Dinosaurs! (Forger of Worlds Book 3)

by Simon Archer

  “You want to give it to me?” I asked as I raised an eyebrow at her. “But it’s special.”

  “As are you, Garrett.” She kissed me then. Something long, slow, and sensual, and that also had promises of things to come. “As are you.”

  “I think you’re pretty special too, Thera,” I replied as our lips met, and her hands began to roam across my chest.

  “I am glad you think me special,” she said when our kiss broke, and as we stood there, my stomach rumbled mightily. “But I think it is high time we get you fed. Besides, you’ve never had Samlon, and it is a treat.”

  Honestly, part of me wanted to argue because the promise of eating something other than Samlon right about now was pretty appealing, but even so, I let her pull me into the camp, and not just because the smell was amazing. It was salty, fatty, and herby all the same time, and reminded me of when my mother would put roasts in the crockpot. The house smelled just like it did when I came home from school, and it was all I could do to keep my mouth from watering. Hopefully, it tasted as good as it smelled.

  Thankfully, I didn’t need to wait long to find out because Queenie and Denno were in front of me an instant, the latter holding an array of plates all covered in various bits of red and white striped meat. There was even a bowl of what looked like soup, and an interesting roll that seemed to be part Troodon and part Samlon, assuming, of course, the pink and white meat was Samlon.

  “I didn’t know what you’d want, so I just brought some of everything.” Denno held out the plates before gesturing to Queenie. “And then she got more of everything to ensure you had your fill.” He laughed as I took the plate from him.

  “Thank you both very much,” I replied and gave each of them a nod. “I appreciate it.” I smiled at them. “Now, go and be merry.”

  “That, I can do,” Denno said before elbowing Queenie in the side. “Come on. I have something special I want to show you. I like to call it sweet and sour Samlon, and it’s one of my specialties.”

  Queenie looked to me for permission, and when I nodded, she bounced happily and followed Denno off toward a stand in the far corner of the village.

  “I shall get my own plate and then meet you over there?” Thera pointed to a spot beside where Kanil and Nikotan were seated hunched together and eating off the same platter.

  “Sounds good,” I said and made my way over to them. They barely acknowledged me as I sat down, but that was fine because it was all I could do to keep from tearing into my food.

  In addition to the roll, the stew, and various cuts of Samlon, there was a huge square of the jungle wasabi, and because I always loved sashimi as a kid, I took a dollop and put it on a piece of what looked like seared Samlon. Then I took a bite, and oh my god, was that good.

  It tasted a lot more like yellowtail tuna than salmon for one, which was what I’d expected, but it was also fattier in a way that actually reminded me of beef. With the extra kick from the jungle-wasabi, well, I’d have been happy just there.

  Only I didn’t have to be happy just there because I picked up my bowl of soup and took a sip. It was salty and fatty, with chunks of Samlon in it that reminded me of the tofu in miso soup, and before I realized what I was doing, I’d downed the bowl.

  “I see you like Samlon stew,” Thera said as she sat down next to me. “It is one of my favorites.” She winked at me. “They say it is quite the aphrodisiac.”

  “Oh?” I asked, and instead of responding, she merely handed me another bowl.

  “Drink up, Garrett.” She licked her lips. “You’re going to need your strength for what I have planned for you tonight.”

  27

  It was a little before dawn when the alarm horn sounded. It barely roused me, but Thera jerked awake instantly and was on her feet with her loincloth on so fast that I knew this wasn't normal.

  "What's going on?" I asked as my mouth caught up to my brain.

  "I don't know yet," she replied. "Stay here while I get the report."

  "Like hell," I retorted, pulling my pants on and looking around for my shirt. "We're in this together."

  "Then join me at the gate once you've dressed. Preferably with your blade." She indicated my sword that was still embedded in the glowing hunk of stone.

