Encrypted (15 page)

The sawbones stood back, a bewildered
expression on his face. At least he was not brawling with
anyone.

Tikaya jogged over to his side. “What’s
going on? Have you ever seen anything like this?”

He worked over the wad of tobacco in his
mouth. “Nope.”

“
Could it be the Nurians
again? Trying to keep us from resolving whatever is going on in
those tunnels?”

He froze, mid-chew. “How do you know—how
much do you know?”

“
I know they tried to kill
me so I couldn’t help your people translate that unknown
language.”

“
I suppose it’s possible
the Nurians have done...something. I can’t think of anything
natural that would explain this sudden aggressiveness.”

The scuffles were dying down. Men’s ragged
breaths frosted the air. A couple marines still struggled against
those restraining them, while others seemed embarrassed. Blood
flowed from broken noses and split lips.

“
Bones, come patch people
up.” Commander Okars did not appear wounded, but his eyes had a
wild cast to them. “And tell me what’s going on.”

“
No idea.”

“
No idea? Grandmother
Hakstor was a better sawbones than you. For spit’s sake, get your
ass over here and figure this mess out.”

Amusement flickered in Bones’s dark eyes,
and he gave Tikaya an irreverent salute, saying, “Nice talking with
you, ma’am,” before he trundled off.

She was not sure what to make of the man’s
odd humor or this situation. The fact that she was dependent on the
marines out here rankled. She gazed down the flat coastline toward
the mountains, wondering how many hundreds of miles lay between her
and a town where she could find passage out of the empire. A lot,
she feared, and she knew nothing about surviving in this
climate.

“
Corporal Dansk,” Okars
said. “Head back and warn the others. Corporal Agarik?”

Tikaya shook away her musings and turned her
attention back to the marines.

“
Yes, sir?”

“
We’re heading in. Stay
here and guard the woman.”

Irritation flattened Agarik’s lips, and for
a moment Tikaya thought he would question the officer. He kept
himself to a glum, “Yes, sir.”

One man trotted back the way they had come,
while the others marched away in pairs, leaving Tikaya and Agarik
alone with the dead dog.

“
You want to go with them,
don’t you?” She lifted her eyebrows at Agarik, whose gaze remained
fastened on the backs of the men. “To explore?”

He huffed a sigh. “No.”

“
You must not lie very
often, because you’re not good at it.”

A slight smile quirked his lips.

Tikaya’s gaze returned to the buildings
overlooking the town. A giant cannon and a flag pole flying
Turgonian colors stood before one. Military structures, she
guessed. If there were any clues to this mystery, she wagered they
would be in an office up there. Exploring the town might be
hazardous, but, then, standing out here where anyone with a bow or
a rifle could target them felt hazardous too. And if this strange
aggression affected the main party... She thought of Rias holding a
box of blasting sticks and shuddered.

“
Why don’t we ramble up
that hill and see if we can figure out what’s going on?” Tikaya
suggested.

“
We’ve orders to stay
here.”

“
Actually, I believe your
orders were to ‘guard the woman.’”

“’
Stay here
and guard the woman.’”

A breeze gusted down the coast, icy fingers
poking through Tikaya’s scarf. “They don’t encourage initiative in
Turgonia, do they?”

“
Not in the marines,
no.”

She curled her fingers in her gloves. Even
if she did not want to explore, she would have appreciated getting
inside out of the wind. “Suppose the woman runs off and you’re
forced to chase after her in order to guard her?”

“
With respect, ma’am, I
could catch you before you ran five steps.”

“
Rias would run off with
me.” It was a stupid argument, and she knew it. She felt like a
stubborn five-year-old trying to wrangle an extra hour of play
before bedtime. Unfortunately, manipulating men to get her way was
not her specialty. No doubt her teenage years should have involved
less time studying ancient tablets and more time flirting with boys
at the beach.

“
I’d rather he run off
with
me
,” Agarik
said.

