Dzar-Ghan (Alien Barbarians of Vandruk #3)

35. Chapter 35

I saw the moment when the realization hit him that his beloved Mynarra might still be alive, and it was like a punch to the gut, robbing me of breath and breaking my heart into a thousand tiny pieces. What if she was still alive?

I should be happy for him. He had loved her ten years ago and had thought her dead. This would be the kind of reunion that happened in romance novels and movies. Only in those romance stories, they never mentioned what happened to the other girl.

I blinked back tears and stared at the man who had come to mean so much to me. Would I lose him?

Don’t be an idiot. Of course you will. Look at him; you already have .

I swallowed a big lump down. Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry .

“I want this entire cave searched, now!” Dzar-Ghan barked. “Every nook and cranny. Report to me at once if you find any body under thirty.”

He turned to me, and my blood froze. Gone was the familiar warmth with which he usually regarded me; his eyes were cold and distant. I tried to turn to my scientific, analytical mind, tried to reason that he had a thousand more important things to consider right now than my fragile feelings. Still, it hurt. A lot.

“How can we best move the bodies?”

It was hard for me to focus, something that had never happened to me before. I wanted to hug him. I wanted him to tell me that I was still his khadahrshi, painfully aware that words of love had never been spoken between us, that, in reality, it was way too early to think about it. But nothing about our situation was normal, least of all my emotions for him.

I cleared my throat and forced my mind back to scientific matters. “I’m not a forensic archeologist or pathologist. I deal with stones, but I do have some limited experience. Since we opened the cave, these bodies”—here I forced myself to remain as emotionless as I was supposed to be, resorting to the usual routine of mixing Vandruk and English words in the hopes he would understand my message, if not all the words—“will start decomposing much quicker than they have until now. I suggest closing the entrance we created and finding adequate pack materials, like sacks or even coffins, to transport the bodies to their homes, where they can be buried. The faster we do this, the better.”

“How much time do you think we have?”

I shrugged, not having an answer for him. Even if I had been a trained pathologist, I would have had no idea. It all depended on how Vandruk’s climate affected the decomposition process. Most likely very different than on Earth. Or if Vandruk bodies, for that matter, decomposed the same way.

“I’m sorry. I just don’t know.” I looked apologetically at him. “Can your men build coffins? That would help slow the process down.”

I reprimanded myself. This should have been something I thought about and brought up before we opened the cave. I was the scientist. I was the only person here who wasn’t looking for a dead loved one. It had been up to me to keep a clear head. I should have made sure Dzar-Ghan was adequately prepared for this.

Most warriors heeded Dzar-Ghan’s command and took off into other parts of the cave, parts I would have normally burned to explore, but not today. Today, my stomach cramped, and my heart constricted. A lump sat in my throat, making it hard to breathe. All I wanted was to go back in time, only an hour or so, and instead of fighting with Dzar-Ghan about who would go down first, I would have taken him into our tent and made love to him.

Tentatively, I placed my hand on his arm, but he didn’t even seem to notice the gesture, making my eyes brim. I swallowed the tears down. This wasn’t about me. This was about him. I needed to be strong. For him.

“It will be done.” He nodded, barking out more commands.

I should have known that what we had was too good to be true. Anyway, what had I been thinking? Giving up on Earth, staying here on Vandruk, and being Dzar-Ghan’s khadahrshi? Ridiculous. I had a family on Earth, a job, a life.

As if in a trance, Dzar-Ghan walked through the cave, looking for more familiar faces. Now and then, he would mumble a name respectfully. Once, he kneeled and took a woman’s fragile, dried hand in his, gently squeezing it. Her name didn’t make any sense to me, but she looked too old to be his sister, so I assumed maybe an aunt.

We were facing the rockslide from the inside of the cave now. It looked just as massive as it did from the outside. Rocks had spilled to the sides. Some must have been discarded as the women tried to get out.

The horror of what must have happened in here made my skin crawl and allowed me to forget my broken heart for a moment.

We spent the next few hours searching through many of the tunnels, marking bodies as they were identified. One warrior discovered the body of a woman in front of a bed in one of the many chambers. Her throat had been slashed. It took us a moment to find the other body, that of so far the only younger woman. She was hidden under the bed. Her body looked emaciated, and she was the only person we had seen who actually looked as if she had starved to death.

“Nyhralon and her daughter, Vanylor,” Grehn-Bzag said.

“What in the name of the gods happened here?” Grohn-Vhyn reiterated.

A picture was forming in my mind. “There has to be another entrance.”

“Impossible, we would have known,” Grohn-Vhyn asserted.

“She is right. Look at our gallies. They have been slaughtered by somebody. Somebody who entered this cave after the rockslide,” Dzar-Ghan voiced.

