Chapter 7

  Seven days. Seven days had passed since they entered this gods-forsaken jungle. Seven days of humid air that caused their clothes to stick miserably to their bodies. Seven days of biting insects that savagely and relentlessly attacked any exposed portion of their skin. The smell of what could only be described as sewage permeated the air around them at all times, and the sounds of unseen dangers lurking just beyond sight provided a constant reminder that they were unwelcome here.

  The second day had been much the same as the first, with them rowing upriver, looking for any signs of human life and finding none. At the end of that day, however, as they were bringing their boats ashore, one of the rowers was grabbed by a flat, scaly behemoth of a beast with a long V-shaped snout and what seemed to be a penchant for murder. Beckett told them the beast was called a crocodile and that they inhabited places like this. Since then, they had taken great measures to avoid these creatures. They had even begun sleeping in the trees to avoid being left vulnerable to their attacks. Much to their dismay, however, they had since seen many of the beasts lounging on top of large trunks and on the branches of trees that they could only have gotten to by climbing. So, they also began moving inland by fifty paces.

  Day four saw them lose another of their rowers to a snake that he stepped too close to while attempting to relieve himself.

  Yesterday had been a brief reprieve. They had still found no signs of life anywhere, but they made camp near an area with a spot of water shallow and safe enough to bathe in. That’s what made it not so bad in the end. Jonathon had ‘accidentally’ managed to make his way through the trees to the area while Cassie cleaned herself. He had never been more satisfied with a decision in his entire life. Her lithe, muscular form a testament to her years of training and discipline. Her dimensions, he realized, had been heavily underestimated by the armor and breast bindings she traditionally wore. He had honestly begun wishing she wasn’t a member of his crew so that he could pursue her. Unfortunately, mixing business with pleasure never ended well, and Cassie was a damn fine quartermaster. He wouldn’t want to risk losing what she brought to his crew. But, he thought to himself, stealing a peek every now and again, and maybe finding a brothel with a worker who looked similar to her, certainly couldn’t hurt anything.

  Today, midday had already come, and still, they found no signs of life.

  “Beckett, are you sure we’re in the right jungle?” Jonathon asked, trying to mask the growing frustration and desperation he was feeling. “We didn’t accidentally sail to the wrong bay and start traveling upriver into some other jungle, did we?”

  “No, Cap’n, we’re in the correct jungle. The jungle is large, though. Perhaps we’ve simply not gone deep enough.” Beckett replied, his voice lacking the confidence it had had just a few days prior.

  “Haven’t gone deep enough?” Jonathon asked, his voice threatening to crack. “We’ve been sailing up this river for a full week now! If we’re not careful, I’m worried we’ll simply sail straight through this jungle to the sea on the other side.”

  Beckett chuckled to himself at how small his captain seemed to believe the world around him was. “Mayhaps you’re right. Should we turn ‘round and begin our journey back to the ship?”

  Jonathon paused as Cassie’s words as they began their journey echoed in his mind. Finally, he sighed and said, “Let’s just continue for the rest of today. If we don’t find anything by the time we have to make camp, we can pack it up and head back on the morrow.”

  And so, they continued upriver. The river’s waters remained muddy and brown, the current so slow it almost felt stagnant. The trees, dense and large overhead, were crisscrossed with an unimaginable amount of vines that connected each and every tree to the other, casting a mottled shadow on everything beneath them. Crocodiles sunbathed on half-submerged logs and rocks along the river in the areas where the light was able to penetrate to the floor below. They looked to the world as though they were sleeping peacefully, but Jonathon could tell they were fully aware of the crew’s exact location at all times, silently waiting for the right moment.

  By mid-afternoon, Jonathon had begun to feel depressed. How awful would it be if he was one step from finding The Spectre but ended up missing it because he couldn’t find the tribe that housed its missing piece? Finally, it became too dark for them to continue their journey, and Jonathon ordered them to make camp for the night.

  As they sat around their campfire, an awkward silence hung in the air. Beckett worked to prepare some of the meat they had left over from a prior night’s kill, while Ryden and Dryden sat by the fire, their usual banter subdued in a rare moment of situational awareness. Over the past week, they had actually become fairly proficient in their trap-making, though they had yet to catch anything. However, one of them had managed to kill a large snake two nights prior.

  Tired of the awkward silence, Jonathon cleared his throat and spoke up, “Ryden, why don’t you tell me again what happened with this snake? I’m still not quite sure I believe it.”

