by Jill Braden
It was too bad she’d only been able to take out the two soldiers. That still left seventeen to neutralize, and then there was Kyam to consider.
Voorus’ fingers dug into her arm as he yanked her deeper into the trees. “You know that Ponongese?”
QuiTai nodded. She continued to cry, although not as loudly as before.
Voorus beckoned Kyam over. “If she’s never been on this cay before, how does she know him?” He pointed to the clearing. “Or is that one of the Devil’s men?”
“I’ve seen her speaking with him before in Levapur, so he could be one of the Devil’s men, but I swear that she hasn’t left my side since we spoke at the Red Happiness.” Kyam’s mouth snapped shut as his eyes narrowed.
Voorus shook her so hard that her head swam. “How did you get a message to your operatives? Tell me. I swear I’ll strip you and roll you in those sea wasp stingers if you don’t tell me now.”
“I sent him to keep an eye on the Ravidians, back before we knew what they were doing. He must have followed them here.” She wiped tears from her eyes. “I haven’t spoken to him since before Jezereet was murdered.”
Voorus gripped her hand and forced it open. He pointed to her scar. “One wonders where you got that, since you claim you’ve never been on this island before.”
“Two of my friends have died in the past two days, and all you care about is a red mark on my hand? Heartless Thampurian bastard.” QuiTai let her knees buckle as she forced more tears to roll down her cheeks. She bit her knuckles, but her sobs grew louder.
Voorus pushed her into Kyam’s arms. “Beat her if you have to; just get her to stop that unseemly wailing. The Ravidians might hear. I have to see to my men.”
Kyam’s eyes were dark with fury as he pulled her in the opposite direction. “You can cut the act now. Remember, I’ve seen real grief on your face.”
QuiTai immediately stopped wailing and batted her eyelashes.
“How did you do it?” Kyam asked.
“Do what?”
He jerked her hard against his body. “Quit playing the innocent. How did you get a message to him? Was it that woman at the tavern?”
She wasn’t about to let him know.
“This is going to stop, Lady QuiTai, and it’s going to stop now. I won’t let you hurt any more soldiers.”
“Ah, you’ve found the mosquito in the dark room.”
“What did you do to that one back at the lagoon? Did you...” With two fingers, he made a gesture like fangs in front of his mouth.
“Heavens no. Just a touch of black lotus. He’ll have nice dreams and a wicked headache tomorrow.”
Kyam exhaled as he ran his hand over his hair. “Okay. But no more. Letting those men touch the sea wasp stingers was cruel.”
“Those men rushed into a trap without thinking while on a raid. That sort of carelessness could get them killed in any number of ways. And do I have to remind you that they tried to throw me into a cell with werewolves last night?”
“Voorus may be slow, but eventually he’ll figure out what you’re doing.”
She smoothed her sarong and pushed her braid over her shoulder. “Just as I figured out what he’s doing.”
“He’s securing the compound.”
“No, Mister Zul. He’s securing the production of sea wasps.”
“You and your words. I swear I’m going to start calling you Princess Pedantic. What’s the difference?”
“The Ponongese slaves working the tide pools.”
Kyam all but rolled his eyes. “There are no Ponongese slaves, Lady QuiTai.”
She didn’t care to be spoken to like a dim child. “I assure you there are, Mister Zul. Otherwise, the village would be littered with dead. Remember when you told me the Ravidians treat the natives of their colonies worse than Thampurians do? So trust me when I say that there are enslaved Ponongese working the tide pools of this plantation, and after the colonial military secures the compound, they will still be slaves and no one will ever know.”
From his suspicious look, she thought he didn’t believe her, but she could see understanding dawning behind his anger.
Kyam ground his teeth. “The government in Surrayya will put a stop to that.”
“You’ve been read the Secrecy Act, I assume. Tell anyone back in Surrayya what happened here, including your handlers in the intelligence service, and the colonial government will execute you. I’ll be surprised if you still have a farwriter in your apartment when you return, and good luck boarding a Zul ship without an armed escort in the future. Ask your cousin Hadre to send a message, and they’ll kill him. So no, I don’t think your government will put a stop to anything.”
