Bladefoot

by David Pratt

  ‘That’s disgusting,’ Bladefoot thought. That vision made Bladefoot feel physically sick. Then again, Cutter had been known for his ambition. No matter what happened Bladefoot hoped that Preston would be long gone by then. Worrying about his brother would be the last act of compassion he would have for the family. ‘I can’t keep worrying about Preston for the rest of my life,’ Bladefoot thought. Then, thinking more sensibly, he cleared his mind.

  Bladefoot hung back from the rest of the pack as they walked back to the tree that they rested under. His father didn’t like it when Bladefoot got too close any more. Every time Bladefoot came close to his mother and brother his father would turn around and snap his jaws at him, showing his teeth. Bladefoot would snarl and hiss back, but then he would retreat. Bladefoot questioned in his mind whether or not he would win a fight with Kane.

  ‘That would be a spectacle … very interesting,’ Bladefoot pondered. It would be youth and strength versus experience and knowledge. Realistically, of course, there would be nothing to be gained by fighting his father. Bladefoot would be better off striking out by himself, which he decided he was going to do soon.

  Bladefoot’s attentions were pulled elsewhere when Preston started chattering at a bush. Bladefoot trotted forwards to see what the matter was. Then Bladefoot noticed that curled up under the bush was a snake. Snakes were a new group of reptiles that first evolved in the Early Cretaceous period. Snakes were unique among reptiles, as they had lost their legs. Snakes, like Troodons, also hunt mammals – and have developed many specialised senses to do just that, such as infrared heat-seeking vision.

  Right now the snake did not like two Troodons circling it and snapping at it. The snake hissed loudly, and struck back at the Troodons. Snakebites were painful. Preston had never seen a snake before and tried to pull it out of its hiding place with his jaws, but the snake turned around and bit Preston on the snout. Startled, Preston dropped the serpent and shook his head in agony. Blood dripped from Preston’s snout while his parents moved on.

  ‘Strange-looking reptile bit Preston,’ Bladefoot thought. He had never seen a snake before, either, and – judging by Preston’s injury and the snake hissing away – Bladefoot thought it best to leave the worm-like reptile alone. Preston looked at the snake and wondered whether he should launch his own attack, but then decided that the snake was more trouble than it was worth. Both Troodons moved away. One day snakes would diversify and become one of the most adaptable hunters on the planet, and they were heading in just that direction sixty-five million years ago.

  The sun started to rise over Kane’s territory. Bladefoot opened his eyes. He hadn’t slept well, despite being tired before hunkering down. ‘Leave now …’ The thought kept echoing in his mind. He got up, knowing that he couldn’t put it off any more. He had to go … needed to go. His father would kill him if he stayed, and there was nothing to be gained from his mother now. As Bladefoot walked past his sleeping family he took one last look at his brother. ‘Take care of yourself, Preston. May we never be at conflict.’ Bladefoot wished him well.

  And that was it: the last act of kindness towards his old family group. Bladefoot began to walk as the sun began to rise in the sky. It was time for him to be in charge of something, not play second fiddle to his father any more. Bladefoot wondered what his family would do when they discovered he’d left. Then he realised that there wouldn’t be much sorrow. Soon Kane would drive out Preston, then Kane and Terra could produce another brood the following year and Bladefoot would be forgotten. If Bladefoot tried to return here his parents would see him as a threat, not as their son.

  That’s how it felt to be Bladefoot: excited and scared. He’d never been on his own for very long before, and he couldn’t wait to get out there. He knew it would be dangerous, and many threats lay ahead. But he’d been trained well to survive. His first mission was to get away from the land he knew as fast as possible. He not only had to evade Kane, but Cutter too. The best way to do that was to head south, away from Cutter’s territory. Then, after that, rival Troodons would be the least of his concerns. Some creatures in the Late Cretaceous he was already familiar with: others he would be encountering for the first time, like that snake the night before.

  Chapter 2

  The sun broke through the morning sky, not only dawning a new day but a new chapter in Bladefoot’s life. Bladefoot once again felt alone, but this time he knew for sure that he would not return to his family. Preston would have to leave on his own and his parents would forget them both. Bladefoot hoped that Preston would depart sooner rather than later. No matter what happened, Bladefoot now had to survive on nothing but his own wits and survival lessons.

