EPIC: Fourteen Books of Fantasy (239 page)

He looked back and forth from her to the dead bodies. “This is only the beginning, Tikaya. It’s going to get worse. I suspect this is also the only opportunity you’ll have to leave.”

That Rias offered meant a lot, but the journey he described would not be a speedy one. It was likely Bocrest would make it back to civilization first and send the order to have her family assassinated long before she reached home.

She rotated the grouping of runes as far as they would go. The crimson symbols in the air winked out. “When I’m complaining later about how horrible it is out here with your marines, remind me I had my chance and was an idiot who gave it up.”

The glum expression on his face waned, and one side of his mouth curved up. He pulled her to her feet and wrapped her in a hug, mindful of her injured shoulder. His stubbled jaw brushed her cheek, and a pleasant shiver ran through her.

“Only if you remind me I was an idiot first,” he murmured.

“Deal.” Tikaya wondered if that talk of marriage had been inspired only by the moment, by the uncertainty that they would live to see dawn, or if it meant something more. She lifted her good hand to brush strands of hair away from the cut on his temple.

Rias drew back slightly, eyes flickering, watching her face. Soft breaths frosted the air between them, and some distant part of her mind announced that this was a ridiculous place and situation for a first kiss, but what if they didn’t survive the coming weeks? What if there were no other opportunities to be alone together? What if...

Rias bent his head and kissed her gently, warm lips as welcome as the sun in this frozen wasteland. Forgetting about her injury, she started to wrap her arms around him, to pull him closer. Pain blasted her shoulder, and she gasped at the cruel reminder.

Rias drew back, wincing, eyes guilty. “Sorry, my fault. I’ll go find the sawbones.”

“No, it’s all right. I was just...”

But he had already grabbed his rifle. He hopped through the broken wall with a quick wave before disappearing into the snow.

Tikaya wrapped her arms around herself. She already missed his warmth. And his last words sent a thrum of worry through her. The man who would come to deliver her medical attention was the brother of the man she had just killed.

Chapter X

S
OMETHING
BUMPED
T
IKAYA
’
S
FOOT
,
JERKING
her awake. She sat up and cracked her head on the bottom of the device. Her shoulder offered its own jab of pain as her journal and pencil clattered to the floor.

Bocrest and Bones loomed over her. The captain’s presence surprised her. Surely the ship’s commander usually stayed with his vessel, but then this was no ordinary inland excursion.

Thuds from the ceiling announced someone walking around in the crawl space. Probably retrieving bodies.

Beleaguered red eyes haunted the sawbones’s stubbled face, and an invisible weight slumped his shoulders. He must already know his brother was dead, but he could not know she had fired the fatal shot. She hoped. He carried a black leather bag, and she swallowed, wondering if he truly kept a saw in there.

“Get up, librarian.” Bocrest eyed the device. “Bones has a lot of men to tend.”

After the battering she had taken, Tikaya expected more pains as she crawled to her feet, but she had not slept long enough for her body to stiffen. Only the shoulder throbbed. Darkness still smothered the snow outside. Given the icy temperature and the hard tile floor, she was surprised she had slept at all. She had painstakingly copied the two hundred alchemical elements into the journal and had been sketching the runes on the bottom of the device when she nodded off.

“Did Agarik make it?” Tikaya asked.

Bocrest prowled around the device, started to touch an indentation, but decided against it. “He got jumped by—it doesn’t matter who by now—but he was cut up pretty bad and left to bleed in the snow. Bones stitched him up earlier.”

Relief and regret mingled in her mind. If she had not asked Agarik to fetch Rias, he might not have been hurt at all. Would he resent her for it?

“Where’s Rias?” she asked.

Bocrest scowled. “Prisoner
Five
is making some concoction in the vehicle house. Said we’ll need it in the tunnels. After that, he’ll be shackled again.”

“Let’s see your shoulder,” Bones told Tikaya.

