WarriorsandLovers (8 page)

He couldn’t think, could barely see. The pulse had become a
throbbing pain.

A wild surge of the rock beneath him sent him hurtling to
the floor, onto his hands and knees. He crawled onward. He had to get out of
this roiling pressure cooker or he’d die.

His hands burned where they contacted the stone. He forced
himself to his knees, then to his feet. His boots, made of leather with thick
sturdy soles, offered some measure of protection. He staggered and fought for
balance, trying to ride the fluctuations like a surfboard.

He’d traveled fifty, maybe a hundred meters more when he
felt himself being tossed upward. He shouted as he was slammed against the wall
of the passageway. His head hit the wall with a solid crack. Waves of black
heat rolled over him and he slid bonelessly to the floor.

* * * * *

The sound wasn’t enough to cause Eora to panic—she knew the
door of the saferoom was too secure for anything to penetrate it—but it did
make her look up from the package of food she was trying to open. She knew in
theory what to expect from a thermo-magnetic storm. Intense heat, strong
disturbances in the magnetic field leading to hallucinations and
disorientation. Nothing capable of producing a distinct thud. Or the sound of a
voice. She jumped to her feet.

She
had
heard a voice, a startled shout followed by a
groan. Someone was out there. So close to Ogof, it could only be one or more of
the three she had set out to find.

Without waiting for Nieko, who in any case could do nothing
more than she intended to do, she pushed the button on the wall and raised the
door a couple of feet. She dropped to her knees and peered out.

Immediately a miasma of heat and pressure hit her. She
blinked and steeled herself, then craned her neck to peer out. No more than an
arm’s length away someone was slumped against the wall, blood trickling from a
head wound, cheeks scaly and reddened where the heat had caught.

She reached and wrapped her fists in the collar of the
person’s khaki cotton shirt, then, crawling backward, she dragged her burden
inside. She slammed her hand against the door button to close it.

The solid rock slid into place once more, shutting out the
heat and pressure. She sat with her head dropped forward, her fists still
gripping the cloth, trying to catch her breath.

After a moment she leaned forward to inspect the unconscious
form of the man she’d rescued. He was definitely a male. His features were
rugged and masculine, his chest flat, and there was a noticeable bulge in the
front of his pants. So why was he wearing a shirt—a woman’s garment—instead of
being bare-chested like other men?

Whoever he was, he most definitely wasn’t Huon or Tybor.
She’d seen images of them both. This man’s skin was pale, a light tan rather
than the deeper brown of herself, Nieko, Tybor and almost every other Dvalinn.
Nor did he have Huon’s extraordinary paleness.

His shirt lifted and fell with the regular rhythm of his
breathing. She rolled him into the recovery position and assessed his injuries.
Blood seeped slowly from the wound on his forehead. Already he sported a solid
blue-black egg. That explained his state of unconsciousness.

She ran her hands over his cloth-covered chest and arms,
searching for other damage.

He groaned and she leaned back on her heels but his eyes
remained shut. Behind her she heard a swift intake of breath, then Nieko
appeared at her side. “Who’s that? Where did he come from? How did he get in?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know, and I dragged him in.”

“What?”

“The answers to your questions, stupid. I don’t know who he
is. I don’t know where he came from. I brought him inside.

“You opened the door?”

Eora heard the anger in Nieko’s voice but there was an
undercurrent of something else, something she couldn’t identify. He’d been
acting weird ever since they’d set out on this trip. Whatever was bugging him,
she didn’t have time to deal with it now.

“Of course I opened it,” she snapped. “What else would I
do?”

“Think, maybe? You didn’t even call for me.” The breath he
blew out sounded more exasperated than angry now. “I was only taking a crap.”

She giggled. “Now that’s an image I could have done
without.” She patted his strong, brown arm. “I heard a voice. I couldn’t ignore
it.”

Nieko moved closer. “He’s unconscious. You couldn’t have
heard him”

Eora sighed and slapped Nieko lightly. “He called out before
he hit his head, dopey.”

“I don’t like it. You should have waited for me.”

“I reacted,” she said. “Nothing bad happened. Relax.”

