River of Secrets Page 3

  But, most of all, she regretted letting Sunset know she was onto his lies. She should have played along with his fake vision. Her inability to keep her mouth shut had almost cost Rain her life, and now she was stuck on the wrong side of the river, with these crazy pandas, and getting farther and farther away from her home and her revenge with every step. She should have been more careful. She certainly shouldn’t have laughed at him.

  Even if the look on his face had been really, really satisfying.

  It was so cold. She guessed that was a silly thing to think, as her paws crunched on the frosty ground and her breath made clouds in front of her, but she couldn’t help but resent the chill on her paw pads and the end of her nose. She could see the snowfields, rising and falling into the far distance.

  We could freeze to death up there. And for what?

  Up ahead, Dasher was hopping and clambering over a pile of rocks, then running back to Leaf and pointing out the quickest and safest route. Leaf looked back at Rain with an encouraging smile that set Rain’s teeth on edge.

  And all this on the word of a tiger. A predator! Why did Leaf trust him?

  None of this made any sense.

  Sure, she had probably had a vision of a dragon once. Twice, if she counted the time she had been drowning. And, yes, it had had three heads, despite her never having heard any stories about it appearing like that. But that didn’t mean this story about triplet Dragon Speakers was true. Even if that had all really happened, why would the Dragon save her life in the river, only to send her to freeze to death in the mountains?

  That was if she even made it to the snowfields. . . . She started climbing over the rock pile, trying to follow Dasher’s route, but she found herself struggling. She didn’t want to put her paws on the sheer edges, glittering dangerously with frost, but she knew that if she walked in Leaf’s paw prints they would be half melted and even more slippery. She made it about halfway up the crumbling pile before a rock tilted under her weight and she lost her balance, falling onto her belly across the stones.

  “Rain, are you all right?” called Plum, from up ahead.

  Rain didn’t answer, or look up. She kept her gaze fixed on the rocks, her vision swimming with embarrassment and annoyance as she got back to her paws and forced herself to keep climbing. It was one thing for young, strong Leaf to be a better climber than her, but older, wounded Aunt Plum? That was almost unbearable.

  Rain shook her head and tried again to look on the bright side of all this. Weird things had certainly been happening in the Bamboo Kingdom, and it wasn’t as if she knew how to get back across the river anyway.

  Perhaps she would find something on this journey that was worth knowing after all. Perhaps Leaf would make it to the Dragon’s cave and become the new Speaker, and then they could both go back to the Prosperhill and drive Sunset out together. That would be good.

  Either way, if there was anything to all this talk of triplets and destiny, they would soon find out.

  She didn’t dare tell Leaf about her vision in the waterfall, or much detail about what she’d seen in the river. She already knew what the cheerful young panda would say. See, Rain? That means it’s all real! You’re a Dragon Speaker!

  The idea was absurd.

  Finally Rain reached the top of the rocks and found herself looking up at a sheer cliff face with a much more forgiving slope of gravel and brown grass running alongside it. Leaf, Plum, and Dasher had all stopped at the top and were staring at the cliff face, where a dark crack formed the mouth of a cave.

  “This is where the white monster attacked,” Plum said quietly. She took a nervous step away from the cave. “Can you smell that?”

  “I can smell a predator,” Leaf whispered. “Do you think it’s still in there?”

  “The scent doesn’t smell particularly fresh,” Rain said. She padded lightly toward the cave, sniffing at the ground.

  “Be careful, Rain!” Dasher gasped. Rain thought about ignoring him, then looked over her shoulder and gave him a short nod.

  “I think it’s gone,” she said. “Whatever it was.”

  She was actually a little disappointed, as she stepped into the cave and found that, yes, it was empty. A white monster sounded just as unlikely as her being a Dragon Speaker. She sort of wished it had still been around so they could have seen it in the light of day and known it wasn’t any kind of evil spirit, just a normal predator.

  The smell was real enough, and so was the tuft of white fur she found at the back of the cave, where something might have curled up to sleep.

  Mischief seized her. She waited inside the cave for a few moments longer than she needed to, keeping as quiet as she could. Then she strolled out the entrance.

