“If we don’t try to cut him off, he’s going to get away.” Will, too, was gazing in the direction of the mountains. “He’s dangerous. ”
“Not now. Let him go.” Karinna whistled to her mount and the brachiosaur’s head dipped earthward again. Swinging one leg over the broad saddle and slipping both feet into the dangling stirrups, she rapidly rose forty feet into the air. At her request the gigantic quadruped raised up on its hind feet, using its tail like the third leg of a tripod and boosting her another twenty feet skyward. The pirates cringed, but the bra-chiosaur maintained its balance for the several moments her rider required to scan the horizon. When it dropped back down to all fours, the ground shook.
Several diplodocids and another brachiosaur congressed together, riders and mounts conversing animatedly. Eventually Karinna directed her mount to lower her groundward once more, but this time she didn’t dismount. Everyone gathered around, even the pirates, who could not bring themselves to be frightened of the brachiosaur ’s inherently bucolic, affable expression.
“We must get away from here at once.” Karinna spoke in no-nonsense tones as she divided her attention between the travelers and the distant sea. Wind bent her tall, pointed cap almost in hartf. If not for the strap that ran under her chin, it would surely have been blown away.
The wind was now howling about them. When a broken twig struck Will on the cheek, it felt like a flying piece of glass. Nearby, Tarqua’s sky boat strained at its moorings. Bits of trees and bushes went skimming by, some bouncing along the ground, others already airborne. Will needed no explanation for what was happening. He’d been expecting and fearing it for days.
The six-year storm was coming ashore.
“The Condorl” Chumash had to raise his voice now in order to make himself heard above the wind.
“There are men aboard," a fretful Smiggens informed the brachiosaur rider. “They took no part in this and have no idea what's happening. ” He started toward the coast. “They must be told. ”
A neck the size of a man-o’-war’s mainmast blocked his path. “There is no time, ” Karinna informed him. “Your shipmates will have to cope as best they can. ”
Smiggens turned to Will. “I don’t understand. It’s just a storm. Why all the concern? ”
“It’s not just a storm.” Leaning into the wind, Will came close. “This is the culmination of a six-year cycle. All this land”—and he waved to encompass the low ground on which they stood—“is in danger.”
“In danger?” The first mate made a face. “In danger from what, lad, flooding?”
“I'm not sure. I don't know all the details, but I do know that everyone who lives around here moves out every six years, and that we’d better do the same—and fast! ”
“Will Denison is right.” Karinna gripped the sides of her brachiosaur’s neck tightly with her thighs. “We have little time.”
Smiggens was torn. On the one hand, everything the young Will Denison had described had come to pass. But the Condor was not only home to him and his shipmates; it was refuge, mother, and the only security most of them had known for years. It had ridden out every blow they had faced. To abandon it now meant placing themselves in the hands not only of strangers but of strange beasts. It was a decision demanding a true leap of faith, a complete break with the past.
He saw that the others were watching him, waiting for him to make the decision, waiting for him to tell them what to do. He found himself smiling in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. He was used to giving orders, but not to leading.
“From now on we have to do what these people tell us to do. It’ll be all right.” He looked at Will Denison. “It will be all right, won’t it?”
Will nodded as Chaz waddled up next to him. “Only if we get out of here quickly, ” the Protoceratops declaimed.
Karinna was thirty feet up and staring seaward, as were all the other sauropods and their riders. “There is no more time to discuss your concerns. Nor need you think any longer about returning to your ship. ”
A perplexed Smiggens peered up at her. “Why not?” “Because in a few moments it won’t be there anymore.” Her tone was solemn. “The sea is coming to kiss the land. ”
A chill ran through Will as Chaz translated this for Smiggens and his mates.
“To the high ground! ” At a word from her rider, the bra-chiosaur began to turn.
When Will translated this for the pirates, they started a mad scramble for the all-too-distant foothills. He rushed to cut them off.
“No, no! Not that high ground. This high ground!”
Slowing, the seamen looked back to see a dozen massive necks all but touching the ground behind them, like so many fallen Greek columns. Karinna and the other riders were beckoning urgently.
