An Army of Frogs Read online

  “Your father was a great frog, Darel,” the chief said at last. “He’s the reason we can sit safely in the moonlight and smell the night-blooming flowers. He and the other Kulipari gave their lives to help hide the Amphibilands behind the Veil.”

  “I just …” Darel swallowed. “I want to make him proud.”

  She smiled softly. “He would be.”

  “I’m not even a warrior.”

  “He fell in love with a shopkeep, Darel. And his best friend”—Olba patted her plump stomach—“never battled anything except her dinner. Do you know what he told me once?”

  “What?”

  “That wood frogs have their own powers.”

  “Like what?” Darel asked. “We can hide in the dirt?”

  “You work harder than anyone,” the chief told him. “You’re brave and loyal, and you never give up. Look at you, Darel. Training every day to become a warrior.”

  Darel shrugged, pretending he didn’t feel a warm glow of pride. “We’ve got to be ready if the scorps or spiders attack, that’s all.”

  “Does part of you hope they will?”

  “No! Of course not!” Darel scratched his cheek. “Well, maybe a little. I mean, just in my daydreams.”

  “Do you know what else your father told me? That he valued peace more than war.”

  “We need warriors, though. The next time the scorpions or spiders invade—”

  “They can’t find us.”

  “But—”

  Olba raised a finger, silencing the young frog. “Even if they did—impossibly—find us, we’d beat them. As we have in the past.”

  “We barely beat them, though.”

  She smiled. “Don’t underestimate the Kulipari.”

  “Where are the Kulipari? I know they went away and all—”

  “They lost many warriors in the Hidingwar, Darel. Dozens of them died, like your father.”

  Darel looked at the floor.

  “You remember how it happened,” Chief Olba continued. “You were a young frog then. After the spider queen betrayed King Sergu, the scorpions launched a surprise attack. The Kulipari saved us, at great cost to themselves. They’re rebuilding their numbers and regaining their strength.”

  “Okay, but, I mean—where?”

  “With the turtle king. Why, there are probably a hundred of them by now! Imagine that, a hundred Kulipari.”

  Darel’s throat bulged at the thought. A hundred Kulipari! Plus him: a hundred and one.

  “And yet we don’t need them.” Chief Olba flicked an inner eyelid thoughtfully. “Not anymore. For more than a hundred years before the Hidingwar, the turtle king kept the peace between the scorpions and spiders, and he took extra care to protect the frog nation—we’re tough, but we’re fragile.”

  “Mostly tough,” Darel said.

  The chief inflated her throat in amusement. “We drink through our skin, Darel—we need pure water to survive. King Sergu helped us find a place to thrive here in the Amphibilands. Just like he taught the spiders dreamcasting because they understand webs of magic as well as they understand webs of silk.”

  “Except that didn’t work so well.”

  The chief nodded. “It might have, but Jarrah turned the gentle magic of dreamcasting into the evil of nightcasting. She’s a terrible creature now, filled with hunger and jealousy and power.”

  “Yeah, that’s why we need the Kulipari.”

  “As long as the Veil stands, she cannot touch us,” the chief said. “There’s nothing to fear.”

  AREL WOKE EARLY AND SPENT the morning in the marketplace, getting scolded by each merchant as he cleaned the mess that had been made by the falling baskets. He swept and scrubbed, grumbling as other young frogs teased him. He stuck his tongue out at one and almost caught a passing mosquito.

  Finally, at noon, he stopped and gobbled his lunch. Then he hopped over to the tadpool nursery to see the triplets.

  The tadpool rippled in the shade of a paperbark tree—a dozen linked pools that echoed with shouts and laughter and occasionally tears.

  Darel stopped and watched the pollywogs chasing one another in the shallows and the tadpoles waddling eagerly onto shore, where teachers were sitting in circles with students.

  An older tadpole was showing off, hopping over some younger ones, when her tail got tangled in her legs. She fell into the pond with a splash, emerging a moment later sputtering with embarrassment.

  Darel smiled, reliving his first memories of his father, here at the nursery. Climbing all over the frog everyone else knew as the greatest Kulipari of his generation but Darel just knew as Daddy.

