“Uhhh, you okay?” I asked.
Emerald nodded, and then she moved her eyes up so that she gazed into mine. She didn’t ever seem to blink, and my head started to spin when I matched her stare.
“I wish you could explain to me why you were going to war,” I said to keep the conversation going.
Emerald actually blinked then, and then she turned away from me slightly and tapped her chin.
I realized I was holding my breath, and I let it out slowly so that she wouldn’t know I was holding it in while I turned to focus on the trail in front of us. The path was a bit rocky, and there were a few vine covered boulders that Nicole was steering around without me actually paying attention, but I really should have been more worried about getting attacked.
We rode for another hour or so, and then the trail widened and moved away from the side of the hills that had formed the river canyon. The jungle became a bit thinner, and I saw a few wide patches of long-grass meadows set between the groves of banyan trees. The trail also smoothed out into well-traveled dirt, and I guessed that this was a path that some of the dinos took to reach the river.
After another fifteen minutes of skirting the edges of the open fields, we came to a crystal-like river. It was only about forty yards wide, and it flowed slow enough for me to see the bottom at the halfway point, so I knew it would be easy to cross. The shore of the water was made of a smooth pebble type of sand, and there were a few palm, flowering empress, and dogwood type trees dotting the landscape. It kind of looked a bit like a paradise, and I saw four small brontosaurus looking dinosaurs drinking a hundred yards or so to our west.
Bruce let out a honk above us, and I waved as he began his descent.
“He’s fine,” I explained to Emerald when she pointed at him. “Just wanted to know if we were going to break for lunch. What do you say we cook that fish you caught earlier?”
Emerald nodded, reached back to the trunk area of our saddle, and then pulled the fish out while I commanded Nicole to kneel so we could get off easier.
“Scoob, can you guys catch some fish?” I asked.
The tiger striped troodon let out a happy hoot, and the group trotted down toward the water.
“Grumpy, can you--” I started to say, but the monster croc was already heading toward the water. He grumbled at me as he passed, and I just let out a laugh and ran my hand over his scales.
“What? You too good to hunt now? Should I ask Scoob and the Gang to catch your lunch?”
Grumpy let out a hiss that sounded like a big rig truck hitting its air brakes, and I realized he was sighing. Heavily. He still continued toward the river, and he slipped into the clear water without making a sound.
I turned back to Emerald and saw that she had already set up some kindling and palm tree bark to burn. Before I could even help her, she had pulled out one of our fire drills and begun to spin it between her palms. We were all super experienced with starting fires now, and it only took her a few dozen seconds to get a small patch of palm-tree hair tinder smoking. As soon as it looked like the spark was staying, she picked up the tinder in her hands, lightly blew on it, and then smiled when the material began to ignite.
“Great job,” I complimented her when she set the tinder back on the kindling and began to move larger pieces of palm tree bark into the flames.
Emerald smiled at me, and then she nodded at the fish. I got the clue and pulled my own flint blade from my pocket and started to gut the fish.
A few moments later I was spinning the cleaned fish over the flames with a long branch we’d found a few dozen feet away. The weather was definitely cooler than it had been a few weeks ago, but it felt like it was maybe low seventies, with a breeze that had a comfortable coolness to it, as if it came from the ocean.
Scoob, Shag, Fred, Velma, Daphne, and Bruce had each found their own fish, and they dined on the shore as they let out happy hoots and honks. I couldn’t tell if Grumpy had actually caught anything, since the big guy was just sitting in the middle of the river bottom blowing slow air bubbles up, and Nicole had made her way down to the shore and was taking leisurely sips from the clear water.
“This is pretty relaxing,” I said as I twisted the fish over the fire. “I actually haven’t been looking for a space to put our home though. Kinda wanted to look closer to the ocean, but have you seen anything that could work?”
Emerald pointed back over her shoulder, and I followed her finger to the edge of the rocky slope where the canyon first started.
