‘Isn’t there some safer bit up or down the coast somewhere?’ Pod asked.
Will shrugged eloquently. ‘One bit’s as dangerous as another if you don’t know where you’re going.’
‘What about Gantua?’ Essie suggested. ‘There’s signal, there are services, they don’t have any pirates. We can probably track down a vet for Graham, too.’
Gantua was Brundisi’s eastern neighbour, but the two countries had very little in common. Gantua and Brundisi spoke different languages and practised different religions. A tall mountain range partially separated them; for centuries, they had invaded one another as various dynasties waxed and waned. In the years leading up to the Flood, rain continued to fall on the Gantuan side of the mountains, but stopped on the Brundisan side. After the Flood, the Gantuans had eagerly joined forces with the Admiralty. Gantua, as a consequence, was still a functioning state, while Brundisi was a failed state.
‘They got pirates there?’ Pod asked.
‘Nope, no pirates,’ Will said. He looked at the others. ‘So what do you think?’
‘It feels kind of weird sailing off and leaving Annalie behind,’ Essie said.
‘We’re not leaving her, exactly,’ Will said. ‘We’re putting ourselves in a position where we can actually do something to help her.’
‘We’ll be a long way away if she needs us in a hurry,’ Pod said soberly. ‘But we need to get help for Graham. We can’t fix him by ourselves.’
‘We’ll go to Gantua, find a vet, and try to come up with a plan,’ Will said, trying to sound more confident than he felt. ‘We’ll get her back. I know we can.’
Kidnapped
Annalie did not normally get seasick. But she did not normally ride over bouncing waves, pressed into the bottom of a metal dinghy, with her hands tied behind her back and a bag over her head either. The longer the ride went on, the more nauseated she got, and the more bruised she felt from being slammed unpredictably against the bottom of the dinghy. Red Bandana had hidden her under a tarp and given her very stern instructions which she couldn’t understand but which she guessed probably meant ‘Don’t come out until I tell you’. He kept his foot on her for good measure. She lay there, hot, bruised, gasping for breath, growing sicker and sicker. Just as she was beginning to think she could not bear it for another second, she heard the engine throttling back; the bouncing slowed to a gentle cruise, and then the dinghy slowed and stopped.
The tarp was thrown back, although the bag over her head stayed in place. She was pulled to her feet, the dinghy rocking wildly beneath her. More hands steadied and hauled her onto solid ground. She guessed she was standing on some sort of wooden boardwalk; yesterday, as she travelled through the waterlogged outskirts of Dio she’d noticed rickety wooden walkways built above the high tide level, which meant that people could move between the upper storeys of these buildings, even though water lapped at their lower floors. She was pushed, stumbling, along the walkway and then into a maze-like interior with many twists and turns, layered with different smells: unfamiliar cooking, seawater, mildew. She heard a bolt being shot, and at last, the bag was taken from her head. She barely caught a glimpse of a dark nondescript corridor before Red Bandana pushed her through a door and slammed it shut again.
‘Hey!’ she cried. ‘Aren’t you going to untie me?’
The only answer she got was the sound of the bolt being shot and padlocked again.
‘Perhaps I can help you with that,’ a voice said.
Annalie turned and saw a young man with fair hair and a round face getting to his feet. She gasped in shock when she saw him, and not just because the side of his head and his jacket were spattered with dark, dried blood. He was also dressed in the uniform of a first year Admiralty officer.
‘I’m Lieutenant Cherry,’ he said. ‘What’s your name?’
Someone always pays
Annalie stared at him. ‘Leila,’ she said, lying on instinct.
‘Let’s see if I can get you untied,’ he said.
She offered him her wrists, and he worked on the rope until he could get the knots undone. The relief when she could move her arms again was enormous. ‘Oh, that’s better,’ she said. She turned to look at him. ‘What happened to your head?’
He put a hand up to touch it, a rueful look on his face. ‘I got separated from my unit. I’m a bit unclear about what actually happened—I think someone conked me on the head, and the next thing I knew, I was here.’
‘How long have you been here?’ Annalie asked.
‘Two days.’
‘Did they get you a doctor?’
‘Nothing like that. Why—does it look serious?’
‘It’s very gory.’
‘I think head wounds often are. I don’t think it’s life-threatening, luckily for me. No double vision or anything. Too bad if there was, eh? Most of them don’t seem to speak Duxish.’
Annalie’s initial shock and fear at being trapped with an Admiralty officer—someone she had come to think of as her enemy—began to fade. Lieutenant Cherry seemed pleasant and straightforward, and visibly relieved to have company.
‘What are they planning to do with us?’ she asked. ‘Do you know?’
‘Well, I assume they’re holding us for ransom,’ Cherry said. ‘Not that it will do them much good in my case.’
‘Why not?’
‘The Admiralty doesn’t pay pirates.’
‘How are they going to get you back, then?’
‘I don’t know,’ Cherry said. ‘I expect there’s a policy, but I don’t know what it is yet.’ He paused. ‘This is my first year at sea.’
‘Oh,’ Annalie said. ‘That’s very bad luck.’
‘You can say that again,’ Cherry replied glumly.
Annalie lowered her voice slightly, in case someone was listening. ‘So what kind of people do you think we’re dealing with? Are they violent? Are they crazy? Or are they just interested in money?’
Cherry considered this. ‘I don’t know yet,’ he said. ‘They’ve fed me, and no one’s threatened me or beaten me up—apart from
