Tamer- King of Dinosaurs 4

by Michael-Scott Earle

  “Let’s take a look at what we’ve got here,” Kacerie said as we both moved to Zoru’s side.

  “He’s pretty ripped up,” I sighed as Youleena lifted the rags that they were using to cover his wounds. His chest was sliced open almost as bad as Emta’s was, and there was a long trail of deep puncture wounds on his stomach. His left leg was also cut up pretty bad, but it didn’t seem to be bleeding as badly as the wounds on his stomach.

  “Alcohol?” Kacerie asked as she leaned over him and sniffed.

  “Yes,” Keefaye said. “I can bless water and remove all bacteria.”

  “Do you have a jug of it somewhere?” Kacerie asked, and the group all pointed to a stone pitcher that I guessed Youleena had formed.

  “Okay,” Kacerie said as Galmine sat next to her. “I need to sterilize the needle and my hands. Galmine and Victor too. Someone pour it out so we can--”

  Before Kacerie even started speaking, Urka had grabbed the jug, and the three of us all rubbed our hands together under a steady flow of alcohol that the small blue-haired woman poured.

  “I don’t know if I can fix his stomach,” Kacerie said as she rubbed the alcohol on her needle and thread, “but I can work on his chest. Victor, can you hold open the two flaps of his skin at the bottom? Someone get me more light, and I need someone else to hold him down in case he wakes up.”

  My lover’s voice had taken on a commanding edge, and the group hurried to execute her orders. Nomi held the torch over the area so that we had light, Quwaru and Youleena held Zoru’s body on the ground, and I pried open his cut more so that Kacerie could look deeper into the wound.

  Then she moved her fingers inside of the furry purple fox-man and started stitching.

  No one spoke for a few minutes, then Kacerie asked me to pull some of his muscles apart by his ribs so that she could stitch some sort of organ closed. I had seen my parents perform plenty of operations, so I wasn’t squeamish, but I saw Adeela and Youleena look away from Kacerie’s blood covered fingers.

  “Pour more alcohol,” Kacerie ordered when she put a new thread through the needle. Urka poured it again, and Kacerie sterilized the tool before going back to work.

  “How did you learn how to do this?” Adella asked. “Sorry, I don’t know your name.”

  “Kacerie,” my friend replied without looking up from her work. Her pink hair actually started to fall over her face, but Nomi’s left hand darted out like a lighting strike and quickly coiled up the mane in her fingers.

  “Thanks,” Kacerie said, but she still didn’t look up from her needlework.

  “Are you a doctor on your world?” Quwaru asked.

  “Ahhh, no,” Kacerie said. “Sorry, I’m just trying to sew up everything that looks cut open. I need to focus, can we talk--”

  “Of course!” the horned woman said apologetically.

  “Victor, can you hold open this muscle here?” Kacerie asked.

  “Yeah,” I said as I pulled the part she wanted open. Her bone needle passed through whatever organ was underneath, and then she let out a long sigh.

  “Okay, I think that’s it for everything under the muscles. Now we’ll get the muscles and skin. Then I’ll work on the other cuts.”

  “Thank you so much,” Youleena gushed. “You don’t know how--”

  “This still might not work,” I said. “Kacerie and Galmine will do everything they can, but I told Emta that it might not be enough.”

  “We appreciate you coming out here in the rain and darkness to help him,” Quwaru said, and the other women nodded.

  What felt like another hour passed as Kacerie sewed, put new thread through the needle, and then repeated the sterilization process. Finally, the massive cut on the chest was finished, and Kacerie rubbed the back of her hand over her tired eyes.

  “That’s the best I can do,” she sighed. “Galmine, it’s now up to you for that cut. I’ll look at his stomach now.”

  “This will help him feel better,” the green-eyed woman hummed as she began to spread her poultice on his stitched up wound. The other women watched with interest, but no one spoke.

  “I don’t think these puncture wounds have gone into his stomach organ,” Kacerie said as she leaned over the wounds. Emerald had woken up and now held Kacerie’s long pink hair back away from her face, but Kacerie didn’t even seem to notice it.