“Hmmm, so you think we could put our camp on top of the canyon?”
She shrugged, but then she pointed at her flint knife and began to move her fingers over it as she smiled at me.
“You are right, with Youleena we could mold the rocky slope as we wanted. We might be able to make some sort of step and gate like system that could keep any dinos from getting up easily, and any other assholes from even seeing us.”
Emerald nodded, and then she pointed at the river and then back to the hill. Then she held up two fingers and pointed to the fish and then back to the rocky canyon slope.
“Yeah, we’d be between two rivers. Maybe we could siphon water off one of them and pump it up to the top of the hill?”
Emerald nodded and then held her hand out at an angle that I guessed matched the slope of the land leading down from the side of the canyon slope to the river where we were.
“The river to the north of us flows quicker,” I said as I watched her take a few steps around the fire so that she could sweep her hand around. “It also kind of butts up against the steeper canyon walls. After lunch we should ride back and take a look at the slope. Maybe you and I can climb up it with the troodons.”
Emerald turned to me, bit her lower lip, and blinked as she rubbed her right thumb and fingers together.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Her shoulders slumped a bit, but then she snapped her fingers and raised them up so that it looked like she was running with them across the palm of her other hand.
“Oh, yeah, there might not be another escape route,” I said. “We should still take a quick glance at it and see if we can--”
A screech tore across the shore of the river, and both Emerald and I twisted toward the origin. The small brontosaurus-looking dinos to our west had already pivoted away from the river and were dashing south, but beyond them some quarter of a mile I saw four massive shapes barrel through the jungle.
The trees bent back against their chests as the new arrivals charged into the clearing beside the river, and a white storm of birds erupted from the branches like inverse rain.
“Those look bigger than T-Rexs,” I gasped as I blinked on my Eye-Q and hoped I was close enough to get a name, but far enough away so that the quartet of them didn’t quite notice us.
Giganotosaurus carolinii
The display read, and it said that three of them were female and one was male.
“Okay, time to fucking go,” I hissed as I dropped the fish I was cooking in the fire, grabbed Emerald’s hand, and then ran with her toward Nicole.
The trike was only about thirty yards away, and she’d already turned toward us, but as soon as we got close enough to jump on her back, the four giganotosauruses let out another massive bellow, and I twisted my head around to see them looking in Nicole’s direction.
“Ahh, fuck it,” I growled as I did the math in my head. Nicole might be able to outrun them, and I was sure that the troodons could make a break for the rocky hillside of the canyon and crawl their way up, but the river was too shallow for Grumpy to hide, and I didn’t think the big purussaurus could take all four of these assholes out by himself.
So, I was going to have to either fight them all, or risk Grumpy and Nicole becoming lunch.
There was no way in hell I was going to let that happen, so it was going to be all for one.
And one for all.
Chapter 7
Emerald seemed to read my thoughts, and she tapped on my shoulder a
nd pointed back toward the cliff wall.
“No,” I growled through the sound of the giganotosauruses’ screams as they began to trot toward us. “Nicole can’t make it up the hill, and they will attack Grumpy.”
Emerald tapped on my shoulder again, and I turned to see her pointing toward a grove of six palm trees some hundred yards behind us. They were about twenty yards from the shore of the river and created a bit of a choke point.
“Yeah,” I said as I realized she wanted me to use it as a barrier so that our four attackers couldn’t flank us, “that’s the best shot we’ve got.”
I gave my ragtag group of dinos the order, and we all sprinted away from the charging carnivores and toward the trees.
As we got closer, I realized that the small grove wasn’t going to be much for defense. The trunks of the trees were maybe only as thick as my chest, and I doubted that they would really stop one of the giganotosauruses if they wanted to plow through.
It was still better than nothing.
