Chapter 20 #2
The forest loomed on the opposite bank. It wasn’t the thick tropical growth of British Honduras, where palms had mingled with plantains under the sweeping arms of mahogany trees. This wilderness was quieter and older, towering teaks rustling softly over ground papered with ferns and wildflowers.
The mythic name for the place echoed through Adam’s mind. Dandakaranya.
He didn’t pretend to know what he would be getting himself into over there. A new forest meant new resources—and new threats—but that wasn’t what set the hairs itching at the back of Adam’s neck as he studied the whispering green depth of the shadows under the canopy.
“Ugh,” Ellie complained behind him. “Why does he have to do that?”
Adam glanced over to see her shove Kalb back from her face, which he’d been lapping with his tongue.
“Because he loves you.” Adam nodded across the river. “There’s our ferry.”
Subhas’s crossing was a rope. The far end was tied around a thick-trunked tree. The woven length of hemp was green with age, dipping down into the water, which had already risen to cover the tree’s roots. The river rippled subtly where it passed over the barely submerged line.
Adam crept closer, pushing through another stand of brush. His side of the bank was flooded as well. He had to peer through the shimmering water to see where the near end of the rope was tied off around a fig tree.
From where he stood, his view of Borthwick’s work site was blocked by a broad curve in the current. “We ought to be out of sight of the bridge here. It should be safe to cross.”
Ellie’s skeptical look communicated that she possessed a different interpretation of what constituted safe. “Won’t we have to leave the dog behind?” she asked hopefully.
“He can swim it. Can’t you, buddy?” Adam patted Kalb as the Seluki panted up at him adoringly.
“But he was raised in a desert.”
“With a great big river running through it. He’ll be fine.”
Without waiting for further debate, Adam slipped into the water. It lapped around his shins, slightly cooler than the sultry heat of the afternoon.
The rope had obviously been there for a while, but it felt solid, if a bit slippery with algae.
“I want you to go first.” Adam raised a hand as Ellie opened her mouth to protest. “If you’re behind me, I might not know you’re in trouble until I’m on the other side.”
Ellie grimaced, unhappy with Adam’s logic but unable to counter it. She joined him in the water, her boots splashing softly. “What do I do? Just grab on and drag myself across?”
“That’s it.” Adam adjusted the straps on his pack.
They’d traveled light, and it wouldn’t be the first time their gear had ended up under water.
He was mostly worried about the Winchester.
Guns didn’t like getting wet. Adam would lose the rounds in the stock, but the bulk of the ammunition was in an oilskin pouch in the pack.
He could clean the rest. Adam didn’t mind stripping and oiling a Winchester. The gun went back together like butter.
Leaning over to grab the rope, Ellie took a step forward—and plunged into the river as the bank disappeared under her feet. She clung to the line, sputtering.
Adam couldn’t resist cracking a grin. “How’s the water?”
“Why don’t you come in and find out?” Ellie threatened.
Her shirt had gone translucent, clinging to her skin. Adam could clearly make out the lines of her no-nonsense corset.
Adam liked that corset. He appreciated how easily it came off.
Ellie noticed the lower angle of his attention. “This is hardly the time.”
“You asked me about preventatives,” Adam helpfully reminded her.
Suppressing a smile, Ellie threw a handful of water at him, then pulled herself along the rope.
Adam slipped in after her. He could feel the tug of the current as the cool depth enveloped him. The river was moving fast, but the rope held, thick and sturdy.
A louder splash sounded as Kalb leaped in after them. The dog angled away from the rope, aiming for an oblivious duck.
At least he was generally going in the right direction.
Ellie had made it roughly halfway across the water. Adam glanced downriver, but Borthwick’s project was still safely out of view.
He started to relax. They would be spending the rest of the day wet, but it looked like rain anyway, and it was certainly warm enough.
A flicker of movement caught his eye as a dark shadow shifted across the gray water just ahead of where Ellie gripped the rope. Adam focused on it with a frown.
Whatever it had been, it was gone. All he could see was the softly rippling gray of the river.
Adam dismissed it. The movement had probably just been a reflection of the clouds shifting overhead. He kicked his boots to help propel himself along the rope.
Water pulsed oddly against his legs as if something had just pushed back against the current.
That was weird.
The shadow returned, sweeping past him as a dark shimmer under the surface.
Must be Subhas’s bodh, he thought automatically.
Something less comfortable tugged at the back of Adam’s mind—something about scale.
Subhas’s words echoed through Adam’s mind.
It’s a rather large catfish.
The duck suddenly took flight—even though Kalb was still nowhere near it.
Adam’s nascent unease flared into full-blown alarm—and eight feet of slick black body broke the surface of the water, arrowing for Ellie.
“Move!” Adam shouted, hauling toward her. “Ellie, get out of the—”
Ellie went taut on the rope as the black shape pulled at the lower half of her leg.
Adam didn’t stop to think.
