4. Growing Storm
Chapter four
Growing Storm
Antonio’s arms burned by the time he rowed up the river to the cliffside, but he grinned despite himself. That was one thing that hadn’t changed, at least; he was still strong enough to fight the river’s raging waters.
The rowboat scraped against a suddenly shallow section of the river. A small pocket of water formed a cove, and when Antonio angled slightly, he spotted a fissure in the cliffside. Excitement pulsed through him. This was it.
When he glanced up against the downpour of rain, he caught sight of Gabriel’s shadow high above, standing where Antonio had been last night when he saw the intruder disappear into the gloom.
His orange lantern flickered twice as Gabriel receded. It wouldn’t do for Gabriel to be caught lingering on his patrol, as someone might question the lad. But now that Antonio had found the cove where the intruder had hidden, there might be more to discover.
Levering the oar, he pushed forward, scraping the boat farther into the cove and to the fissure in the cliffside.
It was so low that he had to hunch over, even from his seat on the boat.
He squinted into the darkness, then uncovered his lamp, now that he was out of sight of the guards on the wall above.
A cavern opened before him, about as large as his room in the barracks.
What was the intruder up to?
The cave opened up a little more, and he got off the boat onto a small rock platform, where he found an unmade bedroll and the remnants of a broken lantern. The oil had ground into the moist rock like a paste, as if the figure had left in a hurry.
Antonio dug a boot through the remains of glass and ash, catching sight of little strips of parchment.
“?Gracias, Senor!” he breathed his thanks to God as he spotted scrawled handwriting.
It was difficult to read, with small lines and ash-smudged ink, but he brought it closer to his lantern and made out some words: Sir Thomas.
His blood turned to ice.
“No puede ser.” It was impossible.
But impossible was becoming all the more probable with every day that passed. And it was his fault.
He sat back on his heels, the cool of the rock seeping into his knee as he knelt. His mind shot back to the last time he’d seen that name written, and to how close Sir Thomas, the leader of the loyalists, had come to capture before Antonio had lost it all.
Antonio had first spotted something amiss when a fellow guard had left his post, offering to pay him two gold coins if he kept his silence.
Antonio had accepted it, if only to deter suspicions while he followed the guard to a rendezvous point at the port.
There, he had overheard snippets of a conversation, enough to know that whatever cargo made it past the port would burn the kingdom from the inside out.
But many had doubted him, even his own brother, when he’d spoken up about the secrets he’d overheard. “Don’t go spreading chisme, hermano,” Cristian had said harshly. “There’s enough gossip to go around without your contribution.”
And in truth, there had been. Monte Rico had seceded from the Empire eight years ago, after a strongly worded declaration of independence and a year-long trading freeze of the Empire’s most coveted goods from Monte Rico: coffee, sugar cane, and precious metals from deep in the mountains.
It had been too easy, too diplomatic. Since then, all guards had been required to swear allegiance to God and their king, but Antonio had heard murmurs of unrest among his peers, whispers of a greater battle to come with the silent, faux-humble retreat of the Empire.
Rumors that their independence was not yet won even now, a decade past the declaration.
So Antonio had gone on his own, and he’d stopped the gunpowder from making it into the castle. But his efforts had set the port ablaze, and in the smoke and pain, Antonio could have sworn he’d seen Sir Thomas’s face leering out from the hazy fire.
While the king believed the loyalists had been defeated that day, Antonio feared they lived. His nightmares had left him a sleepless mess for months, but now they were realized, if only in smudged ink and paper.
And if something—anything—happened to the royal family now, he would personally be the one to blame.
This was his burden to bear. His alone. He hadn’t trusted his fellow guards back when he had two legs, and he wouldn’t trust them now, especially with shaky ground to stand on.
Cold rushed over him, and he shivered. But then the cold feeling grew up from his toes, and his eyes opened.
Water, quickly rising, now reached his thigh, soaking his boots, and he scrambled to his feet, his knee squealing with the movement.
He leapt for the boat. The river was rising with the rainwater, and if he didn’t get out, he would be flooded in the cave entirely.
He lurched into the boat, grasping the oar, and shoved for the entrance to the cave, flattening himself against the bottom of the boat and pushing himself below the rocky ledge, leveraging an oar to thrust him out.
If the cave flooded, the pressure of the river water would force him to the back, and he would drown.
He would never be able to warn the royal family that their greatest enemy lived.
At last, with a terrible scrape and a creaking groan of wood, the boat lurched free of the alcove, jostling along the current.
The river had always been wide, but now its dark expanse felt eternally long as Antonio rowed to the bank.
