But Quinn didn’t love her. Quinn loved Africa.
CHAPTER 18
The light was turning rosy orange outside the cave and reflecting off the ocean like a spill of blood on the waves. The sea air was growing heavier, cooler. Sasha finished tending the cooking fire and climbed to her feet, gathering Quinn’s frock coat more securely about her shoulders. The coat smelled like him, and she buried her face in it for a moment. Quinn had gone down the beach to fish just over an hour ago, and still he hadn’t returned. That worried her. But she swallowed the lump of childish panic in her throat, and, wrapped in his coat, she ventured down the beach in search of him.
The sand was incredibly soft under her feet, almost springy like a horsehair mattress. Now she knew what Quinn meant about it being unsafe for the Ceratosauruses to venture down the beach. Such large creatures were much too heavy to find any kind of support in the sand. They’d likely sink right to their knees.
She stopped to watch the foamy evening tide washing in. Quinn stood perched on some large rocks in the shallows, his javelin stabbing deep into the little pools of water formed by the rocks and into the bodies of fishes and crustaceans trapped in the shallows. As she watched, he dragged out yet another one of those queer, bony fish. He flicked it to the beach, where it writhed in the sand for a bit before falling still, then returned to watching the shallows with keen eyes. John had been right about the fishing; Quinn had quite a catch—three or four different kinds of fish, some crabs, and what looked like a sea scorpion the size of a hound dog.
“We have enough for a banquet!” she observed, clapping her hands.
Quinn turned and offered her a smirk and a dramatic bow. He was sunburned and shirtless, and the sight of him so touchably bare made Sasha’s cheeks burn. “This isn’t for us,” he explained. “Not all of it, anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
He climbed off the rocks and reached for his dirty white shirt lying on the sand. “I’ve been trying to determine how to trap that beast.” He slid his arms into the shirtsleeves and slid it over his head as he spoke. “Another method the bushmen use is to trap a large animal in quicksand. And the sand here is certainly quick.” He turned to indicate a steep cliff head that loomed just over their heads. “I think if we could lure She down the beach using our catch, we might just have her. Many large creatures are opportunists; they’ll eat carrion in a pinch. If I can get She over that cliff, I think it likely she’ll become mired in the beach sand. Then I can finish her off.” He stabbed at the open air with the javelin to indicate what he meant.
It sounded reasonable—and, more importantly, less dangerous than their avalanche idea. Sasha smiled, satisfied. “It’s a sound plan, Quinn. I’ll get my javelin then.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
She blinked. “What do you mean?”
“There’s no reason to put yourself in danger,” he stated—rather imperiously, she thought. “In fact, I must insist that you remain at the cave whilst I work at trapping the creature.”
She looked at him. “You insist?” Then she laughed. “Quinn, you’re not my husband, nor my father. You cannot insist upon anything. We work together, understand?” She started walking back toward the cave, but Quinn stopped her, his hand on her arm.
“Now see here, I won’t have you running about, getting yourself in danger. I’m responsible for you…”
“No, you’re not,” she said.
“Yes,” he insisted, getting angry now, “I am. Albertus will be expecting me to return you in one piece. And besides, you’re my…” He hesitated, and Sasha lifted an eyebrow, wondering how he would complete that sentence. “…a woman. I cannot allow you to put yourself in peril.”
Maybe, just maybe, had he said my woman, she would have listened. But he did not. Again, Sasha laughed, this time bitterly. “There’s no need to put me in peril, Quinn. You should realize by now that I’m perfectly capable of putting myself in peril.” Pulling her arm free, she marched back to the cave.
CHAPTER 19
Near morning, they heard She’s hunting cry for the first time echoing across the distant plains, the sound almost drowned out by the dim roar of a sudden rainstorm. The storm had Quinn worried; he couldn’t decide if the wet sand was going to work to the creature’s disadvantage or their own. Distantly, something alive screamed piteously until it was dead. Consumed.
