The Challenge (35 page)

“What about using your feet?”

“You want me to kick it? He could buck us off.”

“So be gentle.”

Tessa’s gut clenched, but she kicked her heels into the
masdon’s
sides. The hairy beast turned its massive head, and she could have sworn it eyed her curiously. As the savage tusks pointed her way, she considered if it was about to snack on her for a dinner appetizer, and sweat popped out on Tessa’s brow.

“Hi, fellah,” she crooned. “We’ve got to be friends. I need help to find Kahn.”

Watery eyes stared at her unblinking.

Dora sighed, again, a habit she imitated too often. “I think he likes the sound of your voice.”

“But does he understand me?”

“I’m a computer, not a vet.”

“Find Kahn,” Tessa spoke to the creature. “Find Kahn.”

Abruptly, the animal turned. If Tessa hadn’t grabbed a handhold on the saddle, she might have fallen.

“Good work, girl,” Dora’s excitement revealed how uneasy she’d been over their predicament, her sarcasm her way of dealing with worry. “The
masdon
is retracing its steps. You are communicating.”

Occasionally the animal paused to uproot logs and feed on the undergrowth, but Tessa didn’t try to hasten its pace. She only wished that she, too, could stop and eat. Although she kept her shields as tight as possible, she hadn’t figured out how to raise the temperature and depended on keeping her body heat behind her shield to warm her. With darkness, the temperature dropped lower, and she wrapped the canvas about her and searched the compartment where Dora had been for supplies.

While Tessa could probably find Rian and bring back help, she had no idea if anyone would try to stop her along the way—like a battalion of Endekians. And the thought of leaving Kahn behind didn’t sit well with her, although she did consider and discard it. She needed him to finish her training for her to complete the Challenge and therefore could justify possibly placing herself in danger to search for him.

Besides, she missed him.

Dora was back in sleep mode to preserve power, so when Tessa found the food and a packet of liquid, she attacked the strange packaging without comment. When she opened the container, the food heated automatically. The strange stew tasted bland but filled her belly, and she gratefully washed it down with liquid that tasted like fruit punch. She’d save the remaining ration kit for Kahn.

The monotonous scenery varied little as the
masdon’s
lumbering steps ate mile upon mile. Where before the outcroppings of rock had been jagged, here the terrain was relatively flat and occasionally broken by rolling hills. The endless snow fell, and she let it stick to her suit, hoping her snow suit would insulate her like an igloo.

With snow drifts on the ground over ten-feet high, she never would have survived alone and on foot. As they crested a hill, she spied a bear-like creature poking its head into a tree hollow. A few miles later at the sight of them, a herd of shaggy bison-like animals with six legs stampeded.

When the
masdon
suddenly halted, Tessa rocked back at the abrupt stop. The large creature tucked its legs under its mammoth belly, laid its shaggy head on an outcropping of rock, shut its strangely intelligent mocha eyes. Within minutes the beast mocked Tessa with its snores.

Now what?

After the creatures she’d seen, jumping down to travel in the dark on her own two feet seemed not only dangerous, but foolhardy. Bowing to the inevitable, Tessa lay forward upon the saddle, wrapped the canvas tightly around her, and slept in catnaps, awakening the first time to the howl of an animal that sounded close by. The
masdon
never stirred, and Tessa eventually returned uneasily to her dreams.

When next she awakened, she felt as if someone heavy was lying on her, but the pressure was merely the weight of the snow. Determined to face the day, she heaved herself to a sitting position. The sky was no longer black but a light gray with no sign of the sun. It had snowed throughout the long night, and the
masdon
tracks were partially filled with new-fallen snow.

Tessa tried to convey a sense of urgency to the
masdon
. She had to find Kahn today. And she tried not to think about whether he’d eaten or slept. Or if he was even still alive. Kahn was her anchor to this world, and without him she felt as if she was drifting. But she needed to focus, so she wouldn’t shatter. And her worry for her husband, she kept locked down tight.

Tessa ate a handful of snow, which didn’t quench her thirst, but perhaps the liquid would prevent dehydration. Grateful for her suit for keeping her somewhat warm and clean, she jumped down then tried to convey a message to the
masdon
. The beast stood and continued its lumbering gait as Tessa sought to urge it to a faster pace. Scrutinizing the snow, she searched for a place where her masdon’s tracks had diverged from the rest. If she didn’t find that spot soon, the torrential snow might obliterate the trail.

When she finally came across the area where her
masdon
had left the others, she spied a circular area of crushed snow, trampled logs and dark, frozen blood that stained the snow. Sensing there had been a battle here, she observed a flat place in the snow where a man appeared to have toppled from his mount, and ski-like tracks that made her consider if Kahn and his men had been attacked by men on sleds or on snowmobiles. At least she saw no dead bodies. Unless hungry animals had . . . No. Kahn and his men were alive. She had to think positive.

“Find Kahn,” she said to the
masdon,
again, her voice unsteady. The beast took off, following the trail, and she sagged with relief as it obeyed. Tessa had no way of knowing if the other party had traveled all night or how far ahead they might be. She prayed she would catch up with them by nightfall.

