Thunder Run

by Daniel José Older

  “Hit you? But …”

  “Dizz!” Magdalys yelled, breaking into a run, and the tall purple pterodactyl perked his head up and blinked. “Let’s go.” Dizz nuzzled Grappler once more and then hopped twice toward Magdalys. She wrapped her arms around his neck and heaved herself onto his saddle; Montez leapt up behind her and with two powerful flaps, they soared out into the sky.

  “How did you, ah, get a handle on dinos so fast?” Montez asked over the whipping wind and gunfire. “Our guy Toussaint is the best wrangler in the 9th and he’s been training his whole life.”

  “It’s … it’s hard to explain,” Magdalys said. She had promised her friend Redd that she wouldn’t half step anymore in talking about her powers, and she’d been pretty good at it so far, but somehow … telling her brother that she could communicate with dinos using her mind just seemed impossible. “But I will! Once we’re out of this mess. Can you handle yourself with a dactyl?”

  She veered them in a wide circle and then sent Dizz careening toward the attacking sinorniths.

  Fubbafubbafubba fooooooo came Dizz’s jubilant war cry.

  “I’m pretty decent,” Montez said.

  “Good,” Magdalys said. She pulled Dizz into a sharp climb over the sinorniths, then leveled out and carefully stood up in the saddle.

  “Why?” Montez asked. “What’re you — AAAH!!”

  Magdalys leapt.

  THE WIND WHOOSHED through her, screamed against her face. Directly below, the brown-green murk of the swamplands awaited, but there was a whole swarm of gliding dinos between her and the ground, all she had to do was pick one and …

  With a squawking clamor that knocked the wind out of her, Magdalys landed on the back of a swooping sinornithosaurus and hugged tight to his neck as they both went plummeting toward the swamps.

  “Mags!” Montez called from above.

  Up, Magdalys thought, as hard as she could. But Drek’s hold on this one was tight — her pleas seemed to crash against that empty feeling she’d come to understand as being blocked by another dinowarrior. Up! she urged. Come on, boy!

  The sinornith plummeted at an even sharper angle, then craned his long neck around and snapped at Magdalys. She pulled her hands away just in time, then glared directly into those wild reptilian eyes. “You’re mine now,” she yelled, “so behave yourself!”

  Just inches above a pool of murky swamp water, the sinornith pulled himself into a glide, landed briefly on a branch, and then launched back skyward as Magdalys let out a woot. It was strange, clutching all those swamp-slicked feathers and that thick neck; she’d gotten used to the dactyls’ mostly bare hides. And sinorniths didn’t fly exactly — they hurtled into the air and then glided along toward the ground. It would take some getting used to. Feeeshwahh! the dino cawed into her mind. He had been under Drek’s control all morning and was bleary-minded, confused. She would try to keep a looser rein on him than what the Confederate dinomaster must’ve had.

  “Montez!” she called. “Follow me!”

  It took him a few tries, but he finally managed to get Dizz into a semigraceful flutter toward the tree line that Magdalys and her new steed had landed on and then taken off from again.

  “Whaaaat was tha — AAAAHH!” Montez tried to ask, but Dizz decided to do a loop-de-loop while he was talking.

  “Dizz!” Magdalys stifled a giggle. “Be nice. That’s my brother.”

  The dactyl righted himself and bobbed his head from side to side with a soft squawk.

  “They really do listen to you,” Montez said.

  You have no idea, Magdalys thought with a smile. “Keep me covered for a sec, okay? I have to do something.”

  Montez nodded and unslung his sniper rifle.

  Okay, buddy, Magdalys thought, scanning the trees below. Where was that guy who was controlling you before, hm?

  They’d circled around again and were heading back toward the others, keeping close to the edge of the lake. Drek would have to be somewhere where he could easily see what was going on. Probably in the underbrush nearby.

  Feeshwaahh! the sinornith wailed, then it let out a screech and dove. The swampy lake water swung up toward Magdalys and for a second she thought they’d splash right into it. Instead, they skimmed along the top, sending ripples and tiny splashes to either side, then banked sharply back to the shore, where the sinornith touched down long enough for a quick, bumpy run through the mud before taking back off.

