Marri's Approach (Brackish Bay) (3 page)

“Sarafina, has nothing she's said struck you as suspicious?”

Sarafina colored under her husband's questioning gaze. “No, sir.”

“Did she tell you she was a soldier?”

“No, sir. But I didn't ask, sir.”

“Didn't ask. Sarafina, your heart is too generous for your own good.”

The boy spoke up. “Mama thought she was good because she knows William. She told us a story.”

His father turned his gaze to the boy, all of a decade old. “What story?”

“She told us a story of a girl soldier who became a spy.”

Oh, gods, Fortuna, curse my lack of imagination.

His gaze fell hard on me. “Is that so.”

I found myself flushing. “Yes, sir.”

He reached for me then, and that was his mistake. In doing so, he moved towards me, away from the doorway, so I ducked and darted around him, slipping out the door even as his big hands tore part of my tunic. I ran, and as I did I tucked the scrap of lace into my belt. I could hear him behind me, shouting, but I ignored it. At his size, he was no match for me, speed-wise. I wasted no time with the beach, and instead leapt off the small cliff next to it, landing with a massive splash in the river. The impact stunned me momentarily, and it was all I could do to get my head above water. But then I did, and found the strength to float, paddling just enough to steer. I swept around the curve, and suddenly I saw the frothy connection of the river to the sea.

Fear pierced my heart. I began to swim hard, angling for the shore, desperate not to get swept out to the ocean where I would surely die. Boats crossed my path, and I was forced to spend energy fighting the current to stay in place or get around them. Men shouted and women screamed, and then I ducked just as a large boat passed over where I had just been. I pushed away from it, hand over hand, thankful that there was no spinning turbine on this one even as my lungs burned from lack of air. I came back to the surface gasping in its wake, and struck out for shore again. There. There was a spot where the woods met the river, and the weeping willow trees touched the water.

I swam for it, all my muscles screaming. I caught a trailing branch, but my grip was weak, and I couldn't hold on. I struggled, trying to get closer, and then I saw it—a great S shape slithering through the water. The burst of terror gave me the strength I needed, and I scrambled up the bank, my leaden arms hauling my body up with the branches. The crocodile snapped at me. I cried as I scaled the tree, my body raw from the water and the bark, but whole. I wedged myself into a crook of the branches and shivered, watching the big crocodile slink back into the river.

Finally, I cried myself to sleep.

It was dawn when I awoke to the sound of men coming ashore. My muscles were cramped and stiff from the tremendous exertion of the day before, but I dared not move.

“I thought I saw her come ashore here.”

“I don't know. Did you see the number of crocs between there and here? She's probably crocodile food by now.”

“She was a strong swimmer, otherwise the boat would have killed her.”

“How do you know it didn't?”

“I saw her. She wasn't just drifting like she was unconscious; she was swimming. Purposefully.”

“She's probably long gone, then, if she was awake and trying to get away.”

“No, I don't think so. That swim was grueling. She's probably holed up somewhere, trying to rest.”

“Great, so we have to poke around in all the bushes. Are you kidding me? Why does Roy care about one little stray?”

“Because she told Charles she's a spy.”

A sharp whistle. “Damn.”

“Right.”

“From where?”

“She said Amanda Tell, and apparently Roy's heard of her and doesn't believe that's who sent the bitch.”

“Why don't we get Rari out here? Her dogs would do a better job of finding her than we will.”

“Roy wants someone he can trust to keep quiet. At least to start with.”

“We're nothing if not discreet.”

“What's this?” I tried to peer through the branches, but the leaves screened the men from me and thankfully, me from them. “It looks like Sarafina's work.”

Ah, dammit, Fortuna.

“So she probably did come this way. Let's see if we can find tracks.”

They moved away from the tree. I waited, then counted to a hundred. I couldn't hear them, couldn't see them. Slowly, carefully, I unbent my limbs one at a time, biting my lips on my groans.