“Okay, team,” I said as soon as Nicole had skidded to a stop on the sand next to the trees, “I know this looks grim, and yeah, this might be the toughest fight we’ve had yet, but that doesn’t mean we are going to lose. Everyone watch each other’s backs, try to avoid getting hurt, and let’s work to spread them out as much as we can.”
Bruce had landed on a palm tree next to us, and he let out a honk that sounded really nervous. The five troodons also let out hoots that sounded concerned, but Grumpy just stuck his nose out of the river, spit out a blast of water, and then grumbled.
The big purussaurus gave zero fucks about the four approaching giganotosauruses.
That did make me feel a lot better, even if I suspected it was a bit of bravado on his part.
“Issue is that there are four of them,” I said as I spun back to the charging dinos. “If there were two, Grumpy and Nicole could chest up to each one. Three would be hard, but Bruce might be able to pull a few fly by’s and distract the third one. With four, I’m going to have to worry about using the palm trees to cover one flank while also doing crowd control.”
I took a deep breath to keep the world from spinning and focused on the approaching giganotosauruses. I had maybe fifteen seconds until they got here.
Scoob hooted, and I looked down at the group of tiger-striped troodons.
“I don’t know, buddy,” I said quickly. “You are too small to do anything more than bother them. Especially from down below, you aren’t even as big as one of their claws. If you could get on their backs--”
An idea slammed into my brain, and I twisted my neck up to Bruce’s perch on top of the palm tree.
“Holy shit,” I hissed. “That’s just about crazy enough to work.”
Emerald tapped me on the shoulder, and as soon as our eyes met, I realized that she knew what I was planning, but then she pointed to one of the empty leaf baskets sitting in the back of Nicole’s saddle, then she pointed at the smooth pebble sand, and then gestured to Bruce.
She’d just one upped me.
“Great idea,” I said as I held my hand out to her. “Do it.”
Emerald grasped my hand, and I felt a brief flash of warmth flood up my arm. My vision blurred for half an instant, but then there were two identical Emeralds each grasping my fingers.
One of the green-woman’s bodies let go of my fingers, twisted in her seat, grabbed the basket, and then leapt off Nicole’s back. As soon as she landed, I instructed the troodons to follow her and Bruce to take flight.
Then I turned around just in time to see that the four giganotosauruses had closed the gap.
Time to fight.
The river was on my left, the trees on my right, and the leftmost gigano looked like she didn’t notice Grumpy lurking in the shallow water because she kept her eyes focused on Nicole as she strafed into the current.
The number two gigano held back a bit and toed the edge of the water while Number Three lowered his head and roared toward Nicole’s horns.
The fourth one slowly paced toward the edge of the palm tree grove, and both Emerald and I yanked our spears out of Nicole’s side carry holsters.
These fuckers were used to hunting as a pack, and it was more than obvious they were trying to flank us.
The leftmost giganotosaur moved closer to Grumpy’s position, but I sent a mental order and asked him to wait till the perfect time to attack. He didn’t like me telling him what to do, and for half a moment I worried that he would attack immediately.
But he didn’t, and the giganotosauruses suddenly stood still as they all watched Nicole, Emerald, and I.
My heart was slamming into my chest like it wanted to escape my ribcage, and my adrenaline was pumping through my veins like gasoline. I felt my stomach drop when the giganos suddenly stopped moving, but then I realized that these beasts were probably shocked by Nicole’s behavior. A single trike should have run from them, but instead she was standing her ground and stamping her feet in preparation to attack.
They had probably never seen a three-horn with an attitude, and all my dinos had serious attitudes.
The ten second pause in their movement ended up being exactly what we needed, and Bruce let out a honk as he dived onto the head of the third gigano. The Pteranodon held the leaf basket in his bottom feet, and he angled his descent so that the edge of the container slammed right into the ridge of the carnivore's eyebrow ridge.
And the basket was filled with sand that Emerald’s second body had hastily shoved into it.
