“Who else would you bring?” she asked as she crossed her arms and began to float above the ground. She didn’t look angry, but I couldn’t help but look at her muscular body wrapped in the stomach-less superhero bathing-suit and wonder if she was a goddess.
“I could bring Sheela,” I said.
“Or she could stay in the camp and work on weapons and training,” Liahpa said.
“I could bring Gee,” I said.
“She’ll burn anything she gets too close to. Also, you mentioned she could cut wood with her fire whip, shouldn’t she get weapons made with Sheela?”
“I could bring Emerald,” I said.
“What use would she be on this trip?” Liahpa asked. “I like her, but she isn’t one for sparkling conversation.”
“Quwaru or anyone else from--”
“There is a lot of work to do around the fort,” Liahpa interrupted me. “Really, you are the only one who needs to go, and you could do it alone, but I offer something else that the other women can’t.”
“Oh?” I asked.
“I’m the strongest,” Liahpa laughed. “Sheela is strong, of course, and it looks like Gee, Emta, and Quwaru might have some strength, but I doubt they can lift as much as me. I’ll be able to help you load all the rocks up on the dinosaurs the most quickly and efficiently.”
“So there isn’t any other reason that you would want to come?” I asked, and I searched her red eyes for some sort of hint at her true intentions.
“What is the reason you believe that I want to go?” she asked.
“You just told me that you wanted to face your fears and help me. Is there anything else?”
“No,” she answered.
“You sure?” I asked as I raised an eyebrow.
“What else do you think that I want from you?” Liahpa asked as her lips curled up into a slight smile.
I opened my mouth to speak but then closed it again. I was about to say that she wanted to play with my dick again, but that seemed a bit too forward. I also wanted to know if she wanted me to be alone with her so that we could have sex, but I couldn’t imagine Liahpa getting over her terror of men that quickly.
“Does that mean yes?” she asked after I had carried another basket of clay over to Tom.
“I’ll think about it,” I said.
“I’d prefer an answer now,” she said.
“You are persistent,” I said as I shook my head at her.
“You say that like you don’t believe it is a good quality,” she said as she stared into my eyes.
“Okay,” I laughed. “I’ll consider it. We still don’t know yet if those rocks will make copper.”
“But if they do, you’ll go alone with me?” she asked.
“Probably,” I said.
“Pro--”
“Look, I don’t know what’s going to come up,” I said as I filled up another bucket of clay. “If it works out that way, then yes, we’ll go alone.”
“Excellent,” Liahpa said, and then we carried the last basket of clay back to Tom.
“Think we got enough?” she asked as we looked at the twelve baskets. Each one weighed about forty pounds, and I actually didn’t know if Tom would have an issue or not carrying all of it.
“It will probably last Trel a day,” I said, and we both laughed as we began to load it all up onto the trunk part of Tom’s saddle. Liahpa lifted up from the ground, and I placed them on Tom’s saddle. It was obvious that she lifted each basket with no strain, but watching her move so easily was actually making me feel a bit tired.
As soon as we finished putting the last basket in place, Youleena called us over to her boulder, and Liahpa and I walked over.
“What do you think?” the willowy woman asked as she gestured to the soul ring. The inside of the ring was now a disk of smooth stone, and each side had a “leg” coming out that joined down together. It really did look like a funky pizza cutter, but this ring wouldn’t move, and the axe probably weighed as much as one of the baskets of clay.
“The handle here is joined to the rock, but I made a hairline crack,” Youleena said to Liahpa as she pointed to the spot at the pommel of the handle. “If you grab onto the handle and yank it free of the rock, it should come off in your hand.”
“Here goes nothing,” the floating woman said as she grabbed the handle of the axe and twisted her hands. The weapon made a loud snap, and then it came free in her grasp.
I watched Liahpa swing the weapon around for a few moments, and then a wide smile slowly spread over her face.
“Do you like it?” I asked, and then she nodded and handed it over to me.
