He parted the tent flap to find Robertum sitting up, aiming a gun at him.
“Whoa there, friend,” Drake said as the synthetic lowered the weapon.
“Where would the leader head?” Appie asked. “The largest party was three but he was not with them.”
Robertum shook his head. “He isn’t into personal risk. My bet is that he is on the periphery, waiting for you to be flushed.”
Drake looked to Appie who seemed surprised by the news. “Me? Only me?”
“Yes,” Robertum said. “Didn’t you know? Durnag was dispatched for you specifically.”
“If he has me, he might leave?”
“I don’t know about that,” Robertum said. “He is to kill as many humans as possible, however, if they are outnumbered and you are dead, the rest of the clan might be spared, at least temporarily.”
Drake turned to Appie. “No, don’t even think about it.”
Appie backed away from him. “I must.”
“Mattu would never allow it.”
A sad smile crossed her face. “He would be the first to remind me it is my Shawnee duty.”
“I can’t let you go out there alone.”
“You must,” Appie said. “They will need you once I am gone. They will need your knowledge of all the old world equipment we found at the bunker.”
“No,” Drake moaned, knowing that his words would make no difference.
Appie walked over, wiping a tear off his cheek.
“I’ve lost so much already,” Drake said, barely choking back a sob.
“You will adapt,” Appie replied, stroking his cheek. “Chimmus will make you happy,” she said. “One day, she might even get to lead the clan as she has always wanted.”
Drake didn’t care about any of that. Why had he been so stupid? So embarrassed. So immobilized. He should have told Appie how he felt. That he’d loved her since the moment he’d opened his eyes.
“Appie…”
She put her fingers to his lips. “Please, let me go.”
But he couldn’t. “Even if you die, there is no guarantee Durnag won’t still attack the clan.”
Appie’s frown deepened. “Then at the least I won’t have to watch.”
* * *
Appie turned away from Drake. She couldn’t look into his eyes and do what she needed to do. She needed to break the spell that had been cast between them. Robertum understood what she must do. Appie was certain that he would have done the same.
She strode from the tent, not daring to look back, for fear she would lose her will. She strode past the tents, ignoring a dozen small battles being waged. She trusted that Mattu would kill enough of the Syns to force a retreat once Durnag had what he came for.
Appie knew that she didn’t have to be brave, she just needed to put one foot in front of the other. Brave was for the living.
She would join her parents, finally. She could die knowing that the clan would survive past her, much like her parents must have felt. They had sacrificed themselves for the clan as well. Leading the Syns off.
Then it dawned on her. The Syns had come for her parents as they had come for her. That is why the Syns had left the clan alone.
And here she was to continue the cycle. Perhaps now, with no heirs, the Syns would leave her clan alone.
She strode past a Syn, not even bothering to challenge it. Someone attacked from behind, distracting the Syn.
As she neared the edge of the camp, a figure appeared out of the snow. He had the posture of a leader. Appie didn’t flinch as she walked out to meet him across the new snow. Sunlight streamed around her, dazzling the snow, making it seem as bright as noon even though the sun was sinking low in the sky.
They stopped a few yards apart.
“Will you let me die with honor?” Appie asked.
“You must have me mistaken with a 1950’s sci-fi character,” Durnag said, raising his hands, preparing his electronic nodes. This was nothing new. She’d seen it before.
Ducking, throwing herself to the snow, Appie avoided the blunt of the blast. It was a light show all right, but she knew that it taxed his circuits. He couldn’t do that again for a few minutes and she needed this fight to drag out as long as it could to give Mattu enough time to cut into the Syn’s ranks so that Durnag had no other choice but to turn and run once she was gone.
Appie raised her shotgun, aiming for Durnag’s chest, firing. The blast shredded the flesh, but did little to the underlying circuits. She shot again, aiming for the same spot. Sparks flew, but it wouldn’t be enough. Appie threw the shotgun to the snow and pulled out her sword.
