Dzar-Ghan (Alien Barbarians of Vandruk #3)

14. Chapter 14

Jenna didn’t seem worse for wear the next day, so I ordered the warriors to pack up but kept a close eye on her.

After she pointed out the Koronae last night, my mood had taken a downturn. Guilt wrecked me the moment I looked up at the heavens into the eye of Koronae. Realistically, I knew Mynarra’s soul wasn’t there, neither were those of my mother and sisters, but the quick glimpse had been a stark reminder of my duty to the gallies I had loved. A duty a certain human gallis was diverting me from.

Soon , I promised, soon you will all be set free and dwell with our ancestors . But my mood had turned sour at the reminder of what I needed to do and the slow progress I was making of it. It wasn’t fair to lay the blame on Jenna’s feet, but it was there. It was easier to blame her than to analyze my growing feelings toward her.

In the morning, she shooed me out of the tent to get dressed. Her objections to me seeing her naked seemed ridiculous since tonight we would surely cement our mating, but because we lacked enough vocabulary between the two of us to discuss this, I let her have her will, for now.

I busied myself finding the choicest bites to eat and arranged a plate for her, which I brought back into the tent when I deemed enough time must have passed for her to be dressed, which she was, but she was just in the process of putting in her eyeskins. I must have startled her because she lost one. Cursing, she went on all fours, her hands floating carefully over the dirt the tent had been set on and the furs close by.

I set the plate down and moved down on my knees to help her, reluctant to touch her eyeskin, but if she needed it that badly, I would. I was a warrior, after all.

Something light, wet, and see-through attached itself to the tip of my finger, so small I hardly saw it, but I recognized it for what it was and fought the initial instinct to wave it off my fingers. Instead, I held it out to her with a small, victorious grin.

“Oh, great, thank you!” she exclaimed.

It went back into the small container, which she shook a few times before carefully taking it back out, shaking the liquid out, and refilling it from another curious container. She repeated the process a few times before placing it on her pointer finger. From here, it looked like a bowl. I turned when she pulled her eyes apart with her other hand and moved her finger with the eyeskin up.

The food was still warm, and I handed it to her, holding my fingers a few spaces apart to indicate how much time she had before we would leave. Questioningly, she stared at my fingers, eating a roasted agrodar. Of course the gallis wouldn’t have any concept of time.

With one hand, she nibbled on a slice of meat and with the other, she pointed at the now dry agrodar leaves from last night, still enshrouding the moondust, which reminded me to check her head.

The swelling had gone down but was still visible. Gently, I probed it, but she waved me off impatiently, which I took as an I feel fine , and pointed at the leaves again. “More?”

Thinking she needed more for her head, I went out to fetch some, only to come back to find her staring through her microscope .

“Jenna,” I called her impatiently.

“Oh, thank you.” She wiggled her fingers at the leaves I had brought, which was when I realized she meant to explore, not use them.

“It’s time to go,” I said with a huff.

This time, she looked up, and I motioned, walking with my fingers.

“Oh.” She scrambled up, and the plate with her food went flying. “Oh!”

“I got it,” I said, bending down just as she moved up, and once again, we bumped heads, or her head hit my nose, to be correct.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she explained while blood gushed down my throat.

Carefully, I felt my nose, but it was still as crooked as before. I spat blood to the ground, and she shrieked, jumping into the air.

“Gross,” she squealed, making me guess the meaning of her word and thinking that between her eyeskin and that we were about even.

“Khadahr?” a warrior called from outside.

I tilted my head up and walked out, hoping Jenna would get ready so the other warriors could take the tent down, wondering if I should have left her with the coals still glowing alone in the tent.

“A storm is coming,” the male filled me in.

Sure enough, the sky had taken on the ominous gray coloring as it was fond to do before Vandruk would release all its fury on its surface.

“Check the tents,” I ordered while making a round on mine, checking the anchors to make sure they were deep enough.

The wind was already picking up when I grabbed a hammer and more bone spikes to add a few more anchors. It looked like this was going to be a bad one, perhaps strong enough to create some of the feared wind tunnels that could pick up an entire herd of gronks—buffalo-like animals—and spin them to their deaths, releasing their bodies thousands of paces from where they had been picked up.

