Page 2 of The Naga Wanderer’s Wounded Mate

Chapter 1

Ekkire

This time it was definite, I told myself. I’d left Haven after a long but interesting winter, filled with far too much company for a male like me. I’d given the humans a chance and sated my curiosity about all these hunters from many different Clans working together. Now it was time to travel alone, to give in to the itch to roam. It was time to be a proper Water Weaver male: collect lush fabrics and set out to trade them in distant lands. Collect treasures along the way and perhaps convince a naga female with nice emerald scales to have a youngling or two with me.

That was the plan; that was what life should look like. I had let myself get tempted, and tempted again when Zeidon had found his Farah. If even a Water Weaver male could make Haven his home, fit in with the Clan of outcasts… maybe I could too. Except I’d never craved company the way Zeidon always did. My friend could talk your ear off over a fire, and he always had at least three rescued animals to nurture. Of course he fit in there. I didn’t, because I was exactly the kind of male a Water Weaver male should be.

Still, when I’d set out from Haven a few days ago, I’d headed toward the massive sky wreck full of sleeping humans. It was my last attempt to assure myself I’d made the right choice. If none of the thousands aboard that ship called to me, it proved I was right. I was a Water Weaver through and through. And I had been right. Corin had let me tour the massive ship under the watchful gaze of his mate, Min-Ji, and I’d discovered no scent that called to me, no face that held impossible allure. My mate was not human.

The cohesiveness, and the peacefulness that came with it, of the group of various hunters at Haven had rubbed off on me, however. When I’d left the sky wreck and began my long, meandering way toward the Water Weaver lands in the distance, it had never left me. I’d spotted both the azure of Thunder Rock and the brown and orange of the Sun Fang clan not far from the sky wreck. Loyalty to the friends I’d made at Haven had called to me, and I’d hurried back with a warning.

It was strange, hovering right there by the mouth of the sky wreck as I waited for the impending attack with the others. I should have left then; I’d already done more than was expected of me. Yet I waited, and I worried, just as much as they did, that the reinforcements Corin had called for would not arrive in time. I gripped my trident as if I intended to stand my ground and fight with them, and the anticipation of the fight coursed through my veins.

Maybe I only thought I’d made my peace with the lack of a human mate. The grip of my fist around my favorite weapon told me I still clung to a faint hint of hope. I couldn’t explain it—how the humans intrigued me so much that their mere presence made me stray from my chosen path. It was madness.

When I saw the dragon in the sky racing toward us, I knew I wasn’t needed here, and I slipped away. Silently retreating. This was not my fight, I told myself, as I vanished beneath the treeline. There, the sun became cooler, filtered through the dark purple leaves beginning to sprout everywhere with spring’s approach. I shook my head and tried to shake the disappointment coursing through me with the motion, too.

Time to head home. Then I thought of that word and considered what it meant to me. A Water Weaver male roamed the wilds most of his life, trading, hunting, and providing for the village through his absence. The only time we stuck close was when females were in heat, or when our youngling was born. I had not been lucky in that regard, but having seen Haven, I wondered if I’d be satisfied with such a small part in the rearing of my child. If it was a boy, once weaned, he would be my responsibility entirely. That was the closest to constant companionship most males ever got. Having a son.

No, that did not sound at all satisfying now that I thought about it. A youngling I could not hold or touch, if she were a daughter, made me ache; a son I had to take everywhere on my travels seemed too dangerous. There would still be loneliness, heartache, danger. No Water Weaver female ever shared her nest for more than a night. If no human was mine, and a naga female sounded like a bad deal, I’d stay alone.

Yes, I’d made up my mind now. It would be empty, but I’d fill my days with traveling. I already had a reputation as the naga that roamed farther and wider than any other ever had. I’d trek across the Serqethos Desert to see what was beyond it, cross the Acheray Range, and trade with naga that might live there. Yes, that’s what I’d do. I did not need a mate, didn’t want a mate. It was as simple as that. Fate had decided for me, and now I was making peace with that choice.

