The Drowned Cities (Ship Breaker #2)(20)
The jungle’s paths twisted and crisscrossed, a confusing tangle of deer trails and coywolv hunts and wild pig runs. The darkness made it worse. How long did she have? How long until the half-man’s blood ran out?
Mahlia hit a fork in the trail. She crouched, staring at the ground, trying to see a way. Which way had they hacked their way through?
Fates, it was Mouse who liked to track things, not her. She chose the left-bending trail and pelted down it, praying to the Fates, and the Rust Saint, and Kali-Mary Mercy that she wasn’t about to run into a minefield.
She hit open water. Tripped and plunged right in.
“Grind it!”
She slogged back out of the water, dripping and angry and scared. Doubled back, looking for the last split. She knew she needed to keep her fear in check, to keep her eyes open, to stay smart in the jungle, but even as she tried to convince herself that she wasn’t panicking, she could feel gibbering terror rising in her.
The horrors of the swamps loomed, wild and hungry. Kudzu vines became coiling pythons, dropping from above. Coywolv flitted from tree to tree, pacing her. The jungle had teeth, and suddenly it had become alien and feral.
Mahlia leaped over rotten mossy logs, and nearly tripped again. Had she come this way before? She didn’t remember deadfall from their journey out.
Where was she?
There was no way she’d make it to town and back to Mouse before full dark. She’d have to come back by lantern light. Could she even find her way? They’d wandered so aimlessly as they hunted for food, and Mahlia had paid less attention than she should have, never thinking that she’d be coming back in the dark—
Abruptly, jungle gave way to cleared fields.
Mahlia sobbed with relief. She was on the far side of town from where she’d intended, in the fields where everyone tilled crops because the ground was more open, but at least she wasn’t lost. Mahlia skirted the dark liquid square of a basement pond and dashed across the fields, weaving around the fins of old crumbled walls that broke the earth.
Ahead of her the town beckoned, oil lamps coming on, familiar yellow glows, soft and comforting. Mahlia slowed, pressing at a stitch in her side. She’d never been so glad to see Banyan Town. Habitation. The sound and smoke of cylinder stoves crackling. The smell of spices. Candles burning beside little metal reflectors, making everything bright as she ran through.
Ahead of her, the doctor’s squat loomed in the darkness.
Please be there. You have to be there. Don’t be gone on some house call. Be there.
A human shadow stepped out from behind a ruined wall, blocking her path.
“Where you running, girl?”
Mahlia skidded to a stop. More shadows materialized before her, malevolent ghosts rising out of the darkness.
Soldier boys, a whole squad of them.
Mahlia turned and plunged back toward town, but a dog lunged from the shadows, snarling. She leaped back. Hunted for a new path of escape. The dog stalked her, growling, herding Mahlia back toward her captors.
More soldier boys emerged from the darkness. Guns gleamed dully. Bullet bandoliers and scars draped their bare chests. Ugly triple-hash brands scored their faces. UPF for sure. Colonel Glenn Stern’s for life. Some of them had blue bandannas tied around their heads, as if the brand wasn’t enough. The boys came closer. Eyes bloodshot with red rippers and crystal slide studied her with snakelike hunger. Mahlia scanned the darkness for a way to run, but the soldiers were all around. A perfect ambush.
One of them came up and grabbed her. He twisted her arm behind her back. She felt him scrabbling for her missing hand, and then he laughed.
“Got a stumpy, here!” he said.
His fingers probed at her stump. “Can’t even cuff her.” The others laughed. Mahlia struggled to get away, but the soldier jerked her around.
“I do that to you?” he asked, gazing at her stump. “How’d I miss your other hand, girl?”
This close, his loyalty brand stood out strong, pale ropy scars against brown skin. Three across, three down. UPF, through and through. Spikes pierced his lower lip. Three in a row, gleaming. Mahlia wasn’t sure if they were for decoration, or if they were some other official thing that the Colonel did to his recruits.
“Was that me?” he asked again, but before she could answer, he straightened, surprised.
“Check out her eyes!” he called. “Got us a collaborator, here! Pretty little peacekeeper girl.” Mahlia tried to bolt again, but he yanked her back and pulled her into a tight embrace, twisting her arm so hard it almost dislocated.
“Not so fast,” he whispered in her ear. His voice had gone cold, dripping with new menace. Before, she’d been a toy to him; now she was something less. “I got plans for you, castoff.”
Castoff. His words ran through the rest of the soldier boys like an electric current. Peacekeeper. Castoff. Mahlia knew how this would go. First there would be screaming and then there would be blood and then at the end, if she was lucky, she would be dead.
She fumbled for her knife, but with her good hand twisted behind her back, it was pointless. Seeming to sense her intention, the soldier pulled out her knife. Brought it up to her neck.
“What you doing here, collaborator?”
Mahlia felt sick. Already, a part of her mind was preparing for what was about to happen. It was going to be just like when the Army of God got hold of her. Different army, same story. They were all the same, in the end.