Smoke roiled from a nearby building, one that was now missing a wall, the wooden boards torn—or blown—out. Kaika crouched at the corner, peering into the dark hole. With the smoke flowing heartily out, Lilah couldn’t tell what that building was for or what might be stored inside—fortunately, it did not look like a barracks. She hoped people hadn’t been caught in the explosion. Bits of wood and cardboard and warped metal lay in the dirt outside. She thought she spotted the casings of rifle cartridges gleaming in the sunlight too. Soldiers raced about, several securing a set of tram doors. Another set stood open, and men scampered out of a tram car, dirty men in torn and faded clothing. A soldier fired a rifle over their heads, but they did not stop. They ran toward the outpost’s exit across the courtyard.
“You try it, and you die,” came Therrik’s hard voice from somewhere beyond the smoke.
Lilah couldn’t see him from her position. She eased away from the doorway and headed toward the corner of the building, keeping her back to the wall. She wouldn’t go far, but she wanted to know if Therrik was in trouble. Only Kaika was braving the smoke—she’d risen from her crouch and stepped inside the damaged structure, using the gaping hole as a doorway.
When Lilah reached the corner of the headquarters building, Therrik came into view. He stood in front of the double doors of the outpost. Those big iron-bound oak doors were closed, but a group of eight miners approached him. They carried improvised clubs, pickaxes, and shovels, gripping them with white-knuckled fists as they shared nervous glances.
A fight had broken out at the entrance to one of the other mine shafts, men surging out from the doors before they were fully closed. The soldiers in the courtyard turned to deal with them first. Up on the wall, more soldiers ran toward the exit and pointed their rifles at the pack of prisoners approaching Therrik. Lilah rubbed the stock of her weapon. Should she aim to protect him too? This wasn’t her fight, and he might not appreciate a civilian jumping in to help.
“Sir?” one called down. “Do we shoot?”
Therrik glared at the miners, his rifle in hand but still down at his waist. He raised a staying hand toward the men on the wall without taking his gaze from the crowd. “Turn around, you fools. You’re not getting out of here alive.”
Someone fired from one of the buildings near the agitated pack of men. It was as if that had been a starter’s pistol, sending runners leaping into action. The men charged toward Therrik.
Lilah stepped away from the building and lifted her rifle, aiming for a man’s thigh. Before she could squeeze the trigger, a hand clamped onto her shoulder.
“Look, a civilian,” the person behind her blurted.
“Get her. We’ll use her as a shield.”
Even as they spoke, Lilah lunged forward and swung her rifle around. The wild-haired man standing behind her released her shoulder, but he caught her weapon in mid-air, a calloused hand wrapping around the barrel.
“Don’t let her get away, Bremmy,” a smaller man behind him ordered.
Lilah couldn’t shoot with the brute holding the rifle barrel, but she tugged at it to get his attention focused on it, then lunged in and stomped on his instep. He yelped in surprise, releasing the rifle. Lilah spun it around and clubbed him in the side of the head. The second man ran forward, and she scrambled backward, spotting a knife in his hand. She didn’t know if he meant to use it on her or just scare her, but his eyes seemed crazy—desperate—and fear for her life surged through her. She started to raise her rifle, but her heel caught on some debris from the explosion, and she tumbled backward before she could catch her balance.
She landed hard on her back, but she didn’t let go of her rifle. The man leaped after her, that knife raised. From the ground, she fired straight at his chest. He was leaping through the air, and she thought her shot struck, but that did nothing to still his momentum. She flung herself sideways, rolling away. He hit the ground inches away from her, dust springing into the air.
Not certain what had happened to the other man, but positive that clubbing him in the head hadn’t stopped him, she scrambled to her feet. The big man was less than three feet away. He snarled and lunged for her.
As she whipped her rifle up, pulling the lever to chamber the next round, she knew she would be too late, that he would grab her first. Then something akin to a tornado slammed into the man from the side, amid a roar of fury. The miner was lifted off his feet and hurled against the stone wall of the building. Therrik came right behind him, like a battering ram. The miner was almost as big as he was, but his attempts to punch back were smashed aside. Therrik slammed the man against the wall several times, until his eyes rolled back into his head. Therrik dropped him and spun toward Lilah.
