Caveman Alien’s Enemy

by Skye, Calista

  So far he’s behaving nothing like the way I would expect from a dragon. Of course, that has a lot to do with him being in his human form, and maybe because I injured him. He might be saving up his revenge for when he’s recovered fully.

  I put the raptor skin down. The fire has heated me enough to want to see how hard it would be to walk in that snow.

  I tiptoe over to the snow wall, curved and smooth. It looks icy.

  I put one sandaled foot on the lowest part and put some weight on it. Immediately, I slip on it and fall on my butt.

  Ah. Hard frozen ice with just a thin layer of water on top because the new fire has sent enough heat to just melt the surface.

  I try again in another spot, and the result is the same. I lose my balance and can barely stay upright. There are no handholds or steps or anything that could increase friction even a little. I am pretty much inside a ring of eight feet tall ice walls now, not snow walls. The ice is slippery as hell.

  Small holes in the ice show me how Kyandros was able to climb out so easily – he has claws that must act like spikes, ten on each limb.

  I look at my own fingernails. Nope, they won’t give much purchase here. I’m as trapped as before. If I want to get out of here, I need a ladder or something.

  On the other hand, the semicircle where the snow has melted and where the ground is bare has grown a little with each fire. So it’s not a claustrophobic space, and the part I have secretly both designated and utilized as the water closet is about ten yards from the cave.

  But if I’m going to leave, right now I would need help. Kyandros’ help, probably.

  He was my prisoner, and now I am his. To me, that balances out nicely. As far as I’m concerned, we’re even, and at any time we can part as friends, shake hands, and promise to friend each other on Facebook.

  To him, I suspect it’s not that simple. And the possibility that he prefers Instagram isn’t even the main problem.

  I sit down and continue working with the raptor skin. I now have a loincloth for the dragon and one and a half boots for me, as well as a remarkable coat that I now think I’ll just call a cape. It’s extremely long and crooked, and it reeks of raptor, but nobody on Xren is that style conscious, anyway. I’ll make a hat in the same style.

  My stomach starts rumbling, but there’s nothing I can do about it. It does appear as if Kyandros doesn’t need to eat anything, which seems pretty weird. I guess I’ll ask him if he ever returns. He may need it and not even know.

  I gaze out at the winter day. If he doesn’t return, for whatever reason, I may well be screwed. I will struggle mightily to get out of this hole. And it doesn’t look like the weather will change anytime soon. Not a cloud in the sky.

  An hour later both my boots, the cape and the hat are done. I line the boots with the rest of the dry grass from inside the cave, and it does help marginally. The cape won’t keep me warm, exactly. It’s more like a windbreaker than a coat, and the air is perfectly still. But I have to assume that it will keep me warmer than I would otherwise be. The hat turned out triangular and would be perfect on a French general from the 1810s, and it hangs down almost to my shoulders.

  There’s no sign of Kyandros, and I slowly have to assume that he’s not coming back.

  Using the knife, I try to hack little footholds into the ice, but the ice is extremely hard and it hurts my hand. I will only try this in an emergency, if Kyandros is definitely not coming back.

  I frown. So now I’m hoping the dragon will return?

  No. I can’t be that stupid. Or that helpless.

  Winding a strip of raptor skin around my hand, I grip the knife again and keep hacking.

  - - -

  “Removing the snow by hand?”

  His voice is right beside my ear.

  I yelp and drop the knife. “God damn. Do you have to sneak up on me like that?”

  He ignores me. “There’s a lot of snow to remove, if that is the way you want to do it. The day is still cold.”

  The knife nicked my finger, and I suck on the little cut. “You know you don’t have to return here, right? You’re not my captive anymore.”

  “Of course, I’m not. A dragon, the captive of a lesser? A female? The idea is laughable.”

  “Don’t remember you laughing when the wire was around your wrists.”

  He sends me a dangerous, yellow flash. “Are you absolutely certain you want to remind me of the indignities you put me through?”

  I take the loincloth, which is more like a kilt, and hold it up. “I made this for you. If you put it on, you don’t have to show everyone your bare ass at all times. Might spare you some indignities.” I toss it over to him.

  He lets it land on the ground without moving to catch it. “I am here because I want to ask you about something important.”

  I gather my new boots and the cape around me and sit down in the cave opening. “Really? Maybe you should start by asking me how you can keep me alive.”

  He frowns. “Are you dying?”

  “Yes. I am. I have no good water, no food, no source of heat. Can you ask me that important thing when I’m dead?”

  He strokes his chin. “It might prove challenging.”

  I shrug. “Up to you.”

  “I see. What do you use for food?”

  “Oh, you know. Turkeypig filets. Not-sheep cutlets. Spaghetti carbonara. Pizza. Pan seared salmon. Mac and cheese. Beef Wellington with roasted potatoes and madeira sauce. Coffee with cream. A decent chardonnay. All common village fare.”

  “And you can’t make those things?”

  “From what? I have nothing to make it out of!” Yeah, my blood sugar is low again.

  He looks around, puzzled. “You need… materials. For making food?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Can’t you go and get them?”

  I point to the ice wall. “I can’t climb that.”

