Tamer_King of Dinosaurs 3

by Michael-Scott Earle

  “I’d like to know where they are,” I said.

  “They are to the north, up the coast about five miles,” Will-Lack said, and I saw Quwaru’s jaw harden when he spoke. From her facial expression, I guessed that Will-Lack had told me the truth, but she probably wanted to keep the information in her pocket for longer.

  She was definitely the leader of this trio, maybe even the leader of their whole tribe.

  “Do you know how many people they have?” I asked.

  “They have thirty, maybe forty,” the bird-man answered.

  “Tell us more about your tribe, Victor,” Quwaru said to flip the questions back to me. I saw that Emta was only halfway across the bridge, so we had a few minutes to talk.

  “We are just trying to survive like you are.” My eyes met hers, and she nodded slightly.

  “And you do not have access to salt?” she asked the obvious question.

  “I’m not sure,” I said with a shrug.

  “You have not explored much then,” she said, and her silver eyes searched my face for a tell.

  “You are intelligent, Quwaru.” I smiled at her, and she let out a slight laugh.

  “Thank you.” They both seemed to relax a bit. “Although, I’m not sure we can really establish much of a trading relationship.”

  “Oh?” I asked.

  “It is a bit unbalanced. I thank you for offering to bring us pottery, and we will accept it, but you know where our camp is, and we do not know where yours is.”

  “Maybe we can figure out something later,” I said. “Do you know the camp location of this tribe to your north?”

  “We do,” Will-Lack said, and I saw Quwaru’s jaw tense once more.

  “Perhaps we should trade information along with materials,” the beautiful red-woman said as she stepped forward some so she was standing a bit in front of the large man. “We can tell you where they are at if you tell us of any other tribes you know of.”

  I glanced to the bridge and saw that Emta had almost made it to the other side. Then I looked back into Quwaru’s silver eyes and gave her a slight smile. “I don’t know if I believe your big friend.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked with a bit of confusion.

  “Will-Lack just told me that the other tribe is five miles north of you, but I watched the three of you walk out of the jungle, set your fishing net, and walk back without even glancing around the beach. You aren’t worried about them coming after you, even though they are close by. So, try another story.”

  “Hmmm,” Quwaru’s lips curved up in a bemused smile. “You are intelligent as well, Victor.”

  “Thank you,” I replied, but her smile was making my heart race again, and I forced myself to take a slow breath.

  “They were a problem, but we took care of them,” Quwaru admitted with a shrug. “We thought you might have been a survivor.”

  “Took care of them as in you killed all of them?” I asked as I kept my best poker face glued to my skull.

  “Yes.” She nodded.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Maybe they demanded our salt?” Quwaru asked, and we stared at each other for a few moments. I realized she was waiting for me to crack, but I didn’t let her intimidate me. They were looking for a weakness. They were looking for fear. The woman was trying to figure out what I was all about, and I wondered if the story about the other tribe was real.

  “They should have asked nicer,” I said as I smiled at her. “Maybe they could have offered some clay plates, bowls, and mugs for trade?”

  “Ha!” Quwaru chuckled as she shook her head. “They attacked us first, Victor. That is all you need to know, and all you should remember.”

  “Well, I’m not planning on attacking you,” I said.

  “I understand,” she said as she gestured back with her hand. Her nails were black, but they didn’t look like claws.

  Emta made it across the bridge, and I saw her glance toward the opening of her fort. Then she turned around, and I raised my hand to wave at her.

  “We are going to have a problem if she goes inside,” I said, and both Quwaru and Will-Lack tensed as the other woman turned her head from me, glanced at the entrance to her fort, turned her head to the salt basins, and then looked again at the entrance. Then Emta moved to the coconut buckets, grabbed one, untied the rope from around it, and moved toward a salt pool.

  “Smart decision,” I said, and the two of them turned back around to face me.

  “You seem very confident,” Quwaru said as her eyes roamed over my clothes and then settled on my badge. “How long have you been on this world?”

