Floodpath Read online

  I glance down the canyon—the helmets of the soldiers bob as they scramble up the slope, still over a quarrel shot below us. My gaze drifts out to the canyon floor, and I frown. Instead of continuing up, two of the soldiers have turned around and are running back through Lark’s camp.

  I bite my lip, not wanting to rush Lark through her good-bye, but she tears herself away from the water before I say anything. Without looking at me, she turns for the slope.

  “We’re close to the top, but the last bit’s a scramble,” she says stiffly. “We never had much need to go over the rim. Come on, Rat.”

  “Where does the adjacent canyon let out?” I ask as we start up the crumbly incline.

  “About half a mile downriver.”

  I glance back at the two soldiers running back down the canyon. “And if we can’t get out that way?”

  “Why couldn’t we?”

  “Two of the soldiers are going back. What if they blockade the canyon entrance?”

  “How many are following us?”

  “Four.”

  “Then we have nothing to worry about. You said there’s only six.”

  “I said I didn’t get a good count.”

  She grunts cryptically. “Well, we can’t go back. We have a head start. We should reach the end of the canyon before them.”

  “They probably have horses.”

  She spins on me, her arms spread wide. “What do you want me to say, Veran?”

  “I just want you to know all the angles,” I say hotly.

  She makes a disgusted sound and goes back to climbing. “If you hadn’t followed me, we wouldn’t have this problem.”

  “If you hadn’t run—” I blurt out before I can help it, but even if I hadn’t stopped myself, I wouldn’t have been able to finish. With a shout of anger, Lark whirls around, the metal staff wheeling wide. It’s only thanks to the steep slope that I’m able to duck under its path.

  “We have to go, Lark!” I gasp, my feet sliding backward down the incline. I crouch again as the staff makes the return arc, ruffling my hair. “We don’t have time—”

  Lark pulls back for another swing, her eyes burning and her feet wide. She’ll make contact this time. I scramble to get out of the reach of the staff, but before I make it far, Rat barks. Lark’s gaze jumps past me just as I hear the familiar wind of a crank. And then the staff isn’t slicing toward my head—she lunges and hooks the end in my tunic like a sailor’s gaff and shoves me into the canyon wall. I swear breathlessly—the end pins me to the rock, bruising my shoulder. A quarrel shatters off the path where my torso had been.

  I glance down between my toes—the first of the soldiers has her arms hooked over the lip of the water pocket, her crossbow sights trained up at us. She swipes another quarrel from one of her companions below her and jams it in place.

  “Get up!” Lark snarls, as if I’d been rolling around on the path for no reason. She withdraws the staff and snatches a handful of my tunic, and then we’re running—bent nearly double as we race to get back out of range. The sound of the crank is lost to the shower of rocks washed loose from our scramble, and the next quarrel hits near Lark’s grip on a juniper root. Without pause she scoops up the quarrel and wedges it down in her ponytail for safekeeping.

  In another few breaths, we’re out of range again, but now the soldiers have summited the bowl of the water pocket. I race after Lark’s boots, choking on the dust she kicks up and trying not to panic when my toes slide on loose gravel. There’s no space for panic, though. No space for thought.

  Only flight.

  We reach what amounts to the rim of the canyon—merely a broadening of the incline, so that we can run upright instead of scramble. Lark takes off through the thick sage and juniper, occasionally shouting things over her shoulder like, “Snake!” or “Burrow!” I labor after her, my lungs seizing on my breath. I haven’t put my body through these kinds of paces in . . . forever. Not ever. Even during the few times I’ve managed to slip into the forest on my own, I’ve been careful to take things slowly, to rest and drink and eat, to scan my body for the occasional telltale signs that meant I’m pushing myself too hard. Fatigue, nausea, headache—sometimes these things warn me that my body’s about to give way. But not always. And not now. Now my body’s just a mess of screaming muscles and blurry vision and adrenaline. Two days without sleep, two nights of frantic riding, a swim across a swollen river with a flailing dog, a run up a canyon wall . . .

  I don’t think I can make it.

