Page 67 of Caveman Alien's Heat
The basket has a compact weight to it and contains two pots and a few packs of food.
“Thank you. How long will it last?”
“Sometimes all day. Or in this case, all night. It could be a bad one. The men don’t go out in it. They stay inside. You will come to understand why.”
“How bad does it get?” I ask.
He looks over his shoulder, up at the darkening sky. “If it’s as I think, this will be the worst storm we’ve had. The important thing is to stay inside. There’s not much anyone can do.”
“Perhaps the chief could have sent the boys to the summer camp,” I say. “Because you all know the dragon is coming. That would have protected them from the storm.”
He checks the leather hanging and adjusts the top edge of it. “The boys and the old men are still here exactly because a storm like this could come. If the storm comes by the campsite, there are no caves to hide in. Only tents. They aren’t much good. In the summer, that site is safe from storms. But it is when summer nears that we get the Blood Storms.” He looks into the cave. “Is Nator’ax still outside?”
“He’ll be here soon,” I tell him. “Still preparing, I’m sure.”
“Ah. Perhaps you get storms in the jungle as well.”
I tighten the fur around me. “Not blizzards, but there are other dangers. Thank you for the food.”
He takes a step out, then turns around. There’s pain in his eyes. “I wish things were different. For both of you. Tomorrow the tribe… well, you know what was decided. And there has been no dragon.”
“Not yet,” I agree. “There’s still time.”
He checks the hanging again. “Maybe. But once the storm rises fully…” He shakes his head. “No one moves then. Not even hunters.” He gives me a quick glance. “Anyone outside just… disappears.” He steps out and pulls the hanging closed, though the bottom still flops around in the wind.
I lower myself to sit, pulling my fur tighter around me, then realize that I should have asked Prak’ox for firewood. The little fire ring still has some embers in the gray ash, but I definitely need more.
I get back up and open the hanging to run out, then collide with someone on the way in.
“Some firewood,” Nator’ax says as he dumps enough of it on the floor to keep the fire going for a week, along with several torches, one of them lit. “And not just against the storm.”
“All right.” I don’t know what he means.
He places more food packs with the others. “Here’s some food, although I see you have some already. Wait here. I’ll be back.”
The wind outside rises to a higher pitch, a constant, pressing force that makes the cave walls seem thinner than they are. Snow somehow rattles against the fur hanging, and I start to wonder if the problem here is that the snowflakes look more like hail than snow.
A sudden gust forces its way through, carrying a swirl of fine snow into the cave. It melts almost immediately on contact with skin and fur, leaving damp spots that darken the materials.
I lean my head back against the stone and close my eyes for a moment, listening. The storm fills everything, a living presence that presses in from all sides. It’s easy to imagine stepping out into it and vanishing within a few paces, swallowed whole without a trace.
And there’s more. The wind howls, but there’s another sound too, registering higher—a rustling that I’ve never heard any blizzard make. And I swear I hear chirping, from many different sources. It’s not a sound the wind should be able to make. It’s faint, like a flock of starlings chattering in a tree far away, carried on the wind.
A coldness goes through me. If something hunts in this, it would have the advantage. No prey animal can move. They are stuck in their nests or in the open terrain, just hunkering down.
Or maybe I’m overthinking things. Thatismy thing, after all.
18
- Nator’ax-
I pull the fur closer around me, though it still flaps around my ankles. “You really expect this storm to be bad.”
“Can’t you smell the blood?” Chief Hoker’iz asks. He grips his hunting spear tightly as he peers up at the totem pole. “There are things in that storm, jungle man. Things that kill. And the storm itself can kill, too. We always lose someone to the storm. Every time. And this one… the smell is strong.”
It really is. The gusts smell like two rekh having fought and killed each other.
I nod slowly. “Then it is best to stay inside.”
