FORTY-EIGHT
Several days after our arrival in Tipalo’s village, we took our leave of it.
We had nine dugout canoes built of marupa wood; light and brittle, excavated and hewn to sophisticated sleekness with a combination of native expertise and Septimus Rousse’s knowledgeable counsel, each vessel capable of sitting up to four men.
We left behind two pack-horses, but we had replenished food stores, as much as we could carry stuffed in satchels lashed to a cross-bar in the center of each canoe. We had a woven sisal hammock for each man among us, and an assortment of nets and fish-traps.
I prayed it would be enough.
Everyone with any kind of skill with a paddle had been assigned a vessel. The rest had been decided by lot. Wary of being dragged down and drowned by the weight of their armor, most of the men had elected to pile it in the bottoms of the canoes, wearing only their helmets with the chin-straps unbuckled.
One by one, our canoes were launched.
Standing along the banks of the big river, the villagers waved farewell to us, calling out encouragement.
Eyahue’s canoe went first, with Captain Rousse following close behind him. Bao and I were in the third vessel, Temilotzin in the fourth. After that, it was catch as catch can.
On the morning of the first day, it began to rain, fat drops dimpling the milky-green surface of the river. We paddled through the rain. An hour or so after it had begun, the skies cleared and the sun returned.
Come noon, the sun stood high overhead, beating down on us like a hammer. The jungle steamed like a temazcalli, the air thick and hard to breathe. Everyone sweated profusely, and clouds of mosquitoes and gnats enveloped us.
“Gods!” Balthasar, seated behind me, leaned over and spat into the river. “Seems I’ll be eating my share of insects after all.”
I was hot, itchy, and miserable, my arms aching with the unfamiliar strain of paddling, but I did my best to bear it without a complaint. Eyahue reckoned we had three weeks on the river before we reached the city of Vilcabamba, the easternmost stronghold of the empire of Tawantinsuyo. With the worst yet to come, there was no point in complaining at the outset of this leg of the journey.
With an hour’s daylight left, Eyahue spotted a stretch of rocky shoreline large enough to beach all nine canoes and ordered us to make camp. It felt as though we’d travelled a great distance into the jungle. Tipalo’s village might have been only a day’s journey behind us, but it lay upriver and would not be so easily regained. Assuming we survived, our plan was to return via a land passage. According to Eyahue, there was another river farther south that flowed from west to east through the jungle, an even greater river with hundreds of tributaries, but not even he had traversed it.
In the absence of other human inhabitants, or at least none we could see, the jungle seemed denser and more wild. To me, it felt like one great living creature, the trees and plants growing so thick and close-packed that I couldn’t pick out individual senses among them—just one enormous green being with its own heartbeat pulsing, inhaling and exhaling in long, slow breaths.
Despite my fatigue and aching muscles, I found it exhilarating.
The rest of our company did not.
Almost to a man, they found the jungle ominous and frightening. Only Eyahue seemed inured to it, selecting the best place to sling his hammock and nap while the rest of us endeavored to make camp and prepare a meal.
With thirty-odd folk in our company, it was necessary to spread out and venture some distance into the jungle to find sufficient sites for our hammocks. A full half the men elected to forgo them, clearing spaces on the rocky shore and wrapping themselves in cloaks.
I had to own, when night fell, even I was uneasy. Beneath the canopy of the jungle, the darkness was absolute. Creatures that slept during the day came alive under the cover of darkness, and the night was filled with sounds—small sounds like the incessant whine of insects, and other, more menacing sounds.
Thanks to my sojourn in the palace gardens in Tenochtitlan, I recognized the deep, coughing roar of a jaguar.
“Moirin?” Bao whispered from his nearby hammock.
“Aye?”
“It’s going to be all right,” he said with an assurance I knew he didn’t feel. “We’re going to be fine.”
Grateful for the lie, I returned it. “I know.”
In the morning, those who had chosen to sleep on the ground regretted their decision, waking to find themselves stiff and bruised from sleeping on the stony shore, and bitten by an array of insects that hadn’t troubled those of us in hammocks. Denis de Toluard in particular scratched himself furiously, his nose twitching all the while.
“Gods, man!” Balthasar, who had slept in a hammock and looked reasonably well rested, eyed him. “What ails you? Have you got the palsy?”
“Ants,” Denis said briefly. “They’re everywhere.”
