Tara The Great [Nuworld 2] (43 page)

head, trying to relate to a man who wasn’t a warrior.

“No.” Gowsky drew out the word, as if hesitating. “At least, not the way they are

acting today. If they accept a different approach, show a willingness to change…”

Oh, he was definitely a diplomat. Darius contacted his squadron leaders and had

Torgo prepare a map for each one showing the tunnels they would access. The

squadrons descended one after another and headed in their assigned directions.

Each large room was positioned at a considerable depth underground. It crossed

Darius’ mind that the Lunians had to have been on Nuworld for quite a while to create

such a maze of tunnels and rooms, thereby forming a small underground city.

At Gowsky’s suggestion, a team of Neurians organized to expand the entrance to

the city. This would make it easier to help out the prisoners, especially those injured.

It struck Darius as odd that the Lunians had only one exit to their camp. He stood

studying the printout his brother gave him, wondering if it was completely accurate.

Any good military camp would provide more than one method of escape.

As several hours passed and darkness set in, the Neurians constructed a ditch of

sorts, more than eight feet long. It exposed the entryway and provided illumination for

the rest of the hall, making it easy to see where the split began. Each passage led to

different levels in the subterranean city.

Darius used the time to study the maps showing the patterns of tunnels. Soon he

felt familiar enough with the layout that he knew he could casually stroll through the

maze and know where he was going.

His thoughts drifted to Tara. Was she all right? Had any of his soldiers reached her

yet? Was she being rescued at this very minute? His mind swarmed to distraction.

Darius rubbed dirt from his eyes as he thought of his claim.

Tara couldn’t stand confinement, and he could only imagine how she felt being

imprisoned underground. The woman would fight the Lunians at every move. If it

weren’t for the fact that the Lunian leaders wanted Tara and Darius alive, he would

have worried they might have killed her.

No, his claim lived, he felt certain of that. But Crator help any man who dared lay a

hand on her. His temper soared as he allowed thoughts of her being sexually abused to

enter his mind. Darius searched the field, looking for nothing in particular, other than a

means to clear the unpleasant thoughts that consumed him. More than anything, at that

moment, he wanted to jump into that hole, and search those tunnels until he found

Tara.

He imagined many of the people in his camp, Gothman, Runner and Neurian,

worried about their family and friends as well. And Darius shouldered the

responsibility of seeing that everyone was returned safely. He had to remain in place

and let his men do their jobs.

“Darius?” Torgo’s voice came from a distance.

He snapped away from his thoughts and turned to look at his brother standing next

to him.

“I was saying, there are people approaching through the tunnels, I was. Man, you

were a million miles away, weren’t you?”

“How long until they get here?”

“Less than an hour, I’d say.”

They both studied the entrance. In the dark, it looked like a long grave, freshly dug.

The grass, once providing a natural shield for the hole, now lay flattened and matted

into the dirt, having been packed down by many boots.

“Do you miss Syra?” Darius asked quietly.

Their backs were to the rest of the camp, and no one stood near enough to hear their

conversation.

Torgo looked up at his brother quickly, seemingly shocked that he was asked to

reveal his emotions on a subject. “If I think about what she might be going through, it

makes me want to throw up, it does. At least she can’t come back pregnant.”

A sudden sound caused both of them to turn quickly and look at the ditch.

Lights flickered, and voices rose from deep within the tunnel. Darius quickly

alerted the medic teams to prepare themselves and for guards to stand at the ready. The

noise from the group of people coming down one of the still hidden tunnels increased

as they grew nearer.

Prisoners began to appear as they climbed the ladder, dirty and smelly, sweaty

clothes hanging to their bodies. They reached out with eager hands to be helped to the

surface. Gothman men and Runner women, jumped joyfully out of the ditch on their

own. Neurians yelled praise to Crator as their feet touched the ground. Some of the

Runners and Gothman screamed their delight at breathing the fresh night air. A thick

aroma of wet dirt and body odor filled the night air.

Darius ordered additional lights, which both Neurian and Gothman quickly

provided. He stood alongside his guards, helping men, women, boys, and girls to the

surface.

In the end, almost fifty people were rescued that hour. Darius stood back as medics

began walking among the dirty group, inspecting each person. Most seemed unharmed.

A few had minor scratches and bruises.