“You could –”
“You really don’t see it, do you? I’m Ponongese.”
“I’m well aware of that.”
“They’ll never let me off this island alive. I know too much about the sea wasps, about the harbor master, about the slaves. You may appreciate my special talents, but to them I’m just another snake.” She strolled a few steps away from him. Her gaze flicked to his groin then back up to his eyes as the corner of her mouth curved. “At least I’ll be safe from Petrof here. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
Shaking his head, he mouthed the word ‘no.’
Exploiting his weakness for her was no way to treat a lover, but it wasn’t the time to play nice or fair. One of them had to be the villain to play out the rest of this script the way it was meant to unfold. And that was a role she was born to play, especially for a Thampurian audience.
She circled him. “Would you like that, Colonel Zul? Me held captive here, pried away from the Devil’s bed, at your mercy, in chains?”
Kyam clenched his jaw as he drew in a ragged breath. His fists clenched. She stood on her tiptoes to whisper into his ear. “Tempting vision, isn’t it?”
“You have no conscience, do you?”
“Don’t be ashamed of how it stirs you, Kyam. Many people fantasize about such things. I would relish binding your hands to your headboard with that silk scarf you bought me.” He closed his eyes and swallowed hard as her fingernails rasped across the nape of his neck. “I know that right now, you would very much like to control me. Maybe even make me beg...”
“QuiTai...” Her name was a plea on his lips. The fight for control passed over his face like a shadow. He dropped his voice into a harsh whisper. “Not another one of my men, QuiTai. I’m warning you.”
A mocking smile played across her mouth as she bowed. Against his better judgment, he would still protect her, because that was the type of man he was.
“And don’t you dare think of siding with the Ravidians. Even the king couldn’t save you then.”
“I will never show mercy to anyone who enslaves my people.” He could interpret that as he wished. “I’ll make you a new deal. From now on, you concentrate on your people, and I’ll focus on mine. No more shared rice.”
At that moment, he clearly hated her. “Agreed.”
~ ~ ~
A couple of soldiers drew near them. “Major Voorus says to move out, in case the Ravidians come to investigate.”
QuiTai studied the guard tower in the center of the compound. It looked as if it had been hastily constructed, but ugly aesthetics didn’t change its effectiveness. From that height, the Ravidian in the tower could send pain and death raining down in a wide circle, and he obviously had the weapon to do it.
For three men defending such a large position with no cover and no geographical advantage, they had an effective set up. She’d assumed they were scientists, but now she suspected they were military.
“They won’t bother to come here,” QuiTai said as they returned the main group of soldiers.
“What does that mean?” Kyam asked.
“The Ravidians don’t ever have to leave that guard tower,” QuiTai said.
She daubed the last fake tears from around her eyes. “Take another look at PhaNyan’s body. The area surrounding him is covered in se
a wasps, but closer to the wall, there are none.”
Kyam’s eyes opened wide. “They have some way of propelling the sea wasp stingers all the way from the tower?”
“Nonsense,” Voorus snorted.
“Go stand in that clearing and catch the Ravidian’s attention. You’ll find out soon enough.” She hoped he would.
“How?” Kyam asked.
“I think the Ravidian in the guard tower is carrying some sort of propulsion device for a load of stingers. We guessed that they’d weaponized them. Now we know how,” QuiTai said. She was speaking to Kyam, but she looked at the soldiers who gathered around her.
“Listen, I know weapons, and I can tell you that there’s no way that splatter came from that guard tower. They must have surprised your spy while they walked the perimeter,” Voorus argued.
She squatted and searched across the ground for stones. As the soldiers watched, she formed a short stack and a tall one. She squinted as she compared the heights. “The tall stack represents the tower. The short stack is the compound wall.” She stripped a twig of leaves and rested the stick on the two piles of stones. Where the twig touched the ground, she drew an arc. She pointed to the inside of the arc. “No spray.” Then she pointed outside the line. “Spray.”