Rage curled his lips, and she stepped back, but he only glanced at her in his scan of the area. A pile of miners lay crumpled in front of the oak courtyard doors. None of the men had come close to opening them and escaping. Lilah couldn’t tell if they were dead or unconscious. Elsewhere, soldiers had captured the other miners, forcing them to kneel with rifles pointed at their backs.
“Captain Kaika,” Therrik roared.
After a moment, Kaika stepped out of the still-smoking hole in the building, soot smearing her hands and one of her cheeks. “Sir?”
“What is this?” Therrik pointed at Lilah.
“Ah, that’s a professor, sir.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be guarding her?”
Kaika grimaced. “Yes, sir, but I figured you’d want to know about the explosion, and I also thought she would stay inside and admire your sword.”
The excuse only seemed to enrage Therrik further. Blood rushed to his face, and he clenched a fist. Hells, this wasn’t Kaika’s fault. Lilah should have stayed inside. She groped for something soothing to say that might calm him down.
“Get over here and stay with her, and do your damned duty before I—”
“Colonel Therrik,” Lilah said, speaking loudly and firmly enough that she hoped it would cut over his words. Unfortunately, because of her residual fear or just because the teacher in her wasn’t good at soothing or cajoling, her words came out sterner than she intended. “I appreciate your help with those two men. Captain Kaika is correct in that I should have remained where I was. This isn’t her fault.” She spread her hand toward the man she’d shot, a man who wasn’t, she noted with a queasy sensation in her stomach, moving. Had she killed him? Seven gods, she’d only meant to defend herself. She wasn’t a soldier. She wasn’t supposed to kill people. Hunting was one thing, but this was... She shook her head and rubbed her fingers, as if there was blood on her hand that she might wipe off.
“Are you all right?” Therrik asked brusquely. He winced as soon as the words came out. Maybe he wasn’t good at soothing tones, either.
“I’m uninjured.” Lilah wasn’t sure she could claim to be “all right,” but she would consider her mental state later, in private.
“Sorry, Professor,” Kaika said, stepping around the dead man to join her. “I shouldn’t have left you. I didn’t know you’d get bored with the colonel’s sword so quickly.”
“Can you say anything that isn’t sexual?” Therrik snapped. He still sounded irritated, but he’d lost that alarming enraged edge.
“I can, but how would that be fun?” Kaika patted Lilah on the shoulder, and despite her irreverent mouth, Lilah had the impression that she was genuinely sorry.
“Sir?” a young soldier asked, walking up and saluting. “We’ve subdued all of the troublemakers. Should there be any punishment or extra duty for the ones who survived?”
“Surviving and being stuck here is punishment enough,” Therrik grumbled, waving the man away. “Clean up the mess, send the injured ones to the doctor, and put the rest back to work.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Captain Kaika, did you discover who lit that explosive?”
“I discovered... something.” Kaika nodded toward the building. “Will you follow me, sir?”
Therrik
followed her, and Lilah followed him. He glanced back but did not object to her trailing along. How could he? Her bodyguard was leading the way, and he had already berated Kaika for being separated from Lilah.
The building turned out to be an armory. Instead of leading them through the new hole in the wall, Kaika took them through a front door, down a short hall, and to an iron door with thick rivets running along the frame. She tugged at the handle, but it did not budge.
“You’ll note it’s locked,” Kaika told Therrik.
“There are only four of us with keys.” Therrik pulled a ring out of his pocket and held it up.
“You and three trusted officers, I presume?”
“Yes.”
“Then only you and those three officers could have entered the armory.”
Therrik nodded. “Everything’s been reinforced and made more secure since the rebuilding.” He stuck the appropriate key in the lock, but paused before turning it, perhaps realizing Kaika was staring steadily at him. “You’re saying that nobody walked in there to detonate a charge, unless Kanz, Sayormoon, or Bridge did it.”
