Bosmont looked like he might say something, but he shook his head and took the lead on the trail. Vann narrowed his eyes, wondering if the captain was thinking impolite thoughts about him. Vann knew he wasn’t the easiest man to work for. Hells, he’d never thought he would get promoted high enough to have to be in these kinds of leadership positions. Working with people wasn’t his strength. Killing them, now that was a simple matter. He supposed it was hypocritical of him to condemn people for being murderers when the only difference between him and the criminals working in the mines was the uniform. He acknowledged, privately if not publicly, that if not for his family connections, he might very well have ended up here twenty-odd years ago, as a prisoner instead of an officer. But that had been a long time ago. He had since used his love of fighting for the good of the country, and he intended to continue to do so, even if nobody was out here to see it. Vann would remind himself that he deserved his uniform and his rank while he organized these paperweights for whomever came up to look at them.
Chapter 2
Lilah locked her knees to control the wobbling in her legs as her shoes landed on the runway. Lieutenant Sleepy offered her a hand for support. She stiffened her spine, irritated that she looked like she needed the support, even if she did.
It had been her first time in a flier, and she had made the mistake of answering, “Sure,” to his question of, “Would you like to see what this girl can do, ma’am?” She hadn’t expected that to include flying upside down or doing large loops that forced her stomach into her shoes and then back up into her throat. The whole time, she’d been convinced that the flimsy harness would give out and that she would plummet into the ocean five thousand feet below.
She took a few deep breaths as she looked around. A hangar rose up to one side of her, and a cliff that overlooked the harbor and the capital fell away at the end of the runway. The view would have been magnificent if she hadn’t been trying to still the queasiness in her belly.
“Sleepy, what’d you find down south?” came a familiar and cheerful voice, albeit one she hadn’t heard in several years.
Lilah firmed up her legs even more, determined not to have her cousin see her wobbling—or to throw up all over his boots. Ridge had grown out of teasing her sometime after he had entered the military academy, but he would still get that amused quirk to his mouth whenever she did something to remind him that she found books and bones more comfortable to be around than people. Throwing up on his boots might qualify.
“She said she’s a paleontologist, sir,” the lieutenant said, pronouncing the word carefully, then whispered over to her, “Did I get it right, ma’am?”
“Yes, do they not teach the sciences at your military academy? It was my understanding that officers had to complete college degrees.”
“Sleepy got his degree in napping through class,” Ridge said, giving the lieutenant a thump on the back.
“I only napped through the boring classes, sir.”
Ridge winked at Lilah as if they were good old friends instead of people related only by blood who rarely saw each other and who had nothing in common. It was that same wink and roguish smile that he always gave the photographers for the newspapers. Given that he had more than his share of the family looks, it wasn’t surprising that her students clipped out the pictures, though the occupation surely had a little to do with that too. Even though he had probably come from an office instead of a cockpit, he wore his leather flight jacket over his regular army uniform, with pins and medals dangling from the breast. He was the only one in the family who had chosen the military, and Lilah only had a vague notion of what the decorations meant. She only knew the ordering of the ranks because of the multiple readings she had given the Time Trek books.
“How are you doing, Lilah?” Ridge stepped forward and gave her a hug before she could decide if that was the appropriate greeting for cousins. She didn’t even hug her brothers most of the time, though they usually stank of alcohol and cigar smoke, having taken after their deceased father. At least Ridge didn’t smell of either, just the leather of his jacket. He released her with a friendly pat on the shoulder, one less forceful than the thump he had given his lieutenant. “Getting along well these days?”
“Getting along fine, thank you.” She knew he was thinking of the deaths of her husband and her father, but it had been five years. She no longer mourned for Taryn daily, though when she put her work away for long enough, she sometimes mourned for what she had thought her life would be, of children she’d thought she might have. “And you? The promotion was recent, wasn’t it? Will you accept my congratulations?”
His smile grew wry. “It’s recent, yes, and I’m still debating whether I’m accepting congratulations. It’s involved even more paperwork than I thought, despite Angulus promising that he would ensure someone helped me with it. It’s hard to find paperwork enthusiasts in the military.”