He launched himself at the fish, snagging a hand around its dorsal fin just as Ellie lost her grip on the rope.
Quick water swept them downriver.
The bodh was huge. A distant part of Adam’s brain clocked it at roughly thirteen feet. The rest of him focused on trying to wrap his legs around it for a better grip.
Ellie cried out with pain—and then choked as the river swamped over her face.
The sound was like a siren screaming through Adam’s brain.
Catfish liked to drag their prey under to drown.
The bodh whipped beneath him, furious at having acquired a two-hundred-pound anchor when it had been aiming for an easy lunch.
Adam released half of his grip on the fin, freeing a hand. He yanked his machete from its sheath and drove it into the creature’s flank.
The catfish thrashed with pain and outrage. Ellie compounded the problem by smashing her boot into its face.
Between the pain up front and eighteen inches of steel in its side, the damned thing finally let go.
Ellie surfaced with a gasp as the river pushed them past a massive boulder that split the stream. Her mouth twisted with pain, she flailed for some of the weeds trailing out behind the rock.
She managed to grasp them, halting her flight down the river.
Beneath Adam, the catfish pivoted back for her.
Adam fought to keep hold of the thing, gripping both the slippery fin and the handle of his knife. The damned fish was easily strong enough to push against the current, even with Adam clinging to its back. It quickly gained on Ellie as she worked to keep her hold on the slimy fronds.
A machete in the side ought to have been a deterrent. The bodh was more stubborn than Kalb going after a sausage.
That didn’t leave Adam with a whole lot of options.
He found himself with even fewer as the catfish dove.
Adam had only a moment to haul in a breath before he was under the water, the fish writhing furiously in his grip. He forced himself to open his eyes despite the burn.
He would have been happy to let the monster go, but he could see Ellie’s legs kicking frantically above him as she tried to keep her tenuous grip on the weeds.
Adam couldn’t risk the bodh going after her again. Ellie wasn’t that strong a swimmer. If the catfish got hold of her, it’d haul her under the river before Adam knew what the hell was happening.
Lungs screaming, Adam hauled against the machete, using the leverage to pull himself further up the catfish’s body. He snagged his left arm around the pectoral fins, putting the bodh in a chokehold—not that chokeholds mattered to something with goddamned gills.
The fish lurched for the surface, dragging Adam with it.
They broke through the water, and Adam hauled in a desperate breath. Biting out a curse, he yanked the machete free and slammed it into the soft spot behind the bodh’s skull.
The monster convulsed in Adam’s grip—just as the current slammed him against a slick, solid surface hard enough to drive the wind from his chest.
The twitching body of the fish pinned him there. Adam shoved it back, fighting the frothing pressure of the water, and bought himself just enough space to roll up onto whatever the hell he had just run into.
He brought the machete with him, yanking it from the catfish’s head with a jerk of his arm.
The hell was he going to lose his knife to that thing.
Flopping onto his back with the bloody blade in his hand, Adam stared up at the heavy gray sky as he gasped for breath.
“Ellie…” he croaked out.
The word was both a reminder and a prayer.
Adam forced himself to roll over, hands pressed against a slick platform of rope-lashed logs—which jarred under his knees at another impact. With a muffled gasp, Ellie hooked her arms over the edge of the wood.
Adam tossed aside the machete to grab her. He hauled her onto the platform, quickly checking for damage.
“I’m all right,” she assured him with a breathless wince.
Adam had already shoved up the torn leg of her trousers. Sharp little wounds circled her calf, streaming blood mingling with a wash of muddy water. The sight sparked both fury and relief—because it could have been much worse.
Ellie’s hand tapped his shoulder, the gesture off-target as she stared at something behind him.
“Er, Adam…?”
He turned to find himself facing a line of extremely surprised Indian Army sepoys.
Because he had landed on their bridge.
Hell, Adam thought as he slowly raised his hands.
Borthwick’s men had moved the last platform into place. The bridge now stretched across the river, expertly anchored to the banks. The detachment had been in the process of bringing over their supplies when Adam had landed in front of them.
The monstrous catfish floated limply alongside the logs, gore and blood streaming from the machete wounds in its head and side.
The cluster of astonished soldiers parted for someone coming up from behind them.
Jacobs stepped to the front of the line. His eyes moved from Adam, kneeling on the platform and splattered with fish blood, to Ellie, sprawled beside him in trousers with blood streaming down her calf.
He stopped at the corpse of the thirteen-foot catfish softly bumping against the bridge.
Jacobs began to laugh.
The sound was helplessly involuntary—an irresistible hysteria at finding himself facing his two least favorite people and a dead monster in the middle of the wilderness.
A trim, silver-haired figure with sun-weathered skin joined him at the front of the soldiers. Adam recognized the man’s wiry build, neatly trimmed mustache, and cold gray eyes from the crowd at the Jagannath festival.
He was looking at Colonel Charles Borthwick.
“Well,” Borthwick commented mildly. “This is unexpected.”