The large spider crossed forelegs with two other, smaller creatures, soldiers perhaps and the next minute the pair rushed Camron. He met the assault head on, slashing and tearing with his talons and ignoring the sting of multiple injections of their paralysis venom. He relied on his genetically engineered metabolism to neutralize the chemicals at least long enough for him to get it through the mind of the leader of this hive that Camron as prey was more trouble than he was worth.
Two more soldier spiders were sent against him and his muscles began to tremble under the assault of the venom, but he prayed to the goddess for strength and destroyed the second pair of assailants.
Gemma used her boots and her knife to disable a few large hatchlings who wandered from their nest nearby and made a run at her.
“We can’t keep this up much longer,” she said quietly, panting after her exertions. “Why is she only sending them in pairs?”
“Testing me maybe? Or some ritual of theirs? I’ve shown I can destroy a lot of these damned nests so perhaps she’s unsure she wants to risk more of her soldiers.”
Sacrificial spiders five and six came at him. Camron twisted the head off one and used the twitching body to knock the second off balance and into a pool of the murky water. Gemma stabbed it in the eye as soon as it hit the surface.
The alpha spider reared on its hind legs and rubbed four of its front legs together, making a discordant buzzing noise painful to Camron’s ears and resonating unpleasantly in his head. The spiders blocking his access to the exit moved aside, leaving a narrow path.
He took Gemma by the elbow and pulled her with him, placing her in front. He didn’t want her behind him, with the enemy also behind them both. “Don’t run,” he said. “Don’t act like prey. When we get to the ledge, I’ll give you a leg up then haul myself up and then we’re going to run like hell.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Tension filled his body as he fought the effects of the venom and the pain from the many bites he’d incurred during his demonstration of martial prowess. He hated having the mass of spiders at his back but there was no other way. He sensed the creatures were closing ranks right behind him as he and Gemma made their deliberate walk. The adults crowded so close the tiny stiff hairs on their legs scratched his arms like needles as he pushed his way forward.
Once she was on the ledge and turned to give him a hand, he breathed easier. He made the jump to join her with the last of his strength, thanking the goddess for his Badari musculature, and forced himself to walk off the ledge and into the narrow cave tunnel. As soon as he calculated they were safely out of sight of the den, he said, “Now we run.”
With his debilitating injuries, he was only a little faster than Gemma, who seemed to be physically recovering from her ordeal. Behind them he heard the chittering, echoing off the cave walls, which inspired him to move faster. Maybe the spider alpha would decide it was okay to kill him once he was outside the nesting area. Faith in the rational mind of nature only went so far.
“I’d carry you, but I’m too weak right now,” he said as they reached the main cavern and kept moving along the route the Wanderer had laid out. Admitting his temporary disability was like a knife in his own heart, but he couldn’t lie to her.
“Don’t worry about it and don’t be ridiculous. I saw how many times you got stung. I don’t know how you’re even putting one foot in front of the other.”
“Pure adrenaline. As best I remember the map in the cache, we have maybe a mile to go before we can leave the cave system through a tunnel extending to the surface.” He was regaining strength in his legs. “Can you make it?”
“To get away from being baby spider food? Oh, yeah, just watch me.” Determination rang through her voice and her face was set in grim lines.
When they reached the exit tunnel, they struggled up a steep incline which Camron ordinarily would have bypassed without a second glance, to seek an easier passageway for Gemma, but the idea of remaining in the caves had totally lost its appeal.
“I see daylight,” Gemma said with relief. “At this point I don’t even care if Parryfilmunn and his damn trackers are waiting right there because I want to be in the sunlight. Those spider creatures can’t survive direct exposure to the sun, can they?”
“Probably not. Let me go first.” He crept past her, made a long, careful visual reconnaissance before venturing outside the mouth of the cave and was relieved not to scent Khagrish or any other danger. He offered his hand to Gemma, helping her clamber over the debris at the cave mouth.
