Page 10 of Caveman Alien’s Horn (Caveman Aliens #26)

10

- Sprisk -

Cora washes the sand off her small feet and casually puts her clothes on. It’s a wonderful thing to witness, and I wish she wouldn’t get dressed just yet. Her body is so soft and beautiful, and so incredibly female that my manhood strains against the loincloth harder than ever before.

Finally she shades her eyes with her hand and looks up. “Sprisk! You hunt finish?”

“The hunt is over,” I tell her, after I clear my voice because the first attempt at speaking fails. “And if you want food, I’m just cooking a midday meal. We usually only eat after sunset, but there’s nothing usual about this day.”

She reaches up and touches the strange roots that cross the creek, making her body stretch in the most breathtaking way. “What this?”

“Roots,” I tell her, my voice faltering from the sight. Oh, how I wish I’d arrived back here sooner, long before she got dressed! “If they’re in the way, just push them aside.”

“Not in the way,” Cora says as she grabs one of the roots and uses it to steady herself when she climbs up the bank.

I reach her a hand and pull her the last bit. “Did you get clean?”

She smiles, but doesn’t look me in the eye. “Very clean. Can you cut the roots?”

“It’s not worth the effort,” I tell her. “I’ve done it before, to remove them from the creek. The next day there are new ones. Very thin at first, then thicker. I can’t keep them away.”

“Please cut,” she says. “One big root.”

I still have the short, ugly, single-edged sword the outcast wanted to hit me with, and before I went hunting I sharpened it. Still it takes me a good while to cut through the thick root.

“And that,” Cora says and points to the other side of the channel.

I jump into it, wade across the creek, and cut the root on that side, too. Cora pulls the whole thing in and gives me her hand to help me get back up. It’s completely unnecessary, but I enjoy her touch.

“It can’t be eaten,” I tell her as I replace the sword in my belt. “Even when you boil it. It’s far too tough.”

“Not eat,” Cora says and looks around us. “Where is middle?”

I’m confused. “Middle? Middle of what?”

“Middle of mushrooms.” She walks towards the center of the clearing, where a tree fell over years ago. The stump is still there. The tree must have been a giant, about the same size as the tree that I’ve hollowed out. Now there’s only the stump left, its jagged break at about eye level for me.

Cora walks around the massive stump, then stops and points. “Yes! This is middle.”

A single mushroom grows out of the stump at an angle. It’s by far the biggest one, as tall as Cora, its top so wide that even I can’t reach from one end to the other. While the others are white and smooth, this one is a pale blue and irregular, more pointed.

“So it seems,” I agree. “Hmm. Is it important that this is the middle of the clearing?”

“See now,” Cora says eagerly. “If stand here. Look. Big mushroom… what is color?” She points at it.

“Blue,” I tell her in the same slow way that we in the clan teach the very young boys to speak. “It’s a big, blue mushroom.”

“This blue mushroom have roots. See? White roots run all to other mushrooms.”

It looks as if she’s right. The thousands of roots that span the creek could come from right here, going in straight lines towards the circle of mushrooms at the edge of the clearing. “So?”

“So all mushrooms is one. One… Big.” She eagerly gestures with her small hands. “This is center of Big. Those mushrooms same Big. Roots run from here to all other mushrooms. Many roots! Very many!”

I think I get it. Cora thinks that this blue mushroom is the source of all the others, and that they are a single living thing. I would never call it a Big, because this mushroom doesn’t move like they do. Still, it makes sense. She may be right about the roots, but I don’t really see why it’s that important. “There will be many roots under the ground.”

“Many roots!” Cora says, eyes shining. “Many this.” She shows me the root I cut off, peels back the outer layer from one end, and spreads it into many thin fibers.

I nod, understanding less and less. “Very pretty fibers.”

“Pretty fibers, and strong,” she says and demonstrates, trying to pull one fiber apart and failing.

I’m starting to see where she’s going with this. Grabbing the root, I pick out another fiber and try to snap it in half by pulling at its ends. I am able to, but it takes more force than I would have guessed. “Surprisingly strong. And there are so many of them! This one root must have as many fibers as there are leaves on a tree!”

“This one root,” Cora echoes. “And many roots! All over!” She gestures with both arms to take in the whole clearing. “Or maybe is,” she adds primly. “I not know .”