“Or you, sir. Even if one of the others did, he would have needed to use a delayed fuse, left, locked the door again, and then disappeared before it went off. Possible but...”
“Why would one of our people do it?”
“Exactly, sir.”
Therrik pulled open the door while Lilah debated the ramifications. Did that mean they believed some weapon had exploded of its own accord? Spontaneous combustion? She’d heard of such things with grain silos, but with military armories? Surely, weapons and explosives were stored with the utmost care.
Lilah paused inside the doorway while the other two went to explore. Plenty of light came in through the hole, but that wouldn’t usually be the case, since there were no windows on that or any other wall. The locked door should have been the only way into the room.
Captain Kaika murmured to Therrik, pointing to shelves and crates, some damaged and some not. Lilah had nothing to add since she had no experience with explosives, other than fireworks and primitive charges made with gunpowder. And most of her experience with those was through books. Still, the two officers circled back and faced her expectantly.
“Yes?” she asked.
“Kaika has convinced me that this just happened,” Therrik said, “much like the lantern falling and the window breaking in the artifact room.”
Lilah looked back and forth between the two of them. “Are you suggesting that the fossils have something to do with this?”
“These strange occurrences started happening yesterday, after I returned with them. Lieutenant Kraden claims the radio hasn’t been working since the fossils were originally unearthed out on the mountainside.”
“I don’t know what to say. We have fossils at the university. Nothing has ever exploded or broken in their presence.”
“In retrospect, perhaps Sardelle would have been the better expert to bring out here,” Kaika mused.
Lilah flushed at this insinuation that she couldn’t handle this problem, if there was a problem. She wasn’t convinced that these mishaps had anything to do with the fossils.
“We’re going out to the dig site,” Therrik said, “and we’re going to figure out what’s going on. Right after I wrap those bones up and hang them in the middle of the forest, far away from the outpost walls.”
He stalked out of the room without so much as a glance at Lilah. She tried not to feel as if she had disappointed him by not having the answers he wanted.
Chapter 5
Vann took the lead on the way to the dig site, with Kaika, Lilah, and Captain Bosmont trailing behind him, everyone armed and carrying a pack of supplies that would let them stay out there for a few days, if needed. He had work to do back at the outpost, but he’d elevated this new... situation to priority status. He wasn’t superstitious, and he didn’t believe in curses, but it was hard not to see a connection between the arrival of the bones and the incidents in the fort.
That damned explosion... Kaika had pointed to the remains of a keg of gunpowder, the circle of soot burned into the cement floor all that remained of the receptacle itself. They had been lucky, extremely lucky, that the explosion hadn’t reached the crates of dynamite on the other side of the room. If that had happened, the entire outpost might have been blown up, not just the wall of a building.
He glanced back at the people following him, Lilah in particular. She hadn’t spoken much since she’d shot that man, and he didn’t know if that had distressed her or if she should be resting. Killing had never bothered him, but he’d been told by more than one woman that he wasn’t normal, and that such a reaction wasn’t desirable.
He felt a little proud that Lilah had fought off her attackers—he suspected she would have thwarted the second one without his help, had he not been able to finish dealing with the miners trying to get past him to escape. He hadn’t expected a civilian woman to be able to handle herself against criminals willing to do anything to anyone to escape. He was pleased that she had, much as he’d been pleased that she knew her historical weapons. Admittedly, he’d been a little too pleased at that, letting his body respond in a way that he shouldn’t have. Had he truly been thinking of kissing her? He couldn’t imagine that she would want that. Hadn’t she mentioned a husband? Seven gods, what would she say when she returned home? She would probably tell her husband and her cousin that Vann had plied her with unwanted affections. Zirkander would share that information with his chain of command, and Vann might very well end up stuck out here for the rest of his career.
He grumbled, reminding himself that there were dangers out here and that he had better stay focused on his surroundings. He was not going to give his superiors or the king reason to keep him out here any longer than necessary. Lilah was off limits.
