Tamer- King of Dinosaurs 5 Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  End notes

  Michael- Scott Earle

  Chapter 1

  “Do you think I should tame all the stegos or just one of them?” I asked Bruce as we got within a hundred yards of the spiky dinosaurs. The stegosauruses were about the size of a big-rig truck without its trailer, and they looked a bit clumsy because their front legs were shorter than their rear legs. The twin rows of alternating shield-bones on their backs looked almost as tall as me, but it was hard to tell from this distance. The spikes on their tails looked wicked sharp, and I angled our approach so that we could come at them from the front.

  Bruce the pteranodon hopped next to me like a bat and let out a puzzled honk. He was about as big as a horse, with a long beak that could punch through flesh and bone like a Greek warrior’s spear. He had saved me from a fall to the death when a black-winged, three-eyed, ugly asshole had carried me up into the air and dropped me from a few thousand feet. The pteranodon wasn’t big enough for me to ride like a pegasus, but his wings were wide enough to help me kind of clumsily glide down from heights, and I had used the tactic to escape the big-winged asshole that had tried to kill me.

  “See, Bruce, I don’t quite understand the limitations of my own power,” I said as I moved to be closer to the river which cut through the valley where I’d landed. “I don’t know if there is a limit to how many dinosaur friends I can make. Hell, I don’t even know if the ones that I’ve already befriended are okay back at the forts. I guess I’m a few miles from them, maybe even more.”

  Bruce let out a honk that sounded like he understood, and then he looked at the three stegos and let out a long honk followed by three short ones.

  “You think I should tame all three of them?” I asked as I flipped on my Eye-Q to see what their genders were. To my surprise, they were all male, and their matching red and black markings made me think that they were all brothers.

  Bruce let out an affirmative honk, and the stego that was closest to us turned his head up from the algae he was eating at the side of the river so that he could look at us.

  The stegosaurus opened his mouth and let out a long bellow that sounded like a low note from a tenor saxophone. The other two stegos turned around to look at Bruce and me, and then they let out singing notes which formed an in-tune chord.

  “Whoa,” I said. “They sound pretty good together. I guess you all are really ancient birds, huh?”

  Bruce honked, and the stegos stared at us for a few moments before going back to eating their algae. They probably figured that I was harmless, but their lack of concern didn’t make me feel any better. A single swipe from their tail would turn me into minced-meat-Victor, so I had to be very careful.

  “Why don’t you hang back here, Bruce,” I said as we got within fifty yards of the first stego. “I don’t want you to get accidentally hit if this doesn’t work out.”

  Bruce honked and then flapped his large wings once to halt his momentum and hold himself steady. I continued onward, but as soon as I got about twenty yards away from the first stegosaurus, he raised his face up from the algae to study me.

  “You three look a bit out of place,” I said. “Don’t you have girlfriends?”

  The stego made a soft tone that sounded like someone saying “ahhhhh,” and it sounded incredibly sad.

  “Oh, shit. Did they get eaten?”

  One of the other stegos turned around from where he was eating, and he bellowed as tonal note that the other two answered with matching tones.

  “Oh, I get it. You are on the lookout for mates.”

  The first stego replied with a tenor-sax tone, and the other two looked at me.

  “Well, Bruce and I are going on an adventure, we’ve also got a friend named Grumpy who’s in the river. I’m separated from my mates, and I’m trying to get back to them. If you three come with me, we’ll have a cool adventure, and I can promise you a bunch of food and a party when we get back. Who knows, we might even find some ladies for you along the way. What do you say?”

  The three stegos paused for a few seconds, and then they each let out three short notes.

  The display on my Eye-Q flashed, and I smiled as relief poured into my stomach. These guys weren’t as big as the triceratops, but I was still a bit worried about taming them. Especially since their tails were crazy dangerous.

  “Thanks for coming!” I said as I stepped to the head of the first one and scratched him under the chin. The stego seemed surprised by my gesture of affection, and he jerked his head away from me, but I continued to stroke his neck, and then he turned his head back around so I could get back to his chin.

  “I gotta think of names for you all,” I said as I glanced at the three of them. “I’m sure there are a lot of bands with three guys in them. Hmmmm.”

  They all looked pretty similar, with black scales around their feet, which then turned into red scales around their knees before taking on a cream color for the rest of their upper bodies. Dots of black and red were on their flanks, but I noticed that one of them had more black scales on his tail, one had more red scales, and the other had more cream colored scales.

  “I think I’ve got good names,” I said as I looked back at the face of the one I petted with the black tail. “You are Mike D.”

  The stego let out a short song, and then the other two replied with a short note that matched the tone.

  “You are MCA,” I said to the one with the red tail, and he made a low note that the other two answered.

  “And you are Ad-Rock,” I said to the last one with the cream colored tail. He sang a note, and the other two answered right after.

  “Yeah,” I laughed. “Those are perfect names for you guys. I’m going to climb up on your back. Cool?”

  Mike D. sang a note of approval, and I jumped up to grab onto the edge of one of the diamond-shaped plates on his back. A moment later I climbed up onto one of his spines and looked around the valley to get a better feel for the lay out of the land.

