Amphibians' End

by Trevor Pryce

  Darel nodded. “Let’s do this.”

  “What if the Veil falls before you get back?” Arabanoo asked. “Before you get help? Yabber says he’s not sure exactly what’ll happen when he starts lowering it.”

  Anxiety coiled in Darel’s stomach. “I barely slept last night, worrying about that. We’ll just have to do this as quickly as possible. The truth is, by lowering the Veil, we’re already putting ourselves completely in the Serpent’s hands.”

  “That’s a great idea,” Dingo said. “Considering serpents don’t even have hands.”

  “We just need to do our best,” Darel continued, ignoring her, “to find allies before Marmoo attacks. The Rainbow Serpent told us to lower the Veil, so that’s what we’ll do.”

  For a moment, nobody spoke, like his answer wasn’t good enough. He kind of agreed, but he didn’t know what else to say. He groped in his mind for inspiration, but all he found was his mother croaking, “Trust and faith.”

  “So now is everyone ready?” Ponto asked into the silence.

  “I’m ready for anything,” Gee said. “Except brain-stinging wasps.”

  N THE FAR SIDE OF THE BILLABONG, the path narrowed into faint trails that branched through the dense underbrush. Then even those trails disappeared, and the untamed hills rose toward the Veil and the distant mountains beyond.

  Ponto trampled a path through thornbushes and briar patches. He didn’t seem to notice the thistles or spikes, but Darel, Coorah, and Gee kept flinching as they pricked their toes. Finally, Coorah hopped a few steps on one foot, then sat and dug in her pack for strips of thick cloth.

  “Wrap your feet,” she told Darel and Gee, tossing them strips.

  “My toes still ache from when Darel and I crossed the desert,” Gee told her, weaving a strip through his toe pads.

  “What’re you doing?” Ponto called from uphill. “Silly wood frogs!”

  “We don’t all have scaly reptile toes like you,” Darel told him, wrapping his toes.

  Ponto lifted one foot. “That’s one hundred percent frogskin, tadpole.”

  Twenty minutes later, with a swath of flattened undergrowth behind them, they reached the Veil. The landscape changed from a lush, prickly green to a drab olive, and Darel frowned thoughtfully, feeling like he should say a few words. Maybe something about hope and loyalty, and how if everyone joins together—

  “Let’s move,” Gee said, leaping ahead.

  Ponto sprang after him. “Look before you leap, frogling!”

  “C’mon, D,” Coorah called.

  An itchy tingle spread across Darel’s skin when he leaped through the Veil. On the other side, the air smelled harsh and abrasive, and the dense underbrush turned into scattered trees hunched over crusty vines and parched weeds.

  Coorah smacked her lips. “My tongue feels like I swallowed a puffball.”

  “We’re only a day from the possums,” Ponto said, shading his eyes to scan the foothills.

  Gee frowned. “We should’ve taken a shortcut through the platypus village.”

  “Marmoo might be watching,” Ponto told him.

  “Then you could stomp him with your lizard feet!”

  Ponto shook his head. “He’d cut me down in a second, Gee. Until we know how to beat him, we’ve got to stay away.” He pointed farther into the hills. “There. Over that hill with the koala ears.”

  As they hopped through the scrubby foothills, the words Until we know how to beat him echoed in Darel’s mind. The problem was, they didn’t know how. Maybe the shy possums also hunted scorpions. Sure, or maybe the crayfish—

  A squeal shattered the quiet afternoon. Darel drew his dagger and spun toward the sound. It was Coorah, staring at a vine with long leaves and wilted yellow flowers.

  Darel scanned for threats. Hunting birds? Thorny lizards? Scorpions or spiders or—

  “It’s a snake”—Coorah squealed—“vine!”

  “A what?” Darel asked, jumping closer.

  “Snake vine!” she announced, pointing at the ground. “Can you smell that?”

  Darel wrinkled his nose. “Disgusting.”

  “That’s snake vine,” she told him. “It doesn’t grow in the Amphibilands, but it’s great for rashes.”

  “You squealed because you saw a plant?”

  “I didn’t squeal,” she said. “I exclaimed.”

  Darel sheathed his dagger in disgust. “Would you tell her?” he asked Ponto.

