Tamer_King of Dinosaurs 2

by Michael-Scott Earle

  “Your words have given me pause,” she whispered as she looked away from me again. “I need time to sort through the conflict inside of my chest.”

  “Can you help me understand the conflict?” I asked. “I can understand you feel honor-bound to your marriage, but you admitted you would not want to return home. From what you said, your husband didn’t love you, and you--”

  “I misspoke the other day,” she said. “I was upset because of--”

  “You can come back with me,” I interrupted her. “If we somehow find a way back, you can return to my world and be my wife.”

  “You are speaking nonsense,” she said, but her lips turned upward into a ghost of a smile.

  “It isn’t nonsense,” I said. “I don’t want to be without you. Not even for a day.”

  “I would not fit in your world,” she said as she gestured to the thin coat of soft fur on her body. “Just as you would not fit in on my world.”

  “So?” I asked. “You look close enough. You could wear clothes that cover your skin, then you would pass. Sure you might get a few strange looks, but I don’t care. I--”

  “And what of Trel and Galmine?” she asked. “Would you bring them with you back to your world?”

  “I love them also,” I said with a shrug. “Galmine might enjoy my world, but it is socially harsher than hers. Trel wants children, and I can’t give them to her.”

  “You seem to be trying, though,” Sheela said.

  “I doubt it will happen,” I said. “Different species and all that.”

  “I see,” she said as she frowned. “Then you and I will not have children.”

  “Do you want children?” I asked, and I realized the conversation had suddenly accelerated in a direction I hadn’t intended.

  “I want love,” she whispered. “It is foolish for me to say, since most women of my world do not receive it from their husbands, but that is what my heart wants. The heart is greedy though. As soon as I have love, I will want children.”

  “I can give you love,” I said. “I want to give you love. Maybe I’ve already given it to you? You just said you feel the same things for me that I feel for you.”

  “And I am angry with myself,” she sighed. “Victor, you cannot defeat my husband. That is the issue. Even if he cannot be here for you to challenge, it goes against my kind’s ways to consider you as an option.”

  “Uhhh, really?” I said as I felt my stomach start to knot again.

  “You are five times the man he is,” Sheela reached out with her hand and touched my cheek. She held me with her golden eyes, and the air threatened to leave my body. “You are kind and generous. You are hardworking and charming. You are funny and intelligent. You have saved my life dozens of times, and you are only becoming more powerful as you learn to use your Tame ability. However, the contest for ownership of me must be accomplished in one-on-one physical combat, and you would not be able to defeat my husband. I’ve admitted my feelings for you even though I know this, and it means that I have tarnished my name.”

  “But wait.” I reached up to touch her hand on my cheek. “It’s just that? The fight? Or your impression of what could happen? I’m confused. It sounds like you are saying that you can be with me as long as you think I could defeat him in combat. Is that true?” The words almost gushed out of my mouth.

  “Yes,” she said with a nod. “He is a great warrior though, you will not--”

  “Teach me,” I interrupted her. “You know how to fight, and you said I have some weird potential. I don’t think there is anything to that, but if you teach me to fight, you’ll know when I’ll be able to beat him.”

  She stared at me for a few moments, and I forced myself to keep my mouth closed. I didn’t know what I would say if she said no, but I knew I wasn’t going to stop trying. Sheela obviously had feelings for me, but she couldn’t let go of her cultural bonds.

  “I will teach you,” she whispered, and my heart skipped a beat.

  “Awesome!” I gushed. “I’m looking forward to--”

  “But you do not have much free time,” she interrupted me. “I should not be a priority for you. It does not make sense that you would spend your time learning how to fight from me just so you can defeat a husband who you will never battle.”

  “Then you should just give up the idea and consider yourself divorced from him,” I laughed, and she surprised me by smiling a bit.

  “Yes, I realize that I am somewhat foolish. I have considered this for a few weeks, but it is--”

  “Wait,” I interrupted her, “back up a second. You’ve been considering this for weeks? Like… you wanted to get out of your marriage?”

