by Ruby Dixon
But talking aloud helps me think, and I start stripping off the many layers of leathers I’ve got over my clothing. Each layer itself is too light to be useful, but maybe if I stick something heavy in the center—say, a rock—and then wrap it in heavier, wet leathers, the weight from those might stop it from shooting right back out. If I can make the ball of leather big enough that it’ll expand when it dries…well, I actually have no idea if leather expands when it dries. But my hair fluffs when it dries, and my outer leathers are covered in a layer of furs, so it stands to reason that it’ll do a little bit of puffing up, at least.
Then, maybe I can use Warrek’s spear to jam the damn thing in long enough to cause it to backfire. If this is anything like my hairdryer at home—and gosh, it sure feels like it—blocking the exhaust will either cause things to shut off or something to catch on fire.
Either should bring someone out.
I have to be sure that our pit traps are ready at that point, though. It’ll do us no good if we try to pull someone out and we don’t have any place to trap them.
I get to work making my leather ball o’ doom.
Finding a rock the size of a basketball isn’t too hard. Finding one I can lift quickly means I have to size down to about a cantaloupe, though. I tear one of my layers of leathers into strips and begin tying the other layers over them. “Think of it like a big rubber-band ball,” I tell myself. “With fur. And leather. And you’re going to somehow get this magically wet.”
I shiver at the thought of that, because it’s bitterly cold out here. Without my insulating layers of furs, my teeth are starting to chatter and my skin is pricking at the chill in the night air. If this is anything like the Antarctic, it’s probably a jillion degrees below zero at the moment. I don’t know how much my cootie can handle, and my fingers are going numb, but I can’t dwell on that now. What’s a little frostbite compared to slavery?
I run out of leather and do a quick eye-balling of things. Nope, I need more. I find Warrek—who’s digging a new pit in the distance—and am a little fascinated to see that he’s stripped down to nothing but a loincloth to work. His skin is all shiny with sweat, and his long, silky hair is sticking to his back. Oh wow. That’s…I give my head a little shake. “No distractions, Summer.”
“Eh?” Warrek pauses, straightening and glancing over at me.
“Nothing! I just need your leathers. And your spear. But you’re not using them, I see. Are you almost done? Because I don’t know how long this will stay blocked, so we’ll need to assume we have to hustle once I finish putting my pipe bomb together. Okay, it’s not really a pipe bomb. It’s a big wad of leather that’s gonna go in a pipe, but hopefully it works like a bomb. Or really, I’d settle for it working like a plug. That would be fine with me—”
“Take my leathers,” he says. “Give me…” He tilts his head and glances up at the sky, pointing. “Until the small moon crosses in front of the big moon. Then I will be done covering this pit. The other is already covered. Walk along the cliff,” he says, pointing in the distance. “Do not come back this way or you risk falling in yourself.”
I want to tell him that there’s no chance of that, but…I am a klutz. There’s every chance of that. I gather up his furs, snatch his waterskin and spear, and trot back to my workstation.
A short time later, my ball is done. Wetting it down turned out to be the easiest part, actually. All I had to do was load up the waterskin with snow, hold it close to the exhaust, and then pour the melted snow on top of the leathers. It’s now damp—and rapidly freezing over—and heavy. I glance up at the moons—the little one’s in front of the big one, and just about to exit.
Time to get this show on the road.
“Don’t be nervous,” I whisper to myself. “You’re going to save everyone and be a big damn hero. That’ll take care of any nervousness. You can throw up later. Right now, a big pool of vomit just means something else to slip in.” I heft my heavy, slick weight into my arms. Holding it is a bit like torture because it’s cold, wet, and getting my clothing damp, which means they’re also immediately icing up in the chill. I glance around for Warrek, but I don’t see him. Gotta do this myself.
I hold the ball out and try edging forward, but my hands start to burn. I pause to re-wet the ball, put my mittens on, and decide that the best tactic is to just rush forward and do things as fast as possible. The slower I go, the longer that super-heated air blasts on my skin.
