by Sharon Joss
Paul, however, was itchy and restless. “I thought you guys were in such a hurry to rescue Garrett,” he whined.
He must be running low on dust. “K’Sati’s right. As long as we’re moving in the right direction, it makes sense to use the herd as cover.”
Paul shook his head. “We could have been there already. At this rate, it’ll take us two more days. The longer we’re out here, the better chance Wayne and his men have of catching us. Of course, if you two want to turn back now, you’ll still be able to make it back in time to catch the last transport off this bucket.”
“I’m not leaving without my brother.”
He shrugged. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
* * *
When the herd turned south the next day, they continued east. Some of the young males whistled forlornly after Neatfoot, but she did not seem affected. Without the herd to set the pace, they made better time, and by nightfall, Paul told them they were within a few miles of the Crags of Corrah.
The relentless wind buffeted them all day long. No matter how much water they drank, the cold, dry wind seemed to suck the moisture out of them. Renly could not remember ever being so thirsty. By noon, they’d finished the last of the water. Renly ran out of clean bandages. Paul’s face remained wrapped in the same brown-stained dirty dressing they’d applied two days ago. All of them had chapped and bloody lips.
Paul, of course, blamed the traggahs. “If we hadn’t a wasted time poking along with the herd, we’d be filling our skins at the base of the mountains by now.”
Renly shared a glance with K’Sati. There would be no point in arguing. The herd had not only led them to water, but protected them at night from the rahgs and longteeth, the apex predators of the steppes. Every night, the sentries formed an armed ring around the herd; their impressive and dangerous horns facing out, creating a protective barrier that not even the most persistent predators dared engage.
K’Sati told him the Khirjahni feared the longteeth of the Lekhulu even more than the craggons of the forbidden zone. Longteeth possessed an excellent sense of smell, and the ability to smell blood over long distances.
“At the temple, the priestesses would tell us stories about leaving us outside at night for the longteeth if we weren’t good. I used to have nightmares about them.” She shivered. “Without the herd, we are extremely vulnerable.”
“I’ve never had a problem with them,” Paul bragged. “The secret is to keep moving. Anyway, we’re almost there now. They won’t follow us into the mountains.”
Neatfoot gave an unhappy whistle and shied. K’Sati had to grab her mane to stay seated. “What’s wrong?” Renly asked.
Paul pointed skyward. “Craggons.” High above them, almost too high to see, two winged figures wheeled overhead.
K’Sati whirled Neatfoot around, trying to coax her into moving forward, but the traggah had other ideas. Stubbornly, she kept her head turned south.
“From now on, no shouting. Once we’re in the mountains, we’ll have to whisper,” Paul said. “We’re entering craggon territory.”
Both traggahs began to fidget and pull against the reins. The circling craggons weren’t much more than dark specs in the lavender sky, but Silverbeard had his ears laid back. Neatfoot, too.
“Ignore them.” Paul dug his heels into Neatfoot’s side; hard enough to make her grunt. “They always make a fuss like this when they get too near the mountains. They don’t like being here. We’ll have to blindfold them when we reach the first peak.”
Renly checked the stonewood club beneath his belt. “They won’t attack, will they?”
K’Sati looked extremely pale. “They’re carrion eaters.”
“Speaking from experience, I can tell you they will attack, if only you make enough noise or they catch you near their dens. The traggahs are too heavy for them to carry off, and no predator has a chance against a herd; they can stomp even an adult craggon to death. But without the herd behind us, it’s a bigger question. If you catch their attention, they’ll come after you. They’re eyesight isn’t much better than ours, but they have extremely sensitive hearing. No yelling or clanging. It makes them crazy mad. Understood?”
Renly nodded.
“And keep your eyes sharp for longteeth. Craggons often feed off their kills, and they get more common the closer we get to the mountains. We won’t be safe from the longteeth until we’re in the mountains; that’s craggon territory.” He gave them a mirthless grin. “Craggons won’t tolerate anything but prey in their territory.”
