Encrypted (27 page)

Bocrest jerked his head down, eyes scouring
the pages as if he could translate them through will. With a
disgusted grunt, he thrust the book at Tikaya.

“
You tell us,” he
said.

She skimmed the opening pages and
practically bounced at the massive number of the language samples
within. Notes, mostly speculation, surrounded drawings of symbols
she had not yet seen. No firm translations yet. “I’ll need time to
read over everything, but it’s definitely Lancecrest’s journal, and
it looks like he’s been in your tunnels a while. There are hundreds
of pages here and dates go back almost a year.”

She turned to a dog-eared page, and her hand
froze. Launch instructions for the rocket. It appeared Lancecrest
had discovered how to operate the weapon through trial and error
rather than true understanding of the language. Nonetheless, the
instructions were there. And suddenly she knew: this book was
exactly what their mysterious stranger was searching for, here in
the tent and perhaps in the colonel’s office as well. It could
explain the torture sessions too. He had been trying to locate
these very instructions, but the Nurian had not known and
Lancecrest must have held out to the end.

“
Find something?” Rias
asked.

She flinched, knowing she had been silent
too long to brush it off. “Just an interesting take on what the
prime groupings imply.” She hated lying to Rias, but she was not
going to hand Bocrest directions for launching the rockets. She
could only assume there were more of the devices in the
tunnels.

“
Find something
useful
?” Bocrest
asked.

Since shadow covered the ledge already,
Tikaya received little warning when the ice condor approached for
the second time. Movement teased the corner of her eye, and Rias
yelled, “Get down!” just as she was turning to check.

The condor swooped toward her head, talons
outstretched. She flung her arms out.

Rias smashed into her, taking her to the
ground. Her shoulder flared with pain, but the talons meant for her
eyes grazed her forearm. They cut through her parka and stung
flesh.

Bocrest and the tracker fired, but the
condor banked before the balls hit. It swooped out of sight over
the cliff above the tent.

“
Are you injured?” Rias
asked, eyes locked on her as he shifted to let her up.

Tikaya pushed up her parka sleeve. “Just a
couple scratches.”

Rias removed a glove and brushed his finger
across one of the wounds, which had started to well blood. A green
pasty substance mingled with the crimson drops.

“
What is it?” Dread
hollowed her stomach.

“
Poison.” Rias jumped to
his feet. “We have to get to the sawbones.”

Tikaya stared at her arm. She knew nothing
about poison. “Is this a lethal dose? How much time do I have?”

He started to respond, but the condor
swooped toward them again.

“
Someone shoot that
slagging bird!” Bocrest shouted to the men below. He and the
tracker were still reloading.

Rias had dropped his rifle to shield Tikaya.
The bird landed on the launch pad as he grabbed the weapon.
Unconcerned, the condor cocked its head, black eye studying
Tikaya.

“
Yes, you got me.”
Bitterness choked her words.

“
Sh.” Rias aimed the
rifle, but hesitated. A calculating flash crossed his face, and he
raised his voice. “Don’t worry, Tikaya. You’re not going to die.
We’ve got the antidote in camp, and you’ve got plenty of
time.”

Bocrest, the first to finish reloading,
lifted his rifle. The bird flapped away. Several shots fired, but
it weaved and banked with preternatural speed, and disappeared
unscathed.

Rias lowered his weapon. He had not
fired.

“
I’d like to be reassured
by your words,” Tikaya murmured, “but I suspect that was for the
benefit of the bird.”

“
Will whoever is
controlling it understand our speech through its ears?” Rias
asked.

“
I’m not sure. Maybe.” She
might have stopped to consider what he hoped to accomplish with his
words, but other thoughts stampeded to the front of her mind. “How
much time do I really have?”

“
Plenty,” Rias
said.

She had come to know him too well; she could
tell he was lying.

CHAPTER 14

Tikaya woke to the sound of pained wheezing.
Her own. Air. She couldn’t get enough air.

