Tamer- King of Dinosaurs 4

by Michael-Scott Earle

  The breeze from the ocean did help temper the heat, but we were soon in the jungle, and while the trees gave us a bit of shade, they also prevented the wind from cooling us. My friends didn’t complain though, and we soon crested the hill that led us to the valley between the coast and our home.

  I did my usual tactic of moving Bob up ahead first just to the crest of the hill so I could look into the next valley without creating a dinosaur silhouette against the skyline. I didn’t see anything in the next valley besides thick jungle, so I motioned for everyone else to follow me, and we descended the grassy slope on the other side of the hill.

  There were two ways through this jungle valley. The first way was through the dried riverbed which ran East and West through the center of the jungle, the second was skirting the foothills next to the jungle’s edge on the north side. I had gone the riverbed route with Tom and Trel a few days ago, and almost gotten eaten by a family of carnotauruses, but that road had the advantage of being concealed from eyes. The northern route was somewhat out in the open, and anyone looking down into the valley would know that we were passing. I had taken the valley route here, since I wanted to get to Quwaru’s tribe as soon as I could and hadn’t cared about anyone seeing us, but now that I didn’t have to worry about speed, I considered my options as we reached the western tree line of the jungle.

  “We are going to take the north route at the foothills,” I told Sheela as I rode Bob next to Tom.

  Sheela nodded at my words, but I figured that she would. This was the only route she knew, and she probably thought stealth wasn’t too big of a deal now that we had a bunch of big dinos.

  We trotted around the jungle, but about halfway through the valley, we heard roars inside the line of trees. I couldn’t get an exact feel for the location of the predators because of the wind in my ears and the density of the jungle, but I guessed they were a mile or more away from us.

  I kept pushing our squadron of thunder lizards, and we crested the next hill without being attacked.

  The next valley was our home, and I felt a sigh of relief leave my chest when I saw the top of the redwood trees in the center area. It had only been a few hours since we had raced away from the fort and left Galmine alone with Hope and Jinx, but it felt like forever ago. I was eager to return to our home and kiss the beautiful stone woman.

  We descended the hillside into our valley, but instead of taking the more direct route across the hillside on the north, I moved the squadron of dinos south until we hit the river so that everyone could get a drink. We didn’t encounter any other dinosaurs on the way there, but at the shore of the river where the trees started to change, we found a group of four large turtles with shells about the size of large trampolines. I flipped on my Eye-Q really quick and identified them as carbonemys cofrinii, and my eyes drifted to the biggest one of the group. He was the only male, and while the females had smooth-ish looking shells of dull brown and green colors, this male shell was spiky, and the scales around his face were shades of red and orange.

  “Those are the largest turtles that I have ever seen,” Sheela remarked.

  “Yeah,” I agreed, “I haven’t seen any like that so far in our valley. They don’t seem too scared of us.”

  We were about fifty yards away on the shore of the river, and as I watched, one of the females slid her body halfway into the water and let out a raspy gasp that made the trees quiver. These things weren’t as big as my trikes, but I guessed they probably weighed as much as my parasaurs.

  “Are you going to tame one of them?” Kacerie asked as she splashed some water on her face and over her white blouse.

  “I’m not sure I should,” I said as I turned my eyes away from her wet shirt so that I wouldn’t gawk at her pink nipples. “I don’t know what I could use them for.”

  “They might help with lifting the logs in place,” Trel said as she stared at the turtles and tapped her lip, “but the dinosaurs we have already tamed do a fine job of that task. These don’t look like they move very fast.”

  “No,” I said as the male turned to look at us. He let out a rasp, and they all moved into the river and began to swim upstream away from us.

  “Ohh,” Trel gasped. “I’ve changed my mind.”

  “Yeah,” I said as I realized what she was thinking. “Their shells are above the water.”

  “They could help us travel across lakes, rivers, or the ocean,” Sheela filled in.