  He points to the dwindling remains of the raptor. “How about that?”

  “That’s not food. That’s trash.”

  He stands there for a moment, clearly contemplating just murdering me and getting it over with. “Very well. I imagine these materials can be found in the woods.”

  “You better hope so. Because I’m not long for this world.” I sigh theatrically and sit down, half collapsing, my hand on my forehead.

  Kyandros walks up to me so fast I can’t react. He grabs me around my waist and tosses me over his shoulder, then easily walks up the ice wall and deposits me on the snow. “Where do you suggest we look for the materials?”

  - - -

  It’s a thing of wonder to see Kyandros hunt turkeypig. Granted, those creatures have probably never seen snow in their lives, so they’re pretty sluggish. He runs them down on foot and just grabs them as effortlessly as if he were turning the page of a book. And he runs fast. My eyes can’t quite follow him when he spots a prey animal and sprints for half a second before he grabs it, tearing it apart in an unnecessary spray of blood and fluids.

  He’s a death machine, taking obvious pleasure from the killing.

  After maybe twenty minutes we have a whole bunch of the turkeypigs, dangling from one of his clawed hands.

  “Now let’s get some firewood,” I state and point out some half-buried trees.

  The day is frighteningly cold. I can’t remember having been out in temperatures like this back on Earth. The snow creaks under my feet and feels like dry sand when I touch it. Our breath is like a gray cloud around our faces, and my ears go numb after a couple of minutes.

  I was hoping we’d find some not-sheep, too, because turkeypigs have just as much good fur on them as both their namesakes on Earth.

  I realize that any thought of trying to find Bune will have to wait until the weather gets warmer. Because being outside for more than an hour now would be suicide, whether I have my new cape on or not.

  For me, anyway. I can see that Kyandros finds it cold, too, but I don’t think this will kill him. Despite his nakedness.
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  The dragon casually pulls two trees out of the snow and calmly snaps their trunks in half. Well, they are tropical trees, and I doubt they were ever subjected to this kind of temperature. So they must have been made very brittle. Still, it’s an impressive display of his strength.

  I have brought the backpack. I fill the little canteen with snow, but that’s going to melt down to hardly any water at all. So I fill the entire backpack, too. I will have to eat the snow instead of thaw it, so I can only hope there aren’t too many bad amoebas in it.

  We walk back to the cave, and at my insistence, Kyandros carries me down the icy slope to the ground.

  I light a new tree from the embers of the old one, noting that we now have a pretty good store of both firewood and turkeypig. The latter I place in a bundle as close to the ice as possible to keep them frozen.

  Then I thaw up one of them and start cleaning it for cooking. Again I’m astounded at how little it bothers me to do something as distasteful as gutting an animal. This planet has hardened me, as we girls often talk about. And while I would prefer to be back on Earth with its microwaves and burger joints, the satisfaction of enjoying a meal I’ve made from scratch is hard to beat.

  Kyandros sits and watches me work. “You enjoy making things?”

  I cut some filets of the fresh meat and stick them on simple skewers I make from the firewood trees. “Sometimes. This is not about enjoyment, but necessity.”

  “You spend a portion of your life on making that food. Thus giving it value. Does it then matter what the food is made from?”

  “The value of the food is not in the making of it. It is in the food, itself. Preparing food just means that you make the good things in it available to your body.”

  “Surely, the effort and time it takes to prepare the food is the most important part?”

  I look up at him. “Why do you think that?”

  “It’s obvious. The craftsman makes a fine object. I take it and add it to my hoard, if it is made from fine materials. I thus own the time, skill, and effort that he expended as well as the metal it is made from. That strengthens me.”

  “But it must be made from fine materials? Something made from wood or iron wouldn’t be worth much?”

  “Things like that are not entirely without value. But it depends on what you have from before. My main hoard is very large. To me, a wooden object would not be even remotely enough for me to consider adding to it.”

  I turn the skewers, and my mouth is watering at the smell of the grilled turkeypig. “So it is much the same. The material matters, and the preparation, too. One without the other is not as good as both together.”

  “Only if it’s gold. Gold needs no preparation. It is always nourishing. When prepared it becomes more so, but not much more.”

  “I still don’t know what gold is. Maybe one day you can explain it to me.” I hope he’ll go for it.

  He doesn’t respond, but again I can sense him staring at the back of my neck.

  I scoop a handful of snow out of the backpack and suck on it. It has no flavor beside ‘freezing’, so that has to be good. As I recall, ten inches of fallen snow contains the same amount of water as one inch of fallen rain. Now, how would I convert that to backpackfuls and fistfuls? The units of measurement on Xren need work.

  I take one skewer off the fire and nibble on it. The sugars have been burned to a tasty crust on the outside. “Just like in the village. Needs a little spice, but I can handle it. Want some?” I reach the skewer over to Kyandros.

  He doesn’t even look at it. “Why are there females in your village but not in the others?”

  “Of course, some salt wouldn’t go amiss.” I think fast. What do I say to that? I don’t want him to know anything about Earth. “Females?”

  “You are a female, and if you deny it, I can easily prove it to you.”

