The Scourge

by Jennifer A. Nielsen

I immediately raised my left foot as high as possible without tipping it upside down. Then I checked my right hand grip. It wasn't as good as I wanted, but there was no choice. With my left hand, I reached down into the boot, searching for the knife. At first I couldn't feel it, so I wiggled my foot around until the tips of my fingers touched it. I wiggled even more, letting the boot loosen. It was going to slide off, and there was nothing I could do about it. I lifted my leg even higher, and as the boot slipped, I grabbed the knife. The boot splashed into the water below, and the snakes attacked it like it was the first meal they'd had in months.

  I rolled my eyes, not at all thrilled with what I now knew. Yes, the water was already high enough to make a splash. Yes, the snakes could swim in it. And yes, they were stupid enough to think a boot was edible. I could only imagine the fun they'd have with me.

  With my knife between my teeth now, I kicked off the other boot next and listened to them attack that one as well. It was a necessary sacrifice, and besides, what would I do with only a single boot anyway?

  I lifted both feet up to the grate. They barely fit between the bars, but by keeping them bent inward, they should hold my weight. I tested that by releasing one hand and then the next. Happily, my feet seemed more sturdy than my hands had been.

  I pulled the first of Weevil's needles from my skirts, then angled myself back up and reached between the bars for the lock on this door. It was in an awkward position, so I'd have to pick the lock both backward and upside down. If I failed, I hoped Weevil would consider those disadvantages before judging my lock-picking skills too harshly.

  I stuck the tip of the knife inside the lock, then with my other hand pushed the needle in to feel for the tumblers. Something moved inside the lock, but it was still closed, so I wiggled the needle around again.

  And wiggled too hard. The needle broke inside the lock. I groaned and let both halves fall below me. I heard them splash and the fierce reaction of the snakes below. I hoped they tried attacking the sharper end of the needle. Then it'd be one less snake for me to fend off.

  I wanted to relax my body, just for a moment, and hang upside down for a short rest. But as the dark flood waters continued rising below me, I wasn't sure how close that'd put me to the snakes. They obviously could swim. I assumed they also had a fair ability to jump, because that was exactly how bad my day was going.

  So I withdrew the second needle, determined this time to be more careful. I jammed the knife back into the lock, and the needle with it. It broke immediately, though not quite in half. If I was careful, I had enough needle left, barely. So I stuck it in again, and this time wiggled it around while paying attention to where the pressure was yielding.

  While I did, I thought about what Weevil had told me, that I balanced him. In our friendship, I was the knife. Swinging for everything and anything and occasionally hitting my mark. But Weevil was different. He was the needle. He identified the most specific areas to put pressure and did nothing more than was absolutely necessary. As our time in the Colony had proved, he balanced me too.

  To pick this lock, I needed that same balance. While the knife was necessary to move the tumblers, if I wanted to be successful, I had to be the needle.

  With that thought, I found the spot where the needle had the most give. With a gentleness that had rarely been a part of me, I pressed against that tumbler and heard a click.

  Below me, something hissed, followed by a sharp tug on my skirts. A snake had latched itself on to my skirts! The last good skirt I owned, in fact, which was infuriating.

  I tried to shake it off, and in the process, the needle fell out of the lock, landing somewhere below. Landing in that snake's eye, I hoped.

  Luckily, the knife was jammed in more tightly. I pulled it out and then cut away at my skirt, hoping it wasn't a part of the dress I would need once I was free.

  If I was free. I'd heard the lock click, but was that just the tumbler moving aside, only to fall back in place now that the needle was gone?

  With my knife back between my teeth, I rose up again, higher this time, and felt above the cage bars for the lock. It snapped open and fell into the water below. This did land on a snake. I heard the clonk.

  Good. They were giving me a nasty headache; it was about time one of them got a headache too.

  Holding tightly to the bars, I withdrew my feet and pressed them against the side of the pit wall, near the cage door. Once I straightened my body, I hoped it'd force the door upward. It moved a little but my feet slipped. I heard the snap of a snake's jaw and wondered how close it had come to my foot.