  Dactyls were more fun and easier to ride, Magdalys decided, trying to keep track of the spinning landscape around her. Plus they didn’t kill you with one bite. They’d branch-hopped back toward the upper canopy and now swooped over the treetops once again and … there! A gray-clad figure with bright red hair stood amidst the treetops, gazing at the shoot-out through a spyglass.

  Magdalys glared, tilting her sinornith slightly so their dive would take them in right behind Drek. They swung toward him. The wind rose to a shrill howl. If she could snatch him up before he had a chance to fight back, they could bring him to New Orleans and interrogate him, find out where the other Knights of the Golden Circle in the area were hiding out, then hunt them down and capture them, one by one. They could dismantle the whole — The sinornith let out a shriek.

  Drek spun around, yelled.

  She was close enough to make out the splotches of mud on his uniform, that long red beard, the gold cap on one of his teeth, even. But not close enough to snatch him up, especially not now that he’d seen them. Drek pulled a pistol out of his belt and aimed it directly at Magdalys. She crouched low against the sinornith’s filthy back as the first shot rang out, then another bang came from behind her. Magdalys peered up from her crouch; she saw Drek yell and clutch his hand, the pistol nowhere to be seen. He glanced at Magdalys with an enraged snarl and then disappeared into the trees just as she came swooping to a landing where he had been seconds earlier.

  Out in the sky, Montez approached on Dizz, still flapping in odd, lopsided loops. He had his rifle out but was clearly having trouble holding on to it and not falling to his death from the wild dactyl. Over by the lake, the remaining sinorniths were flapping away now that Drek had stopped controlling them.

  “Quite a shot,” Magdalys called as Montez got closer.

  “Hardly.” He shrugged. “I was aiming for his head.”

  Inside, Magdalys flinched ever so slightly. She still wasn’t totally used to this wartime world, where taking lives had become second nature, a simple act of survival. Even though Drek was about to kill her, had tried, and would again, it was jarring to think Montez was so ready to destroy him. But of course he was! They were enemies. At war.

  She studied her brother as Dizz landed on the branch beside her and the sinornith. Had he gotten taller in the few months since she’d seen him? Would that sadness she now saw in his eyes ever go away? “You saved my life,” she said.

  He scoffed. “You saved all our lives by showing up, Mags.”

  She shook her head but didn’t know why. It seemed wrong to accept that somehow. Everyone had put themselves in danger. The world had become indecipherably tangled, a web of people who had saved and killed one another, life debts and blood rivalries on into forever. “I’m going after him. We can’t let Drek get away.”

  Montez squinted at her, taking her in now the way she had him a moment earlier. For a second, she thought he was going to pull an older brother I-can’t-let-you-put-yourself-in-danger type move, which would’ve been laughable, considering where they were and what they’d both been through. Instead, he nodded. “We have a lot to talk about, huh, Mags?”

  “We do indeed.”

  He pulled on the reins and spurred Dizz into the air. “I’ll get the others.”

  THE WOODS BUZZED and hummed and chirped and growled around Magdalys. It was so alive! The most living, breathing place she’d ever been. The sinornith stood perched on a branch far above the forest floor. They’d followed Drek to a relatively dry area just outside the Atchafalaya. Everything was
muddy brown and green, and huge bugs flitted through the thick air amidst swarms of tiny flies.

  Drek was nowhere to be seen.

  She heard her brother calling out to the others, and, somewhere closer, the mournful hooting of a swamp owl. A fluttering of wings. The ongoing swoosh and splish of water all around.

  No Drek.

  She closed her eyes and opened up the part of herself that tuned in with dinominds. A whole world of chatter unfolded, like a curtain drawn to reveal a play midscene: the gentle, snorting mutter of the sinornith beneath her, the steady juhjuhjuh of the toads beneath it all, a squeaking pack of microdactyls nearby, and … there! Somewhere up ahead, a large, ferocious dino was tearing through the underbrush. It was already too far for her to reach to control and getting farther by the second.

  Her eyes sprang open. “Heeyah!” she called, spurring the sinornith into a spiraling descent from one tree branch to another. The only direction was forward. They snapped through the dangling vines and Spanish moss, dipped around a huge oak tree, and then seemed to ricochet off another and blast deeper into the thick forest.

