HEY GUYS IVE SPENT THE LAST COUPLE OF DAYS PROPERLY UPDATING THE STORY AND ITS FUTURE MAPPING ACCORDING TO THE LORE OF RESIDENT EVIL, STILL WAKES THE DEEP, PROTOTYPE AND A COUPLE OF OTHER FRANCHISES IVE DECIDED TO BRING IN.
IVE BEEN CINSIDERING SEVERAL SUGGESTIONS AND I THINK THEYRE WORTH WHILE PURSUING, SUCH AS HOW NATHAN CHOOSES TO APPROACH THE VILLAGERS AND I HOPE YOU LIKE HOW I IMPLEMENTED THEM. ALSO T WILL JOST ASSUREDLY BECOME EITHER A TRAINER FOR FUTURE SOLDIERS LIKE HIMSELF OR A ROUGH EQUIVALENT .
AND THERE WILL MOST ASSUREDLY BE OTHER BOWS TRAINING UNDER T OR UNDER NATHANS EMPLOY, SO PLEASE FEEL FREE TO LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK
IF ANYONE HAS ANY QUESTIONS PLEASE FEEL FREE TO ASK, YOUR THOUGHTS AND SUGGESTIONS ARE ALWAYS WELCOMED .
LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU GUYS THINK
ALSO DONT HOLD BACK ON COMMENTS OR THOUGHTS. IT IS QUITE NICE TO READTHEN AND GIVES ME QUITE ABIT TO THINK ABOUT WHILE PLANNING , ITS KIND OF A GOOD WAY TO RELAX AND I APPRECIATE ALL THE SUPPORT
ONTO THE CHAPTER FRIENDS.
...
Morning found Nathan beneath a canvas awning beside the command truck, studying a map of country he now understood considerably better than any man standing around him had reason to suspect. The night had left no visible mark upon him beyond a faint tiredness around the eyes that could easily be blamed upon the wounded, and by the time the camp properly stirred he had already washed, changed and made another circuit through the medical tent, checking dressings, pulses and fevers before allowing himself to be drawn toward the practical business of what came next. If Joseph noticed that Nathan looked as though he had slept considerably less than a man guarded all night ought to have done, he kept the observation behind the black lenses of the Ledermaske. T stood several feet from the truck with the Winchester Model 1897 resting across the front of his body, dark and motionless amid the pale morning canvas, while Mallory leaned over the bonnet where two maps had been flattened beneath stones and ammunition tins to stop the damp air from lifting their corners. Opposite them stood the surviving guide and the interpreter, the guide's fingers moving across portions of the paper where British certainty deteriorated rapidly into guesses.
The maps themselves had begun to irritate Nathan in a way they had not before Kafele died. Near the route already travelled, roads, watercourses and elevations were marked well enough to be useful, but once the lines passed beyond the search perimeter of the earlier expedition they became increasingly apologetic, solid routes breaking into dotted approximations, streams dividing where Nathan knew there was only one navigable channel and remaining stubbornly whole where Kafele's memories insisted there were three. Whole stretches of marshland were represented by vague shading and handwritten remarks concerning seasonal flooding, while the limestone ridges surrounding the ancestral caves were rendered as little more than rough elevations on paper, innocent shapes giving no indication of the caverns beneath them or the buried city Kafele had known since childhood as something between inheritance and forbidden ground. One surveyor had drawn a continuous ridge across an area where Nathan now knew two narrow valleys and a flooded channel cut through the stone, while another had confidently marked a route over ground that would leave a loaded man waist-deep in black water for nearly half a mile.
The guide tapped one of those routes, shook his head and began explaining something with increasing insistence. The interpreter listened before turning to Mallory. "He says this track isn't used anymore," he translated, and Mallory immediately frowned at the map and pointed out that the earlier British party had used it. The guide answered before the translation had finished, his hand moving farther south in a broad sweep toward the denser marsh shading, and the interpreter followed the gesture with one finger. "He says it was used then, but people have moved away from some of the upper places recently. More families are going downstream toward the marsh villages."
Nathan kept his expression neutral because the dead man inside his memory told him the guide was speaking the truth. The movement had not been a single organised migration, nor had the ancestral caves been abandoned; the reality was more gradual and therefore more unsettling. Families moved farther into the wetlands for months at a time and sometimes returned. Fishing platforms appeared downstream where older ones near the stone stood empty. Several dwellings Nathan had seen during the previous night were occupied only intermittently, while warriors remained concentrated near the approaches to the cave system even as ordinary families, particularly those with children, increasingly favoured the openness of the water settlements. Kafele had known enough to recognise the pattern but not enough to give Nathan a clean explanation. Something had changed in the upper country. Animals appeared where they should not. Hunters failed to return. Illnesses circulated in stories whose details altered depending upon who told them. The older men spoke of deeper passages becoming restless, and families whose children once slept easily within the caves began finding reasons to spend longer periods near the marsh.
The guide himself did not possess that deeper knowledge. His community lay outside the protected centre and most of what he knew had come through trade, neighbouring settlements and frightened stories travelling downstream, which made his uncertainty almost as valuable to Nathan as the facts. Mallory asked whether the movement had anything to do with the British arrival, and the guide answered with such immediate irritation that Nathan nearly smiled before the interpreter said, "No. Longer than that."
"How much longer?" Mallory asked, and another exchange followed as the guide frowned and attempted to turn seasons and remembered events into a measure a British officer would accept. The answer came reluctantly. "Months. Perhaps longer."
Nathan's eyes remained on the map while Kafele's memories agreed with every word.
Mallory asked what sort of activity had driven people away from the upper settlements, and the guide's gestures became less precise. He pointed toward the limestone inland, then made a movement Nathan recognised from Kafele's memories as avoidance rather than explanation, something close to the gesture a man might use when speaking of a place better left alone. The interpreter listened carefully. "He doesn't know exactly. People talk about animals coming down from the upper ground, hunters not returning and sickness. Some say the old places are..." He hesitated. "Restless."
Mallory looked at him. "Restless?"
"His word is closer to disturbed."
"Disturbed by what?"
The question went back through the interpreter and produced nothing more useful than a shrug.
Nathan knew that was honest. Kafele himself would not have provided a scientific answer either. The old warrior could have named passages, remembered incidents and repeated warnings inherited from his father, but he had not known what made animals emerge from the deeper caves malformed or why men sometimes became feverish after venturing too far below. He had known only that some places had become less safe and that the people who lived nearest them had begun quietly changing their lives around the danger.
Mallory traced the original route with one finger and said, "So the people we're trying to contact may not even be concentrated where this says they are."