  “There’s nothing to question, Cap,” Ryden began. “The proof’s in Mr. Beckett’s hands there. It was the dead of night. There I was, sleepin’ like a lad safe in me mother’s arms. Suddenly, I woke with a crampin’ pain in me legs. I tried to stretch ‘em out and found I couldn’t move ‘em. It was as if I had been swaddled. I looked down and realized that I had been swaddled–by the largest damned snake you’d ever saw! It had somehow managed to get its mouth ‘round me legs and make its way to me knees before I realized it. Panicked, I tried to think of what to do. I didn’t want to cry out and risk it pullin’ me off into the jungle, and runnin’ wasn’t an option. Then I remembered the knife that I keep strapped to me thigh at all times. Thankfully, the great snake hadn’t swallowed her yet.

  “So, I slowly reached down and slid ‘er out. I didn’t want to stab the beast in the head for risk of stabbing meself at the same time, so I thought for a moment on what to do. As the creature’s maw moved up me thigh, I noticed there was a portion of the creature’s head, just past the mouth, that seemed relatively thin. I figured if I could get me knife into the creature’s mouth, I may be able to sever its head with one swift motion. And that’s exactly what I did!” He proclaimed proudly, “I carefully slid me knife between the top part of the creature’s head and me leg, got to the edge of the creature’s mouth, and pulled with all me might. Next thing I know, I’m covered in blood, and the creature begins writhing and convulsing in its death throes. For a bit, I was worried it was going to tighten down on me legs and drag me off the tree. Thankfully, though, everything came to an end after another fifteen seconds or so. And that’s when you all finally decided to wake up and prove yourselves useful,” he chided in conclusion.

  That was the third time Jonathon had heard the story, and he was still impressed by the way the boy handled himself. Not many grown men would have had the wherewithal to remain calm in a situation like that, let alone analyze and neutralize a new threat so efficiently. “That certainly was impressive work, Ryden. You did good.”

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  “Mayhaps you can sleep in such a way as you did that night again tonight,” Beckett joked. “This is the last of the meat from that kill, and we’re getting low on provisions.”

  He wasn’t wrong. They had only taken enough provisions for ten days, and they were already on day seven. They had bolstered their supplies slightly with Ryden’s kill, but they wouldn’t have enough supplies to make it back as they were.

  “Well,” Jonathon sighed, “tomorrow we’ll start heading back to the ship. We can do some group hunting in the evenings before the sun gets too low. It may increase our travel time by a day or so, but it’ll be safer.”

  The rest of the evening passed without much in the way of conversation. Beckett continued reviewing hunting techniques with the boys, the remaining two rowers played a few games of cards that they had brought with them from the ship, and Jonathon found himself alone with Cassie by the fire.

  “Well, I guess you were right, Cass. I owe you an apology. This trip’s been a fool’s errand,” he said, his voice tightening with frustration, “and I’ll have wasted a full six weeks of mine and the crew’s life pursuing a rumor by the end of it.” His hands clenched into fists as his despair, which had deepened the further into the jungle they had gotten, continued to increase. It’s likely why he was still up now: if he went to sleep, next would be morning, and that would mean an end to what he had envisioned as the start of his dream.

  Cassie shook her head and said, “Nonsense, Captain. There have been plenty of detours you’ve taken in the past to sate the curiosity of one of your crew members. Most of those were definite wastes of time, and some of them even ended up costing us in the end.”

  “Like that time when Thayer thought he had become a world-class chef and insisted we take him to Brightstone so he could enter that cooking competition?” Jonathon asked, a weak half-smile forming on his face as he remembered the tale.

  Cassie laughed lightly, “And he got so mad when he saw how well all the other competitors were doing that he went around to each station and began knocking over all of the cookware and got arrested. Then we had to not only bail him out but also pay for the damages he had caused.”

  It was rarer than her smile, but Cassie’s laugh had a way of setting anyone near enough to hear it at ease, at least in Jonathon’s opinion. It wasn’t boisterous like Beckett’s, and it wasn’t too loud or too mumbled like Ryden and Dryden’s laughs tended to be. It was soft and gentle, like a bird tentatively stepping out of its cage after being cooped up at sea for too long.