Their actions required no translation. Shouting encouragement to one another, the pirates scrambled up those curving inclines onto backs as broad as boulevards. Will, Chaz, and Tarqua translated the riders’ instructions, shouting into the wind and rain.
"Secure yourselves to the backpacks! ” Will had his hands cupped to his mouth. “Grab any strap or rope you can find and hang on! ”
Another band of travelers might have had difficulty complying, but not these hardened seamen. Used to walking yardarms andjspars on a rolling ship in a high wind, they had no trouble obeying. Several wrapped the leather straps that dangled from the sauropod riders’ saddles around their wrists. Others used their legs to climb up the muscular necks and hang on, thereby gaining height if not comfort.
Meanwhile, Karinna, the other riders, and their stupendous mounts were bunching into an arrowhead-shaped phalanx consisting of nearly a thousand tons of meat and muscle. Diplodocids shouldered as close as possible to apatosaurs, while the five brachiosaurs assumed positions at the head of the formation. Legs interlocked as much as possible, forming a solid wall of bone and muscle facing the coast. Karinna’s brachiosaur, Maratyya, ninety feet long and eighty tons massive, headed up the formation.
Will sat behind Karinna on the leather saddle. It was a long way to the ground, and he kept his arms locked around her waist. Blinking away the driving rain and barely able to hear her now above the howling wind, he leaned to his right and tried to follow the line of her pointing arm.
Past the last tier of mangroves, beyond the narrow beach of perfect, uncontaminated coral sand, the Condor swung at anchor, her bow pointing into the screaming wind. Beyond the ship, gigantic breakers higher than any Will had ever seen were smashing against the reef.
Outside the reef and unbeknownst to any save the dolphins, the floor of the seabed angled down and out to form a great funnel-shaped slope. Every six years, when the moon was full, the tides were at their highest, and the southern Indian monsoon spun off a mutant cyclone or two southward, great storms would slam into Dinotopia’s northern coast. Unchecked by any islands, seamounts, or other land-masses, the waves that accompanied the eyes of such storms swept steadily southward, their prodigious energy multiplying until it at last encountered the gradually sloping sea floor.
As these waves squeezed in upon themselves, impelled forward by the terrific winds of the cyclone, the result on rare occasions was a flawless fusion of typhoon-force waves with a stupendous oceanic tidal bore. It was this, a solid wave line stretching from horizon to horizon, that now held the full attention of the riders, their mounts, and their awestruck passengers.
Twenty feet high and still building as it gathered height and speed, the oceanic bore rushed shoreward. It swept over the broad reef as though it didn’t exist, millions of tons of water pouring into the lagoon. Will couldn’t hear the men left aboard the Condor, but he could imagine their panic and confusion. Behind him, he heard several shipmates of those unlucky enough to have been left aboard cry out, knowing even as they did so that their warning cries would not, could not, be heard.
All looked on as the sturdy ship rose like a toy in the wave’s embrace and was ripped from its moorings. Chin-lee jabbered excitedly, havi
ng observed a similar phenomenon on the Yangtze River. Johanssen knew of the tremendous tides that periodically swept up the Bay of Fundy, but neither he nor anyone else had ever witnessed a spectacle like that which now unfolded before their stupefied gaze.
Furthermore, it was headed straight for them.
Crest foaming, the great wave swept over the beach, covering the mangroves, bending the palms, and swallowing the land. The sauropods steadied themselves while their riders exchanged last-minute instructions. Will gripped Karinna with his arms and the saddle with his legs, while the pirates and struthies dug their fingers deep into leather and hemp fastenings. With the best grip of all, Tarqua helped to support Chaz, who unlike everyone else once again had nothing to hold on with save his strong but inadequate beak. Prettykill’s jaws were locked in a careful but unbreakable grip around one thick rope.
The last thing Will remembered before the water struck was the astonishing sight of the Condor, masts and sails gone but hull still intact, spinning and rolling as it surfed the breaking wave inland past palmetto and cypress.
