Chapter 6 #2
From just my first look at Iave and the two Naga he’d been with, I would have thought his kind was at Stone Age levels of technology.
His ax blades were made of shimmering black obsidian stone and their spears had appeared to be flint.
It had taken me by complete surprise to walk into a heated, functioning greenhouse, followed by a fully kitted-out medical bay that appeared even more advanced than what I’d seen on any UAR ship.
There must have been a complete decline of his civilization, but what had caused it?
No, it wasn’t even a complete decline, because Artek still knew how to use the machines.
He seemed as competent with them as any medical professional I’d encountered.
It was a baffling puzzle I was dying to figure out.
First though, I had to focus on Naomi, if she was even still alive.
“Hey, Iave, where are you taking us?” I asked and then frowned when he looked down at me over his shoulder with this shifty look in his deep gray eyes.
Oh boy, had he decided not to rescue her?
Was he taking me back to his friends, was that what that look was about?
My shoulders went up immediately, my eyes narrowing as I pursed my lips, ready to give him a piece of my mind.
The tip of his tail had been curled around my ankle during most of the walk, even if we hadn’t been talking, but now it tightened and then slid up to stroke the back of my knee.
“Orshala peak,” he grunted, his head tilting so he could jut the broken tip of his chin horn in the direction of one towering spire in the distance. “Home to Bitter Storm.”
I deflated on the spot. Oh… Home to Bitter Storm.
He wasn’t taking me to safety in a misguided attempt to protect me like I’d expected.
He was taking me directly into enemy territory, into the heart of danger, and I hadn’t even had to ask or defend why I was fit to join him on such a rescue mission.
My whole body flushed with heat when I realized that.
It felt like he’d seen me for me, and he was okay with that.
Now I was suddenly in the unfamiliar position of wanting to prove myself to a man, to show him that this faith in me was correct.
Usually, I made sure it was the other way around, and no one had ever measured up.
But Iave? I was starting to have this sinking feeling that he just might.
“So how big is this Clan? What can we expect?” I asked.
The best start for any mission was always intel, so I aimed to make sure I knew as much as Iave did about the enemy we were about to face.
Which he didn’t make easy, each question was like pulling teeth with his monosyllabic replies, sometimes the answer was just reduced to an outright grunt.
But the picture that was slowly forming was a little disquieting.
It sounded like this Clan was one of the biggest in the area, probably three times the size of any of their neighbors.
Numbering well over a thousand Naga strong and embedded deep in the caves beneath Orshala Peak.
A looming mountain that was big and blunt, with its flanks covered by thick purple foliage until it thinned out for a cap of snow near the top.
How could just two people extract a prisoner from the heart of that? I was suddenly starting to doubt our ability to do so. Had my fear for Naomi’s safety; a girl I’d barely exchanged two sentences with, led us to attempt a suicide mission?
When I asked Iave what he thought our odds were, all I got in response was a glare and a grunt.
A non-answer I had no idea how to decipher, but probably it wasn’t good news.
We needed a really good plan if we wanted to pull this off, and for that, we had to get close enough to figure out where they had her, and if she was even still alive.
I did know, that I couldn’t let Iave find out that I was having second thoughts. If he knew I was worried about the risk we were taking, he’d turn us around and leave. I made a promise to Naomi, I couldn’t let her down even if I was scared.
By the time we reached a dark cave opening, I’d stuffed away my worries and was fully focused.
It was clear he meant to lead us inside, and dusk was starting to fall, as good a time as any to start a scouting excursion.
I was no tracker, but I made an attempt to figure out if this opening was an entrance often used.
To my untrained eyes, and hindered by the slowly fading light, it didn’t appear like any snake had recently entered.
Then again, Iave left surprisingly little trace of himself and he was a huge Naga.
“We’re still hours out from where their village is rumored to be, but Thunder Rock’s Master scout is certain this is a barely used entrance.
It should work for our purpose.” It was the most words Iave had strung together all afternoon and his voice was deliciously rough and rumbly.
Maybe that was disuse, maybe that was his natural tone, but I loved the way he sounded.
“Is Thunder Rock your Clan?” I asked, not hesitating when I ducked into the darkness after him.
I had very little light to help guide me but I knew it was probably a bad idea to light a lantern.
The best solution was to simply stick close to him, so I curled my arm through his, plastering my hip to his side.
His body seemed to shiver and a soft rattling noise reached my ears, almost like the sound one of those rainmaker instruments made.
I couldn’t pinpoint what it was, but it sounded like it came from right next to me.