  “Victor,” she said as she touched my cheek again. “I knew my feelings for you, but I did not know if you felt the same way. I am conflicted, because I respect the laws and ways of my people, even though I will never return home. I suspected you felt the same way about me, but I did not think we could be together, so I did not wish to lead you on.”

  “But you wanted me to ask you?” I turned around on the saddle so that I could face her more, and my hand moved to rest on her muscular thigh. A short gasp left her mouth when I touched her, and her eyes turned down to my hand, but she didn’t move to push me away.

  “I am not trying to be coy with you,” she whispered. “I am not my own woman. Do you see how I am conflicted? I crave your touch, but please take your hand off my leg.”

  I pulled my fingers away from her, and we looked at each other again. Her eyes actually seemed pained, and she bit her bottom lip aggressively. “We should get back.”

  “Yes, Victor,” she whispered, and I turned around on the saddle so that I face forward on Bob. I was about to kick my heels against his flanks and send him running back toward the camp, but I felt Sheela’s arms circle my waist and her body press against my back. I sat there and let her hug me for a moment, and she let out a long sigh as her head rested on my shoulder.

  Neither one of us spoke. I just held onto the reins while she clung to me. Part of me wanted to turn around and kiss her, but I knew it would be foolish. She was conflicted, and I wanted us to be together without the complications of her marriage weighing on her soul. Especially when I had two other women that I loved who needed my affection.

  There was a flash of light across my vision, and I blinked my Eye-Q on. The entry under Women now read 3, and I motioned my eye over it and willed the menu to open. Sheela’s name now appeared beneath Trel’s, and I released a long exhale.

  “I love you, Sheela,” I said as I brought my fingers up to cradle her hands on my chest. “I’ll work to be the man you need me to be.”

  “I know you will,” she whispered. “Thank you, Victor.”

  “Let’s go.” I kicked Bob forward and commanded my group of parasaurs to run with us back to the camp.

  We had a lot of work cut out for us tonight, tomorrow, the next day, and for as long as we probably lived on Dinosaurland, but I had the love of three amazing women, and the path forward seemed illuminated with bright lights. I’d learn how to fight from Sheela, and then we could be together. The beautiful woman deserved to be happy, and I wanted to be the man who brought her that joy.

  Chapter 11

  “What took you both so long?” Trel asked as soon as Sheela and I returned.

  “We chatted a bit while we got the water,” I said as I set one of the pots down beside the fire. Kacerie moved to reach for the jug, but then she froze and looked at me with questioning eyes. I nodded to her, and she took a long drink.

  “Now that you are here, everyone else needs to leave so that we can have sex.” Trel made wave-like motions with her black fingers, and the women turned to stare at her.

  “Trel, I am cooking a nice meal for everyone. Perhaps we can wait until everyone has finished eating?” Galmine smiled at the spider-woman.

  “Ugh. Fine. Let’s eat. This is my last day, so I need all of his sperm. I’m sure you all understand.”

  “Yes, I
do,” Galmine sighed as she looked across the fire at me.

  “How is the cordage looking?” I asked. They each had a small pile of processed ferns in their hands, but I didn’t see any completed ropes.

  “That basket is filled with a few dozen,” Trel said as she nodded across Galmine.

  “Great,” I said as Sheela brought the last water jug inside the hut. “How many baskets do you think we’ll need to complete the project?”

  “Ha!” Trel shook her head. “We’ll need maybe two hundred more baskets filled.”

  “Damn, that’s a lot,” I groaned.

  “The logs we are using are larger,” Trel said. “The perimeter of the new wall will be some eight hundred and seventy feet. However, it will be made with roughly one hundred and fifty logs that are around six feet in diameter. Let’s say nineteen feet of cord per single wrap around, but we’ll have to do a wrap at the top and the bottom, and I do three wraps per, so each log will require some two hundred and thirty feet of cord to attach to the next log. So two hundred and thirty feet times seventy-five logs is seventeen thousand two hundred and fifty feet of cord. I’m rounding up a bit in my math since the logs are not all perfect and I’m expecting some rope to break during the building process.”

