Page 71 of On a Barbarian World

“These nanami are unable to do what the nanami in our blood can do,” he added. “They are wild, simple, unable to be directed.” He looked around. “Where to now?”

She pulled up her Sync. “God, the maps fit. I thought they continued on the same level, but they are below the other tunnels.” She studied the map, then pointed. “That way. We need to go into that tunnel.”

Kavon nodded and his men moved in closer. “Everyone, watch where you step.”

As they approached the tunnel, she looked along the rock wall, and saw another entrance to the left and another to the right. In the light of nanami, she could see an entire row of tunnel entrances. The mine was huge.

“You’re sure this is the one?” Colm nodded at their entrance.

“As certain as I’ll ever be. It matches the location on the map.”

They moved inside. The tunnel went straight, the floor surprisingly smooth. Then she spotted something ahead.

She frowned. “What the hell is that?”

It was a long, brown…shell, lying on the tunnel floor.

Colm whistled through his teeth. “It is the skin of a dusa.”

Kavon nodded. “The beasts shed them every winter.”

Everything in Aurina stilled. It had to be fifteen meters long! And thicker around than she was. It was clearly some sort of giant, snake-like creature. “Tell me they’re friendly.”

“Hells, no,” Colm exclaimed.

“They are not friendly,” Kavon said. “They like to bite, and have a terrible poison that can burn through the skin. They can also spit molten rock, and circle around a man and squeeze him to death.”

She closed her eyes. Of course. Trust her to crash-land on a planet filled with fire-breathing horses, huge monsters, massive cranky birds, and giant snakes. “Let’s hope this one is long gone.”

Kian touched the skin and held up his hand. It dripped with a clear, sticky goo. “I would guess this was very recently shed. Perhaps in the last few hours.”

Aurina groaned.

“It changes nothing,” Kavon said. “If we meet the dusa, we will take it down. Carry on.”

She stiffened her spine and kept moving, perhaps a little more cautiously than before. The tunnel turned left, and soon branched off. They continued to follow the map, but every scrape of a boot had her glancing over her shoulder to make sure a giant, lava-spitting snake wasn’t stalking them.

Kavon held a hand up. “There is something else ahead.”

She couldn’t see anything in the gloom. “You’re sure?”

“He has the best eyesight of any Markarian,” Colm said. “But I can also make out something propped against the wall on the left.”

They moved forward cautiously and, out of the shadows, she saw a lump of…something against the wall. Was it another dusa skin? She suppressed a shudder.

“It looks like the skin of some sort of creature,” Colm said.

Aurina squatted beside the object and frowned. It looked like it had arms and legs…and it was very humanoid in shape. It had a thick, green skin that was coated in a dense layer of dust.

“I need some more light. Hold a wand up higher.”

One of the men complied, and the light reflected off a round, bulbous head that was made of a luminous, smooth substance.

She froze. Oh, God, it couldn’t be. It wasn’t skin at all. She swiped a hand across the head, and through the clear spot she’d made, she saw a visor. The green skin was the high-tech plas of an enviro suit, and the “head” was a helmet.

And inside, she saw a human skull.

“It’s not an animal.” Her hands shook a little.