The Syn twisted, shooting out a spray of pellets from his hand. Appie knew those pellets weren’t just metal but electrified. Spinning, she defended her back with her sword, knocking the pellets away before they could hit her flesh. She was not entirely successful. Several attached to her back, stinging and zapping.
Appie couldn’t help but cry out as she fell to her knees. This could not be how it ended. Gripping her sword and before the Syn could regroup, Appie launched herself at him, slicing and cutting with her sword.
The Syn danced backward, just out of reach of her blade, but she kept up the pressure, slipping on the slick snow, but staying upright.
The clouds parted further, streaming sunlight down upon the fight. Snowflakes still floated on the air. She didn’t have time to wipe them from her eyelashes as she slashed at the Syn, keeping him off guard.
“Enough!” the Syn shouted, hurling her back with a blast wave.
With all of this tech, how could the humans ever win against the Syns?
Still, she rose again. She would not die lying on the ground. Appie set her feet, raising her sword over her body in perfect attack form. Mattu would be proud.
She was about to attack again, no matter how futile, she would do it to buy the clan time, but she heard a trumpet. Tonka. The metal elephant charged around the corner and headed straight for the Syn, his tusks ready to gouge the synthetic but Durnag typed something onto his skin and Tonka suddenly lost power.
The great man plowed into the snow, tusks first, his trunk dragging uselessly. He tried to regain his feet, but flopped back down, clanging against the ground.
Appie looked over her shoulder to see that Lev and Ruby were ready to try to run to her assistance.
“No!” Appie shouted. “Stay back.”
She wanted no one else to be killed or harmed for her. They needed to allow her to do what only she could do.
Appie turned back to the Syn who was clearly gathering power for another blast. She would be helpless this time. Holding her sword in front of her, Appie closed her eyes, ready for her final moment.
Only it didn’t come. Instead a war cry came upon the wind.
Drake charged from the camp, riding Ruby as Mattu sat astride Lev.
Appie ducked as a shotgun blast hit the Syn in the chest. It didn’t really damage him, but broke his power cycling. Lev leapt over Appie, metal claws raking Durnag across the face. Mattu gracefully landed silently on the snow. He pulled a sword and a spear out, slashing with the one and stabbing with the other. Lev attacked in synchrony with Mattu, the two seeming one.
At first the Syn was knocked back onto his heels, protecting himself from the multitude of blades aimed at him. Then he connected with Lev’s claw, hurling the big cat back.
Clearly the Syn had damaged Lev’s circuits as the metal lion lay on his side, paddling in the air. It was heartbreaking.
And worse, Mattu was left open for retaliation from Durnag who grabbed Mattu’s spear, pulling the powwaw close before thrusting his hand against Mattu’s dark skin and zapping him. Her mentor flew backwards, landing on his back in the snow, gasping as if he were drowning.
Appie could not even go to him as Ruby burst past, carrying Drake to the Syn.
* * *
All of Drake’s courage seemed to depart as he watched Mattu seize up on the snow. But he was already committed and he didn’t think he c
ould stop Ruby even if he wanted to. She charged the Syn, her metallic wings spread, shaking them with fury, her mouth open, hissing anger at Durnag.
It was no great surprise that the Syn brought his hand up and backhanded the metal ostrich. The bird staggered to the side, suddenly not in control of her limbs. Her legs crossed one another as her head bobbed side to side rather than up and down.
Drake jumped from her back. They had not attacked without thought. They had a plan, not a great one, but a plan.
He rolled as he hit the ground, trying to get as close to the Syn as possible before he pulled the pin on the ancient grenade and tossed it at Durnag’s feet. The Syn looked down, his artificial pupils dilating as he tried to throw himself back, but not in time.
The grenade went off, blasting the Syn into the air, tossing him back a good twenty feet.
Ears ringing, Drake crawled over to Appie. She was covered in snow and blood. Hopefully, not her own.
“You shouldn’t have,” Appie gasped as Drake wiped snow from her face.
“How could I not?” Drake said as her features came into view. “I told you Mattu would agree with me.”
“Mattu,” Appie breathed out, rising gingerly, limping over to her mentor.
