Iron Seas 03 - Riveted

camp, andfollowing your tracks has already caused enough of a delay.” Di Fiore stepped aboard the lift platform. “Leave the walker. My men will gather your things from inside and drive it back to the rail camp—where it is sorely needed to clean up the destruction you wrought.”
    David glanced down at Annika. Her gaze had narrowed on di Fiore’s back. David squeezed her hand, and she looked up.
    “All right?” he asked softly.
    She nodded—not trembling now, but her face set and a bloodthirsty glint in her eyes. David thought that his expression probably appeared the same.
    “We’ll wait until the right time.”
    Her fingers tightened on his in response. Together, they boarded the lift.
    Di Fiore smiled. “I told you this was destiny, Mr. Kentewess. You can’t fight it.”
    Not at this moment, perhaps. Di Fiore had landed a heavy blow—but David would be damned before he stayed down. He’d wait for his opportunity, the right moment to strike back.
    And he wouldn’t hesitate to use a steel fist.

Chapter Ten
    Annika stood silently with David, clinging to his hand and looking over the side of the ferry cruiser to the glacier below. She could feel the anger boiling off him, but he didn’t express it, didn’t show it. Annika doubted that she was as successful hiding her feelings. She didn’t speak of them, though. She didn’t want to give di Fiore the satisfaction of knowing how angry she was…and how helpless she felt.
    She glanced back at the quarterdeck, where di Fiore chatted with the pilot. He looked no different than any other man aboard. A dark beard covered pleasant features, his expression mild and open.
    The face of a monster.
    He’d been responsible for that cold, calculated death on Heimaey. She couldn’t imagine how it had been done—or why. Some experiment or project. Annika wasn’t certain that she wanted to understand. She only knew that they had to get away.
    There was no place to hide on the glacier. Unlike the pass, itwasn’t flat—the surface of the ice buckled, creating peaks and valleys; crevasses yawned open, a sheer drop into darkness. But all of it was barren, white. If they escaped from a camp, di Fiore would only have to look through a spyglass from the deck of the ferry cruiser to see them in the distance. The glacier wasn’t large, though. From the center, a half-day’s hike east or west would take them to the edge. So their best hope of escape would be to leave at night, to get off the glacier as quickly as possible, and return to Vik before di Fiore managed to find them. Once there, she and David could warn the town.
    It would be dangerous, terribly dangerous, especially if they were hurrying. A tumble into a crevasse would be deadly, whether they were in a troll or not.
    But they had to escape. They had to hide. Annika didn’t believe for one moment that di Fiore would let them go when David finished the project his father was working on.
    She angled her head closer to David’s. “I thought he wanted you on the peninsula south of Smoke Cove.”
    “That’s what he said. Perhaps that was the lure.”
    “What could he want on a glacier?”
    “A glacier with a volcano beneath.” His gaze narrowed—looking at something she couldn’t yet see. “I read about it during my preliminary research on the island. They called the volcano Katla, the witch.”
    A witch? “That’s not one of our stories.”
    “No. This was from before the fissure eruptions. Legend is that someone stole the trousers that let Katla run endlessly without tiring, and she killed the thief. But the thief’s ghost returned for her. So she ran from him and threw herself into the volcano. The eruption created a flood that destroyed the nearby villages.”
    Annika frowned. “But the volcano is covered by ice. How could she throw herself in?”
    He grinned, shook his head. “I don’t think you’re supposed tointerpret the story so literally. But looking at it now, I do think there’s some truth to it.” His humor faded. “Look at the surface, how often the ice has broken apart and shifted. Those depressions, as if the rocks beneath are sinking. There’s likely water trapped beneath, melted but unable to escape until the ice breaks and shifts again. And if there’s an eruption, the lava melts the ice from above or below and floods the surrounding land.”
    “Oh.” She could have told him that. “Quite often, in fact. We rarely come this way, particularly across the plains to the