Dactyl Hill Squad

by Daniel José Older

  At first he’d outright refused the entire idea of Magdalys piloting the mosasaurus. The others had protested and begged on her behalf, even Cymbeline, and it had finally taken a demonstration of her skills to bring him around: Magdalys had called a medium-sized dactyl to her, sent him spiraling in a wild loop-de-loop through the sky, and then had him snatch Louis Napoleon’s cap right off his head before landing back on her wrist with barely a squawk.

  Not even a professional dinowrangler could’ve pulled that off, and everyone knew it. Magdalys had something special going for her. She didn’t even try to explain the strange sounds she heard inside herself or how they somehow made sense to her, all those moans and grunts giving voice to emotions like they were speaking in perfectly clear English. Why bother? It was enough for them to know that she could do it, could get the dinos to do as she asked without so much as meeting them first, let alone training them for months like a dinowrangler would’ve had to do. And anyway, Magdalys was still pretty sure no one would believe her. They’d probably think she was nuts.

  “She’s like the dinoriding warriors of old,” Bernice had whispered. “Never seen anything like it.”

  David had finally relented, begrudgingly, and that meant that the rest of the squad was going as well.

  And now they were finishing the last bits of prep and David stood across from them, cleaning his pistol and looking as surly as Magdalys had ever seen him.

  “I just … I don’t like it,” David said again.

  “We know,” Sabeen said. “You keep telling us.”

  “One thing we’ve all been wondering though,” Mapper said, “is do you like it?”

  David grumbled something indecipherable and probably rude and holstered his pistol.

  “We’ll be careful,” Magdalys said. “We promise. And if anything happens, it’s on us, not you.”

  “Ha,” David snorted. “Easy for you to say. I’ll be the one who has to live with myself if you get hurt, or … worse.”

  Everyone got quiet at that. They knew death was a possibility, but the mention of it still felt better left unsaid, even when it was left unsaid.

  Louis Napoleon poked his head in. “It’s time.”

  Everyone climbed up to the roof of the Bochinche together. The rain had cleared and now the sun was sliding into a towering mountain of clouds over Dactyl Hill. Down below, Brooklyn grew taller and denser as it sloped toward the river. Sauropod necks loomed over the rowhouses, carrying commuters back home after a long day grinding in Manhattan.

  Magdalys took a deep breath. This was the last time they’d be together as a group before attacking the Ocarrion. She tried not to think about all the what-ifs, but they crowded in anyway: gruesome, haunting images of her own death and that of all her friends. And then those other thoughts returned, an ever-lingering, uninvited phantom at her door. Why should she and her friends make it anyway? So many others hadn’t. So many had been killed; so many more would die. And she’d almost left them all behind. What right did Magdalys have to be alive?

  Cymbeline’s hand landed on her shoulder, bringing her back to the world. “I’m proud of you, Magdalys.”

  “Why?” Magdalys said, trying and failing to keep the bitterness from her voice. “I haven’t really done anything yet.”

  Cymbeline rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. “You survived, Magdalys. Not just your body but your soul too. I see how you look out for the others, how you love them and they love you. It’s no small thing. It’s maybe the biggest thing. I know that might not make sense now, but trust me. You being alive is the answer to a great many prayers.”

  Magdalys didn’t know what to say, so she just hugged Cymbeline as hard as she could.

  They gathered in a circle. “You already know I need you each to make it out of this okay,” David said, “for purely selfish reasons. If you get hurt, I’ll never forgive you.” He locked eyes with each of them. “The Dactyl Hill Squad.” He shook his head. “You guys are alright. Now, we regroup at the harbor in one hour,” David said. “So we better get moving. Everyone’s to travel in pairs and take up your positions as instructed. Magdalys, you and Amaya are linking with an operative named Redd at Pier 54. You can trust him and his cutlass entirely — he’s one of our best.”

  Magdalys raised her eyebrows. Cutlass?

  “YAAA!!” Mapper yelled after David gave everyone else their assignments. Their hands all met in the middle and a great hurrah went up.

  Then, two by two, the Dactyl Hill Squad hopped on dactylback and swooped out into the sky over Brooklyn.