  I straightened myself again, refusing to make any more mistakes, at least until I was out of the pit. The cage door lifted, and I got one foot onto the floor, then the other. Then I rolled from there onto the floor, slamming the crate door down again.

  That was good news, but my problems were far from over. Once the water was high enough, the snakes would be free of the pit. I got to my feet and ran over to the fireplace. How odd it was, to see the fire still roaring in its place, while everything around me was soaked.

  Using my skirts to protect my hands, I pulled the pot of boiling spindlewill off the fireplace and walked it back to the pit and dumped it in. Poison, meet venom. I wondered which would win.

  Then I quickly scoured the room for any jar marked as alcohol or with any label that might include flammable contents. As I did, I noticed one row of glass jars that had escaped my attention before. The jars were filled with dry thrushweed leaves, enough to heal every Colonist here. If they had collected these leaves, then they must know its effect on the spindlewill. Was this thrushweed the reason some of the people here in the infirmary were saying they felt better?

  I stared at the jars until hissing sounds overwhelmed the roll of thunder overhead. I had to destroy this room, now. It meant I'd also destroy this thrushweed, which the Colonists on the outside so desperately needed. But what they didn't need was to suddenly find the island crawling with Dulanian vipers.

  I finally decided to open every jar of liquid and dump all their contents into the pit. Something in one of those bottles had to burn.

  Then I returned to the fireplace. One of the logs must've been recently brought in from the storm, because half of it was still wet and fire had yet to take hold there. I grabbed it and dropped the log into the pit.

  Yes, something in there was highly flammable. A funnel of fire exploded from the pit, singeing the hairs on my arm and catching a piece of my hem on fire. My skirt was thoroughly ruined now. I patted out the fire from the fabric, grabbed my knife from where I'd laid it on the floor, and then ran from the burning room.

  Plenty of cries could still be heard on the west side of the infirmary, so I guessed all the wardens had gathered there. I went to the quieter half instead.

  I tested the first door, one with a small barred window for communication. The woman inside pressed her nose to the bars. "Hurry! Something smells terrible. Is it fire?"

  "Burning snakes," I mumbled, as if that was the sort of thing everyone was used to smelling.

  I tugged on her door, but it was locked. I still had my knife, but that wasn't enough. The needles probably wouldn't have worked either. These were bigger medieval locks, half rusted over. With his thin needles, even Weevil couldn't have picked these.

  The second and third doors were the same way. I didn't know why I kept trying them. Of course they'd all be locked.

  The fourth door was Jonas's.

  "So," he casually said, "which catastrophe was you? Did you start the fire or destroy the entire west half of the infirmary?"

  I grinned. "Well, I won't take credit for the west half. I can't break the lock, but you need this."

  He held out his tied hands. I gave him my knife to cut the ropes and told him to pocket the larger pieces, just in case we needed it.

  "The rope is useless if you can't get me out of here," he said.

  "I'm working on that."

  "Stop right there!" Warden Gossel sh
outed from behind me. Inwardly, I groaned. Gossel was the last person I ever wanted to see, but especially not now.

  Jonas had my knife, and in his hurry to get it back to me, I heard it drop inside the cell. Meanwhile, Gossel pulled out a pistol, aimed directly at me. I stared down its long barrel, frozen with fear. Even if I had my knife, it wouldn't do any good.

  Then someone yelled out from behind him, and suddenly, I saw Weevil. His hair was sticking out more than usual and looked a little burnt, his clothes were torn, and someone had wrapped part of his arm in a makeshift bandage, tying it off with a silk ribbon. He looked terrible, but at least he was alive.

  Also, Weevil might've gone fully insane. He came flying down the hall at Gossel like a hawk swooping for its kill and with a screech just as loud. Gossel was knocked off balance at first, but then recovered and threw Weevil down the opposite hallway. I ran toward them, happy to join the fight if the wardens really wanted to see what River People could do.