Slowly, the newly freed began moving toward the forest, anxious to reunite with

family and loved ones. Tara and Syra were not among them.

“That was everyone found in the room, it was,” the soldier in charge reported, after

the activity settled. He went on to tell Darius that his men had met minimal resistance.

They’d suffered few deaths while Lunian deaths had grown in number.

“Good work.” Darius slapped the large Gothman on the back. “Take your men back

for some food.”

Several more hours passed with no sign of the other two squadrons still

underground. Darius felt the edge from waiting. He wondered in what condition the

other captives would be. The men and women just freed had reported being stolen from

their families or jobs within the very recent past. But Darius knew many still

underground had been missing much longer.

How many would be dead? How would these families seek their revenge?

He also wondered about what state of mind the remaining captives would be in

once freed. Many would have endured incredible torture if Tara’s vision had been

accurate—and Darius believed in her vision. Thus, he feared the mental state of the

people who would next surface, especially the women. A strong man could take

extreme conditions, but what of the females?

Darius didn’t understand Gowsky’s obvious distress at the notion of killing the

Lunians. Any people capable of doing this to another race, needed to be destroyed.

Darius didn’t want to know of any Lunian living anywhere on Nuworld by the time all

of this was said and done. And he wanted this Lunian matter cleaned up quickly.

Just when he’d decided the best approach was to send down more men, Torgo ran

forward with a message. “The second squadron is approaching, they are. They have

many injured and have been forced to move slowly. They request assistance, yes.”

Darius had thirty men down in the hole within seconds.

Medics appeared with stretchers and more came running through the forest. Was

Tara among the injured in this party? How had they been injured? Was it just through

escape attempts? Or did the second room hold prisoners that had already been used?

The smaller group of prisoners appeared before long. None of these people leapt to

the surface with joy. Their faces were gaunt and filthy. Some of them attempted smiles

but most looked terrified, as if they’d just lived through a nightmare. Each one needed

to be lifted from the ditch, and most were carried away on stretchers. More than one of

the women shook uncontrollably and balled up into a fetal position on the stretcher.

“Syra!”

Darius watched his brother run to the ladder. Syra had climbed up stubbornly, then

fallen face-first onto the ground. She looked at least twenty pounds thinner, and Darius

wondered if she’d eaten at all during her captivity. Her skin was pasty-white and

smeared with mud and dirt. Her light brown hair hung in strings to her shoulders and

strands stuck to the side of her face.

Torgo had an arm around her immediately and a stretcher arrived within seconds.

“Give it to someone else.” Her voice was a raspy whisper.

Darius cringed when he remembered Tara describing her screams. He moved next

to Torgo and the Gothman medics who were failing to convince the bullheaded Runner

to allow them to help her.

“Get on the stretcher,” Torgo said. She blinked, staring up at him with dark,

distrusting eyes. She didn’t remove her gaze for a moment.

“Get your hands off me,” her rough whisper broke as she looked toward one of the

medics trying to assist.

The medic let go of her arm and glanced up at Darius.

“Let her be,” Darius instructed and raised a hand to still the people surrounding the

hole.

Syra climbed onto the stretcher without assistance, and the medics quickly carried

her away.

“I’m going with her.”

“Go.” Darius waved his hand. “Don’t neglect your duties though.”

“Don’t worry, no.” Torgo ran to catch up with the small party carrying his

girlfriend to the makeshift hospital.

Still no Tara.

Another hour passed at a snail’s pace.

The injured prisoners were receiving treatment. Dr. Digo reported that no one

seemed near death. He sadly added that most women from the second group reported

being raped.

So they hadn’t moved fast enough to prevent Tara’s vision from happening.

But where was she?

Suddenly, Darius realized the Lunians probably hadn’t kept her with the others.

There was still one other room full of prisoners. The leader of that rescue mission,

Arien—one of his best warriors—had contacted him shortly after the last group of

captives had been escorted to the makeshift hospital. He and his men were under severe

attack, but holding their own. He said the Lunians were worse than ants in an anthill.

They kept appearing in one tunnel after another.

Darius also learned the maps they had of the Lunian underground camp weren’t

completely accurate. While he’d only accounted for small deviations, they were enough

to make him wonder if there might not be another way out of the camp. He couldn’t