Tamer_King of Dinosaurs 3

by Michael-Scott Earle

  “What am I looking at here?” I said as I stood on my toes to see the top hole. The sculpture was a good five and a half feet tall, the vertical cylinder was probably three feet in diameter, and the “foot” part of the “L” came out another ten or so inches. That was actually where Trel put the wood, and I could see licks of red flame popping up from holes at the bottom of the chimney chute.

  “The fuel is fed through the bottom here,” Trel said as she pointed to the base. “It doesn’t require much wood because the air gets sucked in from this horizontal part and then rises when it is heated. I am using the same concept as my cooking fire pits, but it is more compact.”

  “Looks like the wood is raised,” I said as I ducked down to examine where she inserted the wood. It looked like she had only put a handful of twigs in there, and I couldn’t believe they hadn’t already burned.

  “Yeah, this lets air get under the fuel. Galmine used some clay to create my ledges. She also made a top grate. Did you see the holes when you looked down from below?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “The inside walls are clay, but then Emerald and I stacked mud around. The clay will expand a bit and the mud will crack, but then we will re-plaster the mud. This small fire is curing the inside, but as soon as I saw the storm clouds, I realized that the rain would mess up all of our progress. We changed objectives to build the shelters.” A few drops of heavy rain started to fall, and Trel shot me a crooked smile. “Just in time.”

  “The design looks great,” I said. “It also isn’t making a lot of smoke.”

  “The way I made the campfires burns the fuel very efficiently. I can even put green twigs and small branches in here. Once I test this design out, I’ll make one twice as big so that we can do larger pots.”

  “Sounds good,” I said as I held my hands out the side of the chimney. It was starting to get really warm, and I looked down again at the small amount of fuel she was burning. “You are really damn smart, Trel.”

  “I am a genius,” Trel scoffed. “I feel like you keep forgetting and are amazed every time I prove my intelligence.”

  “Would you rather I don’t tell you that you are smart?” I asked as I smirked at her.

  “Oh no,” she laughed. “You can keep telling me I am amazing. I will stop complaining.”

  “Trel, you are amazing,” I repeated, and her smile grew wider.

  “Ahh, but I had assistance,” Trel said as she gestured to the green-haired woman carrying our water jugs. “Emerald helped me a lot. As did Kacerie and Galmine. It is a team effort, and I am grateful for everyone’s assistance.”

  Emerald seemed a bit surprised by Trel’s praise, but she still nodded at the other woman and set down the jug at the corner of the shelter so that water would pour down into it.

  “That is nice of you to say,” Kacerie said as she looked up from her pots.

  “It is nice of you to help me,” Trel replied, and they exchanged smiles. Kacerie turned back to her work, and then Trel raised an eyebrow and nodded at me.

  Another tear of thunder sounded from the heavens, and I saw Sheela and Liahpa jogging toward the two new shelters. The heavy sprinkles were just about to turn into rain, so both women were wet, and their nipples pushed against the thin fabric that covered their breasts.

  “Probably a good time to stop for the day,” I said as they took cover under the shelter.

  “We are on the last two platforms,” Sheela said as she squeezed the water out of her long blonde hair.

  “Wow, that’s great! Good work,” I told both of them.

  “We could probably finish them, but it looks like it is going to get worse,” Liahpa said as she reached her hands down to the ground so that they were close to the cooking fires.

  “We kind of all skipped lunch,” I said. “Let’s eat and then call it a day.”

  The women all nodded, and then Galmine handed us all plates filled with the roasted meat. Everything was now salted, and it tasted ten times better, but I could tell that this batch of food was on its way out.

  “I’ll have to hunt more tomorrow,” I said a few minutes after we had all started eating. None of us had spoken, instead, we just watched the rain begin to pour.

  “Oh!” Kacerie gasped. “I forgot to tell you that I worked on some fish traps. They are in the hut. If you take me with you to the river tomorrow, I’ll help you place them.”

