Dzar-Ghan (Alien Barbarians of Vandruk #3)

8. Chapter 8

I didn’t think I had ever heard someone talk as much as the little gallis did. Here and there, she had to pause to catch her breath, startling me every time she did that because I wondered if something else had caught her ever-changing attention.

I barely stopped her from getting too close to a nest of calamants, whose bite wasn’t as deadly as a rotburn, but it still stung for a few days. When my attention wavered for a moment, she was about to climb another boulder, which littered all of Vandruk as if some giant had dropped them at random.

Her fascination with rocks was startling and… endearing. I understood that all of this was new to her, but I realized I would have to keep a constant eye on her because her curiosity was likely to get her into more trouble than being stung by a rotburn.

Her constant chatter allowed me to keep track of her even when she was behind me. When it got quiet or too low, I turned and brought her back from whatever new thing she had discovered, reiterating my earlier suspicion of her mind not being all there. She acted like a youngling. Nek, scrap that, even the youngest of our young knew to be watchful first.

The sun was about to set when we finally caught up with the rest of my males, only because they stopped to set up camp. No matter how many times I had corrected Jenna’s course, she had still managed to separate us from the others for a much larger distance than I was comfortable with or that I would have usually kept.

“I will take two males to go hunt for our dinner,” Grehn-Bzag, who acted as my First Blade in Nyhr-Shun’s absence, suggested.

Nyhr-Shun was on his way to the Temple to set up camp in front of it, determined to prevent Bzun-Lhan from sneaking out whatever secret he was hiding within Temple City’s walls.

Normally, I would have joined the males on the hunt, but that night I was reluctant to leave the gallis by herself. I was sure the other warriors would have kept an eye on her and protected her if needed, but I didn’t think they understood the danger the gallis posed to herself.

Which reminded me…

Where did she go?

I barely caught a glimpse of golden highlights before her head disappeared behind another set of boulders.

“Sa,” I called to Grehn-Bzag over my shoulder to give him permission to leave, while I was already sprinting after the gallis.

Light steam rising up from behind the boulder gave me an idea of where she was headed, and I prayed I wasn’t too late. Damn her and her impulsiveness. I should have chosen one of the other human gallies, one who would have known when to stay put.

But even as that thought entered my mind, I knew how futile that was. No other gallies would have stirred me like this one did. Her antics kept me distracted, filling a void… no, there was no comparison between Jenna and Mynarra, even judging by the little I knew about Jenna, but she fascinated me in ways that Mynarra never had. I had known Mynarra all my life and had been able to read her moods and thoughts. She had been… predictable and a comfort to be around, whereas Jenna was literally keeping me on my toes.

I thought taking a mate would make me physically move on, but it seemed Jenna might make me emotionally move on as well.

I could have pondered this for a while longer, but the urge to keep Jenna alive was greater than this new disturbing notion, and I rounded the corner just as Jenna was about to tip her toe into the steaming liquid.

“Nek!” I yelled, giving me a moment of hesitation on her part to tackle her to the ground, away from the steaming Pit of Daggahr.

“What?” Jenna cried as we both landed on the hard-packed dirt. I directed us so that she landed on top of me, but her hands still scraped over the ground before she lifted one and placed it on my chest, staring down at me in surprise.

This was the second time her palm made contact with my skin, and just like the first, my heart beat a little faster, and the awareness of her flesh was startling and unsettling.

I sat us up, resisting the urge to pull her close to me to assure myself she was unharmed. Instead, I helped her up once I made it to my feet and grabbed a handful of dirt and threw it into the Pit of Daggahr. With a loud sizzling sound, the dirt popped on the surface. Next, I grabbed a piece of a broken narran tree. I pushed one end into the Pit of Daggahr while grabbing onto the other for as long as I dared to show Jenna how fast the liquid traveled up the tree, disintegrating it into nothingness as it moved up.

“Wow,” Jenna exclaimed, staring fascinated at the disintegrating branch before I tossed it fully in.