“Angulus?”
“Yes, he’s our king.” Ridge arched his brows. “How long has it been since you read anything printed in this century?”
“Ha ha. My surprise was that you’re apparently on a first-name basis with him these days.”
“Nah, he uses my last name when he curses at me. Much like my superior officers.”
“Do you still have those? Superior officers? I thought general was as high up as you can go.”
“Yes, but once you’re in a group of people who are all the same rank, those who have had that rank longer have seniority over you and can boss you around. At the last staff meeting, General Chason told me to get her coffee and got crabby when I forgot the cream. Honestly, it’s kind of like being a lieutenant again. Except your peers all have gray hair.”
Lieutenant Sleepy, who couldn’t have been more than twenty-three, wore a bemused expression at this revelation.
Lilah thought Ridge might be old enough to have a few strands of gray peppering his brown hair now, but if so, the cap hid the evidence.
“We’re waiting for your bodyguard, and then we’ll take off.” Ridge withdrew an envelope from an inside pocket of his jacket. “I have the king’s signed orders to give to the post commander up there, to ensure he cooperates.”
“Yes, I heard he doesn’t like academics.” She glanced at the young officer at his side.
“So far as I can tell, he doesn’t like anyone,” Ridge said, “but I’m taking you up there personally. I’ll make sure there won’t be any problems with hospitality before I leave, and I’m sending someone along that even he won’t likely cross. Not many people do.” He smiled encouragingly.
Wonderful, this bodyguard sounded even more alarming than the curmudgeonly base commander.
“I do appreciate you coming out to help us. I know the engineer who sent the report on the bones, and I read between the lines of his chicken scratches that he’s concerned his mining site is now haunted. Do dead dragons haunt people? I don’t know, but if half the men believe that, it might be problematic. Besides, I figured there might be something scientifically significant to the fossils and that they could be pulled out of the rocks and brought back for study. The army will cover your room and board, of course. We don’t have scientists of our own, unless you count those boys who make weapons, so I thought of you when this came up. We saw your article on the hypothesis of dragon evolution. I think it’s an older one that the papers reproduced recently, right? Since dragons returned to the world? Four of them, anyway.”
“Yes, I’ve shifted to other subjects of late. Did you say we? You and... the army?”
“No, me and Sardelle, my fiancée. She’s a historian as well as a healer. She chanced across one of your papers and asked if we were related. I know she’d like to meet you when you’re done up there.”
“Your... did you say fiancée?”
“Even more shocking than the promotion, isn’t it?” Ridge smirked at her. “I’m still amazed she puts up with me.”
“She’s a historian? That doesn’t seem like your kind of woman.
”
“She’s beautiful,” Sleepy said with a wistful sigh.
“Ah, much becomes clear,” Lilah said.
Ridge’s mouth twisted. “I’d say I’m shocked that you think I’d fall in love with someone on the basis of looks alone, but I can only guess what my reputation is down there in Port Yenrem.” He shrugged, then lifted a hand toward a tall female soldier who was walking away from a tram system that carried people up to the butte.
Lilah bit her lip, wishing she had kept the comment to herself. Sarcasm ran in the family, and she remembered that he had the knack for it, too, but it was often charming when it came out of his mouth. Comments tended to be biting when they came out of hers. Her husband, fortunately, had possessed the ability to see through it.
“How about you?” Ridge asked. “Have you met anyone new since...”
“Despite the common saying that paleontologists will date anything, I’ve been too busy to look.” She hadn’t had to look for the well meaning but rather aged professors who had offered their condolences—and their beds—after Taryn’s death, but she wasn’t ready to resign herself to a lover who needed a cane.
“Date anything?” Ridge mouthed. Sleepy removed his cap and scratched his head.
Lilah sighed. Her husband had laughed at her paleontology jokes. Of course, since he had been an archaeologist, he had understood them. That always helped.
