“Tooth, what?” Tikaya asked.
“Tooth dullers. You know, hardtack. It’s right awful stuff, but Private Ankars has some taffy his mum gave him—his mum always posts him the best sweets—and anyway if you wanted you could come share with us.”
“Oh, I...” After so much hostility from the marines, this kindness stunned her. The privates must know some of what had happened with the device, that she and Rias had been the ones to render it innocuous. “Thank you. It’s considerate of you to invite me.”
Rias strode their direction, brow wrinkled. The privates blanched when they spotted him.
“You’re welcome any time, ma’am.” The speaker waved to Tikaya, and he and his comrade scurried away.
“They bothering you?” Rias asked.
“No. They invited me to lunch.”
“Ah?” His brow smoothed and a smile plucked at his lips. “That’s an improvement.”
“Yes.” She nodded toward the pockets of men. “It’s amazing they can sleep and laugh in the face of death and inexplicable alien horrors.” As soon as she said it, she blushed. What about her? Fantasizing about Rias on a beach a few minutes earlier?
“That’s a trait shared by soldiers everywhere. The officers handle the worrying.” The grimness returned to his expression, and he held out his hand. A glass cube identical to the first rested on the palm. “I’ve found several now. The radial pattern and the distance from Fort Deadend implies...” He sighed. “I better see what’s inside before jumping to conclusions.”
“Are we going in?”
“Yes, good news there. The scouts are alive. The lookout has a spyglass and spotted them moving around inside.”
Tikaya exhaled with relief. “Good.”
Rias nodded. “Though you might want to wait until later for lunch.”
“Why? Are there better rations inside?” Even as she finished the question, the meaning of his comment washed over her. They anticipated more dead bodies, right. She waved a glove to let him know she understood.
“Fort Deadend isn’t known for its cuisine, no, but if I can escape Bocrest’s guards, maybe we can share a meal?” He arched his eyebrows.
And another, less abbreviated, kiss? She smiled at the thought but couldn’t resist the urge to tease him. “I don’t know.... Those privates over there have taffy. Can you top that?”
“Ah, perhaps not.” His expression grew wistful. “I fear I am a man with few resources these days.”
She patted his arm. “You’ll have to regale me with stories then. Such as why this place is called Fort Deadend. Are there more reasons than the obvious?”
“Not really. You’ve generally pissed in some general’s tea cup if you get stationed out here. There’s a pass through the mountains south of here, and the theoretical purpose of the installation is to guard against invasion from the north. But the route is as hospitable as an avalanche, so the likelihood of someone marching an army through it is close to nil. There’s a lot of gold in the hills, though, and foreigners trespass to set up mining operations. Patrols watch for that, and I imagine the fort commander has orders to keep an eye on the canyon where the tunnels were discovered as well.”
Tikaya thought of the invisible Nurian assassins. She was beginning to think they had transported back to their own ship the night of the attack, but that did not mean others with their skills were not out here. “Practitioners wouldn’t have much trouble sneaking by this fort to get inside.”
“They would have had to know about the place first, though I suppose after twenty years secrets are bound to get out. The Nurians obviously know.”
Voices sounded ahead—the scouting group returning. Agarik came at the end, head bowed, shoulders drooped, though he kept his rifle crooked in his arms, ready to use. The leader headed straight for Bocrest and his officers, but she caught Agarik’s eye and he tramped up the hill toward her and Rias.
A livid red gash dotted with black stitches ran from the side of his cheek to his nose, and the stiffness of his movement hinted at injuries beneath his clothing.
Tears pricked her eyes. She never should have sent him off alone.
Before he could speak, she stepped forward and hugged him. “I’m sorry. It’s my fault you were hurt.”
He seemed startled by the embrace, but rearranged his rifle to return it. “No, don’t think that. I’m the idiot who let himself get ambushed.”
His words did nothing to assuage her guilt. When she stepped back, she could not look away from that cut. It would be a permanent scar.
“Is there anything I can do?” Tikaya asked.
“Hugs are good.” Agarik gave Rias a hesitant smile. “From anyone who wants to share them.”
Tikaya glanced at Rias in time to spot a neutral expression shift to bewilderment.
“What?”
The word sounded harsh, and, though Tikaya suspected the tone more a result of surprise than anything else, Agarik’s smile fell.
“Sorry, sir,” he said. “I didn’t mean, uhm.”
“What’d you find at the fort, corporal?” Rias asked.
Agarik straightened, face composed. “Everyone’s dead, sir. Ugly dead. Their skin and muscles were melted off like wax on a candle. You couldn’t even tell who was who if they weren’t wearing uniforms with name patches.”
Tikaya shared that’s-what-we-were-afraid-of glances with Rias.
“And there’s something you’ll want to see,” Agarik said. “Both of you.”
Before she could ask for details, an officer yelled, “Corporal Agarik, get over here!”
He saluted Rias before hustling off.
“You should hug him next time,” Tikaya said.
That bewilderment returned. “Marines don’t hug.”
“Have you talked to him at all?”
“Not as much as you, apparently.” He tilted his head and arched an eyebrow.
