Chapter 21
Loy led Winnie past the spectators to a corner of the courtyard where a pack of toads gathered. She stood apart from them to give her a head start if they tried to attack her. The buzz from their eager voices reached her ears, but no specific words.
A trumpet fanfare ended their conversations. All the toads turned toward the music. Winnie did too. Spectators separated, allowing Queen Bogen and her councilors to strut through. Several mel-yew shouted, “Hail to the queen,” prompting a roar of cheers.
Queen Bogen nodded to the crowd, then directed a piercing stare at Winnie. “General. We’re pleased you’ll be joining us today.”
Winnie held her head high. “Wouldn’t miss it,” she lied.
“We’ll be searching the high country for glunt.”
Winnie still wasn’t sure what the blunt were, but high country? She understood that part. If the queen wanted to lose her, abandoning her at the top of a mountain would do it. Her mind scrambled to find a loophole. Then she remembered Kip’s excuse.
“I could never hike to the high country.” She faked a wheeze. “Medical condition.”
“Nonsense, General, the fresh air will do you good. Besides, we’ve no intention of making you walk. Note the leather contraption on Commander Fynn’s back.”
The commander stepped up to her, wearing a wide leather belt. When the massive toad squatted down, the belt looked like a saddle. It also had a pommel and stirrups.
When he crouched, Fynn’s height made him no taller than a small pony. Still, goose bumps sprouted on Winnie’s arms. As much as she loved horses, they scared her a little, even the short ones. Last year at summer camp, her horse had shied at a jump, and Winnie had sailed over his head. The fall had been more embarrassing than painful. Ever since, though, riding made her apprehensive.
She sidled away. “I wouldn’t want to inconvenience the commander.”
“You’ll be no burden.” Fynn’s mouth curled into a hungry grin. He looked like a toad about to swallow a dragonfly. He couldn’t swallow her, but he could buck her off. She didn’t even have a helmet.
“Do climb onto Fynn’s back,” Queen Bogen said. “There’s a good general.”
Winnie clasped the pommel with a trembling hand. She slid her foot into the left stirrup and swung her right leg over Fynn’s broad back. She tried to sit straight in the saddle on his slanting back.
“Are you quite comfortable, General?” Fynn’s cheerful voice sounded fake.
She hoped Kip and his wig gets would hurry. “Think so.”
“Right. We’re off, then.” The queen waved a royal hand to the other hunters. The royal bugler blasted one long note, and the other toads crouched onto their haunches. The spectators cheered and waved colored scarves.
The queen took the lead, and the toad people followed in single file. The hunting party crossed the main lawn and through the castle gates, leaving the cheering crowds far behind. They leaped through a short patch of woods, to a mountain where the dirt road steepened. Winnie clung to Fynn’s saddle. Her “steed” followed the toads as they leaped onward and upward.
A mile into the ride, Winnie finally got the hang of it and relaxed into Fynn’s stride. She only wished she trusted her balance enough to lift her head to look for Kip. Believing him nearby gave her the confidence to sway in time with Fynn’s bouncy motion.
Fynn and the other hunters hopped along a narrow path dug into the side of the mountain. On her left lay a deep drop. Her heart thudded. “Uh, Fynn? Aren’t we getting a little too close to the edge?”
He followed the others higher up the mountain. One by one, his fellow hunters cut into the brush until Commander Fynn hopped alone toward the mountain top.
An alarm bell went off in Winnie’s head. “Where’d everybody go?”
“In pursuit of their prey.”
“After glunt?”
“Obviously.”
The swampy smell of his sweat made her nose twitch. She wanted to pinch it shut but didn’t dare take her hands off the pommel. She gripped tighter and stole a peek overhead. Where was Kip?
She faced forward again. The path seemed to meet nothing but open sky.
“Wait a minute!”
Through the whistling air came the click of an undone buckle.
“You’ll mock us no longer.” He jolted to a stop.
The same thing had happened in summer camp. This time Winnie and the saddle flew over Fynn. She plummeted toward the distant treetops.
“Kip!”
She shrieked and flapped her arms as she plunged through the top of the tallest tree. Pliable limbs bowed under her weight. The tree’s rubbery, tennis-racket-shaped leaves volleyed her and the saddle downward, branch by branch. The saddle fell away moments before her stomach slammed against a bough, knocking the air out of her. She bumped her chin, biting her tongue. Instinctively, she clung to the wide branch and gasped for breath. The saddle kept falling until it landed across the jagged rocks far below.
That could’ve been me. Her heart revved at the thought. She’d practically died. Yet all around her, birds tweeted happily. A fragrant breeze drifted through the willowy leaves. The world kept going. Thankfully, so did Winnie. Her breathing slowed to normal. She sat up and, with knees braced around the branch, eased backward until she sat against the trunk. Only then did she feel safe enough to examine herself. She tasted a little blood from biting her tongue but not enough to worry about. Surprisingly, she only had a few scratches on her arms and legs. All her body parts seemed intact.
She breathed deeply. Yup, her lungs still worked. The dull pain in her stomach felt no worse than doing a belly flop into a swimming pool. The warrior had survived! All she had to do now was climb out of the tree. She reached for a lower branch but didn’t dare stretch the extra inch to grab it. What if she missed or the branch snapped? She pulled back to safety.
Too bad they didn’t have fire departments with ladders on Frama-12. On the off chance she might find a hermit with a rope, she called, “Hello?”
An eerie screech answered in the distance. Winnie clamped her mouth shut. If a snaps heard her, it might try to shake her out of the tree.
She slumped against the trunk. Where was a wig get when she needed one? Wiggets, of course. She laughed at herself for almost forgetting the whistle tucked inside her tunic. She gave it two quick blasts and waited. One minute. Two minutes.
She swung her legs impatiently. She blew into it over and over. Finally, one ragged-looking wig get lit at the end of her branch.
“Wigget-wigget. Where-to, where-to?”
“We need two more,” she said and blew the whistle.
“No-more, no-more,” the wig get said. “Where-to, where-to?”
“Just down. Can you manage?”
“Manage-manage. Wigget-wigget.”
Its talons locked onto the leather vest she hadn’t removed from her last flight to the beach. It lifted her from the branch. On the way down its wings flapped harder. “Too-big, too-big.”
The ground rose up to meet them. Winnie didn’t remember hitting it.