Lapis watched as the glints slowly progressed down the hill, but she lost them after they left the slope. Dread wormed through her chest; she had the sinking feeling that the Minq would arrive after the enemy, and that, as the night before, their attacks would prove ineffective.
She shrieked as the door slid open.
Rodas’s apologetic look did not override the stern fury in her brother’s. She smiled weakly. “The glints are down off the hill, but I can’t see them anymore through the trees in the valley.”
“They’re moving fast,” her uncle said as he sank into his seat and peered through the front window.
“I didn’t mean to cut his pants off,” she told her brother. Rodas snickered and Faelan gifted him a scathing glare he ignored.
“He threatened to attack the science station if Kathandra didn’t hand you over to him,” he said in a searing tone.
Oh.
“She told him to shove it up his backside. I’m not certain it’s wise to push him, considering their lack of security.”
Rodas snorted. “Honjora said Gredy lost the first few rounds he went with her because her father is a Second Councilor, and the family is well-placed and rich. Apparently he ordered his men to take over this station, and they failed because of these family connections, though she didn’t go into detail. His men, at least, aren’t eager to take another crack at it, so it was a resounding defeat.”
Kathandra was a Second Councilor’s daughter? Why did the child of a wealthy and influential family decide to vacate Dentheria for a backwoods outpost in a vassal state?
Her uncle glanced at her. “Honjora’s the other woman who greeted us. She’s the assistant lead scientist here, and her specialty is robotics. She and Cassa are going to tear that thing’s insides out while the rest of us prepare for an attack.” Faelan closed the door as Rodas strapped himself in and turned on the panel. “Since we can’t scan, we’re going to go look. Lapis, where were they when you lost sight of them?”
She pointed. “Around that taller tree that has the remains of a dark grey building peeking over the tops of the other plants.” Shorter trees grew in front, so she wondered if the wall collapsed, taking out the older ones and leaving room for seeds to grow into saplings.
She fought not to chew her nails to nubs as they flew to the slope. How sturdy was the Swift? Could the khentauree shoot it down? Their tech was not Dentherion tech, and they might have weapons the modded protections could not deflect. How could they fight the monsters with the limited weaponry at their disposal?
They followed the river, one wide and filled with shallow rapids between wider, calmer spots. Twisted metal railing lined the northern bank, and the grassy but treeless expanse next to it had a few exposed slabs of road material, with dirt covering the rest. Wheel tracks dug into the soil, indicating someone used the way, and more often than once in a great while. Long gaps vacant of trees ran from the embankment on both sides, and all contained evidence of vehicle passage. The overgrown roads that intercepted the river had larger clumps of rock and concrete and thick metal wire scattered through the water and onto the bank; the remains of bridges.
Foundations peeked through the foliage, and some open spaces held buildings whose walls rose higher than their neighbors, and whose crumbling floors had not disintegrated to the point that trees grew in the middle of them. One dreary, dead-grass meadow contained a single-story, dark metal structure with a large, curved disc on top, pointing skyward and towards the science station. Railings circled it, and two vehicles rested at its side, looking like windowless, metallic boxes on wheels.
“There they are.”
Lapis glanced at Faelan, then stretched her neck up to see over the dash while she remained buckled to the bench.
Two had broken cover, walking over a fallen tree that sat half in the river. Neither looked up at the flying craft. They disappeared under the Swifts’ belly, but she got a better look as her uncle made a graceful turn.
She did not think all the objects she noted through the trees were khentauree, though the shadows and ground growth produced a dappled effect, making it hard to distinguish metal from forest. Before the Swift blocked them from view, she counted around a dozen individual machines carrying or dragging items of various sizes. None appeared to care about the flying craft, which, she supposed, was good news for them.
Her uncle made another sweeping pass; she squinted at the ground. The enemy moved to an outcropping with a perfectly domed cave entrance. A khentauree, with a sling over its hindquarters attached to a sled laden with tarp-hidden somethings, went inside. Another, bearing a large item which it could not see above or around, followed.