I nodded, agreeing with him. “They must have come in here, taken the younger women, and killed everyone else.”

“But why and who?” Grehn-Bzag asked, staring at the pair of women he must have known.

“Whoever has the most to gain from taking all your women,” I answered without mincing my words or thinking about it. I was sure on Earth, people would have admonished me for my non-existent diplomatic skills, but here, my candor was appreciated.

“The priests,” Dzar-Ghan spat.

“They’ve been lording their power over us for years,” Grohn-Vhyn agreed.

Silence fell over our group, and I took the opportunity to look around the room. It had been furnished and not cheaply. The dresser in a corner was intricately carved. I noticed jewels, a bit dusty, on a once-polished plate, as well as several figurines. A gown had been lovingly laid out over a chair. A gown that once must have been beautiful. Once again, my heart constricted at the thought that this had most likely been a wedding dress. A picture formed in my head of a mother and her daughter getting ready for the choosing ceremony when the cave collapsed. Either they never left this part of the cave because they were afraid to get lost in the dark, or they found their way back here after some time, until whoever came to murder and kidnap.

The mother must have hidden her daughter under the bed when the men found them. They killed the girl’s mother, and she had shielded her daughter with her dying body. The daughter must have died under there of starvation later on. She might have explored the dark cave after the murderers left, or she might have just stayed there until it was over. She had taken that part of her story with her to the grave.

I shuddered. So much grief. So much pain. So much violence.

“An old gallis approached me at the Temple,” Dzar-Ghan informed Grohn-Vhyn. “I didn’t want to say anything until I was sure, but I think we all know what happened now.”

“What did she say?” I asked when none of the other men did.

“ They’re alive ,” Dzar-Ghan whispered.

I didn’t know how much time passed until a warrior found us. “Khadahrs, you need to see this.”

None of us spoke as we followed the man with his torch held carefully high through more tunnels, passing chambers, some furnished, some empty. After we had deemed the cave safe enough, the first torches and fires had been lit, carefully watched over and controlled so as not to have a random ember ignite a fire on the dry clothes of the bodies.

The farther we got from the main cave, the more sporadic the discovery of bodies became, yet we never made it far without seeing one.

My fingers itched to hold Dzar-Ghan’s hand; the contact would have been soothing, but I didn’t think he would have appreciated the gesture. Not in front of his men or another khadahr. Most of all, I was afraid he would rebuke me. Afraid his mind was already moving to find his intended, Mynarra.

It didn’t take long until a faint light far ahead of us appeared. The light was brighter than from a torch, and without a doubt in my mind, I knew the warriors had discovered the other entrance. My explorative side kicked my heart rate up a notch, but I was too subdued by our findings to truly get excited. If anything, seeing the other exit filled me with more dread.

The second entrance was small. One would have to crawl on their hands and knees to get to the other side, but it was there. Why hadn’t the women in the cave known about it? Why hadn’t they made their way here when the rockslide first happened?

“Xhar-Vong found this by accident,” the warrior who had led us explained, pointing at another man.

“I only stopped to… gather my bearings when I noticed the torch flickering harder,” The man I supposed was Xhar-Vong, explained. “The gap was barely there. I called more males, and together we managed to move this boulder.” He indicated a boulder on the other side.

We crawled through the opening. After hours inside the oppressive cave, the fresh air felt good on my skin and in my lungs. I blinked against the brightness of the hazy sun before my eyes got used to it again.

Once I got my bearings, I inspected the boulder. Its edges were rough and sharp, as if… “Someone carved this rock to make it fit,” I voiced my suspicion.

Dzar-Ghan nodded darkly. “None of the gallies who survived ever mentioned a second exit. If they had known about this, they would have told us to rescue the others.”

Grohn-Vhyn nodded his agreement.

“Can you move this back in place?” I requested.

Without any protests, the warriors did as I asked, helped by their khadahrs. Not even a minute later, it was back in place. Not perfectly aligned as it had been before, but good enough for me to make out traces where moss had grown over the boulder, meeting the rest of the mountain.

Without a word, I took off to inspect the other boulders lying around at the foot of the mountain, and they matched the one that sealed the entrance.

“I can’t be sure, but if I had to guess, I would say a lot of someones moved this boulder a long time ago deliberately in front of the entrance to hide it. Here.” I stepped back to the now hidden entrance, and with my hand, I moved dirt and moss from the hard rocky ground, where grooves had been edged into it. Some older, some newer, some from today. “See, this boulder has been moved several times over the years.”

“What does this mean?” Grohn-Vhyn asked.

“I think the women who came with you might have an answer,” I evaded, not wanting to voice my suspicions until I was fully sure.