Still nothing. I began to climb down, one silent step at a time. Maybe I should have waited, but I am not much for waiting. Still there was no sign of the men who'd come to find me. Maybe I could take their boat and row it up the river to our meeting spot. I came to the last branch, and there I looked around, very, very slowly. I scanned the river. There was the boat, pulled up and tied to some of the branches I'd used to pull myself out of the river. The men weren't there. I looked for them along the bank one direction, then the other. No sign. Slowly I swiveled and eyed the trees and brush.

The forest called to me, welcomed me, and I grinned. My mother had taught me forest craft, the art of moving swiftly and silently in the woods. Despite years of living in camps or cities, my activities as a spy and guerrilla soldier had kept up my skill. So delighted was I in remembering the woods, so exhausted from my exertion of the day before, that I made a fundamental mistake. I became overconfident and leapt down to the ground before I'd scanned every single bit of the vegetation for my opponents. They burst out of the shrubbery, bows drawn.

I grinned. I'd only heard two voices, and there they were, showing me both of them. They were too far apart. They wouldn't dare shoot at me when I passed through the middle. I let my face go slack with shock and fear.

“Oh, gods, please don't shoot, please don't, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset anyone.”

As I spoke I walked forward, overeager to please.

“Stop! Don't come any farther.”

Fortuna, you're a doll. I was close enough, so I burst into a sprint, dashing between them so that as they tracked me with their bows they ended up facing each other, and then I was gone into the woods and running like a fox.

Chapter 2

Hours later, I was still running. Why was I always running? Part of the job description, I supposed. This time I wasn't allowed to double back and kill my pursuers, more's the pity.

I'd made that foolish promise to William; strange, since he, himself, was not a citizen. He was born of a tribe of horsemen, a wanderer, not one to stay in town for long. But somehow Roy had inspired his respect, and caused him to threaten me if I so much as harmed a single citizen of Brackish Bay.

Ridiculous rules. I tossed my head and leapt around a fallen tree, ducked under branches, and zigzagged around an animal den. My toe caught on an unseen rock, but I recovered my balance and kept going. I could hear them behind me, crashing about. They were fast, I'd give them that, so even if I heard them coming, it didn't do much good if I couldn't outrun them.

Fortuna, I do understand that I'm stupid sometimes. I didn't glance up this time. Our lady of fortune didn't reside any particular place; she just meddled with our lives on her whims. Cruel and capricious, she could see me caught, beaten, and sold into slavery one day, but then rescued, protected, and doctor-provided for another. I had long given up trying to predict her moods, and therefore spent most of my time cajoling or cursing her name.

There was the still the matter of what to do with the men behind me. I didn't want to lead them back to my patrol's meeting place, so I was going to have to lose them before then. The soldiers knew enough to keep their mouths shut as they ran, but I also knew from William's information that Rari, the city's hunts woman, claimed territory in the direction I was running. I could go through it, but that would be dangerous. She'd kill me on sight rather than ask why I was running through her territory with her House's soldiers on my tail.

Speaking of which, I hadn't had sex in weeks, and it was wearing on me. I'd been forbidden after William beat me for endangering his foster daughter and apprentice Katherine. The little wench had followed me on the way to a foolish mission in Ken's Corner and almost gotten raped. I'd killed the creep, of course, but he'd inconsiderately spewed blood on her as he died. That was one of only a couple times that a beating hadn't given me pleasure.

I ducked around a smooth-barked tree and scrambled up it. I needed the breather, and I wanted to see if I could identify just how far away I was from Rari's territory. I needed to skirt that if I wanted to have any chance of getting back to the meeting place alive.

For a long time, my pursuers crashed and thrashed through the brush. Finally I saw one pass. He was wearing overalls without a shirt, boots, and wore his bow and quiver slung diagonally across his back. It was a small bow, made for speed rather than distance, and I shivered a little. They weren't green boys, and definitely not amateurs. I remembered William telling me Roy had held this patch of ground and water for a few years shy of two decades, and reevaluated my assessment of their relative preparations.

Of course, this was just them dealing with me. I wondered how my patrol has done. Though Zarilla and I were both going to the heart of Brackish Bay, where Roy lived with his core group, I hadn't seen hide nor hair of her.