  But before I could get to him, a laundry bin barreled down the hallway and ran straight into Gossel. He tumbled inside it, banging his head on a low-hanging beam in the process. Still gripping the bin's handle, Della looked sideways at me and smiled.

  "Is this how you River People always live?" she asked.

  With a shrug, I said, "Yes, only with more fishing and fewer people trying to kill us."

  Brogg ran down the hallway to see what had happened to Gossel. The pistol in his hand was cocked and ready. Instantly, our eyes locked.

  I hesitated. Even if Weevil and I had a chance against him, our fight would alert other wardens to come after us.

  But Brogg only nodded, lowered the pistol, and turned to disappear from where he had come.

  Weevil was back on his feet in an instant. "Are you and that warden friends now?"

  "He shouldn't expect gifts from me anytime soon," I said. "But I don't think we're enemies either. How's Gossel?"

  Weevil leaned inside the bin. "Very sleepy," he said. "Also, with that lump on his forehead, I think he'll need a larger hat."

  Then Weevil rose up with the warden's keys in his hands, which he tossed to me. "You could've used one of my needles to pick those locks."

  "It wouldn't have worked. Anyway, I broke it inside a different lock."

  "What lock?"

  "I'll explain later, but it was for a good cause. Besides, whatever I did, I think it's worse to climb the tallest tree on the island during a lightning storm."

  Weevil grinned. "It's hard to be worse than you at anything, but I think I finally did it!"

  Once I finished freeing Jonas from his cell, he clumsily shoved the knife into my hands before running to Della. Then I unlocked one more cell and handed the keys to the man inside. "You must get all the others out," I said. He nodded and continued down the hall where I had left off.

  "Let's go," Weevil said.

  We started toward the infirmary entrance, but by then, other wardens were aware of our presence. Worse still, thanks to the hole knocked into the west end of the building by the storm, the infirmary was beginning to flood. We'd never pull the door open with so much water in the way.

  "Come on," I said, leading everyone with me toward the physician's office. We opened the door to see the floor covered in water, and oddly, fire on the walls and shelves, having spread from what I had started in the pit. It made the room at once both hot and cold. "Watch out for snakes."

  "Snakes?" Della asked.

  "Snakes and fire," Weevil said admiringly. "You've been busy." He glanced down. "Snakes, Ani--where are your boots? And what happened to your dress?"

  Luckily, most of what I'd cut away was an underskirt behind me. But Weevil had noticed, so maybe it was worse than I'd thought.

  "Help me brace the door," I said. Though it was heavy, we pushed the examination table in front of the door, and just in time too, for wardens were already on the other side, pounding to come in.

  "I see a snake!" Della cried, leaping into Jonas's arms.

  "It's dead," I said. "But they might not all be. Let's go."

  I pointed to the door at the far end of the room. The wooden shelves on either end were almost entirely consumed in flame, and the door itself had blackened from the smoke and heat.

  "Nothing will be out that door," Della said. "Just the pole fence behind the infirmary."

  "But I've got a plan." I turned to Weevil, realizing he had just said the very same thing. What was his plan? Mine would work, but his were usually better. In fact, knowing the absolute foolishness of my plan, I could guarantee that this time, we should follow his idea.

  "Can we discuss this after we're away from the snakes?" Jonas asked.

  "We're all wet," Della said. "If we keep our heads down and run, the fire won't bother us."

  Weevil went first, using what remained of his shirt to open the hot door. Jonas ran with Della next. I followed, but not before looking back one last time to be sure nothing still remained alive in this foul room.

  Maybe that didn't matter. According to Gossel, Doctor Cresh had other Dulanian vipers back in his office on Keldan.

  Besides, there was no looking back now for any of us. We could not stop until everyone knew the truth about the Scourge.

  It was a good thing Jonas was carrying Della, because any strength she'd had earlier had been exhausted on that laundry bin. She'd wielded it like a weapon, though, no doubt about that.

  "What now?" Jonas asked. The tall fence was right in front of us. It wouldn't take the wardens long to figure out we had left the examination room. They'd be coming for us within minutes.

