She glanced at him in amazement. He knew her interest in the gaali stones. She’d never tried to hide it. Was this even more appeasement on his part?
“Sure, I’ll tag along. And I promise not to take notes,” she teased.
But she was still amazed at the extent of Challen’s generosity. When a barbarian got a guilty conscience, he really got a guilty conscience.
Chapter Thirty-four
“Who owns these mines?”
“I do.”
Tedra swung around in surprise. They’d come about a hundred feet into the mountainside on what was a gradually downsloping path. Challen had been filling her with information about how the gaali was cut, transported, sold, the dangers involved. She’d been amazed to learn all the miners were men who had for some reason or other lost their eyesight. Understandably, there weren’t that many miners, for unlike a few cut stones, a large vein of gaali was bright enough to blind. And the Sha-Ka’ani obviously hadn’t devised a way to get rid of that risk yet, or maybe they just didn’t want to. Gaali stone mining was a good-paying job for the handicapped, after all.
“What do you mean, you do?” she asked. “Or do you control them as the shodan ?”
Challen laughed at her assumption. “Being shodan does not have great rewards, other than the living in a fine house. The mines belong to my family, who have long owned the northern face of Mount Raik.”
“But the town faces north, doesn’t it? Does that mean your family owns Sha-Ka-Ra, too?”
“Most of it, yes.”
“Well, hell, no wonder you’re shodan. How come you never mentioned you’re a powerful landlord?”
“It was not a thing needing mentioning. But you are wrong in this assumption, too, kerima. The shodan is chosen for his strength alone, or he assumes the duty does he defeat the current shodan.”
“Which was it in your case?”
“A little of both. I had warriors who followed me who wanted the title to be mine. The last shodan became angry, hearing rumors of this, and so challenged me.”
“That must have been a pleasant win for you.”
“Not wholly. When I had fewer duties, I had more time for fun.”
It was his look that made her blush, not his reference to sex-sharing. “Poor baby,” she purred defensively. “I haven’t noticed you depriving yourself of fun lately.”
“Nor will I with such a beautiful challenge loser tempting me.”
Tedra turned away from the possessiveness in his eyes that wanned her clear to her toes. “We’re steering into an inconvenient subject here, babe. After all, you haven’t slept in these mines.”
“Does that still matter?”
It didn’t, not in the least, but she wasn’t going to admit that to him. As lusty as he was, it could get embarrassing if he thought she’d let him make love to her in just any old place. Their warrior escort was waiting outside the mines for them, and how long before they would decide to investigate if the inspection took too long?
She latched onto that thought. “What is it you have to inspect if you can’t go into the actual area where they’re cutting the stone?”
She heard him sigh before he answered. “These tunnels, the support beams. There are warriors who do this daily, but twice a year I like to see to the matter myself.”
The ceiling and the left wall were boarded up to cover the residual remaining of the main vein of gaali that ran through this area; otherwise it would be too bright. The thick beams he mentioned ran down the center of the ceiling and were supported at six-foot intervals by narrow wooden posts.
“Is it really one of those inspection times now?” Tedra asked.
“No,” he confessed, not at all embarrassed about it. “I merely decided to satisfy the curiosity previously revealed by my challenge loser.”
She grinned, glancing back at him with soft eyes. “What am I going to do with you, warrior? You really have to stop being so nice, or I’m going to want to take you home with me.” She didn’t give him a chance to respond to that, was chagrined that she’d even said it. “Come on, you’re here to inspect, aren’t you? I’ll help.” She moved on to the next post. “This one looks as sturdy as the rest.”
She kicked the base of it with her slippered foot, not hard, but the farden thing moved. Tedra jumped back as dust filtered down from the ceiling. Fanning the air in front of her, she said, “Sorry about that—”
Challen yanked her away before she could finish. “Return to the entrance, woman, now!”
He shoved her in that direction. She took about two steps before she turned back to see Challen moving toward the post she’d kicked.
“What about you—?”
The groaning overhead drowned her out. The mountain was pressing down on the ceiling planking. The dislodged post couldn’t take the weight at its present angle and cracked. With the support entirely gone, the planking overhead started cracking, too, and Tedra stared in horror as a large section of the ceiling dropped. The whole thing had taken only seconds.
Tedra was hit with the blast of disturbed dust and dirt and immediately started coughing. The cloud was so thick, she couldn’t see anything in front of her, even though uncovered gaali lit the whole area, particles of it sparkling in the dust cloud like floating glitter.
“Challen, I can’t see anything. Come out of there. Challen?” She went cold with the realization that he wasn’t coughing like she was, that the only other sound she could hear was more dirt and small rocks falling—and that he’d been directly under that collapsing ceiling. “Challen!”
In a panic, she entered the bright cloud, stumbled on something, fell forward onto a high pile of debris—and heard the groan from under it, just barely. She immediately rolled to the side to get her weight off the pile. It was so high, so much weight!
Like a madwoman, she started frantically digging through dirt and rock, crying, choking, calling his name repeatedly, screaming it when she couldn’t get even another groan. She couldn’t see what she was doing. She knew when she reached wood only by the feel of it. And then something tried to pull her away and she turned to attack it.
