Free The Drowned Cities by Paolo Bacigalupi Page A

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, prayingto 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 atleast 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 brandwasn’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