  “Awesome,” I said. “Good job.”

  “It was fun,” she shrugged. “I had some free time today when I was waiting for the lye and fat to separate.

  “How is that going?” I asked as everyone turned to her.

  “I think I’ll have good news in about an hour.” Kacerie winked at me, and then she looked back down at one of her clay mixing bowls.

  “So tomorrow we’ll finish the last two platforms, put down some fish traps in the river, find some stuff for Galmine to plant, build more kilns, build more weapons, and look for some kind of bird or dinosaur to domesticate for eggs. Am I missing anything?”

  “We could make more saddles for the dinos that don’t have them,” Kacerie said.

  “Yeah, good idea,” I replied, the pink-haired woman looked up from her bowls to give me a wide smile. The hairdresser had really stepped up in the last few days, and she almost seemed like a different person from the woman who first arrived.

  “I have a suggestion,” Liahpa said over the sound of the rain, and we all turned to her.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “We need more work platforms,” she said as she moved her hands horizontally in the air. “We don’t really have an efficient spot to cut, chop or prep.”

  “You mean like a workbench?” I asked with a laugh. “Damn, that’s a good idea. We’ve just been sitting on the ground.”

  “I noticed it today,” Liahpa said as she shrugged and turned to Sheela. “We could have cut the wood easier and tied the poles together quicker if we had a stomach high flat surface that was sturdy.”

  “Yeah, I get it,” I turned to Trel and found her tapping her lips with her finger.

  “The sturdy part is the problem,” Trel said after a few moments. “I can make a table with legs, and then top it with split logs, but it might not stand up to hard use. The best solution might be to knock down one of the trees, cut it at the base so that we have the large cylinder log, and then have one of the trikes move it over and set it where we want it.”

  “So it would look like a tree stump,” I said as I thought through the process.

  “We could also knock down a tree and use the adze to flatten the top. Then I could dig a trench and we could set the log in. That would produce a long flat surface.” Trel motioned over the air with her fingers, and I got the idea of what she meant.

  “Seems really heavy,” Liahpa said. “You can’t do something with legs?”

  “We could always use the adze to level out something,” Trel said with a shrug. “In the previous design, we could flip the log over and level it from both sides. However, that will take a long time, and it will probably be less stable on legs. I’d have to drill holes using coals, then make legs with tied joints to support the weight. I’m sure I could tweak the design and have it working fine in a week, but since we have dinosaurs who can lift heavy things, I think we should use something simple.”

  “What about just a big rock?” Kacerie asked. “We use the small level rocks for sharpening the axes. What if we could find a flat boulder and then bring it inside? We wouldn’t have to worry about it rotting or being stable. We could probably even find one that wasn’t totally flat and then chip the top until it was level.”

  “Hmmm,” I said as I thought through the problem. “I’ll keep an eye open for something when I am out tomorrow. The problem with a big boulder is that it’s going to be heavy. Maybe even too heavy for a trike to lift.”

  “If you find something suitable, we can use Liahpa’s ability to move it,” Trel said as she pointed at the floating woman.”


  “I can only make things heavier.” Liahpa’s eyes narrowed a bit with confusion.

  “That is fine, we can use levers and fulcrums to lift it off the ground. You would create the counterweight. I have it figured out. I would just need to see the boulder and then design a strategy around moving it. The boulder is just one option, we could always do the logs, but the logs will eventually warp in the weather and rain, so a stone would be much better.”

  “I’ll keep an eye out when I am traveling,” I said.

  “Did you see any bamboo while you were out yesterday?” Kacerie asked.

  “Good memory,” I said with a chuckle. “We found a spot for clay about half-a-mile west on the river. The clay is kind of on the wall, so we’d have to find a way to rope down, but above it, we thought we saw some bamboo in the jungle. I’ll add it to the list of things to look at.”

  Kacerie nodded at my words and then went back to her bowls. I was again impressed by her diligence, and I realized that she had a good mind for organization. I figured that she probably had to since she owned her own salon on her home world and managed inventory, clients, and employees.

