One pops up in front of me and I jerk back with a shriek.
“Not her!” Darolus’s voice booms across the room just as Mickie’s shouting gets cut off.
The naga in front of me grabs me by the hair, spins me around, and launches me across the room. I tumble and roll, landing against the tail of another one.
“She issss mine!” Darolus roars.
A whimper escapes me as I sprawl out on the ground and my hands come up to protect my head. A dark flash appears in front of me as the whip of an even largertail slices across the room, knocking several of the nagas clear across it.
“Sssstop!” one of the nagas, a small-looking one says, bending forward and hissing at Darolus and baring their fangs.
Slowly sitting upright to crawl away, I pull my feet under me as my eyes find Darolus.
He lurches at her and she grabs one of the spears from the crates and thrusts it outward. Unable to dodge in time, Darolus slams into it and the gleaming speartip, as sharp as a needle, sinks into him. The weapon explodes with light, and from within, Darolus’s entire body seizes.
“No!” I shout, rushing forward as he falls onto it and then, grabbing the spear, pulls himself off in the next breath, the light coming from it fading as it’s wrenched from the smaller naga’s hands. Yanking it out of his body, Darolus drops it and tumbles to the ground after it.
I fall to my knees at his side and cover the wound with my hands, seeing my own inflicted stab wound almost healed directly above it. “No, no, no, no, no,” I chant the word, trying to stifle his bleeding with my palms. “You can’t die on me. Not now. You can’t die!” I look around at the other nagas that have gathered, noticing Weston and Mickie’s lifeless bodies on the floor behind them. I hesitate but face the female naga that stabbed Darolus anyway. “Help me! Help him. Please.” For some reason, they’re not attacking anymore.
“He attacked ussss. Darolussss got what he deservessss.”
“You know him! You know him. Please, if you know him, he only did it out of trying to protect me. It’s me who’s at fault here. Please, please help him. He didn’t deserve death. He doesn’t!”
If he’d been merely stabbed by a normal weapon, I might not be as afraid, but he wasn’t—he was stabbed by something made from a technology that’s beyond my scope of understanding.
The female tilts her head down at him, approaching me slowly though stopping several yards short. “He took out the weapon. It is up to his body whether he will recover from it. There issss little else we can do for him now.”
I scan the dark room filled with crates and these strange, smaller nagas. “How is that going to be possible without help? He’ll die if he’s left like this. Doesn’t he at least deserve a fair chance? We can bandage him, close the wound! There’s a lot we can do to help him.”
“Are you willing to give up your life for him?” the female closest to my left asks, one of the ones Darolus knocked back with his tail.
I open my lips then close them, the answer to the question at the tip of my tongue. Gazing down at him, only the outline of his face is lit up from Mickie’s flashlight. Reaching for Darolus’s cheek, I caress it, following the lit silhouette with my fingers, the answer coming easier than I expect. “He would for me. So yes. I would die for him.”
The females—because that’s what they had to be, if at all based on human anatomy—are silent as they glance at each other.
The main one slips forward. “We will give him a place to rest because you, human female, have vouched for him and for his many years of service guarding our borders. If he attacks us again, both of your lives are forfeit. Do you still want our help?”
I inhale and lick my lips. “Yes.”
She indicates to the other females around her, and as I look from one to the other, I realize they’re all vastlydifferent in appearance even in the shadows. I know they’ll be different from Darolus and the gray naga onThe Dreadnaut.Remembering what Darolus has told me about the female’s history, I get to my feet and let them surround his limp form.
The largest one, the first I spoke to, picks up the middle-end of Darolus’s tail while the another hooks her arms around his shoulders. As they haul him through the double doors and deeper into the underground, I walk over to Mickie’s and Weston’s bodies, my heart breaking. I close their eyes, after laying them out and gathering their flashlights. “I’m so sorry.”
I didn’t want anyone to die, let alone get hurt. If I had known calling out to them would result in this, I would’ve kept my mouth closed. They didn’t need to die, not for weapons, nor for me.
Staring at their bodies, one of the naga females returns for me through the open doors.
She beckons me after her, and after a moment’s hesitation I follow her down into the dark.
NINETEEN
THE CITY UNDERGROUND
Sabrina
I keepWeston’s flashlight pointed at the ground as I walk. Cold from being wet, I hold my other arm to my body, trying to suppress my shivers.
Weston and Mickie didn’t deserve to die, nor did Darolus deserve to be stabbed. Feeling guilty for it all, I try to block out the harrowing emotion and focus on what’s in front of me instead. Darolus isn’t dead yet, and I’m going to do my damnedest to make sure he’s okay and that doesn’t happen.
