“Most of my gear is out on the ledge. I left the heavy stuff by the general’s flier because I didn’t know what we were going into or if we’d be attacked and need to be able to move quickly. I have a few things in my utility belt, but most of my explosives are out there. I can’t blow us out if I need to.” She sounded anguished, like she’d made a decision that would cost them their lives.
He found the idea of setting off explosives from inside of a mountain insane, but all he said was, “If it makes you feel better, I have no idea where my rifle is.”
“Not really. You’re not a soldier. It’s not your job to stay snuggled up to your weapons around the clock.”
Kaika sighed and wriggled out of his lap, clunking something—her head?—on the counter above them. That didn’t keep her from continuing. Judging by the clatter and crunches, she was able to leave their corner and venture into the lab. He found that heartening. Maybe the rockfall would be off to the side and not hinder them.
“I also don’t know where my lantern is,” he said, shifting to hands and knees to crawl out.
“I have one in my gear. On the ledge.” Another clatter announced her progress toward the door.
Angulus climbed to his feet and tried to follow her. He tripped over fallen furniture before he had gone more than two steps. Small mountains of wood and boxes and broken equipment cluttered his path. He ended up crawling to the door, only to cut his hand on broken glass.
“I’m out in the chamber,” Kaika said.
“Is it as dark out there as it is in here?”
“Unfortunately, yes. Also...”
He groped his way to the door. “What?”
A rock shifted and fell. In the dark, Angulus struggled to get his bearings. It took him a moment to visualize the layout and discern where Kaika’s voice—and that falling rock—had come from. A few more rocks scraped, then thudded to the floor. Kaika grunted. Was she trying to climb over something?
With the dread of certainty settling in his stomach, he said, “The entrance is blocked, isn’t it?”
A few more rocks clunked, then it grew silent.
“Yeah,” Kaika said, chagrin in her voice.
So much for his state-of-the-art facility being built to withstand bombings. The chamber had survived—as he padded toward Kaika’s voice, he didn’t run into any debris piles—but the engineers who had hollowed the place out apparently hadn’t thought entrance tunnels were important.
He brushed against the cylindrical casing in the center of the chamber. The reminder of its presence, along with the big rocket housed within, spurred bleak thoughts. He might have been thinking sarcastically about the engineers, but the fact that the casing hadn’t toppled over was reassuring. The last report he’d received had spoken of preparations for testing out in the eastern desert, so it was possible that this rocket was loaded with a deadly payload and ready to launch.
Angulus reached Kaika at the same time as a match flared to life.
“I found your lantern,” she said.
“Good. I think.”
The weak light did little to illuminate the cavernous space, but he could see what he’d already assumed, that the entrance tunnel was blocked and that the chamber itself had held up much better than the labs. Even in the labs, the structural damage was minimal; it was mostly the furnishings and equipment that had made a mess and left them cowering under a counter.
Angulus spotted his rifle lying on the floor amid shattered glass near the lab and remembered he had left it propped by the door. He was fortunate he hadn’t needed to use it. He walked over and grabbed it before returning to the rubble-filled passage.
The cement ceiling of the tunnel had come down, along with countless tons of rocks above it. He couldn’t tell if it was plugged all the way to the entrance or only for a few meters. If the latter, they might be able to dig their way out. He eyed some of the larger pieces, gauging their weight. With the supplies in the facility, they should be able to rig some pulleys to help.
“Do we try to dig out?” Kaika asked. “Or see if that other tunnel is in better shape? Because I don’t want to be in here if the earth shakes again.”
“Neither do I.” Angulus stroked his chin, the thickening beard stubble scraping his fingers and attesting to how long of a day it had been. “But I would like to know why the earth is shaking.”
The pained keening had stopped, at least for the moment. He wondered if it had been some harbinger of the earthquake. He seemed to remember a random piece of trivia that dogs knew earthquakes were coming before people felt them. Of course, whatever had made that noise hadn’t been any dog.
“Volcanic activity?”
“It’s been forty years since a volcano erupted in the Ice Blades, and you would have to go back hundreds of years to find mention of a significant earthquake in this part of the world.” He headed toward the unauthorized tunnel as he spoke. They would have to explore it now. Just because the chamber had survived the last quake intact did not mean that another wouldn’t bring down the ceiling—or damage the rocket and cause the explosives inside to blow this mountain to pieces. “I suspect this is a local phenomenon.”
“I’ll go first, Sire.” Kaika jogged ahead of him as soon as she saw where he was going. “I may not have all of my gear with me, but I have enough.” She patted the bulging pouches on her belt.
His first instinct was to object to letting a woman go first, but he reminded himself that Kaika was the experienced soldier here and probably more likely to survive danger than he. His ego did not want to accept that, but his rational mind won the battle. He spread his hand, inviting her to enter ahead of him.
Angulus followed right behind, half crouching and half crawling on his knees since the passage was less than half his height. Carrying the lantern and his rifle made the journey all the more awkward, but Kaika did not complain, and she was nearly as tall as he. She scrambled through the tunnel as easily as she had vaulted through that obstacle course on the training grounds. He sighed to himself, annoyed that he wasn’t as agile, but he had broader shoulders and a thicker build. That, he told himself, was the only reason he was slower.
