Emperor's Edge Republic (2 page)

They had? Amazing how disoriented one could become while running across branches. She would think more highly of squirrels when next she visited a climate that had them.

Using Sicarius to brace herself against—his chiseled flesh made a more appealing handhold than a mossy tree—Amaranthe leaned around the trunk for a look. And barely kept herself from groaning. No less than ten bare-chested, brown-skinned men stood at the lagoon’s edge with knives and spears in hand. Out in the water, two outrigger canoes carrying more spear wielders floated on either side of the oblong black hull of the submarine.

“You’ve formulated a plan?” Sicarius asked.

“Well, I would have, but you distracted me with that kiss. Now I’m going to need another minute.”

She smiled at Sicarius, but his face had lost its humor. A distant shout drifted up from the jungle floor. Their pursuers might have fallen farther behind, but they were still coming.

Movement overhead distracted Amaranthe. She lurched backward and might have fallen off the branch if not for Sicarius’s grip about her waist. A large green snake with black spots was slithering down the mossy trunk toward them.

“Uhm,” she blurted, pointing.

“It’s not poisonous,” Sicarius said, though he hadn’t looked up. Doubtlessly, he had noticed it when they first jumped into the tree. “It feeds on fish, birds, and small mammals.”

“Yes, but it’s
big
. And I...” Amaranthe tried to tell herself that there was no reason to worry if he wasn’t worried, but she couldn’t help but think of the last time she had dealt with a large snake. She had been naked and wounded, having escaped that awful alien ship and the more awful torture-loving Pike, and that cursed snake had wanted to eat her. She hated
anything
that reminded her of that time. “I’d prefer not to share a tree with it,” she whispered. “Mind if I borrow your knife?”

Sicarius tilted his head back, considering the snake. It did, she admitted, look like it might slither past without bothering them. “I can see your reason for alarm. It is similar to the green marshal, a snake also indigenous to these islands and one that
is
poisonous.”

Yeah.
That
was why she wanted it out of her tree.

Afraid the real reason would make her seem weak, Amaranthe braced herself to let the creature slither off the trunk and out onto one of the branches. She forced herself to return to the problem. Finding a way past those men without causing a massive throat-slitting. She needed a clever idea. Such as setting a fire in their village to draw them all back? The times she or her team had used arson before, it had never turned out well, usually causing far more damage than she had intended. How could she justify doing that to these people, especially when their interest in Sicarius seemed more about ridding their home of an assassin before he could hurt them, rather than collecting a bounty? What did these aborigines care about money, and to whom would they turn in a head, regardless?

“They are after you because they saw me,” Sicarius said.

Amaranthe didn’t know if it was a statement or a question, but she nodded slightly. “A scout ran in while I was trying to explain to the old medicine woman what it was I wanted to trade for. He raced into the chief’s hut and came out waving that poster and pointing at me and at the beach. I’m not quite sure how all those chaps got here ahead of me...” she tilted her head toward the lagoon, “but they did.”

“It is my responsibility then. I will distract them so you can swim to the submarine.”

Amaranthe shook her head as he spoke, but he kept talking.

“You can take it out beyond the lagoon. If you come up again on the other side of those rocks—” he pointed to a promontory jutting into the ocean at the end of the beach, “—I will attempt to join you. After nightfall, I might—”

Amaranthe hushed him with a finger to his lips. All those months they’d worked together, trying to save his son, she had never dared such an intimacy. She was pleased to see it worked, though his eyebrow was in danger of twitching to express indignation.

“If you try to distract them without simply... dispatching them, you might get yourself killed,” she said.

His chin rose. “We have not been
that
indolent.”

“Forgive me, you might get yourself
injured
, and, as you know from first-hand experience, I’m not the most skilled medic. We’re all alone out here, with a lot of days of travel to get to a civilized port. We’re still in a bind from our last mishap.” The pirates who had presumed to steal from them wouldn’t do so again—Sicarius’s justice remained harsher than she would prefer, but she’d had a hand in sending their ship to the bottom of the ocean, so who was she to judge? But either way, she and Sicarius had lost half of their provisions overboard.

