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Cara realized Bab was the decision maker, the stronger personality, in this odd, astounding relationship. More than ever, she understood why her leaders labored to end the Savages’ vinefruit addiction. This tribe, freed of the drug’s influence, was slowly returning to their human origins. Given proper guidance, Bab and Tam could live a civilized life. A life more humane than the citizens of Parlania had been living when Claudia Turan discovered their colony.

More of the males stirred and rose from their slumber. Some had slept on the bare ground but a number of them had spread hides and now they rolled them into neat bundles.

Tam and Bab each picked up an infant. Again Cara was astounded at the careful way the male handled the child. He helped Bab to rise and led her a short distance from the fire. Another Savage busied himself rebuilding the fire though the dawn came with the heaviness of humidity and building storm. Few of the males spoke and many left the fireside to wander into the woods.

None of them spared Cara or Brady more than a passing glare or a brief frown.

Bab and Tam settled on a log across the way. He watched Bab feed Angel while he held Storm. They spoke in low voices and more than once Tam looked across the camp at Brady or her.

After both infants were fed, Bab took both of them in her arms. Tam stood up and took one of the wooden mugs into the trees. He returned shortly with water sloshing over the sides of the cup. He knelt in front of Brady.

Tam helped Brady to a sitting position and held the water to his lips. Brady bit off a groan, but drank eagerly.

“Thank you,” Brady said after Tam pulled the cup away.

Tam looked at him in confusion. Probably he didn’t know what the word meant. Cara didn’t expect him to offer her a drink. Male Savages seldom gave females any consideration.

But Tam walked into the trees and returned again with a full cup of water.

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He helped her sit up with a roughness that seemed more ignorance of her fragility than cruelty. Her throat and mouth were dry from the long hours without refreshment. Her empty stomach clenched around the cold water but held it.

Cara nodded at Tam, and he nodded back. He might not know the words of courtesy but he understood it. She started to speak to him, but the two largest males stepped out of the trees.

“Step away from her, Tam,” the biggest one bellowed.

Tam stood up, but he didn’t scamper away with fear. His posture was one of defiance and pride. When she’d been captured before, there had been no political dynamics in the tribe.

One male Savage, the meanest and strongest, ruled absolutely and all females were of little consequence. She, a prisoner, had been treated worse than a slave.

“I was just giving them water, Jak. You have nothing to fear.” Tam’s voice reeked with sarcasm.

Jak’s face darkened and his thick fists clenched. “Get back from them and shut your teeth before I knock more of them out.”

Cara looked at Brady. He slumped uncomfortably with his hands tied behind his back and his legs stretched in front of him. The shoulder he’d injured in the accident couldn’t possibly be healed.

Jak took a menacing step toward Brady. “What are you?”

The question caught Cara off guard though it shouldn’t have. The males would be as shocked and confused by the appearance of odd looking strangers as Bab had been. It might be an advantage.

“What are you?” Brady growled right back. “We’ve never seen … people like you.”

Jak lowered his brow and snarled wordlessly.

“We’re traders,” Cara said and turned the male’s smoldering glare from Brady to herself.

“Shut up, bitch. I’m talking to the man.” Jak’s scowl grew darker. “What is a trader?”

Brady didn’t look at Cara, but he followed her suggestion. “Our people have many tribes. When we have more of some things than we need, we trade some of our extra to another tribe for their extra stuff.’

“Extra what?” The second big Savage spoke as Jak’s equal. The other males hung back from the leaders. Tam had rejoined Bab and again held one of the infants. Cara took the time while they were all focused on Brady to study the rest of the Savages. Except for the lead two, the others were all slighter with smaller bones and muscles as well as finer features on their faces. The entire isolated society was evolving.

“My tribe often trades nuts and grains with another tribe for wool,” Brady said, his tone calm and diplomatic.

