The Wyvern in the Wilderlands: Planeswalking Monster Hunters for Hire (Sci-fi Multiverse Adventure Survival / Weird Fantasy) (Monster Hunting for Fun and ... Hunters and Mythical Monsters) Book 1)

by Eddie Patin

  Eventually, the weird, long-legged croc continued down along the water’s edge, apparently losing interest.

  "Holy shit."

  You really have to stay sharp here, Jason thought.

  "Slip up a little bit, and they’ll get ya..."

  Jason let himself stand and calm down for a while then he thought to dig his hand into his wet pocket to examine the gold bits from the river...

  Before he did, the man heard the faintest hiss and looked down at the river again to see the crocodile back—running at him, smiling with its cracked jaws. It emerged into the bright sunlight and continued up the hill unperturbed, trotting along with its swaying tail hanging behind it, focused entirely on Jason...

  "Shit!"

  The man ran up the hill screaming. He dropped the shell somewhere along the way when it seemed that the crocodile wasn’t slowed down at all by the incline—not like Jason himself was! By the time he reached the crook, his bad knee was agonizing, and he paused to look back.

  The crocodile was loping along after him, fifteen feet behind.

  With a small cry infused with a rush of fear, Jason sprinted up to the tree that saved him the previous night. He stumbled on the bones of the raptor then climbed up through the scraggly, rough branches, reaching out with his cane to help pull himself up. The wounds in his shoulder split open, and Jason cried out in pain at the fire in his sliced skin and nerves.

  When he was ten feet or so off of the ground, the croc caught up and stopped at the tree trunk, hissing and slithering from side to side. The monster took great breaths and puffed up its swelling belly and neck, hissing loudly like a steam engine as it thrashed around. Jason’s heart hammered in his chest and he held on for dear life, grimacing against the various intense pains in his body. The raptor cuts were searing again—he definitely tore them open. With a smothering sense of dread sliding over him, he pulled his Glock and pushed back against the tree, bracing himself in the branches. Jason aimed the pistol with both hands, and lined up its sights on the center of the crocodile’s skull. He calmed his breathing, and started pressing the trigger...

  Then he stopped.

  No, he thought.

  Jason waited. For a while, the croc seemed to go into standby mode, standing still with its mouth cracked open and its head slightly leaning back like a biological machine. At times, it slithered once to the left or right, the sacs on the sides of its jowls filling and hissing like bagpipes without the pipes. Over time, the seemingly-mindless beast drew its snout closer and closer to the raptor carcass then turned its head sideways to chew on it for a bit, not bothering to swallow.

  Returning his pistol to its holster, Jason tried to get comfortable and waited the monster out. When the crocodile crushed the raptor corpse’s bones in its powerful jaws, the man felt revulsion sweep over him and threatened to throw up twice. He tried to calm down and sipped on water instead.

  Shit, he thought. The boiling water was definitely boiled by now. That fire would have boiled the shit out of it. He hoped that his coffee cup was still okay; that it hadn’t cracked or otherwise been destroyed by leaving it on the heat for too long.

  After an hour or so, the crocodile lost interest and left.

  Jason watched with baited breath—struggling to see clearly through the branches—as the strange, long-legged creature shambled away down the hill back to the river.

  When the man climbed down, he took the water off of the fire. The flames were low now, but still burning and boiling the tiny amount of water remaining. He was extra careful with the handle, which was soft from the heat. Jason then examined his shoulder again, pouring some clean water from his CamelBak onto the seeping wounds and doing his best to re-suture them with the Band-Aids that were already on his skin. He only needed to use one more from his supply.

  Eventually he hiked down the hill and recovered the dropped turtle shell.

  After letting the mostly-boiled-away water cool and filtering it as he added it to his bladder, Jason sat for a time, massaging his knee and looking at the forests around him. He transferred rounds from his full mag to his carry mag, topping off the ammo in his pistol. Yep, he thought, counting what was left. Definitely shot three. Down to nineteen.

