Page 2 of Caveman Alien’s Horn (Caveman Aliens #26)

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- Sprisk -

“She’s not safe,” I mutter. “An irox could dive down at any moment. And those are gray ghosts she’s with.”

“Are they really that bad?” Bakitan asks, sitting on a branch beside me and leaning back on the trunk of the tree. “They look kind of scary.”

I’m hanging by my legs, upside down from a branch. The leaves of the tree hide my lower body from the alien woman, but she can’t see the rest of me either. Even if she were to look up. Right now, she’s sitting on the ground under her own tree and making something with her hands. A string or rope of some kind. A small gray ghost is sitting next to her, waving its hands.

“That one is probably not so bad,” I reply, keeping my voice down so she can’t hear. “But there’s a whole pack of them in this area. They seem friendly to her now, but what happens when they turn on her? Those teeth aren’t for show.”

“How do you know?” the boy asks. “Yours are.”

“Well…” I begin, then find that I don’t have a good answer. “At least mine are unique.”

I touch the spikes growing from my lower jaw. They’re not exactly teeth, or tusks, but they might look like they are.

As a Foundling who’s half Big, I’m not the strangest looking member of our clan. Both Brak and Noker are half Bigs too, and they have parts of them that can scare anyone the first time you see them. But Brak’s mouth and Noker’s head are that way for good reasons, reasons that make them stronger. My jaw spikes have no function other than to make me look weird. And they aren’t even the worst part.

“They are,” Bakitan agrees in his easy way. “Nobody else has those. I wish I did. Anyway, can we go on? I came along because you usually do wild things. But this isn’t wild. Or fun.”

“Soon,” I promise. I want to look at the woman for as long as I can.

While both Piper and Alba live with our Foundling clan, and they’re certainly interesting in their own way, they’re not like this one.

“Cora,” I whisper, enjoying the feel of the alien name in my mouth. Cora, who refuses to join the tribes. Or the clan, although I’m not sure she knows about us Foundlings. Cora, who lives with the gray ghosts. Cora, who pushes her hair behind her little ear when she concentrates or listens. Cora, who chuckles softly when the small gray ghost moves his hands especially quickly.

Cora, who is far too small and soft and beautiful to live like that, all alone.

“Just go and greet her,” Bakitan suggests. “Maybe she’ll like you.”

“I’m not allowed to,” I tell him. “She wants to be alone. Piper and Alba would be angry. And she would scream when she saw me.”

Once she was found, the secret woman couldn’t remain secret for long, even to our Foundling clan. The rumors became so detailed that they even contained her name. That’s when I went to look for her and brought young Bakitan along because he nagged me. It was a long search, but now it has been successful.

“Maybe not,” the boy yawns. “She’s an alien. Maybe she likes men with sharp spikes in their faces. Maybe she’ll marry you.”

“Nonsense,” I scoff, despite the quick spark of light that goes through my mind at the idea. “You’re just a boy. You don’t even have stripes yet. What would you know about these things, like marriage and love and such? And women? You’ve only ever met two of them.”

“You don’t have any stripes yourself,” he counters. “And mine are about to come in.”

“You know why I don’t have stripes,” I growl. “I have that other thing instead.”

He sighs in the most adolescent way. “Whatever.”

Yes, I think he may be right that he’s just before the Stripening. I remember those sighs from my own almost-Stripening, a dozen years ago.

I sigh, too. Of course she’d scream if she ever saw me. And that’s even before knowing that I’m the one who… well, it doesn’t matter now. What is done is done.

Cora slowly gets to her feet and bends back, hands at her hips. Sitting down must have made her stiff.

Oh, that shape… so round and soft, those gentle curves in just the right places to give me a strange, sucking feeling in my stomach, the full cheeks, the mass of brown hair, most of it artfully gathered at the back of her head with some kind of ribbon. What must she smell like? What would it feel like to bury my nose in that hair? To nuzzle her neck, maybe even to lick? Just a small lap of her skin. Would it be salty? No, it would be sweet, of course. Sweet and womanly. Inviting.

And maybe lower down...

I swallow in a throat that’s suddenly gone dry. Does she ever take those garments off? What if it were dark, and she couldn’t see my hideous face? Would she allow me to lick down her stomach?