Then the deluge was upon them.
If I ever get out of this, Chaz swore before the water rolled over him, I’m going to keep as close to the ground as possible.
“"We’re going to die, we’re all gonna die! ” Treggang bawled.
“Belay that! ” Smiggens had no idea if the man heard him. About him now all was roaring wind and salt water, and it was all he could do to keep from being swept away. “Hang on! ”
Will felt the stout neck beneath him tremble. He was glad Cirrus wasn’t with him. She could never handle such winds. No flier, dinosaur or artificial, could.
Accompanied by a great sucking sound, the wave withdrew, only to be followed by a second, and then a third. The mammoth body under Will shuddered but did not stumble. Above the wild wind he heard riders and sauropods shouting and bellowing encouragement to each other.
The phalanx held. A thousand tons of determined dinosaur is not easily moved, not even by a twenty-foot-high storm surge.
By the time the third wave had slumped back out to sea, the eye of the cyclone had moved on, and Will knew that the last of the great surges were shattering themselves harmlessly against the solid rock of Windy Point. Though still lusty, the storm winds were falling. In their wake rain fell in torrents, flooding the lowlands but at the same time diluting the sea salt and washing much of it out to sea before it could sink into and poison the soil.
Had Blackstrap and the men who’d fled with him made it to high ground before the surge struck? There was no way of knowing. Will was too concerned for his friends to let the thought linger.
Twelve sauropodian bodies had challenged the waves chest-on. Twelve necks had thrust high and unbowed above the foam. Mud clung to pillarlike legs while fish and other, weirder sea dwellers flopped aimlessly about in the slowly dissipating waters.
Riders and mounts checked in with one another to make certain all had survived the aqueous onslaught unharmed. Water ran in streams off pale skin, backpacks, harnesses, waterlogged sailors, sputtering Strutbiomimuses, one stoic Deinonychus, a single exhilarated juvenile tyrannosaur, and one very unhappy young Protoceratops.
“Will there be any more?” Will spat rain from his mouth as Maratyya lowered him to the ground.
“I don't think so." Karinna tried to shield her eyes with one hand as she studied the horizon. “I think the storm’s moving off to the west. The old records say that such surges can occur only when the storm is in just the right position. It was something to see, wasn’t it? ”
“It certainly was.” Better, though, to have observed it from a dry tent atop a high mountain, Will reflected. He slid off the back of the saddle and moved off a ways. Rain cascaded from the brachiosaur’s back in small waterfalls.
Espying something flopping about in a small pool, he knelt to examine a pair of large phacops trilobites that had been cast ashore from the lagoon, only to become trapped when the waves withdrew. Carefully he picked them up, first one and then the other, and placed them in a rapidly receding but still running stream. Immediately they began to ambulate seaward, their multiple legs fanning the water in their haste to retreat.
Stranded Orthoceras and ammonites lay everywhere, eyes glazed and tentacles limp. They would make excellent eating, Will knew, although he personally found their flesh too rubbery for his taste. Already Prettykill was picking through the leavings, searching for the choicest specimens. It was the first time since her capture that she’d had enough to eat. Not far away, Anbaya and Chin-lee were discussing how best to cook a six-foot-long Orthocera. To them it savored of a squid banquet, already prepacked.
Hearing someone moaning nearby, Will turned to see Chaz staggering slowly toward him. Water splashed beneath the Protoceratops’s feet.
“How are you feeling?” he inquired solicitously.
“Tired. Tired of running from Rainy Basin carnivores, tired of dangling from tyrannosaurian hands, tired of flying through the sky supported only by reeds and vines, tired of drowning atop an apatosaur’s back.” The little translator’s head jerked as he sneezed. “Once we’re back in Treetown, I’m going to make a vow never to get within a hundred body-lengths of the sea ever again. ”
“Don’t be like that. An occasional romp on the beach is good for everyone.” Will considered the fast-moving clouds. “What’s needed is a bright, warm, sunny day. ”
“What’s needed are high, dry plains and streets,” the Protoceratops groused.
