The spirit walker looked like he was thinking of punching her, and he probably would have too, if Raxar had not guided her out of the temple, saying, "I am sure she will leave soon, right?"
"Yes, I would love nothing more than to get the fuck out of here. If you can help me find the others from 'the stars,' I will get right out of your hair."
"Our hair?" asked Raxar with puzzlement, touching his shaggy head of luxuriant hair.
"Take her to find her friends, and I will consult with the ancestors and the spirits of the skies. We will reach a decision as to how to deal with this star woman. Beware, though, as your fellow tribesmen are more suspicious and uncaring than you, Raxar. I fear that my teachings have distracted you from becoming the hardened warrior that you must be to survive. Do not let your cock guide your mind, no matter how perky and ripe this woman seems."
"Hey, fuck you, pal!" shouted Loraine right before she stormed away. "Can you believe the nerve of that old geezer? Are you serious about helping me find the other escape pods that landed near here? They're not going to be close, but I'm sure you have enough tracking skills to help me, right?"
9
-RAXAR-
Raxar borrowed some weapons from the spirit walker, who said he would never have a use for them himself but was glad that they might taste blood again. It was another hunting spear and knife made from black quaje stone, harder than a mountain. "Take your pick," he said to her.
"I'll take this one," she said as she took the spear. "I've had a lot of practice with staffs. Hey, this thing is weighted very nicely. I wouldn't have thought you guys would be the artisan type."
"We are hunters. Our tools and weapons are our livelihoods." Raxar was slightly insulted by the insulation that they would produce lacking spears and other tools, but he was already growing familiar with the star woman's sharp tongue.
They made their way out of the village. "You seem glad to be away from my fellow villagers," he said to her.
"Yeah, you can tell that right? Really keen observation, you have there."
"If you think so." He knew she was insulting him, saying the opposite of what she meant. Raxar was not stupid and not a savage, but he also could not think of any suitable way to demonstrate that to her. "Loraine is a pretty name." He watched her walk ahead of him, her nose in the air, shoulders squared back like a man, stalking along with purpose. He remembered how she had looked when he'd first seen her alone in the jungle. The golden sun had filtered down through the leafy canopy onto her perfectly red hair that traipsed down over her neck and shoulders; the light caught her skin and made the entirety of her being shimmer and glow as she moved.
They headed back to where Raxar had first found Loraine. She was hesitant to go back there. "What if that dino—that 'veerax' as you call it, is still hanging around the area?" she asked when they were near.
Raxar shook his head. "The way it was wounded, would you want to go back to meet the hunter who had done that to you? I would not. Come, your tracks lead back this way." He led her back into the dense green and brown, things crawling everywhere. It was like a welcome embrace to those of the Hungdar, the way the jungle seemed to surround and lift one up into another place.
The woman was not enjoying it. Loraine was quiet for some time. Finally, she began to speak, then stopped herself and waited, then spoke finally. "No, I guess it would have to be stupid to go back. Something tells me those animals are anything but stupid."
"Good. Never underestimate your prey."
She laughed. It was so strange how she would find humor in horrible situations, as though she were either so used to terrible things happening that they did not faze her, or she had developed a habit of laughing to make herself feel better. Then again, it might have been a sign of some kind of madness that the people of the stars suffered from. "I don't plan to hunt any of the monsters in your jungle. Don't worry, there's no chance of me underestimating them."
"You may have to go back on your words yet," Raxar replied. They had come to a thick ring of trees that were so close together, it resembled a wall. It was only possible to get through in one place, without climbing or cutting their trunks. "Loraine," he murmured to get her attention. "I believe you should recognize this area passageway through the trees?"
"What? How?" She looked around and thought about it for a bit. "Is this where the swamp starts?"
"Yes."
Loraine stared at him with dire interest, as though he had just performed some kind of trick. "You … how did you know that I came this way?"
Raxar didn't want to anger her again, so he just pointed down, without looking, at her behind. "You have swamp mud on you. Wait, I hear something." He beckoned her to follow and made his way toward the swap, club, and knife held tightly in each hand.
"That'd be right," she said, following after him through the line of trees with her spear in both hands.
"What the hell are those things?!" Loraine shouted.
"Shh!" Raxar hissed. The star woman hopefully would have thought better of being so loud, had she known how dangerous the gathering things were. There was a crowd of the strange lizard people who seemed to come from nowhere and always travel in groups. They were surrounding the metal thing, which he assumed was the sky boat that had brought Loraine and her friend down to his world.
Loraine crept up close to him, the warmth of her breath caressing his ear and making Raxar have to fight a shiver of pleasure. Close to him, she spoke almost without a sound. "What are they?"
"Judaks." Raxar wanted to spit just to get the foul taste of their name away from his lips. "One of them is weak. Many of them can be lethal, but they are not very smart."
"How many would be dangerous?"
Pointing his knife, which was held in his off-hand, Raxar made a slight sweeping motion. "This many."
"We have to help Julius before they get the pod door open," she said.
And some of the lizard men were focused on the door as the others ran about in the murky swamp's water, whooping and making their dreadful hissing sounds. If they were part of a larger population of their kin, they had to be stopped before they could call to others. "Are you ready to die for him?"