The gigano screeched when the sand hit its eyes and tried to snap its jaws up and bite Bruce, but my buddy was already floating up in the air, and he let out a honk that sounded a lot like a laugh.
It was enough to enrage the other three giganotosauruses, and number one, two, and three stepped forward to try to come at us.
“Go, Grumpy!” I shouted as I ordered Nicole to dart forward toward the second attacker.
I saw a wave of water out of the corner of my eye as the giant purussaurus made his attack, but I couldn’t really see where his jaws closed around the giganotosaurus’ leg. I just heard the beast scream the instant that Nicole’s horns angled up to jab at our own adversary.
The gigano angled her face down to bite along Nicole’s crest, but Emerald and I were ready with our own spears, and we both shoved our flint-tipped weapons forward and slammed the points into the beast. The impact made my entire shoulder go numb, and I saw Emerald almost drop her weapon out of the corner of my eye, but our attack had been effective, and the giganotosaurus reared back away from us the instant that Nicole’s top two horns tore into its chest.
The gigano let out a screech that made my ears ache, and I ordered Nicole to prance backward so that we still had coverage from the palm trees on our right side. She obeyed me instantly, but I could feel the terror coming from the trike. It was taking every ounce of her willpower and my control to keep her from doing what her natural instincts were telling her to do, and I felt an overwhelming sense of conviction spread through my chest.
She trusted me to keep her safe, and I wasn’t going to let her down.
As soon as Nicole had fallen back a few steps, I made her twist her horns back to the male who was blinded by sand. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure he couldn’t see us, but he did seem more concerned with shaking his face back and forth to clear his eyes than he did with biting at Nicole, so I figured I’d take a chance and attempt to take him out of the fight for good.
“Charge!” I screamed, and Nicole’s back feet dug into the sand of the beach like a bulldozer blade.
Then she lunged forward and plowed into the male’s chest.
Nicole’s horns hadn’t really pierced Number Two’s chest that far because the trike hadn’t gained any speed, but her charge fixed that issue with Number Three, and the longer horns plunged halfway into the Giganotosaurus’ lower belly. He hadn’t even seen her coming, and I both heard and felt the air explode out of his chest when Nicole plowed into him.
> Emerald and I leaned forward with one mind, and both of our spears jabbed up and into the lower part of the beast’s chest. Our weapons didn’t penetrate that deep, but they went into the scales probably a good half a foot, and the giganotosaurus reared up as it tried to escape the damage.
“Shit!” I shouted at Emerald a half second before the male threw one of his stubby arms across the top of Nicole’s back.
We both ducked down, and I felt the air part above my head as the massive claws missed taking my head off. As I was lowered, I glanced over at Emerald and saw that she’d accidentally left the spear stuck in the male, and his movement had caused it to pop free of his chest and then tumble down to the sand below us.
“Back up!” I shouted down to Nicole, and she twisted her head around like a dog trying to wiggle out of its collar so that she could dislodge from the male gigano’s chest.
The male was more than happy to be free of the agony, and he lurched backward with a powerful step as Nicole yanked her horns loose. I figured that he would be out of the fight for a bit, and Grumpy was wrestling gigano Number One in the river, but gigano Number Two wasn’t really super hurt from our previous stabs, and Number Four was about to swing around the defensive grove of trees, so we were about to be pinched between two of them.
Then Bruce came to the rescue again.
Well, Bruce and Scoob.
The Pteranodon let out a triumphant honk as he dive bombed Number Four, but instead of smacking the giganotosaurus with the basket of sand, he carried Scoob in his legs and let the Troodon go right on the massive carnivore’s back.
Scoob landed with a surprisingly graceful bounce, skipped a few steps, and then latched onto the larger dino’s back with his claws. For half a moment, I thought that would be the end of things, but then my tiger-striped buddy started to kick like crazy with his small feet.
But those small feet were spring loaded with a larger than average toe claw.
Tamer- King of Dinosaurs Book 6 Page 10
