Rebel Ice (21 page)

"Turn around," Jarn told Resa. She held out a cloth to Daneeb. "Soak this in the water."

A vibration shimmered across the ice floor of the cave, and the three women went still. It continued only for a few minutes before it died away, and the ice was still again.

"Tremors," Daneeb said. "Deep below."

"Yes." Jarn looked at the ground beneath their feet. "But what is making them?"

The Toskald defense forces expected the rebels to attack during the hours of darkness. They still patrolled the skies during the daylight hours—their leaders were taking no chances—but the bulk of the patrol ships came down from the skim cities as soon as the sun set over any territory.

Teulon had expected this, and compensated by moving the last of his troops into position only during the brief periods of time when the patrols were in mid-change, or had already flown over the battalion's present position. Otherwise, the rebels stayed under cover and remained where they had been ordered to camp.

At times it seemed maddening, even to Teulon, but they had to wait. For the attack on the armory trenches, they were waiting specifically on the perfect conditions under which they could carry out a successful campaign, and take all the trenches on the same day.

"They will not detect us if we move at night or day," Hasal often argued. "Why do you not give the order?"

Teulon refused to move one unit. "We wait until the planet is ready to help us."

Akkabarr finally obliged him with the storm he had wanted. It rolled in from the east, a fierce squall that pulled more winds and ice into itself until it swelled into one of the rare storms that covered most of the inhabited surface. The storm was immeasurable, an enormous blanket that settled over the planet and expended its violent energy on anything that dared move out of shelter. No ship could fly in such weather, and the Toskald retreated to their cities, confident that the rebels would do the same.

That was the moment Teulon gave the order.

The battalions, which he had stationed in key positions, received the order and sent their troops down into the tunnels they had been burning out by redirecting vent shafts under the ice for the last year. Like the armory trenches, the secret, complex maze, now reinforced to provide safe passage for those who used it, was carefully mapped and well-known by the rebels who had built it. The storm kept the Toskald's subsurface monitors from transmitting any images of activity below, so no one in the skim cities would know what they were doing or could respond to it. The rebels were free to move through the tunnels to the walls of the armory trenches. There the demolition squads began cutting through the plasteel with harmonic cutters salvaged by the Iisleg and repaired by their Raktar.

One hour after the order went out the first squad signaled that they had cut through.

"Trench F417 has been breached," Hasal said, breathless from running through the tunnel the troops had Teulon skimmed the list. "Drones?"

"Disabled." Hasal grinned. "The surge torches you designed worked exactly as you said they would."

Teulon had known that the automated security systems were impervious to cold, pulse weapon fire, or any sort of mass reprogramming. He could not use standard demolition ordnance or flamethrowers, either, for that would set off the contents of the trenches.

The drone designers, however, had been too confident of the primitive surface conditions. They had never considered that the Iisleg might take advantage of the natural bioelectric power present in their environment. The surface dwellers were never permitted anything but the most basic technology, and that was never improved. The designers even considered the ice that encased the trenches impregnable.

In his former life, Teulon had been an engineer and a shipbuilder. As experienced salvagers, the Iisleg had been hoarding components and alloys for years, learning slowly through trial and error how to use the simplest of them. They did not know how to reactivate the malfunctioning drones that the Toskald had replaced and discarded over the years, but they collected and stored them, all the same.

Teulon showed them how to deprogram the drone before reactivating it, which was when they discovered the drones' one vulnerability. He then designed the weapon to exploit it: the surge torch. With his knowledge, and the Iisleg's hoarded tech, they built their own armory.

The weapon gathered bioelectricity from both body friction and the surrounding atmosphere, concentrated it, and emitted it in a focused stream. The stream was not particularly powerful—it could inflict only an unpleasant jolt to any living being—but it did not have to be lethal to living flesh. The drones guarding the armory trenches had been designed to withstand only conventional weaponry. By experimenting on the reprogrammed, reactivated units, Teulon discovered that they were utterly helpless against surge torches' streams.

