by Jackie Boxx
SOLD TO THE NEANDERTHAL!
By
Jackie Boxx
© 2016 by Jackie Boxx. Not recommended for readers under 18.
Three Sun warriors were waiting for Lana’s party once they reached the place where the grassy southern plains ended and the darkly forested lands of the interior began. Lana felt a tingle of excitement as she saw the dark, hulking forms among the trees; she had heard about the Sun people for as long as she could remember, but until now had never encountered one in the flesh. She ran lightly ahead of the others, eager for a better look.
Merron moved quickly to catch up with her, seizing her by the wrist and pulling her sharply back. “Don’t be foolish,” he growled. “These are not True People; they are little better than animals. Your task will be upon you soon enough. Why run to them like a rutting she-cat?”
Lana bristled with resentment. Had any other man of her tribe said such a thing to her, she would have slapped his face. But her feelings about the handsome young warrior had always been mixed. Merron had recently been proclaimed chieftain of the Black Tiger tribe. Any attention from him at all was an honor. Then too, he had made several remarks on their journey hinting that should Lana survive her mission, he might be willing to make her his woman. Any of the tribe’s young women would have killed to be chosen for this task, purely for the slender chance of catching Merron’s eye.
But then, none of those girls had been chosen. Lana had. She was uncommonly sleek and strong, a faster runner than any of the other Black Tiger maidens and certainly a better fighter. She was also more beautiful; long-legged with tousled dark gold hair and sun-bronzed skin accented with tribal tattoos and scarrings.
She was also proud; many times she had said she would prefer to live out her life in the women’s tents rather than accept a man who did not respect her. She had let Merron and the tribal elders know that she had agreed to help with their plan purely as a service to the True People; she did not care whether or not it ended with either glory or a place in a warrior’s tent.
But despite her fine words, Lana’s had to admit the young chieftain stirred feelings in her that were hard to ignore. Merron was strong and brave and was also showing himself to be a fine strategist; he was the one who had suggested the plan to begin with. Without question, he would be remembered one day in the tribal songs as a great leader. Moreover, he was handsome, with the dark, brooding good looks Lana had always favored. When he had seized hold of her wrist—as a man would restrain his woman—his touch had seemed to burn her skin, kindling a fire that reached deep into her center. Lana had to admit that if she would submit to any man, it would be Merron.
So she held her tongue while the Black Tiger men stretched their limbs and drank from their water skins, chatting idly amongst themselves, all the while keeping a watchful eye on the Sun warriors. Lana bit her lip in frustration; the Sun people themselves stood patiently by, not making a move towards the newcomers. Was the entire day to be passed in ignoring each other?
Finally, to her relief, one of the Sun folk moved towards them. As he drew closer, Lana was somewhat disappointed to note that what she had thought a shaggy coat of black fur was simply a bearskin, hanging around the man’s broad shoulders. Under it, he was husky and strong-looking; much shorter and broader of build than the True People, with beetling brows and a great fierce-looking nose. Yet he did not have a wolf’s head, as some of the old stories suggested, or claws like a spear-cat. Whatever his ugliness, the Sun man did not seem particularly alien.
The man stopped several paces from Merron, having apparently singled him out as the leader. He leaned on the great wooden spear he carried, and nodded to him.
“Hrok,” he said, introducing himself in a voice much softer than Lana had expected.
“Merron,” the young chieftain said coldly. “My people greet yours.” He used a kind of pidgin of Sun people’s tongue and that of the Black Tiger folk, a clumsy half-language that served for any negotiations necessary when the two races met peacefully.
Hrok nodded. His hooded eyes—sleepy-looking yet bright with intelligence—flickered over Lana for the briefest instant. An odd chill surged along her back; there was nothing disrespectful in the Sun man’s glance—she had received far more insolent looks from her own people—but there was an interest there as well that reminded her of her mission. It made her imagine—though only for a moment—what it would be like to have this strange being take her in his burly arms. Lana shuddered; she was twenty years old and did not yet know what it was to lie with a man, let alone a Sun warrior. Yet the entire point of her journey, in a way, was to surrender herself to a Sun man’s lust.
“This is the woman,” Merron said, gesturing casually at Lana. “She is strong. Good. Likes Sun people.” To Lana’s shock, the chieftain made an unmistakably lurid gesture, indicating that Lana would be particularly desirable for mating purposes. The other Black Tiger warriors frowned in disapproval, but though Lana was initially angry, she also felt a peculiar surge of excitement to hear herself so described. The Black Tiger tribe did not keep slaves, but other tribes did, and she had sometimes wondered what it would be like to wear a collar and chains on her hands.
Was that what she was to be to a Sun warrior’s woman? A slave? The thought made her almost panic for a moment, but it was panic tinged with the same delicious, almost painful pleasure that imagining herself being taken by the Sun man.
The Sun man, for his part, only nodded, seemingly neither offended nor impressed by Merron’s sign. He turned and made a short, chopping gesture. The other two Sun folk moved forward. Lana saw that they were carrying bundles of furs and strings of dried fish.