  “Long enough to not want to go back,” I said, and she surprised me by nodding in agreement.

  “You spoke of gardening earlier?” she asked.

  “Yeah, are you interested?”

  “Yes, very,” she said as she gestured to the grassy slopes that surrounded us. “We have space here, but not the knowledge.”

  “Besides salt, what else can you offer me?” My heart was relaxing a bit now that we were talking about trade.

  “We can cut stone for you,” she said as she gestured back to her fort. “Any size and shape you want.”

  “That’s interesting,” I said, “but moving them would be hard. I’d have to take your expert back to my camp and get stone for him or her.”

  “We have plenty of stone here,” she said as she gestured back toward the cave. “But you are right, moving it would be difficult.”

  “What else?” I asked.

  “Fish?” she said. “We also have other types of meat. Food is not much of a problem for us.

  “Ahh, you have hunters?” I asked.

  “Not hunters,” she said. “We are just fortunate with our meat collection.”

  “Ahh.” I figured she was lying since she said that they had taken care of the other camp. I still didn’t see anyone else come out of their cave, so I wondered at their real population.

  “Is the water down in that lake fresh?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Quwaru replied.

  “How deep does your cave go?” I asked.

  “Plenty deep,” she answered with a smile.

  “How do you light it?” I asked.

  “We have access to tar and have made torches.”

  “I could actually use some tar,” I said with a shrug. “How easy is it for you to get?”

  “It is not easy,” she said with a frown that seemed a bit forced, so I guessed it was pretty damn easy for them to get.

  “So, stone, tar, salt, and fish,” I said. “Anything else?”

  “Perhaps I will think of more later today,” she said. “You caught us off guard, and I’ll need to speak with everyone else to come up with ideas.”

  “Fair enough,” I said, and I saw Emta began to walk across the bridge while she clutched a coconut to her chest.

  “And you can provide pottery, hardwood, and help with gardening?” She asked.

  “Sure,” I replied with a shrug. “As you said, there are probably other things I can think of. We should talk about it more when I return with the plates, bowls, and cups.”

  “You think it will take you a week?” she asked.

  “Yeah, but I’m sure you know that the unexpected often happens.”

  “I understand,” she said. “We could use the pottery, and we do have an abundance of salt, so we will appreciate the gift when you do bring it to us.”

  “Not a gift,” I said. “It’s a trade.”

  “Of course,” she laughed lightly, and they both seemed to relax more.

  “You must be powerful,” she said as her silver colored eyes drifted again to the badge on my shirt.

  “I’m alive,” I said with a shrug.

  “Yes,” she said, “but we all have abilities. You must feel very confident that yours will trump ours.” Our eyes met again, and her full red lips curved up a bit in a crooked smile. “Or perhaps you are bluffing.”

  “You could always find out,” I sai
d as I forced my sweetest smile to my face, “but it seems like a bit of a waste when you already told me a few times that you had plenty of salt and you needed pottery.”

  “Hmmm,” Quwaru sighed as she nodded. “I suppose I will let you win this one, Victor.”

  “There isn’t a winner or a loser,” I said as Emta approached. “I’m getting salt, and you are getting pottery.”

  “If you deliver,” the red-skinned succubus looking woman said as Emta moved to stand next to her.

  “I’ll deliver. Here is how it is going to work: Emta is going to set the coconut on the ground, then she is going to pick up the rope, then you three are going to turn around and walk to the other side of your bridge.”

  “Fuck that,” the woman with the medusa style hair hissed.

  “Once you get to the other side, I’ll take the salt and leave. As soon as you see me crest that hill, you can come across the bridge again. I’ll be long gone, but I’ll bring your pottery to you when I have it ready.”

  “How do we know you will not cut the bridge when we are in the middle?” Emta asked as she narrowed her eyes at me.

  “I’d rather have ten buckets of salt and a trade relationship with you.” I shrugged.

  “I think he is full of shit,” the tan woman growled. “We don’t have to do as he asked.”

