Page 159 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

Hina

Being carted around in Fierce’s arms was not unpleasant, especially after I’d woken up so warm that my body was struggling to maintain the right temperature.

Right now, I felt exhausted, my legs all noodle-like, so I was grateful that I didn’t have to walk.

Bonus points for the fact that Fierce blasted out heat like a furnace and more than managed to keep me warm.

With one hand, I fiddled with the com device he’d given me.

I couldn’t read the language on it, but I had the sinking feeling that Fierce couldn’t either.

He had a translation device implanted behind his ears, or he wouldn’t be able to understand me; I knew about it because he’d tapped at his ear to indicate it.

So why did he have tech he didn’t know how to use?

Maybe my first impression—that he was a primitive native—wasn’t so far off after all.

What if he was one of those poor aliens displaced from his own society?

That happened; it wasn’t even that uncommon.

I had done xeno-botany on several different locations that had recently been absorbed into the UAR, after the primitive locals had been rudely exposed to space-faring people by one of the many lawless species in the outer reaches of the Alpha quadrant.

One of those planets I’d worked on had a native sentient species that had struggled to adapt to the new tech they were introduced to.

This com device was very similar to the one I’d had before my arrest, close enough that I was certain I knew what most of the buttons did.

At the same time… I couldn’t read anything, so what I might think was the call button might very well be the wipe data button.

It would be terrible if I managed to wipe all of the contacts stored on the device.

No, I just had to focus on that signal symbol, as long as it didn’t appear, we didn’t have one, and there was no point in trying a call.

A sudden tension emanating from Fierce’s body warned me that something had changed.

One moment, he was steadily jogging along the river, his pace even, with hardly any jarring.

The next, his skin rippled with color for a brief moment before he shifted hue and texture to so closely resemble our surroundings that he seemed almost invisible—even to my eyes—and he was holding me.

I glanced over his shoulder and saw that the big hound, Snarl, was racing in our direction, his long, panther-like tail stretched out behind him.

I was almost certain that Snarl had somehow tipped off Fierce that there was some kind of danger, even across the distance. What had them so worried? More naga?

Looking ahead, I still only saw sheer canyon walls rising up on either side of the river and the narrow strip of shore we were on.

It was shrinking. I had a feeling that, in not too long, the river was going to disappear back underground.

Would we have to climb? God, I hoped not.

I’d never make a climb this high—not when I was this weak from nearly drowning and dying of cold.

Maybe if I’d been in good shape and had the right gear.

.. but this rock wall looked so slippery.

Fierce slid to a stop. He had me down on the ground and was pressing me into a very narrow crevice.

It was a dead end, just a fissure that had cracked the face of this canyon wall.

It was a hideyhole I could fit into, but not Fierce; his shoulders were too wide, and the crevice was too shallow for both of us.

“Hina, safe!” he gruffly growled, his hand cupping the side of my face and briefly caressing it.

Then his eyes dropped to the tiny creature curled around my shoulders.

Fluffy stared up at him with her big green eyes—no purr for once—as if the small animal understood the danger we were in.

In his own language, Fierce growled something at the pet, his big hand briefly scratching her behind her pointed, tufted ears.

I wasn’t sure exactly what Fierce was about to do, but the last thing I expected was for him to turn his back to me and block off the opening to the crevice with his body. His skin shimmered, taking on the texture and color of the rock. Ooh, he was camouflaging us, hoping we could hide.

Frozen in place, I strained my ears to try to figure out what was going on.

Could I hear the sound of scales sliding across rock?

Was that the hiss of one of those nagas?

My heart was beating wildly in my chest; it felt so loud that I worried they could hear it.

I think Fierce could, because one of his hands reached back into the crevice and curled comfortingly around one of mine.

I held onto that warm point, even if it felt more like holding a living rock than a man, with his extreme camouflage turned all the way on.

His uncanny ability reminded me a little of how squid could camouflage back on Earth.

Their skill at mimicking their surroundings down to the finest detail was as amazing as Fierce’s ability.

I hoped it was enough to fool the naga. Would they rely mostly on sight, or did they have a strong sense of smell too?

I wasn’t sure what Fierce’s plan was, but when he slipped his hand free from my grasp again and curled it around the handle of his ax, I knew he was about to do something.

It was dark in the crevice, but I cast my eyes around my feet, looking for a sharp rock of some kind, anything to fight with.

Through sheer luck, the bundle of things—including our water flasks—had stayed tied to my belt during my swim.

There was nothing useful in there for this, just some copper cables I had thought to use as rope.

Spotting a shiny black rock with a sharp edge, I squatted down as silently as I could.

My fingers curled around the smooth, rounded back of the stone just as Fierce leapt from the crevice with a thundering growl; a growl that could very well rival that of a tiger.

He had leapt right into the middle of a pack of naga: there were half a dozen of them, with long red tails and muscled upper bodies raised off the ground, armed with spears.

From this close, I could see that their faces closely resembled those of humans, though their pupils were slits, and so were their nostrils.

Some had black hair in long braids on top of their heads, others were red as their scales.

One even wore some kind of fang and tusk headdress.

Hissing and growling, they bared needle-sharp teeth, their completely black forms making for a wholly sinister look.

Everything in me said to run, to flee from these creatures.

I had rarely seen something so menacing before, something that prickled all my primal survival instincts.

My fingers twitched around the rock as I watched Fierce charge into their midst, his ax swinging.

He showed no hesitation as he surprised the group, separating a head from its shoulders before the snake-man knew what hit him.

He leapt onto the back of another and tore into that neck with his own sharp fangs.

I almost would have felt sorry for these naga and what nearly looked like an unprovoked attack, if not for the fact that one of these creatures had a human head dangling from his hip—the head of one of the dead men from the stasis pods, if I wasn’t mistaken.

Snarl joined the fray, jumping down from a perch higher up on the rock wall and pinning one of the naga to the ground.

The fight was fast and frantic after that; I struggled to keep track of everyone.

Fierce moved at high speed, rolling to avoid blows from spears or tails, swinging his ax, and dealing damage where he could.

With their numbers down to three, the naga still outnumbered Fierce and Snarl, but it didn’t look quite so dire.

That is, until one of their black spear tips pierced Fierce’s shoulder.

Red blood, much like my own, spurted from the wound.

A jagged wound opened when the serrated spear blade was yanked back out.

Fierce made a howling sound and spun on the naga that had dared injure him.

In a frenzy I could barely follow, I saw scales and blood fly, and the naga crumble in a mutilated mess.

Fierce was covered in blood, his body shaking, while Snarl was occupying one of the snake creatures.

The last one was coming up behind Fierce, his spear raised for a killing blow.

I clutched my rock tighter, frightened by what I was about to do, but I didn’t pause to second-guess myself.

I rushed from the crevice, leaping at the naga’s exposed back, and rammed my rock into his skull as hard as I could.

The male hissed, his body bucking, and I was flung head over heels through the air.

I hit the canyon wall, but adrenaline racing through my body meant I barely felt it.

I shrugged it off and clambered back to my feet, my rock was lost, but I picked up the nearest one and prepared for another attack.

My breaths were coming in quick, sharp bursts as I scanned for the nearest target, only, nothing was moving.

The rocky beach was soaked in blood, a mixture of dark blue and red.

Naga bodies lay sprawled every which way, some mostly intact, others mutilated by ax and teeth.

Fierce stood over the body of the last naga, a hand pressed to his steadily bleeding shoulder, his skin softly marbled in shades of blue.

Snarl sat a few feet away on a clean patch of dirt, licking his blood-matted fur.