She opened her eyes to a green canvas tent
ceiling supported by slender steel bars. Confusion muddled her
mind. The last thing she remembered was Rias and another marine
carrying her down the mountain on a litter. Now she lay on a cot,
blankets pulled to her chin. Somewhere behind her head, a lantern
provided illumination that failed to reach the shadowy corners.

They must have reached the base camp, but if
the sawbones had applied some antidote, she could not feel it. Her
breath rattled in her ears, and she could not pull in enough air to
satisfy her lungs. She tried to wriggle her toes. If they moved she
could not tell.

Still alive, she thought, but still
poisoned. And alone. Rows of empty cots stretched into the
darkness. Where was Rias? Why hadn’t he stayed with her? And what
about the sawbones?

“
Akahe, please don’t let
me die alone,” she mouthed.

She blinked away tears, but it was hard to
keep the wheezing breaths from turning into sobs. With no one to
witness her torment, why bother being stoic? And why hadn’t she
written a letter to her parents? Rias might be slated for a return
to exile, but Agarik would have found a way to post it. But now her
family would forever wonder what happened.

The tent flap swayed, and icy air gusted
inside.

She could not lift her head to peer into the
shadows at the entrance. “Is someone there?” she tried to ask. It
came out weak and garbled.

She saw no one, but soft footfalls trod
across floor mats. A man coalesced before her—a familiar man. The
Nurian practitioner from the ship. She tried to move, to roll away,
but her body did not respond. When she had begged the Divine One to
keep her from dying alone, this was not the company she had
meant.

“
The Turgonian lied,” he
murmured in his native tongue, his gaze flicking over her supine
form. “I see no evidence that an antidote has been applied. They
probably don’t even know Irkla Root when they see it.” He withdrew
a knife and met her eyes for the first time. “I’m sorry, Ms.
Komitopis.”

She groped for something to say that would
save her, but only a wheezy gurgle came out when she tried to
speak.

“
I regret the need for
this task,” the Nurian continued. “After the help the
Kyattese—you—gave my people during the war, it’s unfair to kill
you, but I can
not
let the Turgonian military get their hands on that kind of
weaponry. Nor am I going to let those archaeologists sell it to the
highest bidder. I can’t let your talents be used against my people,
but I’ll show mercy and end your suffering now.”

He leaned forward and lifted the blade.
Tikaya tried to thrash, to fight him off, but her limbs were
already dead.

A shadow moved behind the Nurian, and a
dagger appeared at his throat. His weapon was wrenched from his
hand.

“
You move, you die,” Rias
growled in his accented Nurian.

The assassin’s eyes widened. He reached for
his throat, but Rias’s blade bit into flesh, drawing blood.

“
Most of your people who
work with poisons carry the antidote in case they infect
themselves,” Rias said. “You’ve five seconds to produce it, or
you’ll suffer the same fate as your bodyguard.”

Rias’s head was right next to the Nurian’s,
and rage burned in his eyes. Tikaya wanted to yell, to warn him
that a practitioner did not need a weapon to kill. Only a strangled
wheeze came out.

Surprisingly amenable, the Nurian reached
into his parka and withdrew a handful of fingernail-sized clay
vials. “The gray one.”

“
Sample it,” Rias
said.

The Nurian blanched.

Rias shoved him to his knees and smashed his
face into the mats. The two men dropped below Tikaya’s line of
sight.

“
You’re justifying killing
the one person who saved your asses in the war over paranoia,” Rias
snarled.

“
You saw your fort. Your
people would destroy the world with weapons like that. I
can’t—”

“
Quiet.” Rias slammed the
man into the ground again. “
Which
vial is the correct antidote?”

“
The clear one,” the
Nurian rasped, his airway restricted.

Did Rias have a hand around his throat? She
struggled to turn her head, but could only move it an inch.

Rias sat back, kneeling on the man’s chest,
and pulled the cork out with his teeth. He forced a drop down the
Nurian’s throat. The man made no attempt to elude it, and Rias
seemed satisfied.