I was silent as the soldier crashed forward.
How
do I know he's a soldier, Fortuna? Did you not see his ease with the bow before? The way he moves is very predatory, even if he's not in his element in the forest. I swiveled to look for the other soldier I could hear, but he was too far away to see. I decided to wait longer than I had the last time. Counting only to a hundred before coming out of the tree had not been my smartest move of the morning.

I wondered whether having sex with them would constitute harm. It can't, right, Fortuna? If they consent? I grinned to myself. William had told my patrol not to sate my desires, and told Dinis, also. Amadeus, his lover, had no interest, nor did William. Katherine was a child, no matter how much she protested that designation. Never mind that I was tumbling boys in the fields at her age. That's different, Fortuna.

I leaned back against the trunk and took the opportunity to rest my aching body. It wasn't the most comfortable space to be in, but it was better than continuing to run, dodging the men who continued on, oblivious to my stop. For all they knew, I'd dodged away hours ago. I prided myself on being fleet and silent. My father was a hunter, my mother a woodswife, and though he'd died when I was twelve, she'd taught me every day.

I suspected they'd continue until they hit Rari's land, and then rouse her to look for me, so I didn't actually have much time. I climbed higher, trying to get a better view of the river. There was the first outpost behind me. I was in between two of them. The next one was smaller, and while I could see the buildings in the center of the town and the market, I couldn't tell where the hunts mistress’s home would be. Would it be near civilization, or would it be more in the forest?

If it were me, Fortuna, I'd be in the middle of the forest. I scanned further. There! The smallest wisp of smoke in the distance. That must be her homestead. I grinned. That was quite a bit farther from the riverbank than I thought it would be, which gave me a good idea of how to estimate the size of her territory. I breathed deeply. Damn. I would have to skirt a huge chunk of land to stay out of her way. And if she went hunting with dogs, I might not be able to avoid her.

That gave me an idea. I'd heard the story of how Katherine's mother, Jacqueline, had trekked from wherever her good-for-nothing parents and supposed beau had left her to here. Alone. Whoring along the way. There had to be a road somewhere, the one she'd traveled. I scanned to my left, westward. Was that it? It was hard to tell with the way the trees had grown up where there used to be roads and great clearings and vast buildings far beyond our current skill, along with poles and wires that carried leashed lightning. That was all gone now.

There was a bombardment. My great-great-grandmother was a child when it happened. Something pulsed across the land, destroying all their technology, loosing the lightning from the wires it lay trapped in, releasing invisible death across the world. Not to mention the bombs. No one actually knew anymore if it was bombs or meteors, natural disaster or manmade. But it had flattened and melted huge sections of the land, turning spaces that had once held thousands and thousands of people into blackened slag and glassy ruin. Many, many roads were left crumbling, with hulking wreckage of ancient technology rusting like an orange pox on gray ribbons. The rest of the ground was swampy and saturated. Frozen water—such a strange concept, and something I'd never seen, nor had any of us for generations—had melted and flooded the land. So many of what used to be the coastal cities were completely drowned now, underwater.

My great-great-grandmother had survived, thanks to an older brother, and I had survived thanks to my mother when men intent on taking her and me had killed my father. We were not taken. Instead, my mother had escaped to a city where she could support herself and me by loaning out the pleasure of her company. It was a particularly boring existence for me once I'd had my fill of tame city boys, so I'd joined the army.

Armies did not belong to city-states, not all the time, not anymore. Amanda Tell's was one such army for hire, for war, for the defense of a city, or the destruction of it. I had helped in the destruction of many armies and cities. I was good at what I did. Spying was easier when you were a woman and when you allowed men to act out their darkest fantasies on your flesh. I grinned to myself as I remembered the time I'd been mistaken for a guard-groupie and been fucked in front of a whole barrack full of men. It was too bad I'd had to get the information back to General Tell. I hadn't had time to fuck more than one. Of course, I was pretty bad at obedience and discipline, so I'd been sold. Madame Bon bought me, taught me, and then loosed her darkest clientele on me. I ran fingers over my thighs. Whips and chains, belts and paddles, teeth and claws, all had marked me at one point or another, much to my delight. The part that wasn't delightful was Aleksei.