“You know about dragon hoards.” He peered around a pillar into a side chamber. Empty.
“I know about the legends, the lore. Weren’t they supposed to hoard treasure, or something?”
“Greedy men will always covet another man’s treasure. When the miners were sent in to steal the treasure, the dragons did not give it up easily. The indigenous people became the sacrifice in the war for the hoard. A war of such violence only the hardest, most evil men could possibly survive.”
“So that’s why they sent in prisoners?” Janie looked very small amongst the towering stone. A testament to the awe and respect commanded by the dragons.
“Yes, and the masters quickly lost control. Dragons burning everything in sight, the miners slaughtering dragon and man alike. The mining companies withdrew and left them to it. That’s how it became a prison colony.”
“Please don’t tell me we’re about to be attacked by dragons.” Janie sat on a broken plinth, the sword on her knees. Tight lines of exhaustion creased her eyes. Her shoulders drooped. She pulled the cap from her head and shook out her plait.
The sky hung grey and pink with gathering clouds hiding all trace of the sun. Dried leaves rattled across the courtyard confirming his suspicion the moon was well into the season of leaf-fall. A short season as he remembered with winter hard behind.
“They withdrew into legend. Barely show themselves these days. Who can blame them?”
“Perhaps they weren’t so real after all?”
“Oh, they were real. Wait there, I saw something move.” A flash of blue in the lee of a broken wall. A small creature, the height of his knees with long floppy ears lifted up on its back legs to get a better view of the intruders invading its domain. Carefully, Kelskar pointed his sword.
“Dinner,” he said on a soft whisper. “Wait right here.”
“You can’t kill that. It’s too cute.” Janie grabbed at his arm. The sword tip dipped, clanging on the stone floor. Narrowly missing her right foot. The creature continued to stare insolently, showing no sign of alarm at the sudden noise.
“I can’t eat something that cute. Don’t glare at me like that.” Horror at the thought mingled with apology. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have startled you.”
“I might have hurt you. Janie, let go your foolish female sentiments or we’ll both starve.” Hunger lent a sharper edge to his irritation. He would not upset her, but they had to eat.
“I said I’m sorry. I just couldn’t eat a fluffy blue bunny, that’s all.”
“So you only consume ugly creatures?” He gave a snort of disbelief. “That thing would not lend you the same courtesy I’ll wager.”
As if it read his mind, the creature opened its mouth and bared curled fangs so long they barely fit its mouth. Janie recoiled, eyes so comically wide he couldn’t hold the laughter.
“Do you take my meaning? Have you considered those fangs might harbour poison?”
“Okay.” She batted his arm and stared again at the blatant challenge in the creature’s stance. The small quiver in its hind legs indicated an attack or imminent flight. “I take your point. But I still wouldn’t be able to eat it.”
“When hunger gnaws a hole in your stomach, you’ll contemplate eating even me.” If it chose not to attack, the creature would live to see another day. He’d seen men killed by smaller creatures than that.
“Just don’t make me watch if you do it.”
He made no comment as she pushed out her blade in an experimental stab, shuddering lightly.
“Forgive me. Hunger is liable to unleash a man’s temper.”
Janie slid from the plinth, the sword grasped loosely at her side. Rogue strands of dark hair teased a frame around her pale face, the bulky garments hung from her ill-fed body. An easy prey for marauding males, despite the growing steel in her eyes.
“It’s the fever making you cranky, not just the hunger.”
“Not open for discussion. There is no fever.” Kelskar swiped up a loose stone and strode across the open courtyard to the well at the far corner. Dropped in the stone and counted, waiting for the answering splash. No, too deep and nothing to draw the water with anyway. Janie scuttled after him with the look of a woman determined to speak her mind no matter what.
“Don’t,” he said, raising a finger in warning. Big men had quaked and begged at his feet at a mere glare from Gladiator Kelskar, master of the arena. Not Janie. She stopped out of his reach and folded her arms.
“Can I at least clean those wounds? Boil some water and get rid of some of that infection? You look a mess.”
