The Mask of Tamirella Read online

  “Protect yourself, Striker.” Ian forced her to continue practicing until noonmeal.

  ****

  As they sat near the cave entrance, Caitlanna watched the two male warriors assist Samcoty to a stool. The boy’s fever had never returned but his appetite had, and he hadn’t missed a meal in two days. He continued wearing the splint on his right leg, which Marjordan told him would stay there for the next few weeks, and the sling supported his sprained arm. Somehow, he’d convinced the healer to let him sit with the others for meals. The fact that he wasn’t allowed to dig seemed to bother him more than any of his injuries, and he attempted to sway Marjordan to let him go into the cave.

  “I’ve already told you,” Cait’s primary was saying as she held a stool steady for the boy. “You’re not going to dig until those injuries are completely mended. If you continue to bring up digging, I’ll have Ian strap your mouth shut.” She sat on another stool and flipped her long, dark braid behind her back. Sam’s eyes went wide and he stared in disbelief at her. She raised an expectant brow at him. “Is there something you need clarified?” The irritation in her voice was clear.

  Caitlanna knew her primary would make good on that threat. She wanted to warn Sam to keep his mouth shut but this was not her business.

  “No, Healer. I understand completely.” Sam blinked his eyes hard several times, a nervous habit that Cait had noticed in him.

  “Wise boy.” Marjordan took some offered cheese, fruit and salted meat from Whithelen and began to eat.

  Cait could tell that Ian, Quin, and Whit held back laughter. She had known the three her entire life. Paulucas kept a stoic expression, so she didn’t know whether he was amused, and Finder Jenellen seemed not to notice anything except the artifacts she was cataloging. However, the stricken look on Nat’s face caught Cait’s attention. The girl looked as though she were about to leap to Sam’s side and cradle him like a wounded child. Instead, she took the boy a plate of food.

  “Thank you, Nat.” He blinked a couple of times and began eating.

  His appetite must have calmed the girl because she smiled, crossed back to Whit, and took up a plate for herself.

  Jen was the only one without food and, after a few moments, Marjordan pointed that fact out. “Finder, you need to eat.”

  “Later.” The finder didn’t look up. All her concentration was on the artifacts. Her braid was frazzled and dusty from the cave, and there were still holes in her tunic and leggings. They had been there ever since Caitlanna’s first day here. Obviously, the woman hadn’t bothered to mend them.

  That’s when Cait realized Jen had a severe case of Finder’s Fever. Hendrake had given in to the obsession more than a few times in his life. During his preoccupation with finding the Mask, he had worked long hours, sometimes forgoing nourishment.

  “No one is going to starve while I am dig healer,” Marjordan carried a plate of food to the finder.

  Jenellen eyed her a moment. Then, with annoyance, she took the offered meal, placed it on the ground next to her and continued studying the artifacts.

  Marjordan’s hands went to her hips. “You can eat now or have me feed you.” She glared at the woman crouched near her feet.

  The finder squinted up then sighed. “Yes, Healer.” One hand snatched up the plate and she rocked onto her backside to eat.

  Marjordan stepped back to her own meal with a satisfied look in her eyes. “You’d better concentrate on your own plate.”

  Cait realized she was staring at Jen and heat rose to her cheeks at the reprimand. “Yes, ma’am.” She ate heartily, knowing that her shift was right after noonmeal. Urges to get into the cave were strong within her and she didn’t want to give Marjordan reason to detain her.

  Quin seemed eager to work and he ate quickly, too. He would be monitoring the cave while two strikers dug. Cait wondered if Finder’s Fever had taken hold of him, too.

  She swatted at insects as the tiny creatures tried to share her meal. “Shoo. That’s mine, you little cretins.”

  “Now, that’s what I like to see.” Marjordan smiled. “A healthy appetite like that will keep you strong.”

  Cait grinned and her mind cried out in satisfaction. Taking large portions of food had benefited her. Just for eating hearty, Marjordan might allow her to work an extra shift this week, something Hendrake had taught her about his sister and many other healers.

