5.5 - Under the Ice Blades (11 page)

“No kidding.”

Angulus laughed, then wished he hadn’t because some of the dust in the air made its way down his throat, and he ended up coughing. He turned his head out of a notion that he shouldn’t cough all over a woman he was discussing a relationship with. She didn’t say anything while he wiped his eyes and recovered, trying to find his voice again. At least she didn’t pull away from him. Not that there were many places to go. Something had fallen right beside his boot, and escaping the counter might prove difficult.

“
I’m
actually fairly simple,” Angulus amended, “but the position can make my life complicated.”

“Yeah.”

“Kaika,” he said slowly, not sure if he should make his other confession. Her responses hadn’t been that encouraging thus far. “When you asked if you were being punished because of your new assignment... that was the furthest thing from my mind. You’re right that others could train the young pilots, but I wanted to—and I know this is selfish—I wanted to keep you here in the city. Because in the past, I couldn’t—I mean, when Nia was alive, I felt compelled to be faithful, or at least discreet with, uhm, brief indiscretions.” Hells, what was he saying? Nothing cogent, that was certain. “What I mean is that I’d never wanted to be the kind of promiscuous philanderer that my father was. Don’t get me wrong. He was a competent ruler, and I adored him as a boy, but his exploits with women were a joke around the castle. I know they hurt my mother, who loved him a great deal. So my point is—” Yeah, what was that point again? “—even though my second wife and I had an arranged marriage and were never in love with each other and I’ve, ah, admired you for a long time, I never felt that I could act upon that. Not to presume that you would have wanted to be acted upon.” Seven gods, he didn’t even know what that
meant
. He needed to blurt out his confession without any more of this tongue-tangling explanation. “Now that Nia is gone, I thought that if you were in the city for a while, I might find a chance to get to know you through more than reports.”

There. He should have said that from the beginning. If she was used to men who spoke their minds comfortably, as he imagined most soldiers did, then she’d probably be repelled by his fumbled babbling.

The long silence that followed did not encourage him.

“You’ve read my reports?” she finally asked.

Her tone was difficult to read. She didn’t sound horrified, but she didn’t sound joyously enthused by his admission, either. She must think the entire situation bizarre and maybe surreal. Maybe he should have simply asked her to dinner, after all. At least then she wouldn’t have been caught by surprise; surely, she knew what it meant when men asked her out for a meal.

“All of them,” he said.

“I should have tried harder to make them legible.”

Judging by the way she was pointedly not commenting on his confession, she must not want to deal with it. Maybe she wanted to pretend it hadn’t happened. That hurt, but he wanted to give her a way out, if that was what she wanted.

“I’ve studied cryptography and multiple languages,” he said. “I was usually able to decipher them.”

“That’s good.”

“Yes.”

And with that, he had no idea what else to say. The trickle of debris falling out in the chamber had stopped, so maybe it was best to see if they could escape the confines of the counter. For more reasons than one. At least he’d proclaimed his interest. She could decide if that meant anything to her. Or not.

“Shall we see if we can get out of here?” Angulus lowered his arms as much as he could, so she wouldn’t feel that he was holding her to him.

“Probably a good idea. But... Sire?”

He almost told her to call him Angulus, but he didn’t. If she wanted to be something besides king and officer, then they could do that, at least in private. But for now, they needed to be professionals. “Yes?”

“Most of my gear is out on the ledge. I left the heavy stuff by the general’s flier because I didn’t know what we were going into or if we’d be attacked and need to be able to move quickly. I have a few things in my utility belt, but most of my explosives are out there. I can’t blow us out if I need to.” She sounded anguished, like she’d made a decision that would cost them their lives.

He found the idea of setting off explosives from
inside
of a mountain insane, but all he said was, “If it makes you feel better, I have no idea where my rifle is.”

“Not really. You’re not a soldier. It’s not your job to stay snuggled up to your weapons around the clock.”