Without a moment's hesitation, Loraine nodded and said, "Yes, of course I am. He's my crewmate and my friend."
10
-LORAINE-
Raxar didn't seem impressed by the lizard people at all, let alone being afraid. However, they were still terrifying to Loraine. As far as their build went, they resembled humans, only with much smaller frames and quite thin limbs. Their hands ended in broad claws that would probably be helpful for climbing—and cutting up their prey. She wondered if they were carnivorous, but the idea of those things eating her sent a shudder all the way from the top to the bottom, of her spine and she quickly shut the thought out.
It was hard to imagine that these things being unintelligent. They seemed like the other aliens she had seen aboard the ship of her alien captors; humanoid, strange coloring and peculiar faces, different in many ways, but still so eerily human.
They had a brownish-green skin that was a lot like a lizard, it didn't seem thick like the dinosaur's had been. Loraine had also learned that it was called a veerax, and it wasn't at all a dinosaur.
The faces of the Jukons were flattened and concave, as though they were wearing masks over normal human faces. It was just too unreal to see them moving around, right there in the swamp of a vast jungle. Loraine was having a hard time reconciling the reality of the situation with her own disbelief and shock. So, she decided that these things really were lizard men. In appearance, that's just what they looked like. It would help her to stop trying to analyze them and work on figuring out how to get them away from Julius.
Loraine was holding onto her spear like it was some kind of lifeline. "This isn't going to end well," she said.
"How will you be victorious in a fight if you have that way of thinking?" Raxar asked in earnest.
"You really believe we can hel
p him, don't you?"
"Do you know of another option? We will kill these things. Don't let them close in on you, and be aware of flanking and trickery. They are not smart, but they are quick to take advantage of a mistake. Are you ready?"
"Yes. Okay. Let's kick some fucking ass!"
"Fuck? Ass? I like these words. Tell me what they mean later, if we are still alive."
And then Loraine thought she must have been going insane because she was laughing. At first, it was just a little chuckle, but as she moved forward behind the big caveman alien, she openly guffawed. "Hold tight, Julius!" she screamed out. That brought the attention of several Jukons. They moved around like lizards, only moving upright on two legs. Each one flittered from here to there, waving their arms around them as though they had to feel the air to find their way. Those black eyes that protruded from their heads might have worked in any number of ways. Maybe they were using their hands to gather some kind of sensory information, for all Loraine knew.
Raxar roared like a man possessed with the fury of imminent bloodshed and ran directly toward the escape pod. The Jukons around it began to scatter and swarm, similar to the way a school of small fish might move.
Loraine thought about throwing her spear, as a knee-jerk reaction. She wanted to help as soon as possible, but maybe the urge came from not wanting to approach the lizard men. Instead, she edged forward with her spear held before her, the jagged tip extended at double arm's length. She thought back to all of her staff training. You teach people how to avoid getting their butts kicked, every day. You can do this, she told herself.
Raxar rushed at the closest Judak with his club raised, but just as he was close enough to use the weapon, his other hand shot forward and stuck the black stone knife into its neck. The mighty caveman swiveled his upper torso as he yanked back the blade, twisting the blade and creating a gory incision that oozed a thick, dark blue or black colored blood. The Judak fell forward in the direction it had been running, toward Raxar and he booted it hard with his thick, bear foot. It was a display of absolute aggressive, which worked to instill instant fear in the other lizard men.
Loraine would have been lying to say she didn't find it stimulating to watch. Her heart began to gallop at a frantic pace, and she could practically see the surging adrenaline as her vision was blurred and focused onto a single point before her. The sensation had never come to her before. She started to run after Raxar, and toward one of the Judaks that was circling him.
"Die!" she screamed as she lunged forward and placed a technically perfect blow with the spear head, right into ribs of one of the assailants. The skin gave easily like it was only loosely attached. And her aim was not as perfect as her strike because the spear's tip stuck in the thing's ribs and she had lots of trouble pulling it out.
The lizard man warbled and grasped at the shaft of the spear with his clawed hands. They were apparently not agile enough for complicated maneuvers, and it could not get a good grip. Another of its friends came up beside it and saw the damage Loraine had done, then ran at her with claws raises, slashing at her.
She cried out and let go of the spear, stepping backward to avoid it. Her defensive moves were completely unmatched by the crude swipes, but another of the lizard men came after her too. Apparently, she'd made herself a more ideal target by running into the fight like that. Maybe she should have just let the caveman take the heat while she stayed at the edge of the fray and watched!
"No!" she shouted, turning on her heal and kicking out with her right leg at the closest lizard man. She caught it deftly in the chest, and its whole body went flying backward, much to her satisfaction. "I'm not being pushed around by a bunch of pygmy lizard men!" Wondering if that term was politically correct or not, Loraine launched her fist into the other reptile skinned creature and pounded right into one of its unblinking, black eyes. The feeling was sickening, the eye being squashed beneath her knuckles.
