Even with Juniper rampaging around the delta as the Water Frond Snake and destroying fish soldiers wherever she went, fighting the horde felt akin to standing beneath a waterfall with no way to reach its top to stem the flow. So the water pounded, pounded, pounded against you while you tried every trick in living memory to stay standing. But no matter what you did the water kept coming, as strong as ever.
Perhaps an observer would ask why those of us in the waterfall didn’t simply step back out of the pressure, and I would ask them if they would step in against the flow to replace us or leave it to continue unimpeded?
We might only be able to slow the force beating down on us, but that would hopefully buy us the time we needed to redirect the waterfall into something manageable. I, for one, wasn’t about to run away from the challenge.
We used traps, ambushes, hemmed in the horde’s movement between the frozen channels and the handful we risked blocking with fallen trees. Every time they splashed into the water we looked to the sky, but the goddess’s wrath didn’t come. I told myself it was because She no longer cared about this region, but I couldn’t rid myself of the feeling that She was simply waiting to see how far we dared to go. The goddess wasn’t known for being patient, but there was a story or two that showed Her allowing the culprit to build their funeral pyre piece by piece, indiscretion after indiscretion.
Still, blocking the waterways we did proved vital into forcing the fish onto land and into the killing fields. The fighters were able to kill them in droves and with less effort than it took to haul the fish out of the waterways themselves. Between that and the Water Frond Snake, the fish were dying faster than they ever had before.
But it wasn’t enough. For every fish we killed, it was if two or three arrived in the delta to replace it. The Swirling Waters tribe grew more exhausted by the day. They had expected a reprieve with the Water Frond Snake’s awakening but it never came. Nor were they blind to the preparations being done at the river’s mouth, preparations all done by whisper women that didn’t include them. Moral dropped.
The tribespeople grudgingly kept working with my group, since we were still making a difference in the fight, but everyone else was suddenly rebuffed. The Swirling Waters tribe would pay the proper respect to the whisper women, but they no longer gave helpful answers to questions and the summoning branch was often “missing”, so that if the whisper women wanted to get somewhere they’d have to go by foot rather than by shadow.
It was petty and I was privately proud of the tribesfolk for standing up for themselves—until it became my problem. I had been busy helping coordinate ambushes and brainstorming more ways we could kill fish when I was interrupted.
Rather than waste time setting up in a different location than the tribesfolk, I had been given a small corner of the command post to work from. Ana was still the one mainly interacting with the tribe’s leaders, but by working out of the command post I was able to keep up with most of what was happening without her having to relay every little thing. I had noticed some of the whisper women approach Tribe Master Toniva before they were redirected to Ana. After they spoke with her they had always left the command post and I had ignored the curiosity as a low priority while I tried to pick apart the puzzle of stopping the horde and the timing of their sudden fervor.
This time, however, Ambervale began stalking towards me after she spoke with Ana. Ana flashed me a smile that said she was excited to see how I handled the problem she just sent my way. No doubt she’d say it was for my training later.
I pretended not to notice Ambervale as she cut in front of a messenger and nearly caused him to trip onto the map laid out in the middle of the floor. From what I knew, she likely didn’t want anything that was worth my time nor was she a whisper woman that inspired fear or respect. All she had been doing since we got to Bramble Watch was demand that different tribesfolk tell her their experience fighting the fish and what amounted to sightseeing. Apparently, she had spent a minimal amount of time at the river’s mouth, but otherwise she had been spotted going to the Water Frond Snake before it had awoken, wandering all around the outpost, and showing up to watch various battles all around the delta while never seeming to notice when her presence caused complications.
A throat cleared nosily from slightly behind me and to my left, but I didn’t turn around to face her. Instead, I glowered at the poor list of ideas on my writing slate. Some part of me had hoped that by seeing them outside my head it would help more ideas come, but they were stubbornly absent. I still had one of my original ideas, the one to strike at the horde’s heart in the ocean that Ambervale had so enthusiastically shot down at the top of Seedling Palace, but, unfortunately, I didn’t have the resources to carry it out.
Ambervale took another step toward me and spoke, “The tribe won’t answer my questions.”
I continued to ignore her. For all her supposed knowledge on the Lady Blue and her sea monsters, she had offered very little input on how to fight the horde and what information had been pulled out of her had been so basic that it was useless. They were “less agile on land” and “less dangerous if fought on their own rather than in a group”. As if anyone couldn’t put that together themselves after observing the fish for a minute. It made me wonder if she really had as much information as she touted or if she just hoarded it all for herself.
“You can’t ignore me. I’m your superior.”
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
I kept my eyes on my slate for another five deliberate heartbeats before slowing setting it down and turning to face her. When I smiled it was more condescending than kind.
“Hardly. Especially when you’re coming to me to beg for favors.”
She drew herself up. “You—”
“I am doing what needs to be done. Can you say the same?” I knew pressing her wasn’t the best move, but the way she acted like she was the smartest person in the room only to make some inane or unhelpful point made me want to drag her through the mud until her face matched the clumps of dirt that must make up her mind.
“You can’t speak to me like that. You’re a Sapling. I need to collect information and the tribesfolk won’t speak to me.”
I gestured across the room to Tribe Master Toniva. “So talk to their leader.”
