Lilah stepped past Kaika and Bosmont and headed straight to the dragon skull lodged in the cliff.
Kaika elbowed Bosmont. “The men you ordered to come out here... Did they know they’d been sent out?”
“I didn’t actually see them walk out the gate.” Bosmont propped a fist on his hip as he gazed around the clearing. “I suppose it’s possible someone waylaid them and put them on some other task.”
Vann continued to walk around, this time looking for less obvious signs of disturbance.
“No, they were here last night.” He stopped beside a log and picked up an empty tin from one of the prepackaged army food packs. “Someone enjoyed some sardines.”
“I don’t think anyone enjoys sardines, sir,” Kaika said.
“That might have been out here before,” Bosmont said, waving at the tin. “My team had lunch here on the day we were moving the equipment out. Told everyone to clean up after themselves, but you know how privates are. Might have left a wrapper or two.”
“And did they also leave a uniform jacket or two?” Vann strode farther down the slope and plucked up a jacket draped in the shade on another log. He had missed it on his first perusal of the area.
“Ah, that would be less likely.”
“Savit,” Vann read off the nametag.
If something odd had happened out here, caused by the magic in the fossils still in the rocks, then maybe the men had been spooked and fled. But if so, why wouldn’t they have fled back to the outpost? Why run off into the woods?
Vann tossed the jacket back onto the log and debated whether he wanted to start looking for tracks and try to discover where the men had gone. Since the thieves had run off just the day before, it might be hard to distinguish the soldiers’ tracks from those of the others. He decided to see if Lilah needed anything first. Most likely, he wouldn’t be of any use with the fossils, so he could search once she started working. Currently, she was standing in front of the cliff, staring up at the dragon skull.
“This place feels creepy,” Kaika said, gazing out at the mountains rather than at the cliff. “It’s too quiet out here.”
Vann walked past her to stand beside Lilah, wondering why she wasn’t moving. He had expected her to throw open her toolbox and spring into action, hacking bones out of the rocks.
“Problem?” he asked quietly.
“A perplexing one, yes,” she said not taking her gaze from the cliff, though she looked up and down and from side to side along the rock.
“Explain?” Vann eyed the dragon skull, not caring for the way it seemed to leer out at them. The thieves had already carved it halfway out of the rock, giving it an ominous and lifelike aspect.
“I’m impressed that your looters managed to pry any fossils out of this rock at all, because this, my brawny friend, is granite.” Lilah rested her palm on the rock and faced him.
For a few seconds, he was too busy being simultaneously pleased that she had noticed his brawn and disappointed that she’d chosen the word friend for him. Still, it was less formal than colonel. Maybe he should invite her to call him Vann. No, he had better not invite familiarity.
She was looking at him as if waiting for him to figure something out or to nod sagely in agreement.
“Granite is hard,” he hazarded.
“Yes. It’s also not a rock in which you ever find fossils. Granite is formed when molten masses cool off, molten masses underneath the earth’s surface where living things aren’t present. Even if they were, the conditions would destroy any organic matter.”
“Oh?” Vann eyed the dragon skull again.
“Either the fossils are fake, which would surprise me since I had a good look at them under magnification, or...” She looked at the rock in puzzlement.
“Or?”
“Or someone stuck them in here, and no, I have absolutely no idea how that could be done.” She ran her hand along the lumpy surface of the cliff. “There are some cracks here and there, but it doesn’t look like the rock was previously broken and then stuck back together with the fossils inside. I can’t even imagine how much effort that would require or who would bother making that effort. What would be the point? To flummox your soldiers? To make you do exactly what you did? Stop digging in the area and call a scientist in? If so, to what end? Even one of my students could have identified granite and known this was an improbable if not impossible scenario.” She thumped her palm against the hard rock. “If you’ve ever dreamed of seeing a paleontologist stymied, you can now say that you’ve seen it.”
“Paleontologists rarely feature in my dreams,” Kaika said, her thumbs hooked into her utility belt as she ambled up beside them. “You, sir?”
“Not until recently,” Vann murmured, then glanced at Lilah and was relieved that she appeared too lost in thought to notice his words. “Bosmont, how come you didn’t know this was granite?”
“I knew it was granite, sir,” the engineer said, walking over to rap his knuckles against the hard rock. “Didn’t know about the rest of the special science-y stuff.”
“The fossils themselves are still of interest,” Lilah said, “but I’m disappointed because it’s quite unlikely that this is a dragon burial ground. It seems more plausible that someone robbed a museum, grabbing all the fossils from a collection that was composed of past finds and then brought them here and...” She frowned at the granite. “I still have no idea how they could have been embedded, and so seamlessly at that.” She slid her finger along the top of the skull where it lay nestled perfectly into the cliff.
“Magic,” Vann grumbled.
She looked skeptically at him.
“Makes sense to me,” Kaika said. “I’ve seen dragons hurl fire, and I’ve seen Sardelle’s sword melt rock. What if someone used magic, hot magic, to melt the granite, the way you were saying happened underground, Professor, and then thrust the fossils in when the stuff got cool enough but before it hardened all the way?”