  Weevil pointed to a nearby door that had been built into the fence. "The other night, Ani and I heard noises back here, probably on the other side of this wall. I don't know what's over there, but it's got to be better than here. I can easily pick this lock, and we'll walk to freedom." He turned to me. "I know you broke one of the needles, but if you still have the second one and your knife--"

  "I broke both needles."

  "Both?" He paused, squinting at me before wiping rain off his face. "I've got to be honest with you, Ani. That's really terrible news. The worst."

  "Don't be dramatic," I said. "There's another plan." I grabbed his hand and pulled him in the direction of the river that ran beneath the fence wall. Yesterday, it had been midsized, with a strong flow of water coming toward the Colony, but it had also been manageable. Now, thanks to the storm, the river had flooded its banks and doubled in its swiftness.

  So, yes, obviously his plan had been better. But mine would make a great story one day. Or an amazing story, if we survived.

  Staring at the river, Weevil swiped his hair away from his face. "You've got to be joking."

  "We're good swimmers," I said to him.

  "Not that good. I've never gone upriver in something like that."

  "Me neither, not alone." I held out my hand for the rope that had tied Jonas. "If we tie ourselves close together and one of us always stays anchored on something, the other can pull us forward."

  Weevil tilted his head, obviously doubtful. Then he reached for the rope. "All right, but if we live through this, you owe my mother a new pair of quilting needles."

  We stood next to each other while Jonas bound together our inside hands. For anyone else, that would make swimming difficult, but Weevil and I were stronger when we worked together. It was decided that I would be the first anchor, and so before we jumped in, I took hold of the branches of a bush growing right next to the expanded river.

  The current immediately grabbed us, trying to carry us back toward the Colony. Water splashed in our faces from the river but also from the heavy downpour of rain, making breathing difficult. I still kept a tight grip on the bush until Weevil reached the fence. Then he nodded at me, signaling that he was secure.

  I released the branches and used Weevil's weight to help me push forward through the water. I grabbed the fence too, though it was mossy from years of standing over this river. Weevil said, "We'll bot
h hold on and both go under."

  "If you let go of that fence, I won't be able to hold on alone," I warned.

  "If you let go, I'll be even angrier than when you broke both needles," he countered.

  "I broke them to get away from snakes!" I shouted. "Snakes, Weevil! Big ones!"

  He winked and said, "I'll take that as your apology."

  I started to protest, but he drew a deep breath and ducked under the water. I immediately followed. When we both came up for air, we were on the opposite side of the fence, outside the Colony. The rain fell just as hard here, obviously, and the terrain didn't look much different. But it definitely felt different, like we had accomplished something significant.

  Weevil pointed out a rock on my side of the river. That's what we'd use to help us get out of the water. We braced our heads against the pole fence behind us and scooted sideways, getting as close to the riverbank as possible.

  I grabbed the rock with my free hand, searching for a place where my fingers could dig in with a firm grip. Then Weevil swung around to my side so that he could reach for the rock as well. It was a lucky thing he found a good hold, because my hand slipped along some moss and I was pulled back underwater.

  "Ani!" Weevil's fingers immediately interlaced with mine. My body yanked hard against the current, then slowly moved upstream again. Once I came up for air, I saw him lying belly down in the mud, his legs tangled around a bush to keep him from being dragged back to the river. Weevil pulled me from the water, then we lay beside each other on the bank to catch our breaths.

  After a moment, I managed to sit, and coughed up some water I must've swallowed badly. Instantly, Weevil was beside me, though I wasn't sure if he was concerned about my choking, or whether he was forced to sit because our hands were still tied together. I wiggled my fingers, still woven with his. Why hadn't he let go yet? Why hadn't I?

  "I'm fine," I said once I'd finished coughing. "Are you all right?"

  Rather than answer, he lifted his free hand to my cheek, lightly stroking the skin. When I looked at him, I found a different expression in his eyes than I'd seen in four years of our friendship. I recognized it, though. It was the way Jonas looked at Della. And how my father looked at my mother when he didn't know I was watching.

  Suddenly, I forgot how to swallow.