Alien Slave (20 page)

Feeling nasty and ugly, Dani swallowed
a sigh and wished for rain. The cloudless sky mocked
her.

Chapter 11

Wynhod enjoyed the walk, especially
since he held Dani so that she trudged along in front of him. The
view of her delectable backside had aroused him once more within
minutes of climax. Even sweaty with bits of fuzzy grass clinging to
her skin and hair, she remained a beautiful woman. Those long, trim
legs, her slender torso, the perfect little breasts that filled his
mouth just right … his loins clenched with admiration.

But the Nobek’s delight with the
Earther went far beyond appreciation of her physical attributes.
Perhaps she indulged in impulsiveness too often, but that didn’t
negate her intelligence. With guidance she’d develop common sense.
It was simply a matter of pushing past her stubborn
nature.

Not that brattiness was such a
detraction where Wynhod was concerned. He adored Dani’s little
flashes of temper and the obstinate fashion she tried to get her
way. Well, to a point, anyway. That spirited streak of hers had
nearly gotten her killed twice; first with the crash of her ship
then getting caught in the quickmud. His grip on her neck tightened
for an instant, and she rolled her eyes back at him to see what
she’d done wrong. Wynhod loosened his hold again and gave her the
slightest twitch of a smile to let her know she was in no
trouble.

Wynhod loved a challenge, and gaining
Dani’s respect looked to be a good one. Keeping that spirit intact
while getting her to be more reflective of her actions … tough, but
not impossible, he felt sure.

Getting her to see them as protectors
and not enemies might be an even bigger obstacle. And beyond that?
Wynhod frowned. He was not a man who lied, especially not to
himself. Dani entranced him. He was infatuated with the little
Earther, his thoughts whirling around her almost nonstop. Nobeks
didn’t get giddy, but he was as close to it as the wiring in his
warrior brain allowed.

A familiar sour smell drifted to him on
the breeze, interrupting his happy ruminations. With a low grunt he
froze, yanking Dani close to him protectively. Krijero and Gelan
halted in their tracks, and they also pointed their faces into the
wind, nostrils flaring.

Dani looked from one man to another,
her body stiffening in alarm. A small part of Wynhod’s mind
approved her instincts as he strained to listen for the threat that
edged closer.

She pressed up against him, seeking the
shelter of his larger body. Her voice was a faint breath, but he
heard her perfectly well. “What is it?”

Gelan stepped back, coming close to
them. His sharp eyes scanned the trees around them as he whispered
back. “Be absolutely quiet. There is danger.”

Wynhod pushed Dani towards him. “Stay
here.”

The Nobek took off, running fast but
silently through the trees, avoiding the deep pools of water where
possible. He covered a lot of ground quickly. He paused here and
there to listen and sniff the air. The sweetish-rancid stench grew
until it filled his senses, sparking an instinctive rage that his
training kept in check. Few things incited real bloodlust, the
blinding urge to kill without remorse. This was one of those things
however, and Wynhod’s fangs unhinged. He kept his senses
nonetheless, the need to protect his clan and Dani leashing the
primal beast inside him.

The next time he stopped to gain his
bearings, the sour tang of his enemy was so rich he could taste it
on his tongue. Wynhod heard them this time, snorting and snuffling
as they tracked his clan. He raced to the tallest tree in his
immediate vicinity and scrambled up, as perfectly silent as
ever.

Through the scaly growths that sprang
from his perch, he had a perfect view of the Tragoom trackers
hurrying towards him. He didn’t worry about being seen. Tragooms
had terrible eyesight. Their sense of smell and hearing was
exceptional, however. Triangular ears perched on top of their
blocky heads and swiveled this way and that, searching for the
slightest indication of their prey. Tusks bracketed mucus-covered
rounded snouts. The beasts’ nostrils flared wide, drinking in the
aromas of their surroundings. Built like boulders with short
muscular arms and legs, the nasty creatures still moved quickly.
Their armored hides left few points of weakness for a blade to stab
into, and Wynhod’s hand ached for his blaster. He could have taken
half of them out from a distance before the rest could react.
Unfortunately, he’d left his shooting weapons on board the ship. No
large animals had appeared on the scan for several miles when
they’d landed, and he’d expected to find Dani dead or injured on
the crashed shuttle. Firepower hadn’t seemed an issue at the time.
Wynhod cursed himself for his shortsightedness.