"Some remain," the interpreter replied after checking with the guide. "The guards especially. But he says more ordinary families are living farther downstream among the water settlements now."
Joseph's black lenses shifted toward the map, the movement small enough that anyone who did not know him would have missed it. Nathan noticed because Joseph had learned enough about the country over the previous two days to distrust neat answers, and perhaps because some part of him had begun noticing how rarely Nathan seemed genuinely surprised by what the guide described.
Nathan rested both hands lightly against the bonnet while the guide indicated a route that skirted the original approach, followed higher ground for several miles and then descended into a sequence of channels crossed by narrow boats or raised timber walkways according to the water level. Kafele had travelled that same route hundreds of times. Nathan could see it without looking at the paper: an old tree split by lightning where the descent began, a shallow pool where children trapped fish during the dry months, three posts nearly hidden beneath reeds marking the point where the safest channel narrowed, then a rise of limestone concealing the first outer platforms until travellers were almost upon them. When the guide's finger stopped precisely there, Nathan gave no indication that the confirmation passed through him like the answer to an examination only he knew was being administered.
True.
The guide next indicated an eastern route across firmer ground toward a smaller settlement used principally by families fishing the upper channels, and that too aligned with Kafele's memories. When he warned them away from a western track where the footing became treacherous and armed men sometimes watched from concealment, Nathan knew the explanation was incomplete rather than false; the track eventually approached one of the guarded routes leading toward the older caves.
Mallory straightened from the bonnet and looked toward him. "Assuming he's right, Professor, we have two choices. We stay here until they decide whether they'd rather attack us again, or we send somebody forward and try to speak before another patrol walks into us."
Nathan kept his attention on the map and said, "There's a third choice," prompting Mallory to wait with the patient expression of a man already suspecting the answer. Nathan traced one of the marked routes toward the wetlands. "We take the entire expedition forward at once and demonstrate that we've learned absolutely nothing."
"I wasn't going to suggest that."
"I know. That's why I continue enjoying your company."
Joseph's helmet moved a fraction in Nathan's direction, while Mallory ignored the remark with the patience of someone who had learned that acknowledging Nathan's humour only prolonged it. "Then you're thinking small."
"Very small," Nathan answered, and the guide's unease increased despite his inability to follow every English word; tone alone told him men were discussing movement farther into the territory.
Nathan leaned closer over the bonnet. "We've spent a day and a half giving these people every reason to believe armed foreigners are dangerous. They attacked first, yes, but from their perspective we crossed into country their neighbours already avoid, established a military camp and then one of our men chased them through their own forest after the fighting began."
Joseph's mask turned toward him.
Mallory said, "T wasn't exactly given much choice once the spears started."
"I didn't say he was wrong to defend himself. I said it is now part of what they know about us."
The distinction settled more effectively than an argument. Nathan moved one finger over the downstream route and continued. "If we march thirty armed men toward the first occupied settlement and place an interpreter in front, nobody there is going to mistake it for diplomacy."
Mallory nodded slowly. "How many?"
"Enough that they can survive if this goes badly, few enough that they don't look like an assault."
The captain's gaze moved toward the soldiers working around camp, men repairing equipment, watching the trees and helping move medical supplies now that the worst wounded had been transported. Nathan followed his eyes. "Pick the men you trust most."
"Best shots?"
"Not necessarily. I want the men least likely to fire because somebody raises his voice, men who understand that an armed person being nervous is not the same thing as an armed person attacking. If children run between houses, I don't want somebody deciding the movement is an ambush. If a spear is being carried upright, I don't want a rifle going off because somebody remembers what one looked like coming through a tent in the dark."
Mallory's expression grew more thoughtful.
"They should be experienced enough to recognise actual danger and calm enough not to invent it," Nathan continued. "If you have a man who is excellent with a rifle but becomes stupid the moment he becomes frightened, leave him here."
Joseph remained silent until Mallory glanced toward him and asked, "And him?"
Nathan answered without hesitation. "T leads."
That changed Mallory's face more than anything else had.
"After last night?"
"Especially after last night."
Mallory's eyebrows tightened, but Nathan spoke before concern could become objection. "He knows what they can do in that terrain, and he knows what frightened British soldiers can do when they don't understand what they're seeing. And more importantly, if things go wrong, I trust him to understand the difference between protecting the party and punishing people."
The silence following that lasted a little longer.
Joseph's fingers moved once against the Winchester.
Mallory looked from him to Nathan and then toward the interpreter, who had heard his profession mentioned and now wore the polite confusion of a man uncertain whether he was being complimented or discussed as equipment.
"Take the linguist," Nathan said.
The interpreter blinked. "Me?"
"Unless you've discovered somebody else who can speak with them."
The man's attention moved toward the guide. "He says he won't go all the way in."
"He doesn't have to. He takes them along whichever route he considers safest, identifies the settlement or approach, and if he reaches a point where he refuses to continue, nobody forces him."
Mallory looked toward Nathan. "We're paying him a fortune."
"We're paying him for judgement as much as direction. A man who knows this country and suddenly refuses to enter a particular stretch has probably noticed something the rest of us haven't, and I would rather hear why than have somebody remind him of his contract while holding a rifle."
When the interpreter translated enough of that for the guide to understand, the man's shoulders eased visibly. Nathan noticed because trust had to begin somewhere, and because he knew with unpleasant intimacy how Ndipaya men interpreted foreigners who treated local knowledge as something to be used until it became inconvenient.
Mallory returned to the larger question. "What exactly are we telling them if they let us speak?"
Nathan took several seconds before answering, not because he lacked the wording but because the wording mattered more than the men around him might appreciate. "We tell them we don't intend to occupy their territory. We tell them our people were attacked and defended themselves, and that we understand their people died too. We are here because an earlier British party came into this region and something happened to them, and we want permission to learn, travel and speak without another fight."
The interpreter nodded slowly.
Nathan looked directly toward him. "Do not make us sound apologetic for defending ourselves."
The man hesitated.
"But don't make us sound threatening either. We are not going there to demand submission, and we are not pretending nobody died. Tell them what happened from our perspective and ask for someone with enough authority to speak for the settlement."
Mallory folded his arms. "And if they say no?"
"Then they say no."
The captain looked at him more sharply.
Nathan met his eyes. "Negotiation isn't negotiation if one answer results in us shooting our way through their village."
"And the expedition?"
"We reassess."
Mallory considered that while Nathan tapped one edge of the map. "What I don't want is another night like the first because two groups of armed men see each other and both decide the other has already chosen violence."
