While they heaved the arm upward a few inches, I squirmed out from under it. My pelvis did indeed hurt, but I didn’t think any of the bones were broken.
“Is there anything else magical nearby that you’d like to warn us about?” Willard asked. “Preferably more than three seconds before it attacks us?”
“No?” Sindari? I asked silently. Nothing else?
Nothing. Not even a hint of magic.
“No,” I repeated more firmly.
“Good.” Willard gave me a hand up and returned Fezzik. “Next time you order me a magical weapon, get me something automatic. Preferably in a caliber suitable for taking down a paraceratherium.”
“A what?” Even if I’d known what that was, I wouldn’t have been able to pronounce it.
“The paraceratherium is an extinct species of hornless rhinoceros—it’s believed to be the largest land mammal that ever lived.” Willard raised her eyebrows. “Books, Thorvald. Books without dragons in them.”
“Yeah, yeah. You intel people are insufferable. I was just a pilot, remember. As for weapons, I’ll keep your preferences in mind. Thanks for saving my butt.” I liked to think that I could have rolled to the side quickly enough to avoid that blow, but it seemed like a good idea to show gratitude to people who helped out, thus to encourage repeat performances.
With my first step, my pelvis let me know it hadn’t appreciated being hurled down a glacier or having a golem land on it. I stifled a gasp of pain, not wanting anyone to think I would be a liability going forward. We hadn’t even seen a dark elf yet.
I would walk it off. It would be fine.
“You’re welcome,” Willard said. “It was my turn.”
“To save my butt? I don’t think I’ve saved yours recently. You’re not out in the field much.”
Willard raised her eyebrows.
Oh, the magical cancer thing.
“Technically,” I said, “you were only in danger from that because the dark elves wanted me out of the way.”
“I thought they wanted my office out of the way.”
“Because your office sends me out after dark elves.”
“You’re kind of self-centered, you know.”
“I’ve been hanging out with a lot of dragons.”
“That’ll do it.” Willard got on the radio and called for one of the helicopters to return to pick up Clarke, who tried to bravely protest that he could go on, but he had a laser-beam hole straight through his shoulder.
I walked gingerly along the bottom of the gully as I cleaned Chopper and reloaded Fezzik while hoping the pain pulsing between my spine and hip would go away. Willard sent a couple people into the cave to see if the explosion had cleared a route—and to make sure no other enemies were back there.
You are injured? Sindari was watching me.
No.
There’s no need to lie to me about such things.
I thought you might feel pity for me if you knew and insist on letting me ride on your back instead of walking.
Predators don’t feel pity, but I would allow you to lean some of your weight on me while we maneuver across the ice. Tigers do not permit themselves to be ridden like one of your horses. How degrading.
Are there any animals on this planet that you don’t believe you’re much better than?
None that have permitted themselves to be domesticated. A tiger would never allow this. Even a tiger on this backward planet.
I once saw a tiger with a saddle and a rider. I rotated my hips in a slow circle. A sharp pain stabbed me. That was worse than walking. Where was a dragon with healing hands when I needed him?
Now I know you’re lying.
It might have been in a cartoon. I decided not to explain He-Man to Sindari.
As the whir of chopper blades reached my ears, a shadow fell across the gully. Clouds that hadn’t been in the sky earlier were drifting across the sun. Darker, grayer clouds had formed on the northern horizon, hiding distant Mount Baker from view. Below our lofty elevation, clouds had also drifted in over the lower peaks of the Cascades. Hopefully, if any precipitation came, it would fall below us.
“Colonel?” Banderas’s voice came over Willard’s radio. “There’s nothing back here. No cave that continues on. Just a nook that the golem must have been waiting in. Behind it, the ice goes all the way down to the ground. It looks like it was deliberately knocked down, so we could try blowing another hole, but…”
Lieutenant Sabo spoke next. “I think they sealed this off completely and left that present for us.”
“Us specifically?” Willard looked at me.
“I don’t see how they could have anticipated us,” I said slowly, though I wasn’t confident of that. I’d invaded their Seattle lair, so maybe they had assumed I would eventually show up here. “But they would have expected someone to come looking for the missing scientists.”