  “Nothing there,” she said.

  The looks of intense relief on the faces of the others made her feel a little bad, but not very.

  “My mother says there are leopards in the mountains,” she offered. “Maybe it—what?”

  She broke off with a gasp. The ground under her paws was moving, almost as if it had a life of its own. It trembled like a frightened cub. There was a sound like a colossal wounded animal roaring somewhere far away. Rocks skittered down the slopes, and a flock of small birds took off from a nearby pine tree, chirping anxiously. Dasher pressed his belly to the ground and put his stripy tail over his head, and Leaf and Plum huddled together. Something struck the back of Rain’s head, and she spun around with a yelp to see a shower of pebbles falling from the top of the cliff face.

  Then, almost as soon as it had begun, it was over. The earth settled.

  “What was that?” Rain demanded.

  “An earthquake,” said Leaf, giving Plum a reassuring lick on the ear as they stepped apart. “They happen a lot up here. That was a small one, thank the Dragon.”

  “Small? The whole ground moved! What happens during a big one?” Rain asked.

  She immediately realized that it was the wrong question to ask. Leaf looked sad, and Dasher shook his head.

  “I’ve only been in a big one once,” Leaf said. “We lost . . . everybody. All the Slenderwood pandas. All the red pandas. After we saw Shadowhunter in the Northern Forest, we decided to leave. We were all on our way to the Dragon Mountain. When the earthquake began, Dasher and I managed to hold on to the rocks, but the rest of them tried to run. They were just . . . swept away.”

  “Oh,” Rain said. “I’m sorry. Are they . . . all . . .” She couldn’t bring herself to say dead, but Leaf clearly knew what she was trying to ask.

  “I don’t know,” she said, hanging her head. “We didn’t see any bodies, so . . .”

  “They’re alive,” Dasher said fiercely. “They have to be.”

  Leaf nodded. “We have to believe it. And just keep going.”

  They began to head up the slope. Rain stayed closer to the others this time.

  “The land must be unsettled,” Plum said as they walked. “The kingdom hasn’t been quite right since the flood. I’m sure this won’t be the last earthquake that finds us on this journey.”

  “It’s as if the mountain is telling us to hurry,” said Leaf, her mood brightening a little. “We must find the Dragon before Sunset can do any more damage to the Prosperhill pandas.”

  She said this with a glance at Rain. Rain appreciated that her supposed sister wanted to make sure she was included, but she couldn’t help remembering when Sunset had made up fake prophecies and talked about the wind changing and the seasons turning, and all the pandas had tied themselves in knots trying to work out what it all meant.

  What if it didn’t mean anything? Or, maybe worse, what if it meant the opposite of Leaf’s theory—the mountain was telling them to turn back, that they were on the wrong path?

  Still, she followed Leaf and Dasher for the rest of the day, stopping to observe each of the feasts, even though there was very little to eat on the mountain, and no bamboo at all. By the Feast of High Sun they had climbed to the top of the slope, over a rocky crag, and down the oth
er side, and they were ascending a snowy slope where there was nothing at all to eat. They sat in silence for a few moments before walking on. As they trudged across a wide snowfield, they spotted a stand of trees and managed to find a few fallen berries, which they ate on the spot, though Plum said she wished they could carry them to their next feast instead. Rain tried not to roll her eyes.

  Just after they’d stopped for the Feast of Long Light, Rain realized that she could no longer see the Dragon Mountain in the distance, and she stopped, her heart in her throat. What if they were lost? It ought to be just behind the tall rocky peak that rose in front of them, but what if it wasn’t? She put on a burst of speed as the pandas picked their way through the snow and over the jagged rocks to circle the peak, but then she almost walked into the back of Leaf, who had turned a corner and stopped dead, looking at the path ahead.

  “Wow,” said Dasher, catching up to them and climbing up onto Leaf’s back for a better look.

  Rain gazed along with Leaf at the way they had to go. It was a smooth, snowy path along the bottom of a thin chasm, with rock walls rising on either side. And there, perfectly framed at the end of the path, was the Dragon Mountain. It was much closer now, its purple-tinged sides rising to a jagged peak. The bright Long Light sun caught the clouds that wrapped around it and turned them a deep, fiery orange.