Joseph spoke then, his voice quiet and flattened slightly by the Ledermaske. "And if they attack?"
Nathan turned toward him. "Then your men come first."
The interpreter looked between them as Nathan's tone lost the last of its humour. "I mean that. I want peace if it is available, but I am not sending you forward as sacrifices so I can feel virtuous about my intentions. You attempt communication, you leave if the situation begins collapsing, and if somebody makes a genuine effort to kill you or the men under your command, you protect yourselves. Negotiations can fail. Men cannot be brought back from the dead."
Something in the sentence reached Nathan differently after the previous night, although nothing in his face revealed it. In the narrowest biological sense the words were almost false. Nathan could reproduce Kafele's body, speak with Kafele's voice and wear every scar the old warrior had carried home from years of fighting, but none of those things would return the man his wife had waited for or the father whose son had tied a cord around his wrist and told him he could not lose.
Kafele could not be brought back.
Nathan pushed the thought down before it altered his expression.
Mallory nodded. "Fair."
"I don't want warning shots fired into crowds and I don't want anyone confusing a weapon being held with a weapon being used," Nathan said. "But once you're certain violence has begun, I will not sit here afterward and condemn a soldier for surviving."
"That'll matter to them."
"It should."
Mallory spent the next several minutes looking through the camp with the quiet concentration of a man mentally sorting names by temperament rather than marksmanship. Nathan could almost see the exclusions occur. Evans would not be going; the private did not lack courage, but his mouth had demonstrated a tendency to move ahead of judgement whenever irritation took hold, and diplomacy did not need that quality. Other men were rejected for the opposite reason, soldiers whose hands had not entirely stopped shaking since the attack and who deserved another day behind a perimeter before somebody placed them face-to-face with armed Ndipaya warriors.
Finally Mallory said, "Six."
Nathan nodded.
"Plus T, the interpreter and the guide until the guide refuses."
"Enough."
"I'll take Sergeant Ellison, Corporal Byrne, Carter, Lewis, Campbell and Shaw."
Nathan recognised several names immediately from casualty reports and medical notes even where faces required another second. "You trust them?"
"With this."
Nathan looked at him long enough for Mallory to understand that with this mattered more than the general question.
"Yes," Mallory said.
"Then they're your choices."
The captain glanced toward Joseph. "They're under T?"
Nathan nodded.
Mallory pushed away from the vehicle. "I'd like a word with him before they leave."
"Have several."
Mallory did not smile.
While he began collecting the selected soldiers, the guide continued talking through the interpreter and Nathan remained near the map, outwardly studying corrections while inwardly comparing every statement against the dead man's memories. The guide said the first safe descent into the marsh came after a tree split long ago by lightning, and Nathan remembered standing beneath it as Kafele while rain came through the broken crown. The guide said one channel had deepened after the wet season and now required a narrow boat crossing; Kafele had once taken his daughter through it when she was frightened of the water. The guide said there was a family settlement east of the larger cave approaches, and Kafele knew three families there well enough that their names surfaced without permission. The guide warned that nobody should approach the central limestone path with weapons raised, and Kafele's father had taught him the same rule while he was still a boy.
Every answer was true, which mattered because it meant the inherited knowledge could also tell Nathan when an omission became deliberate rather than accidental.
A remarkable advantage.
A disgusting one.
By the time the map discussion ended, six men stood near the command vehicle with their equipment reduced for several hours of movement rather than a full expedition. Sergeant Ellison was broad and weathered, his face suggesting that he had long ago decided enthusiasm was best left to younger soldiers. Byrne kept his rifle slung rather than carried in both hands, apparently understanding Nathan's intentions before anyone reminded him. Carter and Lewis wore their equipment with the ease of men who had spent enough time carrying it to forget where leather ended and body began, while Campbell and Shaw were younger but possessed the alert stillness of men more inclined to listen before speaking.
Joseph examined them.
The men examined T.
That exchange contained a tension nobody acknowledged openly. They had all seen Joseph come back out of the forest after the attack, firelight shining across the Ledermaske while blood that did not belong to him covered his equipment, and none had forgotten the sight.
Mallory noticed too. "These are the men going forward," he told them, his voice carrying the hard simplicity of an order that was not open to discussion. "Until you return, you're under T. What he says regarding movement, position or withdrawal is the same as an order from me."
Several eyes shifted toward the black mask.
Ellison nodded first.
The others followed.
Mallory waited until the men returned to checking ammunition, water and straps before stepping closer to Joseph. "T."
Joseph turned.
"I'm giving you men I've served with long enough to know what they do when things become ugly."
Joseph said nothing.
"They're not Institute men."
"I know."
"They don't know what you can do."
The black lenses reflected a faint piece of morning sky.
Mallory continued. "They know what they saw."
That distinction carried more weight.
Joseph understood.
"Some of them are frightened of you," Mallory said quietly. "They're still going."
The captain looked directly into lenses that returned only his own faint reflection. "That means I'm trusting you with more than the route."
"I'm aware."
"I'm not sure you are."
Nathan almost interrupted.
He chose not to. Mallory had earned the right to say what came next.
"If this turns into another fight," the captain said, gesturing slightly toward the six men, "they'll look at you before they look for me because I won't be there. If you run into those trees again, some of them may follow because I've just told them your orders are mine. So understand what I'm handing you."
Joseph's posture stiffened by a fraction.
Mallory glanced toward the soldiers, at Ellison checking Byrne's water strap, at Campbell saying something quietly to Shaw, at Carter opening the action of his rifle once and then leaving it alone rather than checking it compulsively.
"Their lives."
Joseph looked at the men.
Human beings rather than pieces on a map.
Then he looked back.
"I understand."
Mallory studied him long enough to decide whether he believed it. "If the villagers allow you to talk, you talk. If they tell you to leave, you leave. If they become dangerous, you bring my men back."
"I will."
"All of them if you can."
Joseph's answer came without bravado. "If I can."
Mallory nodded because that was more valuable than an impossible promise and stepped away.
Nathan approached Joseph only after the captain had gone to speak with the guide again. For several seconds the two remained beside the map without facing one another directly, humidity already gathering beneath Nathan's collar while insects circled the edge of the awning.
"You all right?" Nathan asked.
Joseph's mask turned toward him. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"Because Mallory just handed you six men and made the emotional implications unnecessarily explicit."
"He wasn't wrong."
"No."
Joseph looked toward the selected party.
Nathan rested one hand on the bonnet. "Don't try to be impressive."
The black lenses came back to him.
