I look him over one last time. Fuck, he’s gorgeous. And I can’t help wondering how that thing would fit inside me. He’s so freaking male it’s ridiculous. And he makes me feel extremely female.
He’s also still shivering, harder than before.
Dammit, I can’t leave him like this. Naked and tied up during what could well be a really cold afternoon and night.
I gather the dry straw and grass from inside the cave without getting too close to Kyandros, then go out into the snow and pick up some thick branches and thin twigs from close to the tree trunks, where they haven’t been as soaked as the rest of the ground. They’re wet, but my life on Xren has taught me how to deal with non-ideal firewood. The trick is to use a knife to cut away the bark and the outer layers, because the wood inside is usually dry enough.
I quickly build a fire that should keep a dragon warm for at least a couple of hours, then set it ablaze using a flint and steel rod from Aurora’s backpack and a handful of dry, pretty foul-smelling grass.
The fire catches and lights up the little cave, as well as Kyandros’ face. Impossibly, it makes him look even more perfect. My insides ache at the thought of leaving him, probably forever. Maybe there is some good in him that I can try to tease out?
I shake my head to clear it. Sure, there might be some good in him. He’s only an alien, not a demon. But trying to uncover it would be like playing with fire. Or like playing with the triggering mechanism for a nuclear bomb. While blindfolded. Using only a hammer.
“Okay. Now I’ll be leaving. I have to get back to my village.”
His eyes narrow. “You’re leaving? With me still alive?”
“Believe it or not, not everyone wants to kill everybody they meet. So yeah.”
He changes his position and points with both hands. “Play a tune before you go.”
I glance at my crossbow. “This is actually not a musical instrument. It’s more of a weapon. In fact, I hope not to have to use it again.”
He peers at me with those luminous, yellow slits. “You are a mysterious female.”
I put the backpack on and look out at the snow. Already the ground is all white, and it’s heaping up fast. “No, I’m very straightforward. I think that’s what seems so mysterious to you. Goodbye.”
I turn my back and walk out of the cave, into the snow.
- - -
I can feel his intense gaze at my back as I walk fast in among the trees. A part of me wants to turn around and go back for another look at his face and another whiff of that scent.
He’s plainly dangerous and wild, but that has an attraction all of its own. What if he were on my side?
The snow is up to my ankles already, and my sandals were not made for anything remotely as cold as this. The canopy of leaves overhead means that the snow doesn’t fall quietly and slowly like I’m used to from Earth – it comes in bunches and heaps whenever a branch or twig up there gives in to the weight. And most of it ends up down the back of my neck.
Snow in a freaking rain forest. This can’t be normal.
At least all the whiteness brightens the landscape a little, but it all has a sickly, ominous look to it. Is this because of the dragons? Can they influence the weather, somehow?
There are a lot of things I should have asked Kyandros about. But he didn’t seem to be inclined to answer, and I think that just being that close to a dragon and living to tell the tale is pretty damn good going. Even if he obviously was extremely weakened.
I pick a direction at random. I have no idea where the village is, and I doubt I could recognize the path to Bune now that everything is covered in snow.
Snow that is rapidly piling up. As it gathers on the treetops above me, it must get really heavy. I keep hearing sharp cracks from up there, followed by a thump as several pounds of snow plummet to the ground. The cracks are getting louder as thicker and thicker branches break off under the weight.
This could actually get really dangerous. Back on Earth, I’ve seen thick trees falling over from the sheer weight of snow that clings to the leaves and branches. If that happens here and I’m right next to one when it snaps, then I’ll struggle to get out of the way.
I locate a bush with very large leaves of the kind that we usually wrap food in because they’re kind of waxy and they don’t let water through easily. I never thought I would be wrapping my feet in them. But I don’t think I have a choice – my toes are starting to go numb from the cold.
I trundle on, having to lift my feet higher to make any headway. Like everything on Xren, when it snows, it snows at a fever pitch, and it’s getting thicker by the minute.
Only my feet, hands and face are cold – the rest is drenched in sweat from the exertion.
It’s getting darker, too, and I think this is a legit sunset.
That’s not going to make me any warmer.
“Damn this fucking planet…” I curse and mutter, but it doesn’t help much. My toes are still cold inside the leaves, and my ears are going numb as well.
There’s a tremendous bang as a tree snaps halfway up its trunk and the upper half crashes to the ground, burdened by what has to be a hundred tons of snow frozen to its leaves and branches.
It’s right in my path, but directions don’t matter too much anyway, so I stomp around it.
Another tree snaps, and then another, much closer to me
I yelp and barely manage to throw myself out of the way as the tree’s frozen crown smashes into the ground. I crawl under another, thicker tree and press up against the trunk. A huge branch immediately comes falling, and I have to throw myself out of the way again.
Shit. Nowhere here is safe.
But the main problem is the cold. I’m only wearing a thin dinosaur skin dress, sandals, and some useless, green leaves. The backpack keeps my back warm, but that’s not going to matter much. This is getting very serious. The temperature seems to be dropping like a stone.
