“How far?” I demanded as I commanded all my dinos to wake up.
“Quarter of a mile! Hurry! He’s following your trail!” After she finished speaking, she gave me a nod, and then she crouched down low, and took off straight into the air like she was motherfucking Superman.
“Holy…” I gasped as I looked up and saw the woman land on a ledge some fifty feet above us. Then I watched her bounce again, and her long trail of brown hair disappeared over the edge of the mountainside. It looked like she had just run up the vertical wall, but she had actually moved too quickly for me to watch.
But I didn’t have time to think about Bexcee right now.
“Emerald get up!” I yelled as I ran back into the cave. “Bruce, I need you out there. Grumpy, back up. Nicole, move to the side real quick so Bruce can get out.”
Bruce was already trying to push out against Nicole, and the big trike wiggled to the side and almost fell on Grumpy. The big grouchy dinosaur let out a low rumble when Nicole leaned into his personal space, but then Bruce let out an angry warning honk that actually shut Grumpy up like a schoolteacher smacking her ruler down on a desk. Then the pteranodon beat his wings furiously before he hopped into the air off the side of the cliff’s trail, skirted around a nearby tree, and then began to climb upward on a draft.
What is wrong?
“Bexcee just told me that their leader has been following us. He’s a quarter of a mile down the trail. We have to get the fuck out of here before he gets too close.”
The Emeralds hastily reached for their clothes, and I jumped back to Nicole so I could help her navigate her bulk out of the cave mouth without slipping off the side of the trail. As soon as she was out, I commanded the troodons and pachys to move up on ahead, and then I helped both Emeralds get up on the saddle.
Bruce let out a honk from high above me, and I felt my stomach drop.
“Go, go, go, go!” I commanded Nicole as soon as I jumped up onto the saddle, and then the trike took off like someone had jabbed her in the butthole with a hot poker.
Nicole’s movement had actually been a little too fast, and her front left foot accidentally stomped too close to the edge of the trail. She let out a snort of surprise as the rock and dirt gave away, and both of the Emeralds grabbed onto my biceps as the trike lurched forward and to the side.
“Woahhhh!” I cried out like a cowboy trying to tame a horse, and my vision swam as we tipped sideways and saw that the side of the cliff sloped down at a good forty-degrees for some fifty feet before it ended in the ferns of the jungle below.
For half a second, I was pretty sure we were all about to go over, but then Nicole rolled forward on her front right foot, pushed forward with her legs, and angled herself back on the trail. Then the trike continued to trot forward with a snort of annoyance.
“Don’t worry girl,” I chuckled as soon as my head stopped spinning. “No one saw that.”
Nicole snorted again with annoyance, but then she let out a chuckling sound when I just laughed and patted her crest.
The Emeralds both still had a death grip on my arms, but their white eyes were turned behind us. I kind of wanted to look back over my shoulder to check and see if Aytron had come across one of the last bends, but I needed to help Nicole out with the trail. Besides, if the guy really had gotten close enough, Emerald would have let me know.
I reminded myself that I also had Bruce’s eyes, so I focused a bit on the pteranodon and felt my vision start to double as the scene from his aerial position came to me.
From where Bruce flew above us, it was easy to see the layout of the cliffside as it ascended the switch backs up the mountain of this valley. I remembered that there was a more direct route down the slope, but we hadn’t taken it last time because of the sounds of loud predators that seemed to come that way. Now that I had Bruce’s eyes, I’d be able to scout ahead a lot better, so I was going to see if we could take that quicker route instead of whipping across all the switchbacks.
But before I did that, I glanced behind us and let out a groan of frustration
Aytron really was just right behind us.
Bexcee had said he was a quarter of a mile, but then I had gotten everyone out of the cave and moving. He was probably a little over two-hundred yards away, and the only thing keeping him from seeing us was the way the trail curved back and forth across the shape of the mountain side.
Aytron wasn’t quite running, but he wasn’t walking either. He moved at a pace that was probably equal to a power run, or a light jog, but I bet that if he knew how close he actually was to us, he would have started sprinting.
“How is he following us?” I started to ask, but the answer came to me as soon as the words left my mouth.
He must have figured out that I control the dinosaurs, so all he needed to do was follow my pack’s tracks across the sand and through the jungle.
He is following our tracks.
One of the Emeralds gestured to me five seconds after I’d figured out the problem.
“Yeah,” I sighed as I glanced back to Grumpy. “This is a problem.”
Grumpy sensed my thoughts, and he let out a low rumble as his stumpy legs frantically struggled to keep pace with Nicole.
“No,” I shouted back. “You can’t just ambush him. He’ll kill you.”
Grumpy grumbled like an upset diesel engine.
“Let’s see how much distance we put on him by the time we get to the top. I’m not going to leave you here.”
He snorted, and it sounded like a mudslide.
“Nope. You can still move faster than he can. It’s fine. I’m not going to leave you. You’re my friend. We are in this together.”
Grumpy growled again, and Nicole actually let out a sound that sounded like a whine.
“No!” I growled, but then my voice caught in my throat. “And that is that. Stop asking or you are going to piss me off. We aren’t giving up yet. Keep fucking running. Let’s get to the top of the mountain and see how much distance we have put on him.”
