by S. M. Wilson
Out loud it made perfect sense. Out loud it didn’t seem quite so heartless as it did in her head.
Lincoln nodded and gestured for them to start moving. He walked at a brisk pace, as if he was trying to get away from everything that had just happened. He pulled out the map again, holding it so everyone could see. “We’re going this way. The first nest is the velociraptors’. Anyone know anything about them – apart from what they told us in school?”
“They’re vicious, they hunt in packs.” Kronar said the words with a blank look on his face as if he wasn’t really with them.
Leif was more focused. “They’re bigger than us, two heads bigger than the average human. They have razor-sharp teeth, with a killing claw on each foot.”
Storm was trying not to focus back on the loch. They were far enough away to be safe now – she hoped. “The tail,” she said. “They swipe with it.”
As she followed behind Lincoln, the pack weighed heavily on Storm’s shoulders. But it wasn’t the gun that made the difference. It was that, all of a sudden, she realized the horror of what she’d done.
She should never have come here. The reality of Piloria was nothing like her daydreams. The first few steps off the boat and the short trek through the forest would have been enough. The few seconds of seeing the adult and baby plesiosaur in the loch was the first sense of normal she’d had – but it wasn’t worth this.
Leif had moved ahead with Lincoln. The two of them were talking in low voices, leaving Kronar trudging along beside her. There was no getting away from the fact he’d switched off. He was in shock.
If she’d had any experience of health care she would have known what to do. But she didn’t have a clue. All she could do was walk alongside him, hoping he’d snap out of it, and trying not to worry about what they were going to face next.
The trek took all day. Lincoln was exhausted. Storm was starting to stumble with every other step, but Kronar was relentless. He only stopped every now and then to take a drink from his water carrier. He didn’t respond to any conversation. He didn’t seem interested in anything around them.
Leif wasn’t much better. Lincoln spent most of his time with his eyes fixed on the surrounding area, scouring for any signs of dinosaurs. There was an occasional flurry of activity in the distance – at one point he was sure he spotted a diplodocus. But the lack of grazing dinosaurs was disturbing. Maybe they all knew that any area around a velociraptor nest was fraught with danger.
When they reached the top of a hill, Lincoln stopped. The sun had almost set. He had no idea what Piloria was like at night, what kind of nocturnal creatures it had. “I think we should camp here.”
“Out in the open?” Storm looked horrified.
“I don’t think we’d be any safer nearer the swamp. Isn’t that nearer the velociraptor nest? I think we should try and get some sleep and start fresh in the morning.”
“I won’t sleep.” Kronar’s voice was hoarse.
“We need to try. At least from here we can see anything coming towards us.” Leif was trying to sound supportive and failing miserably.
Storm dumped the pack from her shoulders and pushed her hands onto her hips, stretching her back out. “I don’t think I could walk another step.”
Lincoln rolled out his mat and blanket. After the first night on the boat, the bobbing up and down had lulled him to sleep. Lying on the hard ground tonight would be completely different. The sounds. The smells. The thought that at any moment some kind of creature might decide to turn them into a midnight snack.
The idea set off a little alert in his brain. “We need to make a plan for tomorrow.”
“What kind of plan?” Leif rolled out his mat too.
“We don’t have enough information about the dinosaurs. We know what the velociraptors look like. We know they hunt in packs. But there’s so much more we don’t know. We need to be constantly aware that they might see us, hear us, even smell us from a long way off. It’s not like we can just march up and steal the eggs from under their noses.”
Leif pulled out a foil package from his bag. He wrinkled his nose as he unwrapped the cereal grains. “But if we don’t know enough about the velociraptors, how can we plan how to steal their eggs?”
“We could watch them. We know their nest is near the marshland. Once we see it, we could hide and watch for a while,” suggested Storm. “Once we watch them, we might know them a little better.”
“But what if they smell us and come looking for us?” Leif asked.