I could set up camp under one of the larger trees and try to get a fire going. But I have no kindling, and the dead branches and twigs I’d need are now buried under two feet of snow.
As if to stress the planet’s intention of killing me, an icy wind starts picking up, howling around the treetops and chilling me to the bone.
I’m going to die out here.
Unless…
I turn around to walk back the way I came, avoiding falling branches and breaking trees. I have to hurry while I can still see my footprints as vague indentations in the snow.
6
- Kyandros -
The fire crackles and gives off a quite pleasant heat, feeble though the flames seem to me. My own fire is much, much hotter than this, blue and beautiful.
It would also be able to burn through these thin wires like they were never even there. This fire is nowhere hot enough, as I discovered when I held my feet deep inside the flames for a moment. But it is apparently hot enough to hurt bare skin quite badly.
Pain. I had forgotten all about it until I got this injury on my forehead. Mia’s doing, although I can’t actually remember it. Her weapon might be able to penetrate my scales in this ridiculously weakened and degrading state. Knock me out, even.
I get busy with the two rocks she gave me. It will take quite a while to break off these damned wires – they are thin, but strong. Plain steel, certainly, but even such a lowly material has its uses. As a part of my hoard, these carefully wrought wires wouldn’t be worth a lot, but they would also not be worthless. Now that they’ve been used to bind me, they would have a deleterious effect and I want to get rid of them as soon as possible.
Mia has fastened them very cleverly, and the knots are so tightly bound I can’t move them at all.
Trees are falling down around me, but inside this cave I shouldn’t have to worry about being hit by one.
This is a very strange planet. No cities, but with women that are resourceful enough to trap dragons. No gold, but tough steel that has no give in it at all. No buildings, but weapons that l
ook innocent and pack a real punch. Huge animals and unafraid men that have an air of slayer about them.
The Inferiors lured us here. Is this planet a trap, then?
Very probably. If I can’t build a hoard here, which seems like a possible outcome, I will never be able to travel in space again and I’m stuck. Forever. Even killing another dragon and taking his scales as my hoard won’t be nearly enough, and it will taint me forever.
The other dragons are stuck, too, I suppose. Except possibly the Duchess.
And then what? Stuck here in a muddy jungle? What kind of life is that for a dragon of my stature?
I leave that unpleasant thought, and my mind returns to Mia, the way it tends to do.
Is she a slayer, herself, perhaps? If so, why not kill me when she had the chance? She obviously had the means.
I should hate her and want to burn her for capturing me and subjecting me to this infinite indignity. Well, of course I hate her very much.
I think.
Very mysterious.
The fire burns lower. It appears to need wood to feed on.
I grind the wire that holds my ankles between the two rocks. At this rate, it will take hours and hours to wear it down until it snaps. It’s tempting to put it between my teeth and bite it off, but I suspect it wouldn’t work in this cursed human form.
Oh, hoard of hoards. This is intolerable!
Now that the rain has given way to the snow, it’s much more quiet between trees trunks snapping. I hear something new. My instinct tells me immediately that it’s a creature.
A sentient, even.
I stop the grinding and peer out into the gray darkness, where the air seems to be trembling with frost. The snow looks quite deep, and it keeps falling from the treetops in large clumps.
I slowly and clumsily stand up on legs that have gone stiff, making sure to keep my feet very close together so as not to trip.
There is a little bit of movement there. It looks like...
Ah.
I can’t walk, and I most certainly can’t fly. Even so, I take a moment to concentrate on Changing. Just maybe...
No. The dragon form is as far away as the planet where I was hatched.
I get back on my knees. With my wrists and ankles tied together, this will be both difficult and unspeakably undignified. But there are no other dragons who can see me. If there are, I will never regain my status.
I crawl out of the cave and into the cold snow in the same manner as an inchworm.
7
- Mia -
I awake with a start. The house is on fire!
I get close to panic before I realize that this is not a house.
This is planet Xren. And I’m inside a cave.
With a gigantic fire right outside, so hot it’s burning my face. It crackles and splutters and lights up the little cave like a flickering, orange sun that’s much too close.
I bounce to my feet and run out.
Okay, the fire is not right outside, but a few yards away. It’s huge and it has melted the snow in a radius of twenty feet around it. The snow that remains is easily six feet deep, maybe seven. Taller than I am, in other words. The fire has melted a bare semicircle outside the cave, and beyond that there’s only a wall of snow.
I gasp, feeling panic grow. I’m trapped here!
“Up so soon?”
I whirl around.
The dragon. Casually leaning up against the rock wall, silvery skin looking like liquid gold in the firelight.
In a flash all the recent events come back to me, and I can’t help but notice that I don’t have my crossbow. I go weak at the knees and have to concentrate to not collapse.
“Kyandros,” I whisper.
His eyes glint in yellow, more luminous than the fire. “You decided to return.”
I swallow, but my mouth is parched. “I did.”
He studies the claw on one of his fingers. The nonchalant effect is lost because he’s still tied up, so he has to lift both hands. “Too cold for you out there?”
“Maybe.” I take him in, suspicion boiling in me. I did turn around to come back here, just to save my life in the cold. But I don’t remember actually arriving.
