“Pack it up!” Bocrest’s voice floated across the hill. “We’re moving out!”
Tikaya laid her hand on Rias’s sleeve before he could turn away. “Agarik wants your attention, not mine.”
Rias stared at her. “Oh.”
“You two prisoners want to join the group or you going to stay out here and work on your sun tans?” Bocrest shoved a rucksack into Rias’s arms as he stomped past.
“I can’t imagine that man having a wife,” Tikaya muttered as she headed off to retrieve her own pack.
“I’ve not met the woman,” Rias said, “but I’ve heard she’s as obnoxious as him and the undisputed master of the household.”
Tikaya would have been content to march at the end of the squad—the going was a lot easier when numerous snowshoes had tamped down a trail—but Rias strode through the drifts with his long legs and overtook the men. Determined to keep up, she forced her own strides to unnatural lengths. Sweat soon plastered her clothing to her body and soaked the fur lining of her gloves. She removed her wool cap and stuffed it in a pocket.
Rias made it to the gates ahead of the marines, and Tikaya trailed close behind. The twenty-foot-tall wooden doors stood open, offering no sign that the fort had been attacked, but two men lay dead at their guard post. At least, Tikaya assumed they were men.
She thought the night spent with the corpses in Wolfhump would have inured her to death, but these were worse. Blisters and burns had seared flesh and muscle to the bone, mutilating the marines beyond recognition. Pustules even coated the bloated, protruding tongues. The eyes had popped like blisters themselves.
She was glad she had not had lunch.
Agarik caught up and walked between them. Sweat dampened his face too. “This way, sir, ma’am. Captain said it’s all right to let you go first.”
Tikaya snorted. As far as she could tell, the shackles meant little to Rias and it seemed he had already determined that he was going in first, captain’s wishes notwithstanding.
Inside the fort, snow had been plowed into piles, so they unstrapped their snowshoes. Sand coated the icy cement. Agarik led Rias and Tikaya past wooden barracks, office buildings, and a couple of cavernous vehicle structures that housed plows, trucks, and other steam-powered transports. If not for the silence and the dead men, she would have guessed it a normal work day at the fort. People had been caught on errands, while practicing combat in an arena, and, in one spot, driving a snow plow that had subsequently crashed into a barracks building. No smoke wafted from the stack, but Tikaya paused to open the furnace door. The fire had gone out, but when she removed a glove and stuck her hand inside, a hint of heat remained in the ashes.
“People were alive here, no more than a day or two ago,” she said.
But Rias, following on Agarik’s heels, had gone on and did not seem to hear her. His head was tilted back, and she followed his gaze. A two-story office building rose ahead, a large corner of its roof sheered off. Splintered wood and sheet metal roofing shingles scattered the cement around a sleek black cylindrical object embedded in the walkway. Tikaya’s step slowed. It was made from the same material as the artifact in Wolfhump.
She joined the men around the rubble. The landing had not dented or even scraped the cylinder, though it had gouged a hole in the cement, and jagged cracks radiated in several directions. Strips opened like flower petals on one end of the device, and dozens of square indentations lined the insides.
Rias produced one of the cubes and slid it into a slot. It clicked. Perfect fit.
“The delivery mechanism,” he said.
Bocrest and a couple others approached, though the captain had the sense to keep most of his men from trampling around the artifact. He sent them off to secure the fort with a few terse orders, then stepped closer.
“What is that thing?” Glass crunched under his foot.
“Careful.” Rias flung a hand up. “If some of the cubes didn’t release their contents in the air, stepping on a full one could be deadly. For us all.”
For once, Bocrest had nothing sarcastic to say. He gulped, lifted his boot, looked around, like he might set it somewhere else, then decided it was safer back where it had started.
“In the air?” Tikaya asked. “You don’t think this is like the device in Wolfhump? Something that distributes its deadly load from the ground?”
“No,” Rias said. “I think it’s a rocket.”