  His memory was interrupted by calls of “Darel! Darel! Come play!”

  The triplets swarmed toward him in shining blurs of color. Tharta, Tipi, and Thuma looked nothing like Darel—instead, they took after their father.

  Tharta was bright pink with a row of spikes down her back, Tipi was mostly yellow with glossy green and orange swirls, and Thuma was a brilliant blue with black spots and stripes.

  They hadn’t even sprouted legs when Dad died, so Darel made a point of seeing them every day, playing games and passing down his father’s war stories. They admired him with the blind adoration of little siblings and wanted to be just like him when they grew up.

  They had no idea that he wanted to be just like them—poisonous.

  In the old days, wood frogs like Darel didn’t have poisonous brothers and sisters. Even before the turtle king raised the Veil, though, his dreamcasting had changed the Amphibilands. He’d united the frog tribes, and they’d begun to start families together.

  Sometimes Darel thought that was as big a deal as the Veil—at least to him. Because without it, he and the triplets never could’ve had a wood frog mother and a poisonous father.

  Thuma hugged him while Tharta and Tipi leaped into his arms, and he let them pull him into the water. He mock-scolded them for roughhousing, then chased them around the pool, playing Croako Polo until it was time to get back to work.

  He spent the rest of the day hauling heavy bundles of reeds for the furniture maker. He actually liked that job: good for building strength and endurance, and every time he set down another bundle, he threw a few punches at it.

  Well, until the furniture maker caught him, that is. Then he got in trouble again.

  Instead of returning home at the end of the day, Darel followed a weedy path across a stream. He turned toward the salt marsh at the northern tip of the Amphibilands, then stopped at a door beside a mossy stump.

  He knocked and waited.

  And waited.

  And waited.

  And eventually, the door opened.

  Stale air wafted out at Darel. He smiled at the frog standing within, an elderly pond frog, now frail and fish-belly white, with clouded eyes and an unsteady gait. His name was Old Jir, and he’d been a Kulipari once, with bright green skin and copper spots, before the poison broke him.

  “Is that you, Darel?” Old Jir wheezed, his pale eyes peering at him.

  “Yes, sir,” Darel said. “May I come inside? My feet are aching.”

  “Young liar,” Old Jir scoffed fondly. “Your feet never ache. Where’s your shadow?”

  “Gee? He’s ponded for approximately the rest of his life.”

  Old Jir chuckled and shuffled into the living room, a cramped space with a musty odor and dirty plates piled everywhere.

  “I’m in trouble again,” Darel said, opening the birch-bark curtains to air out the room.

  “You, in trouble? Next you’ll tell me that water’s still wet.”

  Darel grinned and started stacking the dirty plates as the old frog lowered himself into a chair. He told Old Jir what had happened—leaving out nothing except the honey snails—and finished with “They’re pretty mad at me.”

  “Good,” the old frog croaked. “They need froglings like you to remind them that they’re still alive.”

  “Really?”

  “Of course—you hop around like a k
angaroo with a spiny anteater in her pouch, Darel. You keep everyone on their toe pads. You’re full of life.” Old Jir raised his skeletal right hand and watched it tremble. “I remember how that feels.”

  Darel didn’t want Old Jir to get into one of his moods, so he said, “Oh! I brought you some honey snails—your favorite.” He emptied his pouch into a cleanish bowl. “Um, they’re a little smooshed.”

  “You’re a good boy, Darel.”

  “I’m glad someone thinks so.” Darel took another load of bark dishes to the sink. “You know what everyone tells me? That we don’t need warriors to fight the scorpions and spiders. Just hunters, for scaring off the snakes and birds.”

  Old Jir snatched at a honey snail with his tongue. “There were birds during the Hidingwar, waiting to swoop down on the wounded. And the turtle king was there, riding on his crocodile, surrounded by scorpions. A thousand of them, tails stinging, pincers slashing. The king closed his eyes in the middle of the battle—do you know why?”

  “He was dreamcasting.”

  “Of course he was dreamcasting!” the old frog snapped. “He’s a dreamcaster. But what was he using his magic for?”