I winced, having forgotten. The fallen spirit Caim with his owl’s eyes and a bird’s nest in his antlers had taught the language of ants to all the members of the Circle of Shalomon save me—and it had proved nothing but a plague and a nuisance to them. It was the reason Lianne Tremaine, the former King’s Poet, lived in a tower chamber at Eglantine House. Given the terrain through which we’d already passed, the fact that Denis hadn’t evinced his discomfort until now was a testament to his will.
“Stone and sea! I’m so sorry, my lord,” I said to him with genuine remorse. “This must be the worst place in the world for you.”
Denis gave me a wry glance. “It’s no more than I deserve, Moirin. Raphael must have suffered the same.” He shrugged. “Mayhap it’s the gods’ way of allowing us to atone for our sins.”
Balthasar examined his fingernails. “As a scion of mighty Kushiel, I assure you, he does not use ants as an instrument of atonement.”
I ignored him, approaching Denis and laying one hand on his cheek. “My lord, you have atoned and more,” I said softly. “You have saved us twice over—once aboard the ship, and secondly when the Cloud People attacked us. Were it not for your warning, they would have slaughtered us in our sleep. I daresay the gods have forgiven you.”
His eyes brightened with emotion. “You truly think so?”
I nodded. “I do.”
Denis let out his breath and rubbed his twitching nose. “Let’s go find Thierry and the others,” he said with renewed resolve.
Once again, we launched our canoes, carrying them over the rocks, mindful of the brittle wood.
The first few days on the big river were days of sameness. The river unfurled before us like a broad, milky-green ribbon, leading us ever deeper and deeper into the depths of the jungle. We rode atop its breast in our canoes, paddling, ever paddling. Our arms and shoulders grew stronger, muscles toughening as we journeyed.
It rained almost every day, but not for long. We grew accustomed to ignoring the rain, bailing out our vessels as necessary, trusting that the rain would end. Sooner or later, the sun came out and steamed us dry. By day we paddled; by night, we made camp along the banks of the river, eating fruits and roasted sweet potatoes and sleeping in hammocks strung between trees, all of us doing our best not to heed the sounds of the jungle at night. Bit by bit, we began to relax a little.
That was a mistake.
I was fishing when we took the first casualty of our river journey. Calling on the skills of my youth, I’d gone a few dozen yards downstream with Bao, summoning the twilight once we were out of sight. Lying on my belly on a rocky promontory, I coaxed the bottom-dwelling whiskered fish into my hands, grabbing them and tossing them to Bao, who stuffed them deftly into a reed creel.
While immersed in the business of procuring food, we heard cries from the campsite behind us.
Bao and I exchanged a glance. “We’d better go,” he said.
I nodded, releasing the twilight. “Don’t forget the fish.”
When we reached the campsite, we found one of our men on the ground, his chest heaving as he struggled futilely for air—Eric Morand, a mercenary from Camlach province.
My own throat tightened. “What happened?”
“Went gathering firewood and got bitten by a snake.” Eyahue nodded at Temilotzin, who held up a headless, writhing length of crimson-banded serpent, his broad face dispassionate. “I told you, if it’s pretty to the eye, don’t touch it.”
I stared in horror at Eric Morand, who stared back at me with wide, stricken eyes. “Can’t we do something? Anything?”
Eyahue shook his head. “Nothing but give him the mercy blow,” he said gently. “Do you want it?”
Kneeling beside the Camaeline mercenary, I asked him if he wanted the mercy blow. “Can you blink?” I asked, tears streaming down my face. “If you can, blink once for yes.”
His eyes closed once, and opened.
I beckoned to Temilotzin, who stooped beside me. He placed one hand on Eric Morand’s brow with unexpected tenderness. With the other, he placed the tip of his obsidian dagger over his heart, driving it home with one efficient thrust.
Eric Morand went still forever.
A stark mood settled over the camp that evening. It was impossible to dig a grave in the dense, root-packed floor of the jungle, so we built a cairn instead, gathering stones and heaping them over our fallen comrade’s body. Once again, Septimus Rousse gave the invocation. This time, there were no fond jests.
No one had much of an appetite for the fish I’d caught, but we roasted them and ate them anyway, doling out a few bites for everyone, aware that we couldn’t afford to waste food. The cairn loomed in the gathering darkness, a harsh reminder of the day’s tragedy.
When we launched our canoes the next morning, I felt as though Eric Morand’s stricken gaze followed us from beneath the cairn, watching as we journeyed farther down the river, abandoning him.
