Well, maybe not the worst thing.
Rias had mentioned strange predators in the tunnels. Predators that would probably find a single man an appealing target. Best not to dwell on that. Tikaya turned her attention back to the journal.
A mile or two passed with no side rooms or cross corridors forcing decisions. With her mind and her eyes locked on the pages, she failed to notice Bocrest stopping, and she crashed into his back. The journal slipped from her fingers as he spun and scowled.
“Didn’t you see the sign?”
“Sign?” Tikaya blinked and glanced about. They had come to a six-way intersection, where the scouts had stopped to wait. Large symbols in groupings of threes glowed a soft red above eye level at each corner. “Oh, yes, signs. I just read about those.”
Bocrest sighed noisily, while she picked up the journal.
“Not those signs, the hand signal.” He demonstrated by raising his hand, fingers spread. “That means ‘squad halt,’ not ‘librarian run into the captain’s back.’ You need to pay attention in here.”
“Do you want me to pay attention or do you want me to be able to translate the writing on the walls?” she asked.
Bocrest folded his arms. “Yes.”
She snorted but pointed to each sign as she relayed them: “Biology labs, alchemy labs, physics, animal experiments, labs for something Lancecrest didn’t recognize, and living quarters.”
“What is that?” A marine pointed to a calf-high scat pile in the middle of one of the corridors.
“Sorry,” Tikaya said, “I don’t translate poo.”
“Koffert.” Bocrest gestured for the tracker.
The man knelt to examine the pile. He rubbed some between his fingers and sniffed it. “Predator, unknown. Large. Passed this way less than an hour back.” He stood, wiping his hand on his trousers, and Tikaya made a note not to share meals with the man.
Bocrest faced the scouts. “Any sign of Starcrest?”
“No, sir,” Agarik said. He met Tikaya’s eyes, and they shared a grimace.
Bocrest grunted and waved toward the symbols. “Komitopis, which way?”
“Which way do I think Rias would go if he was wondering which way I would go?”
Agarik smiled faintly. Bocrest did not.
“Alchemy?” she guessed.
“Fine. Someone mark the wall.” Bocrest waved the scouts forward. “Go. You boys in the back, stay alert. Watch for monsters creeping up on our asses.”
As the squad headed the new direction, Tikaya cast a longing gaze at the corridor that led to the living quarters. If any personal affects remained after all this time, she could learn much about the people from studying them. After they found Rias, perhaps they could go back.
Soon, doors marked the passage, taller and wider than normal, and without knobs or latches. Symbols denoting laboratories adorned some while others remained plain.
Someone walking closer to the wall than the center of the tunnel triggered a door to slide upward of its own accord. The man cursed and lurched back into line. Tikaya glimpsed a landing overlooking what she guessed to be lab stations—all the furnishings were oversized by human standards. A hand on her back encouraged her to hustle forward and catch up with Bocrest.
“Should we check some of these?” she asked.
“I’m not exploring anything until we catch up with our lovelorn guide,” Bocrest said.
Up ahead, the scouts stopped before a closed door. Agarik and another knelt to check something on the floor while the third man stood guard. After a moment, Agarik jogged back to the group.
“What is it?” Bocrest asked.
“Blood.” Agarik glanced at Tikaya. “A lot of blood.”
Her hands tightened around the journal. If Rias was hurt—or worse—because he had charged in here to look for her, it would be her fault.
When they reached the spot, the size of the dark puddle only increased her dread.
“Human blood,” the tracker said after a taste. “Plantigrade print over there, but definitely not human.”
He pointed to a second puddle halfway under the door. A bloody print more than twice the size of Tikaya’s foot lay beside it. Dots at the end of the toes suggested claws.
“Bear?” Bocrest asked.
Tikaya, remembering Rias’s tale of the tunnels, said, “I doubt it.”
A man screamed somewhere beyond the door. Rias? She lunged for the door, triggering the opening mechanism, but Bocrest caught her before she crossed the threshold.
“We’ll get him,” he said. “You wait here.”