  "I'll do my best," I said, retrieving my second shoe from the corner. Thera was long gone by the time I'd found my shirt, which was a little bit of a relief. See, I wasn't entirely sure that I could extract the blade at all, let alone without breaking the stone, and I didn't really want an audience if I ended up having to do that.

  I straightened my collar, cracked my neck, and wrapped my hand around the hilt. I gave a tentative tug and got a crackle of sparks in return. It didn't seem threatening, exactly, just, well, kind of cranky, like when you're a kid and your mom wakes you up to get ready for school, and you say, "Five more minutes," and pull the blankets over your head.

  "Sorry, big guy, I don't have time to negotiate." I took a deep breath and pulled firmly on the exhale. I was surprised and relieved when it came out as easily as it had gone in last night. There wasn't much of a light show once I withdrew it, just a few languid arcs of blue and a glow around both objects, which slowly faded to nothing. "Okay, then. We're good?"

  For some reason, I was compelled to pat the stone like it was a dog.

  It wasn't until I was outside where the light was a little better that I saw that the blade was different. It was like it had been polished, and then some. The deepest pitted places had "healed" to small, shallow rust spots. The rest of it gleamed. Also, now that I took a second to test the weight, it felt a little heavier than I remembered and just more robust overall.

  I shook my head to clear it. I'd ponder the question of what the fuck had happened once the current excitement was over. For now, I just needed it to be up to handling whatever threat the village was facing.

  There was a huddle of about ten people near the gate, including all the bigwigs I'd been introduced to last night. Milling about nearby was pretty much everyone else in the village, murmuring quietly among themselves and stealing glances at the group of leaders. I knew it was bad when I saw that Denno's face had no trace of a smile.

  Once I'd joined them, he simply said, "Diplodocus."

  "Isn't that like, the big gentle plant-eater?” I asked, somewhat confused.

  "Usually, yeah, but this is a herd.” Denno sighed. “And something's freaking them out. Or someone, more like it. The scouts also saw fires nearby, and there's been no lightning for days, so the fires had to have been set."

  "Who the fuck would set a fire near a herd of Diplodocus?" I asked as I contemplated that.

  "Someone who wants them to stampede.” Denno gestured at the air as if drawing something. “The fires are on the other side of them, in a semicircle."

  “To push them your way.” I nodded. “Could it be the Saurians?”

  "Perhaps. Saurians pull this shit sometimes, but this is to the north.” He rubbed his chin. “My ale's on the Orange fuckers."

  "But the Orange have never done anything like this," Jorna argued.

  "No," Thera began, "but they could easily have learned from the Saurians. And for now, it doesn't matter who's behind it. The Diplodocus are nervous, and if they come toward us, this village will not exist anymore."

  "So, your walls won't stop them?” I asked. “I mean, you've got a lot of good healthy trees right there in the walls."

  "Trees do not stop a panicking Diplodocus," Jorna said with a sigh.

  I thought back to the ranch back on Earth, where I'd trained one summer. Cows were pretty docile, even the beef cattle we'd handled. But when something spooked them, they would run right through barbed-wire fences like a track star through the tape at a finish line, only the cows didn't stop for a victory photo, they just kept going through the next fence, and the next.

  "Okay," I said, "so what do you do when a herd stampedes toward the village?"

  Suli sighed. "We leave. Take what we can carry and head towa
rd the nearest allied village that's not also in the path of the stampede. There's a Green clan settlement not far past the river, so we will start toward them. And we may be lucky. The Diplodocus do not always follow the path the Saurians want them to. They could miss our village, and we could be back in our huts by dusk."

  "And if Saurians are waiting for us once we leave?” Jorna shook his head sharply. “No, we must build our own fires, ring the village."

  "Once the beasts are in panic mode, a piddling little fire line isn't going to do shit," Denno scoffed.

  "Not if we make it large enough," Jorna shot back.

  "Fires large enough to stop a stampede are large enough to burn the village if the wind shifts, and if that happens, there won't be time to run," Thera said flatly. Jorna looked ready to argue, but Thera continued before he could get a word in, "Remember your grandfather's end." The group went quiet. Thera let the silence continue for a bit before turning to me. "But we have a visitor who may… offer options we haven't had before he came."