The forest grew quiet as they came within a mile of the dig site, and Vann paused to listen, remembering that the same thing had happened at about this spot when he and Bosmont had come out. That time, he’d assumed the birds were disturbed by the mining. This time, he did not hear any scrapes or voices drifting down the trail. Some predator might have caused the stilling of the forest, but he doubted it. All he could make out was the distant chatter of a creek somewhere down the slope from them.
“It’s still another mile or so,” Captain Bosmont said, coming up behind him.
“I’m aware of that.”
A rock shifted under Lilah’s foot as she approached, and she flailed for balance. She had already found that balance when Bosmont reached out, catching her arm.
“Careful, ma’am,” he said, smiling warmly at her.
Vann felt his eyes narrow to slits. She had been perfectly capable of navigating the slip by herself. She did not need Bosmont grabbing her arm, especially since he hadn’t let go of her arm yet.
“No railings out here on this trail,” he added.
“I’m fine.” Lilah looked down at his hand, hopefully implying that she didn’t want it there. “I’ve been over rougher terrain than this plenty of times.” She nodded to Vann. “It got quiet all of a sudden, didn’t it?”
He nodded, pleased that she’d noticed.
“Is there a lot of rough terrain at a university?” Bosmont let go of her arm, but he looked like he hadn’t wanted to. Vann recalled his complaints about how long it had been since he had shared a bunk with a woman. Lilah, with her appealing curves, would be tempting even to a man who had access to frequent bed partners.
“No, but my husband and I used to go on safaris in the south every summer. We did some mountain climbing, now and then. Mastmonsoro is down there, a big extinct volcano with a miles-wide grassy caldera where many types of animals evolved independently of the surrounding ecosystem. It’s amazing.”
“Husband?” Bosmont mumbled, his shoulders slumping.
She pursed her lips and turned toward Vann instead of answering the question. “Do you suspect there’s something dangerous out there?”
“We’ll see,” he said, starting up the trail again.
He didn’t want to mention magic or curses again. He’d already felt foolish admitting that he believed something otherworldly was going on back in the outpost. As a scientist, Lilah probably thought it silly to jump to conclusions without evidence. Even if she was married and he definitely wasn’t going to pursue anything physical with her, he did not want her to think him silly.
The forest remained silent as they drew closer to the dig site, the only sounds their own footsteps on the rocky trail and the breeze occasionally stirring the branches.
“They’re being awfully quiet,” Bosmont said.
“Who?” Vann asked.
“The men I sent out here last night.”
Vann halted. “What? I didn’t think Lieutenant Kraden had gotten a team together yet.”
He could just make out the cliff through the trees, and if anyone had been digging, he would have seen them.
“Lieutenant Kraden mentioned his problems, and I took it over myself, sir. I thought posting some guards was a good idea, since I have a bunch of equipment out here. Might not be as portable as fossils, but it’s worth a lot, and I wouldn’t want it vandalized on account of those thieves feeling vengeful.” Bosmont looked at Vann but was bright enough not to point out that Vann’s rough treatment of the thieves might have caused them to feel vengeful. Thieves deserved rough treatment, especially when they threw dynamite at military officers.
“Who did you send?” Vann asked.
“Corporal Savit and a couple of privates. They liked the idea of camping out and escaping the outpost for a couple of days.”
Camping out? That wasn’t quite what Vann had been thinking when it came to finding people. He would have grumbled to himself, but he continued forward instead, an uneasy feeling spreading through him. If there were three men out here, he ought to hear signs of some activity.
When he entered the cleared area next to the cliff, pickaxes and shovels lay on the ground where the thieves had left them, and it did not appear that anyone had been out here since the morning before. He peered into the recently started tunnel, which was deeper than he realized, but he could see to the end, and there wasn’t anyone inside, nor did he spot anyone around the equipment or the clearing. He walked until he could see the creek meandering through the trees at the bottom of the slope. That area, too, was devoid of life. The entire forest stood quiet, uncomfortably still.