“ Evening, Admiral,” Ottotark drawled. “We’ll relieve you of your weapons now.” The smirk widened. “Captain says you’re back to prisoner status.” He ambled up to the step below Rias and held out his hand.
Rias neither moved nor spoke.
Ottotark launched a punch at his belly. Rias blocked it and slammed his knee into the sergeant’s diaphragm. Ottotark’s heel slipped off the step, and he nearly tumbled to the landing, but he caught himself on the railing. Tikaya started to back away, to give Rias room to fight, but Sicarius stepped in. He held a knife she had not seen him draw in one hand and splayed the other against Rias’s chest. His eyes were icy in warning.
Rias froze.
Ottotark found his balance. Fury contorted his face, and he snarled as he snatched Rias’s weapons. He lifted the musket, as if he might slam the butt of it into Rias’s head. Tikaya stepped down with a vague notion of grabbing the weapon, but Sicarius stopped Ottotark with a word.
“ Enough.”
The men dropped their arms. While punching Ottotark had won Rias nothing, it concerned Tikaya that none of that defiant spirit came out against the assassin. Had his last meeting with Sicarius disillusioned him so much that he would not move against the youth again? If so, that did not bode well for their success.
“ Lead on, Admiral,” Sicarius said. “You two will get us into the weapons cache.”
And then what?
The pair of kerosene lanterns the marines carried did little to push back the darkness in tunnels that had fallen silent. Eerily so. Tikaya began to feel as if their tiny group represented the only people left alive in the stygian passageways.
She and Rias walked side by side, leading the others. Ottotark and Bones kept their pistols trained on their backs. Agarik walked behind them, and Sicarius ghosted along in the shadows, rarely seen, rarely heard, always felt.
Tikaya checked symbols and peered down dark cross tunnels, hoping for inspiration. As soon as the marines had the weapons, they would likely shoot her. She wondered if Rias was expendable at this point too. At best, he could expect a trip back to Krychek. He would probably prefer death.
Rias caught her eye. “Sorry.” He spoke in Kyattese, which she had not realized he knew, though the words that followed proved he was far from fluent. “I was engineer. Picked where explosives go. Had chance.”
The slowness with which his words came out gave her time to puzzle over the meaning behind his choice of language. Bones, Agarik, and Ottotark probably knew no Kyattese, but hadn’t Rias warned her that Sicarius did? He had certainly seemed to be reading that journal.
“ No talking in codes.” Ottotark jabbed Rias in the arm.
“ Had chance,” Rias repeated, brow furrowed as he groped for words. “To drop roof on my people. End it all. Could not.” He shook his head and sighed.
Tikaya glanced between Ottotark and Bones, probing the shadows for Sicarius. Yes, he was there and close enough to hear. Maybe Rias wanted Sicarius to know he had spared the team. Tikaya could not imagine that or anything else winning sympathy from the stony assassin. Maybe Rias just wanted her to know without opening himself for sneering commentary from Ottotark.
Tikaya gripped Rias’s forearm. She could not condemn him for being unable to murder his own people, though it would have been convenient if he had arranged an accident for Sicarius when the men were catapulting over the chasm.
In the darkness ahead, four sets of symbols glowed, marking corners of an intersection. Rias tried to walk straight through it.
“ Right,” Sicarius said, voice cold.
“ I can turn the lighting back on if we go this way,” Rias said.
“ Darkness is tactically preferable.”
Tikaya shook her head; the kid didn’t even sound human. She and Rias had no chance if they couldn’t get the cube powered.
“ What if the door on the weapons room won’t open without the same power that operates the lighting?” Tikaya asked.
“ The lab doors are opening,” Sicarius said.
Good point. She sighed.
“ But it’ll be easier to see what we’re doing in that weapons room if it’s lit.” Rias turned to face Sicarius. “You were in Fort Deadend. You saw what happened to those people. Do you want to risk dropping something? A single broken vial could kill everyone in the cavern.”
“ Turn right,” Sicarius said.
“ Why are you so against turning the lights on?” Tikaya asked.
“ Because you two wish it.” Sicarius jerked his chin to the right. “Lead.”
In other words, he did not trust them. No news there.
A long moment passed before Rias headed right. Even as a prisoner with everything going wrong, he remained outwardly calm, and Tikaya reminded herself there was still time.
Lantern light played over piled rock ahead. This was a different tunnel than she had fled the cavern from, but it, too, had been partially blocked. They clambered over the waist-high rubble. When Agarik hopped down from the pile, Tikaya tried to catch his eye again. But he seemed to be deliberately avoiding them. In plotting to betray the marines, had Rias lost Agarik’s respect?
Boulders and shattered stalactites cluttered the cracked and uneven cavern floor. The illusion hiding the camp was gone, revealing a mess of smashed gear and broken crates. A pair of legs stuck out from a boulder, and Tikaya tore her gaze away. Above, darkness sheathed the rockets, though the number panel glowed, faintly illuminating the door area.
Sicarius detoured into the camp and grabbed a coil of rope and a bow. He plundered quivers, some still strapped to dead people, for arrows.
Tikaya waited to the side, not in a hurry to be helpful. Rias too, wandered into camp, though he looked less certain about what he sought. Inspiration, probably. Ottotark and Bones followed him, pistols cocked. The expression on Ottotark’s bruised face promised he would love to use his.
Agarik bumped Tikaya’s shoulder as he came up to stand by her. He pointed his pistol at her, though his finger did not touch the trigger. While Sicarius collected arrows and the other two men guarded Rias, Agarik chanced a whisper.
“ Ottotark and Bones are planning to kill you as soon as you open the door.”
It wasn’t unexpected, but hearing how little time she had unsettled her nonetheless.
“ Does Rias have a plan?” Agarik murmured.
Sicarius glanced their way. Fortunately, Agarik still had the pistol aimed at her.
Rias bent to pick something up. “Ah, these might help.”
Sicarius turned back to him as Rias hefted Lancecrest’s goggles.
“ We had a plan,” Tikaya whispered back to Agarik. “You people weren’t a part of it.”
“ Rias will have a backup one,” he said. “If I act against the others to help you, I can’t go back, or it’s the end of my career, probably my life.”
She feared they needed his help, but this was their cause, not his. As far as the marines were concerned, getting those weapons was a good thing. How could she ask Agarik to risk his life when it meant betraying everyone dear to him?
But he had already made his choice: “Just wanted to be sure your offer is still good.”
She wished she could hug him, but all she dared was a slight nod. “Beach house,” she whispered. “As long as you want it.”
A slight smile stretched Agarik’s lips. “Surfer with the talented tongue?”
“ I’ll do my best.”
A rifle boomed in a nearby tunnel.
“ It’s time, Admiral.” Sicarius pinned Tikaya with his gaze as he strode to the base of the butte beneath the door. “Bring the ordering for the numbers.”
Tikaya wanted to bring a dagger to stick in his gut, but she kept the thought to herself and the sneer from her face as she walked over. Best not to give him any warning that she would make trouble.
Rias joined her, deliberately turning his back on Ottotark and Bones. “What’s your plan, Sicarius? There are only a few of us and a lot of weaponry up there. Getting it out will be a challenge.”