  Thera has offered you a quest. Save the Village! Would you like to accept? Yes or no?

  All eyes were on me as I flipped mentally through the information I had. Then I accepted the quest.

  "Okay, how far away are the Diplodocus? Like, if they stampeded right now, or I guess let's say they started stampeding right after your scouts last saw them, how much time before they get here?"

  Thera looked toward a young man who had been silent until now. He nodded respectfully at me. "In the worst-case scenario you describe, they could be upon us before mid-day, but not much before."

  "Oh! Well, that's no problem, then." I grinned at everyone. I'm not sure if it reassured them or if it just made them think I was crazy. "I'm going to go with, uh, this guy here."

  "Nuuto," he said.

  "I'm going to go with Nuuto and take a look at the area between us and where these king-sized scaredy-cows are going to be coming from. And when we get back, I'm hoping breakfast is ready. With tahn-fruit." Yeah, they thought I was crazy. "Because after breakfast, everyone's got to help me build a big-ass stone wall."

  "How are we going to help you build a stone wall that will keep out a herd of Diplodocus in less than half a day?" Jorna asked a little dubiously.

  "Easy.” I grinned like a mad man. “You're all going to sing."

  28

  The sun was just rising as the gate closed behind Nuuto and me, not that I could see the orb itself through the miles of trees. It definitely made it easier to assess the lay of the land. Auric Sense would give me a lot of useful information, but I found that it didn't give me the gut-level understanding that examining things with my regular, everyday vision provided.

  “This way.” Nuuto pointed out the direction the far-off Diplodocus herd would come from, and we started walking. After about a quarter of a mile, I stopped and summoned four Scout Ants.

  "Okay, guys." I turned back around and pointed toward the village. "Imagine there's a line between me and the village. You two, head in a line about fifteen degrees to the left. You two, go along about fifteen degrees to the right. Not exact, don't try to tunnel through trees or anything crazy." After a few antenna twitches with each other, they started off into the forest as I'd instructed.

  Now, I used my Auric Sense to see the world from their points of view, in addition to watching them with my normal vision. It was like watching one of those TV news shows with the display split into squares with a dude in each square pontificating on whatever topic they're talking about, only without the arguing.

  Also, I wasn't just watching separate "screens," I was directing my little pundits, telling one to move to the left of a tree and the other to the right, having one pause to give me more data on the make-up of the soil, another to analyze the contours of the slope in front of it. I'd done this kind of mental juggling often enough now that it was second nature, but that didn't mean it didn't take a fuck of a lot of focus. Lucky for me, Nuuto wasn't much of a talker, so I could concentrate on what my scouts were showing me.

  Once the ants had passed the walls of the village, I had them turn around and come back to me along the same paths, picking up any information I might need that I'd missed the first time.

  "Okay, good job, guys," I said. "Have a nice nap!" Then I snapped my fingers and sent them back to their Auric Limbo. No, I didn't need to snap my fingers, but Nuuto was watching, and it's gotta be freaky when dog-sized ants just poof out of existence with no warning, so it felt like I should do something so that their disappearance didn't come out of the blue.

  I cracked my neck to the one side and then the other. "Okay, I think I've got what I need. Do you think they've got breakfast ready for us?"

  "I'm sure they do." We started back toward the village, with Nuuto still silent. I thought maybe it was reverence because of the magic stuff, but after a couple of minutes, he asked, "Sir, do you really think you can make a wall that will protect my village from the stampede?"

  "I do." I nodded.

  "And it would protect us from other stampedes, later?" he asked.

  I nodded. "I mean, what I'm doing right now will just deal with this one herd from this one direction. But after that, yeah, I'd like to stick around and build a system that would protect you from whatever dinosaurs come from whatever direction."

