Holy stars, it was huge. She looked up and saw different levels carved into the rock walls, and what looked like dwellings. There were people everywhere, with the same leather and fur clothes, and tattoos etched on their skin—arms, chests, even their faces. There were men, women, and children. Nera tried not to stare. Some of the children had terrible deformities. Large, tumor-like growths on their faces. A few with eyes missing. One child looked at them, and Nera saw what appeared to be a second mouth on her cheek.
They were led to a stop at the far side of the cavern. On a huge chair carved from a twisted black tree, sat a woman.
Nera eyed her coolly. The woman wore a short leather skirt, with some sort of fur covering her upper body, and she had leather gauntlets on her arms. Deadly black knives were set intosheaths on the gauntlets. She was also beautiful and completely free of any deformity. Her black hair fell in a rain down her back.
She stood, her sharp gaze moving from each one of them to the other. Nera didn’t like the look in the woman’s eyes. She watched them like they were possessions, not people. Suddenly, she barked out some words at them.
Avril cleared her throat. “Hello, I’m Dr. Avril Luma-Smythe. I’m the leader of this expedition?—”
Everyone in the room cried out, and mutterings broke out across the cavern. Some people gestured with their hands, others looked like they were praying.
The leader barked out a word and silence fell. She walked closer to them. Her gaze passed from Avril, lingered on Niklas, then paused on Solomon. Or rather Solomon’s blond hair. Then her gaze came to Nera.
Yep, I’m a bitch just like you.Nera lifted her chin.
The woman finally stopped in front of Avril. “You…speak the language…of the ancients.”
English. The woman could speak English. It was halting and heavily accented, but clear.
“Yes,” Avril answered. “It’s the business language of the galaxy.”
“Galaxy?” The woman frowned. “You come…from the stars?”
“Yes. We are descendants of the people who lived here on Earth but left.” Avril looked around. “Before the fighting that destroyed the planet.”
Another woman, this one old and wrinkled with a missing eye, moved up behind the leader. Her white hair fell almost to her ankles. She called out in their language. The crowd tittered and gasped.
“I take it she’s translating for the masses,” Niklas murmured.
“No one survived the time of destruction,” the leader said. “Only the Rumin.” She thumped her chest. Others in the cavern mimicked the movement.
“Rumin,” Niklas said. “That’s not familiar, but I think their language was one that was native to this area.”
“Some people survived by leaving the planet.” Avril cleared her throat. “You must know there were great cities, and great technology, before the time of destruction.”
The leader gave a nod. “But that time is passed. Now the Rumin rule.”
“We mean you no harm. We just wanted to find pieces of history. We were searching for a lost treasure of an ancient culture. The Inca.”
The old woman crowed something, and again the crowd gasped and cried out.
“Uh, I don’t think that went down so well,” Solomon muttered. One of the guards shoved him.
“The Inca gold is sacred,” the leader said. “Our ancestors have always protected it from anyone who came to find it. We are the children of Ruminahui. It must never fall into the hands of those who would misuse it.”
Niklas made a small noise.
“What?” Nera murmured.
“I think they are descendants of the Incas. Ruminahui…that’s the name of the Inca general who hid the treasure. I think the Incas had people here to protect the treasure, right from the beginning.”
Nera raised her brows. “That would explain why anyone who came looking for it never made it out of the mountains.”
He nodded. “I think maybe a group of them lived up here, in these very caves, and that helped them survive the nuclear devastation.”
Nera looked around, her gaze falling on a small boy with a hunched back. “If you call this surviving.”
“You come to take something that is not yours,” the leader said. “It falls to me as Sapa, the leader of the Rumin, to decide your fate.”
