“On my home world we say those in need cannot choose.” Kelskar squeezed her thigh, chewing with too much relish for one who’d just taken a life.
But then a gladiator would know all about taking life.
“We should assume those berries were for eating,” she said. “Use them to identify what’s edible and what’s not.”
“Good thinking.” Kelskar slung the satchel crosswise over his body, adjusting it so it hung at his back. With brisk precision, he dropped to one knee to search pockets, the man’s utility belt. Pulled off the boots and measured them to his own foot. “Too small. They might make good trade, but we can’t be burdened right now.” He tossed them aside. The pockets and belts yielded two more blades and a selection of crudely made tools. Rasps, hooks, and nails, a hammer made from a square stone tied to a forked twig with twine. Kelskar lifted it aloft, twisting it in the dim light then stuffed it into his pocket.
“All this technology and we’re living like Stone Age man.” Janie’s mind made another small adjustment. Everything she knew, relied on to be true was falling away.
“My people believe we all carry the collective memory of the first men.” Kelskar hauled at the man’s sleeve, pulling off the jacket and threadbare undershirt. “It’s natural to revert to basics when survival is at stake.”
“I guess. Can we use that jacket as a tote? Tie up the sleeves maybe so it forms a pouch?” She could be practical too, even if it meant stripping a dead man of all he owned.
“Exactly what I was thinking. It’s too small for me anyway.”
“What are those?” Janie bent to retrieve the two discs the man might have lost when he fell. Kelskar shot out his hand, trapping her wrist.
“Be careful with things you do not know. Let me.”
“Oh.” Unexpected tears stung her eyes. She turned away from him, fighting the surge of emotion threatening to overwhelm her. Maybe he could sit and eat and gleefully go through a dead man’s things after killing him, but she obviously couldn’t.
“I didn’t mean to snap. I only wish to keep you safe.”
He didn’t try to touch her. She didn’t want him to. She wanted her legs to stop wobbling and her heart to harden enough to get through this. Janie sucked in a breath and turned around.
“Keep me safe,” she said, forcing her attention to the discs clasped between his fingers. “My inner prima donna can take it. Yell at me all you like, if it keeps me alive.”
He did touch her then, a light press of knuckles to her cheek. His signature touch. Patronising from any other man than him. She leaned into him, appalled at the sudden flame igniting a spark of lust low in her belly.
“So what are they? It looks like gold.”
“We call gold Dor. It’s found all over the galaxy.” He turned the disc, studying the faint swirling patterns front and back. A little smaller than the flat part of his palm, slightly curved at the edges. The discs clinked softly together.
“By all the insane gods, dragon scales.” He intoned the words with such wonder, she dropped beside him and took one from his flat palm. This time he didn’t stop her.
“Real dragon scales?” A question more cynical than awestruck. “From a statue?”
Kelskar gave her a sideways look and then shrugged, as if any explanations right now would fall on deaf ears. He was probably right. Weren’t dragons supposed to be reptiles, with skin like leather and horn? Weren’t they creatures of myth and legend?
“Whatever they are, they’re beautiful.” She gave it back to him, oddly uplifted by the smooth shiny discs. Glad there existed in this place some things of beauty to admire and soothe the soul.
“Beyond price for trade.” Kelskar shoved them into an inside pocket and stood. “Janie, we must retrieve the rest of your weapons and move on. This creature will be the first of many. A mere taste of what’s in store for us.”
“Oh hell, can I do this?” She was talking to the meat, to him. To the freaking dragon scales he pocketed without question. “My first test and I failed miserably. None of this makes sense to me. I’m a baker, not Lara Croft. No amount of rallying speeches from you will change that.”
“This time next season you will no longer be a baker. You will be this Lara Croft of which you speak, and rest assured, you will believe in dragons. We’ve provided enough entertainment here, time to move on.”
She’d forgotten about their determined eavesdropper hanging silently a few metres above them. Had it seen the whole drama? Filmed and beamed it to half the galaxy?
