The song of a bird caught her attention and she paused, studying the brush closely for a look at it. When she caught a glimpse of it at last, she felt a welling inside of her almost like … joy. It was a tiny thing, moving like quicksilver among the branches, but pausing now and then to trill out it’s lovely warble. It was green, which she supposed accounted for the difficulty in spotting it, beyond its size. It had a jaunty little cockade, though, of bright red, which curled over one of its bright blue eyes.
“Is something amiss?”
Khalia looked at Damien a little guiltily. “I stopped to rest a moment,” she lied. “And I saw that little bird. What is it?”
Frowning, Damien turned to follow the direction of her finger. He flushed and looked away. “I don’t see anything.”
Puzzled by his strange reaction, Khalia glanced toward the bird again. “There. See it? It’s almost the same color as the leaves…but it’s such a pretty little thing.”
Damien let out a long suffering sigh. “It’s a sheashona,” he said shortly.
Khalia glanced at him in surprise. “But….”
“If we don’t make better time, we will spend two more nights on the trail,” he cut in shortly. Reaching for her hand, he clasped it firmly in his own and tugged her into motion once more. Khalia slid a couple of glances in his direction, saw that he was studiously ignoring her and allowed herself a faint smile.
Chapter Eleven
Khalia wasn’t certain whether they made good time or not. The streams they’d been following the day before had never gotten much deeper than mid-calf. In truth, the mud sucking at the soles of her boots had made the going harder than the resistance of the water they were wading through. By mid afternoon, however, the branch they followed on their second day was nearly to her knees and growing steadily deeper.
Damien took care that she didn’t fall too far behind him. Each time he noticed that she’d dropped back, he stopped, waiting until she caught up to him and then grasped her hand and tugged her along behind him. As the water deepened, they made less and less progress, but Khalia refrained from complaining and Damien continued until darkness began to close in. Finally, they waded out. Khalia dropped to the bank as soon as they reached it, tugging her boots off and pouring the water out. After a moment, Damien settled beside her and emptied his own boots. “We’ll travel overland from here.”
Khalia nodded, too tired to care at the moment. Her feet, she saw, were pruned and white from the water. She didn’t particularly want to put the boots back on, but she knew the skin would tear easily in its current condition. “I don’t suppose we could just sleep here?” she asked a little hopefully, tugging the boots on once more.
“It would not be wise. Animals come to the stream to drink at night.”
“All right then,” Khalia said, getting up at once and looking around alertly.
Damien’s lips twitched, but he said nothing, merely turning and pushing through the brush. Khalia followed as closely behind him as she could, allowing him to clear the way for her. Finally, after about a half an hour, they came upon a small clearing and Damien stopped, looking it over speculatively.
As if they had a lot of choices! Khalia thought irritably, finding a spot near the center and collapsing. I’m going to die in this godforsaken place, she thought morosely as she stared up at the little patch of sky she could see through the trees. If Damien didn’t walk her to death, something was going to eat her, an assassin was going to get her, or a hoard of horny dragons was going to swoop down, fall on her like a pack of dogs and screw her to death.
Any time now, Damien was going to tumble to the fact that she was smack in the middle of another reproductive cycle--probably along about the time that the horny hoard arrived because he was hell bent and determined to ignore her. She supposed she should have warned him, but she hadn’t felt comfortable talking about female things with a man, and it wasn’t as if either one of them could actually do anything about it.
When Damien began flattening an area of brush, she sat up, watching him for several moments before she rose tiredly and went to help. He left her flattening the brush and moved to a nearby tree, pulling vines from it. When he returned, he dropped the vines to the ground and began bending the saplings that surrounded the area they’d flattened, tying them together with the vines. Once he’d formed a frame with the bent saplings, he began hacking low hanging branches from other trees around the clearing and piling them on the frame.
Khalia was impressed. Within a very short while they not only had a reasonably comfortable shelter, but there was also very little damage to the environment. “Where did you learn how to do this?”
He shrugged. “Trial and error. My brothers and I spent a good deal of time in the forest hunting when we were youngsters.”
Khalia smiled faintly, picturing a young Damien running around the woods playing…what? Not cowboys and Indians--but very likely something of that nature. Damien looked at her questioningly. She shook her head. “I was just thinking--people always think that people from other cultures aren’t like them at all, when the truth is they probably have more in common than there are differences.”
Damien frowned. “We are of the same culture … the same race.”
Khalia sighed. “The same race … maybe, but I’m still not convinced, and definitely not the same culture. If I hadn’t studied similar cultures, I wouldn’t have a clue of what was going on, and, as it is, text book knowledge isn’t the same as knowing and experiencing something.” She shook her head. “Maybe I’m too different ever to fit in here. Have you considered that?”
Damien studied her a long moment and finally turned his attention to distributing the food from the pack. “You have the intelligence to learn. All you need is the desire.”
She had plenty of desire, but not the sort he was referring to, she felt certain. She rolled her eyes. “Exactly what do you think has happened here to give me any desire to want to be here?” she said irritably.
