The man doesn’t hesitate. He walks back to the wall of the ship, runs up, and jumps across to the head of the bobont. Then he unceremoniously picks me up, winds up, and throws me across to the ship as if I were a medicine ball.
“Ooof!” I land inelegantly on the ledge and scramble for purchase, but the sloped ledge is not steep and I’m back on my feet when the caveman lands beside me, carrying my fur pouch and my spear with the fake butterfly.
He looks at it and back at the bobont, which is now moving back from the ship and raising its head again. “Now, this is a real riddle.”
I look out over the treetops, to the distant hills where that dragon I liked has to be right now. “Oh, you have no idea.”
He could be a good caveman. Or a bad one. If so, there will be many more like him inside, and that will mean the end of me. Eventually.
At any rate, I have made my choice and taken my chances.
He opens the door. “Do you want to come inside?”
I take him in. A normal caveman, cream stripes, big and strong, long sword. I can’t tell if he’s good or not.
The dragons are getting closer, and my skin creeps.
I take a deep breath. “Yes.”
He holds the door open for me, and I step into Bune for the first time.
23
- Caronerax -
“What’s in this for you?”
They all look at me with great suspicion. Three of them, standing far apart and as far from me as they can and still hear me.
I sigh. This was always going to be an uphill process. They don’t trust me. “Only what I said, Ganogeg. Come with me to another planet where there are actual hoards to be found. I will help you. And in return, you will do something I will ask of you at that time, but which I cannot tell you right now. Suffice it to say that it will be no detriment to you at all and that it will make us all more powerful. Immeasurably so.”
They glance at each other, mostly to check that nobody is moving in for the kill. They don’t trust one another any more than they trust me. Or I them, for that matter.
They will relent, of course. Regardless of how much they distrust both me and my scheme. They have no other option. Nothing. I am offering them a way out, and they will all accept. But it will take time.
Especially now. Because this has all happened too soon. I was not ready to meet other dragons!
But my hiding place was too smart. I buried my cache right under a path where the caveman slayers walk on their endless patrols, a spot they pass several times every day. I reasoned they wouldn’t sense the gold under the ground. It would never cross their minds that there was a major treasure under their feet, so they wouldn’t look for it or dig it up. But their frequent and irregular patrols here would keep the other dragons from exploring and examining this place.
“You most of all, I’m sure,” Vroak states sourly. “Prince or not, you were never prone to charity, Caronerax.”
I study the claws on my fingers, tense and ready for any attack. “And I suppose you are?”
Of course, my hiding place only worked while there existed a slayer army to unknowingly patrol and guard it. The army appears to have been disbanded, and this particular spot in the jungle is now free for the dragons to check out again.
As I approached, I noticed these ones hovering around it, kicking at the ground and lifting rocks and squinting up at treetops, puzzled about what they were sensing. And at the same time, each one was noticeably anxious that none of the others should notice his intense interest in the spot. There is, of course, nothing in the universe as conspicuous as a dragon trying to act innocent.
I had to engage them while still in my human form, and still visibly wounded. I can’t get to my cache while these wretches are here, clumsily snooping around.
“No,” Vroak grants. “No dragon ever is. I was making a point. What is your plan? What are you really trying to do to us?”
“Sometimes my interests align with those of other dragons,” I explain. “Not often, certainly. But you must admit that the circumstances are unusual.”