“I’m coming.” She followed close to the second opening between the rocks. The dead man’s eyes seemed to bore into her back as they squeezed through. The hovering camera box swung in behind them. “And next time I’ll be more careful.”
There would be a next time. No use pretending otherwise.
“Don’t berate yourself, Janie. Any woman in your position would have fallen prey to that creature’s stealth.”
“I can’t afford to be stupid. I want to stay alive.”
“Then use this lesson to learn that skill. I very much wish for both of us to live through this. Wait behind me while I check the path is clear.”
Janie studied the outline of Kelskar’s broad back, the shoulders made even wider by the cut of the heavy coat. A patchwork of mid brown hair, growing out lighter than it looked in the cage. Reddened skin and the last of the plating covered his head. Large hands, strong enough to kill, gentle enough to caress with a whisper touch.
She wanted to hug him and pour out her thanks. He might have escaped after leading the hunters to Earth, but he chose her and this. Touching a flat palm to his shoulder, she felt his even breath and thanked God for him. He pressed back lightly, resting a moment. She’d never been so in tune with a man.
“Come,” he said. “It’s safe. Come and tell me what you learned from this.”
“To be more vigilant. To keep my eyes and ears open.” Janie stepped out onto the ledge where the mountain path widened, swiping at a clinging vine root winding in her hair. Lifting a hand, she watched it shake with grim fascination.
In a tree higher up the slope, a bird sang a plaintive, piping melody. A red glow outlined the brooding cloud edging across the grey sky, casting the valley below in monochrome shadow.
And on the dirty ground behind them, a dead body lay in a spreading pool of blood.
Kelskar stood with her, taking in the deceptive beauty. A breeze lifted the loose plating from his scalp, rattling it softly against his skull.
“Only one thing you need to stay alive. Tell me what it is.”
“You?” Cool air, sharp with the scent of decomposing leaves filled her lungs. Berries shivered on the shrubs and trees hugging the slopes. Was that smoke from a fire in the flat valley below? She couldn’t tell.
“Apart from me.” Kelskar rubbed his abused cheek. Inspected the sticky pus beading on his fingertip. Janie stared at her feet. She didn’t want to think about the puffy skin surrounding the anchor points on his cheeks and head, the infection invading his blood.
“I should have reacted, fought back somehow. But it never felt real. That’s what paralysed me. It just felt like some nightmare I only had to wake up from to be safe.”
Even with Kelskar hard at her back, she wasn’t safe. Not until she opened her eyes and saw those gathering clouds for what they were. Danger. And it was coming right for them.
“So now you finally believe?”
“Oh yes.” She fingered the sword hilt, shaping it to her curved palm. “This is happening and I’m ready for it. I’m ready,” she said to the watchers in the sky.
In answer a panel in the larger hovering box slid open. The smaller box following Kelskar rose upward to meet it and disappeared inside.
Chapter Nine
Foolish beyond measure to lose her to danger so soon. He would not make that mistake again.
“We have everything. Let’s go.” Kelskar urged Janie from the cave, keeping her in front of him. She moved mechanical
ly, obeying him without question. Understanding the need for a swift departure, thank the gods. A lone renegade, most likely but the male who tried to take her might well have friends lurking in the shadows waiting for another opportunity to pounce.
“I need to deal with the body. You don’t have to watch, but stay close.”
Janie nodded, tight lipped. Eyes carefully averted from the overhanging rock where he’d dragged the body ready for disposal. He preferred to spare her the gory details, but covering all their tracks remained a priority.
“There’s a ravine a little further up the slope. Roaming carnivores should take care of the evidence.”
“Do what you have to do.” He didn’t miss the waver in her voice. “It’s okay,” she said. “I want to know.”
“Very well.” He hoisted the body onto his shoulders with ease. Tall but spare, little but a bag of bones absent the bulky garments, Kelskar hefted the attacker to the ravine and pitched him over the edge. Features set in stone, a strand of hair flapping at her cheek, Janie watched unblinking and his heart ached as it might once have before he became Gladiator Kelskar, ice cold killer. Unconcerned with the feelings of others.