  “Sure.” Ponto stepped beside Coorah and examined the vine. “Good eyes, Coorah. I missed that.”

  “That’s not what you’re supposed to tell her!” Darel said.

  “Oh,” Ponto said, and tried again. “Well, snake vine’s not just for rashes. You can also use it to treat sores. You crush the leaves to a powder and mix it with—”

  “Not that, either!” Darel interrupted. “Tell her she shouldn’t scream. She almost gave me a heart attack.”

  “Look on the bright side,” Gee told him. “If you did have a heart attack, they could probably cure you with the snake vine.”

  “Everyone’s a joker,” Darel said.

  By the time they had reached the koala-eared hill, the sun was slipping behind the mountains. They pitched tents in the shade of Wollemi pines, ate a quick dinner, then headed to the top of one of the rocky “ears,” which made a good lookout point.

  “According to the platypuses,” Coorah said, pointing into the distance, “the possum village is over that pointy hill, beyond a ravine.”

  Darel looked toward the hill. “No smoke. Maybe Marmoo hasn’t found and destroyed it yet.”

  “Or maybe he’s setting a trap,” Ponto said.

  IRY SHRUBS WERE SCATTERED across the red-brown earth of the outback. Pigo took a deep breath of sandblasted air, and his mouthparts almost formed a smile. It smelled like home.

  The spider servants carrying Lady Fahlga in her silken litter didn’t seem to appreciate it, though. They hunched and hissed and peered into the empty expanse with suspicious eyes.

  When Pigo finally led them into the scorpion encampment, they scuttled quickly to the silken building that Queen Jarrah had woven. Once inside, they seemed to relax, and Fahlga and her ladies crawled from the litter.

  She sent her servants off to weave shelters for her soldiers, then shaped a simple triangular web in the center of the room. When she bared her fangs, drops of poison splashed onto the webbing. Then she nodded, and her ladies-in-waiting started circling the triangle.

  As Pigo watched, the spiders added layer after layer of silk, expanding the web into a funnel, which grew until it was almost as big as he was.

  A moment after Fahlga and her ladies stopped circling their webbed creation, Lord Marmoo shoved aside the front flap. “Are your spiders ready for war?” he grunted.

  “The legions are following close behind,” Fahlga told him. “My generals are—”

  “My generals.”

  Lady Fahlga bowed her head. “Your generals are assembling every archer, as you commanded. My—your—servants are weaving them tents as we speak. They’ll arrive before nightfall.”

  “And the rest?” Lord Marmoo asked. “The ghost bats, the blue-banded bees, every creature Jarrah ever commanded?”

  Fahlga stroked the funnel web. “This will bring them to you.”

  “When?”

  “Now,” she said, and her eyes turned black.

  The next morning, a harsh grinding noise awoke Darel. His heart jerked in his chest and he rolled into a crouch, ready to fight—until he realized that the sound was Coorah crushing snake vine into powder with a stone.

  “Whoa,” she said. “You’re a little edgy.”

  “Yeah, I wonder why.” Darel pretended to think about it. “Maybe because we’re lowering the Veil to let the scorpions destroy our home.”

  “Or maybe because you’re grumpy every morning,” she said.

  After breakfast, they broke camp. The sun rose higher and the day turned hotter—and eventually scorching—as they hop
ped closer to the pointy hill. Even the cloth strips around his feet didn’t keep Darel’s toe pads from burning, and his skin throbbed with thirst. The hours passed in an aching blur of spiky undergrowth and sharp-edged rocks.

  Finally, they reached the edge of a deep canyon with jagged sides for easy climbing.

  “We cross this ravine,” Ponto said when Darel and the others caught up with him. “Climb the hill, and we’re in possum territory.”

  “You’re forgetting the first step,” Gee said. “Snack time!”

  He headed for a shrub with heart-shaped leaves, pulling his pack from his shoulder—and Ponto tackled him.

  “Hey!” Gee yelped. “There’s enough for everyone.”

  “That’s a gympie-gympie,” Ponto said, nodding toward the shrub. “The most poisonous of the outback’s trees.”

  Coorah looked at the bush. “That little thing?”

  “It’s covered with toxic stinging hairs, each one like a wasp’s sting—except the pain lasts for weeks.”