  When Jason was fully calmed down and feeling a little better—other than the constant undercurrent of dread that lived within him now—he wandered around the immediate area of his crook campsite to collect more firewood.

  His stomach cramped some more, especially any time he was back at camp and smelled the wood smoke from the fire, so Jason decided to explore a little more; a little further away.

  This time, instead of heading north where he ran into the cannibals, Jason continued climbing east up toward the ridge. Once he was above the crook, he followed the open area to the next tree line.

  He heard an echoing yowl and froze.

  Some sudden fast and sprinting steps nearby made Jason immediately duck into the underbrush at the tree line. They were the same quick, sloppy footfalls that he was beginning to associate with the cannibals...

  Hiding within some thick brush just inside the trees, Jason watched as three of the strange, scaly humanoids sprinted through the woods above him, heading south. All of them were almost naked, and two of them jangled with necklaces and other decorative loops of rawhide brimming with animal bones. Or people bones, Jason thought. Their own people, anyway. Two of them carried crude stone axes.

  Jason thought about what it would take to craft one of those.

  When the cannibals were long gone, he stood and continued east uphill through the trees, toward the ridge.

  "They’ll be back," Jason said to himself, carefully and stealthily approaching the next break in the trees. There was a clearing up ahead.

  By now, Jason had seen that the cannibals had approached the wyvern’s cave from the ridge, and they also ran back that way afterwards with the fire they'd gathered from the beast. He’d also seen them to the north of his crook shelter. Must live in the woods on the east side of the valley, north of my shelter, he thought. Those three runners must have been heading south to hunt or whatever, then they'd probably head back to wherever they lived later today.

  Before stepping into the light of the clearing, Jason paused to check the opposite tree line for predators. He thought back to when the mini-rexes chased him before; how they spotted him so easily from far away. Jason had been standing in the sunlight clearly illuminated in front of the gloomy forest.

  He wouldn't make that mistake again.

  There were no predators that he could see, but Jason realized with wonder, as he slowly scanned the clearing, that it was full of huge duckbill dinosaurs. The massive herbivores were bedded down near the far tree line, half of the herd in the sun, the other half in the shade of the distant woods.

  Jason waited and watched for a few minutes. The creatures were as big as the mini-rexes—maybe a touch smaller—but they seemed no more dangerous than cattle. They were beefy and had large, swooping curves to their bodies—perhaps big, bony back ridges that made their backs look bigger—with huge, thick tails and gentle hands and feet. There were no big claws; no hooked teeth. The gentle giants grunted here and there—a low and vibrating sound—and Jason was once again reminded of elk. Just like the large mammals back home, the duckbills only moved to chomp and mush away at the grass around their faces, and they were camouflaged very well.

  Man, what a surprise it would have been if Jason had just burst into the sun, making the duckbills all bolt, appearing from their camouflaged positions as if out of thin air and thundering away!

  After a while, Jason headed back down the hill again, carefully veering north to see what he could observe from the relative safety of the trees. He crossed the next clearing down pretty quickly, then found himself in the woods he was hiking toward in the rain last night when he had that run-in with the cannibals where he shot one in the belly. Looking to the south, Jason saw the huge skeleton up against the trees where he'd collected the old
dinosaur hide.

  Heading down into the edge of the forest north of his camp, he didn’t run into any more cannibals, but he did come across more dinosaurs.

  A little ways into the trees, Jason paused and crouched in the underbrush when he sensed movement up ahead. His knee felt like it was being stabbed with a knife when he bent low, but he dealt with the pain. It was better than becoming a meal for a big predator.

  Up ahead, the man heard some thumping on the soft, earthen ground and a series of low grunts that reminded Jason of the duckbills. As he watched, he saw large forms emerge in the dim woods and recognized the shapes of the smaller ceratopsian he'd seen across the creek earlier.

  "Mono..." he said quietly to himself. "Mono ... something..."

  It was a family of them, moving around in the dense trees, eating bushes and ferns in between the pines.