"I mean it. You have nothing to prove after the forest. Stay with them, let the guide guide and let the interpreter speak. Your job is to notice what they don't and make sure everybody returns if circumstances permit it."
Joseph remained silent for a moment before asking, "You trust the route?"
Kafele's memories stirred immediately: the split tree, the water crossing, three families living east of the cave approaches, a stone shelf overlooking one of the channels "The guide hasn't given me a reason not to."
Joseph's head tilted slightly.
Nobody else would have noticed the distinction.
Nathan did because Joseph knew him too well.
"That's not what I asked."
Nathan looked at the map for half a second. "No."
Joseph waited.
Nathan chose the smallest truth capable of supporting the lie around it. "His account matches what we've seen and what the earlier files suggest. That's enough for me to risk a small party. It isn't enough for me to move the entire expedition."
Joseph continued looking at him through the black lenses, whatever suspicion lived behind them remaining unspoken until he eventually said, "Fine."
Nathan lowered his voice. "And Joseph."
The use of his name altered the space between them.
T remained still.
"I meant what I said. Peace first."
Joseph's posture eased almost imperceptibly.
"But not at the cost of your people."
"I know."
Nathan nearly told him to be careful, but the words felt too small for what they were doing and too sentimental for Joseph to tolerate gracefully. Instead he said, "Try not to become a local religious figure while I'm not there."
Joseph stared at him.
Nathan's mouth moved faintly. "Apparently you made an impression."
The silence behind the Ledermaske acquired suspicion.
"What did the guide say?"
Nathan realised the mistake immediately. "Nothing."
"Nathan."
"Go prepare your men."
Joseph stepped closer. "What did he call me?"
"I don't believe that's operationally important."
"What did he call me?"
Nathan looked toward Mallory as if betrayal might somehow be corrected by finding the captain nearby.
Mallory had conveniently walked away.
Traitor.
Nathan sighed. "Something roughly equivalent to a faceless hunter."
Joseph remained motionless.
Nathan did not mention the other interpretations.
After several seconds Joseph said, "You're lying."
"I'm simplifying."
"That's worse."
"Probably."
Joseph stared through the black lenses for another second before turning away, and Nathan waited until his back was turned before allowing the amusement to show.
The patrol assembled ten minutes later. The guide carried little beyond water, a short blade and what he considered necessary for the marsh, refusing additional equipment with the expression of a man who believed the British already carried far too much. The interpreter wore a revolver he clearly hoped would remain ornamental. Mallory's six soldiers had reduced their packs and kept rifles slung or carried low, a small but important detail Nathan had insisted upon because men approaching a village with barrels raised could hardly complain if the inhabitants assumed the obvious.
T took the front beside the guide.
There was something almost absurd in the picture. The guide had spent the previous two days becoming progressively more afraid of the country ahead, while Joseph had spent one night becoming something the country ahead had already begun turning into a story.
Neither spoke to the other.
Before they left, Nathan gathered them beside the first outer post without attempting anything resembling a speech. Men about to walk into potentially hostile territory rarely benefited from professors pretending that inspiration made bullets less real. "You know what you're doing," he told them. "Weapons down unless circumstances give you a reason to raise them. The linguist speaks first. Nobody makes sudden movements because somebody on the other side does something you don't understand."
Carter nodded.
Nathan looked across all six soldiers. "They lost people too."
That quietened something in them.
"They will be afraid of you and some will be angry. Neither condition is an attack by itself. Give them room."
Ellison asked, "And if they don't give us any?"
Nathan's attention settled on him. "Then you come back."
"If we can."
"If you can't," Nathan said, "you survive."
There was no ambiguity left to misunderstand.
Mallory gave the order, the guide entered the path first and Joseph moved beside him, followed by the interpreter, Ellison and the others at intervals wide enough not to present one easy target but close enough for mutual support. Men around camp watched them leave with the particular silence reserved for people walking somewhere everybody else was grateful not to be going.
Nathan remained near Mallory as the last soldier disappeared into vegetation.
Neither spoke immediately.
"You genuinely think this can work?" Mallory eventually asked.
Nathan watched leaves settle behind the patrol. "I think the alternative already failed."
Somewhere far ahead lay the split tree, the descending ground, the first black channels of the marsh and the outer settlement the guide intended to approach. Nathan knew where Joseph would turn before Joseph reached it. He knew where armed sentries would probably observe them first. He knew enough of the language to understand what those sentries would shout if the meeting turned violent.
And somewhere among those same wetlands, a family had spent the morning searching for a man Nathan knew would never return.
The knowledge sat inside him like something swallowed badly.
Mallory folded his arms. "We wait, then."
Nathan looked toward the track.
"Yes."
For once there was nothing more useful he could do, and so Professor Nathan Drake remained beside a truck surrounded by maps that no longer told him much he did not already know, waiting to discover whether Joseph Taylor could walk into the home of people who had learned to fear T and persuade them that the strangers behind him had come in peace.
The marsh began swallowing the shape of the British camp within the first mile.
At first the route remained recognisable enough to reassure the soldiers that they had not simply walked off the edge of mapped country. Ground descended gradually through heavy forest where exposed roots crossed the path like buried ribs and the air became wetter with every hundred yards, until the earth beneath their boots changed from packed soil into something dark and soft that accepted weight reluctantly. Then came the first channels, black water threading through reeds high enough to hide a man at several yards, and from there the country stopped behaving like land in any straightforward sense. Narrow strips of firm ground divided flooded sections before disappearing beneath water, only to emerge as small islands crowded by trees whose roots spread over the surface like tangled hands.
The guide's confidence did not survive the descent as well as his knowledge did. He chose routes invisible until he stepped onto them, sometimes testing a patch of mud with one foot before trusting it and occasionally stopping to examine water where no British eye could see anything meaningful. Joseph remained close enough to watch without crowding him, the Winchester held low across his chest while Mallory's men followed in a loose formation around the linguist. Nobody spoke much, partly because the effort of moving made conversation seem wasteful. Humidity lay over the wetlands like another garment, trapping sweat under uniforms while insects found every piece of exposed skin. Boots sank unexpectedly and came free with wet sucking noises that sounded obscenely loud in the reeds. More than once they crossed channels along timber walkways barely wide enough for one man at a time, black water moving beneath their boots while reeds leaned across from either side until the path felt less like a bridge than something being swallowed by vegetation.
The rifles remained low.
Nathan had repeated that instruction enough that nobody wished to become the man who transformed diplomacy into another burial.