She eased her parka off under the cool gazes of the two officers. She was surely too old to want someone to hold her hand while a doctor worked on her, but she wished Rias had come back. Strange that he had disappeared so abruptly. Had he felt guilty about more than her shoulder?

Bones huffed and tossed her parka aside. Apparently impatient with her undressing speed, he unfastened the buttons of the black uniform jacket for her. Uneasy, she wondered how much disrobing she would have to endure for this medical treatment. Fortunately, Bones left her undershirt on. Icy but professional hands probed her shoulder. She tried not to wince.

 
Bocrest nodded at the device. “You figure out what this stuff says?”

“Some of it,” Tikaya said. “I can only guess at the writing on the bottom, but the context gives me clues. If I get more samples, also in context, I’ll be able to make some good guesses.”

Bocrest’s grunt did not sound impressed. Curse him, she and Rias had saved the marines—
again
. Why couldn’t the captain acknowledge her usefulness?

Footsteps sounded above, and shards of wood rained from the biggest hole in the roof. Sergeant Ottotark slithered over the edge and dropped down behind Bones.

Tikaya groaned, but he did not look at her.

“Sorry, Bones. Your brother and Private Choyka are dead.” Ottotark gripped the man’s shoulder.

Bones’s jaw clenched, but he did not otherwise react.

“I’ll get a team to lower them down for the funeral pyre.” Ottotark nodded to the captain and left.

Tikaya relaxed a smidgeon. Bones made a sling from a large square of cloth and secured her arm.

“You’ll be fine in a few days,” he said. “Sir, I’ll attend the others if you don’t need anything else here. I’d prefer to keep busy.”

“Yes, go,” Bocrest said.

Bones left, head down, shoulders slumped further.

“What’s the purpose of this device?” Bocrest asked.

Tikaya rubbed her shoulder. “My best guess? Scientific experiments. They probably wanted to observe the somatic and neurological effects certain gases had on their specimens outside of a controlled environment.”

“What kind of specimens?” Bocrest asked.

“Look in a mirror.”

“Turgonians?”

Tikaya hesitated, almost tempted to play upon his paranoia. She had not yet figured out how she could ensure her family’s safety while escaping with her life, but she would probably have more opportunities later if she convinced Bocrest her words were trustworthy now.

“Humans, animals.” A cold gust blew snow through the broken wall, and Tikaya grabbed her parka. “I suppose Turgonian enemies could have brought it here and turned it on.” She thought of the Nurian captain’s orders; the Nurians were smart enough to not want anything to do with the artifacts. “Or your own people might have done it out of stupidity.”

Bocrest’s gaze grew frosty.

“Stupidity isn’t a trait unique to Turgonians,” Tikaya said by way of apology.

“Apparently not.” Bocrest continued to glare. “Prisoner Five says Lieutenant Commander Okars attacked him, and he was forced to kill my officer in self-defense.”

Unease trickled down her spine. Uh oh. Why had Rias said anything? Maybe the marines never would have thought to look for bodies in the attic, and, even if they did, in the craziness anyone could have fired at anyone. Rias could have feigned ignorance and no one would have known. But, no, he had felt guilty—or honor-bound—to explain the dead officer. She could not fault him for being an honest man, but his loyalty to these marines, to the empire, might prove disastrous for her. Or maybe not. He had covered for her, though she was not sure whether to be relieved or not. Surely his position here was as precarious as hers.

“I know who he is,” Bocrest said, “who he
was
, and now that he’s...himself again, I doubt he’d intentionally kill an imperial marine, nor do I believe he’s inept enough to accidentally dispatch someone in self-defense.”

“We were all under the influence of that device,” Tikaya said. “Rias—”

Bocrest drew his arm back, and she turned her cheek, expecting a blow. He curled his fingers into a fist, but jerked it to his side. A vein at his temple pulsed. “I don’t know what he’s told you, but you will
not
refer to him as anything other than Prisoner Five. He lost his right to a name, and I don’t want my men conflicted on who to follow out here.”

