Page 28 of Caveman Alien’s Horn (Caveman Aliens #26)

28

- Cora -

It’s a long walk through the jungle, but once again I’m surprised that I’m holding up so well without getting exhausted. It might be that I just needed some better food than the vismonks gave me.

The night gives way to day. I try to get Bakitan to turn around, but when he refuses, I don’t try that hard to persuade him. I’m fully aware that I probably wouldn’t have come this far alone. Just like Korr’ax, Bakitan has a sixth sense for danger, and he also sometimes has us backtrack and walk in an arc around some unseen threat.

I also notice that he often looks behind us, as if he thinks we’re being followed. Once or twice he spins around suddenly and stares past me, clearly trying to spot any pursuer. But maybe it doesn’t mean anything. It looks like all the cavemen have their own style of walking through the jungle, and Bakitan is just more cautious than others. I can get onboard with that.

When night falls, I think I can see the light pillar in the distance, as a bright blue spot on the clouds whenever I get a glimpse of the sky through the dense canopy of leaves.

“We’re getting close,” Bakitan says. “We have to watch out for the traps that Sprisk has set out here.”

“What kind of traps?” I whisper, remembering the snares the vismonks were trapped by.

“Pits,” Bakitan replies. “Holes in the ground. Sprisk likes those.”

Soon the blue light becomes so bright that I can see it past the trees. A big part of the woods is being illuminated by those mushrooms.

“We’ll have to find the portal,” I whisper. “There’s no other way in.”

“I know,” the young Foundling tells me. “It’s close.”

It takes us another half hour to walk around the edge of the circle of mushrooms, keeping our distance because of the possible traps. I swear I can sense the piercing, chemical smell from the mushrooms even from this distance. I hope it’s not some kind of toxic gas.

A distant scream suddenly pierces the silence. Someone is having a really bad day, and it sounded like a caveman.

Bakitan stops, and we stand still for a while, just listening and watching.

The portal stands out because it’s like a blindingly bright door into another dimension. We approach from the side, and I’m starting to worry about how Sprisk is doing. Because this place is looking downright dangerous. Was Diana right when she warned against these things?

There’s suddenly a shout of surprise from in front of us, as well as movement against the light.

“Outcasts!” Bakitan hisses and tries to reach me to grab my hand. But I’m too far away for him to reach me, and someone else grabs me instead.

“Run!” I yell. “Get away! Get help!” I just want him gone. These are outcasts, and it makes no sense for a young man like him to fight them, risking injury or death. It’s me they want, not him.

He’s smart enough to bolt without any silly but futile heroics.

Strong hands grab my hands and legs. I kick and writhe and spit and scream, but these are strong cavemen and they drag me towards the light of the portal.

This can’t be good. These guys clearly have taken control of the clearing. There’s a good chance Sprisk isn’t here.

Of course. If he has any sense, he would have left this creepy mushroom place right after I did.

I’m dragged through the portal, past the horizontal logs, and into the clearing. It’s as bright as any sports arena during an evening game. The central mushroom is so bright I can’t even look at it.

It’s a nightmarish scene, the light so bright and cold it looks both alien and hostile. It reeks intensely of exotic chemicals, making my eyes water.

And there’s Sprisk. My heart jumps, then sinks. Because he’s not in charge here. The outcasts are, and there has to be ten of them. None of them have proper caveman swords, but rather wield rusty machetes and long knives and ugly, curved sabers.

Sprisk is over by the loom, on his knees and bleeding from many wounds.

The four outcasts that are holding firmly onto my hands and knees lift me and carry me across the dead grass towards the creek.

They climb down the bank, and the stream clucks as cheerfully as always. Getting up on the other side, the outcasts struggle getting through the layer of roots, hacking at them with their blades but ending up having to push the roots aside.

Then we’re on the side where the hollow tree and the loom are.

And Sprisk.