  “Wow,” I said as I tried to follow her math. “That’s a shitload of cordage, and I can’t believe you just did the math that fast.”

  “Victor, don’t you recall me telling you I’m a genius?” She fluttered her eyelashes at me. “I’m a genius. You are lucky to have me as your mate.”

  “Yeah, I am.” I smiled at her and then took the plate of food that Galmine gave me. She used a flint dagger to cut the meat off the roasting carcass, and I wondered if that was because Kacerie said something to her about using her fingers.

  “How many feet in a mile?” I asked, and I wondered if the translator technology that we all had would let Trel understand me. It seemed to work fine for feet and yards, but this was some different conversions.

  “Five thousand two hundred and eighty,” she answered with a frown.

  “So we need over three miles of cordage,” I groaned. “Fuck.”

  “Well, we don’t need it all right now,” she said.

  “We are going to have over thirty logs ready to go tomorrow, then probably eighty the day after. Then another forty-ish the day after that. We pretty much need it all right now. What about the sinew? Can we use some of that?” I pointed out of the hut to where Trel had hung the pieces of animal sinew against the walls to dry.

  “No,” Trel said. “It will take them a while to dry, and it’s too valuable of a material to use on the wall. We need to save it for bows, saddles, and the support rope for my planned tree fort.”

  “I just don’t see how we are going to be able to make three miles of cordage in three days,” I said.

  “My original plan was for six weeks,” Trel said with a shrug. “That is only four hundred and ten feet a day, which would be challenging, but not impossible for Galmine, Kacerie, and I to do while you and Sheela cut down the trees.

  “So we aren’t really saving any time now?” I asked. “If you think a person can make a hundred and forty feet a day, Sheela and I helping would only net us two hundred and eighty a day, so--”

  “It would be around six-hundred and eighty-four feet a day,” she said. “So, it would take us twenty-five days instead of forty-two, but the math is a little fuzzy since it is hard to predict efficiencies or other conflicts. The dinosaurs digging out the trees is still a boon, but we aren’t going to be able to make enough cordage quick enough.”

  “There has to be another way,” I said. “The hard part is getting down the trees and digging the trenches, and we’ve got that figured out. We need either a better way to make cordage, or we need a different way to join the logs together when we stack them vertically to form the wall.”

  “Hmm,” Trel said as she tapped her lips with her finger. She’d taken a plate from Galmine, but hadn’t really started eating yet.

  “Can we use clay to glue them together?” I asked.

  “Not strong enough,” Trel said. “I need to use the cordage to hold the pieces together while I attach the next ones on the wall. It helps keep them vertical so that I can line them up in the circle and fill in the trench on either side of them. Just like we did with the smaller wall.

  “But what if we don’t use any cordage?” I asked. “The logs in the wall can’t really fall inward because of the circle layout. They can’t be pulled forward because we’ll set them deep in the trench and the supporting dirt fill will make them strong.”

  “I’m not sure that will work,” Trel said as she wiggled her lips.

  “I made the trench around five feet deep. How long did you measure the logs?”

  “Twenty feet,” Trel said, “but that is one of the issues, we need the cords wrapping them to help pull them together since the sides will be uneven. There will be gaps everywhere. Let’s say we don’t use the cordage to bind them to each other. The bases of the trees would…” Her words hung in the air and I leaned forward.

  “Did you just figure it out?” I asked.

  “Maybe,” she said with a smirk. “So, here is the problem: the trees you are cutting are rather uniform in diameter all the way up, but the base is wider at the bottom, so I was planning on using the cordage to ensure they are tightly held together. However, I could just flip every other tree upside down, and bury it thin end down so that the two sides mesh together in a more uniformed manner.”