Kronar shivered. But Lincoln was determined to keep on track. The last thing he needed was to get into a conversation about how they might die. Once they went down that road they’d all want to head straight back to the beach and wait for the ship to return.
It might be the safest thing to do, but it wouldn’t win him health care for his sister.
He took a deep breath. “We make sure we stay downwind. Look, I don’t know why the rest of you are here. If you want to go back and wait it out at the beach, that’s up to you. But I’m going to stay. I want to be part of the winning team – or to win on my own if need be. I came here for a reason. If I can get those eggs, I will. The rest of you need to decide for yourselves.”
Leif and Kronar exchanged glances. Kronar was pale. He shook his head. “I’m not crossing that loch again. No way.”
“Well, feel free to walk back, but you’ll need to start now. Anyway, surely it’s safest for us all to stick together?” Storm had her arms folded across her chest, looking like she meant business. “That’s why I’m sticking with you guys.”
Leif answered for them all. “So, what next?”
Lincoln gestured for Kronar to sit down next to them. “We need to think about this. We need to plan the best we can.” He laid out the map on the ground between them all. The sun was so low in the sky that the details were barely visible.
“Here’s what we’ll do…” He bent his head and started talking earnestly.
First night on Piloria. Would they even survive it?
Storm was exhausted. She’d been hiding behind these trees for hours. Her muscles ached after a hard night on the ground. She’d spent most of it terrified by shrieking creatures that looked like flying rats. One had even swooped down and touched her hair. She’d sat hunched in a ball after that, hands over her head, as if it would make any difference. At least they hadn’t seemed to be interested in attacking her.
She rummaged through her backpack, trying to find something to eat. But her chock bars – the things that were guaranteed to give them energy – were gone. They couldn’t be. She tipped the contents of her backpack out on the earth.
“What’s wrong?” Leif was looking through his backpack too.
“I can’t find my chock bars. Did you take them?”
He laughed and shook his head. “Here, have one of mine.” But his head kept on shaking. “I was sure I put the graphite and paper in here. Now I can’t find it.”
Lincoln smiled. “What were you planning on doing? Writing a letter home? I think we’ve got more to worry about than chock bars and graphite.”
There was a squawk in the distance, causing all their heads to turn, followed by the outline of a velociraptor appearing over the crest of a hill. A few seconds later, five others appeared around him. He was the biggest and clearly the leader.
“They’re back,” whispered Storm. A bit like mini T-rexes, they stood on their strong thick hind legs capped by fearsome claws, with their smaller arms held in front of them. She’d originally thought they were scaly, but from here it looked as though they might be covered in fine feathers. They’d been prowling around their nesting site for the last few hours. Every time they reappeared it sent a shiver down her spine.
“Aren’t they hungry?” asked Leif. “Why aren’t they out looking for food?”
“But what if that food is us?” said Kronar, his tone dripping with sarcasm. On the rare occasions when he broke his silence, his comments were edged with cynicism.
“We still don’t know how good a sense of smell these things have. If the wind changes we might find we’re breakfast, lunch and dinner.”
He was right. Storm knew he was right, but she couldn’t even let her brain go there. Dell’s words were echoing in her head again. Why on earth had she come here? Did she really want to come face-to-face with a velociraptor? Of course she didn’t. It would be a death sentence. The reality of being on Piloria was sinking in. The first few minutes had been amazing. The colours. The smells. The landscape. But Rune’s death had cast a shadow over everything. It was making her stop and think again. “How do we even know if they have any eggs? Okay, so they’re prowling around and we think it’s a nest, but we can’t see anything. We’re too far away.” Frustration was starting to build.
“You’d think that would be one of the things they gave us for the journey. The captain had a scope on his boat, why couldn’t they have given us one too?” Leif snorted.
Lincoln stood up. “It’s time for the plan. I’m ready. Are you?”
He fixed his green eyes on her, daring her to say no. Was she ready?
No. She hadn’t been ready for any of this. But it was too late now. She sighed. Conversation with Kronar for the next few hours would certainly be fun.
