Page 24 of Caveman Alien’s Terror (Caveman Aliens #25)

24

- Astrid -

My brain turns itself inside-out when Praxigor turns into a full dragon. It’s the strangest, most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen, and on planet Xren, that really means something.

But the end result is marvelous. He’s a full dragon, big and blue, long and sleek, studded with dangerous spikes all along his back. A mythical being, absolutely. And yet, here he is.

I do a slow fist pump, all to myself. He really is a dragon!

Luna hisses like crazy, her tails looking aggressive.

I’m not even scared. I feel panic tugging at the edges of my mind, but I ignore it. It has nothing to do with me.

The cavemen flee wildly. They must feel the terror deep inside them, dispersing and running to their caves as the dragon circles their village lazily, tail waving calmly this way and that. At any moment I expect him to start the killing. I’ve no doubt he could take out all of us with a single flame or a swipe of his talons.

But he just soars higher and higher, his beauty even more stunning now than in his human shape. His wings are a big expanse of leathery membranes, making no sound the way the dactyls do. No, he’s not related to them at all. He’s elegant, effortless and graceful, many orders of magnitude more deadly than any dino. He’s an embodiment of pure power and grace. And of cruelty, I suspect. But right now, I don’t care.

An intensely green flame a hundred feet long shoots out of his mouth, so intense that even in the bright sunlight it throws sharp shadows.

I laugh at the insanity of it all. He is an actual dragon!

“That’s an unusual sight,” comes a voice from behind me.

I turn. “Rater’ax! You’re not running?”

The escort leader replaces his sword in the scabbard. “I’m not allowed to kill the dragon, but at the same time I’m ordered to protect you. Not an easy task, Shaman.” Behind him, the three others form a loose defensive pattern around us.

“You have done well so far, Rater’ax. And I told you your service has ended.”

“You may think so, but Chief Karr’ax might not agree,” the grim-faced caveman says, stroking his white stubble.

The dragon shines in gold and blue, his scales iridescent in the sky. That’s where he belongs, of course. Not down here in the mud with me.

“At least he didn’t kill anyone,” I point out, feeling cold and gray, just like the dragon-less world around me. “Yet.”

Rater’ax hands me the statue back. “I recommend that we leave this place as quickly as we can. This tribe is not as good as I was hoping. We don’t need friends like these.”

I heft the sculpture in my hand. “We really don’t.”

I turn and stare up. There’s a short flash of blue against blue, and then there’s nothing. “I think he’s going home.”

“Hopefully he lives far away,” Rater’ax growls.

I’m not sure what I expected. But of all the possibilities, this may have been one of the best. He’s gone, not killing anyone in revenge. And leaving me feeling even emptier than before.

“He did always want to leave,” I mutter.

Luna looks up at me, but has no comment.

“Still, he carved a small statue of me, instead of another piece from his hoard. That must mean something. Maybe it was real. For a while.”

We hurry towards the gate, which is guarded by two brown-striped men. The other men of the Ceremat tribe come back out of their caves, staring up at the sky where Praxigor is soaring out of sight over the jungle.

“Stop them!” comes a command.

The gate guards draw their swords and cross them in the middle of the gate in an obvious gesture. “Stay where you are!”

Ceremat men approach us from all sides, swords drawn.

Rater’ax and his men draw theirs, too. “We shall fight to the death, Shaman,” he says grimly. “You don’t need to. Doubtless Chief Korr’ax will mount a rescue expedition with a hundred men when you don’t return. They will destroy this pitiful tribe and take you back home.”

“Oh, I have no intention of surviving this,” I tell him as I draw my little knife. “It’s proper for a shaman to die in battle along with her tribesmen.”

“It is,” he agrees, wonder in his eyes. “I wish you a glorious death, Shaman Astrid.”

“And I wish the same to you all. I’m honored to fight alongside you.”

The Ceremat men surround us.

Chief Sator’iz gives me a little smile. “As I said, you are our woman now. And you shall never need to leave the village.”

“I’m the shaman of the Borok tribe,” I tell him, sick and tired of this bullshit. “Let us leave peacefully, or Chief Korr’ax will bring both his tribes, the Foundling clan, and the Krast tribe to lay waste to this dump you call a village.”

There’s a roll of distant thunder. Good, some rain would match my mood.

Tarat’ex saunters over. “The Krast tribe? They’re not good for much. And I should know. Now, Astrid, how can it be that you didn’t kill the dragon, like you said you would? Because it means you are still Darkness and you will still be ours. Not as honored as if you had in fact killed Praxigor, perhaps. But still ours. In every way.” His hand shoots out and strokes along my chest.

