Dzar-Ghan (Alien Barbarians of Vandruk #3)

36. Chapter 36

My stomach and mind churned. Too many thoughts were running through my mind, dangerous thoughts. Things I had already suspected, but to find them true… it was maddening. Neither Grohn-Vhyn nor I spoke to one another on our way back to camp. Too caught up in our own demons. Jenna stopped at the tent, looking at me, questioning, but I shook my head. As much as I wanted to be with her, the urge to be alone right then was too strong. I worried I might hurt her inadvertently, even with a simple kiss. The fury in me was too strong to risk being near her. I felt as if one of the wind tunnels was churning inside me, growing stronger with every passing moment, and I worried for anybody being near me when it broke free.

I watched Grohn-Vhyn walk off down the mountain path, undoubtedly looking for an outlet for his own anger. I turned the other way until I found a small crevice in the mountain, where I could scream my anger out and pound the walls until my hands and knuckles were a bloody mess.

The treachery of what had been done to us tore at me, ripped at my heart, threatening to destroy me.

I stayed in the crevice until the first rays of sunshine found me. Tired and filled with a thirst for vengeance that didn’t even come close to comparing to what I had felt for the humans for all these years, I walked back into camp, where the mood was subdued. Undoubtedly, the warriors who had witnessed Jenna’s performance last night had filled the others in on what they knew. Some of them, I was sure, were coming to their own conclusions.

Grohn-Vhyn stood by the fire; his eyes burned with the same intense hate that I was sure he saw in mine.

“What are you planning?” he asked by way of greeting.

Before I had a chance to answer, an all too familiar voice cried out, “How dare you?”

Our High Priest, Bzun-Lhan, followed by a hundred Temple Guardians, came up the path. I realized he must not have been within Temple City when I sent Nyhr-Shun to lay siege to it. Nyhr-Shun would have never allowed him to pass with these many Temple Guardians.

“Seize them!” Grohn-Vhyn shouted.

I met Bzun-Lhan halfway; my hand encircled his treacherous throat, and I picked him up. His legs kicked out at me, and his fingers scratched at my arm. I felt neither. My hate simmered too hot.

“Where are they?” I demanded, while around me, a skirmish broke out. Bzun-Lhan’s warriors engaged with Grohn-Vhyn’s and mine in a bloody battle; all I could see, though, was Bzun-Lhan’s face turning darker red.

“Dzar-Ghan, let him down. You’re killing him,” Jenna yelled at me, seemingly from far away. I felt her fingers on my arms, trying to pry my hands off the damned priest. I knew it was her, not because I saw her, but because I felt her hands on me. I would have known it was her even if I had been blindfolded.

“Dzar-Ghan, please.”

I ground my jaws, and slowly, I lowered Bzun-Lhan down to the ground, relaxing my grip on his throat enough for him to take a deep, coughing breath.

All around us, swords crashed, but the four of us stood inside a bubble. Grohn-Vhyn was keeping our backs free, hacking at any Temple Guardians who made it through the ranks of our warriors. With my free arm, I first pulled Jenna against my chest, then grabbed my own sword in case someone made it by Grohn-Vhyn. It didn’t look as if anybody would, but I wasn’t going to take any chances with my precious Jenna.

The rest of the gallies, including Yvenetta, stood by the tents, ready to run up the mountain at a moment’s notice.

“Vorag’s wrath will be upon you.” Bzun-Lhan fumed once he was able to take a breath. “You will regret this.”

“The only one regretting anything here will be you, priest !” I replied, making sure he heard my contempt for him carrying that title.

The battle raged. Bzun-Lhan had brought a large number of Temple Guardians with him, and our warriors were hesitant to fight not only other Vandruk but guardians of the Temple. My attack on Bzun-Lhan surprised and confused even my most steadfast supporters, but Grohn-Vhyn’s fighting with them helped restore some of their faith and morale. I knew my warriors needed me to show I was with them, but I could neither let Bzun-Lhan out of my grip nor Jenna out of my sight.

It took longer than it should have, but in the end, the guardians were either dead or wounded and tied up.

“Now let’s have a talk,” I told Bzun-Lhan, pushing him up the trail that led to the plateau holding the new entrance. I marched him straight to the hole Jenna had created. Down below, her strange chem torches still spread their eerie green light, accompanied now by several leaf bowls filled with glanzor.

I lifted Bzun-Lhan one more time by the throat so that his feet dangled over the opening. “Time for you to tell us what happened here.”

Bzun-Lhan’s eyes bulged out of his head, and his feet danced in the air above the opening. He tried to steal a glance down.

“Calculating if you would survive the fall?” I mocked. “Thinking you might make it to the other exit?”

“Don’t bother. It’s closed again,” Grohn-Vhyn joined us.

I gave Bzun-Lhan another squeeze before I set his feet back down on the ground. He buckled over his waist, coughed, and choked, and when he wasn’t busy pretending to be dying, he threw murderous glares at me.

Jenna handed him a waroskin. He stared at her like an aberration but took the offered waro and drank it down.

“That’s enough.” I ripped the skin from him. I didn’t want him to get too comfortable.

“I hope you realize what you’re doing here? Killing Temple Guardians is punishable with death. Laying your hands on the High Priest… unheard of. I can have you slowly disemboweled and fed to the Xythrax.”