  “You all are doing a great job,” I said as I turned to everyone. “I’m really happy with how well the camp is progressing. I know we’ve been working our asses off for the last few weeks, and I can’t promise you it will get easier anytime soon, but I think there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Once we get a few more things built and develop some systems that are easy to maintain, we’ll be able to relax more.”

  “We are relaxing right now, Victor.” Sheela smiled at me and then took a small bite of cooked meat.

  “Yeah, but only because it is raining.” I laughed and then a flash of lightning lit the sky and world like a neon sign.

  During that brief flash, I thought I saw movement above our gate.

  “Fuck!” I shouted, but the thunder covered up my words.

  I turned around so I could look into the distance. It was a bit hard to see through the layers of pouring rain, but the trikes seemed to be standing at attention. There was another strike of lightning, and I definitely did see something moving in the distance outside the walls of our fort.

  It was the trio of allosauruses, and they were charging along the path toward our gate.

  Chapter 13

  “Sheela and Liahpa, come with me!” I yelled, but the thunder cracked again, and my words were covered up. They still understood that I needed them, and we each grabbed spears before running into the downpour.

  The day had been on the warmer side, and the rain wasn’t uncomfortable. It kind of reminded me of a rare Los Angeles summer rain. Except that it came down on my shoulders and skull with the force of sledgehammers, and I winced a bit with surprise.

  Liahpa and Sheela ran across the wet grass beside me, and another strike of lighting revealed that the lead allosaurus had made it to the gate. The giant predator kind of shoulder-checked the wood, but the gate somehow held its shape, and the dino bounced back a bit. The trikes shook their heads with displeasure, but they knew better than to risk attacking when the door was still closed.

  “Liahpa, can you make the gate heavier?” I shouted to her over the rain.

  “I’ll try!” she replied, and then she sprinted ahead of me like a rocket. We were still a good fifty yards away from the gate, but she made it there in almost two blinks, and she rested her hands on each of the gates as the allosaurus retreated back a few steps.

  It was going to charge again, and I realized that I might have given her terrible orders. If the creature did break through the wall, Liahpa would be an easy meal. It was too late to change my mind though, the building-sized predator was already charging again, and it crashed into the gates like a giant sledgehammer.

  But then it bounced off like a tennis ball.

  “Yes!” I shouted as I reached the three trikes guarding the door.

  I quickly climbed up onto Tom’s saddle so that I could see over the gate easier. The female with the injured face was pacing on the other side of the bridge, and the one who had just bounced off the wall stepped back to stand next to her. The third let out a roar that was almost covered by the sound of thunder, and then it cautiously moved across the land bridge so it could take a turn at the door.

  This one seemed to be smarter than the other, and he leaned up over the top of the gate and tried to look down. The gate was only about eight feet tall, and the allosaurus was a little more than twice as big. The top support beam of the entrance was fifteen feet high. So, the dino had to kind of lower his head and then poke through the gap. He saw Liahpa standing beneath him, and I pushed Tom forward as my heart shot up into my throat.

  The allosaurus dipped his maw down to try to bite Liahpa, but I got Tom’s horn up in time, and the predator got stabbed in the cheek. The creature let out a wail of pain mixed with frustration, and then he tried to yank his head up and out of the top part of the gate.

  I didn’t let him.

  Tom pushed forward with his back legs, and the horn dug deeper into the allosaurus’ cheek. I half expected Liahpa to jump away from the door, but the floating silver woman held her position with her hands on the gate, and they didn’t budge when I pressed the horn tighter into the allosaurus’ head.

  The predator squirmed and thrashed against the door while it screamed, and for half a moment, I thought I’d crushed its skull, but then it suddenly flicked its head up, and Tom skidded backward on the wet grass. The allosaurus let out a screech and then twisted its bleeding face down to try to bite Liahpa again, but then a spear hit it in its face near where Tom’s horn had pierced the cheek.