And when the rain began to fall, it almost seemed appropriate—at least at first. But instead of tapering off by mid-day as it had in the past, it only rained harder and harder. The placid river began to swell, the current increasing until we were no longer paddling to propel our vessels, but merely to control them. The rain fell in sheets, blinding us and throwing a thick veil over the world.
Through the downpour, I could dimly make out Eyahue’s canoe ahead of ours veering sharply to the left. In the prow, Bao loosed a shout of alarm at the sight of a nearly submerged boulder.
“Left! Left, as hard as you can!” he yelled.
Paddling madly, we managed to pass it, calling out warnings to the vessels behind us. Ahead of us, Eyahue pointed frantically toward the shore. It took all our strength to paddle hard enough to cut across the current.
Alas, not everyone behind us was as fortunate.
I was helping drag our canoe ashore when the cries went up on the river. Shielding my eyes against the rain with one hand, I saw that one of the vessels had struck the boulder and overturned. Free of its burden, the canoe shot away downriver, carried by the swift current, leaving four men struggling against it.
Others were trying to help, but it was impossible to fight the current long enough to drag them into the canoes. Two of the men began swimming hard toward the shore, making slow headway. One was clinging to the boulder, and I could no longer see the fourth.
Bao plunged into the river without hesitation, wading armpit-deep into the water and shouting encouragement to the swimmers. How he kept his footing in the current, I couldn’t imagine. All I knew was that it terrified me.
“Your husband is a madman,” Balthasar muttered before going after him, picking his way with obvious difficulty.
Together, they managed to help the exhausted swimmers to shore, and I do not think those men would have made it to safety without them.
“Who’s left out there?” Balthasar gasped.
The L’Agnacite Jean Grenville coughed and retched and spat out river water. “De Montague’s on the rock,” he said hoarsely. “Didn’t see what happened to Longchamps.”
One by one, the remaining canoes reached the shore. The downpour continued unabated. In the middle of the rising river, Mathieu de Montague wrapped his arms around a boulder that would soon be wholly submerged.
“Can we reach him on foot?” Bao asked Jean Grenville.
He shook his head. “Too deep.”
Balthasar pushed the sodden hair from his eyes. “Can he swim? If he can’t, in another ten minutes, he’ll be swept away.”
Jean gave a weary nod. “A little, I think. Just not well.”
“We’ll get as close as we can,” Bao said decisively. “Link arms, make a chain. It’s our only chance.”
I watched with my heart in my throat as ten of our strongest men put Bao’s plan into action, clasping each other’s wrists and plunging into the raging water in a long chain, a bit downriver of where Mathieu clung to his increasingly tenuous perch, straining to keep his head above water.
Our redoubtable Jaguar Knight Temilotzin anchored the chain, his feet planted firmly on the shore.
Of course, Bao led it.
Once again, he waded up to his armpits in the fierce current. Balthasar maintained a hard grip on Bao’s left wrist, his other hand clasped around Brice de Bretel’s wrist. Bao reached out his right hand in Mathieu de Montague’s direction.
Between the hissing rain and the torrent of the river, I couldn’t hear what Bao shouted to the lad, but Mathieu shook his head in terrified refusal. The rain fell harder and the river rose further.
Bao shouted at him again.
Whatever he’d shouted, it didn’t matter. A fresh surge of water dislodged Mathieu from his rock. Paddling dog-wise, his neck craned at an awkward angle, he made his way toward Bao’s extended right hand.
Ah, gods!
It was close, so close. Peering through the rain, I saw Mathieu sputter and put out his hand with only a few feet between them. Bao lunged for him and came up short, his empty fingers grasping at air. The entire chain of men lurched forward, staggering in the current, every last one of them in danger of losing their footing and being swept away.
On the shore, Temilotzin grunted and heaved backward, stabilizing the chain.
Bao made one last desperate lunge in vain, his effort curtailed by Balthasar Shahrizai’s death-grip on his wrist.
In the space of a single heartbeat, the moment passed and the opportunity vanished. The ferocious current carried Mathieu de Montague downriver past Bao’s reach, his open mouth gaping in dismay.
The river swallowed him, and he was gone.
Depressed and defeated, our men retreated, helping one another straggle ashore, dropping with exhaustion once they reached it.
The green walls of the jungle rose around us in mockery.
And the rain kept falling.