The sound of the pursuing Midlander warriors was getting louder. Without looking back, kDira could tell that the Midlanders were gaining on them. Their war cries echoed through the woods and sent an eerie message to those trying to evade them. This was not how kDira had hoped it would go.
The end of the path was ahead, the fleeing Blackhorn were closing fast on the Great Highway, and it was only a matter of time before kDira and the other Blackhorn were caught and captured again.
Suddenly a piercing pain erupted in kDira’s chest. She looked down and saw a small dart sticking out of her chest. She reached to pull it out as she continued to run, but in the distance of about four strides, her world faded out to black.
pART 4
Dark at the End
of the Tunnel
cHAPTER 25
kDira could not see, but she could hear things around her. She could hear voices, strange voices she had never heard before. The voices spoke the same tongue but used words she’d never heard before. In and out she drifted, the conversations and noises she heard making no sense.
Sounds of metallic objects clinking together, objects being moved around, cloth tearing, all sounded odd when put together in the haze of her intoxicated state.
Intoxicated? Why would she be intoxicated? She had not enjoyed bryne for days. She was tired, but she could hear the voices and was curious. She could tell through her closed eyes that a bright light was shining above her where she lay. Other lights around her seemed to turn on and off for no apparent reason.
Winter? Agis? Where are my friends? She willed herself to open her eyes. As she did, the bright light that she sensed through her closed eyelids blinded her. She tried to turn her head away, but her body was not responding to her commands. She felt trapped. Had Malak captured them and tied her up to an altar?
“This one’s coming around,” said a female voice from somewhere out of kDira’s line of sight. “Should we sedate her again?”
“No, let’s have a visit with her,” a male voice answered. “I am sure she will have a lot of questions when she comes around fully.”
Questions? You are damn right I will have questions! kDira screamed inside her head, the words not yet ready to exit her mouth.
“I think this one is the leader,” he went on. “She is the one that is fertile.”
“Actually, Doctor Philantry, three of the four females in this group are fertile. Our tests have confirmed it.”
Fertile? What are they talking about? Does he mean breeders? That is right, we are breeders. Is this some strange wolfpack, sent to gather the breeding females?
“But the fourth one is not?”
“No, sir.”
“Too bad, she’s a fine physical specimen.”
“Do you always have to talk about them like they are tissue samples? These are people. Primitive, yes, but still people.”
“I know, Miss Davis, but you know how it is when you start thinking of your test samples as human.”
As her eyes slowly adjusted to the light, the details of the ceiling over kDira’s head became clear. There was a metal shield of some sort hanging from the ceiling, and the light itself was coming from two bright strips that glowed without a flame. Above the shield was a ceiling constructed of some white material she had never seen before; it was not wood or stone.
kDira found that she could now slowly turn her head to the side. She could see two people, the male and the female standing over a table wearing white tunics over strange clothing.
Winter! Winter was lying face down on the table, and the two seemed to be doing something to her foot. She looked the other way and saw Agis and the others each on tables evenly spaced out the length of the long, windowless room.
She turned her head back to the strangers. They seemed to be finishing up what they were doing as they were putting their metal tools and other things on a small cart. The female glanced back over at kDira.
“Doctor, she’s awake.”
“Good, good! Let’s go have a chat with her,” he said, pulling off his blue gloves. “How is the Leader of the Blackhorn today?”
kDira tried to speak but still did not have the control to do so. Frustrated, she closed her eyes and concentrated on getting her senses back.
“That’s okay, you don’t need to speak. I am Doctor Philantry. You and your companions are our guests here. Our people saved your lives.”
kDira opened her eyes again and looked over at Winter.
“Your daughter will be just fine,” the female, apparently called Miss Davis, said. “We have mended her Achilles tendon, and it should heal in due time. She must not walk on it for several weeks. She has a special boot that she must wear until the tendon is healed. My name is Tina. And you are kDira if I am not mistaken.”
kDira nodded.
“This is all very strange to you, we know,” Tina Davis continued, “but be assured we are not here to hurt you. We are here to help.”
“Your friends will be waking up soon as well,” the doctor said, “and we will fill you in on why we brought you here.”
“What do you mean they just disappeared? Were you not chasing after them?”
“Yes, King Malak, but they went around a bend in the path and when we got to that point they were gone! We searched the entire area, thinking they might be hiding in the woods or even up a tree, but they were nowhere to be found.”
“I should have you put to death for your incompetence.”
“Please, King Malak, we have done everything we could do to find them. Warriors are still out there right now, continuing the search for them. We will not give up.”
“I suggest you get yourself back out there now and find those Blackhorn!”
“Yes, King Malak! Yes, King Malak,” the warrior said, backing towards the door. Quickly he left without waiting for any other instructions.
“I am certain they are doing all they can,” Nonham said. “I know they want to find them as much as you do.”