Wynhod and Gelan had left little sign
of their passage, an automatic habit of theirs, but Krijero and
Dani were not trained to do so. Even if the Tragooms not been so
sensitive to scent, the clumsy passage of Wynhod’s Imdiko and woman
would have led them easily to the party. A blind lusgo worm could
have followed their trail.

Wynhod raced down the tree, gaining the
ground without making a single leaf tremble. He hurried back to his
waiting clan. He noted with approval how Gelan and Krijero
sandwiched Dani between themselves, keeping her shielded from
possible blaster fire.

The breeze luckily wafted from the
direction of the Tragoom party towards the Kalquorians. Wynhod was
sure the nasty bastards wouldn’t hear him speaking in a normal
voice. “Party of Tragooms coming fast. We’ll never make the ship
before they catch us.”

Gelan’s slitted pupils dilated with
excitement. His fangs descended. “Can we take them?”

Wynhod shook his head. “There are about
twenty, a scouting crew for a larger group if I judge correctly.
They’re all armed with percussion blasters. We don’t have a chance
in an ambush, nevermind a stand-up fight.”

Gelan growled, and Wynhod noticed how
Dani cringed a little at the ferocity in the Dramok’s face. They’d
been speaking in Kalquorian, and she had no idea what was going on,
poor girl.

“
Tragooms,” the Nobek told
her in a calm voice. “We’re outnumbered and they’re following our
trail, so you need to do everything we tell you.”

Her eyes widened, and she acknowledged
his explanation with an affirmative jerk of her head. “I hate those
warty pigfaces,” she muttered with disgust. Wynhod’s estimation of
her soared.

In English, Gelan said, “They probably
followed the trail of wreckage down to LXS-42 the same as we did.
We’ll have to go on the assumption they didn’t find our
ship.”

Krijero looked wary but not upset. “You
were smart to camouflage it after all.”

Wynhod snorted. “I was more worried
about Earthers that might have remained here than
Tragooms.”

Gelan was checking his handheld,
working out their best route. After a moment, he nodded to himself.
“I guess you’ll get your dunk after all, little Dani,” he said,
indicating a route knee-deep in murky water at its shallowest.
“We’ll wade for a bit, try to throw them off our scent.”

Dani swallowed as she eyed where he
indicated. A large pool of water lay in the distance. “There’s big
stuff swimming in spots like that. I saw some of them.”

Wynhod unsheathed his biggest knife. If
not for the danger to her and Krijero, he’d have enjoyed their
predicament. He loved a good fight, especially one with such bad
odds. “Then we’ll have a nice dinner if we find one. Let’s go.
Those Tragooms are coming hard and fast.”

Moments later they entered the sludgy
water, Gelan taking the lead, Krijero pacing Dani, and Wynhod at
the rear to keep an eye out for pursuit. The Nobek watched Dani
tread gingerly, her arms crossed protectively over her torso. She
looked all around, as if expecting some swamp going monster to
burst out of the calf-deep water at any moment. When she glanced
back in his direction, he saw how her face twisted in
disgust.

Danger and his building rage at the
Tragooms hunting them couldn’t keep Wynhod from grinning. Even with
her lip curled in repugnance, Dani was the cutest little
thing.

* * * *

Wading through the murky water for
miles on end, sometimes up to Dani’s waist, wore her out in a
hurry. When she couldn’t move fast enough to suit the fleeing
Kalquorians, Krijero picked her up and carried her.

The sun beat down on her when the tree
cover became sparse. Even when shade cut out the glare, the muggy,
fetid air exhausted Dani as much as her long day of flight. She
dozed fitfully in Krijero’s arms, her cheek resting on one broad
shoulder.

When the man carrying her halted, the
cessation of movement woke her fully. She straightened to look into
the gentle yet watchful eyes of the Imdiko. “We’re stopping for a
rest,” he said.