  Mono ... nucleosis? he thought. Not Monoceratops—that’s not right. Mono ... clonius? Monoclonius? Yeah—that felt right. The smaller single-horned ceratopsian wasn’t a very popular dinosaur, but its name had stuck in Jason’s mind from an old show he watched in the 80’s. It was called Dinosaur! The show was hosted by Christopher Reeves; the old Superman. There was a Monoclonius in that show that was killed by a T-Rex in a tall pine forest a lot like this one.

  In fact, for how surprisingly different the raptors and mini-rexes looked from the concepts of dinosaurs that Jason remembered, he was surprised to see that these Monoclonius looked a hell of a lot like they did in that old show, even down to the simple small crest, single gleaming horn, and thick, dull-colored hide. The ceratopsians—he could see three of them from his vantage—were bigger than he figured they'd be. The highest point of their backs might be as tall as the top of his head...

  As Jason crouched watching, his knee throbbing, he was startled by another dinosaur approaching the lumbering, grunting creatures. A six-foot-tall ostrich-shaped dinosaur waved nimbly through the trees down a natural game trail toward the Monoclonius family. It had a cream-colored and spotted coat of soft, downy feathers, and was as quiet as a ghost. With a long, naked neck, and a gawky head tipped with a dark beak and wide eyes, it bobbed like a weird ostrich, heading down cautiously through the trees. Its forearms were feathered with long brownish quills, but the creature didn’t have the same dangerous, hooked claws of the other raptor-like predators. Its feet looked a lot like an ostrich’s, naturally-plated and with small, functional claws—perhaps for running. The tail was long and served as a counter-balance to its body and head, draped with lengthening cream feathers until ending with a spotted tuft at the end. The nimble dinosaur was similar to the giant, dark-brown ostrich dinosaurs that Jason had seen down in the valley, but smaller—still a little bigger than he was himself—and with lighter colors and a shorter coat.

  Jason realized that this was the same dinosaur he’d seen thrown onto that bloody, charred stone slab in front of the wyvern’s cave when he first appeared here. This was a dinosaur that the cannibals had managed to kill—not the same one, obviously—but the same species.

  But what was it doing sneaking up on the ceratopsian family?

  The ostrich dinosaur answered Jason's query with quick action, darting into the copse of trees when the nearest Monoclonius had turned away. The quick creature reached down with its long, grasping hands, digging around in something that Jason couldn’t see through the bushes, then it popped up again, carrying an oval-shaped egg about the size of Jason’s shoe! Once the ostrich dinosaur had the egg in its clutches, it turned and dashed away up the hill. After twenty feet or so the creature paused and dropped the egg onto the ground, then lowered its neck and head to dart in and out, hidden from sight. Jason caught a glimpse of the dinosaur lifting its head to take a quick glance around with bright yellow on its beak, then it resumed eating for several seconds before sprinting away into the woods.

  It stole an egg.

  Jason could steal an egg. Seeing the yellow on the creature’s beak had turned his stomach—not in a gross way, but in stimulation, making him desperate to eat! With his stomach growling, the man slowly climbed to his feet, craning his neck to see where the nest was. It was hidden in the underbrush down there somewhere...

  He stopped when he realized that a dark-feathered raptor was standing nearby watching him. It cocked its head and turned its face from one side to the other, regarding him with each coppery eye.

  "Shit..."

  The little predator was about as tall as Jason's waist, which he knew by now was big enough to be dangerous. That little shit was thinking about whether or not to try to eat him...

  Desperately torn between ignoring the raptor and rushing in to steal an egg and backing away to head home to the south across the side of the hill, Jason groaned. He was interrupted by the loud growl of his stomach.

  And then, there was a chirp from up the hill on his right.

  Jason looked up there and saw a second raptor of the same coloration and size, carefully regarding him. The creature took one tentative step forward.

  "Well, that does it," Jason said, stepping backwards to exit the woods. He looked over his shoulder and calmly, slowly, made his way toward the tree line.

  The raptors followed, walking with jerking, nimble steps, gradually converging their paths until they stalked him together...

  "If I kill you," Jason said to them slowly, "I can eat you..."

