“Mari?” A dumb question-of course, it was Mari-but it was all Maldynado’s stunned mouth could get out.
“We didn’t do it,” Books said, eyes stark with concern as Maldynado drew closer. “We walked in and-”
“You might not have shot her,” Brynia said, “but her death was your fault. You crashed in here-our men were defending us, that’s what they’re paid to do, but in the confusion… ” She blinked rapidly and dropped her head, gazing down at Mari. “They were just trying to defend us.”
Convincing tears, Basilard signed.
“What?” Maldynado asked, not certain he’d interpreted the gestures correctly.
She had this. Basilard held up the most feminine pistol Maldynado had ever seen, one with meandering vines etched in the steel and an ivory inlay carved with roses. And there weren’t any guards in the room when we came in.
Maldynado switched to signs to respond. You think she shot my sister-in-law?
“Ma’am, or is it my lady?” Books offered her a hand. “You’ll have to come with us. The emperor will want to see you.”
Brynia dropped her face into her hands, and her shoulders shook with sobs.
Maldynado waved to Books and Basilard. “Do you want to take her out and see if the emperor is done chatting with the captain? I’ll search the room, then check on Akstyr. Left to his own devices he might decide napping is more important than shoveling coal.”
“He’ll be working, I assure you,” Books said.
Maldynado couldn’t fathom why Books felt that certainty about Akstyr, but only shrugged as Books and Basilard led Brynia out.
He searched the suite and found the egg-shaped artifact in a bedside table drawer. At least it hadn’t gone into the river with the shaman, though as Maldynado gazed at it, with his sister-in-law’s dead body on the floor nearby, he could only wonder if their troubles would abate… or if they had simply taken on a pile of new ones.
Amaranthe jogged along the muddy path at a speed she’d usually be able to maintain for hours. Now, after ten minutes, the pace was taxing her sorely, thanks to the days of sleepless nights and little food. The torture probably hadn’t helped her constitution either. Fronds whipped at her unprotected body, roots snatched at her bare feet, and she found herself wishing for a way to keep certain appendages from bouncing. She wondered if men had as much trouble running nude.
“That’s right, girl,” Amaranthe huffed to herself. “Concentrate on the important things.”
Branches snapped and rattled behind her. Only the copses of cypress trees and the denseness of the undergrowth had kept her pursuers from spotting her thus far. At least, Amaranthe assumed they hadn’t spotted her, as no bullets had whizzed through the humid air in her direction. The men didn’t seem to be having any trouble following her though. And why would they? Her bare toes left distinct marks in the mud, and there was nothing she could do about it, not if she wanted to keep the path in sight. In the dense, tree-filled marsh, with water forcing numerous turns in the route, she might never find the trail again if she left it.
She longed for night, and the possibilities it offered for hiding, but the sky had grown brighter since she left the Behemoth. The start of a new day was upon her. Great.
A crack thundered through the air, silencing birds and insects.
Instinctively, Amaranthe ducked, though the bullet had already pounded into a tree a few steps to her right. Another shot rang out as she sprinted around a bend, hoping the trail ahead would offer copious options for cover. Instead, a pond stretched to the left, and the trees gave way to a field of low vegetation to her right. If she’d possessed the breath for it, she would have cursed. She’d never make it into cover on the far side of the clearing, not with this straight stretch where she’d be in the open.
The pond was about fifty meters across with lilies lining the shallows and thick vegetation crowding the opposite shore. When Amaranthe was in her best shape, she could swim fifty meters under water without coming up for air. She was a long way from her best shape, but she had no other options.
Without breaking stride, she leaped into the shallows. She pointed her toes to slip into the water as quietly as she could and waded out, trying not to make a splash. But, knowing her pursuers would round the bend in seconds, she could only be so careful. Fighting mud that sucked at her feet, she pushed through the shallows until the water kissed her thighs, then took a deep breath and dove.
Cloudy brown water closed in from all sides, leaving little visibility. Before she’d swum more than a few meters, Amaranthe ran into an underwater log. Slick, algae-smeared branches thrust out at her, thwarting her attempts to maneuver around the obstacle. Careful to keep her back from breaching the surface, she finally bypassed it, but painful seconds-and stored air-had passed.
Hands outstretched, Amaranthe groped her way farther into the pond. Fish brushed her bare skin. Remembering the snake, she hoped she didn’t run into anything more inimical. And she hoped she was swimming in a straight line. And, as long as she was hoping for all that, she added a desire to see Pike and his men run past the pond without noticing that the barefoot prints on the trail had disappeared.
Before long, her lungs burned for air. Amaranthe doubted she’d crossed more than a third of the pond. She bumped into another obstacle, a rock this time, and circled it. On the other side, she paused. Maybe it protruded from the surface and would offer cover. She eased her way to the top, staying close enough to kiss the rock. Though her lungs ached, she kept herself from bursting above the surface and taking a great gasp. Instead, she tilted her head back, lifting only her lips above the water. She drew a couple of long, careful breaths. A lily pad floated across her face. Surprised, she inhaled water, nearly choking. She forced herself to drop back down and return to the submerged swim.
Farther out in the pond, the deeper water made for easier going. When she reached the shallows on the other side, she parted two lilies and came up between them, letting no more than her eyes ease above the surface. She hadn’t swum in a straight line, and it took her a few seconds to find the bank she’d left.
The clearing she’d left lay empty. Grateful to those men’s unobservant ancestors, Amaranthe lifted her head far enough to take a breath.
Pike stepped out from behind a tree at the end of the clearing, a rifle raised.
Amaranthe tried to dive back under, but it was too late. The gun fired, and pain blasted the side of her head.
The blow spun her around-she was lucky it hadn’t taken her head off-and she gave up hiding in favor of sprinting. She lunged out of the water and into the undergrowth hedging the pond. Her foot caught on a root, and she sprawled to the ground. The fall might have saved her life, for another shot cracked. She didn’t hear what it hit and didn’t care. So long as it wasn’t her.
Amaranthe crawled through the foliage, not lifting her head above the fronds. Another shot came. She didn’t know if it was Pike, taking advantage of the rifle’s repeating mechanism, or if more soldiers had joined him. She veered to the right, thinking he might expect her to flee straight away from the pond, and scrambled laterally to the bank, trying not to rustle branches, lest he see twitching leaves from across the water.
Blood trickled down the side of her face and dripped from her chin. Pike’s shot may not have caught her full- on, but it’d been enough to add another wound to those already plaguing her.
A snap sounded ahead of her. Amaranthe froze. Emperor’s warts, Pike must have known where she’d gone from the beginning and ordered his men to circle around the pond.
Nestled between two leafy shrubs, she drew her feet under her. She was tempted to sprint blindly into the trees and hope for the best, but if these were indeed soldiers, they’d know what they were doing. They’d know how to spring a trap. Even now, she had a sense of a noose tightening.
Amaranthe clenched her teeth. She was not going back to that table. She might be naked, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t take down a foe. Sicarius wouldn’t run from these men. He’d pick them off one at a time. She told herself that she could do the same.
After a few deep breaths with which she tried to will the tension out of her muscles, Amaranthe eased toward the noise she’d heard. She parted a few fronds and found herself staring at a beach overlooking an inlet in the pond. She expected a soldier to be crouched there, or perhaps in the nearby reeds, but she didn’t see anyone. Then her eye caught movement next to a log. An alligator ambled out of the undergrowth and slipped into the muddy water. The great beast had to be more than ten feet from nose to tail. Amaranthe gulped at the realization that such creatures lived in the swamp. Did they eat people? She wasn’t sure. Either way, she was glad she hadn’t encountered one on her swim.