  “It’s fine, Emta,” Quwaru replied as she waved her hand. “We need the pottery and we don’t need the salt. Victor could have cut the bridge before and we would have fallen. He wanted to talk to us, so he’ll do what he has said he will do.”

  “Yeah, I will.” I stood and brushed off my pants.

  “On my world, we have a tradition of touching hands to seal the deal,” the succubus looking woman said as she held her right palm out toward me. “Will you touch hands with me, Victor?”

  Her two companions looked at her hand and they seemed to hold their breaths. My spidey-sense started tingling, and I guessed that this sexy woman must have had some sort of ability that only worked when she touched someone.

  “Maybe next time,” I said as I smirked at her.

  “Ahhh,” Quwaru sighed, and I saw Emta’s jaw clench with anger.

  “I mean no offense,” I said, and then I looked to Emta. “We’ve gotten off on the wrong foot. Thank you for bringing me the salt.”

  “I had little choice,” she replied, but her jaw seemed to relax a bit, and she looked away from me.

  “We’ll move back across the bridge now,” Quwaru said, and the other woman picked up the rope. Then they all shuffled around so that Will-Lack was in the lead before they stepped on the bridge.

  I waited until they were three quarters back across the bridge, and then I grabbed the coconut filled with salt. It must have weighed a good ten pounds, and I couldn’t wait to see the look on everyone’s face when I brought it back.

  I turned and calmly walked up the hill while the raptors crawled beside me in the grass. By the time I made it to the peak, Will-Lack, Quwaru, and Emta had made it all the way back, and I gave them a nod before I walked down the other side.

  Trel was waiting for me, but before she could say anything, I nodded toward the jungle.

  “Run!” I hissed, and I cradled the salt under my arm as we both sprinted down the grassy slope.

  I gave one look behind us before we got into the jungle, but I didn’t see anyone following us. I still didn’t stop running though, and my lungs were screaming by the time we made it back to Tom. The trike was already laying down so that we could mount easily, but I didn’t bother securing the salt before I told him to start running south along the ridge of the jungle. Tom had already done a lot of running today, but I asked him to push a little harder, and we were soon past the part of the beach where the lava had flowed and was twisting through the dunes. I’d made the troodons run beside us in the jungle, and I’d tried to take Tom on a trajectory where there were fewer spots for someone to see his footprints, but I realized that my new trade partners might still be able to figure out that I’d ridden away on dinos.

  Or maybe they wouldn’t believe it.

  “You got the salt!” Trel finally said when I slowed Tom enough so that we could speak over the wind.

  “Yeah,” I said as I shot her a smile. “And we’ll be able to get a lot more from them.” I handed the coconut back to her so she could tie it to Tom’s storage area, and then I looked over our haul. We had plenty of sand, hundreds of pounds of clay, salt, and five new dinos. I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome, and now there was only one thing left to do.

  “Let’s go back home,” I said, and then I kissed her passionately before I turned Tom around to the east and began the long return trip.

  Chapter 11

  We didn’t run into trouble on the way back, but the sun was low in the sky by the time we reached the gate. Nicole and Katie seemed happy to see us, but they were happier to see Tom, and I let the three of them nuzzle each other before I rode him across the clearing and into our inner fort walls. I noticed the piles of wood branches were a bit smaller, but the cause for that was apparent when I looked around the perimeter of the outer wall. The women had been busy while Trel and I were gone, and they had put together twelve more platforms.

  The group was standing around our new underground cook fire location just left of the gate leading into our inner fort, and they all moved around the fires so that they could speak with us.

  “How did it go?” Kacerie asked as she glanced suspiciously at the five tiger-striped troodons.

  “Great!” I said as I commanded Tom and the troodons to sit. Then I took a plate of meat from Galmine and updated them on our journey. Trel filled in a few exaggerated details about how amazing I was, but we eventually got the story out, and then we all stared at the jugs full of sand, clay, and salt that Liahpa and Sheela had unloaded from Tom’s back.

