Frederic drew his sword, and together we trod carefully into the trees. The broken leaves and scuffed ground suggested someone had rushed through this way—and recently. After some minutes, voices ahead made us freeze. Frederic gestured silently for me to drop behind him as he crept forward, sword outstretched.
I followed behind, wishing the sword made me feel safer. But, unfortunately, I couldn’t see how it would do us much good against bows and arrows. I shook my head, angry with myself. The Tour’s journey had been so quiet since we entered the jungle that I hadn’t even thought of the potential danger of an expedition such as this without any guards.
I halted at Frederic’s signal, and we peered into a small, open space ahead of us. It contained three men with a body on the ground beside them. Our second guide stirred feebly, and one of the other men grunted. “We should keep moving.”
He bent as if to pick the guide up when Frederic yelled loudly and charged out of the trees. All three men whirled around, took one look at the blade bearing down on them, and then ran for the trees. Their bows and quivers remained on the ground, along with a couple of bags.
As soon as they had disappeared, Frederic stopped, dropping down beside the guide. Stripping off his gag, he worked efficiently, tearing off the man’s shirt to reveal several long gashes on his torso. Ripping the garment into strips, he began to bandage him. I rushed forward to help.
The man stirred several times, murmuring quietly, but he didn’t seem fully conscious.
“What’s he saying?” Frederic asked as he tied off the last of the makeshift bandages.
I leaned down to place my ear near his mouth. The man murmured again, his eyes still closed. Rocking back onto my heels I looked over at the prince uneasily.
“It sounded like ‘west’.”
Frederic frowned, his eyes raking the trees. “We’ve heard plenty of rivalry between the east and the west, does that include armed attacks?”
I bit my lip. “Not that I’ve ever heard of.”
He looked down at the man on the ground and then stood. “There is nothing more I can do for him. If he is to have any hope of living, we need to return to the village and send proper help.”
He looked at me expectantly, and I felt the blood drain from my face. We had no guides left. If we were to find our way back to safety, I would have to lead us.
Frederic gathered up the attackers’ abandoned weapons and packs, distributing them between us. “We will send someone for you,” he told the guide, although I doubted the man could hear or understand him. Had there been poison on the attackers’ blades? Why had they fled, abandoning everything, when faced with a single armed man? And would they return for the guide as soon as we left?
I put the questions aside. For now it didn’t matter. Four of us would die in the jungle if I couldn’t find our way back to the village. Once we were back with the Tour, we could work out what had happened.
Trying to project more confidence than I really felt, I led the way back toward the waterfall. This part, at least, was easy, the path as clear on the way back as it had been on the way in. When we arrived back at the falls, I turned my face from the body still lying there, my shock having abated enough to allow a couple of tears to slip out and course down my cheeks.
Frederic removed his waistcoat, laying it over the man’s face. Turning back to me, he nodded. “Let’s go.”
I swallowed. “I…I don’t actually know the way. It’s been a long time.”
His face softened in sympathy. “Well, you have a better chance of finding the way than me.” He stepped toward me, stopping at arm’s reach. “I believe in you, Evie.”
I took a deep breath, looking into his eyes. I needed to believe in myself, too. I nodded. “Let’s go.”
The local junglers meandered to the waterfall by different routes which, coupled with the speed of growth of the jungle itself, meant no true path had ever formed. They denied it, but I had always suspected the villagers did it on purpose, keeping the waterfall’s location secret. Taking the royals there would have been granting an honor in their eyes.
I led Frederic slowly despite a constant beating drum in the back of my mind counting down the remaining minutes of the poor guide’s life. But I knew it would do him no good for us to move quickly and end up hopelessly lost. I looked for small landmarks: strangely shaped vines, clumps of flowers, unusual trees—anything I could remember from our walk over.
And slowly, step by step, we made our way forward. The unexpected exertion, combined with the fear and anxiety, meant we had both drained our water skins long before we should have done so. But I didn’t dare risk taking us off track to look for another source of water. We would simply have to go on with dry mouths.
“Do you think he’ll live?” I asked at one point when we stopped for a brief rest.
Frederic considered. “I don’t know. The wounds didn’t seem deep enough for him to be so unaware. I’m afraid there may have been poison involved. In which case I can’t even guess without knowing what the poison is. They were taking him somewhere, so perhaps they didn’t mean him to die.” He shrugged. “Or perhaps they merely wanted to dispose of his body somewhere far enough away to sow confusion.”
I considered his words and shivered, looking warily around as if the attackers might spring out of the surrounding trees. Many more questions filled my mind, but we didn’t have time to stop and talk, and I needed to focus on the task at hand.
But as I turned to lead the way again, my eyes fell on Frederic, raising a handful of purple berries toward his mouth. I lunged forward, knocking them from his hand.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, as I looked around frantically for something to wipe his skin.
Choosing a large glossy leaf, wet from some sort of dripping moisture above it, I ripped it off and thrust it at him. “Wipe your hands on this and then leave it in the undergrowth. And never touch those berries again.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, obediently wiping his hands. “What’s wrong with them?”
I put my hand on my rapidly beating heart, taking a moment to close my eyes and take a deep breath. “They’re poisonous. Horribly, horribly poisonous. If you’d eaten any, you would have been dead within minutes.”
He swallowed audibly and scrubbed his hands a little harder. “But they look just like blueberries!”
I shook my head, pointing at a couple still on the bush near him. “There are lots of differences, although they’re all small. They’re more purple in color for one. And they don’t have the star-shaped lip around the top. Plus, they’re more completely round than a blueberry which generally has that slightly flattened shape.”
He squinted at them. “Oh, yes, I see. Why has no one mentioned it before?”
I shrugged. “All your food has been served to you, you haven’t been scavenging for your own. And locals may not have thought to mention it. Even very small jungler toddlers know not to touch a caracos berry.”
“Well, it’s a good thing I have you with me, then,” he said, his smile a little lopsided.
I nodded, still trembling slightly from the shot of pure terror added to the constant state of fear already coursing through me. “Let’s get moving again.” I paused. “Try not to touch anything.”
He managed a watery chuckle, and I grinned weakly back.
Thirty long minutes later with several pauses for backtracking, we found an area I recognized properly and picked up our pace, eventually stumbling wearily back into the village. A crowd immediately gathered around us, cries going up as we gasped out the important points of our tale.
Within minutes an armed expedition had formed. Frederic tried to send some guards along, but the junglers refused. “They’ll just slow us down,” explained the village elder, before pausing and meeting Frederic’s eyes. “And I’d feel safer if they remained here with you. At least until we understand the nature of this threat.”