Sasha, sitting just inside the mouth of the cave, the javelin across her lap, breathed in, out, in, out, trying not to panic, trying not to let the terror show in her face and eyes. Newton chattered excitedly, jumped off her shoulder, and started clambering up some rocks to a higher, safer, perch.
Quinn was already on his feet. “She’s coming.”
Sasha let out a long, ragged breath even as her heart tried to beat its way right out of her chest. She gripped her javelin with aching white fingers. “Yes,” she agreed.
“Sasha…”
“No, Quinn.”
They’d had this conversation a thousand times during the course of the night. She was not staying behind, and that was all there was to it. Quinn, not happy, but grimly resolved, focused his attention on the beach and the sea beyond, where some gigantic, porpoise-like creatures with long jaws and razor-sharp teeth were breaching in the rain and waves.
She and Quinn had spent the night close to the fire, speaking, but not touching. She didn’t want to touch Quinn, be with Quinn, be Quinn’s, when she knew nothing could come of it. If they ever did make it back home, Quinn would only return to his beloved Africa. To Gabrielle. Sasha was resolved. In the real world, things did not always go according to fairy tales. The knight didn’t always slay the dragon and win the maiden fair—sometimes he did not even want her. And sometimes the dragon won and ate the knight and the maiden.
Quinn stepped out of the sea cave and into the downpour, Sasha right on his heels. They were instantly drenched and the sour smell of the slowly rotting fish hit them in a head-spinning miasma. It was no surprise that She was here, considering the stench, which could probably be detected for miles. Another roar sounded across the plains like a clarion, the sound closer this time. It caused some small Rhamphorhynchus to flutter bat-like up and away from their lure on the beach only a short distance away.
They hurried under the overhang of the cliff, their backs flat to the rock wall. Sasha waited, her heart ticking so rapidly in her throat she thought she could swallow it. Quinn gripped his javelin in both hands, listening, waiting, tense—fully prepared to drive the flint point into She’s soft underbelly as she reached for the lure that was set just out of reach. In theory, the cliff head would offer them the protection they so desperately needed. The wounded animal would tumble over the edge and into a sucking pit of soft, wet sand. And there they would finish her off.
Reality proved much different. The creature that lumbered out onto the cliff was smaller and lighter than She. It moved like lightning. Suddenly it was right there, huge and fecund and overhanging them both like a deadly, breathing cloud. The sight turned Sasha’s blood to cold sludge and simultaneously made the sweat break out all over her body. Quinn cursed violently at the sight of She’s “husband”—as he liked to call the male Ceratosaurus—and prepared to ram the javelin home.
He wasn’t quick enough. The male, balanced on the edge of the cliff with its heavy head fully extended and jaws snapping wildly at the carrion on the beach, suddenly jerked backwards and swung his head down as if sensing they were there. Quinn jammed the javelin upward between his massive teeth but hit no soft spots. The javelin just bounced off, and Quinn pushed Sasha down and out of the way of those swinging, open jaws.
They landed in a heap under the cliff head.
Sasha screamed, clutching Quinn.
“Sasha, let go!” Quinn snarled, gripping the javelin and preparing for a second strike.
She held tight to his arm, hoping to keep him out of the line of the monster’s jaws. “It isn’t She!” she insisted. There was no reason to c
ontinue this insanity!
“But it’ll destroy her if I kill him!” He shook off her hold, gripped the javelin, and stepped out from under the shelter of the cliff. Dear God, Sasha thought, sitting up in the sand, he’s insane!
She’s husband immediately lunged, and Quinn stabbed at the creature’s massive head with the flint tip, gouging a hole under its eye socket. The beast bellowed and reared back, its jaws clacking together like some weapon. Thunder crackled overhead in time with the beast’s angry cries. Sasha gasped as the cliff began to crumble, dirt and rocks raining down upon her as the massive creature stomped and screamed. It was going to bring the whole thing down!