The female soldier that Ridge had waved at headed straight for them. She was a rangy woman with a lean face and a sultry smile that somehow did not seem out of place, even though she carried a rifle, a pistol, a dagger, and a large, bulky duffel bag that would have crushed anything but the sturdiest of mules.
As she approached, Lieutenant Sleepy straightened to his full height—a good four inches shorter than what must have been six feet for the woman. His face grew wistful again, and a goofy and hopeful smile stretched his lips as she drew near. Lilah was beginning to think the lieutenant thought every woman was beautiful.
The woman stopped in front of Ridge and gave him a lazy salute. “Afternoon, General.” She looked curiously at Lilah. “Afternoon, Professor, is it?” The look took in her chest and hips, perhaps the thick auburn hair that had fallen out of Lilah’s braid during the flight. “You don’t look like a professor.”
Lilah offered an edged smile. She got that a lot, which unfortunately came along with the assumption that she wasn’t very bright. Even colleagues who had known her for years and reviewed her papers seemed to think that from time to time.
“Would you like to see my lab tools?” Lilah waved up to the passenger seat of the two-person flier, where the lieutenant had secured her gear, including the tools, her clothes, and a hunting rifle, before they had taken off.
“Are any of them explosive?”
“No.”
“Then not really.”
“Captain Kaika,” Ridge said, “this is my cousin, Lilah Zirkander.”
The woman—Captain Kaika—blinked. “There are professors in your family?”
“Just the one,” Ridge said dryly. “If it had been possible, I would have assumed she was my father’s daughter and I was her father’s son. I don’t think my mother and her mother husband-swapped though.”
Lilah stared at him, having never heard this hypothesis. Her Uncle Moe was the only other academic in the family, though she wasn’t sure he quite deserved the label, since he was a self-appointed and self-taught treasure hunter who often worked in opposition to the academic world rather than with it. As far as she knew, he wasn’t, however, a mindless drunk, which was the career her own father had claimed, before it had claimed him. Her father had been reckless and had raced prototype steam vehicles, so she supposed she could see why Ridge might identify with him.
“No?” Kaika asked, not obviously fazed by the notion of husband swapping. “That would have made for some interesting family history.”
“The family is interesting enough as it is,” Ridge replied.
“Yes. I’ve met your mother. Has she sent by any baskets of dragon-shaped bars of soap lately?”
“No, she’s moved on to candles.”
“Dragon-shaped candles?”
“Yes, but we’ve decided not to burn them. It disturbs Bhrava Saruth to see the heads melted off.”
Kaika grinned. Lilah had no idea who he was talking about.
“Are you both ready to go?” Ridge asked the two women. “It’ll be dark in a few hours, so I thought we’d leave right away, get you to the outpost this evening, Lilah.”
Her stomach made a rebellious gurgle at the notion of going back up in the air so soon. Dare she hope that Ridge wouldn’t feel the need to show off his flier’s capabilities to her? Or would she end up in the back seat of Sleepy’s craft again?
“Then you can go out to the dig site and check on the bones first thing in the morning, maybe even finish up the same day,” Ridge went on. “It’s not a place where you’ll want to linger. Trust me. I was stationed out there for several weeks last winter. Lucky for you, it’s summer up there now. That probably means it gets at least ten degrees above freezing during the day.”
“I brought a jacket.”
“Good, because there’s nobody up there to cuddle with if you get cold.”
“Therrik’s up there,” Kaika said with a smirk.
“As I said, there’s nobody up there to cuddle with if you get cold,” Ridge repeated firmly.
Kaika’s smirk widened.
“That’s the colonel who eats academics, right?” Lilah asked.
“Eats?” Kaika asked. “My first inclination would be to say that’s unlikely. But you are pretty. He might make an exception.”
Lilah found herself flushing as the double meaning of the word unraveled itself in her mind, but she shrugged off the notion once it did. She wasn’t worried about rebuffing some army officer, and she admitted to being slightly proud of having caught the double entendre. That wasn’t her strong point. More than one sexual joke had passed over her head in her lifetime.