Chaz was an urban dinosaur, Will reflected. Well, not everyone was partial to the glories of the countryside.
“When we arrived it appeared you needed rescuing only from the storm $nd not from these men. ” Karinna gestured in Hisaulk’s direction. ‘That’s not what the struthie led us to believe. ”
“Things have changed,” Will explained. “Except for the three who fled, all these have agreed to give up their antisocial ways and become good citizens of Dinotopia. I can vouch for that, as can Tarqua and the struthies who were with us.
“As for the men still on the ship, I think that once they’ve had a chance to talk to their shipmates here, they’ll find themselves of similar mind.” Will gazed westward but could not see where the displaced Condor had come to rest. No matter what their intentions, its crew must surely be too battered and debilitated to offer any resistance. There was no doubt in his mind that Smiggens and the others would quickly make them see reason.
The brachiosaur rider nodded somberly. “The ultimate disposition of their case will be up to the grand council in Sauropolis.” Behind Will, hardened seamen shuffled about uncomfortably, looking for all the world like a party of guilty schoolboys. Karinna smiled through the diminishing rain. “For now, though, we’ll take your word for it. ” She raised her voice.
“If vou have truly put your transgressions behind you, you
will be treated the same as any oilier shipwrecked or dolphin backs. From this moment on yon arc out guests. "
She raised an arm and swept it forward. behind her all twelve massive necks dipped low in a great, unified arc. It was a most impressive sight.
Descending from their saddles, the riders waited while their mounts settled with ponderous ease onto their bellies. Using rope ladders integrated into the tack, they then climbed up onto sauropodian backs and began to untie the supply packs. Working like cranes, the sauropods reached back over their own shoulders to help with the unloading.
Overwhelmed by gifts of food and unfamiliar but finely made clothing, several of the pirates sank to the ground with joy and relief. There were even bouquets of flowers that expanded in the last of the rain. Battled-scarred faces broke out into wide, boyish grins at the sight of several of the riders: young women clad in sturdy leather and linen. Smiling a welcome, they placed garlands of exotic blossoms around the sailors’ necks.
“I hardly know what to say.” Overcome by the show of unpretentious hospitality, Smiggens fingered the flowers draped about his thr
oat. “What’s the meaning of these?”
“I’m told that Polynesians were among the first humans to land in Dinotopia,” Will explained. “It’s an old way of greeting here. ”
“But flowers,” the first mate murmured. “Victuals I can understand, and water, but why would a rescue team travel with flowers?”
Will beamed. “In Dinotopia people travel everywhere with flowers. They’re considered as essential to a long and happy life as food or drink. Dinosaurs consider them a spice, both visual and otherwise. ”
The grin on his face spreading irresistibly wider, Smiggens found himself nodding at nothing in particular. And at everything in general.
“I think ... I think my shipmates and I are going to like it here. Neither I nor any of these men have ever been treated like this before in our lives. ”
“I guessed as much.” Will glanced skyward. The sun was starting to peek out from behind the rapidly dissipating clouds. “Sometimes the hardest thing to know how to deal with is an unexpected kindness. Or so I’ve been told.”
Smiggens made a sound in his throat and wiped at the rainwater trickling from one eye. Or was that a tear? Will wondered.
“What will you do now, Will Denison?”
“Me? I’ll go back to studying how to become a master skybax rider. ”
The first mate’s smile turned to a knowing grin. “Is that all?”
Will glanced away, embarrassed without quite knowing why. “There is a young lady. A special young lady.”
“I thought as much. I’ve known many ladies, but none of them well enough to ever think of one as special. Fd like someone like that to think of me as special, someday. Maybe . . . maybe if things work out as you say they can here I’ll be lucky enough to find someone like that, someday. ”
Turning, he let his eyes rove southward over the sodden plains, let them climb the slopes of the Backbone Mountains. Beyond those peaks and crags lay wonders unimaginable, which the young man standing next to him had only hinted at. Wonders that even someone like himself, who’d long thought his dreams lost and his life wasted, might now have a chance to explore.
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