  “What a bounty,” Galmine said with a happy sigh.

  “It really is,” Kacerie said as she reached into the coconut, pinched some salt, and then sprinkled it on her cooked hunk of liver. We watched her take a bite, and then she let out a satisfied moan as her eyes rolled back into her head. The other women quickly sprinkled salt over their food, and Galmine also took a drink from the jug where we had stored the sea water.

  “Delicious,” the gray-skinned beauty said after she finished drinking. “I will be able to prepare much nicer meals with this salt.”

  “And we can better preserve some of this meat,” I said as I gestured to the fifteen pounds of slow roasting meat that we had taken from the dinos. “Speaking of that, where are the corpses? I didn’t see them when we came in.”

  “Sheela and I dragged them into the forest to our west about six hundred yards,” Liahpa said. “There is a ravine there without a river at the bottom, so we pushed them all down into the crack. I’m sure the scavengers will pick them clean.”

  “Great,” I said. “So, it was calm here all day?”

  “Yes, Victor,” Sheela said, and the other women nodded. “I am concerned about this trade arrangement. I do not feel as if it is safe to go back to this group.”

  “It will be okay,” I said. “It was apparent that they need plates, bowls, and mugs. They didn’t even discuss the options amongst themselves.”

  “Still, I wish to go with you next time,” Sheela said, and the other women nodded.

  “We’ll see,” I said after I swallowed a bite of liver and then rested my hand on Scoob’s head. The troodon had crept forward while we talked through the day, and he was now resting his head on my knee. I gave the tiger-stripped dino a scratch, and then I noticed that the other troodons had gathered around Trel so she could pet them.

  “Awwwwww! They are like bigger versions of Jinx! So cute!” Galmine reached down to pet the little blue chocobo dino at her feet, and Jinx let out a happy squawk.

  “Victor,” Kacerie said, and I turned toward her, “I have kind of a surprise for you.”

  “Oh?” I asked, and I noticed the other women smi
le.

  “Well, Emerald and I do.” The pink-haired woman laughed and then stood and gestured for Trel, Emerald, and me to follow her under doggie door of our smaller fort. The whole group came with us, and I let out a belly laugh as she stood like Vanna White and gestured to a new hut that was on the opposite side of the fort from the old one. It was grass covered, just like the first, but it looked a bit smaller and I guessed that two or three people would fit in it comfortably with a fire in the middle.

  “Damn! Did you make this?” I asked.

  “With Emerald,” she said. “It’s a bit smaller than the other one, but I figured that ahh, you might want to sleep alone or… well, you know. We put a fire pit inside, so it’s ready to go.”

  “Damn,” I said, “That’s really cool.”

  “It won’t be cold inside,” she laughed and winked a blue eye at me.

  “Thanks,” I said, and she gave me a big smile and nodded at me. Then I opened my arms, and she stepped in close so I could hug her. Kacerie was all sorts of beautiful, with a great ass, amazing hair, a face that could grace a magazine cover, and legs that went on for days. But I was pretty used to being around beautiful women now and hugging her didn’t produce the instant boner that it would have just a few weeks ago.

  I released her from my hug and then turned to Emerald. The scaled woman blinked at me a few times when I opened my arms, but then she stepped toward me and returned my embrace. Her hands gently rubbed up and down my back while we hugged, and when I moved to part from her, she leaned her face up and kissed me lightly on the lips.

  “Emerald likes you!” Galmine said, and the green-haired woman nodded as she stared at me with her strange white eyes.

  “I like her too,” I said, but then Trel wrapped one of her arms around my waist.

  “As Victor has said, you all did an excellent job today. But now I must reward our hero with a night full of really great lovemaking. We’ll see you all in the morning.”

  Before I could say anything, Trel pulled on my hips and ushered me into the hut. The fire inside was burning low, and probably needed to be shifted so that it wouldn’t go out, but Trel’s lips were on mine, and her hands were yanking off my clothes.