Chapter 18

- Noker -

"Stay your hand, clansbrother," I hurry to say. "I'm not a kronk!"

Trat freezes in place with fire in his eyes, ready to skewer me with his spear before he lowers it.

"Noker!" Bronwen exclaims as she bounces to her feet and runs over. "Where you have been?"

She embraces me tightly. Her scent washes over me, and I breathe out with relief over having found her.

"I could ask you the same."

"We been looking for you," she says, looking up at me. "All over the jungle."

"But I wasn't all over the jungle," I counter. "I was following the outcasts. Oh, I smell drap."

I sit down on the grass, and Bronwen plops down right beside me. Trat stays on the other side of the fire.

"There's a drap bush right there," he tells me. "They're done now." He uses his spear to pull out the steaming root bulbs.

"Good work, Trat," I tell him warmly. "You must teach me how to find those."

"Yes, Noker," he says, face flushing with pride. "I think maybe they are common in swamps."

"Could be," I agree. "Why are you two together?"

They tell me about their adventures as we crack open the draps and let them cool for a while.

I sit there and enjoy looking at Bronwen, being close to her again, and having to put my hands in my lap so my arousal isn't too obvious to young Trat.

"... and then we made this fire," Bronwen ends the tale. "We were about to try the drap things."

"We'll try them now," I suggest and let Trat hand me one, which I hand on to Bronwen. "We don't often enjoy this treat."

I get one of my own and peel off the charred outer layer, then bite into the steaming, brilliant white flesh of the root.

Bronwen watches me and takes a little bite herself. "That's hot."

"The drap fruit can also be eaten cold," I tell her. "Or mixed with water and nuts."

She blows on her fingertips and takes a new piece. "This is really good! It's sweet, but it also tastes like vnila!"

I glance over at my little clansbrother. "Does it taste like vnila to you, Trat?"

He giggles.

"Sorry," Bronwen says. "Vanilla is a flavor from Earth. This is very delicious!"

I take a big bite and let the warm mass dissolve in my mouth. "Drap is the best food I know in the jungle. Except for the salen fruit. But I've only tasted that once."

"I've never had salen," Trat informs us, his mouth full.

I nod. "Salen is rare. Their trees don't want us to take the fruit."

"I love this," Bronwen says, burying her face in the root to take more bites. "But not easy to find?"

"Their bushes grow all over the jungle," I tell her as I pull the rest of the outer layer off my drap and put the whole thing into my mouth. "But they look like another bush that only tastes bad." I hand Bronwen another drap.

"Now you know about us," Bronwen says when we've eaten all the roots. "Where have you been, Noker?"

I tell them about my pursuit of the outcasts and the tense situation when I had a venomous Small behind me and the outcasts were about to discover me.

"But right when they were about to spot me, their friends arrived from the other direction, and they forgot about the sound they heard," I explain. "They stood and talked for a while, and the Small went back into the jungle. So I thought I'd go home to the camp. But the shortest way was across a swamp that I didn't know. I wanted to walk around it, but then I saw a fire and I wanted to see who it was."

"It was us!" Trat concludes in triumph.

I put more wood on the fire. "Exactly. But I didn't know that until I had come closer and I heard you. I did wonder what you were doing here."

"How far are we from land?" Bronwen asks, looking in the direction I came from.

"One long jump and you'll be back in the jungle," I chuckle. "But this is a good choice for a campsite. Most Bigs don't want to come here."

"And how far are we from the camp?"

"Further than that. Not quite a half day's walk. We can stay here until right before sunrise, but I want to get back to the camp. We must try to move it before the outcasts can attack."

"What did they say?" Bronwen asks, licking the inside of a drap shell.

"They said they will find the camp and attack it," I sum up. "They don't like having us live nearby. I think they also want to show strength, and force the Borok tribe to give them food in exchange for not bothering the tribe."

"Korr'ax would never do that," Bronwen scoffs. "He'll chase them down and kill them."

I'm not nearly as sure about that. "Maybe. There is one outcast who thinks it may work. And he seems to be powerful in their gang."

We talk a little more until Trat's head starts dipping.

"If we're going to sleep tonight, we should do it now," I decide. "Trat, just lie down. I will wake you."

The boy curls up with his back to the fire, facing the swamp.

Bronwen lies down on the grass with her head in my lap. She struggles to get comfortable there, because there's something in my shorts that keeps twitching and doesn't give her head a flat place to lie.

She gives me a mischievous look. "It's not easy to sleep now."

"It's really not," I sigh in frustration. "There are so many things I want to do."

"I know how you feel," she whispers and rubs the back of her head on the hard bulge beneath it. "You want to fight a swarm."

"No," I tell her softly. "That's not what I want."

She grins up at me. "You want to make a new spear."

"There's nothing wrong with my old one."

Her eyes glitter in the light from the fire. "You want to kill a rekh with your bare hands."

I stiffen and a coldness goes through me. What does she know about that? "Trat told you?"

"I not know you could do that."

"I got lucky."

"The same way you got lucky with the irox?"

I look away. "Something like that."

She checks that Trat is still facing away from us, takes my hand, and unceremoniously puts it on her chest. "We must be quiet."

I squeeze her softness through the alien fabric. "You went looking for me."

"I was worried." Bronwen sighs quietly. "You were gone all night."