The comment surprised a laugh from her and
reminded her flirting would probably not work on him anyway.

A gun fired in the town, stealing her mirth.
Someone shouted. It sounded like Turgonian, one of the marines, but
distance muddled the words. Agarik’s grip tightened on his rifle
and he took a step before he stopped himself. A scream of pain
echoed from the dwellings, and it made Tikaya shiver.

“
Something creepy is
happening here,” she said. “We should check the buildings on the
hill. They’re military, aren’t they? That’d be the place to start
looking for answers, you’d think.”

“
Tikaya...”

“
Why are you being so
frustratingly obtuse about this?” she growled. “You’d think I was
asking you to—” She noticed Agarik’s startled expression and caught
herself.

“
Something creepy
is
happening here,”
Agarik said softly.

“
I’m sorry. I didn’t mean
it. I understand that you want to be the good soldier and follow
orders, and I don’t want to get you in trouble. But...” Rias’s
words flashed through her mind:
to live
when the rest of your team died would be an unacceptable disgrace
to many
. “Do you want to be the only one
of your team left alive when the others catch up?”

His gaze jerked up, latched onto her. He
closed his eyes for a long moment before sighing and asking, “When
I get court-martialed and kicked out of the empire for following
your suggestions, can I come live on your island?”

“
Absolutely. Free lodging
in my parents’ guest bungalow overlooking the sea. I’ll even
introduce you to my cousin’s handsome friend who surfs nude every
afternoon. He was in one of my linguistics classes; he has a gifted
tongue.”

Agarik’s eyes widened, and he clapped her on
the shoulder, leading the way toward the hill. “If you’d promised
me all that the first time we met, we’d still be on your
island.”

Tikaya peered down the main strip as they
passed it, but she did not spot any marines. They must be exploring
inside the buildings.

When she and Agarik rounded the back corner
of a saloon, they jerked to a halt at the sight of skulls and bones
half-buried in fresh snow. Human skulls and bones.

“
Cursed ancestors,” Agarik
grunted.

The snow had obscured footprints but did not
quite hide the tooth marks scoring the broken bones, the marrow
prodded out by tongues.

“
How long has it been
since your people had contact with this town?” Tikaya
asked.

“
How should I know?”
Agarik barked.

She peered at him, at the irritable frown
creasing his brows.

“
Sorry.” He nudged a skull
with the toe of his boot. Myriad fractures spun out from a ragged
hole smashed into the back. No wolf had done that. “The fits of
rage surprise you, don’t they? You think you’re fine, and
then...”

“
Yes,” she said. “That’s a
concern, especially since the second group is bringing
explosives.”

“
I’ve never heard of a
Nurian plot like this,” Agarik said.

She gazed thoughtfully at the mountains, the
tundra, and the ice-coated sea. “Since I grew up around
practitioners, I’m sensitive to when they’re performing their
science. I haven’t felt any of the telltale signs of one at
work.”

“
So, this isn’t
magic?”

“
I don’t think
so.”

“
Then what?”

She could only shrug.

Tikaya and Agarik did not speak as they
climbed the hill. Several minutes had passed since the last yell,
scream, or shot that would have indicated the scouting party was
still around. It was as if they had simply disappeared.

They reached the first of the buildings
perched on the crown. The back two, one-story wood structures with
narrow windows, were probably barracks and offices. The closest, a
taller building with corrugated metal walls, lacked windows, though
massive sliding doors marked entrances. Tikaya and Agarik stopped
there first, heading for the leeward side, which was free of
drifts, though shoveled snow piled high near a walkway. It could
not have been too long since the living occupied the outpost.

Ice shattered and metal groaned as Agarik
shoved a door open a few feet. Weak sunlight probed the interior,
revealing an empty building with an earthen floor splotched with
dark stains. The smell of engine oil wafted out.

“
All the caterpillars are
gone,” Agarik said. “Guess we’re stuck with dog sleds.”