“Where exactly are we going?”
Paul looked away. “I don’t know the name of the place, but Garrett and I call it the Yellow Chimney. We should be there day after tomorrow.”
K’Sati finally got Neatfoot headed in the right direction, and with a little coaxing on his part, he got Silverbeard to follow them.
CHAPTER 23
They reached the foot of the mountains at the end of the day, hunched over their tired mounts; parched and battered by the incessant winds. The ground rose quickly from the plains; the transition from flat grassland to chaparral to broken woodland a matter of only a few hundred feet. Here, within the mountain shadows, the angry air finally stilled. In the waning light of first sunset, Paul pointed out a game trail. Both traggahs appeared reluctant to move forward. Seated behind K’Sati, he urged the parched and now exhausted Neatfoot forward with vicious kicks to her ribs. Renly pressed Silverbeard forward as well, offering reassurance to the reluctant animal.
The trail led to a spring. Unlike the surface springs they visited out on the steppes, a mist of fog hovered over the surface of this pool. A faint mineral odor hovered over the water, but once they caught sight of the still water, the traggahs didn’t hesitate. They waded in up to their knees and drank in great gulping breaths. Renly threw his leg over Silverbeard’s head and slid into the pond. Using his hands as a cup, he drank until his stomach could hold no more. K’Sati and Paul followed his example.
A copse of low trees surrounded by thick brush sheltered the pool. After sleeping exposed the last several nights, the idea of sleeping under a canopy of trees appealed to him.
“We can’t stop here.” Paul whispered. “Don’t even think about it. We’ve got to keep moving.”
Paul jerked on Neatfoot’s reins, dragging her back toward the trail. In spite of the chill bite in the air, Paul’s face and hair were damp with sweat, his eyes glassy.
Withdrawal symptoms, he guessed, although he hadn’t seemed nervous earlier. Here, at least, they had water and shelter from the wind. “Come on, it’s getting dark. Let’s camp here tonight.”
Paul wouldn’t hear of it. He pointed to a myriad of animal tracks in the mud around the edge of the pond. “This is a watering hole. Every predator in the area hunts here at dusk. We don’t want to be anywhere near here when they come through. There’s a safer place three hours up ahead.”
“We cannot travel in these mountains at night,” K’Sati protested. “The traggahs are not sure-footed on rocky trails.”
Dark bruises circled beneath K’Sati’s beautiful eyes. She looked exhausted. Renly didn’t want to keep going either, but for once, he agreed with Paul. “Three more hours? Isn’t there someplace closer?”
“This is also one of the few known watering holes on the edge of the forbidden zone. You can bet Wayne Strickman and his crew will head this way,” he hissed. “So will any --.” Paul froze; his eyes fixed to a spot behind them.
Renly followed his stare. Two mandragons stood amid the shrubs on the far side of the spring. One of them held a laser weapon pointed in their general direction.
Instinctively, he grabbed K’Sati’s arm and pulled her behind him.
The mandragons edged their way clumsily around the pond, the darker of the two keeping his weapon leveled in their direction. Both of them seemed even more reptilian than the mandragons he’d encountered thus far. Their legs barely supported them. They wore no shoes; their claw-tipped, elongated t
oes gave them a ponderous, lumbering gait.
Paul swore quietly. “Keep your mouth shut and let me do the talking. They’re claim jumpers. They want us to lead them to our claim. Once we do, they’ll kill us all.”
The one with the gun spoke first. “Where y’all heading?”
With a pang of homesickness, Renly recognized the Maryland accent. Somehow, it seemed wrong, coming from the lizard-man.
“Thank god you found us,” Paul stepped forward, as if to greet them, but the mandragon with the weapon motioned to him to keep his distance. “We ran into a bit of trouble out on the plains with a posse of Arkady men. They robbed us; tried to take our woman. We were lucky to get away. Can you help us?”
The one without the gun snorted. “Yeah, right. Cut the crap. We’ve got you dead to rights. You’re going to take us to that camp of yours.”