“Let’s see,” I tell her and hack the ugly outcast sword into the ground. And sure enough, a hand’s width under the surface there’s a dense layer of white roots, all seeming to come from the blue mushroom and pointing out to the full circle of white ones. There are other roots, too, from dead trees and withered bushes, but they’re loose and slimy and long dead, about to rot away.

I straighten up. “That’s why all the trees died. The mushroom roots killed the tree roots.”

“So many fibers,” Cora marvels. “Now need lum to wiv . And you make many strong ropes, Sprisk.”

I test the strength of the whole root. It’s soft enough to not break, and so strong that I can’t pull it apart or snap it, no matter how much force I use. “There’s no need to make a rope. These are good ropes already. If they stay like this, I mean. Now that they’re cut, they might dry out like an ordinary root would.”

“They might,” Cora says. “But if not, are very good fibers for weeving ! I weev much kloths! ” She’s so excited she embraces me.

“Of course.” I pull her to me, enjoying her sudden closeness. Oh, she smells good.

She looks up at me, her dark eyes shining. “For you too!”

“It would be nice to weeving kloths, ” I agree, not sure what it means but finding that it sounds harmless.

Cora smiles. “It mean make like this.” She grabs the lower edge of my loincloth between two small fingers. “But nice. Very nice.”

I try to imagine a loincloth made from thin, loose fibers, but I can’t do it. “You don’t think that’s nice already?” I stroke a hand down my hip.

Cora’s gaze dips to my crotch level, where the absolutely rock hard bulge that appeared when I saw her in the creek has only shrunk the tiniest amount.

“Is nice,” she says carefully, “but also there is more nice with fibers. I weev for you.”

I like her this close, so I want us to stay like this. “The women in the clan and in the tribes sometimes wear clothes that are not made from skin. Is that what you will make?”

“Maybe,” Cora says. “But very nice more. Very. ”

“I would like to see you do that,” I tell her sincerely. This has all cheered her up, and I like to see that.

“Must make lum ,” she says, bending the root and flopping it back and forth. “You help?”

“I’ll help you make the lum, ” I promise. “Since I stepped in the one you had.”

This is getting better and better. If she can get one of those mysterious lums here, then there’s a much greater chance that she’ll stay. And I see no reason why I would have to leave. I can stay here to watch her, and the clan can do what it wants without me. Now that we’re so close with Chief Korr’ax and his two tribes, the clansbrothers don’t need my hunting skills like before.

“Is hard make lum,” Cora says as we walk back to the campfire. “It took many time.”

I walk behind her, enjoying the sight of her wet hair and the way her rough garments cling to her roundest body parts. “I’m sure it’s hard to make it, and I’m sure it takes a long time. But if you have done it before, when you were alone, maybe it will be quicker now.”

“Maybe,” she chirps as she steps around a fallen tree. “Must find good… like this.” She pats the tree, but it’s so rotten that her light touch makes a part of it disintegrate in a drizzle of wood dust.

“Must find good wood?” I suggest. “The lum is made of mostly strings, but also wood?”

“Mostly wood,” Cora corrects as we sit down by the fire. “Also many strings, too. You will see.”

I toss the outcast’s blade up in the air and catch it as it falls, then lean it against a big stone in the fire ring. “This thing might come in handy, then. I don’t have much steel. In the clan, we often use stone blades. Like this.” I pick a stone knife up from where I’ve carefully put it before. Then I get the two Smalls I hunted and start to skin them.

Cora watches with interest. “You very good with stone blade.”

“Thank you. I’ve worked with them all my life. The clan usually didn’t have much steel, but rocks that can be knapped to form sharp edges can be found everywhere.”

“Wait,” she says and stands up again. “I get thing from tree.”

I gaze over at the hollow tree, not too happy about it.

She gives me a little smile. “Not run again. Just get thing.”

I follow her with my eyes as she walks away with her charmingly ungainly gait because of the wideness of her hips.

She returns long before I’d have to consider looking for her again.

“I back,” she informs me as she drops the pack to the ground and looks through it. “I need this. And we need… this.”

She gets out a little comb and the pot of the frit that we agreed to call ‘frine’. I hand her both mugs, and she fills them.

Before she drinks, she holds her full mug out to me. “This is what do on Earth. You also.”

