D. MacHale - The Soldiers of Halla

I looked toward the high walls of Leeandra, with its flapping Ravinian flags. Knowing the truth, the fantastic village in the trees took on a whole new feeling for me. It was no longer a wondrous village of talking cats. It was a slaughterhouse.

“Kinda makes me not want to go inside,” I said.

“I do not believe the issue has been decided yet,” Kasha said. “They spoke as if it were something that was about to happen, but had not yet occurred.”

“But they were eating gars!” I shot back.

“Foragers always lived above the law,” Kasha explained. “They feel the rules of the common klee do not apply to them. There is arrogance among the foragers. I know. I was one of them. One of the worst.”

“But you never ate gars.”

“No. It was something my father instilled in me. I suppose at one time it would have been acceptable, but since we discovered that the gars were intelligent, it could no longer be justified. How is it possible that after such great strides were made, the klee took such a giant step backward?”

I pointed up to the flapping Ravinian flags.

“Ravinia” was my answer. “Fueled by Saint Dane’s vision. Power to the powerful at the expense of the weak. That’s pretty much what he’s spread throughout Halla. It doesn’t surprise me at all.”

“I’m devastated,” Kasha said, her head down.

“Don’t be,” I said quickly. “We’re not done yet. We’re here to protect the exiles, and given all that you told me, I think I know what the Ravinian klees have in mind for them.”

The thought was sickening.

“That’s why we need to get inside Leeandra,” Kasha offered. “We need to learn when the edict will be repealed. That will tell us how much time we have before the exiles are in danger.”

I looked at the tall wall again. I didn’t want to go in there. I really didn’t want to go in there. But Kasha was right. We needed to know when Edict Forty-six would fall. Once that happened, it would be open season on all gars.

And exiles.

“There’s no way I can get through those gates the way I did last time,” I said. “Not if gars are banned from Leeandra.”

Kasha gave me an uneasy look. “Some gars are allowed inside.”

“Which ones?” “Dead ones.”

I stared at the cat for a good long time, trying to figure out what the heck she meant by that. I soon found out. A few minutes later I found myself lying on the bottom of a four-wheeled forager wheelbarrow. Kasha was pushing. A dirty tarp was over me. The plan was simple. As far as anybody would know, she was wheeling in a dead gar to be eaten by her fellow foragers. Yeah, how sick is that? I lay there, trying my best to act dead. I had taken off my Ravinian shirt and dirtied up my pants, so that it wouldn’t be obvious I was wearing the uniform of a Ravinian guard. I didn’t think that would go over too well if I were discovered by a klee Ravinian guard. They might think that I had stolen it from one of their guards and, well, I figured their revenge might be messy. I kept the boots, though. Kasha pointed out that klee boots were very different from what gars wore, so nobody would suspect that I had gotten them from a Ravinian guard. So that’s how I was wheeled toward Leeandra-naked from the waist up and covered in mud to make me look like lunch.

I looked out through a fold in the tarp that gave me a narrow view ahead. Kasha quickly pushed me along the base of the wall until we came upon one of the huge gates that led into the village of Leeandra. Guarding the entrance were two large, scary-looking klees wearing red Ravinian guard uniforms. They each had spears strapped to their backs. As scary as it was entering Leeandra the last time I had been there, it didn’t compare to this. I was food. Simple as that. I hoped that the klees inside were civilized enough that they wouldn’t all pounce on me and start chowing. To say it was an uneasy feeling is a pretty big understatement.

“What is in there?” one guard asked Kasha gruffly.

“None of your concern,” Kasha answered just as sharply. She tried to move forward, but the guard stopped her.

“Stop,” he commanded. “It is our duty to inspect all items entering the city.”

“I’m a forager,” Kasha said impatiently. “I’m not governed by the same pedestrian laws as the other klees.”

From under the tarp I got a good view of the guard. He was a red-furred cat, with sharp, green eyes. Bad kitty. He stared at Kasha, as if deciding whether or not to make an issue out of it.

“You foragers are all alike,” he snarled. “You think you are above the law. Those days are past. Everyone is beholden to Ravinia. And Ravinian law says that we are empowered to inspect anything and everything that passes through these gates. If you would like to take this up with the circle, I would be more than happy to detain you until the next meeting.”

It was a standoff. Who was going to blink? An instant later I felt the tarp being pulled off me. I went into dead mode, whatever that is. I definitely held my breath. I had the fleeting thought that it was a good move to have dumped my Ravinian uniform. There was a long moment of silence. It killed me not to be able to open my eyes to see what the guards were doing.

“For my fellow foragers,” Kasha said. “Or would you rather we chose not to bring food back for the likes of you anymore?”

For a second I feared that the guy would grab my arm and take a bite. I had all I could do to keep still.

I heard the klee growl, as if trying to maintain some kind of dignity. “You are all alike,” he snarled. “Move on!”

Kasha threw the tarp back over my head, and we started moving again. We were in. Kasha and the corpse.

“Stay still,” she half whispered. “I’ll say when you can move.”

I was only too happy to play dead. The idea that we were surrounded by vicious cats, who could pounce on me and start chewing any second, was terrifying. I wondered if they were like dogs. Could they smell fear? If so, I must have smelled pretty rank. As much as I wanted to see the transformed Leeandra, I didn’t take the chance to try and peek out through the folds in the tarp.

“Where are we going?” I whispered.

“Shhh,” Kasha scolded.

I shushed. A talking corpse would arouse suspicion. And after all, cats had pretty good hearing. I tried to relax and be dead. Kasha wheeled me along for several minutes. After a few bumps we stopped, and T sensed that we were rising up, which meant we were in one of the elevators that brought klees from the ground into the village buildings that were built at all different levels in the giant trees. The elevator bumped to a stop and Kasha wheeled me off. We moved along for a few minutes more, the wheels of the cart chattering over what I figured were the wooden boards of the bridges that soared between trees. With one final bump, we stopped.

“It’s safe here,” Kasha said. “We can’t be seen.”

I cautiously pushed the tarp aside. Since I was on my back, I found myself staring up into the thick canopy of foliage. I saw that we were on a large platform built around a tree. This was exactly like the Leeandra I knew. When I stood up, I got a view of a Leeandra I didn’t.

I walked to the railing to look out over a changed city. It was still built within impossibly massive trees, but the structures themselves were totally different. Gone were the huts that were erected on sturdy limbs. Now Leeandra was a city of buildings. They were wooden buildings, but modern looking. The wood planks were obviously milled. The designs were varied. Some were round. Others soared high into the sky, rivaling the trees they were built next to. The roped walkways that had connected the trees and buildings were replaced by solid-looking bridges.