Kaika paused and looked back at him. They had gone about thirty meters, with the tunnel making a turn so that the chamber had already disappeared behind him. Not that he would have been able to see it, anyway—the lights had not come back on.
“You don’t have to wait for me,” Angulus said. “I’ll catch up.”
“I’m sure you will, but I thought you might have insight into this hole.” She pointed at something on the ground in front of her.
Not a something, he realized as he drew closer. A lack of something. The tunnel continued on ahead, the same uniform three feet in diameter, but a similar-sized hole opened up in the ground. Kaika knelt at the edge, peering downward. A thick cable came out of the hole and disappeared into the dark passage ahead of them.
“My insight has been lacking in all regards tonight,” Angulus said, squeezing in beside her, his shoulder bumping against her back. “Sorry.”
He doubted she would object to touching, given the circumstances, but he had just been telling her about his dinner date fantasies. If he had made her uncomfortable, she might find this forced closeness awkward.
“Sorry for bumping me or sorry for lacking insight?” She looked at him, her face only a few inches from his, her lean features warmed by the soft lantern light. Angulus had meant to look into the hole, but he found himself gazing into her eyes, noticing that they were more hazel than brown and appeared almost green in this light. They had never been this close before, and even though it should have been the last thing on his mind, he thought about kissing her. She had full, inviting lips. At least they seemed inviting to him, though she wasn’t offering one of those sultry smiles she was very good at. She was probably waiting for him to answer her question.
He pulled his gaze from her lips and opened his mouth. Er, what had her question been?
“Yes,?
?? he said. “All of that. Uhm, let me take a peek.”
“All right.” One of her eyebrows arched. “At the hole, right?”
“Yes.” What else would he have looked at?
This time, her lips did curve up into a smile, and he had a feeling he had missed a chance to say something playful or witty. Or both. Damn it.
He lowered the lantern into the hole and leaned forward as far as he could. To his disappointment, she shifted to the side to give him more room. Touching had been nice.
Focus, he growled at himself and dipped his head below the edge.
“Huh,” he murmured. “It doesn’t go straight down. It angles back and looks like it goes under us, toward the way we just came.” He leaned his head down further, twisting to lower the lantern.
Kaika dropped a hand to the back of his belt, as if she could hold him back if he was foolish enough to lean out too far and fall in. He would probably end up taking both of them into the hole where they would tumble down to the bottom. The slope would be climbable, but it was steep.
“It’s a good sign when a woman grabs your belt, right?” Angulus prodded the cable and suddenly realized what it was.
“More so when she grabs the buckle than the back of your belt.”
“Ah, that’s unfortunate. You were getting my hopes up.”
“I am checking out your ass, if that helps.”
Angulus pulled up so quickly, he conked his head on the low ceiling. He barely noticed. “Really?” His voice sounded alarmingly squeaky in his ears. A man at his age really should be better at flirting.
She didn’t answer his question. Her eyes were twinkling, but Angulus couldn’t tell if she was amused because they were flirting and she was liking it, or if she was just amused by his ineptness at the game.
“Anything interesting in the hole?” she asked.
He thought about pretending to misunderstand which hole she was talking about, but didn’t want to risk being crude. Besides, they had more important things to worry about. Even though this tunnel had survived the last quake, he would prefer not to be trapped in it when another came.
“I think it goes to the generator room I mentioned.” Angulus pointed at the cable. “Someone is siphoning our electricity for something.”
“Something? Like they want fancy lamps of their own?”
“I don’t think you would go through all the effort of drilling a long tunnel and killing people for lamps.” He waved for her to lead the way past the opening. “Let’s continue on. Follow the cable.”
“Is it possible they didn’t want to kill people? That your two scientists got in the way? Caught them stealing the electricity?”
“I suppose it’s possible,” he said as he scrambled around the hole, banging his knee on the edge and clunking his head on the ceiling again. “But why would they have drilled into the main chamber then? Why not go directly to the generator?”
“Wrong turn?”
“Even if the first tunnel was an accident, they would have been discovered eventually by going to the generator room. It has to be filled with fuel every day.”
“Maybe they found out there were secret research projects in the big cave, got greedy, and decided to try to get those too.”
“Then why was everything still there?”
Kaika shrugged. “When we find them, I’ll hold them down so you can question them.”
Angulus thought of his two dead men. “I’d like that very much.”
The tunnel cut around a corner again, and Kaika slowed down. “Light ahead,” she murmured. “Better turn down the lantern.”
Maybe the electricity thieves were powering lamps. But surely, there must be more to it than that.
She kept going, a pistol in hand and her rifle across her back, just shy of scraping the edges of the walls. He clambered after her, doing his best not to make noise. Somehow, she was moving without making a sound, while he kept clunking his rifle—and himself—against the walls.
