Page 11 of Feral Tamed

Spotting a black, shiny rock with a sharp edge, I squatted down as silently as I could. My fingers curled around the rounded back of the stone just as Fierce leaped from the crevice with a thundering growl; a growl that could very well rival that of a tiger. He had leaped right into the middle of a pack of naga, there were half a dozen of them with long red tails, their muscled upper bodies off the ground and armed with spears.

From this close, I could see that their faces closely resembled humans, though their pupils were slits and so were their nostrils. They had no hair, but a hood like that of a cobra flared out around the sides, curving into their shoulders. Hissing and growling, their needle-sharp teeth were clearly on display, and they were completely black, making for a wholly sinister look.

Everything in me said to run, to flee from these creatures. I had rarely seen something so menacing before, something that prickled all my primal survival instincts. My fingers twitched around the rock as I watched Fierce charge into their midst, his ax swinging. He showed no hesitation as he surprised the group, separating a head from its shoulders before the snake-man knew what hit him. Leaping onto the back of another and he tore into that neck with his own sharp fangs.

I almost would have felt sorry for these naga and what nearly looked like an unprovoked attack if not for the fact that one of these creatures had a human head dangling from his hip. The head of one of the dead men from the stasis pods if I wasn’t mistaken.

Snarl joined the fray, jumping down from a perch higher up on the rock wall and pinning one of the naga to the ground. The fight was fast and frantic after that, I struggled to keep track of everyone. Fierce moved at high speed, rolling to avoid blows from spears or tails, swinging his ax, and dealing damage where he could. With their numbers down to three, the naga were still outnumbering Fierce and Snarl, but it didn’t look quite so dire.

That is until one of their black spear tips pierced Fierce’s shoulder. Red blood, much like my own spurted from the wound. A jagged wound opened when the serrated spear blade was yanked back out. Fierce made a howling sound and spun on the naga that had dared injure him. In a frenzy I could barely follow, I saw scales and blood fly and the naga crumble in a mutilated mess.

Fierce was covered in blood, his body shaking, and while Snarl was occupying one of the snake creatures. The last one was coming up behind Fierce, his spear raised for a killing blow. I clutched my rock tighter, frightened by what I was about to do, but I didn’t pause to second guess myself. I rushed from the crevice, leaping at the naga’s exposed back, and rammed my rock into his skull as hard as I could.

The male hissed, his body bucking, and I was flung head over heels through the air. I hit the canyon wall but adrenaline racing through my body meant I barely felt it. I shrugged it off and clambered back to my feet, my rock was lost but I picked up the nearest one and prepared for another attack. My breaths were coming in quick sharp bursts as I scanned for the nearest target, only nothing was moving.

The rocky beach was soaked in blood, a mixture of dark blue and red. Naga bodies lay sprawled every which way, some mostly intact, others mutilated by ax and teeth. Fierce was standing over the body of the last naga, a hand pressed to his steadily bleeding shoulder, his skin in softly marbled shades of blue. Snarl was sitting a few feet away on a clean patch of dirt, licking at his blood-matted fur.

I dropped my rock and stumbled forward, ignoring the squishy feeling beneath one of my feet as I stepped on something organic. Reaching Fierce, I hurried to dump my meager supplies from my belt pouch so that I could use the square piece of fabric to press against his wound and stop the bleeding. “Oh shit Fierce, this is bad!” He was bleeding a lot and we had barely any medical supplies at all, the best I could do was keep the pressure on it.

He swayed, his ax thudding to the ground at our feet, and then I could see that his knees were going a little weak. I tried to keep the pressure on his wound while also helping him to sit down against a nearby rock in a still somewhat clean area. His blue marbled skin didn’t flicker or change but his face had gone paler, I had a feeling this was as close to his natural skin tone as I’d ever seen him.

“Hina,” he rumbled, his yellow eyes going over my shoulder to scan around us, still alert even though his expression was pinched with pain. His hands took over holding the wad of fabric to his wound, pressing it more tightly against the wound with an in-drawn hiss. I saw the effect immediately though, blood stopped pouring from beneath the fabric.

Since he looked stable enough, capable of holding that wound closed, my heartbeat slowed a little and my panic cleared. Okay, he was badly hurt, but we could get through this. I rushed to the edge of the water to wash the slippery red blood off my hands before I turned to dig into Fierce’s bag in the hopes he did have medical supplies of some kind.

Fluffy had scampered up his body and was pressing her slight body against his belly, heedless of the blood she was getting on herself and purring loudly. I wondered if like cats back on earth, Fluffy’s purr was meant to be soothing and healing.