  “Eat well, Lanna,” her father had told her warmly. “And never let them hear you cough, even from the dust.”

  She silently thanked her father for his advice and continued with her meal.

  After she and the others had finished, they made their way into the cave. Cait entered the tunnel first with Nat right behind her. When they reached the dig area, the two began working. Quin stayed near the cave entrance, cataloguing artifacts.

  “Cait?” Nat said after a time of silent working.

  “Mmm?” She forced herself to concentrate on the girl’s words. She preferred to work without chit-chat but found that many others enjoyed conversation during a dig. Besides, Natjulie didn’t have the promise of finder status from the Elders. The girl would be a striker for at least three more years, until she reached full-grown. This dig couldn’t mean as much to her as it did to Cait.

  “You like Quin, don’t you?”

  “What? Shh.” She snapped a look over her shoulder at the tunnel. “He’s in the cave, Nat.”

  “I know.” The girl leaned toward her. “He can’t hear us. I wasn’t talking that loudly, even for this place.”

  “Well, I just don’t want him to know, yet.”

  “Then you do like him?”

  In fact, she loved him. “Yes. What’s your point?” Frustration rose in her at such personal questions. Her feelings about Quin were private. At least, she liked to think so.

  “He’s a full-grown.”

  She didn’t say anything. She simply waited.

  “He’s forbidden to take you as a mate until you’re full-grown, too.”

  “Nat—“ This time she allowed anger to touch her voice.

  “I just want to know how you do it.” The girl said quickly. “How do you keep from wrapping your arms around him and—well, you know?” She twirled her braid between fingers.

  A forceful breath escaped Caitlanna’s lungs and pushed noisily out her lips. “He would get into a lot of trouble if we did anything. You know that.” Her hands paused over a small find. “Besides, I don’t know for sure he likes me that way. He’s not the kind of man to pursue anyone younger than nineteen.”

  The girl nodded and got a pained look on her face that startled Cait. “What’s wrong. Nat?”

  “I love Sam, Cait. And we’d always accepted we’d be together once we we’re full-grown. But after what happened in the cave-in...I don’t want to wait five more years to be with him.”

  “Five? I thought you were my age?”

  “I’m fourteen. I thought you knew. I just turned fourteen before I came on this dig with Lucas.” The girl only used her brother’s primary name, P-Paul, when she wanted something from him. Most times, she simply called him Lucas.

  Cait eyed the younger girl and was surprised at her sudden protective feelings. “You’re not planning to do anything stupid, are you? Since you’re both too young, you’d both be punished.” She said this even though she knew they’d receive punishment from their primaries, not from the sub-sanction collective like a full-grown would. Then she thought of something else. “Nat? Who is Sam’s primary?” The boy had never brought it up, and Cait had been so engrossed in the dig that she hadn’t even been curious. Until now.

  Natjulie gave her another pained look.

  “You mean—“ She couldn’t even finish her sentence.

  The girl nodded. “Sam’s parents were both warriors and were killed in a raid four years ago. My parents took him in. Then they died during the great landslide that buried half our sub-sanction.” A thoughtful look crossed her face. “That was nearly two years ago. Anyway,
Lucas became primary to both of us.”

  Cait stared in disbelief at the girl.

  “Well, say something,” Nat prompted.

  “Don’t do it,” was what came out. “Your primary could send Sam to another family in another sub-sanction.”

  Her mind drifted to the image of a crying girl in M3. The girl had been caught with a boy in the common stables. They were both seventeen and the girl was lucky not to get pregnant. The boy’s primary sent him to M5, a nearby sub-sanction, until his nineteenth birthday. The two were mated in the knot-tying ceremony as full-growns, but Cait remembered the girl’s grief during their separation and her humiliation when she and her lover were paraded through town as the boy was escorted out. She didn’t want to see that happen to Natjulie.

  “But I love him,” Nat protested.

  “If you love him, wait for him.” She could hardly believe those words came from her own lips. Whit had told her something very similar just days ago. She decided to tell Nat about the unfortunate couple from her sub-sanction.