I swipe at him with the knife, but he’s prepared and pulls out of range. “Someone grab her and hold her!”

At the same moment, Luna pounces on him and claws furiously at his face, hissing wildly.

Tarat’ex screams and tries to protect his face, but this isn’t Luna’s first rodeo and she stays put, clawing and scratching.

The other Ceremat men don’t obey his order. Instead they look around in confusion. The thunder seems to be approaching very fast, getting louder in a way that no regular thunderstorm has a right to.

A blue streak shoots past right overhead, screaming like a jet fighter and making the ground tremble.

The Ceremat men throw themselves to the ground, and Luna casually jumps off Tarat’ex and comes over to me.

I stay up, leaning into the sudden hurricane from the flying projectile’s wake.

Praxigor turns in the air and comes back, beating his wings majestically as he lands on all four feet in the middle of the Ceremat men, all still on the ground.

One claw reaches out and touches Tarat’ex on the chest, right under the throat.

You laid a hand on my love.

The voice resonates inside my head without first going through my ears. It’s the most unsettling thing. Or it would be, if it hadn’t been such a familiar voice.

The Ceremat men scramble to get away, some dropping their swords.

“I didn’t…” Tarat’ex stutters, waving his arms uselessly against the dirt. His face is bleeding from many cuts of Luna’s claws.

The dragon shifts his attention to me, eyes yellow and crystal clear. Are you all right, my love?

I look down my front, seeing no new holes in my dress. “I think so.”

We shall soon leave this pitiful collection of hovels. But I have some business with my outcast lackeys. His unspeakably beautiful dragon head shines in the sun as he looks down on Tarat’ex. Astrid said that if it is as she thinks, I shall not kill anyone. Not even you, she said. Do you know what she meant? She meant that if I love her, I will do as she asks. And I do love her. But I also really want you to be dead. Do you see how this puts me in a difficult position?

“I… I helped you!” Tarat’ex tries. “I helped you get gold! You have it now!”

The dragons chuckles inside my head, and it makes me wince because there’s so much menace in it. You are not wrong. Without you, I might never have had the gold I needed. And yet I want you dead. But I can’t kill you.

“Stand aside, dragon.” A big shape passes between us, and then Rater’ax’s sword is buried in Tarat’ex’s chest.

“I’ve been wanting to do that for some time,” the faithful Borok man says before he pulls his sword back out of the dead man. “Anyone may kill an outcast.”

Indeed, Praxigor says into my mind. While I hesitate to support the actions of a slayer, I find this act praiseworthy. Well done, slayer. You solved this conundrum with admirable efficiency. Astrid, I think it’s time for us to go.

I walk over to him, trying to not look at the dead man who’s bleeding out. “Go where?”

Wherever you decide, my love.

So, having a magnificent mythical superpowered alien dragon that you can’t see yourself living without call you ‘my love’ right into your mind in a way that you just know it’s true? Kind of nice.

And yet, I’m no longer the pushover I used to be. “Are you back? Or will you leave me again?”

The big eyes glitter. I’m done leaving. Now it’s time to stay. You and I shall be together. Always.

“But there’s no gold on Xren,” I point out.

I don’t need gold. Not anymore. I wouldn’t have needed any , if I had realized sooner what you are to me.

I can arch my eyebrows, too. “Really?”

His tail waves lazily on the ground. You doubt me, and I shall forgive you for that. I will simply show you. Over the course of many, many years. I don’t need a hoard when I have you. You will be my hoard. But also much more.

I really want to believe him. “I have to trust you about that.”

Sit on my neck and we shall fly away.

“Umm. That sounds dangerous. Won’t I blow off you and fall to my death?”

No. Get up.

“Can you carry my escorts?”

Absolutely not.

“That’s fine, Shaman Astrid,” Rater’ax says with a grimace. “I would rather be murdered slowly by the Ceremat tribe than ride on a dragon.”

I look around. The Ceremat tribe is clearly no danger anymore. “Rater’ax, thank you again. You should get home. I will get there too, if I can.”

“Very well.” He and the three others walk towards the gate, which one lone guard quickly throws open for them.

“Can we make sure they get home all right?” I ask as I ponder how to sit on this spiky, scaly thing.

Yes.

I throw one leg over his thick neck, lean forwards, and find a balance while I grab hold of two horn-like things on his head.

That’s it, grab my horns. I will not let you fall, whatever happens.

His skin is smooth and warm between my legs, but also intensely alive. Strong muscles move under me as I cling to him with both my legs and hands, leaning forwards to feel more secure. “Not too high, please.”