  To my west, the river flowed in a smooth arch until it bent around a small beach behind the walls of a cliff. That was the way I needed to go to reach the ocean, but before I commanded the stegos to move out, I took a look in the other three directions.

  I guessed that I was north of Quwaru’s cave fort, so I looked south and saw a quarter-mile strip of grassy plain punctured by the occasional palm tree. At the end of the grass, a thick cluster of banyan trees squatted at the foot of what looked to be the start of a slope that would lead out of the valley. It was hard to tell the exact angle of the slope because of the thick coating of trees, but it would be a chore to push the stegos through it.

  To my north across the river was another two hundred yards of beach before the base of a cliff. The face of the cliff was made of shelves and outcroppings with trees that I guessed I could climb, but the stegos couldn’t make it up.

  To my east was the source of the river, and it twisted like a snake for what looked like a half mile across the open plain of the valley before it met with a forest of jungle trees.

  I looked up at the sun and contemplated my decision for a few seconds more. I probably had another seven, maybe eight hours of daylight. If I could reach the ocean before dusk, I would probably be able to follow it south in the darkness unti
l I found the path that led to Quwaru’s cave. The problem was that I didn’t know how far away I was, and I didn’t like the idea of trying to sleep without some sort of shelter. Yeah, I now had three stegos, a massive crocodile, and a pteranodon that could guard me, but we tended to get rain every few days, and I didn’t want to get eaten alive by mosquitoes.

  “Let’s head down the river for a few hours,” I said to Mike D.

  Mike D. sang a low note of approval that MCA and Ad-Rock repeated. Then the group moved out, and I gestured for Bruce to flap up and join me on top of Mike D’s back. The pteranodon did so with a happy honk, and I reached out my left hand to pat him on top of the head as he clung to one of Mike D’s ridges.

  I couldn’t see Grumpy in the water, but I kind of felt his presence lurking deep below the surface. It wasn’t like an exact pinpoint radar location, like I “knew” exactly where it was. The feeling was more like I kind of just knew he was in the water, and he seemed to trail behind our Beastie Boys convoy as we walked west alongside the river.

  We reached the bend on the river where the choke point of the beach was and made a slight left to follow the bend. Even though I was riding some fifteen feet in the air on the back of the stego and had two others flanking me, I still didn’t feel invincible, and I kept checking the flowing river, the sky, and behind us for predators.

  As we traveled, I tried to keep my mind off the topic of what was going on in the camps. I really didn’t know how far away I was from Quwaru’s camp, and I had left Tom there along with the balaur bondocs Chandler, Joey, Ross, Rachel, Monica, and Phoebe. The dinosaurs seemed to stay tamed when I traveled away from the camp, but I wondered if there was some maximum range. Would my dinos attack Kacerie, Emerald, Galmine, Quwaru, Zoru, Youleena, Urka, Adella, Keefaye, and Nomi?

  As I thought through the danger, I realized that the group by the ocean was probably safe in the cave. The asshole who’d picked me up from the bridge had used the teeth on his wings to cut the rope. If the balaur bondocs somehow did go crazy and try to attack my women, they would have to go around the ledge of the gorge. It would be easy enough for my friends to defend.

  That just left my fort in the redwood forest clearing. Would the dinos there be calm even though I was far away? I hoped so, but I figured that Sheela, Trel, and Liahpa were strong fighters. I didn’t like the idea of the troodons attacking them, but I had to assume they would close the inner gate of our smaller fort and be able to hold them off.

  “Bah!” I forced my thoughts away from scenarios involving my dinos attacking my lovers. I was worried, but I knew that I really didn’t need to be afraid. My dinos all loved my women, and I knew in my heart that they wouldn’t attack them.

  My real concern was what would happen with everyone while I was gone.

  I figured that Kacerie would take the leadership role with Emerald and Galmine, but what would she do? She was with Quwaru’s people at the ocean fort, and the goal was to get everyone back to our redwood fort, but Zoru was seriously injured, and he probably wouldn’t be able to make the trip back, especially on Tom’s bumpy back. Would Kacerie decide to just stay with Quwaru at the ocean fort?

  I also didn’t know what would happen with Trel, Sheela, Liahpa, and Emta at the redwood fort. If we didn’t come back in a day, they would start to get worried. I knew that Sheela had made the trip to the ocean before on her own, but it was an incredibly risky journey to make across three valleys.

  My women were really divided right now. They had no way of talking to each other, and even if my dinosaurs followed their directions, it would be a challenge for them to reach each other safely.

  “I just need to get back as soon as I can,” I muttered to myself as we rounded the next beach cliff wall and came upon a tiny valley.

  The spot was probably only five-hundred square yards of beach, palm trees, and a bit of grass, but there were no dinosaurs here, and the sound of the river made the secluded area seem really peaceful. The palm trees all grew in pairs, and I found myself fantasising about stringing up a hammock between them, and then having a beach party with everyone. Those thoughts took me to memories of barbeques with my parents, and I wondered what they would have thought about my adventures in Dinosaurland.