I took the soul ring axe in my hands and was a bit surprised by its weight. It was probably thirty pounds at the most, so a bit lighter than I had expected. The weight would still be impossible for me to use as a weapon or tool though, so I was glad that Liahpa didn’t seem to have a problem swinging it around.
“Let’s see you try it out on a tree,” I said as I handed her the weapon.
“Yesss,” she hissed as her smile grew wider, and then we walked to the edge of the jungle.
“The ring is made out of a strange metal,” Youleena said. “It sure does cut well.”
“How about--” I started to ask as I pointed to a tree that was about the same diameter as my thigh. Liahpa swung before I finished speaking, and her soul axe cut the tree off its stump as if it was an over cooked carrot being cut with a cleaver. The tree actually leaned forward toward us, and we stepped out of the way just in the nick of time.
“Damn,” I gasped.
“Timber,” Liahpa laughed, and then she moved on to the next tree.
This one was about the width of my torso, and it would have taken us some hundred or more chops to get it down with the stone axe. I guessed it would take Liahpa at least ten, but the soul blade cut through the trunk as if the tree wasn’t even there, and her second chop caused the tree to fall down away from us.
“Uhhh, that’s amazing,” I said as I gazed in awe at the new axe.
“It really is!” Liahpa beamed. “Thank you for giving it to me, Victor.”
“You are the only one who can use it, so--” My words were interrupted when she cut down another tree. This one was about the exact same diameter as the soul ring itself, so Liahpa aimed her blade to bring it all down with only a single swing.
“This is going to help us work much faster,” the athletic woman said, but as she raised her axe to cut down another tree, we heard a honk up above our heads, and Liahpa froze.
“What does that mean?” Youleena asked as the three of us looked up to see Bruce circling above us.
Before I could answer, an angry roar erupted on the other side of the lake, we turned to look in that direction, and I saw four allosauruses sprint from around the jungle side. The parasauruses all began to run in the opposite direction away from the group of predators.
Unfortunately, that was right in our direction, and I knew that allosauruses wouldn’t just chase their prey around like idiots. They always had a plan.
“It means we’ve got company!” I shouted as I looked to Liahpa and told all of my dinos to get back to our location. “Looks like you might get a chance to use the axe on something that might fight back.”
“Let’s hope it splits flesh better than wood,” the silver-skinned woman said as she ran with Youleena and me toward Tom.
Chapter 11
The parasaurs were fleeing toward the feasting troodons and balaurs in a counterclockwise motion around the lake, but my crew of predators had followed my orders, and had left the corpses of the three turtles and were running back toward us.
Liahpa had no problem jumping onto Tom’s back, and I held my hands down to boost Youleena up. I was last to get on Tom’s saddle, and the gang of dinosaurs turned around to face the way we came.
Then I changed my mind, and flipped us around so that we were facing east, and commanded my group of dinos to start sprinting in that direction.
; “What are you doing?” Liahpa shouted over the wind. “The way out is back over there!”
“I know!” I said, “I just didn’t have a good feeling about it.”
“You are taking us around the lake! They are going to keep chasing us!” Liahpa held her soul ring axe in her left hand, but her right grabbed onto my arm so that she wouldn’t fall off.
“I know!” I shouted. “I just felt like--” my words stopped in mid-sentence as we heard a roar behind us. Youleena, Liahpa, and I turned back to where the slope of the valley where we would exit was, and a pack of six allosaurs trampled through the jungle there and collided with the small herd of parasaurs.
Their path would have gone right through us if we had decided to flee home in the obvious direction.
“How did you kno--” Liahpa started to ask, but then the massive predators began to tear into the parasaurs. There was a whole lot of screaming, blood, and chaos, but I guessed that the allosaurs would probably get distracted by their successful hunt, and then let us run away in peace.
But my guess was quickly proven incorrect.
The four allosaurs that had circled from the north side of the lake and initially driven the parasaurs into the trap sprinted past the corpses of the half eaten turtles, around the slaughter of the herd of parasaurs, and were now on our tails.
