Page 70 of Caveman Alien's Heat
Still I peer out. Only snow so far, flying on the wind and never landing on the ground. The cold is numbing my cheeks. I stand still, listening. The chirping is getting louder. It sounds like a swarm of irox, but much smaller. Yes, this may yet work. The smell of blood is stronger in my nose, as if I were wading through a pool of it.
The first one flashes past the cave so fast I can’t be sure what I saw. My eyes are accustomed to the darkness, and when another comes fluttering with the wind, I’m sure. There are wings, a dark body, a tail, a head. It’s not a small irox, of course. But it may be worse, and there will be so many of them that meeting a full irox swarm would be better.
And I have to act fast, horrific though this will be. I pull the fur tight, fasten the boots firmly, and wind a long piece of dondarleather around my head, covering all of me except a tiny crack for the eyes and one for the nose, so that I can breathe.
Another few winged creatures fly past. They’re small, only the size of my hand, but if this is to deserve the name Blood Storm, then they must be just as the old traveler said.
I step out into the storm and am nearly blown off my feet by the force of it. It whistles past my ear as I keep close to the rock. Going against the wind, I find the next cave along, which is Riley’s. I have to check that it’s properly closed?—
I freeze. There’s a slit in the fur! Someone has cut it. It’s not tight against the bloodwings!
I quickly lift off the heavy rocks that lie on the bottom part of the hanging and keep it closed.
Yanking the fur aside, I step in. “Riley!”
But she’s not there. The cave is empty. She’s had some frit and some food, and the fire’s burned, but nobody’s put more wood on it for a while, and now it’s only embers.
I run back out and look in both directions. Nobody.
Was she taken? No—the slit is too small. She could have gone out, but no man came in.
Something hits my leather-clad neck and stays there. I grab it and rip it off. It takes a small chunk of leather with it—it’s bored its mandibles into it and simply doesn’t let go.
Disgusted and horrified, I throw the bloodwing away. Another one hits my chest, and this one gets a good hold on the thick fur, so I have to yank hard to get it off. Again a small piece of fur goeswith it. If that had been my own bare skin, there would indeed be blood.
“Bloodthirsty beasts!” I growl while I try to think. If someone from the tribe had taken her, they wouldn’t cut a slit. They would just lift away the rocks and open the cave. They wouldn’t bother replacing the rocks after they took her.
No, I think this was Riley escaping. And she had a knife. I made it myself, but I’d never have thought a blade that small could be used to cut stoka fur. Only Riley would think of trying that, with her small, delicate hands—“Ow!”
More of the bloodwings hit me and bore into the fur, making it hard to move. These ones I can’t reach to pull off.
I can still follow the first part of my plan. I wanted to rip the hangings off the tribe’s caves and let the storm and bloodwings in, killing the tribesmen and leaving Riley freed from captivity inside her securely closed cave. But there’s no time. I have to find Riley, to protect her against this storm. More and more of the bloodwings are coming, and if the old story is true, the bulk of them hasn’t even arrived.
I rip five of the bloodwings off me and start to run, conscious that there are many more boring deeper into the fur in places I can’t reach because I can feel their weight and their movements.
There’s only one direction she could have gone: the way the wind is blowing. Anything else would be impossible. And, of course, if she went in any other direction, I doubt there would be anything left of her.
21
- Riley-
The wind isn’t blowing straight toward where I’m going, so I have to veer to the side to stay on track. Still, it gives me a lot of help, so I’m basically jogging along, and the hardest part is not being blown too far forward with each gust so that I lose my balance.
It’s pretty dark, but after a while my eyes have adapted to it and I can see where to go. There’s really only one option, and it’s not even that good.
I don’t notice how close I am before I almost step right into one of the pools at the hot springs.
This is as far as I will follow the storm. Beyond there’s only icy wastes and steep mountains. I can probably jump into a hot spring and it will keep me warm and mostly out of the storm. But I can fold the fur over the back of my head so my face is away from the storm and snow. It might actually turn out okay?—
I freeze. There’s the flicker of a fire next to the big pool, the one Nator’ax and I bathed in last time. The fire is built so that it’s out of the wind, but the flames are reflected in the surface. That must mean there’s someone here. And—my heart skips a beat—maybe that someone is Nator’ax.
I move closer. There’s a man sitting on the edge of the pool, his legs in the water and the rest of him clad in fur. He’s built a slanted screen from rocks and tough stoka skin, so that the pool and the fire are shielded from the storm.
He raises his hand. “Good evening, Riley. Come here, it’s out of the storm!” He has to raise his voice to make sure I hear him over the storm.
Disappointment settles in me as I walk into the shelter from the wind. The air is definitely warmer here. “Prak’ox. Why are you here and not in the village?”
“I always come here for Blood Storms. All that’s needed is to build a wall. It didn’t take me long.”
