by Leslie Chase
His eyes flashed in the light and he tried to speak, but though his lips formed words she couldn't hear them. There wasn't enough space for him to draw a proper breath. And yet he still pulled himself onward, reaching out to find a handhold and dragging himself along.
Amanda couldn't imagine how painful and frightening it must be. She'd found it tight enough, and even in a spacesuit she wasn't as bulky as Markath was. But he wasn't going to stop, and at this point she wasn't even sure he could go back if he tried.
The look of focused concentration on Markath's face was something to behold, and soon his hand reached the edge of the crack to find a proper grip. Heaving, he dragged himself out with a painful grinding noise, Amanda grabbing hold of him to pull and help.
He tumbled out of the gap, almost on top of Amanda, and sat panting against the rockfall. Bright blood gleamed on his skin where the stone had scratched him and he was short of breath, but he wasn't seriously hurt. Amanda's heart stopped pounding so hard as she realized that, and her anger overwhelmed her fear. Looking down at him, she put her hands on her hips.
Markath's eyes flashed as he looked up at her, and she could see that he was angry too.
"I told you, Amanda. I will not let you go into danger on your own," he said, voice a rough rumble. "And when I woke to find you gone, I knew exactly where I'd find you."
"You idiot," she hissed, still feeling the urge to keep quiet. "What if you'd gotten stuck in there?"
"Then someone would have pulled me out, and Dieter would have had a good laugh at my expense," he said. "I'd risk that gladly rather than let you go into trouble on your own."
She was glad that he kept his voice down to match hers. Did he feel the hint of fear too? Or was he just matching her tone? Either way, it made her feel a little better. And though she'd never admit it to him, Amanda felt relieved to have him by her side. The massive alien warrior's presence was reassuring, and if there were other blockages his strength would come in handy.
Not to mention that there might actually be something to be afraid of down here.
"Since you're here, I suppose you can stay," she said. Markath grinned at that. She turned away before he saw her cheeks flush — they both knew that she couldn't have made him leave if she wanted to.
"This is in a lot better condition than the humans told us," he said as he joined her. Amanda made a noise in her throat, and he chuckled. "I'm sorry, I mean the other humans."
He doesn't sound sorry, she thought, but she had to admit that he was right. This tunnel was undisturbed, the walls and floor still in good condition after a thousand years of neglect.
"Weirdest earthquake I ever heard of," she muttered. Something was definitely wrong, and it didn't match the story that Dieter had told them. She found her thoughts drifting back to the vague warnings Svetlana had given her and shivered.
Without saying anything, Markath took the lead, walking with the smooth grace of a warrior. Amanda was caught between annoyance at the way he assumed he was in charge and gratitude at the way he put himself between her and harm.
At least he's giving me a nice view, she couldn't help thinking as she followed him deeper. It was impossible for her to keep her eyes off him, and despite the scrapes and scratches on him, he was an incredible sight to watch. Under other circumstances she'd have enjoyed it, but here and now she tried to pay attention to her surroundings.
She was only partly successful. When the corridor suddenly widened and opened up into a cavern she almost walked into Markath before she noticed it. The alien warrior had stopped dead in the opening, and his wings twitched as he looked out over it.
"What the hell is this?" Amanda asked as she looked around. Her eyes widened.
The cave below them was massive. Far too big, she thought, to be natural and certainly too big to have survived a quake. But its size was far from the most impressive thing about it. The cave floor was covered with buildings, some merely the size of a house, others much bigger. They emerged from a dense fog that covered the cave's floor, lit from within by a light as bright as day.
They were looking down at the small city from an opening half way up the cave's wall, at the top of a broad ramp that led down among the buildings and vanished into the fog. Amanda stood, mouth open as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing. The buildings, what she could see of them through the fog, seemed to be placed at random. Even she could see that there were different styles mixed haphazardly together, and the overall effect was confusing but awe-inspiring.