He waved two fingers, and the scouts slipped in first, fanning out on a landing with their rifles raised, ready to fire. Tikaya shifted her weight from foot to foot and eyed a bow stave and quiver attached to a rucksack. The man carried a rifle and pistol too; surely, he could spare the weapon so she could—
“Clear on the landing,” Agarik said.
“Sergeant Karsus.” Bocrest nodded for the man to take over the lead.
Without words, and faster than Tikaya expected, the marines shucked their rucksacks and split into two teams. They filed down stairs on opposite ends of the landing and disappeared from her sight. Only Bocrest remained with Tikaya.
Ignoring his hiss of annoyance, she twisted free of his grip and stepped inside. The landing overlooked a cavernous room that stretched a hundred meters or more. Thick thirty-foot-high columns supported the unadorned black ceiling. Empty floor dominated the front third of the room, and she could only guess at the furnishings beyond. She decided to think of them as lab stations and storage cabinets, though even the lowest counter rose taller than the approaching marines. The height and arrangement blocked much of the floor view as the stations created a maze of sinuous yet symmetrical aisles, some wide, some surprisingly narrow. As with the tunnel, light from an indiscernible source illuminated everything.
A cry of agony echoed from the center, and she glimpsed a blur of black before it disappeared behind a row of twenty-foot-tall cabinets.
“Sprites-licked idiot,” she cursed, whirling to look for a bow amongst the discarded gear. She was not sure whether she meant Rias or herself. If, after all he had lived through, he died to some random animal attack...
Tikaya spotted the bow stave she eyed earlier. The marine had left it in favor of the rifle. She stuffed the journal into her rucksack, then untied the bow with fingers too irritated to fumble with fear. She yanked the quiver free as well. Stringing the weapon was a struggle, and she prayed the draw wouldn’t be too heavy for her.
“Let my men do their job, Komitopis.” Rifle crooked in his arms, Bocrest leaned on the wall by the door, which had slid shut again. His voice was more sympathetic than she had ever heard it, and he did not try to take the weapon from her, but he did add, “You’re staying with me,” in an implacable tone.
She succeeded in looping the string over the limb of the bow. “I’m not going to—”
“I’m not going to lose you as well as Starcrest. We need someone to read this grimbal shit.”
Noise in the corridor made them spin toward the door. Tikaya nocked an arrow while Bocrest raised his rifle. In the lab behind them, the men stalked in silence, and she had no trouble hearing the fast, heavy footfalls outside as they grew louder—closer.
Bocrest cursed, probably regretting that he had sent all his men below. The footfalls thundered to a stop outside the door. Tikaya drew the arrow, ignoring the strain between the backs of her shoulders. At least her shoulder no longer vexed her.
The door slid open. She held her breath.
The tunnel was empty.
The tip of her arrow wavered as her muscles quivered from the effort of holding the draw. She glanced at Bocrest, a question on her lips.
Then a head popped around the jamb and disappeared again. It happened so quickly she doubted her sight. Then a familiar voice spoke with wry humor.
“Can I come in?”
“Rias!” she blurted, even as Bocrest shouted, “C
urse you, Starcrest.”
Rias slid out from behind the wall. “I hope that’s a yes.”
They lowered their weapons as he joined them on the landing. First Tikaya noticed a garish black eye and fingermarks bruising his neck, then saw the sweat bathing his face, saturating his hair, and dripping from his chin. His chest, framed by the straps of his rucksack, rose and fell with rapid, deep breaths. He wore all of his weapons too—in addition to the rifle he carried, pistol, cutlass, and knife challenged the ammo pouches and powder tins for room on his belt. He must have been back to camp since the fight.
“I can’t believe you left without me,” Rias said, eyes darting as he took in the lab.
“But I saw you with Ottotark,” Tikaya said. “He said—I thought you went in the tunnels looking for me.”
Rias dragged a sleeve across his brow, not quite hiding a grimace of shame. “No, I didn’t believe him. I just had to... I almost lost it with him. I needed to get away, to think.”