The guide grew more nervous with each mile. Back at camp there had still been calculation in his fear, the promise of additional payment balancing the instinct telling him to stay behind. Down here the money seemed to move farther away with every channel they crossed. He looked into openings between reeds more often than toward the route, and whenever one of the soldiers disturbed a bird badly enough to send it beating upward through the leaves, the guide's shoulders tightened before he consciously relaxed them again. Twice he stopped without warning and stood listening, one hand drifting near the short blade at his side until whatever he thought he heard passed.
Joseph noticed everything because his hearing made it increasingly difficult not to. He kept the sense restrained as Nathan had ordered, refusing the temptation to spread his awareness throughout the wetland simply because he could, yet even without pushing it the world carried more detail than it once had. Water moved beneath distant platforms. Small animals slipped through reeds. The soldiers around him breathed differently whenever the guide slowed, and Joseph began learning the particular signatures of their nerves almost against his will: the faint scraping of Ellison's thumb along the sling of his rifle, Byrne swallowing more often whenever water deepened beside the path, Campbell's boots falling slightly closer together whenever the vegetation narrowed.
The guide stopped beside a broad strip of black water and raised one hand.
The entire party halted immediately.
The linguist moved close enough to speak quietly. "What is it?"
The guide did not answer at first. He looked into the reeds ahead, then farther right and finally over one shoulder before speaking softly.
The linguist listened. "He says we're close."
Ellison glanced around. "Close to what?"
The question went through the interpreter and produced a longer answer accompanied by a gesture farther into the wetlands. "The outer places," the linguist said. "Watch positions. Paths toward the settlement."
Joseph listened.
Nothing human announced itself.
That concerned him more than a shouted warning would have.
He allowed his hearing to widen slowly. The nearest layers of the marsh separated first: insects, water moving against roots, birds higher in the canopy, the six soldiers, the linguist and guide. He moved beyond them carefully, trying not to force the ability into the pressure behind his eyes he had discovered the previous night.
Something shifted through reeds and stopped.
Joseph's masked head turned slightly.
No repetition came.
Then another noise reached him from the opposite side, faint but controlled.
A foot placed gently on timber.
Too deliberate for an animal.
His posture changed enough for Ellison to notice. "T?"
Joseph raised one hand without looking around.
The soldiers went silent.
The guide watched him with an expression in which ordinary nervousness had begun turning into dread.
Joseph listened again and found breathing where no one stood in sight, then another person farther left and another behind them. They had not reached an empty perimeter.
They had entered one watched by people who had chosen to let them continue.
Four.
Perhaps six.
Possibly more beyond the range he trusted himself to distinguish clearly.
The guide suddenly spoke, low and urgent, and when the linguist translated his voice had gone quieter as well. "He says they already know we're here."
Nobody moved.
Byrne stared into the reeds. "Since when?"
The guide's answer came so quickly that the expression on his face translated almost as well as language.
"Probably before we reached the first water."
Discomfort passed through the patrol like a draught. Joseph looked around at vegetation that moments earlier had appeared merely dense and realised that the absence of people had itself been a deception. These were not villagers hiding behind doors. They had watched armed foreigners enter the approaches, chosen not to attack and arranged themselves around the group before any British soldier except Joseph realised what had happened.
That was restraint.
Or preparation.
Perhaps both.
Joseph turned toward the linguist. "Stay in the centre."
The man blinked. "What?"
"Everyone closes around him."
Ellison understood first. "You heard him. Close in."
The formation tightened without becoming anything as aggressive as a firing line, the linguist and guide protected within a rough circle while rifles remained pointed toward mud and water rather than reeds. Joseph took the forward position with the Winchester held deliberately low. Carter shifted left, Byrne moved opposite, Ellison came slightly behind the linguist while Campbell, Lewis and Shaw completed the ring.
The guide became visibly more alarmed by the movement, so Joseph looked toward him and told the linguist, "Explain we're not preparing to attack."
The translation went quickly. The guide studied Joseph for a moment before repeating the explanation toward the reeds.
Nothing answered.
For several seconds the marsh appeared to settle into ordinary stillness again.
Then a male voice came from ahead.
Low.
Another answered from the left and a third from behind them, conversation beginning to move through the vegetation in short murmured exchanges whose exact positions the soldiers could not follow. Joseph could track several of the speakers by sound, though voices travelled strangely across water and timber. One rose, another interrupted and a quieter reply passed from one side of the party to the other.
They were being discussed.
Ellison leaned slightly closer. "How many?"
"Enough."
"Helpful."
"Keep your rifle down."
The sergeant's mouth tightened, but the weapon remained where it was.
The linguist looked toward Joseph. "Should I speak?"
Joseph considered for less than a second. "Yes. Exactly what Professor Drake told you. Don't embellish."
The man nodded, swallowed once and faced the reeds. His first attempt carried poorly and Joseph heard the uncertainty immediately, so the linguist drew a breath and tried again, louder without shouting, using the tongue shared with the guide. His accent differed from the voices surrounding them but remained close enough for understanding.
"We do not want blood between us," he called, and the words seemed to travel outward until several of the hidden voices stopped. "We do not want death between your people and ours. We have come to speak, not to take. We will remain here only a short time. We do not want your homes, your land, your food or your animals. We do not wish to steal from you, and we do not wish to kill you."
Somebody to Joseph's right answered quickly.
The linguist heard but continued. "Men from our country entered this land before us and something happened to them. Some returned. Others did not. We wish to understand what happened and learn about this place. That is all."
The guide stood utterly still beside him.
Joseph watched his face almost as closely as he watched the reeds.
The linguist reached the part Nathan had warned would be hardest. "What happened two nights ago was wrong."
Several voices rose immediately.
The British soldiers tensed.
Joseph put one hand out slightly, the gesture enough.
Hold.
No rifle lifted.
The linguist glanced toward him and Joseph nodded once for him to continue.
"Your men came against our camp. Our men defended themselves. Your people died and ours died. We do not want it to happen again."
A sharper voice came from somewhere behind. The guide answered immediately, anger visible in both tones even without understanding.
"They say we crossed their boundary," the linguist translated.
Joseph looked toward him. "Tell them we understand that now."
The message went out.
Another answer followed.
"They say their people warned others not to come."
Joseph's lenses moved toward the guide.
The man's discomfort explained enough.
"Tell them we did not understand the warning until after the attack."
The translation travelled into the reeds.
For several seconds conversation moved around the British group in low bursts, making it feel less as though armed men surrounded them than as though they stood in the middle of an argument they could not see. Somebody laughed once, but there was no humour in it. Another voice cut him off.
