Rebel Ice (15 page)

"A necklace of some kind. Let me." Ygrelda did something to separate two of the links, and then placed the chain around Resa's throat before joining them again. "There. It looks right on you. It is an ensleg bauble; I thought it would."

Resa tucked her chin in, but the chain of the necklace was so short she couldn't see it. "I thank you."

The midday meal was prepared and served, and Resa left the sorting tables and stood waiting for her portion. She was always last to be given food, but Ygrelda waited with her. Resa noticed how her friend checked her bowl each time, as if to assure it was filled properly. Today the old woman, whom Ygrelda called a renser, handed Resa a brimming portion, as well as two slices of dark, heavy bread. Renser prepared all the food in the iiskar. Since no one else was given the bread, Resa felt confused, and tried to give it back.

"No," the renser said. She gave Ygrelda an odd look. "It is the last, and cannot be divided evenly. Besides, you will need it."

Resa thanked her, which only made the renser look away. Ygrelda's mouth became a hard line when she saw the other women staring at them, but she said nothing.

Certain foods like bread had become scarce since Resa had come to the people, and she felt uncomfortable with being so favored. She liked bread very much, but it was not appropriate for her to have the last of it, not when she was still treated as an outsider by so many. Ygrelda had already given her the gift of the necklace. Her stomach, too, was still clenched after the brief encounter with the scowling hunter. Once Resa and Ygrelda had found a place to sit near the heatarc, she offered the bread to her friend. "I not very hungry," she said truthfully. "You take."

The other women around them looked at the bread, and then at Ygrelda. Some seemed unhappy. Others looked strangely distressed.

Ygrelda's mouth relaxed. "No, Resa. None of us wish to have it. It is all right for you to eat it."

Another kindness. It confused Resa, but she lowered her hand and smiled. "I thank you. Again."

Ygrelda looked away, as the renser had.

Resa wanted to ask so many questions, but she did not have enough words for them. She wanted to tell Ygrelda about the cats, and the ice caves, and how grateful she was to be accepted by the people. How much the kindness Ygrelda and the other woman had shown her meant to her. How hard she would work, if given the chance to stay and earn her place with the people.

She wanted to ask about the big man who had caressed the cheek of the woman chasing the boy. She understood the attraction between males and females—even the cats displayed such—but surely desire among the people was not usually shown so openly. She had never seen such a thing before now, and it confused her.

"Resa," Ygrelda said, her voice low. "We have work to do. Eat."

She wanted to cry out, What
have I done
? but that was not the way of the people. She was afraid to know, as well.

One of the women nearest the flap suddenly darted away from it to crouch nearer to the heatarc. "Kheder."

Without warning, all of the women stopped eating. Those who were standing dropped down quickly to crouch on the floor. Those who were already sitting tucked their hands into the ends of their sleeves, hunched over, and stared at the floor. Resa looked around until she saw a tall male wearing heavy furs and standing just inside the flap.

"Down," Ygrelda whispered, tugging at her arm until Resa assumed the same position as she. When Resa opened her mouth, Ygrelda quickly pressed her finger against her lips.

"Bring the ensleg to me," the man said.

Chapter Eight

The frost-covered body of the dead pilot was hauled out of the wreck by two skela, who brought it before Teulon.

"He was still sitting at the helm," Hasal said as he came to stand over the corpse. "The ship's engines are functional, and there are no signs of failure, although most of the reserve fuel was vented." His eyes shifted to the dead man's whitened face. "He was either a terrible pilot, or a very good one."

"Toskald pilots do not crash." Teulon crouched by the body to examine the dead man's face. He looked over the ensleg garments it wore, pried up the frozen material, and inspected the torso beneath. "What killed him?"

"One must assume the impact, Raktar." Hasal handed him the scanner, which he used to take readings of the dead man's internal organs. "He did not suffer. Death was instantaneous."

The injuries from the crash were evident on the exterior of the cadaver's torso, but none of them were severe enough to cause a broken rib to pierce his heart.

