EPIC: Fourteen Books of Fantasy (233 page)

For the first time during the trip, land stretched along the horizon, white, flat, and stark. To the south, a range of jagged snow-smothered mountains ran perpendicular to the coast. A settlement hunkered a few miles ahead, low buildings and ice-locked docks just becoming visible. On the ship, marines were hauling food and supplies out of the hold, preparing for a land excursion.

“Good morning,” came a familiar voice from behind.

Tikaya whirled, smiling. “Rias.”

Thanks to the captain’s claim that his men were too busy with repairs to perform extra guard duty, she had not seen Rias for more than a week, not since the night of the attack. Her smile faded at the sight of shackles binding his wrists and guards trailing behind him. She clenched her jaw. How could Bocrest still treat Rias like a prisoner when he had risked his life—
their
lives—to save the warship?

He joined her at the railing. “I’ve missed you.”

That simple statement warmed her far more than the parka. The captain had allowed Rias a shave, at least, and she had a nice view of the smile softening his face.

“Me too. I mean you. Er, I’ve missed you too.” Tikaya stifled a groan, avoided his eyes, and reflected on the mortification her linguistics professors would feel at hearing her mangle language so. To cover her fumbling tongue, she nodded at the ice cracking beneath the bow. “That’s impressive.”

 
“Hm, the
Emperor’s Fist
has a strengthened hull, but that won’t be enough to get us all the way to shore. If you want to see impressive, you should see our dedicated ice-breaking ships. They have a double hull and a special steel alloy designed for peak performance at low temperatures. The bows are rounded instead of pointed, so the ship rides up over the ice, smashing it with its weight. And the engines! They...” He blushed. “Sorry, you probably don’t want all that information.”

Tikaya grinned. “I did ask.”

He smiled sadly. “No. No, you didn’t.”

“Well, I expressed interest in the subject.”

That seemed to mollify him. “I should have asked already: are the men treating you decently? Any sign of those assassins? Any nightmares after our adventure?”

“As well as can be expected for a loathed enemy of the empire, no assassination attempts, and nightmares...” Tikaya
had
slept poorly, reliving the killings on the Nurian ship, but she did not want to talk about it here, with guards looking on, so she pretended to misunderstand. “Why do you ask? Are women usually traumatized after an evening out with you?”

He blinked a few times. “No, but I don’t usually take women into battle on first dates.”

“Ah, I see. You save that until the relationship is more established.”

“Exactly.” He slid her a sidelong look, and she suspected he understood what she was not saying.

Tikaya propped her elbow on the railing and faced Rias squarely. Though she enjoyed chitchatting with him, she had been waiting all week to ask about the tunnels he mentioned to Bocrest. And how they tied in with the symbols.

“Will you tell me about these tunnels you’re supposed to guide us through?” she asked. “You’ve asked me to help Bocrest, but you haven’t explained what that will entail.”

His face grew somber as soon as she mentioned the tunnels. This time, though, he nodded instead of retreating into himself. “The place we’re going...the source of the runes... I’ve been there before. It was my first assignment as a raw sub-lieutenant, what we call a ‘testing mission.’”

“What’s being tested? You?”

“Yes. Every officer gets something early in his career, a deliberately challenging task that’s meant to show whether or not he has the courage, intelligence, and command ability to go on to become a leader of men. I imagine this was...more than my superiors had in mind. I was attached to an army unit for the month because of studies I’d done on excavation engineering. Forty of us walked into those tunnels. A week later, three of us crawled out—through a ventilation shaft high in the mountains, in the middle of a blizzard. We barely made it back to Fort Deadend, and the major I’d been assigned to wrote a heartfelt report that stated we should never send men into the tunnels again.”

“They were ancient ruins?” she asked. “With traps?”

“Ancient, perhaps. Not ruins.”