Tikaya sagged against the railing with relief.
Disgust curled Bocrest’s lip throughout their exchange, and he finally jabbed his rifle toward the lab below. “If you were behind us, who in the empire are my men trying to rescue down there?”
“I don’t know.” Rias glanced at Tikaya. “Maybe someone we can question if we recover him alive?”
Bocrest raised his voice for the benefit of the men below. “Starcrest accounted for. Continue with retrieval operation.”
“Treat them like grimbals,” Rias called. “It takes a cut to the neck or shot to the eye to kill. And, above all else, do not break anything in here.”
The last command seemed strange when a man’s life was at stake, but the grimness in Rias’s mandate kept Tikaya from questioning it.
A shot fired, and a roar came from the center of the lab. Something crashed against a cabinet, and Rias winced. “Not good. Wish I’d had time to do a briefing.”
He glared at Bocrest who in turn glared at Tikaya.
“This is your childish sergeant’s fault,” she said, “not mine.”
“Why couldn’t the cryptomancer have been a man?” Bocrest glowered at Rias. “Though after all that time on Krychek, you probably wouldn’t have cared.”
Rias raised an eyebrow. “I am armed, you realize.”
Another roar answered the first, and Bocrest’s head snapped back toward the lab. “There’s a second?”
“Back corner.” Rias headed for the stairs. “Who’s coming with me?”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Bocrest said.
“I’ve fought these before. Better me than them. But I could use backup.” He offered Tikaya a tentative smile.
More gunfire and a spatter of curses sounded in the lab, but she stared at him for a long moment. “You want me? After last night?”
“Nothing’s changed for me,” he said with a sad smile. “Besides, you’re a better shot with that bow than my other option.”
Bocrest sniffed. “I am armed, you realize.”
But Rias was already heading down the stairs. “Third team advancing along the south wall,” he called.
A strangled groan of pain whispered through the aisles. Before she could think better of it, Tikaya slung the quiver across her back and followed Rias. She could figure out her feelings later.
They descended floating steps too deeply spaced for human comfort. Bow at half-draw, she trailed him across the open area toward a narrow gap along the south wall. As they approached, claustrophobia tightened her chest. The backs of cabinets and lab stations loomed in the same black as the wall, with the counters well above Tikaya’s head. She and Rias would have to walk single file.
Sweat dampened her grip and slithered down her spine. She had been ready to throw herself into the fray for Rias’s sake. Going on a monster hunt for uncertain stakes was another matter. Why had she followed him down the stairs? Surely he would have been better off with Bocrest. Despite her trepidation, she kept following. It should not matter, especially now, what Rias thought, but she could not bring herself to complain or back out.
He pressed himself against the wall and gestured for her to go ahead. “Since I can fire over your shoulder, you can lead.”
Just when she thought it couldn’t get bleaker.
“You know,” Tikaya said, struggling for nonchalance as she slid past, “some men protect the women they care about by keeping them away from danger.”
Rias raised an eyebrow. “Sounds stifling.”
“Perhaps so.”
“Military officers like to challenge people to encourage growth.”
“I’ve been six feet tall since I was thirteen; growth hasn’t been my goal for a while.”
“You could grow a bit more before you got too big for Turgonian tastes.”
She smiled a bit at the double meanings, her mind distracted from her fear. As on the ship, his steadiness calmed her. She could worry about whether it should or not later. In the meantime, she wiped her palms dry, and padded forward, bow ready.
As they traveled deeper into the lab, new higher pitched growls grew audible. They came from somewhere near the back wall. The second creature. Tikaya hoped some of the marines were moving that way too.
They eased closer. Twenty meters, fifteen, ten. Around the corner, claws clacked, teeth snapped, lips smacked, and a tearing sound ripped the air. Tikaya hesitated, certain she did not want to see the source of those noises—or what it was eating. Rias’s hand rested on her shoulder briefly. She nodded to herself and peered around the corner.