Teulon skimmed the readings on the scanner before he stood and handed it back to his second. He made a brief trip inside the launch to inspect the helm, where he saw blood in two places, and spaces within the storage units to indicate a significant amount of gear had been removed from them. There had also been some tampering with the helm console.

He departed the launch to walk around the site. There had been little fresh snowfall, so the marks left by those who had paid a visit to the wreck were still evident. It had been a small group, perhaps hunters searching for game and picking up the launch's thermal signature. They would have come here on skimmers, and yet there were faint markings indicating at least three had walked out on the ice.

"Track the ones on foot," he told his hunters, who had also noticed the trail.

Hasal joined him. "What do you look for, Raktar?"

Teulon picked up a crossbow bolt near the launch and examined it. "The pilot."

Hasal looked back at the body. "He
is
the pilot."

"He is Toskald, not Terran. His hair has been gilded and there are still traces of cosmetics on his skin. He wears no crystal." Teulon saw faint traces of a dark substance on the alloy-tipped bolt and handed it to his second. "The pilot was shot with this."

"I do not understand," Hasal said, turning the bolt over to inspect it. "How do you know this?"

"The dead man shows care to his body but wears clothing that does not fit his body? See how the sleeves are too short here, and the trousers too tight at the waist. Also, his pants are not fastened properly; they were pulled on in haste. The blood pattern inside the launch tells me that he was killed while near the copilot's chair, and then moved into the pilot's seat. The helm has been vandalized and there is survival gear missing from the storage compartments. The hunters who came here fired their weapons and wounded something that walks on two feet and bleeds red. As a Terran who had emerged from the wreck might." Then they had let him walk away—but why?

"Hunters do not wound," Hasal said, looking utterly mystified now. "They only kill, and they would never allow an ensleg to live." His expression changed. "That is why the Terran switched clothes? To appear to the hunters as a Tos'?"

"Perhaps." Despite the facts he had uncovered, there was still something very wrong with this scene, Teulon thought. "Who hunts this territory?"

"Five, perhaps six different iiskars," Hasal said. "
I
can send men to check each of them."

It was another hour before Teulon's hunters returned with a Terran male dressed in Toskald garments. The wound on his face corresponded with the bolt Teulon had found. As he was marched over to Teulon, the Raktar recognized him immediately.

"The Terran linguist." It took him a moment to recall the man's name. "Duncan Reever."

Hasal frowned. "You know this man?"

It could not be Reever, of course. The Terran had been on board the
CloudWalk
when it had been destroyed. Teulon had watched him die. Whoever this man was, he was not Reever. Teulon covered his face before facing the Terran prisoner.

"He fights well," one of the hunters told Teulon. "Broke Lapar's arm."

Hasal stepped up to the Terran and gestured to the wreckage. "Were you the pilot of this ship?"

"No. The pilot was killed on impact."

Teulon frowned. The man's voice sounded flat and devoid of emotion—exactly as he had remembered Reever's. "But you took his crystal."

That, Teulon thought unlikely, given that the crystal was his only passage off the planet's surface. The Toskald would never take him back to the skim city without it. "Why have you come to Akkabarr?"

"One of our ships crashed here two years ago. I am here to search for a survivor." He ignored the chuffing sound Hasal made and addressed Teulon. "I was following someone who might have helped me find her when your men captured me."

"Searching for a woman. A crash survivor. On Akkabarr." Hasal spit on the ice. "He is insane, Raktar."

Teulon studied the sky. A storm was brewing to the east, and it would be dangerous to keep the men out on the ice much longer. Teuton's battalions were also in position, making the final preparations to move on the armory trenches. He would need to travel to the northern territories to ready the attack forces. The Kangal's general had not accepted the failure of his scouts and was sending more ships every day to patrol the surface. Teulon could not afford to be distracted by a League spy, no matter whom he resembled.

"I am no more a spy than you are Iisleg," the Terran said in flawless Jorenian. "I would know your House, warrior."

"You already do, Linguist." Teulon removed his face shield. "Now you will explain to me how you still breathe when I watched you die two years ago."