At the city’s center, a tower of black stone rose, reaching all the way to the roof of the cave. It loomed ominously above the cityscape, reminding Amanda of Dragon Palace towering over Marsport.
No wonder Dieter didn't want us to see this, Amanda thought. I can't imagine how much this place must be worth. A lost alien city that the empire doesn't know about yet? If they can bring in a spaceship and loot the place they'll be rich.
Oh. Oh shit.
She looked up at Markath, seeing the anger in his expression. Now a representative of the Dragon Empire did know, and as soon as he got back to Marsport that would be the end of any looting. Which meant that Dieter and the rest of the Outrider's crew had good reason not to want him down here. No wonder they didn't want us going after Hannah.
Shaking herself, Amanda put that aside. It wasn't her problem, after all. She was here to find Hannah, and that was that. Dieter and the rest could wait until her sister was safe.
"Come on," she said, taking Markath by the arm. "She's down there somewhere."
Markath turned to look down at her, and she saw the anger in his eyes fade. It didn't go away, not completely, but he had it under control. He nodded and took a deep breath.
"You're right," he said, "and the sooner we find her the better. I don't trust this place."
With that he marched down the long slope leading down towards the mist-shrouded buildings, looking around carefully as he went. Amanda followed close behind him. "What do you mean? This is one of your settlements, isn't it?"
"That's not the problem," he said, eyes sweeping from side to side. The fog thickened around them as they descended, and the distant buildings became shadowy shapes. But Markath pointed to the nearest one, a narrow tower wrapped in purple ivy that climbed nearly half way to the roof. "Look at that, Amanda. My people build well, yes, but any quake that collapsed the entrance would have brought down that tower."
Looking up at it, Amanda had to admit he had a point. The building looked precarious enough as it was, and it was a wonder it had survived a thousand years without a quake. There was no sign of recent damage at all.
"So...?" Amanda asked, approaching the base of the tower and looking at the strange ivy. Alien plant life, she was sure — nothing like this grew on Earth. That was an even rarer find than alien technology, though less immediately valuable to looters. Still, she was sure that there would be collectors on Earth who'd pay a great deal for something like that. And of course the empire would pay for any plants they didn't yet have a sample of; Amanda remembered how bare the Dragon Palace's garden had been.
"I don't think that it was bad luck that brought down the tunnel above us," Markath said. His eyes never stopped moving, looking around for danger. "And I can't see how any of my people would have done it. So, either the humans did it by accident, or they had some reason for doing it. I don't get the impression that Dieter is incompetent enough to have done that by accident."
"Even if he was, someone else would have said something," Amanda said, turning away from the plant reluctantly. The purple leaves were fascinating and beautiful, but not helpful. "If none of them were willing to talk about it, they must have a reason for covering up whatever happened."
Markath nodded. "I don't know what is going on down here, but I don't like it. The quicker we find your sister the better."
Amanda nodded, her heart warmed a little by that. Whatever was going on here, whatever desecration of one of his people's cities the humans above
were planning, Markath was still focused on helping her. She'd half expected him to want to turn back and solve the mystery; after all, Hannah was one of the people who'd been raiding this tomb.
"Thank you," she said quietly. Markath looked back at her and nodded.
As they went deeper into the ruins, the damage of a thousand years of neglect became more and more apparent. Buildings had fallen in on themselves, windows cracked and shattered, and the path beneath their feet was uneven and broken. Amanda started to wonder whether the first tower had survived a quake by sheer luck. But looking at the damage to the rest of the buildings, even she could see that it had happened long ago.
"Hannah!" she called out into the fog at the top of her voice, and the two of them paused in silence. If there was any reply, the fog swallowed it. Amanda called again, and Markath held up his hand for silence.
Amanda listened carefully but she couldn't hear anything. After a few seconds, she turned to Markath and looked at him questioningly.
