Bosmont stopped talking and tilted his ear toward the trail. More scrapes sounded. It didn’t sound like an animal. The noise was regular and rhythmic, like someone trying to chisel away stone.
“You leave any men out here?” Vann murmured.
“No, sir. I was waiting for the report from the capital before doing further digging.”
Vann slung his rifle off his shoulder and waved for the captain to let him go ahead. The trail wasn’t wide, so Bosmont had to step off to let him pass, and as he did, his boots crunched on rocks, and a pebble fell free, skidding down the slope. Vann glared at him and made a second sign, pointing at the earth to tell him to stay put rather than follow. What if the Cofah had sent another incursion team to spy on the outpost or try to steal some artifacts? It had happened in the past, before Vann had been assigned here.
Excitement surged through his body at the thought of facing enemies, real enemies. A true threat, not a handful of soldiers challenging him in the gym.
Vann stalked up the trail, his boots silent on the loose rocks. He’d been trained for this. Death Walking, as an early commander had called him. He’d liked the name, thinking it suited him fine. What didn’t suit him was sitting at a desk and cataloging artifacts in a remote outpost, a thousand miles from enemy territory.
Whoever was up ahead must not have heard Bosmont kick the rock, because the scrapes continued. When the ground leveled slightly, Vann slipped off the trail so he could approach from an unexpected direction. He glided between the evergreens, stepping lightly, toe first, barely disturbing the pine needles and rocks, despite his size.
The first man came into view, someone with a scraggly beard and even scragglier clothes, a mix of ripped flannel and stained buckskins. He cradled a hunting rifle in his arms and gazed up the very goat trail that Bosmont had been leading Vann down. About fifty meters and a few dozen trees behind the man, a team of men and women in similar clothing hacked at a cliff.
The steam-powered mining equipment that Bosmont’s team had brought out earlier in the week stood undisturbed, tarps still covering it and protecting it from rain. Evidently, the would-be miners were more interested in what lay in the earth than in the equipment. Bosmont’s dragon bones? Or had the intruders heard that power crystals could be found within the mountain? From his position behind a tree, Vann couldn’t tell what they sought, but they had tunneled partway into a cliff, or perhaps Bosmont had started that tunnel before finding the bones.
More scrapes and grunts came from within the dim passage, so Vann couldn’t get a reliable thief count. All he knew was that these people were illegally trespassing on ground claimed by the army.
Unfortunately, underneath the days’ worth of dirt, they had the blond or brown hair and pale skin typical of Iskandians, so he doubted this was some Cofah invasion team. If it had been, he could have killed the intruders outright. No, these were likely opportunists. Thieves. Vann would be expected to detain them, or to simply scare them away, since this was a first offense. Maybe he would get lucky, and they would put up a fight.
He smiled at the idea and counted the weapons around their illegal campsite. There were several rifles, but none within arm’s reach of where the people worked. A few of the thieves wore knives sheathed at their waists, but most of them bore only the tools they were using.
Vann stalked through the trees toward the man who’d been posted as a guard. He was far enough from the others that Vann thought he could subdue him without alerting the camp.
As he approached, the man frowned down the goat trail and took a step forward, his finger curling around the trigger of his rifle. Had Bosmont continued after Vann ordered him to stay put?
With a growl half-formed in the back of his throat, Vann quickened his pace. The man lifted his rifle, pressing the butt into his shoulder. Vann sprang from behind a tree slightly behind his target. The guard started to turn, noticing him with his peripheral vision, but Vann struck first, wrapping one arm around his opponent’s neck at the same time as he smothered the man’s mouth with the other. From there, he could have easily broken the guard’s neck. The temptation flashed through him, along with the sensation of exhilaration and power that he always felt in such situations, but he reminded himself that this was not a Cofah soldier. It was some Iskandian thief. Disappointed that this wasn’t a true battle, he smashed the man’s face into the nearest tree with enough force to stun him, if not knock him out completely. As the thief slumped to the ground, Vann took his rifle and withdrew the dagger from the man’s belt sheath.