The soldiers looked from her model to the clearing.
“That’s ridiculous. No one can send something flying that far without a catapult of some type, and there’s barely enough room for a man to stand up there,” Voorus said. But he squatted beside QuiTai to look at her stacks of stones. “Unless they’ve developed a weapon we’ve never seen before.” He looked at QuiTai with a measure of respect she hadn’t expected.
“We have to rethink the plan for this raid,” Kyam said. He uncapped a flask and drank from it. The other soldiers leaned against trees and took out their flasks. One started to hand his to QuiTai, but Kyam pushed it away. “Don’t take anything she hands you. And from now on, be very careful about touching her. She’s poison.”
She smiled and shrugged. They would have tasted the black lotus if she’d added it to their water anyway.
QuiTai wandered away from them and squatted in the shade. Her inner eyelid slid down to protect her from the swarm of gnats trying to drink from the corners of her eyes. Ivitch’s bite on her ankle itched under the gauze wrappings. She tried to scratch it through the bandage. Blood-tinged pus had seeped from the infected punctures and hardened on the gauze.
Watching the soldiers gulp down water made her mouth dry. She searched through the plants with thick stems until she found one with reservoirs of rain water trapped in its crevices. After picking out the drowned insects and plant debris, she pressed her face to the stem and sucked as much of the water as she could reach.
She could see Kyam’s face as he addressed Voorus. His gaze met hers. She listened as he said, “Assume that it is possible that the Ravidians have such a weapon. What are our options? I need a good plan, and I need it now.”
“You need? I think you’ve forgotten your place, Zul. You’re an observer,” Voorus said.
When he wasn’t using his height and rumbling voice to intimidate her, QuiTai had to admit that Kyam’s glowering was quite effective. There was no humor in his eyes now as he faced the major. “Fine. Then you come up with a plan.”
“Can we go over the wall?” a soldier asked.
“I think those are sea wasp stingers hanging from the wires. We could clear a section, but if we’re seen, we’ll lose any advantage we had. Besides, we’d risk one of the men touching a stinger, and we can’t waste vinegar,” Kyam said.
“We could build a battering ram and smash the wall, sir.”
Voorus shook his head. “Focus on the Ravidians, not on destroying the compound.”
Kyam’s eyebrow rose. Maybe now he believed her that the soldiers had been sent to secure the plantation, not to destroy it. That didn’t mean he would betray his people though. They were each taking care of their own now: That was the deal.
~ ~ ~
The new plan was to scout the front of the compound for a way in. It wasn’t QuiTai’s plan, but she approved of it. What else could they do? With the back gate bricked over and the walls turned into death traps, there was only one way in.
The jungle thinned as they drew closer to the beach. The soldiers moved farther from the compound wall to keep under cover. Now instead of simply hacking through the growth blocking their way, they selectively cut leaves and branches and affixed them to their uniforms with tightly cinched belts. Up close they looked a bit ridiculous, like the odd crabs that stuck bits of kelp and sea anemones to their shells, but from a distance, it would be harder for the Ravidians to see a human shape.
“We need to get a closer look at the compound. Voorus, QuiTai,” Kyam gestured for them to follow. Despite Voorus’ fuming, Kyam couldn’t seem to overcome his natural leadership. How he’d controlled that instinct around her was a mystery to QuiTai.
“She doesn’t need to come along,” Voorus said.
“She’s Ponongese.”
QuiTai guessed what Kyam was thinking and nodded. It was refreshing to work with a smart man.
Unfortunately, Voorus needed it spelled out for him. “So?”
Kyam explained in a patient tone, even though she saw his jaw muscles clench from the effort. “If the Ravidians see us and come to investigate, we’ll sacrifice her so that they won’t know Thampurians are on the island.”
“Oh. Well. Yes. Of course.”
While QuiTai tried to stop her eye roll and loud sigh, Kyam glanced at her and raised his eyebrows. Even when they were at odds, they were still in agreement.
