The weight of the creature lightened as it reared backwards, shrieking in pain again. That was enough for Sarah to crawl a few inches forward. As soon as the stone ring was in reach, she grabbed one of the larger glowing stones with her wrapped hand, feeling the radiating heat even through the layers of fabric.
The creature slashed blindly at her as she put all her effort into rolling onto her back. Her arm swung around with the burning stone in hand to slam into the side of the creature’s head.
The sound of sizzling meat joined the creature’s agonized screams as the impact of the stone rocked its head to one side, burning more of the fur off its cheek.
Sarah’s own hand was now growing too hot to hold the stone, the fabric not providing enough protection, but she slammed it against the creature’s head a second time before she was forced to drop it.
A normal animal would have tried to escape the source of the pain, but this thing wanted her dead. Even wounding it horribly only seemed to piss it off more. Sarah lost hope when she saw its single eye turn back to her as she pushed herself backwards on her propped up elbows.
Movement in the entry tunnel caused her eyes to shift in that direction, and the creature seemed to notice the motion. It turned just as Jotaha rushed towards it. A combat knife impaled the skull of the creature, burying deep into its brain.
This time, it slumped over, finally dead.
Jotaha released the handle of the knife, catching hold of the creature with his other hand to haul it off of Sarah. Once she was free of it, he pulled the dagger from its head to stab it multiple times in different places like the heart and throat, as if he wasn’t quite certain it was dead. Then he dragged it towards the exit to drop it in a heap by the tunnel opening, leaving a messy blood trail. After that, he turned his attention to her.
He returned to her and knelt on one knee in front of her, his gaze traveling over her, from her face down her body to her feet, then back again. “Sarah, olar-iv zula?”
“Jotaha, am I glad to see you! Suddenly, you have the most beautiful face I’ve ever seen,” Sarah said with a weak laugh, her body trembling as reaction finally set in. Then she winced as the movement caused the slashes on her back to sting in earnest, reminding her of their presence.
Jotaha’s eyes widened at her pained expressions. “Iv-olar zula!”
He rose to his feet, and it was only then that she noticed it appeared to be an effort for him. Then he turned towards his pack and she saw his blowgun sticking out of his back, piercing even the lacquered layer of his armor as if a great force had slammed it home. His neck was also torn, just above the highest layer of his armor.
“Jotaha! You’re hurt!” He glanced her way and she pointed to her shoulder. “You’ve got a little something, right about there.”
Her trembling turned to a full-blown shudder as she realized how injured Jotaha was. Something had done that to a seven-foot tall lizard man in full armor. If he’d been killed, she wouldn’t be breathing right now. It was frightening to realize that sometimes, no matter how hard you fought, you couldn’t always win the battle alone. She’d had to rely on someone else to keep her alive, and that was a difficult thing for her to do. It meant being beholden to someone, and Beth had taken advantage of that before, making Sarah feel guilty about being a burden—until Beth had abandoned her to save her own skin.
A glance at the bat-cat corpse caused her to shudder again. Jotaha cast his own glance at his wounded shoulder without much apparent concern in his eyes, though he moved slowly towards his pack, limping as if he had to drag one leg. She saw that the front of his armor, right over his stomach, had been shredded, and his blood seeped from deep scratches that scored his belly scales.
He knelt on one knee beside his pack, his groan barely audible to her. Guilt filled her as she recalled her recent pilfering. Of course, the dart had given her a chance at surviving. If she hadn’t had that to injure the bat-cat creature, she would have been choked to death before Jotaha could come to her rescue.
Jotaha withdrew both of the tins from his pack, then picked up his waterskin. With all three items he returned to the stone ring. After retrieving the mug, he poured water into it, then glanced her way as he set the mug on a heat stone.
“Sarah? Draho komin?”
She figured he was asking her to join him, so pushed herself to her feet, biting off her own groan of pain. His injuries looked far worse than hers, and he remained stoic. She could keep her complaints to herself. He wouldn’t understand them anyway.
“Mito olar-iv zula?” His gaze roved her body, but not in a sexual way. She realized he probably wanted to know where she was injured.
She turned her back towards him, hearing a sharp gasp from him that made her grateful she couldn’t see the damage to her back.
“Vauteg!” he said in a vicious tone as Sarah turned back around.
She caught him shooting a narrow-eyed glare at the corpse, and automatically glanced in the same direction, then instantly regretted it.
As bad as the bat-cat corpse was, it was made a hundred times worse when she saw the carpet of glow beetles crawling over it, blinking in and out like macabre Christmas lights as they stripped its flesh. The mass of insects had also dragged it through the tunnel entrance, and she suspected it would be gone from the cave in mere hours.
Jotaha seemed unconcerned with the bugs, just as he had been with the poop beetles, so she got the impression they were not a threat to him or—hopefully—her. Though that didn’t make her relax in their unnerving presence, she could appreciate the service they were doing. Perhaps they had been helping her all along, though they hadn’t been very effective against the bat-cat creature when it was moving.
When she returned her attention to Jotaha, scooting closer to him and further away from the corpse, she noticed that he was tapping powder from a tin into the boiling water filling the mug. After dumping a fair amount into the water, he closed that tin and picked up the second. He added a far smaller amount of the pale green powder to the mug before capping that tin to set it aside.
He stirred the mixture with one of his daggers that looked like it was made of stone, though it was not worked like a prehistoric weapon, but had been finished and polished to a high shine. The granite blade sparkled as it moved, glittering with tiny crystals.
To her surprise, he shifted a finger on the hand holding the hilt, causing a small band of crystal beneath it to rotate. The crystals in the blade started glowing with a light like the hot river stones as he stirred the mixture. By the time she’d settled down beside him, she could see that it had turned into a thick paste.
He saw her staring at the dagger blade and lifted it out of the paste so she could see it better. “Yan sutaz.” He gestured with his free hand to the glowing river stones, one of which had probably helped to save her life.
“Yawn suit oz.”
He huffed, his head spines quivering, and she had the impression he was amused at her attempt to repeat him. Yet he dipped his head once. “Natna. Yaw-n sue toz.” Another brief snort widened his nostrils and he turned his head away from her, but she couldn’t miss the quivering head spines.
Sarah made to cross her arms, but the movement caused a spike of renewed pain in her back. Her hiss of pain immediately sobered Jotaha as his gaze shifted back to her, his spines now half-erect.
He gestured to the paste as he set down the dagger. “Trilneva.” He then pointed to her, then touched his back. “Ja neva’at Sarah.”