It wasn’t difficult like I thought it would be to speak privately with Juniper’s mother. As soon as she heard I wanted to speak with her, she brought me into the same sectioned off space she had spoken to Juniper in her command center. It hardly more than a hole in the wall for sleeping. A bedroll and blanket were shoved against the back wall with a candle on a tray for light and that was it. Apparently, Tribe Master Toniva never strayed far from her work.
“Juniper said she’s learned a lot from you. I wanted to thank you for looking out for my daughter,” she said.
“I…” My voice trailed off as I instinctively started to refute her. I might have helped Juniper here and there but there was precious little she could have learned from me, nor had I really looked out for her—these special circumstances now notwithstanding. There were just certain things I had to act on.
Internally, I shook off the uncertainty from her gratitude. It would only help with getting honest answers from the Tribe Master and that was what I needed now from her more than anything else.
My voice firmed as I started again, “I have two questions for you and I need you to answer them as honestly as you can. First, would you stop Juniper from waking the Water Frond Snake if you had another option? Second, is there anything you can tell me about the horde’s surge in to the delta? Anything from around the time that it began that stands out to you, whether it has to do with the fish or not?”
She regarded me in silence for a long time and I had to hold myself back from snapping at her with impatience. I only had three days.
Finally Juniper’s mother spoke, “If I could stop her now I would. I have no interest in losing my daughter, but the decision to wake the Water Frond Snake belongs to the pearl bearer alone. It is their burden and duty, their choice. Trying to take that choice away from them has resulted in the near decimation of my tribe. Twice. We have learned our lesson to not interfere a third time.” She sighed. “The pearl always seems to pick the most honorable of us, those that would always pick tribe over themselves, no matter how we try to protect them.”
My jaw clenched. So Juniper had a mother who cared, lucky her, even though that same mother seemed resigned to letting Juniper do something stupid.
Tribe Master Toniva continued, “As for your second question, the killing season started off normally. They tried to break through our defenses and we beat them back. Then sometime around the mid season the fish’s numbers began to increase, rapidly, until they filled the waterways from bank to bank and more of their heavy hitters came than usual. There was no warning. One day everything was normal and the next we had choke points overwhelmed from sheer numbers.”
I frowned. While nothing about the fish was natural, that seemed suspicious no matter how I thought about it. There was no reason why the Lady Blue would switch tactics so suddenly unless she was as mercurial as the goddess and had lost all patience. Which was a possibility, but it was at odds with how she had acted in the past.
Tribe Master Toniva held up a finger. “I’ve already told the whisper women this, but you should know that the fish aren’t acting like they have in past years. They don’t hide eggs and they don’t fight strategically. They just swarm up the waterways and push until whatever is in front of them breaks. If it weren’t for the horde’s numbers and our exhaustion, this would be the easiest killing season we’ve ever had.”
That was interesting. It would make sense for the Lady Blue and her monsters to use their numbers and tactics to their advantage together, but less so for them to fully abandon one thing for the other. Either this was a grand misdirection on a scale that was difficult to fathom or something had caused the fish to go berserk. If it was the latter, then the horde was either trying to run away or to something and the trick would be determining what that was and eliminating it. If it was the Lady Blue, then we would be out of luck, but if it was to something then we might still have a chance. Just as if this was all a misdirection, the trick would be finding out what was worth sacrificing thousands upon thousands of fish.
“Are they pushing for the river?” I asked.
Juniper’s mother swept her gaze over me again before gesturing for me to follow. She led me back out in to the main area of the command post and over to the map. She tapped it. “What do you think?”
I studied the map closely, armed now with the information she had provided. Fighting was spread out all over the delta, but it wasn’t concentrated just around the major waterways like I expected. Rather a bubble had mostly formed around Bramble Watch and the Water Frond Snake, with only the top part widening out where the defenders had stopped the fish from reaching the river. Still, those defenses had less intense fighting than the ring around us. It looked like a significant portion of the horde had turned before reaching the river in order to bring their might down on the town or snake.
Stolen story; please report.
“Once Juniper awakens the Water Frond Snake, we’ll be able to see which is the intended target. We’ve swept the area multiple times but we can’t find anything new or unusual. Our best conclusion at the moment is that they either want to destroy our command or their greatest enemy in the delta, or both, before moving onto the river so we can’t attack them from behind.”
It was a reasonable conclusion, but like with everything else I couldn’t help but think it didn’t quite fit. Why abandon all other tactics but still target Bramble Watch or the Water Frond Snake? Why would the fish suddenly decide they could take out either one with sheer numbers when they hadn’t been able to beat them in previous years?