He flushed. “You will be queen,” he pointed out.
“If somebody doesn’t kill me first. And, I should point out, that’s not something I ever aspired to and I don’t find the prospect all that thrilling even if I should be made queen.”
“You have no sense of … duty to your family name, to your people?”
Khalia studied him a long moment. “Do you have any idea of what an orphanage is? Or what it’s like?”
He frowned thoughtfully. “The word isn’t familiar.”
“It’s, basically, a warehouse for children. They put all the unwanted children together. They’re sheltered, fed, educated and then turned out to make their own way in the world when they’re old enough. The people that take care of you do it because it’s their job. They get paid for it. They don’t actually care about you. They don’t want to, because if they did and you were sent away, or someone adopted you, then they’d be sad, so mostly they just figure it’s better to remain emotionally distant.
“So, to answer your question, no, I don’t. I’d have to care about them before I felt anything like that, and I honestly don’t. I didn’t care about the people in the world I grew up in. I sure as hell don’t care anything about the people responsible for making my life what it was … if they had anything to do with it, which you say they did.”
“You will feel differently once you have had time to adjust.”
Khalia sighed and finally just shrugged. The truth was, there was only one thing she could think of that might make being here worthwhile, and it seemed to her that the chance of it was remote. Moreover, she’d begun to realize that it was almost certainly for the best. This didn’t seem like a very healthy place for her and she didn’t need her judgment clouded by emotions that might get her killed. The life she’d had might have been boring, but, mostly anyway, it hadn’t been threatening either.
In fact, if she hadn’t been so determined to hang on to the talisman that had been left to her by her mother, none of this would have hap
pened at all … which just went to show how dangerous any sort of sentiment was.
“I’m tired,” she announced abruptly and got up and went into the shelter. She didn’t invite Damien to join her or try to coax him. She rather thought she preferred that he didn’t. She’d been playing a dangerous game without even realizing it. She was far too fond of Damien already. She shouldn’t have been pushing him to try to get to know him better. She certainly shouldn’t have been trying to encourage him toward greater intimacy. That road would lead to nothing but pain for her and possibly worse for him.
Typically, he followed her, settling behind her where she lay on the bedding of fresh grasses and pulling her close. She might not know anything about relationships, but she’d figured out a long time ago that people were contrary creatures. You couldn’t beg them to take something you wanted to give away, but the very moment you showed any indication that you didn’t want them to have it, it became something they desired above all else.
He was warm, though, and the nights were chilly. He made her feel safe, protected--and that was all she needed to feel completely relaxed and find sleep.
She faced the following day with mixed feelings. Today, Damien had said they would arrive at the safe house. She was exhausted, and looking forward to doing absolutely nothing for a while--maybe not even getting out of bed. She was also glad that there would be others around, a buffer between herself and Damien. It would make it easier for her to distance herself from him.
She was sorry for the same reason, regretful to give up the bond they’d formed … or at least the bond she’d formed. She could hardly speak for Damien. In fact, as far as she could tell he was even more anxious to reach his brother’s holdings than she was. He set a grueling pace. She kept up the best she could, more because he was breaking through the brush than because she felt any need to prove she could keep up, or because of any fear that he’d leave her and she would get lost.
Fat chance of him allowing that!
It was harder, she quickly discovered, plowing through the brush than it had been slogging through the streams. They stopped to rest briefly while they ate and then pushed on again. The sun was already dropping toward the horizon when they broke from the forest at last and stopped on a rise. Below them lay acres and acres of cultivated fields. The rise they stood on climbed sharply just north of where they stood. A jumble of rocks, looking strangely out of place, topped the hill.
As they skirted the edge of the field, Khalia studied the mound they were heading toward and realized finally that the reason the rocks looked so out of place was because they seemed to have been pushed up from below, or carted there and piled. There was no mountain above them to explain their presence. Perhaps something like an ice age?
Damien stopped when they reached the foot of the pile, studying it with his hands on his hips. After a few moments, he turned and studied the sky and the fields that surrounded them. Finally, taking her hand, he began climbing.
Puzzled, Khalia merely followed him, concentrating on keeping her balance. Finally, he stopped again and slipped his hand into a narrow crevice. Abruptly, the stone in front of them, which was roughly half the size of a car, slid open, revealing a dark hole. When they’d stepped inside, the ceiling illuminated and the door closed again.
They were in a narrow corridor that looked as if it had been hewn from the stones. They followed it for what seemed two miles at least and came at last upon another door. Beside this door was a panel with buttons on it.
It looked an awful lot like the panel in the ‘pod’ and Khalia was on the point of balking when the door slid open and she saw a great, darkened room. As they stepped through the portal, several wall sconces flared to life. A shiver crept up her spine. It looked like a dungeon.
And it was guarded by a creature that no one could have imagined in their worst nightmare.