  I looked down to see Kacerie, Trel, and Emerald moving up to the gate. It looked like Trel had been the one who threw the spear, but then Emerald tossed her weapon, and the point of it slammed into the allosaurus’ nose. The beast had hooked his front arms up over the top of the gate, and he pushed his back up against the top support beam as he pulled with his arms against the gate. It didn’t really look like he was trying to bring down the gate, it looked more like he was trying to escape our weapons, but his positioning was either going to tear down the doors, or it would pop the support beam off the top archway of the opening.

  If that happened, our entire wall would lose a lot of strength.

  “Sheela! Kill it!” I shouted to the cat-woman. She had taken a defensive position right next to Liahpa and held her spear up to ward off the next attack.

  Sheela heard my order over the thunder of rain and the screams of the allosaurus, so she took a few steps back and then pulled her spear back as if to throw it. The allosaurus was still thrashing, and its back was starting to work the support beam at the top free. I was about to shout at her to hurry up, but then she flung the spear, and it traveled up through the air like a bullet. The point sank into the allosaurus’ eyeball, and the beast flinched back against the door.

  Then it knocked its head against the top support beam and fell back on the other side of the gate.

  “Trel!” I shouted over the storm, and the spider woman turned to me. I pointed to my eyes and then the wall to indicate she needed to be our look out, and she nodded before leaping on the nearest platform. Trel turned to yell what she saw at me, but a flash of lighting came down only a few hundred yards from our base, and the sound of thunder drowned out every other noise.

  “It is dead! The other two are still out there!” Trel screamed after the thunder faded, and I turned back on Tom’s saddle so that I looked at Sheela and Liahpa.

  “Open the gates!” I shouted, but they both gave me a confused look and I realized I had to explain myself. “I’m going to finish this. Otherwise, they will just attack us again when we aren’t ready.”

  The two athletic women looked as if they were about to refuse my request, but then Sheela turned and grabbed onto the door’s horizontal brace. Liahpa moved next to her, and they lifted the gate up and twisted it open. I saw the dead allosaurus on the other side of the gate, and it was hal
f falling off the bridgeway and into the trench that I had just dug.

  Sheela and Liahpa lifted the other door, and I saw the two allosauruses on the other side of the bridge dip their heads and snarl at me. I was a bit surprised they had returned to attack us so soon, but then again, I did know they would eventually be back. I’d been worried about them since we had first fought, so I knew that I needed to press my attack. Especially when I outnumbered them now and could fall back into the gate if I needed to.

  Time to kill these assholes.

  I commanded the five troodons to flow out of the gateway and run across the bridge. The small dinos looked like tiny plastic models next to the giant allosauruses, but the bigger predators still turned their eyes down at the charging group and took a step back to try and give them more space. The allosauruses didn’t really need to even worry about the troodons since the worst they could do was nip at their ankles. But my point wasn’t really to attack with Scoob, Shag, Fred, Velma, and Daphne. I just wanted to distract the bigger dinos so that I could make a surprise charge with my trikes.

  My strategy worked, and the allosauruses turned around to the side when the troodons ran past them. The one with the ruined face even tried to snap at the troodons, which meant that she didn’t notice Katie, Nicole, and Tom charging across the bridge until it was too late.

  Katie slammed into the allosaurus on the left, and Nicole hit the face-injured one on the right. The attacks hit the predators’ flanks, and they both tumbled to the ground with the trikes’ horns stuck in them. There was a shit ton of screaming and thrashing coming from the allosauruses, but they couldn’t escape the horns that had pushed them to the ground, and I was almost on them with Tom.

  I aimed for the injured one first, and I commanded the big trike to lower his head and get ready for ramming. The allosaurus saw us coming out of the corner of her eyes, and she made one last valiant thrash before we ran past Nicole’s shoulder. Tom’s horns snagged the allosaurus in the face, and then her skull tore free as the big trike kept running.