  MAGDALYS AND AMAYA went through three dactyls on the journey; once they’d crossed over from Brooklyn they still had to trek to the other end of Manhattan, and the whole time the harried city streets seemed ready to swallow them whole at any moment.

  Finally, they found it, came in for a rocky landing, and released their steeds. Up ahead, Pier 54 stretched out from a series of warehouses and dilapidated shacks over the Hudson River. The dark shores of New Jersey seemed to glare at them from the other side. A sauropod ferry passed, heading south toward the bay, crates trailing along on a barge behind it.

  “See anyone?” Magdalys asked. Amaya shook her head. Glancing from side to side, they walked toward the gloomy shipyard. “Do we just — ?”

  Footsteps raced toward them, but Magdalys couldn’t tell where from. Amaya was already loading black powder into the pistol Cymbeline had given her.

  “Ay!” someone called from behind them. Magdalys and Amaya whirled around. A tall boy sprinted around a corner toward them. He did something with his hands and Magdalys flinched back a step; Amaya cocked her raised pistol. A minidactyl fluttered up out of the boy’s grasp and then shot off into the sky, a tiny roll of paper clutched in its claws.

  Magdalys relaxed a tiny bit. This had to be Redd, right? She made the V and C signs on her chest as he ran up to them, but he didn’t stop, just laughed and ran past, then stopped a few paces on when he realized they weren’t following.

  “You comin’?” The boy had high cheekbones and freckles and light brown skin lit up by the setting sun, which cast a long dancing shadow onto the causeway behind him. He’d had a thin goatee line tattooed along the edge of his jaw. A loose, raggedy shirt hung from his slender shoulders, and white cloth wrapped around his chest beneath it.

  That cutlass David had mentioned hung from one of the belts crisscrossing his waist; a pistol was holstered in the other. He finally looked down at Magdalys’s hand signs. “Oh yeah, VC, VC, I know! I’m Redd. You all are Magdalys and Amaya. I got the description. And sorry to rush you and cut through the formalities ’n’ whatnot, but we gotta roll!”

  Magdalys and Amaya exchanged a look, then fell into a fast walk behind him as he took off toward the pier again.

  “Just got a dactyl from David,” Redd said. “Here, you can read it. Just read while you run.” He handed back a crumpled scrap of parchment, slowing down only slightly so Magdalys could grab it.

  We lost track of R.

  Weed stayed put but his men made for the harbor, boarded a small rowboat.

  We think exchange happened earlier — orphans already on boat.

  In pursuit.

  Either the O is docked out in the harbor islands somewhere or mission is aborted.

  Ride out with M and A and rendezvous at the Spine Islands.

  “Toss it when you done,” Redd said, guiding them through a labyrinth of shipping crates and ironworks. Magdalys passed Amaya the note, who read it and then tore it into little pieces that fluttered away on the early evening breeze.

  “There she is,” Redd said, finally stopping at the edge of the pier, arms akimbo like a proud father. “They say you’re the only wrangler who can handle her.”

  In all the excitement, Magdalys hadn’t had time to think about how she was about to ride one of the most dangerous and unmanageable creatures in the modern world. And that many lives depended on her not messing it up, including her own. And she had no idea what she was
doing, not really.

  She stared into the waves lapping up against the pier, their edges bright with the sinking July sun. A huge, dark shape lurked just below the surface. It had to be sixty feet, at least. The mosasaurus was wide in the middle, where a worn leather saddle breached the water. Her long, black-and-yellow striated body narrowed some toward the head and even more at the tail, which swished slowly back and forth in what seemed like murderous anticipation. Huge fins on either side splashed at the surface of the water.

  “Ready?” Redd asked, already halfway down the wooden ladder. “Nobody’s really been able to figure out how to ride her, to be honest. A couple of my men have tried though.”

  “Yep,” Magdalys said, trying to look confident. “Go ’head, Amaya, I’ll go after you.”

  Amaya eyed her, obviously seeing right through her as always, then squeezed her shoulder one time, holstered the pistol, and climbed down after Redd. “Your men?” Amaya asked once she’d lowered herself onto the saddle behind Redd.

  “Yeah, I’m only contracting with the Vigilance Committee now and then. Got my own crew, really. We buccaneers.”

  “You mean pirates?” Amaya said.

