“Do the wheel tracks extend past the hole to Terminal?”
“You’re guessing something— what?” She backtracked, leaving Alister in the darkness as she checked. “Yes, the tracks continue on.”
“I think they are using an augercar to drill their holes in the tunnel,” Alister said, with another cough and a wince. “The explosives are probably only being used to break through the walls.”
“That makes sense.” Taya had never visited Ondinium’s mines, but she’d seen augercars, mobile drilling machines, being driven out of Tertius to Safira O-Base-0 for shipment.
“No doubt the lictors are clearing a passage deeper into Alzana. However, we should head toward Ondinium, instead.”
Taya retraced her steps and laid Alister’s hand on her arm. They began walking, the sounds of war fading as they moved farther from the opening. Taya was worried about her brother-in-law’s limp, but he didn’t complain, using her arm and his cane to support himself.
“The Alzanans didn’t know about the tunnels, did they?” she asked at last.
“I doubt it, or they would have collapsed them long ago.”
“Why did the empire dig them?”
“Mining. Trade. Storage. Spying. I really don’t know for certain. A number of military records were lost in the Last War, and more were destroyed or sequestered during the Virtuous Reclamation.”
“Who would know?”
“Does Evadare Constante still sit on Council?”
“Yes.” Decatur Constante was the conservative System Analyst who had orchestrated much of the invasion’s cover-up and ordered Cristof and Taya into Alzana.
“Eva’s in charge of national defense and security. She may not know all of Ondinium’s secrets, but I’m certain she knows more than the rest of the Council.”
“She doesn’t trust us— Cristof and me.”
He coughed.
“I expect that’s my fault. She and I used to work together developing war scenarios for the Great Engine. I think she would have voted for Clockwork Heart.”
“If you hadn’t taken matters into your own hands first.”
He didn’t answer. She looked at him and couldn’t see anything in his blindfolded face to reveal whether he’d ever had second thoughts about making the precipitous decision to commit murder in order to influence the Council’s vote.
“Did you know about the ornithopters?” she asked.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“The Council is like the Labyrinth Code, Taya; each decatur commands a piece of Ondinium, but none of us command it all. Military secrets weren’t my area of expertise.”
“You stole the Labyrinth Code,” she pointed out.
“Yes, well, I didn’t steal Evadare’s secrets. Anyway, the Alzanans aren’t trying to steal Ondinium; they’re trying to hack it, and both the Council and the Code are very resistant to hacking.”
“What’s the difference?”
“The Alzanans are attacking us from the outside— trying to hack their way through our defenses and into our nation. They won’t find that easy to do. The Demicans, however, could have stolen Ondinium from within long ago, if they’d been the least bit organized. They’ve already made significant changes to our culture and physique. Just look at our skin color. The lower castes, which interbreed with Demicans quite often, have grown progressively lighter, whereas exalteds, who rarely breed out of caste, have remained dark. Tell me, my hawk, do you and Cristof intend to have children?”
Taya scowled at the reminder of Alister’s fixation on social engineering and eugenics. “I don’t have any Demican in me.”
“No, but you have the light skin of Mareaux, which will inevitably lighten the skin of your children.”
“I don’t see why that matters. It’s the soul that’s born to a caste, not the skin.”
“Skin reflects soul. The purer the color, the purer the spirit.”
Taya’s scowl deepened. Alister was wrong, she knew it, but she wasn’t sure how to argue with him when she’d spent years of her childhood wishing for dark copper skin and straight black hair herself. Passing the Great Exam had allowed her to move from the famulate caste to the icarus caste, but it hadn’t transformed her from an immigrant’s daughter to a pureblood Ondinium. That would only happen if she lived well and earned an auspicious rebirth.
Which reminded her of something he’d said in the cell.
“You’re worried about your rebirth, aren’t you? That’s why you’re helping me.”
Her words hung in the air for several minutes. They were far from the entrance now, and the only sounds in the tunnel were their own.