Once again, the warriors moved the boulder, and we crawled back into the cave. In silence, we made our way through the mountain back to the main entrance. Dzar-Ghan made sure the rope was secure under my armpits and around my chest before he gave the command to have me hoisted up. I would have loved to read more into his gesture of caring that I was secure, but I knew him well enough to know he would have done so for anybody.

With a heavy heart and the help of the warriors who pulled me up, I scrambled back to my feet to watch in envy as Dzar-Ghan, Grohn-Vhyn, and a few of the other warriors climbed up the rope without any help.

Grohn-Vhyn called his daughter over. “Yvenetta, this is Khadahrshi Jenna. She has some questions for you.”

At the mention of the word khadahrshi, my insides constricted, and I threw a furtive glance at Dzar-Ghan, but his features were veiled, unreadable. As much as I wanted to ask: Am I? Am I still your khadahrshi? This wasn’t the time or place.

Doubtfully, I stared at the ten-year-old girl. She had barely been born when the cave collapsed. How could she give me any answers?

“A pleasure to meet you, Khadahrshi Jenna,” the girl said, sounding much older than her ten years.

“It’s my pleasure as well, Yvenetta,” I didn’t have to force a smile on my lips. The girl was beautiful and looked at me with such open sweetness that I couldn’t help smiling at her. “Is it okay if I ask you a few questions about the ceremony that used to take place in this cave?”

“Nevella told me all about it,” Yvenetta said eagerly.

“She did?” I asked, wondering who Nevella was. I assumed something like a nursemaid since the girl’s mother had died a few years ago.

“Everything. She says I need to be prepared, that one day we will pick our old traditions back up.”

“Good. Can you tell me about it?”

Yvenetta threw a dubious glance at the men surrounding us.

“Let’s walk over here, where they can’t hear us,” I suggested, taking her toward one of the fires that had been built. It surprised me that the sun was already setting; it had been a long day.

“All right, so do you know what the women used to do in the cave?”

The girl nodded. “Sa, they would prepare themselves for the choosing ceremony. The older gallies would tell the younger what to expect after being mated.” Her eyes sparkled with excitement; it was easy to see how much she wanted to be part of this ceremony. “They danced and celebrated until Vorag would make himself known to them.”

I startled. “Vorag would appear to them?”

The girl giggled. “Nek, but they heard his voice. Nevella said it was the deepest voice she had ever heard. She said she misses hearing it. But one day, Nevella promised we would all hear it again.”

I allowed my mind to work through the girl’s words for a moment before I double-checked. “Nobody ever saw Vorag, though, right? They only heard his voice?”

The girl tilted her head and looked at me, probably wondering if I was dense or something. “Just the voice.”

“And nobody knew that there was a second way into the cave?”

“Nek, the cave is completely sealed off, which made it so perfect. The gallies knew no male could enter without them knowing through the main entrance.”

“Thank you.” I smiled at her once again. “You’ve helped me a lot.”

“I did?”

I nodded. Not wanting to burst her bubble about Vorag and her gods or get into an argument about it. I had a suspicion that we were about to uncover a lot of unpleasant things about the Vandruk gods, or more specifically, about their priests. We had gone through things like this on Earth, too. Well, my ancestors had. History wasn’t really my strong suit, but I had taken a class on religion—it had been mandatory at the college I attended–and I remembered learning about how King Henry the eight’s henchmen had stripped the catholic churches of their artifacts and miracles. How they discovered how the statue of the Virgin Mary had cried red tears, or why Jesus on the cross started bleeding. They uncovered how so many splinters of the holy cross could be sold, and I had strong suspicions similar shenanigans were going on here. The class had been about the emotional devastation of those findings. How it had affected the true believers, and how it had shaken the foundation of their religion.

I swallowed. The Vandruk would have to go through something similar. Yes, humans had caused the cave-in, but if my suspicions were right, the priests had done something even more horrible. Purposefully.

I went back to the men, who stood around another fire, where meat nobody was eating was roasting. These men’s stomachs were probably even more in an uproar than mine.

“What did she tell you?”

“Did it help?”

Both khadahrs asked me simultaneously the moment I stepped next to them. “I don’t know how to tell you what I suspect,” I hedged.

“Just tell us.” Dzar-Ghan nodded encouragingly at me. “Whatever it is you suspect won’t be any worse than what we imagine.”

“I need to get back down into the cave first,” I demanded, not wanting to voice my suspicions until I was one hundred percent sure.

“I’ll go with you,” Dzar-Ghan stated. This wasn’t up for discussion, and frankly, I was glad for it, not wanting to go down into the cave by myself. I realized how cowardly that was, but I couldn’t help myself.