“They are simple hunters. Those spears were designed for slaying boars, not men. I can deal with them without killing them or being injured.”

“What are you going to do? Call out to them from the wilds and tie them up one at a time as they come to hunt for you?”

“Precisely. It will be dark in an hour as well. A better time to hunt.”

“They know every inch of this island,” Amaranthe said.

“They don’t know me.”

“Oh? I’m sure that poster had some choice words to say about you in whatever language that is.”

Something disturbed a flock of birds in a tree twenty meters away. Colorful wings batted and a dozen tanagers flew inland.

“There isn’t time for further debate.” Sicarius pressed the sword into her hand, keeping his black dagger for himself. “I will distract them. You will take the sub out of the harbor.”

“Fine, fine.” Amaranthe stepped onto a neighboring branch for a better look at the rock promontory. “Where do you want me to wait while you’re distracting people?”

She didn’t receive an answer. He was gone.

“I liked it better when you were going along with my orders,” she mumbled and started out along the branches, hoping she could get closer to those rocks before climbing down. She decided her last words hadn’t been fair—she hadn’t given any orders, after all—or particularly true. After being responsible, however inadvertently, for the deaths of so many during the upheaval in Stumps, she wasn’t eager to deliver orders to anyone anymore. These last couple of months free of responsibility had helped her heal, but some scars would remain forever.

Amaranthe passed the snake as it continued along the branches on its way to sun itself on the beach, or whatever snakes did. She gave it a wide berth—fortunately, it didn’t pause to contemplate her in the way one might an Emperor’s Bun, a pastry that would need a new name now that an elected president ruled the nation—and found a likely spot to go down.

Using the palm trees for camouflage, she picked her way to the promontory without attracting attention from the men farther up the beach. Nothing grew from the volcanic rock itself, but its humps and craters offered numerous hiding places. Staying low, she jogged along the bottom of a crevice heading toward the water. Though she wasn’t working as hard as she had been during the run, sweat slithered down her back and dripped into her eyes. The sun was dipping lower toward the horizon, but the air remained warm and humid.

When she reached a protrusion jutting up like a thumb, she peeked around it to study the lagoon. The aborigines on the beach were gone, and rowers were paddling one of the canoes toward the shore. Unfortunately, the other craft remained by the submarine with six natives sitting all-too-vigilantly inside. One man’s eyes came close to settling on Amaranthe’s spot, so she lowered her head.

The canoe floated near the submarine’s hatch, but if she could sneak past the men somehow and slip inside, she could seal that hatch and keep them out while she started the engine. Once the craft dove, they would have no way to track her. Picking up Sicarius would be a simple matter.

Yes, but how could she reach it without being seen? Swim underwater? The pale blue lagoon was clearer than any lake back home. She had thought it beautiful when they had arrived. At the time, she hadn’t been contemplating sneaking up on boats. It was a long swim from the rocks or from the beach. There was no way she could stroke the whole way underwater while holding her breath. She remembered old stories of clever soldiers sneaking up on riverside enemy camps by cutting reeds and using them to breathe through. Alas, this island had only coconut trees, spiky ferns, and at least seven types of foliage that made her skin itch every time she brushed against them. No reeds.

A splash came from below, and Amaranthe chanced lifting her head. An enormous turtle paddled away from the rocks. It was either done sunning itself for the day or...

Ah. Another one of those green snakes was slithering along near the waterline. She wouldn’t think it big enough to swallow a turtle, but maybe the turtle knew something she didn’t.

Amaranthe touched a finger to her lip. If the snake’s approach had alarmed a turtle, might it alarm a canoe full of men? She had a sword. If she could distract those islanders for a moment, long enough to clamber into the craft, she might be able to get the best of them. Six on one wasn’t ideal, but they would have a hard time attacking her all at once in the narrow canoe.

“So how do I get that snake from here to there?” she murmured.

Giving up on the turtle, it slithered inland and dipped into the shady crevice. Amaranthe tapped the hilt of the sword thoughtfully. She could get to it without being seen now, but that didn’t answer her question.

“Shouldn’t have left that purse full of trade goods in the village.” Not that she ever would have been able to stuff the big snake in a purse. She snorted at the image of herself trying. No, she would need something larger. Her hand strayed to the buttons of her shirt. “Well, that can be my second distraction for the men if the first doesn’t work.”

