Blood and Betrayal

Chapter 11

When the pins retracted, leaving Amaranthe’s arms and legs free, she melted in relief. Many minutes had passed since Retta left, and Amaranthe had begun to fear that, in addition to failing to keep Sicarius’s secret, she would remain at Pike’s mercy. She wanted to spring away from the table and sprint for the door, but coercing her body into movement took a lot of effort. The holes left by the pins oozed blood. She scraped some of the salve away from less damaged areas of her body and smeared it into the wounds. Touching them sent a wave of blackness over her, and she groaned, gripping the edge of the table.

“No, we are not going to be given freedom, only to pass out on the table,” she whispered.

Her first thought as a free woman was that she should find a way to destroy the Behemoth on her way out. Her second thought, which came as she was attempting to slide off the table, was that she’d be lucky if she could even stand up. As much as her mind wanted to rebel, to deal Forge a huge destructive blow in exchange for the pain and indignity she’d suffered, her body lacked the strength. Even if she could hobble around and avoid recapture long enough to locate an engine room, or the vessel’s equivalent, she’d have no idea how to make trouble. Somehow she doubted this ancient craft used something as understandable as steam for power.

When her bare feet hit the floor, Amaranthe flinched. Pike had flayed the skin off the bottoms once. Maybe twice. The hours of torture had blended and grown fuzzy. Unfortunately not in a way that suggested she’d ever forget the experience. Thanks to the healing effects of the salve, she could walk, but each step hurt, like traveling barefoot through a gravel quarry full of particularly prickly pebbles.

“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 gold-gilded lanterns burning all too brightly at intervals between them. At least a nice fog was creeping higher as the night progressed, oozing between the metal railings and obscuring the polished wood deck. “If someone wanders out here and sees armed strangers, we’ll have more than Mari’s people with whom to deal.”

Basilard nodded his agreement. He and Books were Maldynado’s “backup” for facing Mari and however many guards she had left. Akstyr had been left on coal-shoveling duty again, much to his vocal chagrin. Sespian had taken Yara to accompany him to coerce the captain into helping. Maybe he thought a woman’s presence would keep a fight from breaking out. The plan was to gain the captain’s assistance, and control over the steamboat, without any of the passengers knowing about it.

The latter might prove difficult. Maldynado eyed the flintlock pistols he and the others carried, the new weapons also courtesy of Basilard’s stealthy search of the officers’ quarters. The plan was not to use them, but if Mari’s people put up a fight…

Too bad Sicarius wasn’t there to slip inside the suite with his trusty knife. Of course, that trusty knife had caused all sorts of trouble of late.

Maybe we could just push a wardrobe in front of the door and lock her in for the duration of the voyage, Basilard signed, probably wondering if Maldynado was having doubts about apprehending Mari.

“Nah. There’ll be another door on the private balcony around the corner.” Suite One lay on the starboard side, overlooking the bow of the boat.

Basilard peeked over the railing and around the corner. Two private balconies.

“Naturally. Marblecrests prefer to travel in style.” Maldynado squared his shoulders. “All right, let’s do this quietly.”

He lifted a hand but paused, debating whether to knock or barge in and catch them by surprise. They’d be awake and alert, he believed, wondering what was taking their men so long to return with news of the emperor’s death. Sespian had left the knife in engineering so that Brynia, if she had the tracking device, wouldn’t know that the blade’s owner was on the move.

Maldynado tried the knob and found it locked. The sturdy brass hinges, coupled with the stoutness of the wood, suggested it’d be a hard door to bash down. He stood to the side, in case guards flung it open and leaped out, and he knocked.

“It’s the captain,” Maldynado called, lowering his voice to a gruff octave on the guess that the captain would be an older man. “I’m told you boarded without displaying your ticket. I’ll need to see that.”

Basilard’s eyebrows rose. Books shook his head with the condemnation of a man certain a ruse would not work.

Maldynado shrugged. Given that Mari and company had been fleeing the castle, it seemed plausible.

He knocked again. “Lady Marblecrest?”