  Her partner was transfixed during the story then her face went ashen. “I couldn’t live without him, Cait,” Nat said near tears.

  “Then don’t. You can be around him everyday as long as you don’t break your trust with Paulucas.”

  The girl nodded and turned back to her work.

  Cait wasn’t sure whether she’d gotten through to her, but she hoped. She turned back to her own digging, where she retrieved occasional artifacts and placed them gently on the nearby cloth. Her advice to Natjulie raced through her mind. She loved Quin and had wondered many times what it would be like to take him as a mate, but now she had a new perspective, thanks to Natjulie. And Finder’s Fever! Her heart raced at the memory of Quinpatrik bathing in the lake and she fervently delved into her work, hoping to push those dangerous feelings away.

  The two strikers continued silently for the rest of their shift, for which she was grateful.

  When night came, she bedded down near Marjordan but her thoughts were on Nat and Sam. She silently wished them luck in controlling their urges to mate. Then she turned that wish on herself and longed to be alone so she could relieve some of her own frustration.

  Chapter 10

  A Great Find

  The group labored another two days, recovering artifacts and widening the dig site. Caitlanna and Natjulie were on shift again. By the time they had made the little room large enough for two people to work side by side, a surprise presented itself, and Cait was the one to find it.

  She had trouble catching her breath and must have said, “Oh,” at least a dozen times, as a rush of stale air met her nostrils.

  “What is it?” Natjulie said. “Cait?”

  But she was busy trying to get the hole large enough to push her head and lamp through. She ignored the bruising rocks that fell onto her back and ignored her partner as well. Until the girl tried to pull her from her work. “Stop that,” she said with more than annoyance.

  “You’re bleeding. There might be more rocks up there.”

  She jerked away and kept digging.

  “I’m getting Jenellen.” Natjulie headed out the tunnel before Cait could stop her.

  “Nat? Nat!” But her calls were too late. The girl was out of sight.

  She turned back to the hole she’d created and peered into the next room. Darkness met her eyes, and she frantically widened the hole before one of the finders could get through the tunnel and stop her. Her work paid off almost immediately and a large opening appeared in the packed and hardened dirt. She took up the lamp, pushed it into the opening, then poked her head inside. Air left her lungs as the remains of ancient bedding and other items came into view, and she wriggled a little farther. She had no idea how long this part of the cave had been sealed off, but from the stale air inside, it had been a very long time. Her heart raced with excitement.

  Suddenly, strong hands grabbed her waist, causing her to jump involuntarily.

  “Get your backside out of there, now,” Jenellen tugged at Cait’s waist.

  In her excitement, she realized that she’d pushed her body into the hole up to her middle. “Finder Jenellen, it’s another room. A living area. There are—well—a lot of artifacts in here.” She had trouble containing her excitement.

  “I don’t care if there’s a stack of valuable metal tools as high as your head. You’re injured and I order you to come out.”

  Cait realized her mistake. Finder’s Fever had taken a strong hold on her. She slowly backed out of the hole. When she pulled the lamp out and turned to Jenellen, the woman had a furious look on her face. “I’m sorry, Finder. I couldn’t leave this.” She motioned to the hole.

  Jenellen narrowed eyes on her and she braced for a well-deserved slap.

  “Let me see,” the finder said in a distracted tone, and she took the lamp. She was already stooping under the low ceiling and pushed her arm and head through the hole. “Striker, you’ve found an entire slew of treasures here.” She backed out and turned to Cait. Her brown eyes were bright in the dancing light of the lamps, and Nat had left hers behind in her haste, which lightened the place even more. “Good work. But don’t disobey me again. Understand?”

  Cait nodded in amazement. Jenellen was experiencing Finder’s Fever more than she had assumed. She grinned, knowing that she wouldn’t be punished. At least, not by the finder. Her primary was another problem.

  “You need to let Marjordan take a look at your back, Striker,” Jenellen said in an official tone. Then she smirked. “I’ll see if I can persuade her to let you continue with me into this room. If the weather holds, we can get through and begin cataloguing tonight.”