Inside Fierce’s bag, I discovered that besides more hard ration bars, and another flask of water, he had packed little else. I eyed the improvised bandage he was keeping pressed to his wound, desperate to find a way to fix him up. Eventually, all I could do to affix the make-shift wound cover was to wrap those cables around him. Good thing I hadn’t yet stripped them of their insulating outer cover, or the copper wire would have gotten sharp. As it was, at least the bandage tightly stayed in place, and Fierce gave me a grateful nod. “Anything else I can do? What do you need?” I asked him.

He didn’t reply, not that he could say much that I would understand but he pointed at the water flask, so I hurried to help him drink. I tried not to care about sitting right next to the dead bodies of all these naga, we’d have to get out of here as soon as we could. This would attract predators or worse, more of these snake creatures. If they were hostile before, they were definitely going to be hostile now that we’d killed some of them.

While Fierce drank his fill of the water and petted Fluffy with one big hand, I tried to figure out what our next step needed to be. I was sure Fierce was going to make himself walk in a moment, no matter how weak he felt, but before that, I should scavenge for anything useful.

My eye fell on a long, black-tipped spear and I wondered if Fierce was going to be willing to use it as a walking stick. I picked it up, shocked at how heavy it turned out to be, and put it down next to his stretched-out leg. “You should use this to walk with later, okay?” He actually rolled his eyes before smirking, showing off a hint of those very sharp canines of his. “Fine, act all macho, see if I care,” I shot back at him, which resulted in a husky chuckle followed by a wince.

Snarl was at my hip then, sniffling at the body of the nearest naga. No wait, he was nosing something on the creature’s belt. Kneeling, I checked the gear the downed snake had on him, discovering a sack of some kind of dried jerky, a pouch with what was clearly a small fire-making kit, flint and tinder. There were flasks of water too but I wasn’t sure if any of that would be safe to drink. We still had Fierce’s own bottle, and I had miraculously managed to hang on to mine, so I left these.

I did take the small leather bag one of them had to pack our things into, now that the fabric I’d used as a pouch had ended up as an improvised bandage. All in all, I scored a few knives, more jerky, and a few pouches with dried herbs. I took those because they smelled good and I hoped it was some kind of tea.

Snarl was pulling the corpses that I’d checked to the edge of the river, dumping their bodies into the flowing water. These long snake tails meant the creatures were anything but light, the naga were all muscle. The hound didn’t seem to have too much trouble with them though, and while I wasn’t sure if contaminating the water was a good idea, getting rid of the corpses I approved off. Maybe it would cover our tracks a little.

Packed with what I felt was useful, I came back to crouch next to Fierce. With my fingers, I checked his temperature, pressed my fingers against the pulse in his throat, and was reassured on both counts that he seemed normal. For him that is. He made another huffing sound, his hand leaving Fluffy’s bright fur to curl around my cheek. “Hina, safe.”

I shivered at those words, he kept saying them, and each time I felt like he was swearing that he would keep me safe. Now, he was almost saying it as if to reassure me that he was fine. I could only hope so, maybe his alien physiology meant that injury was far less severe than it would be on a human. I could only hope.

When he leaned in to rub his head against mine, kind of like the rough affection a big cat might give you, I felt some more of my fear leave me. He was going to be okay. When he rolled to his knees, picked up the spear, and used it to heave himself to his feet, I could almost believe that. His face was still a paler blue than the rest of his body, but he didn’t wobble on his legs.

I slung both our bags over my shoulders, ignoring the hand Fierce held out for his. “No way buddy, you just focus on walking. You’ve carried me enough as it is. Let me do this.” Come to think of it, it was almost embarrassing how often Fierce had been lugging me around. I knew I wasn’t big, I barely reached up to his damn nipples, but I was in good shape.

Fierce set the pace, walking carefully along the rocky path while he used the spear for extra support. I didn’t want to admit it, but almost drowning had sapped me, I was nearly as weak in the legs as he was. Especially now that the last of the adrenaline was fading from my system. I feared that if we couldn’t find some safe place to sleep soon, I was going to crash pretty hard.

I was dismayed to realize that despite that horrible injury and the blood loss, my alien warrior already appeared to be doing better than me. When we rounded a bend in the river, I noticed a dark cave opening at the same time that Fierce did. It could be an entrance to a cave system as vast and big as the one we’d escaped previously. It was still our best bet at shelter.

Snarl darted inside it, a wraith of a shadow that disappeared eerily into the black. Briefly, I saw the glimmer of two red eyes, and then Fierce stumbled inside. With some relief, I watched as he sank down against the nearest rock wall, his arm waving at me to sit down next to him. I couldn’t see much beyond his shadowy outline and the yellow glow of his eyes but I knew he saw better in the dark. I trusted him enough to know he wouldn’t relax if this cave wasn’t safe.

Curling into his side, I pulled our blanket from his bag and draped it over him, then offered him water from our remaining flasks of water. It wasn’t until Snarl returned, his red eyes blinking at me in the dark, that I felt truly safe though. The hound would be our guard while we rested.

Chapter 8