  “Let’s not get carried away here,” Kacerie chuckled. “Can you imagine what kind of horrific shit lives in the ocean? I don’t want to be out there, even on the back of a giant turtle.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “But this is good to know. We don’t really need these turtles now, but we might one day have to cross some water, and I can try to tame some of them then.”

  I turned back to nod at my friends, and Emerald’s white eyes caught mine. Just like Kacerie, she had splashed water over her white blouse, and the shape of her human-looking breasts and dark green nipples were clearly defined by the wet material. I knew that the strange reptilian-looking woman with the gems on her face saw me checking her out, but I just gave her a smile and shrugged before I took a quick drink from the river.

  A few minutes of Trel complaining that we shouldn’t be drinking from the river passed while we all drank from the river, and then we jumped back on our mounts and rode between the jungle and the river. After ten minutes, we passed the spot where the clay on the side of the river gorge was, and I gestured so that everyone saw it.

  “That does look like bamboo in the jungle on the other side of the clay,” Kacerie said as she held her hand against her face like a visor. “I don’t really see anywhere good to cross; the edges of the river are too steep.”

  “We’ll have to go east more toward where Victor normally gets water for the dinosaurs,” Liahpa called out from where she rode next to Sheela. “The water is shallow there.”

  “I want to get back to the camp first,” I said. “I’m nervous that we left Galmine, Hope, and Jinx alone.”

  “She’ll be fine,” Trel said. “The walls are built excellently, and--”

  “Yeah,” I interrupted her. “I’m still nervous about it. We need to re-group, tell her what happened, take care of Will-Lack’s body, and then we can go get some bamboo. Galmine might even want to come with us since she knows a lot about plants.”

  “Hmmm,” Trel said with a shrug of her bare shoulders. “Whatever you want, Victor. I think Galmine can wait, but I understand your fears.”

  I nodded and turned the dinos away from the shore where the clay and bamboo were. Then we continued south eastward toward the spot where the fallen log was. We made it there in another ten minutes later, and then we cut north toward where the clearing was.

  As we moved through the redwoods, I made the troodons fan out ahead of us and hunt. I knew feeding predators, even small ones like Scooby and the gang, was going to be more difficult that my herbivores, but I was hoping that the group of troodons might be able to catch a meal while on the move. The group understood my orders, and they disappeared from our sight with a few exuberant sounding hoots. By the time we had made it to the edge of the clearing, the five of them had all returned with their mouths full of either rats or lizards that were about the size of a shoebox.

  “Damn, good job guys!” I said as the troodons trotted next to us with their prizes in their mouths.

  “I think they are trying to give you their catches,” Trel said as she gestured to the tiger-striped dinos.

  “Yeah, I think you are right.” I commanded the parasaruses and triceratops to stop, and the five troodons moved next to Bob. In unison, they all laid their rats or lizards on the ground next to Bob’s feet and then they looked up to me with eager expressions on their intelligent faces.

  “Ahhh, that’s really nice of you,” I said to them. “But I think you all should eat them. You caught them after all. Thank you.”

  Scoob let out a happy hoot, and the other four
quickly bent their necks down, chomped on the corpses they had each caught, and then lifted their heads up so they could swallow the food. Then they all let out happy hoots and began to race around Bob in a circle.

  “These guys really like you,” Kacerie said.

  “Of course they do!” Trel scoffed. “Victor is amazing.”

  “Let’s get back to the fort,” I said, and then I ordered the group of dinosaurs to push through the last of the redwoods.

  As soon as we entered the clearing, my heart shot out of my chest when I saw the gate of our fort.

  There was a group of raptors trying to climb the door, and it looked like one was already at the top.

  Chapter 4

  “Shit!” I shouted as I ordered the group of dinosaurs that I controlled to sprint toward the dirt bridge in front of our fort gate. My friends also let out shouts, but the wind stole away their exact words as my vision kind of tunneled around the distant gate.

  We were still about three hundred yards away from the door where the raptors climbed, but I got a better idea of the size of them when we started to get closer. These raptors weren’t the horse sized black utahraptors that had been hanging around my valley as of late, nor were they the green feathered Great Dane sized Deinocycus species of raptors. These guys had white, brown, and cream-colored feathers, and they looked to be about the size of my troodons.