The breath catches in my throat at the thought. And further down, to the real mystery? What would that smell like? What would it… taste like?

I shake my head. That, at least, is out of the question. With my jaw spikes, how would I ever be able to Worship her without them stabbing her in some very sensitive places?

“She shouldn’t be alone,” I mutter. “Nobody can be alone in the jungle. That’s why we have the clan. That’s why there are tribes. That’s why the outcasts come together in their gangs. Even rekh and irox live in swarms and packs.”

“Are you talking to me or to yourself?” Bakitan asks. “Because I don’t know what to say.”

“She lives in a good place.” I go on thinking out loud, ignoring him. “That tree of hers… I had no idea it was even there. It’s so well hidden. Even Bigs will struggle to get to it. But what if outcasts come?”

“Nah, they’re too lazy,” Bakitan drawls, dangling one leg. “Even the Borok warriors never climb those cliffs. You and I are the only ones who’ve ever come this close. Except for that alien woman there and her gray ghosts. Oh— rekh!”

“Yes,” I ponder. “A pack of rekh would be able to pass that narrow shelf we saw and come straight here. But only if they knew there was something worth?—”

“No! Rekh!” Bakitan exclaims, pulling his leg back up. “Down there!”

I look down. Sure enough, a big rekh is slowly making its way past the tree we’re in. It’s not looking up, so it can’t see us. But it sees something .

Or some one .

“Bakitan, stay where you are.”

“Yes, Sprisk!” Bakitan’s voice is filled with anxious excitement. He may be sarcastic when he’s bored, but he also knows he would have no chance to deal with this alone.

I quickly climb down the tree trunk and follow the rekh. It’s going straight towards Cora.

Starting to run, I catch up with it and run beside it for a moment. It’s a big one, taller than me, old and experienced. It’s barely trotting, sure of a nice meal.

Its snout is close to the ground. And I immediately know that the reason it’s here in the first place isn’t Cora. It’s me and Bakitan. The rekh must have followed our scent to get to this inaccessible place. We led it here, and now it thinks it’s found the prey. Much better prey than us.

I sprint to get in front of it, noticing that my skin changes the way it does when I’m expecting a fight.

When I decide the distance is great enough, I stop. I’m under Cora’s tree, and I see her a few paces away, just now looking up. She can’t see much of me, and neither can the rekh.

I have no weapon except my stone-blade knife, and that’s too small a weapon for this. The rekh is not as tall as me, but it’s much wider and longer, with dangerous teeth and claws as long as my fingers.

But I have something else.

The rekh changes its course. I hear Cora gasp behind me as she spots the attacker.

It’s time.

I run at the rekh. Its steps falter as it sees something coming at it.

I have to make a fast decision. Do I want to kill the thing, or just injure it enough to chase it away?

I bend my neck, feeling how my body stiffens automatically in some reflex in the part of me that’s a Big.

Crunch.

My horn hits the charging rekh in the side of its chest. The impact shakes me like the blow from a hammer on an anvil. My bones creak, all the way down to my feet.

For a while the rekh and I are locked together while it comes to a stop, clawing wildly at my back but not quite able to reach.

I roll away from the rekh and watch as the predator claws at the injury, hissing and snarling. It speeds up again, its gait unsteady, crashing into trees as it escapes the mysterious enemy.

Leaving only Cora and me.

But I don’t want her to see me. It’s full daylight! I’ll scare her, and she must be afraid enough as it is. My loincloth is visible to her, but it’s drab and brown and won’t stand out.

“Talk to her!” Bakitan hollers from the tree. “She has to like you now! You saved her!”

I’m not sure if I want to kill him or do as he says.

But he has a point. This may be the time. At least now, she can be sure I won’t harm her.

The danger over, my skin slowly returns to its usual, bland look.

Taking a deep breath, I step into the shade to not shock her too bad.

Then I turn around to show myself to Cora.

She takes a stumbling step back, and her face contorts.

The scream is not the howl of horror I expected. No, this one is worse. Because while there’s horror in it, there’s also the worst possible thing: pity.

I whirl around and run.

“Wait!” Bakitan yells. “She only saw a part of you!”

But it’s too late. She screamed at the sight of me. I’m not going back there.