Hostage

by Rachel Manija Brown

  Santiago held up his lantern. His eyes were huge. “But these weapons are exactly what he wants. I can’t try to hide them from him. He’d kill my whole family. We have to take these guns to him.”

  “Listen, Santiago, Voske’s spy thing doesn’t work in the dark. I’ve tested it. If you don’t say anything, he never needs to know.”

  Santiago blinked at him. “What? How did you test it?”

  Ross couldn’t tell Santiago about Mia’s weapon. He tried to think of something plausible, then gave up. “I can’t tell you that. But it’s true.”

  “Why should I believe that? Anyway, it’s not dark.” Santiago indicated the lantern he still held. “Let’s get as many of these guns as we can carry. Think of it this way, Ross. Isn’t this what every prospector dreams of? The king is generous with prospectors who bring him valuable finds. You’ll be set up for the rest of your life.”

  Ross’s right hand clenched around his sledgehammer. He didn’t want to hurt Santiago, but he’d kill him to protect Las Anclas. If that was the only way . . . But it wasn’t.

  “Run!” Ross smashed his sledgehammer into the weakest part of the pillar.

  The pillar started to topple toward the water pipes. Santiago bolted, and Ross dashed after him.

  Metal screeched as the pillar ripped through the pipes. A wall of water slammed into Ross’s back, knocking him off his feet. He lost his grip on the sledgehammer as he came down hard. The world roared around him, slimy cold water filling his eyes and nose. He thrashed around, trying to find air. A foothold. Anything.

  Ross was thrown hard into something solid. He gasped, and found that he could breathe again.

  Before he could move, a thunderous crash sent the stink of rotting drywall rising up a second before he was knocked flat again by a shower of debris. A mob of tiny insects flew into his hair and clothes, trying to escape the ruin of their colonies.

  He curled into a ball to protect his head and neck. When the debris stopped hitting him, he tried to get up. He was pinned down.

  He could breathe—just—but he was trapped under the remains of the ceiling. He couldn’t see, he couldn’t move. He was going to die there, buried alive.

  A ray of greenish light pierced the darkness.

  “Ross! Ross!” It was Santiago’s voice.

  “Here,” Ross managed to gasp. “Get me out of here.”

  Dust and debris showered on to his face, and then the weight lifted from his back. Santiago’s fingers closed around Ross’s arm and jerked him upright. Ross stumbled into the green jungle light, then collapsed onto the mossy street.

  Gradually he became aware of a hoarse voice shouting at him. Even more gradually, he began to follow the words.

  “. . . I can’t believe you did that! You nearly got me killed! You nearly got yourself killed! I should have left you there!”

  Ross tried to sit up. The world tilted, and he lay back down.

  Santiago stopped yelling. He crouched down beside Ross. “Are you hurt?”

  Ross muttered, “I don’t know.”

  He felt Santiago checking him over for broken bones. All Ross could do was lie there and shiver. His chest ached as though the debris still pressed down on him, crushing the air out of his lungs.

  He was so cold . . . But gradually the shivering faded as his wet clothes began to dry. His desperate gulps for air slowed, and he lay there, appreciating the warmth . . . feeling the soft moss of the road beneath his back. All around him, forest creatures howled and chittered and chirped.

  Ross opened his eyes and sat up.

  “Careful.” Santiago stuck out his arm between Ross and a glowing red chunk of rock.

  Ross remembered Santiago’s power. He leaned into the warmth, his breathing getting easier. “Thanks.”

  “You’re out of your mind,” Santiago said. “You could have died.”

  “I couldn’t let Voske get his hands on those guns.”

  The building had collapsed into a hollow half-filled with filthy water. Wet debris ringed the new pond. The ruined building creaked as the water shifted the last of the support pillars, and the roof came apart, landing in pieces on the top of the pond.

  Ross should have been triumphant at depriving Voske of the weapons, but he only felt shaky and exhausted. His entire body ached. And he still had to go back through the singing trees. “I can’t prospect any more today.”