Merron’s men went to meet the pair and accept the goods. Lana wondered that the Sun men would think a few furs and fish would suffice as payment for a woman like herself. Were the creatures really so stupid? They stood blinking placidly while Jerl and Olm bundled the goods into their walking packs.
“Good,” Merron said, waving first at the packs, and then at Lana. Then he turned and walked briskly off, without a glance backward. This was meant to let the Sun men know the deal had been concluded. Lana watched as her people shouldered their packs and walked in the direction they’d come. None gave her so much as a backward glance.
She knew what she had to do, and was not afraid—either of her duty or the Sun warriors. Yet she had never felt so alone in her life as she did that moment. The two Sun warriors turned and loped off into the trees. Hefting his spear over his shoulder, Hrok gave her a nod and followed them.
They aren’t afraid I’ll run away, she thought, starting after them. Either they really are fools or they think I’m a fool. Perhaps Sun women were so timid and submissive that they would not think to try and escape. Biting her lip, she moved off after her new owners.
Walking in the forest was more difficult than on the plains. Lana’s soles were tough from a life of running on the grasslands, but they were unused to what they met here. There was no trail, and the ground was uneven, knotty with half-buried tree roots and stones that soon left her bare feet bruised and bleeding. Lana forced herself to keep pace with her captors out of sheer pride, but finally she stumbled, crying out in pain and frustration.
The men stopped walking, glancing back at her. None of them laughed or jeered at her. They only watched her with their placid, hooded eyes while Hrok helped her to her feet.
“You’re hurt,” he said, motioning at her feet.
“No,” Lana said stubbornly, even though at that moment she would have killed for a cool spring to bathe her feet in. She was determined not to show weakness before her people’s ancient enemy.
Hrok ignored her. He nodded briefly over his shoulder and one of the others broug
ht a handful of scraps of rabbit skin. Lana was startled when Hrok sank to the ground before her, crossing his legs like a grandmother mending skins in her tent. He took her ankle in his large, rough hand, tightening his grip when she tried to pull away.
One of the other Sun men made a grunting comment, prompting a laugh from his friend. Lana glared at them, though their laughter had been mild enough.
“They say you are like a child,” Hrok told her, smiling with his broad, ugly face. “A…what is it? Stubborn child.”
Something suddenly occurred to Lana. “You speak my language,” she said. She had been taught that even the pidgin trading speech was a challenge for the Sun folk. But Hrok was speaking the language of the True People as smoothly and fluently as she did herself.
The Sun man shrugged, as though there was nothing particularly remarkable about his speech. He wrapped Lana’s feet up with quick, gentle movements of his hands, knotting them fast at her ankles, giving each a quick, satisfied slap before rising to his feet again.
“You should have told me your feet were so soft,” Hrok said. “Walking this way, it’s no good. You will slow us. If we need to move quickly, it will be bad.”
With that, the three set off again, leaving Lana standing and wondering.
***
As the day went on, the forest grew thicker around them. The trees here had vast, vine-covered trunks, the ground hidden by undergrowth. Foliage overhead hid the sky; there was a constant noise all around of chittering insects, punctuated with the occasional shrill cry of a hunting lizard-bird. Hrok finally called a halt and Lana sank gratefully to the ground. She could not remember ever being so tired. She accepted a water-skin from Hrok and guzzled greedily from it, then sat back and let the relief of simply not moving wash over her. Her new owners sat silently together, drinking water and occasionally exchanging short muttered comments.
The waterskins got Lana thinking. This might be an opportunity to fulfil her task early. Sewn into her garment was a small leather pouch, filled with dried berries. Merron had gathered these himself on a journey undertaken the previous summer, not trusting the task to the tribe’s women. Eaten fresh, the berries had a foul taste and would cause awful stomach pains. But when dried, certain toxins in the fruit were intensified in potency. A dried berry of this kind, when swallowed, would bring almost instant death.
That was the burden of Lana’s task: to kill as many Sun people as she could.
The idea had not pleased her at first, when Merron and the tribal elders had explained it to her. She had no particular love for the Sun folk, but using the berries seemed cowardly to her; the weakest-hearted woman of the Black Tiger people would disdain to use poison for a kill, even when facing a much larger and stronger opponent.
“Why do we not just go to war with them?” Lana had asked that evening around the campfire. “The way we did against the Red Wolf nation or the White Bear people? We beat them easily. The Sun folk surely couldn’t stand against us.”
“There are too many of them,” Merron had explained. “We see little of the Sun folk on the grasslands, but in the interior they swarm like insects in a rotten log. They are stupid like beasts, but they have an evil cunning in them, like a rat. But if we are able to slay a few with poison, it will make them fear us and think we have a great magic. Once word spreads among them, they will run when they see one of the True People, of whatever tribe.”
Merron had talked on and on, and eventually he had convinced Lana that the plan was worthwhile. Talks had already begun with a contingent of Sun people to the north, Merron explained. They had agreed to take one of the Black Tiger women in exchange for an offering of goods. Lana knew that if she refused, another girl would be chosen in her place. And she found herself liking the way Merron fixed his great dark eyes on her.
So she had finally agreed to the task. Go with the Sun people and act like a simpering harlot. Keep them stupid with the pleasures of her body. Then, whenever she could, offer them the berries to eat, or simply slip a few into their water. That was all that was required of her.