“We should keep walking for a few minutes to be on the safe side,” he said, wheezing as the venom had constricted his lungs somewhat.
By mutual consent, they both collapsed onto soft grass in a glade not too far from the tunnel, near a small stream and shaded by old growth trees.
“I’m taking a bath before we move on,” Gemma said, examining her hands then checking a strand of her hair, which was stiff with web residue. She frowned, lips pursed as if she’d eaten something sour. “I feel disgusting. I don’t care how cold the water in the brook is.”
“Good idea. I’ll join you.” He hoped the cold water might wash off some of the spider parts, ichor and maybe even soothe the venom wounds.
“We—we are safe here, right?”
“No hint of Khagrish and, as there’s never been any report of those cave spiders before to my knowledge, I assume we’re out of their range too. Probably unwise to linger, however.”
She rose and began stripping out of her clothes. “Damn, your Wanderer couldn’t have added a little footnote warning ‘Here Be Spiders’ or something?”
“He probably never encountered them.” Camron removed his tee shirt. “A Badari is too big to make good prey for something used to dining on rats and the venom doesn’t work well on us.”
“Lucky me, the small tasty human.” She grimaced and walked over to him. Hesitantly, but guessing what she might be silently requesting, Camron opened his arms and she hugged him hard. “I need the reassurance of knowing you’re okay and we’re together,” she said, her voice muffled as she hid her face against his chest.
Is she crying? Concerned, because a weeping woman was totally outside his experience and surprised because she’d been steady as a rock during their escape, like one of his packmates, Camron held on tight. His heart thumped loudly in his chest, and he hoped she was deriving comfort from his embrace. He found himself a bit weak in the knees over how close he’d come to losing her.
“Thank you for coming after me,” she said.
Camron drew back a few inches and stared into her face from his greater height. “There was never a moment of doubt. Of course I’d find you—how could I not?” He didn’t mention what a close run thing it had been, with only the faintest hint of her scent to guide him.
“Some guys wouldn’t even try,” she said. From her tone and the sadness in her eyes, Camron had the distinct impression there was a specific man who’d failed her in the past. A hot knife of anger ripped through him at the mere idea of anyone abandoning Gemma to danger.
“We’re a team, you watch my back and I cover yours. I would never leave a team mate to die in such a situation. No Badari would think of such a thing.” He saw gooseflesh rising on her bare flesh as a breeze wafted through the stand of trees. “I think we should get on with the dip in the stream and move on. We’re going to need a safe campsite and a fire tonight, all of which takes time.”
As if dancing, she went on tiptoe to kiss him then stepped away. The loss of her sweet presence, the absence of her soft curves against his body, sent a painful longing through him. There was no time to linger so he resumed removing his own clothes, joining her in the stream when he was undressed.
Although they were both naked, there was nothing erotic about being in the brook together. Despite the adrenaline kick from the recent encounter with the spiders, Camron found the icy cold of the mountain runoff took away any embarrassing or inappropriate reaction he might hav
Gemma flicked a spray of water at him with her hand and laughed. “It’s freezing and the water isn’t making much of a dent in the sticky stuff, but bathing will improve my state of mind.”
Camron bent over, plunging his hand into the clear water, grabbing a fistful of sand from the streambed and straightened. He showed her what he held. “See the purple grains mixed in with the other sand?”
“Pretty, but what I need is hot water and soap.”
“I can’t do anything about the water temperature but we use this special sand for cleansing the skin.” He rubbed the substance gently on her bare arm and enjoyed her exclamation as suds appeared.
“You’re a genius.” Enthusiastically she brought up a double handful of the sand and coated her face, arms and legs. Her clothing had protected the trunk of her body. Turning her back to him, she asked, “Can you do my hair?”
He worked the special sand into the silky strands, admiring the play of the sun on the brown and gold colors as the grime loosened from her beautiful curly hair. Gemma took a deep breath before dunking her head for the rinse. She surfaced laughing and gasping as the suds floated away
“I feel so much better but wow am I cold. I think my teeth are chattering.” Examining one arm, she nodded, “Yup, gooseflesh all right, not the most attractive look.”