Lilah’s lip curled up in an expression of further skepticism. “I think this rock would look different if it had been formed a couple of weeks ago.” She walked a few paces down the cliff, then climbed up to a small ledge, where she plucked up a chunk of moss growing out of the dirt. “Can dragons also cause dirt to form in crevices and make things grow?”
“Uhm, maybe?” Kaika shrugged. “Maybe it’s been longer than two weeks. Sir, maybe you should send a report back and see if Sardelle can come out here. Or her dragon, Bhrava Saruth.”
“That dragon is weird. I’m not inviting it anywhere.”
“But I bet he’d be the one to let us know if this was possible and if it had been done.”
“You just want your chance to lure him into bed,” Vann grumbled.
Kaika grinned. “He does seem to be the most likely dragon for that.”
Lilah stared over at them as she climbed down, her expression quite bemused. Vann reminded himself that most of the population was only vaguely aware that dragons had returned to the world. A few months ago, he also would have found this conversation strange. He still found it strange.
“The next supply ship isn’t due until next week,” Vann said. “That’s the soonest I can send back a request for help, unless Lieutenant Kraden gets that radio working.”
Bosmont scratched his jaw. “I still wonder if some of our problems with that might have to do with these bones being unearthed.”
When the lieutenant had shared Bosmont’s hypothesis with him back at the office, Vann’s first inclination had been to dismiss it, but what did he know? “So far, strange things have only been happening in proximity to the fossils. The radio tower is over five miles away.”
“We don’t know what all is behind that rock,” Kaika said. “There could be a higher concentration of bones here. Maybe there’s more magic and it can affect equipment that far away.”
“I’d like to reiterate,” Lilah said, “that, as far as I’ve seen in my years of research, fossils of dragon bones aren’t magical. Or cursed. There’
s an entire skeleton assembled at the First Age Museum in the capital, and strange things don’t happen there. Every day, children wander up and touch the fossils.”
Vann sighed. “I hate to admit it, but we do need someone with knowledge of magic out here.”
Kaika smiled.
“Sardelle. Not the damned dragon.”
“You’re crushing my dreams, sir.”
“I thought you wanted to share those dreams with Angulus. Wouldn’t he be disappointed if he didn’t get to watch?”
Lilah’s eyebrows arched to her hairline at the name. Vann supposed Kaika’s relationship with the king was a secret, but it wasn’t as if Kaika was the most discreet person. He knew about it, after all.
“Guess I’ll have to invite Bhrava Saruth to the castle for tea someday,” Kaika said. “Once construction finishes.”
“I hate magic,” Vann grumbled as he turned his consideration to the rock again. Was it possible these bones were close enough to affect the outpost? “If someone put these fossils in here to keep us from drilling into the mountain, then I want them out, and I want to know what’s behind this cliff.”
“Getting the fossils out of solid granite without damaging them will be difficult,” Lilah said. “The thieves were probably working at this for some time.”
“There wasn’t any sign of the thieves when I first brought the equipment out, and my team started digging a little under two weeks ago.” Bosmont walked to the cliff and patted some of the spots where rock had recently been sheered away. “It’s amazing they got so many fossils out in such a short time.”
“Perhaps those fossils were placed near the surface so they would be easy to discover,” Lilah said.
“And so their magic would ooze out and affect my outpost?” Vann sneered.
Lilah looked toward the ledge where she had plucked out the piece of moss, but she did not say anything.
“If you just want the fossils gone, I imagine we could handle that.” Kaika smiled and patted the rock.
“By blowing them up along with the rock?” Vann asked.
Lilah’s eyes bulged in horror. “You can’t blow up the fossils. If these were stolen from a museum collection, that museum will want them back. Even if they weren’t stolen, they’re historically significant. They should be studied, magical attributes or not.”
“Yes, and I don’t need a museum railing at the army over this, especially not when I’m the outpost commander here.” Vann lowered his voice and shook his head. “I’m never going to get promoted as long as there’s magic in my world.” He could already foresee getting in trouble for what had transpired thus far, especially if something had happened to those three soldiers. He needed to resolve this, or at least get his people working on a solution, so he could go look for the men.
“Didn’t know that was an aspiration of yours, sir,” Bosmont said.
“Isn’t it for you?”
“Nah, just want to hit my twenty years and retire. Go down south somewhere and lie on a beach. A beach overflowing with beautiful women.”
“That being their natural environment?” Kaika asked.
“In my dreams, it is.”
Retirement. On the more frustrating days, Vann did entertain the idea. He had already hit his twenty-year mark. But what would he do if he left the military? He wasn’t even forty-five yet. He wasn’t ready to lie on beaches. And in the civilian world, he wouldn’t be able to pummel people regularly. How would he let off steam?
“Do you have any aluminum powder back at the fort, Bosmont?” Kaika asked. “I know you’ve got plenty of iron oxide. I saw the rust in your machine shop.”
Bosmont snorted. “What do you have in mind?”
“Making some thermite to burn out the fossils.”