It quickly became apparent that we weren’t going to be able to outrun them. It could have been because of my dino’s filled bellies, or it could have been that they were still tired, but the stegos were lagging way behind the rest of the group, and I knew that the predators would soon catch up with us.
So I ordered the stegos, raptors, troodons, trikes, and parasaurs to stop and turn around.
Then I felt a tingling sensation on my right side, and I turned to see another four allosaurs tear through the jungle ahead of us.
So much for a clean escape.
Bob, Hope, Sonny, and Cher were at the front of the pack, and they hadn’t turned around yet, so I commanded the parasaurs to sprint as quickly as they could as soon as the allosaurs tore through the trees. The four dinos did as I ordered, and the predators actually turned away and tried to snap at my friends as they blew past them. It was the split second distraction that I needed, and I aimed Tom, Katie, and Nicole right into the flank of the closest carnivore.
The three trikes plowed into the side of the allosaurus like bulls into a bullfighter. The predator didn’t even have time to scream, it just let out a dying gasp as all the air exploded out of its mouth, and then it twisted to the side like a limp noodle as the trikes pushed it into the next one in the line.
Then the trikes continued their charge and caught the third one in the group.
For half a moment, I had no idea what was going on because of the chaos. There was just too much screaming, blood, and gnashing teeth from predators that could swallow me whole. The impact had also jarred my bones, but my vision cleared quickly, and I realized that the fourth allosaurus in the group, that wasn’t impaled by Tom, Nicole, or Katie, was twisting around to come at Tom’s flank.
A moment before the massive predator snapped, I realized his eyes were focused on Youleena, Liahpa, and me.
My body acted almost before my brain gave it the order. My left arm wrapped around Liahpa’s waist, and my right arm around Youleena’s a moment before I pushed up and back with my legs. Both women let out startled cries as we lifted off the saddle, but then the cries turned into screams when the allosaurus’s teeth closed around the space we had occupied just a fraction of a second ago.
Then we were falling.
I pulled both of the women into me to shield them from the blow, but I could feel Liahpa’s mass pull away from me as if she was on some sort of bungee cord. The three of us hit the sand below, and I took most of the impact as the two women fell on me, but the impact was surprisingly soft, and I only felt a small amount of air leave my lungs.
I forced Tom to twist to the side into the allosaurus so that the predator was snuffed out by the larger dino’s bulk, but then Tom tripped and began to topple over on to his side. The trike let out a screech of frustration, and both Nicole and Katie tried to pull their horns free of their victims as my parasaurs made wide turns to come back around.
Our baskets of clay and stack of tools tumbled down onto the sand before Liahpa, Youleena, and I as we jumped to our feet, and I twisted my head around to see that the stegos, troodons, and balaurs had turned around to face the four allosaurs chasing after us. There was no way they could turn around and come help Tom in time, Nicole and Katie were still stuck, and the parasaurs would also need time to get back to us.
So I was going to have to be the one to save the big trike.
“What are you--” Liahpa shouted as I sprinted toward the pile of tools that had been flung from Tom’s saddle. I didn’t have time to answer her, to even think, or to even be afraid. All I knew was that I had to buy Tom, Nicole, and Katie a few moments so that they could get free and face the last allosaurus on this side. If I didn’t do something, the predator would tear Tom’s exposed stomach open with its claws or teeth, and then my buddy would die an agonizing death.
And none of my friends were gonna die on my watch.
I scooped up a stone axe from the sand as I sprinted toward Tom. The big trike’s opponent was still getting up from being pushed away earlier, but now that Tom had lost his footing, there was no way that the trike could do anything to keep the allosaurus from attacking. The trike’s back was to me, and I jumped up, grabbed onto the saddle with my left hand, and then flipped myself over the side with a movement smooth enough to make my high school gym teacher proud.
Then I landed and came face to face with one of history's greatest predators.