Roughly the size and probably the weight of a half grown elephant, the similarity to any creature known to mankind ended there. It had six legs, each ending in a paw with three razor sharp looking claws. Sharp, quill-looking spines covered its entire body. Its head was broad and wedge shaped, its jaw wide and filled with about twice as many teeth as it could possibly have needed. A single, elongated eye curved around its bony head, appearing to give the thing at least a 160 degree viewing angle.
Khalia froze as the thing leapt to its feet and bolted toward them as if it would gulp them down in a single swallow, too frightened to move even before it occurred to her that running probably wasn’t wise or even an option. It skidded to a halt in front of Damien, sniffed him suspiciously for a moment and then began to gyrate and dance around him, snuffling and licking at his legs, back and belly.
Grinning, Damien clubbed in on top of its head with his fist. “Down!”
He turned to Khalia and motioned for her to walk toward him. Khalia looked at him and then the, now cowed, nightmare. She didn’t move.
Damien frowned. “He won’t hurt you.”
“Not if I don’t get close enough …. What is that thing?”
“A garshon. He is well trained and he knows me. Come. I will introduce you to him.”
“Ahh … Thanks, but I don’t think so.”
Damien gave her an exasperated look and moved toward her purposefully. The moment he started toward her the beast leapt up and rushed her, snarling and slavering. Damien caught it by a spiked collar Khalia hadn’t noticed when she was staring at its huge, yellow, pointed teeth. “No, Zakiah!” He turned to look at her again. “He must learn your scent so that he will know you as a friend.”
Khalia thought she’d rather not, but it was obvious the thing served as a guard dog for the lower regions of what she supposed must be his brother’s holdings. After a moment, she held her hand out. The thing sniffed her suspiciously, licked her hand and then looked up at Damien with a ‘please master, may I eat it?’ look.
Damien released his grip on the animal’s collar and pulled Khalia close to his side. “Friend, Zakiah!”
Zakiah looked from Damien to Khalia and back again several times and finally, a look of disappointment clouding its features, it slunk off into the darkness once more.
“You think it took? The recognition thing?”
Damien shrugged. “You’ll know the first time you come down here alone.”
Khalia sent him a startled glance, saw that his eyes were dancing with amusement and elbowed him in the ribs. “Very humorous!”
He chuckled. “He will not forget, or allow anyone who is not a friend near you so long as he has breath to defend you. Garshon are generally not tamable. My brother and I found him when he was very young, however, and raised him. He will allow no one in here except us … and now you.”
Khalia glanced around at the thing crouching in the dark a little doubtfully. “You think … just because you introduced me to that thing that it’s not going to try to eat me the next time?”
“My scent is all over you. He believes you are mine.”
Startled, Khalia glanced at Damien, but forbore comment. It occurred to her to wonder, though, if the animal could be so easily fooled.
Taking her hand, Damien led her toward a narrow stone stair that wound upward. At the top, the door was opened before they reached it. The man that stood in the doorway was very similar in build to Damien and around the same height. His hair was more brown than black, however, and he looked to be a few years older than Damien.
“Nigel!”
A faint smile curved Nigel’s lips. He grasped Damien’s extended arm as he surged forward, giving Damien a jerk that brought them together like a clap of thunder. They embraced, pounding each other on the back. Khalia winced at the meaty thuds but apparently they both enjoyed it hugely. Both men were grinning when they finally drew apart once more.
A wave of envy washed over Khalia when Damien turned to look at her, holding his hand out, envy for the obvious affection between the two brothers, something she’d never had the chance to experience, and, more spec
ifically, envy of Damien’s love. Smiling with an effort, she extended her hand and placed it in Damien’s outstretched one. “Princess Khalia--may I present my brother, Nigel.”
“Your highness.” Nigel knelt, saluting her.
Khalia felt color climbing her cheeks. “Thank you for allowing me to come,” she said uncomfortably, and then glanced at Damien self-consciously, wondering if Nigel had allowed it, or if Damien had merely anticipated an invitation that hadn’t been extended.
“I’d expected the two of you earlier,” Nigel replied, easing Khalia’s discomfort immediately. Turning, he summoned a woman. Khalia studied the woman uncertainly, wondering if she was a servant, or Nigel’s wife. “Charrisa. Show the princess to her room and make sure she has everything she needs.”
Khalia was grateful. She could well imagine she looked unkempt, to say the very least, after their trek through the wilderness. As much as the promised treat pleased her, though, she discovered that she was more than a little reluctant to leave Damien’s side. She quelled it irritably, following the servant without even glancing in Damien’s direction, though it took a strenuous effort.
The apartment Charrisa led her to was elegant although not nearly as opulent as the royal suite she’d occupied at the fortress. In truth, Khalia was relieved. She’d felt like a fraud living in the princess’ quarters. This apartment, although far richer than anything she’d occupied in her life before coming to Atar, seemed more comfortable, more like the sort of place one could actually live in rather being displayed.
The bath was equally elegant, and yet not overwhelming. Charrisa ran her bath and helped her to undress. Khalia didn’t particularly want help, but she’d come to realize that her resistance to accepting the customs here only made everyone around her uncomfortable and added to her own discomfort, making her feel more out of place.
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