“Go on then,” she said. “Go and build us a fire.”
Storm looked over towards the hills. “How much longer do you think it will be before they get the fire started?” She was starting to worry about Lincoln and Leif. “I’m not even sure this distraction technique will work.”
Kronar sighed. “Everything about this is a bad idea. I vote we hike back to the beach and forget about it all. Maybe the raptors are used to fire. Maybe it won’t attract their attention at all.”
Stormchaser shifted uncomfortably. “I’m just worried they won’t find anywhere to hide. I’ve no idea what’s on the other side of those hills. For all we know it could be a desert or just open fields.” She shook her head. “Nowhere to hide then.”
In theory, Lincoln and Leif had the most dangerous task. They had to cover the largest area of ground, start a fire, hide and then get back again.
All Kronar and Storm had to do was steal the eggs. That’s all.
“Look over there.” Kronar pointed to a thin reed of pale grey smoke rising up behind the hills. “Have they finally got it started?”
They both caught their breath. The pale grey smoke just disappeared into the sky without a trace. They couldn’t even smell it. But after a few minutes it started to thicken and change colour to a darker grey.
“What do you think they’re burning?” Kronar whispered.
“I have no idea, but it looks like it’s beginning to work.”
The velociraptors were turning, starting to pay attention. Their heads were lifted in the air as they stood on their hind legs, using their tails to balance. The red crests rose and they started squawking, getting more agitated by the second.
“Go, please go,” whispered Storm, willing them to head off in the direction of the fire.
She watched as the agitation continued. Something about the way they squawked and moved their heads sent a line of prickles down her spine. “Are they communicating?”
Kronar frowned as he continued to watch them. “It looks like that. But they’re just dinosaurs with tiny brains. I didn’t think they were intelligent enough.”
“Me neither.” The biggest velociraptor seemed to be the head of the family. It looked almost as if he was issuing instructions. A few minutes later, he and three other velociraptors headed towards the hill.
One of the younger ones seemed to have been left in charge of the nest. The other had wandered off into the distance, towards a watering hole. Storm watched as the four older velociraptors moved quickly up the hill.
“What are we going to do?” She was starting to panic. From this distance, the young velociraptor still at the nest looked tiny, but up close it would be taller than she was. One whip of its tail could knock her clean off her feet, to say nothing of what it would do with its claws.
Kronar was moving from foot to foot, his hands clenched into fists. “We’re running out of time. We need to do something now.” He made a grab for the spear that was lying at their feet. “Let’s go.”
“Wait!” Storm pushed her hand against his chest. “Look,” she hissed. “It’s moving away.”
It seemed once the younger velociraptor had watched the rest of them disappearing over the crest of the hill, all responsibilities towards the nest vanished. It looked around, then started meandering over towards the watering hole where the other young velociraptor was drinking.
“Quick, let’s go now!” Kronar darted out from the trees, crossing the open land in front of the nest. Storm was running as fast as she could, eyes fixed on the raptors. Kronar easily outpaced her. Leif was telling the truth earlier – speed was clearly Kronar’s biggest strength.
One of the raptors raised its head from the watering hole and she instantly dropped to her hands and knees. Kronar did the same, the two of them breathing heavily as the velociraptor glanced in the other direction again and then carried on drinking.
They moved more slowly this time, keeping lower to the ground. Kronar reached the nest first. It wasn’t quite what they had expected. It wasn’t like the birds’ nests back home. It was more like a pit, scraped out of the dark earth and filled with forest debris. But there, nestling in amongst the scraps of leaves and twigs, were two pale-coloured eggs. Kronar didn’t hesitate. He reached out and grabbed one. “Hurry.”
Storm hesitated for a second, then grabbed the other one. The egg fitted easily into the palm of her hand and she huddled it towards her chest as they took off at a run again. Her heart was thudding in her chest. She couldn’t watch the velociraptors, now they were behind her.
