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