Quinn saw, and knew. His face set in a determined grimace of pain and rage, he stabbed at the beast again, this time nicking its nasal horn. Something had snapped inside Quinn’s head, she realized. It was as if he had lost all reason. She had to act before he killed himself! She didn’t think; she just launched herself at Quinn, hitting him full on in the chest. The two of them tumbled down the beach, missing the flashing jaws by inches, the squishy sand deadening their impact at the bottom of the hill. “Quinn!” she screamed from atop him, hoping he’d wake up and return to his senses. “Stop, Quinn, stop!”
He did. He saw her, took her face in his big trembling hands, his eyes pained…then moved her off him. She tried to hold him down, but he scrambled up, his eye set on his prey, and there was no stopping him now. Quinn fully extended his arm, took aim, and launched the javelin at the creature’s head. His shot was spot on. The javelin punctured one of the beast’s vapid yellow eyes, black fluid bursting forth and making the creature jerk wildly with hellish screams.
Quinn grinned in triumph.
Then the unexpected happened. The 20-foot, screaming reptile launched itself off the cliff, jaws fully agape and aiming for them both.
CHAPTER 20
Quinn pushed Sasha out of the way, a hard push that sent her spinning down the slope of the beach. The sand broke her fall but she lost her javelin halfway down. The moment she came to a halt, she started scrambling to her feet.
She was just in time to see the worst sight imaginable. The male Ceratosaurus was trapped knee-deep in the sand, its body fully extended in Quinn’s direction and the cuff of Quinn’s trousers in its teeth. It grunted and whipped its head from side to side like a gigantic demonic terrier, thrashing Quinn in the sand. Were the sand not so soft, he would have been dashed to death in seconds. As it was, Quinn was trying desperately to find some purchase by clawing at the sand. It just slid away from him, offering him no traction whatsoever. The Ceratosaurus seemed to understand that it was sinking, that it was going to die, because it was determined to take Quinn with it. It stopped thrashing Quinn and started methodically dragging him forward, inch by slow inch. Its one remaining eye was cool, dark and evil. Triumphant.
“Quinn!” Sasha started running uphill toward him, but was like trying to run through molasses, each step a labor in the wet, heavy sand that sucked at her ankles.
Grunting with the effort, the irate creature dragged Quinn another inch along. Its jaws were as wide around as Quinn’s whole body. It could swallow him whole in just one bite, and Quinn well knew it. He grabbed a handful of sand and flung it into the beast’s face, cursing it. As it snorted and shook its head, Quinn tried to worm backwards. Man and beast just sank further into the sand.
Sasha stopped to yank her javelin out of the sand, then raced headlong toward the beast. Each of her legs felt as heavy as lead, like she was stuck in a nightmare, unable to move toward her intended target. She was so frightened her mind was numb, a blank slate upon which nothing readable was written. All she could concentrate on was Quinn. Quinn needed her. Quinn was dying. She had to help him. She was gasping, almost blind with panic, when she finally reached the creature’s blind side. She uttered an exhausted battle cry and raised her javelin over her head, using both hands to ram it into the side of the beast’s neck. Blood burst forth, spilling brilliant scarlet ideograms across her face and over the remnants of her gown. She tasted the beast’s cool blood in her mouth. It screamed so piercingly it made Sasha’s ears ring, and Sasha realized she was screaming with it, at it.
The beast twisted its head and knocked her down in the sand. Sasha sat up, bruised and battered in a dozen places. The creature clawed at its throat with its underdeveloped talons, knocking the spear into the sand in front of Quinn. Then all Sasha could see through the silvery sheets of rain was one black mechanical eye turning to her, the glistening, leathery grey head, the flash of star-bright teeth. All she felt was a blast of hot, fetid air from its stinking gullet. She had no time to scream, no way to prepare for the end.
Its jaws surrounded her and Sasha closed her eyes.
She waited…but nothing happened.