“My appearance is of no concern.” There must be a stream nearby. He could smell the sweet tang of mountain water somewhere behind the broken wall. He half turned. Felt the touch of fingertips on his arm.
The lightest of touches, holding him in place faster than the strongest of chains.
“You can’t keep me safe burning with fever. You can’t help me if you die or if that infection resets that chip in your head. You gave up your freedom for me. You claimed me. So keep me. Protect me.”
She might as well have punched a hole in his chest and yanked out his heart with her bare hands.
Oh, she was good. Not the nagging or cajoling he’d expected, she spoke to his baser male instincts, Kelskar the protector who would keep her safe at the cost of his own life. Her claimed mate, who at that moment wanted only to throw her down on the moss covered stone and take her until she wept to stake his claim for all time.
“First we must search this place, make sure it’s deserted. Then we’ll risk a fire. Heat water and you may tend me if it worries you so. And today you’ll learn to hunt and gut your own meat so that if I do expire you will not starve.” He threw out the trade to save his manly pride, more disturbed than he cared to admit by the thought of her alone absent his protection.
“Deal. Do you think we’re safe here?”
Janie pushed with enough force to make her point. Sensed when to withdraw and regroup. He thanked her for that, even knowing she would continue to chip away at him if he refused to compromise.
“I don’t know. Let’s take a look around and find out.”
“I’ve never seen anything like this.” Janie’s whisper rippled through the chamber in a fading echo. She ached to take out the small book stashed in an inside pocket and record it all in pencil and paint. Pencil and paint she didn’t have.
“Nor I. Keep close.”
“It should be dark down here. Where’s the light coming from?”
“See the polished plates in each corner? They catch the natural light and send it on to the next plate. Primitive, but it still works after all this time.”
She caught the note of awe in Kelskar’s voice. Felt the reverence of the place to her core. On their cautious descent through chambers cut from the very mountain itself, they walked through hundreds, maybe tens of thousands of years of history carved by people long-dead onto stone and rock. Thin streams of water percolated through cracks, leaving slimy green trails in its wake. In places the rock face glittered with horizontal seams of blue and copper and gold.
“It’s amazing. Can we live here?” Too cold in these lower chambers, too damp with the smell of mildew, but some of the upper rooms, littered with fallen leaves retained a roof and walls.
“Wherever we rest, the respite will be temporary. You must know that.” Kelskar led the way to another chamber and more steps disappearing into a void. The only sign of occupation, an assortment of carved relics and a broken wooden stool. A stone table stood in the middle of a hexagonal chamber, two levels down. A table or an altar, she didn’t know.
Janie bumped into Kelskar’s back at the foot of the steps. Grabbed hold of his coat to keep from falling. Kelskar twisted and placed a flat hand over her mouth, asking her to stay quiet without words. She nodded. He released her and squeezed her shoulder, telling her to stay in place.
So caught up in the strange beauty of the place, she’d forgotten all about fear and
ghosts in the night. Now the glowing half-light hid moving shadows from the trickling water. Their footsteps multiplied like hundreds of creeping feet, following behind. She could hear breathing and couldn’t tell if it was their own, or something else.
“Blood of the gods! Janie, kneel. Very slowly.”
Such an odd command, her brain made no sense of it. Kelskar was already down on one knee, head bowed. He turned to her, his eyes holding an urgent appeal. Keeping hold of his coat, she dropped carefully, mimicking his pose, though every instinct screamed at her to get up and run, now.
Something had spooked him. And Kelskar didn’t do spooked.
“Trust me.” Kelskar’s bent thigh pressed to hers. She pressed back, not daring to ask the questions flooding her mind. Or show the fear squeezing her heart from her chest.
This is it. We’re going to die here, in the dark. Why wasn’t Kelskar doing something? Please don’t let this be it.
Head bowed, Janie lifted her eyes a fraction, waiting for them to adjust to the dimmer light of this lower chamber. Bigger than any of the others, it might easily have held a jumbo jet. The massive bulk occupying half the space came into focus.