The lizard man hissed and started to make a high-pitched shrieking noise from the back of its throat, its unanimated mouth remaining just a half inch open and not moving much. It turned around and seemed to lose interest in Loraine just like that. These things clearly did not have much tolerance for pain or defeat. But it did make its way over to the escape pod that was planted in the muddy dirt of the raised area, in the center of the muck they were all ankle deep in. A few of its kind were hitting the pod, scratching at it, trying to get at what was inside. They seemed to know that the door was the best way in. Whether that was just instinct, or maybe some basic human-like intelligence, was hard to tell from just looking at them.
While this was happening, Raxar had clubbed several of the lizard men. Each time he made an impact with that solid piece of wood, the targeted part of its victim just crumbled inward, as though it had never been a solid mass in the first place. It was either testament to the true frailty of these creatures, or to how strong Raxar was; probably both of these things were true.
"Get away, foul things!" Raxar shouted at them as he whirl winded among their number like a whirlwind of raw fury.
Loraine took down the two Judak who were closing in on her, but several more were suddenly drawn to her. It was like they had identified her as a real threat, and were communicating with each other with their hissing sounds that she must be stopped. It was the very definition of teamwork. She looked around for her spear, and spotted it pointing up at the sky, the tip still inside the Judak she'd stuck it in. The Judak was dead on the ground now.
You idiot, Loraine, you would chew out one of your students for being so stupid and losing their only weapon like this! she told herself. The self-heckling helped to make her mad, just as two of the lizard men tackled her directly, each coming from a slightly different angle in front of her. "Fuck you!" she yelled in their faces as their claws dug in. Damn it, they stung but were not overly long, and didn't get into her flesh deeply. She looked past them as they took her down in a glopping splash of the swamp's water. More than worrying about what would happen to her now, Loraine was focused on the scene unfurling at the escape pod.
The door was open. Julius came out with his fists swinging, sparing not a second of thought for the extreme strangeness of what was happening. He planted his feet firmly in the watery muck and started to give the nearest lizard men hell, like a true warrior!
With the two spindly creatures on top of her, scratching and digging their stubby claws into her arms and shoulders as they forced her down into the mud—Loraine could barely draw a full breath to scream, "Raxar! Help Julius!" She had her fists up, elbows out, in a classic self-defense pose, and used her knees to keep the thing from getting a shot as her vital areas. When she saw an opening to do so, she punched or kicked out to deter them from trying to swipe at her. While the Judak were more cunning than they appeared, they were cowards when it came down to it. She had expected to be torn to pieces, but these two were already afraid of her enough to be cautious. "Raxar!" she called again.
Fighting like a machine, or a pissed off bull perhaps, Raxar was too caught up in his own flurry of conflict to hear her, almost. Luckily, he had keen hearing and turned to look over at the escape pod. He'd been circled around a pair of the Judaks as they neared him, and with lightning speed, jabbed one in the face with the top of his club. It screeched and went to the ground while the other jumped back to avoid its own demise.
Raxar took that opportunity to glance at Loraine, but she actually wished that he'd just gone straight to help Julius instead. The second the caveman saw that she was down, he ran to help her instead of Julian.
"No!" she cried out to him. "Not me!"
She summoned a burst of adrenaline and gouged her thumb into one bugling, disc-like eye. That lizard man hissed and fell away, landing on its boney ass in the swamp water. Loraine managed to get the other one off her enough to scuttle backward and start getting back onto her feet. The second Judak tried to grapple with her again, ready to push her back to the muck. Loraine drew a sharp breath, grabbed both si
des of its head between her palms, and—releasing a harsh scream—wrenched her entire body to the left, twisting its neck hard until there was an audible snapping sound.
Raxar approached, running at full pace, but there was nothing left to save Loraine from. "Help Julius!" she yelled at him, furious with the stupid brute for abandoning her friend to help her, and for what? Some stone age sense of misguided chivalry?
She took off just behind him and made it over to the pod just in time to witness Julius caving in the head of the last remaining Judak. Well, the last of those that had not run away in terror. A handful of them ran hissing through the thick wall of trees and foliage, many of them limping from their injuries as they went.
"Julius!" Loraine called to him as her dear friend slumped against the outside of the escape pod. He was alive, but in no better state than he had been the last time she'd seen him. "I told you to stay in the escape pod, you big dumb ass." She ran to him and tried to take some of his weight by lifting him under his shoulder. It was pointless.
He laughed and coughed up some blood. "Loraine, you are more beautiful than ever. This jungle is doing wonders for your complexion. And no one could ever look as badass with their ass out."
"Shut up," she said with a smile, which then turned into the most bitter of tearful sobs. "Don't be nice to me, I let them get to you."
Julius slid himself along the outside of the pod and a little inside the doorway. "Help me take a seat, will you?"
Loraine wiped away a tear quickly, as though no one would notice her crying, then made a token effort of helping Julius onto the cushy seats within. He managed to slide himself over and said, "Will you take a seat with me for a minute?"
Loraine took a breath and told herself, You're not going to cry. This is where you have to be strong. She ducked into the pod and sat down right beside Julius. His body should have been hot after all that movement, but he was cold to the touch. But there were hardly any signs of injury. It had to be internal, and all this excitement and movement would have made it even worse. She didn't have the slightest idea how to help him.
Savage Planet Caveman Page 4