  Santiago settled back, his wrists resting on his bent knees. Ross recognized that as his storytelling pose. Sure enough, he said, “Let me tell you a story, Ross. When my aunt Maria-Luisa was a teenager, she captured a wild stallion. He was the most beautiful horse she’d ever seen—perfect conformation, and pure black except for a white blaze down his face and two white socks. My aunt put him in a corral and started trying to tame him. She came in every day for months, but he never let her get near him.”

  Ross was familiar with Santiago’s metaphorical stories. “I get it. I’m the stallion, and Voske’s your aunt, and eventually I’ll get used to the corral.”

  “She tried sugar, she tried carrots, she tried sitting there with him for hours and hours. After she’d had him for six months, she came to the corral one morning . . .”

  Ross sighed. “I get it. He’d finally been tamed, and he was much happier in Gold Point than he’d been in the wild.”

  Santiago shook his head. “She found him dead. He’d broken his neck trying to jump a twelve-foot fence.”

  He glanced over his shoulder, then spoke softly. “Come on, Ross. You’ve had so many chances to kill me, and you didn’t take any of them. Let me save your life this time. You know the king has to have seen what happened. Tell him you’re sorry and you’ll never do it again. And mean it. He’s invested a lot of time and effort in you, so I think he’ll give you one more chance. But you can’t keep defying him. Don’t kill yourself for nothing, out of pride.”

  Ross could try doing as Santiago said, to buy more time, but Voske would know he was lying. There wouldn’t be any ‘one more chance.’

  Ross had to kill Voske before Voske killed him.

  Chapter Forty-Four. Las Anclas.

  Jennie

  Jennie edged around Jack’s mechanical butter churn, which took up most of the cell. Only the lower half of Mia’s body was visible as she worked deep in the guts of the thing.

  Jennie circled the moat of tools surrounding Mia’s feet, and glanced through the bars at Yuki in the next cell. He sat in the corner, knees drawn up, his forearms resting on them, hands loose, face blank. Like he’d sat for the past five days.

  Guilt squeezed Jennie’s chest. She dropped down and began a set of pushups, as clanks and thuds emanated from deep inside the butter churn.

  The jailhouse door opened, and Jennie heard a familiar laugh. She gritted her teeth and kept going.

  Henry called out, “Hey, your highness. Missing your prince? And your royal rat?”

  Yuki didn’t move.

  Two sets of footsteps approached, and a skittering sound. Jennie peeked past her swinging braids. Wu Zetian? Felicité had to be with Henry. Came to gloat? Jennie counted under her breath, ignoring them.

  “Watch this,” Henry whispered, raising his hands.

  A loud clap resounded through the jail. Mia’s lower body jerked. The bong of a head hitting metal was followed by a muffled yelp from inside the churn.

  Henry let out a guffaw.

  “Henry, stop being a jerk,” Jennie said, sitting up. “Are you okay, Mia?”

  “What was that?” Mia’s head popped out. She rubbed her scalp, wincing. “Oh. Henry, that was mean.”

  “Just kidding!” Henry said. As usual.

  Mia went back to work. Jennie reached up to the iron bar that Jose and Mia had rigged under the ceiling for her, and began doing pull-ups.

  Felicité spoke in her candied-sugar voice. “Henry, would you give us a moment? This is council business.”

  “I’ll hold a table for us at Jack’s. Bye, your majesty,” Henry added as he pass
ed Yuki’s cell. He might as well have been talking to the wall.

  Jennie kept right on with her pull-ups.

  “The council sent me to inform you that a vote has been taken.” Felicité paused until Jennie stopped exercising and hung from the bar, anxiety twisting in her gut. Felicité went on, “You three have until New Year’s. If Ross isn’t back by then, it’s exile for the three of you.”

  No firing squad. Relief made Jennie giddy. It was followed by gratitude, which vanished when she looked down into Felicité’s brown eyes.

  Once Jennie had wondered what Felicité’s true voice sounded like under all that sugar. She’d heard it after the battle, when Felicité had called Ross a monster. And she heard it again now, in the word ‘exile.’

  Jennie shut her eyes and resumed her pull-ups, counting under her breath. She heard the rustle of Felicité’s skirt, and the scratching of her rat’s claws. She smelled the fresh floral scent that Felicité used to rinse her hair. She had to be right up against the bars.