A gunshot fired from within. Wood splintered, and a new, bullet-sized hole appeared in the center of the door. Though Books and Basilard hadn’t been standing in front of the entrance, they dropped to their bellies on the deck.

Relieved he’d been standing to the side of the door, Maldynado had to gulp before he could offer an unconcerned smile to his comrades. “It’s possible she didn’t believe I was the captain.”

“Or she doesn’t like the captain,” Books said.

Two more shots fired, and bullets burst through the door. One clanged off the metal railing behind the team. So much for “quietly.”

“That’s either one repeating weapon,” Maldynado said, “or she has multiple armed people in there.”

Balcony? Basilard signed. There will be windows.

“You volunteering?” Maldynado asked.

Basilard twitched a shoulder. If you provide the diversion.

Maldynado knocked again, careful not to stand in front of the door. He hoped the walls proved thicker and more bullet-repellent. “Lady Marblecrest,” he called, still disguising his voice, “this is unacceptable behavior, especially from a woman of your stature.”

Basilard hopped to his feet, climbed into the rail, and disappeared around the corner.

“If you don’t surrender your firearms, step out of your cabin, and show me your ticket,” Maldynado continued, “I’ll be forced to throw you in the brig.”

“I’d pay to see a warrior-caste woman locked behind bars.” Books rose to a crouch and, after a couple of glances from the door to the corner Basilard had disappeared around, finally decided, with a deep sigh, to follow Basilard.

Another bang came from within. Maldynado wondered how many armed people awaited.

“Make sure to let me in when you get inside,” he whispered after Books, then raised his voice for Mari’s sake. “Lady Marblecrest, you’re going to force me to get the master key and send armed security personnel into your rooms. If you don’t want that, I-”

The next door down creaked open, and a man peeked a couple inches of his head out. It wasn’t the only door open either. Emperor’s warts, everyone on the deck must have heard the gunfire.

“Go back inside.” Maldynado waved his pistol to encourage compliance. He knew the lighting wasn’t poor enough to convince anyone he was the captain, but maybe if he pretended to be some security guard, the passengers wouldn’t feel the need to defend the boat the way the kitchen staff had rallied to protect their castle. “We have the situation controlled.”

A shot fired inside the suite. This time glass cracked. A window on the balcony?

“Er, we’ll have it controlled soon,” Maldynado corrected. Blast, he hoped that wasn’t Basilard and Books being shot at.

“… is that man?” a woman asked, her voice floating out from the nearest cabin. “… doesn’t look like any of the young officers.”

Crashes and thumps sounded within the suite, and Maldynado couldn’t spare the other passengers any more thoughts. He pounded on the door. Only gunshots answered him, a lot of gunshots. Either Mari had an entire army in there, or Books and Basilard were shooting too. Maldynado hoped Mari had the sense to keep her head down.

A woman screamed. The shooting stopped.

Pounding on the door wasn’t getting Maldynado anywhere. He vaulted onto the railing, following Basilard and Books’s route. Using the wood trim on the boat’s hull for handholds, he crawled around the corner and along the outside of the suite to the balcony several feet away. Fog hid the water churning three decks below him, but he had no trouble hearing the waves slapping at the hull.

By the time Maldynado jumped onto the balcony, a deathly quiet had dropped over the suite.

A hole gaped in the closest window, a spider web of cracks branching out from it. Maldynado grabbed the knob on the door next to it, hoping this one wasn’t locked too. It turned. Flattening his back to the wall beside the door, Maldynado pulled it open without exposing himself.

No shots rang out.

Pistol in hand, he peeked around the jamb. A few lamps burned, revealing the carnage within. Blood spattered white curtains as well as a creamy sofa that had been knocked over and used as a barricade-bullet holes dotted the back side. Ivory Strat Tiles, some also spattered with blood, scattered the floor about a table, upturned chairs, and the bodies of three men in private security uniforms. Maldynado recognized at least one fellow from the resort. Nobody was moving.

“Books?” Maldynado whispered, not seeing him or Basilard.