  “To hide the Amphibilands. To raise the Veil like a … a shell around us, to keep the scorpions and spiders out.”

  “The Veil isn’t a shell, frogling; it’s not an invisible wall you can bounce stones off. It’s a trick of the mind that confuses the enemy when he gets too close. The scorps and spiders look, but they don’t see us. They march in a straight line and end up right back where they started. The Veil is a blind spot, that’s all.”

  “And in the old days …,” Darel prompted, knowing how much Old Jir liked telling his stories.

  “Before the Veil, when you were just a tadpole, the scorps and spiders knew where to find us. We fought skirmishes, but the turtle king always stepped in before things went too far. Back then, the scorpions didn’t want to kill us all and take our land.”

  “Not until the Hidingwar,” Darel said.

  “Do you know what caused the Hidingwar?” asked Old Jir.

  Darel shook his head.

  “The scorps started running out of food and water,” Old Jir told him. “They wanted our waterfalls and woodlands, our ponds and farms. In those days, they sent merchants to trade. I remember one of them staring at the nursery pools. She couldn’t believe we ‘wasted’ fresh water on tadpoles.”

  “So what did they do?”

  “They waited until the spider queen made her move. Jarrah thought she could kill the turtle king, but he’s a tough old shellback. He beat her. She still hates him for that, still wants her revenge.” Old Jir turned his clouded gaze toward Darel. “What weapons do the scorpions and the spiders have, what powers?”

  “Well, the scorpions have shells as strong as ironwood. They have poison stingers and powerful pincers.” Darel thought for a second. “Don’t they have a bunch of extra eyes?”

  “They have a pair of main eyes and between two and five pairs of side eyes. What about the spiders?”

  “They’re great with webs, obviously. And they’re poisonous, too—at least some of them. Plus the nightcasting.”

  Old Jir scratched a wart on his forehead. “And what do we have?”

  “The Kulipari?”

  “What do ordinary frogs have, Darel?”

  “Um, we croak?”

  The old frog slitted his nostrils. “What else?”

  “We jump? And our tongues are pretty fast.”

  “Even faster than a scorpion’s stinger,” Old Jir said, with a nod. “We’re clever and hardworking, and we come in all shapes and sizes. Tree frogs and burrowers, bullfrogs and corroborees.”

  “What does that matter?”

  “It makes us flexible. We have many different strengths.” Old Jir inflated his throat. “And we think for ourselves. The scorpions aren’t like that.”

  “You mean they’re stupid?”

  “No, they’re often cunning, but they follow a leader blindly. If the leader falls, they retreat. If nobody gives them orders, they don’t know what to do.”

  “Like I said—stupid.”

  Old Jir croaked a soft laugh. “Plus, we know this land, Darel, we know every tree and stream. And you forgot a few things that the spiders and scorps have.”

  “Like what? Armies and weapons?”

  “No—endless sand and lifeless rock. A long time ago, the desert was grassland and trees, rich soil and deep rivers, but they used everything up. They turned their home into a wasteland.”

  “And now they want our home,” Darel said.

  “That’s right—that’s why they attacked. The scorpion army swept down from the outback, more of them than we imagined possible. And the Hidingwar began. Hungry birds flew overhead, and the turtle king’s crocodile snapped her jaws and lashed her tail.”

  “What’d the king do?” Darel asked, his eyes bulging.

  “He sat on her back, his face calm, his eyes closed, dreamcasting in the middle of a pitched battle, creating the Veil. The scorpions killed his croc in the end, and they were about to finish off the king, when we showed up. The Kulipari.”

  Darel gave a little excited hop. This was his favorite part of the story.

  “I was old even then,” Old Jir continued, “but strong. We tapped the poison and dropped on them like an avalanche. Your father stood alone against a whole battalion and crushed them. But the scorpion army had been growing in the black hills, bigger than any army we’d ever faced before. And you know the limits of our poison, don’t you?”

  “If you use it too much …” Darel couldn’t finish.

  “We die. Or we live, drained of all power. Broken shells of who we were—like me.”

  “But you beat the scorpions.”

