switch or knob. She slid her finger the other way. Nothing. She waved her hand before it as she had seen Rias do once to close a door.
The stripe pulsed once, and something thunked inside the wall. Had that done it? The lighting did not come on, and she waved her hand before the other stripes. More thunks, and a faint hum from behind the wall.
The footsteps hammered closer. She grabbed the bow, nocked an arrow, and flattened herself against the wall. The corridor offered no cover, but she could not run until she knew if her hand-waving had accomplished the goal. Besides, darkness stretched behind her, and she did not know if more tunnels lay that way or only a dead end.
The footsteps stopped near the intersection, and lantern light bobbed on the wall. She drew the bow, but no one burst into sight.
More footsteps, these ones softer and slower, reached her ear. She tensed. They were coming from behind her somewhere. Trap. And she had only the darkness to hide in.
Then the lights blinked on. It happened so abruptly, she squinted, half-blinded. She almost missed the movement ahead-someone slipping around the corner and dropping to a knee.
Tikaya loosed an arrow without waiting for her vision to clear. As soon as it flew free, she dropped to the floor. A pistol cracked.
She rolled to the side, cursing herself for getting caught in such a bad spot. She scrabbled for another arrow.
“ Tikaya, this way,” Agarik urged, not from behind but from ahead.
She cursed. Had she just shot at him?
By the time she lunged to her feet, her eyes adjusted enough to see the intersection. Bones lay on his belly, blood pooling beneath his head. Agarik waved for her to hurry.
“ What the-” Ottotark blurted, a hundred meters or more down the tunnel behind her.
Tikaya sprinted for Agarik. His pistol, not her bow, had felled the doctor. He pulled her around the corner as another shot fired. The pistol ball clanged off the corner and ricochetted down the tunnel.
“ Traitor!” Ottotark screamed.
“ No time to reload,” Agarik said as they ran toward the intersection that could take them back to the cavern. “You’ll have to shoot if he catches up.”
“ Understood,” Tikaya said grimly.
She glanced back to see if Ottotark had rounded the corner yet and missed the reason Agarik skidded to a stop, cursing. He flung his arm out to halt her as well.
A cube hovered in the intersection ahead.
She slammed a fist against her thigh. She should have known-the whole reason for turning the lighting back on had been to power one of the cubes. With the mess from the explosives, all of them would probably respond.
“ Maybe it’ll go on to the cavern,” she whispered.
It rotated, and its crimson orifice came into view.
“ Back, back.” Agarik spun, taking her with him.
Tikaya ran at his side. They would have to take their chances with Ottotark.
“ Zag,” she barked on a hunch.
She pushed Agarik one way and ducked against the opposite wall. A red beam seared the air between them.
As soon as it faded, they sprinted off again. Tikaya nocked the bow as she ran. Any second-
Ottotark lunged around the corner, pistol pointed at them. She fired without slowing, and it threw off her aim. The arrow skimmed past his head, stirring his hair, but doing no damage.
He must have seen the cube coming, for he looked between them and cursed before choosing a target. Tikaya.
Agarik hurled a knife at Ottotark. It bought them a second as the sergeant dodged the projectile. She yanked another arrow from her quiver, but Ottotark recovered before she had it nocked.
He fired. There was no room to dodge, no time to duck. Agarik leaped in front of her, grunting as the pistol ball slammed into him.
“ No!” Tikaya cried.
She jumped around him, took the split second to aim, and shot. The arrow spun into Ottotark’s eye.
She dropped the bow and whirled back to Agarik, catching him as he slumped. His hand gripped his chest, and pain ravaged his face. The cube continued its inexorable advance, but she tried to pull him down the aisle.
“ Leave me.” Blood spilled from his lips. “Help Rias.”
“ It’ll get you,” she choked, refusing to accept the inevitable.
“ Yes,” Agarik rasped. “Give you…time.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw it: that cursed glow intensified. She stumbled away as the beam fired. It burned into Agarik and started its deadly work.
“ Go,” he gasped.
Tears blurring her vision again, Tikaya grabbed the bow and sped away. She leaped over Bones’s body and kicked Ottotark on the way past. She should have lit that bastard on fire when she had the chance. Agarik’s death was her fault.
She found the corridor Ottotark had used to circle around behind her and cut over toward the cavern. It would take time for the cube to clear away all three bodies, but she recalled the multiple units in that cavern closet and knew others would be about.
Tikaya slowed at the cavern entrance and tried to peer out without revealing herself. No shadows remained, though, and the assassin was already looking down at her when she spotted him. He crouched on the ledge, his shirt off and tied about his nose and mouth. His back was to the closed door. None of the symbols had been moved. He dropped his head to focus on the floor at his feet-or something on it. Paper and pencil, she guessed from his movements. He was trying to solve the new Skiltar Square.
But where was Rias? Smoke still wafted from the noxious globe, but it had thinned, and she would have seen him on the cliff if he remained there. His rucksack lay on the floor where he had left it. Dread crept into her as she continued to search the area without spotting him. If he had fallen, the beams could have incinerated him before he reached the ground.
Two cubes worked in the cavern, eating away the piles of rubble. They reminded her of the one in the tunnels behind her. As soon as it finished with the bodies-she forced herself not to dwell on Agarik, not now-it would head this way.
Tikaya eased out of the tunnel and kept her back to the wall. Sicarius kept track of her as he figured. Her hand ached where she gripped the bow. If Sicarius had killed Rias, he was not getting off the cliff. Agile or not, he could not dodge arrows while he climbed down past those lasers. She removed an arrow and nocked it with steady hands. Cold controlled anger made her movements sure, free of fear. Even if he had not killed Rias, he was the Turgonian emperor’s assassin, someone who had tried to murder her president. The world would be better off with him dead.
She drew the bow. No sense of alarm widened Sicarius’s eyes, but he stood. Balanced on the balls of his feet, arms relaxed, he appeared unconcerned by the weapon pointed at him. Even on that small ledge, he could probably dodge an arrow. But if she bumped one of the numbers, and he could not solve the problem on time, he would either have to climb down, where she could shoot him in the back, or he would be incinerated.
Yes, then why hadn’t she fired yet?
Killing Ottotark in self-defense was one thing; shooting someone in cold blood… Could she do it?
Motion across the cavern saved her from having to answer the question. Rias burst from a tunnel, diving and rolling as a red beam lanced the air over him.
“ Rias!” she shouted.
He scrambled to his feet and zigzagged toward the butte. He chopped a wave her direction, but lifted his head to shout a stream of numbers at the assassin.
The solution to the door. Sicarius’s head tilted, and he gazed upward-calculating. Not trusting enough to enter them without checking for himself. And why should he be? Rias had no reason to help, to get the assassin inside with the weapons. What was he doing?