“I don’t think so, Eora,” he replied, going down on one knee
to look closely at the man lying on the floor. “Something about this doesn’t
feel right. It’s strange enough for us to be in the tunnels on the way to Ogof.
What are the chances of someone else being here? Maybe he was looking for us.”

“Why would you assume that?” Eora asked. “The UDBC wouldn’t
send one person. How do you know he isn’t some traveler looking for Tybor and
Huon and the human too? You can ask him when he wakes up.”

“
If
he wakes up, and
if
he tells us the
truth.”

Eora raised her eyebrows. “Why wouldn’t he?”

“Because he has something to hide,” Nieko replied. “Why is
he wearing a shirt? Look at how pale he is.”

“So? He’s injured.”

“It’s more than that and you know it.”

“It’s not unheard of for Dvalinn to be lighter skinned. Huon
is much paler.”

“But it’s unusual. Like it’s unusual for someone to be
caught in the tunnels in a thermo-magnetic storm. I don’t like it.”

“You worry too much, Nieko. You always do.” She grasped the
man’s shoulders. “Help me get him over to the bed. Lying on the hard floor
isn’t going to help him. I need to find out if he’s hurt anywhere other than
his head.”

His lips flattened into a tight line, Nieko picked up the
man’s legs and together they carried him to the bed.

“His hands are burned. We need to see if he’s hurt anywhere
else,” Eora said.

Nieko helped her to remove the shirt from their patient. She
opened the buttons on the man’s pants and eased them down over his hips, taking
the silky briefs beneath with them. There were no bruises, no cuts, definitely
no broken bones. Whoever he was, he was well muscled, fit and—if you could
ignore his pallor—healthy-looking. She pulled the pants the rest of the way off
and tossed them aside.

She ran her fingers up under his dark-golden hair to check
for any other cuts or lumps.

“Get away from him, Eora. Right now.”

She turned her head to ask what had got up Nieko’s nose now,
but the grim expression on his face stopped her.

“I mean it, Eora. Move out of his reach at once.”

“He’s unconscious, Nieko, he —”

“He’s a human. He’s probably waiting for a chance to kill
you.”

“You’re crazy. What makes you think he’s —”

She broke off as Nieko brandished the shirt he still held.

“This doesn’t come from our world.” His voice grated with
fury. “Look at the way it’s sewn together. And this. It’s a label. This is from
the surface world.” He grabbed her arm and pulled her away. “That’s not a man.
That’s the enemy.”

“He’s a human?” She spun back to the person lying on the
couch. “I thought they’d look different!” She reached out a hand to touch him
but Nieko leaped forward to slap it away.

“For once in your life will you listen? This is a human!
He’ll kill you if he can.”

“You don’t know that!” Eora snapped. “He could be here on a
peace-seeking mission or out of curiosity. It’s wrong to assume he’s come to
kill us.”

Nieko clenched his fists. “It’s stupid to assume he hasn’t.”

“How’s he going to do it?” She cast an eye over his naked
body. “Unless you want to conduct a cavity search, he doesn’t seem to be
carrying a weapon.” To annoy Nieko she added, “aside from the impressive one
there.” She pointed to his penis, large and thick even as it lay flaccidly on
his motionless body.

Nieko glared at her and tossed over a blanket. “Cover him
up.” While she complied, he went through the pockets of the human’s clothing.
He held up a case full of folded pieces of paper and rectangles of hard, shiny
material. He took one of these and squeezed it between his fingers until it
folded and snapped.

“Is that some kind of weapon?’ Eora asked.

Nieko shook his head. “I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure the
paper is currency.” He shoved the case back into the pocket it came from.
“There’s nothing dangerous here. Did he have a bag or anything with him?”

“Not when I got to him,” she replied. “He could have dropped
it outside, but I didn’t see it. I didn’t take the time to look around. After
all, as you told me yourself, it’s dangerous to leave the door open for too
long during a storm.”

Nieko turned and walked out of the room.

“Hey,” Eora called after him. “Where are you going?”

“To find something to tie him up with,” Nieko replied.

Eora pushed herself to her feet and raced after him. “You
are
not
going to tie him up. He’s hurt. He hasn’t done anything to
indicate he’s a threat.”