  But as I got closer, I realized that comparing these guys to my troodons would be like comparing me to an Olympic power lifter.

  The new raptors were fucking yoked. They were as wide at the chest as they were long, and the feathers on their skin did little to obscure their rope like muscles. They might have been about the same height and length as my troodons, but they probably weighed two or three times more, and I saw that their toes seemed to have long double-claws coming out of each digit.

  There were also twenty of them climbing the wall like angry monkeys looking for a banana. They all turned when they heard my dinosaurs charging toward them, and a brief wave of indecision seemed to spread through their ranks.

  “Victor!” I heard Sheela shout over the wind of our charge. “I only have two arrows left!”

  “Stop the one on top!” I shouted, and then I turned to see the blonde woman yank her bowstring back.

  I jerked my head around as soon as she released the arrow, and my stomach did a bunch of flippy-flops as I watched it speed through the sky. We were still about a hundred yards away, and it would have been a difficult shot for anyone not riding on the back of a dinosaur going at a full gallop. But somehow, Sheela’s aim was true, and the arrow hit the raptor on top of the gate right in the chest. The beast toppled over toward the inside of our walls, but I guessed that it was dead.

  I would have expected Sheela’s arrow to make the cream colored raptors pause their assault and run, but the exact opposite happened. The muscular dinosaurs let out an angry screech, and they all jumped off the gate and ran across the bridge over our trench with a wave of teeth, claws, and frantic feather flapping.

  Then the crazy ass motherfuckers charged right at us.

  “Shit!” I growled as I tried to figure out what to do. On one hand, these guys were pretty small, and I didn’t think that they could do too much damage to my parasaurses or trikes, but on the other hand, I had seen a group of the Utahraptors tear into a pair of big ass brontos, and my dinos were at a much smaller size ratio. I also had troodons that I needed to worry about. Scooby, Shaggy, Fred, Daphne, and Velma were quick, nimble, and devious. These white, cream, and brown feathered raptors were built like brick shithouses, and there were now nineteen of them compared to my five troodons.

  The Eye-Q said they were Balaur bondoc, but I had never heard of the species before.

  “Stay close together!” I shouted as I ordered my dinos to slow their run and circle up. “Everyone grab a spear!”

  Trel handed me a weapon, and I stood up from my saddle as the group tightened up. Bob and Tom were side by side facing the wave of raptors, Nicole and Kim took the flanks, and Sonny and Cher guarded the rear. Before I could really think through if it was a good idea or not, I ordered Cher to crouch low on the grass, and the five troodons all jumped on the parasaurs’ back. Then she stood and the group of troodons’ hopped across Sonny’s back until they stood on top of Nicole and Katie.

  “We are going to stab them from up here!” I shouted to my friends as the raptors closed within fifty yards of us. “I might have our trikes and parasaurs stomp on them, so make sure you don’t fall! I’ll send the troodons down when it looks safe. Everyone got it?”

  “Yes, Victor,” Sheela said as she pulled back her last arrow. “Should I fire?”

  “Yeah,” I said, and then she let go with her arrow.

  The shaft hit the raptor at the lead of the pack, and it tumbled into the ground like a bowling ball. I again thought that the death of one of their number might have scared off the rest of the pack, but they all screamed in unison, and then seemed to increase their frantic speed.

  Then they were on us.

  I jumped off Bob’s back, landed on Katie’s and then grabbed onto her crest with my left hand as I leaned over her head. The trike was trying to spear one of the raptors with her horn, but the smaller dino had moved to the side and was raising its right leg so that it could slash at the much larger dino’s face.

  I brought my spear down and around and slammed it into his chest right before he could cut Katie. I’d stabbed plenty of dinosaurs with my spear, but this felt like I was slamming my spear into the ground. I knew that I’d killed the thing because it let out a death squawk, but the tip of my weapon didn’t even punch through the other side of his body.