  He was playing it cool, but already his heart was quickening and he felt adrenaline seeping into his limbs. The man was in for a fight, and he knew it. If he could make it out into the open at least, he’d have the space to wield his cane more easily...

  Jason stepped backwards into the sunlight then looked back over his shoulder to check his bearings.

  It was a good distance back to his crook, but not too far to run perhaps...

  He continued stepping backwards as far as he could, slowly backing across the hill, feeling the ground with his heels until settling his weight.

  The two raptors appeared in the sunshine, emerging from the shadowy forest like huge, dark birds of prey. Their eyes were just like those of an eagle or a hawk, but copper-colored instead of yellow. They chirped and made little exploratory cries, following along, cocking their heads and bobbing their necks as they took step after jerky step. Jason could see those sickle-like claws in the sunshine now...

  When his heel found a hole and Jason stumbled, the raptors suddenly dashed in for the kill. Lowering their heads, opening their jaws, and spreading out their front winged claws, they rushed in without a sound!

  "Fuck you!" Jason shouted. "Leave me alone!"

  As the two smaller predators darted in, one of them slowed down and the other stopped just outside of Jason’s reach, as if to assess him. The man felt himself dropping into a fighting stance, holding his cane in front of him with one hand loosely grasping its hook. He’d killed one of these bastards with his cane already—a smaller one, anyway—and he could do it again! He spun the cane once, twice, as they circled him. Jason kept backing up so they couldn’t circle around to flank him. Flanking: +2 to attack, allows Sneak Attack, he thought as he glared into their coppery eyes from one beast to another...

  One of them suddenly charged in from the left with a small sound that was a mixture of a hiss and a crow’s caw. It crouched to leap but Jason saw it coming. When the raptor leapt, sailing through the air claws first, flapping its mini-wings to help it stay vertical, Jason crouched and ducked to one side, ignoring the stabbing pain in his right knee. As the raptor tried to adjust in midair—almost flying right by him—Jason swung his cane in a quick and powerful overhead arc. He cracked the thing in one shoulder, knocking it to the ground.

  Then he turned to face the other, figuring that it would be taking advantage of the moment. Jason thrust the tip of his cane in at it as it rushed in as expected, striking the small creature between one shoulder and its neck with a stout jab where the collar bone would be on a human. Wishbone? Jason thought. Was this thing like a turkey?


  Both raptors scrambled away to recover and Jason faced them again, his knee throbbing, holding his cane in front of him again, ready...

  The two dinosaurs roamed around him again just out of reach, probing for weaknesses. Jason took that opportunity to continue backing away toward his crook shelter. The raptors seemed unfazed but Jason supposed that if they were hurting, they probably wouldn’t show it. These critters were different than him—they were more like birds. He couldn’t understand them if he tried. Their eyes and body language were alien to Jason's brain.

  When the man took another brief look behind him—making sure that he was still on the right course and that there were no predators or cannibals waiting behind him—one of the shitheads rushed in again. As it charged, spreading its claws and lowering its head like an attacking goose, Jason dug his feet in and prepared to dodge and brain the creature.

  It didn’t leap—it ran straight in then gave a little hop, leading in at Jason with all four legs and its claws spread wide to catch him! Using two hands, Jason thrust his cane in at the creature’s center mass as if his improvised weapon was a fighting staff. The reach of his cane beat the reach of the raptor’s legs, and he connected with its breastbone with a thunk that must have knocked the wind out of the dinosaur and almost made Jason feel bad. The creature landed on the ground wheezing, knocked straight out of its leap, and Jason stared at it for a moment before reacting...

  The other raptor hung back not pressing the attack.

  Jason swung down with a heavy strike to shatter the fallen dinosaur's skull, but the poor creature writhed in pain and desperation, and Jason missed the small target. He switched to one hand, and thrashed his cane down to hit it in the body. When he connected the raptor let out a breathy grunt, but then it somehow found its legs under it again and squirmed out of the way of any more blows.

  The creature ran away, turning its tail feathers and sprinting to the south. The other raptor immediately turned and joined it. Both rapidly fled.