Kyam dropped to his hands and knees and crawled forward. The sandy soil clung to QuiTai’s hands as she followed him. The machete in her sarong’s waistband clapped against her thigh. By the time she, Kyam, and Voorus reached the last low growing plants, they were using their elbows to slither along.
In the water at the end of a small, rocky beach, a small fishing boat bobbed on the waves.
Two Ravidians stood near the ocean. They held odd contraptions similar to the one their countryman wielded in the guard tower. The Ravidians watched thirty or so Ponongese: some children and the rest adults. Guessing from the size of the village, there were many more she couldn’t see. They were probably inside the compound.
Anyone inside will have to be left behind.
It pained her to accept that, but she could only do what was possible.
The Ponongese and Ravidians were on a massive stone outcropping that rose about twenty feet above the ocean. Slick, rusty algae clung tenaciously to the rocks. Big waves slammed into the rocks and sent plumes of spray high into the air.
Eons before the plantation existed, waves eroded the pitted rock to form deep tide pools where crabs, anemones, and barnacles gathered. During high tide, the water level rose fifteen or twenty feet in the dark crevices and spilled over the rock. Bigger fish and squid followed silvery schools of smaller fish into the tide pools as the water rose. They had been fertile fishing grounds for her people. Similar plantations on Ponong dammed the natural tide pools so that the briny water – and the blue medusozoa they bred in the pools – couldn’t escape into the sea.
The tide pools reflected the blue sky and puffy gray clouds, but even in daylight, they should have glowed with faint blue light emitted from the medusozoa. There was no sign of it. The pools had to be full of sea wasps.
Two Ponongese women walked toward each other on a narrow path between pools, both with their attention focused down. They didn’t see each other coming as they tossed small fish into the water. QuiTai held her breath as one slipped, and then caught herself.
When the two women met, there was little room to turn around. QuiTai often heard plantation workers laugh about ‘swimming in the green,’ their term for falling into a pool of medusozoa. Since the green light medusozoa had no stingers, it wasn’t dangerous. On hot days, even though they weren’t supposed to, many plantation worke
rs took quick dips in the terrace pools. Blue light medusozoa had stingers, so no one willingly went into their pools.
One woman rested her basket of fish on her hip and balanced carefully as she turned with little steps. From that distance, QuiTai could see the terror on her face. Every Ponongese was still as if they held their collective breath.
A huge wave broke over the edge of the pool, flinging water high overhead and knocking the first woman sideways into the pool. As she screamed, the Ponongese rushed forward. The woman who had been turning dropped her basket and wailed. She fell to her knees and tried to grab the fallen woman. Other Ponongese hurried to her side.
QuiTai forced her attention from the Ponongese to the two Ravidians guarding them. When one turned toward the commotion, QuiTai saw that he wore a backpack with a glass tank full of small medusozoa below his boney neck frill. The creatures were mesmerizing as they floated placidly. Long, bright orange threadlike stingers, four and five times the length of their white translucent bodies, trailed below them.
“Get back to work.” The sunburned Ravidian QuiTai had seen in the Red Happiness used the butt of his contraption to hit the Ponongese man who stood watching the scene.
As the others pulled the woman out of the pool, a proud, broad-hipped Ponongese woman stared him down. The Ravidian lifted his gun and pumped something along the side: The woman backed away with her hand held out before her, as if it could protect her. She looked over her shoulder the woman they’d pulled out of the pool. A man shook his head.
QuiTai closed her eyes for a moment. Maybe PhaNyan had died that quickly too. It would have been a blessing.
“Did she drown?” Voorus asked.
“Sea wasps,” Kyam said.
At least her people weren’t chained. As the death of the woman who fell into the tide pool proved, the Ravidians didn’t need to resort to that. It would make the plan she was forming a little easier, but it was still going to be nearly impossible to pull off.
Voorus turned to QuiTai. “And you say they can hit us with them from inside the compound too?”