“Why would they have bothered the scientists at all? Until now, the dark elves were circumspect and didn’t do anything to let anyone find out about their presence here. Now, we’ve got dead scientists and a blasted monitoring device in one night.”
“Maybe they found out we were coming and wanted to get rid of anything that could point to them.”
Her eyes narrowed. “How would they have found out? A spy in the office?”
“You think Gondo or Freysha?”
“I’d be shocked if it was Gondo.”
And I had a hard time imagining the tool-loving elf colluding with dark elves—or any elves colluding with dark elves—but that could all be an act. Just because she was young didn’t mean she was innocent or to be trusted.
“Are those the only new people?” I asked.
“Yes. And the only people in the office who aren’t at least partially human. That doesn’t necessarily mean others couldn’t betray us, but ninety percent of the staff are in the service and have been for years. The civilians are part-time advisors, like you, and don’t know that much.”
“Oh? Are they ignorant on extinct hippos too?”
This time, Willard’s narrowed eyes were for me. “You know what I mean. They don’t know that much about our operation or what we’re investigating at any given time.”
“So Freysha or Gondo could be a plant from the dark elves. Or there’s another possibility.” My phone buzzed, and I pulled it out, surprised a message had come through.
“That they’re very close to enacting their plan and don’t care if we find out about them?” Willard asked.
Amber’s name popped up on my phone. I started to answer before realizing it was a voice mail. The message had come in while I’d been fighting, or at some random point when there’d been enough reception for it to get through. I’d never heard it ring, so it had probably gone straight to voice mail.
“Either that, or the scientists stumbled onto their lair and had to be taken care of,” I said.
“That seems a grim thing to hope for, but it would mean we have more time. If they’re planning to mess with the volcano tonight… I’d hate it if the only thing we can do is start disaster mitigation procedures.” Willard clenched her fist. “I want to prevent the disaster. Before innocent civilians get hurt.”
When I tried to access my voice mail, the reception flipped from one bar to no service. I hadn’t even moved.
I hoped Amber had decided she was ready to talk, not that something more dire was happening. Unfortunately, I had no trouble imagining the dark elves, having learned of my daughter’s existence, sending some magical minion to kidnap her.
“That had better not happen,” I growled.
“I agree,” Willard said, though we were talking about two different things.
21
The injured Corporal Clarke had been picked up, the helicopter pilot promising to return in two hours, but as the clouds grew thicker, wreathing the peak of Rainier and detracting from visibility, I wondered if that would happen.
My right hip and pelvic area throbbed with each step as I waited for the ibuprofen I’d taken to kick in. Hopefully, if we went into battle again, adrenaline would keep me from noticing the injury. All we were doing now was trekking across the glacier toward the crevasse we’d seen earlier, doing our best to keep from sweating and getting our clothes damp. The temperature had dropped noticeably with the sun blotted out.
After poking around and agreeing that whatever cave system had existed had been too thoroughly collapsed to reopen, no matter how many explosives we used, Banderas had suggested going to the point where those tracks had disappeared and seeing if I could sense anything from the rim of the crevasse.
It was the only other lead we had, so it made sense to follow it, but I didn’t like the idea of fighting six more enemies, enemies that could be nearly as large as that golem. They weren’t the ones threatening the people of Puget Sound. I wanted to find the dark elves, capture or kill the two scientists, and destroy whatever device they had concocted to make the volcano erupt.
Willard, who was walking ahead of me, cleats digging into the ice with each step, kept eyeing those clouds. “The forecast was for clear skies this morning and partial cloud cover in the afternoon and tomorrow. Nothing about rain, snow, or fog that would make helicopter landings difficult.”
“A weather report that wasn’t correct? In Seattle? How odd.”
She glowered over her shoulder at me. “They can usually get the short-range forecast right.” She stopped, waiting for me to catch up, and lowered her voice. “Do you think dark elves can control weather?”
“You know more about their abilities and lore than I do, I think.”
“There’s not that much about them. Even the other magical species don’t know them that well, at least those I can count on as informants. Elves—surface elves—are intimately familiar with them, or were at one time.”
“You should have asked Freysha for the scoop on them.”
“You think I should have asked the person we were accusing of being a spy a half hour ago for mission-critical information?” Willard asked.