  Irritated, Jennie spoke. “What do you want, Felicité?”

  Muted clanks echoed from the butter churn.

  “Why did you do it?” Felicité’s voice wasn’t sugary any more. It was angry, accusing.

  Jennie opened her eyes and dropped down. She wanted this over. “I could give you three reasons. I don’t think you’d understand one.”

  “Try me.”

  Jennie flexed her hands. “Because it was right. Because it was the only way to save Ross. Because one more death is one death too many.”

  “Who says it was right?”

  “I said you wouldn’t understand.”

  “How is betraying the entire town right? She’ll come back with her father’s army.”

  “The army is coming anyway.” A trickle of sweat tickled Jennie’s brow. She wiped her forehead on her sleeve. “We all know that. Go away, Felicité. If you really wanted to understand, you could have asked us instead of spying.”

  “Do you seriously believe that girl will free Ross when your team and the council’s negotiating couldn’t?”

  “Mia thinks she will. I give it a fifty-fifty chance. Which is better than the zero chance we would have had if we’d let your father bully the council into murdering a girl who never did anything but talk.”

  “Mia took her all over the town,” Felicité said sharply. “Kerry saw our defenses. She has to be describing them to her father this minute. What you three did was treason.”

  “Every trader who comes here sees our defenses. And Voske has spies, remember? How else would he have known exactly when to attack a few months ago?”

  “You were under orders,” Felicité’s voice rose. “Mia was trusted—”

  “What Felicité isn’t telling you,” Sheriff Crow said, coming up from behind, “is that if it comes to exile, there are several families who are going with you. The Rileys, the Lees, and the Lowensteins for certain. And there are others talking about—”

  A confusion of noises rose from outside. Jennie recognized Henry’s whoop, then a sharp cacophony of men’s voices. Sheriff Crow took off in a blur of speed.

  Mia pulled her head out of the churn, pushed her glasses back up her nose, leaving a smear of grease on them, and looked around. When she saw Felicité, she put her head back in the churn.

  “I’d better go,” Felicité said, the sugary voice back.

  Don’t let the door hit you in the ass, Jennie wanted to say.

  Exile, really? Ma and Pa were ready to give up their home for Jennie? Guilt squeezed her heart once again.

  The distant voices shut up abruptly, like an electric light turning off. In the ominous silence that followed, the only sound was the deputy checking the chamber on her rifle.

  Then Meredith appeared at the open door. “I want to see my brother.”

  The deputy said, “Sheriff said no entry.”

  Sheriff Crow returned and spoke quietly. “Sorry, Meredith. I had to call curfew. You’ll hear the bell in a minute or so. Run along home.”

  Meredith stuck her head inside and yelled, “Mom says hi, and if you want anything, Yuki, I’ll be back in the morning!”

  Mia emerged again, her eyes huge behind her glasses.

  “There was a fight at Jack’s.” Sheriff Crow grimaced. “Some you’d expect, and some you wouldn’t.”

  “Tommy Horst?” Jennie asked.

  The sheriff nodded. “Mixing it up with Indra. Paco decked one of the Willet brothers for knocking out Jack.”

  “Jack?” Mia and Jennie exclaimed. Even Yuki looked up. Or maybe it was hearing Paco’s name.

  “He’s in the infirmary, but he’ll be all right.” The sheriff sighed. “What Felicité didn’t tell you is that the entire town has been arguing these past few days. Including Preston and Mayor Wolfe. That’s why the council took so long to decide. Up until five days ago, when you all took action, everybody was going to look the other way while we executed a girl for being born with the wrong name.”

  “Dad called it the first step down an evil road.” Mia’s voice quavered.

  Again, a nod from the sheriff. “Some townspeople would never forgive themselves. And some—co-workers, neighbors, even family—would have liked nothing better than to line up and watch the firing squad.”

  “It’s my fault.” Jennie’s throat was so tight she could barely speak. Her hands wrapped around the bars. “I’m the one who brought her.” The daughter of the bloodthirsty King Voske who had killed Sera Diaz.

  Another betrayal.

