“Now . . . we think.” Heris rubbed the knot on her head. She felt stupid, and she didn’t like feeling stupid. “We can be reasonably sure Dussahral didn’t put us down near the captain, but he might have put us down near Lepescu, if Lepescu needed a flitter to escape in.”
“Fine.” Cecelia looked thoroughly annoyed. “So now we’ve provided the villain a machina for his deus to come out of.”
“Not if we get back to it and use it ourselves,” Heris said. “Of course, explaining how all this happened might be tricky later—but we can worry about that when the time comes. Nemesis, as well as helpful gods, arrived by air.”
She led the way back downslope. The streambed, she noted this time, had a lot of boot tracks in it or alongside. Some went upstream, and some—not as many, she thought—went down. She wasn’t enough of a tracker to know when they had been made, though they looked fresh.
Cecelia stopped, and looked more closely. “Expensive boots,” she commented. “Look—that pair’s Y and R.” That meant nothing to Heris, who let her expression speak for her. “Custom, high quality, and even higher prices,” Cecelia said. “These won’t be the designated victims, nor even Ronnie’s. I saw most of his things, and his boots are Pierce-Simons. Also expensive, but not quite as exclusive. Might be George’s, but the tracks are too fresh.”
“You can tell?” Heris asked.
“I hunt,” Cecelia said, not looking up. Her fingers hovered above first one print, then another. “Not the girls’ boots, and not Ronnie’s—that means a hunter’s up there somewhere.”
“The way Dussahral was leading us,” Heris said. “Lepescu, I would bet.”
“You’ve noticed that two matching sets go that way and back—” Cecelia pointed. Heris hadn’t noticed that, exactly, but she didn’t explain her own ignorance. “Expensive, from hunting outfitters, but not as unusual as the Y and R pair. One pair of Y and Rs going up, and not coming back, and an even fresher set of Dolstims going up . . . two hunters, but not together. Not long ago, either—within an hour.”
“So we go upstream?”
Cecelia pursed her lips. “I’d say so. Assuming that the men who went downstream wanted our flitter, they’d have it before we could get back. And upstream . . . I’m really curious. I thought Y and R put this symbol”—she pointed at what looked to Heris like a squashed bug—“only on boots they made for the royal family. Does your Admiral Lepescu have a habit of stealing shoes from princes? Or does he pretend to be one?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me,” Heris said. She was past being surprised, she thought; who would have expected someone like Lady Cecelia to know much about tracking? “Let’s go find out.”
She led the way upstream, weapon ready, all senses alert. Was this another stupid idea, following the tracks so openly? What they should be finding was the cave Ronnie and Bubbles might be in, or the militia captain. But she went on, because after all the hunters were the danger here. Anticipation shivered in her stomach. Hunters all, she thought. We’re all dangerous.
All the hunters but two were safely dead: no threat. He touched the canisters in his pocket lightly, careful not to depress the switches. One only still menaced him, and that the most difficult to kill without reprisal. But it had to be done, unless the man could somehow be made to kill the others; after that, blackmail would be easy. It would be easiest to kill, and not attempt that—but he had always found the most difficult hunts the greatest pleasure. Worth a try, anyway, and if he had to kill even that one, he would have no witnesses.
That broadcast from Bandon had startled him—shaken him, he would even admit to himself. He wondered if the guards he’d left with the boy had turned against him. One of them could be difficult. At least his name had not been mentioned. Perhaps the prisoner didn’t know about him. Soon no one would.
The prince led the way back to the cave entrance. They hadn’t been able to talk him out of it, although they had tried. The argument had gone on longer than he’d expected. The girls seemed to think their opinion should weigh equally with his own. Bubbles had even threatened to shoot him, but when he pointed out that shooting a member of the royal family could be a serious offense, she had looked at Raffa and shrugged. Of course she would not shoot him, now that she knew who he was, any more than he would have shot her. One did not prey on one’s own class. And he was the right one to decide what to do; he was the prince, after all. He felt only slightly nervous with the girls behind him carrying their weapons; he had insisted that they not carry loaded weapons, in case they stumbled. He didn’t want them to get in trouble for shooting him by accident, either. Once they were outside, in the light, they could reload—though he hoped to dissuade them. If Ronnie hadn’t been so shaken (he felt sure that he, in a similar situation, would not have been a wet, shivering mess) he’d have had Ronnie carry one of the rifles, but as it was the girls were actually less dangerous than Ronnie. As for any danger—he was sure there wouldn’t be any real danger, not once he told Lepescu who they were—he could protect them himself.
Light shimmered and bounced from the surface of the pool; already it had gone down a few centimeters. He squinted against what now seemed like glare, and never saw the figure that waited until it stepped out of the shadows to confront him. He stared. Who could that be, in a protective suit almost like a spacesuit, with a hunting rifle in the crook of the right arm, and something clasped in the gloved left hand?
“Ah . . .” a voice said. The prince shivered. Lepescu? “You found them. Congratulations. Very good . . . now shoot them.”
“What?” He had misunderstood. He could not have heard the words his memory now replayed to him. Behind him, he heard the girls’ indrawn breath, Ronnie’s muttered curse.
“Shoot them, I said.” When he hesitated, Lepescu gestured with his rifle. “Either you shoot them,” Lepescu said, his voice only slightly distorted by his suit’s filters, “or I will have to kill you, too. Surely you see the necessity.”
“But they’re ours,” the prince said. His voice trembled slightly. “Can’t you see? This is Lord Thornbuckle’s daughter—you can’t kill her. And Raffaele, and Ronnie Carruthers—”
“I thought you hated Ronnie,” Lepescu said. “Isn’t he the one who dishonored you with your—”
“I do, of course, but—but I can’t kill them. Not just . . . just shoot them.” Silently, he begged someone to shoot Lepescu . . . but he had insisted on unloaded weapons. The girls could not reload now. If they tried, Lepescu would shoot . . . and he was in the middle. Sweat rolled down his sides, sudden and cold.
“We should never have let him talk us into this—” Bubbles muttered. “We knew better. He can see me—can you—?”
“Too late smart, too soon dead,” Raffa said. Neither of them had sounded as frightened as the prince felt. He wished he could see them. He wished he could see any help at all.
Lepescu’s hand turned, showing a slick gray canister. “It would be a more merciful death,” he said. “If you care about that.” The prince realized that fear had layers he had never imagined. . . . That had to be a gas canister. Riot gas? Nerve gas? He struggled to stay calm; he had to convince Lepescu.
“But they’re my friends,” the prince said. “You can’t expect me to do it; there has to be another way.” This could not be happening; it must be some kind of joke or test. He had to find the right thing to say. “We could agree to keep your secret.”
“I doubt it,” Lepescu said. Even through the gleaming curve of his face mask, his eyes looked distinctly from face to face. “Lord Thornbuckle’s daughter is not likely to keep such secrets from her father.”