“Count of three,” I tell myself. “One. Two… Three.” I rush forward, imagining myself making a basket in a basketball game. Be strong. Be fast. Be assertive. I ignore the blast of hot air and aim for the pipe. My plug goes in—and then doesn’t go in very far. The air is powerfully strong and pushing against it hard. I jam at it with my fists, but the ball’s getting too hot to touch. Fuck.
“The spear,” I yelp to myself, and then wince when my voice seems far too loud without the roar of the exhaust. I don’t have much time. I practically tackle the thing and then rush back, using the butt of the spear to shove the plug in farther with a few more jabs.
“Suh-mer?”
“Help me jam this in there,” I pant at him. “Are you ready to go?”
“More than ready. We should leave the area.” He moves to my side. “Now we go and wait—”
“First give this one good shove for me, okay?” I jam the spear butt against the rock-leather-ball thing again.
He gives it a few jabs, grunting, and then takes my hand. “We cannot stay.”
“Right. Going.”
To my surprise, he doesn’t let go of my hand as we race away. We head a short distance away from the ship and huddle behind a pile of big rocks. I’m surprised we aren’t heading back to the fruit cave, but I guess we want to wait and see if our traps spring any immediate results. Makes sense. I shiver, wrapping my arms around myself. Jesus, it’s cold.
“Wait here,” he murmurs, and gets up from our hiding spot.
I want to protest, until I see what he’s doing. He grabs a fallen branch from a short distance away and uses it to sweep away our tracks in the snow, leaving only the ones that lead to the pit trap. Smart. He finishes and slowly continues to cover his trail, moving backward, his tail flicking back and forth high in the air as he walks his way back to me. Once he’s behind the rocks again, he settles in next to me and then frowns.
“What?”
Warrek leans in and touches my face.
I jerk back, surprised. His fingers feel warm—and they also hurt. “Wh-what are you doing?”
“Your face is bright red,” he murmurs. “And your eyebrows are gone.”
“What?” I touch my face in horror. Sure enough, there’s nothing but smooth skin where my eyebrows used to be. My eyelashes are gone, too. I can smell the singed hair now, and it hurts to touch my face. I pull my mittens off and my hands are bright red and tender, even through the leather. Oh god. “I…I was so focused on trying to push it in…I knew it was hot, but I didn’t think…”
“You did what you felt you must,” Warrek says softly. “It was very brave.”
“I probably look awful,” I whisper, grabbing a handful of snow and holding it to my cheeks.
“You look very brave.”
I snort. “That’s polite-speak for awful. You can tell me the truth, Warrek. Now’s not the time to sugar-coat anything. Though I guess here it’d be snow-coat, since there’s no sugar. Or if there is, you guys have been holding out on us. Not that I think you would, of course, but if it were me, and a bunch of strangers started to live in my city, I’d probably hide my valuables, too—”
“Your face is very appealing,” he says in that low, calm voice. “Eyebrows do not change that. They only tell me that you are brave to risk yourself.”
I feel that heat creeping through my body all over again at his words. Is he flattering me or just being nice? I study him, tongue-tied for a change, as he pulls his bag out and digs around in it. He pulls out a small little horn with a bit of l
eather tied on one end, and pulls off the leather. I realize it’s a cap and there’s a paste of some kind inside. “This will help your burns,” he murmurs, taking my hand in his and beginning to rub the stinky lotion on the back. “Whatever this does not help, the khui will do the rest. You will be as lovely as ever in a few days, Suh-mer.”
That definitely sounds like flattery to me. I practically squirm with pleasure at his words. It’s totally inappropriate to be crushing on someone right now when others are in mortal danger. But as his fingers smooth the lotion over my hands, I start getting all jittery and flustered, and it feels like he’s practically caressing some parts of my body that are a lot less safe than hands.
Or maybe that’s just my hyperactive imagination.
I’m a little sad when he finishes covering my hands in the thin layer of goop. I want him to keep touching me. Of course, then he makes my heart flutter by digging a bit more of the lotion out of the horn container and gesturing at me. “Lean in.”