  “You don’t smell acid?” I asked, and she nodded.

  “Anyone else have a good sense of smell?” Kacerie asked, and the other women all shook their head.

  “Zoru does,” Urka said.

  “Decision time,” Kacerie said as she turned to me. “I can cut open the muscles on his middle and see what his stomach looks like. If he’s not wounded, then he’ll lose even more blood for no reason. I don’t know how much blood he has actually lost so that could kill him.”

  “Other option is that you just stitch up the holes and hope he heals through?” I asked, and she nodded.

  I turned to Quwaru, and the beautiful succubus bit her lower lip. “Please, do whatever you think is correct. We won’t blame you if it doesn’t work.”

  “Just stitch him up,” I said, and Kacerie went to work.

  It was hard to keep track of time, but my legs, back, and shoulders were aching when she finally finished stitching up the holes on Zoru’s stomach and the gash on his leg. I hadn’t even done the heavy lifting, Kacerie had, yet she didn’t seem tired.

  “That’s the best I can do,” she finally said, and then everyone let out a collective breath as Galmine began to apply her herbal mixture.

  “Thank you again,” Quwaru said, and the rest of the women of her tribe echoed her words.

  “We need to get back,” I said as I forced my tired legs to push me off the ground. My nerves were all sorts of raw, and it felt like sand was in my eyes when I blinked.

  “You should stay and rest,” Adella sang in her sweet voice.

  “We can’t,” I said. “The winged man who did this to Zoru is coming to our camp.”

  “He is?” Keefaye gasped.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Long story, but we have a plan to take him out. Quwaru, can I speak with you privately for a moment?”

  “Of course,” she said as she uncoiled her long red legs. She stood with the grace of a dancer, and then she seemed to float across the stone floor toward me. I gestured for her to walk with me into the corner, and I leaned in toward her so that we could whisper.

  “I spoke with--”

  “I know what you are going to say,” she interrupted me with a soft whisper. “We wish to join you. I knew the moment I touched your hand that you are a wonderful person. I knew you would come when Emta asked you for help, and I know that you will protect us if we join with you. Emta was the only one with complaints, but she agreed with me before she left. It is too hard for us to survive on our own. We need your protection. I will give you anything you want if you take us in.”

  “I’m in charge. I’ll seek advice from you, and I’ll ask your opinion on matters, but there won’t be a line of separation between our clan. You are all in my tribe now, we are not sharing the fort with you like we are two separate families. Understand?”

  “As I said,” Quwaru whispered as her silver eyes burned into mine. “I’ll do or give you anything you want. Anything.”

  “That’s great news,” I whispered, and she sighed with relief. “You don’t need to give me anything. I just need you all to work hard and be nice to my friends.”

  “We will do it,” she agreed quickly. “Thank you, Victor.”

  “Zoru is in no condition to move,” I said as I glanced back at the unconscious man, “and we have to get back before dawn. I’ll come back in a few days and you all can pack your stuff on my dinosaurs, then you can come back to our camp. We might be cramped for a day, but--”

  “We’ll make it work,” she said.

  “Are you all okay for a few days?” I asked. “Do you have enough food and water?”

  “Yes, Victor,�
� she said as she nodded.

  “Alright,” I said and then I turned toward the group as I heard Kacerie laugh. Adella was laughing also, and I kind of wished that I had heard the joke.

  “We will get along just fine,” Quwaru purred.

  “Yeah,” I said as I gave her a smile. “Now we have to go.”

  “I look forward to you coming back,” she said as she held her hand out to me. I clasped it, and she smiled sweetly at me before we let go of each other.

  “Kacerie, Galmine, and Emerald,” I called out to my friends. “We have to get going.”

  My three friends nodded, and the group of women that were soon to be absorbed into my tribe followed us to the narrow passage that led to their front room, and then we trickled out through the narrow gap around the rubble.

  Then my stomach dropped down to my feet.

  It was light outside.

