Best to keep to the mission, though.
Nettle broke from Shiv and faced Cordelia again. “Your forgiveness.” She touched her forehead. “That one is young.”
“There’s nothing to forgive.” She couldn’t help letting her gaze linger, though, as if she’d already planted a seed, and there was no stopping it growing.
Nettle looked up and caught her staring. They shared a glance, and Cordelia admired the marks on her skin, how they added depth to the plains of her face.
“She should not…” Nettle’s gaze traveled over the ground as if it held an answer she could find. “Bother anyone.” With a shake of her head, she moved away.
*
B46 touched her mouth, working it up and down as she watched the tall creatures on the forest floor below. They hooted and squeaked and rumbled at each other. In the before times, B46 had sounds, too: a shrill call for danger, a growl to claim a meal. But this was so much more.
Some of the tall creatures smelled similar to her kind. Others smelled like meat and stink, plus a harsh tang from the one that gleamed like a pond in midday. There was nothing like that smell in B46’s memory, not in the before time and not from her days spent captured by the tall creatures, caught like a youngling in tree roots.
A large male crouched beside her, picked a bloodsucker off the back of her arm, and tossed it in his mouth, grinding its spongy flesh. She nuzzled his neck and saw in his eyes that he had a knowing like hers. The tall creatures had called him C28 and used something to mark his arm, just as they had hers.
She listened to the tall creatures again but could understand nothing, just as she couldn’t when the tall creatures had held her, marked her, and hurt her. She’d had to wait until one of them had come close enough to grab, then she’d pushed against her bonds and broken free. She’d clawed the tall creatures then, tore them, and ran.
She looked to the kin that had run with her, now scattered through the trees. Squat, thick bodies, eyes on short stalks, claws on hands and feet, and mouths with many teeth. They’d all been caught by the tall creatures, beaten, poked, and prodded as she’d been. In the before time, she’d been drawn by the scent of her kind, but now the knowing kept them together, made them kin. Some were missing. They’d attacked the tall creatures while she’d watched and seethed and remembered.
The peace of the before time had vanished, taking with it the flavor of each moment. Rage filled her every corner now, driving past hunger, past want, becoming need. The others waited, silent, watching her with the same knowing she felt. She grunted and slapped the tree, and they shuddered, snarling, their rage filling the air between them.
The male offered her the bag, and drool filled her mouth. This was from the place of hurt, the only good thing to come of it. She dipped her claws in and licked them clean of the sticky grit. Deep, dull sounds filled her head, made her chest heave, and the calls of the birds sharpened. She could feel the heartbeats of her kin. Each bump of C28’s skin stood out like pebbles, and she saw the jagged edge of a broken tooth far back in his mouth. Every moment since the tall creatures had first given her meat laced with the sticky grit replayed in her mind. The tall creatures had weaknesses, and she would find them all. No nest could hide them from her claws; no arms could shelter them from her rage. She flexed her claws, driving deep gouges into the bark.
The sticky grit would hurt her later. Her body would ache, and she would moan, but while it was upon her, she would take its strength. When she climbed, her kin followed. They would seek out more of their kind, those who didn’t have the knowing, but perhaps they could be taught. The tall creatures would learn from her as she had from them. They would know cries of terror, the cold dash of fear, and the rush of blood when life ended forever.
CHAPTER FIVE
Nettle pointed ahead through the trees, and Cordelia squinted, trying to see through the swath of greens and browns. “I don’t see anything.”
“It was well hidden.”
“And it’s stayed that way.” They’d traveled through the morning, and the stress of trying to keep her footing on the slick branches had made a knot between her shoulders. All day, they’d had nothing under them but deep, moss-covered water, and it was starting to wear on her something fierce. “How did you find it?”
“The stench.”
As if summoned, the wind shifted, and the smell settled over them like fog: the heavy, pungent scent of dead flesh and the metallic tang of blood. The swamp suddenly felt all too humid, and Cordelia’s stomach shifted, bile rising. She pressed a hand to her mouth. Behind her, Private Carter threw up into the water. Cordelia shuffled away so she wouldn’t follow his lead, but others sounded less fortunate.