  I pull the hem of my dress further down. “I’m not denying it. We don’t deal much with other tribes. I’m sure they must have women.”

  “They don’t. I’ve just been and checked. And your males look like slayers.”

  I pretend to chew happily on the meat, although I know this could take a bad turn. “They are. They slay Bigs every day. Well, almost.”

  “I think you know perfectly well that I mean dragon slayers.”

  I shrug. “You make no sense. Why would they slay dragons? Dragons come to rid us of the Bigs and turn the jungle into a harmless paradise. But it is said that dragons can be dangerous.”

  Kyandros lays back against the rocks around the cave opening. “Tell me about your tribe.”

  I keep eating, trying to look innocent. What would a cavewoman say about her own tribe? Keeping in mind that this guy has seen my village and the tribe? “It’s not the largest tribe. It has men from many other tribes in it. I think it might be the newest village on Xren.”

  “And yet nobody keeps in touch with the other tribes?”

  Shit. I have to tread carefully. He’s going to catch me lying at some point. “The men are not on good terms with their old tribes. Some of them are outcasts.”

  “They are on such bad terms with their old tribes that they don’t even mention there not being women?”

  “They don’t talk much about their old tribes at all. I don’t ask, either. We have other things to think about.”

  “Such as?”

  “Oh, everything. Hunting. Getting clean water. Protecting the village from the Bigs. Forging swords and tools. Clearing the jungle. Making pots. Cooking food. Building new houses. It’s a busy life.”

  “Where were you going yesterday?”

  I play for time by preparing another skewer and hanging it over the fire. “Just scouting.”

  “Two women and twenty men are necessary for scouting?”

  “Sometimes. We asked to come along because we were bored with just staying in the village. Scout trips are one of the few chances we have to see much of the jungle without great danger of being eaten. It gets boring in the village sometimes. And women can sometimes see and value things that the men might miss. Plants that we can eat, healing leaves, good clay for making pots, pretty stones, flowers that can make the cave and houses smell sweet. All kinds of things.”

  I’m pretty happy with my inventions here. It all sounds perfectly plausible to me, anyway.

  “There are hatchlings in your village,” the dragon says lazily.

  “Huh? Hatchlings? No, we keep the Bigs as far away as we can.”

  “I mean your young. Newly hatched humans. Small and noisy.”

  I frown. “Do you mean babies?”

  He sighs. “I neither know nor care about the technical term. I saw them. Carried by the adults.”

  “You were spying on us? Sure, we have babies. Some of the men and women are married.”

  I chew in silence for a while. The sun is setting, and the sky is still clear. I guess I’ll be spending another night in this cave.

  Kyandros stands up. “What separates your tribe from the others?”

  “The jungle.”

  “No. I mean, what makes your tribe special?”

  “I told you. Some of the men come from other tribes.”

  He chuckles. “You are good, Mia. Almost too good for your own welfare. But I can spot deceit from a hundred paces. And you are almost all deceit. As well as a virgin.”

  Ice is descending deep in my stomach. If he can know those things, then how will I hide anything from him?

  “How do you know I’m a virgin?”

  He comes up to me and appears to sniff me, like a predator checking if I’m food. “I am a dragon. Virgins have a special attraction to us. Surely, your shamans must have told you.”

  His closeness sends a shiver down my back, and not an unpleasant one. “They say dragons can be dangerous.”

  “They must be very skilled shamans.” His deep voice is like warm, spicy oil in my ear, and the sarcasm is obvious.

  Tingles erupt down below. I’m so much at his mercy it’s not e
ven funny.

  “Is it true?” I ask, and my voice is squeaky with nerves. “Dragons like to kill and destroy?”

  He pulls away again. “The word ‘like’ is not entirely adequate. Few things in the world give a pleasure like taking a life. Except for taking many. Their time is now mine. All they are, all they wanted to be, all the experiences they dreamed of – now mine. I took them. Their treasured possessions as well. Parts of my hoard. The ecstasy is indescribable.”

  I glance at him. He’s peering out of the hole again, and his voice doesn’t carry the passion I would have expected. It’s almost as if he’s trying to convince himself, not me. “Why haven’t you killed me?”

  He flashes me a yellow look. “I’m asking myself the same question. Especially since you’re keeping many things from me and it appears you can’t lead me to gold.”

  12

  - Kyandros -

  “I don’t know what gold is.”

  Mia’s voice is unsteady. It is appropriate, but it tells me nothing new. Most lessers are unsettled by dragons.

  I stare at the back of her head. Does she really not know? Is she not keeping things from me? Her tribe is different from the others, but that needs not mean much.

  Her presence muddles my mind with strange clouds of distraction. Even my great urge to build a hoard has been pushed from the forefront of my mind where it always resides and gives me all the purpose I need.

  Her virginal scent tickles my mind.

  She asked a good question. While I am still weak, it is obvious now that I could derive great pleasure from having my way with her and leaving her as a splash of vivid red in the white show.

  But not as great a pleasure as not doing that.

  It’s highly confusing.

  I squat down beside Mia and take her chin in one hand, turning her head to look at me.

  “Where is the gold in your village?” I bark.

  She gasps at the sudden change of tone. “I don’t know what gold is!”