"I thought I heard something," he said quietly, then shrugged. "I cannot say for sure, but I think there's something moving out there. Some animal, perhaps."
That made Amanda blink. Animals? Alien animals? That was unheard of. The dragons hadn't taken anything else living into stasis with them for the Great Sleep, and Amanda hoped she'd get to see some of them. Maybe once we've found Hannah, we can stay long enough to look around.
"What is this place?" she asked, keeping her voice down. "I thought it was a city, but it’s not, is it?"
"No," Markath answered, shaking his head and starting walking again. "We didn't have any cities on Mars, it was a small world on the very edge of the Dragon Empire. This must have been some noble's estate. Look closer and you'll see that the buildings are fakes, most of them anyway."
He pointed through a torn open wall into the inside of what looked something like an apartment building. The inside, though, was bare and empty — not even any floors. It was a hollow shell of a building. Amanda peered through the gap, looking around in shock.
"What the hell is the point of that?" she asked, shaking her head. "Why would one of your nobles want a fake city? Did he want to make-believe he had thousands of subjects living here, or what?"
Markath chuckled. "We built our cities on a planet's surface, just like you. It's so much more convenient — but dragons feel most comfortable underground, so that's where the rich and powerful would build their estates. And their hunting preserves, if they could afford to. That's what I think this is."
Amanda looked around again, considering the shadowy shapes of the buildings she could see through the fog. Now that she thought about it, the streets they were walking through didn't make much sense for a dragon city. They were too narrow, too winding, and the buildings seemed to be placed at random. But from above... the roof of the cave was high enough that a dragon could fly overhead, and the chaotic layout might be interesting.
She shivered at the thought. She didn't know much about hunting preserves, back on Earth she'd never been rich enough to hunt for sport. For her and her family, hunting had been about whatever could put a little extra food on the table, and wasn't done in some prepared area. Still, she had an idea of how these things had to work, and it wasn't comfortable.
"So this is where someone liked to hunt?" She looked at Markath. "And just what did he hunt here? What kind of prey lives in cities?"
Markath had the grace to look uncomfortable. "I doubt he hunted humans here, Amanda. Those of us who wanted to fight your kind sought out knights and challenged them."
"Or princesses to steal away," she added for him. Gesturing around them, she threw up her hands in disgust. "But he had some reason for building this place, and it's not because he liked to hunt deer, is it?"
Grimacing, Markath looked away. "I don't know who he was, and he's a thousand years dead."
She was about to snap at him when he shook his head and looked back at her, meeting her gaze. Amanda thought she could see a heavy sadness in his eyes as he held up his hands. "No, that's not fair. He may have died a thousand years ago, whoever he was, but I was alive alongside him before the Great Sleep. I'm not going to dodge that."
One quick stride and he was at Amanda's side, his hand on her shoulder. The speed of it made her freeze like a deer in the headlights, and her heart pounded. "Some of my fellow dragons... there were problems with the old empire, I won't deny it. Yes, the dragon who built this did it to hunt people, whether humans or one of the other races we'd conquered. But Emperor Verikan won't allow that kind of thing to happen now, and nor will I. The new empire we build here will be better, I promise you, and any dragons who cling to the bad old ways will be dealt with."
This was the side of the dragons that Amanda hated and feared. The warriors who'd come to the solar system to conquer Earth, and who'd had no qualms about burning it to the ground to do it. Even now, she got the impression that a lot of the dragons didn't believe it would be wrong to conquer the Earth. They'd simply decided it was impractical, or that honor demanded that they obey their emperor, even if they didn't agree with him.
She thought, she hoped, that Markath was different. For all that he didn't respect humans much, he wasn't a monster. She couldn't imagine that he would hunt people for sport. At least, not to kill them.