The linguist continued before the moment could harden. "Professor Drake, the man who leads us, wishes to speak with your elders. He does not want war. He wants our people and yours to exist beside one another for the short time we are here without more killing. If you ask us to wait here while you decide, we will wait. If your elders will speak with us, we will listen."
The human voices stopped.
The marsh itself became suddenly louder in their absence: water brushing timber, something splashing far away, a bird calling from the canopy before another answered.
Then the first Ndipaya warrior stepped into view.
He appeared from reeds only several yards ahead, close enough that Campbell's breath caught audibly. The man carried a spear upright rather than level, and an old firearm hung against his back. Patterns marked his body in forms Joseph had glimpsed during the night attack, though daylight revealed enough repetition to suggest meanings rather than random paint.
The warrior stared at T first.
Of course he did.
The Ledermaske returned nothing.
A second man emerged to the left.
Then a third.
More appeared by degrees until the British understood how thoroughly they had been encircled. One stood on a raised platform partly concealed by reeds. Another had been fewer than fifteen yards behind them. Two occupied the edge of black water with bows held ready but not drawn.
None aimed directly at the British.
None looked relaxed.
Joseph counted nine visible and heard more.
Ellison muttered, "Christ."
Joseph said quietly, "Don't."
The sergeant understood and closed his mouth.
Now that concealment no longer mattered, the Ndipaya spoke more openly among themselves until a much older voice from beyond the visible group interrupted and the others quietened.
An older warrior stepped out from behind one of the raised platforms. Grey marked his hair heavily and old scars crossed the shoulders and chest, yet he still carried a spear with easy familiarity. Unlike the others, he looked first at the soldiers and only afterward toward T. Then his attention settled on the linguist and he spoke at length.
The interpreter listened carefully, visibly assembling meaning before answering Joseph's questioning look with a faint smile.
"They'll bring someone."
Ellison glanced toward him. "Someone?"
"Someone who can speak for their elders."
The guide exhaled so softly almost nobody noticed.
Joseph did.
The older warrior spoke again and pointed toward the ground.
The linguist's smile remained faint. "But we're to stay exactly where we are."
Joseph looked around at the armed circle. "That seems reasonable."
The answer was translated, and the old warrior studied T more openly now, his gaze travelling over the mask, shotgun, dark clothing and finally the black lenses. He said something short.
The interpreter's expression changed.
Joseph noticed immediately. "What?"
"Nothing important."
The man's eyes moved away.
That was a mistake.
"What did he say?"
The linguist hesitated. "He asked whether you're the one from the forest."
Every British soldier nearby became more attentive.
Joseph did not move.
The guide looked toward him as well.
"And what did you tell him?"
"Nothing yet."
"Tell him yes."
Ellison looked sharply toward T.
The linguist hesitated. "Are you sure?"
"I'm not going to begin by lying to them."
The translation went out and reaction moved visibly through the Ndipaya. Low voices rose, several men looked toward Joseph with new intensity and one younger warrior stepped backward before catching himself. Another tightened his grip on a spear.
Joseph heard the nearest man's heartbeat accelerate.
The older warrior remained where he was and spoke again.
"He says their men say you followed them through the dark," the linguist translated reluctantly. "That you could see them where men should not see, and heard them when they did not move."
Joseph's fingers shifted once on the Winchester.
The older man added another sentence.
The linguist looked toward the mask. "He says some think you are not a man."
That landed harder among the British than anything else had.
Campbell looked at Joseph and then caught himself.
Joseph remained directed toward the older warrior. "What do you think?"
The linguist blinked. "Me?"
"No. Ask him."
The question passed between them.
For the first time the older warrior's expression altered. He studied Joseph from head to foot before answering briefly.
The linguist smiled despite the tension. "He says if you were not a man, you would not have come here asking permission."
Joseph remained still for several seconds before dipping his head once.
The old warrior answered with the same gesture.
It was not friendship and not forgiveness.
It was barely even trust.
But something had moved.
Two Ndipaya warriors withdrew into the reeds following instructions from the older man, while the others remained around the British. Nobody invited them farther and nobody lowered every weapon.
The meaning was simple.
Wait.
Joseph turned toward his soldiers. "Nobody sits unless they do. Nobody wanders. Drink if you need to, but slowly. Keep the rifles where they are."
Ellison nodded.
The others followed.
The guide murmured something to the linguist.
"He says this is good."
Byrne looked around at the armed men surrounding them. "This is good?"
The linguist gave him a tired smile. "Apparently."
A breath escaped Ellison that might have become laughter under different circumstances, and the tension changed enough to be survivable.
For the first time since crossing the invisible boundary, nobody was shooting.
That was enough.
The marsh continued around them under the rising heat, black water shining between reeds while insects gathered above the channels and the last mist burned slowly from the limestone. Somewhere farther inland lay the dwellings, caves and ancient routes Nathan had crossed half the world to investigate, but for the moment the entire expedition had narrowed to one patch of damp ground where six British soldiers, a linguist, a frightened guide and T stood inside a ring of Ndipaya warriors who had agreed not to kill them long enough for somebody older to make a decision.
Joseph lowered the Winchester against his chest and waited.
They waited long enough for the marsh to begin feeling almost ordinary again, which was perhaps the strangest thing about danger: the body eventually became incapable of sustaining the same pitch of fear, and the world began intruding no matter how many armed men surrounded you. Insects gathered above the water in swarms that flashed silver where sunlight reached them. Something heavy moved beneath one nearby channel and vanished under reeds without any Ndipaya warrior bothering to look. Heat climbed steadily off black water and settled under British uniforms, while the remnants of morning mist fragmented and disappeared around the limestone.
The British remained exactly where they had been ordered.
Joseph made sure of it.
Ellison eventually looked toward him when Byrne needed water, and Joseph gave the smallest nod. Byrne moved slowly enough that everyone watching could see the bottle come free and return without confusion. One Ndipaya warrior regarded the container with open curiosity. Another studied British webbing, ammunition pouches and bayonet fittings with the same detached interest a soldier might show unfamiliar equipment after battle.
The Ndipaya studied Joseph more than anything else.
That became impossible to ignore. Older men merely tracked his position, but younger warriors stared in brief repeated glances as though looking too long might attract the attention of something they did not yet understand. Joseph heard the rhythm of whatever name or description they had given him appearing repeatedly in their conversations even without knowing the words themselves.
The guide noticed as well. His fear had matured from nervous movement into the complete stillness of somebody who knew the meeting had gone better than expected and therefore did not intend to ruin it by breathing incorrectly. At one point he murmured something to the linguist, who answered and glanced toward T.