He was making it. Then his arm clamped around me, dragging me even closer and I missed a few steps but he effortlessly carried me along.
“Not my Clan,” he grunted, and that was it.
When I tried to ask him if all Naga had a Clan or if some didn’t, he tilted his head so that in the dark all I saw was a pair of glimmering gray eyes; softly glowing like a cat’s.
There was a glare in them so I took that as a ‘no’ and it was not a good thing.
Which probably meant…. Iave was without a Clan and it was a sore subject for him. Now I was even more curious.
“Come on, give me something. Tell me what the fuck is going on, I don’t like being in the dark.” My words didn’t have the effect I wanted them to. He hissed, and though I couldn’t see it, I just knew that he’d flicked out his long, split tongue to scent the air.
“I will carry you, a light would draw unwanted attention,” he said.
Reaching for me with his other hand I was just in time to push it away.
I was practically blind in this dark but his guidance at my side was more than enough to help me.
I wasn’t going to let him carry me around like I was a toddler, I was more than capable enough.
Though I had to admit that it was kind of cute that he’d mistaken my words that way.
A language barrier was still a thing, even if his touch allowed us to understand the words.
“I don’t need you to carry me, I have legs, I will walk!
I meant I want to know who you and your friends are.
Why were you there at the crash site? What are your plans with me and the others?
I want to know who you are, Iave!” I had made sure to keep my voice muted so it wouldn’t carry far, but my skin still broke out in goosebumps when I realized the sound carried well inside this cave tunnel.
He was quiet, his pace increasing and I was almost jogging at his side to keep up, guided by his arm around my shoulders.
At least he hadn’t made another attempt to pick me up but I still wasn’t sure if he was ever going to answer my questions.
I didn’t like all this evasiveness and at this point, I couldn’t chalk it up to lack of social and communication skills.
It was on purpose, just like that stuff with the Shaman.
“Fine,” he growled above my head, his voice even more muted than my own had been. It still sounded like he was ready to bite my head off, which was impressive for a near whisper. “My friends and I were cast out of Thunder Rock, is that what you wanted to hear? That we are lowlifes with no Clan?”
“That depends,” I shot back, “Why were you cast out?” It sounded unpleasant, and if most of this world lived in circumstances similar to the Stone Age, it was rough too.
Weren’t they heavily reliant on each other and the cohesiveness of such a Clan?
Wouldn’t living without one mean endless loneliness and a quick death when injury happened during a hunt for instance?
Imagine getting gored and then not having your buddies around to take you to the Shaman…
It wasn’t hard, all I had to do was flash back to the gaping hole in his back that had only been repaired a few hours ago.
Iave hissed, his answer slow to come but this time I knew he was mulling over his words.
It didn’t feel like he was quite so defensive and angry now.
“We mate for life,” he said eventually, his softly murmured words sounding far away as if he was lost in thought.
“But Naga females are aggressive and ambitious, they fight a lot, sometimes to the death.”
He didn’t say it but I could read between the lines, there were fewer females than males.
An unbalanced society and I had a sinking feeling I knew where his explanation was headed.
Sure enough, he continued in a dark tone, “There are not enough females for all of us males, and when we have not mated beyond a certain age, males are cast out. They are a mouth to feed that does not contribute to the continued existence of the clan. That’s why I was cast out, and why my friends were too. ”
In other words, the furthest thing from a lowlife. Just a sad fact of life on this planet. I was pretty sure he’d be annoyed if I showed any kind of empathy so I just made a grunting noise. Then I had to laugh at myself; look at me, Iave’s talking style was rubbing off on me.
“What, no words?” he said, and I could hear the grin in his tone.
He was as amused by my grunt as I was. In the dark, it was easy to just tilt my head to press it against his bicep in a sort of companionable hug.
To pretend that we weren’t practically strangers.
And hey, hadn’t I learned that adversity had a way of bringing people together?
It bred closeness, and that certainly felt true with him.
I felt like I was closer to him than I’d been to anyone in a long time.
“Well, what should I say? Sorry, Iave, that sucks, your old Clan is bullshit? And it’s their loss?
” I offered and then smiled when that made him huff out a surprised bark-like laugh.
The kind of noise that made it obvious I’d caught him off-guard and he wasn’t all that used to laughing out loud.
It made a shiver run down my spine, tingling in my belly.
I liked it when he laughed and I liked that I’d somehow managed to shake him out of his grim and surly mood.
“I do not know what a bull is, but yes, it is shit,” Iave replied with a chuckle.