  “Thank you, Finder,” Cait squealed. She must have sounded like a small child but she didn’t care. “P-Marj is pretty stubborn, though. What if you can’t convince her?”

  Jenellen turned to the hole for a moment. “Then, I’ll just have to wait for you. After all, you were the first to open the wall.” She raised a sun-bleached brow and gave the clay lamp back. “I can be pretty stubborn myself.”

  A wide grin spread across Cait’s dry and cracked lips but she ignored the stinging.

  “Let’s get you outside.” The finder blew out the large lamps. She nudged Cait toward the tunnel and scooped up Nat’s lamp.

  Marjordan stood at the cave entrance with her hands on her hips. “Come with me,” she said as the two stepped from the cave. She grabbed Cait’s arm and pulled her toward the tent.

  Cait squinted against the brightness but managed to give Jenellen a quick look and mouthed the words, “Help me.”

  The finder sprinted after them. “Healer?” She shaded her eyes. “I need this striker to help with the next shift.”

  At first, it seemed that Marjordan wasn’t going to respond. “Sit.” Cait lowered her backside onto a stool in the shade of the blanket tent. Then the healer turned to Jenellen. “You wait over there.” A long arm pointed toward the fire where Natjulie now sat. “I’ll let you know my decision after I examine her.”

  Jenellen wasted no time following orders. “Yes, Healer.” She left without looking back.

  “You know the routine, Cait.” Marjordan rummaged through her medicine bag.

  “Yes, ma’am.” She removed her tunic and winced as her primary washed her back. “Where’s Sam?” She tried to take her mind from her stinging injuries.

  “The men took him to the lake for a bath.” Marjordan stepped in front of her and grinned. “He was getting a bit ripe.”

  She chuckled.

  “You’re scratched up pretty good, girl. Just what were you doing in there?”

  That sent her into a wave of excitement and she blurted out everything she’d seen in the ancient room.

  Her primary stood patiently listening with a slight expression of amusement on her face. “I see,” Marjordan said when she finished her description. Dark eyes focused on her face, weighing her.

  She squirmed under her primary’s scrutiny and felt as though s
he’d been thrown back in time to her young childhood. Except for the white streaks in her hair and the lines around her eyes and mouth, Marjordan looked very much as she always had. At least in Cait’s eyes.

  Marjordan bandaged the slight injuries and stepped outside the tent of blankets. “Jenellen, come here.”

  The finder sprinted to the tent. “Yes, Healer?”

  “I’ll allow Cait to take next shift with you, after noonmeal, but I will hold you responsible if she comes to me with more injuries.”

  “Yes, Healer. I’ll keep close watch over her.”

  “You’d better.” At first, Cait thought her primary spoke in jest. But Marjordan’s voice kept a strong tone, letting them both know that she was serious. The healer then retrieved a clean tunic that had been drying on a nearby branch and offered it to Cait. “You had better do exactly as Finder Jenellen tells you or a few scratches will be the least of your worries. Am I making myself clear?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” She slipped on the fresh clothing.

  “If I hear you’ve gone against her orders in there,” one arm gestured toward the cave, “you’ll be on cooking duty for the next couple of days.”

  Cait’s heart raced at her primary’s threat and she knew her self-control was going to be tested. The thought of missing two days of digging sent chills through her thin body. Even as she listened to the woman’s lecture, her mind returned to the newly discovered room and the treasures it held. Marjordan leaned over her, waiting for acknowledgment. “I understand, P-Marj,” she said in an effort to placate the woman. “I’ll obey Finder Jenellen.”

  “See that you do.”

  There was a commotion at the fire, and she saw that the men were back from the lake. Natjulie was obviously filling them in on recent events. Cait, Marjordan, and Jenellen made their way to the fire.

  The men had decided to do some fishing while they were at the lake, and Quinpatrik held up a large troutfish. “The really big one got away.” He offered a look of mourning. Then his lips spread into a wide grin.