I hold my mug out, too. Cora pushes hers into mine with a little ‘clink’. “Now say ‘shirs’.”

I see no reason not to. “Shirs.”

“Cheers,” she says and takes a sip. “See? You part Earth alien now.”

I take a sip myself. The frit is good, and it must come from the Borok tribe. They like their frit really strong. “Part alien and all Foundling.”

Cora squeezes water out of her hair and starts to comb it. “Is hard life in Foundling clan?”

“I don’t know if life there is harder than in other places,” I tell her as I slide my thin stone blade under the fur of the first Small. “It looks like life in a real tribal village might be easier, but I never lived in one so I don’t know. I suppose it would be easier if we weren’t always hunted by outcasts and the other tribes. But now, nobody hunts our clan. We’re safe, so well protected by the great and ever so mighty Borok tribe.”

Cora must hear the tone of my voice.

“You not like the Borok?”

I drink more of the frine. “I’m sure they are a good tribe. I mean, I know they are. I’ve been in their village and seen how they live. There are many strong tribesmen, great stores of food, huge campfires every night, drums and a totem wall and the Mount and steel swords and forges and even women. But we’re not a part of that. The Foundling clan is different. Always outside, always receiving food and tools and things from the tribe. Always watching them. We have changed. We don’t hunt like we used to. We don’t go on long exploration trips, we never move the camp like before. We don’t make things anymore. Nobody wants the things we make ourselves. Now we all want tribe things and tools. Steel knives and iron tools. The boys in the clan always talk about what it would be like to be a Borok man. They talk about it with hope in their voices, as if the clan that took them in when their own tribes abandoned them to die isn’t good enough for them now.”

“That not nice,” Cora says softly.

“We got by just fine before,” I fret as I finish with one Small and start skinning the next one. “Yes, things were hard. We often had to hide from the outcasts, and sometimes we had to move the whole camp. But we were used to it. We were never hungry. We took good care of each other. The strong, like Brak and Noker and I, made sure that the small and weak and old were all right. Always. We were one, much more so than the tribes are. One clan. Now, everyone wants to be a tribesman. Brak and Noker spend as much time with the tribesmen as in the camp. Old Melr’ax has left us for good to become a shaman for the tribe. The clansbrothers have started to talk about Ancestors, to pray to them, just like the tribers. But Foundlings never believed in those.”

“The tribe make things change,” Cora says. “I know. Sometimes look nice. The tribesmen look strong. But I want to be me . Not Borok.”

“You understand it.” I finish the skinning and start to cut the meat into filets, removing the stringy parts. “Maybe it’s better. I don’t know. It’s just that before, we were proud of the clan. Now, it’s like all we want is to be tribesmen. All of a sudden everyone is so aware of their malformed limbs or blindness or deafness, they try to hide it. Before, we weren’t afraid of showing who we were. Now, it’s like the boys are ashamed of it. Their play is all about swords and honor and war now.”

Cora reaches out and carefully touches one of the spikes that grow from my face. “I glad you not try to hide it. You part Big? Like Noker and Brak?”

“I think so. I look scarier than them, of course. But yes, something must have gone wrong with my Lifegiver in whichever tribe I was born into.”

“Or gone right. ” She strokes the spike with two fingers. “You feel this?”

It’s strange to have someone touch a spike. That hasn’t happened since I was a boy. And it’s not unpleasant. “The spike itself doesn’t feel it. But I can sense the movement where it grows from the skin. So yes, I can feel it.” I stoke the fire and place the best filets on hot, flat rocks. “These pieces are better when eaten right away.”

Cora’s hand drops down to my chest. “Skin is very smooth.”

“My skin senses more than the spikes,” I tell her, enjoying her light, cool touch. “But it is the skin of a Big, I think.”

“It change color,” she points out. “Make you hard to see.”

“That’s one of the good things about being a half Big. The prey can’t see me when I hunt. And the outcasts can’t see me when I come to fight them.”

She drains her mug. “Is very nice. Sprisk is great hunter and fighter.”

I shrug. “A Foundling must be both. It’s a hard jungle.”

“But Sprisk harder.” She glances down at my loincloth, where her gentle touch of my chest has restarted the hardness.

“Hard when Cora is near,” I agree.

“You do hard things,” she says, letting her hand drop to my side. “Even chase away outcasts but not kill them. Hard things very easy for you.”