The soft, rocking motion of the earth beneath my tail interrupted my thoughts. I jerked upright, rearing back on my tail as I scanned around me. That was the tremor of an earthquake; there was no doubt about it. I’d experienced an earthquake once, in the far west, while visiting a coastal village of silver naga. A tidal wave had come afterward, sweeping through the village until nothing was left but mud and broken homes.

I eyed the lower plains behind me, where the sky wreck had partially burrowed into the wet, unstable ground. Then I looked up at the mountains in the distance and winced when I saw how a second rocking wave of the earth dislodged a stone avalanche. It came thundering down, the sound reaching my sharp ears even across the vast distance still between me and the mountain. Sun Fang had an outpost on that mountain peak, I realized. That was not good. A tidal wave was not the same as an avalanche, but the result… just as devastating.

The shakes were getting worse, and trees were groaning, creaking, then toppling all around me. I had to make up my mind, and fast. Go back to the sky wreck and help with what was going to be massive devastation there, or hurry to that outpost in case there were survivors?

I was on a hillside, with a perfect view across the plains and the wetlands in the distance. It felt like a safe spot, and then suddenly it wasn’t. The ground split and rent open beneath my tail, and I was forced to fling myself to safety. For what felt like hours but was closer to minutes, I was so busy saving myself that I could spare no thoughts for the others.

When the ground finally stopped shaking, mud and dirt slid slowly back into place, but the landscape had irrevocably changed. Trees had toppled and splintered; some had been swallowed whole by fissures in the ground that had opened up. The hills looked like they’d been caught in that tidal wave I recalled, devastation without the water.

I had my body anchored around one tree that had managed to stand its ground. Slightly lopsided, the thick trunk had remained rooted in a chunk of earth that was remarkably calm. Calm was not the word I’d use to describe what had happened to the sky wreck and the plains it had rested on. Partially sunk, the massive ship looked like Serant had tried to eat it. A beast far bigger than the dragon had clawed the plains to pieces, dragging furrows and gullies big enough to perhaps become a permanent change to the land.

My sharp eyes saw a lot, like the palisade being gone entirely, or the way the dark entrance to the wreck had vanished under the dirt. I also spotted the dragon circling overhead, most of the reinforcements it was supposed to bring still clinging to its back. There was no sign of Corin anywhere, though, and I hoped that meant he’d withdrawn into the sky wreck. Hoped it was safer in there than it had been out here.

I had to withdraw the precious spyglass from my backpack to gaze at the hillside and plains further away and search for Thunder Rock and Sun Fang’s attack party. How had they fared? Unprotected by the sky ship’s metal hull or the safety of the dragon’s flight… The area they’d been in looked as devastated as the one I’d survived. That meant there was a good chance there were survivors, didn’t it?

I hesitated. Should I go to them to check for survivors? They had tried to mount yet another attack on the fallen skyship. As a Water Weaver male, we prided ourselves on being welcome everywhere we went, friends with every clan. That had once included Bitter Storm, even though they shunned all outsiders. Yet the males at the sky wreck, those were the ones I truly knew. With them, I’d shared countless meals and hunts, and they’d always made a place for me at any of their campfires.

I had to be very careful as I wound my way back down the hills toward the sky wreck. The ground was extremely treacherous and still very unstable in many places. One false move and I might find myself trapped in a hole impossible to climb out of. I had to double back twice when my path was blocked by a deep gully too wide to cross. Thus, it took me nearly an hour to cross a distance that would normally take ten minutes.

The dragon had already dropped off its riders, but it had retreated back into the sky to watch from a distance. I could only assume this was because the beast might be too heavy for the still, occasionally crumbling ground to support. Zsekhet might fear Sesethul could get trapped or injured if it stayed on the ground and an aftershock came. He’d be right. The land would take days to fully settle, and one massive tremor might not be the end of it yet.

“Hello!” I called out as I climbed out of a deep furrow I’d had no choice but to cross. This was, I was certain, the area where the naga had been when the earthquake struck. It was clearly the spot those on the dragon had also decided required a search for survivors. Already, I could tell they’d pulled a male from beneath the rubble. He was swearing, but at first glance appeared unscathed, despite being partially buried.

