“ Excellent.” Tikaya stepped to the side of the door. “You first. We’re going up to the others before I let you out of match range.”
Teeth bared, he edged past her and sprinted up the steps. Tikaya would not have kept up, but he crashed into someone in the hall upstairs.
“ Sergeant Ottotark, what are you doing?” It was Bocrest.
Tikaya stepped out of the stairwell, and both men turned. Ottotark thrust an accusing finger.
“ That crazy bitch doused me in kerosene and threatened to light me on fire!”
“ Because you locked me in the dungeon so you could rape me, you sadistic prick.” The burning match had gone out, but she clutched the box in her hand, prepared to light another if need be. She eyed Bocrest, who lifted a lantern and eyed her back.
“ Ms. Komitopis,” he said, “we call it an Interrogation Station, not a dungeon.”
Curse him, he sounded amused. At least he had used her name. That was a first.
“ Ottotark, go get cleaned up and find a rack,” Bocrest said.
The sergeant slunk away, muttering under his breath.
“ What were you doing in here?” Bocrest asked with no preamble, no apology for his loutish man.
Tikaya thought about lying, but reminded herself she wanted the captain to trust her. For now. And she did not think her true purpose that condemning. “Looking for the fort commander’s office. If anyone has more relics or rubbings, I figured it’d be him.”
“ I just came from there. It’s been searched, probably by whomever tortured the Nurian. There’s nothing, not even Colonel Lancecrest’s orders.”
“ Colonel…Lancecrest?” Tikaya asked.
“ Yes, usually we’d have a general commanding a fort, but this is a small outpost.”
“ It’s the name, not the rank, that surprised me,” she said. “There was a Turgonian named Lancecrest studying at the Polytechnic when I was a student.”
Bocrest shrugged. “Probably one of the younger ones. There are nine or ten kids, and they’ve had to make their own ways. The family’s poor as pond scum. Their lands were salted during the Border Wars, and you couldn’t grow a weed there now.”
“ So, just a coincidence, you think?” As she recalled, that Lancecrest had been studying archaeology; he had shared a couple classes with Parkonis.
“ The colonel’s body is up there in his office. If he was plotting with some relative, don’t you think he’d have figured himself up a better deal?” Bocrest headed for the stairs. “Get some sleep. I’ve got to look at this Nurian body. One cursed mystery after another up here.”
“ Captain?” she called, halting him on the steps. “Why is your team here, with me and Rias, instead of hunting for whoever sent that box to your capital? It might have originated in the tunnels, but surely the people who found it didn’t stick around and post it from there.”
The flickering lantern played shadows across Bocrest’s face. Answering was probably a violation of orders, but he had already doled out some information when they discovered the cube. Maybe he would divulge more.
“ Someone was sent to hunt down and kill the person who delivered the box,” he said. “We are here to seal the tunnels.”
“ Oh?” Tikaya sensed a cover story. “Why would you need Rias or me if that’s all you’re planning to do?”
“ We need to make sure we find all the possible entrances and exits. You two will ensure we don’t stumble into the kinds of traps that devastated the last group.”
The blasting sticks they were carrying were the only things that led credence to his story. Tikaya believed him about the attack on the university-something had started this wave crashing toward the beach-but, now that she’d glimpsed the potential for genocide these artifacts offered, she wagered sealing the tunnels was at the end of a list Bocrest received. Wouldn’t the Turgonian emperor love to have some of these weapons for his own use? With which to utterly destroy anyone who defied the empire? She swallowed. Like her people?
She should to talk to Rias, see what he thought about this. She blinked. Or should she? Whatever had happened, he seemed loyal to the empire through and through. What if he merely shrugged and went along with the mission?
Bocrest was watching her through narrowed eyes, and she feared too many of her thoughts traipsed across her face.
“ I understand.” She smiled innocently. Nothing to worry about from her. “You mentioned something about sleep? Where would that be done here?”
“ Officer billets are the single-story building across the courtyard, flag out front.” Expression unreadable, he turned and descended the stairs.
As Tikaya approached the billets, she yawned so widely tears sprang to her eyes. They froze in her lashes. The air smelled of burning coal, and light brightened the windows on an end room. A marine stood outside the door, rifle crooked in his arms.
She paused. Only Rias would be under guard. What would he think if she strolled into his room at night? Would he assume she wanted… No, surely not. Neither of them had slept the night before, and her shoulder nagged like a cranky child.
“ Help you, ma’am?” the marine asked, no doubt wondering why she lurked in the shadows.
“ Can I, uhm, er…” Tikaya pointed to the door before her linguistic skills could fail her further.
Lanterns burned so it was not likely Rias would be in bed naked, though that thought made her blush.
The marine sniggered. “Captain just said to keep him in. Didn’t say nothing about keeping anyone out.”
“ Thank you.”
She slipped inside. A coal stove glowed cherry, spilling warmth into the room, and a narrow bunk piled with blankets awaited. Fortunately-or perhaps unfortunately-Rias was not naked. He sat at a desk, still wearing those shackles, though a pencil tucked above his ear destroyed the felon look. She grinned at the papers scattered across the desk and on the floor all about his chair.
Weariness darkened the skin under his eyes, but he stood and smiled. “Tikaya.”
She strode to the desk, hardly noticing that her hip caught the corner, and wrapped him in a one-armed hug. Between her sling and his chains, it was an awkward embrace, but she did not care. After dealing with Ottotark and Bocrest, it felt wonderful to lean on someone pleasant.
Rias laid his forehead on her shoulder. “I’ve been tasked with pinpointing the origins of the rocket and estimating the area that was affected by the cubes. I figured you’d be too busy puzzling over those runes and I wouldn’t see you for the rest of the night.”
“ Actually, I was busy almost turning Ottotark into a human torch.”
His muscles tensed beneath her arm. He drew back to meet her eyes. “What happened?”
Tikaya shared the story, deliberately putting more emphasis on the mystery of the tortured Nurian than the sergeant’s actions. She probably should not have mentioned Ottotark at all-no doubt Rias would worry about her-but she admitted to a little pride that she had handled the odious man herself instead of falling apart. Maybe Rias would be proud of her too. Dumping kerosene on someone was no feat of brilliance, but a month ago, she probably would not have had the wherewithal to think of anything while locked in a dungeon with a rapist on his way. A month ago, she had been hiding from the world because she was too much the coward to go back to work-to her passion — because she associated it so much with Parkonis and lost dreams.
“ Ahh,” Rias rumbled when she finished the story, and his muscles relaxed. “I feel remiss that I wasn’t there to demonstrate the use of those torture implements on Ottotark. But you’re clever and capable, and, alas for my ego, I don’t think you need my help in these matters.”
She absorbed his praise; it warmed her more than the heat radiating from the stove. “Don’t worry. I need your help in other matters.”
“ Oh?”
“ Someone has to catch me when I trip.”
His eyes crinkled. “That has been a daily occurrence.”