Still, he was a gar. Tangs ate gars. I wasn’t sure what to do. I didn’t want to let the tang know that he had another option for lunch. The gar had come out of the jungle on the opposite side of the tree from the tang and was walking straight for it. He had no clue what was on the other side. I figured I had to take the chance.
“Hey!” I called out. “Run! There’s a tang down there!”
The guy looked up at me and jumped with surprise. I guess he didn’t expect to see a gar up in the tree, wearing a red outfit. But I wasn’t his problem. He had a lot more to worry about on the ground.
“There’s a tang down there!” I called.
The guy stared at me like I was some freak giant red bird.
“Don’t you understand?” I called. “There’s a tang! Get out of here!”
The guy didn’t seem worried at all. While keeping his eyes on me, he reached to his neck and grabbed something that was on a leather strap. He raised it to his lips and blew. A high-pitched, almost inaudible whistle followed. What was this guy doing? If anything, he was only going to let the tang know that somebody was around. I had the brief hope that the tang would react to the whistle the same way the quigs did on Denduron, and fall over in brain-drilling pain. A quick look back to the tang showed me something else entirely.
The beast wasn’t in pain. Far from it. A second before, it had been leaping and grabbing at the air, desperate to get at me. Now it was totally relaxed and sitting down on its bottom like an obedient dog. Its entire attitude had changed. It went from sixty to zero in the time it took for the sound of the whistle to reach its ears. Or whatever it was it heard through.
The gar put away the whistle and rounded the tree toward the tang. I thought that as soon as the tang caught sight of the guy, he’d get all slobbered and bothered again.
“Look out!” I screamed at the guy.
He ignored me and walked around the tree. I cringed, waiting for the bloodbath. But the gar walked right up to the tang and petted him on its long snout… like a dog. I knew that when I came back to Eelong I was going to see changes, but I never imagined this one. Tangs were the scourge of the jungle. They were feared by both the klees and the gars. They were mindless, predatory beasts. But here a gar was petting a tang as casually as if it were, well, a pet. I half expected the gar to give him a “Good boy!” and throw him a treat. Of course, the only treat a tang would like is somebody’s foot, so I didn’t think that would happen. At least, I hoped it wouldn’t.
As I stood there with my mouth open in shock, the gar looked up to me and called, “Who are you?”
I didn’t get the chance to answer. A loud snarl echoed through the jungle. There was a klee around. The gar didn’t wait for my answer. No sooner did he hear the snarl than he took off running. As he went, he blew on his whistle again. The tang trotted after him obediently. What the hell? Things had definitely changed since I had been to Eelong.
I was now faced with another challenge. Klees ate gars too. I was a gar. I knew they had upheld Edict Forty-six, which forbids klees to hunt and eat gars, but after seeing the change in the whole tang and gar relationship, I didn’t want to assume anything about what the relationship between klees and gars had become. But what was I supposed to do? I was stuck up in a freakin’ tree. I could have climbed down, but there was no way I could outrun a cat. I stood there, frozen, hoping that the klee was more interested in the gar on the ground than the gar in the tree. Me.
1 felt the tree shake, as if something had jumped onto a branch above me. Something big. I heard the sound of claws skittering across the bark, gouging into the tree as it made its way along. That was it. I couldn’t take it anymore. I was out of there. I pictured Solara in my head and was about to take a step when…
“Pendragon?” came a voice from above.
1 stopped and looked up. Standing on a thick branch not five feet from my head was a huge black cat. A panther. A klee. Kasha.
“What are you doing in this tree?” she asked in such a surprised voice that I actually felt kind of foolish standing there.
“Avoiding a tang. Did you know tangs can be tamed?” I asked.
“Not until I came back to Eelong. A lot has changed since we left.”
Kasha wore the same dark tunic that she always wore. She was a forager. When I knew her, she and her team would scour the jungle floor for food. Her job was to protect the others from tangs. From what I’d just seen, that wasn’t so important anymore.
“How long have you been back?” I asked. She could have landed back there fifteen minutes ago, or fifteen years. Time was becoming increasingly irrelevant.
“Only a day, but I’ve seen a lot.”
I stared at her, waiting for what I hoped would be good news. She knew exactly what I was thinking and added soberly, “I haven’t found the exiles.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I have. At least I know where they are.”
Kasha’s eyes widened. “That’s wonderful! Have you come to bring me back to Solara?”
“Uh, no. They’re here, Kasha. They’re in Black Water.”
Kasha stared at me, stunned. Yes, she was a klee, but I could tell that she was stunned.
“But… how?” she asked.
“Can we get out of this tree first?”
“Yes, yes of course.”
The two of us climbed down. Kasha was much more agile than I was, naturally. I felt a lot more safe with Kasha there. “Where are we?” I asked. “I mean, where on Eelong?” “Not far from Leeandra. I was headed there when I heard the tang attack. I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“I guess that’s why I landed where I did,” I said. “To find you.”
“Probably, and also because I believe it’s important that you see Leeandra.”
“Why? Has it changed?” I asked.
Kasha nodded. “You must see it for yourself.”
“But we need to get to Black Water,” I argued.
“Agreed. But you need to understand the new Eelong. If the exiles are in Black Water, what has happened to Leeandra will affect them.”
I was convinced. We would head back to the klee city in the trees. As Kasha led me through the jungle, I filled her in on all that had happened, right up to Nevva’s death and her dying words.
Kasha shook her head in dismay. “Black Water. I had no idea.”
“What am I gonna see in Leeandra?” I asked. I wanted to be a little prepared at least.
“It’s a dangerous place for gars. Far more than when you were here.”
Oh. Swell.
“More dangerous than being treated like a slave and being put on the menu?” I asked.
“Yes. Gars no longer live in Leeandra” was her answer. “They were banished.”
“But… no,” I argued. “There was a whole new cooperation going on between the two races. Gunny and Spader were part of it.”
“That was long ago,” Kasha answered. “Whatever truce was established was later torn apart.”
I couldn’t imagine what had happened that could turn things so far the other way. Before I could ask, I had my answer. We were indeed very close to Leeandra. Kasha and I stepped to the edge of the dense jungle to see the giant, wooden wall that protected the city in the trees. It had been erected to keep the tangs away from the klees. That hadn’t changed, but there was one distinct difference. I could see up to the top edge of the city wall, high above. Every ten feet or so was a long pole, from which flew a flag. A red flag with a star on it. The Ravinian star.
“The Ravinians control Eelong,” Kasha said.
“I should have guessed,” I said softly.
“It’s been difficult for me,” Kasha continued. “They no longer know who I am, so I’m not trusted. In the short time I’ve been back, I haven’t learned much, but there are rumors. Something is about to happen, and I fear it won’t go well for the gars.”
“We have to find out what it is,” I said. “On Eelong the exiles are all gars.”
“That’s why we must go inside. The answers will be there.”
