certainly made it sound more impressive than some guesswork mixed with luck. I might not like the notoriety I’d earned, but even I could admit that on rare occasions the recognition could be helpful—not that I wanted that help in this instance. I didn’t need to give whisper women more reasons for why they want to use me.
Esie nodded in agreement along with Kaylan in answer to Hattie’s question. The pair weren’t as wrapped up in each as they were when Prevna and I would go to their Warming Winds celebrations, but this meeting had a decidedly more casual air than the one in the Gathering Spot. They sat close together, each on their own cushion, off to my right. It seemed Esie was trying to subtly lessen her position of authority over the group, though I wasn’t sure if that was just to help facilitate discussion or if she had some other reason.
Kaylan added, “And Juniper is directly involved with the fight in the delta. She is Tribe Master Toniva’s daughter and the bearer of the pearl that’s needed to awaken the Water Frond Snake.”
“I thought their input could help inform our decision and Dawnli also thought they should experience our meeting of the minds,” Esie said.
Perhaps not relinquishing her authority then. I pressed my lips together slightly in frustration. Perhaps she just wanted to sit next to her partner.
“So,” Esie continued, “what information have you all gathered so we can get the sect heads to act?”
Nix laid out what she had discovered about the past five years of fighting in the delta first. What it amounted to was that fighting in the delta had kept largely to same pattern for years just like Juniper’s mother had said. The fish would fight hard in the warm season and then pull most of their forces during the long cold season. There was a slight increase in their estimated numbers over the past five years, but nothing that truly pointed to the disaster in the making we were currently faced with. She promised to keep looking into it, but that formed the foundation of how the meeting went going forward.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Ambervale speculated on what the Lady Blue and her fish might be after, but she didn’t have conclusive evidence to back up her claims. Her guesses ranged from the destruction of the Seedling Palace to the Lady Blue going mad from failure to them simply wanting to gain a solid foothold into the goddess’s territory. I wasn’t sure what to think of her supposed expertise when I could have come up the same answers with what vague knowledge I had about the Lady Blue with about five minutes of brainstorming. Nor did it help that they all basically boiled down to the same motivation: the Lady Blue wanted violence and destruction. Surely, she could have come up with something more nuanced?
Morwen reported that the delta’s foliage defense had taken a hit just due to the sheer numbers of fish pressing into the delta, but that overall, it was still standing strong and doing its job to make the fish easy pickings for the delta’s defenders. However, she also noted that some of the plants took years to grow, so if the damage became too widespread it would be difficult to revive the defenses to their highest effectiveness before the next wave of fish destroyed their efforts. That was something at least to put pressure on the whisper women to act. If the defenses didn’t work properly then the demand on fighters would also increase—and if the tribes couldn’t meet that demand it would fall on the whisper women.
And perhaps that was the simple explanation for the entire endless fight Juniper’s old tribe was fighting this year. The Lady Blue perhaps had decided that the cost to her forces was acceptable if it meant they could wear down the defenders and ruin the defenses beyond repair. If they managed that, then every fight in the delta would become increasingly easy on the horde while the pressure built on our side. For now they seemed to be keeping the fighting to the waterways, but they took enough small bites of the surrounding defenses without the defenders taking it seriously, then those defenses could easily collapse. That type of plan also seemed to have the whiff of misdirection the Lady Blue had favored in the past.
Hattie ran through the number of squads the commander was willing to commit to the fight in order to help the defenders prepare for a mass freeze as well as a proposal for a strike force of whisper women to be positioned further up the river in case the defenses in the delta did fall. The strike force idea was well liked though I doubted how long a few squads could hold up to the combined might of thousands of fish who already broken through dedicated defenses—unless they had blessings that allowed a degree of annihilation I had yet to hear about.
Kaylan offered small updates about how things had changed in the delta of over the course of the past few days, but those were all within the realm of expectation. Basically, she let us know that the delta’s defenders were still exhausted, desperate for help, and fighting like their lives depended on it. Which, quite frankly, they did.
Esie rounded out the discussion by summarizing everyone else points before turning the focus back onto Juniper and I. “Anything to add?”
Juniper had composed herself more as the others had talked and now she had her chin lifted a touch too high, but at least she wasn’t staring at her feet and waiting for the needles to break.
She said, “I’m willing to awaken the Water Frond Snake. It’s my duty as the bearer of the pearl and the respite my people need.”
Morwen leaned forward. “You would take the risk?”
Juniper didn’t like that the whisper woman seemed to know more than she should, but she still answered the question. “Of course. It’s what’s best for the tribe and the delta.”
Morwen shook her head slightly in disbelief. “You should have been a Beastwatcher with kind of attitude.”
“Hundred Eyes has served me well so far,” Juniper said.
Had it? I gave her a sidelong glance. We hadn’t done much in the sect other than sort records and this whole affair was entirely separate from which sect we joined. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Esie still had decided to loop me in since we had the same patron. The only difference would have been how she included Juniper, if we had joined different sects.
Still, I was curious about the risk Morwen had mentioned. From what I knew, Juniper didn’t suffer any adverse affects when she did her water orb trick, but perhaps that was a small thing compared to what the pearl was meant for. I’d have to see if Juniper was willing to give me more details when we weren’t surrounded by whisper women.
And, from what I could see, this meeting might help in the short term if we actually got around to answering Juniper’s mother’s plea, but the truth was we were simply going off speculation and picking between two different stalling options, which ignored the long term. Even if we managed to drive of the fish with a mass freeze or the Water Frond Snake, there was nothing stopping them from coming back in equally massive numbers the next year and the year after that until everyone on our side was too worn down to maintain our defense. A defensive battle wasn’t in our favor even if it was the only one we knew how to fight since the Lady Blue maintained complete control over the sea.
There very well could be another reason pushing the Lady Blue to attack with such fervor that had nothing to do with the delta, but we’d likely never know what it was if it was beneath the waves. Well, however much I might hate to admit it, Ulo might be able to discover something with her ability to breathe underwater—if she didn’t die to the first fish to spot her in their domain.
The best option would be for us to somehow go on the offensive, but with the numbers the fish soldiers had even the best spear fishers wouldn’t be able to make a dent had they been normal fish. I smiled slightly at the image of multiple fish stuck on the end of a fisher’s spear…perhaps a dent wasn’t what was needed though. The fish had hidden away in the depths before. If we made them uncomfortable enough in their own territory, made them vulnerable along the shore, they might lose their willingness to fight, or at the very least, they wouldn’t be able to pour their horde so easily into every chink of our defense. The Lady Blue had kept us on our toes with hit and run tactics before and I was of a mind to return the favor.
Esie caught my eye. “Do you have something to add?”
“I was thinking we should use the Lady Blue’s own tactics against her.”
My statement was met with complete and utter silence.