Oh. Oh. He’s going to touch my face. I don’t know if my horny, inappropriate loins are going to be able to stand that. I should tell him no.
Instead, I practically shove my face forward so he can touch it.
Then I remember he’s smearing some healing gunk on it and it’s probably not a sexy look. This is not how dudes flirt to get women, Summer, I remind myself. Plus, you have zero eyebrows. Zero. I sigh at the thought.
“Hurts?” he asks in a low voice that makes my belly tingle.
“Just thinking,” I whisper, all breathless.
His warm chuckle surprises me. “When are you not?” he asks.
I bite my lip as his fingers move over my forehead, smoothing the cool lotion on them. I’m still shivering with cold, but I can ignore that for now, considering that he’s touching me—and he’s sitting in a loincloth himself. It’s not like we’ve got extra furs at the moment. They’re all stuffed into the tailpipe, hopefully causing chaos. “I…I’m sorry if I tend to think out loud. I appreciate you being nice to me about it. I know it can be exhausting for people. It just helps me process to hear things aloud instead of in my head. Plus, I get nervous and start rattling off. I don’t like long, quiet pauses. Um, like right now. I’m yapping because I don’t like silence. Sorry. I’ll shut up now.”
But all he does is chuckle again and then begins to trace his fingers over my aching, too-warm cheeks. “Why be quiet?”
“Um, to give you a chance to speak? You’re not exactly Mister Chattypants. And then because you’re not talking, I feel the need to talk even more to try and find a subject to make you talk to me.”
“Ah.” He dabs at the lotion pot again and then smooths more on my other cheek. “I do not interrupt because I enjoy your conversation.”
I’m shocked to hear this. “You do?”
He nods.
“You don’t find it irritating?”
He shakes his head. “I am too quiet, I know. It has long been a habit of mine. But if it bothers you, I shall speak more.”
“It’s not that it bothers me, it’s that I worry you don’t like me.”
Warrek pauses, wipes his hand on a small piece of leather, and then studies my face, head slightly tilted. He reaches for me again, and I close my eyes, obediently waiting for more lotion.
I’m surprised when his fingertips lightly brush over my lips, tickling me. “I like you,” he says in a low, husky voice.
Oh mercy. Did I think my body was reacting before? I feel like everything inside of me just gave one giant, needy shiver.
Or maybe that’s the frostbite.
I open my eyes and gaze up at him. He’s not leaning too close to me, but his eyes are soft, his attention focused on me. His fingertips trace the curve of my mouth, and then he lightly continues along my jaw, tracing my skin as if learning me. It’s the most erotic thing that’s ever happened to me in my (admittedly sheltered) twenty-two years.
“Halloooo,” a voice calls in the distance.
I gasp, my eyes going wide at the same time that Warrek stiffens.
4
WARREK
The voice calling out is unfamiliar. I would recognize the sound of any of my tribesmates calling out in the space of a heartbeat…and this is not one of them. The inflection is strange.
Suh-mer grabs at my arm. “Who is that?”
“Enemy,” I whisper, putting a finger to her lips to silence her. “He speaks the human language to trick us, I think.”
She nods, eyes wide. Her fingers feel cold against my skin, and I realize that she is shivering. The nights are bitter for humans without coverings, and she has given hers up. I have nothing to offer except my loincloth, but it will do nothing to keep her warm. She needs to get back to the cave.
But how can I leave with her when we have just now lured one of the enemy out?
I hear a loud thump in the distance, and then something that sounds like Leezh when she is in a bad mood. Cursing always sounds the same, no matter the language. I peer over the rocks that shield us, and Suh-mer is at my side.
At the back of the ship, where Suh-mer put her strange leather ball, an orange stranger stands there, one of the light-spears in his hand. It is pointed at the sky as he glares down at a smoking mound. Suh-mer’s leather plug. Her idea worked to bring someone out of the ship, and I am impressed even more by her clever mind. She touches my shoulder as the stranger moves. He sees the tracks in the snow. I watch, holding my breath, as he follows the tracks ever closer to our pit trap.
When the stranger lifts one arm and speaks into his wrist, I am confused.