  The dawn chorus echoed in his ears. Cicadas, birds, and dinosaur calls sounded around him. Bladefoot wanted his new home range to mirror that of his parents’. The first good decision he made was to stick to the thick forest. Getting caught out in the open did not sound appealing. Along the way he would have to rest and feed, but that could come later. All he wanted now was to leave Kane’s land, preferably before his own father killed him.

  Sometime later Bladefoot stopped at a small stream to get a drink. The cool water felt good going down his throat, and he splashed his head in it to cool down. The morning heat did nothing but rise, and the daytime creatures were out and about for sure. Suddenly a stone skimmed past him. Bladefoot looked up to see what the problem was. There stood Cutter, with his parents in tow. Cutter challenged Bladefoot on the spot. ‘You will die today, Bladefoot! You do not have your family to back you up now!’ Cutter screeched. Bladefoot knew Cutter was right. Cutter’s parents were also making threat displays in the background. ‘Kane’s offspring will meet his end!’ they chanted.

  Outnumbered, Bladefoot bolted – with Cutter’s pack giving chase. ‘Hey, Bladefoot. What’s the rush?’ Cutter taunted. Bladefoot ran towards a ferny gully: he could feel the snapping jaws of Cutter’s clan behind him. As he leapt towards the rocks he narrowly missed Cutter’s tripping claws. Bladefoot scrabbled over the edge of the gully but Cutter and his parents were still in hot pursuit. Bladefoot bolted back into the jungle, hoping that he would not tire. For him tiring was not an option. He would not let Cutter have the satisfaction of slicing his jugular. Bladefoot knew this was a risk. Male Troodons were known to pick each other off at this stage of life to reduce the competition for females.

  Bladefoot ran down a hill, way ahead of his rivals. However, as he reached the bottom he found a group of another species. In the heat of the chase he’d accidentally run into another herd of Stygimoloch. Bladefoot’s arrival in the middle of their morning vegetarian breakfast didn’t go down well with the boneheads, and they bellowed at him to get lost. Bladefoot turned back and found that Cutter was catching up. Bladefoot then did something that in normal circumstances he would never dream of. He ran towards the bonehead herd, keeping to the herd’s outer rim. Behind him the boneheads broke off their attention from Bladefoot and confronted Cutter’s pack. Both sides displayed to one another – and one bonehead even charged Cutter’s father, Hadrian, who dived to the side. The diversion worked for a while for Bladefoot …

  Cutter was not so easily fooled. He stayed focused, and once again caught sight of Bladefoot making his escape. ‘Come on. He’s getting away,’ he signalled to his parents. Cutter outflanked the boneheads and pursued his rival once again. Bladefoot had no choice but to head to the mountain range to the north. He knew that the mountain range was dangerous: volcanoes, rockslides, and geysers were just a few of the hazards they contained. But being ripped apart by Cutter was a grisly way to go. ‘Not much choice,’ Bladefoot panted. He made his way to the nearest mountain base. Cutter was too far behind now, and now Cutter’s parents were lagging because of Bladefoot’s tactic with the boneheads as well. That diversion had really paid off for Bladefoot.

  Cutter stopped short of the mountain base. He also knew of the dangers ahead, including the volcano at the range’s summit. Cutter’s parents nearly co
llided into the back of him. ‘Cutter, why have you stopped?’ Hadrian demanded. ‘Bladefoot is escaping into the mountains,’ Cutter informed him. ‘So go and get him,’ Blood-tooth nudged her son. ‘I’m not going up there. It’s dangerous,’ Cutter protested. ‘Well, I’m not going up there either,’ Hadrian declared. ‘Besides … he’s as good as dead in the mountains, anyway,’ Blood-tooth chortled. ‘Yes, Bladefoot, if you ever come back we’ll kill you,’ Cutter’s parents screamed after him. Cutter walked off. He knew his rival wasn’t dead. The main reason he was still alive was because Cutter hadn’t killed Bladefoot yet. Cutter skulked away, knowing that it wasn’t over. Bladefoot had just passed his first test.