“Shit.” She fell to the other knee, stopped only from sprawling on the stone floor by Kelskar’s arm snaking about her waist.
A dragon. A stone dragon, so intricately carved, so lifelike with its glinting scales and sleeping repose that for a moment she imagined it lifting one curved eyelid and glaring right at her with a gleaming eye.
The shallow, regular breath filling the chamber couldn’t be her own, with her heart pumping so wildly. It must be Kelskar’s. It had to be his.
“We come with the utmost respect and do you great homage. If we have violated this place with our presence, with our weapons, we stand in abject apology. We ask to be allowed to leave in peace and go on our way. We vow that no living being will know of this place.”
Was Kelskar praying? Talking to the statue? His voice rang out, low, but sure. Intoning the words like a priest at some pagan ritual. Should she do the same?
“Keep your head down,” he ground out. “And by all the gods, touch nothing. We stand on a knife edge.”
“Saying that doesn’t help,” she whispered back. “What is it? An effigy? Why hide such a magnificent statue down here?”
“Later. Pray, Janie. Offer your obeisance. Pray they hear the sincerity of my words.”
“Who are they?” She looked around, shoulders prickling. Were they being followed?
In answer, Kelskar tipped his head deliberately towards the statue. Fear receded as her logical mind shaped the scene to something she could understand. Part of his religion? If so, he would naturally want to offer his homage.
“We come in peace,” she offered, unable to think of anything else. What did you say to a dragon statue that caused the hardest of men to fall so humbly to his knees?
If Kelskar thinks it’s serious, it’s serious. She glanced at him in silent appeal. A show of respect, or were they in serious danger from these unknown gods? She witnessed him praying in the cage, kneeling silently and murmuring under his breath to his own god. A man of ritual, unlike the lapsed Catholic she’d become.
“There’s a tunnel, over there. That’s where they would come and go. If we return to the surface via the steps, they won’t be able to follow.”
“If you say so.” Her mind flip-flopped back to fear. None of this made sense.
Kelskar rose to his feet, made a fist and touched it to his heart. “This female is mine, claimed as my mate. Wrongly accused of a crime she did not commit and condemned to this moon. We do not come as thieves in the night. We wish only to survive this place in peace.”
“Amen.” A statue. Only a statue of a sleeping dragon. How could anything that big shape itself into the image of a man?
“Now it’s time to leave.”
“Good idea,”
Kelskar grasped her hips, shoving her ahead of him. In the half light a shiny disc gleamed close to her foot. Kelskar’s warning to touch nothing rang in her mind. They raced for safety slipping and sliding on the worn steps to the arched opening, too small for dragons, statues or otherwise to squeeze through. The sound of scuffling feet and heaving breath followed them in their flight through the chambers.
And something else.
A rush of warm wind carrying a deep groaning rumble flowed around them, ruffling Janie’s hair.
Like a giant dragon sigh.
Kelskar pushed her on until they burst panting onto the stone courtyard and fresh air and sky.
“What in hell’s name was that all about?” Janie leaned on a wall, catching her breath. The low rumble came again, fainter, more plaintive.
Heavy with crushing sadness.
“Let’s go,” she said, needing no urging to retrieve the cap she left on the stone plinth. “Something terrible happened here.”
“Yes, it did. I never thought to witness that.” Kelskar stood pensive, gazing at the empty opening where once a mighty door would have closed off the inner sanctum from raiders and intruders like them. Gone now, the temple ransacked of its treasures by greedy men.
“I think we know why these ruins are deserted. Can we go?”
“No need to panic, it won’t follow. Not him.”
“There’s every need to panic.” She wanted to shove him out onto the mountain. Get away from this spooky place that would give her nightmares for years to come. In their time underground, the gathering clouds had joined to form a dark grey mass hanging heavy over the mountain. A shroud for a dead dragon.
She forced herself to be still, like Kelskar. To breathe and listen, trusting he knew the danger had passed.
