Chapter
One
How did it come to this?
With the inflatable safely stowed among the rocks, and under the
storm-flotsam she’d collected to conceal them from any planes, or satellites,
during the two days they were still out on the open ocean, Emily Kane hauled
Sergeant Durant across the beach and into the cover of the trees.
“Damn, you’re heavy, Mick. What the hell have you been eating lately?”
He groaned back at her, semi-conscious, and only able to push off one
leg. Blood oozed from his hip and shoulder, and a gash along one rib covered by
an ill-fitting bandage, and he winced when she adjusted her grip. Once she’d
found him a comfortable spot in some brush beneath a eucalyptus tree, she
turned back toward the shore.
“I don’t like the look of those clouds,” she said over one shoulder,
not expecting a response. “This may not be good enough shelter. I’m going back
for the water and bandages, and then we can try to move again.”
It didn’t take long to gather what she needed, scowling at the horizon
the whole time, and when the inflatable bobbed loose from its makeshift
mooring, she hauled it higher up onto the rocks, trading concealment for
security “A lot of trouble for a raft we may never need again,” she muttered.
“You should’ve left me back there,” he croaked as she came within
earshot again. “I’m just slowing you down. We both know what they’re after.”
Durant nodded, and forced a smile. After another three-legged stagger
brought them deeper into the woods, she positioned him against a large rock
sheltered by ferns, and handed him the last water bottle.
“Not a great location, LT,” he said. “Though the view of the beach is
an improvement.”
“I’m gonna see what there is to eat in this jungle, before the rains
come again. Hang tight.”
“What’s that stench?” He covered his nose when she dumped the results
of her foraging onto a couple of large fronds spread out for the purpose.
“That’s the durians. Don’t sniff at ’em. People pay top dollar for
these.”
“And the red, hairy things?”
“Rambutans. They’re sweet inside… and I found a few mangoes the birds
hadn’t gotten to yet. This place is full of stuff to eat. ”
“You’re quite the outdoorswoman, LT. Where’d you learn all this
stuff?”
“My dad. He was always trying to teach me to live off the land.”
“A man after my own heart,” Durant said, with half a mango in his
hand, watching Emily carve up one of the durians.
“You say that now, but wait until we’re eating bugs.” When Durant
cringed, she said, “Yup, that was my childhood.”
The sun hung a few degrees above the horizon, just south of the
cloudbank of the storm, which now appeared likely to miss them to the north,
and the moon hadn’t risen yet. Emily knew it would be nearly full tonight from
what she’d seen last night, once the sky had cleared. The island curved away
from their position in a lazy arc, providing shelter for a quarter-mile or so
of beach, with the remains of what looked like dock-pilings halfway along.
“It must have been inhabited at some point,” Durant said.
“I just hope it isn’t anymore.”
“The thing is, those pilings don’t look rotted. Someone, or something,
dismantled them, you know, like recently.”
“I know,” she said. “Could’ve been a storm, but whatever did it, we
still need a place to lie low before we try to make contact. Your shoulder is a
through-and-through, and the exit wound is small. We caught a break there. Now
we just need to dig some lead out of your hip… as soon as you’re strong
enough,” she added, examining the edge of his Ka-Bar knife. “This is definitely
old school.”
“Yeah, I never liked the finger-guard on the newer ones.”
“Me neither,” she said, rubbing her jaw over the spot where a scar was
no longer visible.
“And don’t get me started about the M9. I’m just glad SOCOM ditched
’em for the .45’s. I kinda feel for the regular Marines, you know. There’s
nothing like a 1911.”
“Like you ever carried a Beretta, Sarge,” she said, with a snort. “Oh,
don’t give me that look… as if I’d ever give anyone an Article 15 for an
unauthorized weapon. I’m all about ‘creative’ armament.”
“Right now, I’d settle for an M9, since we may be here a lot longer
than either of us likes,” Durant said. “I put us a couple hundred miles
southwest of Palawan, but as much as we got blown around that first night, we
may be halfway to Palau. Even if anyone thinks we aren’t dead, what are the
odds they’d look here, wherever this
is? And if the wrong people find us…”
“I don’t want to alarm you…,” Emily said.
“I see ’em, too. Judging from their movements, they don’t seem
interested in stealth. You know what that means, right?”
“There’s a lot of ’em, at least platoon strength, maybe more… and they
aren’t sure we’re here.” Emily arranged a few more fronds over Durant, and
handed him the knife, all the while making only very measured movements.
“This isn’t very good camo, you know, and you’ll need this more than I
will,” he said, trying to hand her back the knife.
“It’s not for camo. I’m more
worried about that storm backing up on us, and you’re not much good to me dead
from exposure.”
“I’m not much good to you at all,” Durant growled. “Take the damn
knife and don’t look back.”
“Shut it, Sarge, and wait for me here, and don’t do anything stupid.
Besides, I’ve got my own little pig-sticker.” Emily reached over her shoulder
and drew the short sword she carried strapped to her back; with a blade almost
a foot and a half long, it dwarfed any knife.
“That thing is definitely not regulation,” he snorted, running one
hand along the back of his neck. “Much good it’ll do you against their AK-47s.”
“Aw, you know me, Sarge. I’m not really a gun-person. Now keep it
together, while I draw them off.”
Emily slipped away into the underbrush, careful not to disturb any
large foliage, until she could get a safe distance from Durant. “… and please
don’t make me kill too many of them,” she muttered, in a sort of prayer.
Keeping an eye on the jungle to her right, she felt something else in the air,
just as she crested a hillock on the edge of some new growth. An older grove
opened before her, a high canopy and scattered trunks populating a broad swale,
with the moon blinking through here and there, and she felt the dirt and old leaves
crinkle underfoot. Water burbled in the distance. “I’ll have to find it in the
morning,” she thought. “If I live that long.”