Kaika sighed and wriggled out of his lap, clunking something—her head?—on the counter above them. That didn’t keep her from continuing. Judging by the clatter and crunches, she was able to leave their corner and venture into the lab. He found that heartening. Maybe the rockfall would be off to the side and not hinder them.

“I also don’t know where my lantern is,” he said, shifting to hands and knees to crawl out.

“I have one in my gear. On the ledge.” Another clatter announced her progress toward the door.

Angulus climbed to his feet and tried to follow her. He tripped over fallen furniture before he had gone more than two steps. Small mountains of wood and boxes and broken equipment cluttered his path. He ended up crawling to the door, only to cut his hand on broken glass.

“I’m out in the chamber,” Kaika said.

“Is it as dark out there as it is in here?”

“Unfortunately, yes. Also...”

He groped his way to the door. “What?”

A rock shifted and fell. In the dark, Angulus struggled to get his bearings. It took him a moment to visualize the layout and discern where Kaika’s voice—and that falling rock—had come from. A few more rocks scraped, then thudded to the floor. Kaika grunted. Was she trying to climb over something?

With the dread of certainty settling in his stomach, he said, “The entrance is blocked, isn’t it?”

A few more rocks clunked, then it grew silent.

“Yeah,” Kaika said, chagrin in her voice.

So much for his state-of-the-art facility being built to withstand bombings. The
chamber
had survived—as he padded toward Kaika’s voice, he didn’t run into any debris piles—but the engineers who had hollowed the place out apparently hadn’t thought entrance tunnels were important.

He brushed against the cylindrical casing in the center of the chamber. The reminder of its presence, along with the big rocket housed within, spurred bleak thoughts. He might have been thinking sarcastically about the engineers, but the fact that the casing hadn’t toppled over was reassuring. The last report he’d received had spoken of preparations for testing out in the eastern desert, so it was possible that this rocket was loaded with a deadly payload and ready to launch.

Angulus reached Kaika at the same time as a match flared to life.

“I found your lantern,” she said.

“Good. I think.”

The weak light did little to illuminate the cavernous space, but he could see what he’d already assumed, that the entrance tunnel was blocked and that the chamber itself had held up much better than the labs. Even in the labs, the structural damage was minimal; it was mostly the furnishings and equipment that had made a mess and left them cowering under a counter.

Angulus spotted his rifle lying on the floor amid shattered glass near the lab and remembered he had left it propped by the door. He was fortunate he hadn’t needed to use it. He walked over and grabbed it before returning to the rubble-filled passage.

The cement ceiling of the tunnel had come down, along with countless tons of rocks above it. He couldn’t tell if it was plugged all the way to the entrance or only for a few meters. If the latter, they
might
be able to dig their way out. He eyed some of the larger pieces, gauging their weight. With the supplies in the facility, they should be able to rig some pulleys to help.

“Do we try to dig out?” Kaika asked. “Or see if that other tunnel is in better shape? Because I don’t want to be in here if the earth shakes again.”

“Neither do I.” Angulus stroked his chin, the thickening beard stubble scraping his fingers and attesting to how long of a day it had been. “But I would like to know
why
the earth is shaking.”

The pained keening had stopped, at least for the moment. He wondered if it had been some harbinger of the earthquake. He seemed to remember a random piece of trivia that dogs knew earthquakes were coming before people felt them. Of course, whatever had made that noise hadn’t been any dog.

“Volcanic activity?”

“It’s been forty years since a volcano erupted in the Ice Blades, and you would have to go back hundreds of years to find mention of a significant earthquake in this part of the world.” He headed toward the unauthorized tunnel as he spoke. They would
have
to explore it now. Just because the chamber had survived the last quake intact did not mean that another wouldn’t bring down the ceiling—or damage the rocket and cause the explosives inside to blow this mountain to pieces. “I suspect this is a local phenomenon.”

“I’ll go first, Sire.” Kaika jogged ahead of him as soon as she saw where he was going. “I may not have all of my gear with me, but I have enough.” She patted the bulging pouches on her belt.