It took her a moment to match his concerned expression to the hug she had given Agarik. She almost laughed. As confident as Rias was about military and mathematical matters, she was surprised he did not share that confidence when it came to women. As if anyone here could offer notable competition.
“Pack it up!” Bocrest’s voice floated across the hill. “We’re moving out!”
Tikaya laid her hand on Rias’s sleeve before he could turn away. “Agarik wants your attention, not mine.”
Rias stared at her. “Oh.”
“You two prisoners want to join the group or you going to stay out here and work on your sun tans?” Bocrest shoved a rucksack into Rias’s arms as he stomped past.
“I can’t imagine that man having a wife,” Tikaya muttered as she headed off to retrieve her own pack.
“I’ve not met the woman,” Rias said, “but I’ve heard she’s as obnoxious as him and the undisputed master of the household.”
Tikaya would have been content to march at the end of the squad—the going was a lot easier when numerous snowshoes had tamped down a trail—but Rias strode through the drifts with his long legs and overtook the men. Determined to keep up, she forced her own strides to unnatural lengths. Sweat soon plastered her clothing to her body and soaked the fur lining of her gloves. She removed her wool cap and stuffed it in a pocket.
Rias made it to the gates ahead of the marines, and Tikaya trailed close behind. The twenty-foot-tall wooden doors stood open, offering no sign that the fort had been attacked, but two men lay dead at their guard post. At least, Tikaya assumed they were men.
She thought the night spent with the corpses in Wolfhump would have inured her to death, but these were worse. Blisters and burns had seared flesh and muscle to the bone, mutilating the marines beyond recognition. Pustules even coated the bloated, protruding tongues. The eyes had popped like blisters themselves.
She was glad she had not had lunch.
Agarik caught up and walked between them. Sweat dampened his face too. “This way, sir, ma’am. Captain said it’s all right to let you go first.”
Inside the fort, snow had been plowed into piles, so they unstrapped their snowshoes. Sand coated the icy cement. Agarik led Rias and Tikaya past wooden barracks, office buildings, and a couple of cavernous vehicle structures that housed plows, trucks, and other steam-powered transports. If not for the silence and the dead men, she would have guessed it a normal work day at the fort. People had been caught on errands, while practicing combat in an arena, and, in one spot, driving a snow plow that had subsequently crashed into a barracks building. No smoke wafted from the stack, but Tikaya paused to open the furnace door. The fire had gone out, but when she removed a glove and stuck her hand inside, a hint of heat remained in the ashes.
“People were alive here, no more than a day or two ago,” she said.
But Rias, following on Agarik’s heels, had gone on and did not seem to hear her. His head was tilted back, and she followed his gaze. A two-story office building rose ahead, a large corner of its roof sheered off. Splintered wood and sheet metal roofing shingles scattered the cement around a sleek black cylindrical object embedded in the walkway. Tikaya’s step slowed. It was made from the same material as the artifact in Wolfhump.
She joined the men around the rubble. The landing had not dented or even scraped the cylinder, though it had gouged a hole in the cement, and jagged cracks radiated in several directions. Strips opened like flower petals on one end of the device, and dozens of square indentations lined the insides.
Rias produced one of the cubes and slid it into a slot. It clicked. Perfect fit.
“The delivery mechanism,” he said.
Bocrest and a couple others approached, though the captain had the sense to keep most of his men from trampling around the artifact. He sent them off to secure the fort with a few terse orders, then stepped closer.
“What is that thing?” Glass crunched under his foot.
“Careful.” Rias flung a hand up. “If some of the cubes didn’t release their contents in the air, stepping on a full one could be deadly. For us all.”
For once, Bocrest had nothing sarcastic to say. He gulped, lifted his boot, looked around, like he might set it somewhere else, then decided it was safer back where it had started.
“In the air?” Tikaya asked. “You don’t think this is like the device in Wolfhump? Something that distributes its deadly load from the ground?”
“No,” Rias said. “I think it’s a rocket.”
The only rockets Tikaya was familiar with involved fireworks, though she supposed Turgonians might have experimented with more sophisticated fuel-powered projectiles. Rias had studied ballistics in school, after all.
It took a moment for the ramifications to sink in. Tikaya’s eyes widened when they did. “If this is a rocket, that means someone fired it, someone with the knowledge to do so.”
“Yes,” Rias said grimly.
Tikaya stared at the artifact. Was it possible the original builders were still around? Or—she eyed runes running down one side—had someone already been in the tunnels and translated the ancient language? Such strong disappointment flooded her that she sank to her knees. Surely she had not asked for this gruesome mission, but all along there had been the promise of being the first to translate a previously unknown language and share it with the world. A feat that would earn her a place in the history books.
Rias knelt beside her and put a hand on her good shoulder. “Are you all right?”
Aware of the others, she said, “Yes, just tired.”
“Nurians,” Bocrest growled. “Those cussed Nurians are responsible, have to be.”
Rias arched inquiring eyebrows at Tikaya. She guessed his question and nodded permission.
“I don’t think it’s them, at least nothing sanctioned by their government.” Rias explained the orders he and Tikaya had found on board the Nurian ship.
“Then who?” Bocrest demanded.