  “Lark,” I gasp aloud, stumbling numbly over a rock. “Wait . . .”

  My voice isn’t loud enough for her to hear, but to my surprise, she stops anyway, her boots skidding in the gravel. I practically crash into her a second later, unable to change the mindless pace of my legs. She swears and widens her stance, gripping my shoulders to steady me. I lean unapologetically on her, dragging air into my burning lungs.

  “Hot damn,” she says grimly, and I look up. We’ve reached a knoll on the canyon rim, high enough to be able to see down to the canyon on the far side, as well as the grassy trace leading to the river. I suck in an agonized breath.

  The bank and both canyons are swarming with soldiers. Most are mounted, cantering this way and that, but some are weaving up the canyon floor, wedging themselves behind rocks. The climbing sun flashes off swords, off helmets, off quarrels. Across the foaming brown river, I can just make out Jema and Kuree hitched to two Moquoian mounts, their saddlebags torn open.

  “Six,” Lark says.

  “I said I didn’t get a good look!”

  “Six is a lot different from twenty!” she snaps.

  I can’t even be bothered to argue. I bend at the waist, still clutching her arms, trying to slow my breathing.

  She twists to look over her shoulder, scanning for the four pursuing soldiers. I can’t find the strength to turn my head, but I don’t hear the crunch of approaching footsteps yet.

  She lets out a breath and turns back to the canyon. “Blazes.” She hitches me up a little higher. “Okay. Okay. There’s a bit of a climb, and then the rim here turns into a mesa. There’s no descent on the southern slopes, but we can probably find a way down the northwestern side . . . except . . .”

  She trails off.

  “Except what?” I ask.

  “Except it leads out into the water scrape,” she says. “About fifty miles, give or take, with no water.”

  I’ve heard of the water scrape. It’s been the bane of planning the final western reaches of the proposed Ferinno Road, and it’s what made Lark’s camp on the South Burr so strategic. Every traveler, every stage and caravan and slave wagon, had to come to the Burr to water their animals. The official track to Pasul, as it exists now, makes a dramatic bend southward to minimize the distance between the South and North Burr. If a driver could cut across the water scrape, they’d reach Pasul two days earlier, but their animals would die of thirst halfway across.

  The idea of walking across it is nothing short of laughable.

  “Can we descend the mesa on the northwest side and then circle back around for the eastern side?” I ask.

  “Are the Moquoians expecting you to go east?” she asks.

  After Rou and Eloise took off east, after I fled east from Pasul, after I brought the wrath of the Moquoian court down on the Eastern Alliance?

  “Yeah,” I say, straightening as much as I can.

  She looks again at the soldiers in the canyon, and then down at the trace, and then to Jema and Kuree across the river, and finally over her shoulder. She sighs again, lifts my arm, and settles it over her shoulders.

  “Let’s just focus on getting across the mesa first,” she says.

  “One crisis at a time,” I say, because I’m lightheaded and it feels like a lifeline to repeat my mother’s mantra.

  Lark snorts. “Oh, we’re way past the luxury of only worrying about one thing at a time. Come on. If we get out of sight, the soldiers behind us may think we’ve gone down the next c
anyon.”

  She starts me forward, veering away from the drop into the canyon and instead up the incline spreading to our right. It’s studded with boulders, and within a few feet, we’re screened from the immediate view of anyone following. I set my feet carefully, wobbly—but at least I’m not as completely spent as a few days ago, when she had to all but carry me down the ridge after I collapsed. After getting my breath back, I take some of my weight off her shoulder.

  “I think I can walk now,” I say, sliding my arm from around her neck.

  She frowns at me over her bandanna and then hands me the metal staff. “Here. Use that to balance with. I’ll need it back if there’s fighting to be done.”

  I take it, trying not to show how relieved I am to have something to lean on that’s not her.

  “I see you’ve lost the ax handle,” she remarks.

  “Yeah, I dropped it when I thought I was going to get my head bashed in,” I say tersely. “Too bad you missed—you could have been rid of me.”

  Something flickers on her face, but she smooths it out—by the Light, she’s exactly like her mother—and turns up the slope again.