He studied the inert body for a long moment. Death didn’t always mean the end. He’d witnessed too many beings rise from horrendous injury to fight on.
“He’s dead.” The comment earned him a curious glance from Janie. So insular and isolated, her little planet Earth. According to the on-board computer in the pod, humans had left a few footprints on their orbiting moon and sent a selection of unmanned exploration vessels to the outer reaches, nothing more.
Janie knew so little of her place in all this.
“I’ll gather us some berries,” she said turning away from the grisly spectacle. “There were three different varieties in the satchel, and some are growing along the path. I’ll fill the water bottles, too. You kill the bad guys, I’ll cook. We’re turning into a bad fifties movie.”
“What’s a movie?” Translation chips by nature improved conversion with use. A shorter or longer learning curve depending on the race and language. They did well communicating, considering the distance between them.
“A film, entertainment. It’s short for moving pictures.”
“Ah yes. We call them Vidi Views, sometimes Voyeur Vision. Mindless entertainment for the barracks.” Janie plucked at berries as they returned to the small pile of belongings stashed behind a rock. He’d buried the intruder’s hunting knife at the back of their sleeping cave, covered with loose stones. If they were attacked and robbed, which was very likely, he would at least have a fall back.
They had little as yet to stash in the intruder’s coat. Kelskar tied up the sleeves and slung it like a bag over one shoulder, ignoring the stench of unwashed flesh and rotting food clinging to the fibres. Janie wrinkled her nose.
“When will it be safe to take a proper wash?” She sighed. “I’ve been hallucinating showers and hot baths for weeks.”
“When I’m sure we won’t be observed. Arm up, we need to move.”
“Okay.” She pointed up and behind him to the hovering box taking a keen interest in the disposal of the body. “Our friend is back.”
“Dead bodies are good for ratings. The more the better.” He bent to adjust her sword belt, positioning it at her hip. “Like this,” he said and for no reason he could think of, pulled her stretch cap down over her eyes.
“Hey.” Janie pushed it back, giggling in faint protest at his sudden playfulness. He froze. In his mind a small boy, the same giggling protest. Short arms trying vainly to reach his father’s cap, too high for the child to return the gesture. He would drop to one knee, pretending to find something on the floor. Roar with mock indignation when the child grabbed his cap. The scene ran like one of Janie’s movies, so clear he could almost smell the milky baby skin.
“What is it?” Light fingers on his forearm, anchored him back in the present. Janie’s anxious eyes asked a thousand questions. “Tell me it’s not the chip?”
“No, not the chip.” He shook his head as if that would dislodge the image and end the torment. “Only a memory.”
Kelskar took in a long heaving breath and slung on his pack. Another piece of his stolen life for Janie to store away. A good memory. But soon he would confront the others. They wouldn’t all be like that.
“Give it to me, then. Was it your son? Do you remember his name? You looked so happy for a moment.”
Then you looked totally bereft. She didn’t have to say it. Janie’s face told him that story.
“Yes, it was my son. I can’t remember his name. When I pulled down your hat, it triggered a memory of doing the same. Janie, things may look bleak now, but we will know happiness again, I swear it.”
“Here, now,” she said and rose on tiptoe to pull him down for a healing kiss. A soft touch of lips, no passion, just a promise to walk with him on this journey. He gathered her in, burying his face in the curve of her neck, too full of feelings and half-formed memories to move. Too many questions screaming in his head. Fluttering like wraiths at the edges of his precariously balanced mind.
“What did I do?” Janie’s thick plaited hair muffled his desperate plea. “I did something or failed in something and they died. What was it? What in the name of the dark gods was it?”
“Shh, it’s okay. We’re in this together, it’s okay.”
The soothing wash of her voice, her confidence in a future, gave him hope. Kelskar straightened and turned his attention to the two paths open before them. One leading sharply up the mountain to what might have once been a ruined temple, the other winding less steeply around the ridge hiding the landscape from view.