  “I think I get it,” I said. “You are stacking triangles but flipping every other one, so they mesh and fill in the gaps.”

  “Hmmmm,” Trel said, and her voice was beginning to become excited. “It creates new challenges though. I will need to pair the trees together and then match the sides so that they have a closer fit. Ugh, it’s going to be really complicated, and it will become harder the more logs I stack. Victor, I think we are better off just focusing on making the cordage.”

  “We need dowels or something,” I said. “Like a way to drive a piece of wood through each log pillar so they are connected.”

  “Hmmmmm,” Trel mused as she tapped her finger on her lips. “That’s a good idea, but there are more challenges to that.”

  “What kind of challenges?”

  “I think it will work, but let me explain the issues. We can use the fire to burn a circular hole through each log. Then we can drive log dowels through holes to connect two logs together. That will join them with enough strength, especially when they are also in the circle formation. I’d need to burn four holes in each log though. Two at the top and two at the base.”

  “Why two?” I asked.

  “I won’t be able to bend the smaller logs I use as dowels. I would have to drive a single piece of wood through the width of both logs, so about twelve feet. There will need to be holes to connect each log to the log on either side of it. My measurements will have to be precise, and I’ll have to monitor the fire carefully, so it doesn’t burn the hole out too much or too little. I suppose that if it burns too wide, I can fill the inside with clay. That should make the bond strong enough, but if I did a perfect job, we would just hammer in a log dowel through each hole into the next log, and it would be a snug enough fit to keep them joined.”

  “It seems like it would be an even snugger fit since we wouldn’t have to worry about the profile of the rope wrap we use pushing the adjacent logs away,” I said.

  “Yes. Hmmmmm.” Trel looked deep in thought. “I think this will save us some time. It won’t hit your two-day time frame, but it should be faster than twenty-five days.”

  “How long do you think?” I asked.

  “Tomorrow you and Sheela will need to chop all the branches off the logs while the dinosaurs dig. Then I’ll need to pair up the logs so their profiles fit, then we’ll need to drag them into the fort. We can probably fit thirty in here if we leave Hope outside.”

  “What if we leave her in?” I as
ked.

  “Maybe only ten,” Trel said with a shrug. “I’d need them inside so I could burn the holes at night.”

  “You can’t just burn them outside?” Kacerie asked.

  “No,” Trel said. “We have to burn those logs out there now because they are too large to bring in here, and the burns we are making are just crude lines. I’ll need to be able to inspect the fire-drills every half of an hour. Ugh. How annoying. I will need my beauty sleep to begin incubating my brood. Five days of sleepless nights will exhaust me.”

  “You can teach us how to do it so we can take over,” I said. “But you think it will take five nights?”

  “To burn all the holes, yes,” Trel said. “But then we will need to gather the dowels and trim them, then raise the logs in the trenches and hammer the dowels through the holes. I think it will take seven days if we work efficiently.”

  “That’s way better than twenty-five,” I said.

  “We will need a lot of clay, and we will need it all at night. I’d say four baskets worth will be good, but five would be safer.”

  “So we’ll need to make another three of the leaf baskets tonight,” I said. “We should be able to do it if we stop making cordage.”

  “We’ll still need cordage,” Trel said. “I’ll have to use some to bind the pillars together while we hammer the dowels in, but we won’t need the baskets until dusk tomorrow, and we won’t need the cordage until the next day.”

  “Okay, good, I’m liking this plan. Good job, Trel.”

  “It was you and I together that came up with it, Victor,” she said as her eyes bore into me. “We will create beautiful things together. Speaking of that, everyone needs to leave so you and I can copulate.”

  “It is a nice night,” Galmine said as she stood from beside the fire. “I will go work on the baskets for clay outside.”

  “I will go inspect the logs we are burning,” Sheela said as she stood.

  “I uhhh, guess I’ll help Galmine,” Kacerie said as she also stood. The three women walked out of the hut, and I looked at Trel.