How familiar were they with the tunnels? Did the terron act of blocking the underground ways against carrion lizard incursion keep the enemy from progressing further into the ruins?
“Do you see that cave?”
“Yeah.” Faelan took a huge breath. “Are they preparing for an attack, or doing something else?”
“They haven’t shot at us,” Rodas said.
“Maybe we aren’t in range.” Her brother peered out the side of the craft.
Rodas made another loop. The last khentauree with a weapon strapped to its back stopped just before stepping over the threshold. Its torso swiveled backwards to face them, and its head looked up, staring straight at them. The bauble in its chest flared and a cyan ray burst forth, scattering through the air. Lapis braced for impact. Rodas took the craft higher and curved around. The beam stayed strong for a few seconds longer, then broke apart and dissipated; the torso rotated back around and entered the cave, the head still facing them.
Lapis shivered, repulsed by the unnatural movement.
“I think that was a scan,” her uncle said. “The Bit has special paint that scrambles the info gained, but who knows if it works on ancient tech.”
“They’re moving supplies inside.” Faelan craned his neck around. “Any guesses as to what? I couldn’t see anything sticking out of the tarps.”
Lapis looked at the water rushing by. “Dagby said he got wet when he went looking for the mines. Maybe what he found is that overhang cave, or one like it that’s close to the river.”
“Based on our limited info, he might have.” He tapped a screen. “I saved the coordinates. Uncle, let’s see what else is upstream.”
They settled back, the only sound the subtle hum of the Pretty Bit, and stared at the landscape below.
The river had several smaller streams that fed it, though most held only a trickle of water that disappeared under the canopy. If mine entrances rested near them, they would not see them from the air. The remains of buildings dwindled, and she only noted a few saggy shacks collapsed at the water’s edge or in small clearings, most missing roofs, missing boards, overgrown with grass and vines. Three remained intact, and from the look of them, well-used. One had the trappings of a hunter’s camp; a set-up for hide scraping, frames used to hang game, and three large drying racks. Her uncle noticed as well, and they flew lower. Small game hung from one frame while already butchered bits littered the campsite between overturned barrels. Several divots with scattered dirt sat to the southwest, the soil freshly exposed. The door sagged open, a long crack running from the bottom to the center, and a black smear marred the wooden wall next to it.
“We should send someone to check that camp,” Faelan said, his voice heavy. Lapis swallowed; if there were bodies, they either died in the surrounding forest or in the shack. Had the khentauree attacked?
They passed one more metal building with a disc on top, sitting next to one of the fuller streams that had an odd cyan sheen to it. The river itself started far above the treeline of a northwestern mountain that already had a dusting of snow at the peak, pouring from the base of a flat boulder and tumbling roughly down the grey-rock slope and into a bed cut from the earth. No exposed cave sat anywhere near it.
“I didn’t see any open space that might indicate a mine entrance,” Rodas said as he turned away from the rocky mount. “You’d think there would be a large clearing where they stored equipment, vehicles, carts and such.”
“Unless they kept everything underground.” Faelan glanced back at her. “Considering the size of the tunnels Lapis and the others walked through, ones big enough for cranes, they may well have kept most operations there. Think about Jiy. The old train tunnels are almost exclusively below the surface.”
“Jilvayna isn’t the only place that has underground transportation,” Rodas told them. “Many of the larger cities and towns in the mountainous regions of western Theyndora used the earth to protect tracks and roads from the elements. The push to place major thoroughfares underground happened after a protracted cold spell of nearly fifty years, where the mountains received heavy snows that came early and stayed late. How many tunnels are still viable is anyone’s guess, but we should count on enemy activity happening where we can’t see it.”
How nice, yet another obstacle.
They flew back the way they came; Lapis saw nothing else until they came abreast of the first metal station. At the base of the surrounding trees, a dark blur of a lizard-shaped movement caught her eye. Shadows swallowed it, and she rubbed at her lids, wondering if her vision played tricks because she expected to see something. She took a deep breath, trying to drown the growing terror creeping from her chest.
