Page 27

Artek

The sled failed me just before dawn, but it was the battery that had given out, rather than the engine.

My body ached all over, but I forced myself to pack what supplies and weapons I had onto my back and keep moving.

I’d long ago passed Thunder Rock Village and was nearing the territory of their neighbor: a Naga Clan with bright yellow scales often flecked with orange.

Because of their appearance, they’d long called themselves the Sun Fangs, and they were particularly gifted archers.

I couldn’t remember which Shaman was stationed near them, but they were fairly isolated, so he lived right in their village and had for a long time.

I didn’t know him, because he’d never visited the Training Grounds—that I could remember.

An insular fellow, from whom I doubted any help would be forthcoming.

That meant Levant was my only ally out here, and I wasn’t sure how to find him.

It turned out I didn’t need to; he was the one who found me.

His black scales hid him well in the early morning dusk.

When he slid from behind a Darspine, I nearly raised my knife and struck him.

“Whoa, Artek!” he said, dancing out of my way.

“What are you doing here?” Then he forwent all questions, noted my appearance, and rushed over to catch me by the arm and support me.

“My camp is this way. Come, I’ll heal you. ”

His camp was more than just a simple camp, but that did not surprise me, given who I was dealing with.

Levant had always lived in a tent when he worked at his post in the Serqethos Desert.

He’d had plenty of time to make that tent everything he desired it to be, and with his aptitude for finding just about anything…

it was big enough to stand upright in, yet heated, and one supposedly fabric wall appeared to be a giant viewscreen.

From the outside, I hadn’t even seen the tent until he lifted the flap to guide me inside.

He had some very impressive camouflage to keep it hidden from the Krektar hunting and scavenging parties.

I gratefully sank down on a pile of pillows, my cuts and bruises protesting with each motion.

I was close now, and Levant would know if a party had brought in Nala—he’d have seen.

It was hard to feel any kind of patience, hard to sit still and wait for Levant to fetch his healing device so he could work on my injuries.

When he began with the worst wound, the bloody mess on my scalp, I could no longer contain it.

The image of Nala, forced to work under pain of whiplash the way I’d seen on the vids Levant had taken, was simply too much.

“Did you see a pregnant human dragged in by some of those Krektar? Did you see that, Levant? Did anyone enter the ship recently?” The words burst out—rapid, too loud—but I wasn’t worried anyone would hear us; Levant probably had a trick for that too.

I winced when his fingers tightened against my head, pinching the gash back together and knocking away the already formed crust. Rough treatment, but then, my human-obsessed friend was never one to care about the finer things, like polite conversation, tact, or, let alone, warning a patient it was about to hurt.

“What do you mean, pregnant human?” he demanded sharply, right after the pinch.

Heat bathed the location, and under his focused power, the shallow cut began to knit together.

“Why are you concerned about a human they brought here?” he asked, then blew out a sharp breath, the healing device moving to a deeper slash over my shoulder.

“You were hiding her, were you, you sly bastard? And they stole her?” He hissed, as if I’d deeply offended him, but I hardly cared about any of that.

Clutching his wrist with my hand, I snarled, “Don’t mess around, Levant.

Did you see her or not?” From the corner of my eye, I saw a sharp flare of light as my mating sigils abruptly began to glow.

The wild, out-of-control emotions that flooded me came with a rush of adrenaline, and I no longer felt the tiredness or the pain.

Levant nodded, eyes wide. “They brought in a human female. I could not tell if she was pregnant.” I turned to leave his high-tech, fancy tent, determined to see for myself where Nala was.

That had to be her; there was no other human roaming out there unprotected.

There had to be a way to save her, even with this many enemies about.

This close to dawn, surely their guards would be distracted, tired.

Levant threw himself bodily between me and the tent flap, our coils—black against white—slamming together.

I faltered, but the knowledge that Nala was so close was enough to spur me into further action.

I pulled my knife and dove for the nearest tent wall, ready to carve my way out if need be.

Nala could be hurt, scared, or dying. She needed me right now.

This couldn’t wait. I wasn’t going to sit on my ass and do what shamans were so infinitely good at: talk until the issue had somehow magically resolved itself.

Levant proved faster and more determined than I expected in protecting his fancy home.

He threw himself between me, the tent wall, and the knife.

The blade came perilously close to nicking his scales, but his reflexes were fast, his tail coming up to block the blow.

Then he had me in a hold, coiling around me and pinning my arms while he shouted at me to stop.

I fought back, briefly, but the strength the adrenaline boost had given me faded fast, and I knew Levant was not my enemy.

“I know,” he kept saying. “I know.” As if he could possibly understand what I was feeling, he couldn’t.

But as I surrendered, dropping the knife, I remembered that he’d been anxious to help the humans for weeks now.

He shoved away from me with a frustrated growl, leaving me on the rug-covered floor, and I snarled back.

He might be anxious to move, but he was sitting there in all his comfort while Nala and the other humans were treated like they…

I did not want to finish the thought, and I forced my sore body upright to face my friend so I could make him see reason.

“She’s in there. They took her, Levant. I have to help her. ”

His tail flicked to the side, picking up the healing device that had been dropped in the struggle.

“Not until after I’ve healed you, and not, damn it, until we’ve made a decent plan.

” I hated it when he was the one acting all reasonable.

Usually, the roles were reversed; he was the impulsive one, not me.

Sitting down as before, I subjected myself to his terms, however, and focused on pumping him for as much information as I could.

“You should know,” he said as he bent down to check a last minor scrape lower on my tail, “the Sun Fangs have been restless. The skyship is closer to their home than any wreck has ever been. Their scouts have been all over these woods.” There was a deep concern in his eyes, and I knew what he was thinking: what if these Naga attacked the ship?

They didn’t know what they were facing and could be hurt badly by the Krektar weapons.

Their Shaman was older, and I’d already considered that he wouldn’t want to help me, but was he capable of reining in the Queen’s battle lust?

The look in Levant’s eyes said that he didn’t think so, and I sighed, my shoulders lowering.

“I suppose we must inform the council of that,” I said begrudgingly.

My friend hissed, shaking his head, and, despite the dire situation, a grin pulled at my mouth.

Levant was in hot water with the council far more often than I was; it was no surprise he didn’t feel like calling them.

“We are not bothering them unless we absolutely have to,” he decided, and then he sank down on the pillows next to me, his coils curling neatly around himself.

“Now, tell me about your mate so we can come up with a plan to save her. Pregnant? You work fast.” He wasn’t looking at me as he said it, so I could not tell if he was joking or serious.

He’d stretched out an arm to flick open a travel chest and was beginning to pull out dried meat and fat-based ration bars stuffed with dried fruit and grains.

My stomach rumbled painfully in response, and I focused on eating rather than explaining the situation between Nala and me.

Grumpily, I wanted to keep it all to myself, it wasn’t any of his business, and I was a private person.

If I wanted his help, I had to give him something, though.

Around a mouthful, I told him that Nala and I had only been together a few days, though to me, they’d stretched out and seemed much longer.

“Nala was already pregnant when her people told her she was going to be executed, unborn child and all. Her stasis pod fell out of the skyship near my home on the night it crashed.”

Levant nodded, eyes alight with curiosity.

“What luck! It took you several weeks to wake her, then? Was the stasis pod damaged? How did it work?” I felt something grow tight in my chest when I was confronted with his questions.

Nala had always been the one asking them, her curiosity endless.

I missed her. I needed her back, safe, whole.

Her and her baby, unharmed. But I’d smelled her blood in the clearing where I had fought the Krektar—not a lot of it, but enough to terrify me with all the terrible possibilities.