He assisted her in climbing from the stream, and they dressed as fast as possible. “I wish I could make camp here,” he said as he lifted the pack, which had survived the battle with the spiders. “But I think to be safe we need to go further.”
“The hike will warm me up.” Gemma finished lacing her green leaf boots, which were proving to be amazingly durable, and rose. “I miss my spear. Can you make me another one?”
“If we find the right material, of course. Depending how long the trip to the sanctuary valley takes us, I might even have time to craft a bow and arrows.” Struck by a thought, he stopped.
“What?” Anxiety sharpened her voice, and she narrowed her eyes as she watched him. “Spit it out, partner.”
“I’m guessing now wouldn’t be the best time to tell you we live in caves in the valley,” he said with a straight face.
Gemma stared at him, brow furrowed as if she suspected him of joking. Hands on her hips, she said, “I’ll be living in a tent, thanks.”
He enjoyed her feisty spirit and was pleased she seemed to have rebounded from the perilous experience. “We ran a full military style sweep on all the caves before we started using them,” he said as they walked. “We drove out some mammalian predators who’d been using the antechamber caves as dens, but we found nothing remotely like the cave spiders.”
“Yeah, you guys don’t see them so well,” she said. “I think you need me and a bunch of other kickass humans to go in and sweep again.”
“Maybe you’re right.”
After hiking for several hours he called a halt, declaring a grove of trees to be a good spot to spend the night. He’d detected no sign of Khagrish pursuit. Even with exiting the cave system much earlier than he’d planned, the campsite was far away from anywhere Parryfilmunn might reasonably expect to find them.
There was a bit of daylight left so Camron said, “I could hunt for dinner—we crossed multiple game tracks, including furry hoppers that are good eating.”
“If it’s all the same to you, for tonight I don’t want to be alone.” Gemma dug out a few of the ration bars. “We can get into hunting mode tomorrow, okay? Should we even risk a fire tonight? What if the Khagrish search in this direction, you know?” She studied him closely. “Unless you need fresh meat to heal from all those bite wounds you took today.”
“I’m fine, but thank you for thinking about it. We were bred to survive on these” —he raised a wrapped bar— “so I can manage. I just prefer fresh food when it can be obtained.”
“Who doesn’t?” She smiled and offered him the remaining water container. “But I’m not afraid to confess being a bit anxiety ridden tonight. It’ll be a new day tomorrow.”
They sat together as night fell and the stars came out above. Contentment flowed over Camron like a warm blanket. The day had held its terrors but he and Gemma had come though unscathed. Now they deserved to relax and enjoy some peace. He watched her face in the firelight, entranced by how beautiful she was. Desire sent a pulse to his cock and tightened his entire body with longing, but he firmly put the temptation aside. Gemma showed no sign of desiring intimacy tonight and he’d never push. Let her set the pace and he’d gladly follow, grateful for whatever she wanted to do.
Eventually, she lay down to sleep, head cushioned on the knapsack, which was a lumpy pillow at best, but he’d managed to create a bed of sorts for her, with the moss growing abundantly in the forest. He sat with his back against the tree they’d camped under and allowed himself to enter the state where he was actually awake, but his body was able to conduct the restorative processes normally done during sleep. No one was going to sneak up on them unchallenged.
He roused to full wakefulness as Gemma began tossing and turning restlessly and making frightened sounds in her sleep. At first he assumed it was a nightmare left over from the day she’d had, but when he moved to wake her, her words made it clear she was living out some other, older event from her past. He rested one hand on her shoulder tentatively, and spoke reassuring words, but couldn’t get her to wake up. Worried as she continued to be agitated in the grip of her nightmare, he finally gathered her into his arms and sat holding her close, murmuring in her ear and rocking back and forth subtly.
Gemma surfaced from the dream weeping and clutching at him. Camron urged her to drink water and wash her face to refresh herself. Then she curled against him, leaning into his body.