“But this is better,” Kyandros says and indicates the fire. “The smaller fire was inadequate.”
Is that my crossbow on the ground right beside where I woke up?
I draw closer to the cave again. “Kept you alive, anyway.”
“But wouldn’t have been enough for you.”
I should just keep him talking while I try to get the crossbow back. Shit, I shouldn’t have told him it was a weapon! “I guess not. Did you build this fire?”
He shrugs. “Many trees broke under the snow. They burn well.”
I squint into the blaze. Sure enough, those are entire trees burning. Three of them, stacked like a tripod. “They do. Maybe it’s not necessary to add much wood to it. It’s very hot.”
“Not as hot as my fire.”
I take another sneaky step back towards the cave. “Oh. Did you blow fire to light this one?”
He looks away. “Maybe.”
Keep him talking. “Why can dragons blow fire, anyway?”
He shrugs. “Why do lesser species have legs? Just part of being one.”
Six more feet and I’m there. “Did you blow fire while traveling through space?”
“Through space?”
Shit. He never told me that. That was something we learned from the other dragons. Those we’ve killed.
“All dragons live in space,” I try.
“Do they?” His voice is flat and dangerous.
“Of course,” I invent on the spot, slowly moving another foot towards the crossbow. “Then they fall and light up the sky, and then they fight.” I’ll have to act like a primitive cavewoman, full of myths and superstition.
Kyandros looks up at the dark sky. “Who do they fight?”
“The Bigs,” I state in a flash of inspiration. “Dragons rid us of the Bigs.”
“The Bigs?”
“You know, the very large beings. The ones that kill us whenever we leave the village.”
He sends me an amused gaze. “I see. This is what you think?”
“The shamans say so.” Soon within reach now.
“Do they also say that dragons only kill what they want?”
“Um. Sure.”
Kyandros looks away.
I quickly bend down and pick up the crossbow.
The string is gone, and there’s no bolt loaded. My heart drops in my chest.
“I took the liberty of modifying your weapon a little,” Kyandros says without even looking at me. “It was too dangerous before. Wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself. And I certainly wouldn’t want you to hurt me. More, I mean.”
I slink back out of the sizzling hot cave. “It would be useful, though.”
“Useful?”
“For hunting.”
He sends me a pleasant smile. “Hunting dragons?”
I’m playing with fire here, in more sense than one. “No! Bigs and Smalls. I don’t know about dragons, but I need food to live.”
“And it does appear that I need you without a weapon to live. So it evens out.”
I stare at the sheer wall of snow. It’s like being in a hole in the ground. I could probably climb out of here somehow, depending on how loose the show is. It should actually be pretty wet and compacted if it’s being melted by the fire.
Until I can climb out, I’m stuck in here with Kyandros.
I stand there for just a moment. I’m too exhausted to even panic. My legs feel like jello, and I’d love to sit down somewhere. “How did I get here?”
He shrugs. “You got here.”
“I remember turning around. I was so cold I would die if I continued. My feet…”
I look down. They’re still in their sandals, but the leaves are gone. They honestly don’t look much the worse for wear.
Which is weird. Because I now remember my
walk back to the cave. In the snow and the dark, trying to spot my old tracks going the other way in the ever-deepening snow. Losing the feeling in my toes and fingers and ears. Sore, exhausted sobs when I realized I wasn’t going to make it. Then a pleasant warmth as I decided to lie still for a moment in the soft snow and just rest…
I spot the hollow rock on the ground, the MSG container. It’s open and almost empty.
I touch my ear. The finger comes back with a slight silvery sheen on it.
“Did you put gel on my ears?”
Kyandros stares into the fire. “Just to test if your witchcraft potion would kill you.”
“On my nose and toes and fingers, too.”
“And your cheeks,” he says and smirks. “I will leave it up to you to guess which cheeks I mean.”
“How did I get here?”
He doesn’t reply, but I can see his jaws working, as if gnashing his teeth.
“Did you find me and then carry me here?” I persist. “And then you made the fire bigger to thaw me out?”
“I thought you were unconscious. It appears you were only faking it, if you can recall all this.”
“I can’t recall it, but it’s obvious. There’s no other way. But you’re still tied! How? I mean, you must have—”
Kyandros takes three quick steps over to me and grabs my chin in one hand, lifting both. “I would advise you to not pursue that line of thought any further. Ever.”
“Okay,” I gasp and try to draw back.
He towers over me and holds me still, staring me down with sheer yellow. “Let’s not misunderstand each other. I am having trouble removing these dirty wires that you tied around my limbs. I absolutely expect you to remove them. If you can’t, you will wish that I had left you to perish in the snow. You will wish it with intense desperation such as you have never known.”
His voice is flat, with no anger in it. That just makes it that much more menacing.
He holds me like that for three heartbeats, filling me with terror.
Then he lets go of my cheek, giving it a soft caress. “But there’s no rush. It’s still night, and none of us want to go out into the cold again. Let’s make it comfortable for ourselves.”
Caveman Alien’s Enemy Page 5