"Thank you," I whisper as I stroke one knuckle slowly around the hard little peak of her left mound. "You found me."

"I found the Foundling," she purrs. "Or, the Foundling found me. That make me a Foundling, too?"

I circle the nipple over the garment. While I burn with lust to do more, it feels wrong with young Trat lying right there. This is as far as it goes tonight.

But there will be more nights. "Of course it does. You're in our clan now."

- - -

The sun rises, and I start to worry about irox seeing us down here.

Trat is awake and searching the little island for berries and fruits, returning with a small handful that he shares with Bronwen. He helps her dig up more drap bulbs, and she places them in her pockets and that hood on her upper garment.

"How I get across?" she asks when we get to the side of the island that's closer to land. It's a long jump for me, and an impossible one for both her and Trat.

"Let's find out," I suggest. "Trat, I will throw you over and make you do a full spin. Try to land on your feet!"

The boy grins in expectation of a fun challenge and comes in close. "I'm sure I will."

I lift him up and hold him so that I can easily toss him. "I think so, too. Ready?" I wind up and toss the boy onto dry land. He does a complete tumble in the air and lands on his feet at first, but the speed makes him fall forwards.

He gets up and brushes dirt from his loincloth and hands. "Almost!"

"Very close," I agree, just happy that he got across unharmed. I turn to Bronwen. "Now you."

She peers skeptically up at me. "You're not going to throw me?"

I throw my spear to the other side and squat down. "We'll do something much more fun. Get on my back."

She climbs up on me and clings to me as well as she can. "Do you think you can make it?"

"No," I tell her for fun. "We'll land in the middle of the water, but I can step on you to get to shore."

"Nooo!" she squeals and tries to get off me, but I easily hold her in place.

"Don't let go." I back away from the gap, gauge the distance, and then sprint towards it, jumping at the last moment. While Bronwen is light on my back, I barely make the jump, one foot splashing into shallow swamp water on the other side.

"Hmm. I didn't think I'd make it. But you must be disappointed. Want me to just throw you in?"

She clings to me with legs and feet and arms. "No! I like it on this side."

Grabbing my spear, I keep her on my back as we start to walk back to the camp. Trat goes in front, tense and alert as he observes perfect jungle discipline. He must be conscious about me being right behind him.

"Um," Bronwen says behind my head. "Are you going to let me down?"

I turn my head. "What? Who's talking?"

She slaps my shoulder. "You know who is!"

"Oh. You're so light, I forgot you're there. Very well." I let her down to the ground and watch as she straightens her clothing.

"How far to go?" she asks.

"A while yet. We'll be there in the afternoon. Tomorrow we'll move the camp."

As it turns out, I'm not far off. When we get to the camp, the clanbrothers are eating lunch, not too careful about staying out of sight. Two platforms are on the ground, their owners not spotting the three of us until we're right behind them.

"What if we had been outcasts?" I ask sternly. "Then we would have killed you all."

The clansbrothers are embarrassed and immediately hoist their platforms up in the air. But I'm not that angry. "Where is Sprisk?"

"Getting water with Parik," says a voice from above.

"We move tomorrow morning," I announce. "Brak won't be here, but we can do it without him. After lunch, we'll prepare for it."

A platform full of boys comes zooming down.

I put a hand on Trat's little shoulder. "Good work, warrior! You found the woman and kept her safe. No full band of tribers could have done more! But I'm not surprised. You are a Foundling." I make sure all the boys hear it.

Trat climbs up on the platform, face flushed with pride. As the platform whines back up, I hear the breathless questions of the other boys.

"He will be their hero," Bronwen observes. "He deserves it."

"He's a strong boy," I agree as someone up there lowers my own platform. "He has the kind of strength that lives in the mind. Much like you. Ready to go up?"

Bronwen looks around. "If you have time, please show how you make the alcohol."

I shrug. "Very well. Dexer, pull my platform back up."

"Yes, Noker." It zooms up.

"We start with frit," I tell her as I walk over to the spot where we've buried things that are too heavy to hoist up into the trees. I take out two pots of frit to show, then put them back and close the carefully disguised hole.

"How you make frit?" Bronwen asks.

"We only do that sometimes, taking two whole days when nobody does anything else. On the first day, we crush the fruits and put it all in several big pots."

"Just the crushed fruit?"

"We also add water and the special foam."

"What is the special foam?" Bronwen's eyes are big and eager.

"It is…" I begin, then realize that I don't really know. "Brother Kerek, could you come down here?"

A platform comes down to a man's height above the ground, and Kerek looks down. "What?"

"Can you tell Bronwen about the special foam for making frit?"

"I don't have any now," Kerek says, adjusting his position on the platform so he's sitting on the edge. But he has no legs to dangle. "It takes two days to make. I only make it before we're going to make frit."

"Why does the frit need it?"

"To make it stronger and better," Kerak says. "It makes the fruit mass bubble faster."

I look at Bronwen. "If you're thirsty, we have many pots. We don't need to make more."

She nods with a little smile. "I'm not thirsty. I just wondering."

I take her to the place where we turn the frit to alkol with Piper's setup. Now the big pots are all cold and carefully hidden inside thorn bushes. "It's not been used for a few days. It works better if there's a creek with water that cools the pipe."