“It does not excuse their incompetence at losing them in the first place.”
“Of course, you are right, my king.”
“Bring me my females.”
“Yes, my king.”
A third stranger, an unnamed male who was assisting Winter, led kDira and the others into a large open room with plush chairs around the perimeter of a construction unlike anything kDira had ever seen before. The male, dressed in clothes that seemed strange to the Blackhorn, asked them to sit, told them that the doctor and Tina would be in shortly, and left the room.
kDira and the others each found a seat and settled into the plush chairs, covered with a foreign material that was similar to leather, but with a softness that was a new sensation to them.
“They have our weapons,” Omiroe stated. “They pretty much have us captive here.”
“They saved our lives and have assured me they have no intentions of harming us,” kDira replied. “I say we assume they are allies until they prove otherwise.”
“Agreed,” Agis said. kDira shot him a sideways glance.
As promised, the doctor and Tina entered the room, this time not wearing their white tunics.
Doctor Philantry wore a dark blue top, woven of a soft-looking material that covered the full length of his arms and circled his neck rather tightly. His pants were a sandy tan color, and he wore dark shoes that clomped on the floor as he walked.
Tina wore what appeared to kDira to be a ceremonial white dress adorned with flowers and tied at the waist. Her shoes forced her up onto her toes with spikes under her heels that were most likely used as an offensive weapon. kDira could not imagine how anyone could run effectively in those battle shoes, but she hoped maybe this female named Tina would demonstrate the technique later.
“I hope everyone has had time to regain their senses,” the doctor said. “I must apologize for having to knock you all out, but you really didn’t give us much time to explain before we brought you down here.”
“Where is down here?�
�� kDira asked.
“Your name is kDira, correct?” the doctor asked. kDira nodded. “kDira, we are about one hundred feet underground.”
kDira looked confused. She had never heard the word feet used this way before. “What do you mean… feet underground?”
“I am sorry. We use the word foot as a unit of measuring distance. I guess you could think of one foot as the length of a large adult male’s foot. Feet is more than one foot. We are one hundred of those feet beneath the surface.”
The Blackhorn all looked at each other in disbelief. How could they possibly be so far underground?
“Forgive me, but I am having a hard time understanding all of this. Is this a magical place? Elick used to read us stories of magic and magical places. Could they have been true?”
“There is no magic here, kDira. We are a group of people that have maintained our knowledge of the old ways. Before the end came above, what you call the Great Cloud, we had already moved underground, and that protected us from most of it.”
“Then why are we here? What do you want from us?”
The doctor looked at kDira and smiled. “Let’s start with the official introductions. I am Doctor Aaron Philantry. The lady next to me is Miss Tina Davis, the Director of this entire place. She is our Queen Mother, so-to-speak.”
“So, you are a breeder too?” kDira asked.
Director Davis cleared her throat and blushed. “No, actually, I am not. We have the same problem here as your people do. Only a very few of us were left as breeders.”
“So, you do want our breeders? You are a wolfpack!”
“No, no! Absolutely not!” the doctor assured kDira. “We only want one thing, and that is why we brought you down here.”
“And what reason would that be?” kDira asked, still a bit suspicious.
“We want you to survive. Had we left you up on the surface, you would surely have all been killed. We could not allow three breeders to be eliminated that easily. If this world is to have a chance at recovering, it needs all the breeders it can get. And, we must say, the Blackhorn are the most advanced and promising race we have observed to date.”
“And that is it? No conditions?”
Tina looked at the doctor, and then at kDira. “kDira, we need your help.”
cHAPTER 26
“kDira, we are hoping for a favor,” Tina went on. “We need a breeder as well. Our last fertile breeder died unexpectedly almost twenty years ago. Your female offspring have all proven to be fertile.”
“This is a wolfpack!” kDira exclaimed, standing up and taking an offensive stance.
“No! No, kDira! You are all free to leave at any time. We are asking for your help. It is your choice to help or not. Please sit and let us talk further.”
kDira sat back down, still uneasy with the direction the discussion had turned, but she was open to listening a little longer.
“Tell me… Doctor is your name? Strange name, but tell me, what do the Blackhorn gain from this?”
“kDira,” Agis interrupted, “you are not thinking of giving them one of our Princess Mothers, are you?”
“Quiet. I just what to hear what Doctor has to say.”
“Aaron,” said the doctor, chuckling. “Aaron is my name; doctor is my title. It’s like calling me healer. And Tina, the Director of Operations down here, is the one making the decisions.”
“Thank you, Doctor… uh, Aaron,” Tina said. “kDira, you and your tribe will be able to learn from our technology. You can learn to read and write far beyond what your interpreters know today. We have over one hundred people down here, all eager to learn from you as well as teach you and your people the ways of our world. Your offspring would have an advantage over all of the other tribes out there, and with your tribe growing much faster than any other tribes out there, you would quickly, in a matter of a lifetime, dominate the entire continent.”
