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His audacity had no limit "You not only broke protocol, but also the ethical code and plain ic!"

Owen shrugged "Despite the treaties and your bogus liaison duties, the Commander is an enemy of Sitia and should be treated as such"

"That’s not your" I shutI could say would alter his opinion Actions would be a better incentive Unfortunately, until Leif and Valek were safe, ht in the cold shelter In the ray clouds obscured the sky and the scent of damp earth rode the breeze I cursed underwith a storet either snow or sleet or rain or a combinations of all three Yippee At least the weather h MD-4 As expected, aour fourth day in General Tesso’s Military District The nasty weather proved to be beneficial for Owen and his men No one stopped to question us In fact, we didn’t see a soul for the next two days, and spotted only a few people after the storm passed

My anxiety increased with every mile Valek had see me him He looked nal ain

Which worried me Combine that with the lack of Ixian soldiers, and I didn’t knohat I’d do once we reached the et his hands on the Ice Moon, but I had been hoping not to sacrifice Valek and Leif in the process

When we reached the border of MD-3 ten days after crossing into MD-4, the guards let us through with hardly a glance at our papers And to nize any of the patrol A se part of me wished to see a fah was quite pleased with our progress, and we arrived near Mine 3-13

twenty-four days after we had left

The large entrance, or rather the big hole disappearing under the foothills of the Soul Mountains was guarded Owen and I watched the two tea the entrance We quickly discovered the mine had been abandoned No uards worked and stayed in a s nearby

I wondered why the Commander hadn’t just sealed this entrance There was a labyrinth of connecting tunnels under the et to the Ice Moon

Owen felt confident that the six of us could handle eight Ixian guards He wanted to attack during the next shift change Then I would use ic to discover the location of the Ice Moon He didn’t wait until his uards He acted as if ti the guards After a short skir theirthe location of the Ice Moon I would lead Owen and the others around the shafts until I could pick thelass anior to mount a search for Valek and Leif before Owen’s collaborators could kill them

Dread pulled on me as I entered the mine Owen lit a handful of torches, and they illue cavern with abandoned equipment scattered on the floor and stacked in the corners He fussed over my slow pace, but in the end it didn’t matter

I continued down the main shaft In the middle of the next cavern, the Ice Moon sat on top of a squat stalaght blue brilliance

Part 10

I stared at the Ice Moon Perched on a stalaglittered with blue fire There had been no atteuards outside the mine Owen and his four men fanned out behind me They drew their swords I didn’t blame them This smelled like a trap Heck, it reeked

We waited for the a happened They searched all the dark corners, adjoining caverns, and tunnels Nothing However, they failed to check the ceiling for spiders I wasn’t about to do anything, ical or otherwise to tip the, there would be nothing up there but real spiders

Eventually, Owen laughed The sound echoed off the black walls "Your Commander has lost his touch" He strode to the Ice Moon

I couldn’t let hi us, it would be too dangerous

Stepping to follow, I stopped as Owen’s et between me and their boss Their swords aiic to find another barrier A null shield protected them Owen must have trained the men what to do e reached the 666 carat blue diareedy victory as he peered at the Ice Moon I yanked a few Curare-filled darts fro in the pocket of ift from Valek In one quick ht on

"She’s ar for the floor The others scattered

Before I could aiic heated the darts to red-hot in ic But he had anticipated ain, blocked me with a null shield The men quickly refored to disable one Four ainst one sword never worked out well for me Three ell beyond my skill set