Dani looked around their surroundings
as he placed her on her feet. They’d made higher ground, no
standing water in sight though it still smelled of rotting
vegetation. A thick copse of trees sheltered them from the sky.
Through a break in the thick stand of trunks, the sun was a
bleeding eye halfway down the horizon.

One of the giant bugs buzzed past
Wynhod’s nose as he looked around at their surroundings. The
Nobek’s hand moved too fast to be seen. The next instant he was
holding the creature, and he yanked the wings off. He waved the now
flightless creature in Dani’s face, and without flinching she
opened her mouth for the morsel. Her stomach gurgled uneasily as
she chewed, but she ignored it along with the oozing texture of the
meal. She concentrated on the not-unpleasant flavor, similar to
peanut butter with a hint of sourness. She’d eaten much
worse.

She swallowed. “Thanks.” She was
starved.

Gelan stared at the darkening horizon
and pointed towards a cluster of strange formations that resembled
fingers pointed at the sky. “That’s the way we’ll head in the
morning.”

Wynhod peered in the direction he
indicated, his slitted pupils narrowing to a hairs-width in the
scarlet glare of the setting sun. “I remember the bearing to get
back to the ship from there. And if we get separated for any
reason, the tallest of those peaks is where we’ll meet.”

Out of the dozens of long, thin
structures, one stretched higher than the rest, seeming to poke the
dimming sky. Dani studied it, thinking what a great point of
reference it made. She wished it had been visible from the crash
site. She wouldn’t have gotten so off course when she’d run from
the Kalquorians.

The cries of nearby wildlife grew
louder as night encroached. Dani shuddered, afraid of what might be
out there, what might consider Earther a tasty snack. The growing
shadows stole closer, ready to wrap their dark shrouds about
her.

Trying not to sound as scared as she
felt, she said, “It’s getting dark. Are we going to have a
fire?”

Gelan gave her a pat on the head, but
the shake of his braided head dispelled any comfort she took from
his touch. “We’re not halting long enough to warrant building a
shelter that would screen a fire from sight. The Tragooms are still
no doubt following us, though wading for so many miles downstream
will have confused them a bit. Their eyesight isn’t very good, but
a fire in the open will be obvious nonetheless.”

Wynhod cocked an eyebrow at her. “I
hope you have the good sense to not attempt escape, Dani. You do
know if those gurlucks catch you, they’ll rape you then eat you
alive?”

She scowled, ready to pout over the
lack of a fire’s comforting light and his rebuke. “You’re just
trying to scare me.”

He didn’t answer. Snorting, he stalked
the perimeter of their copse of trees, having a good look around.
Gelan bent over his handheld, muttering instructions to it in his
incomprehensible language. Krijero remained at her side, sniffing
the air like a watchdog scenting for danger.

Dani was left with her thoughts. She’d
heard bad things about Tragooms, including the information Wynhod
had shared. She had no reason to doubt what the Nobek said. She
just resented his condescending tone, as if she didn’t have the
sense to stick with their protection with peril snapping at her
heels.

Big jerk. You’re not my
father.

True. Her father wouldn’t have taken
the time to caution her. Too busy with his own concerns, he would
have left her to her own devices.

Krijero caught another one of the big
peanut-buttery bugs. Once he divested it of its wings, he fed it to
her. Then he unslung a small water flask from his belt and gave her
a drink. He’d refilled it over and over with the clearest water he
could find during their trek, but there was still a little grit.
Dani didn’t complain. She felt continually thirsty, and the Imdiko
fortunately had several anti-bacterial tabs left in a pouch from
their hunt on Dantovon. She could drink to her heart’s content, and
sludgy water was better than none.

Wynhod rejoined them and Gelan snapped
his handheld off. The Dramok looked at his little group and said,
“Clan, we’ll sleep in shifts, one hour for each of us. You first,
Wynhod. Then we’ll start again.”

Dani’s stomach churned at his words.
Her system had always been sensitive to sleep deprivation, and she
knew even if the Kalquorians carried her the rest of the way, she
wouldn’t rest well. Not walking in the pitch black of night with
animals growling and screaming all around. “You don’t think the
Tragooms will stop for the night?”