He bumped a boulder when he started through the dim cavern, grimacing when the fang punctures in his calf throbbed in protest. He had been happy to ignore the injury when he had been holding Lilah, but if he was going to walk on it, he ought to bandage it. He did have a first-aid kit with him.
Lilah touched his arm. “I’m sorry. I forgot about your leg. Can I clean it for you?”
“Yes, but let’s get out of this area first.” Vann waved toward the tunnel. “That smaller space will be more defensible, too, if magical wolves find us.”
“You’re sure they were magic?” Lilah asked, staying close as they picked their way through rubble and toward the tunnel. Vann had no intention of limping or leaning on her for support, but he appreciated her presence. “That attack happened so quickly that I didn’t get a good look at them.”
“My sword glowed. It does that when magic is around. Or people with dragon blood.”
“It’s glowing now.”
Vann halted and pulled Kasandral from its scabbard. He cursed. She was right. It hadn’t been before—he’d had it out and at the ready when he had been comforting Lilah.
“We may have company coming, then,” he said grimly, glancing toward the open chamber above them and also toward the tunnel they had been about to clamber into.
Soft clacks reached his ears. Claws on stone. Kasandral flared a brighter green.
“We’ll fight out here.” Vann moved away from the tunnel mouth and to a curving wall where the ground was mostly clear from rubble. It wasn’t quite a corner, but at least he would have some stone at his back, and he should be able to fight without tripping over anything. He set his lantern on a boulder, though with the sword glowing, they did not need its light now.
Vann waved for Lilah to stay behind him. She did so, but she also lifted the rifle to her shoulder, aiming it toward the mouth of the tunnel. He could tell she hated having to hide behind anyone. But he knew the firearm would be useless, and he needed her safe and out of the way. He couldn’t understand where these wolves had come from, but he had no doubt that they were magical.
Two black forms shot over the rubble and out of the tunnel. The rifle cracked, echoing loudly in the enclosed cavern. The bullet struck the closest creature in the side. As had happened with the other scaled wolves, the projectile bounced off, doing no damage.
Vann lowered into a crouch with Kasandral raised. Anger and hunger flowed through his veins, along with the usual surge of blood that came when he anticipated battle.
The creatures spun toward their corner. Their eyes glowed yellow. Vann hadn’t noticed that before, but it was unmistakable in the darkness.
They did not charge right away. They padded toward him, those claw clacks filling his ears. One emitted a deep growl.
Had Vann been alone, he might have charged them, trying to disrupt their hunting style, because he recalled the uncanny way the ones up above had timed their jumps, with two of them springing at him at once. But he would not leave Lilah unprotected. He would just have to be fast enough to strike at both animals before they could get through.
The wolves stalked into Kasandral’s pale green light, as large, scaled, and powerful as the ones up above had been. Vann’s leg throbbed at the memory of that encounter. His sword remembered too. Kasandral thrummed in his hand, filling him with the urge to kill these filthy magical creations. He forgot the pain in his leg, his mind emptying of all thought, his muscles relaxing, ready to strike with the speed of a cracking whip.
The predators parted, one going left around a pile of boulders, the other going right. Vann backed up a couple of steps, as far as he could without running into Lilah. He couldn’t let them flank him.
They slowed, crouching low, their tails swishing. So similar were their actions that it was as if one brain controlled them.
Without warning, they sprang. One leaped toward his right side, the other toward his left. He couldn’t dodge, or they would reach Lilah. He braced himself, timing his first strike. He lashed toward the one on the left, cutting into scale, then whipping the sword across to hit the other one. His first blow knocked his target aside, but the other wolf made it farther, jaws snapping for his face. He ducked, and its paws struck his shoulder, its head twisting and fangs snapping, trying to sink into his neck. He shifted his stance just enough to avoid that fate while thrusting upward with the sword. Its green glow washed over the beast’s black-scaled stomach as Vann plunged the blade into its flesh.