  An hour later Bladefoot was deep within the mountains. He had to slow down his movements so as to not succumb to altitude sickness. He didn’t need to move fast, as Cutter was not in pursuit any more. Bladefoot didn’t like his new surroundings. They seemed alien to him. Instead of trees and plants all he could see was crude, grey rocks. Little grew up here apart from the odd hardy plant. The air seemed still. Bladefoot heard little other noise apart from the wind. The volcano at the range’s summit seemed dormant, but Bladefoot was not fooled by the illusion. This place was too weird for the forest-dwelling dinosaur.

  Bladefoot turned left and followed the only path into another area, which led further up the mountain trail. Bladefoot even had to jump across a ravine to get to the next cliff. Bladefoot felt like the mountain walls were going to close in around him. He wanted to call out to see if he got a response, but realised that drawing attention to himself was a bad idea. At least he was away from his father’s territory, and away from Cutter. But now a forbidding mountain trek lay ahead of him. He moved slowly up the path, thinking that he could smell carrion further ahead. As he walked the mountains reminded him of some kind of dormant monster. When it awoke anything caught in its path would instantly suffer and die.

  As he made his way out of the small canyon Bladefoot came across a dead Edmontonia. As he examined the body he saw that the poor plant eater had been killed in a rockslide. The rocks themselves had come from the cliff above. Bladefoot looked up and checked that no other rocks were coming down. Then he jumped up on to the dead Edmontonia and began to feast. The Edmontonia’s misfortune was a life-giver for Bladefoot. That chase from Cutter’s clan had taken its toll on the small dinosaur.

  With his long snout he was easily able to wriggle his head under the tough body armour and eat the dead Edmontonia from the inside out. Normally Bladefoot would stay around the carcass for as long as he could before being chased away by rivals but he wanted to get out of the mountains as soon as he could, so decided that he would only eat his fill and move on. He sliced the tough hide with his sharp teeth and then picked away at the bones and scales.

  Suddenly Bladefoot’s dinner was interrupted by booming noises from behind him. A herd of Parasaurolophus at least two dozen strong was walking up the path. Bladefoot turned to face the noisy duckbills. They moved past, each member of the herd looking at him feast on the dead Edmontonia. Bladefoot wondered whether the plant eaters felt disgusted by him because he fed on flesh. But Bladefoot didn’t care. As far as he was concerned he was only doing what nature told him to do. He’d never questioned his behaviour or where he’d come from as a species. The world around him was just a large hazard, and every day he needed to survive it. He had no time to think of other things. He settled back down to his dinner and tried to ignore the noisy pilgrims who used the mountains as a migration route.

  The next morning Bladefoot awoke from a cave he’d taken shelter in during the night. Normally he was a nocturnal species, so moving around by day screwed up his body clock. But he had to do it, in order to stay one step ahead of Cutter. He just hoped that Cutter hadn’t had the same idea. He stood up wearily, his legs seemingly shaking under his own body weight. Then he decided to leave the cave, slowly edging out to make sure the coast was clear.

  And then he was on the move. He felt like one of those migrating Parasaurolophus he’d seen yesterday. That Edmontonia carcass was also a stroke of luck and Bladefoot knew that the same fate may not come around today. Just then, another dragonfly whizzed past his head. Not wasting the chance, he sped after the flying bug, giving it his full attention. Then the dragonfly landed on a rock and Bladefoot slowed down to stalk it. Although Bladefoot was fast, the dragonfly was even faster and took off again before Bladefoot could strike. ‘Damn. Talk about a missed opportunity.’ He cursed.

  Then, hot water appeared to explode out of the ground before him. Bladefoot leapt away from the scalding liquid. He’d never come across anything like that before. He’d actually found some hot springs and geysers that were pumping out toxic gases into the air. This was to be expected in a volcanic environment. The geysers roared and spewed out their boiling contents again and Bladefoot ran around them to avoid being scolded. As he tried to move through the hot springs, he felt like his lungs were failing him. He too was feeling the effects of the methane gases. He coughed, moving back from the gas clouds. ‘This is an evil place.’ He concluded.

  All around him, he could see the dead bodies of dinosaurs that had tried to pass through here, including a young Parasaurolophus. His mind switched to food but as he tried to get to the dead dinosaur, the gases suffocated him once again. Bladefoot had no choice but to retreat. If he fell over now, he wouldn’t get back up. To him, it was like the hot springs were a natural predator trap. Such a bounty of food was being guarded by the gas, like the hot springs owned every dead body here and was jealously guarding it. Bladefoot walked around what seemed to be the apex mountain predator. Food would have to wait a while longer.