Drake helped her get the man sitting up as the spasms left his body. He still gasped for air, clutching his chest with his hand.
“Are you alright?” Appie asked.
“I will be if I look upon you long enough,” Mattu whispered between clenched teeth.
Drake heard something behind him and turned to find the Syn, flesh half burned away, minus a foot, rise and stand.
“You will have to do considerably better than that,” Durnag said.
Unfortunately, they didn’t have anything better let alone considerably better.
Durnag pulled his arms next to his chest, gathering his power.
Mattu grabbed a hold of Drake’s arm, pulling himself up.
They stood in front of Appie.
“You will have to go through us,” Mattu said.
“Okay,” Durnag said, his body glowing an unnatural blue.
* * *
“No!” Appie screamed, trying to push the men out of the way. Why couldn’t they see that this was her sacrifice? Not theirs? But the men wouldn’t budge as tears streamed down her face.
There couldn’t be any more death. There had been too much of that in her life. Couldn’t they understand that if they died and she lived, she wouldn’t be living? She would be the walking dead. A hollow shell of the girl she once was.
Durnag glowed so brightly he eclipsed the very sun shining through the clouds. He pulled his fists to his chest, getting ready to throw all that energy at them.
Appie closed her eyes, she didn’t want to see what it did to the men. She was ready for the deathblow.
But it didn’t come. Instead the ground shook so badly that Appie nearly lost her footing.
Then another shake and a cry from the tree line.
She knew in her bones what approached. Durnag seemed to know as well as he turned to face the new threat.
A T. Rex charged out of the trees, grabbing the Syn by the neck. Durnag discharged all that power, but the T. Rex barely seemed to notice. He flinched, but that didn’t stop him from tearing Durnag’s head from his body, tossing the head far onto the snowfield. Black oil stained the pristine white.
The T. Rex shook and shook the Syn’s body. Arms and legs flew off until it was just the torso. Then the T. Rex tossed that into the air, then caught it, swallowing what was left of the Syn.
Durnag was done, but that didn’t mean they were out of danger. The T. Rex turned his attention to the humans. Tonka tried to rise, seeming to recover from his shock, but would be in no shape to fight a T. Rex. The same went for Ruby and Lev.
Appie grabbed her sword as Tonka trumpeted strangely. It was a sound she had never heard before.
“Why is there a T. Rex here so late?” Appie whispered to Mattu.
“I do not know,” her powwaw answered.
Usually the dinosaurs migrated south to avoid the worst of the cold weather. It was one of the reasons they sought this area for their overwintering. It was a glorious four months of snow without a dinosaur in sight. Four months of relative safety.
They only had the elements to contend with.
But now they had a T. Rex that didn’t seem filled up by the Syn.
“The triad?” Appie asked Mattu who nodded. She then sprinted off.
* * *
“Um, what’s the triad?” Drake asked Mattu.
“Just stand here. Do not move no matter what happens.”
Drake did not like the sound of that at all. Triad seemed like three people should be doing something, not just standing there. He’d done more for his own survival when he had cancer. He’d meditated, done Tai Chi. Read everything he could on his cancer and now Mattu expected him to just stand here?
“You can wave your arms,” Mattu informed him just before he sprinted off as well.
Great. Perfect. Awesome.
Drake did raise his arms. “Over here!” he shouted. He assumed that he was the bait in this little plan of theirs.
The T. Rex turned, ignoring Appie as she ran to his right. The girl was full on sprinting even as blood ran down the side of her face. Mattu also ran, but to the dinosaur’s right. Clearly they planned to attack from both sides. But it would only work if the T. Rex stayed distracted.
“Here!” Drake yelled, a little shakier as the huge dinosaur charged toward him, his jaw wide open showing off all those big white teeth and black, oil stained tongue. The T. Rex had finished off a Syn in one bite for God’s sake. What chance did he have?
* * *
Appie leapt onto the T. Rex’s tail, stabbing her sword into the flesh. It didn’t even make the dinosaur flinch. He only flicked his tail as if trying to swish off a gnat. But she had good purchase with her sword. She rode out the flick and pulled out her sword, plunging it in further up the tail.