  “On second thought,” Gee said, looking in the other direction. “Let’s have snack time over there.”

  “We’ll reach the possums today.” Coorah plopped down and dangled her legs over the edge of the ravine. “How long to the crayfish?”

  Ponto shrugged. “I thought we’d reach the possums this morning. You wood frogs hop slower than a one-legged cricket.”

  “You’re just jealous, because we’re—” Darel spotted a white cloud unraveling over the hills. “Hmm . . . weird.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Coorah said. “I’m not weird.”

  “Not us.” Darel pointed. “That. What is it?”

  “Ghost bats,” Gee said, his voice tight. “I thought we beat the last of them at the platypus village.”

  “There’s dozens of bat colonies around.” Ponto cracked his knuckles. “Which is good—I need the exercise.”

  “C’mon!” Darel hopped to his feet. “We can’t fight them.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Ponto told him.

  Darel slitted his nostrils with annoyance. “What if they spot us? They’ll tell Marmoo that we’re heading for the possum village.”

  “Oh,” Ponto said. “Good point.”

  “Everyone get out of sight!” Darel urged. “Hide in the ravine!”

  “Hiding’s my specialty,” Gee said, leaping past Darel into the ravine.

  “Go, go, go!” Darel croaked at Ponto.

  Ponto was big, but when he moved, he moved. A yellow streak flashed past Darel and disappeared into the ravine. As the swarm of ghost bats swirled closer, Coorah vaulted over a clump of grass and fell from sight—and an eyeblink later, Darel followed.

  He landed on an outcropping, then hopped lower to the trunk of a cliffside shrub. He dropped to a ledge, then rebounded from the steep wall to another outcropping far below. The walls of the ravine loomed above him, casting the world in shadow, and cool air touched his skin. He landed on the floor of the ravine beside a boulder, where Ponto was hunched, his bright yellow looking duller in the shade.

  Small, polished pebbles shifted and clacked under Darel’s toe pads. “They’re like river rocks,” he said, grabbing a handful and letting them tumble through his fingers.

  “This must’ve been a stream once,” Ponto said, his normally booming voice soft.

  “Out here?” Coorah said. “It’s too dry.”

  “The turtle king said that water used to flow freely across the outback,” Ponto explained.

  Darel nodded, thinking about that—and about the turtle king. “I wonder what he’d say about all this.”

  “About lowering the Veil?” Coorah asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Knowing that old shell-head,” Ponto said with a fond smile, “I bet he saw all this coming. I bet that’s exactly why he picked you to lead us.”

  “Because nobody else is dumb enough to—” Darel stopped suddenly. “Where’s Gee?”

  “Gee?” Coorah called softly. “Gee!”

  There was no answer. No sign of Gee.

  IPPI DOVE INTO THE RIVER SHALLOWS, closed her eyes, and wriggled her bill in the silt. Muddy water billowed around her as she swiveled her head, but she didn’t feel any tingling. She opened her eyes, swam to the surface, took a breath, and dove again.

  This time, she felt the tingle in her bill that meant there was food nearby—a bunch of water bug larvae. She gobbled them down, then swam to the surface and smacked her tail happily at the midmorning snack.

  She noticed a bunch of platypuses on the shoreline looking at her, but she pretended not to see them. She didn’t mind that everyone treated her like an ambassador to the frog village, carrying messages back and forth. But sometimes the other platypuses acted like she was the Stargazer, which made her nervous.

  She didn’t know how to read the Rainbow Serpent’s messages in trickles of water. She didn’t know any of the answers. All she knew was that the platypuses had to fight alongside the frogs to protect their new home—the Amphibilands. And nobody wanted to hear that.

  She dove again, gobbled a few more larvae, then peeked back toward the shoreline.

  Nobody was looking at her anymore. Instead, they were gazing toward an oak tree, where four white-lipped tree frogs crouched on a branch. She swam closer just as Arabanoo hopped down to stand in front of the platypuses.

  “—and Coorah and Gee are crossing the outback right now,” he was saying. “They’re asking other tribes to fight for the Amphibilands and the Rainbow Serpent. And I’m here to ask the same of you.”

  The crowd of platypuses shifted and murmured, and an older platypus said, “We’re not warriors.”

