“ Then, yes,” Tikaya said.
Rias chuckled and squeezed her hands.
“ Although if you’d listen to all I had to say, you’d learn that there’s some science about the device.”
“ Science?” Bocrest’s expression blanked.
“ Magic,” Rias said.
“ Oh,” Bocrest said. “How?”
“ I’m not sure yet,” Tikaya said. “Give me a moment.”
She started to bend down again, but Rias stepped in front of the launch pad. He picked up her gloves and handed them to her. Not until she stuffed her numb fingers back into the fur-lined interiors did he move aside.
“ Thank you,” she said.
Rias saluted her with a wink. Bocrest heaved a sigh.
She touched the launch pad again, checking several spots. It was weak, but she did sense something, especially close to the ground. On a whim, she tried to lift one of the legs. She expected the black metal to weigh too much, but she raised it with relative ease, revealing a leather-bound book flattened into the snow. Her heart sped up in anticipation. Rias grabbed the leg, so she could retrieve her find.
A pen was stuck in the spine, and it felt warm beneath her fingers. That was it: the practitioner-imbued item, probably crafted to never run out of ink or some simple thing. As far as she could tell, the book-no, journal-was mundane. She flipped it open, but had scarcely read the first couple words when someone tore it from her grip.
“ Our people will vet this and decide if it’s suitable for a foreigner to read,” Bocrest said.
“ Bocrest…” Rias started, but Tikaya lifted her chin and spoke.
“ Then I hope you brought someone who reads Kyattese, because the writing isn’t in your tongue.”
Bocrest flipped through a few pages and his lip curled into a snarl. “Kyattese?” His eyes narrowed. “Why would there be a notebook up here in your language?”
“ He spoke Kyattese.” Tikaya nodded at Lancecrest’s body.
“ Is it possible that journal is what our ‘ally’ was searching for?” Rias asked.
Bocrest jerked his head down, eyes scouring the pages as if he could translate them through will. With a disgusted grunt, he thrust the book at Tikaya.
“ You tell us,” he said.
She skimmed the opening pages and practically bounced at the massive number of the language samples within. Notes, mostly speculation, surrounded drawings of symbols she had not yet seen. No firm translations yet. “I’ll need time to read over everything, but it’s definitely Lancecrest’s journal, and it looks like he’s been in your tunnels a while. There are hundreds of pages here and dates go back almost a year.”
She turned to a dog-eared page, and her hand froze. Launch instructions for the rocket. It appeared Lancecrest had discovered how to operate the weapon through trial and error rather than true understanding of the language. Nonetheless, the instructions were there. And suddenly she knew: this book was exactly what their mysterious stranger was searching for, here in the tent and perhaps in the colonel’s office as well. It could explain the torture sessions too. He had been trying to locate these very instructions, but the Nurian had not known and Lancecrest must have held out to the end.
“ Find something?” Rias asked.
She flinched, knowing she had been silent too long to brush it off. “Just an interesting take on what the prime groupings imply.” She hated lying to Rias, but she was not going to hand Bocrest directions for launching the rockets. She could only assume there were more of the devices in the tunnels.
“ Find something useful?” Bocrest asked.
Since shadow covered the ledge already, Tikaya received little warning when the ice condor approached for the second time. Movement teased the corner of her eye, and Rias yelled, “Get down!” just as she was turning to check.
The condor swooped toward her head, talons outstretched. She flung her arms out.
Rias smashed into her, taking her to the ground. Her shoulder flared with pain, but the talons meant for her eyes grazed her forearm. They cut through her parka and stung flesh.
Bocrest and the tracker fired, but the condor banked before the balls hit. It swooped out of sight over the cliff above the tent.
“ Are you injured?” Rias asked, eyes locked on her as he shifted to let her up.
Tikaya pushed up her parka sleeve. “Just a couple scratches.”
Rias removed a glove and brushed his finger across one of the wounds, which had started to well blood. A green pasty substance mingled with the crimson drops.
“ What is it?” Dread hollowed her stomach.
“ Poison.” Rias jumped to his feet. “We have to get to the sawbones.”
Tikaya stared at her arm. She knew nothing about poison. “Is this a lethal dose? How much time do I have?”
He started to respond, but the condor swooped toward them again.
“ Someone shoot that slagging bird!” Bocrest shouted to the men below. He and the tracker were still reloading.
Rias had dropped his rifle to shield Tikaya. The bird landed on the launch pad as he grabbed the weapon. Unconcerned, the condor cocked its head, black eye studying Tikaya.
“ Yes, you got me.” Bitterness choked her words.
“ Sh.” Rias aimed the rifle, but hesitated. A calculating flash crossed his face, and he raised his voice. “Don’t worry, Tikaya. You’re not going to die. We’ve got the antidote in camp, and you’ve got plenty of time.”
Bocrest, the first to finish reloading, lifted his rifle. The bird flapped away. Several shots fired, but it weaved and banked with preternatural speed, and disappeared unscathed.
Rias lowered his weapon. He had not fired.
“ I’d like to be reassured by your words,” Tikaya murmured, “but I suspect that was for the benefit of the bird.”
“ Will whoever is controlling it understand our speech through its ears?” Rias asked.
“ I’m not sure. Maybe.” She might have stopped to consider what he hoped to accomplish with his words, but other thoughts stampeded to the front of her mind. “How much time do I really have?”
“ Plenty,” Rias said.
She had come to know him too well; she could tell he was lying.
CHAPTER 14
Tikaya woke to the sound of pained wheezing. Her own. Air. She couldn’t get enough air.
She opened her eyes to a green canvas tent ceiling supported by slender steel bars. Confusion muddled her mind. The last thing she remembered was Rias and another marine carrying her down the mountain on a litter. Now she lay on a cot, blankets pulled to her chin. Somewhere behind her head, a lantern provided illumination that failed to reach the shadowy corners.
They must have reached the base camp, but if the sawbones had applied some antidote, she could not feel it. Her breath rattled in her ears, and she could not pull in enough air to satisfy her lungs. She tried to wriggle her toes. If they moved she could not tell.
Still alive, she thought, but still poisoned. And alone. Rows of empty cots stretched into the darkness. Where was Rias? Why hadn’t he stayed with her? And what about the sawbones?
“ Akahe, please don’t let me die alone,” she mouthed.
She blinked away tears, but it was hard to keep the wheezing breaths from turning into sobs. With no one to witness her torment, why bother being stoic? And why hadn’t she written a letter to her parents? Rias might be slated for a return to exile, but Agarik would have found a way to post it. But now her family would forever wonder what happened.
The tent flap swayed, and icy air gusted inside.