“I have a death or two that weighs on my soul,” Alister admitted at last, his tone studiously casual. “My work was always intended for the greater benefit of Ondinium, but the deaths became problematic. It seems wise to counterweight them while I still can.”
“Do you think the colonel would have killed me?”
“Mazzoletti would have, if Agosti didn’t.”
“Are you going to come back to Ondinium with me, then?”
He fell silent again. Taya didn’t remember him thinking so long before he spoke, before. It was another thing that had changed since his exile.
“I wasn’t intending to come this far with you in the first place,” he said at last. “However, I don’t think I have a choice anymore.”
She bit her lip, thinking of Florianne, left dead in the snow.
“I’ll vouch for you,” she promised.
“I would appreciate that.”
Something boomed and the tunnel shook, stone and dirt falling from the roof. They ducked, holding their arms over their heads. Taya widened the lantern’s aperture to see what was happening through the cloud of dirt and dust. Gunfire rattled, not too far behind.
“Come on!” She grabbed Alister’s arm and pulled him forward.
“What’s happening?” he shouted, stumbling as he held his cane high. A loud mechanical sound accompanied the next crumble of rocks. Taya looked over her shoulder and saw lights bobbing along the side of the tunnel. More shots. One of the lights fell and went out.
“I think the firefight just broke back into the tunnel.”
“Do you have your identification papers with you?”
“Of course not! And I’m wearing the Alzanan coat you gave me!”
“Get rid of it.”
That sounded like a bad idea in the middle of winter, but Alister had a point— being spotted in a soldier’s coat would likely get her shot before anyone thought to ask questions. She grabbed his hand and wrapped his fingers around the lantern’s ring.
“Hold this.”
The noise behind them was growing louder: shouts and shots and the mechanical clank and wheeze of a walking war machine. Taya tore off her coat and threw it into a corner. Lictors looked for castemarks before they looked at clothes, but she hoped her lictor’s jacket would be recognizable enough to make them hesitate before they fired.
Assuming it was the Ondiniums who caught them. A bullet pinged down the hallway. The Alzanans were following the lictors into the tunnel.
“Hurry!”
Alister stumbled and bent over, coughing again. He thrust out the hand holding the lantern.
“I can’t! Take this back!”
Taya grabbed it, then took Alister’s hand and began running full tilt. The last thing she wanted was for one of them to be killed like Florianne by a stray bullet.
The tunnel split.
“Scrap!” She stopped, steadying Alister as he stumbled against her. “Which way?”
“The way that wasn’t used by the mecharachnid.”
“Right.” She pulled him into the narrower tunnel, checking the ground with her lantern. No sign of the machine’s heavy circular prints or an augercar’s wheels
. She retreated several yards from the branch and then stopped to hood the lantern.
“We’ll let them pass,” she said.
“Make sure they don’t see your light.”
“Already done.”
“I’m going to sit down and rest, then.”
She decided to join him. The tunnel floor was cold. She set the lantern by her boot and reached out until her gloved fingers touched his coat. He shifted and his hand touched hers. She didn’t say anything as he clasped it.
They sat wordlessly in the dark, holding hands, as the lictors and mecharachnid were pushed backward, firing and shouting. Then she heard the Alzanans shouting, “fall back, fall back!” A few seconds later, a ball of flame lit the passageway and an explosion shook the tunnels. Taya threw her free arm over her face, twisting toward Alister as a blast of hot air swept over them. The lictors’ screams and cries of agony were barely audible over the ringing in her ears. Something else exploded, sending scraps of metal spinning and clattering down the tunnel.
Only gradually was Taya able to make out the orders being shouted. The Alzanans were heading back to Terminal.
“Bring back any Ondies who can walk!” a commander shouted. “Kill the rest!”
Taya shuddered as shots rang out, fewer this time, deliberate and well-spaced.