One of the Emeralds tapped me on the shoulder, and I turned to her.
What is he saying?
“He wants to attack the time-stop guy to buy us some time,” I said.
Then you told him no, and he said something else.
“He said he doesn’t want to be a burden, so he was going to do what he could. He doesn’t want to slow us down.”
Emerald blinked at me a few times, and then she turned to face the purussaurus.
He is a noble soul.
“Yeah,” I said loud enough for Grumpy to hear. “That’s why I’m not going to let him die. You hear that, you big meat head?”
He just groaned, but then the sound turned into something that sounded a bit like a laugh.
It was hard to tell with Grumpy.
“We’ll get ahead of him. Grumpy isn’t super-fast, but he’s still quicker than a man can travel.”
Still, it means that our opponent will be lurking out here in the wilderness, and given enough time, he could pick up our trail again and follow it back to our fort.
I started doing the math on our travel speed and route. Since we knew the path out here to the southern beach, it would be pretty easy to just follow it back. If we rushed and took the bare minimum breaks for sleeping, we’d probably make it back in three days. It would probably take Aytron a week or more to follow us, and while I didn’t know a bunch about tracking people or animals through the wilderness, I knew that grass eventually stood up after it was trampled, wind blew dirt and sand, and other dinosaurs would cross our path.
I could probably get creative with our route in other ways. Since I did have an excellent control over all my dinos, I could have Nicole and Grumpy do a big loop somewhere with the troodons and then circle back up to meet us while the Emeralds and I rode on the pachys. Hell, we could even walk a ways on foot, but send the bigger dinos off on another route and then have them return a way that could seem less obvious, so that Aytron was thrown off.
<
br /> There were a lot of different strategies that I could try, but the point Emerald made earlier still stood.
My plans weren’t going to kill Aytron. It was just going to keep or delay him from finding our fort, and it might prove a poor decision later if he got the jump on us.
Part of the reason I’d been able to kill his entire tribe was that he didn’t know I was coming. But even if we knew Aytron was coming, he’d have a huge advantage with his time-stop ability. Nomi would have to be awake all the time so that she could stop his ability as soon as he showed up and before anyone got killed.
Then an idea hit me, and I smiled as I realized it was just crazy enough to work.
“Okay,” I said to the Emeralds. “I have a plan,”
You always do.
They both smiled at me, and while I once thought the expression was predatory, I now realized her face showed her absolute adoration. It felt a bit weird to know that someone who was used to commanding billions of her people was that smitten with me, but then again, I wasn’t the same Victor that had gotten nervous at Lacey’s pool party.
“We want him to follow us,” I stated as I gestured over my shoulder.
That is an interesting plan. I believe I guess where it leads, but explain more.
“So, my worry is that the next time we see this guy, it won’t be us seeing him. He’ll see us first, trap us with the time-stop ability, and then kill us. If we out pace him here. Then we risk him still finding us and then killing us just like I did with his tribe.
We should keep him close enough so that he stays on our trail, but far enough away so that he cannot catch us. Then, when we reach our fort, Bruce will still have eyes on him and we can use Nomi to deal with his ability.
“Yep,” I said as I gave her a smile. I should have known that I wouldn’t really have to explain it to Emerald, since she was quite devious.
The risk is him catching us. Or us losing him when he is close to our fort. Then he will be able to find it easier and take us by surprise.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “On the other hand, if we just lose him now, we might not ever see him again, and he probably won’t be able to find our trail and fort because we’ll be long gone. So, if we are going to make a decision, it needs to be now.”
I believe you already think to lead him to our fort, so I will agree with you.
“Oh, really?” I snickered. “How do you know for sure?”
You are risky with yourself, but not risky with the women who are in your tribe. ‘Kicking the can’ as you put it, pushes more risk to the future and risks everyone else’s life if he finds us at our fort or while we are returning on this path to make our new home. Leading him onward in close proximity puts the risk on you and my bodies. You do not wish to risk me, but you can manage the risk better since your dinosaurs let you control the environment.
“Uhh, yeah,” I chuckled. “You figured it out. I’m not surprised. You are smart.”
It is my role to be worthy of you as your Queen and Mate. I will help you destroy our enemies, bear you powerful offspring, and assist you in selection of your other breeding Mates. When your great scions are born, I will help rear them so that you can continue to focus on the conquest of this planet.
“Every time you talk I can’t help but think you are setting the feminist movement back a decade,” I laughed.
I don’t understand.
Both Emeralds gave me a puzzled look.
“Oh, nothing,” I answered. “There are just… uhhh, a lot of women on my world that would not agree with what you think your role should be.”
It is good they are not on this world then. This place has no forgiveness. We must all be stronger than our enemies and the creatures that live here if we are to survive. I am blessed to have you as my Mate so that you can provide me protection and a plentiful amount of seed to create your children. Trel’s words are often abrasive, but she speaks the truth to the other females of our tribe. They should all submit to your dominance eagerly and beg for you to inseminate th--
“Let’s just focus on staying ahead of this asshole,” I interrupted her before she got too spun up about me ‘dominating’ women again. “I’m going to fly Bruce on up ahead and see if we can take the shorter route up the hillside.”