Paul grinned and shook his head. “Oh we don’t have a camp. We’re just looking for a safe place to hide until they give up. Check our packs, if you want. They’ve taken everything.”
Renly admired Paul’s coolness. But then, Paul had always been a cunning liar.
The mandragons shared a glance, and nodded. “Oh sure, we’d be glad to help you out.” One of them pulled a length of stout cord from his pack.
Neatfoot whistled a shrill warning. Beside him, Silverbeard began to buck. He looked to K’Sati, but she didn’t have a clue, either. Only Paul seemed to understand; he grabbed the reins of both traggahs and ran up the trail, dragging the terrified traggahs right behind him.
The mandragons seemed uncertain.
The underbrush around the pond seemed to explode with rahgs. As their closest target, the heavy-footed mandragons stood no chance against the pack
K’Sati froze; petrified by the sight. Renly grabbed her by the hand and dragged her from the carnage. She fought him; mad with panic. Unable to calm her, he picked her up and threw her bodily over his shoulder, while behind them, the hoarse growls of the mandragons gave way to the sounds of tearing flesh and the crack of bones.
* * *
She recovered a short while later, but they’d lost valuable time. They raced after Paul and the traggahs as twilight deepened around them. The steep trail hampered them, but after hour, they still hadn’t caught up to him. Frightened as he was of the predators behind them, Renly began to wonder if Paul was deliberately trying to lose them. As the light faded to full dark, the traggahs tracks became impossible to follow. He was no longer sure they were on the right path.
K’Sati must have been thinking the same thing. “We cannot find him in the dark.” She dropped to the ground, panting. “I can go no further.”
He dropped next to her, exhausted. “He’s gone. He’s got the traggahs, all the water, and the supplies. He doesn’t need us anymore,” he added, bitterly.
A sliver of moon peeked over the mountains, revealing the dark tumble of a rock formation about thirty yards off the trail. He pointed it out to her. “What do you say we wedge ourselves into the rocks for the night? Just in case those rahgs come looking for us?”
She shivered against him. “I am too tired to care anymore,” she said.
He heaved himself to his feet, regretting for the hundredth time the weight of his satchel.
They found relative safety in a niche beneath a massive overhang of rock.
She curled herself against him, and fell asleep almost at once. In spite of his own exhaustion, he found himself unable to do the same. The temperatures had been below freezing since shortly after second sunset. He envied her lack of sensitivity to the cold. Even the traggah-wool-lined craggon vest couldn’t stop the stone’s bitter cold from seeping painfully into his bones. His face felt hot; feverish. He wondered if he was coming down with something. He realized that as soon as they left the steppes, they’d entered the forbidden zone; the one place he’d been so determined not to go.
He groaned inwardly. How had this happened? Not even K’Sati had ever been here before. Of all the places…What am I doing here?
He massaged the pounding headache at his temples with his fingertips. He never imaged he’d have to go through all this to find Garrett. Never thought he’d end up running away from nightmare creatures who wanted to eat him and mining executives who wanted to shoot him. What the hell?
He sighed and shook his head at the irony. Garrett and Paul came here for the gold, just like the Arkady Universal Mining Corporation and all the festival visitors. He reached into his pack and fingered the heavy bars of precious metal he’d brought with him. He was probably the only person in the universe who’d actually brought gold to Aurum. They had no water or food, and since Paul took the traggahs, their only way back was through a predator-infested wilderness. They could be shot by Wayne and his men, or freeze to death, or get eaten by any number of wild beasts, but by golly, he had a bag full of gold. Isn’t that just great.
At this point, the likelihood of them surviving the freezing temperature and predators to find Garrett seemed impossible. Death now seemed to be the most likely outcome of this trip. I do not want to die here. All his fine posturing about owing Garrett his life seemed stupid now. A nagging little voice in his head kept whispering that Garrett would not have come this far for him.