She climbed up the T. Rex’s back like that, finally reaching the body. She didn’t stop there instead she pushed on to the neck until she was finally on top of the head. They were only a few feet away from Drake, the dinosaur’s head down, ready to snatch up his meal.
Wielding back, Appie brought her sword up and then down into the T. Rex’s most vulnerable body part. His eye.
With a pop, fluid flooded out of the eye, taking her sword with it. The T. Rex reared his head back, roaring into the cloudy sky. With no purchase, Appie slid backward, down the T. Rex’s neck. She would have fallen to her death, but she was able to grab hold of a fold in the giant dinosaur’s skin.
From the side she saw Mattu sneak in and take his sword to the T. Rex’s side. The sciatic nerve was nearest the skin there. The powwaw stabbed into the joint, grinding the blade around and around. Finally the leg gave out, useless to the dinosaur.
The T. Rex thrashed his body from side to side. He was injured but hardly harmless.
Somehow with his little arms, he grabbed Appie by the shirt and flung her from his back. He also turned, lashing out with this good leg, trapping Mattu under his claw.
Head reeling from her landing, Appie screamed, “Mattu!”
But the man was surrounded by razor sharp claws.
If the T. Rex flexed those toes, Mattu would be done for. The T. Rex lifted his head, blood still gushing from his eye, roaring his determination.
Appie couldn’t watch. She squeezed her eyes closed knowing that she was next.
* * *
Lavla sucked in a breath, biting a knuckle. She’d seen this too many times before. T. Rexes were deadly.
Then a roar answered the T. Rex’s. Another T. Rex burst out of the trees. Only this one was silver, metallic. Tonka trumpeted in response. The elephant must have sent out some kind of robotic distress signal.
Which was answered by the metallic T. Rex. Lavla knew that long ago the old worlders’ response to the dinosaur threat was to create
robotic predators to try and protect themselves. The problem was that they simply couldn’t create enough fast enough to deal with the problem before the fire fell from the sky.
This one showed the wear and tear of the centuries. It had lost an arm and all the claws on one foot plus a hundred other battle scars, but right now it was their salvation.
The clan cheered as the metallic T. Rex opened his titanium jaw and lunged at the flesh and blood T. Rex. He came from the T. Rex’s blind side so he got a good latch onto the T. Rex’s neck and shook. This was not this T. Rex’s first fight though. He leaned back hard onto his tail and took the giant claws on his good hind leg and raked the synthetic dinosaur. He knocked huge sheets of plating from the silver T. Rex’s chest, forcing the robotic predator to release the T. Rex’s neck.
The two backed away from each other, circling, snarling and testing one another.
A sound from behind her made Lavla turn. It was only Robertum, up on his crutches, learning how to work on his only leg.
“This should be interesting,” he noted as he leaned into her.
As the T. Rex charged the robotic one, Lavla couldn’t agree more.
* * *
Appie could see the metallic T. Rex’s weakness. Something had happened to its sensory processor. It had the strength, but not the will. He was off. Probably a three second delay or so. And even injured, this giant T. Rex was going to take him.
“Tonka!’ Appie yelled. The elephant still wasn’t quite right himself, but he stumbled over to her. She didn’t need him for much.
“Appie, no!” Drake yelled, but this wasn’t a suicide mission, she knew exactly what she needed to do. Climbing up onto Tonka, Appie grabbed Mattu’s spear and took off on Tonka.
The men ran alongside trying to coax her down, but she knew what to do.
Tonka quickly outran the men, heading for the T. Rex battle that was raging across the snowfield.
She guided Tonka around the dinosaurs until she was parallel to the T. Rex. Appie nudged Tonka closer, then climbed onto his head and launched herself onto the dinosaur’s shoulder. She used the spear to gain purchase but then wasted no time to climb up to the dinosaur’s head, burying the spear into the T. Rex’s ear canal. She knew the eardrum was deep in there.
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