Page 25 of Caveman Alien's Terror

“Someone brought a woman here and tied her up,” another man sums up. “Right outside our camp. This is a trap, tribesmen.”

They all tense up and look around again.

“If so, it’s not a good one,” the leader says. “We’re all unharmed.”

“Who’s left in the camp?” one asks, looking back where they came from.

“Haker’ax and Ubex’iz,” comes the reply. “They’ll be surprised when they see what we bring!”

The leader inserts his sword among the ropes and cuts them. “I always wanted a woman,” he growls, leaning in and running one cold finger up the inside of my thigh. “You shall spend the night in my hut.”

“She shall not,” says a deep voice, as hard as steel.

The cavemen spin around and lift their swords.

Praxigor is standing right behind them, his scales luminous in the jungle night. “I’m afraid itwasa trap?—”

He hasn’t finished his sentence when two of the tribesmen throw their swords at him, spinning them through the air. He easily avoids one, but the other hits him square in the chest. It drops to the ground with a metallicclang.

“That was not a great idea,” I mutter.

Praxigor is frozen for a moment, achingly beautiful, looking like an actor on a stage, as if there’s a spotlight on him. He slowly,dramatically looks down on his chest and spots the small drop of golden ichor there. “Sacrilege.” There’s a calm, wounded outrage in his voice.

Then he turns into an electric blue flash as he attacks the cavemen.

I can’t see what he does, just that there’s a lot of grunting and groaning as the tribesmen drop to the ground, one after the other.

Finally only the leader is left. He grabs my arm and puts his sword to my throat, cold edge in. “Stop, agent of Darkness, or this female loses her head!”

Praxigor comes to a stop in front of us. “And then you lose yours. Agreed?”

The Skrok leader slashes his sword at the dragon, but this time Praxigor is ready and easily sidesteps.

Out of balance, the caveman takes up a combat stance, ready to strike again.

Praxigor comes over to me and ignores the enemy. “Did he touch you?”

“He touched me alittle,” I tell him.

The dragon leans in and kisses me on the lips, so tenderly I forget to breathe. “He should not have done that.”

The Skrok leader roars and attacks, lifting his sword over his head and bringing it down in a vicious hacking motion that could cleave anyone in two.

Praxigor moves faster than the eye can see, grabs the sword close to the hilt, and almost gently takes it out of the caveman’s handwhile its tip hits an empty spot of the ground. “My Astrid says that you touched her. I haven’t known her to lie.”

“Darkness!” the caveman spits and winds up for a punch.

The dragon is faster and knocks the tribesman in the face with the butt of his own sword. There’s a crushing sound and he sits heavily down, holding his hands in front of his face, where blood is starting to pour out. Then he slowly sags to the side.

“I would kill them all,” Praxigor says with an almost apologetic look at me. “But there’s always the risk of being sprayed by their thin blood. The red is not a good complement to my shade of blue. What do you think?”

All the Skrok men are lying on the ground, coughing and groaning and not moving much. Their torches are strewn on the ground, some extinguished and some spluttering in the wet grass.

“I think they got what they deserved,” I reply, kicking the last of the ropes off my legs. “There’s no need to hurt them more. It was we who trappedthem. And most of them didn’t touch me at all.”

“Oh, all right,” he sighs. “Hear that, slayers? The woman says I should spare you. If you ever see her again, remember how merciful she was on this night.” He takes my hand and leads me in among the trees where the men came from.

I spot the camp right away. There are lit torches and a fire in the middle. It’s a curious place, filled with moss-covered rubble. Big, white stones are strewn around on the ground, just as overgrown with moss and greenery. They don’t look natural, as if they were carved or cut.

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