  “Neither are we,” Arabanoo said. “But we’ll fight to defend our home and families. Just like you fought the ghost bats.”

  Another murmur ran through the platypuses, and Pippi caught a few words: That’s true, and We beat them, too, and Frogs helped us when we needed . . .

  “But you’re asking us to stand against the scorpion lord,” the older platypus said. “We’ll die if we fight him. All of us, from the oldest gray-fur to the youngest platypup. And so will you. We saw Marmoo destroy our riverbend village. He’s not natural. He’s not normal. How are we supposed to fight that?”

  Arabanoo’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t know.”

  A blur of color landed on the shoreline beside Arabanoo, and the platypups gasped. Burnu scanned the crowd, then caught one of his boomerangs, which had twirled at him from behind the oak.

  “We don’t have a single chance,” he announced. “If we don’t fight.”

  “And if we do?” Pippi’s mother asked.

  For once, Burnu’s cockiness faded. “I don’t know,” he said softly. “I don’t know if we can win.”

  “We can’t fight on dry land,” the older platypus said. “We can barely walk on dry land. I’m sorry—we can’t help you.”

  “We can’t fight on dry land,” Pippi called, swimming closer. “But in the water, no scorp can touch us. We can hold the rivers and the ponds.”

  “Pippi . . . ,” her mother said gently. “We’re not warriors.”

  “That doesn’t mean we’re not fighters,” she said.

  “What can we do?” her sister asked.

  “We can carry messages and bring supplies,” Pippi said. “And if we have to, we can fight. The scorps will laugh when they see us—just like everyone does.” She stepped onto the riverbank. “Then they’ll feel our spurs.”

  The cooler air of the ravine whooshed past as Gee landed on a rocky slope and jumped around a curve, out of sight of the ghost bats. He grinned to himself and dropped into a wide, jagged crevice below him.

  He was completely invisible from above.

  He grunted in satisfaction, and followed the crevice to the ravine floor. No bats in sight. No frogs in sight, either, so he hopped across a clearing of hard-packed earth, heading toward Darel and the others.

  Once he crossed the clearing, something tugged at his ankle—probabl
y Darel, pulling him to safety.

  “Hey!” he croaked, jerking his leg. “You can let go! The bats can’t see me!”

  The grip didn’t loosen, and when Gee turned to look, his eyes bulged in shock.

  The clearing of hard-packed earth wasn’t there anymore. Instead, a dark mouth opened in the ground, and a sticky rope lashed around his ankle like a thick, pale tongue. Gee took a breath to shout for help but—swoosh!—the rope dragged him into the pitch-black mouth.

  Except it wasn’t a mouth. It was an underground cave—and the “clearing of hard-packed earth” slammed shut overhead. Like a trapdoor.

  Gee fell through darkness, hit a sloped surface, and rolled. He grabbed the floor with his toe pads, screamed “Help!” and launched himself at the roof in a panic. Halfway there, the sticky rope around his ankle tightened. He jerked to a halt midair, then crashed back down.

  He whimpered in fear. Then his heart clenched as the rope dragged him deeper into the darkness.

  “Stop!” he shrieked, his eyes bulging in terror. “No! Show yourself, you wart-headed worm! I am Gurnugan Bat-foe! I’ll—Gurk!” He slid into a sticky mess of . . . ugh, something sticky and messy . . . and he heard the faint chittering of mandibles in the darkness.

  “I’m a close personal friend of the Blue Sky King!” he shouted, his voice shaking.

  As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he saw that a steep earthen ramp rose above him in a large cavern with pebble-mosaic floors and walls. He gulped when he noticed that the designs looked like spiders, all jagged and predatory. The cavern disappeared into the darkness around him, and a half-dozen other ramps angled upward toward the ceiling—probably toward more trapdoors.

  “It had to happen one day,” he said. “Someone was bound to realize that I’m the tastiest treat alive.”

  He tugged at the rope around his ankle and realized that it was a strand of spider silk. He groaned softly. Spiders. A nest of underground spiders.

  And that’s when he saw a big dark shape descending toward him from the ceiling. Eight legs. Huge abdomen. Way too many eyes. And fangs. Big, gleaming fangs spread wide.