He huddled closer to K’Sati’s sleeping form. I’m done with it. It wasn’t fair to drag K’Sati along with him, and he couldn’t bear the thought of continuing on alone. Tomorrow they would turn around and head back down the trail and toward the coast. At least he was certain of that direction. He’d catch the last transport and be rid of this planet for good.
But what about Garrett?
The guilt left a sour taste in his mouth. He would never forgive himself if he left without Garrett. Or at least did everything he could to find him. He tried to remember the last time he’d felt Garrett’s presence. At the race track. Maybe he really was dead. Paul didn’t even know for sure. None of them would know until they reached his claim among the Crags of Corrah.
He reached for his brother, but felt only Silverbeard’s sleeping presence somewhere ahead of them. Again and again he opened himself mentally, straining to detect any sense of his brother, but there was none; there was only the traggah. It was almost as if Silverbeard had taken up residence in his head, usurping Garrett’s position. How odd. Even now, with Paul and the traggahs somewhere ahead of them, he could feel Silverbeard sleeping inside his head. The traggah had no worries or strong emotions as he slept; yet his mere presence seemed to block his ability to sense Garrett.
Neatfoot was there too, he realized. Fainter, but a separate, recognizable presence. Somewhere below them, out on the windswept plains, he could sense the peacefulness of the herd bedded down for the night. In fact, it seemed as if his head was filled with the gentle presence of all the traggahs. Even K’Sati was there.
She sighed in her sleep; her comforting heat warming him where their bodies touched. If Wayne and his men caught them, they would not treat them kindly, yet she had not really said anything about her relationship with Wayne or why she was so afraid of him. Paul had called Wayne her boyfriend and she had not denied it. But it seemed an odd pairing. Wayne had seemed entrenched in the Arkady hierarchy; on the other hand, her whole world seemed to revolve around the traggahs. While K’Sati’s humble origins and her job at the stables made sense to him; Wayne had made his contempt for the native Khirjahni, especially the women, quite evident.
What did she see in that guy? She was nothing like Terran women he’d known. Strong, but reserved. Childlike, but not foolish. Sensitive but practical. She’d been confused by the purpose of the antibacterial wipes he’d packed in his satchel; then laughed when he ran out of them, rightly pointing out that after surviving a tree lizard bite, he was probably stronger than anything he would encounter on Aurum.
She smelled of sweet grass and dirt and tired woman. A warm scent, like horses after a good run, or the traggahs when they bedded down for the night. Every Khirjahni he’d met on this planet had been a surpris
e; K’Sati in particular. Independent, proud, responsive people with a sense of honor and the ability to laugh at themselves and others without spite. K’Sati’s ability to connect with the traggahs, even the wild ones, seemed almost magical to him. On Earth, they called them horse whisperers.
His ex-girlfriend Sumi had been strong-willed too, but her idea of an ‘outing’ involved a trip to a day spa; she’d been about as natural as halogen lighting. Sumi ran their relationship like she ran her consulting firm, and he’d let her. She’d imposed strict rules on the relationship, his behavior, and their time together. Now that he thought about it, his phobias had gotten worse during their time together. If she hadn’t already left him, one look at him right now would have clinched it.
They were so different; no comparison really. Of course, K’Sati was only half human; raised in a matriarchal society. Compared to the often belligerent behavior of the Arkady executives and other Terrans he’d encountered on Aurum, the Khirjahni seemed almost passive. But based on what Okoro had told him of the Khirjahni battles against the warlike Th’Dorrans, he understood that they were not pushovers. They were willing to fight, whatever the odds, to preserves their homeland and culture. Not even the Arkady Mining Corporation had managed to wrest away all the Khirjahni mineral rights.
He yearned to sketch her, but didn’t trust himself.
CHAPTER 24
The scream of a craggon high overhead brought K’Sati out of a deep sleep. She struggled briefly, until she realized she lay wrapped in the arms of the Terran, Renly Harkness, in a shallow rock crevasse in the forbidden zone. The idea that a craggon could be hunting for them terrified her. She’d never seen one, but the sound of its screams…