Followed by Grohn-Vhyn, we made our way back down into the cave, which was more illuminated now than it had been before, thanks to a multitude of small leaf bowls filled with glanzor, which had been placed all around the cave.

As Dzar-Ghan lowered me, I took the opportunity to scrutinize the walls and ceiling. On my first trip down, I had been so focused on the ground that I hadn’t really looked at the ceiling. But not this time.

Unfortunately, despite the glanzor, the ceiling was still enveloped in darkness, too high up to be reached by the lights.

When I made it to the bottom, I picked one of the bowls up and carried it with me as I made my way around the walls to get my bearings, followed by Dzar-Ghan and Grohn-Vhyn, who kept their distance. I took the first branching-off tunnel, but it only led away from the main cave.

It must have been hours of silent exploration during which none of us spoke. I was thankful for the men not questioning me, entirely focused on my surroundings. I was in my element, exploring a cave, baring all its secrets.

Finally, when we reached the second entrance, I found it. A small, narrow, flute-like tunnel leading up. I crawled up on all fours, not looking back at how the men were faring, but their grunting and groaning gave me enough indication of how hard the ascent was for them. I imagined in some parts, they had to shimmy up on their stomachs—a thought that would have amused me under other circumstances, but not that night.

The flesh underneath my skin prickled in anticipation of what I would find, sensing I was close to having my suspicions confirmed. Even without having drawn a map yet, I knew that we had reached a point where we were above the main cave area. Not directly, but somewhere in the vertical ceiling walls.

Subdued light came through an opening, not much bigger than my fist. A manmade opening, not a natural one. I pressed my face to the hole and looked down at the cave. Straight ahead of me was the rock-covered original entrance.

I realized I was being dramatic, but I told the men to get back into the main cave.

“I’m not leaving you here alone, Jenna,” Dzar-Ghan stated in a voice that didn’t leave any room for argument.

The place was too narrow for me to shimmy backward and allow Dzar-Ghan or Grohn-Vhyn to take a look through the opening. Down below were a few warriors holding watch over their loved ones. I didn’t like it, but I had to startle them to show the khadahrs behind me how their priests had deceived their women for centuries.

“Don’t get scared,” I shouted through the opening, but of course, the warriors below jumped off their feet. I would have loved to hear how my voice sounded to them through the opening, echoing off the walls. I had an idea, but I was sure it was even eerier than I imagined.

I recognized one of the warriors, “Bran-Vhul!” I shouted, and the man fell to his knees. Shit.

“It’s okay, it’s me, Jenna!”

He got up and circled the cave, looking for me.

“Up here,” I yelled, trying to stick my arm through the opening, but it didn’t fit. I needed something… something… a few pebbles caught my eye. I hit my head on the narrow ceiling, “Ouch,” but with some contorting and twisting, I grabbed a few of the pebbles and sent them through the hole in the wall.

Finally, Bran-Vhul looked up when he heard the pebbles fall to the ground. He moved closer to the wall, craning his neck.

“Khadahrshi Jenna?”

In response, I rained a few more pebbles down while chills ran through me at the title he gave me. With all my being, I wished it were true that I was still his khadahrshi. I would have loved to look at Dzar-Ghan, but that was impossible.

“Let’s go back,” Dzar-Ghan said in a choked voice, indicating he already had a suspicion of what I would divulge once we left this tunnel.

Going back was even harder than coming up. I had no idea when the men stopped or slowed, and more than once, I kicked Dzar-Ghan in the face or head while I was crawling backward on all fours.

His hands grabbed my waist when we finally returned to the main tunnel to help me down.

“What do you suspect?” he asked. There was a small trickle of blood coming from a slight scratch on his forehead, courtesy of my boot, I assumed, feeling bad. He didn’t even seem to notice.

Diplomacy wasn’t my strong suit, and I had no idea how to sugarcoat my suspicions. Plus, my Vandruk wasn’t that perfect yet. So I allowed my tongue free rein but looked apologetic. “I think that many years ago, probably when your gallies held their first ceremony, the priests at the time closed the other entrance we found today. They only used it to pretend to be your god Vorag to talk to the gallies. Yvenetta”—I hoped she would forgive me for sharing this with the men—“confided that this was a big part of the ritual the night before the choosing.”

“But if the priests knew about that opening…” Grohn-Vhyn drifted off.

I gave both men a moment to digest this information.

“The gallies didn’t know about the opening?” Dzar-Ghan asked.

I shook my head. “Nek.”

Grohn-Vhyn and Dzar-Ghan stared at each other, and their expressions turned more thunderous by the moment.

“But why?” Grohn-Vhyn asked again.