An Army of Frogs Read online

  The most common, though, were the leaf villages, for ordinary wood frogs like Darel. And he didn’t like to admit it, but the leaf villages were his favorite. Fallen leaves of every shape and color and size were joined to wooden frames and stone foundations, into entryways and cottages and peaks and pagodas. With bustling marketplaces and wide, smooth trails, the leaf villages were the threads that stitched the Amphibilands together.

  And Darel always thought that the village, the capital village where the chief worked and the council met, was basically a leaf village. Most families lived in leaf huts near the riverbank, and most of the shops were leafy stalls, even though tree frogs also lived in the branching heights, swamp frogs in the marsh, and burrowers in underground caverns.

  Every kind of frog lived in the village. That’s what made it the village.

  Darel took a breath and—trying to get along—quietly added, “I’m just heading home.”

  “Gonna wear an apron and help your mommy?” Arabanoo asked with a smirk.

  “That’s right,” Darel said. “We weren’t all born useless.”

  So much for getting along.

  “Can we go now?” Miro whimpered, tugging on Coorah’s hand.

  “No way,” she told him. “What if these wart-heads manage to really hurt each other?”

  Miro’s eyes bulged. “Um, I guess that would be bad.”

  “Are you kidding? That would be great. I could finally practice on real wounds.”

  “P-p-please can we go?”

  Coorah sighed and flicked her inner eyelids. “Fine. I guess if I want to listen to a couple of tadpoles bickering, I’ll visit the nursery.”

  She pushed through the gang, but when Darel and Gee started to follow her, Arabanoo murmured, “Is the little wood frog running away?”

  Darel stopped and held the gang leader’s gaze. A moment later, Gee sighed, and then he stopped, too.

  “Don’t forget, Darel,” Coorah croaked from ahead. “You promised the chief you wouldn’t fight them again.”

  “I’m not going to fight them.”

  “Of course he won’t,” Arabanoo said. “He doesn’t want to lose again.”

  “It was six against one,” Darel said, “and I almost won—”

  “Don’t let him bait you,” Coorah called, leading Miro away. “You’re not a sandpaper frog.”

  Darel nodded. Sandpaper frogs didn’t live in the Amphibilands. They weren’t welcome, because as tadpoles they sometimes ate their younger brothers and sisters. Not too surprisingly, many of them became mercenaries, like the lizards. They were quick to fight, and they fought for anyone who paid them. Even scorpions.

  People in the village sometimes muttered that Darel should join the sandpapers because he loved sparring. He hated it when they said that. And he knew, watching Coorah turn toward the stone bridge, that she was right. He wasn’t a sandpaper—he was better than that.

  “I don’t want to fight you,” he told the white-lipped frogs.

  Beside him, Gee snorted faintly.

  “I don’t,” Darel said. “I just want to say, teasing a frog in front of his little brother is pretty low, Arabanoo—even for you.”

  A flicker of regret crossed the gang leader’s face, but he stuck his white lower lip out and said, “And stealing figs is low for you.”

  “I didn’t steal them.”

  “Then who did? They’re gone, aren’t they?”

  “Yeah, but we didn’t steal them, we just … They fell.”

  “You ruined them.”

  “I ruined your rotten figs?”

  “I’m glad we agree,” Arabanoo sniffed. “Now, what’s in your pouch? Honey snails? We’ll take them and call it even.”

  “I don’t think so.” Darel put his hand on his pouch. “Let’s go, Gee.”

  But the second biggest of the white-lipped frogs blocked the road. “Don’t make us rough you up,” she growled, “… sandpaper boy.”

  AREL EYED THE PATH BEHIND the white-lipped frogs. He could leap over these jokers and be halfway to the village before they even turned around.

  Except leaping wasn’t really Gee’s strength. Loyalty, friendship, honesty, and sheer goodness? Yes. Leaping? No.

  “How about this,” he said. “You let us—”

  Before he could finish, a rotten fig flew through the air and smashed against Gee’s chest.

  “Can we just give them the snails?” Gee pleaded.

