Page 211 of Mates for the Raskarrans #1-6

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Dazzik

I watch as my Sam is taken inside the strange cave with my old tribe, my stomach filling with dread.

It is not just that this place reminds me of my Sam’s grey world, that it being here in Lina’s forest unsettles my spirit in a deeper way than I have ever known.

It is that I know what the inside of such a place will be like.

Lots of long dark tunnels and narrow places.

I think of how many of my Sam’s tribe poured out of such caves, how many raskarrans might be now between me and my linasha.

I am weary. Weary of running, weary from lack of sleep, weary from not eating. Fear and rage have kept me going this far, but I am only one male. I am unsure if there is anything I can do to retrieve my Sam from inside this place.

Despair courses through me, grief and pain twisting my body into knots. She is my mate, my linasha, and I have failed her. The scars on my cheek burn as if newly made, reforged by my shame.

My Sam. I have come for you. I have tried and it was not enough. Lina was wrong to send you to my dreams.

“Dazzik.”

The voice is as clear to my ears as if it speaks from right next to me, but when I look round, there is nothing. No one close to me.

Confused, I look further from myself. Spy a figure walking across the clearing ahead of me towards the door.

I am wondering where they have come from when they turn, beckoning to me, and I realise it is Nelsah.

Nelsah who told me I would not see her again.

Come to me once more in my moment of greatest need.

I send my thanks to Lina, for surely it is she who sends my old friend back to guide me.

I run forwards, searching among the rains for warriors on patrol. With the losses Jortan’s group have suffered at my hands, there should be someone out here keeping watch, but perhaps they have not had time to explain the situation yet. Perhaps Basran has not had time to respond.

It is an advantage I must press, and so I hurry forwards, following in Nelsah’s footsteps as I head for the doorway. It is held in place by a length of vine. I unhook it, opening the door as little as possible to prevent creaking, then close it behind me.

I have stepped into another long, straight tunnel, just like the one my Sam showed to me, only it is dark and gloomy.

There is a set of doors at the far end of it, light shining from behind it, glowing through the gaps.

A soft sort of light - the light of a fire, not the strange tiny suns that my Sam’s world used to light their way.

Jortan and his group must have already passed into the room beyond, and from the noise I can hear coming from that end of the tunnel, there are a great many males waiting inside.

Jortan’s eight now raising their numbers even higher.

Movement in the corner of my eye. I turn to it, gripping Arztal’s knife in my hand, but it is only Nelsah again. She puts a finger to her lips to quiet me, then points into a room that branches off from the tunnel. A bedroom, I wonder? Like the tiny, spiritless room that my Sam called her home.

I creep forwards, keeping my breathing low and steady, my feet as light against the floor as I can manage.

For all it is strange, the flat tunnel floor is good for sneaking.

Some debris has gathered at the edges - leaves blown in by the wind, bones, seed pods, fruit stones and other discarded things - but there is room enough to walk down the centre of the tunnel without stepping on anything that might crunch or snap.

My warrior feet whisper over the floor as silent as a hunter’s.

Inside the room, I find a raskarran part way through changing his clothes.

I watch him, unnoticed from the doorway, waiting for my best moment.

When his focus is fully on turning his top in his hands until it is the right way round, I step to his side, pressing a hand over his mouth as I slide my blade up into his heartspace.

Hot blood gushes onto my hand, my other catching his last breath as it leaves him.

I lower him to the floor. Leave as silently as I came.

Nelsah is gone once more, but I know what I need to do.

A cool wind blows in from behind me as if encouraging me forwards.

I go, feeling the guiding hand of Lina at my back as I head deeper into the cave.

I check each of the rooms in turn, taking down every raskarran I come across.

I scuffle with each of them briefly, but they are all overcome.

The deeper I go, the darker it gets, until I am squinting through the gloom, the only light shining from beyond the door at the end of the tunnel.

I check all the rooms carefully, not wanting to miss some male and have him come up behind me.

The second to last I check is not a bedroom at all, but a cramped little room with a wall of strange shiny squares.

It does not look much touched by Basran’s tribe, no sign of anyone having been in it, so I leave it, turning to the last bedroom instead.

Inside, a raskarran is arranging his pelts atop his bed.

A bed made for a creature much smaller than a raskarran. A human, perhaps, like my Sam.

I creep up to the male, raising my blade high, ready to slit his throat.

But then Nelsah appears in front of him, and the male should startle to have a female suddenly before him, but he does not, and I know then for sure that it is my eyes only that Nelsah appears before.

She raises a finger at me, shaking her head as if to tell me off.

I lower my blade, raising an eyebrow in question.

She makes a slashing motion. An ineffective way to dispatch a male.

He will cry out, I think. The others will know I am come.

Nelsah only nods, a devious smile spreading across her face as she steps back into the shadows, disappearing once more.

Disappearing as I could do. Silent and stealthy and cloaked in all this darkness. And then I know what she means for me to do. She wants this male to make a noise.

So I give him time to cry out before I grapple with him.

Shaken by fear and surprise, he stands little chance against me, but I pretend to struggle with him, twisting my knife so it only scores a grievous wound across his chest, does not plunge straight into his heartspace.

We grapple some more, then I allow him to wrench free of me, to stagger out of the room.

I hear the crash of him barging through the doors, followed by his cry of fear and pain, and the uproar, the panic that follows it.

I head further back up the tunnel, keeping myself cloaked in the growing shadows, taking out my bow and nocking an arrow in place.

It is only moments before the doors burst open once more, a cluster of warriors stepping into the tunnel.

They are well armed with spears and blades, but the tunnel is tight, and they cannot stand more than two abreast. The light shining from behind them does not penetrate the darkness around me, and they creep forwards with great wariness.

Time to show them what they are wary of.

I loose my first arrow. I am no great shot, but the warriors are close and clustered together. It would have been harder to miss them all than it is to hit one.

My arrow flies true, sinking deep into the neck of the first warrior. He collapses, gargling his last, and the others all turn to stare, giving me time to nock another arrow, take another shot.

I have both quivers of arrows taken from the hunters I killed sunsets ago, but they will not last me much longer.

Already I have spent most of the first quiver on my way here.

I take out a third arrow, nocking it and drawing it back, but this one only slices through the arm of the next warrior, not incapacitating him.

It seems to sharpen his headspace, for he barks at his warrior brothers still standing.

“Your spears! Throw your spears!”

I step into the nearest bedroom. Watch as the spears sail down the tunnel, past where I was just standing. Then I wait a moment, let the remaining warriors edge along the tunnel, their breathing ragged.

“We must have hit him,” one of them says. “No more arrows come.”

As they arrive next to my doorway, I pounce.

There are three of them left, but I have surprise and fear on my side, and it does not take long to overpower them.

Like the rest of Basran’s tribe that I have seen so far, they are poorly trained, lack discipline.

A little fear in them knocks what training they have out of their headspace and it is almost too easy to cut them down.

More males emerge into the tunnel, and when they see their fallen brothers, they panic.

Start to run. I see the moment each of them spots me - always too late to even draw a weapon - and one by one I slice through them, the bodies starting to pile up around me.

I take no pleasure from this killing. It is a necessary evil.

Something I only do to save my Sam from the worse that Basran will have planned for her.

You must do this for me, Dazzik. You must.

The panic is catching amongst them quickly now.

I step aside as a large group of males enters the tunnel, concealing myself once more in a bedroom.

They run past me and they do not stop, light flooding the tunnel as they barge out of the door at the end and keep going.

I can hear shouted commands, someone trying to regain control, and I think it is time I stopped lurking in shadows. I think it is time I show my face.