An interior door stood ajar. After making sure nobody lurked, ready to leap out at him, Maldynado picked his way around the sofa and headed for the room.

Low voices came from within. One was a woman’s. Maldynado’s gut clenched. Mari and Brynia… They couldn’t have taken down Books and Basilard. He shook his head. No chance.

Yet there was a tremor to his hand when he raised the pistol and stepped around the doorjamb.

Relief washed over him at the sight of Books and Basilard standing at the foot of a large bed. A blonde-haired woman-Brynia-knelt in the corner, her back against the wall, her hands up. A second woman’s body was sprawled on the carpet in front of Books.

Maldynado must have made some noise, for Books turned toward him. Maldynado got the full view then, one of frizzy brown hair, vacant eyes, and a blood-saturated dress.

“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.

A crunch sounded behind her.

Amaranthe turned in time to spot a man’s hat above a nearby bush. He was moving slowly, using his rifle to part the reeds and search for her. She dropped to her belly and wriggled beneath a briar bush comprised of a tangle of dense vines and small white flowers that emitted a putrid scent. Nestled amongst the leaf litter, she waited for the soldier to draw near.

Moments passed. Water-or maybe that was sweat-slithered down her spine. A black boot came into sight. It stepped over a bulging root and came down lightly, toe first. The soldier must suspect his prey hid nearby. Amaranthe resisted the urge to squirm deeper under cover. She dared not shake the briar bush now.

The boot drew even with her spot, and a second one joined it. Amaranthe pressed her palms into the moist earth, summoning what energy she could, hoping to spring as soon as the man passed.

He stopped. Amaranthe’s heart thundered against her ribs, trying to batter them into the soil. Maybe her legs were sticking out. Maybe he’d seen her tracks. Maybe-

The man continued past.

Amaranthe let him draw another two paces away, then scrambled from beneath the bush, lunged to her feet, and jumped, all in one motion. She landed on his back, one arm snaking around his neck at the same time as her other darted to his waist, snatching a knife housed on his belt. The man tried to twist and smash the butt of his rifle into her head. Amaranthe whipped the blade up to his throat first. She let it bite into his flesh, so he’d know the threat to his life was serious.

“Drop your rifle,” Amaranthe whispered in his ear.

The soldier’s head came up, and he didn’t obey. Maybe he didn’t like taking orders from a woman. Too bad. She pressed the blade in deeper. A rivulet of blood flowed down the steel edge. Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t follow through with the threat, but she didn’t see how she could hope to escape if she didn’t eliminate her pursuers. Though the practical part of her mind thought that, she couldn’t bring herself to slice the man’s throat.

“Drop it,” Amaranthe said, trying to frost the words with iciness that would make Sicarius proud.

This time, the man complied. He tossed his rifle into the foliage where it clattered against a branch and rattled leaves. Amaranthe growled, knowing he’d done that on purpose, hoping noise would alert his comrades. Already, she felt vulnerable with her back to the swamp and no friendly eyes to watch it.

“What are you going to do, girl?” the man asked. “Sit there, with your legs wrapped around me all day? If you’d drop the knife, I wouldn’t mind breasts smashed into my back, but-”

The only warning they had was a soft rustle from ahead. A split second later, the alligator reared out of the reeds, twisting its body to snap its maw around the man’s thigh. With a powerful yank, the creature tore Amaranthe’s prisoner away from her.

She let go and scrambled backward. The soldier screamed as the alligator dragged him along the beach and into the water. It happened so quickly she couldn’t have helped him if she’d wanted to. One second, he was twisting and clawing at the ground, trying to find a way to pull himself free, and the next he disappeared beneath the surface. Water churned, then grew still, with only a few air bubbles floating to the surface to mark his passage.

“That answers my question,” Amaranthe whispered. “Yes, alligators eat people.”

Behind her, men thrashed through the undergrowth, pushing their way toward her location. Amaranthe grabbed the rifle and knife, and ran into the brush. Maybe she’d get lucky, and her pursuers would think the man had simply encountered the alligator without running into her. She doubted it.