“Lead on,” Cordelia said, trying to keep her teeth shut.
The drushka climbed to a tree-borne encampment, huts built around sturdy trunks with bridges connecting them and ladders leading to the lower branches. It looked as homey as a person could get in the swamp, except for the bodies caught on railings or tangled in hanging vines. Some lay along the branches and bridges.
Cordelia thought the air particularly hazy until she realized it was thick with flies. “What the fuck?”
“Look quickly,” Nettle said. “The stronger the smell, the bigger the predators that will come. My people have kept them away but not for much longer.”
But every place she looked, Cordelia saw a body who’d been someone’s parent or child or lover or friend. They’d been ripped apart, Storm Lord help them. One of the closest had bite marks on his chest and limbs. His face had been torn away in five bloody strips, leaving his lips untouched, but the rest was a ruin of flesh and fluid.
Blood lay in crimson pools along the branches, too much to dry, and she tried to step around it, but it was everywhere, and clouds of bugs rose around her, disturbed from their feast. When she came to a boggin body, she noted a slash across its chest. She looked for a blade, but the only weapons she saw in human hands were pieces of splintered wood, as if they’d tried to defend themselves with bits of furniture.
Higaroshi was so pale he looked ready to pass out. “I told them to leave everything as it was.”
“Were they all killed by boggins?” Cordelia asked.
Sergeant Preston knelt over a nearby body. “Most of them, looks like. These are claw marks, the right height for a boggin, and this is a boggin bite.”
“We know this man,” Horace called from one of the huts.
Cordelia crossed over to him. “Yafanai?”
“No, a researcher who worked with us.”
A fact to file away for the captain. But everyone out here had been studying something. Her parents’ faces rose in her mind. They’d also been researching the swamp, and just like these people, they’d never go home again. At least her parents had fallen to their deaths instead of being torn apart. Childhood anger tried to rear in her again, but she pushed it down. Time enough for that later. “Spread out. Pick up anything valuable. Sergeant Preston, collect descriptions and search the bodies. Their families will want their things.”
“Lieutenant.” He nodded.
“What happened here?” Cordelia asked as Nettle moved up beside her. “What’s happened to the boggins that they’d do this? They’ve never attacked a human settlement this large.”
“I do not know, and this causes me worry.”
“Why didn’t Reach tell us about this?”
“We discovered these bodies just as we got word to meet you. She is being informed now.” She paused, making that same head motion as if searching for something to say. “There was one other body that we did remove. Drushkan.”
“One of yours?”
“Not my band, not my tribe. He was of the old people.”
“The ones that destroyed Community?”
Nettle sucked her teeth in confusion.
“The first human settlement, the one that Roshkikan belonged to.”
“Ahya, this is not far from their territory. The drushka was killed by a chanuk
a.”
“Maybe he tried to help these humans.”
“Ahwa, no. If the old drushka had helped these humans, some would have survived. But if there were other dead drushka, they were carried away. We found this one because a saleska was trying to pull his body from the roots of a tree.”
“Saleska?”
“The water people.” She mimed a long snout and snapping teeth.
“Oh. Progs. So, you think a member of the old people was here because…”
“I do not know. There were more humans along the branches in that direction that were killed by drushkan weapons, killed as they fled this place. We could not protect their bodies, not so far from the shelters. The saleska do not often climb or leap, but for this feast…” She spread her hands as if to say anything was possible.
“The old drushka could have been protecting their territory. Or I guess they could have had some deal going, but from what I know, no humans have spoken to the old drushka since my ancestor’s time.”
Nettle spread her hands again and walked away. Higaroshi took her place. “This whole thing upsets them. They don’t know why humans were here. They don’t know what’s gone wrong with the chanuka, and the old drushka haven’t been to this part of the swamp in years, since just after the drushka split up.”