The only rockets Tikaya was familiar with involved fireworks, though she supposed Turgonians might have experimented with more sophisticated fuel-powered projectiles. Rias had studied ballistics in school, after all.
It took a moment for the ramifications to sink in. Tikaya’s eyes widened when they did. “If this is a rocket, that means someone fired it, someone with the knowledge to do so.”
“Yes,” Rias said grimly.
Tikaya stared at the artifact. Was it possible the original builders were still around? Or—she eyed runes running down one side—had someone already been in the tunnels and translated the ancient language? Such strong disappointment flooded her that she sank to her knees. Surely she had not asked for this gruesome mission, but all along there had been the promise of being the first to translate a previously unknown language and share it with the world. A feat that would earn her a place in the history books.
Rias knelt beside her and put a hand on her good shoulder. “Are you all right?”
Aware of the others, she said, “Yes, just tired.”
“Nurians,” Bocrest growled. “Those cussed Nurians are responsible, have to be.”
Rias arched inquiring eyebrows at Tikaya. She guessed his question and nodded permission.
“I don’t think it’s them, at least nothing sanctioned by their government.” Rias explained the orders he and Tikaya had found on board the Nurian ship.
“Then who?” Bocrest demanded.
“The Turgonians have many enemies,” Rias said.
Bocrest tugged off his cap and scrubbed his short steely hair. “This whole slag pile is giving me a headache.”
“There’s something else to consider,” Rias said, tone grim. “We haven’t hidden our approach to this fort, so it’s very possible whoever did this knows we’re here.”
CHAPTER 12
Tikaya sat cross-legged next to the rocket and finished copying the runes into her journal. Coldness seeped through her trousers to numb her backside, and shivers made her pencil hand shake. As if writing with gloves on was not bad enough. She ought to move somewhere warmer. But, oh, there was another symbol she recognized from the table of elements. And interesting how each grouping on the rocket held thirteen runes. Could the different prime clusters alter the meaning of—
Light splashed across her pages, and Tikaya dropped her pencil.
Agarik stood beside her, holding a lantern. Only then did she realize twilight had descended on the fort.
“Thank you,” she said. “When did you leave to get that? And where’d everyone else go?”
He stared. “You didn’t notice people coming and going, ma’am? Talking? Arguing?”
“Er.” She vaguely remembered Rias saying something about finding surveying tools. “Not really.”
“Half the men are retrieving corpses for a funeral pyre while half are off on a mission Five concocted. Looking for people who might have died outside the fort and searching for more cubes and recording where they landed. Seeing how it’s night, that sounds about as fun as hunting for a wrench in a scrapyard. He says he can figure out where the rocket was launched from, though, and Bocrest wants it done tonight, so he can take a team up there at first light.”
In case someone was up there preparing another weapon to launch at the fort. Yes, that seemed wise.
Tikaya rose, an awkward movement with her shoulder in a sling, and her injury twinged despite her care. A noisy yawn escaped her lips. She thought of her bed back home, though right now she would be tickled with a blanket in front of a fireplace.
Agarik?
??s jaw dropped in a noisy yawn of his own.
“Sorry,” Tikaya said. “Are you tasked with watching me again?”
“I don’t mind, ma’am. Of the jobs I could be assigned, it’s not a bad one.”
Men crossed a nearby courtyard, lantern light bobbing at their feet. They worked in grim silence, bringing wood for a fire. She looked away as others dragged a body from a building and laid it at the end of a grisly queue.
Though tempted to ask Agarik about sleeping arrangements, Tikaya wanted to search the fort for other language clues first. If the marines feared an attack imminent, they might march out at dawn. Somewhere, she hoped to find an artifact she could slip into her rucksack to take home for study—and to prove to her people this nightmare had been real.
“Mind if we find the fort commander’s office?” she asked.
“I don’t think the captain wants you wandering around.”
Tikaya started to object, but Agarik smirked and spoke first.
“But since you’ll doubtlessly make arguments until you get me to change my mind, we may as well go now.”
“Good man.”