As he started to reach for Tikaya, the hairs
on her neck stood.

“
Spell,” she blurted,
praying the word would come out intelligible.

Rias growled and drove his dagger into the
Nurian’s chest with a crunch of bone. The pained grunt sounded
final.

He leaned close to Tikaya and rested a hand
on her forehead. The rage was gone, and an uncertain desperation
haunted his eyes. He held up the vial.

“
I don’t know for sure,
but I have to try it, all right?”

She tried to nod vigorously, though she was
not sure her head moved. He propped her up to slide the liquid down
her throat. It burned like cheap rum, and tasted like resin, but
she was not about to reject it.

Rias never shifted his gaze from her face.
He stroked her hair gently. When his hand brushed her cheek, it
felt cool against her fevered skin. The lantern light reflected in
the moisture pooling in his eyes. Tears blurred her own vision
again, though this time they came from knowing someone was there
with her, someone who cared.

Utter weariness overcame her, and she closed
her eyes.

Rias was still with her when she woke. He
had removed the body and knelt on the ground with his head next to
hers on the cot, his hair touching her cheek. Her breathing seemed
smoother, less labored. Somewhere beyond the tent, voices rose in
argument. She listened, but could not make out words. That she even
noticed the goings on outside seemed a good sign.

She wiggled her fingers experimentally. They
responded. Her toes did too. Yes.

She eased her arm from beneath the blanket
before she could think to favor her shoulder, but no blast of pain
accompanied the movement. Perhaps the antidote had healed the
injured joint as well. She would test it later. For now, she gave
in to the urge to slide her fingers through Rias’s hair. It was
thick and black, save for those silver strands at his temple, and
surprisingly soft.

He lifted his head, and she let her hand
drop. The shaman’s concoction might have healed her, but weakness
weighted her limbs. He winced as he adjusted his position—falling
asleep on one’s knees could not be comfortable—but the pained
expression turned to a pleased smile when he saw her watching
him.

“
It worked,” he
said.

“
I think so,” she rasped,
voice rougher than Sergeant Ottotark’s manners.

Rias held up a finger, moved away, and
returned with a canteen. He slid his arm behind her shoulders and
propped her up to drink.

“
Not so bad being sick,”
she said, “when someone’s willing to carry you around and take care
of you.”

“
Well, don’t make getting
poisoned your new hobby. It’s hard on—” He cleared his throat.
“It’s hard.”

Tikaya leaned against him and tried to
recall the events of the day. What had brought the Nurian into the
tent? Then she realized: “When you spoke so the bird could hear,
talked about an antidote, that was a trick? To make the Nurian
think he needed to come personally to finish the job?”

“
A trick, yes, also known
as a hopeless stab at making something happen. I feared the
sawbones didn’t have antidotes in his kit, and, as it turns out, I
was right.”

“
Ah.” She shuddered to
think how close she had come to dying. “Rias, if someone does
succeed in killing me up here, and you make it out, will you do me
a favor? Please find a way to let my parents know what
happened.”

He placed his palm alongside her face,
traced her cheek with his thumb. “I’m planning on making sure you
live, but, yes, of course.”

“
Thank you.” Weariness
dragged her lids down again. “I love you,” she murmured before
falling asleep.

* * * * *

The next time she woke, darkness still
wrapped the tent, and Rias was gone. Agarik sat on a nearby cot,
whittling a piece of wood.

“
Is it still the same
night?” she asked.

“
Yes.” Agarik lifted his
head. “Near midnight, I think.” His fresh scar appeared garish by
the lantern light, but he smiled and said, “I’m glad you made
it.”

“
Thanks. Me too. Is Rias
around?”

His lips flattened, and he looked down,
fingers gripping the carving too tightly.

“
I’m sorry,” she said. “I
didn’t mean to imply—I appreciate your company too.”

He snorted. Agarik’s
annoyance surprised her since she had only seen him irritated in
Wolfhump and
everyone
had been irritated there.