“Eh, rock is a poor conductor of heat,” Bosmont said. “The reaction would probably finish and cool off before cutting into much of the granite. There’s a creek down there, and I have a hydraulic rock splitter in my machine shop. You know, under the rust.”
“We could bring both back.”
“You won’t be happy unless you burn something, will you?”
Kaika slapped him on the shoulder. “You already know me. That’s nice.”
Bosmont smiled hopefully at her, glancing at her chest oh-so-briefly. Maybe he thought she would be easier to lure to bed than the married professor. Brave man. Vann wouldn’t make an attempt on her these days, not when she was sleeping with the king. Vann had already irked Angulus often enough for one lifetime.
Kaika ignored Bosmont’s glance and nodded to Vann. “What do you think, sir?”
“Go ahead.” He waved to both of them. “Go back to the outpost and collect what you need. Come back, and let’s get started on the fossils tonight. I want them out of here and wrapped up in a tarp next to the other ones.” Far, far away from the gates of his outpost. Vann decided he would move the first collection farther away when he got a chance, just in case the magic embedded in them could affect things for miles around.
“Kaika, bring Kasandral back with you too,” Vann said. “The sword is in my room.”
“Oh, it can cut through rock, can’t it?”
Vann had only been thinking that he would feel better with the weapon nearby if there was magic in these fossils, but he paused to consider the question. “If there’s a dragon or a witch on the other side, it can. I’m not sure the bones would excite it enough to bring it to full power.”
“Your sword doesn’t get excited by bones? Good to know, sir. And probably healthy too.” Kaika winked.
“I feel like I should write you up for disrespecting a senior officer.”
“You can just beat on me in the boxing square later, sir.”
“I’ll look forward to it.”
“Of that I have no doubt.”
“Professor, do you want to go back with them or stay here?” Vann thought about simply telling Lilah that she would remain here with him, because he didn’t want her staying in the outpost without her bodyguard around, but he didn’t know if she would feel comfortable alone with him. She had to have noticed that he’d been close to kissing her earlier.
“There are a few hours of daylight left. I’ll stay with the fossils.” Lilah laid a hand on the dragon skull.
Vann noticed that she spoke of staying with the fossils, not with him. Well, what did he expect? She was married. Something he had better keep in mind. Not everyone was like General Chason, making a habit of jumping into non-matrimonial beds. He suspected the gold chain sometimes visible beneath the collar of Lilah’s shirt was a marriage bond necklace, something he should have thought about when he’d been entertaining sexual fantasies involving her back in his room.
“I’m going to look for the tracks of my missing men,” Vann said, as Kaika and Bosmont headed back along the trail, already arguing about explosives and thermite reactions, “but I’ll stay within earshot. Yell if anything happens.”
“I will,” Lilah said.
Vann walked away, very pointedly not looking back to admire her assets from behind.
• • • • •
Lilah studied the embedded fossils, trying to determine both if they were real and how they had been embedded, until it grew too dark to see them. She turned away from the cliff to find that the sun had long ago dipped behind the ridge, and deep twilight shadows blanketed the mountainside. At first, she didn’t see anyone and thought Therrik had decided to go track his missing soldiers after all, but then he came out of the gloom carrying an armload of wood.
“Campfire time?” Lilah rubbed her arms. A fire sounded excellent. It might be summer, but they were at a high elevation, and the temperature had dropped dramatically as soon as the sun disappeared.
“I was thinking of it as a signal fire.” Therrik nodded toward the trees, in the direction he said the men had gone.
“You’re worried about your soldiers?” She wondered how wise it was for her and Therrik to stay out here tonight when something disturbing had p
resumably happened to his men. Maybe returning to the outpost would be a good idea. Of course, it would be fully dark well before they reached it. She should have returned with the others earlier if she hadn’t wanted to spend the night out here. But she had only just arrived when Kaika and Bosmont had gone back. She’d been too interested in studying the fossils to contemplate leaving then.
“If they weren’t smart enough to run in the direction of the outpost, they don’t deserve my worry.”
He spoke gruffly, as he so often did, but nevertheless, he piled up more wood than would have been necessary for light and warmth just for them. He soon had a blazing bonfire going, the flames high enough that they should be visible from far downslope and also from the mountain opposite them. He returned to the trees to gather more wood.
Since there was nothing more she could do with the fossils—not that she had done much even when there had been daylight—Lilah ambled into the trees and picked up a few branches to help. She had only grabbed a couple when he called to her.
“Come here.” Therrik pointed at a log next to the fire.
She paused, debating whether she wanted to rebel over his presumptuousness. She wasn’t one of his soldiers, sworn to obey the commands of superior officers. Deciding she was too tired, she shuffled back to him, though not without comment. “Please.”
“What?”
“Come here, please. I’m not one of your men.” She propped her foot on the log and gave him a challenging look.
He stared back at her, his face even harder to read than usual, thanks to the shadows. “That’s not a word I use.”
“No? It’s only one syllable. Much easier to say than igneous rock or paleontologist, neither of which you had trouble with.”