by Jill Braden
The gate to the compound was shut. Even if it had been open, there was still the guard in the tower to consider. She noticed he had no tank on his back, but a thick black coil ran from the side of his gun. She envisioned a large tank full of sea wasps in the center of the tower, which would explain why he walked so close to the sides as he made his rounds.
Her eyes narrowed as she returned her gaze to the compound. A long, gently sloping lawn, bare of any ornamental plants, stretched from the compound wall to the tide pools. Without anything to use as cover, the Ravidian in the tower would have a clear shot at the Thampurians if they tried to rush the compound. They’d be safe from him they drew close enough to the walls, though.
She stared at the lawn.
What’s his range from that tower?
Could the Thampurians get within thirty feet before they were in danger? Twenty? She tried to picture how far from PhaNyan’s body had been from the back wall of the compound.
She shook her head. The Ravidians near the tide pools could shoot the Thampurians from behind even if the one in the tower couldn’t hit them.
Something about the scene made QuiTai’s forehead furrow. The two Ravidian guards could be seen by anyone on a passing skiff. It didn’t make sense that they would stand so near the Ponongese, who could theoretically rush them en masse. That meant something.
The one in the tower can’t shoot as far as the tide pools! That’s why they have to risk being seen!
All she had to do was convince the Thampurians to draw the Ravidian guards away from the tide pools.
The corner of her mouth curved.
“I take it you’ve seen enough,” Kyam whispered. Voorus answered, but she knew the question was for her. She gave a brief nod that she knew he saw.
Chapter 17: Escape from the Island
They crawled back to the waiting soldiers. “We will wait for nightfall,” Voorus said.
QuiTai stepped forward “No. Attack now.” At nightfall, the Ponongese would probably be herded into the compound. She wanted them as close to the beach as possible.
“What? Who are you to –?”
Kyam said, “Despite our differences, I’ll admit Lady QuiTai has proven insightful today. At least listen to her suggestion.” He would pay for supporting her later, but he had to know the consequences already.
Voorus folded his arms across his chest. “Then go ahead, snake. Tell me your plan.”
“Take your men back to the compound wall. The Ravidian in the tower can’t see this side of it, and the ones on the beach can’t see around the side. Move quickly to the compound’s front gate and get inside.”
He seemed to seriously consider her idea. “The Ravidians on the beach will see us and give out a warning.”
“Yes, but the wall will protect you from the guard in the tower, and the two along the beach can’t shoot that far upslope.” At least, she hoped they couldn’t. “That will give you cover until you’re inside the compound. You’ll be most vulnerable then, so attack the tower.” Voorus frowned. QuiTai went on, urgently, “Look at the way it’s designed. The Ravidian there will have a hard time shooting straight down, so you’ll be somewhat safe once you get directly below him. Cover your faces: he’ll aim for them as you come up the ladder.”
“That’s a suicide mission,” he said softly. He stared at the compound. Then his eyebrows rose as if he’d seen the wisdom of her plan and was astonished to find himself in agreement.
“I heard that Thampurian soldiers were brave. For king and country and so on.” She reined in her sarcasm. “Once you have the tower, you’ll have a weapon to use against the other two Ravidians, and you’ll have complete control of the compound. So you’ll have to move quickly to secure it before the other two Ravidians reach the gate.”
“But what about the Ponongese?”
She wasn’t about to tell him that she planned to take care of them. “How thoughtful of you to worry about the safety of my people, major.” He looked startled. “But I’m sure your primary focus here is to secure the compound and capture the Ravidians. After all, the Ponongese are your colonial citizens, but the Ravidians are the sworn enemies of Thampur.”
Several of the soldiers murmured agreement. Even Voorus nodded emphatically. Kyam, however, seemed unconvinced.
“We can take out that tower, major,” one of the soldiers said.
Now that they could see a plan of action, the younger soldiers were ready to go. QuiTai could feel the surge of their adrenaline around her. Where they had once been hot, tired men, now they were soldiers, infused with the will to fight.
