Neanderthal Planet (The Traveler Book 5) by Vaughn Heppner

Author:Vaughn Heppner [Heppner, Vaughn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-05-03T16:00:00+00:00

-21-

It was a day later, and we were lower in the valley. There were thirty Neanderthal toughs. Those of Skarl’s group and a few others like it along with the guards who protected Gruum. This time, Gruum had two fellows help him down, which proved to be a long and laborious process.

I’d slept hard and had been sore when I woke up. I did some stretches, a few pushups, sit-ups, the like, and more stretching. Finally, I did some shadowboxing. The reason, as I’m sure many of you have surmised, was because I was going to fight Skarl today.

It turned out that Skarl’s nine, which included him, was the crème de la crème of the free Neanderthals. Each of the nine was acclaimed a special fighter and warrior, including Zog. Skarl was the champion, of course. That they were so good was why they’d had the eight dire wolves. No group trained and traded dire wolves. There were a few trainers and they had sixteen more dire wolves. Skarl’s nine had gone out into the tundra because Gruum had heard the sonic booms and seen the lightning my reaching the ziggurat had brought.

According to one sensor that sorta worked, Free Neanderthal HQ was surprised to see the First Folk launching flying saucers.

I’d learned that not many flying saucers went out these days, an indication they were rare. Combined with the low number of First Folk on Garm—maybe too many Accelerationists and Traditionalists had been in the Chaunt System when I’d gone there last journey. Many Accelerationists were trapped on the third planet of the Chaunt System together with the Draconian T-Rex riders. That was thanks to yours truly, Livi and possibly sneaky Philip.

Perhaps the total number of First Folk in the star lanes was down. Perhaps whatever they did in the mines wasn’t as important as other things on other planets. Those were logical surmises on my part. I didn’t know any of it to be fact.

That had caused me to ponder on the number of brain-enhanced Smilodons. Did the First Folk have hordes of intelligent, antenna-wearing great cats on Garm? I was thinking not. Likely, those Smilodons were a specialty item, numbering in the tens instead of hundreds or thousands.

Two elite groups had met out on the tundra several days ago. The five Smilodons had maybe been the best facing the eight best dire wolves. That meant an elite team of Neanderthal tundra-walkers had rescued me.

I’d learned something else, too. The number of slaves escaping from the mines in recent years had dwindled to almost nothing. That told me the Slave Corps, the Neanderthal Mamelukes, had probably become much better and more sophisticated than before. Therefore, fewer slaves had escaped.

Because fewer slaves escaped, the free Neanderthals knew much less about what was presently going on in the mines. They had no fresh information.

What had Krull’s part been in all this? He’d told me half-truths, spinning lies to pump me of information. There was something fishy about the Krull Incident, fishy from Krull’s end regarding his loyalty to his First Folk bosses.

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