  “I can’t,” Darel said, shaking his head.

  Four more figs flew through the air and burst against Gee. He stumbled backward and fell in the dirt, covered with pieces of pulpy fig.

  Darel had been taught that real warriors didn’t fight unless they chose to. He’d been taught that real warriors did not lose their tempers and never went back on their word. And he’d given the chief his word that he wouldn’t fight the white-lips, not after their last brawl had come too close to the nursery.

  But he also knew that friends stood up for friends. And before he knew anything else, he felt himself shoving one of the gang members. He jumped into the air and kicked two more. Then he faced Arabanoo, and the other white-lips rushed him from behind.

  He leaped away, but one of them got a finger pad on his foot and he cartwheeled in the air and came crashing down. An instant later, Arabanoo landed on his stomach with all his weight.

  Darel gasped and wriggled, but three of the white-lips held him down.

  Arabanoo butted him with his big bony head, and Darel saw stars. It looked like he was going to almost win another fight—which was exactly the same as losing.

  Then a brown cannonball smashed into the three frogs holding him down.

  Gurnugan.

  He slammed the bigger frogs away from Darel, sent them sprawling to the ground. And in a moment, Darel and Gee were back-to-back, with the six big white-lips circling them angrily. It sort of reminded Darel of his daydreams about battling the scorpion horde—completely outnumbered, but guaranteed to win.

  “There’s six of them and two of us,” Gee muttered to Darel. “And they’re twice our size. So would you please stop that?”

  “Stop what?”

  “Stop smiling.”

  Then, on a signal from Arabanoo, the white-lips jumped them.

  As night fell, they brawled past the mud flats skirting the village and wrestled beside a fallen tree, where two gang members smacked their heads against the hanging roots and sat stunned.

  A shove from one of the white-lips pushed Gee into the stream. He sprawled in the shallows, moaning softly and absorbing the water through his skin to soothe himself.

  Finally, Darel faced Arabanoo and his remaining followers on the top of the hill overlooking the marketplace. The hill was where the peddlers stored their wares.

  All the young frogs were scuffed and breathless. Only Darel and Arabanoo had enough energy to keep fighting. The others collapsed in the pale moonlight, beside a towering stack of reed baskets.

  “For a wood frog, you’ve got spirit,” Arabanoo said, puffing out his throat. “I’ll give you that.”

  “And for a tree frog,” Darel answered, “you’re not afraid to get your toe pads dirty.”

  Arabanoo grinned and lunged forward.

  Darel twirled and kicked at Arabanoo, catching him in the stomach. Arabanoo grunted, narrowed his nostrils, and tackled Darel. They tussled and rolled and smashed into the towering stack of reed baskets.

  They heard a creaking. The snap of a corded vine.

  They stopped fighting and looked at each other.

  Then they looked at the stack of baskets toppling toward them.

  After leaping to safety, they watched helplessly as the baskets avalanched downhill and crashed into the marketplace, overturning stalls of lily-pad furniture and smashing into carts full of candied worms, didgeridoos, and pollywog toys.

  PALE MOON SHONE OVER THE scorpion army’s camp at the base of the spider queen’s craggy mountain. A dozen warriors marched past tents made of tortoise
shell and frogskin, advancing toward Lord Marmoo’s large pavilion.

  The coarse sand shifted beneath the eight-legged warriors. They had razor-sharp pincers, but their deadliest weapons were the venom-tipped tails that swayed above them. And they didn’t bother with shields—their leathery shells, called carapaces, were armor enough.

  Torchlight glinted off the battered carapace of the scorpion in the lead—Commander Pigo, a massive warrior who, despite his size, moved with agility and deadly efficiency.

  The soldiers scuttled behind him into the cavernous pavilion and stood at attention.

  There was something particularly hard about the scorpion who lounged on the throne.

  Lord Marmoo’s carapace was crisscrossed with scars, and his main pair of eyes shone with bright malevolence while his three pairs of side eyes remained watchful. He’d seized control of the vast scorpion armies not only because he was the most merciless and venomous fighter but also because his mind was as sharp as his stinger.