“Easy, Tedra.” Hard arms wrapped around her before she could do any serious damage. “We can work more quickly than you.”
Tamiron, and the rest of the escort. Thank the Stars! Either they’d heard her screaming, or some of that dust cloud had reached the entrance to alert them.
“Go out now—”
“I’ll wait.”
Her tone was emphatic enough that he didn’t try to insist. He only moved her out of the worst of the area while the others went to work.
After agonized moments, there was another groan. Tedra almost collapsed with relief, her worst fear put to rest. Challen would be all right. He wasn’t hurt badly. Oh, Stars, please, please don’t let him be hurt bad!
And then he was being carried out. The six warriors it took to do it didn’t stop so she could see him. Tamiron almost got his fingers broken when he didn’t release her quickly enough so she could follow. But even when she caught up with the bearers, she couldn’t see Challen clearly around the large warriors carrying him. She tried getting in between two of them, and was yanked out of the way again.
“Are you determined to delay them?” Tamiron demanded sharply, none too pleased with her at the moment with his fingers smarting.
“No, I just—”
“Do you stay out of the way, woman, the sooner he will be seen to.”
She knew that on a rational level, but she wasn’t working just then on a rational level. Tamiron must have concluded that for himself, for he kept hold of her arm to make certain she didn’t get in the way again. So it was that Challen had already been laid on the ground outside the entrance by the time she left the tunnel.
She shook off Tamiron’s hand to rush to Challen, but one of the warriors who had carried him turned and prevented her from getting close. One look at the man’s face and Tedra screamed, very nearly fainting with the anguish that fill
ed her chest almost to suffocation. But she didn’t faint. She went wild, attacking the warrior, dropping him in seconds and the next who came to help him. It took four of them to finally throw her back, and they stood there like a steel wall, refusing to let her pass, refusing to let her see what was left of her barbarian.
“I just want to hold him!” she screamed at that solid wall, dropping to her knees, pounding on the ground with her fists until they were bloody. “Ah, Stars, noooo! Nooooo! Don’t take him! Give him back, please, please, pleeeease!”
“Tedra, you must stop.” Tamiron went onto his knees beside her, pulling her into his arms. “He hears your voice and is trying to wake. Do you want him to suffer even more before he dies?”
She pushed back, staring at him in shock. “He’s not dead yet? You’ve kept me from him when he’s not dead yet?”
She shoved Tamiron over in her haste to rise, but he caught her foot as she passed him and she went down. He had to roll on top of her to keep her down. It was almost next to impossible, since she had gotten closer to Challen and knew it.
“Enough, woman!” he had to shout to make her hear him. “You can do nothing for him, do you understand? Nothing! He will be dead before the sun sets. Let him die in peace, without your hysterics waking him to the pain.”
“Oh, you fools!” she screamed up at him. “I can save him!”
“You have not seen him,” he said more gently.
“Because you won’t let me!”
“Woman—Tedra ... he has bones crushed. He has a mortal wound in his chest. Nothing can be done, no matter that you wish it otherwise.”
“It can—it can!” she cried. “I tell you I can save him, if my communicator can be found before he ...Tamiron, please, you have to believe me. Challen has a small box of mine. Where would he put it—hide it? Where would he hide something?”
“This you will not be told.”
She couldn’t believe her ears. “Don’t ... be ... an ... idiot!” she screeched at him. “I have to have that box. It has to be found, now! Or do you want him to die?”
“Do not be foolish—”
“Damn you, why won’t you believe me? With that box, I can save your friend. If you have any feeling for him at all, how can you take the chance that I’m not telling the truth?”
“How can the box save him?”
Thank the blessed Stars, he was finally listening to her. “It will—”
“No.”
Tedra gasped to hear that voice, sounding so weak, but still commanding. She craned her neck around to see him, but couldn’t.
“Challen, you don’t understand! You have to tell me where—”
“No,” he repeated, but he wasn’t speaking to her. “She is not ... to have it, Tarn. She will . . . leave and not . . . return.”
“I won’t!” Tedra cried, struggling again with Tamiron to let her up. “Challen, I won’t leave you. I’ll take you where you can be healed, and I’ll return with you. I’ll even give you back the communicator, I swear!”
“He heard you not,” Tamiron told her. “He has lost wakefulness again.”
Tedra groaned, and then growled, “Get off me, warrior. I’ll return to town myself and find my unit. But I swear if he dies, when you could have given me a clue to shorten the search, I’m going to kill you.”
“You heard him, Tedra. You may not have the box. His orders are to be obeyed, despite—”
“He didn’t know what he was saying! He doesn’t know he’s dying—or that I can save him. If he knew it, it wouldn’t matter to him if I left or not, would it? But I’ll tell you what does matter. I caused that tunnel to collapse. If he dies, then I killed him. Are you going to let a helpless woman live with that on her conscience?” When he started to smile at that, she growled, “That was supposed to get through to your barbarian mentality, not make you laugh. And if you don’t get off me right now, I’m going to hurt you.”
“What could this box of yours do for him?”
