“Ah.” The monster regarded her. “You have a doctor, and you will fetch him and he will give the half-man the medicines and care that will save its life, and all will be well.”
Mahlia nodded eagerly.
“A pretty fairy tale from the mouth of a pretty child.”
Mahlia bridled at the mockery. “I’m telling the truth! Ask Mouse.”
A tired snort of amusement. “Your doctor… does he waste his medicines on monsters? When he has humans that already go begging for treatment? When war and pestilence stalk the land, and your kind already pines for help, will he spend his precious medicines on a dog-face?”
“He’s not like that,” Mahlia said. “He listens to me. Me and Mouse, we can get him to come. He’ll help you. If you let us go, we’ll bring him back and he can help you.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I do not bargain with liars.”
“I’m not lying!” Mahlia felt herself starting to cry with frustration. “I got a doctor. We live with him! He can fix you! I can fix you!”
The monster just looked at her, and then she realized it was observing her missing hand. She could see the contempt in its gaze, seeming to say, Please tell me more of your silly lies, cripple girl.
There had to be a way to save Mouse. Could she make Mahfouz help? Could she convince him? Mahfouz was kind. He took care of everyone. But this was a half-man.
“I can steal the medicine,” Mahlia said, finally. “I can just take it and bring it back to you.”
“Oh?”
Mahlia felt a surge of hope at the monster’s interest. “Me and Mouse. We can get you medicine. You don’t even need the doctor.”
“Yeah,” Mouse said. “I make a distraction, Mahlia gets the meds, and you get all fixed up.” He nodded vigorously.
“The two of you,” the half-man murmured. “One to distract and one to steal.”
They both nodded eagerly.
The monster snorted amusement and shoved Mouse underwater.
“Mouse!”
Mahlia plunged forward. The half-man lashed for her ankle. She tripped and barely scrabbled out of reach, watching in anguish as the half-man drowned her friend. The muddy water churned.
“Let him go!”
To her surprise, the half-man let Mouse rise again. The boy surged to the surface, retching and coughing, water streaming from his freckled face. The monster shook him once with its huge fist.
“A bargain, girl. Go find your medicines and bring them to me. If they are sufficient, I will let your friend live.”
“But—”
The half-man overrode her. “If you bring the wrong medicine, or if you bring soldiers, I will hear you coming and I will snap your friend’s neck. And if you fail to return, I will fill his lungs with mud and water. Do you understand?”
“It’ll take time,” Mahlia protested. “I can’t just snap my fingers.”
“You cannot bargain with me. My heart is the clock. Find medicine before it ticks dry, and buy your friend’s life. Fail and his corpse is all you will find here.”
Mahlia started to protest again, but the half-man’s glare froze the words in her throat.
“Run, girl. Run and pray to the Fates that you are fast enough.”
7
THE JUNGLE TORE at Mahlia, tripping her with vines, clawing her skin with ragged leaves. Already, darkness was falling. Deep amongst the trees, the light faded fast. Shadows leaped at her. Mahlia tripped and sprawled. She scrambled up, ignoring skinned knees and painful scrapes on her palm.
The jungle’s paths twisted and crisscrossed, a confusing tangle of deer trails and coywolv hunts and wild pig runs. The darkness made it worse. How long did she have? How long until the half-man’s blood ran out?
Mahlia hit a fork in the trail. She crouched, staring at the ground, trying to see a way. Which way had they hacked their way through?
Fates, it was Mouse who liked to track things, not her. She chose the left-bending trail and pelted down it, praying to the Fates, and the Rust Saint, and Kali-Mary Mercy that she wasn’t about to run into a minefield.
She hit open water. Tripped and plunged right in.
“Grind it!”
She slogged back out of the water, dripping and angry and scared. Doubled back, looking for the last split. She knew she needed to keep her fear in check, to keep her eyes open, to stay smart in the jungle, but even as she tried to convince herself that she wasn’t panicking, she could feel gibbering terror rising in her.
The horrors of the swamps loomed, wild and hungry. Kudzu vines became coiling pythons, dropping from above. Coywolv flitted from tree to tree, pacing her. The jungle had teeth, and suddenly it had become alien and feral.
Mahlia leaped over rotten mossy logs, and nearly tripped again. Had she come this way before? She didn’t remember deadfall from their journey out.
Where was she?
There was no way she’d make it to town and back to Mouse before full dark. She’d have to come back by lantern light. Could she even find her way? They’d wandered so aimlessly as they hunted for food, and Mahlia had paid less attention than she should have, never thinking that she’d be coming back in the dark—
Abruptly, jungle gave way to cleared fields.
Mahlia sobbed with relief. She was on the far side of town from where she’d intended, in the fields where everyone tilled crops because the ground was more open, but at least she wasn’t lost. Mahlia skirted the dark liquid square of a basement pond and dashed across the fields, weaving around the fins of old crumbled walls that broke the earth.
Ahead of her the town beckoned, oil lamps coming on, familiar yellow glows, soft and comforting. Mahlia slowed, pressing at a stitch in her side. She’d never been so glad to see Banyan Town. Habitation. The sound and smoke of cylinder stoves crackling. The smell of spices. Candles burning beside little metal reflectors, making everything bright as she ran through.
Ahead of her, the doctor’s squat loomed in the darkness.
Please be there. You have to be there. Don’t be gone on some house call. Be there.
A human shadow stepped out from behind a ruined wall, blocking her path.
“Where you running, girl?”
Mahlia skidded to a stop. More shadows materialized before her, malevolent ghosts rising out of the darkness.
Soldier boys, a whole squad of them.
Mahlia turned and plunged back toward town, but a dog lunged from the shadows, snarling. She leaped back. Hunted for a new path of escape. The dog stalked her, growling, herding Mahlia back toward her captors.
More soldier boys emerged from the darkness. Guns gleamed dully. Bullet bandoliers and scars draped their bare chests. Ugly triple-hash brands scored their faces. UPF for sure. Colonel Glenn Stern’s for life. Some of them had blue bandannas tied around their heads, as if the brand wasn’t enough. The boys came closer. Eyes bloodshot with red rippers and crystal slide studied her with snakelike hunger. Mahlia scanned the darkness for a way to run, but the soldiers were all around. A perfect ambush.
One of them came up and grabbed her. He twisted her arm behind her back. She felt him scrabbling for her missing hand, and then he laughed.
“Got a stumpy, here!” he said.
His fingers probed at her stump. “Can’t even cuff her.” The others laughed. Mahlia struggled to get away, but the soldier jerked her around.
“I do that to you?” he asked, gazing at her stump. “How’d I miss your other hand, girl?”
This close, his loyalty brand stood out strong, pale ropy scars against brown skin. Three across, three down. UPF, through and through. Spikes pierced his lower lip. Three in a row, gleaming. Mahlia wasn’t sure if they were for decoration, or if they were some other official thing that the Colonel did to his recruits.