The inventory list from Trench F417 listed some interesting items, Teulon noted. He indicated on the pad which ones the rebels were to take for themselves, which they were to leave behind, and how he wanted the trench mined and resealed. What he was interested in was what the squad leader had reported as "clear rocks with strange markings."

Crystals.

"These clear rocks are etched crystals. I want them wrapped, packed, and delivered to the battalion commanders before the storm breaks," Teulon told Hasal, showing him the item on the inventory list. "Send a signal to all trench search teams and give them a description of the crystals. They are to retrieve any they find within the trenches and also have them delivered to their commanders."

Hasal frowned. "Why must we retrieve rocks? Even if they are decorated, we have no use for such baubles."

Teulon handed him the datapad. "You have your orders."

"As you say, Raktar." His second pocketed the device. "There is an emissary who arrived from the east just before the storm descended. He says he flew around it, but it is unlikely that is true."

Teulon had been expecting another assassination attempt, but not so soon. "What iiskar does he claim?"

"Close enough for these vral the Terran saw to have come from their camp?" Hasal nodded. "Why did you not say before, when we were out there?"

His second flushed miserably. "Truth be told, Raktar, I forgot."

Teulon considered this. He counted on Hasal's excellent command of intelligence, and had never known him to fail to present the right facts. His second never complained of exhaustion, but the strain was evident on his face.

I demand too much of him
. "Tell me of Navn."

Hasal's expression lightened, and he almost stumbled over his words as he related what he knew about the rasakt. "Navn is a traditionalist. An isolationist, as well. He trades outright only with Sverrul. Since he became headman after his father's death in battle, he has been consistent, if somewhat unimaginative, with his tribute to Skjonn. His people are excellent hunters and metalworkers." Hasal thought for a moment. "Navn's father was a fierce warrior, and a vengeful one. He slew many during the tribal wars, and became a legend among the eastern tribes. Even if Navn the Younger is not the man his father was, he was likely brought up to follow the oldest ways."

The Iisleg who followed the oldest ways were some of the finest warriors Teulon had ever seen. Unfortunately, they also remained loyal to the Kangal long after other tribes had turned to the rebellion. Such traditionalists believed that the best ensleg was a dead one stripped of its worgald. Teulon had been hard-pressed to bring them over to the rebellion. "Is Navn a declared loyalist?"

"I cannot say. With Navn's son here to petition to join the rebellion, likely not." A peak formed in Hasal's lip. "Doubtless Navn's people grow hungry. They were some of the first to be cut off by Skjonn."

Orjakis
. Yes, this made more sense now. "I will see him shortly. Leave me."

Teulon sat in darkness for a time, clearing his thoughts and preparing for the meeting with Navn's son. If the emissary did not try to kill him, Teulon might actually learn something that could aid Reever in finding his wife, and confirm one of his own suspicions—that the Toskald had sent spies down to infiltrate the rebellion. The fact that Navn was a traditionalist would help—the tribes that followed the old ways were also among the most superstitious—and Navn's son might become worthy of his grandfather's blood.

One raid on an unguarded storage depot had yielded some interesting garments, which the battalion commander had forwarded to Teulon's headquarters. The Raktar reserved several for his personal use, and now went and changed his robe for one of them. After he had armed himself, he signaled for Navn's emissary to be sent alone into his planning room.

The man turned out to be a boy, barely large enough to fill out his hunter's outfurs. "Raktar, I bring greetings from my father, Deves Navn, rasakt of Iiskar Navn. I am Aktwar Navn, his son." Aktwar bowed, although it was obvious that he could not see Teulon.

Teulon stayed in the shadows. "Why do you come here, son of Navn?"

"My father petitions the Raktar and bids him allow the men of Navn to join in defending Akkabarr from the depravities of the windlords and their ensleg allies." The boy presented a scroll with a slight flourish.

"We do not defend Akkabarr," Teulon informed him. "We will attack the windlords first and take their

"I spoke in ignorance, Raktar." The boy went down on his knees and bowed his head. "My father wishes to support the rebellion in any manner the Raktar sees fit. Forgive my clumsy tongue for implying otherwise."

