EPIC: Fourteen Books of Fantasy (248 page)

She jerked her hand back as the man—Ottotark—groaned again. She lunged away from him and looked for Rias. He might be injured and need help. She spun slowly, searching the shadows, but he was gone.

Maybe he had gone to find a cot. She trotted into camp. The number of people awake had dwindled, and the fire burned low. She tore open the flap to the sleeping tent and crashed into someone coming out.

“Tikaya,” Agarik blurted. “We’ve been looking all over for you.”

She grabbed his parka. “Is Rias with you? Have you seen him?”

“Not since he went to check the perimeter.” He must have read her distress. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“Ottotark told him I’d gone to the tunnels. I’m afraid he might have gone after me.” She explained the fight, all the while cursing herself for staying silent during the men’s confrontation. Why hadn’t she answered when he first called out? If he got in trouble because of her stung feelings...

“He shouldn’t go in there alone,” Agarik said, tone terse, worried. “Come, we’ve got to tell the captain.”

Glad to have him leading the charge, Tikaya followed him into the command tent. Heat and faint light emanated from the portable stove in the center, and she could pick out shapes amongst the shadows. The meeting had dispersed, and only Bocrest and a couple lieutenants remained inside, all flat on cots. Tikaya stopped near the stove. Certain the captain would blame this on her, she did not want to be close enough for him to grab easily.

“Sir?” Agarik asked.

Bocrest jerked awake, hand finding a pistol.

“It’s Agarik, sir. The admiral’s missing.”

Bocrest growled and lurched to his feet. “Explain.” He must have had a suspicion, for his eyes skimmed the darkness and found Tikaya. He cursed. “No,
you
explain.”

While Agarik had listened to the story patiently, she had to suffer curses and hurled gear while reciting it for Bocrest. He managed to get dressed despite his preoccupation with throwing things and was stuffing his feet into his boots by the time she finished.

“
This
is why women aren’t allowed in the military.” He cursed again, but shifted to efficiency after that.

By now, the lieutenants were awake and dressing, and he snarled orders at them. Less than five minutes later, the entire camp stood in formation outside. The last to show up, Ottotark limped to the head of one of the lines. Several men held lanterns, and the flickering light revealed bloody and swelling contusions on the sergeant’s face. A dark part of her wished he
was
dead, though Rias probably would hate himself if he killed someone out of sheer rage.

Bocrest stalked over to face Ottotark. “Did you draw the knife or did he?”

“Sir?” Ottotark asked in a tone that sounded like he was trying to play dumb, or maybe buying himself time to think.

“You heard me!”

Ottotark licked his lips. The marines in formation apparently knew better than to turn their heads and watch, but their eyes flicked toward the confrontation.

“I did, sir,” Ottotark finally said.

“I told you—I told
everyone
—to treat him like an officer. The punishment for drawing a weapon against an officer is death.”

“Sir! He’s not an officer any more. He’s a traitor, you said so. The emperor—”

“Isn’t here,” Bocrest said. “We’ll discuss punishment when the mission is over. For now, do your job and don’t talk to our guide or our translator. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Ottotark said so softly Tikaya almost missed it. If only the captain had issued that order a few hours earlier.

The tracker strode out of the darkness, and Bocrest shifted his attention.

“There are footprints at the tunnel entrance and it looks like someone walked in, at least a few steps. The floor is that hard black material, and there’s no way to track further.”

“Slagging women,” Bocrest said before raising his voice. “Gather your gear, men. We’re going after him.”

The marines marched in step, and the echoes reverberated through the wide black tunnel. No dead skeletons had marked the entrance, no piles of rubble scattered the floor, nor did water drip eerily in the distance, but the place made Tikaya uneasy nonetheless.

It was too clean, too perfect. No cobwebs obscured the distance, no chips or scratches marred the dust-free floors, and no decoration adorned the walls. The cool dry air reminded her of the lava tubes meandering beneath her father’s plantation, but no familiar earthy smells accompanied it. No smells at all. The lanterns the marines carried went unused. A soft glow emanated from all around, illuminating the tunnel as clearly as the midday sun. She had visited several ancient catacombs, qanats, and subterranean cities, and she had studied dozens more. This sterile tunnel was like nothing in the archaeology books. Nothing in the world.

“Who made this place?” someone muttered.

She walked behind Bocrest, second in a queue of thirty men. A handful of marines had stayed in the base camp while Agarik and a couple others scouted ahead.

“Ancient people,” someone answered.

“How?”

“Magic.”

No telling tingle stirred the hairs on Tikaya’s neck. “I don’t think so.”

“Magic,” another said, his tone brooking no argument. Others murmured assent. “Evil magic made this place, just like the rocket and the thing in Wolfhump.”

“No talking,” Bocrest snapped over his shoulder, saving Tikaya from launching into a lecture that would doubtlessly not be well received.

Rias must have a lot more patience than she to have commanded such men all his life. It must have been lonely for him with so few peers. She shook the thoughts from her head. It was none of her concern. Even if she could forgive him for his lie of omission, Admiral Starcrest was nobody she could have a life with, not without betraying her people, her family, and everyone she loved. Especially those fallen during the war. She could want him found and safe, but she could not want him. Not any more.

She swallowed a lump and fished the journal out of her pocket. A challenge. Her mind needed a challenge, and she needed to learn as much as she could before her services were needed. If ever there was a place she could walk and study at the same time, it ought to be these flat, terrain-free tunnels. The worst thing that could happen is she would trip. An animal screeched in the distance.

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—”