Rias’s shoulders hunched in an uncharacteristic slouch, his gaze toward the snapping ice. Tikaya thought of the man she followed through the Nurian ship, head up, alert, leading the way with confidence that should not have been there against such lopsided odds, and she regretted drawing him back to what was obviously a dark place for him. Still, she had to know.

“What happened inside?”

“The tunnels were in good condition. Too good. No dust, cobwebs, no signs of age other than damage from tectonic shifts. The men with me declared the place possessed by some powerful ancient magic. I thought...not. The ‘traps’ we kept stumbling into—I got the feeling they weren’t traps at all but simply the workings of a place we were too ignorant to understand. We were like clueless rats drowned in the city waterworks when the level rises.”

“But there was writing? These symbols?”

For the first time a spark of interest entered his eyes. “Not a lot, but things were labeled. If you could translate, perhaps that could keep us safe.”

Tikaya feared the smile she offered was bleak. The rubbings were gone, and she had made zero progress with the language.

“Well, not safe.” Rias’s shoulders slumped again, independent of her thoughts. “There were strange and deadly creatures roaming those tunnels too. Nothing we recognized, nothing the archaeologists with us knew from the fossil record.”

“You had archaeologists with you before?”

“A team of scientists, yes, and a linguist.”

“Did any of them make it out?” The bleakness infused her tone now.

“No, and they weren’t particularly helpful while they were alive.”

Great grandmother’s gray locks, what was she supposed to accomplish that a team of archaeologists had failed to do?

A worried expression creased Rias’s forehead. He seemed to realize he had blundered. “But you’re better than them.”

She snorted. “That’d be more reassuring if you’d ever actually seen me do anything and could qualify that statement.”

He bumped her shoulder and smiled. “I’ve seen enough.”

Tikaya blushed.

“You two relax.” Sergeant Ottotark glared at Tikaya and Rias as he stalked past carrying a massive bag labeled ‘tent: medium.’ “Enjoy the view. Have some rum. Those of us who aren’t prisoners will handle all the unloading and loading.”

“I hope he’s not coming with us,” Tikaya muttered after he moved out of earshot. Somehow, she did not think she would be that lucky.

“Despite his bite, I’m told he’s intensely loyal to the emperor and the captain,” Rias said.

“If he kept his bite out of my cabin, I wouldn’t care one way or another.”

Rias looked at her sharply. “What?”

“Nothing.” Tikaya lifted a hand, realizing she had insinuated more than Ottotark was guilty of at that point. “He’s just an ass. He hasn’t done anything yet.”

Rias’s gaze did not waver. “Yet?”

What did he expect her to say? “I’m trying to stay out of his path.”

“You shouldn’t have to. Not on a Turgonian warship.” Rias offered a jerky wave, hampered by the shackles. “I have to go.” He stalked away, his guards hustling to catch up.

“Rias?” she called after him.

He paused, looking back over his shoulder.

“Did you pass the test?”

His lips twisted into a sour expression. “They gave me a medal.”

He resumed his determined walk. Before she could consider his words or abrupt departure further, Agarik strode toward her, a full rucksack in his arms. He plunked it on the deck at her feet. He already wore a rucksack of his own with a rifle strapped to the back. His utility belt was loaded with a knife and pistol, ammo pouches, and powder tins.

“Are you ready to go, ma’am?”

“Go?” Tikaya glanced over the railing. The ship had ground to a halt against ice too thick to break, but marines still hustled about, piling gear next to a hoist. A gangly grinning private surged through a hatch leading—being led by—eight thickly furred gray and white dogs. “Now?”

“Yes, ma’am. You’re part of the scouting party. We’re expecting trouble, so you’re going in first with me and a dozen others under Lieutenant Commander Okars’s lead.”

“You’re
expecting
trouble?” Why would they include her if that was the case? Weren’t they supposed to be keeping her from being killed?

Agarik pointed at the distant buildings. “No smoke. Fire is crucial for warmth up here. No smoke means the town’s been deserted. Or worse. Might be the Nurians again, and if any are around, we’ll need a translator to interrogate them.”