  I was sure my parents would have been horrified about what had happened to me, but I also figured they would be proud at what I’d accomplished, and the relationships with the women I’d come to love. They would have loved Trel’s fierce intelligence, and my mom would have probably had a great time debating with her. They would have loved Sheela’s stoicism, and I easily imagined my dad bonding with her over golf or hunting. They would have loved Galmine’s cheerful attitude, and I felt a smile spread across my face as I imagined my mom gardening with her. They would have loved Kacerie’s can do attitude and attention to details, and my mom would have loved shopping with her while my dad would have loved talking about business ownership.

  I shook my head and blinked a few times to clear the thoughts and sleep out of my eyes. We had rushed back to Quwaru’s camp yesterday evening, and I was coming up to about twenty-ish hours without sleep. The walking style of the stegos wasn’t helping me fight the exhaustion either since they kind of had a gentle sway with every step they took.

  “Shit,” I sighed as I looked back at the shade of one of the palm trees. “I could really use a nap.”

  Bruce let out a soft honk, but I just shook my head.

  “Naw, I need to get back. They are all worried about me. I’m not going to risk traveling at night without light, but I’ll do what I can to--”

  The words caught in my mouth as we turned the corner of the next beach. There was another open beach and field that looked to be about twice as long and wide as the one where I had tamed Grumpy and the stegos. It must have been at least a mile until the next curve of the beach took the river out of view, and the left slope climbed the hillside with a gentle switchback of palm and banyan trees. Scattered throughout the clearing were clusters of palm trees and large stacks of boulders that rose naturally from the beach like teeth. The area had a hidden Mayan Temple kind of feel to it, but that wasn’t why I’d lost my words, and I commanded the stegos to all stop moving as soon as my eyes focused on the scene some half a mile down the river.

  There was a giant dead dinosaur there, and two even larger dinosaurs tearing into the corpse of the monster with a savage intensity. It only took me a second to realize that the big dead dino was a brontosaurus, but I blinked a few times as I tried to figure out what the other two dinos were. They were too far away for my Eye-Q to pull them up, but then one of the dinos twisted to the side, and I saw the tall fin that stood on his back.

  Then my stomach dropped.

  “Time to turn around,” I said to Mike D, and he let out a soft note that MCA and Ad-Rock repeated right after.

  “Yeah, I’m not a hundred percent positive,” I whispered as they turned around, “but I think those are spinosaurs. They are fucking bigger than a bronto. That’s crazy. We might be able to squeeze around them, but I don’t want to risk it.”

  Even as I said the words I wondered if I should actually risk it. The two spinos looked content with their bronto meal, and the valley was probably wide enough for us to sneak by them by at least a quarter mile without them seeing us.

  What were my alternatives? I could ride back to the first valley where I had landed and try to push south through the jungle and up the slope of the canyon. The path looked difficult though, and I knew it would probably take me ten times as long to make it the same distance. I could go the opposite direction on the river, but I knew the ocean was to the west and not the east. Going up-river would be taking me away from the ocean, and if I went away from the ocean, it was going to be harder to find Quwaru’s camp or the river of obsidian that I could use to tell my location in relation to my redwood fort.

  I could also just wait for the spinos to finish eating with hopes that they might move on, but it could lead to even worse problems. The spi
nos could come this way, or they could just sit there and bask in the sun. Either solution wasn’t good, and I’d waste a bunch of time waiting for the giant predators to finish.

  “Damn,” I said as I ordered the three stegos to stop walking and turn back around. The spinos were deeply engrossed in their meal, and I glanced again at the wide open valley as the mathematical logistics played out in my head. The safe move was to go back the way I came and figure out another way to the ocean, but it just felt like such a huge waste of time. Then again, there was no saved game restore in Dinosaurland. From what I remembered from my days studying dinosaurs as a kid, the spinosaurus was supposed to be one of the largest dinosaur predators to have ever lived. Scientists even thought it was larger than a T-rex, and I guessed that the pair had no problem taking down the brontosaurus.

  They wouldn’t have had any problems taking out three stegosaurus’s either.

  But then again, maybe they would have a problem. Mike D, MCA, and Ad-Rock were under my control, and I could maneuver them in ways that a normal trio of stegosauruses, or spinosauruses wouldn’t be able to figure out.

  If those spinos did attack me, I felt confident that I could defend myself.

  And I didn’t want to waste a whole day or more trying to go around these big fuckers.

  “Alright,” I said with a long breath. “We are going to try this. We’ll hug the cliff face on the left and keep as much space between us and the spinos as physically possible. Cool? Cool. Let’s do this.”

  I commanded the stegos to move to the left, and we made a long single file line as we hugged the cliff wall with our left side.

  Then we began our dirge march around the perimeter of the large valley.

  “Okay, this is going good,” I whispered after we had walked for a few minutes against the wall.

  Bruce let out a soft honk, but I raised a finger to my lips and shushed him.

  The air was hot from the sun, and the atmosphere just got hotter the farther away from the river we moved. Everything seemed still around us. There was no breeze caressing the leaves of the palm trees, there were no birds or other dinosaurs flying overhead, and there weren’t any sounds coming from the thick jungle that climbed the left cliff face.