“What did he do?” Tikaya whispered. And who is he, she almost added. But for the ill timing of that blasting stick, she might know by now. Someone who was Bocrest’s equal, or maybe even a superior? Was Rias old enough to be an admiral?

Bocrest stepped back, and his eyes widened. “You don’t know?”

She shook her head.

“Cruel ancestors, what a waste. He gave up everything, and your people don’t even know.”

“What?” She reached for his arm. “Please, tell me.”

Bocrest scoffed and turned away. He grabbed the rifle and knife, making sure not to leave her any weapons. “Self-absorbed scientists,” he muttered on his way out.

Tikaya dropped her arm. She thought back to the first conversation she had with Rias, when he asked if her president was still alive. Was that what Bocrest referred to? Had Rias done something for her people during the war, something that had turned the Turgonians against him? If that was the case, why hadn’t he told her right away? If he had done a good deed for Kyatt, he might be allowed to come live on her island, and maybe he’d be someone her family could like, and...

She groaned and rubbed her face. When had he stopped being the enemy soldier and turned into someone she wanted to bring home to meet her parents?

Weariness plagued Tikaya’s limbs as she marched after the squad of marines, her arm in the sling, her crampons replaced with snowshoes. The new footwear was almost as awkward to walk in as swim fins, and she struggled to keep up—and upright. There had been no rest after the funeral pyre. They traveled east, in the shadows of jagged white mountains that dominated the southern horizon. To the north, the flat icy tundra stretched until it blended into the pale blue sky.

Forty men remained, with fifteen dead back in Wolfhump, and many carried double loads. Dogs, too, had been lost and the teams pulling the sleds slouched along, as tired as she. A sergeant marched alongside the squad, singing a cadence that condoned plundering farm goods and stealing daughters from conquered nations. Or maybe it was stealing farm goods and plundering daughters. Tikaya tried to ignore the words, though she found her steps matching the encouraging refrains of left, right, left.

For the fortieth or fiftieth time, she glanced behind. Wrists shackled again, Rias walked with a small team tasked with carrying the boxes of blasting sticks. A precautionary couple dozen meter gap lay between them and the main group, though, oddly, the captain walked at his side. She did not know what they spoke of, though his presence served as a deterrent to keep her from strolling back to walk with Rias. She had not seen Agarik since the day before, but his injuries must not be too severe, for he was ahead with the scouting team. Separate from the marines, separate from her two allies, she felt the loneliness and oppressive cold of the tundra. She was tempted to go back to walk with Rias even if it meant enduring the captain’s sarcasm.

A dead arctic jaeger alongside the trail diverted her thoughts. The large bird’s white-tipped wings were broken, its head smashed in, but no predators had sampled its flesh. Had it simply fallen from the sky? Two sets of snowshoe prints around it meant the scouts had stopped to look.

Long years had passed since her biology classes, so she left it without further examination, but she turned her attention to her surroundings as she continued on. Over the next few miles, she spotted other downed birds, all undisturbed by predators. An uneasy feeling shrouded her, and she wondered what would await them at the fort. More dead men? Another device?

“Prisoner Five, come back here!” Bocrest shouted.

Rias had set down his box of blasting sticks, and he churned across the tundra. Bocrest plowed after him, rifle in hand.

“Sir?” one of the marines in front of Tikaya called. “Do you need help?”

Bocrest waved, and the back two men stamped out of formation, flinging snow as they raced into the drifts with high-kneed steps. Tikaya veered after them, afraid they would think Rias was trying to escape and take violent measures—as if Rias would be dumb enough to run away with everyone watching. Unfortunately, her slog through the unbroken snow was less effective than theirs. Even with the snowshoes, she sank deep with each step, and she tripped twice before reaching the gathering.

Rias stopped, knelt, and picked up something. Bocrest and the others scrambled over, and Tikaya floundered up in time to hear the red-faced, scowling Bocrest speak.