“Because he’s unconscious. He hasn’t been able to do
anything at all,” Nieko said.

“I won’t let you tie him up,” she said, folding her arms and
staring him down. “He’s got a head injury. He’s not going to be at full
strength when he wakes up no matter what. If he shows signs of aggression,
we’ll be able to take him down then. In the meantime, I say we take him on
trust.”

“I
don’t
trust him,” Nieko replied. He reached into a
box of first-aid supplies and withdrew a roll of bandage. “I’m keeping this
with me. At the first sign of trouble, I’ll use it to truss him up so tightly
he won’t be able to move. As soon as the storm has died down, I’m taking him
back for the council to deal with.”

He looked so determined that Eora didn’t bother to argue.
For the moment, getting him to leave the man unbound was enough. When the human
woke up, she’d convince Nieko to do whatever she wanted. He always did in the
end.

“Are you hungry?” she asked. “I opened some of the rations
before I heard him outside.”

He grunted. Taking it for assent, she tossed over one of the
bags. Nieko tore the top off, waited while the self-heating function worked and
forked the food into his mouth, all without taking his gaze from the man lying
on the bed.

Eora shook her head at Nieko’s stubbornness and ate her own
food. “Are you going to stare at him all night?” she asked.

“If you won’t let me tie him up, yes,” he replied.

“You’re being prejudiced and pessimistic,” she retorted.

“And you’re being naive,” he said, exasperation clear in his
voice. “This is a human. He’s near Ogof. Have you forgotten what happened
there?”

“Of course I haven’t, but —”

“Wha’ happened?”

The slurred whisper spun her around. She stared at the dazed
brown eyes of the man on the bed.

“You’re awake,” she exclaimed moving over to him.

“Eora, get back!” Nieko ordered.

At the same time the man muttered, “Where am I?”

The fog of pain and confusion clouding his brain cleared,
and Elijah looked around him. He shouldn’t be in a room, lying on a bed, naked,
covered by a soft blanket. The last thing he remembered was the solid rock of
the underground world heaving and tossing him around like jetsam in a storm.

The Dvalinn underground world. A woman was heading for him.
Ignoring the pain in his head, Elijah braced himself for whatever attack she
planned. Before she reached him, though, a body came flying through the air and
tackled her to the ground. The Dvalinn male who held her down looked up at him.
He appeared to be about the same age as the woman, in his early twenties, but
since Dvalinn lived for hundreds of years, Elijah didn’t make the mistake of
underestimating the danger. There was no softness in the hard brown eyes.

He tensed, waiting for their next move. There was no logic
to their first one. If the female Dvalinn was coming to harm him, why had the
man stopped her? If the man wanted to hurt him, why had he tackled the girl?

Elijah watched them carefully, adrenaline surging through
his bloodstream, preparing him for flight or fight. It had better be fight, he
thought grimly, because the room didn’t offer any opportunity for escape. He
pulled himself up into a sitting position, back against the wall, muscles
primed, ready to spring into action.

“Nieko, let me up.”

At first the words, uttered in the woman’s velvety voice,
didn’t make any sense to him. The cadence was strange and his brain wasn’t
expecting it. But then he realized that apart from the first word, probably a name,
he
could
understand. Whoever these people were, they spoke a version of
English. Her accent was unusual but intelligible.

He waited in silence for whatever came next. The man got to
his feet, pulling the woman with him. He kept a firm grip around her waist but
he glared at Elijah. “You’re human.”

Elijah couldn’t tell if it was a question, a statement or an
insult. Perhaps all three. No way was he saying anything until he knew how much
trouble he was in.

“What are you doing here?” the man growled.

Elijah remained silent. As if he’d tell them he’d come to
wipe out their entire race. Way to get real dead, real quick.

The man’s free fist clenched and he growled, “I want
answers. You can give them voluntarily or I’ll…”

“You’ll what, Nieko?” the girl interrupted. “Hit him?
Torture him? For someone who claims to despise human beings, you’re quick to
use the kind of threats I’d expect from them.” She stuck her chin in the air.
“He was hit on the head. He’s not going to leap up and attack us.” Offering
Elijah a smile, she asked, “What’s your name? Do you remember how you got
here?”