  Redd chuckled. “Pretty much. Riding the deep sea, tracking slave ships and boarding ’em, freein’ everybody. That kinda thing.”

  Magdalys barely heard them. It was one thing to boast to David about her ease with dinowrangling. She had the whole squad with her doing most of the boasting anyway, and Cymbeline sealed the deal. Then sending that dactyl up into the air had been a piece of cake really. But now, it all seemed so impossible. The burden of all that responsibility loomed over her.

  “You comin’, sis?” Redd called. “We don’t have much time.”

  She took a deep breath. She could do this.

  What if the beast didn’t respond to her? What if she ate Magdalys and everyone else? Or took them out to the deep sea and drowned them? What if the Ocarrion blew them out of the water?

  Deep breath.

  She could do this. She nodded once, more to herself than Redd, then climbed down the ladder just as a horrendous roar erupted from the water.

  “WHOA, MISSY, WHOA,” Redd yelled.

  Magdalys sped down the ladder and leapt onto the front end of the mosasaurus’s damp saddle. The beast thrashed and snarled.

  Easy, Magdalys thought. Shhhh.

  The reply came as a violent, desperate howling inside her. This was a whole other caliber of monster, Magdalys realized. In the Dinoguide, Dr. Barlow Sloan described mosasauruses as extraordinarily ferocious, almost entirely untrainable. Nearly every attempt to domesticate a mosasaurus, he went on, somewhat rudely Magdalys now thought, has ended in dismemberment and death. And not for the mosasaurus, if you catch our meaning. For the trainer, just to be clear.

  And this particular mosasaurus was hungry. Magdalys felt Missy’s frantic urge to hunt pulse through her, relentless.

  We’re going, Missy, we’re going, I promise. Just … easy … easy.

  The mosasaurus kept thrashing, sending foamy waves to either side. “Cut the line,” Magdalys said. She grabbed the reins. “We out.”

  “Ay, ay, Captain,” Redd called, unsheathing his cutlass and slicing away the rope with a yelp. “And away!”

  The mosasaurus didn’t have to be told twice. They hurtled forward with such a violent lurch that all three almost toppled into the Hudson.

  Easy! Magdalys commanded, throwing some growl into her thoughts this time.

  Missy seemed to hear her. The sea monster fell into a smooth glide just below the surface, the dark water skimming to either side as they flushed along the river toward the bay.

  “Not bad!” Redd yelled from the back.

  Magdalys turned and shot him a smile just in time to almost get thrown again as Missy cut a sudden right and nearly barrel-rolled underwater. “Whoa!” Magdalys yelled. “I said, easy, Missy!”

  The mosasaurus slid back into her smooth glide and Magdalys shook her head. This wasn’t going to be easy.

  “The Spine Islands that way,” Redd said as they hurtled on a rambunctious charge into the harbor. He pointed out toward some black shapes rising from the water against the darkening horizon, then raised a spyglass. “I don’t see no one out there, but let’s go anyway, see what we find.”

  A dactyl zipped by overhead, but it didn’t look like it was carrying any messages.

  Magdalys pulled the reins toward the islands and Missy growled in response, and then surged in the opposite direction before spinning back around and blasting forward full speed.

  “You good?” Amaya asked from behind her.

  “Yeah,” Magdalys said. “Pretty sure Missy is doing her best to mess with me in every possible way. But I got her.” The mosasaurus grunted and arched her back, sliding beneath the water just enough to soak all three of their boots before launching back up and lifting above the crashing waves, then slamming down with a gigantic splash.

  “Whoosah!” Magdalys yelled as the smell of salt water reached her on the ocean wind.

  But where were the others? And where was the Ocarrion?

  She scanned the water stretching out all around as they approached the islands. Nothing. Behind them, New York City seemed to rise out of the sea, but it didn’t look so tall and imposing from out here, more like a toy set. For a few moments, all they heard were the lapping of waves and occasional grunts and snorts from Missy, her snout resting just at the top of the water. Redd passed Amaya a carbine out of his satchel and then raised his spyglass again as she prepped it.

  “There!” Redd yelled. “A ship.” He passed Magdalys the telescope.