“Maybe we are happy the way we are?” kDira said cautiously.
“I understand,” Tina answered. “What we offer can be scary, but although you have an advantage with the number of breeders you have in your tribe, you are still vulnerable. Malak or the Karn could come in, like they did with Winter, and with you once, and take all the breeders, and then the Blackhorn would be finished. We watched that happen with the Blackhorn once before, and only because of your great leadership has your tribe come back from near extinction.”
“Malak! He could be mounting an attack right now!”
“Not to worry, kDira. We have been watching him and his tribe. There has been no movement to form an attack against the Blackhorn.”
“How do you know this? Do you have spies among them?”
Tina laughed. “Something like that.”
“Sylys Malak, we must attack now, while they will be unorganized.”
Malak, looking up from between the legs of one of his servant female, huffed at the idea. He rose up onto his knees and patted the girl on her hip, and as if knowing what that meant, she rolled over onto her elbows and knees. Malak began to have his way with her from behind, the girl visibly in pain. She looked up at Nonham, pleading with her eyes for him to help her. Nonham looked away.
“My King, what do we do? Do we rally the warriors for battle? We cannot allow this opportunity to slip away.”
“I’m… thinking! Leave me. Let me… continue to… think!”
Nonham sighed and once again looked at the girl, tears streaming down her face, whimpering with every thrust of Malak. He turned away, unable to tolerate the sight any longer, and left the room.
“Damn boy king thinks with his member,” Nonham said quietly to himself as he left the king’s hut and headed to his own. He had some thinking to do himself.
Tina walked over to a panel on the wall opposite her Blackhorn guests. She picked up a small black object and pushed her thumb onto a red colored dot on the object. The panel flickered and became bright with an image of the outside of the Midlander village walls.
kDira and several of the others, including Agis and Ari stared in awe at the image.
“It’s as though we were looking out a window!” kDira said. “Are we just outside the Midlander walls?”
“I know it seems pretty amazing, but no. We are a safe distance from their village. There is no danger here.”
“How can this be? You are magic!”
“It’s technology that will become familiar to all of you, in time.”
Tina pressed another button, and the image changed to a view of the village at a high angle from the side, looking into the courtyard.
“That’s where I was posted,” Omiroe said, walking closer and pointing to a spot on the picture. “I was sitting on a limb right near that place.”
“And we could see you when you were up there, Omiroe,” Tina said. “I must say, you are a very good shot with a bow.”
“Thank… you,” he said, awe-struck.
“We saw all of you in action. That is how we knew to be on the path when you came running to us.”
“You were waiting for us?”
“Yes. And if we had been a few seconds later, you all might have been killed or captured. We could not allow that to happen.”
“What good are these picture boxes going to do us?” kDira asked. “The Blackhorn have no such things.”
“It is not our intention to give this technology to Blackhorn, at least not yet. But we can offer some things that will help you defeat any enemies that try to take your Princess Mothers again.”
“And all you want in exchange is one of our Princess Mothers?”
“Only as a loan, to provide us with a few female babies to raise as our own. In exchange, we will welcome you into our world and teach you as much as you can learn. Your Interpreters will be overwhelmed with so much knowledge to tap into.”
“To tap into… Those are strange words, but I think I understand. Forgive me if I am a bit defensive about things that concern the Blackhorn, and especially my Princess Mothers, my daughters here esp
ecially. I have fought hard to get to this point, and I am not willing to put it at risk.”
“We understand. And you are right to be cautious. This is a lot to cope with in one day. Let us get you back to your tribe. Talk to your elders. Talk to your Interpreters. We will be in contact with you again soon to discuss an agreement, should you decide to join us.”
“So, you will show us to the surface and let us go?”
“Well, we will save you some travel time and take you to Blackhorn. We have much faster transportation; you will be home by this evening.”
“I do not understand. It is at least three days travel to Blackhorn, and with Winter on a crutch, it will take even longer.”
“I think you will enjoy what we have to show you.”
The Blackhorn were led down a passage where they saw several other people moving around, going about their own business. Some offered a smile as they passed, others were too pre-occupied to notice the Blackhorn.
After a few minutes in the first passage, the group turned and entered another passage. In the second passage, they stopped outside a strange-looking door. Director Tina explained that behind the door was something called an elevator, basically a small room that would lift them up several levels, like going up steps without having to move. She warned them not to be concerned by the feeling of motion.
The elevator opened to a large open area with a tunnel opening at one end. There were two strange metal bars sitting parallel on the ground that continued into the tunnel as far as the eye could see. kDira remembered seeing similar sets of metal bars in the tunnels under Karn City.
In the open area was a large rectangular structure with wheels underneath that sat on top of the bars. There was an open door at one end and a number of windows that ran the length of the structure.
The kDira's World Anthology Page 38