The creature cried out in pain, the noise jarring so close to Vann’s ears. He shoved it away with his free arm, even as gravity combined with the wolf’s weight to drop it further onto the sword. The other animal had landed and recovered. It lunged for Vann’s unguarded side. With his sword busy eviscerating one wolf, he couldn’t bring it to bear quickly enough. Lilah leaped out from behind him and slammed the butt of her rifle into the creature’s head.
The blow barely fazed the creature, but it paused for an instant. An instant was all Vann needed. As it lunged toward Lilah, he hurled the other wolf away from him and smashed the sword down before this one could reach her. Rage burned in his veins—it dared threaten her—and he hacked into it again and again, the sword slicing through those scales and tearing into flesh and muscle.
A snarl from his side warned him that the other one wasn’t ready to give up. He slammed his sword into his magical foe one more time, then kicked it into the boulder pile as he spun back to meet the second one. He had wounded it badly, and it staggered toward him instead of springing. Half of its entrails dragged on the floor. He couldn’t believe it wasn’t running, but he met the weak charge, smashing the sword into the top of its head.
The glow left the wolf’s eyes, and it slumped to the ground, its scaled legs crumpling. Vann turned toward the other one, but it had also toppled. Lilah stood with the rifle pointed at its head.
Kasandral’s green glow dimmed, but did not go out entirely. Vann waited, eyeing the beasts, half-expecting one to rise again, that whatever magic powered them would come into play. The animals did not move.
“If those are the same ones that were blocked by Kaika’s rockfall up above, it should mean that this tunnel links back up with the upper ones.” Lilah nodded toward the passage they had been about to explore. Her voice was calm, her hand steady, the hunt apparently not scaring her nearly as much as being squished into dark spaces by rocks.
Vann lowered Kasandral and wrapped his free arm around her shoulders, glad for her steadiness. He would gladly hold her hand during cave-ins if it meant she was ready to stand beside him in battles against magic.
Lilah quirked her dusty eyebrows at him. “Is that a sign that you agree with me?”
“It’s a sign that I’m having appreciative and amorous feelings toward you.”
“Feelings? You?” She smiled and leaned into his chest.
“Amorous feelings.”
“Are those hard to have when your shirt is spattered with wolf blood and there are entrails at your feet?”
“Not at all.” Vann released her, in case that was a hint that she didn’t want wolf blood smeared onto her clothes, but she was smirking at him, so he found that heartening.
“You are a ghoul.”
“Yes. Do you mind?”
“Not when you’re carrying my finds.”
Lilah picked up something from the ground behind the boulder pile. It looked like a piece of trash, but he supposed it might be some interesting Referatu artifact. She waved for him to turn around, so she could stick it in his pack. He wondered how many doodads he would be carrying by the time they found their way out. She patted him on the shoulder when she had finished.
“Is this the kind of work the soldier in your books does for the heroine?” Vann asked. “Carrying things?”
“No, they have a corporal for that. Commander Asylon helps her with solving puzzles. He also drives off evil Cofah invaders for her.”
“As any man should.” Vann nodded toward the tunnel. “Shall w
e see if we can find our way out now?”
“Yes, but Vann?”
“Yes?”
“I want you to know that even though my life is in ruins—” Lilah waved toward the battered pedestal, “—I’m having a good time with you.”
It took him a moment to recognize the pun for what it was. “Ruins, huh?”
She nodded solemnly, not quite squelching the gleam in her eyes. “That was one of my husband’s jokes. He was an archaeologist.”
The lantern chose that moment to wink out, the last of the kerosene leaking out. Maybe the gods did not appreciate science jokes.
“Good thing we still have your sword.” Lilah pointed at the blade’s glow.
“Yes, but I think it will go out as soon as we move away from the wolves.”
“What if we cut off one of the tails and take it with us?”