“What did we just witness?”
“A stone dragon. And where there’s a stone dragon, there’s a guardian. He shrugged his shoulders, rolling out the tension. “If the legends are true, the guardian is also a dragon. We must leave now.”
“A guardian? Another dragon? Is that what spooked you?”
“Any man with any sense would have acted the same. This is a perfect base and yet the warlords rightly shun it. Did you not see the scorched bones of those too stupid to bow to the higher power?”
“Bones?” She shuddered. On cue, another rumble shook the ground beneath them. A fine veil of dust dislodged from the lintel above the opening to the interior. Janie stepped nearer to Kelskar. “You’re asking me to believe in dragons that turn into men. Things beyond my comprehension. In my world dragons live in film and fantasy novels. No one believes they’re real.”
“Are you sure about that?” Kelskar crossed the courtyard to the broken wall. With two hands on the stone, he leaned over to survey the drop beneath. Tipped back his head to read the leaden sky above. “Move away from the entrance. Rain is coming. We’ll traverse the ridge and hope we encounter some game to kill on the other side. I can’t risk our cave, not with lone renegades lurking down there.”
Janie moved smartly away from the opening, fuelled by a growing hysteria rippling in her gut. Nothing between them, the gaping entrance and monsters lurking in the dark. “Our cave,” she said trying to lighten the mood. “You almost made it sound like home.”
“I’ll build you a home. A fortress to keep you safe. This moon was a paradise once. Word has it hidden pockets of that paradise still exist. Myths and stories most likely, but if they do we’ll find them.”
The light in his eyes dimmed for a long moment. Briefly glowed bright. Remarkable eyes. Kelskar shook his head to reassure her the chip remained dormant, lips pressed in a hard line as if reluctant to make more promises he couldn’t keep.
If he spoke the truth, neither of them had a future involving hearth and home. They were here as fodder to be used at the Corporation’s command. Bought and paid for, the masters wanted value on their investment.
She didn’t mention the new scalp wounds where the last piece of the skull cap had separated from bone in the flight up the steps. Kelskar the man had emerged from h
is metal cocoon so slowly, she hadn’t properly noticed the physical transformation. Had been too concerned with his mental state and the man he used to be.
She noticed him now and her breath caught. Damn but the wounds, the scratch of mid brown hair and beard only added to his dangerous allure. Colourless eyes, that sinful mouth. Tight muscle barely diminished by his time in the cage. A pulse of naked need beat deep in her core, sending ripples through her breasts, down the inside of her thighs. Painted her mouth with a dreamy smile.
“Have you looked your fill?” Kelskar returned a smile of his own. Pure male, confident and a little teasing. Had he posed like this for the women who paid to lie with gladiators? Stood in line, all muscles and arrogance while they made their choice?
“You must have made your master a fortune with that attitude.” A thought struck her as she followed him across the courtyard to the terraces cut into the rear of the temple. “You said he sold you to this Lakmi woman. Why sell such a prize? It makes no sense.”
“You make the mistake of believing trade involves sentiment. She was a concubine of great worth and wealth. She paid, he sold me. That’s how it was.”
“It sounds so cold.” She had to run to keep up with his determined stride.
“I’ll build you a home, Janie. Keep you safe while I have breath in my body. This I vow.” He stopped to seal the promise with a kiss that asked for her very soul. Demanding she open for him and hold nothing back. Her tongue met his, their lips clashed with desperate urgency. Heat, too much heat in his rough cheek. Frantic thoughts of losing him to the growing infection made her cling to him, pressing so close she almost became a part of him.
“We’ll do it together,” she said when he allowed her to breathe.
We’ll fight this together.
A spot of rain hit the path, another, until droplets beat a staccato rhythm on stone, on the crunchy drying leaves. Janie quickened her pace, lightheaded from hunger, digging deep for the last dregs of energy to get her around the mountain. No credit with her own God. No right to ask favours when weddings and funerals were the only time she stepped inside a church. She asked anyway,
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