After removing her shirt, Amaranthe crept from her hiding spot, staying behind cover as she angled toward the snake. Out in the water, the big turtle had stopped to nosh on a straggly clump of seaweed bobbing with the tide. She wondered if turtles could be coerced to paddle in a desired direction.

In the canoe, the islanders maintained their vigilance, despite numerous shouts that had arisen in the jungle. One man pointed toward the dented green crown of the dormant volcano at the center of the island. A thin line of dark gray smoke wafted toward the blue sky.

Amaranthe grinned. “Sicarius, you’re getting crafty now that you’re not simply killing everyone in your way.” The villagers probably believed the volcano dormant, too, but a wisp of smoke still wouldn’t be taken lightly. “I hope that’s his work anyway.”

After a deep breath that wasn’t as fortifying as she would have liked, Amaranthe descended into the crevice with the snake. Its tail was to her, though she didn’t know if that mattered. It might sense her creeping up through vibrations in the rock. Her grip tightened around her sword. Lopping of its head wouldn’t leave her with a very effective distraction, though she would reserve the tactic if necessary.

She tiptoed closer, trying to estimate the snake’s size—and whether it would fit in a shirt. It lay stretched out rather than coiled up—taking a nap, she hoped. It didn’t seem as big as the one in the tree... maybe only six feet long and with less girth. She passed the brown-spotted tail and approached the back of its head, suspecting it would be the most dangerous part. Though that was a guess; for all she knew, it was some species of constrictor.

The flat, arrow-shaped head reared up, its maw opening, fangs catching the fading sunlight...

Amaranthe lashed out with the flat of her blade. She aimed for the back of the head, but the snake had been spinning toward her and she connected with the side instead. The maw smashed into the side of the crevice with a crunch. Doubting it would be stunned for long, if the tough creature was stunned at all, Amaranthe leaped in, thrusting her shirt over its head. She had buttoned it and done her best to turn it into a bag, but, even as she stuffed the long sinewy body into it, she feared her flimsy trap wouldn’t be sufficient.

The fear spurred her to speed. With the sword in one hand and her “bag” in the other, she raced for the water, toward a spot that was out of the canoe’s line of sight. They would see her if she swam toward them, but maybe...

She paused to poke her head over the ridge and check on the turtle. It was still floating beside the seaweed. Good.

Amaranthe immersed herself in the cool water, took a deep breath, dunked her head, and pushed off the rocks. Swimming with her hands full was a challenge. She would have thanked Sicarius for all the horrible sculling and treading-water drills he had inflicted on her if she weren’t so busy. The sword didn’t weigh much, but the snake was stirring, bulging and flexing against the confines of her bag. Snakes doubtlessly had the same concerns about drowning as humans.

The clearness of the lagoon allowed Amaranthe to navigate, and she spotted the dark shape above her. She came up a couple of feet behind the turtle and angled herself so its bulk would hide her from the canoe. She rapped the snake a few times with the flat of the blade, hoping to stun it again, though she was probably irritating it to a murderous state instead. Then she switched the sword to the same hand that held the bag and grabbed the back of the turtle’s shell. She expected it to take off or turn around and snap at her, but the large thing didn’t react. Maybe it was too busy eating to care that she had latched on.

Amaranthe kicked, trying to propel the turtle forward, away from the seaweed and toward the canoe. It snapped up a few more bites of its meal. She was about to give up, to swim over to the canoe on her own, hoping the men were too focused on the volcano to notice, but then the turtle started paddling. It nearly clobbered Amaranthe with one of its fins, or flippers, or whatever sea turtles had. She would have to ask Starcrest’s biologist daughter Mahliki about them if she survived this craziness.

Whatever its limbs were called, the turtle swam away from the seaweed, not bothered, or at least not overly slowed, by its tagalong. Amaranthe kicked as well, trying to guide the creature in the direction she wanted. It chose its own route though, one that headed toward the second rocky promontory that framed the other side of the lagoon. The path would take Amaranthe close to the submarine and allow her to remain hidden, so she judged it close enough.