“So much for the honor of a pirate. No, I forgot, pirates don’t have honor.”
The undergrowth parted, and Ransom emerged, coming up short when he saw the little tableau. His hands were empty. “Rowena,” he said, breathing heavily, “we don’t have time for this.”
“Get in the boat, Ransom,” Zara said, her gaze unflinching. Ransom went wide around Ghazarian, but instead of getting into the boat, he came to stand behind Zara. “I said get in the boat,” she repeated. Sweat was sliding down her back and her temples, and her stomach muscles ached from being hit.
“I’ll guide you,” Ransom said in her ear. “Start walking. I won’t let you fall.”
“Where’s the rifle?”
“I dropped it when I was running. Stupid of me. Now, walk.”
Zara took a step backward. Ghazarian followed, and Zara cocked the pistol. The tiny click seemed unnaturally loud against the background noise of the river. Even the insects had stopped whirring, as if holding their breath against the outcome of this battle. Zara took another step back, and this time Ghazarian stayed put. Her cinnamon-dark skin was mottled red with fury. “I will find you,” she said, “and I will kill you much. You will suffer.”
“Big words from the woman who lost her gun,” Zara said, continuing to walk backward with Ransom a steady, reassuring presence behind her. “I hope it doesn’t have sentimental value.”
By the look on Ghazarian’s face, she didn’t understand the word “sentimental.” “You,” she began, and the bushes behind her rustled again as another pirate emerged, then another. They brought up their pistols, and Zara said, “Drop them if you don’t want to see your captain bloody on the ground.”
The man and woman glanced at Ghazarian. “Do it,” she said through gritted teeth, and the pirates dropped their pistols.
“Kick them out of the way,” Zara said. “Harder.” The pirates glared at her, but did as she said. “Please tell me we’re close,” she said in a low voice.
“We’re almost there. You do know how to shoot, right?” Ransom said.
“Let’s hope we don’t have to find out,” Zara replied. Her heel kicked the side of the boat, and she wobbled a bit, then raised her foot high to step over the side. Ransom had his hands around her waist, steadying her. She lifted her other foot, stumbled, and fell into the bottom of the boat. Ghazarian lunged.
“Go!” Zara shouted, and fired her pistol at the pirate captain. Ghazarian ducked, and Zara fired again, cursing when she missed once more. Why hadn’t she ever learned to shoot a pistol? What use did you ever have for weapons when words were just as deadly? she thought, shooting again, missing again.
The boat was moving more rapidly now, Ransom at the Device, and Zara flung herself into the bottom of the boat as the pirates recovered their weapons and began shooting back. Zara fired again, not trying to hit anyone, just hoping to distract them. She could feel the current taking them, moving even faster. “More power,” Ransom told Theo, then grunted in pain. Zara shot one final time and turned to see blood spreading across Ransom’s back.
She cried out and looked for something to stop the bleeding. Ransom sagged over the Device, and Arjan and Zara pulled him out of the way so Arjan could take over. Another bullet carved a furrow across the port side, making Cantara scream and jerk away. Then the bullets stopped, and all Zara could hear was distant shouting over the roar of the river.
“We have to get to shore,” Zara said. “Head for the other side.”
“We should go as far as possible from them,” Arjan said. His voice was weak, but he had no trouble controlling the Device, steering as she instructed.
“Ransom’s hit. We have to stop the bleeding.” Zara leaned harder on Ransom’s back and heard him groan. “Quickly.”
Ransom said something too quietly for her to understand. “What was that?” she said, leaning close to his mouth.
“Not that bad,” he whispered. “Can heal…if the bullet is out.”
“It’s not.”
“I can tell, Rowena,” he said with a wry smile, and despite her fear she couldn’t help smiling back. “Someone has to…take it out.”
“You mean me.”
“Put me…in your debt.”
“Stop being ridiculous. As if that mattered.”
Ransom took a shallow breath. “Tools in kit. I’ll guide you.”
“I can’t promise I won’t make it worse.”
“Just…get it out…I’ll do the rest.” He closed his eyes. Zara sat up.
“We need solid ground for this,” she said. “I—Belinda!”