Thousands of stars glittering like ice crystals blanketed the black sky above the fort. Tikaya almost felt she could reach up and stir them with her fingers. Here and there lanterns sputtered on lampposts or in sconces. Agarik hugged shadows barely dented by the flickering light as he led her beneath the ramparts and through an alley suffocated with piles of snow. They stopped at the back door of a two-story building. She had the feeling he was avoiding the other men and hoped he would not get in trouble for escorting her around. Her desire to poke through the commander’s office kept her from asking.
They slipped into an unlit kitchen where copper pots and steel counters gleamed, reflecting the lantern’s flame. Agarik led her around an island to avoid a body clad in bloodstained cook’s whites. Tikaya ripped her gaze from the melted flesh, glad the lighting did not illuminate too many details.
They passed through a mess hall lined with tables. Plates of bread, carrots, and now-frozen meat waited for someone to finish them. Bodies, some fallen across tables, some sprawled on the floor, matched the place settings. One man had died tending the coal stove in the corner, and the door stood open, ashes spilled onto the wood floor.
“Surprise attack,” Agarik said, disgust hardening his voice. “There’s no honor in killing like this.”
“I can’t believe how quickly the poison acts,” Tikaya said, chilled by the idea of something that could kill a man before he could even get out of his seat and wonder if something was wrong.
There were not any bodies at the tables nearest the far door, and wet footprints suggested the marines had started carting them out. Heavy footsteps sounded on the floor above. Tikaya doubted she would make it to the commander’s office without being spotted. She hoped no one would question her for snooping about.
They entered a corridor, and Agarik led her to a stairwell. Broad steps rose toward a second floor, while narrow ones turned a corner and dropped into darkness. That made her pause. A basement in a land where permafrost hardened the earth inches below the surface?
Agarik headed upstairs, but voices came from the lower level.
“Wait,” Tikaya whispered, cocking her head to listen.
“I think...a Nurian,” someone said.
“...doing out here?”
They had found a Nurian? Had someone been caught nosing around in the carnage of the fort? Her breath hitched. What if it was the person who had fired the rocket? The person who knew enough of the language to know how to fire the rocket?
She edged closer to the stairs. The men were not whispering, so the discussion was probably not secret, and nobody had forbidden her from exploring.
Agarik gripped her forearm. “Tikaya...”
She frowned at him. “What do you know?”
“The cells and interrogation chamber will be down there. It’s not...a fitting place for a lady to visit.”
Tikaya almost laughed. Was he worried she would see something more macabre than the legions of bodies around the fort? She patted his hand before drawing her arm away. “I just want to see if they found someone who knows more about what’s going on than we do.”
If Agarik’s frown grew any deeper, he would pop the stitches out on that gash. Still, he followed with the lantern when she eased down the stairs.
She anticipated a pitted rusty iron door streaked with blood at the bottom, but the bland wood was no different from any other door they had passed. Beyond it, gray stone lined a narrow hallway. At the end, light seeped through the cracks of a partially open door. The voices had dropped to murmurs.
On the way down the hall, Tikaya checked a door to the side, expecting racks filled with torture implements. Instead, it was a supply closet loaded with brooms, lye soap, lanterns, kerosene tins, and painting supplies. So far, this dungeon was not living up to expectations.
Chains rattled in the room ahead.
“Where’s the slagging key?” a familiar voice growled.
Tikaya froze. Ottotark.
She started to turn, not wanting anything to do with him, interesting prisoners or not, but someone thrust the door open. Two marines tramped out, a body between them, but if it was Nurian she could not tell. It was as melted and featureless as the rest in the fort.
The marines halted.
“What’s she doing down here, Corporal?” one asked.
Agarik shrugged. “Looking for language clues.”
Ottotark leaned through the doorway, his eyes narrowing to slits when he spotted her. For a long speculative moment, he stared, and she fought the urge to race up the steps in retreat. He would not do anything with so many witnesses, and surely this was not the time regardless.