“You must think I’m a basket case,” she said on a sigh.
“Not at all. Today was terrifying in all respects. It’s natural you’d have bad dreams.” He tried to inject his certainty into his voice. Badari rarely if ever had bad dreams, but this wasn’t the first time he’d watched her experience them.
“I wasn’t dreaming about the spiders, though. It was an incident from my past, when someone didn’t come save me, unlike you did today.” She swallowed hard and appeared to reach a decision, squaring her shoulders as if about to undertake a task. “I told you I was a doctor.”
“Yes.” He rubbed her back. Much as he longed to learn more about her, this woman who fascinated him, he had a premonition her story wasn’t going to be a happy one. He’d defend her against anything, even sadness over her own past, if she’d let him. “Talk if it will ease your mind. I’m happy to listen. I’m a good listener although you might not think it of a soldier like me.”
“Hey, I think you’re good at everything,” she said with an affectionate kiss. “No belittling yourself or your abilities. Anyway, I worked for an NGO, a non-government organization sending doctors and other staff onto less developed worlds where help is needed and the local governments request assistance. I’d done a few rotations since med school, enjoyed the work and seeing new worlds, helping people. Even simple modern medicine and procedures can make such a difference. My team and I were on Taranado Three when a rebel insurgency broke out. We’d had assurances we were considered neutral, protected by both sides. So we stayed. Until suddenly one night, a rebel leader and his soldiers raided the village we were in and took us prisoner. He kept me as a slave for three years, Camron, until the Sectors Special Forces came in and rescued me after my NGO applied enough pressure at high levels of the Sectors’ government.”
Appalled, he didn’t know what to say so he hugged her closer.
“The rebel leader kept me as a special asset, a boon he could provide to the people in his territory… At times I suspected part of the reason for the raid in the first place was so he could acquire a Sectors doctor to enhance his prestige and power. I was allowed to practice medicine, bandaging his warfighters’ wounds, taking care of the band’s women and children, sometimes helping villagers on the rebel side of the war if he wanted to do them a favor and lend out ‘his’ doctor. He’d buy supplies for me to use on the black market or seize them in raids. We moved constantly.” Gemma sounded detached, which he took as a bad sign. “That’s where my survival skills, such as they are, developed.” She gave a rueful laugh. “But you know the absolute worst part?”
He braced himself to hear whatever she wanted to share. “If you want to tell me.”
Gemma studied his face.“ It’s not what you’re probably thinking – the warlord never touched me, didn’t allow his men to touch me, thank the Lords of Space. Other than being held as a prisoner and slapped or pushed a few times, I was treated more or less decently. No, the worst part was personal.” She took a deep breath and focused her eyes on the night sky, as if watching a trideo of her past . “The doctor in charge of our team was my fiancée. The night of the original attack, some of the group got away on our one flyer. He took the last space. He pushed past me to get it and closed the portal in my face. The other person stranded with me was killed outright by blaster fire, but I was…lucky if you call it that and taken prisoner.”
Anger and hatred washed over Camron in a blinding sheet.
“I told myself he’d simply panicked or hadn’t realized we were left behind. I told myself for three long years he was out there searching for me. I pinned my hopes on my belief in him. Once I was rescued and brought home to the Sectors, I found out he’d left the planet after the attack, resigned from the NGO, and eventually gotten married to a rich, influential donor who he’d evidently been conducting an affair with on the side the whole time we were engaged. He established a lucrative medical practice in the Inner Sectors and became quite famous, trading on his reputation as a selfless do-gooder.” She shook her head, running her fingers through her tousled curls. “I was so naïve. Apparently, he never gave me another thought. I was collateral damage.” She stared at her hands, which were clenched. “Three years I endured hell in the jungle, at the hands of the rebels, and he was living the high life without a care.” Now she gazed into Camron’s eyes and stroked his cheek. “So yeah, it means the world to me that you came after me today.”
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