“Apparently so. He sent a party of six scouts to Sinking Canyons looking for us a couple of years ago. But when they found us, they decided they’d rather stay with us than go back to the army. Darrow sent a second party to find the first party, and they decided to stay too. All twelve of them are still there.”
“That must be helpful, having scouts in camp,” Aidan observed.
“It has been. They’re used to pulling guard duty, and that’s freed up the miners to do more tunneling.”
“Which miners?”
“The Greasy Cave boys-Gustus, Arliss, and the rest of them-the ones who led you through caverns underneath Bonifay Plain.”
“How on earth did they get there?” Aidan asked.
“King Darrow outlawed plenty of people who were associated with you. The Greasy Cave boys, because he thought you were hiding in their mines. The hunters at Last Camp, because they helped you get to the Feechiefen and back when you went after the frog orchid. Lord Aethelbert and Lord Cleland-he had always suspected them of plotting with you when you were at his court. Most of those outlaws have made their way to Sinking Canyons one way or another.
“Then last week one of the Last Campers-Isom, I think it was-went to the village to buy some supplies and came back telling of a new rumor flying around. Folks were saying you had put together an army of feechiefolk in the swamp and were planning to march on Tambluff.” He picked up the Wilderking Chant where he had left off a few minutes earlier: To the palace he comes from forests and swamps. Watch for the Wilderking! Leading his troops of wild men and brutes. Watch for the Wilderking!
“It seems King Darrow wasn’t in the mood to watch for the Wilderking any longer,” said Percy. “He decided to take the fight to you. He was gathering a force of a thousand men for an invasion of the Feechiefen.”
At this news, Dobro perked up. “Invasion? That’s a kind of fighting, ain’t it?”
Percy sighed. “I’m afraid so, Dobro.”
Dobro jumped up and clapped his heels together. “Hee-haw!” he yodeled. “What some fun! I ain’t done no serious fighting since the Battle of Bearhouse!”
“No!” Aidan groaned. “They can’t come to the Feechiefen!”
“Let’s see here,” said Dobro, more to himself than to his companions. “A thousand civilizers”-he was scratching in the sand with a stick-“if every feechie whips about fifty civilizers…”
“They’re staging from Last Camp,” said Percy. “They’ll be ferrying men across the Tam from there.”
Dobro gave up scratching in the sand. “I never learnt no number figuring,” he said, “but I don’t reckon a thousand civilizers is near enough to go around.”
“We can’t let a civilizer army come into the Feechiefen,” Aidan said. “They’d never survive here.”
Percy nodded in agreement. “Father sent me to warn you and the feechiefolk. Now I see you aren’t the ones who need warning. It’s Darrow’s soldiers who are in real danger.”
“You reckon there’s any way the king’d bring more’n a thousand fighting men?” Dobro interrupted. “A thousand civilizers ain’t hardly worth poling across the swamp for.”
Chapter Three
By midafternoon, three dozen or more feechies, attracted by the news of the captured civilizer, arrived at Scoggin Mound from all over the swamp. They represented eight different bands, enough to form a swamp council.
As home chieftain, Tombro Timberbeaver led the proceedings. He climbed a stump in the middle of the central clearing, near the village fire, and raised a hand for silence among the gathered feechies. When that didn’t work (raising a hand for silence almost never worked with feechies), he simply shouted over everyone. “Let this here swamp council come to order!” he bellowed. “Or if that’s too much to ask, let this here swamp council come to a little less disorder.”
The noise died down the least little bit, and Tombro began. “First off, let me say sorry to Percy. We didn’t know you was Pantherbane’s brother.” He nodded toward Percy. “We thought you was a spy.”
“He told you he wasn’t a spy, didn’t he?” asked Aidan.
“Well, yeah,” said Tombro. “But I ain’t exactly in the habit of listening to what civilizers says.”
“Besides,” said Hyko Vinesturgeon, “ain’t that what a real spy would say? No spy worth the name gonna tell you he’s a spy.”
“What kind of spy comes to warn you that his own army is planning an invasion?” Aidan asked.
“We just figured he was bragging,” Tombro answered, a little weakly.
“Didn’t he tell you he was my brother?” Aidan asked.
“Sorta yes, sorta no,” Tombro said.
Percy had been quiet thus far, but this answer got under his skin. “Sorta yes? I must have told you a hundred times I was Aidan Errolson’s brother.”
“Well, that’s the thing,” said Tombro. “I don’t know nothing about no Aidan Errolson. Now Pantherbane-I’d swim nekkid through a herd of snapping turtles for Pantherbane or any of his folks.”
“Nobody around here knows my civilizer name,” Aidan explained to his brother. “All they know is Pantherbane.”
“Oh, and about what them wee-feechies done to you, Percy-about them feeding you to that alligator.” Tombro was trying to keep a grave and apologetic face, but something twinkled in his eye. Was it pride in the wee- feechies’ spirit and creativity? “They ought notta done that.” The wee-feechies had sneaked Percy out of his cage while the grown-ups were embroiled in a heated argument over what they should do to him. “But you know how younguns is,” Tombro concluded. It wasn’t the most satisfying apology Percy had ever received.
“Say, Tombro,” Aunt Seku called. “Ain’t you forgettin’ somethin’?”
“I didn’t pole half a day just for jabbering and sorrifyin’,” said one of the Coonhouse feechies. “You want to confabulate about this here civilizer trouble, that’s fine with me. But looks to me like you owe me some entertainment first.”
A murmur of agreement rippled through the assembled feechies. Orlo Polejumble called out, “Tombro, I want to see can’t Wimbo Barkflinger whup your daddy’s beavers at long last.”
Percy was confused, being unfamiliar with feechie ways. Wasn’t this an emergency swamp council? What did entertainment have to do with anything? But Aidan just groaned. A timber-cutting contest would mean at least an hour’s delay, and they didn’t have an hour to spare.
“The civilizers are coming!” Aidan shouted, trying to make himself heard. “We don’t have time-”
But his voice was drowned out by a rising chant: “Timberbout! Timberbout! Timberbout!”
The crowd pushed Wimbo Barkflinger and Bardo Timberbeaver, Tombro’s father, toward the stump in the middle of the clearing. Wimbo looked uncertain about going up against Bardo’s beavers, but Bardo rubbed his hands in evident glee. Wimbo was the greatest of the Feechiefen axmen. No man alive could outchop him with a stone ax. But nobody, not even Wimbo, had ever beaten Bardo’s team of trained beavers in a timberbout. The Timberbeaver clan derived its name from these very creatures, so great was the clan’s pride in them.
Wimbo raised his palms in front of his face, the backs of his hands facing outward. It was the gesture by which a feechie accepts a public challenge. The crowd grew silent.
“Bardo, I’ll chop against your beavers,” he said, “on one condition.” The beaver trainer inclined his head toward the timber cutter and smiled, inviting him to name his condition.
“Let me pick out the trees,” Wimbo said.
Bardo shrugged. “I don’t see what difference that makes, long as the trees is the same kind and about the same size.” That was a given anyway, according to the rules of a timberbout. “And as long as you don’t pick out pine trees. You know my beavers can’t abide pitch and turpentine. It ain’t natural.”
Wimbo agreed and butted heads with the old feechie to seal the deal.
“Well then,” said Bardo, “I better go fetch my beavers.” The crowd cheered in raucous anticipation of the timberbout, and the feechies all fell in behind Bardo as he stomped down the trail toward the landing.