“Go on,” Ottotark told the marines, “take the body out. Agarik, come help me get the other one. I expect the captain will want to see the Nurian, so we’ll leave him here for now.”
Tikaya stood aside for the men to pass. Agarik headed for the chamber, and she almost bumped into his back when he stopped in the doorway.
“What is it?” she asked.
But Agarik had already moved to the side so she could see. She wished he had not. The amount of human carnage from the last couple days should have numbed her to it, but this dead man was different. The naked Nurian hung from shackles on the wall. His fingernails and toenails were ripped out, flesh mutilated with blades and brands. Someone had gut his genitals off and dug both eyeballs out. The removed organs lay in a tidy pile next to the dangling body, and Tikaya had to gulp several deep breaths to keep from vomiting. Thank Akahe the temperature kept everything frozen, and no odor accompanied the visual horror.
“By the book,” Agarik commented.
Ottotark nodded. “Professional job. I’ll bet two weeks pay one of our people ran the torture session, but who? This is recent work, done by somebody—to somebody—who showed up after everyone else got their faces slagged like ore in a smelter.”
“Unless...” Tikaya took one more deep breath to steady her gorge. “Unless the basement protected people here from the poison.”
“Look around, idiot woman.” Ottotark pointed past racks containing wicked metal instruments whose purpose she could only guess.
Steel bars in the shadows formed a pair of cells. A corpse in one had suffered from the same affliction as all those in the fort above. And, of course, she had seen the body those two marines had taken out.
“Sorry, yes, I’m not thinking.” Odd that this deliberate cruelty affected her more than the mysterious otherworldly deaths. The marines, even Agarik, seemed to find this torture commonplace. Just when she was thinking some Turgonians might be normal people. “You must be right. So, one or more of your people got here ahead of us. And this fellow, I wonder if he’s the one who launched the rocket. Or...” She looked past the damage to what remained of the man’s features, and her stomach did a little flip. “I recognize him.”
Ottotark stared
at her. “What?”
“He’s the bodyguard of the practitioner who attacked me on the ship.”
“You sure?” Ottotark’s forehead scrunched. “He’s not looking too recognizable at the moment.” He threw back his head and laughed.
Agarik rolled his eyes.
“Come, Corporal,” Ottotark said. “Help me drag that other body up to the pyre. We’ll leave the librarian to clue hunt, though I don’t reckon this bloke was worrying overmuch about languages in the end.”
He laughed again, and the inappropriateness ground on Tikaya’s nerves.
“I’m supposed to stay with her,” Agarik said.
Ottotark’s humor evaporated. “That wasn’t a request, Corporal. I’m sure the captain didn’t mean for you to get out of all the physical labor with your special assignment. You can come back when we’re done hauling bodies.”
Agarik looked at Tikaya, and she gave him a quick nod. He had risked enough trouble for her, and she would give him up for a while if it would get Ottotark out of the room as well.
Though a troubled expression wrinkled his brow, Agarik helped Ottotark heft the other corpse, and they left. Tikaya did not wish to spend a lot of time alone down here, especially since the presence of the dead bodyguard implied the practitioner was around somewhere, probably alive, but she wanted a moment to think things through.
“So,” she said in Nurian, as if the man’s spirit might hear and help, “you’ve been following us all along, biding your time, is that it?” She thought of the hour or two she had spent alone in Wolfhump and shivered, for that could well have been an opportunity for the assassins, but perhaps they, too, had been affected by the gas. “You ran ahead here to lay an ambush for me? Or someone transported you here?” That was a hard skill to master, but not an impossible one. Someone familiar with the arrival area could have done it. “Either way, it seems you got here after the weapon struck, or you’d have been killed the same way as the others. Unless you launched the weapon yourself and came to check the effectiveness of your work. But, no, your people wanted nothing to do with these artifacts.” She took off her spectacles and rubbed her face. “But when you got here, someone was waiting. Was it a Turgonian, or the person or persons who figured this rocket out? Or both?”