  Old Jir sighed. “That we did. Most of the Kulipari died, including your father, and yet—”

  “Are you sure?” Darel blurted, inflating his throat in surprise that he’d finally asked the question aloud.

  “About what?”

  “That—that my dad died?” He took a breath and continued. He couldn’t look at the old frog. He was afraid to see his expression. “They never found the body. I mean, after the battle. And I’ve always wondered if maybe he lived, like you. Just without his powers?”

  Old Jir reached out and squeezed Darel’s arm. “I’m sorry, Darel. No, your father gave his life to help win the final battle.”

  Darel kept his eyes on the floor, blinking back tears. His hope that his father was still out there somewhere was a secret wish he’d held close for a long time. It hurt to hear the truth.

  “At least we saved the turtle king’s life,” Old Jir said, gently. “And his dreamcasting took root—he raised the Veil. Your father’s sacrifice saved us all.”

  Darel gulped and wiped his eyes.

  “We won’t see the scorps again.” Old Jir sat back. “Instead of fighting, all we’ve got are the dried-up stories of dried-up frogs.”

  “I like your stories.”

  But Old Jir was in a mood now, and his mouth tightened into an unhappy line. Maybe thinking about his own lost powers. Maybe thinking about Darel’s dad.

  “They’re right, you know,” the old frog said, closing his inner eyelids. “Training for battle is a waste of time. And that’s a good thing, Darel. Now you run along and leave an old frog in peace.”

  HE SCORPIONS ADVANCED THROUGH the mountain pass. Commander Pigo scuttled one step behind Lord Marmoo, while the warriors carrying the enormous crate brought up the rear. Shaggy-barked blackwood trees crowded the path, and a butcher-bird cried in the distance, near the sandstone cliffs.

  The moon rose higher as they climbed through a stinking swamp swirling with black water too bitter to drink. When spiders skittered among the shadows, the scorpion warriors coiled their tails, eager to fight their ancient enemy, and only Lord Marmoo’s presence stopped them from attacking.

  After the swamp, they passed the dark mouths of Queen Jarrah’s mines and the filt
hy huts of the miners forced to work underground, digging for gems. The spider guards shifted uneasily, coiling strands of silk from their abdomens, and Pigo watched them with his side eyes, wary of an ambush.

  But the spiders didn’t attack. Perhaps the ceasefire would hold and the scorpions would be able to work with the spiders … for a time, at least.

  From a distance, the mountaintop looked to Pigo like a sprawling heap of rocks, but as they marched closer, he saw that each rock was a boulder, as high and wide as Lord Marmoo’s pavilion. This was the spiders’ castle: thousands of boulders massed together. The spider queen and her court lived in the spaces between them, the cracks and crevices, corridors and caverns.

  A wide moat of spiderweb surrounded the boulder castle, shimmering on the ground.

  Pigo called his soldiers to a halt, and worker spiders placed a walkway of planks on the web for them to cross. Once inside the castle, they’d be trapped—but a scorpion warrior does not show fear, so Pigo ordered his troops forward without hesitation.

  Cool air wafted from the shadowy entrances to the castle, smelling of incense and blood. The scorpions entered a vaulted hall, where Queen Jarrah greeted them with haughty politeness.

  “Welcome to my home, Lord Marmoo,” she said, creeping closer. “You are a brawny one, aren’t you? Quite formidable, I’m sure.”

  “The better to join our forces,” he replied.

  “Oh, most certainly,” Jarrah agreed. “That’s how we’ll both achieve our goals. By adding the brute strength of your scorpion hordes to the unstoppable magic of my nightcasting.”

  She was tall and slender and striking, with sharp features and arching eyebrows. And when she invited Pigo and Lord Marmoo to watch her nightcasting, her voice sounded like one of her webs: silky and deceptively strong.

  Three of her ladies-in-waiting—her most loyal servants and most skilled apprentice nightcasters—accompanied them as they climbed higher within the castle. The ladies occasionally strolled along the walls or the ceiling, until they all stepped onto a platform atop the highest boulder of the castle, with a view of the surrounding countryside.