“The Ravidians have spilled enough Thampurian blood,” Kyam said.
Voorus drew back. “Are you suggesting we back away from this fight, Zul?”
“Caution –”
“How typical of the intelligence services. You cower in shadows while the army risks their lives.”
“You wouldn’t even know about this if it weren’t for me,” Kyam said.
At least he realized the mess was his fault.
Playing the peacekeeper, QuiTai coughed quietly. “Gentlemen. We risk discovery with every moment that passes. This situation calls for decisive action.” She nodded respectfully at Voorus. “I believe that’s your department, major?”
“Indeed it is.” He spun around and gestured for his men to draw close.
While he discussed the plan with them, QuiTai and Kyam hung back.
Voorus motioned his men to follow him. “All right. Let’s go!”
As Voorus led his men back toward the compound wall, Kyam cast one last glance over his shoulder at QuiTai. He looked concerned and angry.
“You don’t owe anyone anything. Leave now, before it gets too dangerous,” he said. “Run. Hide.”
“I’ve never been fast enough to outrun my conscience.”
She pressed her palms together and inclined her head in a slight bow.
He shook his head in resignation. Then he bowed, deeply respectful.
Under any other circumstances, she wouldn’t have let the moment end like this.
When his gaze met hers, his eyes were full of pleas, but he spoke none of them as he suddenly turned and rushed to follow the soldiers.
They were both too fiercely patriotic to work together for long, and too jaded to be good for each other. Still, it would have been – no. She had no time for regrets right now. They were something to be meditated upon during the long hours of the night when there were no other distractions.
~ ~ ~
As soon as the Ravidian guards left the beach and headed for the compound, QuiTai would move. For now, all she had could do was wait for chaos. She squatted down, put the tip of her machete into the sand, and twirled it back and forth.
The Ponongese at the tide pools set aside their baskets of fish. They formed lines from the pools to the edge of the rock. Their guards drew together to talk. While they kept their devices aimed at the Ponongese, they clearly weren’t concerned about anything.
It always seems to take longer when you’re waiting.
She crept forward as far as she dared. She couldn’t see the Thampurians.
The Ravidian in the tower walked a circuit.
The Ponongese at the front of the line drew ocean water in the bucket. He passed it down the line. Another group bailed water out of the pool. QuiTai knew little about raising medusozoa, but she had a bad feeling this might be their last chore before heading back into the compound.
Come on, Voorus. You should be there by now.
She shifted her weight to keep her feet from going to sleep.
Finally, she spied the blue of a Thampurian uniform jacket in the jungle near the compound wall. Their movements looked quick, but it seemed to take forever for the soldiers to reach the corner.
She glanced up at the Ravidian in the tower. He looked directly down at the compound’s front gate. She chewed her bottom lip. The soldiers couldn’t possibly see the guard in the tower from their hiding place. Thankfully, th
ey hung back.
QuiTai checked the guards. One of them patted the other one on the shoulder as he laughed.
This is like waiting in the wings for my cue. I wish I knew what it was.
The Ravidian guard shouted something to the Ponongese and gestured with his weapon. The Ponongese started walking away from the tide pools in two lines. The Thampurians still hadn’t moved.
“Remember me as a fool, Kyam Zul,” she muttered as she tucked the machete into the back of her sarong.
She ambled out of the jungle onto the beach. The Ravidian in the guard tower shouted and pointed at her. With her hands spread before her, she continued her slow approach. The Ponongese muttered and exchanged glances.
The Ravidian guards turned toward her and started pumping their weapons. QuiTai braced herself for pain. She was going to die.
Come on Voorus! Go! Go! Go!
A bell rang.
The guards swung their weapons toward the compound.
“Intruders!” The sunburned guard ran for the compound. The other one cursed and followed.