  Unlike the great majority of scorpions, he was patient. He planned, he plotted, he waited. And then he struck.

  “Commander Pigo,” he drawled in greeting. “The warriors are ready?”

  “Always, my lord!” Pigo said.

  “I know you find poetry boring, little brother, but have you ever heard the rhyme beginning ‘Will you walk into my parlor?’ said the spider to the fly?”

  “I have not, my lord.”

  Lord Marmoo smiled lazily. “Shall I tell you what the fly said?”

  “By all means, my lord.”

  “‘Oh no, no,’ said the little fly,” Lord Marmoo continued, “‘to ask me is in vain. For who goes up your winding stair can never come down again.’”

  “No doubt a fine poem, my lord,” said Pigo.

  Lord Marmoo’s gaze swept the soldiers. “And here we are, at the base of the spider’s mountain. Do any of you fine warriors have a question for me?”

  The warriors all remained silent, staring straight ahead.

  “This won’t do,” Lord Marmoo said, tapping his pincers on the enormous crate beside the throne. “Surely at least one of you is brave enough to say a few words.”

  After another short silence, a sergeant said: “Permission to speak, sir!”

  Pigo nodded slowly. “Granted.”

  The sergeant saluted him, then bowed to Lord Marmoo, lowering his forelegs to the ground. “My lord, I’ve served you faithfully since we were both scorplings.”

  “I remember those days well,” Lord Marmoo said. “Eating our brothers and sisters until only the strong survived.”

  “And none stronger than you, my lord. But the spider queen is treacherous and uses cunning instead of strength.”

  “That she does, sergeant.”

  “She invented nightcasting, my lord. She was the turtle king’s favorite student before she betrayed him.”

  “Yes,” Marmoo murmured, “and she turned his dreamcasting into a fiercer, darker magic.”

  The sergeant nodded. “They say she’s almost as strong as him now.”

  “Almost? She’d kill you for suggesting that she’s not already more powerful than the turtle king.”

  The sergeant’s tail drooped. “Yes, my lord.”

  “So,” Marmoo inquired, “are you afraid of walking into Queen Jarrah’s parlor?”

  “Um, no, my lord,” the sergeant answered, his middle legs shifting beneath him. “For however strong she is, you’re stronger. I simply … wanted to ask … about taking a guard of only a dozen scorpions into the spider’s castle. Is it enough?”

  Lord Marmoo nodded to Pigo. “Answer him, little brother.”

  Pigo lashed his tail through the air and stung the sergeant in the back of the neck. The sergeant dropped lifeless to the floor of the tent.

  “Would anyone else like permission to speak?” Pigo asked. “To question his lordship?”

  Absolute silence fell in the tent.

  Lord Marmoo finally stood, with a swift, silky motion. “You see, my friends—‘Walk into my parlor,’ said the spider to the fly. We are not flies—we are scorpions. We join forces with Queen Jarrah because we are strong, not because we are weak. When I choose, we will bury the entire spider nation under the sands.”

  “Outside!” Commander Pigo barked at a signal from his leader. “Grab the crate, and prepare to climb!”

  The soldiers hefted the enormous crate and filed past the sergeant’s body. As they left, Pigo remained at attention next to Lord Marmoo’s throne. But once they disappeared, he sighed, crossed to an ironwood table, and skewered a chunk of raw mouse from a platter.

  “You’re concerned, too?” Lord Marmoo asked, joining Pigo at the table.

  “I am, my lord brother—that’s my job.” He lifted the meat toward his mandible-like mouth-parts. “Should I sting myself for worrying about your safety?”

  “Would you if I commanded it?”

  “Without hesitation.”

  Lord Marmoo smiled. “I know you would, Pigo. You’re the only one I trust. Of course the spiders are treacherous—I don’t need a sergeant telling me that Queen Jarrah is dangerous.”

  “Is she as powerful as the turtle king?”