The Alzanans drew closer, their lanterns bobbing in the darkness. She scooted back against the wall, pulling Alister with her. The soldiers raised their lanterns and glanced down the tunnel, but their light didn’t extend all the way to where Taya and Alister were hiding. The soldiers kicked chunks of broken mecharachnid aside and continued past the tunnel mouth for a few minutes before returning.
“Nobody down here,” one shouted. “Looks like we got them all.”
“Good; take their weapons and fall back. We’ll round up some reinforcements before we go any deeper.”
Taya waited, her heart pounding, as the Alzanans marched away. Silence and darkness fell, but she didn’t dare move. The smell of blood, burnt flesh, and seared metal stung her nose. Periodically she heard a metallic creak or pop, and small stones pattered down from the roof.
“Are they gone?” Alister whispered at last.
“I think so.”
“We should move on, then.” He squeezed her hand. “How are you holding up?”
“I’m fine.” She pulled her hand out of his and picked up the lantern. Something rattled and she froze. “Did you hear that?”
“The icarus caste reports a disproportionately high incidence of claustrophobia,” he murmured. She heard the scrape of his cane tip as he stood and checked around him for obstacles. “Do you suffer from it, too, Taya? If so, allow me to remind you that these tunnels have stood for over a thousand years.”
“Probably not with people setting off explosives inside of them, though,” she retorted, guiding his hand to her arm.
“Are you using the lantern?”
“Not until I find out whether they posted a guard.”
“Then let me lead.”
She paused, confused, before she understood and laid her hand on his arm, instead. He walked forward, his cane lightly scraping the ground in front of them.
At last he stopped, his cane striking something that returned a metallic clink. Rubble from the broken walking machine, she guessed. She lifted her face and thought she felt a waft of fresher air. They’d reached the big tunnel.
“Anyone here?” he asked softly.
“No.” The tunnel was pitch black. This is what it’s like for Alister all the time, she thought with a guilty shiver.
“Then you had better unhood the lantern. I believe the passage may be a bit cluttered around here.”
She opened the aperture into a narrow slit. He was right; parts of the Ondinium walking machine had been hurled yards down the tunnel. She looked around, then swiftly yanked her eyes away from a bleeding, disembodied arm in the wreckage.
She didn’t want to look any closer.
“Let’s go,” she said shakily. Alister laid a hand on her elbow as she guided them beyond the range of the explosion.
She wasn’t certain how far they’d gone when she heard a scraping sound and was blinded by a bright light that caught her and Alister in the center of the tunnel. She gave an alarmed cry and raised her free hand to cover her eyes, squinting.
“We’re friends!” she shouted in Ondinium. “Don’t shoot!”
“What happened?” Alister asked, dropping his free hand into his coat pocket. “What’s going on?”
As Taya’s eyes adjusted, she saw that the light came from a lantern mounted in front of a mirrored parabolic reflector much farther down the tunnel. She blinked. Both were part of a giant steel mecharachnid that squatted in the center of the passage, its multiple gun barrels aimed directly at them.
“It’s a mecharachnid,” she hissed. “Don’t move!”
A grating, scraping sound came from within the machine. A side door swung open and a black-uniformed figure squirmed out and dropped several feet to the ground. He straightened and pulled a grimy scarf away from his face.
“Taya?”
She dropped the lantern and ran forward to throw herself into Cristof’s arms.
Chapter Sixteen
Cristof held her so tightly that she could barely breathe, but she didn’t care, standing on her toes, her arms wrapped around his neck and her face buried in his shoulder. His embrace felt like a shelter she’d been seeking for days.
“Oh, Lady, Taya, it is you. I was so afraid I had lost you for good,” he said, his voice shaking. “I was so afraid I’d lost you!”
“Taya?” Alister’s voice rose behind them. “Hello? What’s happening?”
Taya squeezed her husband tighter, reassuring herself that he was there, tall, solid, and reeking of machine oil and coal smoke. Only now could she let the tears burn her eyes as she admitted to herself how frightened she’d been for him.