His arms trembled with the force, and he fought the current that pulled his vessel downriver.
He needed to get to the palace, and he couldn’t spare a detour downstream. Not now.
If Sir Thomas was here in Monte Rico, the situation was dire indeed. And Antonio needed to inform the king directly before he set off on a proper investigation.
Hopefully, the king would believe him.
Out in the river, the rain poured with renewed force.
Lightning flashed the world white, and thunder screamed.
The rumble lingered in the air, overcome now by the steady pounding of his heart in his ears.
He could barely hear past the drumming against the tree leaves, but the scream came again, this time without lightning.
“Help! ?Ayuda!”
The sky ignited, illuminating Antonio’s world in a garish light, and his eyes caught the gleam of metal. And white fabric among the muddy rushing water. A woman.
Gritting his teeth against the burning soreness in his arms, he angled for her, moving fast downstream until he was at her side. “Swim over!” he called.
The young woman spotted him, the whites of her eyes flashing, and she struggled against the current.
Her hand grasped the oar, but the boat jostled against a floating log and she lost her grip.
A scream tore from her throat. Panic lurched in Antonio’s chest, and he pulled up the oars into the boat, letting the current propel him downstream with the woman.
He pulled up beside her again, and her hand caught the edge of the boat, gripping it tight.
“Give me your other hand,” he said. Between her grip on the boat and him hauling her up, he thought they should be able to get her in the boat without flipping, even in the jostling current.
At least he could thank his brass leg for its added weight there; it stabilized the boat better than he could have thought.
She stared at him, wide-eyed, and said something, but her words were lost in the rushing wind.
“?Tu mano!” he repeated. “?Dame tu mano! Give me your hand!”
She understood him now. He could tell by the way her jaw clenched and her lips turned down in a frown, but she lifted her right hand out of the water, something metal glinting in her fingers.
His mouth opened to tell her to drop whatever was clasped in her hand, but realization froze the words in his mouth. It was a metal hand.
He reached forward, grasping her arm below the elbow, and unceremoniously hauled her over the edge of the boat, which creaked with her added weight.
She coughed and sputtered, but he didn’t have time to check on her.
He grabbed the oars and put them back in the water, rowing furiously now to the bank that seemed so far out of reach.
She suddenly lunged over the edge of the boat. “Hey, stop!” he shouted at her. “You’re going to tip us over!”
But she had righted herself again, a bundle of something clutched against her chest. It was gray and small and looked for all the world like a drowned rat, if it didn’t have two giant amber eyes looking at him above a large toothy muzzle. A dog. But not any kind of dog that he had seen before.
Golden light reflected in the dog’s eyes made them gleam, and Antonio glanced over his shoulder to see the warm lamps of a small river port. Antonio shouted to call the attention of the guards. A figure stepped out onto the boardwalk as the boat was just a few yards away.
“Who goes there?” a reedy voice rang out.
“A guard of the king,” answered Antonio.
“Help us before we get swept away.” Antonio tossed the bow line of the rowboat, just catching a cleat at the end of the dock.
The bow line went taut and the boat lurched, almost throwing them off as it spun around.
The little dog-rat thing let out a whine, squirming in the young woman’s one-armed grip.
The guard at the port only raised his lantern. “Where’s your documentation? You can’t dock without a passport.”
Antonio almost lost his composure, and would have if it hadn’t meant he would be so embarrassed in front of two people.
The woman had no such qualms. “A passport?” she echoed indignantly.
Antonio gritted his teeth. “I’ll show you my badge, just get us in!”
The wooden hull creaked with the ongoing pressure of the river.
The guard grumbled something, but it was lost to the pounding wind and howling rain.
At least he reached for the rope. With a strength belied by his lanky frame, the guard yanked on the rope—slowly, slowly, drawing them up against the current.
Antonio dug the oars into the rushing waters, timing his movements with the guard’s steady pulls. He’d borrowed an old decommissioned boat, one that wouldn’t be missed or easily recognized as belonging to a guard, but he’d made a terrible judgement.
The creaking increased as boards cracked. Water pooled around Antonio’s feet, even as he dug the oars deeper into the water, his muscles screaming against the force.
His mouth opened to call the guard to hurry up, throw them another rope, anything, but before he could, the hull of the boat pulled apart and Antonio was plunged into the water.
The woman’s screams filled the air, and Antonio swam for her, fighting the weight of his own body as his leg dragged him down.
He squinted against the water that blinded him, just catching sight of the woman, before something struck him, pulling him under. The water swallowed him, and darkness was all he knew.