Fifteen meters away, in a wide aisle, a huge bipedal creature crouched over a ravaged human corpse. The beast lacked fur, and powerful muscles rippled beneath oily black skin that gleamed under the light. The only thing soft were full breasts that swayed as it tore at flesh.
Tikaya slipped out and raised her bow.
The creature snorted. The head that came up appeared simian except for the long fangs flecked with blood and tissue. The arms and hands, too, were disturbingly human, though claws flashed at the ends of those fingers. The creature reared on its hind legs, powerful thigh muscles bunching. It sprang and sprinted toward them.
A rifle fired over her head, the report deafening. Tikaya expected it and did not flinch. Rias’s shot grazed the creature’s jaw. She loosed her arrow at the neck. It sunk in, and the beast cried out, its scream eerily human. But neither shot slowed its advance.
Rias’s pistol fired, hammering the creature between its breasts. Tikaya had time for one more shot and aimed for an eye, but the beast was closing fast. Her arrow skimmed its temple instead.
Tikaya flattened herself against the wall, hoping she could dodge if those claws flashed. She thought the beast’s momentum would carry it past her, but it halted with amazing athleticism.
It whirled on her, claws raised. Rank breath washed over her. She ducked even as Rias yanked her out of reach. She almost lost the bow as he charged past, cutlass raised. She recovered and stepped back to nock another arrow. Rias ducked a swipe and darted in, but the muscled torso deflected his blade like armor. He nicked a vein, drawing blood. Claws gashed his arm before he could leap out of reach. Its speed was mesmerizing, but she forced herself to focus.
With the creature sparring with Rias, she could wait for a chance at a critical target. There. She fired, and the arrow plunged into its eye.
The beast staggered into a counter, gashing its own face as it clawed at the arrow. It stumbled, then pitched backward. Still.
Tikaya leaned a hand against the wall for support and let her bow droop. “Next time we attack a twelve-foot-tall monster, we probably don’t need to worry about me seeing over your head.”
“Conceded.” Rias rotated his arm to check the slashes below his shoulder, but dismissed them. “One down. Let’s see if the other is still alive.”
A rifle cracked in the center of the lab.
“I’m guessing so,” Tikaya said.
Rias jogged along the wall toward a cross-aisle
where he could cut over. He paused when he reached the half-eaten man. It was wearing the black uniform of a Turgonian marine. Though the neck had been torn out, the chest smashed and ravaged, the face remained mostly intact.
“That’s not one of ours, is it?” Tikaya asked.
“No.”
“Somebody from the fort?”
Multiple rifles fired.
“Later,” Rias said, already disappearing around a corner.
A bestial screech reverberated through the lab, and men shouted orders. Tikaya raced after Rias, careening around the corner to face another melee. A second creature, larger and more muscled than the first, fought in the center. This one was male.
Marines attacked from both ends of the aisle, cutlasses and daggers struggling to pierce the resilient skin. The creature whirled, slashing forward, then back, its wild actions enraged, and Tikaya wondered if it knew its mate had fallen. Blood streamed from its sleek flesh, but it batted men away without faltering. As tall as the Turgonians were, they had little chance of reaching the neck or head with their blades.
Rias charged into the fray. Tikaya drew the bow, waiting to glimpse an eye, but the beast chose that moment to escape. It sloughed off its attackers and charged her direction. Her heart lurched. She loosed her arrow, but she lunged to the side too soon, and her shot only struck muscle.
She glanced at the cabinets on either side of her. There was no time to climb out of reach. She smashed herself to the side again, hoping this creature would run past. Though, even if it did, all it would have to do was rake her on the way past and—
Steel zipped through the air from the aisle behind her. A knife lodged in the creature’s eye.
It tripped and tumbled, skidding past her. The prone form crashed into a cabinet, jolting it. The door flung open, and trays of bones spilled out. Human bones, tagged and marked with colored dots. Smaller ones, fragile with age, shattered.
Beginnings: Five Heroic Fantasy Adventure Novels Page 35