  The world just looked like a blurry mess of shadows for a few moments while she adjusted her eyes. Then she saw it, way off in the waves: a medium-sized steam frigate, its long masts reaching up into the night and beneath them a squat chimney. “The Ocarrion?” she asked.

  “Guessin’ so,” Redd said just as the crack of a musket sounded in the distance. “And not a moment too soon — something’s happenin’!”

  “Heeyah!” Magdalys yelled, and Missy launched forward like she’d been waiting her whole life to charge an iron-sided slave-trading steamship.

  AS THEY SPED toward the frigate, Magdalys started making out shapes in the sky above it. Dactyls! The squad had reached the Ocarrion, or some of them had anyway. More gunfire erupted, and then the deeper blasts of artillery shells.

  Faster! Magdalys urged, and Missy growled and blasted forward. Up ahead, a dactylrider nose-dived toward the Ocarrion deck. Magdalys heard screams and saw bright flashes as more musket shots rang out. She held her breath for a few seconds, then the dactyl swooped up from the other side, now riderless. More dactyls dove now, and shouts, squawks, and sword clangs rang out over the crashing waves.

  “Uh, Magdalys,” Redd called from behind her. “What are we going to do when we reach?”

  Magdalys had just been wondering the exact same thing now that they were closing rapidly. She wasn’t sure what the mosasaurus was capable of, though she’d heard of them being used to ram warships during the naval blockades down south. But the Dactyl Hill Squad and the Vigilance Committee were on board now, and she didn’t know how many people she could safely fit on board Missy to bring them back to safety.

  And anyway, it might not matter what Magdalys had planned at all. Missy let out a tremendous roar as they sped toward the ship. Her gigantic head rose out of the water, jaws spreading, and everything around them seemed to tremble, like Missy herself was a singular aquatic earthquake made of flesh, blood, tooth, and bone, and utterly unstoppable.

  Magdalys lowered herself so her face was against Missy’s cool hide. Gently, mama, gently, she cooed. Missy didn’t seem to hear, just kept charging. Just snatch ’em up easy, love. We don’t want to destroy the whole boat. Please.

  She was pretty sure destroying the whole boat was exactly what Missy wanted to do, and under any other circumstances Magdalys would have happily let her smash an escaping slave
ship to smithereens. But not this time. Slowwwwww, mama, slow. You can take it out, just don’t take it all the way out. They didn’t slow, but Magdalys felt something different about Missy’s roared reply. She thought maybe, maybe, she had heard her.

  “Hold on, everyone!” Magdalys yelled. More gunshots rang out as they reared up toward the Ocarrion, but they were too late: Missy’s gigantic jaws came crashing down on the artillery unit at the far end, obliterating it and shredding a huge chunk of the hull. Magdalys, Amaya, and Redd flew up into the air but managed to stay clinging on to the saddle as Missy pulled her mouth free and slammed back into the waves beside the ship. “Good girl!” Magdalys yelled, patting Missy’s neck and then following Redd and Amaya up the ladder to the deck.

  On board the Ocarrion, chaos reigned.

  A group of slavers was huddled at one end, as far from where Missy had struck as they could get, and they were firing intermittently with carbines and stabbing out with sabers when anyone got close. David Ballantine, Louis Napoleon, and a group of other Vigilance Committee agents had set up a barricade with some shipping crates at the steam chimney and were taking potshots over the top. Magdalys spotted Mapper and Two Step with them. Cymbeline stood beside them, blasting away with her shotty.

  Amaya handed Magdalys a pistol and took up a position behind a crate. “Cover me,” she said, snapping open her carbine and shoving a bullet into it.

  Magdalys loaded up the pistol the way she’d been shown the night they escaped from the riots. She’d never had a chance to learn proper shooting with Amaya, and she certainly wasn’t going to be able to learn much with everything else going on. Black powder went down the muzzle and in the chamber, then the ball went after it and you used the ramrod to pack it all in, clicked back the hammer and —

  “YAAA!” came a collective roar from the far end of the Ocarrion. The slavers had decided to make a break for it. They poured out of their corner toward the improvised barricade. “Fire!” Louis Napoleon shouted, and gunshots rang out from either side. Several slavers collapsed where they stood or tumbled over the side, screaming. The charge made sense, Magdalys thought; they were boxed in and would either have to surrender or be massacred pretty soon.