  Rain could almost believe that there really was a dragon sleeping there. The clouds could be its breath, and that dark, dark patch at the base of the peak could almost be the mouth of a cave . . . but if it was, the cave would be huge. . . .

  “We’re almost there!” Leaf breathed. She looked at Rain with eyes in which gleamed the same reflected fire as the clouds. “Come on!”

  Despite her hunger, and the ache in her paws from walking on cold rock and snow all day, Rain felt a little of Leaf’s energy rub off on her. The path through the crack between the rock walls was the easiest they had encountered on their journey, and the sight of the mountain in the bright sunlight gave her something to focus on. Soon they would be there, and they would know. . . . If the Dragon was real, it would give them an answer, a sign, something. And if not, she could put this whole Speaker thing behind her.

  The path was cast in shadow at the bottom of the chasm, and the air was suddenly much colder than it had been. Ahead, the fiery clouds seemed to burn around the Dragon Mountain.

  Then Rain’s paws slipped as the ground shook again. The soft snow provided no claw holds and no way to steady herself, so she crouched down, as Dasher had done before, so that she wouldn’t fall over. Leaf slipped back onto her haunches, and Plum staggered to the cliff wall and leaned against it.

  But the trembling didn’t stop this time. It went on and on, growing more and more intense. A loud rumble rose from somewhere nearby, though Rain couldn’t see the source of the noise—it seemed to come from everywhere around her, like the sound of the river rushing over a waterfall. Then there was a sudden crack. Rain looked up, terror seizing her as she saw the sides of the chasm start to splinter and fall apart. Slabs of rock detached themselves from the walls as fractures snaked up through the ice and stone. One of them slammed down onto the path right ahead, sending a wave of snow crashing over the pandas.

  “Get back!” Rain yelled. She grabbed Dasher’s scruff in her jaws and scrambled to stand up. The snow was still trembling and slippery, but if she dug her paws in and ran, her momentum would carry her forward. She saw Plum push off from the wall and Leaf slip and slide to her paws, and then they were all running back the way they’d come, across the soft snow. Behind her, Rain heard another loud thump, and felt more snow hit the back of her neck. There was a rumbling sound of rocks crashing into each other, and then, very suddenly, the ground stilled and there was silence apart from the crunching of panda paws on snow.

  She stumbled to a halt and dropped Dasher. She turned back.

  Leaf and Plum were safe, but the path was no more. From the sides of the chasm, rocks had fallen in and blocked their way, lying in a great unsteady-looking heap at least ten times as tall as a bear.

  The mountain was hidden behind them, its light snuffed out.

  Chapter Four

  LEAF DIDN’T UNDERSTAND.

  As soon as she’d rounded that peak and seen the Dragon Mountain ahead, wreathed in bright clouds, with the smooth snowy path leading right to it, she had known what to do. She’d felt a kind of peace, as if a weight had been lifted from her back. All her doubts had fled from her heart, like shadows at High Sun.

  She knew what she had to do. She had to go to that mountain.

  But then . . .

  Leaf sighed, and put out a paw to touch one of the huge slabs of rock that had fallen across the path.

  It didn’t make any sense. Why would the Dragon call to her like this, send Shadowhunter to tell her to come here, and then do this? Could it just have been an earthquake, and not some kind of message at all?

  “Come on,” Rain said for the third time. Leaf could tell she was trying to be gentle, but annoyance was creeping into her voice now. “We can’t stay here; it’ll be dark before long.”

  Leaf turned to look at Aunt Plum, who was standing very still a few bear-lengths away, staring up at the rockfall as if she was expecting another any moment. She didn’t speak up to agree with Rain, but she didn’t disagree, either.

  Dasher joined Leaf at the wall of rocks, and looked up at her.

  “We can go another way,” he said. “We can find a way up to the top of this and walk over it, or go around it. There are loads of ways; I know we’ll find one.”

  “But this is the way,” Leaf whispered, mostly to herself. She was still so certain of it, but now the High Sun brightness of her certainty was starting to burn out inside her.