She felt the cameras, too, though there wasn’t enough light to see
them, and it confirmed what she’d been thinking for a while, though she hadn’t
wanted to discuss it with Durant. This island was not at all what it seemed…
but underneath that obvious fact, a deeper recognition purred at the edge of
her consciousness, as if someone were summoning her, a familiar spirit, one
that had made a claim on her before. It almost seemed to speak to her, at first
in one voice, then in many.
“This is your
home,” they seemed to say. “Live and die in our shade. Bury yourself here and
become one with us.”
A snap in the
near distance broke the spell, and she knew it was time to set things going. In
a single stroke, she slipped the sword out and hacked off a shoot from the base
of a kalantas tree. The noise of its fall drew the attention she aimed for and
men’s voices began to call out and then shout, running her way. Eluding her
pursuers wouldn’t be difficult, at least initially, but she didn’t want to lose
them completely, or they might turn back to the beach and find Durant.
Once they’d
gotten close enough to hear, she took off at a dead run through the grove,
heart pounding in her ears, weaving among the trees, circling to her right and
finally ducking behind one of the thicker trunks. Two teams of four rushed by
in pairs, not yet recognizing that they were no longer pursuing anything. Her
first instinct had been to slash at the throat of the last man, and then roll
up the rest of the squad from behind. Hacking and stabbing, blood spraying
everywhere, it would have been the work of a moment. But something about her
surroundings stayed her hand… and quieted her heart.
She scanned the
woods for other targets, and finding none, took off after the last man. A kick
to the back of a knee upended him, and she hit him behind the ear with a second
kick that drove his face into the ground. “Not dead,” she muttered, as she ran
past his twitching body. The next two men were brought down before any sound
reached the front of the team, but the fourth man was able to shout before she
could silence him.
When the first
team turned back, she dashed into a denser section of the jungle, even though
the underbrush made stealth impossible. The shouts she heard behind her did not
seem to be in Mandarin. It occurred to her that it could have been a dialect
she didn’t know, but something made her think otherwise, perhaps the faces of
the men she’d already subdued—one of them sported a wispy beard—or the way they
moved, but whatever it was, they didn’t seem Chinese to her.
“These are not
Diao Ming’s men,” she muttered. “But then who are they?”
Another turn
brought her back into the grove, and she dodged from tree to tree, until she
glimpsed a brighter clearing through a few layers of foliage. With the moon
approaching the top of the night sky, a silvery-gray light bathed the scene
that flickered before her eyes in eerie familiarity. She pushed past a huge,
fan-shaped fern and stepped into a grassy meadow, and looked up at the sky to
behold the shining disk of the moon.
The voices
following her drifted into insignificance as she concentrated on the heavens,
with no care for them, or anything else for that matter. Those other voices
seemed to call to her again: “Bury yourself here and become one with us.” The
invitation was almost irresistible, as if it came from her oldest friends… or
even her father.
“No,” she
gasped. “It can’t be.”
The noise of
the men who’d burst into the meadow and now surrounded her could no longer be
ignored. One of them barked a command at her, and she turned in his direction.
Eight men, which meant either this was a different squad, or more men had
joined them. How many were there altogether? Would it even make sense to fight
them? Two men stepped forward, lunging for her, and tried to force her to the
ground. Impassive, glowering at them, instinct and training took over, and she
seized the hand one man had clamped onto her shoulder, wrapping her fingers
across the back and around the thumb, and twisted up and out, then pivoted
under and pushed the elbow over, in a simple pain-compliance hold that sent him
crashing into the second man. Their heads collided like pumpkins and they
collapsed into a heap.
More men came,
and she fought them off without worrying that the circle around her kept growing.
Strangely, no one fired, or even raised a gun in her direction. At one point,
she felt the impulse to draw her sword and slash through the whole crowd, but
when she reached back over her shoulder, a voice that seemed to come from the
moon itself whispered to her.
“Protect,” it
said.
But who needed
her protection… who, other than Princess Toshi? The mere thought of the little
princess seared Emily’s consciousness. Much as she would have liked to take the
island spirits up on their offer, the destiny of a descendant of Amaterasu-omikami, the goddess of the
sun, was not to be trifled with.
Just then, more
men stepped out of the jungle, dragging Durant by one arm and shoving him out
into the meadow. He stumbled forward and landed on his side with a loud groan.
“Sorry, LT,” he
said.
When three of
the men aimed their rifles at him, Emily thought again of her sword. A paroxysm
of violence would freeze them, she knew from long experience… and as she let
out a deep breath, her heart reached out beyond the confines of her chest, and
she saw how it would unfold. The men with guns would hesitate, uncertain
whether to shoot Durant or to aim at her as she hacked and slashed her way
through their comrades. She’d be moving too quickly in the dark for them to
risk shooting their own, and the fact that none of them had fired in her
direction during the pursuit through the woods told her they didn’t have
permission to kill her. Still, a stray shot might hit her, or Durant, and
though that didn’t deter her, the thought of killing so many did.
She took
another long, trembling breath, knelt down and gazed up at the moon. A man who
seemed to be in charge, the one who’d barked some sort of command earlier,
stood over her and snarled something she didn’t understand, though she hardly
cared, since at that moment only the moon mattered.
The butt of the
rifle struck her across the cheek and nose and forehead, and she slumped to one
side. The lights in the sky grew dim, and the darkness that lay behind them
invited her in, and she let herself accept. As she drifted off, the words of
the moon reverberated one last time in her ears: “Protect your priest.”
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