“Joxra, are you hurt?” I asked as I approached. “I came back in case you needed another pair of hands here…” I glanced about, but wasn’t sure who was supposed to be in charge right now. Regardless of leadership, males were already working closely together to begin digging out the entrance to the sky wreck.

Joxra shook off more of the dirt clinging to his red scales, his expression furious. “I’m fine! It’s Jasmine. Jasmine’s in here somewhere! We’ve got to find her!” I’d never seen the former Bitter Storm male so agitated before. His expression was so guilt-stricken that I wondered if he had something to do with her disappearance. Or perhaps she was his mate, and he was beside himself with concern.

“She wasn’t supposed to be here!” Joxra added, shaking off the hand of the Thunder Rock male holding him up. He twisted on his tail, then winced, subsiding back against Ezho’s still-proffered arm with another vicious curse. “It was just me and her who climbed down. It was her warning that got the dragon skybound in time, and the others all retreated to safety inside the sky wreck. We have to find her!”

I shifted uneasily on my tail and glanced around. With so many massive furrows and unstable holes, it was going to take a while to search them all. Worse… a small human female was unlikely to have survived this. I could tell from Ezho’s grim look that he thought the same as I did. “We are searching, Joxra, but you must rest. You’ve broken your tail in three places, brother. If you are not careful, you could become partially paralyzed…”

Joxra gave Ezho a look that was deadly. He cared, it appeared, very little for his own health right now. Ezho was correct, however: breaks in his tail could have devastating results if not healed by a Shaman soon. It was also apparent that Joxra was not going to settle until he was certain this human female, Jasmine, was found. One glance at the other naga hunters told me they had their hands full, likely as much for Joxra’s sake as for those trapped inside the sky wreck right now. If Corin was in there, he was as good as any Shaman and could potentially heal Joxra’s injuries in no time at all.

My eyes lifted higher, and I rose on my tail to glance into the distance, where I knew the Sun Fang and Thunder Rock males might be dealing with their own crisis. They did not need another pair of hands to dig here, and they seemed certain only this Jasmine was lost in the muck outside. Lost, and presumed dead. I could perhaps save another life or two if I headed for the attack party’s last location. No matter what I thought of their reason for attacking, I did not feel they deserved to die.

Then I looked back at Joxra and saw the plain distress on his face, as well as the agony he must have been feeling from his injuries—injuries he had been trying to hide so he could search for her personally, at any cost to himself. “I will search for her, Joxra. You can count on me.” The words had been spoken before I could fully consider the ramifications. It meant not helping the others in the hills. It meant staying here a little longer, again.

The way Joxra’s expression filled with relief made me feel good, though. It was exactly that kind of feeling that had enticed me to stay, or to come back again and again, to Haven. Working together with brothers, males of different clans, with scales of different colors, yet united all the same.

“You’d do that, Ekkire?” Joxra bit out through clenched teeth. The pain was definitely getting the best of him now. I helped Ezho lay him down, then watched as the former Thunder Rock male fussed over the former Bitter Storm male, trying to make him more comfortable. I locked eyes with Joxra and nodded.

“I will check the gullies and cracks for her presence. But I do not have her scent.” I rose higher on my tail to glance around and identify the best options. I suspected she’d been near Joxra when the quake started, and he confirmed it, so the starting point had to be where they’d dug Joxra from the muck. “Mud seems to have churned toward the hills and mountains when water welled up from an underground spring.” I indicated the spot and shuddered to think about what it must have been like, trapped in such churning, fast-flowing mud.

“If I find her, I will send a message,” I told him firmly. I eyed the mountains in the distance. “If not, I will continue on that way,” I said, pointing to the mountains. “There is a Sun Fang outpost there that must have been swept away by a rock avalanche. I will check on them for potential survivors next.” As Joxra had passed out as soon as I said, “If I find her,” I directed the last part at Ezho. He nodded in confirmation, and off I went.

My sense of loyalty to the naga at Haven was very satisfied by this choice. I was helping them, potentially still helping the Sun Fang people living at the outpost. Yet I avoided helping those who planned to attack Haven’s people, and the humans, directly. I’d search for this female, recover her body, and perhaps ease the healing of Joxra’s body by doing so. That was a worthwhile cause.