“I did and she wouldn’t talk to me either. Just said I had to speak to Ana, who always says I have to speak to her leader. I thought she meant Ingrasia, but she hasn’t been responding to my whispers, and today Ana clarified that for some unfathomable reason she meant you.”
I crossed my arms and smirked. “You sound popular.”
Her face flushed from embarrassment or anger, though more likely from some mixture of the two. “I need to conduct my research.”
“Conduct it later. In case you were too blind to notice, we are in the middle of a war and the horde is winning. I’m not going to tell people to waste time sitting down to tell you a story when they could be doing anything else and be more productive.” She looked ready to interrupt but I held up a hand and glared her into submission. “Perhaps if you bothered to help them survive they would be more willing to answer your questions.”
“They should never have thought that they could stand against the Devouring Blue, especially now against the full might of her horde. But they are learning, just as everyone else will when I complete my research, but it needs to be done now before the situation changes.” She stood utterly assured as she proclaimed the Swirling Waters tribe’s apparent folly in their own command post.
I raised my eyebrows at her. “Were they supposed to roll over and die?”
“They could show the proper respect,” she said, as if it explained anything.
Side stepping that bit of nonsense, I focused on something else she had said. “What did you mean when you said everyone else will learn when you complete your research?”
Ambervale lifted her chin defiantly. “Just what I said.”
My eyes narrowed. There was something she wasn’t saying, something she was apparently smart enough to keep herself even if she couldn’t help alluding to it in the first place. Something she didn’t want others to know yet but thought she was the smart one for knowing it when they didn’t.
It made the back of my neck prickle. Perhaps it had to do with the proxy war and perhaps it didn’t. Either way I didn’t like her attitude that the Lady Blue was too strong to fight.
I kept up my act of annoyed exasperation, though the act was quickly becoming reality. “How will the situation change?”
She crossed her arms, her guard rising further. “What do you mean?”
I rolled my eyes. “You said that you need to complete your research before the situation changes. How do you know our situation will change and what will happen?”
She opened her mouth, closed it, and then spoke, “It’s obvious that this place will be overrun. It’s just a matter of time and then things will change when we stop them at the river mouth.”
I would have bet a whole pouch of rare herbs that wasn’t what she had been thinking of at first, but I needled her excuse anyway, “I thought you said no one should stand against the Lady Blue.”
Ambervale glared at me. “I said that they should have known better. I am not as weak as them.”
“If you’re so smart and strong, why not help us out now then? Why wait?”
“This and that are two different things. For now, I need to d0—”
“Your research,” I cut in. “Yes, we know.” I spread my arms to include all the tribespeople who had been listening in on our conversation. “Well? Does anyone feel like helping her out?”
Everyone stared, but no one spoke. No one moved until Tribe Master Toniva stepped past the tribe leader she had been speaking with. She wove around her tribe members, stepped carefully so as not to ruin the map, until she was an arm span from the indignant whisper woman.
When she locked her eyes on Ambervale’s there wasn’t any of the usual deference in her gaze. “We welcomed you into our home while we fought and bled, so that we might keep it and continue defending the goddess’s territory as is our life’s work. As was our ancestors. We have stood against the Devouring Blue for generations and the shape shifting witch has yet to break us.”
Tribe Master Toniva pulled her prayer needle free. “We have thanked the goddess for Her averted gaze and offered Her blood. We have welcomed the whisper women into our home as Her chosen servants. We have paid the proper respect and done as She wills.”
Tribe Master Toniva pricked her wrist and held it up so all could see the blood trailing down her arm. “But on this blood I offer, I rescind that welcome to you, for surely no chosen of the goddess would praise Her enemy so soundly while disparaging the efforts of Her territory’s defenders.”
Ambervale’s eyes had gone wide and wild. She protested, “You can’t—”
Tribe Master Toniva shoved her arm towards Ambervale’s face and the other woman was forced back a step. “On this blood I offer, I rescind your welcome here.”
The blood flaked away.
Even Tribe Master Toniva paused in shock as the blood on her forearm disappeared into the air. Evidently, even she had done it more to make a statement than to make an actual offering to the goddess, and yet, the goddess had accepted the offering.
The Tribe Master’s entire demeanor hardened as the last bit of blood flaked away and she repeated, “Your welcome here is rescinded.”
The tribe pressed in around her, repeating the message over and over as Ambervale was forced back step by step. She tried to protest, tried to demand that everyone needed to listen to her and that they couldn’t do this, but no one listened. She had run her mouth at the wrong moment and, with the goddess’s tacit permission, they were more than happy to vent some of their frustration by forcing her out of Bramble Watch. Someone ran and brought out the “missing” summoning branch, and a long moment later Ambervale had stepped into its shadow and was gone.
I wasn’t sure what it meant that she still had access to boons but the goddess had approved of kicking her out. I did know that it meant the goddess had more of an eye on the delta than I wanted Her to with our current tree related activities—activities that would have to stop immediately just in case. I also knew I had a new trail to send Ziek on. Ambervale’s fervor might have been simple terror after learning too much about the Lady Blue, but I couldn’t ignore the possibility that her research, whatever it was, might lend us a clue or two about what was happening in the delta.