  “No,” I growled as I ran to the edge of their cave and looked up into the sky. The clouds were gone, but it was closer to mid-morning than dawn. We had lost track of time during the surgery, and I guessed that the winged man would be hitting our camp at any minute.

  Maybe he had already arrived.

  “We need to go!” I shouted at my friends, but they didn’t need any encouragement. They saw the light, and they knew that we didn’t have much time to get back.

  I grabbed the railings of the rope bridge and half-ran, half-stumbled across as I did the time math in my head. If I really pushed Tom, we could probably make it back in thirty minutes, and the sun did still look kind of low in the sky. The big flying man might not have actually left his camp yet. We could still be okay, or maybe he had already arrived at our camp, and Sheela had ended him just as our plan dictated.

  “Victor!” I heard Kacerie scream behind me. Her voice was filled with terror, and I spun around to see her standing at the first part of the rope bridge with her finger pointed in the air right above me.

  Then I realized that the fucker we were worrying about hadn’t gone to our camp.

  He had come here instead.

  Massive hands grabbed my shoulders, and dark wings came down around me. The rope bridge made the sound of a bass guitar string being plucked, and Kacerie screamed again as she started to fall. I screamed also, but then I saw Emerald grab onto my lover before she could tumble down into the water far below.

  I didn’t fall. Instead, I felt the hands squeeze tighter around my arms as the wings beat around me. Then I was floating in the air, and I saw Quwaru throw herself toward the edge of the cliff so that she could help Emerald pull Kacerie up.

  Both Galmine and Emerald were pointing at me, but I couldn’t hear anything but the sound of the fucker’s wings beating.

  And we were moving really fast.

  “Fuck you!” I shouted as I tried to bring my arms up to punch the man. I might as well of tried to wrestle with a giant though, my arms couldn't move in his grip, and every second I spent thrashing did nothing to change the fact that we were gaining altitude.

  I tried to kick up at him, but my body didn’t quite bend enough, and my foot only went up to my chest.

  “She would want you.” The man’s voice was a dark rumble that I felt vibrate in my chest through his legs. “But she won’t know. Besides, we have too many men, anyway.”

  I looked down and felt my stomach tumble. The jungle below us looked like a blanket of ruffled folds that were supposed to be valleys, and the ocean was way off to my right. Dinosaurland stretched off in every direction I could see, and I realized that the planet was massive.

  I had no idea how high up I was, and I didn’t really want to find out.

  “Good bye,” he rumbled.

  Then he let go of me.

  Chapter 14

  “No!” I shouted as I felt the pressure in my shoulders go away.

  I was tumbling through the air like a spinning coin, and my stomach lurched from the dizzying array of blue, green, and brown.

  Then my stomach filled with disappointment.

  There were hundreds of thousands of ways to die in Dinosaurland. I should probably have died in the first hour I arrived on this dangerous world, but I’d beaten all the odds and survived. I’d met Sheela, Trel, Galmine, and Kacerie, and fallen in love with them. We had built a home that was safe, we’d shared laughter, hopes, and dreams. We had come to view this crazy world as our own, and I’d tamed many powerful dinosaurs to protect us.

  I’d felt kind of invincible, but at the end, I was just a man who could die like anyone else.

  And my death was quickly approaching.

  I realized I was screaming, and I closed my mouth as I tried to level myself out in my fall. Had anyone ever survived a skydiving accident where their chute didn’t open? I kind of remembered hearing about it, but that didn’t mean I would.

  Fuck.

  I wanted to scream again as the ground seemed to take up all of my vision. Dinosaurland was so beautiful, so lush, and so amazing. I glanced left and saw the curve of the horizon. I’d once thought that we might have been on a massive spaceship, but finding water for a well and the slope of the sky told me that this was an actual planet.

  I had thought that it was going to be my planet.

  King of Dinosaurs. What the fuck was I thinking? I was going to die, but what saddened me most was to know that my friends were going to miss me.

  No one missed me on Earth. I hadn’t mattered there, but I mattered here. I mattered to six amazing women and a new group of friends who were counting on my protection. I wasn’t going to be there for them. I had failed them.

