Page 72 of Caveman Alien's Touch

Sprisk comes running from the jungle, wide-eyed and flustered, his spear in his hand. “What’shappened here?!”

Noker meets him. “Where have you been?”

“Hunting,” Sprisk says, then goes pale when he sees the dead Foundling. “Oh sweet stars,” he says, kneeling by the body. “Receive our brother Crotar and release him. He’s in the stars now, free of his broken body.”

Noker grabs his shoulder and squeezes. “He is. You could not have saved him. The clansbrothers did what they were supposed to do.”

“I could have fought!” Sprisk exclaims, distraught. “I could have killed a couple of them, at least! No, Crotar would have survived. I would have ordered everyone up in the air at the first sign of trouble.”

“Without Dexer here, nobody had early warning. If not for Bronwen, the clan would have been totally surprised. Please go and get Dexer from a deep hole in the ground, Sprisk. Follow my tracks, and you will find it. You will need a long rope.”

“Yes!” Sprisk says, getting to his feet, clearly bursting with a need to do something. “I will find him!” He gets down between two rocks, retrieves a big coil of rope from a secret storage hole, and runs off.

“Better for him to do something useful than to blame himself for not being here,” Noker tells me. “I know Sprisk. He needs something to do and to feel that he wasn’t useless.”

“You know Sprisk,” I echo. “And now I knowyoubetter.”

He gives me a sideways glance. “You saw the… power I have?”

“The power to kill with your hands. Yes, I saw it. I think you used it right. And I already knew. You took down that irox in the same way.”

“It’s hard to hide it,” Noker sighs, his head fan now back to its regular blue and green. “But I tried. Until now. The outcasts… I had to stop them.”

“You not need to hide from me,” I tell him, putting my hand on his forearm. “Remember the first thing you said to me?”

“That I would never harm you. Yes, I remember. Sorry, I was overwhelmed by your presence, and it was the only thing that came to mind.”

“I believed you. And I still do.”

He embraces me and squeezes me hard. “I’m sorry for what I said. I always want you with me. But I have a clan, too.”

“You have a clan, and I have friends in the Borok village,” I reply, having thought about it. “I am going to the village today.”

Noker looks around at the ruined camp. “I understand. There’s not much for you here now.”

“There is the most important thing. But he has to make up his mind.”

He nods. “It is already made up. I will show you, Bronwen. But not now, while there’s so much still to do and while clansbrother Crotar lies dead in the camp. I know that Shaman Melr’ax would want to be here and see to it that he got a proper funeral, but I don’t want him to come here. The walk through the jungle might kill him.”

I have an idea. “Would you like me to ask Astrid?”

26

- Noker-

“Yes,” I gratefully reply. “I would like that.”

Bronwen’s eyes are red with the smoke and the terrible events of today, but still they manage to shine. “You rescued me from Unin’iz.”

I stroke her hair. “I would do anything to keep you safe.”

“I know you would.”

We stand there like that for a while.

“When Sprisk returns,” I finally decide, “I will have him take you to the Borok village. He still needs something to do.”

“Maybe there’s enough for him to do here? I want Trat to take me to the village. It’s not that far, and now we don’t have to worry about outcasts attacking us.”

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