  “If I had really wanted to hit you, I would have,” she says.

  I take one step and then stop. “What?”

  “Come on. Keep quiet. We’re hardly safe here.”

  She continues on, hopping nimbly among the rocks. After a moment, I shake my head and follow, more silent but less steady than she, and now emotionally exhausted as well as physically from trying to figure out if we’re allies or enemies.

  Tamsin

  Rain patters through the canopy, punctuating the birdsong ringing in the branches. I’ve been listening to the birds almost in a trance for the past hour—in recent years Tolukum Palace has been sealed up to keep out the fever-bearing mosquitoes, making it muffled and hushed inside, and over the past few weeks, the bats were more prevalent than birds outside my tiny cell window in the Ferinno. Now, engulfed in the dense maple forests east of the redwoods, the air resounds with their whistles, buzzes, chirps, and cadences. A whole choir of master songwriters, all yelling at each other about sex and territory, while I sit beneath them, silent.

  We stopped a little while ago about a mile outside Perquo Branch, a foresters’ hamlet on the western slopes of the Moquoviks. After seeing the bounty sheets in the soldier’s saddlebag, there could be no question of me going into town, so Iano left me in as comfortable a nest of brush as we could manage and went in to purchase supplies with our last few coins. I’ve spent the hour wrapped in the dead soldier’s cloak while the horse we took from him browses nearby.

  The sound of rustling branches rises over the sounds of the rain and birds, and I open my eyes to see Iano leading the other horse through the ferns, soaked from struggling through the dripping fronds. He sets down a sack and settles beside me.

  “Are you okay?” he asks.

  I nod. “You?”

  He still seems caught off-guard when I manage to speak, even the few words I can say without mangling their consonants. “Yes, I’m fine. I got some supplies at the general store.”

  He pulls out a few tins of biscuits, the hard, flavorless kind that keep for decades, and then produces something else—a small slate, about eight inches square.

  “This is the best I could find,” he says. “It wasn’t even for sale—I saw it behind the coin box and asked to buy it.” He hands it to me, along with a bag powdery with chalk pieces.

  I take it, my stomach turning. He waits, perhaps thinking I might write something, but I don’t. I don’t want to. Selfishly, I hate it. I direct all my anger at it in a single, burning ray. Eight inches and some chalk—this is what my voice is now.

  I set the slate and chalk down. I pat his knee by way of thanks and reach for one of the boxes of biscuits.

  “I’ve been thinking,” he says. “About the bounty sheets, and who our most likely suspects are. The most obvious person I can think of is Kimela Novarni.”

  The same thought had occurred to me. That at face value, the person who would have the most to gain, politically and professionally, from ousting me is the woman who replaced me as ashoki. Kimela Novarni comes from the money of the rice plantations on Ketori Island, and aside from wanting my position, preserving slavery would be a given for her. She was a contender for ashoki back when I was first being considered. That I—a loud, unknown newcomer who’d practically walked in from the street—had been appointed over such an old and storied family had ruffled plenty of feathers two years ago.

  Clearly, some had stayed ruffled.

  “In my mind, she’s the most likely culprit behind all this,” Iano continues. “All the blackmail was focused on her appointment. And only someone with a nuanced understanding of court politics, like her, could have orchestrated it all.”

  I purse my lips, uneasy with the obviousness of Kimela’s motivation, and unsure why I should feel that way. I realize I’m going to have to use the slate after all. Dispirited, I pull out one of the chalk pieces and start to write. I hold it up to Iano to read.

  HOW DID KIMELA LEAVE THE LETTERS?

  “In my room, you mean? I don’t know. She must have been paying someone. Though,” he admits reluctantly, “the servants swore they’d never seen any of the letters. I questioned them all, from my hearth maid to the head of staff, Fala. Still, one of them could be in Kimela’s pay.” He sees my look. “No?”