“He’s got a communicator on,” Suh-mer says. “He’s talking to someone back in the ship.”
I grunt acknowledgment of her words, but I am worried. This brings a new angle to things. What if he falls into the pit and then tells the others not to come out to rescue him? It will be a problem. We need to remove it…or make sure that he is silent.
“If we can silence him,” Suh-mer whispers, “Maybe the others will come out looking for him. We can pick them off one by one. But we’ve got to get him off that wrist-com.”
Our minds are thinking alike. I nod. “Wait here.”
I get up from our hiding spot and begin to creep along in the shadows. I pull my bone knife out and check to make sure that Suh-mer is staying safe behind the rocks. She is not behind me. Good. I will treat this like any other hunt, then. Even if the prey is down, that does not mean it is not dangerous. It only means I have the advantage. I must get his light-spear away from him and get the communicator off his wrist. This is just like any other hunting trip, I decide. The prey is just trickier. But I have never met a beast I cannot fell, and with Suh-mer waiting and hoping, with all of the others depending on me, I will not fail now.
I creep forward, placing each foot silently, slowly, in the snow. Speed is not the key here, but stealth. My prey is oblivious to my presence, his head down as he continues to follow the tracks left for him.
Then his arms fly up into the air. He disappears. A wet crunch and a thud echo in the valley.
Now is the time for me to act. I fly through the snow, covering the ground between us, racing forward. I must catch this enemy before he can think to act. There is no time.
I come across the pit and catch a glimpse of the stranger rolling around in the bottom. He clutches at his leg as if wounded. His light-spear is cast to the side.
Luck is with me.
I leap down into the pit and quickly toss the light-spear back out, onto the snow. I did not have time to make the pit as deep as I would have liked, and this stranger is almost as tall as me. He struggles to get to his feet, and I grab at the thick band on his shoulder and fling it out of the pit.
He growls at me and raises a hand, trying to strike me. He is strong, but I am, too, and I am used to dealing with wild animals and hunting game. He is no match for my skill.
I grapple with him for a moment and then manage to flip him onto his back. Even as he squirms, I pin an arm behin
d him, and then the other, and tie him like I would a dvisti carcass, limbs in the air.
“Warrek?” I hear Suh-mer’s gasping voice overhead. “Are you okay?”
I look up, as I finish tying up my prisoner, to see Suh-mer with the light-spear in her hands. Her hair whips around her face in the cold night air, and she looks fierce—and scared—as she points the weapon at us. “I have him,” I tell her.
She makes a sound of relief and then gives me a worried look. “What do we do with him now?”
The prisoner growls low, thrashing underneath me.
For a moment, I do not know what we should do with him. I cannot let him go, but I also cannot cut his throat like an animal. He is a person. I do not know what to think. My people do not attack others of our kind. Even though this one is a stranger, it feels wrong to take him out like a sick dvisti. “I…am not sure.”
“Should we interrogate him?” she asks. “Bring him back to the cave and find out what he knows?”
Suh-mer’s quick mind has saved me once more. She is wise. I nod and begin to tie a strip around the prisoner’s eyes. “We will make sure he does not know where we are going.”
SUMMER
I have to admit I’m constantly surprised by mild-seeming, quiet Warrek.
Not only was he an absolute beast when it came to subduing our captive, but he hauls him out of the pit and carries him over his shoulder in the snow as if he weighs nothing. It’s a long walk back to the fruit cave, and by the time we manage to get inside, I’m exhausted. I can’t imagine how Warrek feels, but instead of collapsing with fatigue, he sets the prisoner down, ties his feet, and then comes to my side. With one hand, he pushes me down onto a rock. “Sit. Give me your hands.”
I blink at him in surprise, and when I don’t immediately offer him my hands, he takes one in his and rubs it, warming it and examining my fingertips.
“The cold has bitten at them,” he tells me with that quiet, even tone of his. “But your khui will be able to fix the damage, given a few days.” He carefully folds my fingers to my palm, making a fist. “You must tell me if you are in pain, Suh-mer.”