Jak took a few hesitant steps forward and touched Brady’s shirt. Bab must have returned it to him as some point. He’d been shirtless and shoeless when they were attacked. Even dirty and spotted with Brady’s blood, the material surely was a wonder to the Savages. The tight, fine seams were beyond the rough stitching used to hold their hide skirts in place.

Jak kicked Brady’s leg with his bare foot.

Brady didn’t flinch. He spoke in the same reasonable manner. “My pants are made of cotton. Both are very warm and protect me from the cold.”

“Our hides are warm,” the other big one said with a lot of belligerence.

“I’m sure they are, but the cold comes up underneath them when the wind blows. And my boots are made of hide that protects me from the cold and sharp stones.”

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The males all looked down at their tough, unclad feet. It was nearly comical how they did it at the same time. One of the younger ones spoke for the first time. “We sometimes wear hides on our feet when the cold time is here.”

“Does your tribe have much food to trade?” Jak asked. A sly look came into his small, dark eyes.

“No, this winter was very lean. That’s why we’re here, to look for more.”

Jak narrowed his vicious eyes. “You and your bitch came to rob us of our food.”

Cara’s heart plunged to her stomach. Jak leaned over Brady with all the menace of his big, muscular body. Brady answered smoothly as if they sat having tea together at a diplomatic affair.

“We don’t rob people we trade with. And it’s not only the two of us. The other men went to search out your tribe. When we saw the two women, we knew there must be a village nearby.”

“You tried to steal our women,” the second big male growled.

“He has his own woman, Hop.” Tam dared to move up beside the two leaders. “We saw no other men on our way here.”

Cara wondered if Brady took the lie too far. If the Savages thought one part false, they might not believe any of it.

“You didn’t see them?” Brady looked over his shoulder in the direction of the sea.

“Perhaps the waves washed away their footprints. I don’t know how you wouldn’t have seen them.”

“They traveled near the wild water?” Hop sounded incredulous.

“Or course. My tribe lives along the sea. We like it.”

Many of the younger Savages looked impressed and amazed by that.

“Why would we trade any of our food with you?” Tam asked. “We need all we can find to make it through the cold season.”

“Perhaps if we have more of some things than you do, we can trade equally. Or if you find you have an abundance of hides, we can trade our wool and cotton for hides to make our boots.”

The males murmured among themselves, except for Hop and Jak who continued to glare at Brady. Cara could almost see the slow turn of thoughts behind Jak’s dark, nasty eyes. After a while, he pointed at Cara. “Why would you bring a skinny, ugly bitch along with you? She looks useless and she speaks where she has no place.”

Jak thought her ugly? Relief swept through her.

“She cooks and keeps the camp. She’s my mate.”

“Why are you here by the river instead of with the other men? How did you get here?

There are no paths up the mountain.”

Brady grimaced. “You saw me in the water. We crossed on boats made of wood, but the big storm washed them out to sea. The woman and I stayed here to try and make more of the boats so we could cross the river and go home when the time comes.”

“Your village is across the river?” Tam asked. Nearly all the Savages turned, even Bab, and looked south.

“Yes. If you don’t want to trade, we’ll go back and search for other tribes that want to help each other. It might be too difficult to cross the river carrying food anyway.”

“I think we should kill them and keep them out of our lands,” Hop said.

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Jak stretched, flexing his massive arms and pushing out his chest. “We will, but first we’ll hunt down and question the rest of them. I don’t trust the words of this demon with the sky in his eyes. I have to think of the best way to kill him and the sky spirit that might reside in him.

I see it looking at me from inside his head.”

The males turned their stares on Brady, and a few backed up a few steps. Cara looked at her man and wondered how he would appear to someone seeing him for the first time. The light-colored eyes so prevalent in the Realm were a source of fascination and attraction to her people of Solonia. But to someone ignorant and superstitious, how frightening might Brady’s clear eyes be?

Brady stared at Jak with the cold gaze only blue eyes could achieve. The frigid glare, cold and merciless, might look otherworldly to these primitive people. She often forgot this side of Brady, the intimidating warrior side.