  “It can’t be,” Rain said. Leaf turned to look back at her sister. “I’m sorry. I came this far, because I thought you knew where we were going, but I’m not going to wander the mountain trying to get somewhere I’m clearly not supposed to go.”

  “What do you mean?” Leaf asked.

  Rain let out a laugh and shook her head. “I mean that, Leaf!” She jerked her nose toward the fallen rocks. “You know, the giant wall that could have crushed us? Look, if you’re right, and there are really signs and the Dragon is trying to talk to us and the mountain has an opinion about where we’re going, then this is the clearest sign we’ve had yet. If all that’s true, someone clearly doesn’t want us going this way. So I’m going home. I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for.”

  “Rain, wait,” Plum said gently, but Rain ignored her and started to pad through the snow, back the way they had come.

  Leaf’s heart began to race. She couldn’t let Rain just walk away. This couldn’t be the end of their journey. She had to do something.

  She turned and looked up at the rock wall, and swallowed.

  “Wait. It’s—it’s just climbing! I can get over this!”

  She looked back and saw that Rain had hesitated.

  “No you can’t,” she said. “It’s far too dangerous.”

  “Leaf’s the best climber in the whole Northern Forest,” said Dasher, with wounded pride in his voice. Leaf smiled at him.

  “Thanks, Dash. I might not be the best climber, but I know I can do this. I have to at least try, Rain. I don’t know why this happened—maybe the Great Dragon is testing us, or maybe it’s just an earthquake and it doesn’t mean anything at all! But I have to get to that mountain.”

  She put her paws up on the stones and started to push against them, seeing where there was give and where they were settled enough to take her weight. The first two places she tried shifted under the pressure, and a few smaller stones were dislodged and bounced down from above, narrowly missing Leaf’s head. But the third was solid, and she climbed up onto it and looked back at the others again.

  Rain frowned and turned to Aunt Plum. “Are you going to let her do this?”

  Plum looked uncertain for a moment, but then gave Leaf a solemn
nod. “Be careful, my dear.”

  “It’s just climbing,” Leaf said, smiling down at her sister before turning back to the rocks again. “Don’t worry so much. It’s just like climbing the Grandfather Gingko.”

  It wasn’t like that at all. Leaf soon learned that there were no solid paw holds here. Even after she moved her weight onto one rock, when she moved off again it might slip or tilt and the whole pile might shift underneath her. She tried to ignore the small gasps of Rain, Plum, and Dasher behind her whenever a stone moved. She couldn’t let herself startle or flail—she could start a rockslide that could crush them all.

  She climbed, one bear-length, then two, then four. She reached up for a boulder that jutted out from the rest and gently put her weight on it. It moved a little, but seemed to stay put. She pulled hard, tucking her back paw into a crevice between two lower rocks to push herself up. The boulder stayed still.

  But when she shifted her weight to reach for the next flat surface, something moved. She wasn’t even sure what had happened, but suddenly there was a crushing weight on her back paw and then she felt one of her claws snap. She gave out a yell of pain and let go, slipping back and catching herself on a lower stone, which shuddered horribly. She hunkered down against the wall, trying to keep her weight from toppling her over backward. She managed to slide her back paw out of the crevice, and saw that her middle claw had been splintered right down the middle. For a moment she was afraid the shuddering rock might roll right out of the pile, throw her down into the snow . . .

  But the rock stilled.

  “Please stop,” she heard Rain say quietly. “Please just come back down.” Her voice was muffled. Leaf wondered if she was covering her muzzle with her paws, but she didn’t dare turn to look.

  She stood, and then got up onto her back legs and reached for the rock again. This time she picked a safer foothold, and managed to climb another bear’s height up the wall of stones.

  Her legs were starting to ache from constantly adjusting her weight, far more than they would have if she’d been climbing a tree or a solid rock wall. She looked at the stones near her and tested a few with a gentle push. One of them was covered in ice. Another had broken as it fell, so its surface was jagged and sharp. But the third she tried seemed solid, and took her weight as she leaned on it.