My stomach dropped into my feet as I raced toward it, and I felt my heart threaten to stop beating from sheer terror. The beast was easily twenty-five feet tall, even bent forward in its normal stance. Its maw was large enough for me to crawl into, and the ridges over its eyes made it seem like some sort of dinosaur-super villain. It had proportionally longer arms than a carno, but was also about fifty percent larger. It wasn’t as large as a T-Rex, but the allosaurus looked like an MMA athlete compared to the T-Rex’s bodybuilder physique. The allosaurus was the perfect blend of muscle, size, and sleekness for a balanced predator.
I pushed down my fear and focused on my one and only task. This thing could eat me in one bite, but it looked slightly confused that I was charging, and then I saw its big red eyes dart away from me.
Then it reeled backwards as Liahpa slashed into its leg with a mighty swing of her soul ring axe.
Suddenly its blood sprayed across the beach like someone had blown up a can of red paint.
I was startled by how the silver-skinned woman had been able to get ahead of me so quickly, but as I raised my own axe to hack into the allosaurus’ leg, I figured that she was one of the top athletes on her world for a reason, and her sport involved sprinting across a field carrying a thousand pound ball, so it was no surprise that she was so fast.
Then I slammed my axe into the allosaurus’ other leg like I was trying to cut down a tree.
My ears were ringing, but I realized that it was actually the sound of the massive dinosaur screaming above us. I jumped onto the other side of the predator’s leg as it bent down to snap at me, and then I managed to get one more swing in on its heel before it tried to twist around and stomp on me. For some reason, the beast was totally ignoring Liahpa, even though each of her soul ring axe swings chopped a massive piece of meat from the dino’s leg.
That was fine with me, since Liahpa was really the one doing the most damage to the dino, and I just needed to distract this guy for a few more moments.
I dodged to the left as the allosaurus snapped under its belly at me. Then I jumped to my right and rolled as it tried to rip me in half with one of its toe claws. I couldn’t even hear its massive foot stomps over the sound of its angry cries, and then it let out a scream which made my vis
ion blur. There was another tidal wave of blood to my right, and I turned to see that Liahpa had finally cut the allosaurus’ foot off.
Then the dino began to topple over.
But just as it began to lean over, Bob and Sonny slammed into the big predator with their thick shoulders.
My two big male parasaurs were careful to avoid Liahpa and me with their feet, but we still jumped out of their way. Their ram had been incredibly effective, and the one-footed allosaurus tumbled across the beach, bounced once, and then stopped right next to MCA’s tail. The predator let out another loud screech before the stego glanced over his shoulder.
Then MCA bitched slapped the allosaurus across his face with his spiked tail and killed him.
The timing was perfect since the other four allosaurs that had ran past the turtles were about to charge right into the three stegos.
I commanded the troodons to dash into the jungle with the balaurs while the three stegos turned sideways so that they could bring their tails into play. Their spacing was somewhat tight across the beach, so that they formed an armored wall, but I kind of wanted more of a gauntlet, so I had Mike D shift back so that Ad-Rock and MCA flanked him more in the front.
Then the next four allosaurs finally got within range.
Ad-Rock hit the lead allosaurus in the chest with his tail and knocked him through the gap between him and MCA. The predator passed through the funnel, and then Mike D hit him in the chest again. The bloody impact knocked the allosaurus into the lake, and it thrashed a bunch as it tried to either stand or die.
MCA hit the second allosaurus in the hip, and the predator bounced into Ad-Rock, tumbled through the hole between the dinos. The allosaurus then got smacked in the face by Mike D, who’s tail was swinging back from the previous hit in the lake’s direction causing this one to tumble into the jungle where it started to scream as the balaurs and troodons tore into its face.
Bruce dove through the air, and passed right in front of the face of the last two allosaurs as they charged the stegos, and while it wasn’t meant to be any sort of offensive attack, his brief dive cause both of the predators to turn their heads and snap at the big pteranodon. It was a dumb move on their part since the distraction meant that MCA and Ad-Rock could both swing their tails into the predators easily.
Tamer- King of Dinosaurs 5 Page 20
