Sacrifice

A special-operations commando had once told Annja that the biggest problem in the jungle was disorientation. She now understood why. It was entirely possible to have no sense of direction. Looking out five yards in front of her, Annja couldn’t see much. The green-tinged semidarkness surrounded her, giving her a vague sense of claustrophobia.

Already, under the canopy, she felt the jungle’s shadowy onslaught starting. Small bugs nibbled at the exposed bits of her skin. The humidity must have soared to over ninety percent. Her clothes were all wet and clung to her like a second skin.

She took a deep breath. Somewhere behind her, she could hear people shouting.

They were looking for her.

Annja knew the direction she’d run into the jungle. She picked out a landmark in front of her roughly fifty feet away. A tall tree arcing up toward the inevitably green sky. Annja maneuvered her way to the tree and stopped when she got there.

She was desperately out of breath, not necessarily due to the exertion. After all, Annja was in excellent shape. But stalking through the dense undergrowth while breathing air that seemed more like soup than anything else taxed her like nothing she’d done before.

At the tree, Annja picked out another landmark to aim for and then started off toward the clump of vines that stretched high into the treetops.

Behind her, she could hear more noises. The telltale clang as a machete cleaved its way through the greenery.

I need to find a place to hide, Annja thought. And then I need water. Lots of water.

Already she could feel the beginning stages of dehydration coming over her. In the jungle, with her body temperature rising and sweat dripping off of her, she would need a constant supply of water to replace what she was losing. Otherwise, her vision would fade and her body would start to shut down. It already felt as if her skin temperature was higher than the air temperature. Worse, her sweat wasn’t evaporating.

She knew she was on a steep downward spiral.

Annja spotted what looked like a red buttress tree farther off in the distance and struck out for that. Scores of thick vines wrapped their way up the trunk like giant snakes. Annja grabbed the vines and pulled herself up the trunk. If she could get off the jungle floor and into the tree, she might be able to wait out her pursuers. With luck, they might walk right past her.

Annja scrambled up the trunk, feeling her feet dig into the vines. Bits of leaves and bark broke off and flittered to the jungle floor beneath her. She hoped it wasn’t enough of a sign to indicate to a tracker where she was.

She finally managed to get herself into the nook of the tree where its lower branches forked off in a variety of directions. She found a pile of reasonably dry leaves nestled in the hollow and settled herself down against them, sucking in air.

I need water, she thought.

Annja looked at the round vines wrapping their way up the tree and wondered if they might be tube vines. They were round rather than ribbon flat. That was a good sign.

She closed her eyes and reached for her sword. When she opened her eyes, the blade was in her hands and Annja reached farther up the trunk and cut one of the vines.

Here goes nothing, she thought.

She held the cut vine over her mouth and almost instantly, a stream of water flowed out of the vine. Annja took a mouthful and despite the mossy taste, she thought it was delicious.

She gulped as much as she could. The effect seemed instantaneous. Her vision cleared and she felt better. She took as much water as she could and then slumped back into the hollow.

The sounds of her pursuers grew closer.

She could hear them now, their Tagalog dialect unfamiliar to her, but she could tell by the tone that they meant business. They sounded furious that she had escaped.

Annja risked looking out of her improvised shelter and down on the ground. Several batches of leaves obscured her view, which made her feel somewhat more secure. If she had a hard time seeing them, they would have a hard time seeing her.

Two men in green fatigues and backpacks scoured the ground. A third held back. All three were armed with AK-47s and pistols.

They seemed to be stopping every few feet, checking the ground and then continuing along.

They’re looking for ground sign, Annja thought. If she hadn’t been careful enough, they would see where she’d left the ground and climbed into the trees. She found herself praying that they weren’t used to this jungle any more than she was.

She heard another clang as the lead scout moved away from her tree, hacking into a fresh batch of jungle. The two other men followed, still chattering away to themselves.

Annja sighed. She was safe.

At least for the time being.

But where was Agamemnon? He didn’t seem the type to give up so easily. And Annja knew that he was probably insulted that she had managed to escape. She wasn’t sure if Filipino men were like Latin men, who took such things as an affront to their masculinity. They’d pursue Annja even if every bit of reason demanded otherwise.

Annja licked her lips.

More bugs buzzed in her ears. The mosquitoes would be terrible tonight unless she figured out how to ward them off. She wasn’t exactly prepared with a good medical kit full of antimalarial medicine.

She scampered around her tree and tried to look off into the distance. If she could get a bearing for some area that was clear and out of the jungle, she’d be on her way back to civilization.

She looked off in all directions, but could see utterly nothing.

Damn.

Annja slumped back into her hiding spot and took stock of her situation. Soon enough, it would be night. She’d need a shelter. In the jungle, there are always two rains a day and she was overdue.

Combined with the heat and the bugs, Annja knew she was in for a rough night if she couldn’t find a way to make herself more comfortable.

A fire would keep the bugs away, but it would also alert her pursuers to her presence. She couldn’t take a chance that they would track her. If they brought Annja back to the camp, she had no doubt that Agamemnon would give her no quarter. She’d be killed immediately.

Annja made her way out of the nook in the tree and slid down the vines to the jungle floor. She summoned her sword and cut two more lengths of vines, this time letting one of them pour its water into the ground, making it muddy.

Then she knelt and kneaded the dirt into a pasty black mud that she used to smear all over her skin. She started with her face and neck and hair, caking on the dirt until she felt sure she’d covered herself well.

Annja worked her way up and down her arms and legs, smearing any part of her exposed skin and working the mud into any areas that might come uncovered. Then she worked the mud all over her clothes.

When she was done, Annja found a fresh patch of ground covered in leafy debris. She lay down and rolled back and forth several times, working all manner of dead leaves, bits of vines and twigs into her makeshift camouflage.

Annja stood back up and tried to imagine how she looked. Most likely she probably resembled some bizarre swamp creature. But if she was going to get out of this situation alive, she had to ignore her desire to be clean. She had to give herself over to her primal self, rely on her instincts and keep one step ahead of her pursuers.

She knelt back by the buttress tree and cut more vines. Annja drank down as much water as she could. She’d move on quickly, so she wasn’t particularly concerned about leaving signs. Anyone with half a brain would be able to see that someone had been active in this immediate area. A few more cut vines wouldn’t compromise her any more than her camouflaging activity would.

But now where?

Annja stayed low to the ground. She could follow the men chasing her; they were leaving enough of a trail to do so. But if she did that, there was a chance she would walk into an ambush.

Her better option was to strike out on her own, in a direction that took her away from the terrorist camp and away from her pursuers.

Left or right? she wondered.

Annja closed her eyes and checked each direction against her gut instinct. She opened her eyes and frowned. Neither direction had produced the sense of relief that normally told her she was on the right track.

It was going to have to be a pure guess.