Was he finally thinking for himself? “It will Transfer us to—where I come from. It will Transfer Challen directly into a meditech unit that will make him whole again.” She couldn’t blame Tamiron for his skeptical look, but for once she couldn’t afford to be doubted. “Damn it, I swear I’m telling you the truth. If you don’t trust me, you can come along, too, but don’t waste any more time, Tamiron. Return to the castle and find that box for me before it’s too late.”
“This will not be necessary. I have it.”
“What?”
“Challen gave it to me with the warning that it was to be kept from you. Knowing your penchant for going where you do not belong, I felt the safest place for it was on myself. Serren,” Tamiron called to the nearest warrior not nursing some hurt she’d given in her earlier loss of control. “Bring to me the sack on my hataar.”
He let Tedra up finally while they waited, but tried stopping her again from going to Challen. “You still should not see him—”
“Don’t get foolish again on me,” she snapped. “It doesn’t matter how he looks now, because he’ll be whole again before the day ends, without even a tiny scar to show for it.”
“That would be a miracle,” he said with total disbelief.
“Yeah, well, we have a lot of things where I come from that will seem like miracles to you.”
“Are you truly, then, from another world?”
“Not just another world, but a completely different Star System. With any luck you might see it one day. But you’ll see the proof of it in just a few minutes, so be warned, warrior, not to be surprised by the strange things you see.”
She ignored him then to turn to Challen, and didn’t move another muscle. They’d tried to spare her this. Tamiron hadn’t told her the full extent of Challen’s injuries. There was damaged muscle, skin scraped raw, skin slashed open, even his face . . . blood everywhere. And sticking out of his chest was a two-foot-long spike of wood nearly four fingers around. Oh, Stars, the pain he must have felt when he woke, yet all he was concerned with was her leaving him.
The tears started again and ran unchecked. She reached him, but was afraid to touch him. She wanted to cradle his head in her lap. She wanted to hold him, but was filled with so much emotion she was afraid she might hurt him even more. How much time did he have—was he even still alive?
“Hurry up, damn it!” she threw over her shoulder.
Tamiron was already at her other side, and placed the communicator in her hand. Tedra almost kissed him, but all she spared time for was to swipe at her cheeks with the edge of her cloak before she hit the audio button.
“Martha, I’ve got an emergency here, so spare me all comments for now. Are you there?”
“What’s the problem, doll?”
“My warrior is . . .he’s dying. I want you to open the meditech and Transfer him directly into it as soon as I say. Have you got that?”
“Sure, two to Transfer.”
“No. I’ve got my unit, so I’ll Transfer up myself and one other. You just concentrate on Challen. Have you got a lock on him?”
“If he’s the one with the low energy level,” Martha answered. “But you’d better get everyone else away from him so there are no mistakes.”
“In a moment. I have to remove something first.” To Tamiron, “Tell your buddies not to go into shock when we disappear.”
She said it only to distract him, since she had a feeling he’d try to stop her if he saw what she was going to do, had to do. But she was so loath to do it, Tamiron had returned before she got a grip on the long spike of cracked beam.
“No.” He drew her hand back. “It stems the blood. Do you remove it, he will last no more than moments.”
“In less time than that Challen will be out of danger. It has to come out or the meditech unit won’t be able to close over him and do its job. And there’s no one up there who can do it except Corth, but he could be clear on the other side of the ship.”
“A ship ... up there?”
&n
bsp; “Don’t ask me questions now, Tamiron. There’s no time. And let go of my hand.”
“No, I will do it. It is wedged between his ribs. You would not have the strength to remove it.”
“Thank you,” she said with some relief. “But the second you have it out, step away from him.”
He nodded, though reluctantly. He was putting his trust in her, and well she knew it. She wasn’t sure if she were in his place that she’d believe even half the things he’d been told. She knew she wouldn’t.
In another moment Tamiron stepped back, Tedra with him. “Now, Martha!” She took Tamiron’s hand in hers, telling him, “All you’ll feel is a little tingling, warrior, so don’t let it disturb you.”
She didn’t bother to ask if he was ready. She was too anxious to follow Challen, who’d already vanished. And then they did as well.
“Welcome home, kiddo.”
Chapter Thirty-five
Tedra had forgotten that the coordinates of her unit were set to Transfer her back to the same point from which she had left the ship. And the Control Room was a long way from Medical. She’d also forgotten how clear and strong Martha’s voice could be when it wasn’t coming through a link. The louder sound of it had startled Tamiron, but that was before he opened his eyes and saw where he was. “Shocked” didn’t even come close to the way he looked now, but hopefully the warning she had given him would help him function.
“I’m only visiting,” Tedra said in answer to Martha’s greeting.
“I’d already figured that out. Who’s your guest?”
“He’s called Tamiron Ja-Na-Der, a friend of Challen’s. Be a good girl and answer his questions while I—”
“There’s no point in your rushing off to Medical, kiddo. The big guy’s closed up tight, and let me tell you, it wasn’t easy fitting him into the meditech. It will be quite a while before the unit’s finished with him, though, as bad shape as he was in.”
“I still need to know that we weren’t too late.”
“Then why don’t you ask me? Or are you forgetting the extent of my powers?”