Jania had written that the drushkan schism was caused because some wanted to trade with the humans, and the others wanted to destroy them. Though after the old drushka had destroyed Community, they’d seemed to have changed their minds.
Higaroshi wiped the sweat from his bald head. “Maybe these researchers attracted the old drushka’s attention somehow. What’s clear is that they didn’t have permission to make contact at all. Come, look at this.” He led her inside one of the huts.
People littered the floor, clawed and bitten almost beyond recognition and turning the air so foul she could almost see it. She pressed a hand to her mouth and tried not to breathe. Sergeant Preston was propping open the shuttered windows with long poles. He pointed toward the tree trunk where rows of mesh boxes stood atop one another.
No, not boxes. They had doors held shut by a series of wooden fasteners. “Cages?”
“Seems like,” Higaroshi said. Boggin bodies hung from some, the fasteners still secure, but the wooden mesh had been ripped open from the inside, turning into barbs that snagged the boggins who’d tried to escape. Other boxes had their doors torn off completely.
“I’ve never seen this type of wood,” Sergeant Preston said. “It’s not woven. Looks like it grew in this pattern.”
Cordelia touched it, a sinewy fiber that seemed strong enough, but when she peered closely, she saw discolored spots, lighter than the others. She tugged on one and felt it give. “It’s brittle in places.” Another cage gave toward the middle, the edges bloody where its occupant had climbed out. “Who’d design a cage with weak spots?”
“Nettle is convinced these have something to do with the old drushka. They were all very upset by this whole scene.”
Cordelia tapped the mesh. “This wood is the same color as the drushkan weapons, but they don’t look brittle. Is there any way to contact the old drushka?”
“I think contact between the two groups is forbidden.”
“Because some of them talk to us, and the others don’t want anything to do with us.” She took another slow look around. “Until now.”
Private Carter met her when she emerged. “We finished our sweep.”
“Descriptions?”
“Best we could. Some of them were too…” His jaw trembled.
Cordelia clapped him on the shoulder. “Good work.” She turned to the rest of the squad as they gathered around. “I’m proud of you, grunts. You did your duty as paladins should, and now we can do right by these people. The Storm Lord would be proud of you.”
“Yes, Lieutenant!” they chorused.
“One thing left to do.” The horrible part. “Horace, Natalya, we’d appreciate your help.”
“For what?” Horace asked.
“Burial detail, such as we can give them. We’ll move the bodies to the lower branches first.”
“What will you do when you have them there?” Nettle called.
“Give them to the swamp.”
Nettle looked to the other drushka, who wandered out from the trees at her glance, Shiv at their head. “We will aid you.”
Cordelia nodded, touched. Everyone shifted the bodies, human and boggin, down to the lower limbs. They pushed the boggins in without ceremony, but Cordelia led a moment of silence before they placed each human in the water, letting them drift slowly. They didn’t stay long, didn’t want to watch the bodies be consumed by the denizens of the swamp, but there was no other way to honor them; there were too many to carry out.
The drushka led them away from the research station, back to what they still called the Oosjani Road, though Cordelia still didn’t see any path to speak of.
In the late afternoon light, Nettle approached her. “Our leader wishes to see you.”
Cordelia cracked a wry smile. “Are you talking about yourself in the third person now?”
Nettle sucked her teeth again, a trait that Cordelia was finding endearing, even a little sexy, as if utter confusion was a turn-on. “The third person?”
“I’m going to get sick of saying never mind.” She chuckled without much humor. “Which leader?”
“The one who commands all my tribe.”
Cordelia heard a gasp and turned to see Higaroshi standing close enough to eavesdrop.
“But no one meets the leader,” he said. “I mean, even I haven’t.”
“The ambassador doesn’t get to meet this person, but I do?” Cordelia asked.
Nettle spread her hands. “You are the only one. Higaroshi will come back with us to our home, but only you will meet the leader.”