There was a screech and squawk. “Move,” urged Kronar, who was strides ahead. Storm glanced behind her as she pounded across the open land. It wasn’t the velociraptors at the watering hole they had to worry about. It was the ones who had just reappeared over the crest of the hill. They were moving rapidly towards the nest.
Their squawks alerted the younger two, who instantly ran back towards the nest too. “Get into the trees,” yelled Kronar, his strides lengthening as they approached the forest.
He was quick, darting through the trees and picking up his backpack on the way past. Storm didn’t slow for a second, just grabbing her backpack too, then crashing through the undergrowth with no clue as to what could be on the other side.
The screeches were getting louder, more frantic. It was obvious the raptors had discovered the eggs had been stolen. Kronar looked around anxiously. “Can they climb?”
“I have no idea.”
He pushed his egg into his backpack, throwing it over his shoulders, and took a quick look at the trees around them.
There was noise. The sounds of thudding feet. Or thudding claws.
All thoughts of carrying the egg safely were lost – Storm thrust hers into her pack and stuck her arms through the straps.
“Here,” shouted Kronar. He was standing beneath the foliage of a thick-trunked tree, with plenty of broad branches. He clasped his hands together and Storm put her foot in automatically to get a thrust up. She hadn’t climbed a tree since she was a child. But, if she could climb a cliff, she could climb this.
She moved quickly, hand over hand, from branch to branch. Kronar was moving so fast he was almost on top of her. Something was crashing through the trees towards them.
Storm panicked and her foot slipped, tangling amongst some vines caught around the tree trunk and sticking fast. Kronar kept moving, climbing over the top of her as if she wasn’t even there.
She couldn’t speak. She was just too terrified. Every time she tugged at her foot it just seemed to wedge tighter.
There was an almighty squawk as one of the velociraptors launched itself at the base of the tree. Its horrible piercing eyes glared at them both as they clung to the branche
s. The beast was furious, its screeches piercing their eardrums.
“Can…can they climb?” she breathed.
“It doesn’t look like it.” Kronar’s pale face made him easy to spot in the tree branches. He was visibly shaking but his hands were gripping the tree fiercely.
The rest of the velociraptors appeared. Now they weren’t as frantic. Now their style was more predatory. They paced around the base of the tree, eyeing their prey in the branches above.
“We need to get higher,” said Kronar.
“I can’t.” If she hadn’t been so petrified she would have been crying. She tugged at her foot again, but it was stuck fast.
Then the largest raptor jumped, landing on one of the branches just beneath her. Thankfully it couldn’t balance and instantly fell back to the ground.
“They can jump?” She was horrified.
The creature launched itself at the tree again, squawking and squealing. This time as it attacked, it jumped with its tooth-lined jaws stretched towards them.
Storm screamed. It was only a few millisectars away. Another few and it would reach her foot, be able to clamp its jaws around it and drag her down.
Was that blood on its jaws? What had happened to Lincoln and Leif?
Kronar moved instantly, climbing down and wrapping his feet around the branch she had her hands on, then dangling upside down – putting his head close to where her foot was.
“What are you doing?” she hissed.
“Stay still.” He pulled a dagger from the waistband of his trousers and hacked at the vines that held her foot. The pressure tightened for a second then there was instant relief; she pulled her foot up just as Kronar pulled his head away.
In the same moment, the velociraptor launched again, this time reaching further – its bloodied jaws clamped around the loose strap hanging from Kronar’s backpack. It fell back – dragging Kronar with it. He yelped as Storm reached across to grab him, holding him with every bit of strength she had. But the full body weight of an adult velociraptor was startling. The strain was too much. Kronar’s pale face turned bright red, his eyes were nearly popping out of his head. The velociraptor didn’t jump again. Instead, it lowered its head, pulling down. Kronar grabbed Storm around the shoulders, holding on for his life. For a second, her hands were free. She didn’t hesitate. “Keep holding,” she yelled as she grabbed the knife from her own backpack and cut the straps of his. Kronar’s bag fell to the ground, bouncing on impact.
