Orc’s Forbidden Claim (Red Planet Dragons of Tajss #33)

4. Khiara

4

KHIARA

“ H ow long are we supposed to wait?” Dilacs grouses.

“Until the Queen says otherwise,” I answer, watching him pace the room yet again.

“And when do we see her? How is this better? They keep her from us! We cannot trust the lizards. You know this. No more than we can trust the Maulavi. What is happening back home? Do you think the Shaman is waiting? He knows she is missing. Do you think he will sit and wait?”

He storms past me yet again. I pour another drink. It’s a foul concoction that the lizards make but it burns well enough and the alcohol is calming. If nothing else that is a good thing for my brother is making me angry. As he usually does. I pour the liquid into my throat, downing the cup, then pour another.

“And what? You will sit and get drunk? Pass out while you wait for the permission of these cold-blooded monsters to do what we need to do? We must attack. Join the resistance and free our people!”

“Sit down,” I command, pouring a second glass and setting it before the empty chair opposite me.

“Sit!” he yells, slamming his fist on the table.

The liquid jostles out of the cup, spilling onto the table and trailing its way along the smooth-cut stone towards the edge. I stare at the flow, watching it make its way along until it is ready to fall to the floor.

“Dilacs,” I whisper, not looking up from the pooling alcohol.

He continues to rage. Waving his fists in the air as he storms back and forth. He is acting like a caged cudov, testing the limits of its trap, desperate to break free. Which is the problem. He’s acting like an animal. This is not the time for blind rage.

“Blasted cold-blooded monsters! We should kill every one of them. Take our Queen and return in triumph. Kill the Shaman with my bare hands. Him and all his thrice-damned Maulavi?—”

“Dilacs!” I shout, rising to my feet, both fists pressing hard against the table.

He stops and spins on his heel. His mouth contorts, baring his teeth. Balled fists rise, ready to strike. His dark eyes meet my own.

“You disagree?” he growls.

“You know I do,” I say. “Do not be a fool.”

“A fool,” he growls, moving around the table. “You call me a fool?”

“I do.”

He stops inches away. His hot breath blasts across my face, stirring my beard. My muscles tense, ready to strike, but I will not hit first. That will accomplish nothing more than assuaging my ego.

“And what is it you suggest we do? Nothing? Wait patiently for the lizards to agree to help? They want to kill us. All of us and you damn well know it.”

“Yes,” I agree. “And I also know we cannot defeat the Shaman alone.”

I think about Saylor even as I try to handle him. She alone gives me the calm to keep this from devolving into a physical fight. He and I have fought all our lives. Sometimes I win, sometimes he does. It has long been our way to decide any disagreement. Whichever one yields first has to agree with the other.

But Saylor abhors violence. My time with her has been so much less than what I want. I desire her at my side always. If there was never a moment apart, only then would I be happy. But then I also want a world I know is safe for her and for me. And for the children, we will have. I want this world to continue, not rush to its end which is what the Shaman and his cult want.

They want to bring the next world, thinking that our people, the First People, will once more be in charge. That we will not make the same mistakes again that have led us to the point where we are. Decimated. First losing the surface, and now on the verge of losing the underground to which we had retreated from the onslaught of the lizards and the Invaders that brought them to Tajss.

Dilacs growls throws his fists around and stomps his feet. Gwen rises from the bed where she’s been quietly sitting and watching. Quiet as ever, she walks over and places a hand on his arm. Immediately, he drops his fists and lowers his head, turning towards her. She doesn’t have to speak. Her touch, her presence is all he needs.

Jealousy is as green as my skin and burns hotter than the lifeblood of Tajss, the liquid fire that resides in the depths of the mountain. Not of or for Gwen, I know she was never meant for me, but for the two of them.

Why can I not have Saylor? Though they rarely have time for intimacy they are still so close. I do give them what time I can, but even without intimacy, that would be a trade I would make to have Saylor here with me. Jealousy becomes anger, building towards rage. I know I’m right and we need the lizards, but they are also the thing standing between me and Saylor.

“Fine,” Dilacs rumbles, though I didn’t hear any question or statement.

My hands are clenched so tight the nails dig into my skin. I force my fingers to relax, take a deep breath, and close my eyes while I let it out. Anger will get me nowhere. It will not bring Saylor to my side, and it will not save my people.

“We have other concerns,” I say, changing the subject for my own sanity, if nothing else.

“The tunneling?” Dilacs asks, knowing what I’m thinking as my brother would.

“Yes.”

He nods, rubbing his chin.

“What can we do?” Gwen asks. “You’ve informed the Zmaj, Rosalind knows, what else?”

“We need to inspect, search them out,” I say. “Those tunnels were close. Too close and you know they’re not stopping. The Shaman will have his best diggers on it.”

“Blasted lizards,” Dilacs growls, balling his hands into fists as his eyes narrow. “They need to act. We should be the ones on this. They are too blind to see what is happening right in front of their faces.”

“The question is, what is the Shaman planning?” I ask, rising to get more of the cheap alcohol the lizards make. I take the skin and fill two cups, setting one in front of Dilacs, then returning to my seat.

“He is mad,” Dilacs says, grabbing the cup and taking a long draught.

“Mad or not, he is strategic. Smart enough to take the Queen out from under our noses. He does not act without a plan.”

Dilacs growls but cannot disagree.

“Kidnapping,” he says at last.

“Who? What?”

“Humans,” Gwen says, sliding into her chair at the table.

Dilacs and I both look at her in surprise. She is smart, I know this, but her insight into this doesn’t make sense.

“Why?” I ask.

“Why? Because he sees us as the key,” she says. “Maybe Rosalind’s plan was a mistake, letting him know we are here. That the Zmaj value us. If he can capture humans, especially the right ones, he would then have leverage.”

“He would rush the war,” Dilacs says. “The lizards would attack. Immediately.”

“Before they’re ready,” she adds.

The simplicity of the move leaves me stunned. I look at Dilacs and he sees it too. There is truth in her words. A truth that rings loud and clear.

“Who then? And how would he know which ones?” I ask, musing the problem over out loud.

“Rosalind,” Gwen says. “She’d be the ideal, but does he know about her?”

“The ones that we left behind, they might have…” Dilacs doesn’t finish when he sees the dawning horror on Gwen’s face. She is pale as a myqath grub and tears swell in her eyes. She grabs my glass and drains it, spluttering as she finishes the burning gut rot liquid.

“We do not know that,” I say, trying to sound reassuring, but the seed is planted.

All of us know that there are no lengths the Shaman and his Maulavi will go to in order to accomplish their dark goals. I grab the skin and refill my glass and Dilacs as well.

“If he has I will…” Dilacs trails off.

“Yes, brother,” I agree. “But we do not know. I don’t think it matters who he grabs. The… Zmaj,” I use their name for themselves as a nod to Gwen’s sensibilities, “know what will happen to them. We have told them. If they grab any of the humans, if they are lucky enough to grab one of their mates they will not hesitate to rush to war. Unprepared. Angry. And what is the way to defeat a Zmaj?”

“Either hit them unprepared or when they are angry,” Dilacs says.

A truth that every Urr’ki knows. I growl in agreement, raising my glass.

“What are we going to do about it?”

The three of us look at each other but no one says anything. No one has the answer.