“
Caterpillars?” she
asked.

“
Steam vehicles designed
to handle the ice and snow.”

“
Ah. How many are there
supposed to be?”

“
There’s room for five or
six in there.”

They crunched across the crown of the hill,
sinking calf-deep into snow. Wind gusted, blowing powder off the
roofs.

A three-foot long icicle sheared off an
overhang and plunged into the snow a foot from Agarik’s shoulder.
Tikaya jumped to the side, tangling her feet, and toppled into the
snow. Agarik raised his eyebrows, and she felt sheepish.

She clambered to her feet. It was chance
that the deadly icicle had dropped then, nothing more. Regardless,
Agarik took a couple steps to the side before continuing along his
route.

Heavy shadows lay in the alleys between the
buildings, and Tikaya glanced skyward in surprise. The sun had
dropped well past its zenith.

“
It’s already afternoon.”
Feeling silly for blurting the obvious, she added, “I didn’t
realize how short days are up here.”

“
I was here once near the
winter solstice. Day is about an hour then.”

By the entrance to the next building,
shoveled snow piled nearly to the roof. They followed a wide
walkway with a couple of inches of fresh powder blanketing it. Paw
prints marred the surface. Large paw prints.

A gnawed skeleton, not quite hidden by the
snow, sprawled a couple feet from the door. A hammer protruded from
the skull, its head caught where it had smashed a hole through the
bone. Shreds of a black uniform were tangled amongst the ribs.

“
I hope our scouting
doesn’t require us spending the night here,” Tikaya said. “I doubt
this town gets any less disturbing after dark.”

Agarik nodded at the hammer. “Scavengers
might have cleaned these corpses, but it looks like humans were
responsible for the deaths.”

“
Of course. Killing people
is what you Turgonians are good at.” She regretted the words as
soon as they came out.

Agarik slid a knife free of his belt and
whirled, glowering at her. “We need answers, not sarcastic
comments.”

Tikaya skittered back, hands raised. He
turned the knife so the afternoon sun glinted against the frosty
steel. His breath steamed the air before his intense dark eyes.

“
Agarik?” She shifted her
weight, thinking of the razor in her rucksack. It would take a lot
of rummaging to find it. She should have done that as soon as the
other marines let her out of sight. “Put the knife away,
please.”

His cheek twitched and the blade
trembled.

“
Something here is
affecting you, remember? They let it affect them...” Hands still
raised, she nodded toward the bones. “And now they’re
dead.”

Agarik forced his fingers open, and the
knife tunneled into a snow drift. “Of course. I know.” Eyes closed,
he took a deep, shuddering breath. “Do you think... Are we making a
mistake being here? Will whatever happened to these people happen
to us?” For the first time that Turgonian fearlessness
faltered.

Tikaya decided she preferred the
fearlessness. “You know as much as I do, probably more.” She picked
up the knife and dusted it off. “Mind if I keep this for now?”

He flinched but nodded. “Go ahead. I have my
rifle and pistol.” He waved at the town. “Don’t worry. I’m sure we
can always leave if the situation escalates into something
dangerous.”

She bit back a comment about the townspeople
apparently not being able to leave to save their lives.

Agarik pushed open the door, and Tikaya
peered around him. A single corridor stretched to the opposite end
of the long building. The far door stood ajar, and daylight slashed
inside. Shadows in the middle stirred. Two dark furry shapes turned
their direction.

Wolves.

They did not exist back home, but she had
seen pictures. Tall and winter lean, the creatures growled, lips
rippling, saliva gleaming on fangs.

The pair charged. Agarik raised his rifle
and shot one, the boom thunderous as it echoed in the hallway. The
ball struck the lead wolf in the shoulder, and it yipped in pain,
but it kept running. Agarik fired his pistol, striking the second
canine in the eye. This one faltered and flopped over, but the
other kept racing toward them.

Tikaya backed outside and Agarik, needing
time to reload, almost fell out beside her.