She expected Ridge to catch the insinuation right away and to share Kaika’s smirk, but the most horrified expression stamped his face. “Seven gods, Kaika. This is my cousin.”
“Your cousin doesn’t get womanly urges?”
“No.”
Kaika shook her head, turning her unwavering smirk toward Lilah. “He gets mortified when his mother talks about sex too. You wouldn’t think someone so pretty would be so prudish.”
“I am not prudish. And you’re not supposed to say such things to generals, anyway. It’s in the rule book, under respect and decorum.” Ridge gripped Kaika’s shoulder and spun her toward the hangar entrance. “Go throw your gear in the back of my flier. And leave half of it in a locker, will you? We’ll be scraping our belly on trees all the way into the mountains if you bring all of that along. Did you raid the armory on the way up here? You’re not taking explosives, are you?”
Kaika let herself be pushed toward the hangar, but that didn’t keep her from winking at Lilah as she walked away. It took Lilah a few moments to realize that this Captain Kaika was the bodyguard Ridge had mentioned. Lilah had expected someone burly and humorless. And who needed to shave to keep within army personnel presentation regulations.
“Just ignore her,” Ridge said, having recovered some of his composure, though a slightly haunted expression lurked in his eyes. “She’s known for her ribald streak, but she’s a very competent officer. I picked her because she’s a lot less likely to be intimidated by Therrik than most of the men in their unit. But I honestly don’t think Therrik will be... I mean, he’s an ass, but he’s loyal to the king and the uniform. He won’t break any regulations. My concern is more about the miners there. They’re criminals serving out life sentences, and they’re a rough lot. You shouldn’t have to go into the mines—my understanding is that the bones were discovered on the outside of the mountain—but if you do, keep Kaika with you.”
“This sounds like it’s going to be more even
tful than most of my digs,” Lilah said.
Maybe she should have been more worried by his comments, but she admitted to a modicum of excitement. She loved going out in the field and had always enjoyed the safari expeditions she and her husband had gone on in the wild southeast grasslands of the continent. Despite what she’d told her students, she had been disappointed when there hadn’t been funding for a field outing this summer. Perhaps this would make up for it. Even if she had moved on from studying dragons, she admitted that the idea of making a new find was exciting. Maybe she would yet stumble across her missing link.
“I hope not,” Ridge said. “If you want to change your mind, I’ll understand.”
“Not at all. I’m ready to go.”
• • • • •
Vann scowled down at the dragon anatomy book, scowled at the bone-filled tarp spread on the table, then returned his scowl to the picture of the skeleton. The musty tome, with mildew creeping along the edges of the pages, was probably as old as the fossils. He ought to give this task to someone else, but he’d done most of the organizing of artifacts that had been pulled out of the mountain, and he was loath to assign one of his dubiously competent soldiers. Besides, his staff was more skeletal than these bones, so it was hard to spare people. He needed the soldiers down in the mines, guarding the prisoners, prisoners who had grown extra uppity as the weather warmed. Apparently, there were about three months out of the year when a man could walk through the pass and escape this mountain hell, and all of the miners knew about it. There had been seven escape attempts in the last month. So far, none of his people had been killed, but some of the miners had been shot to keep an uprising from forming.
Vann would strangle himself before admitting it, but there were times when he wished he had some of General Zirkander’s charisma. His career had never required diplomacy or charm, thank the gods. He’d never had to worry too much about developing anything other than his combat skills until he had been promoted from major to colonel. Before that, he had been placed in charge of small incursion missions staffed by battle-loving soldiers exactly like him. Since then, he’d commanded battalions and now an outpost. The years teaching at the academy had been the worst. He didn’t have the patience for lippy upstarts or colleagues who questioned his methods. He’d taught as he’d been taught as a young soldier: by pounding the piss out of men until they learned how not to get hit. It was an effective but unpopular teaching style, and as he’d been told by several other officers, the army had changed since he’d gone through the academy more than twenty years earlier. Coddling seemed an acceptable method of dealing with young soldiers. He shuddered to think of those babes defending the nation.