"I could ask you the same thing." Reever switched from speaking Jorenian to Iisleg. "I was saved during the battle. We never learned how, but the child who was with me that day may have been responsible."

Teulon recalled the tiny, golden-haired Terran daughter of Cherijo Torin and Duncan Reever. Xonea Torin, an old friend and captain of the
Sunlace
, had told him that in order to protect the child, all records as to her existence had been destroyed. Those who knew of her were either HouseClan Torin or their closest allies.

Still, he had to be sure. "What was the name of this child?"

"Marel."

"Give him back his weapons and release him." He ignored his hunters' astonished stares, gestured to the open ice, and walked with Reever past them.

"How did you come to be here?" the Terran asked when they were out of hearing range.

"The League had reasons to keep me alive." He watched Reever replace a blade in a shoulder sheath fitted as an assassin would wear it. "Do my people believe that I embraced the stars with my kin?"

"The League stated that you ran into an open air lock after your ship was destroyed, and that your remains were lost among the battlefield debris." The Terran halted and checked the power cells on a pistol before glancing at him. "They also claimed that you started the incident by ordering your ship to fire on the League."

"I gave the order to protect my ship from a drone launch programmed to destroy it." Teulon studied the tracks leading away from the crash scene. "Why are you here, Linguist?"

"My wife was captured during the battle and disappeared. She was brought here, as I imagine you were, to be sold into slavery. Her transport crashed on the surface." Reever halted and faced him. "Why are The word made Teulon's head pound. "I have no House, Linguist. Here I do the last of the work left to me, and then my path ends."

The Terran began to say something, and then paused. At last he said, "But you are leading these surface natives into war with the Toskald."

"I am." He saw the skela had been brought into the wreck site. "Your pardon, Linguist. I must attend to this."

Teulon went to the body, where the skela had gathered. "Have the launch shrouded," he told Hasal. "Erase all signs that there was a crash here." To the dead handlers, one of whom had already produced a skinning blade, he said, "Do not take his face."

"Raktar, worgald is always taken," Hasal said.

"The time for tithes is over. The Kangal will not sell any more faces of the dead to grieving kin," Teulon said. "Neither shall we." He looked at the cringing skela, and for once understood why the Iisleg held them in such contempt. "Give him to the cats."

The skela quickly and efficiently stripped the body before they dragged it over to the waiting jlorra.

Hasal snapped out orders, and the scouting party that had accompanied them to the crash site reassembled and mounted their skimmers.

Reever came to stand with Teulon. "Am I your prisoner, or am I free to continue with my search?"

"There is a storm coming. You will have to take shelter soon." He nodded toward the trail across the ice. "You were following someone."

"Two females. The hunters who came to salvage the crash called them vral," Reever said. "I think they may know something about Cherijo."

Teulon gestured for Hasal, who hurried over to them. "What is the closest iiskar to this place?"

His second gave Reever a suspicious look before answering, "There are two. Kuorj, one hour to the east, and Pasala, one hour to the west."

"Which would welcome the Raktar's personal emissary?" Teulon asked.

"Kuorj. Their rasakt has pledged all of his men to the cause. Pasala is smaller, less affluent, perhaps not as loyal to the cause. We have not met with them. The Kuorj would wait to find out the ensleg was your emissary. The Pasala would be too busy feeding him to their pack animals."

Teulon turned to Reever. "Go east. Tell the Kuorj leader that I sent you to find these females, and you may shelter with them until the weather passes." He handed him a transmitter beacon. "This will signal my camp. If you are in need of aid, relay the coordinates of your position. Help will be sent to you." He met Reever's gaze. "I have never seen your wife on Akkabarr, Linguist. Should that change, I will signal you."

Reever nodded and departed, heading east over the ice.

The methane-powered skimmers made the hour-long trip to Pasala iiskar in only a few minutes. Teulon's scouts went ahead to alert the rasakt of the iiskar, who stood waiting with his three highest-ranked men as the Raktar's party arrived. There were several greeting rituals performed, including the declaration of