Higaroshi hung his head. Cordelia considered her options and bit her cheek. Carmichael had told her to find out what was going on, and maybe this leader could fill in some gaps. She’d have to send her squad on without her, but she’d still have a pack of drushka for backup, providing they helped instead of just watching. As the drushka had guided the humans, though, she got the impression that now that they’d all met, the drushka would fight beside her. And they wanted to find out what had happened to the boggins, too.
“Sergeant Preston, get everyone back to Gale, and tell Captain Carmichael that I’ll be a guest of the drushka for a little longer.”
“Lieutenant.” He lifted an eyebrow and sidled close. “Are you sure?”
“I have to find out all I can. Keep the squad together and get back to Gale as quickly as possible.”
He thrust his chin at the drushka. “Can we trust them?”
“We don’t have much choice, and after that first dust-up, they’ve been helpful.”
He nodded and hustled everyone together, and after a nod from Cordelia, they followed their drushkan guides, heading for the edge of the swamp.
“Good luck, Lieutenant,” Horace called over his shoulder.
She waved and then gestured for the drushka to lead the way. As before, they leapt between trees, but Cordelia walked carefully along the branches, Higaroshi behind her.
“Haven’t perfected your leaping?” Cordelia asked.
“I’m an anthropologist and a diplomat, not an acrobat. Watch that slippery patch, there.”
“Don’t worry. I have no intention of hurrying.”
“Um, I hope you don’t mind me asking, Lieutenant, but did you say your ancestor was Jania Carruthers Ross? Roshkikan?”
“Yep.”
His voice pitched higher, getting excited. “Do you know her journal is required reading for anthropologists?”
Maybe he’d ask for her autograph next. “A lot of people have read it.”
“Have you? I mean, hearing the thoughts of one of her descendants—”
“Being related hasn’t given me any special insight, sorry.”
“I just t
hink it’s fascinating that—” He yelped, and she turned in time to see him fall sideways. She grabbed for him, snagging his shoe as he tumbled from the branch. It slipped from his foot, and he splashed into the water a few feet below them.
“Man down!” She knelt, searching, but he bobbed back to the surface in half a second, sputtering and treading water.
When he saw her face, he grinned. “Don’t worry, Lieutenant. I don’t sink.”
One of the drushka lay down and reached out a hand. He said something in drushkan, smiling as he did, but as Higaroshi reached for him, he cried out, eyes wide.
A dark shadow glided under the water, streaking for them. “Pull!” Cordelia shouted. She leaned forward to help just as the drushka heaved. Higaroshi shot out of the water and slammed into Cordelia. She toppled backward just as the long snout of the prog broke the water’s surface.
Enormous jaws clamped around her thighs as brown murk closed over her head. The prog swung her back and forth, teeth squealing dully against her armor. She pounded on its hide, mouth clamped shut to hold in air that wanted to scream forth.
Terror tried to grab hold of her, but she summoned the heady joy of the fight, the anger that had been lurking in her core. Boggins couldn’t kill her. People couldn’t kill her. She damn sure wasn’t going to let a piece of fucking nature kill her! She bent across the prog’s snout, drew her sidearm, and felt for the spot between the prog’s eyes. She pressed the muzzle down hard and fired, once, twice, again.
The sounds were only dull pops, and the powered weapon kicked against her hand. The jaws went slack, and she plummeted downward to sink into muddy silt. She floundered to her feet, stirring up gunk in the already yellow haze. The surface wasn’t far—a few feet above the prog’s gently sinking body—but it might as well have been the surface of the moon. The prog settled into the silt beside her, a long dark shadow, and she cast about for some way to pull herself up, her lungs aching.
Something tugged on her shoulder, and she swung for it, thinking of another prog, but a hazy drushkan face filled her vision. Long fingers pulled her close, and another hand pinched her nose shut. She forced herself to stand still while the drushka formed a seal between their mouths. It slowly pushed air into her mouth before swimming for the surface.
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