Neverwylde (The Rim of the World Book 4) (13 page)

            “Do not move.” His whisper was warm on her ear. Not detecting any sound of warning in his tone, Kelen smiled and waited.

            Kyber slowly rolled onto his back, taking her with him until she rested on top. Already she felt his length stir inside her. Felt it thicken and fill her again.

            Pushing against his chest, she lifted herself a couple of centimeters and stared down at him, giving him a playful grin. “It’s been a while since we’ve started our mornings in this manner.”

            “We could be ending our day,” he countered. He had a point. Hiding in the depths of the planet, without a chronometer or any way to see what was happening outside, it could be the middle of the night for all they knew.

            “Day, night, afternoon delight, I don’t care. I need another dose of your amazing medicine, Dr. Kyber.”

            A look of concern crossed his face. “You are in pain again?”

            “No. Let’s call this time preventative medicine.”

            She bent over him as he drew his arms around her. Resting her face on his chest, she closed her eyes and relaxed, letting his hard length slide in and out of her with long, soothing strokes.

            As he had earlier, Kyber reached his peak without her finding hers, but that was all right. Sometimes sex didn’t have to be a moment of passion. Sometimes it could be a melding of souls. A physical connection between lovers. Or, in this instance, a source of comfort and healing. When he groaned, she finally let him slip out of her and rolled off. She glanced around the floor, looking for the wadding she’d been using to soak up the blood, but couldn’t find it.

            “I threw it down the tunnel,” Kyber admitted, as if reading her thoughts.

            “That’s okay. I’ll use some more of the remnants of my old uniform.” She glanced over at his genital area and winced. “Here. Use this to clean yourself.” She handed him the remainder of her blouse.

            There was enough left for her to utilize. With that taken care of, she redressed in her new uniform. Pausing for a moment, she evaluated her physical wellbeing. There was no overt cramping, and she sighed in relief. She knew it wouldn’t last long, but for now she was grateful for the respite.

            “Come.” Kyber held out a hand, which she took. “Let us see where this leads.”

            They followed the interconnecting tunnel, which curved slightly to the right. Kelen tried to swallow, but her throat was too dry. They needed to find water, if only a handful.

            After going nearly a hundred meters, Kyber paused and lifted his face, sniffing the air. She waited to find out why.

            “I smell a flow of fresh air. It could be another air duct,” he explained.

            “Where? I don’t feel a breeze.”

            “But I smell a difference.”

            “So there could be another exit? Another tunnel?” She surveyed their surroundings. “Normally when we reach an interconnecting tunnel, it looks like the wall, when it’s really the holographic door. But where is the air coming from? Why can’t I feel it?”

            He took her hand and held it over her head so she could feel the coolness. “It should not be colder above us,” he commented.

            Kelen agreed. “You’re right. Heat rises. All right. Maybe this is a different kind of air duct. If it is, where’s the doorway?” She stepped closer to the wall and placed her hands on the roughly carved rock. A scary thought came to her. “Kyber, what if it’s locked?”

            “Then I will tear my way through it if I must,” he growled. “Keep searching.”

            She continued to wipe her hands over the stones, when Kyber spoke again.

            “Here!”

            She turned to see him bending over. Half of his right arm was gone, vanished inside the invisible hole. He tried to lift his arm but it stopped less than halfway above the floor. Kelen stared in surprise.

            “What made you search down there?”

            “I happened to look down and noticed my toes were missing.” He demonstrated by sticking his foot through the holographic image.

            “Why is it so small?”

            “I do not know.” He indicated down the tunnel where they had been heading. “Do you want to continue going that way, or should we try going this way?”

            She studied both directions. “Common sense tells me to continue down the tunnel we’re in, but a part of me is wondering why that little tunnel is there.” She looked at him, questioning. Seeking his advice.

            Kyber ran a hand inside the entrance. “I find it very strange they have these low to the ground. Also…” He crouched and ran his hands over the circumference of the opening. “Kelen, there is no way Hoov or its people can fit in here. Even if it crawled on its belly, Hoov is too wide.”

            She bent over, and a random thought came to her. “Kyber, remember when we discussed the possibility that those little people from the other temple might have lived here?”

            He caught her drift and smiled. “Are you thinking they might have created this tunnel?”

            Kelen gave him a lopsided grin. “They look to be the right height. What are the chances those little people didn’t get along with Hoov any more than we did? What are the chances they dug these tunnels as a way of getting from one place to another without Hoov knowing? Or being able to follow?”

            Kyber grunted. “What are the chances Hoov and its people do not know about these alternate routes?”

            Getting down on her knees, Kelen tentatively stuck her head through the entrance. She sat back on her heels. “It’s dark. I can’t see a thing, but it does look like another tunnel. Think you can fit?”

            He answered her by dropping onto his hands and knees, and disappearing through the fake wall.

Chapter 20

Theory

            Twice she bumped into him, her face connecting with his thigh and then his buttocks when he unexpectedly paused. They had to crawl facing downward with their heads no higher than their backs, or else run the risk of scraping the small tunnel’s ceiling. To make matters worse, they had only a few centimeters leeway on both sides. Ordinarily, she wasn’t claustrophobic. No one who served in the space military were. It was a major requirement because of the long durations of their missions in the tiny, often cramped conditions on the warships. But at that moment, coupled with the darkness and threat of imminent danger, Kelen felt threads of apprehension rising within her.

            The rough ground tore at her uniform, bruising her knees and legs, and leaving scratches on her palms. She debated whether to stop and pull down her sleeves to use as makeshift gloves when Kyber paused again. This time he reached behind him, and she collided with his hand. “I see a light ahead,” he whispered.

            “Another interconnecting tunnel with glyphs?”