  "It would be nice to not have to run again.” He gazed skyward. “Not to have to run, and then come back to everything destroyed, and have to rebuild the walls, the gates, the huts, the tables, the cooking pits, the smokehouse. Then hunting and foraging to replenish our supplies. And until we rebuild the walls, there is the fear, where in the forest are the Saurians? Will they attack us while we have no defenses?"

  "You all have to do that a lot, I take it,” I said as I considered how much work that would be. Having to rebuild the entire village… that would be a ridiculous setback.

  Nuuto nodded. "Seven times, we have had to run since I was old enough to remember. Two of those, we did not have to rebuild."

  He probably wasn't more than fifteen years old. That was an attack every two years or more, on average. Sure, there are some advanced nomadic societies, but most of them had pack animals or vehicles once the technology develops. Here, the people had to carry everything themselves, so there was only so much they could take besides necessities.

  Plus, there was just the time and energy spent rebuilding. How much easier would their lives be if they could put that energy toward, well, any number of things? They could be learning crafts like metalworking or masonry and advancing their skills in woodworking and herbalism. They could develop agriculture, grow crops, and also domesticate animals if there were any candidates smaller than a Hadrosaur.

  None of that was going to happen until they could defend themselves against lizard-men and Orange fucknuts.

  Those thoughts bounced around in my head as we returned to town, and I saw Queenie was with the guards who met us inside the gate. She looked put-out.

  "Master,” she inquired. “You did not take me with you to assist you."

  "I didn't need anything the Scouts couldn't handle, so I figured I'd let you sleep in." I smirked.

  "I am not one of the pussycats who feel the need to nap all day.” She met my eyes then. “As your summon, I don't require sleep."

  "But do you enjoy it?" I asked.

  She furrowed her brow in confusion as if I'd asked whether we were in a desert or whether it was midnight. "My pleasure comes from serving you, master. Anything else is irrelevant."

  "It isn't irrelevant to me, Queenie.” I patted her hand. “I like it when you get to have a little fun."

  "I don't understand." She frowned.

  "That's okay. Just trust me." I smiled and pulled her in for a hug.

  "I always trust you,” she murmured. “You are the master of all things."

  "Well, 'fun' is a thing. Therefore I am the master of it." I grinned.

  “This is true.” She nodded somberly. "If you wish me to have fun, I will do s
o, because you wish it."

  "That's my girl. Now," I gestured toward the assortment of foods being prepared in the village square, "I command you to find the most disgustingly sweet thing these guys are serving up, and have a double helping."

  “As you wish, master.” She smiled at me with the glee of a kid at Christmas and practically skipped toward a fire pit that was surrounded by platters of what looked like fluorescent yellow pancakes. Clearly, she had been considering her options for a while.

  I chose a good-sized slab of Hadrosaur and a square of the green wasabi-like stuff and took a seat by Thera and Kanil, who were alone. She smiled tensely and gave me a quick kiss, but the two of us sat in silence, each occupied by our own thoughts, while Kanil's quill pen scratched on the middle of a roll of brown-flecked paper.

  Actually, the whole place was so quiet that I could hear the sounds of insects out in the forest. There were rarely even whispers, and most of those came from younger kids. A lot of furtive glances came my way. Then I realized that people were looking at Kanil as much as me, and I guessed that he'd shared his account of the wall I'd created when we met. They might not trust the newcomer, but they trusted Kanil. Otherwise, they'd probably have already packed up and headed toward the village across the river. As if he knew what I was thinking, Kanil looked up and smiled reassuringly at me.

  Everyone finished their meal quickly, and the leftovers were wrapped and put away within minutes. I stood and walked to the center of the group.

  "I know everyone's scared, and maybe you're having second thoughts about putting your fate in the hands of the funny-looking yellow-headed stranger. Trust me, you're going to have third thoughts about it when I tell you that I wasn't kidding earlier. All I need you guys to do is sing. It might not sound like much, but I can tell you from experience that music magnifies my abilities, and I need your help for this to work."