Enough of this self-indulgence, discovering his past could wait. Food and a safe shelter, staying alive to see a new dawn must be their priority. That momentary weakness, where he’d almost wept in her arms he dismissed to the ache in his head and chest, the infection creeping into his blood.
An infection he would overcome by sheer force of will. He’d done that before, he could again.
“Do you think the ruins will be occupied?”
Kelskar widened his eyes, a trick learned somewhere in his past to sharpen his long distance focus. His mother’s people had been prized as scouts for their visual acuity. He remembered that, but not her face.
“I see no signs of activity. Ruins that large should be crawling with people, marked by smoke from fires. My hearing is good and yet no sound on the wind.”
The temple rose from the mountaintop, silent, shrouded in vines, cloaking trees and shrubs. Large flat stones, some ornate with carvings and corbels. A row of pillars no longer holding up a roof. Janie shivered suddenly and stepped closer to him.
“You feel it too?” The more he looked, the more he felt the place almost as a living thing, warning him to stay away.
“I’ve always been a bit sensitive to atmospheres. Ghosts and things that go bump in the night. We had one at the tea room. A little old lady who sat at a corner table and stared out of the window in the middle of the night. She never scared me, but that place...”
“It’s a sacred place,” he said. “That’s what you feel. Come, we go up.”
“You want to go up there?”
“The perfect place to hide. It’s a curious thing that some of the hardest, most evil beings I’ve even encountered were also the most susceptible to superstition. Look closer at the beauty hiding in that decay. It’s not a shrine to devil gods. And that is exactly the kind of place evil men fear.”
“Kind of makes sense, I guess.”
“A warlord would have an organised camp, look-outs on approach routes. I wouldn’t be standing here with you if I’d sensed any other watchers but that thing in the sky.”
“If you say so.” Shading her eyes, Janie looked again as they struck out, roaming her gaze over the sprawling stones. “It’s like something from a fantasy novel.”
“Come, the most we’ll encounter are lone rogues who will barely tax
me.”
“And you’re not superstitious? It’s a powerful curse if no one lives there. I can imagine any building is at a premium on this place.”
“All gladiators are superstitious. Prey to strict routine and ritual. It’s one way to stay alive, to keep a little control. The man I was before? I have no idea.”
“Well, just so you know, my fingers and toes are all crossed.”
The camera box sped past them, hanging in the sky to watch their ascent. They were dropped here for a reason. Carefully planned, but with an element of chance to make the outcome more exciting. Had they gone down, or around the mountain the viewers might be watching a different show entirely.
“Wow, it’s breathtaking.”
Janie tipped back her head, dwarfed by the soaring remains of square towers and a half formed arch. Grasses whipped at their feet, crackling in the stiffening breeze. Glyphs and symbols covered every pillar, every wall.
“It’s a dragon temple. That’s why it’s deserted. The original people revered them.” Kelskar reached out with all of his senses, limited now without benefit of the chip. Melancholia hung heavy on the stones, in the air. A wrenching sense of loss. He understood well why no one lived here.
“Yes, I can feel it.” Janie ran a finger over the pillar, tracing the outline of a man laying an offering before a mighty dragon. “If men could ever turn into dragons, it would be here. This is a sad place.”
“Draw your sword. I feel no life, but my senses are dulled. And tread carefully. Make no noise. We must be on our guard.”
The short sword whispered from the scabbard hanging at Janie’s belt. An awkward grip, she would be wrong footed immediately by anyone versed in the use of a blade. He added sword play to the list of skills she must learn, and quickly, to survive this place.
He drew his own, longer sword from the harness at his back. Knew the location of every blade secreted on his body, the time they would take to get from sheath to hand. Janie hadn’t yet seen a fraction of his fighting capacity. A vain hope that she never would. They stepped cautiously into the open courtyard, rebuilding the temple to its former glory in their minds. Easy to image the soaring pillars, the graceful arches. Delicate stonework covered in pictures coloured with rare dyes.
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