He calmly beats his wings behind me, making my hair blow forwards. Before I know it we’re twenty feet in the air and moving forwards, over the huts of the Ceremat village. The tribesmen are peeking out of the doors and out from behind forges and stacks of wood.

Then we’re at the same heights as the treetops, and the wind starts blowing my hair back, out of my face.

How do you like it? the dragon asks.

“If this is as scary as it gets, it’s fine,” I tell him, holding on for dear life.

Are you sure you won’t let me kill someone back there? The chief, for instance? I would love to.

“As far as I know, I’ve never seen you kill anyone,” I reply tensely, because while he’s beating his wings calmly, we’re speeding up fast. “It must be because you see the cavemen as lesser beings, no challenge at all. What would be the fun in killing them when you’re so much stronger?” It’s something I’ve been thinking about. Praxigor may want to be seen as a scary monster, and he is. But he hasn’t actually killed anyone, despite being so obviously able to. That self-restraint is one thing I really like about him.

He chuckles. You’d be surprised at how pleasant it would be to murder a slayer who touched my love. But you’ve caught me, making it impossible to defy that wish. Because it’s true what I said. I love you, Astrid.

We’re soaring over the jungle, and the trees are pulling away beneath us.

“And I love you, Praxigor. But I’ve known it for a while, and I even said it. When did you realize?”

He turns lazily in the air. We will follow the track your four slayer friends will use, scaring away any threat along the way. Oh, I knew when I was in the cage. Or rather, that was when I admitted it to myself that I love you more than gold. In fairness, that’s as unnatural as dropping a stone and seeing it fall upwards. I didn’t accept it at first.

The jungle passes slowly beneath us. “I’m happy you accepted it. I wasn’t sure about you.” I see something below us, a dark line among the trees. “Oh, can you do something about that canyon they have to cross? It’s very sharp, and I worry about my escort men falling off it.”

We slowly spiral down towards it.

And because you weren’t sure about me, you kept the gold dagger without giving it to me, although you knew it could cure me.

“I didn’t know, ” I tell him, nervous about this part. “That was just it. I wasn’t sure that you actually were a dragon. As far as I knew, actual dragons don’t exist. It’s another example of dropping that stone and seeing it fall upwards. I couldn’t make myself believe it. And I was worried you weren’t really one. I wanted you to be, you see. I wanted you to be exactly what you claimed, because if you weren’t you’d just be a liar and a scammer and I admire you so much, I really didn’t want you to be that. I wanted you to be strong and wonderful and real. ”

Let’s see what we can do here . We fly along the crevice, just a few feet above the edge. Put your head down to my neck.

I do, holding on to him and bracing, clenching my eyes shut when I figure out what he’s planning. There’s a soft whooosh , and the green light is clearly visible through my eyelids. Searing heat washes over me.

That should do it.

Still seeing the outline of his fire in front of my eyes, I look behind me. The long, narrow ridge that traverses the canyon is glowing red hot, the sharp edge looking like molten lava. “Did you really melt that thing?”

Just making sure it’s a little rounder and easier to walk on. It might take a while to cool down.

“Your fire is incredibly hot,” I marvel. “Anyway, I’m sorry I didn’t give you the gold until it was almost too late. I nearly did. Several times.”

It was the best thing that could have happened. I don’t need gold anymore, by the way. The urge I feel for it has been taken over by you . I don’t know how you did it, but now that you’re mine, I have a peace I’ve never experienced before.

Below, I see packs of raptors fleeing wildly when they sense the dragon overhead. A kronk crashes into a tree and knocks it over in its urge to flee. A curious dactyl rises to meet us, then turns tail and crashes back down into the jungle to get away from Praxigor.

“Where are we going?”

I assume you want to see your friends.

“I do.”

That reminds me. Wait. He sets down on top of a massive tree, talons gripping the branches. We’re surrounded by leaves and twigs. Hmm. This is not ideal. I cling to him as he slides down the tree’s trunk, talons gouging grooves in the wood, so deep I could hide kittens in them.

I climb off him on the ground and look down while he turns back to the semi-human Praxigor I know.

“You may look when I Change,” he rumbles in his beautiful voice as he adjusts his pants.

“It feels like a private act,” I tell him, looking him up and down. “I didn’t want to intrude.”

His yellow eyes are clearer than ever, his blue scales perfectly whole and unblemished, his hair a riot of gold and copper and platinum. “It is private. And yet, you can’t intrude on me. Now, Astrid. I must ask you.”

As usual I can’t take my eyes off him as he towers over me. The old fear is still there as a memory, but now ninety-nine percent of it is just excitement. “What?”

Yellow eyes burn into me like blowtorches, piercing my soul but not harming it. “Will you marry me?”