Dread curled in the pit of her stomach. Not only did she not want to see any more Nurians, but she surely did not want to help with a brutal Turgonian interrogation.

“You’ve got to come at some point anyway, so the captain says now.” Agarik gave her an apologetic shrug. “We’ll protect you. We scouts are well trained.”

“No doubt. You found me and dragged me off my parents’ plantation without trouble.”

He winced.

“Sorry,” she said. Agarik was the closest thing she had to an ally amongst the marines, and if he had not found her, another would have, so she could hardly blame him.

He pointed to the rucksack. “Want to check that? I grabbed your clothes and some pencils and blank journals. Then there’s standard issue gear for this climate: medical kit, snow goggles, crampons, canteens, blanket, and a hygiene and shaving kit.”

“Shaving kit? As cold as it is up here, I’m not sure I want to remove any of the little body hair I have.”

He did not smile at the joke. Instead he watched her with curious intensity, as if willing her to understand something. Then she got it. Shaving kit.
Razor
.

Agarik’s gaze shifted toward Ottotark, who stood by the hoist, directing the lowering of a dog sled.

“I see,” Tikaya breathed. “You won’t get in trouble, will you?”

Agarik hesitated a second, then said, “Standard issue gear,” which she took to mean he probably
would
get in trouble for doing something as stupid as arming a prisoner, but it would likely be seen as negligence rather than treason. A lesser crime with a lesser punishment, she hoped.

“Thank you, Corporal.”

He saluted her, fist to chest. “Ma’am.”

“I think you can call me Tikaya at this point.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Powdery snow skidded sideways as wind scoured the ice field. The icy crystals needled Tikaya’s neck as she crunched along behind the squad of marines. For the seventy-third time, she adjusted her wool scarf and cap, wondering why the secret to the gear’s effectiveness eluded her. A wan sun burned in the sky, but its arc remained low on the southern horizon, and it provided no warmth. At least the bulky goggles smashing her spectacles against the bridge of her nose warmed her cheeks somewhat, though the main purpose of the darkened lenses was to protect from the sunlight glinting off ice and snow.

Despite her discomfort, determination kept her feet moving as quickly as those of the scouts. Even before Rias’s story, she had daydreamed of translating the language and bringing awareness of it to the greater archaeological community. Now, she had a more compelling reason to learn as much about the runes as she could. Quickly. Since the Nurians had deprived her of the original clues, she would have to find new ones inland. It struck her as odd that she resented the assassins more for stealing the rubbings than for trying to kill her.

Tikaya peered over her shoulder. She still did not know if the Nurians had returned to their ships or had holed up on the
Emperor’s Fist
somewhere.

Agarik, bringing up the rear, asked, “Problem, ma’am?”

“Just wondering how far back Rias and the others will be.”

The ironclad, its black hull a dour blot against the stark white world, rose a couple miles behind, and she could no longer pick out the men and dog sled teams assembling in its shadow.

“An hour back or so for the main party. As for Five...” Agarik might know who Rias was now, but he was careful to use the number instead of a name. “I heard him and the captain arguing just before we left, and, uhm, Bocrest told him he could shove—er, he had to carry the blasting sticks, so he’ll be in the rear.”

Tikaya groaned, knowing that argument had been her fault. She should not have complained about Ottotark. “Blasting sticks? Are those practitioner-made or the unstable alchemical kind?”

“We don’t use anything magical.”

She groaned again. One thoughtless comment, and now Rias had to traverse the slick ice while carrying a heavy box of volatile explosives. While wearing shackles.

The image distracted her, and she crashed into the marine in front of her. An unstrung bow strapped to his rucksack clipped her jaw.

He glared over his shoulder but said nothing. At some signal or command she had missed, the queue of marines had halted. Two dogs the scouts had brought sniffed and romped, unconcerned by whatever caused the leaders to stop.