“Thatisamazing.” She clapped her hands together. “Doitagain.”

I had no idea what she was saying, but she was already darting around, looking for another stick. Amazed, I watched her as she repeated my moves, and I was just about to slap the branch from her hand before she let go. Giggling.

I had just saved the gallis from a terrible death, and she was… giggling?

Aghast, I watched her pick up a rock next, then a leaf, and a bug that had the misfortune to crawl by her feet—that gallis was merciless. Every single object she threw into the Pit of Daggahr sizzled and dissolved.

“Ineedtoharvestsomeofthat.” Jenna’s voice was nearly a whisper.

I followed her back to camp, just to see what she would do next. As fascinated by her actions as she was by the Pit of Daggahr.

She rummaged through one of her backpacks, and with a loud shout of triumph, “Aha!” she grabbed something, only to march back to the pit.

Again, I followed her.

She kneeled by the edge of the liquid, setting my teeth on edge and bringing sweat down my brows. I was tenser than I had ever been in my life, ready to jump forward and pull her back at any given moment.

With the help of a translucent tube, she pulled some of the liquid up, piquing my interest as it didn’t dissolve upon contact. Sure hands, without the slightest tremor, poured the liquid into another translucent container. She repeated the process a few times until the container was filled, then she wrote something and attached the paper to the container. How it stuck to it without falling off was as much of a mystery as to why the liquid didn’t eat through the container.

Beaming, she looked up at me. “Hah!”

I shook my head and helped her up, grabbing the all-but-forgotten boots she had taken off before she tried to stick her toe into the Pit of Daggahr.

“Shouldhaveknownbetter. Thank you,” she said.

“Let’s go back,” I suggested, shuddering at the thought of the deadly liquid in her hands.

Another thought took root: if the humans were capable of creating containers like this, the liquid in the Pits of Daggahr found all around Vandruk could be turned against us. Or we could turn it against them , I mused, wondering if the humans would trade for these containers, maybe even larger ones. It would make a weapon they weren’t expecting, possibly enough to even the odds against their guns, as I had learned they called their choice of weapon.

After the first guns had disintegrated in Vandruk’s air, the humans had worked at and succeeded in making plastic ones, which, as Amber explained, weren’t quite as accurate but just as deadly.

We reached our campsite, where one warrior was already preparing for the meat the hunters would bring while the others had put up tents.

Jenna made her way straight to the pile of her backpacks, grabbed one, and then looked around until she settled on a spot by a rock with a flattened surface. Realizing she would sit on the hard ground if I didn’t do something, I went and brought her a stack of furs to make her more comfortable.

She barely acknowledged the furs but scooted over, staring through a long tube down a weird contraption.

“Herelook,” she invited, waving at me. Not quite sure of the wisdom in this, I sat down next to her, looking for the translucent container with the Pit of Daggahr liquid inside but not seeing it.

She pushed the contraption toward me and indicated for me to lean forward and stare through the tube. I decided since I had nothing better to do, to humor her. I stared at a glittering substance that seemed to move. Moondust, but larger, much larger, at least a hundred times. Amazed, I looked up, straight into Jenna’s eyes that were alight with excitement.

“Isn’titbeautiful?”

I inspected the contraption a little closer and discovered a small slide behind held in place, and on it was indeed moondust, just as small as it was supposed to be. I looked through the tube again to see it enlarged. Incredulously, I stared at Jenna. “That’s amazing.”

“Isn’tit?” she responded. Even though we didn’t understand a word the other said, we both understood the other’s meaning. It made me feel connected to her on a level I had never experienced before. Mynarra and I had been able to read each other’s minds because we grew up together, but this connection with Jenna was different.

I interrupted my musings by realizing how worrisome human technology was. Their weapons had been troubling enough, but seeing Jenna handling all these amazing tools with ease that spoke of a lifetime of usage was more than disquieting. What else did the humans have that could destroy us within seconds?