He glanced down the trail, spotting Bosmont hiding behind a tree, and almost scoffed. The engineer might look tough, but he’d almost gotten himself killed. Like most soldiers who had not been trained for the elite forces, Bosmont had the stealth of an elephant.
Vann shouldered his newly acquired rifle. He almost hurled the dagger down the mountainside, but it had a nice weight for throwing. He kept it, flipping it a few times as he slipped back into the trees. The scraping sounds had halted, so he chose a route that would keep him hidden instead of approaching down the trail. He shouldn’t have smashed the thief’s face against the tree. That had made noise. A choke would have been a wiser move, but he’d been impatient. And, as always, not quite able to sublimate that quiet rage that simmered inside of him, that always brought with it the urge to choose the violent option over the more controlled option. That rage had been a far worse demon in his youth, but it still rode him, even in his forties.
Two men with chisels had stopped working and were murmuring to each other. Thumps and bangs and voices came from the tunnel. For the first time, Vann spotted what had caused Bosmont to pause in his plans to build a new mine shaft on this side of the mountain. A huge skull, cracked but still recognizable as such, was embedded in the pale rock cliff, the jaw hovering over the top of the tunnel. A pile of small bones had been extricated and lay on a canvas tarp nearby. Unless Bosmont had removed those bones, the thieves were likely here for the fossils instead of for the power crystals. That was a lesser crime, but Vann couldn’t let them get away with it, nonetheless. This was the king’s land, and those were his fossils.
From his spot on the slope below the tunnel, Vann could count the thieves inside now. In addition to the two people outside, one more man and two women toiled within. He considered attacking, beating the stuffing out of the two outside the tunnel before their comrades could come out, and then dealing with the three others. But he’d already discerned that these weren’t warriors, and he doubted it would take much to scare them away. Scaring them would not be as appealing as doing battle, but he subdued his more violent urges. Still, he approached stealthily, so he could surprise them and they would be less likely to cause trouble. He picked up their two closest rifles, slinging them over his shoulder by the straps before casually making his presence known.
“You’re trespassing on the king’s land,” Vann said, standing so he could keep all of the thieves in sight as he spoke. “Leave now, or I’ll shoot you.” He didn’t bother to hide the note in his voice that implied he wouldn’t mind that.
The two men outside whirled toward him—they had been looking in the direction of their lookout and gaped at Vann’s appearance. The noises inside the tunnel halted.
“The king’s land?” one man with gray in his beard asked, glancing toward a rucksack where his rifle had been propped. “There aren’t any signs.”
Vann waved the rifle, emphasizing that he had it. “All land in Iskandia is either privately owned or belongs to the king. You wouldn’t have the right to scavenge here under any circumstances.”
The burly man next to the graying fellow dropped a hand to his waist, to the hilt of a knife resting in a leather scabbard. He flicked the snap that held the blade in, loosening it. A familiar hum of anticipation ran through Vann’s body, charging him like electricity. Would these fools attack him? He wore his uniform and had most of their weapons. They would be idiots to pick a fight with him.
“D
on’t, Brik,” the older man warned. “We’re not attacking a soldier.” The graying man nodded to Vann. “We didn’t know we couldn’t look here. We’ll take our things and leave. Delma, Sanikar, Myla, we’re leaving. Come on out.”
They didn’t know. Sure, they didn’t. That was why they had set a guard, because they were so clearly innocent.
“Leave the bones,” Vann said.
“Those are ours,” the burly fellow said, his face reddening with indignation. “We spent the last week—”
“Ssh.” His older comrade stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“Those are the king’s bones,” Vann said, “and this is his mountain.”
In truth, he wouldn’t care if someone walked off with some old bones—they weren’t nearly as valuable as the crystals deeper inside the mountain—but he was here to guard the secrecy of this outpost and this mountain, and he didn’t need treasure hunters telling the world about all of the goodies they had found here.