“Thank you for the information.” Gratitude felt a bit odd on my lips, but she had given me more information than I expected her to.
She nodded once, sharply. “Fighters should have all the knowledge they can about the fight they’re entering into. If you learn anything new I would appreciate it if you shared the knowledge with me so our fighters can have all the relevant information too.”
I tried speaking with Juniper next, but she was holed up away somewhere for the rituals and all I could get out of the tribesfolk was that the rituals couldn’t be interrupted. No one would tell me where she was and I couldn’t use the shadows to jump to her either. Ziek found me in the middle of the idiotic town as I stewed in the frustration boiling in my gut.
She peered closely at me for a long, uncomfortable moment before announcing, “You need to punch something.”
Part of me agreed, part of me didn’t want to waste time on anything so mundane. Punching wasn’t likely to get me closer to stopping Juniper so—
“I promise you won’t regret it.”
“Do you know about the Water Frond Snake?”
“Why don’t you tell me?” She held up a hand to stop me from answering her question. “While getting some exercise in.”
I grumbled but followed her. I needed to figure out a plan, but it was difficult to think around the rage and frustration pressing up against my ribs. Every time I got a new bit of information it just seemed to reinforce the message everything going on in the delta was outside my control. Juniper was going to do what she was going to do, the fish were going to keep acting oddly, and everyone else seemed resigned to letting it happen.
Ziek led me to a small training yard tucked between two buildings. There were a couple targets painted on the far bramble wall for sling practice and a large basket woven out of reeds. Ziek pulled two large leather ovals out of the basket and a roll of bandages. The inside of the ovals were padded with rags and she stuck her hands into the holes on the back of each glove after tossing the bandages to me.
“Wrap your hands.” I did and she nodded. “Aim for the middle of each pad. Punch hard and tell me what has you trying to set things on fire with your eyes.”
She led me through fighting sequence after fighting sequence as I vented. Part of me wished I could keep the words locked behind my teeth—I used to be better about that—but I was sure nothing I was telling her was anything she didn’t already know. She was Hundred Eyes. The only reason why I hadn’t known about the Water Frond Snake was that everyone seemed to have followed Juniper’s lead in keeping it a secret from me until we were at Bramble Watch and it’d be near impossible to separate ourselves from what was happening around us.
“Juniper is going to lose her mind trying to save her people and they’re just going to be abandoned in the end.”
Punch.
“No one will let me see her and she’s not responding to my wind whispers.”
Punch. Punch, punch, punch.
“The horde needs to be stopped but everyone is ready to give up the delta as if that will solve the problem. They aren’t even bothering to figure out why the surge suddenly happened.”
Punch.
Ziek shoved my next punch down with her gloved hand and held her other to my throat in one smooth motion. If she hadn’t pulled her own punch I would’ve been on the ground struggling to breathe before I even fully realized what was happening.
I blinked at her and then blinked again in shock as the rage didn’t immediately try to drown out everything else. Punching her gloved hands had tamped down the aggression coursing through me and given me some small measure of control. I could hit my target. Everything wasn’t helpless.
She lowered her arms and raised her eyebrows. “Sounds like you have a fair bit of work you’d like to accomplish. Why not use your resources? I’m sure Ingrasia told you training would continue while you were here and since Dawnli wants you heading a small team on risky missions this seems like the perfect opportunity to practice.”
Ziek pulled off her padded gloves and tossed them back into the basket. “Using your resources is hardly asking for help. It’s just what smart leaders do.”
My eyes narrowed. I knew she was goading me, purposefully pushing me towards the outcome she wanted and part of me wanted to oppose what she was doing on principle. The rest of me could recognize that what she was offering was likely my best option at the moment. There was too much that needed to be done if I wanted to stop Juniper before time ran out without destroying her pearl.
I needed to figure out exactly what had changed before the horde’s surge, if there was anyway I could stack things in Juniper’s favor if she did give the Water Frond Snake her mind, figure out how to save the delta before it came to that, and navigate any complications the proxy war might create—all while being unable to use the shadow paths easily and not having the authority to do half of what was needed.
Having actual whisper women helping me, all of which who had significantly more experience as information gatherers than me, would be a huge boon.
I nodded once and Ziek grinned. “Ingrasia is in our quarters. If you want to speak with her first.”
She knew I did. I made a mental note be less predictable and easily read. If I was going to make it in the Hundred Eyes sect I had to get better at making it so others wouldn’t be able to manipulate me so easily. Still, I left my hands wrapped as I followed her to where we’d be staying while in Bramble Watch. As a reminder that I wasn’t helpless.