Vann snorted at the idea of such a lurid trophy dangling from his belt, but would it work? Or would Kasandral’s glow dim as soon as the blood of its enemies cooled? “Are you sure I’m the ghoul?”
She grinned. “Positive.”
He snorted again, then bent to do the deed. They could try.
While he worked, Lilah poked around the chamber and found a few more historically significant doodads to collect. He stole a few glances in her direction as she bent over and crawled between two boulders. He wondered what she would think if he offered to distract her again soon, perhaps with more than words. He smiled wolfishly at the thought of taking her off to his room to visit his weapons collection, this time with the door shut and no distractions.
“Are you enjoying cutting off that tail or are you thinking of something else?” Lilah asked, noticing his smile as she strolled back and picked up the rifle.
Vann clasped her hand and kissed her. Even though he hadn’t minded comforting her when she had been scared, he preferred the adventurous gleam that rode in her eyes now.
“You didn’t answer my question,” she murmured when he broke the kiss.
“I was thinking that it’s rare that you find a woman that will accept a kiss from you when you have a wolf tail hanging from your belt. You find someone like that, you better keep her.”
“Wise words,” Lilah murmured, squeezing his hand. “And I wouldn’t mind being kept, but you know I can’t stay here, right? I have to go back to the university, to my work, my career.”
Vann knew that, of course, but the words made his shoulders slump. Once her research was done, she would return to civilization, and he would be stuck here for another nine months. And after that? He was a soldier; he could be sent anywhere. Unless she wanted to give up everything to follow him around, this couldn’t be anything more than a brief affair. He couldn’t imagine her walking away from her career, not when she was so proud of those papers she was publishing.
“Maybe you could retire and join me,” Lilah offered, eyebrows rising with hope. That heartened him, made him think that she wanted more, something long-term. But he couldn’t give up everything to follow her around, either. The job frustrated him, but what other work was he qualified for?
“I’m too young to retire, Lilah,” he said softly. “And pummeling people—and magical wolves—is all I know how to do. I doubt your university would give me a job as your bodyguard.”
“Sadly, I don’t usually need a bodyguard in the lab or the classroom. I’m sorry my life isn’t as exciting as the heroine’s in the Time Trek novels.”
“You wouldn’t have much time for research if it was.”
“I suppose not.”
• • • • •
Lilah followed Vann across boulders and through a mix of natural passages as well as old Referatu ones, sometimes crawling, sometimes walking, and once, squirming through a narrow gap on her belly. That was the hardest, with her claustrophobia threatening to return in full force. Vann was fearless, though, and stopped to wait for her, clasping her hand or her shoulder reassuringly. He even smiled when she made a few more jokes to distract herself. Those smiles had been nonexistent when he’d been around his troops. It was too bad he hadn’t been interested in the idea of retiring or switching jobs. But as he had said, she did not know what other employment she could imagine for him. Bodyguard? Security specialist? Professional assassin? She shuddered at the last. At least working for the king and the army was working for the good of Iskandia.
An hour turned into two and then three, and they did not encounter any more wolves. Desiccated droppings did promise that some creatures visited the tunnels from time to time. Lilah thought she and Vann were gradually moving upward, but it was hard to tell. Not that they had any choice insofar as options. They had come across other tunnels, but they had all been blocked. Fortunately, Vann’s sword continued to glow, activated—or perhaps irritated—by the presence of the magical wolf tail.
“Some bones up ahead,” Vann said, crawling down a rubble pile and into an open section of tunnel, this one lined with smooth gray walls. A power crystal had survived the destruction and shone down from the ceiling. Twenty feet farther on, more rubble had fallen, another pile that they would have to climb past.
Lilah skidded off the rocks and came to her feet beside Vann. She caught him stifling a yawn and wondered if night had fallen outside. He handed her his canteen and nodded toward a partial human skeleton up ahead, the lower half stuck under the rubble pile. Even allowing for that, it seemed too small to belong to an adult.