Now her enemies were taking their ease, guzzling water like plains cattle at a water hole. Getting a few of the poison berries into their water should be easy.
Yet…were they truly her enemies? Lana had embarked on her journey expecting foul behavior from the Sun people…and so far she had been treated with nothing but courtesy. Hrok had not touched her except to wrap her feet. She glanced down morosely at the makeshift footwear. Had it not been for this small kindness, she could well be unable to walk at all now…something Merron the great strategist had failed to consider.
Still, she told herself coldly…however kind they might seem, these were not True People. They were Sun folk, hairy and ill-favored. Perhaps they really were made of pieces of human and animal left over after the Gods had finished creating the world, as the stories said. Why should she be concerned about wronging such creatures?
Her mind was made up—at least, she told herself it was. She picked one of the Sun folk at random and fixed a gaze on him, the hot smiling gaze of a seductress. He smiled back—a broad smile, but one that seemed more amused than lustful. Lana stood and moved towards him, still wincing slightly at the hard ground under her wounded feet.
“Who will have me?” she asked. “You paid my leader’s price, now claim your prize.” She touched her breasts with the teasing, feather-light touch maidens used on one another during long winter nights, when they speculated on what it would be like to lie with a man. She was a little surprised at how readily her nipples stiffened.
Perhaps playing the harlot suits me, she thought, turning to the third Sun man. He gave her an odd look; at first he seemed genuinely surprised, then gradually his face broke into a lopsided grin and he laughed, rocking back on his heels and slapping his thighs. As Lana stared at him in confusion, his companion snorted and pointed at Hrok, who sat watching with a wide grin.
Lana was confused and embarrassed by this reception. Was she being told that Hrok, as the leader, was to take her first? It made sense, but why were they laughing at her? When she stepped towards Hrok, pouting, his grin turned into a laugh and he held up his hands, palms out, to ward her off, as though she had offered him some rich delicacy at a feast when he was already full.
Even though Lana had never chased after a man, she had never before felt spurned. The warriors of her tribe watched her with hungry eyes when she passed them, making lewd remarks she could just hear. She disdained them, but she she took their attentions as her due. To be dismissed with laughter by the likes of a Sun man was humiliating; it made her cheeks burn with anger.
As she limped off through the trees, Hrok called after her. “Hey! Don’t go far. It’s night soon, no time to play games.”
He spoke to her not contritely but in the same way one would caution a child. They weren’t even following her. Still more angry, Lana stroke on through the trees, ignoring the pain in her feet as she hurried along. She wasn’t sure whether what she was doing qualified as an escape attempt, and she found she didn’t much care either way.
It didn’t take Lana long to realize she had no idea where she was, or how to get back to the Sun men—or out of the forest, for that matter. She stooped and listened carefully, but there was no sound of whooping laughter among the trees, no buzz of muted conversation—no sounds of human presence at all. And the buzz of forest life had died down as well. She might as well have been buried under the earth.
She found a small pool of water eventually. At least she would have the chance to soak her hurting feet. She could decide later whether she wanted to go back and have a try at poisoning Hrok and his idiot friends.
As she wincingly unwrapped her feet and eased them into the blissfully cold water, the forest’s silence began to feel more oppressive than pleasant. As a child of the grasslands, Lana was used to constant silence, but this was almost too much. The finely-tuned instincts that had many times saved her life were now warning her that danger was near.
Reluctantly, she removed her feet from the water and reached for a heavy stick lying nearby. By now the back of her neck was prickling and she thought she could hear something…an occasional rustle in the underbrush, the slow movement of a heavy body being pulled stealthily along.
Something was stalking her. And she knew it would only be a matter of time before it struck.
She shared the tensing of the predator’s muscles as it gathered itself, then sprung. Lana rolled to the left, then scrambled to her feet, lashing out with her stick. The wood struck its target, but it was rotted and soft, and shattered against the firm roundness of the thing’s skull. Still, it startled the predator enough to give Lana a moment to run.
Lana knew what it was that had stalked her; she had caught a glimpse of it as she brought the stick down: a long, tawny body with a stiff, heavy mane along the shoulders. Golden eyes and teeth like two knives jutting downward from its upper jaws. A daggertooth.
Normally the great cats kept to the grasslands, where they could feed on aurochs. They were greatly feared by Lana’s people, and revered as well; a cousin of the cat that had stalked her had given her tribe its name. Perhaps the hot summer had forced this one into the forest to try the game there. Whatever the explanation, it was bad news for Lana.
Had Lana, like many of the girls she’d grown up with spent most of her life in the women’s tents, she would certainly be dead by now. And now, at least, she had some idea of how to maneuver through the forest; she vaulted over roots and high stones and was able to try and keep the huge trees between herself and the furious daggertooth. But she was still exhausted and only by utterly ignoring the pain in her torn, aching feet could she keep up her pace.
At last her weary body gave out; she cried at a white-hot bolt of pain as she twisted her ankle, and went down hard into the underbrush. The daggertooth thundered after her, snarling, pulling up short only a few paces away so it could crouch down, preparing to leap.