Tikaya pointed at it. “This one’s a-”
The condor dropped from its perch, plunging straight at her, beak agape, talons extended.
With nowhere else to go, Tikaya smashed herself against the cliff. The giant bird filled her vision, wings pressed against its body for speed. She raised her good arm to guard her face.
A rifle cracked. Someone pulled her up the path.
The condor squawked, clipped the edge of the ledge, and bounced away. Rock crumbled and fell into the canyon. The bird flapped its wings and recovered before tumbling far, but blood spattered the ice on the ledge. The condor sailed on a draft and disappeared from sight before Tikaya recovered.
“ Thanks,” she rasped.
It was Rias who held her, Bocrest’s rifle that smoked.
“ That was peculiar,” the captain said.
“ More than that.” Rias checked Tikaya for injuries and released her. “A familiar?”
“ That’s…” She mulled over the Turgonian word options. “Close enough. I’m guessing it’s a regular creature that someone is manipulating with thought control.” She remembered the snatch of conversation she had overheard the night the Nurians attacked her; the practitioner had read someone’s thoughts to find her. If he had studied telepathy on humans, controlling animals was not a stretch.
“ How would you know?” Bocrest asked. “I thought you weren’t a wizard.”
“ I’m not, but I’ve grown up around practitioners. I can sense when the mental sciences are being used nearby.”
Bocrest scowled at Rias. “Get moving. I want to finish up and get off this mountain quick.”
When they reached the top of the cliff, long shadows darkened the snowy plateau despite the early afternoon hour. They had climbed less than halfway up the mountain, and another granite wall rose to the rear, blocking the sun. Nothing on the plateau caught Tikaya’s eye, but the fantastic view to the north made for a memorable perch. Miles of unbroken tundra stretched to the horizon with ridges and swirls roaming like striations in stone.
Though nothing but drifts adorned the plateau, Rias strode across it as if he expected to find something. He stopped at a protruding edge and pointed.
“ Perfect view of the fort from here,” he called.
“ But there’s nothing here.” Bocrest gestured for his troops to fan out and investigate.
Tikaya floundered through deep snow to join Rias. He held a thermometer and a round bronze device she had seen him consult a few times. She had thought it a compass, but the numbers on its circular face did not represent degrees.
“ Barometer?” she guessed.
Rias nodded once, though his eyes rolled upward as if he were busy with some calculation. Bocrest shuffled up behind them.
“ Worried about a storm coming in?” she asked when Rias’s attention shifted to her.
He chuckled. “No, calculating our elevation. As long as you know the temperature, the air pressure at sea level, and the air pressure where you are, you can-”
Bocrest jerked his hand up. “Nobody cares, Five. Is this the spot or not?”
Rias’s sigh had a long-suffering quality, and, as he turned to face the captain, Tikaya wondered how many times in his career he had been cut off by officers with Bocrest’s temperament.
“ We’re either here or we’re very close,” Rias said. “I was expecting a launching platform, but I suppose it’s possible the rocket was self-propelling.”
“ You brought us up here to find nothing?” Bocrest demanded.
While the men debated, Tikaya removed her spectacles to clean them. She tilted them toward the sky to check for specks and almost dropped them when she spotted a sliver of familiar black metal on the cliff top above.
“ Gentlemen.” She pointed, ending their argument.
“ Ah.” Rias put away his tools. “Another fifty feet.”
“ Thought your math was better than that.” Bocrest smirked.
Rias’s eyebrows disappeared under his wool cap. “My math is impeccable. The tools are imprecise.”
Tikaya grinned, always amused when his Turgonian arrogance peeped out.
Bocrest only snorted and called to his men: “Get some grappling hooks out. We’re climbing.”
“ We’ll go first.” Rias pointed to his chest then at Tikaya. “I don’t want overeager young men thundering around up there before we’ve ascertained the danger.”
“ I’ll go first,” Bocrest said. “You can come after and pull your wounded librarian up.”
Tikaya grimaced. She held her own on the walkable terrain, but even without a shoulder injury, she would have needed help up the cliffs. Already, Rias had pulled her up two, while she scraped and pushed with her crampons, trying use her legs and burden him as little as possible.
“ Doing all right?” Rias patted her on the back as Bocrest stomped away.
“ I’m fine. Do you always volunteer women to lead the way with you into potentially dangerous situations?”
He winked. “Only if I know they can handle it.”
Not for the first time, she wondered if he thought too highly of her.
When Rias pulled Tikaya over the edge, she knelt to catch her breath. Even with his help, the climb had been taxing.
The first thing she noticed was the dead man. The second thing she noticed was that he had not died the same way the marines in the fort had. An enormous amount of blood spattered the snow around him, and methodical cuts marked the body. Bocrest already stood over it, arms crossed, lips dragged down in a scowl.
“ Tortured,” he said. “Same as the one in the fort.”
“ Nurian?” Tikaya asked.
Bocrest was too busy cursing under his breath to answer.
The ledge, similar to the one below, offered another ideal view of the tundra-and the fort. A second cliff to the rear shadowed a tent and a fire pit. The source of the black metal Tikaya had spotted rested near the edge: a flat circle mounted on tripod legs. A shaft tilted upward from the disk and appeared the right size for cradling the rocket. The launching apparatus was not large, but it would have taken more than one man to carry it up there. Or a telekinetics practitioner.
Tikaya walked over to look at the body. “Uh.”
“ Uh?” Rias asked.
“ I recognize this one too.”
“ Can’t be a practitioner,” Rias said. “He looks Turgonian.”
“ He is Turgonian. That’s Lancecrest.”
“ The fort commander?” Bocrest asked. “He’s too young.”
“ No, the Lancecrest I told you about. And actually I think he did study the mental sciences at the Polytechnic. Along with archaeology.” She filled Rias in with the information she had given Bocrest the night before.
“ Huh,” Rias said. “That he’s here is not wholly mystifying-Colonel Lancecrest could have taken command, found out about the tunnels, seen an opportunity for the family to improve its fortunes, and told his little brother to prepare for a relic hunt. But why would the younger Lancecrest have launched a rocket at his older brother’s fort? And why is he now up here tortured and dead? This is…unexpected.”
Bocrest spat. “If something expected happens at any point in this mission, I’ll shit myself in shock.”
Tikaya shook her head at the lurid speech. “Is he truly married?” she asked Rias.
“ Last I heard.” Rias knelt to examine the body more closely. “The empire has failed to keep me apprised of the latest gossip surrounding its officers.”
“ It’s hard to imagine that tongue wooing a woman.” Tikaya headed for the launch pad.
Bocrest dropped his arms. “Was that an insult? Did she just insult me?”
“ I believe she did,” Rias said.
“ I never know with her. She gives insults in the same tone as a scientist analyzing an experiment.”
Tikaya dug out her journal. “You do remind me of the lab rats they keep in the science wing of the Polytechnic.”
“ That was definitely an insult,” Rias said.
“ I know,” Bocrest said. “It’s hard to be offended, though. She’s so civilized when she delivers them. Tidy job on Lancecrest. Whoever ran the torture session was experienced.”