It was a long time before he lowered her back to the ground, and then only to cover her face in kisses. She brushed back his long black hair and returned them, tasting tears and soot.
Alister coughed.
“Cris? Can I assume that’s you?”
Her husband made a meaningless noise in reply, then reluctantly drew back, his eyes still fixed on her face and his arms still wrapped around her. Taya smiled, ridiculously happy to see his sharp features smudged with grease and streaked with tears. His wire-rimmed glasses were fogged up and knocked askew. She straightened them, then ran her hands over his dirty cheeks.
“I’m so glad to see you,” she said, taking in his filthy lictor’s uniform and the soot-smudged scarf wrapped around his neck. His right wrist was bandaged in grimy strips of fabric. “I was afraid I’d lost you, too.”
He mustered his own helpless, crooked smile.
“Sorry. Got you dirty.” He rubbed at something on her cheek. “Tell me you’re all right. Tell me those bastards didn’t hurt you.”
“Is there anybody here who will talk to me?” Alister asked, sounding exasperated.
“Nobody hurt me,” she said. “Did the ship crash? What happened to your wrist?”
“Sprained— we had a rough landing.” He pulled her close and looked at Alister, standing alone in the spotlight. “What are you doing here, Al?”
“Rescuing your wife.” The blind exalted coughed. “I don’t suppose there’s an army of lictors behind you.”
“Far behind me. I’m rear guard for the assault team; they wouldn’t let me go in with them.” He looked down at Taya. “Jinian’s out there, looking for you. If she didn’t find you in camp, we were going to leave the team and search for you on our own.”
“Really?” Taya bit her lip. “Cris, a lot of lictors have been killed already. The Alzanans blew up the other mecharachnid, and they’re pulling together another group to head dow
n the tunnel.”
He tightened his embrace, looking grim.
“All right. We knew they might try to find us.” He held her another few seconds, then let go and stepped away. “Take Alister and keep walking down the tunnel. The main camp’s about an hour away, but you’ll run into perimeter guards before you get there. I’ll join you as soon as I can.”
“No!” Taya grabbed his arms, careful of his bandaged wrist. “The Alzanans have bombs, Cris. They blew the other mecharachnid to pieces!”
“It probably ran out of ammunition. I’ll keep them too far away to throw bombs.”
“Then I’m staying here with you.”
“There’s only room for one person in that thing, and I’m not leaving you out in the open.”
“Well, I’m not leaving you now that I’ve found you again!”
“Oh, please, I can’t stand to listen to any more of this.” Alister stepped forward, aiming the needler at them. “I will take the machine, if you please.”
“Alister, no!” Taya was horrified. Had he planned this all along?
“Don’t be an idiot.” Cristof walked up and grabbed Alister’s gun wrist, twisting the needler out of his hand. “You’d crash the slagging thing into a wall.”
“That’s not the point, Brother.” Alister didn’t struggle, turning his blindfolded face toward Cristof. “I’m staying and you two are going.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Lictor Gryngoth fights the enemy; Imperate Viridinion stays safely behind.”
“We’re not playing games anymore,” Cristof said, his voice rough with emotion. He released his brother’s wrist. “Besides, you’ve already been a hero tonight. I’ll never be able to repay you for saving Taya.”
“Well, I rather hope you get the chance to try.” Alister touched the front of his coat, to the left. “There’s a bullet lodged somewhere right about here, Cris. Under a rib, I think. I don’t have an hour of walking left in me.”
“Alister!” Taya gasped as Cristof grabbed his brother’s coat and yanked it open. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wouldn’t be any better off in Terminal with Florianne, would I?” He smiled tightly and put the needler back into his pocket while his brother swore at the sight of his bloody shirt. “I figured that I had a much better chance of getting decent medical assistance from the Ondiniums than the Alzanans. It’s too bad the main force is still so far away.”
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