  Another of the balaurs jumped at Katie’s right side, but I commanded her to twist her head around slightly so that I would be yanked back into the way of the raptor. I didn’t have much of a chance to pull back my spear for an attack, but I managed to get the tip in the stocky dinosaur’s face, and it screeched when the point dug into its maw. It fell away, and Bob stomped my opponent with a heavy foot.

  I swung back onto the top of Katie and glanced over to my friends quickly.

  Trel was leaning over the other side of Bob near where Sheela was on Tom, and both women were stabbing their spears downward. Liahpa was standing behind Sheela, and she was punching her spear down at the spot in between Tom and Nicole.

  Emerald was on Nicole’s back and she was twisting her head around as if she didn’t know exactly where to attack. As I watched, Nicole let out a screech, jumped, and sent the green-scaled woman flying through the air.

  Then she fell behind the trike.

  “Shit!” I hissed as I jumped over Sonny’s back, landed on Cher, and looked at where Emerald had fallen.

  A balaur bondoc had made it under Nicole’s legs and was about the leap on the beautiful green-scaled woman, but before it could attack, Velma and Daphne dove from the back of Nicole and hit the cream colored raptor like twin tiger-striped spears. The trio suddenly became a tumbleweed of feathers, claws, and teeth, but I couldn’t really focus on their movements since I had to worry about Emerald.

  “Grab my spear!” I shouted as I swung the weapon toward the green-haired woman.

  She grabbed the haft, and I grunted as I yanked up on my end with every single ounce of strength that I had. My toes curled in my boots, my hamstrings screamed, and my glutes turned into bags of lead on my ass, I had all sorts of the wrong kind of leverage since I was above Emerald and trying to pull her up on the edge of the spear pole, but I knew that if I didn’t do it, my friend was going to get torn into pieces by another one of the balaurs, or on accidently injured by Daphne and Velma.

  My vision dimmed at I hissed air through my teeth, but then I felt the spear move up, and Emerald grabbed onto Nicole’s spine.

  “Don’t fall again!” I panted. Emerald nodded, and then I glanced down to see Daphne and Velma tear the throat out of the balaur that they had attacked.

  “Good job, girl
s!” I shouted down at them, and then they hooted before turning toward another pair of balaurs that had run through Katie’s stomping feet.

  “Get ‘em!” I yelled to Scooby, Shaggy, and Fred as I pointed down at the two raptors about to attack their females. I didn’t have to ask twice. The three boys flung themselves into the chaotic pit of space at the center of our battle like heat-seeking missiles, and the five of them began to tear into the two cream colored raptors.

  I needed to watch them to make sure they were okay, but I also had to keep track of the six bigger dinosaurs and my friends. I needed to be everywhere at once, and I could feel my heartbeat pound a bass drum in my temples as I looked over to where Kacerie was stabbing down with her spear on the left side of Katie. The hair stylist looked absolutely terrified, but she kept moving her arm up and down with a frantic intensity.

  I glanced back over to Emerald and saw her move to stand up on Nicole's back. Sheela, Trel, and Liahpa were looking like they were handling the front of our circle where Tom and Bob were, but then I saw movement to my left, and I turned to see four of the enemy raptors running around to flank us from behind where Sonny and Cher were.

  I glanced down at the dog pile of troodons again and saw that my pals had ripped apart the other two raptors. Somehow, nobody on my team look to be injured, but I guessed that we had been lucky so far. Even as I watched, another three of the raptors ran through Tom’s legs and came at my troodons. The last balaur of the group got kicked by the trike as he ran through, but the hit didn’t even seem to faze the muscular raptor.

  I turned back to the ones at our rear and ordered Sonny and Cher to keep their position. I could sense their fear as the little monsters charged toward their feet, and it took another round of mental orders to keep the parasaurs with their front legs on the ground. Then, just as soon as the four balaur’s were about to reach the chests of my two parasaurses, I had them stand up on their back legs and charge forward.