Page 6 of Caveman Alien’s Horn (Caveman Aliens #26)

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- Sprisk -

I rearrange my hair and keep looking away until I can safely let Cora see my face. “Then there were no winners. Because it doesn’t feel like I won.”

“Sprisk,” Cora sighs. “You take me home. Is easy. No man lose then.”

“I will take you to your new home,” I tell her. “That’s the whole idea.”

“You being not nice,” she accuses. “Not nice to woman.”

I smoothen my hair and turn to face her, suddenly sick of her nonsense. “Oh, did you really want to go with those two outcasts? Wait, I’ll go and get them.” I turn and march after the two smelly men. “Outcasts!” I roar. “Wait! She wants to come with you!”

“No!” Cora gasps behind me. “Not go! Not want!”

I stop and gaze at her levelly. “Are you sure? You don’t want to see their fake tribe? You don’t want to smell their dirty loincloths? You don’t want those two filthy, honorless outcasts to Mate with you until you’re dead? You don’t want them to grill you over their campfire afterwards and feast on your charred remains? Are you really sure? ”

“Yes,” Cora says meekly. “Please.”

I walk back and pick up the fruits I picked, giving one to Cora. “Here.”

She eagerly accepts it with both hands, visibly trembling. “Thank you.”

I pick up one for myself. “Eat now.”

Cora sniffles, bites into the fruit, and looks up at me. “You scary, Sprisk.”

I stroke one of the spikes that grow from my face. “I know I have a frightening look.”

“No. Not that. When you speaked just now. When say give me to outcasts. You cold . I think it true. Scared me very.”

“Maybe you needed to be scared.”

Her gaze goes to my crotch, then away. “Maybe.”

That’s all it takes for my loins to heat up. “You’ll be safer where we’re going. Your old home was a dangerous place to be.” I nod at the gray ghost. “He bit that irox right in the neck. If he’d been a little bigger, he’d have ripped its throat out.”

“He strong,” Cora says, munching on fruit. “Jump high, win at irox. He name Eric.”

“Eric?” I try. It’s an easy name to say. “Cora, Eric and Sprisk. A small clan.”

She gives me a little smile. “Strange clan. But strong.”

“Stronger than it looks, anyway. Shall we go? You can eat on the way. There will be no Bigs for a while. They all heard the irox, and they don’t want to be close to it.” I walk a couple of steps, noting with satisfaction that Cora is following along.

“Let me take your pack.” I hold my hand out.

She takes the pack off her back and hands it over. “I not think fits you.”

Indeed the straps are far too short and thin to fit over both my shoulders, the way she wore it, but I can easily carry it in my hand. “I will be careful with it.”

With me not having to carry Cora anymore, and she coming along freely, progress through the jungle seems effortless. Before I know it, I spot the first of the subtle defenses I’ve constructed around my hideaway.

“Follow me,” I tell Cora as I navigate the pattern of pit traps I’ve carefully dug over several years. They’re made to only keep Bigs away, and they are able to carry Smalls without caving in. Cora could probably walk right over one without noticing it was there. But I don’t want to risk anything.

On the other side of the traps, we make our way past the dense hedge that I’ve planted. It looks natural, but is also surprisingly difficult to get through if you don’t know where to walk.

On the other side is my secret site.

“Oh!” Cora exclaims as she sees it. “Is big!”

She’s the first visitor I bring here. It makes me see the area with fresh eyes. It’s a large, round field of fallen trees, rotting and decaying. For some reason, there’s very little undergrowth, and the old, dead trees haven’t been replaced by new saplings. The sky is open, letting the sunlight through in a wide circle.

A narrow stream clucks its way across the clearing, having dug its way so deep into the ground that you can only see it when you’re about to fall into it. The ground is brown and gray with withered grass. Nothing grows here. Now that I look anew, it’s not the most inviting place. But where nothing grows, nobody wants to go. The barrenness makes it safe.

“I wanted our clan to live here,” I explain. “I prepared it for us all. Then the alien women came and we moved close to the Borok village instead. And I suppose the clan will stay there forever.”

“Very strange,” Cora says and walks slowly out onto the stiff grass. It creaks under her feet. “No bush and tree grow.”

“It’s strange,” I agree, following her. “I know no other place in the jungle like this.”

“Sun,” she says and looks up, shielding her eyes. “Is nice.”

I put a hand on her shoulder. “But not nice if you fall in the creek.”

She looks up at me, then down at her feet. “Oh!” She’s standing on the very edge of the stream. “I not see.”

“May I?” I gently grab her, carry her in my arms, and jump across the stream. “The creek is well hidden.”

“Water so clear,” Cora marvels as I let her down. “Is good drink?”

“The water is fresh,” I assure her. “It comes from an underground spring.”

She follows me to the most important spot in the clearing. Only one tree is still standing. It’s long dead, and in any other part of the jungle, it would have been knocked over by Bigs and rotted on the ground. But here, because everything is dry and Bigs don’t like it, the mighty trunk still stands like a natural totem pole, pointing skywards. The branches in the crown are long gone, but the wood is still dry and solid all the way through.

“Very big tree in before days,” Cora ponders as she gazes up at the smooth trunk. “Now also big, but look dead.”

I lead her around to the other side of it. “It’s dead. But it can still have life inside it.” I find the section I’ve carefully cut out and lift it down. It reveals the opening into the tree’s hollow inside. “And now it will.”