Jak’s dark glare faltered before Brady’s icy one.

“My people won’t like your treatment of me and my woman.”

“They’ll all be dead, and your ugly woman will soon be fat with my child.”

Cara’s head went light, and her chest refused to take a breath.

“All dead?” Brady laughed in a way she’d never heard before. It nearly frightened her with its deadly promise. “There are four of our men for every one of yours. And more from other tribes that trade with us. They’ll come and kill you all. They’ll cut off what hangs between your legs and cook it on a fire.”

Jak snarled and jumped at Brady. He swung his foot forward with a vicious kick. Brady rolled to his side and up unto his feet. If any of his injuries pained him, he didn’t show it in his expression. Even with both his arms tied behind his back, he looked confident to beat Jak. Cara knew he could not. The Savage was actually shorter than Brady, but with his thick slabs of muscle, had to weigh half again what Brady did.

“They’ll be back by the end of the next dark,” Cara said.

Jak spun toward her with a snarl. “Don’t speak, bitch.”

Hop joined Jak and showed his teeth to Cara like the animal he was, but he roughly spun Jak around. “We can set a trap and kill the other strangers.”

“Why do we want to kill them?” Tam dared to ask. “Why don’t we do this trade with them? I’ll hunt for the red deer and get us hides to trade. And the storm brought us good rain.

The roots will be large and fleshy this year, and the apples thick on the ground.”

“My people like roots.” Brady relaxed his fighting posture and stood straight. “Our soil isn’t good for them. My woman found some yesterday that were larger than any we can grow ourselves.”

Jak gestured angrily to Hop. The two of them retreated to the other side of the fire near Bab and talked in low, rough voices. After many angry gestures, Hop nodded agreement to Jak.

“We’ll go find these others and see how many they are. Then we’ll decide what to do.”

Jak snapped orders to the other males. Most of them, led by Hop, jogged off toward the beach.

Tam and there others stayed with Jak. One of them cast hungry glances toward Cara, but he kept his distance after one sharp bark from Jak.

Brady stayed on his feet and drifted around as far as his tether allowed. His random meandering eventually brought him as close as he could get to Cara.

He didn’t look at her. Instead he rubbed his one booted foot against the other. His foot gear was worn and well-fitted to his feet, but he shifted from foot to foot as if an itch plagued his feet. With an exasperated sigh, he finally worked one calf-high boot off his foot.

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The Savages were about fixing a meal, snapping at each other and chewing nosily on nuts and dried grains. At first, she thought he really did have a discomfort, and no wonder after being in the water. Whoever had returned his boots to him probably didn’t care if his feet were dry.

Then she saw the glint of metal inside his shed boot.

He lifted his boot with his toes as if he was trying to slide it on, but it eluded his efforts.

With a loud, frustrated curse, he kicked it toward her.

Cara was ready. She caught up the boot and palmed the small knife. With an angry curse of her own, she threw the boot back at him. Brady flung another string of nasty words her way and then went back to his task of putting his boot back on without use of his hands.

The Savages snickered at him except for Jak who glared at them with suspicion.

The knife, handle and blade together, wasn’t quite as long as her hand, but it was sharp.

Brady went back to his wanderings, moving as far from her as his bonds allowed. The Savages kept an eye on him as they stuffed nuts and fruits into their mouths with their grubby fists. In their minds, only a man could be dangerous. None of them would expect any problems from her, a lowly, weak female. Brady mumbled to himself and tugged on his bindings. He turned once and called Cara a vile, ugly name.

She spit on the ground in between them and used her pretend anger as an excuse to turn her back on all of them. She went to work on the leather strap around her ankle. Even with the keen blade, the rawhide stubbornly resisted being severed.

The river gurgled beyond the trees. A few steps would see her to it. She could make that short distance before any of the bastards even rose from their meal. Even if she couldn’t swim well, her chances in the water were better than with the Savages. And if she didn’t make it, she’d heard drowning was a peaceful death.