"What?" Joseph asked.
The linguist blinked. "Nothing."
The Ledermaske turned.
The man sighed. "He was asking whether the stories are true."
"What stories?"
The linguist gave him a look.
Joseph waited.
"About you."
Ellison turned his face away, but Joseph heard the small exhalation that might have become laughter elsewhere.
"Tell him stories improve every time they're repeated."
The guide listened to the translation and studied Joseph with an expression suggesting the answer had done absolutely nothing to reassure him.
Then the warriors changed.
No signal announced it. One man beside the raised platform straightened and looked toward the caves, another followed several yards away and conversation around the British faded almost immediately. The older warrior who had first spoken with them lowered his spear until the shaft rested upright beside him.
Joseph heard the approaching group before anyone appeared.
Several sets of footsteps moved along timber, unhurried and evenly spaced, the faint complaints of wood travelling across water differently from sound on earth. He resisted the instinct to push his hearing farther and simply watched where the warriors were looking.
A small procession eventually emerged through the reeds.
The man at its centre was old enough for age to have altered his posture without making him frail. Grey had nearly overtaken the remaining black in his hair, and his face and shoulders carried the lines of a life spent beneath sun, smoke and cave air. Nothing about his clothing theatrically proclaimed authority to foreign eyes. His standing existed in subtler things: the space others allowed him, the way armed men walked behind rather than beside him, and the silence spreading before his arrival.
He had come from the limestone.
Joseph noticed cave dust along one leg and the faint mineral smell beneath smoke and wet vegetation when the elder approached close enough.
The man looked first at the linguist, then at the soldiers and finally at T.
His attention stayed on Joseph longer than it had on anyone else.
Somebody had described the mask well.
The elder spoke quietly to the older warrior who had remained with the patrol, received an answer and then turned back toward the linguist. Their exchange lasted long enough for the interpreter's expression to change gradually from concentration into concern.
Joseph saw it. "What is he saying?"
The linguist raised one hand for another moment while the elder continued, and several surrounding warriors looked toward the forest during his account.
That interested Joseph more than the words he could not understand.
Eventually the linguist faced him. "He says you've come at a strange time."
Ellison frowned.
"Strange how?"
The interpreter listened to another sentence. "One of their men disappeared during the night."
The statement did not immediately strike the British as extraordinary. This country could lose a man with remarkable efficiency.
Then the elder continued.
The linguist's expression tightened. "Not from the forest. From the village."
Joseph looked toward him.
"He was there last night. He left his home and didn't come back."
The guide muttered something under his breath, but the elder was already speaking again. Several warriors joined in until he raised one hand and silenced them.
"What?"
The linguist swallowed. "Their men are saying strange things are moving in the woods."
The British soldiers became very still.
Joseph felt several eyes come toward him.
He ignored them.
The elder pointed once toward the forest and then back toward the settlement, his voice controlled but carrying something underneath that sounded like anger built around fear.
"They say animals have gone quiet in places where they shouldn't," the interpreter said. "Some men heard movement in the trees last night. One says he saw something red."
Joseph's head moved slightly.
"Red?"
"That's what he said."
The elder spoke for almost another half minute, the gravity of the words enough to stop even the British shifting.
When the interpreter answered, his voice had become quieter. "The missing man's family says he was only supposed to go to an outer watch position."
A silence moved through the patrol.
"He never reached it."
Joseph looked toward the forest.
A man vanishing somewhere in hostile country was one thing. A man leaving an occupied settlement, expected at a known post and disappearing before reaching it was something else.
The elder added another sentence.
"They found signs near the trees," the interpreter said, "but no body."
One of the soldiers shifted his rifle strap and Joseph heard the leather creak.
No body.
He looked back toward the elder and found the old man studying him, not accusingly but searching for something.
It occurred to Joseph that the timing looked nearly as bad from the Ndipaya side as it could. Foreigners had established a camp. Their masked hunter had pursued warriors into the forest. The following night a man disappeared from the centre of their own settlement while rumours spread about something red moving among the trees.
Joseph kept his voice level. "Does he think we did it?"
The question went through the linguist, immediately causing one warrior to answer sharply before the elder silenced him with a look. The elder gave his own response.
The interpreter considered the phrasing. "He says he doesn't know. Their scouts watched your approaches, though. They believe your people stayed in the camp."
That reduced one danger.
Not all of it.
"Tell him we know nothing about the missing man."
The message was translated.
The elder gave no visible reaction before his tone changed and he asked a different question. The linguist answered briefly, pointing toward Joseph and then toward the direction of the British camp while the elder's gaze moved again across T and the soldiers.
When the exchange ended, the interpreter smiled faintly.
"What?"
"He says his village does not want another fight."
Something loosened in Ellison's shoulders.
The elder continued.
"He asks what you actually want."
Joseph had expected the question and Nathan had prepared the answer carefully enough that improvisation was unnecessary. "Tell him we're here to study."
The linguist's eyebrows rose. "All of it?"
"All of it."
The interpreter faced the elder.
"We want to learn," he translated, then elaborated as Joseph spoke. "The people behind us came because there are things here they do not understand. They want to know your people and your land."
The elder listened.
"Tell him we want to understand how people here live, how their families organise themselves, how they build homes over the water and within the caves, where their people came from and what histories they remember."
The linguist translated carefully.
One younger warrior looked irritated.
The elder did not.
Joseph continued. "We want to understand how they speak to their gods."
The linguist hesitated and Joseph noticed immediately. "Problem?"
"Choosing the right word."
He turned back and translated more carefully.
The elder's eyes sharpened.
"We want to understand the rock under this country, the caves, the ground they build over, the plants, animals and water. If they are willing to show us old structures, we want to study those as well."
That produced visible reaction.
Several warriors spoke together.
The elder raised one hand and stopped them.
The linguist looked toward Joseph. "That concerns them."
"I assumed."
"Should I remove it?"
"No. Tell him we will not enter anywhere they forbid us to enter."
The translation went out.
Something small changed in the elder's expression.
"We don't want sacred objects, graves or anything they consider theirs," Joseph continued. "We aren't asking to take things away simply because we find them interesting. We want permission to look and ask."
That required a longer explanation.
The elder eventually asked a question.
The linguist turned. "He asks why."
Joseph considered the most honest answer available that did not reduce Nathan Drake to because he is curious enough to cross continents. "Tell him Professor Drake believes knowledge is worth having even when it doesn't belong to a war."
The interpreter gave him a faint look. "Did he actually say that?"
"It's what he means."
Ellison almost smiled.