  Jonathon stared at her for a moment and contemplated the woman before him. He wasn’t exactly sure what it was, but for some reason, he was finding her very hard to resist right now. Not that he hadn’t always been attracted to her, but he had always been able to maintain an appropriate amount of distance between them in the past. Maybe it was what he saw the other day. Or maybe he was weakened from this current setback. Or both. It was probably both. As he wandered in his own thoughts, she caught his gaze, her expression questioning.

  “What is it, Captain?” she asked, her tone curious.

  Jonathon scrambled as he quickly brought his thoughts back to the present. “Nothing at all. I…was…just wondering why you never call me by my name.”

  She gave him a discerning glance and replied simply, “Because you are my captain. Why would I not call you by the title you’ve earned?”

  “Well, sure,” Jonathon pushed, “but it’s not like I call you ‘Quartermaster.’ And the others still call me by my name when we are not in front of the rest of the crew. Well, the twins still don’t, but I suspect that has more to do with them and their age than it does me. You, though. You don’t do that. We’ve worked together for three years now, and not once do I think you’ve called me by anything other than ‘Sir’ or ‘Captain.’ Why is that?”

  Cassie fell silent as she turned her head and gazed into the fire. She had a strange look on her face, as if she were contemplating something. Finally, after about a minute, she said softly, “Why did you come and spy on me the other day as I bathed?”

  Jonathon’s heart immediately sank to his stomach, and his throat tightened. Shit. She had seen him? This was bad. She was going to kill him! Worse, she’d probably castrate him. Jonathon had seen what she did to the men that crossed her line. He was not looking forward to what she had planned for him. Gods, why had he been so stupid?!

  “I…uh…I’m sorry…What’s this now?” he said, adding an unconvincing chuckle as he tried his best to sound as though this was the first time he had heard anything like this.

  “Don’t try to deny it. If you don’t think I know when a man is trying to spy on me by now, then you are a fool,” she said, a slight smile on her face.

  “Well…I…um…” Jonathon stammered. “See, the thing is, I was actually looking for some tinder for the campfire at that time, and I–”

  “Just so happened to find yourself silently crouched behind a bush at the pool that your quartermaster had just told you she was going to?” Cassie finished for him, her slight smile now turned to a more irritated frown, her eyebrows furrowed.

  This was bad. He had to get ahead of this before it got out of hand. He hung his head and let his shoulders slump. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Cass,” he said, his voice low. “I crossed a line. I’m not sure what quite came over me, and I shouldn’t have done it. You are my quartermaster and crewmate. More importantly, you’re my friend. And I should have respected you and the nature of our relationship and roles more. I promise, it won’t happen again.”

  Cassie’s expression softened, though the frown still lingered on her lips. She turned back to the fire, her silence stretching uncomfortably between them. Jonathon waited, the squirming in his chest growing ever restless as he braced himself for whatever punishment she deemed fit.

  Finally, she spoke, her voice quiet but firm. “I’ll let it slide this once…” She paused for a while after this as if trying to say something, but after a few seconds, she just said, “…Captain.”

  Jonathon was confused by how he had avoided any pain and her overall reaction to the event, but he certainly wasn’t one to question good fortune. After a moment, he excused himself from the fire and made himself comfortable in the nearby tree he had picked out. As he settled into a somewhat comfortable position, he looked back down toward the fire. Cassie was still sitting there, silently staring into the flames.

  As he fell asleep, he continued to watch her stare into the flames, the fire dancing in the reflections of her eyes, her face a mask to whatever lay underneath. Slowly, sleep took him.

  ~~

  The sound of the most blood-curdling cry he had heard in his entire life quickly woke him from his sleep. Wait, not cry, cries. Multiple ones. What kind of creature made a sound this terrifying? Quickly, he jumped from his tree and stood near the smoldering remains of the campfire, the other members of his crew quickly joining him. As they stood shoulder-to-shoulder, they looked into the darkness prepared to lash out at whatever creature lashed out at them. Jonathon’s pulse thundered in his ears, the screams echoing in his mind like the remnants of a nightmare.

  Then Jonathon heard two thumps as his rowers went down without so much as a sound. The twins were next, crumpling to the ground like ragdolls. Then he felt a sharp pain in the back of his neck. As he reached back to see what had bitten him, he began to feel unsteady. He grabbed something at the site of his pain and pulled his hand back. Is that a dart? How cliché, he thought as his knees buckled and the world around him faded into blackness.

  The last thing he saw before his eyes closed was Cassie, still standing, her eyes wide with a mix of fury and defiance.