Page 71 of Caveman Alien's Touch

“They will keep,” he rumbles. “Trat, come here.”

The boy walks over, clutching his arm as blood seeps out between his fingers.

Noker checks his arm. “It’s not very deep. Every warrior needs his scars. Can you move your fingers?”

Trat easily moves all his fingers on his hand. “Yes.”

“Anything else?”

“I hit him with my spear!”

He lets me down again. “Good. Come, we will tell the clan that it’s over. Bronwen, you come too.”

I try to smoothen down my hair, now that the air is not so charged with lightning. But I’ll need Alba’s comb and scissors soon.

We walk into the smoke, which is already getting less dense as it slowly drifts through the canopy of trees.

A handful of outcasts are on the ground, dead but with no visible injuries as they stare emptily into the sky. Noker’s touch can be both immensely pleasant and completely deadly. He must have killed them like he did Unin’iz.

The trees they set fire to are charred and still smoking, but the fires have gone out

“Clansbrothers, it is safe to come down,” Noker yells. Then he spots the dead Foundling on the ground and kneels beside him. “Crotar!”

“The outcasts killed him,” I tell him. “He was too slow to get on a platform.”

Noker rearranges the dead Foundling on the ground and closes his eyes. “He’s in the stars now, free of his broken body.”

“Free of his broken body,” Trat echoes like it’s a chant.

The platforms come down, and the Foundlings step off them.

“Who’s missing?” Noker asks.

“Only Crotar,” says one of the Foundlings. “We were inside the canopies on our platforms and didn’t breathe in too much of the smoke. We lit thesmarkleaves, as we were told.”

“That was the plan Shaman Melr’ax came up with when we started using the platforms,” Noker says heavily, “if someone were to set the perendi tree on fire. The sweet, light smoke from smark leaves will fill the canopies over the platforms and keep the sour perendi smoke away. He will be glad to hear that it worked. But he will be sad about Crotar.”

The clan drags the dead outcasts out of sight. Some run to get water to put the fire out completely.

Noker turns to me. “It’s what we always feared. Being attacked by a band of outcasts.”

“So evil,” I shudder. “I can’t understand why they’d do it.”

“Unin’iz tried to tell me, but he wasn’t making much sense. I think he must have lost his mind. Something about many in the Borok tribe wanting women and he would give them a new tribe? I suppose this was his way of showing leadership and making himself known to the world.”

I frown. “He tell you this when you in the hole?”

“He told you about the hole? He caught Dexer and me in a trap. Someone must go and get him out. Where did you come from, Bronwen? Why were you on the ground?”

I look down. “I left to go to the Borok tribe. It seemed you wanted me gone. But I was captured by Unin’iz and brought back here. I tried to make noise, but I had leather in my mouth.”

Trat looks up. “Didyoubreak that twig, Bronwen?”

I shrug. “I was trying to warn you. I not could speak. But it was almost too late.”

“It wasn’t too late,” the boy says. “We had time to get our spears.”

Noker gets busy with organizing the cleanup. The whole area smells like sour smoke and rancid dinosaur oil. I can’t help but wonder if this campsite can ever be used again.

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