  “According to her, yes,” Marmoo said. “That’s all she cares about, defeating her former teacher. And King Sergu was old a hundred years ago, when he ruled this whole region. Even for a turtle, that’s a long time, so he must be growing weaker.”

  “While Queen Jarrah is growing stronger …” Pigo skewered another chunk of mouse. “So this march across the desert to her mountain castle may be worth it, after all?”

  “She says she’s finally ready to defeat him. And she’s not the only one getting stronger, is she?”

  “No, my lord. Your army is ten times bigger than any scorpion horde since the time of legend.”

  “Indeed. But as our numbers increase, we drain the outback. We’re running out of food and water. We need a more fertile land.” Lord Marmoo’s pincers snapped shut. “We need the Amphibilands, and soon it will be ours.”

  HIEF OLBA LIVED IN THE CENTER of the village, in a modest leaf house with a spray of ferns in the front yard and a tidy pond in back. The inside of her house was mostly ordinary, with a few extra bedrooms for visitors, but one thing made it unique. Beyond the kitchen, an archway led into the village meeting hall, a lofty space with a roof of branches for the tree frogs, a leaf-lined cave mouth for the burrowers, and a spring for those frogs who grew nervous without water nearby. It was to the meeting hall that Olba summoned Darel after his mother bandaged his scrapes, her eyes heavy with disappointment.

  Darel paused outside the hall, inflated his throat, and sighed. How come living by the warrior code wasn’t easier?

  All he wanted was to act like a Kulipari, strong and unafraid, but instead he had upset his mother and messed things up with his best friend. Oh, and destroyed the marketplace.

  Still, nothing to do now but face the croaking.

  A few frogs chatted quietly in the shadows of the great hall, and he didn’t see Chief Olba at first. She was sitting on a flat stone bench in the talking circle. Then he spotted her: a shiny black frog with a red-crowned forehead that furrowed when she was concerned. It was furrowed now.

  She patted the stone bench beside her, and Darel hopped across the hall and sat. After a long silence, the chief murmured, “You told me you wouldn’t fight Arabanoo again.”

  “I guess I lost my temper, ma’am.”

  “They were picking on Gurnugan?”

  “It’s not Gee’s fault! Don’t blame him—he just does what I tell him.”

  “He chooses to do what you tell him.”

  “Ask Coorah,” Darel said, shaking his head. “It’s my fault, like always.”

  “Even Coorah is not always wise,” Olba said. “She’s still trying to learn battlefield medicine instead of pollywog care.”

  “Her grandmother told Coorah that she has a gift, and she needs to follow her heart,” Darel explained. “An
d her heart tells her we’re going to need the old knowledge of war-healing. Her gran said the scorpions are coming back.”

  “Are you trying to change the subject?” the chief asked, her eyes bulging in amusement. “We’re talking about you and Gurnugan.”

  “Oh, right.” Darel inflated his throat. “Well, it’s not Gee’s fault. He just backed me up, because that’s what friends do.”

  “Protecting a friend is nothing to be ashamed of. But tell me this, Darel. What if you must choose between doing the right thing and protecting a friend?”

  “I guess I …” He flicked his inner eyelids. “I don’t know.”

  The chief didn’t say anything. She just sat there quietly.

  Finally, he asked, “So what’s the right answer? What should I do?”

  “That is something we all must decide for ourselves.” She tapped the stone bench with her finger pads. “Now, then … why didn’t you give Arabanoo the honey snails?”

  “Because I don’t like bullies, and …”

  “Yes?”

  Darel shook his head. He didn’t want to tell her why he was saving the snails. “Just because.”

  “Mmm. You realize that you’re going to spend the next few months working to repay the peddlers in the marketplace for the damage you did?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He added, hesitantly, “I can still practice in the evenings, though, right? If I don’t get into fights?”

  “Your father and I were like brother and sister,” the chief said. “As close as you and Gurnugan. I think you know what he would tell you.”

  He sighed. “To help Mom in the shop.”

  Chief Olba didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. They sat for a while in the cool quiet of the hall, listening to the soft croaking of conversations and the call of a distant night bird.