Belinda was sitting up and had a hand pressed to her head. “Why are we on the boat?”
“Don’t you remember? You attacked one of those pirates with nothing but your fists!” Theo said. “Left her clawed up, too, before she hit you.”
Belinda looked at her fingertips, which were slightly bloody, and shuddered. “I don’t know if I wish I remembered that moment of heroics or if I’m glad I’ve forgotten it,” she said. She ran her fingers in the water and dried them on her shirt. “Oh, heaven, what happened to Ransom?”
“He’ll be fine. We just have to get to safety.” Zara realized she was still holding Ghazarian’s pistol and tucked it into her waistband. It felt like a trophy. “Are we almost across?”
“The current’s stronger now,” Theo said. “But we’re making progress.”
Zara watched the opposite bank draw gradually nearer. “We’d better be,” she said.
She lost track of time, watching the bank creep closer as she kept her hands pressed firmly on Ransom’s back. She was sure he was conscious, though he said nothing; none of them spoke, Theo and Arjan intent on wrestling the boat across the river with the recalcitrant Device, Belinda with her hands on the starboard gunwale, leaning toward the bank as if she could propel the boat faster with the weight of her desires. Cantara sat curled at the prow, staring at the water. Red birds with green and yellow wings swooped overhead, indifferent to their troubles; they, too, were silent. The sound of the river filled Zara’s ears, the roar of a thousand people all cheering them on, and she clung to that image as the torn rag she was using grew gradually redder.
She had drifted into a numb, mindless state when a bump, and then a grinding sensation, told her they’d reached the shore. She sat, indecisive as to whether to stand or stay where she was, while Arjan and Theo dragged the boat up onto the bank, probably farther than was strictly necessary. Ransom moved, pushing himself up with one arm, and Zara said, “Don’t.”
“Have to…on the ground,” he whispered, then to her horror pushed himself into a sitting position and began to rise.
“Stop it! Arjan, help me,” she said. Ransom leaned forward and caught himself on the gunwale.
“It’s all right,” he said in a surprisingly strong voice. “But we don’t have much time.”
“I don’t understand,” Zara said.
Ransom sat up again, and Arjan awkwardly dragged him out of the boat without prompting any cries of pain. “I can cut off the nerves surrounding the wound for a while,” he said, “long enough to guide you in taking the bullet out.”
“We had to leave everything behind, Ransom. What am I supposed to do?”
“Medical kit’s in the boat below the stern seat,” Ransom said. “We only unloaded what we were going to use. We still have the kit, the medicines, and some food. We can survive for weeks on that.”
“He wrong is,” Arjan said.
“I think he’s joking. Let’s find a soft place to put him.”
Thick-bladed striped grass grew long about ten feet from the water’s edge. Belinda and Cantara stomped down a ten-foot-square section that Arjan and Theo laid Ransom face down on. Zara lugged the stained leather bag containing Ransom’s tools and set it down near him. Ransom propped himself on his elbows and dug around in it. “This,” he said, handing Zara a long forceps of stainless steel, “and this.”
Zara took the scalpel he handed her and examined th
e edge. “You want me to cut you more?”
“Possibly.” His face was shiny with sweat, though the morning was still cool. “You’ll need to cut my shirt open. Scissors in the bottom of the bag.”
“Can’t I just push it up?”
“Why does it not surprise me that you’re arguing with me?” Ransom lay back down and raised his arms to put his hands beneath his head. “Just do it, Rowena.”
Zara dug out the scissors—they were the biggest scissors she’d ever seen in her life—and cut his shirt up the back, folding it to each side. “Now what?”
“It’s not that deep. See if you can use the forceps to—” he let out a gasp. “Yes. That.”
“I thought you couldn’t feel anything.”
“Only the pain receptors are numb. You’re touching the bullet.”
“I can’t see it.”
“You’ll need to widen the wound, then. Make a deep cut—don’t be afraid.”
Zara swallowed. “You’re the one who should be afraid. Giving me a knife and telling me to stab you in the back. Are you sure that’s a behavior you want to encourage?”
“Don’t stab, cut. Yes, like that.”