Lilah took a drink before heading forward. Fossils might be her passion, but the deaths of these people were too recent, too disturbing. Further, the link to Vann’s family made the horrible fate the Referatu had suffered more personal than she would have liked.
Vann walked forward with her, holding his sword aloft so it would shed light on the passageway.
Lilah bumped something with her foot. She thought it a rock, but it rolled away, bouncing off a wall before slowing to a stop. A ball?
She picked it up, and it hummed in her hand, then flashed with blue and red light. Startled, she almost dropped it. After having that pedestal all but explode, she felt gun-shy around artifacts that glowed.
The hums shifted in tone, then discernible notes came from the device.
“It’s playing a song,” Lilah realized.
Vann stopped at her side, his knuckles tight around his sword hilt as he eyed the device. The blade glowed a stronger green.
“I think it’s a child’s toy,” she said.
“You don’t think weapons can play songs before blowing up?” he asked, apparently also thinking of explosions.
Lilah bounced it on the ground, and the song changed, a dong ringing out in the middle when it hit and again when she caught it. The tune continued happily, inviting her to play with the ball. She looked sadly toward the skeleton, having a hunch as to why it appeared small.
She walked slowly toward the bones and knelt beside them. It was definitely a child’s skull, perhaps that of an eight- or ten-year-old. A boy, she guessed, from the dusty trousers and button-down shirt, the clothing still largely intact. The scavengers hadn’t been as savage as with the soldiers. Maybe they had known this had been a resident instead of an invader.
She snorted to herself. Probably not.
A shadow fell across her shoulder. Vann.
He picked up something that lay a few feet from what would have been the boy’s hand. A slingshot. The band had grown brittle and snapped, but the ends still dangled from the Y-shaped wood. Lilah wondered if the mother’s or father’s bones were under the rubble, or if the child had been trying to escape on his own.
“My nephews have one of these,” Vann said, his voice hard to read. “I had one as a boy too.”
“A childhood staple throughout the ages.”
“Yeah.” He looked to the skull and back to the toy. “I didn’t really think—I mean, I guess it’s obvious—but I didn’t imagine that the witches—that there would be children here. When it happened.”
“I hadn’t considered it, either
.”
Vann turned the slingshot over in his hand a few times, then laid it back on the rock where he had found it. “I’ll check the next stretch of the tunnel.”
He headed into the gloom, not waiting for a response.
Lilah decided to add the ball to the small collection of artifacts she had taken to study further, this one for practical reasons if nothing else, since it lit the way whenever she bounced or shook it. The cheerful song also seemed to fight against the oppressive darkness, the feeling that they were walking through catacombs.
They traveled another hour or so, Vann speaking little. He started to limp, and she remembered that he had never taken her up on the offer to bandage his leg. When she spotted an alcove mostly empty of rubble, she spoke up.
“Can we take a break?” Lilah decided he would not want to appear weak in front of her, and would deny the leg bothered him if she pointed it out. “I’m getting tired and hungry.”
He had already seen her panicking, so she felt no need to pretend toughness.
Vann looked down at his sword—he had been carrying it and using it as a light instead of sheathing it. “We can rest for a while. I’ll stand guard. I don’t want to relax too much since the sword might not warn me about approaching magic right now, not while it’s being fooled by a wolf’s tail.”
“Ah.” Lilah headed into the alcove. “Does that mean we can’t have sex?”
She’d meant it as a joke, but his head swung around like a pointer catching sight of a pheasant in the bushes. That weary expression completely disappeared.
“I can have sex without relaxing,” he said.
“Oh? I don’t think you’re doing it right then.”
“I’m open to instruction.”
“Are you? I thought you might be mature enough to be set in your ways.”
He lowered his sword tip to the ground and raised an eyebrow at her. “I’m fairly certain you just called me old, but I’m still willing to have sex with you.”
“I bet your troops have no idea you’re so magnanimous.”