His first instinct was to object to letting a woman go first, but he reminded himself that Kaika was the experienced soldier here and probably more likely to survive danger than he. His ego did not want to accept that, but his rational mind won the battle. He spread his hand, inviting her to enter ahead of him.

Angulus followed right behind, half crouching and half crawling on his knees since the passage was less than half his height. Carrying the lantern and his rifle made the journey all the more awkward, but Kaika did not complain, and she was nearly as tall as he. She scrambled through the tunnel as easily as she had vaulted through that obstacle course on the training grounds. He sighed to himself, annoyed that he wasn’t as agile, but he had broader shoulders and a thicker build.
That
, he told himself, was the only reason he was slower.

Kaika paused and looked back at him. They had gone about thirty meters, with the tunnel making a turn so that the chamber had already disappeared behind him. Not that he would have been able to see it, anyway—the lights had not come back on.

“You don’t have to wait for me,” Angulus said. “I’ll catch up.”

“I’m sure you will, but I thought you might have insight into this hole.” She pointed at something on the ground in front of her.

Not a something, he realized as he drew closer. A
lack
of something. The tunnel continued on ahead, the same uniform three feet in diameter, but a similar-sized hole opened up in the ground. Kaika knelt at the edge, peering downward. A thick cable came out of the hole and disappeared into the dark passage ahead of them.

“My insight has been lacking in all regards tonight,” Angulus said, squeezing in beside her, his shoulder bumping against her back. “Sorry.”

He doubted she would object to touching, given the circumstances, but he
had
just been telling her about his dinner date fantasies. If he had made her uncomfortable, she might find this forced closeness awkward.

“Sorry for bumping me or sorry for lacking insight?” She looked at him, her face only a few inches from his, her lean features warmed by the soft lantern light. Angulus had meant to look into the hole, but he found himself gazing into her eyes, noticing that they were more hazel than brown and appeared almost green in this light. They had never been this close before, and even though it should have been the last thing on his mind, he thought about kissing her. She had full, inviting lips. At least they seemed inviting to him, though she wasn’t offering one of those sultry smiles she was very good at. She was probably waiting for him to answer her question.

He pulled his gaze from her lips and opened his mouth. Er, what had her question
been
?

“Yes,” he said. “All of that. Uhm, let me take a peek.”

“All right.” One of her eyebrows arched. “At the hole, right?”

“Yes.” What else would he have looked at?

This time, her lips did curve up into a smile, and he had a feeling he had missed a chance to say something playful or witty. Or both. Damn it.

He lowered the lantern into the hole and leaned forward as far as he could. To his disappointment, she shifted to the side to give him more room. Touching had been nice.

Focus, he growled at himself and dipped his head below the edge.

“Huh,” he murmured. “It doesn’t go straight down. It angles back and looks like it goes under us, toward the way we just came.” He leaned his head down further, twisting to lower the lantern.

Kaika dropped a hand to the back of his belt, as if she could hold him back if he was foolish enough to lean out too far and fall in. He would probably end up taking both of them into the hole where they would tumble down to the bottom. The slope would be climbable, but it was steep.

“It’s a good sign when a woman grabs your belt, right?” Angulus prodded the cable and suddenly realized what it was.

“More so when she grabs the buckle than the back of your belt.”

“Ah, that’s unfortunate. You were getting my hopes up.”

“I
am
checking out your ass, if that helps.”

Angulus pulled up so quickly, he conked his head on the low ceiling. He barely noticed. “Really?” His voice sounded alarmingly squeaky in his ears. A man at his age really should be better at flirting.

She didn’t answer his question. Her eyes were twinkling, but Angulus couldn’t tell if she was amused because they were flirting and she was liking it, or if she was just amused by his ineptness at the game.

“Anything interesting in the hole?” she asked.

He thought about pretending to misunderstand which hole she was talking about, but didn’t want to risk being crude. Besides, they had more important things to worry about. Even though this tunnel had survived the last quake, he would prefer not to be trapped in it when another came.