QuiTai waved frantically to the Ponongese villagers. “Everyone follow me!” But the villagers seemed too stunned to move. QuiTai picked up a small boy and balanced him on her hip. “Now! Move!” She didn’t wait to find out who would listen. She ran along the beach, headed for the lagoon. Secrecy wasn’t important now, speed was.
She heard footsteps behind her on the rocky beach.
From behind her, a woman wailed, “But my family is still inside the compound.”
Why were there never any good answers? She’d bragged to Kyam that she was willing to do the dirty work for the greater good, but where would she begin to pick whom to save and whom to sacrifice? Just as she had done with the werewolves… She could blame Petrof for misleading her, but the choice had been hers. It wasn’t so much a case of damned if you do, damned if you don’t, she decided. It was more like being so mired in hell that even your best intentions reeked of evil.
“If we go back for them, none of you will escape,” QuiTai shouted.
“But this is our home,” a gasping man said.
A deep woman’s voice said, “Hold on, Wolf Slayer.”
Shouts and screams carried to her from the compound. As much as she hated to, QuiTai stopped running. She turned.
The proud woman with broad hips and the gap between her front teeth squatted. So did many of the other villagers. At any moment, the Thampurian soldiers could come after them, but nothing would stop her people from telling a story. QuiTai stifled the groan of frustration rising inside her, put down the boy in her arms, and squatted too. Patience was key in the middle of chaos.
This is going to be a damn short story, so don’t get too comfortable.
“We don’t have much time. There are only three Ravidians. After the Thampurian soldiers kill them, they will come after you. We have to get moving again,” QuiTai said.
The villagers asked, “Why will the Thampurians come after us?”
QuiTai cast a worried look back at the tide pools. No one was coming, yet, but she could hear a distant fight. “It’s the sea wasps in the tide pool. They don’t want anyone to know about them, even other Thampurians, and they’ll stop at nothing to keep it a secret.”
“What else am I going to do for a living but work a plantation?” a man said. “I’ll keep their secret. Who am I going to tell?”
The gap-toothed woman gave the man a sour look as her eyebrow rose. “Are you an idiot, RhiFa? Do you want our children to fall into one of those pools and die like RhiNyan just did? Or is your memory that short? How about the Korours? Have you already forgotten their bodies tied to those stakes in the middle of the compound?”
“Who are the Korours?” QuiTai asked before she could stop herself.
So much for the short version.
She listened intently for sounds of the fight for the compound as the woman began her tale.
“The Korours were the plantation owners. The wife was Ponongese. That’s why they didn’t mix with the other Thampurians. They treated her like…well, you know how Thampurians are. When those bastard Ravidians took over, they stuck those sea wasp stingers on her and the children, then washed them off with vinegar, and did it over and over again and made Mr. Korours watch. Us too. I don’t think I’ll ever forget those screams.” She stopped to catch her breath. “I’m leaving this cay, and I don’t care if I ever see it again. No child of mine is growing up on this cursed land.” She spat in the sand.
QuiTai put her hand over her heart. “They will be mourned, auntie…”
“I’m RhiHanya.” The woman rose. “Well? Are we escaping or not, grandmother QuiTai?”
QuiTai sent a brief prayer of thanks to the goddesses for sending her RhiHanya.
She came to her feet. “You know who I am.”
“I called you Wolf Slayer, didn’t I? Even out here, we know what happens on the big island. And I would follow you anywhere.” RhiHanya swept past QuiTai and marched up the beach with the grandeur of a diva.
QuiTai cast thanks to her reputation. She smiled gently at the little boy she’d carried away from the tide pools. “Can you ride piggyback, little brother?”
He scrambled onto her back. His thin arms encircled her neck as he hooked his ankles around her waist. She jogged quickly after RhiHanya. To her relief, many of the others followed with quiet determination and haste. All it took was one person to have faith.
~ ~ ~
They reached the lagoon and piled into the outrigger fishing boats. QuiTai winced as the boats sank close to the waterline under the increasing weight. But no one who had followed her would be left behind.