Jenna emerged from the tent and stared at the sky. The wind blew her long silvery hair across her face, and she looked like a wild goddess. My cock began to grow. Maybe a day spent in the tent with her wasn’t such a bad idea.

“Storm?” She pointed at the sky.

“Nakorra,” I replied, motioning for her to go back into the tent.

Her brows drew together, and her forehead creased. “Bathroom,” she stated.

I shook my head but led the way. It wasn’t her fault that human bodies were built like sieves, both in- and outgoing. They ate and drank more often than us Vandruks and, as a result, had to use the bathroom more often.

Automatically, I turned away from her, my eyes scanning the horizon, and cursed. It looked like the wind was strong enough to create a wind tunnel. It didn’t seem to come in our direction, but it had managed to spook a large herd of gronks, which were moving toward us.

“Jenna, hurry,” I ordered in English. The urgency in my voice must have alerted her because she reached my side in record time.

“What?” There was a lengthy pause, underscored by a sharp, long intake of breath. “OhmyGod.”

I took her elbow and pulled her with me back to our camp. From the looks of it, the gronks were coming straight our way.

“Grab what you can and get up on the narran trees or a boulder,” I yelled at the warriors.

Jenna ripped herself from my grip, and I cursed. I really needed to apply more strength with her, but I was worried about bruising or, Vorag forbid, breaking one of her bones, but she escaped my grip far too easily.

She ran into the tent, and I had an idea of what she needed. Sure enough, as soon as I reached her, she was packing her backpacks. With a curse, I grabbed the bags with one hand and placed my other around her waist, carrying her like a bad-behaved youngling bent over my arm out of the tent. The wind had picked up in intensity; the warriors used to this had packed what was essential, and some of them were already up in the narran trees. Their twisted bodies made climbing easy enough and the leaves were large and strong enough so one could lie or sit on them, normally. During a storm, it would be like trying to ride a xythrax. There was no way I would be able to keep Jenna still and her treasured possessions safe.

There was one more option. A group of boulders created a narrow niche. I ran toward it, pushing the backpacks in first, then Jenna, just as the ground below our feet began to shake and groan, reminding me of the darkest day in our history.

Nek, I vowed I would die before I let anything happen to the human gallis. I hadn’t been able to save Mynarra or my family, but I could and would save her . The thought of something happening to her tore like a fiery lightning strike, harder and more painful than should have been justified. She was beginning to mean more to me than just a new khadahrshi. She wasn’t just any gallis to me anymore. She was Jenna.

I pushed her into the small opening and squeezed in behind her. Half of my side stuck out, but that couldn’t be helped. At least the boulders were situated so that the gronks would have to circle them. Reducing the likelihood of me getting trampled or hit.

The very ground underneath us shook as they reached us. I turned my head and watched as the wind mercilessly whipped the large narran leaves. Dragh-Whar was hanging to one for dear life, laughing as the leaf bent and twisted while he had his arms and legs around it. That looked like more fun than being stuck between boulders while… and here came the first gronks. Six legs each, they pounded the ground, each weighing as much as the three boulders combined.

Next to me, Jenna twisted to look out.

“OhmyGod!” she exclaimed at the sight of several more gronks coming in from our left, two from the right, and then it was a countless mass of them. The noise of their hooves was as deafening as the dust they brought up was suffocating.

I barely stopped her from stretching her arm out to touch one of the massive bodies rushing by. This gallis had absolutely zero self-preservation skills. I prayed Vorag would give me strength to protect her, the wisdom to see danger coming, and the fortitude to stop her.

Finally, the amount of beasts thinned out. I waited for the last few stragglers to go by before I stuck my head around the boulder to see why the thundering noise hadn’t stopped yet when the gronks were long gone. Orange lightning split the sky in two for the span of a moment, illuminating the place where our camp had stood and was now nothing but a mass of destruction. Wind whipped me so hard in the face I feared it had taken a layer off.

Above the sound of thunder coming from the angry sky, shouts of pleasure reached my ears. Up on the narran trees, my warriors still clung to their leaves, holding on for dear life and seemingly enjoying every moment of their wild rides.

At least until the sky opened and a downpour of unprecedented proportions rained down on us. Within a finger’s span, the dirt beneath Jenna’s and my feet began to slide by, driven by an ever-increasing current of water.