“Two days to the nearest town?” she murmured. Against her wishes, her mind tried to calculate how many steps that might be. “It’ll hurt less after your muscles warm up,” she told herself.
Amaranthe peered about for something she could use as a cane, but the table and her crate-oh, how she’d like to give that thing a vigorous kick-were the only pieces of furniture in the room. After a short eternity, she reached the exit. The tall, narrow door loomed higher than two people and lacked a handle or hinges. Before she could debate overmuch on how to open it, it slid into the wall. Retta must have arranged for locks to be released.
A brighter light illuminated the corridor outside. Amaranthe paused in the doorway to let her eyes adjust and to listen. She didn’t hear anything, not even the hum of machinery or reverberations of a distant engine. But then she’d never noticed anything like that, even when the Behemoth had been in flight.
Picturing Retta’s map in her head, Amaranthe took a right into the corridor. She used the wall for support. Her steps were so slow that she was certain she’d never make it to the next turn, much less get off the ship, before someone came to check on her. Gritting her teeth, she willed her legs to move faster. Fortunately, as she turned right, then left, then, at a five-way intersection, chose the middle route, the corridors remained empty. There didn’t seem to be anyone around to hear her stumbles and grunts of pain. Because Retta had arranged to have the way cleared?
“Don’t question luck,” Amaranthe muttered. “It might get offended by your lack of appreciation and leave you behind.”
After turning left and right at least ten more times, not to mention swirling down a ramp she vaguely remembered from the way in, she reached what might have been a cargo bay. The ceiling disappeared into darkness far overhead, and she marveled again at the size of the ship. A pair of crimson lights glowed on the far wall. Retta’s map had marked the exit with a couple of red dots. Maybe this was the spot.
Amaranthe left the support of the wall to cross the bay. If the creases or hinges of a door existed in the solid black wall, they were too well camouflaged to detect. She slid her fingers along the wall beside the thumb-sized lights, but didn’t find anything like a switch or latch.
Fearing she had the wrong spot, Amaranthe stepped back. “All right, Retta. If this is the door, how do I open it?”
A few seconds passed, and Amaranthe started to move on to check other spots, but a tall, broad rectangle in the wall grew opaque and, a blink later, transparent. Amazed by the technology, she stumbled backward a few steps before pausing, then finding the courage to approach again.
A swamp full of frond-filled trees and lush foliage spread out beneath the feeble light of dawn, or perhaps twilight. A dense green canopy blotted out the sun and the sky. Amaranthe couldn’t smell the foliage, feel a breeze, or hear any insects; it was as if she were looking at a painting, an impossibly lifelike painting. A vibrantly colored bird with a six-foot wingspan flapped past.
“Not a painting after all,” Amaranthe whispered, alarmed at how different the climate was from that of her home. Her hope that Sicarius might be out there, waiting to help her, dwindled even further.
She edged closer to the… doorway? Window? Scene of the outside? She didn’t know what it was, but she stuck a finger out to test it.
The hard, smooth material that comprised the wall had changed into something with give. It was like touching gelatin. Amaranthe pressed harder and her finger broke through. She jumped back, yanking the digit with her. She performed a quick examination of her finger. It appeared normal, though damp on the tip. Upon closer inspection, she noticed plops of water striking the swamp outside. Rain.
Amaranthe pressed her whole hand through the barrier this time and held her palm open toward the sky. Rain drops struck it.
For an uncertain moment, she stood poised there, with only her hand sticking through the doorway. She was naked with no food or gear for surviving in the wilderness, and she was already weak from the days of torment. In her condition, Retta’s “two days” to the nearest town might take four. With the canopy blotting out the sky, she couldn’t even guess which direction might be north.
“City girl,” Amaranthe sighed. She was on the verge of heading back into the corridors to hunt for supplies- and a map-when voices reached her ears.
“… went this way?”
Ugh, no time for supply hunting.
Amaranthe pushed the top half of her body through the barrier. Only when she was leaning out over the swamp did she realize that the door, if one could call it that, was twenty feet above the water. The dome-shape of the Behemoth meant the hull sloped outward instead of offering a vertical drop, but the murky water below might have been six inches deep or six feet.
Footfalls-a lot of footfalls-sounded in the corridor behind her.
Amaranthe thrust herself the rest of the way through the doorway and angled herself to fall feet first. Bare butt scraping down the side of the craft, she picked up speed and landed with a splash, a splash that sounded thunderous to her ears. She plunged into chest-deep water. Mud ensnared her feet and squished between her toes.
Careful not to make more noise, Amaranthe half-waded and half-paddled toward the nearest shoreline. Underwater roots and tendrils of vegetation grasped at her shins, denying her efforts to move quickly and get out of view. When she made it to a muddy bank, she rushed for the closest hiding spot, a crooked tree leaning over the water with a snarl of vines dangling from its branches.
A few feet above her, a bird the size of her head flapped its wings and departed. A snake, its body wrapped several times around the trunk, hissed. It must have been making its way toward the bird, hoping for a snack. The snake’s head swung down toward Amaranthe, yellow eyes with black slits fixing on her.
She considered the size of the reptile and thought about hunting for a new hiding spot, but two figures appeared at the ship’s exit. Pike and a man in army fatigues. Both held rifles, and Amaranthe had a feeling they’d have no trouble shooting through that doorway. Other armed people strode in and out of view behind them.
The two men spoke to each other. Amaranthe couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it didn’t matter. The quick, choppy gestures told the story. They knew she’d escaped, and they were coming after her.
The snake’s head had inched closer, giving Amaranthe another reason to abandon the spot. Using the trees for cover, she hustled into the undergrowth, shunting aside the pain of running on raw feet. She doubted she had more than a few minutes before Pike’s men would be after her.
For her first steps, Amaranthe simply ran through the mud and puddles, attempting to put space between herself and the ship. Then she forced herself to slow down and think. Running blindly into the wilderness would only get her lost, especially if Worgavic had chosen this area because it was an uninhabited morass where no one would stumble across the Behemoth.
Amaranthe picked a new path, this time circling the ship, hoping she’d come across the footprints of those who had headed off for the meeting. They must know which way they were going.
The idea paid off. She came across tracks in the mud and recently cut foliage. Whoever was blazing the path must have used a machete. Even with her limited wilderness-navigation skills, she ought to be able to follow that. Of course, following a path would make it easy for Pike and his men to follow her, and her bare feet would slow her down. She had little choice.
Before she’d gone more than a hundred meters, the sounds of voices rose over the chirps of birds and the drone of insects. One clear cry of, “This way!” trailed her.
Amaranthe forced her stiff body into a jog and mulled over her limited options.
Maldynado stared at the door’s rich dark whorls, evidence that some exotic, tropical, and expensive wood had been used on the suite. The inside would be luxurious, full of furs and stuffed heads from dangerous predators hunted in distant locales. He expected a full bar and entertaining area in addition to a bedroom and a lavatory complete with flushing washout. No chamber pots behind this door, no, my lord. He didn’t think he’d ever been less enthused about going into a room.
“You’re sure this is it?” Maldynado asked.
“Yes, Lady Marblecrest is in Suite Number One.” Books rattled the passenger manifesto, a multi-page document that Basilard had acquired from the first officer’s cabin without waking the man. “We’d best handle this quickly,” Books added, glancing down the deck. Numerous other suite doors marked the polished wood wall, with