The image of him hunting her sprang into her mind at that, and it was entirely different. Not a frightening thought, but a delicious one, and she knew that if he was after her she'd let herself be caught. He'd run her to ground, pounce on her, pin her to the floor... Amanda felt a blush spread across her face and tried to turn away. She felt herself tremble, and cursed the way her body responded to his presence. It was impossible to think when his face was so close to hers, and her mind was filled with conflicting feelings.
His people had killed hers. But he was promising to stop that kind of thing from happening again. And he was so close, and so damned hot. Half of her wanted to forget everything and kiss the gorgeous alien man who held her. The other half wanted to pull away from his grip and run as far and as fast as she could from the predator who had her in his grasp.
Before she could come to a decision, a noise broke the moment. Stone clattered on stone, somewhere in the fog. Amanda and Markath's heads snapped around, looking for the source of the sound, but all they could see was the white nothingness.
Markath let go of her and the moment was gone. Amanda hugged herself and drew a deep breath. "We should keep looking," she said. "Hannah must be somewhere in here."
And looking would keep her distracted from the mess Markath was making of her feelings.
Under other circumstances, the chance to explore the fake city would have been exciting. It was strangely beautiful, even shrouded in the thick fog that filled its twisting streets, and the weird plants that grew beside the buildings would have kept Amanda's attention if she didn't have a more important task. Even so, she glanced at them as they passed, wondering what planet this tree or those vines came from.
The winding paths of the fake city turned out to be difficult to navigate, though, and more than once the pair of them found that they had walked in a circle. Amanda felt increasingly glad that she had brought luminescent paint with which she could mark their trail. Without it, they'd probably have gotten hopelessly lost.
Or she would have, at least. Markath could always shift and carry her to the exit by air if he wanted. As long as he was with her, they were never going to be truly lost, and she was grateful for that.
He'd suggested searching by air too, but with the fog so thick on the ground that wouldn't help. A quick test flight had shown that if Hannah was at ground level there was no way he'd spot her from the air. Even on foot, there was no guarantee that they wouldn't walk right past her, but at least they were moving slowly enough to listen for Hannah to answer their calls.
There was another reason Amanda refused that offer, though. It would be too much like hunting Hannah from the air, and that made her think about what this
place had been used for back in its heyday. She couldn't get rid of the thought that someone like Markath had used these streets to hunt someone like her, and the more she could avoid that the better.
Hours passed and to her surprise the light began to fade. Checking her watch Amanda saw that it was sunset on the surface. Whoever had built this place had set up a cycle of day and night that had tracked the seasons for a thousand years and still kept time. She wondered what human technology might last that long, and doubted anything would. That was one of the many reasons dragon technology was so valuable.
She leaned against a wall, exhausted and angry with their failure. It was impossible to tell how much of the city they'd searched, but it wasn't much. The place was too big, and checking it all would take forever. Which wasn't acceptable — Hannah was counting on her.
"Maybe we should split up to cover more ground?" she suggested. "This place is too big to search this way."
Markath looked at her and shook his head. "I'm not letting you out of my sight," he told her in a tone that brooked no disagreement. "If we get separated, I'll only have to find two lost humans instead of one."
"But we've got to find her soon. She could be hurt," Amanda said, resolutely refusing to entertain any worse possibility. I know she's waiting for us. She has to be.
"Yes," Markath agreed with a frown. "But you wandering off and getting injured won't help her. And what happens if I find her? I don't know how to treat human injuries. I'd have to go and find you, which wouldn't be easy in this place. No, we search together. And for now, we rest. You're too tired to carry on either way."
Amanda glared at him, but she couldn't think of a good argument. What he said was true, and all her training agreed. Her getting lost in the ruins wouldn't help anyone, and they had no way of staying in touch if they got separated. But that didn't mean she had to like it, and she tried to think of a better way.
"Fine, I'll rest," she conceded. Her legs ached from walking and she wasn't sure she could go much further anyway. "But that doesn't mean you have to stop looking, does it? I'll rest up here, and as long as you mark your path you'll be able to retrace your steps to here if you find Hannah."