“I tied up the other man,” Bosmont said, walking into view, his own rifle in hand.
“Good,” Vann said. “Come tie these men up too. They seem to think they’re above the law.”
“Delma,” the leader said, the name almost sounding like an order.
His buddy—he’d called him Brik—pulled out his knife as something sailed out of the tunnel mouth. Dynamite. Vann had seen enough of the brown cylinders in the armory to recognize a stick immediately. He threw his confiscated knife at it and ran to the side. He trusted his aim, but he didn’t know if striking the dynamite would deflect it enough to protect him.
Brik charged straight down the slope at him, his dagger now in hand. Vann could have shot him, but he turned one of his purloined rifles into a staff instead. As the stick of dynamite landed in the rocks, he feinted toward the thief’s stomach with the butt, then switched the direction of the attack, sweeping it up to club him under the chin. His opponent flew through the air, landing on his back and never coming close to reaching Vann with the knife.
The stick of dynamite exploded as Brik struck the ground. Dirt and rocks flew, turning into tiny projectiles. The ground shuddered, and smoke clogged the mountainside.
The thieves inside the cave—two women and a man—tried to use the smoke to disappear. They fled down the goat trail in the opposite direction from which Bosmont had come. Though the roar of the explosion hid other sounds, it did not last, and Vann heard and saw pebbles shifting as the people ran. Only Brik, now unconscious, and the older man were left behind—he had stumbled to the ground when the dynamite exploded.
Vann thought about dropping to one knee and shooting the fleeing thieves, but the dynamite had been a distraction, not an attack. Besides, he believed he could catch them and apprehend them, so he ran after them. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Bosmont approaching the older thief and assumed that the captain could handle him.
Vann raced through the smoke, his long, powerful legs pumping with the eagerness of a hound chasing its prey. He ran every morning, and he doubted any scruffy thieves could outlast him, but he grinned as he tore after them, elated at the chance to prove it.
Before he’d escaped the range of the smoke, he caught up with the woman in the back. He hooked her leg and tripped her. She gasped and went down. Vann kept after the other two thieves and soon caught them. The woman gave up as soon as she saw his face. The man put up more of a fight, and Vann ended up dodging a pickaxe and smashing another face into a tree. Soon, he was marching all three people back to join their comrades.
“Under the king’s law, assaulting an officer in uniform is a crime,” he said, pushing them into a pile with the other two thieves. “Perhaps even more so than stealing historically significant relics from the king’s land.” Vann was tempted to drag them back to the outpost and put them to work, but he couldn’t forget that the crystal mines were a top-secret facility. Maybe the thieves already knew about them, but he couldn’t take the chance. “I’m going to let you walk away, but not with any of your gear.” He waved at the chisels, pickaxes, and dynamite. “Leave everything, and get off this mountain.”
The thieves grumbled under their breath, but nobody picked another fight with them.
“If I catch you out here again, I’ll shoot you.” Vann did not have the authority to do that, and two of the thieves gaped at him in alarm. He gave them his evilest grin and growled, “Only the trees would know.”
With that threat delivered, the band of thieves scurried away.
“You looked as if you like being assaulted, sir,” Bosmont commented as they watched the hasty retreat.
“Of course. Don’t you?”
“Not when dynamite is involved.”
“Wimp.”
Bosmont snorted and walked over to the bones on the canvas tarp. “I hope these fossils were broken when they found them. I’d hate to get blamed for that.”
“By whom?” Vann stuck a hand in his pocket and eyed the pile indifferently.
“I don’t know. I figured someone at headquarters might send science people out to take a look at them, science people who might say cranky things about us for getting their bones broken. You don’t think they’d extend a man’s assignment here, do you?” The most profoundly distressed expression crossed the man’s face.
“You look like you’re about to piss yourself. You didn’t have that look on your face when they threw the dynamite, did you?”