A hard day of riding later, a flickering light in the distance told her that her prayers might have been answered. However, she couldn’t let the
masdon
just take her up to the fire and deliver herself on a dinner platter. She shot a psi thought of sleepiness at her
masdon
and said, “sleep,” for good measure. When the animal folded his knees beneath him and slept, Tessa put on her back pack and slipped the remaining food and drink ration into her pack next to her knife. Before she could think too long about breaking her leg from the fall she was about to take, she leapt into a snow drift.

She’d feared landing on a hard uneven surface, but the snow was soft as feathers. Her immediate problem was suffocation. Clawing and kicking her way out, she breathed deeply and stood on her own feet for the first time in two days. While she would have appreciated Dora’s company, she didn’t want to risk the power drain and kept her turned off.

Estimating, she was still a good two miles from the fire, Tessa merged into the darkness. Although she’d grown up in a city, she’d trained in many kinds of terrain. Changing her black dress to a white pantsuit to camouflage herself in the snow, she worked her way into the camp, avoiding a two-person patrol that circled the camp perimeter about every fifteen minutes.

From a distance, the men appeared shorter and thicker than the Rystani men from Rian, but in the dark, without a night scope, she couldn’t pick out details. Inching forward on her belly, she took about an hour to close the last fifty yards.

Men sat around a fire, roasting meat and drinking a beverage out of a communal vessel. After crawling near enough to spy the yellow skin of Endekians in the fire light, she took cover behind a snowdrift.

She counted four Endekians around the fire, another two on patrol made six. If they’d taken prisoners, they would probably post guards. Before she made a move, she needed to find Kahn and assess the situation, which meant another hour of slowly backing from the fire.

She wished for the company of her old security detail, wished for more eyes on the situation. Maybe Dora could help. But not yet.

If Kahn and his men still lived, Tessa planned to free them and use their help to take out the Endekians. But first, she had to find them. All four domelike structures inside the camp were large enough to hold a squad of men. She picked the one farthest from the fire to approach first. It was empty. She saw no furniture, no belongings, no equipment.

Inside the second tent, an Endekian mechanic tinkered with one of the motorized vehicles that propelled over the snow on skis. She backed out noiselessly.

He shouldn’t have seen her, except he straightened to reach for a tool. His mouth opened to sound the alarm, and Tessa attacked with a psi strike to the throat that silenced him. Her next blow killed him. She had no time for regret. If he’d warned the others, she would have been outnumbered and lost the advantage of surprise.

She tugged the body around the sled to hide him in case anyone made a cursory examination of the tent, then moved on to the third structure. In combat mode, she didn’t stop to let herself feel. That would come later.

Two guards stood at the only entrance to the third structure, creating a tactical difficulty. She didn’t have a problem taking on two opponents at once, but she had to kill them before either warned their comrades by the fire. While she would have preferred to wait until they separated, that might not happen.

She had to use this limited window of opportunity. Tessa withdrew the knife from her pack and hid it behind her thigh. A diversion was out of the question since she couldn’t afford to draw all the men to one location. But no way could she sneak up on these men, not with the clearing around the entrance, not with them alert. Total surprise was simply not an option, so she used another tactic. Switching her pantsuit from white to a sexy peek-a-boo dress similar to the one she’d danced in, she strode toward the guards.

When she was at fifteen yards, the taller of the two Endekians spotted her. His eyes goggled, and he nudged his friend. At ten yards, she increased the sway of her hips and turned the midriff of her suit transparent. At five yards she could see suspicion color their eyes. They reached for their weapons.

She didn’t want to risk throwing her knife. While she considered herself a competent knife fighter, throwing the knife wasn’t her forte. And if she wasn’t dead on target, the man might scream before he died. Although she and Kahn had never practiced psi knife fighting, she considered the weapon an extension of her hand.

At three yards, one of the men stepped forward, his weapon only partially raised. That step was his last. Using a psi strike and a lunge, she slit his throat, preventing him from uttering a sound, and his weapon fired silently, harmlessly discharging a ray of light into the snow behind her. At the same moment, she side thrust kicked the other man, catching him under the jaw, snapping and breaking his neck. She scooped up both weapons and ducked inside the tent.

At the sight of five Rystani men laid out in a row, her heart stopped.
God, no
. They couldn’t be dead. No one blinked or moved. Only Xander was missing.

She took out a penlight and flashed it over Kahn’s eyes that stared at the ceiling. His pupils dilated! Hope restarted her heart. Dropping to her knees besides him, she felt for a pulse. “Kahn, speak to me. What happened?”

He didn’t say a word, yet she sensed he understood everything she’d said. “Blink once for yes, twice for no. Have you been stunned?”

He blinked once for yes.

“Do you know when the stun will wear off?”

He blinked yes.

“In less than an hour?”

Two blinks for no.

“Two hours?”

He blinked another yes.

“I counted six Endekians so far. Blink when I guess how many of them are in camp. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.”

Kahn blinked yes.

“Ten. After the mechanic and the guards I just took out, that leaves four around the fire, two on patrol, plus one more somewhere. I’ll have to take out the rest.”

Kahn blinked twice, then again twice, signaling her a most definite no.