            “We will soon know. Stay close.”

            He moved ahead at a slower pace. She heard him sniffing, testing the air for anything that might mean danger. As they drew nearer to the other tunnel, she could see the brightening, and she was prepared when he stopped again.

            “What is it?”

            He lowered his head and whispered back to her. “I detect something moving ahead. It smells like one of Hoov’s people.”

            She peered around him. The hazy curtain was less than a meter in front of him—the holographic cover to the entrance.

            He turned and inched forward to stick his head through the doorway. He suddenly jerked back and waved for her silence. Kelen strained her ears. She soon picked up the clicking noise that Hoov’s people made as they walked. Along with it, a shuffling, like feet sliding on rock. It grew closer until the creature’s shadow crossed in front of the hidden tunnel entrance.

            And stopped.

            Kyber waved for her to back up. She hastened to obey as he crowded against her. He paused, but her eyes were riveted on the doorway in front of them. On the darkness that blotted out what little light there was streaming in.

            She sensed Kyber growing tense. She reached out to offer a calming touch, when she heard an unexpected trilling sound. It filled their tiny space like a high-pitched drill. Before she could react, a triangular head poked inside the narrow confines and the creature let out a hiss of anger.

            Kyber exploded out of the tunnel, launching himself at the alien and slashing at it with his sharp talons. The creature squealed and tried to fight him off, but Kyber managed to grab its thin, reedy neck in his mouth and bite down. A hard jerk, and the thing’s neck snapped. Another jerk, and he’d decapitated the creature. Kyber batted the head away, but the creature refused to die. For several long seconds it continued to fight for its life as its blood splattered the walls of the corridor with blue-black ichor and a stench that made her retch.

            It was over in seconds. Panting, Kyber bent over to peer at her. “Come. We must go before more of them show!” He shoved a hand out to help pull her from of the small tunnel and bring her to her feet.

            “How did it find us?”

            “It must have smelled the blood,” he answered.

            She pocketed the blaster and checked both directions. “Which way? Which way was it heading, Kyber?”

            He appeared perplexed. “Does it matter?” He turned to go down one way, when she spotted a familiar object lying on the ground. Releasing his hand, she hurried to fetch it.

            “It’s one of our bundles!” A quick examination inside confirmed what she’d hoped. “It’s mine! Look! Here’s my tube light!” Realization hit her and she glanced down both ends of the tunnel again. “What was it doing with my bundle? Where was it going?”

            “Whatever its destination, I fear we will encounter more of Hoov’s people, regardless of which direction we take. The choice is yours, Kelen.”

            Biting her lips, she tried to calculate the odds of them getting out of this predicament alive. No matter which direction she chose, there was a fifty-fifty chance they would reach another cavern with an operating panel. Just as there was also a one hundred percent chance of meeting up with more creatures.

           
Dear God, if you’re still with us, please show us the way!

            If I think of the cavern where we were ambushed as the center of a hub, and the tunnel we escaped through as going south…
She quickly drew a map in her mind. South through the escape tunnel, east through the interconnecting tunnel with the glowing glyphs, south again through the tiny tunnel, into this one going east-west again.

           
If we go west, we might intersect with the escape route tunnel again, which means if we go east…

           
“Kelen—”

            “This way!” she whispered and took off.

            No longer cramped, the fast stride felt good, loosening her leg muscles. Every twenty meters or so, they paused to listen for any sign of those creatures following them, or coming toward them, but all they could hear was the sound of their own breathing. She continued to mentally fill in the makeshift map she held in her mind’s eye, until she noticed something. Something that could be important.

            At their next brief rest, Kelen broached her theory. “I could be completely skewed on my directions, but thinking back on the other previous tunnels we’ve gone through, I think there’s a pattern to them.”

            Kyber gave a short nod. “Given these beings’ intelligence, and the fact that their lives revolve around a tertiary numbering system, it is very possible. What are you debating?”

            “Bear with me here. Think of each large cavern as a singular hub. We know we descended downward from the surface where both temples are located. On my world, we have four major points of the compass. North and south go up and down, vertically. East and west go from side to side, or right to left, horizontally.” She used hand gestures to illustrate what she meant. “Going down meant south. Now, from that cavern where we were ambushed, we went south. The interconnecting tunnels with the glowing glyphs like this one—”

            “Are going east and west. Horizontally?”

            “Yes. It would also explain why the north-south tunnels slope at an angle, but the east-west ones remain somewhat level.”

            He mused over her theory. “If your belief holds true, this tunnel is going east to west.”

            “Which means if we come across another tunnel running perpendicular to this one, it could be going north to south and possibly lead us back up to the surface.”

            “Or lead us to another chamber. Or back to that chamber where we were ambushed.” He glanced down the tunnel’s throat. “If we keep going in this direction…”

            “We’ll either find another north-south tunnel, or a chamber.” She pulled a flask of water from the bundle and took several swallows, then handed it to Kyber, who also drank deeply. He tucked the flask back inside the bundle and took off down the tunnel.

            By her estimate, they’d gone nearly a kilometer through the twisty, turning, but basically level corridor, when Kyber slowed to wait for her to catch up. “I see another brightening,” he informed her.

            Kelen checked the glyphs running parallel to the ground. “We’re already in a lit tunnel. If you’re seeing more light, it might be another cavern.”

            “We must exercise greater caution in approaching it.”

            She nodded, letting him take the lead again.

            They moved guardedly, trying not to make too much noise as the tunnel opening eventually revealed itself in the distance. No shadow blocked out the filtered light, which would have warned them of something entering the passageway. Kyber signaled for her to hold back and slowly moved ahead. Kelen pulled out her blaster, prepared.