Teulon rose from his chair and walked into the light. "Look at me."

The boy slowly lifted his head. His eyes seemed to bulge out of their sockets for a moment. "You are not Iisleg. You are ensleg." He eyed the Toskald uniform Teulon wore. "You are a windlord?" "I was their slave. As you are now." Teulon crouched down to put himself on eye level with the boy.

"Will you and your tribe still fight for me?" "I—my father—" "Go back to your iiskar, boy." Teulon rose and stood over him, leaving himself open, waiting for him to

strike. "I have no use for your kind." "You ensleg are everywhere." Aktwar rose and began to move toward the shelter flap. Teulon seized his shoulder and spun him around. "What did you say?" "Nothing." Aktwar cowered. "What other ensleg have you seen?" "It was no one. Only a woman. My father cast her out." The boy grimaced. "He should have let me kill

her. It would have been better for her to die." Teulon grabbed the front of his furs and dragged him up onto his toes. "Describe this woman to me." "She is not like you." Aktwar swallowed hard. "She is human, like us. Only she is not like us. She is not

like any woman I know. She killed a ptar with a piece of metal and one strike." Teulon released the boy and turned away. "Your father, he killed her?" "No. She is skela now." Aktwar's gaze shifted, and his voice lowered. "Some of the hunters say she

cannot die." He looked back at the young hunter. "What?" "Nothing kills her. Not being alone on the ice, not being given to the jlorra, not the ptar, not beatings,

nothing." Aktwar's shoulders moved. "Had she no face, she might be vral, spirit made flesh. They say

they have come to walk the ice daily now." "She might also be a drone, modified to look and act and smell and bleed like a living woman," Teulon told him.

The younger man gaped. "There are such things?" "In the skim cities, there are all manner of drones." He checked the hour. The largest storms never lasted longer than a day and a night, Hasal had told him, and it would take until dawn for the battalions to breach the remaining trenches. By the time the Toskald realized that every weapon on the planet was now in rebel hands, it would be too late. In a week the rebels would be in position to launch their first

Teulon could lead the attack on Skjonn from Iiskar Navn as well as anywhere. "As soon as the sky clears, you will take me and my men to see this ensleg woman who will not die."

Chapter Twelve

Rasakt Kuorj would not lend Reever a skimmer, something for which he apologized.

"My men need them here, to be ready for the time when the summons arrives," Kuorj explained as they walked through the small encampment. "Once the armies are ready to make their attack on the windlords, an alert will be sent, and all of my men must take up arms, go, and join them."

"All of your men?" Reever had counted twenty, if that.

"Only I am permitted to remain behind, with the women and the children," the headman said. He nodded to one of the hunters passing by. "It is the same with every iiskar. I would say this general of ours wants no challenge to his leadership."

"If the fighting draws close, you may have to relocate the camp," Reever said.

"We have made ready to move at any time." Kuorj made a casual gesture toward the shelters. "The women can do it by themselves."

Iisleg women, Reever was learning, could do a great deal without help from their men. Yet they were utterly subservient. He looked out at the large patch of darkened ice just beyond the camp, where the hunters' game was butchered. While telling Reever about Iisleg customs, Kuorj had given him scant information about the outcast women.

Reever had the distinct impression that there was more to the skela than he was being told. "When you relocate, what happens to the skela? Do they accompany you?"

"No." A flicker of distaste crossed Kuorj's face. "They are Navn's concern, not mine. He has the largest iiskar in this territory." He followed Reever's gaze. "You show peculiar curiosity about them, and you should not. We have no contact with the unclean, ensleg. They are as the dead are to us."

They were also the only Iisleg permitted to remove bodies from crash sites in this territory. One of them had to have seen Cherijo. "If this is true, why do you allow them to make your game fit for your consumption?"

"They handle the dead. I do not know how it is for ensleg, but we cannot." Kuorj glanced
at
his wristcom. "You have eight hours before the light is gone. It will take you three to trek to your destination, four or five if you tire easily."