  An hour later, a rock slide had forced Bladefoot into a set of caves. The rock slide had blocked the path heading down from the mountains. To be honest, Bladefoot didn’t even know where that path led to, nor did he know where this cave network would take him.

  The air was hot and he panted like crazy in order to cool down, but that did him no good because below, hot magma flowed from the Earth’s crust. On misstep would send him plummeting to a fiery death. The rocks around him seemed to shine in some places and Bladefoot was always wary of those precarious looking pointed rocks that dangled from the ceiling. They seemed like they could give way and crush him underneath. Bladefoot made his way through the caves quickly even if he didn’t know where he was going. He knew that the excess heat could kill him. Dehydration was a real risk in the Late Cretaceous, even in the best of times.

  He looked around frantically, trying to find a way out. Then he screamed as he stepped into small dinosaur bones. He panicked at the thought of meeting the fate of these travellers. They’d obviously gotten lost in these caves and were killed by both the heat and fumes. Bladefoot ran through the maze of caverns, searching desperately for the exit, if one existed at all. He felt like death was closing around him, waiting, lurking in the shadows to take him. ‘Is this my fate, to die so young?’ He questioned. He couldn’t die young as he had too much left to do. He hadn’t found a territory, mated with a female or produced young yet. His mission wasn’t complete and he seemed to be failing that mission.

  But then, salvation came. It seemed that it was not Bladefoot’s time to die. A waft of fresh air entered his nostrils amongst the fumes and Bladefoot simply followed his nose to get out of these lava caves. But suddenly as he turned a corner, he saw something that would crush his hopes. A great lava lake stood before him and what looked like the exit in the distance. ‘That’s just not fair. I was so close to getting out.’ Bladefoot cried.

  But then tremors were felt throughout the caves and rocks came down from the ceiling. Bladefoot ducked back into the cavern to avoid taking damage from the falling rocks. The whole mountains began to shake and Bladefoot knew that this may be an earthquake or volcanic eruption. He’d grown up with those hazards so was familiar with them. Then the rumbling stopped.

  Bladefoot poked his head out of the cavern to see that fate had dealt him a
good hand. Some of the rocks from the ceiling had fallen into the lake, giving Bladefoot a temporary path to the outside. ‘Yes!’ Bladefoot didn’t hesitate to leap from rock to rock to get to the exit. He still had to watch his step for one mistimed jump could be his last. Bladefoot diced with death from the lava as he sprang from boulder to boulder, then he reached the rocky shore on the far side, glad to see the back of these caves of fire.

  Upon making his way down from the mountains, Bladefoot came across the jungle once again, but only this time the jungles seemed more open and trees were felled. Bladefoot concluded that the trees must’ve come down during the earthquake. But as he left the mountains and began walking through the jungles again, he spotted large footprints that he hadn’t seen before. The only large footprints he’d seen was from Tyrannosaurs, but these were round and had five toes. ‘Strange’ He thought. But now he was back in the jungle, he could go on a much needed hunt. Then he could get some sleep for as long as he needed to, before heading off again.

  Bladefoot wanted to be sure that he was definitely away from any rival Troodons. Setting up a new home range here could be too risky. ‘It’s best to keep moving.’ He decided and then hunkered down for a nap before a night of hunting.

  That night, a tropical storm hit Alberta. The rain soaked the volcanic soil and the plants that grew on it. Hadrian was seeing his son Cutter less as his son and more as future competition. Cutter had to go tonight, Hadrian decided. Blood-tooth knew this and slinked away from the two males. Then Hadrian turned on his son.

  ‘Go away Cutter! You can’t stay here anymore! Do what Bladefoot did and leave our land!’ Hadrian roared. ‘You’re pushing me out? After all I’ve done for you? You’re so ungrateful!’ Cutter violently reacted. Hadrian turned and bit Cutter’s tail. Cutter cried out and looked to Blood-tooth for support. ‘I can’t help you here. It’s time for you to go.’ She said. Angry about not getting anymore help from his parents, Cutter stormed off into the jungle. Both his parents didn’t pursue him. Now Cutter was alone like Bladefoot and like his rival, Cutter hated being alone too.