Chapter 19 #2
Nobody even commented on my presence, not even the females, though there were six of them.
I received some hostile glares, but that was pretty much it.
Ilesekh spoke with what had to be the outpost’s leader, and then we were off to search the rubble in precise grids.
I was assigned my own without fuss, but I knew that had to be out of necessity more than anything.
They needed every hand they could find to help them find the rest of their people.
I learned, just from quietly listening, that they’d already managed to search the most likely spots—the places where homes had stood.
A small group of less-wounded survivors, too injured to assist in clearing rubble but capable of traveling, had been dispatched to the Sun Fang’s main settlement several days away, on the other side of the mountain.
They had not believed any help was forthcoming.
It was a grim task, mostly because each grid that was cleared yielded nothing.
I’d been shown the list of missing, scrawled on the back of a fur with charcoal, and there were at least a dozen still gone.
Among them were three children and a female, the rest all male.
Ilesekh had called it lucky, but I wasn’t sure what he’d meant by that, and I’d been afraid to ask.
Lucky it wasn’t more? By my count, there were fewer than ten mated pairs; seven wasn’t ten, and that’s how many females there were, the missing one included.
Perhaps three had been in the party traveling to the heart of Sun Fang?
I’d just started on my third grid square of about twenty by twenty feet.
Using a stick to carefully test the piles of rubble, I listened closely for any sign of life and called out the names from the list at intervals.
The naga who were searching had an advantage over me: they had the ability to scent their kin.
I couldn’t use a superior sense of smell to do that, and even my hearing was not as good as theirs.
It did not surprise me that it was one of them who found the first naga buried deep beneath stone and debris.
They flocked in a hurry to the site to try to free the young male, who, much to my surprise, was still alive. I guess that proved they really could go longer without water. He’d been buried close to the edge of a building, partially sheltered by a wooden beam that had created a pocket around him.
“See, Dove?” I said to the small sleara observing the chaos with me.
“That’s what we’re trying to do: find more naga beneath the rock.
I don’t suppose I can borrow your nose, can I?
” A sleara probably had an even better sense of smell than the naga did, and one thing was now clear to me: this wasn’t going fast enough.
Not only was speed an issue if anyone was still alive, but the boy they’d found was practically in an area that had already been searched by the survivors.
They should have found him, but they hadn’t.
Dove did her chirp kee kee noise, but softly, like she was contemplating what I’d just said.
Ever since we’d entered the site of the former settlement and encountered all these new, unknown naga, she’d stuck close to my side.
I’d seen Hunter overhead, watching. He’d once dive-bombed and caught some critter he devoured with great satisfaction—and a lot of mess.
I couldn’t see him now, but I heard him answer her call.
He was nearby. A moment later, he came winging my way from the direction Ekkire had previously been in, after abandoning his grid to help free the young naga male.
I wriggled my stick into a gap between some rocks, shifted them enough to peer under, and sighed when it appeared there was only more rubble.
“This is useless. This is a job for trained search dogs…” Except there weren’t any.
Though I had a feeling I could probably train sleara to do the task, that wasn’t going to help much now.
Hunter landed next to my stick, sniffing at the rock I had lifted with his tiny snout, his round ears twitching back.
Then he growled, which was a tiny, very cute sound coming from such a small creature.
Dove chirped back at him, then fluttered from my shoulder, light as a feather.
A silvery shimmer of peach-fuzz fur and bat-like wings, she caught the Serant sun and briefly glowed violet.
Then she landed next to Hunter on the rock I’d shifted, and both of them sniffed.
As one, they lifted their little snouts and stared with their bright eyes at the ruckus the naga hunters and Ekkire were making, getting the boy they’d found out.
Ish was there too, doing first aid even as the young male was trapped.
“That’s what we’re after, more naga survivors.
Or bodies, I guess… I don’t suppose you’re smelling any?
” I thought I had to be talking to the air here.
They cocked their heads cutely, clearly listening, but they couldn’t understand.
Dove had been clingy so far, unwilling to go far, while Hunter had been observing from a distance or near Ekkire.
Now the pair tucked close and started clambering over the rocks, their little noses to the ground.
My heart leaped in my chest at the sight, no way!
Did they actually get it? They couldn’t be that smart, could they?
I knew I should not abandon my grid, but when they scuttled across the line into the next one, I followed.
Everyone was still busy, very focused on the boy they’d found.
They needed all hands on deck to get him out, it seemed.
Nobody paid attention to me, not even the wounded or the females and young at the fire, though some had been watching me with suspicion not long ago.
When both Hunter and Dove pounced on a spot marked by two fallen trees, they began excitedly doing their call: “Chirp kee kee!” Dove’s was higher-pitched than Hunter’s, but they were so excited their little voices blended together.
I rushed over, ignoring Ekkire calling my name with what might have been a serious note of concern.
I didn’t know yet what they’d found, but it was clear they’d found something.
“Hush, babies!” I urged as I dropped to my knees beside them and tried to peer beneath the tangled, bare branches.
I gathered both of them in my arms, patting their wriggling bodies until they calmed and fell silent.
“Let me see, let me listen,” I said. Behind me, I could hear someone approaching quickly, stones and pebbles rolling, a tail whipping up a dust cloud the wind threw at my back. There was only one person it could be.
Lowering myself, I pressed my ear to the ground and listened more closely.
My eyes struggled to penetrate the chaos of debris and darkness.
Shadows were faintly purple at their edges, black deep at the back.
I thought I heard a moan, a faint murmur.
Was that the faintest flash of something orange deep in that tangle of roots?
I turned, full of excitement, just as Ekkire reached me, and all I needed to do was point.
He lowered onto his coils, growing slinky against the uneven ground, and partially pressed himself into the opening the little sleara had been so excited about.
“Yes!” he crowed. “There are naga here. Three, I scent three!” He rose, caught me around the middle, and eagerly crushed his mouth against mine.
The jubilant celebration lasted only a second before he cupped a hand to his mouth and shouted for help.
“Jasmine’s found three more! They’re alive too! ”
We both reached for the biggest tree first, though it was nearly all Ekkire who managed to lift it and roll it away.
Everything happened fast after that, a crowd of naga males descending on the site and digging with careful precision to make sure the debris would not collapse on top of the people buried beneath.
I held my breath when the first body was revealed and was relieved when he lifted his head very slowly.
Beneath his tightly coiled body, two smaller figures had been carefully protected.
This devoted father had protected his younglings at a cost to himself, and now all three were going to make it.