  Finally, with her heart pounding in her ears and her face burning from scratches and cuts, Magdalys pulled her sinornith to a halt on a branch a few feet above the ground and listened. Again, the screeches and caws rose out of the forest around her, but the giant lizard she’d sensed moving away quickly: gone. And probably Drek with it.

  She clenched her teeth and spurred her mount into a low glide. He was getting tired; she could feel the fast rise and fall of his breath beneath her, the gradually spreading slowness of his reactions. They dipped and dove forward, then up, then branch-to-branched it for a while until the sinornith started to cough and sputter.

  “Alright, boy, alright,” Magdalys said, taking him down for a landing. Catching her breath, the sound came to her again. It was unmistakable: a snorting, heaving, thrashing, snarling. It wasn’t too far now, whatever it was. Somehow, she’d almost caught up.

  She stretched outward with her mind, trying to grasp hold of the creature’s sense, but it didn’t take. The thing was either too far or too much within Drek’s grasp for her to reach.

  The sinornith panted beside her, still recovering. She’d have to go on foot until she could wrangle up another dino to ride. “One last favor,” she said, running her hand along the creature’s slick feathers. “Then I’ll leave you alone.”

  Up, she thought as she jogged off through the trees. Up, up, up.

  Behind her, the tired sinornith heaved itself from one branch to the next toward the sky.

  “Okay,” Magdalys said as her boot disappeared into the ground with a slurpy, bubbly noise. “This was a terrible idea. I get it!” She found a less mushy place to anchor her other foot and then yanked herself free, wobbled once, flapped her arms like a dactyl, and managed to stay upright. “A terrible, terrible idea!” She kept going, now more carefully. The whole forest seemed to be turning into mud around her. On either side, greenish pools reflected glints of sunlight back toward the treetops. Gnats fussed and buzzed everywhere.

  It hadn’t all been for nothing, though. When Magdalys was quiet, she could still feel the gnashing tingle of that dino up ahead. Drek’s mount, she was sure of it.

  She gritted her teeth and pushed forward, hopping over another puddle and then sliding knee deep into the muck where she’d landed. “Gah!” She trudged out, soaked, each move she made a whole mess of squishiness and swamp water. Leaned against a tree and caught her breath.

  She was about to close her eyes to try to find Drek again when she realized she didn’t have to. Fakatika fakatika fakatika fakatika came the panting snarl of an approaching dino. It sounded like it might be laughing. And then the whole swamp seemed to erupt as heavy stomps crashed toward her.

  Magdalys pulled out her carbine just as a towering spinosaur shoved its way through the underbrush. Drek straddled the part of its back where that sharp sail connected to its neck. He clutched the reins in one hand and his pistol in the other. Had he seen her?

  She reached out with her mind. If she could get inside that thing’s thoughts, she’d be able to — The spinosaur’s alligator-like face snapped in her direction, wide green eyes locking with hers. It wasn’t in her control though, not by a long shot. The dino lunged toward her.

  Magdalys raised the carbine, tried to steady it, and squeezed the trigger. The shot went wide, and Drek answered with two shots of his own that whizzed through the clearing smoke around Magdalys and thunked into the tree she’d been leaning up against.

  Time to go.

  She dipped around to the other side of the tree and ran, ignoring the sucking, sinking mud beneath her boots and the sogginess of her trousers.

  Another shot cracked the branches above her head, and the spinosaur let out a chilling roar from that long, toothy snout and plodded after Magdalys.

  From somewhere behind them, a huge crash rumbled through the forest, then another. That would be the toads landing where she’d sent her sinornith up into the air to alert them to where she was, Magdalys thought. The third one landed with a splash and the scattered squawking of microraptors.

  Were they too late though? How far had Magdalys wandered in this ridiculous chase?

  JuhjuhjuhJUHjuhjuhJUH, the toads sang inside Magdalys.

  She ran, praying her desperation would carry to them somehow, become a beacon. She definitely didn’t have it in her to concentrate on reaching out.

  BLAM! Blam BLAM! Drek’s pistol screamed behind her, and bullets plunked into the marsh on either side, one kapinging off a rock and then thwunking into a log. The spinosaur roared and crashed through branches. But it sounded like he was farther away now. She glanced back. Drek had turned, sent his mount galloping off to the side, away from Magdalys. She squinted after him. Where were they going?