  I was screaming again. The ground was a green velvet blanket that wanted to wrap around me. The air was cold.

  Any moment now, and it would all end. No more Dinosaurland. No more fort building. No more women to hold at night. No more survival.

  No more Victor Shelby.

  Just nothing.

  I hoped I’d see my parents.

  But then I saw a single pteranodon flying below me.

  It was hard to tell how wide his wings were, but he looked like a floating angel against the green backdrop of the jungle below us.

  He was my only chance.

  I didn’t have any time to go through the logistics of my plan, but I focused on calling him to me as I fell. He was off to my right somewhat, so I tried to angle myself over so that I could fall next to him. Unfortunately, the change in my body position only made me seem to fall faster, and I sped past him.

  “Fuck!” I growled as I looked up. Then my heart leapt in my throat when I saw the winged dinosaur fold his wings to his side and dive toward me.

  “Come on! Come on! Come on!” I shouted as I reached my arms up toward the pteranodon. It still seemed like it was really far away from me.

  And I could see the details of the jungle trees below me.

  Then I felt the pteranodon’s feet smack into my forearms, and I shouted with joy.

  I grabbed at its legs, slipped, and then made another attempt. The flying dino’s legs were a bit thicker than my arms, and its feet looked like longer versions of my foot. It couldn’t really grab onto me that well, but the helpful guy was trying his best to latch onto me.

  Then my fingers closed around his ankle just under where they joined his wings, and his feet kind of hooked around mine. I almost screamed with joy, but then I looked down and gasped when I saw that we were probably only a hundred feet or so from the ground.

  “Open your wings!” I shouted up at the pteranodon, and he let out a painful goose honk as he flexed his arms wide.

  We slowed, but it was more of a controlled fall than an actual parachute.

  “Wider! Hurry!” I shouted as the dinosaur let out another honk of distress. His wings were bent upward against the current of the air, and I felt our momentum start to slow a bit.

  I still didn’t think it was enough. His feet weren’t independent of his wings, they were attached, and he was having trouble trying to fight against my weight by flying upward.
>
  I looked at the ground and saw a clearing in the jungle up in the distance. I commanded him to adjust his wings so he wasn’t fighting against the fall, but was instead gliding us toward the grassy field. Surprisingly, this seemed to make our descent slow a bit more, but I knew that we were still falling way too fast.

  Then we hit the clearing.

  My legs hit the grass first. I tried to kick up, or run, or do anything to lessen the fall, but as soon as my boots hit the grass, I realized that a good chunk of our downward momentum had now been turned into forward momentum. It was like trying to step out of a moving car, and I couldn’t do anything else besides let go of the pteranodon so that I didn’t yank him down with me.

  Then I was tumbling.

  My breath exploded from my chest. My head smacked into the grass. My hip drilled into the dirt. My shoulders pile-drived into Dinosaurland.

  I lost count of the times I tumbled, but I opened my eyes to blue sky, small fluffy clouds, and a ringing in my ear.

  For what felt like a lifetime, all I could do was blink and wonder if I was in heaven.

  Then the pteranodon let out a honk that sounded like a question, and he tapped my chest with his beak.

  “Holy shit,” I whispered, and the pteranodon let out another honk.

  “I’m alive,” I grunted, and then rolled over to my side so I could push myself up on my feet. My legs felt like I’d just run five miles, my hips felt bruised all over, my right shoulder was numb, and my head hurt like I was hungover, but I was alive.

  I was alive.

  “Yes!” I shouted as I raised my arms in the air. My right shoulder protested the movement, but I didn’t care.

  I was alive.

  “Thank you,” I gasped to the pteranodon as I wrapped my arms around his neck. He was a big fella, maybe as big as the black feathered Utahraptors but with less muscle mass. He was all scales, and they glittered shades of green, blue, and yellow in the sunlight. I couldn’t really tell how wide his wings were, but I guessed about thirty feet across, maybe even fourty.

  The flying dinosaur let out a honk when I hugged him, but it didn’t sound like he was protesting. It was more of a “it’s cool, bro, I’m happy to help out” sounding honk.