It felt like cutting pork for stew. Zara pushed away the grotesque thought and set the scalpel aside. “This can’t be how bullet wounds are treated.”
“It isn’t. It’s just—” He gasped again. “Just the only option. Now, can you see it?”
She prodded the wound with the forceps. “I think so.”
“Very gently, get the forceps around the bottom of it and pull. Slowly. I’m getting to the end of how long I can safely keep those nerves shut off, and if you have to dig around to recover it—”
“Shut up. I know what to do.” This was no harder than fishing a bit of eggshell out of a bowl of sticky, slippery egg whites. Nothing to it. She had a steady hand, he was lucky—
The forceps slipped. Zara cursed. “What?” Ransom said.
“Hold still.” She carefully removed the forceps. She could see the bullet now, slick with blood in the middle of red, torn flesh. Cantara made a noise, then fainted, and Arjan caught her and lowered her to the ground. “I could use a smaller audience,” Zara said through gritted teeth. Belinda and Theo moved back.
Ransom cried out in pain. The sound struck her to the heart. “Sorry,” she whispered, “almost done,” and she reached back in with the forceps. Ransom cried out again, then went limp. Zara cursed and groped for the bullet, no longer caring if it hurt—he wasn’t in a position to feel anything. She felt the forceps close around something hard and pulled it out, steadily, then dropped the bullet on the bed of grass and sat back, breathing heavily. She tossed the forceps next to the bullet and cut the rest of Ransom’s shirt off, then bound it over the wound. If she’d been the one hurt, her body would have already begun knitting itself back together. Would she have healed around the bullet, or would it have pushed itself out as the flesh healed? Heaven send she never had to find out.
“He’ll be fine,” she assured the others. “We just have to wait for him to wake up so he can heal himself. Then we can get back on the river.”
“Those pirates will keep chasing us!” Arjan said. “They looking for a Device back on the Emma Covington were as well. Why do they think we have it?”
“It’s a mistake,” Theo said, but he clutched his belt tighter.
“I think it time for honesty is,” Arjan said. He was still supporting Cantara, who was conscious but ashy. “The pirates found us twice. They have a way us to find. It must a thing we carry be. Who has such a thing?”
“You don’t trust us?” Belinda said.
“We do not know each other before the shipwreck,” Arjan said in a harsh, unfamiliar voice. “On ship it does not matter what secrets we have. Now a secret might kill us. We have said our secret, Cantara and I. It reasonable that you do the same is.”
“I don’t have any secrets,” Belinda exclaimed. “I don’t have anything but what I’m wearing.”
“I’m not hiding anything,” Theo said. Zara could hear the guilt in his voice.
“You’re hiding whatever that belt is,” she said. Both Theo’s hands flew to his belt.
“It’s just money,” he said. “Well, not money. Gems. My father sold property in County Cullinan for my aunt and this is the proceeds.”
“Prove it,” Arjan said.
“I can’t, not without picking it apart—but you can feel it.” Theo unbuckled his belt and handed it to Arjan, who felt along its length, squeezing it between his fingers and thumb.
“It lumpy is,” he said. “It may truth be.”
“I believe him,” said Belinda.
“Rowena hasn’t said anything,” Theo said, snatching his belt away from Arjan and threading it through the loops of his trousers. “What do you know?”
Well, this is dramatic, Zara thought. Casually, displaying no signs of guilt, she dug in her pocket and came out with Alfred’s Device. “I think this is what they want.”
All four of them burst out into shouts and accusations. “You could have gotten us killed!” Belinda said. “What were you thinking?”
“And you thought I was hiding secrets,” Theo said with a trace of smugness.
“You could have given it to them, and Arjan would not have been beaten,” Cantara shouted.
“How dare you treat us thus?” Arjan said. He advanced on Zara with his fist raised. Zara stuffed the Device into her pocket and stared him down with the steely North gaze.
“That’s enough,” she said, and everyone went silent. Arjan stopped a few feet from her, still tense as if he might strike her if she said the wrong thing. “This belonged to Alfred, and he entrusted it to me before he died. I didn’t know the pirates had any way of tracking it and I certainly didn’t mean to involve all of you. But it wasn’t my secret to keep. And I intended to tell you all about it once we were safe.” That last was a lie, but only a partial one. Keeping Alfred’s secret was one thing, but endangering five other people superseded that need. “I’m sorry you all had to be involved in this, whatever it is.”