Emerald nodded, and I moved my vision over to Bruce’s perspective. The transition didn’t really hurt, but I did notice that my eyes were already starting to feel tired. That could have been because we just woke up, or I was still exhausted from doing the vision switch thing yesterday. I didn’t quite know for sure, but I imagined it would get easier to do once I practiced it and leveled up my Tame ability.
The alternate path up this mountain looked clear of everything but a group of stegos that were calmly munching on the grass near the apex, so when we got to that split, I directed my group of dinos upward, and we pushed as hard as I knew they could go. A good hour later we had reached the top of the small mountain, and I slowed down the troupe so that we could catch a breather.
And Grumpy didn’t complain at all on the sprint up. I almost wanted to hug the big guy for making the effort, but I figured I’d never hear the end of it, so I just gave him a smile while we all caught our breath.
Bruce has not honked. Does that mean we have left our follower far behind us?
“I’ll check,” I said as I switched my vision over to my flying buddy.
Bruce already had eyes on Aytron, and he had just started making his way up the steeper slope behind us. What surprised me was that he was still doing his slow jog pace, and it didn’t look like the star-skinned man was tired at all.
“Huh, he’s in good shape,” I said as I watched Aytron continue up the path after us. He wasn’t even slowing down as he went up, and I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach.
You can see him?
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess I forgot to tell you, but it seems that my ability has evolved, and I can see out of my dinosaurs’ eyes when I focus on it.”
I am not surprised. You can understand my words in your head when I gesture. As I said after you first poured you seed into me, your abilities continue to evolve. I am happy to have you as my Mate.
“It’s pretty useful,” I said as I commanded my dinosaurs to move forward down the other side of the hill and toward the eight or so more valleys we had to cross before we got back. “I mean, Bruce was doing a good job of honking at me when he saw danger, but being able to see the exact situation through his eyes is going to solve a lot of translation problems.”
Yes. Also, seeing the lay of the land and the formations of our enemies will allow us to formulate better battle strategies. This will help us assault and conqueror enemy forts easier.
“Ahh, that reminds me. We haven’t had a chance to talk about what you saw when the black-winged fucker took you to the enemy camp. Now that I can understand your gestures like words, can you better describe what you saw?”
Yes. Their fort had gray stone brick walls that were twelve feet high. All of their dwellings were also made out of stone brick with shingles similar to what you asked Trel to begin to make for you.
“The curved shingles?” I clarified, even though her hands had already made the half circle shape.
Yes. Their camp was the same size as ours, but instead of the wider open courtyard that we use for your dinosaurs to graze, They have a more open central area and dwellings surrounding it. I counted some sixty small homes and then twelve larger structures that could have been used for building or storing food or other materials. The main thoroughfare through the fort was also covered with bricks, and it looked like they had been set in cement instead of just laid on top of mud.
“Shit,” I hissed. “So they are maybe six months ahead of us on technological development. I don’t even know how to make cement. How about weapons? Did you see any metal arrowheads or--”
Some carried bows with copper arrowheads. One man had a sword that was perhaps three feet in length out to sharpen, and it was also co
pper. They had leather sheaths for their weapons, and leather quivers for their arrows. They all wore leather clothes, but I did not see anything padded like armor.
“Another area where they are ahead of us,” I said. “I don’t know how to treat leather, but we’ll probably have the copper weapons figured out in a week. Can you tell me about their members? Did anyone have any kind of power they displayed? How were they organized?”
Only the flying dark man seemed to exhibit any sort of power. But I was dropped into a ten-foot tall bamboo cage with about three feet of padded hay at the bottom. As soon as I landed, they closed the top and the man who abducted me hopped down and began to talk to a man who had long hair that shifted from red to white every few seconds. They spoke softly, but I pretended that the fall had knocked me unconscious and was able to listen.
“And here is where you tell me about how they are a bunch of assholes,” I growled.
You are correct, Mate. The man with the wings explained how he had flown over another encampment and taken me. He wanted to return to abduct any other women he could find. But then the man with the red and white hair said that ‘she’ wanted a powerful male, so he shouldn’t forget his primary mission. At this point the man with the wings attempted to argue that they needed more women to keep the men satisfied, but then the other man shrugged and said ‘you can go tell her that. I’m sure she’ll be very understanding of your desire to disobey her.’ The winged man immediately changed the tone of his voice and asked the other man to please not mention it to ‘her.’
“But they didn’t say a name or what her powers were?” I asked.
No. But I cracked my eyes open a small amount as they spoke of her, and both of the men glanced a few times toward the largest of the buildings they had constructed, as if they were worried that they might be overheard.
“I wonder why she wanted a powerful male?” I asked. “Maybe for recruitment? The tribe we just fought seemed to have a ‘join or die’ policy, but it seems a little strange to have your only flying tribe member to scour the world just to randomly pick up men who might be able to fight him off. Also, how is he going to know who is ‘powerful’ or not? Every one of the survivors seems to be the most badass of their planet.”
Tamer- King of Dinosaurs Book 6 Page 29