Letting out a sob, she opened her eyes and saw Quinn had her much shorter javelin in his hands, which was a blessing, because it allowed him to land a final thrust at a much closer range…right into the creature’s soft throat. It made gagging noises, its jaws frozen around her, its teeth just denting her flesh. It extended its long, bloodred tongue, the tip brushing wet and viscous across the bodice of Sasha’s dress. Sasha screamed as the rain lashed them all. Quinn cursed the beast and drove the javelin all the way in. The beast gasped, and blood foamed out of its massive jaws. Then it fell still, dead, looking like some great stony statue.
The creature began to sink more rapidly. Quinn climbed over the beast’s head and wrapped his arms about her middle, extraditing her from its jaws seconds before the massive bulk started the long descent down the beach. It knocked them both over in the sand. Then it slid over hills of sand and rocks, finally coming to a splashing rest in the shallows.
“Sasha?” Quinn said, sounding panicked. He sat up with Sasha sitting in his lap.
She was shaking too badly to speak. All she could do was cling to Quinn and cry.
“Oh, Sasha…my girl,” Quinn said. He clutched her and stroked her hair while she trembled and wept against the comforting wall of his chest, now decorated with sand, dirt and dinosaur blood. “Sasha,” he said, “that was very brave…and very stupid.”
Hiccupping, she raised her head and looked into his pale, somber blue eyes. She could have said the same about him. He’d looked like a madman, like nothing would have stopped him from killing the creature trying to kill her. She wrapped her arms about his neck. In the rain, he looked like a drowned, red-haired rat…and the most beautiful man she had ever seen. “I told you I wasn’t afraid,” she said as a river of unlady-like snot ran from her nose.
“You’re not, are you, my dear?”
She shook her head.
A sound made them turn and glanced down where the beast lay dead in the rain. Or not so dead. She’d expected a corpse, but the male was making little distressed noises and trying to crawl awkwardly back up the slope of the beach, struggling against the sand and its own terrible injuries, its remaining eye set on them with something like hateful determination, its jaws clacking together like a machine that would not stop, would never die.
“Dear God,” said Sasha, clutching Quinn even tighter. He tried to rise with her in his arms, but his legs gave out and he fell back down into the wet sand.
The Ceratosaurus was a quarter of the way up the beach when one of the giant porpoise-like creatures breached and flung itself onto the beach. It clamped its hungry jaws onto the creature’s back end and bit down, dragging half the creature out to sea and leaving half a dinosaur floundering on the beach.
Sitting there in a daze, being pelted by rain and dead fish smell, they watched the light go out of its one good eye until finally it lay still forever.
CHAPTER 21
Their last act before returning to Muk’s people was to take the claw of the monster lying shredded down on the beach. During the walk back, Quinn carved a small hole through the claw with his knife and threaded it with a thick black vine, creating what he called a trophy necklace for Sasha. It was beautiful, the
most wonderful gift anyone had ever given her. It was just a shame that she had to present it to Muk.
The journey seemed much shorter going back. They did not encounter She, or anything more ferocious than a small pod of Styracosaurus grazing in an open plain and occasionally clacking their armored heads together as they competed for mates. Quinn and Sasha moved steadily east with the herd, using them as a shield; the plains predators seemed much too reluctant to tangle with them. On the morning of the third day, they finally sighted the jagged mountain that Muk and his clan called home. Sasha felt a swell of dread and excitement as they drew near the dormant volcano.
They were less than half a mile away when two of Muk’s couriers appeared to transport them inside the volcano. The moment Sasha touched down and saw that Toby was all right, was alive, she forgot all about the pain and terror they had experienced in their little adventure and stumbled forward, nearly falling against the cage where he waited with bright, tear-struck eyes. He clutched her in his big hands, dragging her as close to him as the bars of the cage would allow, and without saying a word, kissed her. It was so unexpected that Sasha never had a chance to respond. Toby’s kiss was warm and gentle and wanting. It tasted like tears. She thought of Quinn standing nearby, watching them both. Her cheeks flushed and she pulled away abruptly.
Planet of Dinosaurs, The Complete Collection (Includes Planet of Dinosaurs, Sea of Serpents, & Valley of Dragons) Page 9