“Well, that’s interesting,” Ransom said, rolling over and making the awkward bandage shift, “but I think that story should wait until we’re all recovered enough to hear it. And I’m going to need a bath.”
Chapter Twelve
They waited, exhausted from terror, as the day wore on and Ransom lay still on the bloody bed of grass, healing. Zara leaned back against a tree and watched a trail of tiny ants circle around her boot and across the bare ground toward a cone of dirt, where they disappeared. Everything else in the jungle was built to such a large scale it was disconcerting to see anything normal-sized, even if it was just ants. She closed her eyes and drew in a breath of muggy air. She was so tired of being damp all the time. When this was over, she was definitely going to Veribold. At least there she spoke the language.
“So Alfred was an agent of the Crown,” Belinda said. “I never suspected.”
“The good agents aren’t suspicious,” Theo said. “Do you think he knew how dangerous the Device was? I mean, dangerous to him if the pirates found it.”
“I think the attack surprised him,” Zara said. “In the sense that he wasn’t expecting pirates. Obviously he knew discovery was possible.”
“What does it do?” Cantara said.
Zara pulled it out of her pocket again. She’d handed it around to everyone but Ransom, who was preoccupied, to examine. “I don’t know. I haven’t wanted to investigate it too closely. If I broke it, and it was something urgent… Theo, what do you think?”
“I have no idea,” Theo said, holding out his hand for it. “If I could crack it open, I might have a better idea, but I can barely see the seam.” He clicked the stem of the Device around in a complete cycle again. “Odd. I didn’t notice before, but the leaf pattern shifts with every click.”
The others gathered around. Cantara prodded one of the leaves. “It raises,” she said. “I can feel the bumps. It is
like seltirian. A…language for those who cannot see. It too uses bumps.”
“I don’t suppose you speak this language?” Zara said. She still hadn’t told them she spoke Eskandelic and tried not to feel guilty about that. She was keeping so many secrets it was a wonder she didn’t erupt.
Cantara shook her head. “It might not enough for a complete language be, only…nine bumps. I do not know how many combinations that is.”
“362,880,” Theo said immediately. “I have a knack for numbers,” he said defensively when everyone turned to look at him. “Anyway, it’s enough for a language. More than enough. This could be some kind of communication Device.” He handed it back to Zara.
“But why?” Zara fingered the outlines of the leaves before resetting the Device to what she hoped was its base setting, assuming it had one. At least, it was the setting that made the Device’s surface smooth. “A telecoder uses far fewer symbols and lets you communicate instantly from any distance. This…well, suppose you could encode a message in it, send it to someone else who knows how to trigger the message? That seems needlessly complicated.”
“What matters is that the pirates want it and they have some way to find it,” Ransom said. He was still lying on his stomach with the bandage wrapped tightly to his lower back, but his voice was strong, if a bit muffled by the grass. “We need to get rid of it.”
“I promised Alfred I’d deliver it,” Zara said.
“You didn’t promise Alfred you’d let yourself be killed over it,” Ransom said. “It’s dangerous.”
“Then we’ll have to deliver it quickly.”
“Or we can bury it here, get as far away as possible, and let the pirates track it down.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“I don’t recall putting you in charge of deciding our fates.”
“I don’t recall inviting you to make decisions for me.”
“Maybe he’s right,” Theo said. “Alfred wouldn’t want us to get killed. Much as I’d hate to leave it behind.”
Zara stood and thrust the Device back into her pocket. “The pirates are on the wrong side of the river, and they’re on foot, because there’s no way they have the kind of Device this boat has to take them upstream,” she said. “If they want this thing, they’re going to have to go farther south to find a ford or go north to their ship. In either case, we have the advantage of them. And I’ll be damned if I let that murdering pirate get her hands on this Device. So I say we get back on this boat and get to Goudge’s Folly as fast as we can. If you’re not interested, then set me down on the opposite shore and I’ll walk north and west until I get where I’m going. But I am going to make this delivery.”
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