Adults grabbed oars and stroked hard for the sea, while the children huddled together in the center. As soon as the boats were clear of the lagoon, the fishermen in the group stepped forward to set the sails.
QuiTai’s feeling of impending doom didn’t lift. Their escape had been too easy. How had Kyam fared? She shook her head: Now was not the time to worry about him. He had his own end of their new bargain to tend to, and she had hers.
“We’re being followed!” someone shouted.
She looked to the sea and her chest tightened. A flat head with a barbed snout skimmed quickly at the surface of the water; a long, sinuous body stretched behind it. The sun glinted off the shimmering scales.
“Row for Ponong! We must reach land before the sea dragons reach us!” QuiTai gripped an oar and rowed hard.
The villagers threw themselves into rowing with coordinated speed as the fishermen called out a steady beat. As if they were riding to war with a neighboring cay, they put their all strength into flying across the water.
Another sea dragon’s gleaming coils broke the surface. The fishermen sped up their tempo.
In the slow setting of the sun, the outriggers closed the distance between Cay Rhi and the island of Ponong, the sea dragons gaining. Sea water stung the palms of QuiTai’s raw hands but she kept rowing. She couldn’t bear to look at the land. She fixed her gaze on the steady movement of sea dragons, now seven of them, drawing ever closer.
The boat jolted. QuiTai wondered if a sea dragon had come underneath to tip them over, but when villagers began to clamber over the side of the boat and run through the shallow water, she realized they had made landfall. She pulled the boy once more onto her back and waded through the waves. The verdant mountains of Ponong rose before her. The sand ebbed under QuiTai’s feet as waves broke around her ankles. Then the sand was hard and she knew they’d made it to shore.
“Into the jungle! Quick!” She didn’t need to urge them; they were already running up the sand dunes for the cover of the jungle. As she followed, she heard the sea dragons beach themselves and begin to shift back into their human forms.
If they could evade the Thampurian soldiers until the sun set, they would be okay. Ponongese eyes saw much better in the dark. If all else failed, they had their fangs. The Thampurian soldiers had to know their silly laws wouldn’
t protect them now.
QuiTai hacked a path with her machete until her lungs felt as if they would burst. She wasn’t used to running with weight on her back. Her knees burned. She wasn’t sure if the person crashing through the jungle behind her was Ponongese or Thampurian, so she ran as if the devil himself were on her heels.
The land sloped steeply upward. She pushed blindly through the plants. Then a hand grabbed her and yanked her back. Fangs drawn, she turned.
RhiHanya put her finger to her lips and pointed down. QuiTai’s next step would have sent her tumbling into a small ravine. RhiHanya pointed inland. “You keep going. I’ll grab any stragglers. You have to lead, grandmother.”
Too exhausted to argue, QuiTai nodded and began to find her way along the rim of the ravine.
Chapter 18: Petrof
By nightfall, QuiTai’s side ached. Her arms were numb from using the machete, her hands sore and blistered. The scab over the wolf bite on her ankle seeped pus onto the wet bandage around it.
She had to put the boy down. He didn’t complain. No one did. They simply pushed forward. Their little group drew closer together, but it was too dark to tell if everyone was with them. She had no idea if anyone had been captured. To her relief, RhiHanya appeared, straggling behind the group. They exchanged weary, grim smiles.
The sounds of the pursuing soldiers grew fainter. She hoped they were good and lost in the jungle.
The sound of rushing water grew stronger as the Ponongese moved downslope. Even in the dark, QuiTai began to recognize their surroundings. She cursed herself: In her mental stupor, she’d led them straight to the Jupoli Gorge. The Devil’s den.
She was tempted to redirect them upslope, back into the jungle, but they might cross paths with the Thampurian soldiers. And she couldn’t ask them to keep marching without food or water.
She swore she felt a low growl down her spine. She stopped and listened with all her body. Then she squatted with her back to a tree trunk and motioned for the others to make a ring around her. She swallowed hard as the growl’s vibrations grew stronger. The villagers glanced around as if they felt it too.