“No. Because they threw it at you, not me.” Bosmont managed a quick smile, but the haunted expression in his eyes remained. “But, sir, I’ve been here a year. More than a year, on account of the engineering miracles that were needed after the dragon flattened half the buildings in the outpost. I don’t know if you’ve noticed yet, but there aren’t any female soldiers here. It’s been a year since I got to... exercise my lower regions.”
“Shit, Bosmont. I don’t want to hear about your regions.” Vann stalked over to the tarp and found some rope, so he could tie the corners together and tote the fossils back to the outpost. “Besides, there are female prisoners. From what I’ve heard, they’re quick to jump in your bed if you invite them.”
“The women here are even uglier than the men.”
“After a year, does it matter?” Vann missed pretty women as much as the next man, but he’d reached the age where a few months without sex wouldn’t kill him. He hadn’t expected there to be any opportunities to exercise regionally up here when he’d gotten the assignment, and he had to accept that. He’d chosen his fate months earlier. What he really regretted was that there weren’t any opportunities for promotion here. His entire chain of command had probably forgotten he existed, and scaring away some scruffy thieves would not change that.
“Well. A little. It might matter less if there was more alcohol around. Are you sure you should disturb those, sir? It’s bad enough the thieves already yanked them out of their resting place. I...” Bosmont rubbed the back of his neck and stared dubiously at the tarp. Seven gods, he wasn’t afraid of some thousand-year-old bones, was he?
“They’ll rest fine wherever we put them.”
“You don’t think that maybe... ah, never mind, sir.” Bosmont stared uneasily around the torn-up side of the mountain, shifting his weight from foot to foot on the loose pebbles. A wind gusted through the trees, knocking branches together, and he jumped.
And to think, Bosmont was one of his better officers up here. Vann grunted and hefted the bones over his shoulder. They were heavier than he expected, more like rocks than the lightweight hollow bones of something that had flown. If no “science people,” as the captain had eruditely called them, showed up to study them, maybe they would make decent paperweights in the headquarters building.
A broken rib bone slipped out of the tarp and dropped at his feet. Sighing, he picked it up and stuffed it into his pocket. Bosmont’s mouth opened in mild horror at this carelessness.
“What, did you want this one?” Vann asked, his humor piqued. “Maybe you can win some
of those female prisoners to your bunk by promising to let them touch your special bone.”
“That’s awful, sir.”
“Probably so. There’s a reason I’m not married.”
“Just one?”
“More like seven or eight. That I can remember. My last lover gave me a list.” If Vann could think of General Arelia Chason as a lover. Though married, she had decided he would be an enjoyable alternative to spending nights with her white-haired husband, and he had decided... mostly that he didn’t want to deal with the repercussions of rebuffing a senior officer. Besides, he’d figured he could use a higher-ranking ally when the king had been kidnapped the winter before and suspicion had fallen on him. In the end, the relationship hadn’t done much to help him, and Arelia had delighted in trying to domesticate him, as she’d called it in a comment he’d overheard her make to another female officer. The one positive of being sent up here was that he’d been able to escape from her without having to worry about career repercussions. The last he’d heard, she was domesticating a handsome major in intel now.
“At least when Zirkander was stationed here, he had his witch to keep his toes warm at night,” Bosmont said with a sigh.
A growl escaped Vann’s throat before he could stop it and remind himself that he wasn’t a dog, no matter that he was carrying bones around.
Bosmont arched an eyebrow as they started up the trail. “Was that for Zirkander or for his female acquaintance, sir?”
“Quit saying his damned name.”
“Ah, Zirkander.”
Vann glared at the captain. “The bastard was the C.O. here for what, a month? The miners all worship him and ask when he’ll be back, and even the soldiers get starry-eyed when they talk about him. Worse, I get miners coming to my office and asking for days off because of some book-reading incentive program he started, one that they keep forgetting I promptly canceled. These people are murderers who are here in lieu of being hanged or shot. They’re not scholars we’re trying to groom for leadership.”