  “Stop that.” The sheriff smacked her hand over Jennie’s. “What you did, all of you, was wake up this town, and just in time. I wasn’t going to bring her up, but one thing Sera always used to say, It’s easy to make people dead, but nobody can make them alive again. Life is precious. If she were here, she would be marching out the gates with you and your family. That’s why she came here in the first place, because we were the town that didn’t do that kind of thing.”

  Chapter Forty-Five. Gold Point.

  Ross

  The setting sun burned red over the hills when Ross and Santiago reached the palace garden.

  Santiago pulled Ross to a halt at the orange arch. “You’re going to do what we talked about, right?”

  Ross nodded, trying to keep his face expressionless. Nobody ever seemed to have any trouble figuring out what he was feeling, so he’d try not to let anything show at all.

  Sure enough, Santiago said, “Ross? You’re listening, aren’t you?” He grabbed Ross by the shoulders. “You’ll confess to the king, and you’ll beg his forgiveness.” He shook Ross. “Right?”

  “Sure.” Ross’s voice came out flat. He tried harder. “I said I would.”

  Santiago let go. “Good. But when you say you’ll work for the king, you have to mean it! You want to live, right?”

  Ross heard the truth in his own voice when he said, “I want to live.”

  As they walked on, he tried to forget that he was almost certain to be dead within the hour. He had to make himself believe that he would beg Voske’s forgiveness, and live. That man could take one look at your face and know exactly what you were thinking. The only way Ross could fool Voske for long enough to get within range was to not even think about his intent until he was ready.

  And keep his head down. Ross casually brushed his hair back, then let it fall forward, hiding his face as much as he could.

  Once they passed the door guards, he reached into his pack. He pulled out his canteen and had a drink, then put it back in. When he took his hand out again, Mia’s club was concealed in his palm.

  He made himself loosen his grip and let his arm swing naturally. He couldn’t help thinking about how happy Mia must have been as she’d made it for him. He remembered how she’d measured his hand for the gauntlet. He could almost feel the softness of her skin as she held his hand in hers. She had been the last person to touch this weapon.

  He wished he could tell her how much it meant to him. How much she meant to
him. At least, if he killed Voske, he’d be keeping her safe.

  A guard opened the door of the throne room. Ross lowered his head even further. He couldn’t see Voske, but he heard that hated voice say, “Another trip come up empty? I’m losing my patience.”

  Santiago said, “Ross has something to tell you, sir.”

  Ross shuffled forward a pace or two, then stopped. If Voske did what he usually did, he’d think Ross was scared, come forward to intimidate him, and stop just out of striking range. The footsteps came closer. Ross’s stomach clenched. He only had one chance.

  A pair of polished boots stepped into view, then swiftly retreated a step. Voske had somehow sensed Ross’s intent.

  Ross snapped out the cudgel as he slid forward, desperately trying to close the distance. Santiago lunged at him, but not quickly enough. Fierce triumph burned in Ross as he struck.

  Voske’s arm flashed up in the fastest block Ross had ever seen. The cudgel slammed into Voske’s forearm with a crack. Ross leaped forward, his gauntleted hand lashing out. One hard blow to the throat was all it would take.

  Santiago threw himself in front of Voske, deflecting Ross’s blow. The gauntlet skidded off Santiago’s upraised arm and smashed into the side of his face, knocking him down.

  Then all the guards piled into Ross. One grabbed his gauntlet. Another slammed into him from the side. A third struck his right arm, trying to knock the cudgel from his hand. Ross swung out with it, connecting solidly with a guard’s shoulder, and kicked another guard in the knee, taking him down. Then a ridge-hand strike hit him in the throat.

  Choking for breath, Ross went down under a mass of bodies. Someone kicked him in the side, and he felt something snap. There were more hard blows, but he hardly felt the pain past the suffocating agony in his throat. Faintly he heard Voske’s voice, “Don’t kill him.”

  Some air was getting through, but Ross felt as if he was breathing fire through a hollow straw. Someone yanked off his gauntlet, rubbing the lining painfully against the fingerprint burns Luis had left on his arm. At least five guards had him pinned to the floor. One of them even clutched a handful of Ross’s hair. All he could see was the guards and the carved wood ceiling.