As they drew closer to the source of light, Angulus cut out the lantern. He bumped the cable with his toe and thought about cutting that too. If he dropped whoever was up there into darkness, maybe they could more easily attack their foes. But it would also warn them that something was wrong. They would be more prepared for someone coming out of the tunnel.
In the end, he did nothing. He continued after Kaika and tried not to feel superfluous.
After easing around a final corner, the tunnel straightened, and the exit came into view. He scooted closer to Kaika, so that he could see over her shoulder better, and also so he could protect her back, the same way she was determined to protect his.
All that lay visible beyond the tunnel was an open area, with a rock wall at the far end. At least one hundred meters across. Whatever they were about to enter, it was a cavernous space. A soft yellowish light illuminated it, but he couldn’t guess at the source. It was far more powerful than a few lanterns or candles would be, and it had a different hue than the harsh lamps in the facility. The wall he could see in the distance appeared to be natural, suggesting a cavern rather than a space hollowed out by man. Angulus frowned at the idea that the engineers who had chosen this mountain for the building of his secret facility hadn’t noticed that there were giant caves in the backyard. If they had, they might have anticipated someone burrowing in from back here.
Kaika paused a few feet from the mouth of the tunnel and tilted her ear toward the exit. Angulus hadn’t heard voices or any indications that people waited for them, but he stopped to listen too. He thought he detected a faint regular ticking.
Kaika looked back at him, her eyes troubled. “Problem,” she mouthed. “Possibly a big problem.”
Chapter 7
Maybe it was a clock. A nice big grandfather clock sitting in the middle of a hidden cavern, cheerily ticking away for the bats.
“Yeah, sure,” Kaika muttered under her breath.
Judging by Angulus’s expression, he hadn’t figured out the implications yet. He didn’t work with explosives for a living. Kaika thought about explaining, but in case time was limited, she had better not dawdle. Besides, there might be people out there, people who could overhear them. Of course, they would have to be suicidal people if her guess proved right.
Hoping she was wrong and that something innocuous was responsible for the sound, Kaika eased forward. A draft whispered across her cheeks, smelling of bat guano and ancient mustiness but of the outdoors, as well, moss and fir trees. Maybe she and Angulus would be able to escape without dealing with the problem she suspected awaited inside.
When she reached the opening, she had intended to glance in every direction, hunting for enemies, but she ended up gawking at the unexpected sight.
A huge limestone cavern stretched out in front of her, a dry streambed meandering between natural pillars that supported the towering ceiling. She barely noticed the terrain. Along one wall stood a row of enormous statues of crouching dragons, each one different in size and pose, though each had its wings folded about its body to fit into the cavern. Each was also perched on a pedestal, the talons of their big lower legs curled over the edges. The pedestals were placed at regular intervals, and she counted ten of the grayish statues. The statue at the end, barely visible from her vantage point, was only half gray with the top half a bright coppery gold. Wires had been draped all over the statues, linking each one in a chain, and even from a distance, she could see brown paper packages poised on the heads of the dragons. Explosives. She didn’t have to be close enough to read the stenciling on the packages to know they were Cofah Army RSF-45s. The biggest, most powerful explosives their military used. She couldn’t see the clock ticking down to detonation yet, but it had to be in there somewhere. The soft ticks echoed through the quiet cavern.
“What in all the cursed realms is this?” Angulus breathed, resting a hand on her shoulder as he leaned forward to peer out.
Another time, she would have contemplated how she felt about that hand on her should
er, especially in lieu of his startling but intriguing revelations, but now, she barely registered it.
“No idea, Sire,” Kaika whispered, tearing her gaze from the explosives to see if anyone else was in the chamber. She doubted she would find anyone—people didn’t usually set timers for bombs and then loiter in the area—but she couldn’t assume that.
Nobody was standing out in plain sight, but the copious pillars offered numerous hiding places. Glowing lamps that reminded her of flier power crystals had been mounted on the long wall opposite the dragons. They created deep shadows among the statues and behind stalagmites and pillars. Any of those shadows could hold a threat—an additional threat. It would take ten minutes to run through the entire place and check all of the nooks.
Angulus shifted behind her. “Let me out, please.”
Kaika hesitated. Should she presume to tell him to stay put, to let her do a thorough check before releasing him? Did she have time to do a thorough check? Her body twitched, wanting to propel her toward the source of that ticking. They might have hours until the explosion, or they might have minutes.
“Can you stay here while I look around?” Kaika eased to the side and stood, her legs relieved after crouching for so long.
“I can, but I won’t.” Angulus stood beside her and hefted his rifle. “Go find the timer. I’ll look for threats.”
She hated to let him expose himself, but with only two of them, his orders made sense. “Yes, Sire.”
Before either of them could go far, the keening wail they had heard before sounded, this time much more loudly. Kaika cupped her hands over her ears. It didn’t help. The bizarre noise banged around in her skull like a clapper in a bell. She felt it—the pain of whatever creature was making it—with her entire body, and a strange power accompanied it, almost forcing her to her knees. The ground shuddered, and she stumbled backward, bracing herself against the rock wall.