His horn is out, and his skin shimmers in many colors, but he’s perfectly visible. The outcasts are holding him in place while one stands in front of him with a sword that he has clearly used to hit the Foundling.

As I get closer, I see it’s Cret’ax. Damn it, I should have let Sprisk kill him!

Cret’ax turns. “Oh, there she is. She always wanted to be with us actual tribesmen, and not a Foundling with a ridiculous horn.” He slaps the side of Sprisk’s horn contemptuously, making Sprisk grunt. That’s clearly not the first punch he’s thrown at the helplessly bound Foundling.

“Take hands off him,” I seethe. “He twenty times the man you are!”

“Don’t worry,” Cret’ax creaks. “You and I will have our fun. And so will all our friends. There’s not quite twenty of us, the way I understand you prefer, but you will be satisfied.”

A cheer rises from the little crowd of outcasts.

“We will Mate!” they shout. “The woman is ours!”

“She’s not yours, and she never will be,” Sprisk growls, blood running down the side of his face. “She’s mine. Only mine.”

“Oh?” Cret’ax says. “Let us see.” He comes close to me, making me want to retch from the stench of his unwashed body and his breath.

I do my best to twist out of his reach, but he manages to stroke one dirty hand across my chest, grabbing one breast harshly. It makes me groan in pain.

“Oh, hear how she loves it!” the outcast triumphs. “Get used to this sound, my friends! She will utter it many times from now on!” He squeezes me again, harder.

“Take your hands off her, honorless reject,” Sprisk snarls.

“Oh, but I—” Cret’ax begins, then stops as a shadow shoots across the sky.

They all look up.

Sprisk uses the opportunity to ram his horn into the mouth of one of the men holding him. The tip comes out the back of the outcast’s head, and he collapses on the spot.

But one other outcast gives him a cut across the chest, and Sprisk staggers backwards.

The shadow bounces around the clearing for a second, avoiding all the outcasts and coming straight for me.

“Eric!” I gasp as I see who it is.

My heart sinks in my chest. The small vismonk is little more than a toddler, and any one of these dozen outcasts can kill him with one slash of their blades.

But Eric doesn’t try to fight them all. Instead he bounces right for me. He stops on the ground and looks at us all with his big, luminous eyes. Then he snarls with his fangs showing and pounces on Cret’ax with his gape open, going for the throat.

Cret’ax staggers backwards and drops his blade, his hands fighting Eric and trying to pry the little vismonk off his neck.

The clearing suddenly gets lit up as if a bolt of lightning had shot across it. But the flash came from the central mushroom.

There’s a deep rumble that slowly increases in pitch. The central mushroom starts to pulsate with hard, blinding flashes. Something is about to happen, and it’s not going to be good.

Sprisk shakes the stunned outcasts off him, punches one of them out, and then runs over to the loom.

Cret’ax falls to the ground, blood pouring from his throat. Eric bounces over to me, his mouth ringed in bright red.

“Thank you,” I signal with shaking hands. “Now leave. Mushrooms bad.”

He gives me a flurry of hand signals, but I can’t understand them. “Go,” I tell him. “Leave!”

Eric looks around, glares at the pulsating central mushroom, and bounces out of the clearing, over the nearest mushrooms in a single bound.

The ground starts to glow. Suddenly all the roots from the central mushroom to the ones at the periphery of the clearing break up and out of the ground, glowing in their ghostly blue.

The flashing from the central mushroom gets faster and faster, and the hum is increasing to a piercing screech, like a boiling tea kettle.

The outcasts sense that something is wrong and run for the portal.

Sprisk comes running, holding a big sheet of something. “Come on! Into the creek!”

“What is?—”

He doesn’t stop to talk, just grabs my waist and carries me along with him, sprinting across the roots that are now above the ground all over the clearing.

The strangest thing happens — bright lights shoot through all the roots at the same time, from the central mushroom to the huge ones all around the edge of the clearing.

Sprisk jumps into the creek, wraps me in the sheet, and throws me into the water.

Then the whole world explodes.