  JuhJUHjuhjuhJUHjuhJUHjuhJUHJUHjuh.

  At least now she had backup, she thought, taking a few careful steps after him, carbine still out. The crash of the toads moving through the forest rose up behind her. And then yells filled the air. She thought it might’ve been Montez’s voice. And Wolfgang’s. Then a round of gunshots burst out from up ahead.

  What was happening?

  JuhJUHjuhJUHJUHJUHJUHJUHJUH.

  Magdalys broke into a run, although she had no idea which way to go. Up above, a familiar caw sounded: Dizz. She caught a flash of his purple hide sailing past the trees overhead. More gunfire. Lots of gunfire, and then the shriek of mortar shells cutting through the air.

  BorGOOP! a toad moaned out loud as the artillery fire exploded.

  “Mags!” a familiar voice yelled. Twigs snapped up above, and there was Mapper on top of Dizz, blasting through the forest toward her. “Hop on! We gotta get outta here!”

  She did, grabbing hold of the saddle as Dizz slowed to a glide beside her and heaving herself on behind Mapper. And then they soared up, up, up, through the trees and above the canopy, into the sky. “What happened?” Magdalys asked.

  And then she saw it. “Oh.”

  Another shell whistled through the air. In a clearing up ahead, several divisions of gray-clad Confederate soldiers on spinoback unleashed a barrage of musket fire at the three toads, who peered down from the treetops. These soldiers weren’t the ragtag local militias; they stood in military formation and looked to be well supplied and ready for war. A mounted artillery division of stegos lined up at the edge of the woods, letting off one shot after another from their howitzers.

  “We found the enemy,” Mapper said. “Like, all of them.”

  THEY’D SCRAMBLED AWAY as fast as they could. The Confederates had lobbed a couple more artillery shells after them and sent a few squads out, but the pursuit had seemed to fall away almost immediately. That relieved Magdalys, who was exhausted from chasing Drek in circles through the swamplands, but Wolfgang grunted that it was probably a bad sign and wouldn’t elaborate when the others pressed him.

  “March,” he’d said gruffly. “Double time.”
>
  And they’d headed off into the wilderness.

  A chorus of buzzing insect songs rose in the darkening sky over the Atchafalaya. Privates Toussaint and Briggs headed up the march, muskets out, bayonets fixed. Montez, Magdalys, Wolfgang, and Mapper walked alongside each other in the middle, and Tom Summers and Louis Bijoux, whose left arm had been grazed by some shrapnel but was otherwise okay, took up the rear.

  The toads weren’t far. Magdalys could feel the endless, curmudgeonly enthusiasm of their juhJUHs chortling on and on from somewhere off to the left. They were probably mostly submerged in a nearby lagoon, tending to each other’s wounds and gossiping about the tiny mammals they’d just encountered. She had a feeling they wouldn’t stray far though; they seemed to regard her and her friends as their responsibilities — or pets maybe. Anyway, it made her smile to think about them.

  “We were part of a medical convoy heading to New Orleans,” Montez said as they trudged through dangling fronds and towering oaks. Magdalys had been dreading hearing this story, and she’d been dying to hear it. She just hated the thought of her brother getting hurt. “Mostly stegos. A few brachys. There were, what? Thirty-five of us at the outset?”

  “Forty-two,” Corporal Wolfgang Hands said. “We lost seven in the raptor rider attack crossing the Mississippi that first day out.”

  “Dang.” Tom Summers rubbed his wide, freckled face. “Been through so many shoot-outs, I blanked that one out.”

  “We all do it,” Montez said. Magdalys looked at him, that long face that had seemed to grow so much older in the few months he’d been away. What had he had to erase from his young, tired mind? What would she?

  “Anyway,” Tom said, “Montez was asleep for the first half of the journey.”

  “Ha!” Montez ran a hand along the back of his head. “Yes, just a pleasant nap is all.”

  Magdalys was still soggy, and her boots made squishy noises with each step, and she was itchy and she kept swinging between being ecstatic she’d found her brother and terrified that they would all be massacred at any moment.