“Who do you think will follow your command once it is known that it was the Temple Guardians who killed our gallies?” I took a gamble with the last accusation, but somebody had killed our gallies, and it wasn’t that much of a stretch to assume the Guardians had done so.

Bzun-Lhan’s paling face confirmed my suspicion.

“I didn’t do it,” he nearly whispered. “I was only an acolyte when it happened.”

“But you knew?” Grohn-Vhyn snarled.

Bzun-Lhan shook his head in denial. “Not at the time. Nek. I didn’t.”

“Thon-Mahr was the High Priest at the time,” I said, and Bzun-Lhan nodded miserably.

“Thon-Mahr was crazy. He was more power hungry than—”

“Just like you,” I interrupted, knowing full well that Bzun-Lhan would do anything to take Tzar-Than’s lands from him and from the other khadahrs as well. Ever since he became High Priest, he had tripled the number of Temple Guardians.

“What did Thon-Mahr plan?” Jenna asked, keeping her voice low.

Bzun-Lhan didn’t even look at her. His expression was one of a male who knew he had been defeated. The question was just if he would fill in what we didn’t know willingly or if we would have to torture the truth out of him.

It turned out that Bzun-Lhan was in the mood to talk. It almost seemed as if what he was telling us had been a burden on him for many years. If I hadn’t known him any better, I would have thought he was cleansing his soul.

A true believer might have, but Bzun-Lhan was less pious than me. For as long as I had known him, whatever he did was calculated and to his advantage. I would let him talk, though, let him think he stood a chance to explain himself out of this.

“Like I said, Thon-Mahr was crazy. I didn’t know that. I didn’t know any of this. I was only a mere acolyte at the time. My own mother and sisters were in that cave.” He looked up. “You have to believe me. I didn’t know.”

When neither of us replied, he lowered his head again. “You found the other exit?”

It was more of a statement, but he was trying to figure out how much we already knew. Surprisingly, it was Jenna who said, “Not only that. We also figured out that whoever the High Priest was at the time would sneak into the cave and pretend to be the god Vorag.”

“Why wasn’t the other exit used to save the gallies instead of going in and killing them?” Grohn-Vhyn demanded. His neck muscles stood out from anger and barely contained desire to kill Bzun-Lhan.

I took a step between the males. I wasn’t averse to the idea of killing Bzun-Lhan, but for now, we needed answers.

“He told me later, on his deathbed, that at first, he thought the warriors would be able to open the main entrance. But when it became clear that this wouldn’t happen… he couldn’t risk exposing that there was another entrance, one that priests had used and covered for centuries. It would have revealed that the priests had snuck into the cave for years. It would have revealed that every High Priest had posed as Vorag.”

“It would have saved thousands of lives.” Jenna snarled.

“Then why did he send guardians in to kill the gallies? Why not just… let them die?” Grohn-Vhyn demanded.

“Because he figured out how he could extract more power over us. All of us. Including the khadahrs,” I said between clenched teeth.

“My father told me of the many increasing demands from Thon-Mahr for more land, gems, warriors, food, and so on. The church taxes were climbing, and the khadahrs refused to give him any more.

“As a matter of fact, there was to be a Gathering of Khadahrs the very next week after the tribunal with the new and old khadahrs to vote Thon-Mahr out of office,” I stated as old memories came back. Things I had forgotten about because of the tragedy that befell us.

“That would have never worked. The High Priest is ordained by Vorag himself,” Bzun-Lhan contradicted.

“It would have been done. Thon-Mahr was going power crazy.” I argued my father’s stance. “It might have been a bloodbath, and it might have shaken our belief system, but it would have happened.”

“I still don’t get why Thon-Mahr would send his guardians in to do what he did,” Grohn-Vhyn said.

“Because at some point, he figured out what the loss of gallies would mean to your people. He realized that your species would be doomed. Unless he was the one giving out gallies of childbearing age to whoever he saw most deserving or who would pay the highest price,” Jenna explained with a tortured expression.

“He realized he could pick and choose which cities would grow and which would die,” I added.

Grohn-Vhyn took a step back. His features filled with disbelief, even after what he had seen and heard. I couldn’t fault him. I felt the same way. Even now, I prayed to the gods that it wasn’t so. That Bzun-Lhan would deny all of this and give us another explanation. Any other explanation. I would have latched on to it. No matter how outlandish because what he told us now would shatter Vandruk to the bone. Now, at the worst time possible, where a new foe knocked on our doors. A foe more advanced, with a larger army, a foe determined to make Vandruk theirs.

I turned derisively back to Bzun-Lhan. “So instead of filling the khadahrs in when you came into power, you continued the madness?”

“I didn’t have a choice,” Bzun-Lhan wailed. “If I said anything, done anything other than what Thon-Mahr left me with, it would have broken Vandruk. People would have lost their faith. People would—”

“Have rallied,” I interrupted with a sneer. “Sa, things might have been different, and beliefs might have been crushed. People might have been outraged,” I said. Despite having had the same thoughts moments ago, I knew I was right now. “You could have been the most revered High Priest in history. You could have set an end to the madness years ago. You could have built a new Temple. You could have revamped our religion. Instead, you went ahead with what your predecessor did because it gave you the power you so crave.”