  I tap the chalk pensively a few times, organizing my thoughts, reflecting on the bounty sheets with Queen Isme’s seal. Kimela could perhaps have swayed the queen to authorize them—ashokis are master wordsmiths, after all, and are expected to know a great deal about the court. But bribery isn’t supposed to be involved. It’s not just an ethical concern—it affects how the ashoki’s message is received. If word gets around that the court teller gets her information by buying it, or makes her mark by lining people’s pockets, her reputation goes from social strategist to clumsy gossip, and it’s difficult to come back from such a fall. Several ashokis throughout history have been relegated to this status, whatever clever lyrics or subtle messages they may have achieved swallowed by their reputation for purchasing secrets and popularity.

  It could be argued that when my attack occurred, Kimela wasn’t ashoki yet, and could easily have stooped to unsavory methods to win the position. But, if that’s true, she’s playing a dangerous game. If she’s found out—if word leaks that she bought and blackmailed to get her position, rather than being selected on her merits—it could undermine her whole career.

  Somehow I suspect writing It’s not what ashokis do won’t get my point across. Seeing Iano still waiting for my response, I finally shrug and write, I DON’T THINK IT’S KIMELA. BUT—CAN’T RULE ANYONE OUT.

  “No,” he agrees. “We can’t. Who do you think it is?”

  I shake my head. There are so many people it could have been, a dizzying number, even more frightening when considering all the lives impacted beyond just mine. The two soldiers from yesterday, merely following orders, lost their lives because of this. And people died in the attack on my coach, too—several guards were killed, and the driver. My maid, Simea, was killed when she threw herself over me to shield me from crossbow fire.

  I close my eyes, fighting despair, when a high-pitched whine rises over the rain and birds. I look up to see a mosquito land on Iano’s forehead. Without thinking, I lash out and smash my palm against his head. He reels backward with a yelp.

  “What was that for?” he demands.

  I show him the crushed insect on my hand as proof. I gesture pointedly, and then pick up the chalk again.

  RAINSHED FEVER, I write. HAVE TO BE CAREFUL. Actually, I’m surprised he didn’t bring back any salve or ointment from the general store to keep insects away. Out here in the forest, there are no glass windows to keep the mosquitoes out.

  He sits up, rubbing the red spot on his forehead from my palm. “Oh,” he says. “We might not have to worry about that as much out here. Tur
ns out . . . well, Veran has a theory about it.”

  I tilt my head. ABOUT RAINSHED?

  “Yes. Sort of. About the mosquitoes. He thinks they’re worse in the city because so many birds die from hitting the glass domes on the palace. That if the birds were alive, they’d eat the mosquitoes.” He waves nonchalantly. “I’m not sure I believe him, but—there’s no denying the fever is less rampant out here than in Tolukum, and that it started rising once the atriums were built on the palace.”

  I raise my eyebrows in surprise, and then look up to the canopy, still thick with birdsong. It seems such a fanciful observation, far-fetched in its simplicity, but then . . . a lot of birds do die on the windows. And Veran comes from a country famous even on this coast for a steadfast devotion to their natural landscape. If anyone could make that connection, it would be him.

  “He thinks we should cover the glass,” he says reluctantly. “Or string up mirrors. But . . . I don’t know how we could justify the expense.”

  IF IT BRINGS DOWN THE FEVER . . . I write.

  “That’s what he said,” he says. “It just seems like such a big leap of faith, and rationale.”

  I frown, bothered by his reticence. CAN’T HURT TO TRY.

  “It could if the ministers think the idea came from the Eastern delegation,” he says. “They were already on edge with them sitting in on council sessions.”

  YOU COULDN’T GET THEM TO SEE REASON?

  Iano spreads his hands. “I was focused on finding answers about you, and keeping you safe. I didn’t have the time to set things straight in court.”

  My fingers tighten on the chalk. His comment should make me grateful, that all his energy went into searching for me. But all I feel is numb. All that work he and I did to bring the Eastern delegation to Moquoia, all the letters we wrote, the plans we devised. All wiped away like the dust on my slate by our elusive enemy.

  Iano watches as I hover the chalk over the slate, but I can’t think of what to write. A scolding feels ungrateful, and anything else is too exhausting to contemplate given my means. Finally, I draw a long breath, pat his knee, and write one word.