The sentiment was translated and the elder listened before asking another question.
"He asks what his people receive."
That was fair.
"Help."
The linguist waited.
Joseph elaborated. "We have doctors and medicines. We have tools and people who understand wounds, sickness, water, stone and plants. If they let us stay and learn, we help where they want help. Not as payment for land and not because anything becomes ours. If their people are hurt, our doctors can treat them. If something we know makes their lives easier and they want it, we share it."
The elder's gaze moved toward the rifles.
He asked another question.
The interpreter's expression became more interested. "He asks whether your people hunt."
Joseph glanced toward Ellison before answering. "Yes."
The word was translated.
The elder asked something else.
"He asks whether you search for missing people."
Joseph became more attentive. "Yes."
The elder and interpreter exchanged several sentences, the old man pointing toward the forest and then toward the settlement.
When the translation came, the atmosphere changed.
"He wants your people to help."
Joseph looked around at the warriors. "Find the missing man?"
The linguist nodded as the elder added something.
"Find whatever took him."
A small silence followed.
Byrne looked toward the reeds.
Nobody laughed.
The elder spoke again with greater force, and the linguist translated almost immediately. "He says their hunters know these woods. Their men do not disappear between their homes and their watch positions."
Joseph looked toward the forest.
The words felt uncomfortably familiar: men who knew their terrain discovering that knowledge suddenly meant nothing.
He remembered entering their darkness during the attack, listening to warriors warn one another while he followed sounds they thought concealed.
He pushed that memory aside.
"This happened last night?"
The interpreter confirmed it with the elder.
Joseph remained focused on the old man. There were ordinary explanations. The missing warrior might have fallen into deep water, encountered an animal or suffered an accident. The absence of a body complicated matters without proving anything.
Yet the file that brought Nathan to Africa had begun with ordinary explanations failing one after another.
Joseph said, "Tell him I can't promise for the whole expedition."
The elder's expression hardened slightly when the message was translated.
Joseph continued before caution could be mistaken for refusal. "Tell him I don't command everyone. Professor Drake and Captain Mallory decide what the expedition does."
The elder listened.
"But tell him I'll ask."
That was translated.
Joseph added, "And tell him I believe they'll agree."
The elder stared toward him and asked a short question.
"He asks why you're certain."
Joseph thought of Nathan kneeling inside the medical tent with blood on his sleeves, refusing to abandon wounded men simply because the forest had become dangerous. He thought of the instructions before departure: no more blood if it could be avoided, help them if they allowed it.
"We came here because people disappeared," Joseph said. "It would be strange to refuse when someone asks us to help find another."
The elder's face softened slightly after translation.
Then another warrior spoke sharply behind him.
Joseph heard anger even without words.
The elder turned and answered.
The exchange lasted only seconds.
"What was that?"
The interpreter hesitated before saying, "He said the last outsiders who came looking for answers brought death."
Fair.
"Tell him that's why we're standing here talking instead of marching into his village."
The warrior remained hard-faced after the translation but did not answer again.
Eventually the elder raised one hand and the surrounding voices stopped. He looked toward Joseph for several seconds before speaking in a measured tone carrying less uncertainty than anything he had said since arriving.
The interpreter translated slowly. "He says if your leaders agree to help find the missing man, he'll speak with the other elders about allowing your people closer."
Ellison looked toward T.
There was the bargain.
Not permission.
Not yet.
A door opened by an inch.
"Closer to the village?" Joseph asked.
The elder answered.
"The outer settlement first."
Joseph nodded. "That's fair."
The answer was translated.
The elder continued and the linguist's eyebrows lifted.
"What?"
"He says their men will not disturb the place where the missing man vanished until you come."
Joseph found that more significant than the elder probably realised. "They're preserving it?"
"Not exactly in those words."
But that was what they were doing.
"Tell them not to move anything."
The elder's puzzled reply came quickly.
"He asks why."
"Because if we're searching, we begin with what was left behind."
The explanation passed between them, and something approaching approval entered the elder's face.
Joseph looked at the soldiers around him. They had left camp hoping for nothing more ambitious than permission to speak. They were apparently returning with the first fragile beginnings of cooperation and an investigation into something unknown moving through the forest.
Nathan would be interested.
The thought should have been uncomplicated.
It was not.
Joseph could not explain why. Perhaps because the words something red remained lodged behind his thoughts, or because he remembered how Nathan had looked at the map that morning, too calm whenever the guide described paths no one in the expedition should truly understand.
He let the suspicion go.
There would be time later.
The elder stepped one pace closer until only several yards separated him from T. Warriors around them became more alert but did not intervene.
He spoke directly to Joseph without looking toward the linguist.
The interpreter listened. "He says they'll know before sunset whether your people agree."
"They will."
The linguist glanced sideways. "You sound certain."
"I know Nathan."
The words were translated almost by accident because the interpreter had already turned, and the elder heard enough to ask another question.
The linguist smiled. "He wants to know who Nathan is."
Joseph looked toward the direction of the British camp. "The man who sent us."
That was translated.
Joseph added, "The healer their scouts saw arrive yesterday."
Recognition moved through several Ndipaya faces.
That story had travelled through the marsh too.
The elder nodded slowly and then spoke at greater length, causing the interpreter's smile to fade into something thoughtful.
"What?"
"He says if your healer came here wanting knowledge from this land, perhaps the land has sent him work first."
Joseph stared through the black lenses.
Ellison looked sideways.
Nobody joked.
Joseph eventually said, "Tell him Professor Drake has a habit of finding work."
The linguist laughed before he could stop himself.
The elder did not understand the humour until it was translated, and even then his expression merely altered enough to suggest he had known men like the one being described.
For the first time since the British party entered the marsh, something almost resembling ease passed between the two groups. It remained fragile. Spears were still carried and rifles remained within reach. Men had died less than two days before and nobody had forgotten them.
Yet nobody was shooting.
For the moment that was enough.
The elder turned to the warriors around him, issued several instructions and looked back once toward Joseph. The linguist translated without needing to be asked.
"They'll guide us back to the edge of their perimeter."
Joseph nodded. "And the missing man?"
"They'll wait."
Joseph looked toward the forest beyond the settlement, where sunlight had burned most of the mist away and left wet branches shining above dark water.
Somewhere among those trees the Ndipaya believed something had taken one of their own in the middle of the night.
Something had moved through the branches.
Something red.
They wanted the strangers they had attacked two nights earlier to help them hunt it.
Joseph adjusted the Winchester against his chest and turned toward the route back through the marsh.
"Then we'd better get Nathan."