“The Turgonians have many enemies,” Rias said.
Bocrest tugged off his cap and scrubbed his short steely hair. “This whole slag pile is giving me a headache.”
“There’s something else to consider,” Rias said, tone grim. “We haven’t hidden our approach to this fort, so it’s very possible whoever did this knows we’re here.”
12
Tikaya sat cross-legged next to the rocket and finished copying the runes into her journal. Coldness seeped through her trousers to numb her backside, and shivers made her pencil hand shake. As if writing with gloves on was not bad enough. She ought to move somewhere warmer. But, oh, there was another symbol she recognized from the table of elements. And interesting how each grouping on the rocket held thirteen runes. Could the different prime clusters alter the meaning of—
Light splashed across her pages, and Tikaya dropped her pencil.
Agarik stood beside her, holding a lantern. Only then did she realize twilight had descended on the fort.
“Thank you,” she said. “When did you leave to get that? And where’d everyone else go?”
He stared. “You didn’t notice people coming and going, ma’am? Talking? Arguing?”
“Er.” She vaguely remembered Rias saying something about finding surveying tools. “Not really.”
“Half the men are retrieving corpses for a funeral pyre while half are off on a mission Five concocted. Looking for people who might have died outside the fort and searching for more cubes and recording where they landed. Seeing how it’s night, that sounds about as fun as hunting for a wrench in a scrapyard. He says he can figure out where the rocket was launched from, though, and Bocrest wants it done tonight, so he can take a team up there at first light.”
In case someone was up there preparing another weapon to launch at the fort. Yes, that seemed wise.
Tikaya rose, an awkward movement with her shoulder in a sling, and her injury twinged despite her care. A noisy yawn escaped her lips. She thought of her bed back home, though right now she would be tickled with a blanket in front of a fireplace.
Agarik’s jaw dropped in a noisy yawn of his own.
“Sorry,” Tikaya said. “Are you tasked with watching me again?”
“I don’t mind, ma’am. Of the jobs I could be assigned, it’s not a bad one.”
Men crossed a nearby courtyard, lantern light bobbing at their feet. They worked in grim silence, bringing wood for a fire. She looked away as others dragged a body from a building and laid it at the end of a grisly queue.
Though tempted to ask Agarik about sleeping arrangements, Tikaya wanted to search the fort for other language clues first. If the marines feared an attack imminent, they might march out at dawn. Somewhere, she hoped to find an artifact she could slip into her rucksack to take home for study—and to prove to her people this nightmare had been real.
“Mind if we find the fort commander’s office?” she asked.
“I don’t think the captain wants you wandering around.”
Tikaya started to object, but Agarik smirked and spoke first.
“But since you’ll doubtlessly make arguments until you get me to change my mind, we may as well go now.”
“Good man.”
Thousands of stars glittering like ice crystals blanketed the black sky above the fort. Tikaya almost felt she could reach up and stir them with her fingers. Here and there lanterns sputtered on lampposts or in sconces. Agarik hugged shadows barely dented by the flickering light as he led her beneath the ramparts and through an alley suffocated with piles of snow. They stopped at the back door of a two-story building. She had the feeling he was avoiding the other men and hoped he would not get in trouble for escorting her around. Her desire to poke through the commander’s office kept her from asking.
They slipped into an unlit kitchen where copper pots and steel counters gleamed, reflecting the lantern’s flame. Agarik led her around an island to av
oid a body clad in bloodstained cook’s whites. Tikaya ripped her gaze from the melted flesh, glad the lighting did not illuminate too many details.
They passed through a mess hall lined with tables. Plates of bread, carrots, and now-frozen meat waited for someone to finish them. Bodies, some fallen across tables, some sprawled on the floor, matched the place settings. One man had died tending the coal stove in the corner, and the door stood open, ashes spilled onto the wood floor.
“Surprise attack,” Agarik said, disgust hardening his voice. “There’s no honor in killing like this.”
“I can’t believe how quickly the poison acts,” Tikaya said, chilled by the idea of something that could kill a man before he could even get out of his seat and wonder if something was wrong.
There were not any bodies at the tables nearest the far door, and wet footprints suggested the marines had started carting them out. Heavy footsteps sounded on the floor above. Tikaya doubted she would make it to the commander’s office without being spotted. She hoped no one would question her for snooping about.
They entered a corridor, and Agarik led her to a stairwell. Broad steps rose toward a second floor, while narrow ones turned a corner and dropped into darkness. That made her pause. A basement in a land where permafrost hardened the earth inches below the surface?
Agarik headed upstairs, but voices came from the lower level.
“Wait,” Tikaya whispered, cocking her head to listen.
“I think...a Nurian,” someone said.
“...doing out here?”
They had found a Nurian? Had someone been caught nosing around in the carnage of the fort? Her breath hitched. What if it was the person who had fired the rocket? The person who knew enough of the language to know how to fire the rocket?
She edged closer to the stairs. The men were not whispering, so the discussion was probably not secret, and nobody had forbidden her from exploring.
Agarik gripped her forearm. “Tikaya...”
Beginnings: Five Heroic Fantasy Adventure Novels Page 29
