“Are you going to be helping?” Blue Sky asked Jewel Tear.
“Yes, Forge has been gracious enough to accept my help,” she told Blue Sky and the group at large. Tommy liked to think that the information, though, was for his ears. “I’ve studied defense building as I would need it for anything I built here in the Westernlands, but I’ve had no chance to put it into practice.”
“I need to go,” Tommy said to Jewel Tear and anyone else who might be within hearing range. He focused on Blue Sky. “Spot wants to stay and play with Baby Duck. Can you make sure that he finds her safely in all this confusion?”
“She’s in the dining room, clearing tables,” Jewel Tear said.
“Come on!” Blue Sky caught Spot by the wrist and dragged him off. “Barley was going to try out a recipe for crepes for breakfast! Let’s see if any are left.”
“Crepes?” Guy and Andy both echoed and followed the younger boys.
Jewel Tear drifted closer as she turned and watched the boys go. All around them, the moment for discussion had passed and people surged to new positions, focusing in the next step in their project. In that confusion, she brushed Tommy’s hand with her fingertips. “We’ll make sure that everyone here knows that Spot is not to be harmed.”
And then she was gone, letting the chaos seemingly shift them apart.
5: OLIVE BRANCH CASTING SHADE
Olivia’s father — the man she considered her real dad, not her slime of a zealot stepfather — had always said when you didn’t want to do something, do it immediately to get it over with before you could talk yourself out of it. He also said that after doing something difficult, to remind yourself that you were strong and succeeded despite the hardship. At the time, he’d been talking about cleaning her room and combing out the tangles in her thick red hair, but the advice had served her well over the years.
So, despite not wanting to talk to the famous Wind Clan domi, Olivia marched down the hill, over the bridge, and across Oakland to Poppymeadows enclave, where the Viceroy was currently living. Yes, it was insanely early in the morning to be calling on neighbors. The sun was still on the horizon like a baneful eye. She was discovering, though, that elves kept farmer hours. Chances were good that Tinker domi would be planning to leave the enclave on some unlikely and earthshattering adventure. Olivia wanted to be sure to catch the girl — woman — female.
Her Wyvern escort was off with Forest Moss. All the domana that were fit to fight had gone off someplace far east of the city, beyond the Rim. It left her with an escort made up of twenty royal marines.
The marines followed Olivia like a pack of puppies. Some trotted ahead. Some lagged behind. Some stopped to pee on bushes. In ones and twos, they would pause to investigate anything that struck them as odd. Being that all of them were new to human civilization, there was something every few feet.
Why were there manhole covers in the middle of the streets? What were under them? They insisted in prying one up and peering down into the dark storm drains beneath. What were the fire hydrants for? She was glad that she could tell them that it was illegal to open one up. Why were there lines painted on the road? What did the bus stop sign say? What did the graffiti mean? Then they hit the museum with all its odd statues and the questions came nonstop.
She was already vexed with the marines, as they had let someone or something get into her precious supply of keva beans that she planned to plant. There was a hole in the side, suggesting a rat had gotten into the bag. If she wasn’t so versed on rodents chewing their way into feed sacks, she might have accepted the possibility at face value. But the fabric looked cut to her, not chewed.
The problem was she was on Elfhome, not Earth. There were sharks in the fresh water rivers. Giant electric catfishes that walked on land. Wolves that were the size of ponies and breathed cones of deadly cold. Trees that could stalk people down and eat them. Vines that would strangle you and then feast on your dead rotting body.
Maybe the rats carried switchblades. Who knew? She didn’t. Unfortunately, neither did the royal marines. They were as out of their element as she was. They were from a section of Elfhome that corresponded to Northern Italy on Earth. They didn’t know what kind of animals lived in the Westernlands.
Like puppies, they didn’t see the problem of vanishing seeds. They had come to fight oni, not rats. There was plenty of food for them at their field mess. They held a profound belief in their domana; Prince True Flame would provide. The Wyverns guaranteed that.
Olivia didn’t share that belief. The domana might be immortal but they weren’t gods. An army functioned only when it was fed; supply lines would be the oni’s first target. They had already derailed the train at Station Square in the middle of the Oktoberfest festival. She heard the massive thunder of destruction all the way in Oakland as the diesel engine and passengers cars crashed.
Food from the Easternlands was no longer a sure thing.
Yes, the Fire Clan Wyverns may be able to feed their marines but Forest Moss was Stone Clan. He was in Pittsburgh as a paid mercenary. He was also considered dangerously unbalanced. The Wyverns had considered executing him rather than trying to help him. Olivia’s presence was the only reason Forest Moss was still alive.
No, she could not count on the elves for food.
What little was being locally produced would need to be shared with all the humans in Pittsburgh, some sixty thousand people. The locals were already canning their harvest but there were college students, diplomats, and EIA employees, who had thought that they were only going to be on Elfhome for a few months. While they might not realize yet the danger they faced, they belonged to powerful organizations. The EIA. The University of Pittsburgh. Embassies of Earth’s nations. Those powers were probably already stockpiling food for their people and their people alone. It was the human way of dealing with such emergencies.
Olivia had to prepare for a winter with no supplies from the humans or the elves.
She was two months pregnant; starvation could lead to birth defects in her baby. For her unborn child’s entire future, she needed to be sure she had access to a healthy diet for the next seven months. She had picked the crystal palace of the Phipps Conservatory because its massive greenhouse could allow her to grow food through the winter. She had had the seeds that would allow her to do that. Thanks to the unknown vermin, she needed to replace what she had lost. Quickly.
While the war with the oni kept Forest Moss from her side, she had herded the royal marines all over the city, looking for seeds. Annoyingly every time she stopped to talk to any humans, the puppies would suddenly snap to attention and became fierce-looking warriors, scaring the fudge out of everyone. If she managed to beat the marines aside, everyone would then react with confusion. It was the beginning of September. Hard frost could come at any time, killing anything planted outdoors. Growing season was over.
She would nod. She wouldn’t volunteer that she was living in a massive greenhouse. She felt vulnerable enough with something quietly stealing her seed out from under the royal marines’ noses. She didn’t want the entire city to be reminded that the Phipps Conservatory stood abandoned until she squatted in it. She didn’t want to anyone showing up with a stronger claim on the property.
She’d planned on talking to Forest Moss about the seeds, but he didn’t come home. The marine who fetched the evening meal said that all the domana were gathering far to the east for an attack on the oni encampments deep in the forest. Only one Hand of Wyvern and a platoon of marines were still in Prince True Flame’s camp at the edge of Oakland.