Barbarian Mine (Ice Planet Barbarians #4)(28)

Our cave is bursting with dried meats, and it seems wasteful to hunt more. But I will do anything for my Har-loh. I nod and help her put her boots on, lacing them for her while she comments about being unable to see her feet. I tell her they are swollen and fluffy like one of her puffs.

She snorts.

Then we are off to the beach, and the weather is nice. I can see Har-loh improving as we walk. Her face has the pink color in it that tells me she is healthy, and she smiles when the two suns come out from behind the clouds.

I am worrying over nothing, I tell myself. I give her belly a small pat as we get to the edge of the water. “Clams?” I have my spear to use as a digging stick.

“Yes, please.” She clasps her hands in front of her and looks excited. “The big dark ones, hopefully.”

She has told me before that her home place has something very similar to the clams, but they are smaller. I watch the surf, looking for a small spout of water to surface from the sand once the tide rolls out.

I spot one and jam the end of my spear into the sand, then push the end up, trying to dig it out. I catch a glimpse of dark shell before it burrows deeper into the sand. Growling in frustration, I forget all about the spear and dig my hands through the sand, determined to get this for my mate and to make her smile. Harlow laughs as I try to shovel faster than the creature can dig, and sand flies everywhere.

At last, success. I grip the thing in my hand and hold it aloft. “For you!”

“Yay!” she claps her hands. “That’s one! Let’s get more and then we’ll go home and boil them.”

I nod at her belly, as if speaking to it. “Your mother is hungry today.”

“She’s starving,” Har-loh answers warmly, and rubs her stomach.

“Then your father feed you,” I declare to her belly, and get to my feet.

There is sand all over my arms and chest, and my legs. It’s even in the tangle of woven braids that Har-loh has made out of my mane. She steps forward and dusts me off with her small fingers.

And then she stops. Her fingers twitch on my arm, and then her nails dig in to my skin.

I look up into her face. She is pale, her freckles dark against her cheeks.

“What is it?”

Her mouth thins into a line, and she nods over my shoulder. She casts me a worried look and then squeezes my arm. “Don’t freekowt.”

She slips into her language when she is worried, sometimes, and when I don’t recognize the word, my senses tingle with alarm. I turn, determined not to ‘freek’ and look.

Our beach is surrounded by rocky, high cliffs. High up a distant one, there are things moving. At first I think they are metlak, the lanky, hairy creatures of the mountains. But this is not their territory, and as I watch them move, my heart fills with dread. One is carrying a spear, and I can see horns on another. There are many of them.

The bad ones.

They’ve found us.





Chapter Seven




HARLOW


The sight of the people on the ridge fills me more annoyance than worry. Why do they have to show up now? I don’t want company. I’m pregnant, cranky, swollen, and the last thing I want is the careful nest we’ve been building for so long interrupted by unexpected visitors.

Rukh, however, reacts very differently than I do.

The breath hisses out of his throat and he grabs my hand. He hauls me forward, dropping spear and clam on the sand, forgotten, and races toward our cave. I put a hand to my belly and try to follow after him, but running with a baby belly? Not that easy. I take a few steps and then pull my hand from his, wheezing. My lower back feels like it’s on fire and that horrible cramp on the right side of my abdomen is returning. “Rukh, wait,” I gasp. “I can’t run—“

Instead of calming down, he grabs me and lifts me into his arms, and continues to race toward the cave as if the beach were on fire.

I cling to his neck, worried he’s going to drop me. I want to reason with him, but I’ve seen this wild look in his eyes once before. When he sees the other aliens, there is no reasoning with him. He loses control.

Thank goodness we make it back to the cave in one piece. I release the breath I’m holding as he gently sets me down on the floor onto my feet. Rukh touches my cheek. “Stay here, Har-loh. If the bad ones come, hide.”

The ‘bad ones’ is his name for the tribe. I have no idea why they’re bad in his eyes. He has memories of his father telling him to avoid them, to hide from them, because they were ‘bad’, and that is the only knowledge he has of them. Other than me, and worrying they’re going to take me away. My own experience with them was good, but then I remember Aehako, Haeden, and Kira, all dead. They won’t like to see me alive after all this time and with their tribemates dead. It worries me.

But I don’t want Rukh going after them, either. There’s more of them than us. I hold on to his arm to try and stop him. “Wait. Where are you going?”

“I go try lead away from you. Will trick. Hide path to cave.” He pulls his bone knife from the sheath on the wall and looks around for his spear, except it’s still on the beach. I move forward and give him mine, because the thought of him leaving with little to defend himself scares me more than being here without a weapon.

They’re not our enemies, I remind myself. But a year has passed, and a lot can happen in a year. My belly and Rukh’s language skills are a testament to that.